“What do I care?  Sarves them right for takin’ our camp away.  For two cents I’d throw the hull business into the lake, and let her swim,” growled Pet, who did not seem to be making much progress in his feat of untying the binding cord.

Frank could feel Will quiver with emotion as he pressed against him.  The very thought of his beloved camera and those invaluable films floating on the water filled the boy with unutterable anguish.  He even groaned, though the fact that the conspirators were so busily engaged, and talking in the bargain, prevented them from hearing the suspicious sound.

“Andy was a-helpin’ ’em,” declared one of the group, as though that fact might constitute a crime in his eyes.

“’Course; what more could ye expect arter the way he got us to go out with him to cover up that hole again?  Andy’s got religion, I reckon; leastways he ain’t the same kind o’ a feller he was,” declared Pet.

“But he turned on you mighty quick, I noticed, an’ sed as how he’d wipe up the ground with your remains if you jest didn’t go along and help undo our work.  He kin fight yet, even if he is changed,” said the fellow who hung discreetly on the outskirts of the group, and who was evidently a devoted follower of the said Andy.

“Jest mind yer own business, Tom Somers, an’ speak when yer spoken to.  Guess I know that yer intendin’ to stick to Andy through thick an’ thin.  But they ain’t everybody feelin’ that way, understand?  If Andy he’s a-goin’ to turn on us and be chummy with that crowd, we ain’t expectin’ to stand it, see?” declared Pet, still struggling with the obstreperous knot.

“Them’s my sentiments,” observed another.

“Me, too, fellers?” declared a second.

“Yes, it’s easy for ye to talk that ways when he ain’t around; but let him give any one o’ ye a single look an’ it’s eat dirt for the lot.  Ain’t I seen it done many a time?  An’ some day Andy’s goin’ to give Pet the time o’ his life,” the single faithful henchman kept saying.

“Oh, let up, Tom!  Ain’t any one o’ ye got a knife?  I can’t never get this here knot untied.  Hand it here, Billy.  Now watch the fun, fellers,” and as he spoke Pet opened a blade of the borrowed knife, and proceeded to lay it across the cord.

To judge by the way he sawed, that blade was too dull to cut butter.

“What d’ye call this thing, anyhow, Billy?  One side’s about as sharp as t’other, an’ a feller couldn’t commit suicide, if he tried to, with this frog-sticker.”

“Try mine,” said the fellow who owned a camera.

“Say, that’s the cheese; it’s got a edge all right.  Now wouldn’t little Willie Milton weep tears if he seen me a-doin’ this to his property,” and he bent down to sever the cord at one vicious blow.

Frank thought it high time to interfere.

These unscrupulous boys would not hesitate to destroy all the results of Will’s hard labor, and, in fact, take the keenest delight in wringing his heart by so doing.