“Do you mean that you have never seen him even once?” asked Alec, amazed.
“My father is very proud, even though poor,” she told him, with a dignity that impressed the boys. “He has always said that he had done nothing wrong, and would never beg his father to forgive him. If there ever was to be any reconciliation it must come from the other side. And so I was forbidden to ever try and appeal to Reuben Campertown. I mean to continue to obey his wishes, though I hope something may happen to change things. It is a terrible thing to have family quarrels; and really he didn’t look so very terrible just now when he was here.”
Remembering the look of woe on the face of the millionaire, Hugh felt that she was putting it very mildly when she said this. Oppressed with a sense of dread concerning the fate of the child he loved so passionately, Mr. Campertown had really looked like a man who would not have harmed a fly if he could help it.
“And now, am I to accompany you boys, Mr. Scout Master?” asked Nurse Jones.
“I guess you’ve proved your right to go along with us,” Hugh told her; and every fellow nodded in vigorous assent when he said this, for they liked Nurse Jones.
CHAPTER IX.
SURPRISING THE SHERIFF.
“That settles it, then,” Hugh told them all, “so let’s be off.”
“Just give us a minute, please, Hugh,” interposed Alec. “I want to carry along a fine club I’ve got in the tent here.”
“And if Monkey Stallings will lend me that electric torch he brought with him I might find a chance to make good use of the same,” observed Ralph who, being the best trailer in the whole troop, anticipated that much would be expected of him in the present crisis.
“Sure I will, Ralph,” replied Monkey Stallings. “There’s a brand new battery in the torch, too, so it ought to last you a good while. I’ll get it right away.”