“Confound you!” roared Bert Dodge.  He leaped forward, intent on striking the young junior down.  But Officer Hemingway pushed Dodge back forcefully.

“Come, come, now, Dodge, we won’t have any of that,” warned the officer.  “And, if you want my opinion, you’re not playing the part of a gentleman just now.  Prescott understands your state of mind, however.  He knows you’re so upset, your mind so unhinged by the family trouble that you’re doing and saying things that you’ll be ashamed of by daylight.”

“I suppose, next, you’ll be inviting this reported fellow to go on the boat with us when it comes,” sneered Bert Dodge.

“That would be for the chief to say.  Reporters are, usually, allowed to go with the police.  Come, come, Dodge,” urged Hemingway, laying a kindly hand on the young man’s shoulder, “calm down and understand that Prescott is not offering to make any trouble, and that he has been very patient with a young fellow who finds himself in a heap of trouble.”

“I can cut this short,” offered Dick quietly.  “I don’t believe it would be worth my while, Mr. Hemingway, to ask the chief’s permission to go on the boat with you.  ‘The Blade’ can find out, later, whether you discover anything on the river.”

“Where are you going, now?” demanded Bert unreasonably, as Prescott turned away.

“Back to the horse and buggy,” Dick replied coolly.

“Then I’m going with you, and see you start back to town,” asserted Bert Dodge.

Hemingway did not interfere, but, leaving his brother policeman at the river’s edge, accompanied young Dodge.  In a few minutes they arrived at the spot in the lane where Dick had tied the horse.  Here they found Dave Darrin seated in the buggy.  Dave glanced unconcernedly at them all, nodding to Hemingway way, who returned the salutation.

“Now, I’ll watch you start away from here,” snapped Bert.

“All right, then,” smiled Dick, climbing in, after unhitching, and picking up the reins.  “I won’t keep you long.”

With that, and a parting word to the policeman, Dick Prescott drove away.

“I saw Hemingway coming, and knew you wouldn’t need me,” Dave explained with a laugh.  “So, to save Bert a double attack of nerves, I slipped off in the darkness, and came here.  But what on earth ails Dodge, anyway?”

“Why, for one thing, he’s worried to death about the disappearance of his father,” replied Dick Prescott.

“I’ve seen people awfully worried before, and yet it didn’t make madmen of them,” snorted Darrin.

“Well---perhaps-----”

Dick hesitated.

“Well——?” Darrin insisted, rather impatiently.

“I’m half inclined to think that Bert Dodge has been leading the soreheads who sulk and won’t play football in the same team with some of us common fellows,” Dick laughed.  “If so, the very fact of my being sent to look into the news side of his father’s disappearance would make Bert feel especially sore at me.”