l. There
isn't another fellow in all Riverport who could get up such a
combination. Buck's as full of schemes as an egg is of meat. That's why
the others all flock after him. He's got the brains, and carries the
money too."

"Now, while it seems that Bristles didn't call me up, and beg me to come
over, as we're already part way there, we might as well finish the lap,
Colon."

"Oh! you know I gave him to understand that maybe we might run in on
him," he was told by the other.

"But it's too bad," remarked Fred, grinning broadly.

"About what?" demanded his friend.

"We're going to be badly disappointed, I'm afraid."

"We are, eh? I'd like to know how that comes, Fred?"

"Why, we laid out to hear the most thrilling thing that ever happened,
you see," the other told him, in a voice of mock disappointment. "When
Bristles with the muffled voice and the bad cold told me he'd just burst
if he didn't have someone to confide in right soon, he got me worked up
to fever pitch. Now I've had to cool down. There isn't going to be any
development. Our hair won't have to stand tip on end like the quills of
the fretful porcupine. In so many words, Colon, it's all off, you know."

"I'm afraid it is, Fred," admitted the other, sadly, "and I'm some
disappointed, too, because you had my curiosity whetted up. Why, I
couldn't begin to tell you all I expected to hear when Bristles got busy.
Course, knowing about that Corny as you did, it was easy to figure out
how he might be the one Bristles meant to tell about. Well, that ends
it, and Fred, hadn't we better be hunching out of this, if you think
there's no more hats or other trophies of the great victory lying
around?"

"Yes, we'll be over at Bristles' place inside of five minutes more," Fred
announced.

"If he happened to have his window open I wouldn't be surprised if he
heard us carrying on high over here in the field," suggested Colon, and
there was an air of expectancy in his voice, as though such a thing would
not have been at all unpleasant to him.

"One thing sure," Fred asserted, confidently, "he'll kick up an awful row
just because he didn't happen to be in the little affair. Bristles never
wants anyone to get ahead of him, when there's action stirring."

"No more he does," Colon echoed. "Here, suppose you keep this old hat.
I'm given to being careless, and I'd be apt to drop it somewhere. No
danger of you doing that, Fred; you're always as particular a