“Mr. Hopkins, who is the uncle of this boy here, discharged you only a day or two ago, didn’t he?” continued the scout master, watching the play of emotions on the swarthy face of the Maine guide and trying to read what lay back of them.
“Waal, we had a little misunderstanding, you might say, and I was sorter set in my way. Mr. Hopkins, he seen there wouldn’t be no sense o’ us tryin’ to pull together, so he up and paid me a hull month’s wages and told me my room was a heap sight more agreeable to him than my company. I was that mad I jest up and cleared out o’ the camp, and started across kentry toward my home, which is away back nigh Moosehead Lake.”
“But it seems you changed your mind some, and turned back,” remarked Rob drily.
“Jest what I did, younker,” admitted Zeb contritely.
“You had a reason in doing that, of course?” continued the boy.
“Well, I guess so!” chuckled Andy scornfully, as though he considered that a superfluous question when they had caught the discharged guide creeping into the bunk-house and evidently meaning to purloin the best of the stores left there by the hunting party.
“Keep still, Andy,” Rob hastily snapped, for he knew the other did not look as deeply into things as he ought, but often judged them in a superficial way.
Zeb glared at Andy as though he could give a pretty good guess what the other had in mind. The guide did not feel as kindly toward Rob’s thin companion as might be the case with regard to the scout leader himself.
“My reason was jest this,” he said firmly: “the more I got to thinkin’ about how good Mr. Hopkins had been to me and my fambly for the ten years he’s been hiring me as his head guide up here, an’ over in Canada, why, the more I felt ashamed o’ what I’d said an’ done. The stubborn feelin’ died away, an’ I was plumb sorry. I jest stopped short on the way to Wallace, an’ camped, so I could think it over some. An’ there I stayed two days, a-wrestlin’ with the nasty streak that had got aholt o’ me. Then I guess I come to my senses, for I made up my mind I’d tramp back here and eat humble pie. Once I’d got to that point, nothin’ couldn’t hold me in, an’ so I kim along. When I struck a match an’ read that ’ere notice on the door, I figgered that Mr. Hopkins ought to be back in a day or so, an’ that I made up my mind I’d wait here for him. Then I couldn’t understand why the door was fast, but I remembered thar was a loose shutter, an’—well, I kim in.”
Rob wondered whether the guide were telling the truth. He more than half believed that it was a straight story, for the man looked penitent enough, and was surely humiliating himself to thus acknowledge his faults before boys who were strangers to him.