oss any nets in the lake, or snares for
partridges in the woods around here."

"You mean there might be something stronger than that to be found, if
only we could run up against the place they use for a hideout; is that
it, Thad?"

"I certainly do; but I wish you could tell me one thing," the other
remarked.

"Try me and see," grinned Davy. "I'm loaded with information, like a gun
is, to the muzzle; and all you have to do is to pull the trigger."

"Try and remember if that boy said anything about this Malcolm
Hotchkiss that would describe him--was he tall or short; did he wear a
beard or had he a smooth face; were his eyes blue or black?"

Davy screwed up his eyebrows as though he might be cudgeling his brain
to remember. Then he grinned again, showing that the result had at least
been satisfactory from his point of view.

"I caught on to it, Thad," he declared with the air of a victor.

"Well, what do you think about it now, Davy?"

"Not the same man. You remember our visitor was a tall feller, don't
you? Well, I heard that boy say how they played a trick on Malcolm, and
they was only able to do it because he happened to be a small man, with
white hands, and looked kinder like a woman dressed up in police
uniform. But then he's smart as chain lightnin', he said at the same
time."

"Well, that proves one thing. Our visitor couldn't have been the
Faversham Head of Police. Perhaps they're in the game together, and he
wanted you to send word that way, knowing that Hotchkiss would be able
to reach him," Thad concluded.

"Looks like you'd got it all figgered out right, Thad," admitted Davy,
in open admiration for the genius of his chum. "And if that's the truth,
I reckon it must be a pretty big game that has made this here feller
take all the trouble to hire that bear man to go 'round the country with
him, just so he could ask questions, and nobody think he was anything
but a common tramp."

"I don't just understand what sort of officer would be doing that," Thad
candidly admitted. "Now, if these men were what Bob White tells us they
have down in his country, moonshiners, I could understand it. But we've
rested enough now; let's go on to the boat. Perhaps after all, we might
decide to leave the island to look after itself from now on."

"I'd sure be sorry to hear you say that, Thad," remarked Davy, his face
showing keen disappointment.

"After all, it's really none of our business," continued Thad; "and now