“But—but—” said little Charlie Cardridge who was present, and overhearing the conversation wished to show that some of the property in the room did belong to his father, “that’s father’s. Looks like his, anyway.” He was pointing at the flask found in Walter’s pocket and now standing on the sill of a window in the station. The flask was handed to Charlie. Turning it over, he exclaimed, “There’s a C! That is father’s.”
In the bottom of the flask the letter C had been blown, and it now proved who the real owner of that mysterious property had been.
“No doubt about it!” declared Tom Walker, who with others of the crew had come into the kitchen. “No doubt about it! There was an exchange of blouses by the owner of the flask, and the latter was left by Joe as a witness agin Walter. A pretty deep game! Walter, give us your hand. I knew before though that you were all right.”
Tom gripped Walter’s hand as if it were a pump–handle on a dry, hot, thirsty day. Others congratulated Walter, and none more readily than the keeper.
There was no investigation by the district superintendent when he arrived, and the news of the wreck brought him the next day.
CHAPTER XX.
CHRISTMAS.
Uncle Boardman was destined to have a Christmas present. At least, he began to think it looked like it, for there behind the kitchen stove, swinging from the wooden shelf over the fire–place, was Uncle Boardman’s stocking on Christmas morning. If it were a joke, too bad to send a man barefoot over the cold floors hunting up his property. It was an enormous stocking. No mean, puny leg did Uncle Boardman carry about, and the stocking corresponded. It was a blue stocking, and it was thick and warm. What was a stocking for Uncle Boardman by day, would have made a good blanket for any baby by night. Uncle Boardman looked at the stocking and grinned. “Can’t be anything in it,” he said. “I thought Lydia and I gave up such things long ago.”