“Mister hopkins, der sur, I ben the bigest fule livin’ i gess to ack like i done with the best frend i ever had, and sur i wanted to tell you this but i dident hay the nerve to stay. i em agoin hum an wen i look in the cleer eyes of my gal Ruth as was named after yur own ded wife i feel like kickin myself, but i shore do hope yo kin forgiv Zeb Crooks and mebbe next year hire me agin. I had my leson, sur, thats rite, an never agin siz i. An i hopes yo git that big bull moose this time thats awl.
Zeb Crooks.”
Rob folded that soiled sheet of paper, torn from a memorandum book. He meant to keep it, and on the sly show it to Mr. Hopkins, who could appreciate the manly nature that had thus conquered in the battle with an evil spirit. Andy would not appreciate such a message, for he must suspect that it was only intended to blind the eyes of a trusting person and conceal the man’s real intentions. Yes, Tubby might see it, some time or other. Rob intended to keep it always.
“Well, Zeb,” he went on to say cheerfully, to hide the emotion he felt, “we’ve concluded to set you free. You can stay around until they get back from the Tucker Pond, when there’ll be a chance to fix matters up with Mr. Hopkins.”
“I’m shore plumb pleased to hear that, younker,” declared the guide, grinning. “It ain’t none too pleasant to be tied up, and some humiliatin’, seein’ as how you are only boys. The sorest thing o’ all would have been to let him see me this way.”
“That’s going to be all right, Zeb,” said Rob, much impressed with the justice of this remark. “I’ll see to it that none of us tell him we made you a prisoner. We believe what you’ve been telling us. In fact, I thought you were straight from the beginning, but that note clinched it for me.”
He soon had the rope unfastened. Tubby, looking over from the fire, nodded his head in appreciation. Andy, coming in shortly afterward, failed to make any disagreeable remark, from which it might be judged that he had begun to think better of his former opinion with regard to Zeb’s honesty.
The guide acted as though nothing out of the way had happened. He assisted Tubby in getting breakfast, just as he was in the habit of doing for his employer. Indeed, Zeb seemed to improve upon acquaintance, and Rob felt certain he had not made a mistake in tempering justice with mercy.
They had a merry time of it at breakfast. The boys were light-hearted by nature, and Zeb seemed to be growing to like them very much. He asked many questions in connection with their past experiences. They had any quantity of incidents to relate, some of which caused the Maine guide to open his eyes wide; for the accounts Tubby and Rob gave of what wonderful things they had seen when with the fighting armies in Belgium and France were enough to thrill any one to the core.
Later on that morning Andy started forth again, bent on picking up some game. He was advised by Rob to be careful and not get lost, an injunction which he promised to heed.
Rob had been more or less anxious during the night. He could not get it out of his mind that the man who piloted that aeroplane had been spying out the land on the other side of the border for some dark purpose. Rob had half fancied he heard a distant heavy sound that might be caused by an explosion, though on second thought he decided that he was wrong.