Tom read as follows:
“I expect to be with you young gentlemen very soon. But in case I never see you again, please don’t think me ungrateful for all your kindnesses. There are times when I cannot endure a human presence—even the—”
Tom stopped reading, and explained:
“It breaks off right there, and there is no signature, or address, or anything else.”
The boys stared at each other in amazement, and for a time uttered no word. When they begun talking again it was only to wonder and offer conjectures, and the conjectures seemed so futile that at last the little company ceased to try to read the riddle. Then Larry said:
“Come on. There’s nothing more to be done to-night and we’re all half famished. We must have a good hearty supper, and then perhaps we’ll think of something more that we can do.”
“I doubt that,” said Cal; “but I say, Tom, you have a positive genius for finding things—turtles’ eggs, smugglers’ camps, sweet potato patches, letters hidden in the woods, and everything else. Perhaps you’ll find poor Mr. Dunbar yet.”
“I was just thinking of some other things that we ought to find, and that right away.”
“What things?”
“Why, Mr. Dunbar’s. You know he has never brought any of them to our camp, and we know he writes and draws and all that. He must have some place up near his old bivouac where he can keep his papers and drawings and specimens dry. It seems to me we ought—”