It was just at this time they heard the sound of coming footfalls. Alec Sands, who possessed very keen hearing, caught the patter first, and he leaned over to call the attention of the scout master to the fact.
“Somebody coming, Hugh, and in a bit of a hurry, too!” he remarked. “Yes, and, unless I’m away off in my guess, there are a pair of them, in the bargain.”
Ten seconds later and it was shown that Alec had been absolutely right in his figuring, for two forms were seen bearing hastily down on the campfire.
“Why, Hugh,” exclaimed Bud Morgan, “it’s the sheriff, and that’s Mr. Campertown along with him. The old gent looks all broken up over something, let me tell you. I wonder what’s gone wrong over at the plant now?”
Hugh noticed that the first thing Mr. Campertown did was to look eagerly around the circle, and an expression of bitter disappointment took the place of the hope that had been so manifest in his face.
The sheriff addressed himself directly to Hugh, and at his first words “the cat was out of the bag,” as Alec afterward remarked.
“Have any of you seen the little chap, Reuben Campertown?” asked the sheriff. “He has wandered off, and for the last half hour we’ve found no trace of him. A sudden hope that he might have come this way brought us over, but it seems to be blind guess after all.”
CHAPTER VII.
A CALL TO FURTHER DUTY.
If a bomb had been dropped into the camp, it could hardly have created more of a shock, so far as Hugh, Dr. Richter, Nurse Jones, Alec Sands, and perhaps Ralph Kenyon were concerned.
For the first few seconds it seemed to Hugh that his heart must have stopped still with dread. He could see that the face of Mr. Campertown was haggard and drawn. He had apparently aged ten years in the few hours since the scout master last saw him. That was a pretty good index of the way the millionaire loved and almost worshiped his pretty little grandson.