He was awakened next moment by the jangling of the telephone. Snatching the receiver, he said:
“Good morning! Johnny Thompson speaking.”
“Johnny,” came back an excited voice, “it’s Drew! We’re on the right trail at last. The old G.G. was right, has been right all the time. The trail leads north, five hundred miles, I’d say. Going in the red racer just after noon. Want to see this thing through with me?”
“You—you mean go—” Johnny was shaking all over.
“Sure! Go north with me.”
“You—you know I do.”
“Right! I’ll be over here at twelve. We’ll have a bite of chow; shoot over to the aviation field, and be on our way.” The receiver clicked. He was gone.
Johnny sat down on his bed. He was dizzy. “The trail leads north,” he muttered. “He didn’t say: ‘Johnny, you’re a brick!’ or any of that sort of stuff, or ‘You put us right.’ Nothing like that. Just ‘The trail leads north.’
“Well,” he thought more soberly, “perhaps I’m not a brick. Perhaps I didn’t put them right. Perhaps I’m a hundred per cent dumb.”
As he sat there alone he realized that he hoped with all his heart that he had been entirely wrong. “And yet,” he murmured, “and yet—