CHAPTER II
MR. ALDEN BRINGS NEWS
Exhausted by their run and the excitement of their escape, Larry and Tom staggered into the house and dropped into chairs, their mother and the hired men pressing about and plying them with questions. But it was several minutes before the boys recovered their breath sufficiently to speak.
Tom was the first to get over his fright, and, as soon as he could control his voice, gave a vivid account of their attempt to reach home before their father, their hearing the uncanny sound from the swamp, the sudden appearance of the wolf behind them and their desperate race to get to the house before the beast should overtake them.
"It's a good thing I practiced shooting last winter," exclaimed Joe as the story ended. He was proud of what he had accomplished.
"There's father," declared Mrs. Alden as a "whoa!" sounded from the yard.
Quickly Larry picked up a lantern, and, followed by all but his mother, went out to help unhitch the horses and take them into the barn.
"What's been going on?" demanded the farmer as the others joined him. "I heard the rifle shot."
Eagerly they all started to tell.
"Don't all speak at once," interposed Mr. Alden. "You're talking so loud and so fast I can't understand a word. Tom, suppose you explain?"
Excitedly the youngest of the brothers poured forth the tale.
"A wolf in Bramley, eh? Well, well! It's a good thing you boys were so near home. This is sure a great day for happenings. My sons get chased into their own dooryard and I——"
But as though to arouse their curiosity, the farmer did not finish his sentence.
"You what?" asked Larry.
"Never mind now. Put the horses up. You won't have to feed them; they're too hot. Give them a little hay and then come in to supper."
Knowing it was useless to try to get their father to satisfy their curiosity, for Mr. Alden, though a kindly man, was what his neighbors called "set in his ways," Tom and Larry ran to the barn to open the door, while the hired men followed with the horses.
After rubbing the animals down and giving them some hay, the four returned to the house.
But not until the supper was finished did the farmer deign to impart his news. Then, tilting back in his chair, he looked at his wife and asked:
"How would you like to take the boys to Scotland for the summer, ma?"
"To Scotland?" repeated Mrs. Alden, as though scarcely believing her ears. "Theodore Alden, are you going crazy? What are you talking about?"
"About going to Scotland," answered the farmer, grinning. "And I'm not crazy."
At the mention of the trip, Larry and Tom looked at their parent and then at each other in dismay, for they had planned a different sort of way for spending the summer. But their attention was quickly drawn to their father again.
"I've got to go to Scotland and we might as well all go," he was saying. "The hired men can run the farm for the summer."
Lapsing into silence as he watched the effect of his words, Mr.
Alden enjoyed the looks of surprise and curiosity, then continued:
"When I got to Bramley this morning I found a letter from a man named Henry Sargent, a Glasgow lawyer. He said my uncle, Thomas Darwent, had died, leaving me the only heir to his estates. Just how much money this means I don't know. He said it might be ten thousand pounds."
"Phew! that's fifty thousand dollars," interposed Larry, excitedly.
"Just so," returned his father. "It may be more. I can't make out whether that's the amount of cash or if that's what it will come to when the land and houses are sold."
"You can write and find out," suggested Mrs. Alden.
"I can write, but I doubt if I can find out," chuckled the farmer. "Those lawyer chaps use such high-sounding words, you can't tell what they mean. If Uncle Darwent made me his heir, I'm going to see I get all there Is to get. No Scotchman is going to cheat Theodore Alden out of what's his. Soon's I'd made up my mind to that, I drove over to Olmsted and made arrangements to sail from New York on Saturday."
"Saturday? Why that's only three days off!" protested Mrs. Alden.
"Well, it'll only take a night and part of a day to get to New
York. That'll give you a day and a half to get ready, ma."
The thought of a trip to Scotland delighted Mrs. Alden, and she immediately began to plan how she could get the boys, her husband and herself ready in such a short space of time.
But Larry and Tom showed no signs of enthusiasm.
Noticing their silence, their father exclaimed:
"Don't you boys want to go? I never knew you so quiet before when a trip was mentioned."
"But the ball game with Husted is on Saturday," said Larry, giving voice to the thought uppermost in his mind. Then, as though he realized that it was foolish to compare a trip to Scotland with a game of baseball, he added: "Besides, Tom and I were planning—that is, we were going to ask you if we couldn't go out to Tolopah and spend the summer with Horace and Bill Wilder on their ranch."
With this announcement of a plan which the brothers had discussed over and over, wondering how they could bring it about, the boys anxiously watched their father's face.
"So that's how the wind blows, eh?" he commented. "Well, ma, what do you say? Shall we take the boys with us or let them go to the ranch?"
With her quiet mother's eye Mrs. Alden caught the appeal on her sons' faces and after a short deliberation replied:
"I think they'd be better off with the Wilders—that is, if they'd like to have the boys visit them."
"Hooray! hooray!" cried the boys together.
"We can telegraph and ask Mr. Wilder tonight," said Larry. "Can we go to Bramley and send the message, father?"
"You can telephone the message to the station and the operator will send it."
And while the boys puzzled over the wording of the telegram, their father re-read his letter from Scotland.
"I've got the telegram ready," Tom exclaimed presently. "Listen." And picking up the piece of paper on which he had been scribbling he read:
"BILL AND HORACE WILDER,
"Tolopah, New Mexico:
"We can leave Saturday to visit you. Do you
want us? Answer quick. Father and mother
leave Friday for Scotland. We'll have to go,
if you don't want us.
"LARRY AND TOM ALDEN."
"You might make it shorter," chuckled the farmer.
"And muddle it all up so they wouldn't understand it any better than you do your lawyer's letter," returned Larry.
"That's a bull's-eye," grinned Joe, whose mind was running to shooting terms.
And as neither their father nor mother interposed any objections, the boys telephoned the message to the operator at Bramley, who promised to send it at once.