When the coffee was done Fred came out and secured a cup of it for the sick man; while Sarah sat down at the kitchen table to drink her portion. Bristles was almost famishing for a taste, but he would not have accepted the first drop, had it smelled twice as good.
After making the two as comfortable as possible, the two boys once more prepared to start on their run toward home. Of course they must expect to come in the very last of all, owing to all these delays; but it was little they cared.
"Expect company before long," sang out Bristles, as, having shaken hands with the sick man and Sarah, they turned to wave farewell to the girl, standing in the open door, and with something approaching a smile on her wan face.
Fred made a proposition before they had gone more than fifty yards.
"What's the use of our finishing, Bristles?" he remarked. "We're hopelessly beaten right now. Suppose we head for home, and get busy going around to speak to a few of our friends about these people here. I want Doc. Temple to come out; and I know Flo will insist on it when she hears about that poor girl."
"Three to one she comes with him; and that the buggy is crammed full of all the good things they've got at home," asserted Bristles; "because there never was a girl with a bigger heart than Flo."
Fred was of the same opinion himself, though he only nodded, and smiled.
"You see your father, and then drop in to talk it over with several others," he went on to say. "Leave Judge Colon for me. I want to ask him a few questions about what happened between Arnold Masterson and his rich uncle, to make Sarah's father hate him so, and avoid Riverport in the bargain."
When they arrived home the boys quickly changed their clothes, and then started in to tell the story of their recent remarkable experience. Fred, first of all, enlisted the good will of his own mother, who hurried over to another neighbor to start the ball rolling, with the idea of having a wagon with supplies sent out to the Masterson farm that very afternoon.
His visit to the Temple home was a pleasant affair with Fred. Just as he had expected, Flo was immediately concerned about the family, and asked numerous questions while they were waiting for the genial old doctor to come in at noon from his morning round of sick calls.