dder'n hops about it, too, because I just knew I'd be
keepin' the fellows waiting here under the Grandaddy Oak."

"What did you find when you got there?" asked Elmer, who knew Landy to
be long-winded, and that often the quickest way to learn facts from him
was to put him on the grill.

"Why, they were all upset," admitted Landy. "Mr. Condit was as mad as
a bull in a china shop, and his wife was looking as white as chalk,
yes, and scared, too. Seems that when he went into his library after
eating breakfast he found the safe open and everything gone. It was an
'inside job' the Chief said, because nobody had busted the safe."

"Then the Chief was there, was he?" questioned the patrol leader.

"Sure he was; Mr. Condit had 'phoned to him. There were a dozen
neighbors in the house, too, and more acomin' right along. Biggest
kind of excitement. Oh! it's going to be town property before night, I
guess, and lots of people'll be pointing their fingers at every fellow
wearing khaki, and saying they always knew scouts was no better than
the law allowed. Oh! wouldn't I like to get hold of that Hen Condit,
though."

"What makes them believe it was Hen" continued Elmer.

"Say, that's the queerest part of it all," answered the fat boy; "the
silly gump gave the whole business away himself--went and left a note
behind him telling that he was the guilty villain, and that they
needn't ever expect to see him again, because he had lit out for
Chicago."

"Whew! you don't say!" gasped Lil Arthur, apparently half stunned by
this later intelligence; "I never would have thought Hen could be such
a fool as to convict himself like that."

"When was he seen last?" demanded Elmer, still after information.

"He went to bed last night, they said, just as usual; but shucks! it
would be the easiest thing agoing for Hen to climb down from his window
if he took a notion. I've known him to do the same dozens of times
just for fun, rather than take the trouble to go around to the stairs."

"Then Hen has disappeared, and no one has seen him this morning?"

"Never a soul. His aunt went to his room when he didn't show up, but
not finding him expected Hen had gone off to my house. And his uncle
is whopping mad over it. He nearly took a fit when the expert Chief
said he reckoned someone had chloroformed him. He called Hen a viper
that he had fostered, and said if he could only ketch him he'd see that
he got his deserts."

"Listen, Landy,