"After all, I wonder if it was wise to let him go?"
"Why not?" asked Tom.
"Well, maybe he only wanted to get us back here, and then he'll desert, too. Maybe that's what he's done now, making us lose two or three days by inducing us to return, waiting for what will never happen—his return with other natives."
A silence followed Ned's intimation.
CHAPTER XV
IN THE COILS
"Ned, do you really think Tolpec is going to desert us?" asked Tom.
"Well, I don't know," was the slowly given reply. "It's a possibility, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," broke in Professor Bumper. "But what if it is? We might as well trust him, and if he proves true, as I believe he will, we'll be so much better off. If he proves a traitor we'll only have lost a few days, for if he doesn't come back we can go on again in the way we started."