“Just wait—that’s all,” was Tom’s final advice. In the exuberance of his youth he imagined, that, should it prove that Boswell had bought Ruth’s pin from the Mexican, the brooch could, by some means or other, be recovered.
“And now I am up against it,” he went on, still communing with himself, after he had left Ruth. “I can’t get the boys to help me, so I’ve got to go alone. And what’s the first thing to be done?”
There were several points that needed clearing up.
“In the first place,” reasoned Tom, “if Mendez had the brooch, which was in the jewel box, he has, or had, the other things. The question is—has he them yet? If he sold Boswell the pin he may have sold the other articles. I guess the only thing for me to do is to try and get in his shack—when he’s not home. It would be a ticklish piece of work to stumble in there, and be searching about, and have him find me. I wonder if I can get in when he’s out? He does go out quite often.”
Tom went on to camp, and his absentmindedness caused his chums no little wonder, until Sid exclaimed:
“Oh, it’s all right—Tom’s got the symptoms.”
“What symptoms?” demanded our hero.
“The love symptoms. A lovers’ quarrel made up is worse than falling in at first. Look out!” for Tom had shied a shoe at his tormentor.
“Practice to-day,” announced Frank, the next morning. “Mr. Pierson said he’d be over early and we’ve got to go down and get the shell. He’s going to put us through a course of sprouts to-day.”
“All right,” yawned Tom, with a fine appearance of indifference. “But I’ve got to mix the stuff for cake if I’m going to bake it.” He had promised to show his skill in pastry-making. “So if you fellows will go down and get the shell I’ll be ready when you come back.”