"Hark! Hear that?" broke in Dick a minute later, while nearly all the others were talking at once. Despite the distance there came to their ears the sound of Gridley's fire alarm whistle, sounding the recall for all searching parties.
"Now, goodness knows I'd like to offer you a lot more to eat, young man," said the farmer's gray-haired wife, patting Greg's head. "But, after fasting so long you don't want to eat too much at first. What you've had ought to be enough until you've had your drive and are at home with your own folks."
"I feel fine, ma'am," responded young Holmes gratefully. "I don't know how to thank you. And I'm glad you stopped my eating too much for my own good. I'll be all right now, when I get home."
The farmer drove up to the door and called out. All of Greg's friends wanted to help him outdoors, but he insisted that he could walk all by himself. Into the farm wagon piled the Grammar School boys, after having thanked the woman of the house most heartily.
"This is a lot better'n walking, after all," murmured Greg gratefully.
Even with his late start the boys were ahead of the searchers under Captain Hall, who had heard the signal and were now returning.
"Turn down one of the side streets, will you, please?" begged Greg, as the party neared the outskirts of Gridley. "I don't feel exactly like meeting a whole crowd."
For, even at a distance, it could be seen that Gridley was swarming with thousands of people who had not joined the searching parties.
Thus Greg was delivered at his own home, and the other members of Dick & Co. were up on Main Street before the news had spread of young Holmes's return.
All sensational events are dead as soon as they have been discussed for a few hours. The police authorities visited Greg at his home and questioned him, then reluctantly decided that there was not enough evidence for issuing a warrant for Abner Dexter and his man Driggs. But the news came over, from Driggs's own town, that the fellow had been dropped from the police force there.