"Oh! sure, that's a fact!" Steve exclaimed, "and you had some mighty pleasant dealings with him, too, didn't you, Toby? Fifty plunks was it he paid you because you sent in the first news about his missing animals? Mebbe he's changed his mind, and wants that hard cash back again—followed you all the way up here to coax you to pan out. Mebby he thinks he needs it in his business."
But Toby shrugged his shoulders, and smiled in a way that proved he felt pretty sure the journey would have been taken for nothing, should such prove to be the case.
"I can give a guess what brings Mr. Jenks up here," interrupted Max; "and it's got some connection with our torment, that trained monkey. But they're waving their hands to us right now, and coming this way; so we'll soon know all about it."
The two men soon reached the camp. Mr. Jenks it was, just as Toby had said, and the party with him seemed to be a farmer, who might possibly live within a few miles of the place.
"Glad to see you again, my boy!" exclaimed the proprietor of the circus, as he held out his big hand to Toby; "and I must say this looks like a good omen to me, meeting you away up here, after you had so much to do with finding the rest of my stock. I'm shy just one fine educated monkey, the famous Link who's said to be the Missing Link, which he is right now, at least. Thought I could get on without him, but it seems that the show has lost its salt without his tricks. Everybody calling for Link, and attendance falling off when we can't produce him. So when I had a letter from this party here, Mr. Caleb Kline, who owns a farm not far away, telling me he had been visited by a big monkey that chattered, and stole like all get-out, I just made up my mind I'd come back and make a big effort to locate him. It'll be two hundred dollars in any one's pocket to capture Link."
"Won't you both sit down, and have a bite of lunch?" asked Max, feeling that it was really up to them to act as hosts on such an occasion.
Mr. Jenks looked at his companion.
"Might as well, Kline, seeing that your place is a good ways off; and we don't want to go back till dark, because that boy said he saw the monkey up in this region day before yesterday. Scared him nearly to death, the boy thinking he meant to eat him up; but Link only wanted to make friends, for he's a social chap sometimes."
"As full of mischief as an egg is of meat, sir!" he declared.