, sir," urged Roger.

"Mr. Clark is getting very nervous about this man Hapgood. The man is
beginning to act as if he, as the guardian of the child, had a real
claim on the Clark estate, and he becomes more and more irritating every
day. They haven't heard from Stanley for several days. He hasn't
answered either a letter or a telegram that his uncle sent him and the
old ladies are working themselves into a great state of anxiety over
him. I tell them that he has been moving about all the time and that
probably neither the letter nor the wire reached him, but Clark vows
that Hapgood has intercepted them and his sisters are sure the boy is
ill or has been murdered."

"Poor creatures," smiled Mrs. Morton sympathetically. "Is there anything
you can do about it?"

"I told Clark a few minutes ago that I'd go out to western Pennsylvania
and hunt up the boy and help him run down whatever clues he has. Clark
was delighted at the offer--said he didn't like to go himself and leave
his sisters with this man roaming around the place half the time."

"It was kind of you. I've no doubt Stanley is working it all out well,
but, boy-like, he doesn't realize that the people at home want to have
him report to them every day."

"My proposal is, Marion, that you lend me these children, Helen and the
Ethels and Roger, for a few days' trip."

"Wow, wow!" rose a shout of joy.

"Or, better still, that you come, too, and bring Dicky."

Mrs. Morton was not a sailor's wife for nothing.

"I'll do it," she said promptly. "When do you want us to start?"

"Can you be ready for an early morning train from New York?"

"We can!" was the instant reply of every person in the room.

CHAPTER XVI

FAIRYLAND

All day long the train pulled its length across across the state of
Pennsylvania, climbing mountains and bridging streams and piercing
tunnels. All day long Mr. Emerson's party was on the alert, dashing from
one side to the other of the car to see some beautiful vista or to look
down on a brook brawling a hundred feet below the trestle that supported
them or waving their hands to groups of children staring open-mouthed at
the passing train.

"Pennsylvania is a beautiful state," decided Ethel Brown as they
penetrated the splendid hills of the Allegheny range.

"Nature made it one of the most lovely states of the Union," returned
her grandfather. "Man has played havoc with it in spots. Some of the
villages among the coal mines are