“Where is the little girl you were with?” he asked.

“Eh?  Oh, she’s over yonder just ‘round the p’int, sailin’ a shingle boat I made her.  Shall I call her?”

“No, it isn’t necessary.  Mr. Winslow, I’m sorry to have put you to all this trouble and to have cooled your—­er—­chowder.  There is no regulation against visitors to our reservation here just now, although there will be, of course, later on.  There is a rule against building fires on the beach, but you broke that in ignorance, I’m sure.  The reason why you have been cross-questioned to-day is a special one.  A construction plan has been lost, as Lieutenant Rayburn here informed you.  It was on his desk in the office and it has disappeared.  It may have been stolen, of course, or, as both windows were open, it may have blown away.  You are sure you haven’t seen anything of it?  Haven’t seen any papers blowing about?”

“I’m sure it didn’t blow away, sir,” put in the lieutenant.  “I’m positive it was stolen.  You see—­”

He did not finish his sentence.  The expression upon Jed’s face caused him to pause.  Mr. Winslow’s mouth and eyes were opening wider and wider.

“Sho!” muttered Jed.  “Sho, now! . . .  ’Tain’t possible that . . .  I snum if . . .  Sho!”

“Well, what is it?” demanded both officers, practically in concert.

Jed did not reply.  Instead he turned his head, put both hands to his mouth and shouted “Babbie!” through them at the top of his lungs.  The third shout brought a faint, “Yes, Uncle Jed, I’m coming.”

“What are you calling her for?” asked Lieutenant Rayburn, forgetting the presence of his superior officer in his anxious impatience.  Jed did not answer.  He was kneeling beside his jacket, which he had thrown upon the sand when he landed, and was fumbling in the pockets.  “Dear me! dear me!” he was muttering.  “I’m sartin they must be here.  I know I put ’em here because . . .  Ow!”

He was kneeling and holding the coat with one hand while he fumbled in the pockets with the other.  Unconsciously he had leaned backward until he sat upon his heels.  Now, with an odd expression of mingled pain and relief, he reached into the hip pocket of his trousers and produced a pair of spectacles.  He smiled his slow, fleeting smile.

“There!” he observed, “I found ’em my way—­backwards.  Anybody else would have found ’em by looking for ’em; I lost ’em lookin’ for ’em and found ’em by sittin’ on ’em. . . .  Oh, here you are, Babbie!  Sakes alive, you’re sort of dampish.”

She was all of that.  She had come running in answer to his call and had the shingle boat hugged close to her.  The water from it had trickled down the front of her dress.  Her shoes and stockings were splashed with wet sand.

“Is dinner ready, Uncle Jed?” she asked, eagerly.  Then becoming aware that the two strange gentlemen standing by the fire were really and truly “officer ones,” she looked wide-eyed up at them and uttered an involuntary “Oh!”