“Let him go, mama,” urged the child.  “He’ll bring papa back.”

Dick looked questioningly at the woman.

“All right, then, go,” she acquiesced.  “Oh, I hope you have good luck, and that you don’t make Tom ugly, either.  I’ll say, for him, that he has never been ugly yet.”

“Mrs. Drake, we all four accept your commission—–­or permission, whichever it is,” replied Dick, bowing.  “We’ll try to use tact and judgment, and we’ll try to bring Mr. Drake back with us.”

Dick asked a few questions as to where Miller’s place might be found.  Then he set off, he and his chums walking abreast.

“Bring him back!” Mollie said plaintively.  “Then mama won’t cry, and I won’t, either.”

“I feel like a fool!” muttered Tom Reade, when they were out of earshot of the waiting mother and child.

“If you don’t like the undertaking, you might keep in the background,” Dick suggested.

“It’s likely I’d back out of anything that’s moving, isn’t it?” Reade demanded, offended.  “I don’t mind any disagreeable business that we may run into.  But I feel like a fool when I think of the message we’ll have to take back to that poor woman and baby.”

“Tom Drake will deliver the message to them,” replied Dick, firmly.

“If he’s sober even now,” murmured Danny Grin, uneasily.

“I’m strong for the task!” declared Dave Darrin, with enthusiasm.

“So would I be,” Tom defended himself, “if I thought that even
a night of fighting would result in anything like success.   But-----”

“Better stop right here, then,” Prescott, suggested, smiling earnestly.  But neither of Dick’s companions stopped.

They were walking briskly, now.  As they had been told, Miller’s was the first place on the right hand side, where the business street of Fenton began.  It had been a tavern in the old days, and was still a big and roomy structure.

Yet there was no mistaking the room in which the object of their quest was to be found.  The door of the saloon opened repeatedly while the boys stood regarding the place.

Dick stepped over to a man who had just come out.

“Is Tom Drake in there?” Dick asked.

“Yes.”

“Is he sober?” Dick pressed.

“Yes; so far,” answered the man.

“Will you do me a great favor?  Just step inside and tell him that there is a man outside who wants to see him.  Just tell him that, and nothing more.”

“Are you from Drake’s wife?” asked the man, looking Dick over shrewdly.

“Yes,” Dick admitted, candidly.

“I’ll do it,” nodded the man.  “Drake has been making a fool of himself.  He’ll go to pieces and find himself without a job before the year is out.  You wait here.  I’ll find a way to coax him out for you.”

Soon the door opened again, and there came out Prescott’s messenger followed by a clean-cut, well-built young man of not more than twenty-eight years of age.