almost
set me wild. If I had not been such a cripple I believe I must have
dashed out of the cabin, and spent the remainder of the night wandering
around, searching the woods."

The rest of the boys stared at him. Perhaps it may have occurred to one
or more of them that Mazie's father was losing his mind. But Phil knew
there was something back of it all. He had been trying to study the man,
figure out what ailed him, and why he had been hiding himself and the
child away up in this solitude.

"Were you expecting _some one_ to come up here looking for you, sir?" he
asked, boldly, remembering what the contents of that telegraph message
had been.

"Yes, that's what has been worrying me," admitted the man, acting as
though he knew the time had come when he must explain away at least a
part of the mystery that surrounded him, if he expected these friendly
lads to assist him further.

"An enemy, most likely?" continued Phil, seeing the other hesitate.

At that there was a heavy intaking of the breath, and then the man went
on to say:

"No, hardly that. I would not like to give it so harsh a term. Say a
friend from whom I have been estranged, and who I believed had wronged
me; though of late my eyes have been opened to my own faults, and I have
repented of many things done in the heat of temper."

"And you believe then that this friend may have engaged a guide--that it
is at least possible they were not far away from here when the storm
broke. You fear they may have been caught and made to suffer; is that
it, sir?"

Phil was handling the affair wonderfully well, his chums thought, as
they listened to all that was being said.

"That is what I have cause to fear," the other went on to say, quickly.
"Through the livelong night of tempest I have fancied I heard their
cries for help, and oh! how they crucified me! It would be a terrible
punishment on my head if some tragedy had taken place in the pine woods
last night; and Mazie--" his voice failed him in his emotion, and he did
not finish his sentence.

"Do you want us to go out and see if there are any signs of strangers on
the trail leading up here, the one we followed all the way from the
village many miles off?" Phil asked; and his manner was so reassuring
that the wounded man immediately nodded his head in the affirmative.

"It would be a fitting climax to all you and your fine chums have done
for me and mine," he told them, with tears in his eyes.

"Shucks! th