The trot was started up again, heads erect, shoulders back, and elbows in—regular marathon for the beach on this perfect summer's day.
"Look here!" called Cleo. "Here's another message about—fire-bugs. See it spells: 'L-O-O-K O-U-T'" she figured it out in the sand. "There, would you ever think one would be so daring?"
They all paused to read the letters so crudely forked in the wet sand.
"Yes," insisted Julia. "There's 'bug.' Guess they didn't dare write the word 'fire'."
A lone figure on a lone bench up near the boardwalk attracted their attention at the same moment.
"If there isn't our boy!" exclaimed Louise. "Now, doesn't that almost prove him guilty?"
"No, it doesn't," objected his champion, Grace. "He's too far away—besides——"
"Any one could make letters in the sand," put in Julia. "Think of the hundreds of children who played here all morning. Come on," and she started the race again.
But they had scarcely gone a hundred yards when she stopped very suddenly.
"Oh, mercy!" she screamed. "I stepped on——"