Page:The Eight-Oared Victors.djvu/100

88 Not far from the spot where Tom and his chums had found the rifled jewelry box Tom saw a sort of shack, or small hut, off between the trees.

"I wonder whose that is?" he ventured. "Let's go take a look."

"It doesn't seem very inviting," returned Ruth. "Perhaps some boatmen live there."

The shack was deserted, but a look through the grimy windows showed that it probably had an occupant, for there were some dishes on a table, some pans on a rusty stove, and, in through another room, could be seen some bunks.

"Probably a caretaker for the cottages," suggested Ruth, as she rested her hand on a window—sillwindow-sill [sic], and idly pulled out some threads that had caught in a splinter. "Rather a strange sort of caretaker," she went in, "who wears silk—see, these are silk threads," and she held up a number, brightly colored.

"Where did you get those?" asked Tom, and the girl started at the strange note in his voice.

"On the window sill," she explained. "Why?"

"Oh—nothing," was his answer, but she noted that he took the threads from her, and carefully put them in a card case. "They might do to make a fishing fly with," he explained, after a pause.

"Oh," she said. They strolled around to the front door of the building to find it locked.