"I was just going to start out," Red began, "when father came home. He had been out trying a new horse he bought; and at first I thought he might have had a runaway, he looked that excited. But one of our neighbors came hurrying in, saying he had just heard the news over the telephone, and asking father what it meant."
"News! What's that? Something happened since we left home?" and the scouts began to look at each other, while several grew a little white.
"Yes," Red went on, rapidly; "it happened that my father was one of those who brought the news to town. I got so stuck on what they were saying that I clean forgot everything else; and that made me late. Then father saw me in my scout uniform, and he said he wondered if Elmer Chenowith, who was so smart about following a trail, could lend a hand—that it seemed a job for the scouts, if ever there was one!"
"Oh! speak out, and tell us what's happened!" cried Toby, catching hold of Red by his sleeve and shaking him a little.
"Well, you know Mrs. Gruber, the woman who lives in that little house half a mile or so up the Jericho Road—she's got just one child, a little girl, with the sunniest smile and the prettiest golden hair you ever saw. Well, seems like she separated from her husband, Dolph Gruber, because of his bad habits. Father says Dolph came home last night, made no end of a row, struck his wife, and went away with little Ruth, saying her mother would never see her again. And that's what he meant, fellows, when he said it was a job for the scouts. Elmer, do you dare tackle it, and try to get back that little girl again for her nearly crazy mother?"
CHAPTER VIII.
FOLLOWING A TRAIL.
A dead silence followed these startling words of Red Huggins.