“Well—er—because I thought you were somewhat interested in her.”
“Oh, no,” drawled Fleet. “He isn’t interested. I’ll never forget the time, just the same, that he let Tom and I do all the work on our telephone line so that he could talk to her.”
“Correct,” said Tom, “but Chot would never admit it.”
“But all joking aside,” said Bert, “where is Lucy to spend the summer?”
“After a short visit at Mortonville, she will stay with her aunt, Mrs. Dashworth, at Stockdale,” said Chot.
“I thought she had a father somewhere,” said Pod.
The Comrades exchanged glances. Lucy did have a father, but he was not all a man should be, as the Comrades had every reason to know. During the winter he had come to Mrs. Dashworth’s and sent for Chot to ask him to raise enough money to do the preliminary work on a Colorado mining claim which he had staked out. This Chot had done for Lucy’s sake, forcing Pendleton to give Lucy a fifth interest, and a fifth interest each to Tom and himself. Pendleton was now in the west, trying to interest capital in the venture. Chot and Tom had little faith in the claim’s panning out well, but for Lucy’s sake they had given Luther Pendleton a chance.
Chot had been more inclined to do this than Tom, who had taken an instinctive dislike to Pendleton when Pendleton had been bookkeeper at the brass works in Mortonville, and had, upon the death of Tom’s father, exacted the sum of one thousand dollars from Tom and his mother, alleging that Mr. Pratt had made away with that much of the company’s funds. Tom knew positively that his father had been innocent of the charge, for by accident a phonograph had recorded part of a conversation between Mr. Pratt and someone connected with the brass works, in Tom’s attic room, but Mr. Pratt had been taken suddenly ill and was unable to reveal the name of the man who was trying to do him injury.
These things now recurred to the Comrades, and especially to Tom, who sat for an instant gazing gloomily out over the lake.
“Someone wronged my father—someone wronged him, and I’m going to find him yet, if only to let my mother know that not the slightest stain rested on my father’s character. I must—I will find this man!” and Tom gritted his teeth, as he silently made this resolve.