ed up on the shore of the lake.

"It's almost like the seashore," said Rose, when she came back from having
given her rubber doll a dip in the lake, "only the water doesn't taste
salty like when you cry tears."

"I like it here," said Vi. "I wish we could stay always."

The children were having lots of fun when, in the midst of their play,
they heard the sound of water being splashed and the noise made by the
oars of a boat. Looking up, they saw a rowboat not far from shore, and in
it sat a big man.

And, at the sight of this man, Russ dropped the chip he was floating
about, pretending it was a submarine, and, in a whisper, said:

"Hi, Laddie! do you see his hair?"

"Yes--it's red," returned Laddie.

"Well, maybe that's the tramp lumberman that took daddy's old coat and
real estate papers," went on Russ. "He had red hair! Maybe this is the
same one! Oh, Laddie! If it should be!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE DOLL'S BUTTONS

For a little while Laddie and Russ watched the man in the boat as he rowed
slowly toward the sandy point of land in the lake, on which the six little
Bunkers were playing. The man's hair was certainly very red. The sun shone
on it, and Russ and Laddie could see it quite plainly. And, too, he had on
a ragged coat.

Rose and the other children were farther in toward shore, playing away.
Laddie and Russ, as the two older boys of the family, thought they ought
to do something toward getting back Daddy Bunker's papers.

"He's coming nearer," said Laddie, in a whisper to his brother.

"Yes," agreed Russ. "He'll soon be near enough for us to ask him if he's
got 'em."

The red-haired man in the boat rowed nearer and nearer to the sandy point
in Lake Sagatook. He did not seem to see the two small boys who were so
anxiously waiting for him.

"What's he doing?" asked Laddie, for the man now and then would stop
rowing and handle something he had in front of him.

"He's fishing," said Russ. "I can see his pole."

Laddie saw it too, a moment later. The man in the boat was a fisherman.

Pretty soon he was near enough for the boys to call to him.

"Hey!" exclaimed Russ. "Have you got 'em?"

He supposed, of course, that the man would know what he was talking about.
And so it might seem, for the man made answer:

"Well, I had 'em but I lost 'em. But I'll get 'em again."

"Oh, daddy will be so glad!" cried Laddie. "Did you lose 'em out of your
coat?"

The man looked up quickly.

"Lose 'em out