Tom was presented to Mr. and Mrs. Nestor, who told him how glad they were to meet the young man who had been instrumental in saving their daughter from injury, if not death.  Tom was a bit embarrassed, but bore the praise as well as he could, and he was very glad when a diversion, in the shape of lunch, occurred.

After a meal on tables under the trees in the grove Tom took the girls and some of their friends out in his motor-boat again.  They covered several miles around the lake before returning to the picnic ground.

As Tom was starting toward home in his boat, wondering what had become of Andy and trying to think of a reason why the bully should attend anything as “tame” as a church picnic, the object of his thoughts came strolling through the trees down to the shore of the lake.  The moment he saw Tom the red-haired lad started back, but the young inventor, leaping out of his boat, called out: 

“Hold on there, Andy Foger, I want to see you!” and there was menace in Tom’s tone.

“But, I don’t want to see you!” retorted the other sulkily.  “I’ve got no use for you.”

“No more have I for you,” was Tom’s quick reply.  “But I want to return you these keys.  You dropped them in my boat the other night when you tried to set it afire.  If I ever catch you—­”

“My keys!  Your boat!  On fire!” gasped Andy, so plainly astonished that Tom knew his surprise was genuine.

“Yes, your keys.  You were a little, too quick for me or I’d have caught you at it.  The next time you pick a lock don’t leave your keys behind you,” and he held out the jingling ring.

Andy Foger advanced slowly.  He took the bunch of keys and looked at the tag.

“They are mine,” he said slowly, as if there was some doubt about it.

“Of course they are,” declared Tom.  “I found them where you dropped them—­in my boat.”

“Do you mean over at the auction?”

“No, I mean down in my boathouse, where you sneaked in the other night and tried to do some damage.

“The other night!” cried Andy.  “I never was near your boathouse any night and I never lost my keys there!  I lost these the day of the auction, on Mr. Hastings’ ground, and I’ve been looking for them ever since.”

“Didn’t you sneak in my boathouse the other night and try to do some mischief?  Didn’t you drop them then?”

“No, I didn’t,” retorted Andy earnestly.  “I lost those keys at the auction, and I can prove it to you.  Look, I advertised for them in the weekly Gazette.”

The red-haired lad pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and showed Tom an advertisement offering a reward of two dollars for a bunch of keys on a ring, supposed to have been lost at the auction on Mr. Hastings’ grounds in Lanton.  The finder was to return them to Andy Foger.

“Does that look as if I lost the keys in your boathouse?” demanded the bully sneeringly.  “I wouldn’t have advertised them that way if I’ been trying to keep my visit quiet.  Besides, I can prove that I was out of town several nights.  I was over to an entertainment in Mansburg one night and I didn’t get home until two o’clock in the morning, because my machine broke down.  Ask Ned Newton.  He saw me at the entertainment.”