Accordingly both the man of law and the boy got out of their machines and the next minute were bending intently above the maze of footmarks that Tom had noticed. It seemed plain enough that, as the boy had surmised, there had been a struggle there. No other explanation would fit the case. The grass was trampled down and twigs broken from the bushes in the vicinity of the tangle of footmarks.
“Well, I guess you are in the right about there having been a struggle here,” said the lawyer, “but we are not any nearer to knowing who engaged in it, what it was about, or anything else that might do us some good. I’m inclined to think——Bless my soul, boy, what’s the matter?”
Tom had flung himself forward with a joyous shout. His leap landed him on the edge of the thicket right alongside some object he had descried. He stooped swiftly and lifted it with a cry of triumph.
It was a square wooden box that the boy held up, and the keen-witted lawyer instantly guessed what it was.
“The model box!” he exclaimed.
“Yes! Hooray! We must be close on their tracks now.”
But oddly enough, as Tom with a flushed face set down the box and prepared to open it, the lawyer by no means seemed to share his satisfaction. It was incomprehensible to him that the men who had stolen the model would have thrown it away like that.
He was not surprised, therefore, when Tom, having opened the lid and peeped into the box, gave vent to a cry of chagrin.
It was perfectly empty.
“Just as I thought,” said the lawyer, rather grimly; “however, the finding of that box establishes one thing clearly enough.”