Gee, Dorry couldn’t answer that argument. “You should worry about it’s being all right,” I said; “but, oh boy, if we make a mistake we’ll spoil everything. We have to watch our step. We’ve just got to make Brent Gaylong discover that fellow without any help. If we don’t, _good night!_ he’ll never claim the reward. I know that fellow.”
“Maybe we’d better tell Harry Donnelle,” Dorry said.
“That’s just what I was thinking,” I told him; “because maybe he can think of a way.”
So as soon as we could, we got Harry off in the woods alone. There wasn’t much time, because we were all going to hit the trail for Newburgh after breakfast.
I said, “Harry, that freak fellow in the circus is the same fellow who’s picture was in the paper; he’s Horace E. Chandler, I’m positive.”
He said, “I told you if you ate too many of those flapjacks last night, you’d be dreaming dreams.”
“All right,” I told him, “you remember about Marshal Foch; how you said he was a calf?”
“Let’s have a squint at the picture,” Harry said; “these remarkable discoveries of yours are getting to be a bad habit. A leopard is bad enough, but a _what-is-it_!”
So we showed him the picture and he screwed up his face and looked at it awful funny. Then he read the article all through.
“Well, so you think that’s Wandering Horace, do you?” he asked.
I said, “Yes, because his hair is the same, and that funny kind of a look in his eye and everything. You’ve got to admit Jib Jab is human. He’s a nice fellow, too. I bet he’d want to see these fellows get the reward.”
Harry said, “Yes, I don’t exactly hold it against him that he’s human; he couldn’t help it I suppose. I’m kind of human myself. But just suppose, for the fun of it, that you’re right——”
“There’s no fun about it,” I told him; “Dorry and I both saw him.”
“All right,” he said; “and you want to sacrifice him to the Church Mice. You want to put them on his trail. How do _we_ know he wants to be discovered?”
Harry said, “Well, I’m not a scout and I don’t deal much in good turns——”
I said, “I bet you did hundreds of them.” And I bet he did, too.
He just said, “But who is the good turn going to hit? What is it you want to do?”
Dorry said, “We want these fellows to find out who Jib Jab is; we want to start things going so they can find out of their own accord, before it’s too late.”