For a little while Laddie and Russ watched the man in the boat as he rowed slowly toward the sandy point of land in the lake, on which the six little Bunkers were playing. The man's hair was certainly very red. The sun shone on it, and Russ and Laddie could see it quite plainly. And, too, he had on a ragged¹ coat.  
Rose and the other children were farther in toward shore, playing away. Laddie and Russ, as the two older boys of the family, thought they ought to do something toward getting back Daddy Bunker's papers.
 
"He's coming nearer," said Laddie, in a whisper to his brother.
 
"Yes," agreed Russ. "He'll soon be near enough for us to ask him if he's got 'em."
 
The red-haired man in the boat rowed nearer and nearer to the sandy point in Lake Sagatook. He did not seem to see the two small boys who were so anxiously waiting for him.
 
"What's he doing?" asked Laddie, for the man now and then would stop rowing and handle something he had in front of him.
 
"He's fishing," said Russ. "I can see his pole."
 
Laddie saw it too, a moment later. The man in the boat was a fisherman.
 
Pretty soon he was near enough for the boys to call to him.
 
"Hey!" exclaimed Russ. "Have you got 'em?"
 
He supposed, of course, that the man would know what he was talking about. And so it might seem, for the man made answer:
 
"Well, I had 'em but I lost 'em. But I'll get 'em again."
 
"Oh, daddy will be so glad!" cried Laddie. "Did you lose 'em out of your coat?"
 
The man looked up quickly.
 
"Lose 'em out of my coat? Why, no," he said. "I lost 'em off my hook—two of the biggest fish I've caught this day! But I'll get 'em back—or some just like 'em which will be as good. Hello, youngsters," he added with a smile. "Do you live at Mrs. Bell's place?"
 
"We're just visiting her," explained Russ. "She's our grandma. We're the six little Bunkers."
 
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the man with a laugh. "That's so—there are six of you! I can see now," and he looked beyond Russ and Laddie to where Rose, Vi, Margy and Mun Bun were playing on the sandy point and having lots of fun.
 
"But are you fond of fishing, that you ask if I lost 'em?" the man went on.
 
"If you please," replied Russ, "we didn't mean to ask about your fish, though we're sorry you lost any. But have you daddy's papers?"
 
"Daddy's papers? I don't know what you mean," the man said.
 
"Aren't you a lumberman?" asked Laddie, not liking³ to use the name "tramp," as the man, though he did have on a ragged coat, did not seem like the lazy wanderers who prowl about the country asking for food but not wanting to work.
 
"No, I'm not a lumberman," said the man. "What makes you ask that?"
 
"Well, you look like the lumberman—only he was a tramp—that my father gave a ragged coat to," went on Russ. "And there were real estate papers in the coat, and daddy wants 'em back."
 
"Ha! Is that so?" asked the man, "Well, I'm sorry but I don't know anything about 'em. I never saw your father that I know of, though I do know Mrs. Bell. I live on the other side of the lake. But I come over here fishing once in a while."
 
"And haven't you daddy's papers?" asked Laddie.
 
"No, I'm sorry to say I haven't."
 
"But you have red hair," went on the little boy.
 
"Yes, my hair is red all right," laughed the man, as he ran his hand through the fiery⁴ curls on his head. "My hair is very red. Sometimes I wish it wasn't so red. But it's of no use to worry about it, I suppose. But what has my red hair to do with your father's papers?"
 
Then Laddie and Russ, taking turns, told about their father's clerk in the real estate office giving the tramp lumberman the old coat, and how, in one of the pockets, were the valuable papers. The boys told of the search for the tramp, and also of their trip from Pineville to Lake Sagatook.
 
"And so you haven't yet found the red-haired man with the papers, have you?" asked the fisherman, smiling at the two boys.
 
"No," said Russ, a bit sadly. "First we thought you might have 'em."
 
"Do you know any red-haired lumberman—one that's a tramp?" Laddie asked.
 
"No, I can't say that I do. But tell your father, and also your Grandma Bell, that I'll be on the watch for one. My name is Hurd—Simon Hurd. Your grandma knows me. Tell her I'll be on the watch for a red-haired lumberman. We have all sorts up here in Maine, and some of 'em have red hair, though I don't know that any one will have your father's papers. Ha! There's one I've got, anyhow!" the man suddenly exclaimed.
 
He dropped the oars⁵, with which he had been slowly rowing the boat, and caught up his pole. Then, as the boys watched, they saw him reel in his line and lift from the water a big fish, which sparkled in the sun as it leaped and twisted, trying to get off the hook.
 
"Hi, that's a big one!" cried Russ, leaping up and down on the sand, he was so excited.
 
"Yes, he's as big as one of the two I lost," the man went on.
 
He landed his prize in the boat, while the boys and, the other little............