There was an immediate scattering of the clans. Boys ran this way and that, telling the astonishing news to every one they met. Housewives stood in doorways and anxiously inquired as to the very latest theory to account for the mysterious disappearance of a Riverport lad. Such a thing had never happened before, save when little Rupert Whiting wandered off in search of b.u.t.terflies, and was found two days later, living on the blueberries that grew so abundantly in the woods.

And when the latest suggestion, connected with the boys of Mechanicsburg, began to be current it created no end of unfavorable comment.

Meanwhile Fred and several of his chums had started in to see what they could do toward finding Colon. As usual they looked to Fred to do pretty much all the planning. Somehow, in times like this, when boys are called upon to meet a sudden emergency, they naturally turn toward the strongest spirit. In this case it happened to be Fred.

"Now, in the beginning, fellows," he remarked, when he found that only Corney, Sid Wells, Bristles, and Semi-Colon were gathered around him; "we've got to go into this thing with some show of system."

"That's right," admitted Corney.

"Too many already just prancing around," observed Bristles, scornfully; "up one road, and down another, peekin' into barns, and asking questions of every farmer around. All that's what we call 'wasted endeavor,' at school. Fred, system is the thing. But just where do we make a proper start, so as to cover the field, and not go over the same ground twice?"

"That's just it," replied the other; "we want to map out our course beforehand, and then stick to it. Now, to begin with, Bristles, let's decide which way Colon would have gone from your house, if he had really made up his mind that he must have a last two mile practice spin before he went home, and to bed."

"Say, I can tell you that right off the reel," declared Bristles, officiously.

"Then get busy," remarked Corney.

"Why, you see," said Bristles, "when he talked of doing that little stunt, he said he'd a good notion to run up to the graveyard and back, which would make an even two miles."

"But you didn't say anything about that before?" Fred objected.

"Clean slipped my mind," his chum admitted, frankly; "fact is, I never thought it made the least difference what Colon _said_. The main thing seemed to be he was gone, like the ground had opened and swallowed him.

But if he took that run, Fred, make up your mind it was up there."

Corney gave a little whistle.

"Gee! the loneliest old road inside of ten miles around Riverport, too.

I guess old Colon must have been wanting to give them fellers the best chance ever. If he'd been offered a prize to accommodate 'em, he couldn't have hit the bulls-eye better."

"Then that's the road we want to take," said Fred, decisively. "Don't mention it to anybody, but come along. Somebody who knows all the quirks of that road better than I do, lead off. And every fellow keep on the lookout, right and left, for signs."

So they hurried away toward the house where the Carpenters lived.

Bristles showed them just where he stood when, in the moonlight, he saw the last of his tall chum, turning to wave a hand at him.

With that they started off. Little talking was indulged in, for all of them understood that they had a serious matter on their hands. With Colon gone, their hopes of landing a majority of the prizes offered for the various events of the athletic meet would begin to grow dim indeed.

It would take the heart out of other contestants on the part of Riverport, and in all probability accomplish just the end those who had abducted Colon had in view.

After they had pa.s.sed along for some little distance, eagerly scanning every object in sight, their hopes fell a trifle. Boylike, they had imagined that as soon as they started out upon this promising theory they would find plenty of evidence calculated to prove its truth.

"Ain't seen a sign of him yet!" grumbled Corney; "and we're nigh half-way to the old graveyard, too."

"Wait!" said Fred, as he suddenly drew up, and the others followed suit; though none of them could imagine what had caused their leader to stop his quick walk.

"Seen something; have you, Fred?" asked Bristles, eagerly.

"Why, I was wondering," Fred remarked, quietly, and with a twinkle in his eye, "if they grew things like that around here on bushes, instead of blueberries!"

He pointed down as he spoke. Alongside the road at this point lay a ditch that was a couple of feet lower than the surface of the pike.

Straggly bushes partly over-ran the watercourse; and caught on the twigs of these was some sort of object that had attracted the attention of the observant boy.

"Say, it's a cap!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Corney.

"And a good cap, too; not an old cast-off thing!" Sid declared.

"Hold on, let me take it up out of there with this stick," said Fred.

"No use getting our feet wet; and besides, it's easier this way."

So saying, while the others cl.u.s.tered around, he reached down, and deftly thrusting the end of the stick under the cap, drew it to him.

Immediately Bristles uttered a loud cry of astonishment, not unmixed with joy.

"You recognize the cap, then; do you?" asked Fred.

"Sure thing," answered Bristles, promptly. "It's Colon's cap."

CHAPTER IX

THE COVERED WAGON

"What makes you so sure it belonged to him?" Fred asked.

"Oh! I know it as well as I do my own cap," replied Bristles. "It's a queer mixture, you can see; and here's the place where Colon shot that arrow through it one day, when he asked me to throw it up in the air for him."

"And I ought to know it too, Fred," remarked the short legged cousin of the missing boy. "Because I bought it for Chris. You see, I lost his other for him, and I had to spend some of my hard-earned cash to get him a new one. I found that at Snyder's Emporium; and I thought he'd kick like fun because it was so odd; but say, he just thought it the best thing ever! That's Colon's headgear, all right."

"Then we'll consider that point settled," Fred went on to say. "The next thing on the program to decide is, how does it happen to be lying here in this ditch? As I remember it, there wasn't much of a wind last night when I went to bed, and it doesn't seem then that it could have blown off his head when he was running."

"There wasn't a ripple in the leaves of the trees," declared Bristles.

"And if it did blow off, wouldn't he have stopped to look for it in the moonlight?" remarked Sid Wells.

"Colon is too careful of his things not to make a hunt for his cap,"

came from Semi-Colon, who ought to know if any one did, about the peculiarities of his own cousin.

"Well, the cap was here," Fred said; "and we found it; now why was it lying in the ditch as if it had been thrown there, or knocked off in a scuffle?"

"Wow! now perhaps we ain't gettin' down to bra.s.s tacks!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bristles.

Fred bent over to examine the road, along the edge of the ditch.

"Looks like somethin' might have been going on here," Corney suggested.

"You're right," Sid added, excitedly. "Why, anybody with one eye could see there'd been a scramble around here. Look at the sc.r.a.pings in the dust; would you? just like a pack of fellows had set on one; and the bunch were jumping around him, trying to get away, and the others holding on. Fred, here's where it must have happened, sure!"