“All right!” he answered.
“And call Uncle Tod,” she went on. “He’s in his room.”
“All right,” answered Rick again.
He made his salt-encrusted hair as neat as possible, and walked down the hall to his uncle’s room. He knocked on the door but, getting no answer, pushed it open and looked in.
Uncle Tod was not there, a fact which Rick soon discovered. He called the information down the back stairs to his mother.
“Why he must be there,” she said. “He went up a little while ago.”
“Well, he isn’t here now,” declared Rick. And then, as he looked around the bedroom—clean and neat after the skipper’s seafaring notions—Rick discovered something on the bureau. It was an envelope weighted down with a bit of rock.
“Are you sure he isn’t up there, Rick?”
“Sure! he’s gone and he’s left a note for you! I’ll bring it down!”
With a curious feeling that something strange and mysterious had happened, Rick picked up the missive and started down stairs.