"Yes," growled Garibaldi, the Italian boy, "disa whata coma from taka in de stranger among us."
As for Jerry Buck, Barney the bootblack, and Frank himself, they stared at one another, the two Bats surveying the boy whom they had befriended with angry looks, Frank regarding them with a face upon which was seen plainly imprinted every evidence of innocent surprise.
He did not dare to offend the detective, who could, as he was well aware, throw him into the hands of the law at any moment. He felt both sorry and ashamed to think that the kind-hearted boys who had befriended him in his trouble should for a moment think that he had betrayed their hiding-place to a member of the police.
"Is this feller a friend of yourn?" demanded Barney, in no pleasant tone.
"It is Detective Hook, boys," replied Frank, with as much firmness as he could muster. "I swear to you all that I never breathed a word."
"I knowed it," muttered Jerry beneath his breath.
But Caleb Hook, with a keen realization of the way matters stood, gave no opportunity for further words.
He had suspected the existence of just such a place as this from the first moment of Frank's mysterious disappearance on the previous night.
Now, it was a life rule of this remarkable man that no suspicion worthy of entertaining at all should be abandoned until either its truth or its falsity had been proved.
It was for that reason he had chosen for his meeting with this boy, in whose strange case he was becoming hourly more interested, the time and place he had.