“Why, he never came back again from that run this afternoon, Hugh!” Horatio was saying, in an awed tone now.

“What’s that you’re telling me?” exclaimed the astonished Hugh.  “I thought I saw K.K. with some of the other fellows when I was starting home just before dusk came on, though, of course, I may have been mistaken about it.”

“You were, Hugh, you certainly were,” Horatio assured him in a softened tone.  “His own mother ought to know, hadn’t she?  Well, she’s over here at our house right now, crying her eyes out, and imagining all sorts of terrible things.  You remember the Kinkaids live close by us; and she knew her boy was going to take the run this afternoon along with me, so she thought I could tell her if anything had happened to detain him.  Why, she says K.K. never missed his supper before in all his life.  It’d have to be something fierce to keep him away from his best meal of the whole day.”

Hugh was thinking swiftly.  He realized that this was no little matter to be dismissed as unimportant.  Something certainly must have happened to detain K.K. for all this time.  Several hours had elapsed since the other fellows reached the terminus of the long run at the athletic grounds.  Why then had not K.K. shown up?

“Keep the rest till I get there, Horatio!” he told the other.

“Then you’re sure coming, are you, Hugh?”

“Right away,” Hugh added.

“Well, I’m glad, because you’ll know what to do about it.  And there’s something else!”

“Yes?”

“I’ve got something to tell you that, say, I didn’t have the heart to explain to K.K.’s mother, because she’s had enough frightened as it is; but it’s looking particularly ugly to me, now that he hasn’t come back.  Oh! perhaps there is more’n a grain of truth in all those terrible stories those hayseeds tell about that place!”

Hugh put up the receiver with a hang, made a dash for his cap, slipped on his sweater, for he knew the night air was cold, and then shot out of doors.  Somehow those last few words of Horatio, breathing of mystery as they did, had excited his curiosity until it now reached fever-pitch.

As he knew of several short-cuts across lots it took him but a few minutes to arrive at the Juggins home.  Horatio was waiting at the door, and must have heard him running up the steps, for he instantly opened it to admit him.

“Gee, but I’m glad you’ve come, Hugh!” was his greeting.  “She’s in there with mother, and taking on awful about it.  It’s a dreadful thing to see a woman cry, Hugh.  And I’m afraid there may be a good reason for expecting the worst.”

“Tell me what you’ve got up your sleeve, Horatio,” snapped Hugh, “and quit giving all these dark hints.  You know something connected with K.K. that perhaps no one else does.”

“Guess I do, Hugh; for he confided in me, and told me not to say anything to the rest.  Oh, how foolish it was for K.K. to think he could do that big job two days in succession; but he said he was feeling equal to nearly anything; and just had to make the try, since the notion had gripped him.  But come on over to my den, Hugh, and I’ll tell you all about it.  Then you must decide what’s best to be done; and say, I hope you can soothe Mrs. Kinkaid a bit in the bargain.”