"
"I--I didn't see any one--it was dark," explained Cora, before Jack
could speak. "Some one approached, fell down and went away again."
"That may have been Tom!" excitedly said the short detective.
"'No, it was--" began Cora.
"Wait a minute," cried Jack. "Before she answers I want to know if
you really have a right to the information. How do I know but you
may be some one seeking to get evidence for a civil suit for Peters
or Tony, and will drag us in as witnesses?"
"Oh, we're not," said the tall man hastily.
"Here's my court-house badge," and he displayed it. "This has
nothing to do with a lawsuit. We just want to find Tony. If that
wasn't him on the island who scared the girls, who was it? Surely
she can't object to telling; it can't hurt her. Who was it?"
Before Cora could answer there was a sound at the door of the hut
and a voice exclaimed:
"It was my father!"
There stood Laurel, and the officers shifted their gaze from Cora to
her. They started eagerly forward, hoping to get the information
they sought from the new witness.
"Tell us about it," urged the short man.
"No, let me, Laurel dear," interrupted Cora. "I can explain, Jack,
and have it all over with. Really it's very simple."
Then, without at all going into the details of the mystery of the
hermit, which information Cora felt the detectives had no right to
possess, she told how she and Laurel had been in the hut and how the
unknown man who so frightened, them had turned out to be Laurel's
father, and that even now he was under care because of the injury he
received.
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