We-all reckoned he had fallen somewhars, but I've thought sence that
p'r'aps he jes' went away, goin' back to the city, and leavin' no tracks
so's to make Ol' Blacky Baldwin believe he'd be'n killed."
"That sounds likely enough," Hamilton said. "But even if he did get
away, I don't believe that he'd want to come back."
"I reckon not," the mountain boy agreed. "Anyway, the school's shut up
now."
"How about the revenue men?" asked Hamilton.
"They haven't be'n here sence Teacheh went away," was the reply. "An' I
reckon they're not wanted."
The boy stopped short as the old mountaineer came over to where he was
squatting and gave him a long answer to the message he had brought. The
old man read it to him from a sheet of paper on which he had penciled it
roughly. Bill Wilsh listened in a dreamy way, and Hamilton wondered at
his seeming carelessness. The old man read it twice, then, rising to his
feet, the boy repeated it word for word and without so much as a nod to
Hamilton, slouched off in a long, lazy stride that looked like loafing,
but which, as Hamilton afterwards found out, covered the ground rapidly.
"Do you suppose he'll remember all that, Uncle Eli?" asked Hamilton in
surprise.
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