few seconds of
thought.

"And you didn't hear any suspicious sounds, like boys laughing partly
under their breath; did you, Andrew?"

"Not a chuckle, sir," replied the other. "It was just a fine night, I
noticed, and looked like we'd have good weather right along for the
meet. But if you think there are any fellers in this town mean enough to
kidnap Colon, just to give us a black eye to-morrow, I must say I can't
understand it, sir."

"Well, I believe I have known of a certain lot of young fellows who
happen to hold forth around Riverport, and who would not be above doing
a thing like that, given just half a cause," the judge replied,
meaningly; and every one knew whom he had in mind, for their thoughts
immediately flew to Buck Lemington and his cronies.

"But perhaps it wasn't any prank of boys at all," Bristles went on,
eagerly; "Colon said the night was so bright he had half a notion to
take a two mile dash out over the Grafton road, just to wind up his big
day. I advised him not to think of it, but he only laughed. But he's
awful set in his ways, sir, once he makes up his mind."

"He said that; did he?" asked the judge, apparently thinking that there
might be something worth while taking note of in this latest assertion.

"Yes, sir, he certainly did," the boy answered. "Colon's a queer fish
anyhow, and does heaps of things nobody else'd ever think of. Now, what
if he did start on that run; why, something might have happened to
him--perhaps he tripped, and fell, and broke a leg, so he couldn't even
crawl home."

The mother started to cry again as she pictured her boy suffering all
through the night as Bristles described so recklessly. And so the judge
moved aside with several of the boys, the better to talk unheard by
Colon's mother.

"Things are beginning to take on shape, I see," he remarked, grimly.
"Possibly the boy did foolishly start on that late run by moonlight, and
met with trouble. Some people with whom I talked on the way here were of
the opinion he had been kidnapped by tramps, and was being held for a
ransom, just as if this might be Sicily or Greece."

"I don't think that way, Judge Colon," said Fred, speaking for the first
time.

"I'm pleased to hear that you have another idea, my boy; let us know its
nature," said the lawyer, who had always been favorably impressed with
the sterling worth of Mr. Fenton's son, and now hoped he had struck on a
plausible explanation of the odd mystery.

"M