Fred Cunningham appeared to be interested in what was going on, and looked from one to the other as questions and urgings passed around the little crowd.
“But there isn’t anything to tell that you don’t already know,” Frank tried to stem the tide. “The newspapers have told what we saw, Lanky and I.”
“Sure they have,” Lanky now interrupted. “What’s the use of serving it all over again—cold?”
“But who do they think did it? Wasn’t that awful—robbing Mrs. Parsons and scaring her almost to death putting her in that closet?” went on another girl.
Fred Cunningham rose from his seat and walked around the group, fearful that something might be said which he would not hear.
“I think,” said Frank, “that it’s getting late and we ought to commence packing. It will be dark by the time we get back to town.”
“That is right,” spoke up Cunningham, a guest, but willing to get away from the grounds.
So, there being little else to do, the crowd being weary of the day, packing operations were started immediately.
The boys who were closest to Frank gathered about him, each doing his own part toward packing, but there seemed to be a natural gravitation of his friends toward one little group.
“Say,” Paul Bird spoke up quietly, as he was standing near Frank at one time, “what do you say if several of us go up there to-morrow to see if we can find anything.”