As the rest of the party came in Black Dan nodded to them cordially, a greeting which they returned with more or less sheepish grins.
“Excuse me ef I don’t shake hands with ye, boys,” said he, “but Tug here says the state o’ me health makes it bad for me to use me arms.” And he held up the handcuffs.
“No apologies needed,” said MacDonald.
Last of all came in Long Jackson, with Jim. Blackstock slipped the leash, and the dog lay down in a corner, as far from the prisoner as he could get.
In a few minutes the whole party were sitting about the tiny stove, drinking boiled tea and munching crackers and molasses—the prisoner joining in the feast as well as his manacled hands would permit. At length, with his mouth full of cracker, the Deputy remarked:
“That was clever of ye, Dan—durn’ clever. I didn’t know it was in ye.”
“Not half so clever as you seein’ through it the way you did, Tug,” responded the prisoner handsomely.
“But darned ef I see through it now,” protested Big Andy in a plaintive voice. “It’s just about as clear as mud to me. Where’s your wings, Dan? An’ where in tarnation is that b’ar?”
The prisoner laughed triumphantly. Long Jackson and the others looked relieved, the Oromocto man having propounded the question which they had been ashamed to ask.
“It’s jest this way,” explained Blackstock. “When we’d puzzled Jim yonder—an’ he was puzzled at us bein’ such fools—ye’ll recollect he sat down on his tail by that boot-print, an’ tried to work out what we wanted of him. I was tellin’ him to seek Black Dan, an’ yet I was callin’ him back off that there bear-track. He could smell Black Dan in the bear-track, but we couldn’t. So we was doin’ the best we could to mix him up.