Amazed beyond expression, Osgood continued to gaze downward at the haggard, woe-begone face of Shultz. Presently, recovering a bit, he asked:

“What in the world are you doing here, Charley?”

“Hush! Keep still!” pleaded the boy beneath the bushes. “He’ll hear you! There he is, calling again! Don’t answer! Don’t answer!”

“Why, it’s only Nelson,” said Ned, squatting beside the bushes. “We were chasing you. We thought you might be Hooker.”

“Hooker—oh!”

There was inexpressible terror and anguish in those two words, which seemed almost to choke the boy who uttered them.

Nelson was approaching, continuing to call Osgood’s name.

“Hide! hide!” urged Shultz. “Don’t leave me! Oh, don’t leave me now! Let him go! Get into these bushes and he won’t see you!” Grasping Ned’s coat, the pleading fellow sought to draw him into the shelter of the low bushes.

“Why don’t you want him to see you?”

“I’ll tell you—I’ll tell you when he’s gone. Quick! get in here!”

Wondering at the agitation of the fellow who had always seemed utterly incapable of such emotion, Osgood humored him by creeping into the thick mass of shrubbery. Thus concealed, he saw the dark figure of Nelson passing at a little distance, and all the while Shultz clung to him with hands that quivered and shook and seemed silently to beg him not to respond to the calls of the searching lad.

After a time Nelson could be heard no more. Then Ned crept forth, followed by Charley, who remained sitting on the ground with one leg outstretched.

“What’s the meaning of this tomfoolery?” demanded Osgood, a bit sharply. “How in the name of the seven wonders did you come to be here, anyhow? You weren’t with the bunch that started out to find Hooker.”

Again, at the sound of that name, Shultz shrank and cowered as if struck a blow.

“Don’t speak of him—don’t!” he sobbed. “It’s an awful thing! Oh, if you only knew what I’ve suffered to-night!”

“Why, you’re all to pieces, old man. You’re completely broken up.”

“I’m a wreck. I’m done for. It’s a wonder I’m not crazy. I have been half-crazy. Why shouldn’t I be, chased and hunted like a wild beast? It’s enough to drive any one insane.”

“Chased and hunted? What do you mean?”

“Oh, I know the whole town is after me. I barely got away from two of them who caught me flinging pebbles at your windows to wake you up.”

Osgood stiffened a bit. “You—did—what?”

“When I found out what had happened, when I knew the worst, I cut across lots to Mrs. Chester’s to wake you and tell you that I was going to run away. I was so excited I threw the pebbles against the wrong window, and when I went back to the street for more the men saw me and chased me. I doubled on them and threw them off the track.”

“Those men must have been Turner and Crabtree. They thought they were chasing Roy Hooker.”

“Hooker!” palpitated Shultz. “Hooker? He’s dead! His ghost came to my window! It was perched on the ridgepole of the ell. I was just going to bed when I saw it. I’ll never forget the terrible look in those eyes!”

Squatting on the ground beside the trembling fellow, Osgood grasped him firmly by the arm.

“What is this stuff you’re telling me, Shultz?” he demanded. “You saw Hooker looking in at your window?”

“I tell you it was his ghost. I’ve never believed in such things, but I do now, for I’ve seen one. I saw it again, too, here in these very woods. It spoke to me. I heard it speak. Then I ran and ran, until I fell into a gully and thought I’d broken my leg. It was my ankle. It’s sprained and swollen, but I’ve been hobbling on it just the same. Oh, Osgood, isn’t there any way for me to escape? If I hadn’t hurt my ankle, I’d be miles on the road to Barville before this. I didn’t mean to kill him. You know I didn’t mean that, don’t you? If they bring me to trial, you’ll tell them you know that much, won’t you, Ned?”

Osgood was moved almost to tears by this pathetic pleading.

“Now listen to me, Shultz,” he commanded. “You’ve deceived yourself. Hooker isn’t dead, unless he’s died since he got out of bed to-night, escaped observation and left his home. If you really saw something that looked like Hooker on the roof of Caleb Carter’s ell, it was Roy himself. If you met something in these woods that looked like Hooker, it was Hooker. He’s wandering about somewhere in a deranged condition, and he’s the one the people are searching for, not you.”

Overwrought by the terror of his experience, it was no simple matter for Charley Shultz to comprehend the meaning of his companion’s words.

“Hooker—not dead?” he muttered wildly. “Why, I—I was sure of it. How do you know, Ned? You may be mistaken.”

Compelling Shultz to listen, Osgood finally succeeded in convincing him. “Let us hope with all our hearts,” he concluded, “that they find Roy and get him safely home, and that he recovers. Let us hope, regardless of what it may mean to us, that, restored to his right mind, he’ll soon be able to tell everything.”

“Oh, I don’t care if he does now,” asserted Shultz. “If we’d only told in the first place, it would have been better. Piper was right; I should have owned up like a man. That was the thing for me to do. I refused to see it then, but what I’ve been through since has opened my eyes.”

“It seems to me,” said Ned gently, “that we’ve both had our eyes opened. Come, old fellow, let me help you to your feet. You’ve got to get back to the village somehow, if I have to pack you on my back.”

“I can hobble. If you’ll give me an arm, I’ll manage to cripple along. But I’m afraid to go back to Oakdale.”

“It’s the only thing you can do. There’s no other way, old man. We’ve both of us got to face the worst, whatever it may be.”

Shultz, indeed very lame, hung heavily on Osgood’s arm, gritting his teeth and groaning at times with the pain his injured ankle gave him. In this manner they moved along slowly enough, keeping to the westward of Turkey Hill and making for the Barville road, as this was now the shortest and most direct course back to the village.

At intervals, as they went along, Shultz persisted in talking of the terrible experiences he had passed through that night, repeating over and over that he was intensely thankful because in all probability Roy Hooker was still living.

“If he had died without telling a word, I’d never had a minute’s peace in the world,” he asserted. “I’d always felt like a murderer. I hope they find him all right. I don’t care if he does tell.”

“I didn’t urge you to confess, did I, Shultz?”

“No, no, but I should have done it. I was afraid, that was the trouble. I was a coward. I didn’t think it was fear at the time, but it was, just the same. I tried to make myself believe I was keeping still on your account. Well, really, I did think about what it would mean to you, Ned. You’re different from me. You’re a gentleman, and I’m just a plain rotter, I guess.”

“Oh, I don’t know as there’s so much difference between us, after all.”

“Yes, there is. You’ve got some family behind you, and you’re naturally proud of it. I’ve never had any particular reason to be proud of my people. Why, my father is a saloonkeeper. I never told you that, did I? I didn’t tell you, for I thought you might be disgusted and turn against me if you knew. I’ve always growled about my old man, because he didn’t give me a lot of spending money. The reason why he didn’t was because I raised merry blazes when I had money. He used to let me have enough—too much. When I blew it right and left, like an idiot, and kept getting into scrapes, he cut my allowance down. You see the kind of a fellow you’ve been friendly with, Osgood, old man. You can see he’s a rotter—just a plain rotter. Oh, you’ll help me back to town. You’ll do the right thing, because you’re the right sort. But, now that you know what I am, we never could be friends any more, even if this Hooker business hadn’t come up.”

Osgood had permitted him to talk on in this fashion, although again and again Shultz’s words made Ned cringe inwardly. At this point the listener interrupted.

“You’re wrong, old man, if you believe anything you’ve said will make me think any the less of you. On the contrary, it will have precisely the opposite effect. You’ve told me all this about yourself, but there are a lot of things about myself that I’ve never told you. This is hardly the time for it, but you shall know, and then you’ll understand that we’re practically on a common level. I’m no better than you are.”

“You say that because you are better—because you’re a natural gentleman, with blood and breeding. I don’t think I ever before understood what makes a true gentleman. Oh, I’ve got my eyes open to heaps of things to-night.”

“It’s not impossible for a man to be a gentleman, even if he doesn’t know who his own father and mother were,” returned Osgood. “Breeding is all right, but there’s a lot of rot in this talk about blood and ancestry.”

“You never seemed specially proud of the fact that you had such fine ancestors behind you. I guess you’re true American in your ideas, Osgood. For all of your family, you’ve always sort of pooh-poohed ancestry; and you with a perfect right to use a crest!”

Shultz was startled by the short, contemptuous laugh that burst from his companion’s lips.

“The world is full of faking and fraud,” said Ned. “It seems that half the people in it, at least, are trying to make other people believe they’re something which they are not. Does the ankle hurt bad, old chap?”

“Like blazes,” answered Charley through his teeth.

“Let me see if I can’t get you on to my back and carry you.”

“Not on your life! I’m going to walk back to town on that pin if I never step on it again. I’ll just take it as part of the punishment I deserve.”

They came presently to the path which the boys had taken on their way to the island in the swamp, and at last they issued from the woods and reached the Barville road. Rounding the base at Turkey Hill, they saw the village lying before them in the valley, and to the right, over the tops of trees, they beheld the shimmering waters of Lake Woodrim. The sweet and peaceful scene seemed to hold no hint of the exciting events of that remarkable night.

Some distance down the road Shultz perceived a few dark, moving objects, and suddenly he halted in alarm.

“Some one coming, Ned!” he palpitated. “Look! you can see them. It’s a party of searchers after Hooker! I can’t face them! They’ll ask questions. Come on, let’s cut across into the pines yonder.”

Not far away to the right was a growth of pine timber, which reached to the very shore of Lake Woodrim. Releasing Osgood’s arm, Shultz made suddenly for the side of the road, scrambled over a low stone wall and started at a hobbling run toward the pines.

Osgood followed, quickly overtaking him. They were running side by side, Shultz’s breath whistling through his teeth with a sound like hissing steam, when up before them from a little hollow, as if rising out of the very ground itself, came a human being, head bare, and all in white to its waist. One look he gave them, and then like a frightened deer he went bounding straight for the woods.

“Merciful wonders!” burst from Osgood. “It’s Roy Hooker!”