While the chums paused, astonished to a degree, and hardly knowing what action to take, with this sudden discovery, Henry Morgan rolled out of the hammock and came to the side of the hut. He screened his sleepy eyes from the sun and then uttered a word under his breath.
“Henry Morgan, and no mistake!” Nicky exclaimed. In sudden anger, recalling the trick that had been played on them, he started forward; but Tom restrained him with a hand on his arm. Nicky stopped, and after an instant to collect himself he felt that Tom’s decision for silence was wise.
“As I live and breathe!” cried Henry Morgan. “Who’d ever expect to see you lads here? Hello!”
“Hello, yourself!” answered Tom, advancing. He met the outstretched hand. He grasped its perspiring breadth and gave it a good grip.
Tom saw at once that Henry Morgan, after his first surprise, had decided on some course of action: Tom proposed to hold himself alert, but not to show anger or aversion until he learned the other fellow’s plans.
“How in the world did you ever get here?” demanded Henry. “Here—meet the man I used to talk about so much—Mort Beecher. A finer pal never lived. Shake, Mort. Shake hands with Tom, and Nicky, and Cliff. Now, we’re all pals together! But how did you get here!”
“The Indians brought us, as you saw, just now,” Tom answered. “How did you get here so much ahead of us?”
He put a good deal of meaning into his look and Henry looked away for a moment: then he faced them again, grinning and speaking in the husky voice they remembered all too well.
“When I left you and Bill—but the other lads have told you how I came down the river from the village——”
“Yes,” Tom responded, “and they told us what you said—that we were sick and couldn’t get away and there was no use for them to try to follow us or to rescue us.”