which I forget, and
the boy go up in all the smoke and bring him down. I shall lose my
place if the baby is lose. How can I remember a watch, which I
cannot carry, for fear some one say I steal? Ah! you should not give!"

"And now you have lost it!" growled the man. "Haven't you any idea?
Couldn't you have mislaid it? You are not lying to me, you have
really lost it, Gabrielle?"

"Yes, I tell you I have lose it, and I am glad!" cried the woman
in a higher key than before, and with great excitement.

The tide now began to take the boys back down the hill, and Jack
quickly steered so that he would go down with it, being speedily
out of sound of voices.

"What do you think of that, Jack?" whispered Percival.

"That the mystery of the watch seems to be as deep as ever."

CHAPTER IX

ANOTHER CLAIMANT FOR THE WATCH

The boys made their way down to the mouth of the kill, and out upon
the river, no more being said concerning what they had heard until
they were on the river gliding down stream.

"That must have been the nurse you saw last night," said Dick.

"Yes, but I don't know the man. He must be a bad character."

"Decidedly. There is one thing I cannot make out, though. How
did that watch get in your pocket?"

"I don't know myself unless the girl slipped it in during the short
time I saw her. It was evidently not passed from hand to hand as
we thought. The girl had it, but I cannot see that any one else did.
I am as much in the dark as ever."

"And we still have to learn who it was who gave you a bad reputation
to the detective. He won't tell."

"He may not know," rejoined Jack musingly. "I don't care very much.
My reputation does not depend upon what he says nor upon what some
of the boys here may say. I have enough friends among the boys of
Hilltop, and the faculty, not to mind the rest."

"True enough, Jack. Hello! there are some of those fellows now
looking for a race if not trouble."

Herring and Merritt just now appeared in their boat off the railroad
dock, and waited till Jack and Percival came up when Herring shouted:

"Come on if you want to race. We'll meet you on the way back."

"Race 'em, Jack, just to show them you can beat 'em!" whispered
Dick hoarsely.

"No, Dick, I won't," said Jack with emphasis. "I'll race any one
else for the fun of it, but I will not race with those fellows."

Herring started off at a good pace, expecting that Jack would follow,
and whe