ayson's," suggested
Mr. Holmes. "It isn't too late to call on him, and he will be able to
tell us whether Greg showed up at his house at all."

The launch was soon alongside the little landing at Mr. Payson's place.
Taking a lantern from the boat, Dick and his friends explored the
orchard for signs of Greg until Mr. Holmes returned.

"Mr. Payson tells me that he didn't see my boy," stated Mr. Holmes.
"What can we do now, I wonder?"

"I should think, sir," Dick suggested, "that it's plain enough that Greg
didn't try to go home by the river. The canoe may have gotten adrift,
and he may have started toward home on foot. Some of us, I think, ought
to follow the road. We may find Greg somewhere along the road, injured
as a result of some accident."

"That's a good idea," nodded Mr. Holmes. "Yet I shall want Mr. Atwater
to keep on searching along the river, and some of you boys ought to be
with him, using your sharp eyes."

A conference was held at the landing. Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton
boarded the "Napoleon," after which Mr. Holmes and the other boys set
out for the road.

Truth to tell, neither those aboard the launch nor those who slowly
followed the road back to Gridley had much hope of encountering news of
the missing Greg.

"He has fallen in with Ab. Dexter or Driggs," whispered Dave to Dick
when they were so far from Mr. Holmes that the latter could not overhear
them.

"That's the way I feel about it," nodded young Prescott. "First, the
affair of the bricks for mine; then the big stone that whizzed by within
an inch of your head at night. And now Greg, the third of us to spoil
the abduction plan, is mysteriously missing."

"There's some scoundrelly plan back of all three affairs," replied Dave
Darrin with conviction. "Yet why should Dexter take all this trouble to
punish boys?"

"First of all, because we interfered with him, and spoiled his bold
stroke," guessed Dick Prescott. "Next, through hitting so mysteriously
at us all, he probably hopes to scare Mrs. Dexter out of her life. If
Dexter gets her thoroughly nervous and cowed probably she'll buy him off
with a lot of her inherited money. That fellow Dexter would do anything
on earth to escape the penalty of having to work for his living."

"The mean rascal!" was all Dave could mutter, and he said it with
pent-up savagery.

Wherever a light showed along the country road the seekers after Greg
knocked at doors. Invariably the answer was the same--no