"Is that what you meant you did--when you told me?" I said, kind of disappointed.
"Sure it is," he said, "I"m a swell scout, hey? Going headlong into a ditch!"
I just listened to him and I felt pretty bad, because now I saw that was what he meant.
Then he gave me another shove and he said all happy like, "But I"m the champion boy sleuth all right. Look at this--here"s your two bucks and Skinny never took it at all"?
"I--I know he didn"t," I said.
"How did you know," he shot right at me.
"Because," I started to say and then he rumpled my hair up some more and began talking and never gave me a chance.
"Because it was right in that copy of Treasure Island that"s laying there," he shouted, "and I"m one big gump, that"s what I am! I got that copy of Treasure Island out of the library this morning, because you were telling me about it, and right there in the middle of it was your plaguy old two buckarinos!"
Just for a minute I looked at him and I knew it was just like he said, because he was laughing--he was so blamed happy about it.
Oh, boy, didn"t I feel good!
"How in the d.i.c.kens did it get there?" he said.
"That"s one puzzle," I answered him.
"Anyway, you"ve got your two bucks back."
"A lot I care about that," I said; "jiminy, I"ve got something better than two dollars, and that"s friends, you can bet."
Then I showed him the stain on the page of the book and we both sat there gaping at it and thinking.
"I"m hanged if I know," Westy said; "it would take Tom Slade to dope that out."
"Maybe Skinny was looking at the book and shut it with the two dollar bill inside," I said.
"How about the stain?" Westy asked me.
"Jingoes, it"s a puzzle," I said.
All of a sudden he laid the book down open and laid the bill on it and then he laid the oar-lock on the bill. Then he just sat there like as if he was studying. Pretty soon he said, "We have to get a new copy for the library, anyway. Do you mind if I make another stain on this one?
I"ve got a sort of an idea."
"Go ahead," I said.
So now I"ll tell you just what he did and you"ll see how it solved the puzzle. And, believe me, you"ll have to admit that Westy"s a pretty smart fellow. If you have an old book you don"t care anything about, you can even try it and you don"t even need an oar-lock. Westy turned to a new place in the book and then he laid the bill down on the right hand page. Then he laid the oar-lock on the bill. "That"s just exactly what you did when you laid the bill down in such a hurry that night you were fixing Skinny up. You laid it on the open book just like that--see?"
"Maybe I did." I said, "but what"s the big idea, kind sir?"
"Well, then," he said, "I came up here to get your two bucks for you, didn"t I? And you remember I told you there was a breeze blowing? Now what did I do--in the dark?"
"Search me," I said.
"Why, you big galook, I felt around in the dark and lifted the oar-lock off the bill and then felt there for it, but the breeze was too quick for me. It blew the page over and I slapped my hand down on--what?"
"Another page," I said; "good night!"
"Good-bye two dollar bill," he said, "it was between those two other pages. That"s why there was a stain on the right page in the book.
There was a stain on the bill made by the oar-lock and when the page and the bill blew over, the fresh oil on the bill kind of stamped itself on the left hand page. You didn"t damage the book. You only damaged the bill. It was the breeze that damaged the book--see?"
"Believe me! I"ll be responsible," I told him.
"That breeze was a thief," he said.
"It"ll come to grief some day," I told him. Then we both began to laugh.
"And it"s lucky I got that book out of the library," he said. "There was your two bucks tucked away all nice and neat between the pages.
It was just where Jim Hawkins was starting awake on the ship."
"Narrow escape," I said, "hey? If you hadn"t taken the book out just when you did, good night, the ship might have started and good-bye to my two dollars."
"You crazy Indian," he said.
"And all the time I was saying Jim Hawking was honest and a good friend and all that, and all the time he had my two bucks."
"Believe me I wouldn"t trust that fellow with a postage stamp," Westy said.
Laugh! Oh, boy, I thought I"d die laughing--and Westy, too.
CHAPTER XXVIII
JOLLYING PEE-WEE
That"s the reason I"ll never trust a gentle breeze. In books you find all kinds of nice things about gentle breezes, but look out for them, that"s what I say. Whenever I leave my bathing suit on the gra.s.s to dry, I lay a good big rock on it, you can bet. I"d trust Skinny with a hundred dollars, I would, and Westy too, but gentle breezes--Nix. They"re so plaguy sly and sneaky like.
Westy and I went and bought a dandy copy of Treasure Island for the library. It cost us a quarter more than my two dollars, but we should worry.
Now I have to tell you one other thing that happened before we got started on our cruise, especially because it has a lot to do with our cruise.
The next morning we all went back to Northside Woods to tie up the saplings and drag them over to the river. Then we were going to use a rowboat and tow them down and maybe float some of them down. I told you about our old launch, but it"s too shallow to use a launch up as far as Northside Woods.
Ill.u.s.tration #4
"We towed the saplings and started down stream"
All the fellows were there except Skinny, because the doctor made him stay home on account of being all played out. I bet that doctor had some sc.r.a.p with him. One thing sure, Westy and I stuck together. By noontime we had all the stuff hauled over to the river and some odds and ends of kindling wood besides, to take in the house-boat. We filled the rowboat with the small stuff and towed the saplings and started downstream that way. The tide was running up and it was almost full and we had some job bucking it. Some of the fellows wanted to wait till it turned and come down with it. But I said that would be an hour maybe and that if the tide didn"t want to turn and go with us, we should worry.
Now that there wasn"t anything left to do, but tow the stuff down, all the fellows except Westy and I and Pee-wee started to hike it home. We said we"d take him with us in the boat so that he could bail, because that boat is built like a sieve.