"It's him!" He now recognized Kenneth's voice. "I knew him as he got over the fence. Come on, stupid! It's all right!"
"Yes, it is all right. I'm alone," Charles said softly.
"Come here to us, then," Kenneth proposed. "The bushes are thicker."
Charles obeyed, and soon stood facing the two bedraggled boys.
"What does this mean?" he asked, aghast over the risk they were running.
"It means that we've made up our minds to hide closer to home," Kenneth half-sheepishly explained. "Nobody's looking for us here in the mountains; you said so yourself. Sister said Albert Frazier was keeping the sheriff off the track. We don't like it out there, and—"
"How is Tobe Keith?" Martin's tremulous voice broke in. "What is the use of so much chatter about smaller things? How is he?"
"The doctors say there has been no vital change," Charles informed the quaking boy.
"No change? My God! when will there be a change?" Martin groaned. He was covering his pale face with his hands, when Kenneth roughly swept them down.
"Don't be a baby, silly!" he snarled. "Blubbering won't undo the matter. If he dies, he dies, and we can't help it." Kenneth forced a wry smile which on his soiled, bloodless face was more like a grimace in the white moonlight. "Martin behaves like that all the time, morning, noon, and night. That is one reason I decided to come nearer home. He needs sister to cheer him up and pet him. I don't know how. Then our cave is damp and chilly. I'm afraid he will get sick. He don't eat enough. I get away with most of the grub. Here is my plan, Brown. You are a good chap, and a friend, too. We may as well sleep in the hay in the loft of the barn. We'd have nothing to fear in the night, and through the day, with all of the family to keep a lookout up and down the road, we could get away even if the sheriff did come."