Almost on top of the introductions he hurried out, “To get out there where the airplane cracked up and see what’s what!” he explained.
“He takes it mighty hard, he does,” Barney told the youths. “No wonder. He’s Mr. Tredway’s partner.”
“But there isn’t any real certainty that anything terrible happened to Mr. Tredway,” asserted Curt. “He might have jumped clear.”
“Yes, and maybe he was hurt, and managed to swim off to some part of the shore and wasn’t able to go any further. They haven’t searched every possible spot have they?” Al was hopeful.
“I’m afraid they have,” Barney replied. “Furthermore, there are so many soft, muddy sink-holes in Rocky Lake——”
“Do you agree with what the people in the plant are saying?” Al asked.
“I don’t know, my lad. You see, it’s a good idea, having you here. When I’m around the people shut their mouths. But you hear things. What are they saying?”
“They think it’s something worse than missing parts and damage done to the ‘crates’,” Al answered and explained, calling on Curt and Bob for their versions of the talk.
“Hm-m-m. Well, Al, I think—if I were you—I wouldn’t listen to the talk around the plant too hard. Pick it up, of course, but don’t go making any theories of your own out of it.” Barney explained that people buzzed like a lot of flies every time anything happened, and that many of the less sensible ones, liking to be “in the limelight,” worked up almost idiotic theories. Usually, if they were accepted, they led to unjust suspicions, he argued.
“Those scatter-brains only want an audience to listen to them,” he declared. “I’d advise you to listen and let it go out the other ear. Otherwise you may get off onto the wrong notion. Better watch out for suspicious actions, and leave the theories to Mr. Wright.”