“Well, he did shoot pretty well,” said Bart. “But I am wondering where on earth the bracelet can be. We are all at sea again, over it.”
“I would have more turtles if a certain Fenn Masterson had sold me his collection,” went on the queer man. “I got his name from a naturalist’s magazine, for he collects turtles, it seems. I wrote to Mr. Masterson, asking him if he’d sell me his turtles. But I had to proceed very cautiously, for he lived in the same town where the bracelet was stolen, and I didn’t want to show myself there. So I told him to leave his answer in an old sycamore tree. Then, after I did that I became alarmed, and I didn’t dare go back to see if he had replied. Oh, you can’t be too careful in this business,” concluded the man, with a cunning look.
“Why, I’m that Fenn Masterson!” exclaimed the owner of the name.
“Are you?” demanded William Lang. “Will you sell me your turtles?”
“Of course,” replied Fenn, who had rather lost interest in his collection, of late. “You can have them. We hid and waited to see if you would call for an answer to your letter.”
“I guess that’s some more of poor William’s imagination,” remarked the lineman in a low voice. “Leaving a letter in a sycamore tree, and all that sort of thing.”
“No, that part’s true enough,” declared Bart. “We waited for some time in a storm for him to show up, but he never did. Oh, it’s true enough. I am beginning to understand some things now. The reason why your cousin ran away from us so often was because of the notion he had that we wanted to arrest him. We would never have harmed him had we known.”
“Of course not,” agreed the lineman, he and Bart having talked in whispers while the turtle collector was exhibiting some odd specimens to Fenn. William Lang told of his visit to Oak Swamp, and how he had fled at the sight of the boys, fearing they wanted to cause his arrest, and he also mentioned his trips to the mud volcano, and how he had run away at the sound of some one stirring in the campers’ tent, likewise how he had led the boys a chase about the town, just prior to the accident on the pole.
“But about the bracelet, I don’t know a thing,” concluded William Lang.