  “Tell me what it is all about, Tom, won’t you?” asked Hugh, as he followed the other upstairs to his own room. Somehow, Tom seemed to feel that they ought to be alone so his mother might not overhear what passed between them. “I’ll just close the door, Hugh, before I say anything,” remarked Tom, “though for that matter there’s no danger Benjy will interrupt us, because he’s gone off for the evening. This time I’m glad to tell you it’s to a sociable they’re having over at our church for the young people.” His manner when saying this showed that Tom would be a happy fellow, indeed, if he could only know that every night Benjy was away from home, he was enjoying himself in similar innocent amusements as on this particular occasion. “It’s this way, you see, Hugh,” he continued, after finding a seat close to his visitor, “for a little while now Benjy’s been acting mighty decent, and I’ve come to let myself take on more hope than I had the last time you and I talked it over. He seems more like his old self, and was even asking some questions about the scouts, though up to now he’s never seemed to care a thing about our organization, you remember. But it was too good to last, Hugh.” Remembering what he had seen that afternoon, with Benjy counting silver coins he had received from the bird fancier, Hugh himself was obliged to mentally confess that it looked very much that way. “Go on, please, Tom!” he urged when the other paused. “Well, this is how it happened,” explained the other, slowly, as though he hated to talk about such a painful subject, and had to force himself to take it up only because he knew it was necessary he should enter into details. “After supper this evening, just before Benjy went out, he gave me a quick look when he thought I wasn’t paying any attention, and then slipped upstairs. I waited for a little while, and then just couldn’t stand it any longer, so I managed to leave the sitting room and go up the back stairs. “Keeping on my tiptoes, I moved along the upper hall in the half shadows to where I could watch the door of my room. It was partly open, and there was a light inside, but I couldn’t see Benjy at all, though I could hear him moving about as if looking for something. Then the light suddenly went out, and he came out. Hugh, it made me as cold as ice when I even heard him chuckling to himself as he hurried to his own room, just as if he thought he had played a good joke on me.” “Of course he didn’t know you were so close to him?” asked Hugh when Tom stopped talking to swallow as though something seemed to be choking him. “No, and as soon as he disappeared in his own room I slipped downstairs again, and took up the book I had been reading. He went off a few minutes afterwards, and called out good-night to all as cheery as he used to in the old days before he got going with that tough set.” “Did you come up here and look around to find out what he had been doing?” asked the scout master. “I wanted to the worst kind, Hugh, but it seemed as if I just couldn’t. I was almost afraid to look for fear of making some more discoveries that would upset me. Why, Hugh, honest to goodness, I feel so weary this very night you would think I was an old man, and yet I’ll be sixteen to-morrow, you remember.” “Well,” Hugh told him, “it’s always my principle, when I’ve got a disagreeable task to perform, to get at it right away. The longer you wait, Tom, the worse it gets for you. The only way is to shut your teeth hard together, and pitch in.” “I guess you’re right, Hugh—sure you must be. I’ve been silly to hold back. No matter what I learn, the truth can’t be any worse than this terrible uncertainty that’s gripping me, and making me shiver as if I had the ague again.” He jumped from his seat as though determined to carry his words into effect. “I suppose the first thing I ought to look at is my trunk, eh, Hugh?” he went on to say, fumbling in a pocket for his keys. “Well, you know better than I do where you keep your valuables,” said the other, trying to appear merry, though somehow, Tom did not respond to any appreciable extent. “I see that since that other time I was up here you’ve changed your way of leaving your trunk unlocked.” Tom flushed, and shook his head. “Oh! I tell you it galled me to think I was locking it against my own brother,” he said, tremulously, “but then I remembered that it is a sin to put temptation in the path of any fellow whose weakness you know. Though for that matter a common key would unlock this trunk.” He soon threw back the lid and bent over, fumbling through the contents. Hugh stood close by, watching him with more or less curiosity and interest. He saw that Tom was evidently in fear and trembling, as though constantly dreading lest he make some unpleasant discovery. As he proceeded he seemed to regain a portion of his former confidence. “Here’s my little savings bank all right, Hugh, and no one could ever manage to get anything out of that in the short time he was in my room, even if the trunk could be opened. So far as I can see, nothing has been taken out of here.” When he allowed the lid to drop again Tom was looking more or less relieved. Evidently his main concern had been in connection with the money, he had in that little metal bank, for if Benjy had meant to take anything it would seem that ready cash would tempt him more than all else. “Oh! perhaps, Hugh, he didn’t come in here for that,” he broke out with. “I remember now that sometimes in the past when Benjy was going out to a party he used to want to fix his tie, and brush his hair before the mirror in my room, for he said the light was better here. It may have been that, Hugh, you know.” The scout master understood that poor Tom was like a drowning man clutching at a straw in hopes of keeping himself afloat. Hugh himself might have been inclined to look at the matter from much the same standpoint only for that strange incident of the afternoon, which he could not explain, try as he might, save along very unpleasant lines. “Let’s hope so, Tom,” he hastened to say, “though now you’re about it, in order to ease your mind, and leave no stone unturned, I should think you had better make a clean sweep in here.” “Do you mean search every drawer in my chiffonier and dresser, Hugh?” demanded Tom. “I can do that easily enough, but surely he wouldn’t think to take any of my clothes. I might tell if he’d mussed around in the drawers searching for my savings bank, though, because I keep everything just so; and the clean shirt I expect to wear to-morrow morning I placed on the top of the pile. That’s my habit as a scout to have things kept as neat as wax. Why, Hugh, my mother laughs at me, and calls me a fussy old maid, you know, all on account of those habits of thrift and preparedness.” He started in at the bureau drawers for some reason or other, and as he opened each one and ran his eye over the contents, Tom continued to talk. “Seems like nothing has been bothered that I can notice, Hugh. Here’s another drawer containing some of my surveying instruments, for, with Bud Morgan, I’m still interested along those lines, though of late I haven’t been out afield with him. I was a little afraid one of these instruments might be gone. You see, they’re worth considerable money, and were made a present to me by an old uncle who’s interested in my career. But, so far as I can see, not a single thing is missing, Hugh.” There was a positive air of relief in Tom’s voice when he said this. Undoubtedly the contents of that drawer of instruments had been giving him more anxiety than he had confessed, and he was glad that no unpleasant discovery had developed. “The rest will be just an apology of a search, Hugh, because, you see, there’s absolutely nothing worth taking besides these things. Still, to satisfy my mind as you say, perhaps I’d just better run through the drawers of the chiffonier.” He started at the top one. Hugh indolently watched his progress downward, never dreaming that there would come anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly, as Tom started to open the drawer that he said contained his clean shirts, the scout master saw him give a big start. “Why, what’s this?” Tom stammered, at the same time taking out a long package carefully tied up, and with something written on the outside. Hugh also noticed that an envelope was pinned on to the paper covering. Somehow or other Hugh experienced a thrill. It was as if he had a premonition that something in the nature of a great surprise was coming. Tom was staring hard at what he saw written on the paper. Then he snatched the note, and with trembling hands commenced to get at the enclosure, while the scout master strove to analyze his feelings from the flitting expressions that chased each other across his face. He saw Tom read on, first with incredulity, then sheer amazement, and finally a look of supreme joy came upon his countenance that spoke even louder than his words could the revelation that had come to his faithful heart. “Oh! Hugh! Hugh! would you believe it, Benjy’s all right? He’s—he’s—oh! I’m so happy I hardly know what to say! Read his note, Hugh, please!” |
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