She was going swiftly about the house, as he told her the story of his attempt to teach the boy a lesson, and she was listening closely to every word as she examined for herself each nook and corner. She disclosed several possible hiding places of which Anthony had not thought, explaining that Tony knew them all and sometimes betook himself to them in the course of various games. The two came out upon the porch, and Juliet stood still, thinking.
“You have done everything to intercept him, if he should really have—got far away?”
“Everything I can think of, except start out myself. I am ready to do that, if you think best.”
“Not until I have gone over the neighbourhood myself. I don’t believe he is far away—I believe he is near. He may have heard every call you and the children have made, and wouldn’t answer. If by any chance his pride has been a little hurt, he is very likely to do this sort of thing. Wait—have you looked—I wonder if the children know——”
She was off without stopping to explain, through the garden and down the old willow-bordered path by the brook. Anthony followed. “I’ve been down here a dozen times,” he called. “The brook is too shallow to hurt him, and he’s certainly not anywhere on it within a mile. The children have been all over the ground.”
But Juliet did not pause. She ran along the path for some distance, then turned abruptly at a point where an abandoned lot filled with stumps joined the area by the brook. She made her swift way among these stumps, Anthony following, his hope rising as he noted the directness of his wife’s aim. At the biggest stump she came to a standstill, carefully swung out-ward like a door a great slab of bark, and disclosed a hollow. The sunlight streamed in upon a little heap of blue, and a tangled brown mass of hair. Anthony Robeson, Junior, lay fast asleep in his cunningly devised retreat.
Without a word his father stood looking down at the boy’s flushed cheeks. Then he turned to Juliet, standing beside him, smiling through the tears which had not come until the anxiety was past. His own eyes were wet.
“That was a bad scare,” he said softly. “Thank God it’s over.”
Then he stooped and gently lifted the fire chief and carried him home without waking him. Twenty children flocked joyfully from all about to see, and hushed their shouts of congratulation at Juliet’s smiling warning.
Anthony went alone down the garden to the place where the hook-and-ladder cart had stood. It was still there. He stood and looked at it, his eyes very tender but his lips firm. “The little chap didn’t give in,” he said to himself. “It’s going to be hard to make him, but for the sake of the Robeson will I think we’ll have to take up the job where we left it. I’d mightily like to flunk the whole business now, but I should be a pretty weak sort of a beggar if I did.”