Chapter XI

TED FEELS THE FLARE-BACK

Ted didn’t find the watch, nor did the men searchers get anywhere near a reliable trail of Amos Garwood.

As for Dick & Co., they aided in the search for a while, then went home to supper, feeling that they had done their present duty as well as boys might do it.

Ted Teall slunk home considerably after dark.  Fortunately, as it happened, his parents didn’t force him to tell his reason for being late, but Ted sat down to a supper that was cold and all but tasteless.  However, Teall could find no fault with his supper.  He was so full of misery that he didn’t have the slightest idea what the meal was like.

“I wonder if I’d better run away from home before I’m arrested?” puzzled Ted, as he secured his hat and stole away from the house.  “Br-r-r-r!  I don’t like the idea of being hauled up in court.”

It finally occurred to him that, if the officers were on his track, the news would be known up in town.

“If I nose about Main Street, but keep myself out of sight, and keep my eyes peeled for trouble,” reflected wretched Ted, “I may find out something that will show me how to act.”

So to Main Street Ted slowly made his way, keeping an alert lookout all the time for trouble in the form of a policeman.

At one corner Ted suddenly gasped, feeling his legs give way under him.  By a supreme effort of will he mastered his legs in time to dart into a dark doorway.

“Huh!  But that was a lucky escape for me,” Teall gasped, as he came out from the doorway, peering down the street after the retreating form of Hi Martin’s father.  “I guess he’s out looking for me.  He’ll want his son’s gold watch.  Crackey!  I wonder if folks will think I’m low enough down to steal a fellow’s watch?”

If Teall was rough, he was none the less honest, and had all of an honest boy’s sensitive horror of being thought guilty of theft.

“Yet the matter stands just this way,” Ted reflected as he moped along.  “The watch must have been in the trousers when I snatched ’em up, and the watch wasn’t there when I returned the trousers.  What will folks naturally think?  Oh, I wonder if there ever was as unlucky a fellow in the world before?”

A great lump formed in Ted’s throat as he puzzled over this problem.

“Hello, Teall!” called a hearty voice.  “Was Hi much obliged when you gave him back his duds this afternoon?”

Dick Prescott was the speaker, and with him were his five chums.

“Nothing like it,” muttered Ted, turning as the boys came up.  “Say, something awful happened to-day, and I’m in a peck of trouble!”

“Tell us about it,” urged Tom Reade.

Ted started to tell them, mournfully.

“I don’t believe a word of that, Ted,” Dick broke in energetically.

“I’m telling you just as it happened,” Teall protested.