Tom did have considerable money on him, and this was soon out of his pockets, and in that of the professor. Tom’s knife and other possessions were also removed. Then he was lifted up, carried to another room, and roughly thrust into sort of a closet that was very dark. Tom fell heavily to the floor. His mackinaw was tossed in to him.
“He can use that for a blanket—we’re short of covering,” he heard Skeel say. “We don’t want him to be too comfortable, anyhow.”
Tom was anything but at his ease just then, but he did not falter in his determination not to give in. He shut his teeth grimly.
The door was closed and locked, and our hero was left to his not very pleasant reflections. He managed to struggle to a sitting position, and to edge over until he was leaning back against the wall. He drew his heavy mackinaw to him. It would be warm during the cold night, for that he would be kept a prisoner at least that length of time, he could not doubt.
Tom’s thoughts were many and various. So this was why Skeel had followed him and his chums. This was why he had reappeared at Elmwood Hall, and had caused Whalen to ask questions about the hunting trip.
So this was Skeel’s plan for enriching his purse and at the same time getting revenge. So far, fate had played into the hands of the unscrupulous man and his confederates.
“But I’ll get away!” Tom told himself. He sat there in the gloomy darkness, trying to think of a plan.
Meanwhile his chums, with Sam Wilson, were frantically searching for him in the storm. Sam’s idea was not to leave the neighborhood where Tom had last been seen, until they had exhausted every effort to locate their missing chum.
But it was difficult to search in the storm, and the whirl of flakes made a long view impossible. Then, too, they were in a dense part of the wilderness. Sam Wilson’s farm was perhaps the largest cleared part of it, though here and there were patches where trees had been cut down.
Up and down the road, and on either side of it, the search went on. Sam Wilson was a born woodsman, as well as a hunter and farmer, and he brought his efficiency to the task.