"He's gone, skipped! No manner of use in looking for him. On my honor, he's not in town."
"Then why didn't you say so and be done with it?" demanded Dan angrily.
"Please keep your seat," replied the young fellow from the workbench. "I really wish you would."
He drew on his pipe for a moment, and Dan, curiously held by his look and manner and arrested by the gentleness of his voice, awaited further developments. He had no weapons with which to deal with this composed young person in overalls and scarlet hose. He swallowed his anger; but his curiosity now clamored for satisfaction.
"May I ask just who you are and why on earth you brought me up here?"
"Those are fair questions—two of them. To the first, I am Allen Thatcher, and this is my father's house. To the second—" He hesitated a moment, then shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Well, if you must know,—I was so devilish lonesome!"
He gazed at Harwood quizzically, with a half-humorous, half-dejected air.
"If you're lonesome, Mr. Thatcher, it must be because you prefer it that way. It can't be necessary for you to resort to kidnapping just to have somebody to talk to. I thought you were in Europe."
"Nothing as bad as that! What's your name, if you don't mind?"
When Dan gave it, Thatcher nodded and thanked him.