And then he could bear it no longer.
"Hel-low!" he cried.
"Hel-low!" said the man.
Then Harry got up trembling and pale, and the man came toward him.
"Why, I didn't know what you were," said the man.
"Tony Kirk!" exclaimed Harry.

Yes, it was Tony Kirk, sure enough, a man who would never shoot a boy--if he knew it.
"What are you doing here," asked Tony, "a-squattin' in the dirt at supper-time ?" Harry told him what he was doing, and how he had been frightened, and then the remark about supper-time made him think of his sister.

"My senses!" he cried, "there's Kate! she must think I'm lost." "Kate!" exclaimed Tony.

"What Kate?
You don't mean your sister!" "Yes, I do," said Harry; and away he ran down the shore of the creek.
Tony followed, and when he reached the big pine-tree, there was Harry gazing blankly around him.
"She's gone!" faltered the boy.
"I should think so," said Tony, "if she knew what was good for her.
What's this ?" His quick eyes had discovered the paper on the tree.
Tony pulled the paper from the pine trunk and tried to read it, but Harry was at his side in an instant, and saw it was Kate's writing.

It was almost too dark to read it, but he managed, by holding it toward the west, to make it out.
"She's gone home," he said, "and I must be after her;" and he prepared to start.
"Hold up!" cried Tony; "I'm going that way.