his is the queerest thing I ever heard of!" Johnnie exclaimed. "Here
are my initials already cut!"

Red could not believe him, until he had peered at Timothy's shell
himself. And then he saw that what Johnnie had said was true.

"There's a date, too," Johnnie pointed out. And he read it aloud.
"That's more'n thirty years ago," he declared.

But the red-haired boy laughed boisterously.

"Shucks!" he jeered. "Somebody's been playin' a joke on you. Somebody
knew you were lookin' for this old turtle and put your initials and that
old date on him just to puzzle you."

Johnnie Green didn't know exactly what to think. But probably he was no
more upset than was Timothy Turtle, who was not having a good time at
all.

"I don't care if some one did catch this turtle first," Johnnie said at
last. "I'm going to carve my mark on him just the same."

So he began to cut "J. G." in the exact center of the back of Timothy
Turtle, much to that old fellow's rage.

And when Johnnie Green had finished the letters he cut the date below
them.

"What you goin' to do with him now?" Red asked Johnnie then.

"Turn him loose!" Johnnie replied.

"Aw--don't do that! Lemme have him!" Red coaxed.

Johnnie Green said that he was sorry--but he intended to set his captive
free, just as he had planned.

He soon found that turning Mr. Turtle loose was no easy matter. Strange
to say, Timothy Turtle did nothing to help. On the contrary, he made the
task as hard as he could for Johnnie Green, trying his best to bite that
young man.

In the end Johnnie had to cut the rope that held Timothy's head. And
when that furious old fellow at last found himself in Black Creek once
more he still wore a noose of rope, like a collar, around his neck.

* * * * *

When Johnnie Green told his father about his adventure with Timothy
Turtle, he had a great surprise. Farmer Green said that when he was just
about Johnnie's age he had cut _his_ initials on a turtle, down by the
creek.

Now, since Johnnie was named for his father, their initials had to be
alike. So the J. G.--and the old date--that Johnnie had found must have
been carved by Farmer Green when he was a youngster.

Somehow, Johnnie found it very hard to imagine that his father had ever
been a boy like himself and had spent his time playing near the creek,
and carving his initials on the back of a turtle.

"How old do you suppose that turtle is?" he asked his father