Dorothy.

"I don't know anything about their old robbery," said the boy, angrily.
"That man from the store kept coming here and threatening to put me in
jail. And I didn't want to go to jail. I guess I wouldn't have had any
worse time than I _did_ have. For when Laura found me I hadn't eaten
anything but a handful of berries that I could reach on that ledge, for
'most two days!"

"Oh, oh! How dreadful!" cried the twins.

"Guess I should have died," Billy said, more cheerfully, enjoying the
sensation he was creating. "And you bet that stuff I swiped out of your
boats last Saturday a week ago, just came in handy."

"Oh, Billy! was that you?" demanded Dora.

"The lone pirate!" gasped Dorothy.

"And all those whiskers----"

Short and Long laughed weakly. "That wig and whiskers I had last Hallow
E'en; don't you remember? I saw you girls a couple of times, too."

"And we saw you and thought you might be one of the robbers, after all."

"That's all right; I didn't do any robbing, except of your boats," said
Billy. "But there were two fellows over on the island who I believe
_did_ rob that store."

"No!" cried the girls.

"Yes."

"Oh, tell us all about it," urged the girls again, just as eager to hear
the particulars as though it were a story out of a book. And it _did_
sound like a story; only Billy Long was much too much in earnest to make
it up. Besides, he had learned a lesson during his weeks of "hiding
out."

"I was scart--of course I was," he said. "What fellow wouldn't be? That
detective from the store said they'd put me in jail till I'd told--and
I'd been tellin' him the truth right along.

"So I got up early that morning to go fishing. I knew where the white
perch were thick as sprats. I got Mr. Norman's boat; but I knew he
wouldn't mind. And I went over to Boulder Head. As I was starting to
fish I heard two men talking just in the mouth of the old cavern. They
were quarreling. I guess they must have been foreigners; I couldn't
understand all they said. But I got enough of their broken-English talk
to understand that one of them had hidden some money in a tight-covered
lard can, and part of the money the other fellow claimed."

Dora pinched Dorothy, and looked at her knowingly. But it wasn't until
afterward that Dorothy understood what her twin meant by _that_.

"So I got interested in them, believing that they might be the real
burglars, and I forgot the boat. When they went away and I went back t