“I wouldn’t want to go to school,” I spoke up, “and leave him here by himself. Suppose the house should burn down! If anything were to happen to him, it would go hard with us.”
Scoop grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess,” he concluded, “that the only thing for us to do is to turn him loose, as he has been expecting us to do. Blame it! Our luck’s against us.”
“It was a foolish trick,” Peg criticized, “to imprison him in the first place. For we haven’t gained anything.” [[177]]
“We’ve kept him from getting his hands on the talking frog.”
“Yes, but we haven’t got the frog. We’re right where we were last Saturday.”
“We know where the frog is.”
“We think the mill spy has it. But we aren’t sure.”
“I’ve tried to pump Gennor,” Scoop said, “but I didn’t get anywhere. He’s shrewd. When I asked him how many spies his father had hired, he laughed at me.”
Our prisoner, naturally, was very much elated over our decision to turn him loose. But in leading up to the proposed release, our leader, to protect us, made the enemy promise to leave town.