"The eighty dollars, which you had counted out,—you remember, father,—was loose in the pocket. I left that with Jack; he will send it to Chicago to-day. The rest of the money, I believe, is all here in the pocket-book."
"And you've heard nothing of Radcliff?" said Mr. Betterson.
"Not a word. Jack made me stop with him over night; and I should have come home the way we went, and looked for Rad, if it hadn't been so far; we must have driven twelve or fifteen miles in that roundabout chase."
"Some accident must certainly have happened to Radcliff," said Mr. Betterson. And much wonder and many conjectures were expressed by the missing youth's not very unhappy relatives.
"I bet I know!" said Link. "He drove so fast he overtook the tornado, and it twisted him out of his breeches, and hung him up in a tree somewhere!"
An ingenious theory, which did not, however, obtain much credence with the family.
"One thing seems to be proved, and I am very glad," said Vinnie. "It was not Zeph who took Jack's compass."
"Rad must have taken that, to spite Jack, and hid it somewhere near the road in the timber, where it would be handy if he ever wanted to make off with it; that's what Jack thinks," said Rufe. "Then, as he was driving past the spot, he put it into the buggy again."
"Maybe he intended to set up for a surveyor somewhere," Wad remarked. "He must have taken another pair of trousers with him."
"I am sure he didn't," said Cecie.