"What do you mean? How can that be?"
"He was to row around the creek near the landing; but for the last hour no one has seen him, and, what is more, the boat can't be found. Long Jim an' his friend haven't come ashore, as near as I can make out, an' it looks to me as if that foolish Sam has got into trouble through trying to play detective."
CHAPTER XV.
SAM'S ADVENTURES.
In order to explain Sam's absence, and one or two other incidents in their regular sequence, it is necessary to go back to the moment when, his friends having landed, the amateur detective was left to his own devices.
His first impulse was to report his arrival to the manager of the boat exhibit, and then go about his routine duties, but before this very proper plan could be carried into effect he chanced to see Hazelton on the shore.
"Now, what's he layin' around there for?" Sam asked of himself. "I'll bet Dan or Teddy has given the whole snap away, an' he's come to pull in the burglars. It's a mighty mean trick for them to play after I've worked the case so far that there's nothing to do but nab 'em. He'll get all the praise, an' folks won't know the job was managed by me."
The longer Sam thought of this apparent ingratitude and treachery on the part of Teddy and Dan the more angry he grew, and it did not require many moments' thought for him to succeed in convincing himself that he had been very shabbily treated.
Continuing to talk to himself, or rather at the tiller, on which his eyes were fixed, he added: