He had hardly spoken when the doorbell rang, and as the maid opened it the detective walked in. When he saw Bob his eyes stuck out, as Jack after expressed it, as large as saucers.
"Well, I'll be blowed," he cried, "where in the world did you come from?"
And then the story had to be told over again.
"Well, I'll be blessed," uttered the detective, when they had finished, "Guess I'm getting too old for a job of this kind. Here I've been working night and day, and have scoured the country for a distance of twenty miles in every direction, and didn't get a smell, and you," turning to Jack, "find him first whack off the reel."
"I didn't find him," declared Jack, "He found me," and he added, "it was a mighty lucky find for me."
Mr. Sharp seemed very much downcast, but Mr. Golden assured him that he was sure that he had done all that any one could have done.
"You, of course, didn't know that he had been taken to Boston, and the two boys meeting as they did was a coincidence, which wouldn't happen twice in a thousand years. No, you needn't reproach yourself in the least."
After this the detective felt much better, but remarked that it was the third time in his twenty years as a detective that he had been beaten.
Uncle Ben then proposed that they take a run across the lake in the Sprite and get their trunk, which they had sent by express, and which ought to be at the hotel. The women folks decided that they wouldn't go, so Mr. Golden, Uncle Ben, Mr. Sharp, who wanted to catch the night train for Boston, and the two boys, composed the crew.
"So that's the wonderful cell that all the trouble has been about, is it?" asked Uncle Ben, as they started. "Well, it certainly is a big thing and I'm proud of you boys."