“His room is empty,” she said. “I couldn’t find him on the grounds either.”
“Drat that boy!” the colonel exclaimed. “Sometimes it seems to me he deliberately hides out! Since he’s been up to mischief, he probably figures he’ll be punished.”
The Cubs might not have learned the answer to their many questions for days to come. At that moment, however, Dan’s alert gaze chanced to rove toward a clump of bushes behind the veranda.
The Cub was startled to catch a glimpse of a touseled brown head of hair. A pair of blue eyes gazed squarely into his own from amid the foliage.
Then the face was gone.
“I saw someone in that rhododendron bush just then!” he exclaimed.
“Nail him!” commanded the colonel.
Dan and the gardener both made a dive for the bush.
They emerged with a small boy in tow. Not more than eleven years of age, he wore English cut trousers which he had rolled to the knees. His freckled, deeply tanned face was smeared with dirt.
“Well, Billy, I guess you knew you were wanted,” the colonel said severely. “Hiding out, weren’t you?”