The children had hurried through their breakfast, and now with Baby William, or Trouble, in their care, they started to search around the yard for the missing Skyrocket.
There were several buildings on the Martin place. There was the garage, where Daddy Martin kept his automobile, there was the tool house, where Patrick kept the lawn mower, the hose he used for sprinkling the lawn, and such things. There was a hen house and the stable where Nicknack the goat used to live. Then, of course, there was the woodshed, which was the home of Skyrocket. But alas! Skyrocket was not in it now.
“Let’s look there just once more!” said Janet, as she and her two brothers walked down the back steps toward the woodshed. “Maybe he came back.”
But no Skyrocket was to be seen. There was a bone he had been gnawing the night before, and there was the nice, soft carpet Teddy had given him for a bed. But the pet dog was gone.
“Let’s look out in Nicknack’s stable again,” went on Janet.
So they did, and in other places, but no Skyrocket was to be found.
“I guess we’ll have to put a piece in the paper about him,” went on Jan, as she and the two boys sat down to rest after running about the yard, looking in all sorts of places.
“A piece in the paper—what do you mean?” asked Ted.
“I mean a—a tizerment,” declared Janet. “You know—a piece like the one Mrs. Ransom put in when she lost her pocketbook. She got it back, too. Somebody found it and brought it back. Maybe somebody has found our Skyrocket, and they’d give him back if they knew we wanted him. Let’s get daddy to put a piece in the paper.”
“Yes, we could do that,” agreed Ted, after thinking the matter over. “We’ll tell him when he comes home to dinner. But now let’s look out in the auto stable again, Jan. We didn’t look there very good. Maybe Skyrocket is hiding in there.”