“I’m positive,” declared Harrity. “I was face to face with him. He was a dark-haired man, and his hair was cut awful short. I noticed that.”

“You’re sure he wasn’t redheaded?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“What’s all this about?” asked Chief Collig suspiciously. “What has the color of his hair to do with it?”

“Well,” admitted Frank, “we were pretty sure that the man who stole Chet’s car had long, red hair.”

“Hum!” muttered the chief doubtfully. “Then if that was the case, the man who stole the car and the man who tried to hold up the office isn’t one and the same fellow after all.”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” confessed Frank.

Just then a short, nervous little man was ushered into the office. He introduced himself as the passenger who had gone into the steamboat office at the time of the attempted holdup, and he presented himself in answer to a call from the chief.

In reply to questions, the newcomer, who gave the prosaic name of Henry J. Brown and said he was from New York, told of entering the office and seeing a man run away from the wicket with a revolver in his hand.

“What color was his hair? Did you notice?” asked Frank eagerly.

“I can’t say I did,” answered the little man. “It all happened so quickly I didn’t realize that it was a holdup until the man was out the door. Then I saw him jump into the roadster and drive away. But⁠—wait a minute. I did notice the color of his hair. Just as the car was disappearing down the street. You couldn’t help notice. He was redheaded. He had long red hair.”

Detective Smuff looked blankly at the chief and the chief looked blankly at everybody else, particularly at Henry J. Brown of New York.

“I knew it!” declared Joe exultantly. “It’s the same man!”

“It can’t be the same man!” said the chief wearily. “You boys don’t know what you’re talking about. Mr. Harrity says he had short, dark hair. Now how could he have short, dark hair and long, red hair at the same time? I ask you that! How could he?”

Chief Collig propounded this query with the expression of one who has triumphantly settled all difficulties.

“He had short, dark hair!” said Harrity doggedly.

And with that, the Hardy boys and Chet Morton had to be content.