He was lucky, for hardly had he reached the road crossing before the familiar whistle sounded down the track. The motorman toot-tooted for him to get off the rails, as this was not a regular stop, but Jerry stood his ground and finally the man relented at the last minute and threw on the brakes.
Watertown reached, Jerry could not hold his good news till he got home, but to every one he met he shouted the glad word that Tod Fulton had been found, alive and uninjured. The open disbelief with which his announcement was met gave him a lot of secret satisfaction. In fact, he could hardly restrain an occasional, "I told you so." His mother was the only one to whom he allowed himself to use that phrase, but then, he had told her.
He could hardly wait until Mr. Fulton should return from Chester, so eager was he to tell of his discovery there in the woods, but the slow day passed, and bedtime came without any sign of a light in the big house down the street. Reluctantly he finally went up to his room, but for a long time he sat with his nose flattened out on the window pane, watching patiently.
At last he was rewarded. Out of the gloom of the Fulton house he saw a tiny point of light spring, followed by a flood of radiance across the lawn.
"What are you doing, son?" came a deep masculine voice from the sitting room. "Thought you had gone to bed hours ago."
"Mr. Fulton just came home, pa, and Tod told me to tell him——"
"Guess it'll keep till morning, won't it? Besides, I expect Tod saw his father later than you did."
"I'll be right back, dad——" this from just outside the kitchen door.
"It's just awfully important——"
The door banged to just then. Mr. Ring chuckled. He believed in letting boys alone.
Jerry sped down the dark walk and jabbed vigorously at the special doorbell, hurried a little bit by the fact that as he came through the wide gate he had a feeling that the big gateposts did not cause all the shadow he passed through. "I'm getting nervous since I saw those two men to-day," he reminded himself. "I'll soon be afraid of my own shadow—but I hope it doesn't take to whispering too."