It was Mr. Willing who spoke. Mr. Willing, Mr. Ashton, young Wolfe, Shirley and Mabel were still seated at the supper table.
“I can’t understand why he wasn’t back hours ago,” declared Mr. Willing. “That’s the trouble with boys, you can’t depend on them. He has probably stopped to play somewhere.”
“I don’t believe Jimmy would do that,” said Shirley. “Besides, he knows that he will have to guard Gabriel to-night.”
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Ashton, “that is the reason he is in no hurry to return. The chances are he has had enough of that job, after his experience last night.”
“I don’t believe Jimmy is that kind of a boy, father,” said Mabel.
“Nor I,” spoke up young Wolfe. “He strikes me as a brave and true lad. Perhaps something has happened to him.”
“And what could have happened to him?” demanded Mr. Willing. “He knows the way home, and if he couldn’t get here, certainly he should have sense enough to telephone.”
“I don’t know what to think,” said Shirley.
It was Mabel who finally guessed the answer to the mystery.
“Maybe Mr. Jones has waylaid him,” she suggested.