Walter was somewhat nettled and he replied rather tartly, “I said that there is another pair of boots in camp that might have made those prints.”
“Whose are they?” Chip demanded.
Again Walter hesitated, and grew uncomfortably red in the face. “What is the honor of a Scout?” he asked abruptly. “Has one Scout any right to cast suspicion on the honor of another Scout? I don’t believe that the owner of this second pair of boots knows any more than we do about Mother Merriam’s pin, but if I should tell you who he is you couldn’t help but wonder, and wondering, that kind of wondering, leads to suspicion. You couldn’t help it. Until this thing is cleared up you couldn’t look that fellow straight in the face with quite the same feeling you do now. I didn’t mean to say anything about it, but I had to to show how little real evidence Pat’s boots afford. By the way, Chip, do you know just which nails are missing from Pat’s boot, and which three were lacking in those prints?”
Chip confessed that this was a detail he had wholly overlooked.
“Then that’s where we all fall down on the footprint clue,” said Walter. “Strikes me we’re blamed poor Scouts. The prints are gone now, and if we had both pairs of boots here what good would they do us? Without knowing which nails were missing in the prints we couldn’t tell which boots made ’em, and there you are! We’d simply be all the more suspicious of the owner of the second pair of boots.”
Tug arose and impulsively held out his hand. “Shake, old man! I for one don’t want to know who owns those boots. My, my, this business is bad enough as it is!” he said.
“Them’s my sentiments too,” Chip broke in. “It’s bad enough to suspect one fellow outside the camp, and I should hate awfully to have that kind of feeling about a brother Scout.”
Walter’s face cleared as the three shook hands. “I’m glad you fellows see it that way,” he said. “We leave matters right where they were then, do we?”
“Sure thing!” Tug spoke emphatically. “Mum’s the word. We’ll just keep up our quiet little hunt and say nothin’. Gee, but I would hate awfully to think that maybe some of the fellers thought I was a thief! Of course I’m naturally curious about that other pair of boots, but I wouldn’t listen now if you tried to tell me, for just as sure as little fishes have tails I’d get to thinkin’ about that feller in a way I wouldn’t want anybody to think of me. Funny about those boots of Pat’s, ain’t it? You don’t suppose Hal gave ’em to him to pay for—— Oh, rats! There it is! It’s with Hal just like it would be with the owner of that second pair of boots. We don’t like him. He’s licked us to a frazzle fishin’, and here we are suspectin’ he ain’t on the level. Let’s cut it out! Say, I’ve got an idea!”
“Phew! You don’t say! I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Tug,” drawled Chip. “Hold it down with both hands ’til Walter can identify it.”