boat stole the money and the
letter?"

"The letter happened to be with the money," Harry said; "I don't know that
I think anything in particular. But how did a sailor with the second finger
of his left hand gone, happen to have a letter asking him to wear a ring on
that finger. How about the soldier who is warned against going where he
will get robbed? Maybe he went, after all, and got robbed. We might start a
search for a soldier who happens to have a second finger on his left hand.
But then, quite a few soldiers enjoy that distinction. So there we are-up a
tree. But here is a sailor with two hundred odd dollars and a letter
referring to two hundred dollars. There is something about him wearing a
ring on a certain finger and he doesn't happen to have that finger. Funny."

Well then, here's a query-as long as queries don't cost anything. Might not
the sailor have robbed the soldier of his two hundred and odd dollars? And
just neglected to destroy the letter that was with it? You see, kids, I
just ran plunk into the middle of the thing and I'd like to get hold of one
end or the other. Somebody or other got a ring when he went away to war
fifty years ago. He lived in a village. Who was he? Whoever he is, he's
having a hard job making two ends meet. If I could find him I think I'd
turn over this money to him. Now at the other end of the line, somewhere,
is a fellow that ran chances of being robbed-reckless, like your Uncle
Dudley. He's got a ring with President Lincoln's face cut on it--a cameo.
I'd like to find _him_. But you see I haven't any way of finding either
of them. The only thing I'm sure about is that the dead sailor couldn't
have worn the ring. His finger had been gone many years, that's sure. So
what are we going to do about it? I guess we'll go to bed. But that isn't
getting us anywhere, is it?

Funny, hey? Kind of a mystery after all-Skeezeks.

I guess every one of us lay awake thinking about it that night. Anyway, I
know I did. And most all the time till the day we got home, we kept talking
about it. Harry Donnelle would always laugh and say maybe there wasn't
anything to it at all and that if he knew who the sailor was, he'd go and
give the money to his people-probably.

He said he guessed the camp-fire up at Temple Camp was what started him
seeing pictures. But always he would say how it was funny that a man
without his second finger should have that letter on him. But he said that
as long as there w