Afloat on the Flood | Page 6

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 passed, 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 nigger 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!" ejaculated 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
passengers; 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,"