“For heaven’s sake, get up,” he cried. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? I’m not going to hurt you.” “You haven’t come to take me away? You won’t put me in prison?” whined the simpleton, shaking and trembling there before them till Billie put her hands before her eyes to shut out the sight of him. “I haven’t done anything! Truly I haven’t! Don’t put me in prison. Oh, I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of the dark!” There is no telling how much longer he might have gone on in that manner had not Teddy put a hand over his mouth and shaken him into silence. Billie, cowering back against the wall, had begun to cry. “Now,” growled Teddy, giving one extra shake to the whining wretch, “suppose you keep still for a minute and try to understand what I am going to tell you. We didn’t come into your cave to get you, and we’re not going to hurt you if you will do what we tell you. We’re lost, and we want to get back to Three Towers Hall. Do you suppose you can tell us how?” The simpleton, relieved of his suspicion that they had come to do him harm, became suddenly sullen. Teddy had to repeat his question before the fellow answered. “I can,” he said then, “if I want to.” Teddy was about to answer angrily, but he remembered that he had heard somewhere that the only way you can get anything out of a weak-minded person is to humor him. So he controlled his temper and said that he hoped very much that the fellow would want to—and the sooner the better, or words to that effect. “What’s your name?” asked Billie suddenly. It was the first time she had spoken, and both Teddy and the simpleton started. The latter stared at her a moment open-mouthed, and then his manner underwent a bewildering change—became softer, more normal. Evidently he had not noticed before that she was a girl, for she had been nearly hidden behind Teddy. “What’s your name?” asked Billie again. “Nick Budd, ma’am,” answered the fellow, never taking his eyes from Billie’s pretty face. “Son of Tim Budd, the gardener up at Three Towers Hall.” “Oh!” cried Billie delightedly, while Teddy himself felt immensely relieved. “Then you will show us the way home, won’t you? We’ll be ever so much obliged to you.” “Yes’m,” said the poor simpleton, shuffling his feet as though embarrassed. “I’ll show you right away. But there’s a powerful lot o’ snow between us and the Hall,” he added, as he turned to leave the cave. Teddy started to take the candle to light them out, but the simpleton, as though he had eyes in the back of his head, turned upon Teddy furiously. “You let thet candle be,” he cried to the astonished boy, while Billie shrank back in fresh alarm. “You let thet candle be, I tell you! It’s my candle, ain’t it?” “Whew!” whistled Teddy, feeling a wild desire to shout, yet afraid to do it for fear of angering still more this poor idiot. “Yes, it’s your candle, old man. Be sure you take good care of it. It’s very precious.”