"Hyop. That's the thing," said Sandboys. "They put his picture in that as one o' the sights. They called him 'A Rollic of the Past: The last of the Pemmijehosophats.' He used to make a good many people nervous, the way he eyed their hair, for, as I've said, although he'd become more or less civilized, it wasn't in him not to covet other people's hair. About that time there was an awfully pretty girl here from down South somewheres—Conneticut, I think. She was a regular belle, and she had the finest yeller hair you ever see. Every night she'd be out rowin' on the lake with all the legible young men in the place; but all of a sudden she didn't come down to breakfast one morning. She had it sent up, an' her mother looked very anxious when she came down and said her daughter was very sick. Then two other ladies didn't appear any more, and a very well known old lady remarked in my hearin' that there was a thief in the house—she'd lost a switch. Well, that set me to thinkin', but I couldn't come to any conclusion until one night I took a pitcher of ice-water up to the Conneticut young lady's room, and, by Joe, there she sat readin', with scarcely no hair at all on her head."
"Scalped?" cried Bob, in horror.
"Not a bit of it," said Sandboys. "Robbed! An' then it all came to me. That old last of the Pemicans had spoke several times about her hair to me, an' I could see he was kind of thirsty for it, an' I made up my mind to two things. First was, Miss Conneticut's hair was nothin' but a wig; and second, old Rocky Face had it. I stole into his room that night when he was at supper and opened his trunk. Will you believe it, it was full o' false hair, an' in an old hat-box in one corner was the beautiful yeller locks of Miss Conneticut. That feller'd scalped enough bureaus to fill three good-sized mattresses."
"As much as that?" cried Jack.
"Hyop!" said Sandboys. "Most o' the ladies didn't like to mention it, but there was hardly one of 'em that hadn't lost two or three headsful to that old sinner, and I found it out. Of course I told the proprietor, and the hair was restored to its owners. Miss Conneticut appeared again, more popular than ever, and old Rocky Face was sent to jail, and he's never come out as I know of."
"Well, that is a singular story," said Bob.
"Isn't it," said Jack. "I should think Miss Conneticut ought to have been very much obliged to you."
"She was," replied Sandboys. "She gave me twenty-five dollars—five for findin' the wig, and twenty for keepin' quiet about it around the hotel. That's one reason I can't remember her real name."