“Not exactly,” Teddy replied. “But we are on the trail of a mysterious deer and we want to find the man who lassoed me with star heel plates.”
“Lassoed you with star heel plates?” cried Mr. Crispen. “Land sakes, I never heard of such a thing!”
“I mean,” went on Teddy with a laugh, “a man lassoed me with a rope. We think he did it by mistake. Then he ran away but we saw where he had been standing. And he had star heel plates. So we thought maybe you could give us the clue to the man.”
“And you could,” put in Joe, “if you could find his name.”
“Oh, I can find his name, once I put my mind to it,” said the old cobbler. “But what has this got to do with a mysterious deer?”
“I’ll tell you about that,” Teddy said. He and his chums related the story, including the last episode of the lassoing of Teddy.
“So what you really want to do,” said Mr. Crispen, “is to catch that deer, isn’t it? The deer that ate up Mrs. Traddle’s garden. You want the deer.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Teddy and his chums.
“Well,” said the cobbler as he again sat at his bench, “I can tell you a better way to catch the deer than by looking for a man with star heel plates.”
“How?” asked the three boys together.