“That bear is a spoiled child!” Case remarked, as Teddy began sparing. “He is no good at all—just a clown!”
“Where did you run from?” asked Jule, anxious to know more of the negro boy.
“San Louee,” was the reply. “I done lived on th’ levee!”
“From St. Louis, eh?” Clay said. “Where do you want to go?”
“I done hire out to you all,” was the reply.
“Of course!” Alex. laughed. “Didn’t we bring him up out of the waters? He’ll make a fine playmate for Teddy Bear!”
“If he doesn’t disappear, as that other waif did,” smiled Clay.
“Where do you suppose that boy went to?” asked Alex. “He never swam to shore, that is, to the other shore, and if he had landed on the pier when the men came on board they would certainly have seen him. I reckon the darkness just ate him!”
“And the man who came to speak a good word for him!” Clay went on. “If he had been the thief wanted for the Rock Island diamond and fur robbery, he couldn’t have been more mysterious. The boy said he would be made to tell about the robbery if they found him, and this man wanted to get him out of the way, so I guess we can put the pieces together and patch out the truth. The man is one of the robbers and the boy belongs to him!”
“If I had the Sherlock genius you toss out so easily,” Jule cut in, “I’d put it in a book. Why should the robber come to us to speak a good word for the boy? He ought to have known that we’d see through the game.”