Besides it was true. I was not so clever as Elsie, and I did not pretend to be. But I could lick everybody in Breckonside school into fits, and the master was cowed of my father. I think he would have let me sit on his tall hat! 

 This morning was a Friday, as I remember, and there were plenty of men searching the moor, prowling about the woods, some with picks and shovels, some just with their hands in their pockets. They were looking for Harry Foster. The East Dene police, too, were all about the edges of Sparhawk Wood, as important as if they knew all about it but wouldn't tell. One of them, posted by the big, black patch to keep people off, first told us to go back, and then asked where we were going. 

 Elsie merely told him that so far as she knew the road went further—on to Bewick Upton, in fact. 

 "Are you the kids that came across the moor and found this—and the prisoner?" 

 To make him civil we told him we were, but that Davie Elshiner was surely innocent and would not harm a fly. 

 "That's as may be," said the policeman; "what did he say when you woke him?" 

 We told the man that Davie was afraid of being suspected, having been last seen with the missing man, also how he was sure that because he was a known poacher people would not believe him. 

 "Aye," said the policeman, nodding his head dreadfully wisely, "indeed, he was right to say that. Ah, a bad conscience is our best friend! It is indeed!"  And everything we could say in favour of Davie seemed just to tell against him, so that we had to be content with saying that he was the person least likely to do such a thing, because he would certainly be suspected, and that they might as well suspect us. 

 This last remark seemed to impress the policeman, who pulled out a fat notebook and solemnly jotted it down before our eyes. 

 "It's a good rule in our business," he said slowly, "to suspect the least likely persons. Thank you very much for your interesting communication—thank you very much, indeed!" 

 "Ah, you're dotty!" I called out to him in a sudden fume of anger, and left him standing there and slowly buckling up the flap of the inside pocket in which he had stowed away his precious notebook. 

 Now I am not going to pretend that Elsie and I 

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