aid.
Time and again you've sprung that on us, and you've never given
us the slightest satisfaction. Now, you'd either better tell
us, or shut up about the man on the clubhouse steps."

"All right," sighed Dick. "I'll-----"

"Well?" insisted five boys in the same breath.

"I reckon I'll shut up," Dick rejoined.

"Say, somebody ought to hit Dickins!" grunted Reade.

"That's right," grinned Dan. "Well---let Tom do it."

Dick continued to smile mysteriously. He enjoyed this good-natured
teasing of his chums.

"What are we going to tell folks about what we saw at the cottage?"
queried Dan after another five minutes of trudging.

"If we tell anything at all," suggested Prescott, "I'll tell you
how we can win a prize."

"How?" demanded Tom innocently. "By telling the truth," Dick
smiled. Soon after the Grammar School boys came out on the road.

"See that group 'way ahead there?" asked Tom, pointing down the
road.

"Yes," nodded Dick. "That's Rip's crowd, so we know they didn't
get hurt."

"Then the only one who did get hurt," Tom added, "was the man
who was very soon able to take mighty good care of himself."

"So we don't need to bother about the matter any more," Greg hinted.
"And, gracious! I hope mother has saved some supper for me."

"It'll be a cold hand-out for me," groaned Hazelton.

The Grammar School boys were soon on Main Street now. They hurried
along, as they had not yet come to the point of parting.

"Look at that crowd down the street," called Dave. "There's some
excitement in the wind."

"I'm not nosey," observed Tom.

"No," scoffed Darrin; "you're too hungry."

"I'm going to see what the excitement is about, anyway," muttered
Hazelton, starting forward off a run.

One by one the other boys yielded to curiosity and started at
a jog-trot for the corner where the crowd was gathered.

"No; the poor fellow isn't crazy in the ordinary sense of the
word," Dick heard a tall man, finely dressed in black, say to
some of the bystanders. "He's harmless enough, and his mind isn't
permanently astray, if only he can have prompt and good care.
But he's inclined to get away by himself and ponder over his
inventions. If he leads a too solitary life long enough he may
be past the possibility of a cure one of these days. That is
why Colonel Garwood is so anxious to find his son, and offers
such a handsome reward for information."

"Some one missing?" asked Dick in a low voice.

"Yes," nodded a man