Skimpy recognized this as an odd proceeding, and yet he hardly felt warranted in questioning Jerry Binwell. He could not refuse his assistance in a mere matter of “toting”; he began to think that this service was the reason his friend had appointed this place of meeting on pretext of playing the fiddle. He did not definitely suspect anything worse than a scheme to get a little unrequited work from him. More especially were his doubts annulled by the quiet glance with which Jerry Binwell met his eager inquiring look. “Yes, take a-holt right thar”—as if this was an answer to all that the boy was about to ask. Binwell himself had run swiftly ahead and had caught up the other extremity of the ladder. He went straight forward, breaking a path through the jungle by the aid of the ladder that he allowed to precede him by ten or twelve feet. He did not hesitate, although there was no rift here amongst the leaves to guide him. His manner was as assured as if he were following a definite route that he had traveled often. Skimpy had no doubt that he knew whither he was going through that trackless desert. Nevertheless Binwell now and then looked back over his shoulder at the sun, as if to make sure of the direction which he was taking. He did not care to notice the anxious freckled face, down the vista of the leaves, from which all jocundity had vanished. For Skimpy, although the best-natured of boys, began to rebel inwardly. He had a troublous consciousness that Jerry Binwell would not be safe to trust, and wondered that he could have so disregarded his father’s wish that he should not be brought into this association. It seemed odd to Skimpy that the danger should have manifested itself so close upon the heels of the warning. In common with many boys, he was apt to regard the elders as too cautious, too slow. He had not learned as yet that it is experience which has made them so. It was not merely mentally that he was ill at ease. His bare feet were beginning to burn, for they had now climbed long distances up the mountain slope amidst the laurel. The weight of the ladder asserted itself in every straining muscle, and yet he realized that his callow strength would hardly have enabled him to carry one end, were it not for the aid of the upholding boughs of the laurel, that would not suffer it to touch the ground, even when his grasp sometimes relaxed in spite of himself. He dreaded to think how he would fare when they should emerge into the open woods. “I won’t tote my e-end no furder,” he said to himself, still striving to look upon himself as a free agent. He called once or twice to Binwell, who feigned not to hear. His deafness suddenly vanished when Skimpy stopped and the ladder lay upon the interlacing laurel-boughs. “Whar be we-uns a-goin’ ter tote this hyar contrivance, ennyways?” the boy demanded.