After a protracted search he found a youngster of eighteen, Harry Stoy, who was not only willing to sell him his sea sled, but was also willing to hire out as the boat's crew. Harry was a fine upstanding youngster, who knew motor boats and who knew the lake and surrounding country. When Harry learned that the man to whom he sold the boat was a newspaper man on a big murder story, he stopped bargaining and entered the chase with nearly the same amount of enthusiasm as that shown by the reporter himself. Jimmy opened his eyes wide with astonishment when Harry took him to Justice Higginbotham's camp. Boats were tied to the small wharf. Boats were moored to every available spot on the shore. For hundreds of yards about the wharf boats were anchored. Not since he had seen a regatta had Jimmy seen so many boats in one place at the same time. When he stepped to the wharf and thence to the wide porch, he understood the cause of this. As he had seen at the telegraph office and the public telephone booths, Justice Higginbotham's camp was now a magnet for all the newspapers and press services in the United States and Canada. Near the wharf he recognized the plane that had transported Professor Brierly to New York. Chapter VIII Jimmy recognized several of the men and women on the porch as reporters and feature writers. These, knowing that Jimmy's paper was the one that sprung the story, made a concerted rush for him. He fended them off. He told them that beyond what had been printed he knew nothing. Asked about Professor Brierly, he told them that he had not seen the old scientist for more than fifteen hours; that his paper in New York had handled that end. He assured them that beyond the bare announcement over the phone that Schurman had been murdered, he knew nothing new. At this moment the grizzled negro came to the door of the porch and gestured to Jimmy. He said to the reporter when Jimmy came near him: "The jedge, Mistuh Hale, sez for you--all to come in an' see him and the otheh gempmen." Aside from the eleven men he had first met the day before, there were in the big, comfortable living-room, Professor Brierly and District Attorney McCall. He felt and saw that all of them were looking at him. He was shocked at the appearance of some of the men. They seemed to have shrunken in size. There was a furtive air about some of them; stark fear, fear of the unknown danger, shone in the eyes of a number of the men present. "Mr. Hale, it is not your fault, but you are indirectly responsible for the presence of all those men and women out there. It is a very distressing thing. Newspapers have their place and uses, of course; we all recognize that, but we cannot at a time like this be besieged by a horde of men and women, not all of whom, I regret to say, have the delicacy to show the kindness and consideration--"