“Pop, you’re not talkin’ like yourself. You got sorta crazy on accounta thinkin’ how all this’ll hurt me. Gee whiz, forget about me, because you can’t have the cops thinkin’ you did it, when you didn’t! Gee, I’ll get along somehow, honest I will, Pop. I’ll get along better to know you did what was right an’ told the truth. An’ even the law I bet can see when a man’s tellin’ the truth an’ they’ll let you out quick—so will you go for my sake, Pop?”
Toby brought a hairy fist down on his bony knees.
“It’s fer yer sake that I didn’t want ter go near ’em, Skippy,” he said vehemently. “But if yer promise yer Pop ter stay good an’ all till they let me out, I don’t care. Fer my sake I wanta go!”
“Gee, Pop, I’m glad!”
Toby drank his coffee with a determined gulp, then got up and stalked into the cabin with the empty cup. When he came out, he held out his hands to Skippy.
“C’mon, then, Sonny,” he said gripping the boy by the shoulders, “we’ll be a-gittin’ back ter the Apollyon ’fore too much water slips inter the bay, hey?”
“Just what I was thinkin’ of, Pop,” Skippy answered and averted his head so that his father should not see the tears swimming in his eyes. “And, Pop, you’re kinda calm now, ain’t you? Calm enough to remember better’n when we were comin’ down?”
Toby Dare nodded wearily.
“What yer wanta know, Skippy?”
“Just that you’re good an’ sure that you didn’t hear him make a noise from the time you first seen him till you ran outa the room?”