"Does your mother ever say anything about it?" questioned Shep.
"Not much. She hates to think of my uncle. She was very much attached to him, and to have him disappear like that makes her shudder and feel very bad."
"Were you living over on the coast when he disappeared?"
"Oh, no, we were living at a place called Bartonville, about twenty miles to the north of here. My father used to be cashier of the Bartonville Lumber Company."
"I once heard of a man disappearing and coming home fifteen years later," said Shep. "But he simply ran away because he had some trouble with his wife."
"I heard of a case like that," put in Whopper, with a grin on his face. "That man wanted his wife to make him some gooseberry pie and she wouldn't do it. When he came back he asked her, 'Maria, will you make the gooseberry pie now?' and she answered, 'no.' 'All right,' said he, 'I'll go away again,' and he did."
"That's a whopper all right enough!" cried Snap. "It's about time you turned up. You have been very quiet lately."
"I never tell anything but the strict truth," said Whopper, meekly.
When it came time to retire, Snap asked the others if they should post a guard.
"Oh, I think we are safe enough without one," answered the doctor's son, who was fagged out. "Let's chance it."