He had thrust in a hand, and was now holding something aloft. The dancing light from the campfire shone upon the object, which seemed to glisten like polished steel.
Immediately Giraffe set up a laugh.
“Well, I declare, fellers,” he remarked, “some poor old carpenter’s gone and lost his kit of tools. Shows that Step Hen ain’t the only loony wanderin’ about in these here pine woods, droppin’ his things around loose, and then forgettin’ where he put ’em. And to think it should be the same sort of one that found these tools. Ain’t that a queer case, though?”
“Carpenter’s tools,” Step Hen went on, indignantly, as he held up a second, and then other articles, which he took from the bag; “did you ever watch a carpenter at work, Giraffe; and did you ever see him use tools like them? If you did, then believe me, that feller ought to a been in the lock-up, that’s what.”
“Lock-up!” repeated Giraffe after him, and he stared at Step Hen as though he believed the other might be trying to play some sort of a joke.
“That’s right, in the lock-up,” the other scout went on, firmly. “When I was down to New York with my dad last year, he had to see the Police Commissioner about a little business; and they were old friends too. I went along, and sat there in one of the offices nigh an hour. To amuse myself, I examined the heaps of queer things they had there, which I reckoned had been taken from all sorts of crooks that’d been arrested for years. And in the lot I saw some tools mighty like these, boys!”
“Wow, and again I say, wow!” murmured Giraffe.
“Thieves’ tools, hey?” grunted Bumpus, pushing forward to handle some of the shiny articles himself. “P’raps now, one of these here might be what they call a jimmy, and another a centerbit. I always used to read about such things in every story in the papers of a burglary down in the city.”
Davy also wanted to examine the things at close range, and so they were passed around. Even the two guides seemed to take a deep interest in the contents of the little old black bag; and for several minutes a buzz followed, as each voiced his opinion concerning the merits of the tools to accomplish such a job as breaking into a strong box of a bank.
“But just stop and think,” remarked Step Hen, presently, “how far this is from any town where these fellers could use their tools. No wonder they hid ’em in the bushes right here. The only thing they could expect to break into up here would be the game laws.”