"Davy," he whispered, "look out of the window and tell me what you see."
I had no care for any trouble that might lie ahead for me. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be taken from this stifling cabin with its deafening noises and sickening fumes and above all from this mad fellow who looked as I had seen a rat look when cornered in a garner. I ran to the window and peered through the smutted panes, but there was no one outside to see or to help me. The clearing was as quiet as in the earlier morning when I had looked over it at the Professor studying the distant tree-top.
"What do you see, Davy?" he asked in a hoarse voice.
"Nothing," I answered. "They've gone away."
"And isn't Lukens there—out there in the weeds?"
I rubbed the smutted glass and peered through it again into every corner of the clearing. "No," I said, "there's nothing there."
The Professor drew back from the door and stood before me brushing his matted hair from his face.
"I didn't mean it, Davy," he said. "It was all a mistake. They were going away and I was dropping the gun, and somehow I touched the trigger and Lukens fell. They've taken him home, but they'll come back—a hundred of them this time. Oh, Davy, Davy, help me!"
I knew that I could not help him. My thought then was for myself, and I did not answer, but measured the distance to the door and waited my chance to dart to it and get away, for in him before me, driving his long fingers through his hair and staring at me with frightened eyes, I saw the man whom I had pictured in fear that first morning when I came to the mountains. This was the real Professor and I was caught.
"Oh, let me go!" I cried.