Look at this--here's your two bucks and Skinny never took it at all"?
"I--I know he didn't," I said.
"How did you know," he shot right at me.
"Because," I started to say and then he rumpled my hair up some more and began talking and never gave me a chance.
"Because it was right in that copy of Treasure Island that's laying there," he shouted, "and I'm one big gump, that's what I am! I got that copy of Treasure Island out of the library this morning, because you were telling me about it, and right there in the middle of it was your plaguy old two buckarinos!" Just for a minute I looked at him and I knew it was just like he said, because he was laughing--he was so blamed happy about it.
Oh, boy, didn't I feel good! "How in the dickens did it get there ?" he said.
"That's one puzzle," I answered him.
"Anyway, you've got your two bucks back." "A lot I care about that," I said; "jiminy, I've got something better than two dollars, and that's friends, you can bet." Then I showed him the stain on the page of the book and we both sat there gaping at it and thinking.
"I'm hanged if I know," Westy said; "it would take Tom Slade to dope that out." "Maybe Skinny was looking at the book and shut it with the two dollar bill inside," I said.
"How about the stain ?" Westy asked me.
"Jingoes, it's a puzzle," I said.
All of a sudden he laid the book down open and laid the bill on it and then he laid the oar-lock on the bill.

Then he just sat there like as if he was studying.

Pretty soon he said, "We have to get a new copy for the library, anyway.

Do you mind if I make another stain on this one?
I've got a sort of an idea." "Go ahead," I said.
So now I'll tell you just what he did and you'll see how it solved the puzzle.

And, believe me, you'll have to admit that Westy's a pretty smart fellow.