"Oh! he turned to look back a few times, but all the same he disappeared from sight. Perhaps next time he won't be quite so frightened," Owen observed.
"There may be some reason for it we don't know about," suggested Max.
"You mean that they don't want people to know about their collecting these shells, for fear that their little business might be broken up?" Steve asked.
"That's one reason why they'd try to hide things," Max admitted, "but there might be another. I spoke of it before, you may remember, boys?"
"Sure you did, Max," declared Steve, quickly; "and mebbe you hit the bullseye when you said this man might be hiding out up here—that p'r'aps he'd gone and done something to break the law; and when he saw our guns he expected we might be sent by the sheriff to arrest him."
"I still stick to that idea," Max declared; "but we may know the truth sooner or later. One thing we must do if ever we get the chance, and that is let these shell gatherers know we don't mean to harm 'em even a little bit."
"But they've just got to let our pearls be, or else they're going to get into trouble, that's what," remarked the pugnacious Steve, with a determined shake of his head and a gritting of his teeth.
Max saw and heard, and was more deeply bewildered than ever. He could not for the life of him understand such contrary actions on the part of Steve.
Max could positively declare that he had seen Steve taking something from the haversack on the preceding night, when their first prize pearl vanished so mysteriously; and yet here he was apparently aroused over their loss, and denouncing the thief with greater vim than any of the rest.
"But I'm bound to find out what it all means," Max consoled himself by saying over and over. "If it takes all summer I'll fight it out on this line, like Grant did in the Battles of the Wilderness. Steve acts like he was innocent; but I guess I've got a pair of good eyes, and it was him I saw fumbling at the haversack, all right."