“I believe I have a good clue, and we’ll follow it up right away. My advice to you now, sir, is that you hustle off to bed and get some sleep. You’ll need all your strength, and you can depend on us to do everything in our power to help you,” said the Ranger leader.
“I guess I will take your advice. I’m tuckered out, and I don’t believe I could go another step without dropping. Now that I know you fellows are here, it relieves my mind considerable. I’ll only take a short nap and then wait for you to come back with news,” said the old man as he turned into the house.
Aunt Abbie was about to follow him, when Garry caught her by the hand.
“Listen, Aunt Abbie. Don’t wake him up under any circumstances, or we will have a mighty sick man on our hands. Let him sleep as long as he can, and in the meantime we’ll find something to work on. Now you’ll do that, won’t you?”
“Bless your heart, of course I will. He hasn’t had a mite of sleep since yesterday morning. Now good luck, boys, and bring our little girl back to us,” said the kindly old lady.
Off down the street started Garry, followed by his curious chums.
“What’s the big idea?” asked Dick. “Tell us before we explode with curiosity. What is your hunch?”
“Yes, out with it,” added Phil.
“I’m going to in a minute. I just wanted to get away from the house so that Aunt Abbie or the old gentleman would not hear us and worry. Here’s my hunch. You know how Ruth has said a half a dozen times that she envied us for our adventures, and that a girl never could do anything, and how she would like to help us out in this business?”
“Yes, we understand that; go on,” said Phil.