"That's right, Toby," said Elmer, "and their farm borders that terribly big Sassafras Swamp lying beyond Lake Solitude. Well, I happened to hear Johnny tell how he had taken a look through the swamp the other day, just to find out how the muskrats were coming on, so as to get a pointer on his winter business this year. He said he honestly believed there must be some man hiding there, because in several places he had come on tracks."
"But people sometimes go in Sassafras Swamp to hunt, don't they, Elmer?" objected Lil Artha.
"Not in August, because there are no woodcock up there, you know, and nothing else can be shot at this time of year," Elmer continued; "but Johnny had something else to say that interested me considerably. It seems at one place he found ashes that told of a fire, and while rooting around he picked up a piece of steel that he allowed me to see. It had evidently been filed; and boys, can you guess what it made me think it must have once been?"
Although all of them looked eagerly interested, they shook their heads in the negative, as though unable to hazard even a guess.
"Go on, Elmer, and tell us," urged Toby.
"Yes, let down the bars and relieve our anxiety, please, Elmer," added Lil Artha.
"Unless I'm away off in my reckoning," said the other, solemnly, "it was part of a pair of steel handcuffs such as officers fasten to the wrists of prisoners when taking them to the penitentiary!"