and digging holes big enough to
bury himself! John! Where are you?"

She disappeared as quickly as she had come, banging the door violently
behind her; but Roy sprang down from his seat instantly.

"Dudley, it's old Principle! Something must have happened to him, do let
us go and see."

Dudley dashed down his pen, and was vaulting out of the window, when he
suddenly stopped.

"Roy get your great coat, quick. Aunt Judy made me promise to look
after you. I'll wait while you get it."

Roy dashed out into the hall. He heard the rector's voice in the
distance, but was too excited to wait to see him, and after impatiently
tugging on his objectionable coat, he limped off as quickly as he could,
joining Dudley at the garden gate. They heard the news on the way to old
Principle's. It appeared that the old man had gone out the afternoon
before, and had never come home. His shop was shut up exactly as he had
left it, and the woman who went in every day to do his cleaning and
cooking for him, was the first one to notice his absence. The group of
idle women round his door were busily discussing the question when the
boys arrived.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if as how he has made away with
hisself," suggested one, knowingly. "I always did say as he were queer
in the head, a makin' out of a pack o' stones such amazin' stories! And
a mutterin' to hisself like no ordinary creetur, and a walkin' through
the woods and fields as if he seed nothin' but what other folks couldn't
see at all!"

"Ah, now! To think of it! And Bill is a goin' down the river to find his
body; for him and Walter Hitchcock have searched the whole place since
seven o'clock this mornin'!"

"May be there's a murder in it," said a young woman, cheerfully. "He
were an old man to wander off alone, and there's allays evil-doers round
about for the unprotected."

The boys listened to these and similar conjectures with frightened eyes;
then Dudley whispered,

"I believe he is in his cave, Roy; we'll go and look for him. Only don't
tell these women about it, because he hasn't told anybody but us where
it is."

They left the shop and started for the hills, but Roy's lameness made
progress very slow.

At last he stopped, and struggling to hide his disappointment said,
"You'll have to go on without me, Dudley. I only keep you back. This old
leg of mine always comes in the way."

Dudley stopped to consider. "It's a very long way, but we must get there
some