"No, I don't think it will," replied Frank. "I feel as if I must tell you what a bad boy I have been, and how sorry I am for it. More than a month ago I stole father's gun and dog, and twenty dollars that I found in his desk, and ran away from him. Ever since then I have been living in the woods around here, hunting and fishing. When the weather was bad I slept in the kitchen of this house, and when you folks moved in, it seemed almost as if you were taking possession of what belonged to me. The first night you were here I crept into the kitchen and stole a loaf of bread and a duck." "There!" interrupted Mark, "now I know where I saw you before. It was you who looked into the window and frightened me that first night, wasn't it?" "Yes," said Frank; "and I meant to scare you worse than that, and should have if the alligator hadn't caught me. I saw you and your father go down the river that morning, and heard him say he was going to Tallahassee, and I waited then for you to come back alone. I drew out the shot from one barrel of my gun, and was going to fire a charge of powder at you when you got close to the point. I thought perhaps you would be so scared that you would upset your canoe and lose your rifle overboard. Then I thought I might get it after you had gone, for the water is shallow there, and I wanted a rifle awfully." "Oh! what a bad boy you are," said Ruth, shaking her pretty head. "Yes, I know I am," said Frank, "but I ain't going to be any longer if I can help it." "How did that alligator get you, anyway?" asked Mark, who was very curious upon this point. "Why, I pulled off my boots because they were wet and hurt my feet; then I lay down to wait for you, and went to sleep. I suppose the 'gator found it warm enough that day to come out of the mud, where he had been asleep all winter. Of course he felt hungry after such a long nap, and when he saw my bare foot thought it would make him a nice meal. I was waked by feeling myself dragged along the ground, and finding my foot in what felt like a vise. I caught hold of a tree, and held on until it seemed as though my arms would be pulled out. I yelled as loud as I could all the time, while the 'gator pulled. He twisted my foot until I thought the bones must be broken, and that I must let go. Then you came, Mark, and that's all I remember until I was in the canoe, and you were paddling up the river." "Was that the first time you were ever in that canoe?" asked Mark, a new suspicion dawning in his mind. "No; I had used her 'most every night, and one night I went as far as St. Mark's in her." "What made you bring the canoe back at all?" asked Mrs. Elmer. "'Cause everybody round here would have known her, and known that I had stole her if they'd seen me in her," answered the boy. "And did you shoot poor Bruce?" asked Ruth. "Who's Bruce?" "Why, our dog. He came to us more than a week ago, shot so bad that he could hardly walk."