“A ridiculous thing has happened to me, Dick,” remarked the minister, as he reached them. “The very first night I’m in camp I have been guilty of the fault of carelessness. To tell you the truth, I am unable to find my gold watch this morning, though Harry Bartlett thinks I wound it up as usual, and hung my vest upon a nail driven part way into the tent pole.”
Dick felt as though a cold hand had clutched his heart. He and Peg exchanged anxious looks, but before either of them could say a word Mr. Holwell went on.
“I wouldn’t care so much, you understand, boys, only it was presented to me years ago by my people in a church of which I formerly had charge, and consequently I value it many times over its intrinsic worth. But, of course, I have mislaid it. I’ll go back once more and turn things over. The chances are I’ll find it where I placed it. On account of my strange quarters and having no regular spot for it, I must have dropped it down at random and don’t know just where.”
CHAPTER XIV
TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT
Dick knew it would not come out that way. He seemed to “feel it in his bones” as he told Leslie afterwards, that the terrible mystery with which they had been confronted on their first night in camp, was closing around them with even a tighter grip.
When Mr. Holwell had left them to hasten back to his tent Dick and Dan looked at one another with blank expressions on their faces.
“Whew!” gasped the latter. “Say, Dick, this is what I call piling it on thick.”
“It begins to look like a bad business I must admit,” returned the other, trying to grasp the situation fully.
“All these things couldn’t just happen by accident, you see,” continued Dan, as if arguing with himself. “Mr. Holwell is a careful man, and wouldn’t be guilty of leaving so valuable a watch around loose, so it could be mixed up with the bed clothes in his tent. I tell you we’re up against a real old-fashioned mystery, and no mistake.”
“There’s something queer going on around this camp, for a fact,” said Dick, and taking advantage of the fact that they were alone for a brief time he confided to Dan what he had seen during the night on coming suddenly out of his tent.