"Then he must have sold his wheel to get money to live on," remarked Tad's father. "And, I suppose, after he started back home, and perhaps even got on the trolley car, he was afraid to come back on account of not having his bicycle. So he must have run away again."
"That's too bad!" exclaimed Captain Ben. "How did you come to learn he had been with us?" he asked Mr. Munson.
"Oh, I've been searching for my boy ever since he ran away," answered Tad's father. "I come over here to Grand View every day to make inquiries. This evening I heard that my boy had been seen in an automobile. I made inquiries, and learned you were the only folks who had come to town in an auto with some children, so I came here as soon as I could. I'm sorry I had to wake you up in the middle of the night."
"Oh, that's all right," said Captain Ben. "I'm sorry about your boy. If I had known he felt afraid to go home alone, I'd have taken him over in my car."
"Maybe he'll come back in the morning, after he spends another night alone," said the father. "Tad is a queer boy. I don't exactly understand him, I feel sometimes. Well, if he isn't here I suppose I might as well go back home."
"I'm sorry," said Captain Ben. "Won't you stay the rest of the night, it's so late?"
"No, I'd better get back," was the answer. "If you see anything of my boy just send him back home and say I'll forget and forgive everything."
"We will," promised Daddy Bunker. "I think he may be hiding out around here somewhere, as we found him hiding in the hollow log."
"Did he do that?" asked Mr. Munson.
"Yes," answered Mr. Bunker, and he and Captain Ben told all they knew about the runaway boy. Then Mr. Munson left, the three little Bunkers who had awakened to listen to the talk went to sleep again, and the bungalow was quiet once more.