“Why, you’re not going to come any of that gloomy C. C. business on me; are you?” asked Blake.
“Not at all,” went on his chum. “But what I mean by a hoodoo is that something always seems to happen when we start out anywhere. We’ve been on the jump, you might say, ever since we lost our places on the farms and got into this moving picture business.”
“That’s so. And the latest is being taken for dynamiters.”
“Yes. But if things are going to keep on happening to us I wish they’d take a turn and help me find my father,” went on Joe. “You don’t know how it feels, Blake, to know you’ve got a parent somewhere and not be able to locate him. It’s—why, it’s almost as bad as if—as if he were dead,” and Joe spoke the words with an obvious effort.
“That’s right,” agreed Blake, and then there came to him the memory of what the lighthouse keeper had said about Mr. Duncan being implicated in the wrecking. If this was true, it might be better for Joe not to find his father.
“But he may not be guilty,” thought Blake, and he mused on this possibility, while Joe looked curiously at his chum.
“Say, Blake,” suddenly asked Joe. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter? Why, what do you mean?” asked Blake, with a start.
“Oh, I don’t know, but something seems to be the matter with you. You’ve acted strangely of late, ever since—yes, ever since we were at the lighthouse. Is anything troubling you?”
“No—no—not at all; that is, not exactly.”