“Nonsense!” declared Mrs. Grant.
Sam went to a window, and peered out. He saw nothing to cheer him, and turned back, with an anxious frown on his face.
“What in the world can be keeping Varley and the Shark? And where can they have strayed?”
“Oh, they ought to be along presently,” Mrs. Grant comforted. “Two able-bodied, wide-awake boys won’t come to harm in Sugar Valley.”
“No, ma’am,” said Sam mechanically, but his expression of anxiety did not lessen. The afternoon was wearing away. In an hour or two more the light, not too strong now, would be fading; and the night promised to be as black as one’s hat. And, meanwhile, the Shark and Varley ought to be turning up!
“They won’t come to harm,” Mrs. Grant repeated emphatically. “But, all the same, they ought to be here. Just wait a minute, though.”
Out of the room she hurried, and, presently, there was the call of a telephone bell from the hall. Sam impatiently awaited the results. There was a considerable delay. Evidently Mrs. Grant was talking with more than one of her neighbors over the wire.
When she came back to the living-room, her expression bore a trace of perplexity.
“I do declare, but it’s amazing queer! Nobody, up the road or down, has seen anything, or heard anything, of those two boys. And I did suppose that they’d put in somewhere, to wait for a let-up in the rain. But everybody along here is on the line, and I’ve called ’em all, and nothing comes of it.”
Sam glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid something’s gone wrong,” he said. “Varley’s sort of a tenderfoot, and the Shark—well, he’s posted well enough, but he’s as likely as not to get to figuring on something, and then how can you tell what he’d do, or not do?”