"I did," the teamster admitted.
"Then Jack Ryan will be laughing at you to-morrow," grinned the officer. "Go home, Breslin, and behave yourself. Boys, you'd better scatter."
It was not long after that that Gridley Grammar School boys were at home and in bed. By morning they were on the street again, as there was still some of the holiday vacation left.
There was news, too, this morning. The Dodge house had been entered late in the night, but the Dodge coachman, returning late, had caught sight of a burglar near an open dining room window. In investigating more closely the coachman had scared the burglar, who leaped from the window, struck the coachman over the head, and then vanished. But the coachman's description of his assailant tallied with the personal appearance of Mr. Fits.
"Then the bold scoundrel is still operating in Gridley?" passed from mouth to mouth. "What nerve!"
"The thief is likely to stay here for a night or two longer," the chief of police warned business men along Main Street. "The truth appears to be that the rascal whom the boys have named Mr. Fits is without funds to get away. The loot that Dick & Co. found out at the camp was what the scoundrel had expected to take away with him and sell. That stuff not being in his possession, he must steal something else on which to raise money before he can go far from here."
"Why doesn't the rascal try some other town, then, where he's not as well known?" inquired Mr. Dodge.
"Because he has houses that he and his confederates, now locked up in jail, had spotted for robbery," replied the police chief. "Burglars don't usually enter a house until they've looked it well over and know just about what they expect to find. I'll have all my men alert to-night, and well to do people will do well to be on the lookout, too. As soon as this 'Mr. Fits' gets loot enough he'll probably leave Gridley."
That same forenoon Dick, Dave and Tom, acting as a self-appointed committee, called on Lawyer Ripley at that gentleman's office. They thanked the lawyer for the use of the camp, and mentioned the burning down of the cook shack.
Hardly had they begun to speak when Fred Ripley sauntered into his father's office. Silently Fred stepped over to a part of the office that lay behind his father's back.