"Who is Winn? And what makes him think I am a bad man?" inquired the stranger, curiously.
"Oh, he's a boy, a big boy, that has lost a raft that we are helping him find, and he thinks you stole it. So he says you are a bad man; but I know you are not, and you wouldn't do such a mean thing as to steal a boy's raft, would you?"
"Well, no," hesitated the stranger, greatly taken aback by this unexpected disclosure and abrupt question. "No, of course not," he added, recovering himself. "I wouldn't steal a raft, or anything else, from a boy, though I might occasionally borrow a thing that I needed very much. But where is this Winn boy now? And where is your uncle?"
"They have gone out to find Don Blossom, and Mr. Brackett and Solon have gone too, but they'll all be back directly, and then you can tell them that you only borrowed Winn's raft, and where you have left it. Oh, I am so glad it was you that found Don Blossom!"
"Who is Mr. Brackett?" inquired the stranger, glancing uneasily out of the window.
"Mr. Brackett? Why, he is Winn's uncle, though you wouldn't think he was an uncle, or any older than Winn, he is so funny, and he is helping find the raft. But you'll see him in a few minutes, for they said they'd only be gone an hour."
"I think I'll go and find them, and tell them they needn't hunt any longer for the monkey," said the stranger, hurriedly.
Then, before Sabella could remonstrate, he had bent down and kissed her, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, little one," opened the door, and was gone.
"Seems to me that is very foolish, when he might have seen them by just waiting a few minutes," said Sabella to herself, as she pulled off Don Blossom's gay but soaked and mud-bespattered coat. "Now perhaps he will miss them after all."
The stranger had hardly disappeared before Solon returned to the boat, grumbling at the weather, the mud, and, above all, at the rheumatism that forbade him to remain out in the wet any longer.