“It wasn’t dark last night until nine o’clock, daylight saving time,” Osceola explained patiently. “Also, last night there was a heavy dew, even you can see it on the grass still, and—”
“And the silver dollar was wet while the leaf remained bone dry, showing that said cartwheel was dropped early in the evening!”
“You certainly are the boy to ring the quoits,” mocked the chief. “But now that we know all about it, we really aren’t much forwarder. I don’t suppose you’ve missed anything in your room? You haven’t said anything about it.”
“No,” Bill said thoughtfully, “I haven’t noticed anything, but we’d better go in and have a look. I wonder who that bird was and what he wanted. Funny! Nothing was disturbed so far as I can remember.”
The two tall lads turned back toward the house.
“And there’s where our second-story aviator swung off the grass on to the drive when he was going home,” exclaimed Osceola, pointing to a thin spot on the gravel which bore a well-defined footprint, pointing toward the road. “If it was worth while, which it isn’t, we could probably find the tire-marks of the car he drove off in beyond the stone fence down yonder.”
Bill grunted. “When you say ‘second story,’ you probably hit the nail on the head. In future we’ll substitute worker for aviator, if you don’t mind. There are a lot of bum flyers with licenses, and a lot of bums who fly, but I wouldn’t insult the worst of them by classing him with a cheap sneak thief.”
“Maybe,” remarked Osceola, “he wasn’t so cheap at that. But we’ll soon find out.”
They went up the front veranda steps, into the house and upstairs to Bill’s room.
“I don’t run to jewelry,” observed Bill, his eyes travelling around the bedroom, “but he hasn’t touched my silver-backed brushes, or that string of cups on the mantelpiece. And the maids didn’t report any silver missing downstairs, either. I wonder what in thunder he was after.”