Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/387

 the money that Mr. Hanson had paid for their property, but said nothing about paying for the rods that belonged to Tom Bigden and his cousins.

"Hadn't you better take them all?" asked the landlord. "You say that the boys from whom these rods were stolen live in Mount Airy, and perhaps they would be grateful to you for returning them."

"I think we'd better not have any thing to do with them," said Arthur. "But we'll forward them a dispatch and let them send or come after the rods. They've nothing else to do."

There was telegraphic communication between Indian Lake and Mount Airy, by the way of New London, and Arthur wrote and sent off the dispatch before he left the hotel. If he and his chums had been able to look far enough into the future to see every thing that was to result from this simple act, they would have been greatly astonished. I know I was when I heard the full particulars.

In a few minutes the expected guide came down to the beach and gave the skiff a careful