"Where'd you stay?" Kingdon asked curiously, with raised eyebrows.
"On—on the wharf. A feller let us sleep on some bags in a fish-shed. If you saw anybody land here last evening, it wasn't us."
He was so voluble and eager to deny it that he attracted Horace's attention. "What's the matter with you, Harry?" the black-eyed fellow drawled. "Having a fit? I heard you say you slept in the fish-house, which is believable; for both you and Joe Bootleg seem to carry a rather fishy odor about you this morning. It wouldn't have been a crime if you had reached the Clay Head last night, and were afraid to sail the rest of the way up here." He laughed his unflattering laugh.
Kingdon wondered. He had left the rusted hatchet he had found in the woods stuck in a rotting log in plain view. Pudge came across it.
"My goodness!" said the fat boy, growing red in the face. "I feared that had been lost. Do you know, Hicks, I don't remember bringing that hatchet back after I borrowed it. We found ours the next day."
"Don't ask me," Peewee said carelessly. "I don't know a thing about it."
"I found it," Kingdon put in quietly, watching Pudge now.
"Did you?" asked the plump lad. "Where?"
"Where it was lost," returned the other laughing. "Don't need to worry about it. But you fellows don't want to cut green wood on the island. If one of the Manatee wardens should come over here and find out that you had——"
"Why, I never!" declared Pudge.