ed me over the cliff on the island."

"That was accidental, I assure you."

"Perhaps our meeting in the woods was accidental, too," and the boy could
not help sneering.

"It was all because I took charge of my poor friend Toglet," said Martin,
with an anxious look in his face. "That poor, poor fellow has caused me no
end of trouble."

"How?"

"Well, I presume I will have to make a clean breast of it. Toglet is more
or less insane. His folks do not care to place him in an asylum, and so I
offered to take care of him for a while. It was his sudden fit of insanity
that caused all of the trouble."

"What made you point your gun at me in the woods?" asked Ralph, who could
not help but doubt Martin's story.

"I wanted you to stop so that I might have a chance to explain. I was
afraid you would return home and have us arrested."

"After you pushed me over the cliff why didn't you try to find out whether
I was dead or alive?"

"Please don't say I pushed you over. It was Toglet, and directly after you
disappeared he turned on me and I had all I could do to keep him at bay."

"You don't look as if you had a very tough time with him," remarked Ralph,
bluntly.

"Luckily, I am a strong man, and I soon overpowered him. But he then got a
strange fit, and I knew I must get him to a doctor at once. So I took the
boat and left the island. If I had thought that you were still alive you
may rest assured I would not have left you behind."

Ralph hardly knew what to say. He did not believe that Martin was telling
the truth, plausible as the villain tried to make his story appear.

"You took him to a doctor's?" he asked.

"I did. Then he got away and disappeared in the woods. I had just found him
when I saw you. That is the whole story. Why, my young friend, what reason
would I have for pushing you over the cliff?"

"I don't know," returned Ralph. "That is something I have been trying to
find out."

"I had none in the world. I never saw nor heard of you previous to hiring
your boat, and I might have hired anybody in Glen Arbor for that matter."

"How is it you are in New York now?" questioned Ralph, suddenly.

"I brought Toglet home to his folks."

"Does he belong here?"

"Yes. He lives but a few blocks from here. I will tell you what we had
better do. We had better go to his home, and you can interview his folks
and make sure that I have told you the truth about him. Perhaps he will
even confess, if he is in a proper