“Yes, and you missed hearing a friend of yours called a fire-bug, too, in the bargain,” grunted Bobolink. “And after I’d sweated and toiled like fun to drag a lot of his old junk out of reach of fire and flood! That’s what makes me sore. Now, if I’d just stood around and laughed, like a lot of the fellows did, it wouldn’t have been so bad.”
“Listen!” said Jud Elderkin, lowering his voice, “when old Briggs got the notion that some bad boy set his store on fire in a spirit of revenge, maybe he wasn’t so far wrong after all.”
“Say, what are you hinting at now, Jud?” gasped Bobolink, suspiciously. “You know as well as anything I was along with the crowd every minute of the time.”
“Sure I do, Bobolink,” asserted the other, blandly. “I wasn’t referring to you at all when I said that. There are others in the swim. You’re not the only pebble on the beach, you understand.”
“Now I get you, Jud!” Tom Betts exclaimed. “And let me say, I’ve been having little suspicions of my own leading in that same direction.”
“We found Hank, Jud Mabley and Sim Jeffreys on the spot when we got here, you all remember, and they seemed tickled to death because it was the 81 Briggs’ place that was on fire,” continued Jud.
Even Paul and Jack seemed impressed, though too cautious to accept the fact until there was more proof. Already the foolishness of making an unsupported accusation had been brought home to them, and the scout-master felt that it was his duty to warn Jud and Tom against talking too recklessly of their suspicion.
“Better go slow about it, fellows, no matter what you think,” he told them. “The law does not recognize suspicion as counting for anything, unless you have some sort of proof to back it up. It may be those fellows are guilty, for they have been going from bad to worse of late; but until you can show evidence leading that way, button up your lips.”
“Guess you’re right there, Paul,” admitted Jud. “Some of us are apt to be too previous when we get a notion in our heads. But Mr. Briggs is dead sure it was no accident, whether the fire was started by the Lawson crowd or some one else.”
“I heard him say he suspected that his safe had been broken open,” declared Tom Betts just then, “and that the fire might have been an after thought meant to hide a robbery.”