To the heart-felt joy of the entire party, the surgeon declared that, by taking great care, Steve would not lose his thumb and fingers, though they might be stiff and mis-shaped for life.

As to Will’s knee, that was really a serious matter, and he would probably suffer more or less with it to his dying day. This was appalling to poor Will, who was so fond of physical exertion, but he bore it as bravely as he could.

As for the cuts made by the flying pieces, the surgeon regarded them with unutterable disdain. “A schoolboy,” he said, “would chuckle over such hurts, and make the most of them while they lasted; but he wouldn’t degrade[383] himself by bellowing—unless his sister happened to dress them with vitriol. But if a piece had entered an eye, now, there would have been a tale to tell.”

And yet those hurts, slight as they were, had frightened Will so much that he had injured himself for life.

After all their wounds had been dressed, the Nimrods wended their way back to their humble cabin, still carrying Will, of course. As they went along they naturally conversed. Seeing that it is their last conversation, we deliberately inflict the whole of it on the hapless reader. However, the hapless reader cannot be forced to read it all.

“Let us have a little light on the subject, as the bloody-minded king said when he dropped a blazing lucifer on the head of a disorderly noble of his,” Steve observed, as they left the surgeon’s.

“What are you driving at now, Steve?” Charles inquired.

“The confession made by Monk, if Mr. Lawrence has no objections.”

“Certainly;” said uncle Dick. “Henry, you can give it better than I can; do so.”

“I wish, with all my heart, that I had taken it down,” said Henry, “for I consider it the best thing I ever heard. That man is a born romancer; but he wasted his talents keeping the records of his hospital, and afterwards dodging the ‘minions’ and his own conscience. However, I’ll give it as well as I can.”

The six, who had not heard it, listened attentively—even Will ceased to moan, in his eagerness to hear every word.

“What an extraordinary story!” cried Steve. “I hope he didn’t devise it for our amusement, as he devised his fiction about the small-pox!” he added grimly.

“Oh, he was very solemn about it,” Henry asserted.

“Didn’t Mr. Lawrence get back any of his lost fortune?” Marmaduke asked. “Surely he should have! Why, there is no moral at all in such a story as that!”

“Even so, Marmaduke; Hiram Monk made a grave mistake when he suffered the remainder of the fortune[384] to be ingulfed in the ‘muddy waters’ of the Mississippi. He should have swelled it to millions, and then buried it near the first parallel of latitude, so many degrees northeast by southwest. When he confessed to Mr. Lawrence to-day, he should have given him a chart of the hiding-place, and in three months from this date we should have set out on the war-trail. After having annihilated several boat-loads of cannibals, and scuttled a pirate or so by way of recreation, we should have found the treasure just ten minutes after somebody else had lugged it off. But of course we should have come up with this somebody, had a sharp struggle, and lugged off the treasure in our turn. Then we should have returned, worth seven millions, a tame native, and an ugly monkey, apiece. But, alas! I don’t take kindly to that kind of romance any more, Marmaduke; I don’t pine to shed the blood of villains, cannibals, and pirates.”

So spoke Charles. A few hours before, and Steve would have said it, or something like it; but now Steve was looking very grave, and seemed already to pounce on Charles for speaking so.

“Charley,” he growled, “you talk as if we read Dime Novels; and I’m sure I don’t, if you do.”

Charley winced, but could not hit upon a cutting retort.

“What Charley says is very good,” Marmaduke, unmoved, replied; “but I don’t see why a whole fortune should be utterly lost, nor why Mr. Lawrence should spend ten years in idleness without some compensation. I hope you haven’t let Monk escape!” he cried, turning to Henry with such genuine alarm that the whole party broke into a laugh.

Even Steve forgot himself and joined in the laugh, Marmaduke’s expression of horror being so very ludicrous.

But he checked himself in a moment, and turned fiercely upon Charles: “Charles Growler, I am astonished at you! We do not know Marmaduke’s thoughts; we cannot judge him by ourselves. By nature, he is of a finer organism than we, and he sees things in a different[385] light. Some day, when he is a poet among poets, he will hold us poor shallow creatures up to ridicule in some majestic and spirit-stirring satire.”

Stephen was in earnest now, but the others were not accustomed to this sort of thing from him, and thinking he meant to be only unusually sarcastic, their laughter broke forth again; and while Charles laughed uproariously, Henry said severely—so severely that Steve was almost desperate: “You ought not to be so personal in your remarks; you ought to have a little respect for another’s feelings.”

Marmaduke remembered the promise Stephen had made on the log, and he now looked at him reproachfully, thinking, with the rest, that Steve was jeering at him.

Poor misunderstood boy! He knew not how to explain himself. This was the first time he had had occasion to play the champion to Marmaduke, and he was making an egregious fool of himself.

“Oh, you stupid fellows!” he roared. “I’m taking his part; and I mean to take it after this, for he is the best fellow in the world.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” Henry said heartily. “As for Hiram Monk, like all worn out villains, he is anxious that the Law should care for him; and the officer who secured Jim Horniss will secure him, also. As for the confession, let us make the most of it as it is; for we can’t make it either better or worse if we stay here till we shoot another deer.”

“Well, boys, what about going home?” George asked.

“If you are ready to go, I’m morally certain I am,” said Steve.

Now that the subject was broached, the others were willing to acknowledge that they had had enough of hunting, and would gladly go home. Charles, however, thought it would be more decorous to offer some plausible excuse for returning so quickly, and so he said, “Yes, boys, I must go immediately; I have business that calls me home imperatively.”

“‘Business?’ What ‘business?’” Steve asked in great perplexity.

[386]

He knew that Charley did not yet earn his own living at home; he knew, also, that Charley was not learning to play on the violin; hence his curiosity.

Charles was not prepared for such a question. He wanted, actually, craved for, a glass of lemonade and one of his mother’s pumpkin pies; but this seemed so flimsy an excuse that he hesitated to say so. He stammered; his cheeks flushed; and at last he said, desperately, “Well, boys, I should like to see how these cuts look in the mirror!”

Will, who shrewdly suspected what Charles was thinking of, said softly, in French—which he understood better now than he did six years before—with a faint attempt at a smile, “And in the eyes of that dear little girl.”

“This is a great change in our plans,” Henry observed. “We intended to stay three weeks; and now, at the end of three days, we are disgusted and homesick.”

It was evident that Steve had something on his mind, and he now asked, inquisitively: “Should you like to go home, Henry?”

“Stephen, I am going home immediately—even if Will and I have to go alone.&rd............