No one ever made better time driving the six miles to North Adams than Mr. Norton did that night. Just outside the village he met Benny, coming on a run, and stopped long enough to ask him if he had seen Bill.
"No," said he. "I missed him. The Gang held me up at the Gingham Ground and almost made me late. I told Ma that I would be home by nine o'clock if I lived. I'm 'most dead, but guess I can hold out until I get there. She'll be having a fit pretty soon if I don't hurry. What time is it, anyhow?"
Mr. Norton whipped up his horse before Benny finished.
"William hasn't come back!" he shouted over his shoulder, just as Benny called to me in almost the same place. Then he tore down the road toward the Gingham Ground.
It was after midnight when he came back. There was a light burning in our house and he stopped.
"He has not been there!" was all that he could say, when Pa met him at the door.
"Hasn't been there!"
"No, I found Jenks, to whom I had sent the message, and he said that he had seen nothing of him, although he had been expecting him. You see, I told him that the boy was coming. The message has not been delivered."
"Mr. Smith," he went on, after a moment, "I can't face Mrs. Wilson with that news. You go to her, while I get the marshal started and see if something cannot be done. I tell you something has happened. I am convinced of that. Young Wilson would have delivered that message if he possibly could have reached the place, and it would have taken a great deal to stop him. There isn't a yellow streak in that boy anywhere."
"Did you make any inquiries?"