"Thank the Lord, he's off!" Kenneth exclaimed. "Bully boy, that chap!"
The brothers went to the doorway, looked all around, and then hastened away to meet their father, who was slowly coming toward the shop. They joined him.
"Where is your sister?" he asked. They told him, and he went on, as if only partially conscious of their eager questions.
"Oh, that's all right!" he said, impatiently. "He is not going to bother you. Oh, Mary, where are you?"
"Here, father," she answered, as she came out, accompanied by Charles. "Did you want me?" It seemed to her that he now glanced at Charles with a look of vague displeasure on his face.
"Yes, I want to see you. Come to the house with me, please."
Mary was sure now that something pertaining to Charles had happened, for her father was treating him in a manner that surely indicated it; the old man had taken no notice of him, and that was most unusual.
Leaving the others in the shop, Rowland led his daughter toward the house. "I wanted to see you about a little matter that may be rather serious," he began. "The sheriff didn't come to see me about the boys at all, but about Mr. Brown."
"About him!" Mary said, faintly. "What about him?"
"He put a lot of questions to me in regard to Mr. Brown," Rowland said, "but I couldn't answer a single one of them. He seemed surprised—astonished, in fact, for he said he didn't see how any sensible man could take in a stranger like Brown unless he had proper credentials. I couldn't even tell him where Mr. Brown came from, who he was, or anything. I tried to explain that Mr. Brown had been so gentlemanly and useful that we hadn't thought such a course necessary, but the sheriff only laughed at me for being so easily hoodwinked."