"But I'm sure Old Hucks is innocent!" declared Patsy, emphatically.

"Then he is," asserted the Major; "for Patsy's always right, even when
she's wrong. I've had me eye on that man Hucks already, for he's the
merriest faced villain I ever encountered. Do you say he's shy with
you girls?"

"He seems afraid of us, or suspicious, and won't let us talk to him,"
answered Beth.

"Leave him to me," proposed the Major, turning a stern face but
twinkling eyes upon the group. "'Twill be my task to detect him. Leave
him to me, young women, an' I'll put the thumb-screws on him in
short order."

Here was the sort of energetic confederate they had longed for. The
Major's assurance of co-operation was welcome indeed, and while he
entered heartily into their campaign he agreed that no mention of the
affair ought to reach Uncle John's ears until the case was complete and
they could call upon the authorities to arrest the criminal.

"It's me humble opinion," he remarked, "that the interesting individual
you call the 'avenger' was put on the trail by someone here--either
Thomas Hucks, or the timber-toed book agent, or the respectable hardware
man. Being invited to come and do his worst, he passed himself as a
docther on a fishing excursion, and having with deliberate intent
murthered Captain Wegg, got himself called by the coroner to testify
that the victim died of heart disease. A very pretty bit of
scoundrelism; eh, me dears?"