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HAROLD BIRD'S STRANGE TALE
31
to a lumber company, but now I have changed my mind, and I intend to give it to the heirs of Blazen, if any appear."
"Is it a valuable tract?" asked Fred.
"The lumber company offered me twenty thousand dollars for it."
"If your father was drowned it is queer that you never heard anything of his body," said Fred.
"Bodies of drowned people are not always recovered," answered the young Southerner. "But he must have been drowned, for if he had been alive we surely would have heard something of him. The reward we offered set hundreds of people to hunting for him."
"It is certainly a mystery," said Dick. "I suppose you'd give a good deal to have it cleared up."
"I'd give half of what I am worth," answered Harold Bird, earnestly.
