“Chips, how did you happen to find it here?” asked Mack with a shudder.
“Oh, I was just walking along the beach,” the boy answered vaguely. “There it was in the sand.”
Brad bent down to examine the bones and the grinning skull.
“Don’t touch the thing,” Fred said, pulling back. “I’ll call my father.”
“Wait a minute,” Brad stopped him. “Chips, you say you just happened along here and found this skeleton?”
“It was exactly where you see it now.”
“Sure it was! After you put it there!”
“Why, such an accusation,” Chips protested, but his grin gave him away. “Okay, Wise Guy!”
“I’m wise enough to know varnish when I see it! These bones all have been treated. So ’fess up, Chips. Where did you get the skeleton?”
“From the school laboratory,” the boy admitted with a laugh. “Professor Johnson let me borrow it to play a joke on the Cubs. It would have worked too, if you hadn’t been so smart.”