“Oh, I’m a good scout,” laughed Roy. “I’m not thinking about you; I’m selfish. I’m the one that hauled Tom across, you know, and I’ve got my reputation to look after. That’s all I care about.”
Mr. Ellsworth smiled.
“I’m going to dig out the truth about this between now and to-morrow morning. I may have to trespass even, but I should worry. What are you going to do?”
“Nothing to-night. In the morning I’ll see Mr. Temple and also Tom, and see if I can’t get him to talk. What else can I do? What are you going to do?”
“I decline to be interviewed,” Roy laughed.
“Well, don’t you get into any trouble, Roy.”
After the boy had gone, Mr. Ellsworth picked up his own copy of the Handbook for Boys, and looked with a wistful smile at the picturesque, natty youngster on the cover, holding the red flags. It always reminded him of Roy.
Roy was satisfied that the only hope of learning anything was to visit the scene of Tom’s suspicious, or at least unexplained, departure from the Temple house. About this he knew no more than what the constable had said, but he firmly believed that whatever Tom had done and wherever he had gone, it had been for a purpose. He did not believe that Tom had taken the pin, but he felt certain that if he had been tempted to, he (Roy) would have seen him do so. For a scout is not only loyal, he is watchful. His confidence in Tom, no less than his confidence in himself, made him morally certain that his friend was innocent; and Tom’s own demeanor at the time of his arrest made him doubly certain.
A little before dark, Roy put on his Indian moccasins, took his pocket flashlight and a good stock of matches, and started for Five Oaks. Reaching there, he made sure the veranda was deserted (for which fact he had to thank the chill air) and found it easy to trace Tom’s footprints around to the back of the house through the almost bare earth of the new lawn.
In the little recess by the pantry window he felt more secure. The play of his flashlight quickly discovered the painty smear on the windowsill and he examined it closely, as Tom had recently done, but Roy’s mental alertness saved him time and trouble. Instead of trying to pick out footprints across the back lawn, he hurried across it, ran along to the end of the fence, and then back again, closely watching the upper rail by the aid of his light. Sure enough, there was a faint smootch of paint and by this easy discovery he had saved himself several hundred feet of difficult tracking. Better still, his own suspicions and the servants’ original story were confirmed.