"Listen, fellows," he told them; "I've known for some little time that Hen was acting queerly. He failed to attend the last two meetings, and when I asked him about it he avoided my eye. I've been wondering what it all meant, and intended to have a good heart-to-heart talk-fest with Hen as soon as I got a chance."

"Hold on," said Toby. "I wonder now if that man I saw him with could have had anything to do with this ugly business."

Elmer turned on him like a flash.

"It may have more to do with it than you think, Toby," he remarked; "when was it you saw them, and where?"

"Just yesterday morning," replied the other, "and down at the bridge over the creek. Hen nodded to me when I rode past on my wheel, but it struck me even at the time he acted like he hoped to goodness I wouldn't bother stopping to say anything."

"And a man you didn't know was with him, you say?" questioned Elmer.

"Well, I didn't just glimpse his face, for you see he turned his head away as I pa.s.sed, but I made up my mind he was a stranger in these regions, so far as I could see."

"That looks mighty suspicious, I should say, suh!" declared Chatz, positively. "That stranger is the n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile, according to my mind, suh."

"Mebbe poor weak Hen has been cowed and bulldozed into doing the whole thing," suggested Lil Artha, sagely.

"Now, I wonder if that could weally be tho?" remarked Ted.

"We ought to get busy and do something right away, Elmer," observed Toby Jones.

"I'm glad to know that's the way you feel about it," continued the patrol leader. "This is a bad piece of business. It's up to the boys of the Wolf Patrol to find out the truth. I had laid out another scheme for our last outing of this vacation, but everything must give way to tracking our comrade down, and learning the whole truth!"

"Bully for you, Elmer!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lil Artha, looking delighted.

The others were almost as exuberant in their expressions of approval.

Just a brief time before some of their number had been wondering what could be done to give them a short siege in the woods to wind up the vacation period; and here along comes this necessity calling to the other members of the "Wolf Patrol to awaken and defend the honor of their organization.

"Here, jump aboard all of you but Landy, and he can come along on his wheel," ordered Elmer, making room after he had seated himself back of the steering wheel.

"Are you meaning to go to Hen's house?" called out Landy, looking worried because he was to be left behind, and would have to straddle his wheezy old wheel once more.

"Yes, if you care to toss your machine in those bushes, Landy, and can get aboard, come along!" called out Elmer, relenting when he caught that piteous expression on the other's rosy face.

In another moment they were off, Landy having been hauled aboard. The runabout had never been made to carry such a full cargo of pa.s.sengers; but then boys can hang on like monkeys, and are ever ready to accept chances.

They were quickly at the Condit house. Like the home of Landy, it stood on the border of the town, with a back gate opening on a side road. Altogether, there may have been two acres in the place.

By now fully two dozen curious people were in and around the house upon which such a sudden catastrophe had fallen. They talked among themselves, asked questions, examined the queer note signed by Hen, and shook their heads pityingly as they observed the white face of the boy's suffering aunt.

Mr. Condit was a rather severe man. He looked very angry, and kept calling the boy hard names as he told how Hen must have known the combination of the safe; and doubtless doubled at least the amount taken in hard cash, as it is human nature to make even troubles seem many times as large as they are.

Elmer and the others managed to see the convicting note. They were all of the same opinion as Landy; and agreed that no one but Hen could ever have written those fateful words.

"I never would have believed he could ever be such a silly gump!" was what Lil Artha remarked, after surveying the crooked writing, which, of course, he knew only too well.

After they had hung around for some time, and Elmer had asked all the questions he could think of, the boys went outside to talk it over.

"Right now some of those people are looking at us in a sneering way, suh," observed the touchy Southern boy, indignantly; "and I give you my word fo' it they're beginning to say among themselves that Hen Condit belonged to the wonderful Wolf Patrol. Elmer, we've suttinly got to do something to clear the good name of our patrol."

"We will," replied the other, simply, and yet with that earnestness which carries conviction in its train. "Already I've got a suspicion.

There may be nothing to it but it's given me an idea where we ought to look first of all."

"Please tell us about it, Elmer?" begged Toby.

"I just knew Elmer would get on the track in double-quick time,"

a.s.serted Landy, who always believed there was nothing impossible to the patrol leader, once he set himself to a task.

"It all came about from hearing a boy talking when I was down in the market yesterday morning. You know who he is, Johnny Spreen, the fellow who always ships out a raft of dried ginseng roots every year, and in the Spring sends a bunch of muskrat skins to the city."

"Sure we know Johnny," a.s.sented Toby, quickly; "he comes to town with a load of hay once every two weeks. His folks live a long ways off, up beyond the two lakes where we used to go camping."

"That's right, Toby," said Elmer, "and their farm borders that terribly big Sa.s.safras Swamp lying beyond Lake Solitude. Well, I happened to hear Johnny tell how he had taken a look through the swamp the other day, just to find out how the muskrats were coming on, so as to get a pointer on his winter business this year. He said he honestly believed there must be some man hiding there, because in several places he had come on tracks."

"But people sometimes go in Sa.s.safras Swamp to hunt, don't they, Elmer?" objected Lil Artha.

"Not in August, because there are no woodc.o.c.k up there, you know, and nothing else can be shot at this time of year," Elmer continued; "but Johnny had something else to say that interested me considerably. It seems at one place he found ashes that told of a fire, and while rooting around he picked up a piece of steel that he allowed me to see.

It had evidently been _filed_; and boys, can you guess what it made me think it must have once been?"

Although all of them looked eagerly interested, they shook their heads in the negative, as though unable to hazard even a guess.

"Go on, Elmer, and tell us," urged Toby.

"Yes, let down the bars and relieve our anxiety, please, Elmer," added Lil Artha.

"Unless I'm away off in my reckoning," said the other, solemnly, "it was part of a pair of steel handcuffs such as officers fasten to the wrists of prisoners when taking them to the penitentiary!"

CHAPTER III

A PROMISING CLUE

It was about four o'clock on the following afternoon when a wagon drawn by a pair of husky horses moved along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Solitude, many miles away from the town of Hickory Ridge.

This vehicle was filled with lively lads, all of them in the faded khaki uniforms that, as a rule, distinguish Boy Scouts the wide world over.

Counting them it would be seen that they numbered just seven, and this included all of those whom we met on the road under the spreading branches of the big oak, and Mark c.u.mmings in addition. Since the entire membership of the Wolf Patrol consisted of eight, it was plain that the only one now lacking was the unfortunate Hen Condit.

After making up their minds to exert themselves to the utmost in hopes of finding the runaway, and bringing him back home, Elmer and the others had set to work preparing for the campaign.

The patrol leader gave such advice as was required by some of the others, telling them to go as light as possible, since they would have to be moving around, and ordinary camp material could not be considered.

If they were compelled to remain out in the open for one or more nights, there were plenty of ways whereby they could secure shelter without carrying along such a c.u.mbersome thing as a tent.

Each fellow had his rubber poncho strapped to his pack. Elmer and Lil Artha carried a gun each, not that they expected to shoot any game, but to use as a threat should they be faced by a desperate escaped jail bird. Besides this the boys had seen to it that each one had some sort of food supply, in the shape of sandwiches, dried beef, and such things as could be most easily packed.