Tell me what's up first." "Oh! I meant to do that, Hugh," his friend hastened to say, and Hugh could detect a tremor to the boyish voice that told of excitement.
"You see, it's K.K." "What's happened to him ?" demanded Hugh, his mind instantly suggesting all manner of terrible possibilities, from a sudden attack of sickness to an accident whereby his life might be in danger; for with boys these things sometimes happen as unexpectedly as a flash of lightning from a clear sky.
"Why, he never came back again from that run this afternoon, Hugh!" Horatio was saying, in an awed tone now.
"What's that you're telling me ?" exclaimed the astonished Hugh.

"I thought I saw K.K.with some of the other fellows when I was starting home just before dusk came on, though, of course, I may have been mistaken about it." "You were, Hugh, you certainly were," Horatio assured him in a softened tone.

"His own mother ought to know, hadn't she?
Well, she's over here at our house right now, crying her eyes out, and imagining all sorts of terrible things.

You remember the Kinkaids live close by us; and she knew her boy was going to take the run this afternoon along with me, so she thought I could tell her if anything had happened to detain him.

Why, she says K.K.never missed his supper before in all his life.