“I’d like just as well almost to find out exactly who hid them there,” was Merritt’s reply.

“The same folks that stole the old captain’s seventy-five dollars, I guess,” returned Rob, thrusting the garments back into the sacks preparatory to carrying them to the boat.  “Here, Tubby, you carry this one—­it’ll take some of that fat off you to do a hike along the beach with it.  I’ll shoulder this one.”

“Well, boys, yer certainly made a haul, thanks ter old Skipper here,” declared Captain Job, after the delighted boys had made known their discovery.  “He’s a smart one, I tell yer.  No better dog ever lived.”

“That’s what we think,” agreed Merritt warmly, patting old Skipper’s black and white head.

The recovery of the uniforms had quite put all thoughts of blue or any other fishing out of the boys’ heads, and after bidding farewell to the captain, who promised to point out to them a good site for a camp on their next visit, they made their best speed back to Hampton.  On their way to the armory they spread the news of their discovery broadcast, so that in a short time the town was buzzing with the information that the Boy Scouts’ lost uniforms had been found under most surprising circumstances; and the editor of the Hampton News, who was just going to press, held his paper up till he could get in an item about it.

It was this item that caught Jack Curtiss’ eye, the next morning as he and Bill Bender and Sam were seated in Bill’s “club room.”

“Confound those brats, they seem always to be putting a spike in our schemes!” muttered Jack, as he handed the paper to Bill for that worthy’s perusal.  “Which reminds me,” he went on, “that we haven’t attended to the case of that young Digby yet.”

“I wish you’d leave those kids alone for a while, Jack,” objected Sam, in his usual whining tones.  “You’ve had your fun with them.  They’ve had to do without their uniforms for a long time.  Now let up on them, won’t you?”

“Oh, you’re feeling friendly toward ’em, now, are you?” sneered Jack.

“Oh, no, it isn’t that,” Sam hastened to assure him; “nothing of the kind.  What I mean is that we are liable to get into serious trouble if we keep on this way.  I saw Hank Handcraft the other day, and I can tell you he’s in no very amiable mood.  He wants his money for the other night, he says, and he intimated that if he didn’t get it he’d make things hot for us.”

“He’d better not,” glowered Bill Bender, looking up from his paper.  “We know a few things about friend Hank.”

“Yes, and he knows a good deal about us that wouldn’t look well in print,” retorted Sam gloomily.  “I wish I’d never gone into that thing the other night.”

“Pshaw, it was just borrowing a little money from the old man, wasn’t it?” snorted Jack.  “We’ll pay it back some time.”

“When we get it,” rejoined Sam more gloomily than ever; “and I don’t see much immediate chance of that.”