The Boy Scout Camera Club | Page 5

quick, so as to give her a
scare."
The girl paused and wiped her face with a white apron bordered with
pink.
"Go on," Ned requested. "Tell us what you saw in the attic."
"It wasn't much, sir," was the agitated answer. "I saw just a flash of

dark blue, coming at me like the lightning express, and then I was
keeled over--just as if I had been a bag of meal, sir!"
"He bunted into you, did he?" asked Jack. "Who was it?"
"Indeed I don't know, sir," was the reply. "It was dim in the room, there
being only the light from the hall as I opened the door. Then he came at
me with such a bunt that it took the breath out of me body!"
"And what followed?" asked Ned.
"She wint down f'r the count!" chuckled the servant who had been first
questioned.
"I did not!" was the indignant retort. "When I got up the man was still
on the stairs leading to this floor, and I picked up the great shears
which had tumbled out of me hand and heaved thim at him. I had
brought the shears up to cut a bandage, sir."
"Did you hit him?" asked Jack with a smile. "Where are the shears?"
"I never went back after them!" answered the girl. "I'll go this minute."
"Wait," Ned said, "and I'll get them. Now, you say you saw a blue
streak coming at you, head-on! Who wears blue clothes around the
house?"
"Chang Chu, the Chink, sir."
"You saw him dressed in blue to-day?" asked Ned.
"All in blue he was!" the male servant interrupted, "with his shirt on the
outside of his trousers, like the bloody heathen he is."
"And so you looked for him and failed to find him on the premises?"
asked Jack.
"He's gone, bag and baggage," answered Terance, the coachman. "Bad
luck to him!"

"Still, you don't really know that it was the Chinaman?" asked Ned.
"He was dressed like the Chink," was the reply. "He smelled like a
saloon!"
"Does the Chinaman drink?" asked Ned, facing Terance. "Does he get
drunk?"
"He does not," was the reply. "He doesn't know the taste of good
liquor!"
"That's all," Ned concluded. "Now you two keep on looking for the
Chinaman. He may be hiding in the house, or he may be at some of the
dens such people frequent. You, Mary, look for him in the house, and
you, Terance, see if you can learn where he usually went when he left
the house."
"Pell street!" cried Jimmie. "Look in Pell street!"
"Or Doyers!" Jack exclaimed. "Look in the dumps in Doyers street."
The two went away, forgetting all about the shears which Mary had
hurled at the mysterious man she had caught in the attic. Asking the
boys to remain where they were, Ned went out to the staircase and
secured the article. Taking it carefully by the handle, he returned to the
room and held up one blade.
Jack looked at the blade casually at first, then cried out that there was
blood on it, and that Mary had speared the sneak.
"Yes," Ned explained, "there is blood on it. Mary hit the fellow on the
head with this blade. What else do you see on the steel?" he asked with
a smile.
Jimmie looked and backed away in disgust. His freckled face was
thrust out of the door for an instant, and they heard him calling to Mary,
who, being in the kitchen, beyond sound of his voice, did not respond.
"What do you want of Mary?" demanded Jack. "Shall I call her?"

"She said it was the Chink, didn't she?" the boy asked. "Or, she said it
was a man dressed like the Chink? Well, it wasn't the Chink."
Ned laughed and looked at the boy admiringly.
"How do you know that?" he asked. "Why are you so sure it was not
the Chink?"
Jimmie looked up into Ned's face with a provoking grin.
"You know just as well as I do that it wasn't the Chink," he said. "Just
you look on that blade again! Ever see a Chink with light brown hair?"
"Now, what do you think of that?" roared Jack. "Sometimes this boy,
Jimmie, seems to me to be possessed of almost human intelligence!"
The lads gathered closer around the shears, one blade of which Ned
was still holding out for inspection. There was the blood, and there was
the long, blonde hair!
"Hit him on the belfry!" Jimmie grinned. "Knocked off a shingle and
brought away a piece of it! Now, why did the Chink run away? That's
what I'd like to know!"
"Where did the man get the Chink's dress?" asked Oliver. "That's what
you'd better be asking? Why did