"And the company will hire detectives to start right on the trail of that negro," interjected Mr. Prenter.
"If—-if the expense is really warranted," ended Mr. Bascomb, cautiously.
"Warranted?" retorted the treasurer of the Melliston Company. "Why, it is absolutely necessary to protect our work here! That big negro is the key to the mystery. We must catch him if it costs us a thousand dollars."
"Oh, well," assented President Bascomb, reluctantly.
"I—-I guess I'm all right to start in to work now," Harry suggested, trying to rise.
"Sit down—-you're not!" replied Tom and Treasurer Prenter, in the same breath, as both pressed Harry back to the wall.
"We don't need work so much to-day," Mr. Prenter continued. "What we want to do is to solve this mystery. You stay here, Hazelton. I'll go back alone and find a 'bus or a carriage. Then we'll go back to camp and hold a council of war. Something must be done, and we'll decide how it's to be done."
Mr. Prenter, though no longer a young man, proved that he carried both speed and agility in his feet. While he was gone Tom endeavored to get a few more particulars from Harry, but Hazelton simply didn't know anything that threw any more light on the dread mystery of the breakwater.
"Then a million-dollar undertaking like this is to be constantly imperiled, just because of a senseless moral crusade that you two young men are trying to put through in the camp," declared Mr. Bascomb moodily.
Tom covertly signaled his chum to pay no heed to this remark.