Jack Winters Gridiron Chums | Page 6

home, too; but I hate to the worst kind, I sure do."
"What's the matter--lost something, Bob?" asked Jack, joining the
other.
Bob Jeffries did not answer for a brief time. He was apparently
pondering over the matter, and trying to decide in his mind just how far
he ought to take Jack into his confidence. Then, as though some sudden
impulse urged him to make a clean breast of the facts, he broke out
with:
"Jack, to tell you the honest truth, I'm in just a peck of trouble for a fact.
You asked me if I lost anything, and you'll think me a bit daffy 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