[CHAPTER XIV]
ON THE TRAIL
Disappointment showed plainly on the faces of the three motor boys. They looked at one another, and then at Mrs. Johnson, the housekeeper. She could not mistake their feeling.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Johnson remarked. “If he had known you were coming to see him, I’m sure he would have waited for you. But I understood him to say, when he left here, that he was going to call on you boys, and get you to go with him.”
“He did call on me,” explained Jerry, “but he left suddenly to make a search for some specimens, and did not return. We supposed he came back here.”
“No, he didn’t,” the housekeeper answered, “though he sent me a letter in which he said he was going to the mountains, and for me not to worry about him.
“But I always do that, when he’s off on one of his queer trips,” went on Mrs. Johnson, with a sigh. “I never know what danger he may get into. I don’t fuss so much when I know he is with you boys, for I know you’ll sort of look after him. But when he’s by himself he’d just as soon get wet through and never change his things from one day to another. He is so thoughtless!
“And now it is such a queer search he is on. A two-tailed lizard! As if there could be any such thing as that. Oh dear! I don’t know what to do!”
“Well, the professor has found queerer things than two-tailed lizards,” remarked Jerry, “so that part is all right. But I can’t understand about his going away without saying a word to us. That’s what makes it seem queer.”
“It sure does,” agreed Ned.
“Didn’t he want you to go with him?” Mrs. Johnson wanted to know.