Page:Outdoor Girls in Florida.djvu/65

Rh "I guess our Florida trip is all off," said Grace with a sigh, one evening.

"Not at all," said her father. "I want you girls to go. It may be that you might hear some word of Will."

"Then we will go!' his sister cried. "Oh! I do hope we can find him."

The preparations for the Florida trip went on. Meanwhile nothing was heard from the missing youth, and Uncle Isaac had no success.

Then, most unexpectedly, there came word from the boy himself—indirect word—but news just the same.

It was in the shape of a letter from a Southern planter, who said one of his hands had picked up the enclosed note in a cotton field near a railroad track. It had probably been tossed from a train window, and had laid some time in the field, being rain-soaked. It bore Mr. Ford's address, and so the planter forwarded it. The note was as follows:

" I certainly am in trouble. That development business was a fake, and I have literally been kidnapped, with a lot of other young fellows—some colored. They're taking us away to a turpentine swamp to work. I've tried to escape, but it's no use. I appealed for help to