“That last question I can answer first,” said the professor. “I happen to have recent pictures of them. They sent them to their uncle following the deaths of their parents, and after the reconciliation, and Professor Petersen left them to me, with certain other material, documents and such, to aid me in the search. Here are the girls—their names are Gladys Petersen and Dorothy Gibbs.”
He reached in his pocket and took out a folded paper. As he opened it he gave a start and hastily closed it again.
“That isn’t it,” he murmured. “Those are some dried specimens of ameba that I wish to study under a microscope.” 41
“What are ameba?” asked Jerry. “Fish?”
“Not exactly,” answered the professor with a smile, “though I secured these from a little pond on the other side of the camp. Ameba are microorganisms of the simplest structure—a protoplasm which is constantly changing in shape. Very interesting—very interesting indeed, but not the pictures of the girls. Ah, here they are,” he added, as he replaced the first paper and took out a second. From the folds of that he produced two unmounted photographs at which the boys gazed with interest.
They saw the likenesses of two pretty girls in traveling costume, and the pictures had, obviously, been snapped by an amateur at some country place, for there was a barn and fields in the background.
“The girls took these pictures themselves, I understand,” explained the professor. “They sent them to their uncle.”
“Which is which?” asked Jerry. “I mean which is Gladys and which is Dorothy?”
“The names are on the reverse side of the photographs, I believe,” said the professor, and so it proved.
“They are both pretty,” observed Jerry.