“As I live and breathe—it looks—but I won’t believe it! Not Billy Parks. He’s——”
“All right, sir,” Larry said. “We thought we ought to report what came into our minds. But we can’t prove anything, of course.”
“All right, my boy. Watch him, trail him, whatever you like. I’ll give you each a thousand dollars if you can prove——”
“How can we, unless we catch him—and the emeralds are gone——”
The millionaire swung on Sandy as the youth spoke.
“Wait—let me finish. A thousand dollars if you’ll prove—Parks is innocent!”
“Oh!”
He turned, dismissing them as he greeted his cousin, Miss Serena, who had declared that his wife would be better off alone to rest in the quiet camp in Maine. Miss Serena, with a will of her own, had come back, determined, if the rich man proposed to stay at his old estate, that she would assemble a group of servants and manage the house for him. The three chums sidled out, neither of the three counting on the payment of that, to them, large sum.
“There’s money we’ll never get,” said Sandy.
The others agreed.