Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Ice.djvu/187

Rh asking all those questions about how you got here by road for nothing. Thank you, sir, we'll go in for a little while. My father did send me up to get something from you," he remarked.

"Oh! you must mean that document. I was thinking of it last night when I took it out of the lower drawer of my desk to look over it, and it struck me then that he said he would send for it before the time had elapsed. To think of you coming all the way back here, after what you've been through to-day. It's mighty kind of you, Frank, and the rest of you, too."

"Don't mention it, sir. Why, it's just prime fun to sit there and be whirled along at a mile a minute clip. Better than the labor of skating, easy though that is. And so far as the rest of the bunch goes, why, they were only too glad to come. I couldn't keep one of them away, for he piled in as soon as he heard we were headed for the Baxter ranch."

Lanky scowled at Frank, and made threatening gestures, to which, however, the other paid little attention.

So the three boys followed the farmer into the sitting-room. Here it was, Lanky remembered having seen him groping in the smoke and trying to drag his desk toward the door, it doubtless holding all his papers of consequence, since there was no house safe visible.