"The Sprigg baby. He was right in here among the lilac bushes and the soft little shoots had been tied together around him, so's he couldn't get away, like Moses an' the bulrushes. Right in here. Yer can see the place now."
Burton jumped the fence and went up to the place where the boys were.
"Was the baby lost?" he asked.
"Mrs. Sprigg thought it was all burned up, because she forgot it when she came down in a hurry, and she was carrying on just awful, and then the firemen found the baby in here among the bushes, and they most stepped on it before they saw it."
"Had it crawled in by itself?"
"Naw, it was tied in! See here. You can see the knots yet, only most of them have been pulled to pieces."
"Who tied it in?" pressed Burton, bending down to examine the knots. They certainly were peculiar. The lithe lilac twigs had been drawn together by a cord that ran in and out among them till they were twisted and woven together as though they were part of a basket. It was the knot of an experienced and skilful weaver.
"Mrs. Sprigg she says at Henry Underwood would be too durn mean to look out for the kid and she thinks it was sperrets. But if it was sperrets they could a took the baby clear over to some house, couldn't they? The branches was tied together so's they had to cut some of them to get the kid out. See, you can see here where they cut 'em."
Burton found that the theory advanced by the boys that the incendiary who had fired the house had also, in dramatic fashion, saved the life of the youngest of the Sprigg brood, by carrying the infant down from the second floor, and knotting the lilac shoots about it so that it could not crawl into danger, was the most popular byproduct of the fire. The story was in every one's mouth.
When he entered the dining-room at the hotel, he encountered Ralston.