So when a heavy tread was heard at the door, the boy faced the unforeseen as well as the affrighting. There was now nothing left for him and Hubert to do but cover their faces with their blankets and lie still, which they did, fearing that the very beating of their hearts would be heard.
The less curious Jenkins might have overlooked them, in the subdued light of the interior, but Jackson's roving eyes alighted on their outlined figures almost at once.
"Who-all's this?" he asked sharply. "I see you got comp'ny."
"Jes' two boys that got lost huntin' in the swamp," answered the old man quietly. "I kep' 'em a day or two to rest up. They had a hard time and was real sick."
"Two boys?" echoed Sweet Jackson, in tones of keen expectancy; and, stepping across the intervening space, he roughly tore away the coverings and exposed to view the shrinking boys.
For a moment Hubert seemed about to obey an impulse to hide his face in the moss of the bed, but Ted rose promptly and faced Jackson with a steady, watchful gaze.
"So you come over this-a way, did you?" cried Jackson, with a triumphant grin. "Wasn't it lucky that I come, too, just in time!" he sneered.
"Why, do you know them boys?" asked the old swamp-squatter, turning, in great surprise.
"Know 'em? They belongs to our camp," declared Jackson. "I want more than yo' tobacco, old man; I want them boys."
"We don't belong to their camp," cried Ted, his voice unsteady, addressing the old man. "We only found our way there when we got lost, and then they wouldn't let us go because they were afraid we'd tell on them."