They went on exchanging opinions, and in due time arrived at the Bailey house, where Elmer delivered his charge to the owner of the big woods.
On the way back they neither saw nor heard anything of Toby, though they could easily imagine him hard at work trying to get his broken parachute in shape, so that it might be transported back to town, and fixed up for another exploit.
It would not be in boy nature to keep such a remarkable story secret, and before night it had likely traveled from one end of Hickory Ridge to the other in about a dozen different shapes. Some even had it that Toby had flown a mile before being caught in a tree, while others had him a wreck, with all the doctors in town trying to patch him up. But Elmer went straight to Mr. Jones, and gave him the true version, so that he might not be alarmed at anything he heard.
CHAPTER VII.
MORE WORK ON THE DIAMOND.
When Lil Artha showed up on the field that afternoon, clad in his old baseball suit that showed the wear and tear of many a battle, he had his camera slung over his shoulder with a strap.
"Want to take the nine in action?" asked Elmer, as he noted this fact, and paused in his delivery of the ball to the catcher, Mark Cummings.
"Oh, I might, if the signs were right, and they showed that they deserved all that sort of attention," replied the tall scout, "but I've made up my mind about one thing, Elmer."