“Well, we haven’t wasted our afternoon anyway,” Bobby summed up. “We’ve found out how the ashes were taken there, and we feel dead certain in our own minds that Joe did it. We know, of course, that he didn’t do it of his own accord. Somebody hired him to do it. Now if we could only find some one who saw Hicksley and Joe talking together, it would help some.”
“But that wouldn’t prove anything,” objected Sparrow. “They might be talking about the weather.”
“Or about hash,” interjected Pee Wee.
“Hash seems to stick in your crop,” grinned Skeets.
“I wish some of it were sticking there right now,” answered Pee Wee, “especially if it were like the hash that Meena makes.”
“By the way, fellows,” chimed in Fred, “it must be close to supper time this very minute. Let’s beat it.”
They started off on a run.
“The one that gets there last is a Chinaman,” Skeets flung back over his shoulder.
Pee Wee was the Chinaman.