It was a very short road with Gus that had no turning, and here he was, right in the midst of his schemes for mischief, and they began to come back to him. How he wished that Watson had kept out of that saloon, or rather, how he wished he had kept away from it himself!
"Is you comin' home?" inquired the darky.
"You go on ahead at your usual gait and tell father that I will be with him soon," replied Gus. "I may as well face it down one time as another," he added to himself. "What can I say that will induce father to believe I was in that saloon by accident? I tell you, I wish I had steered clear of Barlow!"
Gus arose to his feet and started toward home, but with every step he took he felt that he was drawing nearer to his doom. The closer he came to the iron gate the more confused his thoughts seemed to grow, and when he went down the hall and opened the door of the library, without the ceremony of knocking, he had made up his mind that Watson had been asleep and dreamed it all; that nobody had said a word about kidnapping him. He found his father pacing back and forth, wringing his hands as if he were in great bodily distress.
"Why, what's the matter?" he asked, innocently.
"Augustus, how does it come that you were in Barlow's saloon?" asked his father. "Have I not often told you to keep away from those places? What did you hear about kidnapping Bob and that old gardener?"
"Why, nothing at all," said Gus, opening his eyes in surprise. "Ben Watson was in there asleep, and when he woke up he accused Barlow of getting up a scheme against him. Has he been here? What did he say?"
"He has said enough in Bob's ears to prompt him to call on a lawyer this very afternoon," said Mr. Layton, looking sharply at Gus.
This was rather more than Gus had bargained for. He looked around for the nearest chair and sat down. For once the face he turned toward his father was as white as a sheet. That was one thing that Gus was always afraid of. He might get a lawyer to examine into the matter, and he would be pretty apt to find a screw loose somewhere.
"I don't like this lawyer business," said Gus.