A man from the bathhouse came by.
"Anything doing, Jake?" he asked the officer.
"Nothing much," replied the policeman. "They 'phoned us a boy got away from the reform school. They think he might just have come out to the park for fun and overstayed. Ain't seen any one, have ye?"
"Not me."
"Well, if he's in here we'll get him as he goes out. I'll watch one gate and Barney the other."
So they were on the look out for him. But there was nothing in his present clothing to suggest the reform school boy, and though he was hatless there were numbers of hatless boys in the park. There were many people of all kinds, in fact, and if he went with the crowd, he could surely slip out unnoticed. Yet he feared to attempt to pass the representative of the law at the gate. How conscience doth make cowards of us all!
It was a good deed, done impulsively, that solved Glen's problem. An automobile was passing. The occupants were all watching the bathers in the lake, excepting a little chap of three who had seized the opportunity to climb over the door with the evident idea of jumping to the ground. When Glen saw him he was poised on the running board ready for his jump. Like a flash Glen jumped for the footboard of the moving car and interposed his body as an obstacle to the little fellow's leap. The women in the car screamed and the man who was driving stopped his car in surprise at the intrusion. It was only when Glen hauled the little boy up to view that they saw what he had done.
"I am Jonathan Gates," said the man, offering Glen his hand, "and this is my wife and daughter. We don't know how to thank you for saving that little scamp from harm."
"We might at least take you back into town," suggested Mrs. Gates.
"But I am going west, into the country," said Glen.