When he concluded his description Tom and Jack exchanged astonished glances.
“Uncle Dacre!” cried Jack.
“Mr. Chillingworth!” cried Tom. “I’ll bet they were talking business and this fellow here crept up and listened.”
Although they were both very angry, somehow the thought that they had succeeded in the hard task they had set out to accomplish, made them less disturbed than they might have been.
“What did you do it for?” asked Tom.
“I can’t tell yer now,” was the rejoinder. “It was fer many reasons. Some day perhaps you’ll know. Now I can’t say nothin’.”
“At least, tell us if it was you that tried to frighten us by howling through a birch-bark megaphone?” asked Tom.
The little man grinned.
“Yes, I did it, all right,” he said, with the same soft, foolish smile. “I calcerlated to shake you off’n my trail. But I didn’t do it. It was jes’ a plum foolish joke, that’s all, and——”
“Stand right where you are!”