“Now listen to me, Shultz,” he commanded. “You’ve deceived yourself. Hooker isn’t dead, unless he’s died since he got out of bed to-night, escaped observation and left his home. If you really saw something that looked like Hooker on the roof of Caleb Carter’s ell, it was Roy himself. If you met something in these woods that looked like Hooker, it was Hooker. He’s wandering about somewhere in a deranged condition, and he’s the one the people are searching for, not you.”
Overwrought by the terror of his experience, it was no simple matter for Charley Shultz to comprehend the meaning of his companion’s words.
“Hooker—not dead?” he muttered wildly. “Why, I—I was sure of it. How do you know, Ned? You may be mistaken.”
Compelling Shultz to listen, Osgood finally succeeded in convincing him. “Let us hope with all our hearts,” he concluded, “that they find Roy and get him safely home, and that he recovers. Let us hope, regardless of what it may mean to us, that, restored to his right mind, he’ll soon be able to tell everything.”
“Oh, I don’t care if he does now,” asserted Shultz. “If we’d only told in the first place, it would have been better. Piper was right; I should have owned up like a man. That was the thing for me to do. I refused to see it then, but what I’ve been through since has opened my eyes.”
“It seems to me,” said Ned gently, “that we’ve both had our eyes opened. Come, old fellow, let me help you to your feet. You’ve got to get back to the village somehow, if I have to pack you on my back.”
“I can hobble. If you’ll give me an arm, I’ll manage to cripple along. But I’m afraid to go back to Oakdale.”
“It’s the only thing you can do. There’s no other way, old man. We’ve both of us got to face the worst, whatever it may be.”
Shultz, indeed very lame, hung heavily on Osgood’s arm, gritting his teeth and groaning at times with the pain his injured ankle gave him. In this manner they moved along slowly enough, keeping to the westward of Turkey Hill and making for the Barville road, as this was now the shortest and most direct course back to the village.
At intervals, as they went along, Shultz persisted in talking of the terrible experiences he had passed through that night, repeating over and over that he was intensely thankful because in all probability Roy Hooker was still living.