“Well, of all the easy-going men!” gasped Tom inwardly. “To think, with such a big fortune at stake, of dilly-dallying until the very last day of all!”
“So, you see, Ted really is a very lucky boy,” finished Mr. Dunstan.
“I should say he is!” breathed Halstead, his face flushing at the thought. He would have been happy over a West Point cadetship without any enormous reward.
“The luckiest boy I ever heard of!” vented Joe, his nerves a-thrill over this story of one of Fortune’s greatest favorites. “No wonder your son, sir, is so eager about being a soldier.”
“Is your brother Gregory in this country now?” asked Tom slowly.
“Not to the best of my knowledge,” almost drawled their employer. “The last I heard of him he was still on his plantation in Honduras, probably hatching more revolutionary plots and giving the government a good excuse for sending its soldiers to shoot him one of these days. But I do know that, for a while, Greg had American lawyers hard at work trying to find some way to smash Aaron’s will. They gave it up, though, and so did Greg, after hearing from me that Master Ted was wild to follow a soldier’s career.”
Both boys were silent for some time. Yet, if they did no talking, their thoughts very nearly ran riot. To them it seemed that Ted Dunstan’s lot in life lay in all the bright places of glory and fortune. How they would have relished such a grand chance!
“By the way,” said Mr. Dunstan, rising slowly and stretching, “I haven’t seen the youngster in hours. I think I’ll locate him and bring him around here.”
He went into the house. Within the next ten minutes two of the men servants left the house, running hurriedly out of sight in different directions. At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Dunstan himself appeared, looking actually worried.
“We can’t seem to find Ted anywhere,” he confessed uneasily. “The young man hasn’t been seen since he stabled his pony at half-past twelve. I thought he would lunch with Mrs. Dunstan; she thought he was lunching with us. We’ve sent all about the grounds, we’ve telephoned the neighbors and the town, and all without avail. The pony is in the stable and the young man seems to have disappeared.”