here to see you."

"A lame boy?" Mr. Martin was much surprised.

"Yes. He said he had been in a Home up near Cherry Farm, where you were
last summer," went on the clerk.

"What did he want?" asked Mr. Martin.

"I don't know. He didn't say, but stated that he would wait until you
came back. So I gave him a chair just outside the office. He seemed to
know about you and Ted and Jan."

"A lame boy! Oh, maybe it was Hal Chester!" cried Jan.

"But Hal isn't lame any more," Mr. Martin reminded her. "At least he is
only a little lame. Did this boy limp much?" he asked the clerk.

"Well, not so very much. He seemed anxious to see you, though."

"Where is he?" asked Mr. Martin. "I'll be glad to see him. Where is he
now?"

"That's what I don't know. I had to leave the office a minute, and when
I came back he was gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, he wasn't here at all. And, what is more, something went with
him."

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Martin.

"I mean the lame boy took with him a pocketbook and some money when he
went out," answered the clerk.

CHAPTER IX

THROUGH THE ICE

Mr. Martin said nothing for a few seconds after hearing what his clerk
told him. Ted and Jan looked at each other. They did not know what to
say.

"Are you sure the lame boy took the pocketbook and the money?" asked the
Curlytops' father of his clerk.

"Pretty sure; yes, sir. The pocketbook--it was a sort of wallet I had
some papers in besides money--was left on this bench right near where he
was sitting while he was waiting for you. I went away and when I came
back he was gone and so was the pocketbook. He must have taken it."

"Was there much money in it?"

"Only about fifteen dollars."

"That's too bad. I wonder what the boy wanted. Didn't he say?"

"Not to me, though to one of the other clerks who spoke to him as he
sat near the bench he said he was in need of help."

"Then it couldn't have been Hal Chester," said Mr. Martin, "for his
father is able to provide for him. Besides, Hal wouldn't go away without
waiting to see Ted and Jan, for they had such good times together at
Cherry Farm and on Star Island.

"Hal Chester," went on Mr. Martin to the clerk, who had never been to
Cherry Farm, "was a lame boy who was almost cured at the Home for
Crippled Children not far from my father's house. He left there to go to
his own home about the time we broke up our camp. I don't see why he
would come here to see me."

"Maybe his