“Oh! you’re away off there,” cried the fat boy, derisively. “Why, you couldn’t guess the truth in a month of Sundays, Josh. It takes real brains to figure out a solution to a mystery like that. And I did it, all by my little self.”
“Great governor!” ejaculated George, “listen to him, would you, fellows? Honest now, if it don’t sound as if he’d found out where that leak lay. Here, Buster, it isn’t fair to keep us on the ragged edge so long. Open up now, and explain. Did anybody talk in their sleep? Who told Clarence our plans?”
“You did, George; yes, and so did Jack and Herb and Josh—I guess Jimmie and myself had a hand in it too!” laughed the fat boy, to their great mystification!
[CHAPTER XXIII—HAPPY DAYS—CONCLUSION]
“Poor old Buster! He’s sure getting weak in the upper story,” said George.
“It’s going to be a strait-jacket for him before long!” sighed Josh.
But Jack spoke not a word; for he could somehow see further than the rest of the boys, and understood that Nick held a strong hand.
“Oh! is that the way you’re thinking?” said the fat boy, still trembling with the violence of his excitement. “Just wait till I read this little letter, and then if you’re honest you’ll do the right thing by poor old Buster.”
“He’s going to read Rosie’s little note to us, fellows!” cried Josh, pretending to be horror-stricken at such a base betrayal of confidence.
“Who said it was from Rosie, or any girl at all?” demanded Nick, indignantly. “Look at the name signed at the bottom, and you can read Aleck. Yes, it’s from my old friend, Aleck Sands. I wrote him a week ago, when that bright thought first dazzled me. And you remember, when Josh here gave me that start by talking through that old rusted tin water pipe? Well, that made me believe harder than before that I’d got on the track.”