"If you please," replied Russ, "we didn't mean to ask about your fish, though we're sorry you lost any. But have you daddy's papers?"
"Daddy's papers? I don't know what you mean," the man said.
"Aren't you a lumberman?" asked Laddie, not liking to use the name "tramp," as the man, though he did have on a ragged coat, did not seem like the lazy wanderers who prowl about the country asking for food but not wanting to work.
"No, I'm not a lumberman," said the man. "What makes you ask that?"
"Well, you look like the lumberman—only he was a tramp—that my father gave a ragged coat to," went on Russ. "And there were real estate papers in the coat, and daddy wants 'em back."
"Ha! Is that so?" asked the man, "Well, I'm sorry but I don't know anything about 'em. I never saw your father that I know of, though I do know Mrs. Bell. I live on the other side of the lake. But I come over here fishing once in a while."
"And haven't you daddy's papers?" asked Laddie.
"No, I'm sorry to say I haven't."
"But you have red hair," went on the little boy.
"Yes, my hair is red all right," laughed the man, as he ran his hand through the fiery curls on his head. "My hair is very red. Sometimes I wish it wasn't so red. But it's of no use to worry about it, I suppose. But what has my red hair to do with your father's papers?"