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Rh as easily as I can on this one? Isn't it as plain as can be?"

"Not altogether. We'd make fine specimens of ourselves if we went and accused him on this evidence. You say, Tom, that you found this card near the Mexican's shack?"

"Yes. And the shreds of silk there, too. It looks to me as if Bossy had been there to buy a handkerchief. Two of 'em, if we're to believe him. The Mexican probably has them as well as his 'push-work' as he calls it," and he told all the circumstances of the visit to the island, omitting only the search for Ruth's brooch.

"I guess that part is right," admitted Frank. "I mean about Bossy going there to buy one of these gay handkerchiefs. But just because he did doesn't make him guilty. In fact, what object would he have in taking some trophy cups that he could get very little for if they were melted up, and nothing for, if he tried to sell them as they were? No one would buy them, for on the face of them they show what they are. Some were engraved with the Boxer Hall fellows' names. And the other jewelry wasn't so very valuable. Bossy wouldn't have any object in taking that. He's got more money now, than is good for him."

"He might have been gambling, and gotten short of cash, and been afraid of asking his folks," suggested Sid, remembering an ordeal he had gone