Afloat on the Flood | Page 4

great effort, he managed to say a few words.
"Terrible thing's happened, fellows! Knocks the reputation of the Wolf Patrol all to smithereens!"
Of course, this excited those four scouts as nothing else could have done.
"Has anything happened to Elmer?" almost shouted Toby.
"No, it's Hen Condit!" answered Landy; "he's gone and stole a lot of money from his guardian, and lit out, that's what! And him belonging to the Wolf Patrol, too!"
CHAPTER II
WHEN HEN CONDIT LEFT TOWN
"Hey! say that over again, won't you, Landy! I sure believe my ears must have fooled me!" exclaimed Lil Artha.
"Hen Condit robbed his uncle and guardian, are you telling us, Landy?" gasped Toby; "aw! come off, now, you're just giving us taffy, thinking it smart."
"I tell you I just came from their house," continued the perspiring scout, mopping his reeking forehead with a suspicious looking handkerchief that may once on a time have been really white. "You see, Mr. Condit didn't get up as early as he generally does, because he had a terrible headache. And say, they even think he might have been given a dose of chloroform to make him sleep longer."
"Hold on, fellows," snapped Toby just then, "as luck will have it here comes Elmer in his father's little runabout. He said he had to go over to Rockaway on an important errand for his dad this morning, which was the only reason he couldn't join us for a swim. Let's hold him up, and Landy can tell the whole story then."
When they made urgent gestures to the boy in the swift-flying runabout, he hastened to pull up, laughing at the same time.
"I hurried over and back on purpose to follow you fellows to the ole swimmin' hole," he told them; "but I didn't expect to meet you on the way. Don't delay me; I'll jump on my wheel to chase after you."
"But, Elmer, something awful has happened, and you ought to know about it," declared Toby, at which the boy in the small car looked searchingly at each of the others in turn, and seeing how grave they appeared, he demanded what it meant.
"Why, you see," explained Lil Artha, "Landy here was late in joining us. He just came along on his machine, pegging it for all he was worth, and looking like he had seen one of the ghosts some people believe in. He only started to tell us when you came in sight; but it's terrible. What d'ye think, he says our Wolf Patrol comrade, Hen Condit, has run away from home, and robbed his guardian in the bargain!"
Elmer instantly jumped to the road. He faced Landy as a lawyer might a witness on the stand; and Elmer knew just how to "pump" a fellow so as to get the principal facts without much loss of time, as his chums understood.
"Go on and tell us about it, Landy," he commanded. "How did you happen to learn about the fact in the first place?"
"Why, you see," answered the other, only too willing to explain to the best of his ability, "ma, she sent me over on an errand to the Condit house. I was madder'n hops about it, too, because I just knew I'd be keepin' the fellows waiting here under the Grandaddy Oak."
"What did you find when you got there?" asked Elmer, who knew Landy to be long-winded, and that often the quickest way to learn facts from him was to put him on the grill.
"Why, they were all upset," admitted Landy. "Mr. Condit was as mad as a bull in a china shop, and his wife was looking as white as chalk, yes, and scared, too. Seems that when he went into his library after eating breakfast he found the safe open and everything gone. It was an 'inside job' the Chief said, because nobody had busted the safe."
"Then the Chief was there, was he?" questioned the patrol leader.
"Sure he was; Mr. Condit had 'phoned to him. There were a dozen neighbors in the house, too, and more acomin' right along. Biggest kind of excitement. Oh! it's going to be town property before night, I guess, and lots of people'll be pointing their fingers at every fellow wearing khaki, and saying they always knew scouts was no better than the law allowed. Oh! wouldn't I like to get hold of that Hen Condit, though."
"What makes them believe it was Hen" continued Elmer.
"Say, that's the queerest part of it all," answered the fat boy; "the silly gump gave the whole business away himself--went and left a note behind him telling that he was the guilty villain, and that they needn't ever expect to see him again, because he had lit out for Chicago."
"Whew! you don't say!" gasped Lil Arthur, apparently half stunned by this later intelligence; "I never would have