“Au revoir,” he shouted, as he fell in behind the sled. “I see you in der spring, oui?”
“You bet. Goodbye, Goodbye,” both boys called after him, and the next moment the vast forest had swallowed him.
“There goes a friend worth having,” Bob declared, as they turned back to the office.
“One in a thousand,” Jack added, pushing open the door.
A few moments later, when they were by themselves in the office, Tom having gone to the horse shed to give some orders to Sam, Jack said:
“I say, Bob, what was the idea in hushing me up so mysteriously yesterday, when I started to ask you about Ben Donahue?”
“I’ll be jiggered if I know what it’s all about,” Bob replied slowly. “I never was more surprised in my life than I was when I saw Ben sitting there in that chair as meek as Moses and then some. He didn’t so much as open his mouth and acted for all the world like a whipped puppy. I asked Jacques what it all meant, but he was about as communicative about it as a clam, and I didn’t really find out a thing. He said mebby he could tell me sometime. Do you know what I think? For some reason Ben is afraid of him. I don’t mean physically, but Jacques has got something on him sure as you’re alive, and it must be something pretty serious to make him come across with that bottle of arsenic; that is, if that’s what it contains, and we’ll know in a minute if it is.”
He drew the bottle from his pocket and, removing the stopper, dropped a little of the white powder on the hot stove. Instantly a white cloud arose.
“It’s the stuff all right,” he declared, as the well-known odor of garlic filled his nostrils.
“What are you going to do with it?” Jack asked.