“Here ’tis.” The shuffling old tramp drew from a pocket of his ragged coat a tangled mass of broken sticks, brown paper and string.
Tom took the tattered stuff and smoothed it out. Slowly he assembled it into a small kite of the kind that needs no tail to be sent up, a curve of the cross stick and the consequent bellying of the loose paper serving to hold the wind against the kite’s surface. From the center of the kite a piece of the paper had been torn. This piece was represented by the fragment containing the message appealing for help. Tom fitted it in and proved that this part of the old tramp’s tale was true.
“It looks as if there might be something in it, Tom,” said Mr. Damon.
“Yes. But whether this will help us find Ned or not is another question. You say this kite was blown to where you were in the field?” Tom asked the old fellow.
“Yes, boss. It come down right near my fire.”
“From which direction?”
The tramp considered for a moment and answered.
“Right from the south.”
Tom knew that the prevailing winds at this time of year in the vicinity of Shopton, where he lived, were from the south. So far the tramp had not tripped himself up.
“What do you make of it, Tom?” asked the eccentric man as he began an examination of the remains of the kite.