“Yes, we’ll certainly tell him,” said Joe. “It might very well happen that Tom would prefer to begin at the top, especially if he should find that Long John had got ahead of him and was already working up from below.”
“Exactly. That is what I was thinking of. Well, I must be off. I have a longish tramp before me, and the sunset comes pretty early under my cliff.”
“Won’t you come home with us to-night?” I asked. “We have only two miles to go. My father told me to ask you the next time we met, and this is such a fine opportunity. I wish you would.”
“Yes; do,” Joe chimed in.
But the hermit shook his head. “You are very kind to suggest it,” said he, “and I am really greatly obliged to you, and to Mr. Crawford also, but I think not. Thank you, all the same; but I’ll go back home. So, good-bye.”
“Some other time, perhaps,” suggested Joe.
“Perhaps—we’ll see. By the way, there was one other thing I intended to say, and that is:—look out for Long John! He is a dangerous man if he is a coward; in fact, all the more dangerous because he is a coward. So now, good-bye; and remember”—holding up a warning finger—“look out for Long John!”
With that, he slipped his feet into his skis and away he went; while Joe and I turned our own faces homeward.