"Thank you. If you only knew how much better you have made me feel. Perhaps in some way I can be taken from him and placed in another home. Oh! I am willing to work just as hard as I can if only it was a home!"
So presently Frank secreted the gold locket in an inner pocket, where it could not be lost. He knew that there was a deep mystery connected somehow with the little trinket, and while he could not fathom it just then, in good time, no doubt, the secret must appear.
Every time he felt it there his thoughts were bound to go out toward poor Jed, and the important message which his dying mother had meant to give him at the time she pressed the locket into his hands.
CHAPTER VII
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
"How long do we stay in this camp, fellows?" asked Bluff.
"A few days only," replied Frank, with a mysterious smile.
"Look here, you've got something you're keeping from us," said Jerry boldly.
"That's what I was thinking. So out with it, Frank. No secrets, please."