“Maybe,” said Bob. He moved over to the thief. “Now, my friend, you stole about sixty-nine dollars from us, and two watches.”
The head shook vehemently.
“Oh, yes, you did,” answered Bob. “Although if you hadn’t been fool enough to leave a message behind you we wouldn’t have known it was you, and you wouldn’t be in your present fix. It ought to be a lesson to you not to rush into print—or writing, either. You’re not the first man who’s got into trouble through writing a letter. Now then!”
They ripped open his ragged coat, and went through the pockets, but the only things to reward their search were a sandwich wrapped in a piece of newspaper, a piece of lead pipe, about four inches long, with a short length of rope run through it for a handle, some tobacco and a corncob pipe, a ragged red bandanna handkerchief, and a handsome new clasp knife.
“Shows where some of the money went,” commented Dan.
Then they searched his trousers. From a hip pocket came a half-filled, yellow glass bottle. Bob sniffed it, and threw it across the hut.
“Whisky, I guess,” he muttered. “Smells bad enough.”
At that moment Nelson gave a shout, and held up his gold watch.
“Bully!” cried Dan.