people."

Tom hurried off at once to obey the order, for such it was, though
Dick, as he almost always did, had put the order in the form of a
simple request. Then Dick looked more carefully at the things that had
fallen from the pockets.

"Hello!" he cried, suddenly. "Say, Jack, look here! Here's a letter
postmarked from Woodleigh. That's where you came from, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is!" cried Jack, on the alert, as always, at a sign of any
sort from the town where he had spent his boyhood.

"I think we've got a right to open this," said Dick, "though looking at
letters that aren't addressed to one is pretty small business, as a
rule. However, when people do the sort of thing that these fellows so
nearly got away with tonight they don't have a right to expect decent
treatment from others."

He looked grave when he had finished reading.

"This letter seems to concern you, Jack," he said. "It's from a lawyer
up there, and it's addressed to a man called Silas Broom, at the
General Delivery window of the post office in the city here. It says
that the boy Jack Danby, about whom Mr. Broom was making inquiries,
left Woodleigh some months ago, and has since, it is supposed, been
working near here. Now why does anyone want to know about you? And
why does this fellow Broom, if that is really his name, have to hear
this? He is a great scoundrel, whatever his name is."

"You quit callin' my husband names. Who are you, I'd like to know?"

The older woman emerged suddenly from the hut, in time to hear Dick's
last words, and she faced him now like a fury, her arms akimbo, and her
eyes snapping. She looked around suspiciously, too.

"Where's Silas?" she asked, angrily. "What have you done with him?
Ain't those his clothes there?"

She snatched the clothes up in an instant. Before Dick, who was
astonished by her appearance, could check her she had torn the coat
from his hands.

"Silas!" she yelled. "Where are you, honey?"

"Here I am--out in the woods," cried her husband, frantically.
"They've stolen my clothes, Carrie. Get 'em, and bring 'em here, will
you?"

"Comin'!" she called, and darted off with surprising speed, considering
her weight and the terrible exhaustion that had seemed to afflict her
when she was being brought ashore from the launch.

Dick and the two Scouts were laughing, although a bit ruefully, as she
vanished.

"I can't touch a woman," said Dick, sadly. "I'm afraid I'll have to
admi