lad as I did, I am
sure you wouldn't have betrayed him."

"Betray! It isn't betraying, sir, to give up a prisoner of war."

"I felt as if it would be, uncle, under such circumstances," said Rodd,
who began noting that his uncle had lowered his voice, and that his
angriest words had been uttered in a whisper.

"Look here, my boy," he said now quite softly, "I knew that there was
something up, or you would have been wolfing more than your share of
those sandwiches. I saw you keep squinting at that hole over yonder.
So you have hid him away there?"

"No, uncle," said Rodd; "I did nothing, but just as the soldiers were
coming up, and he'd been begging and praying me to save him, I just said
that that would be a good place to hide."

"Humph!" grunted Uncle Paul. "It was very wrong, my boy--very wrong;
but look here, Pickle, is the poor fellow badly wounded?"

"No, uncle; only exhausted. He looked just like that hunted deer we saw
the other day."

"Hah!" said Uncle Paul, nodding his head. "Humph! Well, you know, my
boy, it isn't the thing, and we should be getting into no end of trouble
if it were known. It's against the law, you know, and if you had caught
him and held him you would have got a big reward."

Rodd got up and laid his hands upon his elder's shoulders as he looked
him fixedly in the eyes.

"I say, uncle," he said, "you have been questioning me. It's my turn
now."

"Yes, Pickle; I'll play fair. It's your turn," said Uncle Paul. "What
is it you want to say?"

"Only this, uncle. Would you have liked me to earn that reward?"

"Hah! I say, Pickle, my lad, would you like any more sandwiches?"

"No, uncle."

"Then isn't it about time we began to make for home?"

Uncle Paul rose and led the way down-stream, gazing straight before him,
and though he must have seen, he took no notice of the fact that Rodd
did not throw the strap of his creel of fish over his shoulder, but left
it by the side of the stone, along with the wallet, through whose gaping
mouth a second packet of big sandwiches could still be seen.

CHAPTER THREE.

MRS. CHAMPERNOWNE'S PAN.

Mr Robson, when he came up from Plymouth for a natural history
expedition into Dartmoor, did not select a hotel for his quarters, for
the simple reason that such a house of accommodation did not exist, but
took what he could get--a couple of tiny bedrooms in the cottage of a
widow whose husband had been a mining captain on the moor; and