"I wish I could go with you, David," declared Hippy earnestly. "I would, too, if I weren't tied up with a law suit which an irate traction company is waging against the city of Oakdale. Although I am not a woodsman, still I know the difference between a tree and a stump, and during my long and useful career I have killed numbers of slimy, slithery snakes."
"At least, that's something to be proud of," lauded Elfreda Briggs, favoring Hippy with an amused smile. The stout young man's remarks were quite in accord with her own distinct sense of humor. Hitherto she had listened without comment, absorbing all she heard and mentally appraising it in her shrewd fashion. She had chosen to break into the conversation at that moment because of an idea that was slowly taking shape in her fertile brain.
"I suppose," she continued nonchalantly, "that as David has just said, it takes a woodsman to trail a woodsman." Her round eyes fastened themselves on Grace. Knowing Elfreda as she did, Grace flashed the speaker a curiously startled glance. Something of signal import to her was about to fall from Elfreda's lips.
"I was just thinking of the story of Ruth Denton's father and old Jean, the hunter, who used to live in Upton Wood. Don't you remember, you told me about how he was hurt and Mr. Denton nursed him back to health! You told me, too, that this same Jean had hunted all over the United States and Canada. There's a woodsman for you! If he's still in Oakdale, why don't you ask him to go and look for Tom?" Elfreda leaned back in her chair, well pleased with herself. The expressions mirrored on her friends' faces told her that she had scored.
"Why did we never think of Jean before?" wondered Grace in a hushed voice.
"Good old Jean!" Hippy sprang to his feet and performed a joyful dance about the room. "Why, of course he's the very man!"
"It was unforgivably stupid in me never to have thought of Jean," admitted David, looking deep disgust at his own defection.
"The reason none of us thought of Jean was because I made such a point of keeping Tom's disappearance a secret," acknowledged Mrs. Gray ruefully. "Did Grace tell you that a New York newspaper had published an account of it?"
"Miriam sent me a copy of the newspaper," returned David. "Who gave out the news?"
Mrs. Gray cast an interrogatory glance toward Grace, who met it with an assuring smile. "It's all right, Aunt Rose," she nodded. "I have Arline's permission to answer. She wishes me to tell anyone whom I think ought to know it. She said so to-day." With this explanation Grace continued: "I wrote Arline about the postponement of my marriage to Tom. She answered, but confused her letter with another which she had written to someone else. That person proved unfriendly to both of us, and so the mystery of poor Tom came into print."