"Oh, I guess you'd have managed all right with the guides," said Jack. "You always try to make out that I do more than I do, Jim. You must be trying to give me a swelled head."
"No danger of that, I guess," said Burroughs, laughing. "You're pretty level-headed, young man. By the way, I heard you had some trouble lately with a man called Broom. Anything in that?"
Jack's face darkened. Jim was bringing up a painful subject. But Pete Stubbs spoke up for him.
"Trouble?" he said. "Well, I guess yes, Mr. Burroughs! You heard about how Jack broke up the plot to wreck the train and rob it when he and Tom Binns were on a hike together?"
Jim nodded.
"Well, Broom was mixed up with that gang in some fashion. Then, afterward, we found that he was really after Jack. You know all about Jack's queer life up at Woodleigh—about Old Dan and all that?"
"I know that Jack never knew much about himself—his real name and who his mother and father were. You're still trying to find out about all that, aren't you, Jack?"
"You bet I am!" said Jack, his face lighting up at the thought. "And I'm going to do it, too!"
"Well, this Broom," Pete Stubbs went on, "was trying to find out where Jack had gone from Woodleigh. He didn't know that our Jack was the one he was looking for, or we don't know what he'd have done. So he had a double reason to be after him, though all he knew was that Jack might give dangerous evidence against those pals of his who were mixed up with the train business."
"I see! He was really playing against himself, without knowing it, wasn't he?"