"What's the matter, Hawkes?" asked the other officer.
"This isn't the boy I was chasing."
"It must be."
"But it isn't."
"Well, anyhow, it's the fellow who shot around that street corner a few minutes ago and dodged into the doorway, for I saw him."
"Then I must have been chasing the wrong boy."
"I reckon that's so."
Both officers looked Frank over speculatively and suspiciously.
"No, he ain't the fellow," observed the officer who had grabbed Frank. "But, say, who are you?"
"I'm Frank Jordan, a student at the Bellwood Academy," answered our hero promptly.
"We don't know that," observed the second officer.
"I can easily prove it to you," asserted Frank.
"All right, fetch him up to the station, Hawkes, and let him explain to the captain how he comes to be snooking around people's houses at this unearthly hour of the morning."
Frank was very much cut up at this decision. To leave that spot meant possibly to lose all track of Jem and the stolen bracelet.
