st soon be on
the jump--there was evidently something hanging over their heads,
which would be needing prompt attention.

"Why, it's just this, Hugh," began the other. "K. K. took a foolish
notion he'd like to say he'd gone over the full course just for
practice. And, Hugh. he told me he meant to make use of the
short-cut that crosses the old haunted quarry!"

Hugh started, and looked serious.

"Then, if anything has happened to K. K., it must have been while he
was crossing that mile tract between the two main roads," he went on
to say, without hesitation. Horatio nodded his head eagerly.

"I jumped to that same conclusion, Hugh, only I didn't dare mention
it to Mrs. Kinkaid. I thought you ought to know first of all, and
decide on the program. It's terrible just to think of it; and K. K.
actually pretended to make light, too, of all those stories the
farmers have been telling about that awful place."

"Hold your horses, Horatio!" Hugh exclaimed. "When I said that I
wasn't thinking of ghosts, or anything else unnatural. I meant that
in all probability poor K. K. met with some ordinary accident while
on that stretch, and has been unable to continue his run. He may
have tripped on a vine he failed to see, and either broken his leg,
or else sprained his ankle so badly that he can't even limp along.
I've known such a thing to happen--in fact, once I got myself in the
same pickle, and had to _crawl_ two miles to a house, every foot of
the way on hands and knees, because the pain was frightful whenever I
tried to stand up. Well, the chances are K. K. has had such a thing
befall him."

Horatio heaved a tremendous sigh, as though quite a weighty load had
been taken off his chest.

"You make me feel a heap better, Hugh, when you're so positive," he
hastened to admit. "I was afraid it might be something even worse
than a sprain; but never mind what I thought. The question now is,
what ought we do about it?"

"There's only one thing that can be done," Hugh told him in his
customary straight-from-the-shoulder fashion, "which is for some of
his chums to organize a searching party, get the old Kinkaid car out,
and go up there to look over that abandoned road from one end to the
other. We'll find K. K., or know the reason why."

"That sounds good to me, Hugh!" declared Horatio, always ready to
follow where a bold leader showed the way; "and perhaps we may have
an opportunity to discover whether there _is_ any t