“No doubt about it!” murmured Douglas.
“And that isn’t all,” Jim went on, turning it over. “See the name on the other side of it?”
Stamped into the steel was the name “Henry Rose.” They looked puzzled, and Jim went on to explain.
“Henry Rose is the name of the maker of the steel saw. All we have to do is to find out which hardware store in this town, or in an adjacent town, sells Henry Rose saws. That ought not to be hard.”
“No,” agreed Terry. “Where did you find it, Jimmie boy?”
“In the grass at the end of the campus. I took a short cut across from Inslee and my foot struck something in the grass. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it, only it flew across the grass with a zipping sort of a sound and it aroused my curiosity. So I picked it up, and when I saw what it was I knew it must have been part of the game.”
“Shall we show it to the colonel?” asked Don.
“Not right away,” advised Hudson. “Tomorrow is Saturday and we have half day off. Suppose we fellows go down to Portville and do a little snooping on our own account. We may be able to scare up a clue or two.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Jim nodded. “There is only one hardware store in town, so we shouldn’t have any trouble.”
On the following afternoon the six cadets entered the hardware store of John J. Potts. Mr. Potts himself, a little, energetic man, bustled up to them, rubbing his hands.