d finally had gone off with a
man who bore a shady reputation in the city. Will had said he was going
farther into the interior, and the woman thought she heard something
about a lumber camp, or a place where turpentine and other pine-tar
products, were obtained.

"Well, do the best you can, Grace, until I come back," said Mr. Ford.
"And look after your mother. Perhaps this will be all right after all."

There were three weary days of waiting, relieved only by brief messages
from Mr. Ford, saying that he was doing all he could to find Will. Mrs.
Ford was not told the whole story, save that her son had gone into the
interior.

"Oh, I'm sure something must have happened!" exclaimed Grace, when on
the fourth day there came a message saying Mr. Ford was on his way back.
"He hasn't Will with him, or he would have said so. Oh, isn't it
perfectly terrible!"

"Now, don't worry," advised Betty. "I know that is easy to say, Grace,
and hard to do. But try. Even if your father hasn't found Will, perhaps
he has some trace of him. He would hardly come back without good
reason."

"I suppose not. Oh, aren't boys--terrible!"

"But Will didn't mean to cause all this trouble," spoke Mollie.

"I know. But he has, just the same."

Grace was too miserable even to think of chocolates.

Mr. Ford looked pale and tired when he came home, and his eyes showed
loss of sleep.

"Well," he said to Grace, who was surrounded by her three chums, "I
didn't find Will. He seems to have made a mess of it."

"How?" asked his sister.

"Well, by getting in with this developing concern. It seems that he
signed some sort of contract, agreeing to work for them. He supposed it
was clerical or secretary's work, but it turns out that he was deceived.
What he signed was a contract to work in one of the many camps in the
wilds of the interior. He may be getting out cypress, or turpentine."

"Couldn't you locate him, Daddy?" asked Grace.

"No, for the firm he signed with operates many camps. I could get very
little satisfaction from them. I may have to appeal to the
authorities."

"But Will is not of age--they can't hold him even if he did sign a
contract to work, especially when they deceived him," declared Grace.

"I know it, my dear," replied her father. "But they have him in their
clutches, and possession, as you know, is nine points of the law, and
part of the tenth. Where Will is I don't know. Just as the message said,
he went off with that sm