The doctor said it, and the doctor laughed encouragingly. A boy pushed toward Frank with a telegram. Frank tore open the envelope and read:
“Man here with your father. I think D. S. Come quick. Will meet you at wreck with automobile.
Frank, after a cheering word to Dick Starbright, jumped out of the room, hurrying toward the street without changing his clothing. As a short cut, he took the little door through which Bascom had fled. He was about to emerge into the light from a small and unused side entrance, when he heard a rustling and became aware that a man who had been about to leave the place ahead of him had drawn back and was now apparently in hiding.
Before the man knew that his presence had been observed, Frank was on him, pouncing down like an eagle.
It was indeed Bascom, who had succeeded in hiding in the building, and who, fancying that the coast was now somewhat clear, had decided to venture forth and try to get out of the town before a more thorough search might reveal his place of hiding.
Frank clutched him by the throat, bore him backward to the floor, calling for assistance. Before it came, however, he had found a rope and tied Bascom up ready to turn him over to the authorities.
Then he relinquished him to Hodge, who had come with others in answer to his call. After a few words with this most faithful friend, Frank hurried away for the railway-station and telegraph-office.
There he learned that a freight had been wrecked on its way from New Haven, and that the track would not be open for some time.
Then he fully understood Inza’s message. It would be impossible for him to get through to New Haven by rail, because of this wreck; and she would be at the place where the wreck occurred, with the automobile, ready to take him on into New Haven at the highest speed of the auto, as soon as he reached her.
“Brave and quick-witted as ever!” was his thought. “I wonder what she has learned of Dion Santenel now? I thought the rascal would abandon his attempts and be afraid to return to New Haven. But I will get there, and I will thwart him in his scheme, whatever it is.”
Frank might not have been so confident if he had known just what Santenel was doing, and how he was succeeding.