“Well, you hid the jewelry away, and you ought to know where you put it!” said one voice.
“Yes, I put it in a hollow tree, but now I can’t find the tree,” growled another voice. “You all saw me hide it!”
“Yes, but maybe you came and took it away when we didn’t know it,” said another. “Where is that jewelry?”
“In the hollow tree, I tell you! But I don’t know which one. We hid it in such a hurry that I have forgotten!”
Then the voices grew more harsh and angry, and Toto, looking through a bush, saw the same ragged men, one of them red-haired, that he had seen before when they robbed the home of the little girl’s grandmother.
“I guess I’d better not let them see me,” thought Toto. “I don’t want to be caught again!” So he slipped around the tramps sitting in the woods, and a little later Toto came within sight of the beaver pond. He saw his brother Sniffy on top of the dam, mending a hole with some clay and grass roots.
“Sniffy! Sniffy! Here I am!” called Toto. “I’m home again!”