Jack Winters Gridiron Chums | Page 6

when I tell you I don't know--I only fear the worst. I'm going to tell you all about it, Jack, because I feel sure you'll never give me away; and maybe yon might even help me."

CHAPTER III
BIG BOB CONFESSES

"Look here, Bob, suppose we adjourn over to my house and have our little talk out in my den. I've got some comfortable chairs there, as you happen to know; and it'll be a heap better than standing here, where people may come along any old time and interrupt us."
That last line of argument seemed to convince Bob, for he immediately agreed.
"The fact is, Jack," he went on to say, "I wouldn't want to have anybody hear what I'm going to tell you now. It certainly is a shame how I've muddled this thing up, and I guess I deserve all I'm getting in the shape of worry. It's going to be a lesson to me, I give you my word on that, Jack."
They were trudging along in company when Big Bob said that. Of course such talk could only excite Jack's natural curiosity still more. He began to understand that whatever the other had been searching for was not his own property, for he was hardly the kind of fellow, inclined to be careless, and free from anxiety, to let such a personal loss bother him greatly.
Presently the pair found themselves in Jack's particular room, which he, like most boys of the present day, liked to call his "den." It was an odd-shaped room for which there had really been no especial use, and which the boy had fitted up with a stove, chairs, table and bookcases, also covering the walls with college pennants, and all manner of things connected with boys' sports.
Jack closed the door carefully.
"Pick your chair, Bob, and I'll draw up close to you," he said, briskly, as though bent on raising the other's drooping spirits without any delay, just by virtue of his own cheery manner.
Bob looked as though he had lost his last friend. He sighed and then started to tell just what ailed him.
"Seems like I've grown three years older since I suddenly failed to remember about that particular letter father gave me to be sure to post before the afternoon mail went out. I had some others, you see, two of my own, and three that Mom gave me. I can recollect shoving them in the shute one by one; but for the life of me, Jack, I can't say positively that the one going across to England was with the bunch. Oh! it gave me a cold chill when I first had that awful thought I'd lost it on the way. I remembered pulling something out of my pocket when crossing that shortcut path, and that's why I hurried there with my light, hoping to discover it in the grass."
Jack understood what lay back of this. He chanced to know Bob's father was reckoned a very stern man, and that he had grown weary of Bob's customary way of forgetting things, or doing them in a slipshod fashion. He even knew that Mr. Jeffries had laid down the law to his son, and promised to punish him severely the next time he showed such carelessness.
"It's too bad, Bob, of course it is, but then don't despair yet," Jack told the other boy. "There is always a good chance that you did put that particular letter in the post-office. We'll try to find out if Mr. Dickerson, the postmaster, or his assistant, chanced to notice a letter addressed to England. It must have been of considerable importance, I take it from what you've said already."
"It was just that, Jack; and father impressed its importance on me when he handed it to me stamped, and ready to go. I think it means something big in a business deal of his. Now, in these times when war has gripped nearly the whole world, Uncle Sam with the rest, it's a long wait before you can expect an answer to a letter going abroad, even if the German submarines allow it to reach there. And if I don't find out the truth now, just think of the days and weeks I'll be worrying my head off about that letter! Oh! it makes me just sick to even think of it. I could kick myself with right good pleasure."
Jack realized that this was bound to be the long-needed lesson, by means of which careless Bob would cut loose from his pernicious habit of taking everything free--and--easy. Good might spring from evil, and what now seemed to be a crowing disaster, the boy was likely in later days to look upon as a blessing in disguise.
"If you'd like, Bob," he told his friend, to ease the strain, "I'll see