They looked to him as a mentor, nor were any of them in the least offended when he restrained their headlong rush.
"In what way, Owen?" asked Steve.
"You see, it's like this," the other went on. "From what Max and I learned, we don't fancy there can be any great quantity of these mussels up here. Perhaps we won't find a single one along the other little stream, which they call the Elder River."
"How about that, Max?" asked Bandy-legs.
"It's the simple truth. I was told we might get a few of the shellfish up along the Big Sunflower, but none in the water of the other creek," replied the one addressed.
"H-h-how do they account f-for that?" asked Toby, always eager to learn.
"Must be something in the water that prevents mussels from breeding in the Elder," Owen replied; and so great was the confidence those fellows placed in the knowledge of their bookworm chum that not one of them dreamed of disputing his theory.
"Go on, please," Steve remarked. "You had it on your tongue to say something more, didn't you, Owen?"
"Only this. We might scrape in a hundred, five hundred or a thousand shellfish, and not be able to duplicate this lovely little gem once."
"T-t-that's so," observed Toby. "They s-s-say pearl hunting's the b-b-biggest lottery in the whole w-w-world."