The Outdoor Girls in Florida | Page 3

it easier for Grace to tell.
"No, he hasn't done anything to attract public attention this time," went on Grace. "But he has run away."
"Run away!"
It was a surprised chorus from the three visitors.
"Yes he has left Uncle Isaac's home--stopped work in the cotton mill, and gone--no one knows where."
"Why, Grace!" exclaimed Mollie. "Do you really mean it?"
Grace nodded. She could not speak for a moment.
"How did it happen?" asked Betty.
"Who told you?" Amy wanted to know.
"Uncle Isaac himself told us," resumed Grace, after a pause. "As for how it happened we don't know yet. Uncle Isaac is on his way now to give us some particulars. He just telephoned to mamma, and that is what upset us all. I have sent for papa to come home from the office. He will be here to meet Uncle Isaac I hope. Oh, isn't it dreadful!"
"But perhaps it is only some boyish prank," suggested Betty hopefully. "What are the particulars? Perhaps he has only gone off with some friends, and will come back again, just as he did the--other time."
"The other time," as Betty called it was rather a delicate subject with the Ford family, for Will with some chums had gotten into a little difficulty not long before this story opens, and the present complication was an outcome of that. I shall describe them in order presently.
"No, I don't believe it is a prank this time," went on Grace. "He has been gone some time, and we never knew it until Uncle Isaac mentioned it casually over the telephone. Oh, I wish he would come! We can't do a thing until we hear the particulars. Then papa will start an inquiry, I think. Poor Will! I hope he is not--not hurt!" and again Grace showed symptoms of tears.
"Now stop that!" commanded the Little Captain sharply. "You know it does no good to worry. Wait until you have some real facts to go on."
"Yes, do," urged Mollie.
"But he isn't your brother," said Grace in retort. "How would you like it, Mollie Billette, if Paul should be missing some day?"
"Oh, I'd feel dreadful, of course. But Paul and Dodo get into so many scrapes," she added, with a curious shrug of her shoulders, in which she betrayed her French ancestry--"so very many scrapes, my dears, that we are past being shocked."
But, for all Mollie spoke so lightly, she knew--and so did her chums--that should anything happen to the twins Mollie would be the first to show emotion.
"Have you heard no word from Will himself?" asked Betty, after a pause.
"Not a word, and that makes it seem all the worse. If we only had some word--something to go by, we might not feel so bad. But it came like a bolt out of a blue sky--what Uncle Isaac telephoned about an hour ago. He is down town attending to business, and he said he'd come up as soon as he could. He was surprised himself, to know that Will was not home."
"Then he knew that he had left Atlanta?" asked Mollie.
"Yes, but he supposed Will had started back home."
"I'm afraid I don't exactly understand it all," said Amy in a low voice. "You know I've been away, and----"
"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Grace. "I forgot that you had been off with that newly-found brother of yours. Well, you see, Amy, Will disgraced himself a while ago----"
"I don't call it much of a disgrace," said Betty in defense of the absent one.
"Well, papa did," said Grace. "I thought perhaps he was a little too severe on Will, but mamma said it was best to be severe at the start."
"What did he do?" asked Amy.
"I didn't hear all the particulars," went on Grace. "But you know that new Latin teacher the High School boys have--Professor Cark, his name is."
Amy nodded.
"Well, the boys didn't like him from the very start," proceeded Grace, "and I guess he didn't like the boys any too well. They played some tricks on him, and he retaliated by doubling up on their lessons. Then one night he was kidnapped--taken from his boarding place and hazed. It was nothing very bad, but the faculty held a meeting, and voted to expel all the boys concerned in it. Will was one, and papa was so angry that he said he would punish Will in a way he wouldn't forget. He said he'd take him out of school, before he'd have him expelled, and make him lose a term.
"So poor Will was given his choice of starting the study of law in papa's office, or going to work for Uncle Isaac Ford--papa's brother. Uncle Isaac has a big cotton mill down in Atlanta, Georgia, you know. Papa thought it would be a good thing for Will to see what hard work meant. At the same time it