“Well, don’t keep your mind on it,” Dan said, linking arms with the boy and pulling him toward the stairway. “Come on, let’s have some hot cocoa.”
Chub went willingly enough. In fact, as they entered the dining room together, he failed to notice that the stranger still loitered in the outside vestibule.
Dan however, had seen him. He observed too that the man’s gaze was following Chub’s every move.
“Who can he be?” he speculated. “Why is he so interested in Chub?”
Dan gave himself a mental memo to try during the next few days to learn more about the stranger. Meanwhile, why let it bother him? Following his advice to Chub, he brushed the matter entirely from his mind, and joined the other Cubs at the cocoa table.
CHAPTER 16
THE STRANGER
It was reassuring to learn that Chips had a very light case of measles. The Cubs, of course, were not permitted to see him. But Mrs. Davis reported to the den that her son could not be kept in bed and that his spots rapidly were disappearing.
Knowing that they all had been exposed to the disease, the Cubs kept their fingers crossed. Days passed however, and no other den member came down sick.
“Chips may be able to play in that last game with the Purple Five,” Dan remarked one day as he and Brad walked to the public library together. “Think we have a chance to win?”
“With Chips, yes. We need him badly though.”