“I know now I was most to blame,” said the old man, contritely; “and if only I could get word to my boy I’d beg him to come back to me. I want to see him again before I foller his mother across the great divide. Just a week ago I had a letter from a party who told me he was sure he saw Andy in a fish camp up on Superior. He’d growed up, and the gentleman didn’t have a chanct to speak with him; but afterward it struck him who the man was. If so be ye run across Andy, tell him I’m waitin’ with my arms stretched out for him, won’t ye, boys?”
“To be sure we will!” declared George, heartily, for he was considerably affected by the appearance of grief on the old man’s face.
They soon afterward started to say goodnight, wishing to get back to where the rest of the party sat around the camp fire.
“I forgot to tell ye,” went on Mr. Fosdick, as he followed them to the door, “as they was a young chap here t’other day as said he’d keep an eye out for Andy. And now that I think of it, he had a little motor boat too, like them you tell me about. And he said he ’spected to cruise around Superior a bit.”
George and Jack exchanged glances.
“And was his name Clarence Macklin?” asked the latter, quickly.
“Just what it was,” replied the farmer, waving them a farewell.
“Now, what do you think of that?” asked George, as they strode on. “Why, that fellow is bound to crop up all the time like a jack-in-the-box. We can’t even start to do a poor heartbroken old father a good turn, but he gets his finger in the pie. But there’s a bully chance for me to get another race with his piratical Flash, and that’s some satisfaction;” and Jack found himself compelled to laugh, realizing that George had his weakness just as well as Buster.