To leave Jim and his father behind was a great sorrow; and he was half angry with himself to think that he could find any pleasure in the prospect of a removal.

But the love of change, natural to a boy, and the desire to see the wonders of the great city, with accounts of which Thede had excited his imagination, overcame his inclination to remain in the camp.

The year of separation would be very short, he thought, so that, after all, it was only a temporary matter.

The moment the project of going away took possession of him, his regrets died, and the exit from the woods seemed to him like a journey into dreamland, from which he should return in the morning.
How to get the lad through Sevenoaks, where he would be sure to be recognised, and so reveal the hiding-place of his father, became at once a puzzling question.

Mr.Balfour had arranged with the man who brought him into the woods to return in a fortnight and take him out, and as he was a man who had known the Benedicts it would not be safe to trust to his silence.
It was finally arranged that Jim should start off at once with Harry, and engage Mike Conlin to go through Sevenoaks with him in the night, and deliver him at the railroad at about the hour when the regular stage would arrive with Mr.Balfour.The people of Sevenoaks were not travelers, and it would be a rare chance that should bring one of them through to that point.