QUEER SLEUTH.

The visitor also rose to his feet, repressing admirably such annoyance as he may have felt.

“I’ve simply given you the story as I’ve heard it,” he said. “That it’s true in the main there is sufficient evidence to prove. As to the matter of the island being haunted, I will reiterate that I have seen flashing lights upon it at night, and once or twice I’ve heard the howling of a dog, which seemed to come from the island itself. I think you’ll all admit that the story is interesting, at least.”

“It sure is,” agreed Grant, “and we’re much obliged to you for telling it. It ought to make a right good newspaper yarn.”

Granger nodded. “It has appeared in several newspapers this year.”

“The newspapers will print anything,” said Piper.

The visitor shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, boys,” he said, “I think I’ll be going. I hope you enjoy yourselves and have plenty of sport. Perhaps I’ll see you again.”

“Cuc-come over any time,” Springer hastened to invite. “You’ve helped liven up a rather hot and dull afternoon.”

“Yes, come again,” said Stone.

“Perhaps,” suggested Grant, “after we’ve been here a while we might be able to put you wise to the good fishing places. Our friend, Piper, although he hasn’t yet tried his hand at it, is a right wonderful angler.”

“When the fish hear that he’s araound,” grinned Crane, “they crawl right aout on dry land and hide themselves.”

“Funny, hey?” snapped Sleuth. “Good joke! Ha! ha!”

Somehow, this seemed to amuse Mr. Granger greatly, for he continued to laugh as he made his way toward his canoe. Piper glared at the young man’s back and muttered; unlike the others, he did not go down to the shore to see the visitor off.

“Queer chap, that chum of yours, boys,” said Granger, ere getting into the canoe. “Anything wrong with him in his garret?”

“Nothing except the sus-stuff he reads,” answered Springer. “Some folks might think Sleuthy a bit queer, but he’s no fool, as he’s demonstrated more than once.”

“I should say not,” agreed Stone. “I surely have reasons to feel mighty grateful toward Piper. Naturally, people laugh at him on account of his poses in imitation of the great detectives of fiction; but less than a year ago, when I was arrested on a false charge, he turned the laugh and materially aided in clearing me through some genuine detective work that was really clever.”

“I can hardly believe such a thing possible,” murmured Granger.

“It’s a fact,” asserted Ben.

“And I’ll swear to it,” supported Phil, “for I was in the courtroom when he told his sus-story that upset the case against you and astonished everybody who heard it. Sleuth may be queer, but it’s a fact that he’s no fuf-fool.”

“Well, so long, boys,” said Granger, pushing off and dipping his paddle into the water.

They watched until he was some distance away, heading for the further shore to the south of the hotel.

“A right agreeable chap,” commented Grant, “though he didn’t seem inclined to tell a heap about himself.”

“He was too busy telling us about Lovers’ Leap and the old hermit,” said Stone, as they made their way toward the shade in the vicinity of the tent. “Those yarns were very interesting and very well told.”

“That’s a fact,” agreed Piper, “and that’s the reason why the brand of fiction was so plain upon them.”

“Naow yeou look here, Sleuthy,” cried Crane. “Mebbe there ain’t no proofs to back up the Injun story, but everybody knows the principal features of the other yarn are true. The old hermit did live on Spirit Island, and after he was faound dead folks said there was evidence to show that he was an escaped convict.”

“That much may possibly be true,” admitted Piper, with evident reluctance; “but think of claiming that the spirits of the Indian lovers appear on the cliff once a year and leap off clasped in each other’s arms! Piffle! And all that stuff about the ticking of an unseen clock in the hermit’s hut, and mysterious rappings, and ghostly lights, and the howling of a dog, and white figures seen vaguely on the island! Bah! Rot!” With those final explosive ejaculations he burned the brand of condemnation upon such preposterous moonshine.

“Oh, of course we didn’t really believe them things,” protested Crane, although his manner seemed to indicate that he would have found a certain amount of satisfaction in believing them.

“You must recall,” said Grant, “that Granger did not make the assertion that such things really happened; he simply claimed that some people believed or told that they happened.”

“No, sir,” denied Piper promptly; “he declared that he himself had seen mysterious lights on the island, and had likewise heard the doleful howling of a dog. I’ll admit that he was clever in avoiding assertions that might be disproved by investigation or the light of reason’s torch, which must illuminate the minds of all intelligent men; but, nevertheless, in a subtle, crafty manner, he sought by every possible device to inveigle us into accepting as truth the fanciful chimeras of his, or some other person’s, imaginative mind.”

“Oh, wow!” whooped Sile. “Yeou hit the English language an awful wallop that time. Yeou had the dictionary backed up against the ropes and gaspin’.”

“Nobody’s eager to swallow it all, Pipe,” said Grant. “All the same, I’ll admit that Mr. Granger has made me curious to pay a visit to Spirit Island. I’d like to see the holes people have dug searching for the loot John Calvert is supposed to have buried there.”

“Me, too,” nodded Crane. “It’s too hot to paddle araound much naow, but we’ll have to go over to the island fust chance we get.”

“I wouldn’t mind that myself,” said Sleuth. “It will give us something to do.”

“You’ve got sus-something to do,” reminded Springer, “unless you want to sleep on a mighty hard bed tonight. Why don’t you cut some boughs?”

“Seems to me,” returned Sleuth, “you fellows cut enough yesterday. You might give me some of your boughs.”

“Not on yeour life, you lazy tyke!” returned Crane. “If yeou want boughs you’ll cut ’em.”

“Oh, all right,” snapped Piper. “Where’s the hatchet? I’ll do it now.” He found the hatchet and stalked away into the woods in search of boughs.

“Queer old Sleuthy,” laughed Springer, as they heard him chopping a short distance from the camp. “I’m glad he came along with us, for he’s certainly provided some amusement.”

After a time Piper reappeared with an armful of boughs, dripping perspiration from every pore and looking weary and disgusted. He would have flung the boughs down carelessly in the tent, but Grant compelled him to put them in the proper place and arrange them for his bed.

“I never dreamed camping out was such hard work,” grumbled Sleuth.

“Work!” returned Rod. “Why, we haven’t worked, any of us; it’s nothing but play. Hurry up, Pipe, for we’re going in swimming pretty soon.”

“And me all hot and reeking like this? Now that’s a pretty trick to play on a fellow, get him overheated and then announce that you’re going in swimming.”

“We’ll wait till you cuc-cool off some,” promised Springer.

Half an hour later, feeling secure from observation, they stripped off their clothes and went plumping, one after another, into the cool, inviting water off the bold rocks of the point. The delight of it set them tingling and shouting joyously as they disported themselves like porpoises.

“It’s great!” cried Crane. “Warm! I never saw the water so warm. Somebody get a white stone. Let’s dive.”

A white rock twice the size of a hen’s egg was found and tossed into the water, and one after another they took turns diving for it, casting it each time, when recovered, a little further from the shore. Grant proved himself the most expert at this diversion, for he brought up the stone, after all the others had failed to find it, in particularly deep water. In impromptu races, also, the Texan was able to defeat any one of them, although Springer pushed him hard.

“I took swimming lessons at school,” he explained. “After a fellow gets so he reckons he can swim about as well as anybody he will usually learn a lot by taking lessons from a good instructor.”

They were loath to come out, but presently Rodney urged them to do so, and, after a vigorous rubbing with rough towels, they dressed and found themselves bubbling with fresh vigor, like a lot of young colts.

As the sun declined and the afternoon waned Springer mentioned the fact that the time for evening fishing was approaching.

“We really ought to have two canoes,” he said, “so four of us could go out. I suppose it will be a good pup-plan for one of us to be at camp all the time.”

Promptly Piper announced:

“I’m going fishing myself tonight, and I’m going in the canoe, if I have to fight for the chance.”

“Dinged if I ain’t with ye, Sleuthy,” cried Sile. “Rod and Phil had all the fun this morning, and naow it’s aour turn.”

“But we didn’t go fuf-fishing in the canoe,” reminded Springer.

“Because you couldn’t, that’s why,” said Sleuth. “It wasn’t here.”

“We had to foot it along the shore and up that brook, you know,” put in Grant.

“But that was fun,” snickered Piper. “No work about it; nothing but fun. That’s all there is to camping out.”

“Look a’ here, yeou bold pioneer of the wilderness,” said Crane, “if yeou come with me in the canoe yeou don’t want to git a notion that I’m goin’ to do all the paddlin’. Not on your life. Yeou’ll have to do yeour part of it.”

“Depend on me, comrade,” said Piper promptly. “I’ll be with you, even to the death.”

So, as the others good-naturedly yielded, it was Piper and Crane who put forth in the canoe with their rods and gear to lure the finny denizens of the lake with artificial flies.