"It's my notion they must have had a houseboat. They could a-rowed
it up on the tide from the Kills--a little one. I never saw no tent
with 'em. And they had to have something over their heads. The
boat I seen 'em have was a rowboat. I s'pose they used it to go
back and forth in."

"Thanks," said Average Jones. "That's a good idea about the
houseboat."

On the following day this advertisement appeared in the newspapers
of several shore towns along the New Jersey and Staten Island coast.

A DRIFT--A small houseboat lost several
days ago from the Hackensack Meadows.
Fifty dollars reward paid for information
leading to recovery. Jones, Ad-Visor,
Astor Court Temple, New York.

Two days later came a reply, locating the lost craft at Bayonne.
Average Jones went thither and identified it. Within its single
room was uttermost confusion, testifying to the simplest kind of
housekeeping sharply terminated. Attempt had been made to burn the
boat before it was given to wind and current, but certain evidences
of charred wood, and the fact of a succession of furious
thunder-showers in the week past, suggested the reason for failure.
In a heap of rubbish, where the fire had apparently started, Average
Jones found, first, a Washington newspaper, which he pocketed; next,
with a swelling heart, the wreck of the pasteboard cabinet, but no
sign of the strange valise which had held it. The "Mercy" sign was