The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters | Page 5

of anticipatory pleasure. The music began, the movement gradually quickened, and he was just giving himself up to the pleasure of it when he saw working toward him, on the inside running-board, a man collecting tickets. On his coat was the nickeled badge of a constable. Glen did not know that he was a special officer for the sole purpose of protecting his own outfit against rowdies. In his eyes it was the approach of the law. Although they were now swinging round at a good rate he slipped from his horse and jumped, at peril of his neck. The sight of an official badge struck terror to his soul.
So it was wherever he went. He saw in every man an officer. One might have supposed the park policed by an army. He had just dodged one of the two real park policemen when he overheard a momentous conversation.
A man from the bathhouse came by.
"Anything doing, Jake?" he asked the officer.
"Nothing much," replied the policeman. "They 'phoned us a boy got away from the reform school. They think he might just have come out to the park for fun and overstayed. Ain't seen any one, have ye?"
"Not me."
"Well, if he's in here we'll get him as he goes out. I'll watch one gate and Barney the other."
So they were on the look out for him. But there was nothing in his present clothing to suggest the reform school boy, and though he was hatless there were numbers of hatless boys in the park. There were many people of all kinds, in fact, and if he went with the crowd, he could surely slip out unnoticed. Yet he feared to attempt to pass the representative of the law at the gate. How conscience doth make cowards of us all!
It was a good deed, done impulsively, that solved Glen's problem. An automobile was passing. The occupants were all watching the bathers in the lake, excepting a little chap of three who had seized the opportunity to climb over the door with the evident idea of jumping to the ground. When Glen saw him he was poised on the running board ready for his jump. Like a flash Glen jumped for the footboard of the moving car and interposed his body as an obstacle to the little fellow's leap. The women in the car screamed and the man who was driving stopped his car in surprise at the intrusion. It was only when Glen hauled the little boy up to view that they saw what he had done.
"I am Jonathan Gates," said the man, offering Glen his hand, "and this is my wife and daughter. We don't know how to thank you for saving that little scamp from harm."
"We might at least take you back into town," suggested Mrs. Gates.
"But I am going west, into the country," said Glen.
"That is still better," said Mr. Gates. "We live eight miles west of here and will take you wherever you say."
"I'll go just as far as you go," Glen replied. "I live away out west and am on my way on foot. Every mile is a help."
They passed through the gates without any notice from the officer who was watching for an escaped Reform School boy, and Glen felt safe again.
"We have not visited the park in a long while," explained Mrs. Gates, "and it was all new to us. That is why we lost sight of Jack. He was very anxious to run back and see the monkeys again."
"I have never been there before at all," said Glen. "And I am glad I saw this monkey. I was passing and I just went in by chance."
"Not chance," said Mr. Gates. "Let us say Providence. Our boy might have been badly hurt or even killed. Certainly you were led by Providence, or I would rather be more definite and say the hand of God."
"Oh I don't know. I guess not," stammered Glen, greatly embarrassed. He wondered what Mr. Gates would say if he knew that he came to the park in running away from the reform school. He had not yet learned that the power of God may even overrule our evil for good. But he was quite willing to agree that his good fortune in meeting the Gates family might be God's providence.
He felt his good fortune still more when Mrs. Gates insisted that he must stay with them at least one night. He yielded, thinking that he would get up very early and slip away before they were astir in the morning. But the excitement of the day had such an effect that he overslept and did not waken until called to breakfast.
The effect of this family was something such as Glen had never known. All they knew of him was his name,