“Gee!  I’m real sorry to hear that,” Andy muttered.

“What?  That he reformed?” demanded the cousin, in pretended surprise.

“Shucks! no; but about his having been a tramp; because, don’t you see, Frank, it makes things look black for Todd.  Remember, don’t you, about what the Chief said when he spoke of the yeggs knowing so much about things, that he thought they must have had inside information; and that somebody familiar with Bloomsbury ways helped them figure it all out.  Looks bad for Todd, that’s what, Frank.”

To hear Andy talk you would think that the party in question must have been a personal friend, at least, when, in truth, he only knew Todd Pemberton to speak to, as he did a thousand other people in and around the home town.

“By that you mean you’re afraid he’s fallen in with some old companions in crime and been tempted, or forced to join them in this raid on the bank?” was the way Frank put the matter direct.

“You’ve covered what I do believe, as sure as my name’s Andy Bird.”

“Well, let me say that I think the same way you do,” Frank went on to remark.

“Good!” cried Andy, in a delighted tone.  “Sometimes we agree, and again we have different minds; but in this case it looks like we might be on the same raft.”

“Take another good squint at the point, Andy, and see if you can pick up that man again, the fellow who was doing all that tall Wigwagging.”

“I’m looking, Frank.”

“What d’ye see there now?” the other continued.

“Nothing—­that is, there are stones, and moss, and trees, and perhaps birds flying around this way and that; but never the first sign of a human being can I discover anywhere, Frank.”

“Still, we know there’s one man there at least, perhaps a pair of them hiding somewhere around that desolate place.  Why, Norton’s Point is, I guess, about the meanest and loneliest place of all the Disston Swamp lumber company.  Nobody hardly ever goes there except to shoot snipe and woodcock in the fall, and yet we happen to know there’s one person hiding out there, and that he knows Todd Pemberton, for they’ve been exchanging signals through the wigwag code.”

“Looks suspicious, Frank, don’t you think?”

“Looks like it might pay to investigate a little closer, Andy.”

They were by this time passing over the identical strip of country where Andy had watched the signal waving.  By looking almost directly down, he could see between the tall trees as only an aviator ever has a chance of doing.

“You know what I’m hoping to discover, Frank?” he remarked as he continued to scan every part that was at all exposed by openings among the trees.

“Percy’s lost biplane, I take it,” came the prompt reply.

“Yes, because they couldn’t very well have landed without a certain amount of open space.  We know how hard it is to drop into a hole, and worse still to climb up out of one.  Didn’t we have the toughest of times down there in that South American forest finding open spots where we could land with some chance of ever getting out again, without cutting trees down that were as big around as a young house?”