ou
out. But what do you say to stopping in somewhere and getting a bite,
Lester? Now that it's brought to my attention, I find that I'm almost as
hungry as Ted usually is. And I can't put it much stronger than that."

"Well," replied Lester, "I was thinking that it might be fun to buy
something here and eat it on the way back. We can get some sandwiches
and other things and have a regular picnic after we get out of town."

"Great!" pronounced Bill.

"And the sooner the better," added Ross.

The lads stopped at the nearest store that promised to supply their
needs. As they gazed in the window, trying to make up their minds what
to buy, Teddy exclaimed:

"What a nuisance it is to choose! You always have to leave behind more
than you take away. If I had plenty of money, I'd buy out the whole
store. Wait till we unearth that fortune of Ross' and then----"

"Sh-h, keep quiet," warned Fred in a low tone. "You don't want to tell
the whole town all you know, do you?"

"That was a slip of the tongue for fair," confessed Teddy ruefully, "but
I won't do it again, honest. Besides, nobody could have heard me."

CHAPTER XXV

ANDY SHANKS, EAVESDROPPER

Suddenly the boys heard two voices raised in what seemed to be an
altercation of some kind. The sound appeared to come from behind a board
fence a few feet away.

One of the speakers was evidently threatening, while the other was
begging off from something that had been demanded of him.

"I tell you, I can't," the latter was saying. "I've already given you
every cent of my allowance and I've borrowed from every friend I have in
this town. You can't get blood out of a stone. If gold dollars were
selling for fifty cents, I couldn't buy one."

"I tell you, you must," the other said fiercely. "I know well enough you
can pawn something. You can get a few plunks on that ring and scarf-pin
of yours. I've long ago put everything I had in hock. Come now, Sid,"
and the voice became more wheedling in tone, "you know well enough this
state of things won't last long. The old man will take me back again and
I'll be rolling in money. Then I can pay back all you've let me have."

Fred and Teddy looked at each other with a conviction that flashed on
both of them at the same moment.

"Where have I heard those dulcet tones before?" murmured Fred. "Either
I'm going crazy or that's Andy Shanks."

"And the other is Sid Wilton," replied Teddy. "Come to think of it, I
heard he lived