Chapter 9 MR. STANLOCK SURPRISED.

Perhaps it were better not to attempt to describe with faithfulness of detail the reception given Mr. Stanlock by his wife and family on his return home shortly before 9 o'clock that night. The fear that something of serious nature had intervened to prevent his appearing at the usual dinner hour had taken firm hold of Mrs. Stanlock, Marion, sister Kathryn, and brother Harold. The fact that the police had been searching for him for two hours or more and had been unable to make any hopeful report, had not tended in the least to relieve the tension of suspense, which became almost unbearable.

Then came the vague announcement from Mr. Stanlock's stenographer at the latter's home that he had been called away somewhere, but left no definite information. He had been called unexpectedly and left in a hurry. That was all the stenographer could say.

This information was communicated to the police, who increased the family's alarm by asking a string of questions over the telephone indicating the most direful suspicions. Had Mr. Stanlock seen or heard anything which caused him to believe that the strikers might do him bodily harm if they had an opportunity? Had he received any threatening letters? Had he appeared nervous or was there anything in his manner which indicated that he was apprehensive of trouble not already well known to the public?

Marion and her mother answered some of these questions over the telephone and half an hour later a police lieutenant called at the house and made further inquiry. There was no longer any possibility of dodging the most logical suspicions, namely, that Mr. Stanlock was the victim of a decoy plotted by some criminal element working with or under the shadow of the coal miners' strike.

And so the relief from this dread suspense was very great when he drove up to the house and walked in, smiling as if nothing unusual had happened. Marion fairly flew into her father's arms as if she had not seen him for sixteen months.

"Papa!" she cried almost hysterically; "where have you been? We've been telephoning all over the city, and the police have been searching for you for nearly two hours. Why didn't you call us up and let us know you were going to be late?"

"I was intending to call you, my dear," replied Mr. Stanlock, as he greeted her and the other members of the family with a rapid succession of hugs and kisses, indicating, in spite of his attempts to appear composed, that he had returned home not under the most ordinary circumstances.

"Why didn't you?" Marion insisted. "Do you know what a state of mind you had us in during the last two or three hours?"

"I delayed calling you because I wanted to find out how late I was going to be," Mr. Stanlock explained. "Then something happened, and I wasn't near a telephone, and something more delayed me, and I decided to come directly home without stopping on the way to telephone."

"What was it that happened, papa?" Marion demanded. "Was it anything serious?"

"Pretty serious, girlie," answered her father, pinching her cheek; "but your daddy is an awfully brave man, you know, and he can't tell his daughter any of his blood-curdling experiences unless she can listen to the roaring of cannons and the yelling of Indians without flinching."

"Now, papa, you're making fun of me," Marion protested. "Didn't anything really serious happen? The police thought you must have been waylaid."

"I see there's no way out of it, and I shall have to tell you girls a story that will make you all scream and dream nightmares filled with revolvers and skulking figures and masked faces and lonely highways."

All of the thirteen members and the Guardian of Flamingo Camp Fire, Marion's mother, sister, and brother were present at this scene in the big living room of the Stanlock home. Mr. Stanlock covertly watched the faces of his auditors and was pleased to note that his bandying words were rapidly bringing the tension back to normal. Young Master Harold at this point helped his father's purpose along remarkably by piping forth:

"It's mighty funny if a man can't be out after dark without a lot o' women jumpin' on 'im."

Nobody with a grain of humor in his soul, if that is where the sense of fun is located, could have restrained a laugh at that remark. In a moment it would have been difficult for any one of those present to realize how tragically serious they had all been a few minutes before.

After the chorus of laughter had subsided, Mr. Stanlock sat down in a large upholstered armchair, and remarked to his unconsciously brilliant son:

"You are a great protector of women-oppressed man, aren't you, Harold. Your chief virtue along this line is your ability to get the philosophical high spots of every-day gossip. But don't stop there, my able young advocate. Do you realize that your father has had no dinner and that this exacting bevy of girls is going to force me to suffer the pangs of hunger until I have told my story?"

"I just told Mary (the head maid) to get your dinner ready," Mrs. Stanlock interposed smilingly. "You won't need to go hungry more than fifteen minutes longer."

"I see that you don't appreciate an eager and attentive audience," Marion remarked, affecting to be deeply offended in behalf of her guests. "Very well, we'll wait until after you have satisfied a mere man's appetite, and then we'll condescend to listen."

"Oh, I can tell it in fifteen minutes while Mary is warming over the meat and potatoes. Now, get ready, all you young ladies, for the first shock. I was really and truly held up."

"Held up!" exclaimed several of the girls in chorus.

"Yes, held up, with guns pointed at the chauffeur's head by two masked men on a lonely highway."

"You're joking," said Marion, dubiously.

"All right," said the mine owner, settling back comfortably in his chair. "You insisted on my telling my story, and now that I have begun it, you won't believe my first sentence."

"Yes, I do believe it, papa," Marion said repentantly, going close to her father's chair and putting her arm around his neck. "I believe you were held up by two masked highwaymen with guns in a lonely spot, as you say. But how did you escape?"

"We were rescued by some boys!"

Although at the end of a sentence, Mr. Stanlock stopped so quickly that only a dull person could fail to notice it. His sudden stop, of course, was occasioned by the return to his mind of his promise to keep the secret of the Boy Scouts.

"Boys," said Mrs. Stanlock, wonderingly. "I didn't know that we had any heroes of that type in Hollyhill."

"They were some young fellows out hunting," explained the narrator. "They witnessed the hold-up and leveled their guns at the rascals and drove them away."

"Who are those boys?" Marion demanded, and one might almost have imagined from her manner that she had half a kingdom to bestow on the rescuers of her father.

"I'm afraid I can't give you their names," Mr. Stanlock replied slowly.

"You don't mean to say that you let them get away without finding out who they were, do you?" his daughter inquired with just a shade of indignation.

"No, not exactly that, for I can easily get all their names any time I want them. But I know also that they don't wish to get into the newspapers in connection with this affair."

"Can't you tell me who some of them are, papa?" Marion pleaded. "I want to know who it was that, perhaps, saved the life of my father."

"I can't tell you now, Marion. I have promised faithfully not to reveal their identity at present for very good reasons which they gave to me."

"Where is Jake, the driver, Henry?" asked Mrs. Stanlock. "I see you drove home alone."

"Jake proved himself to be a scoundrel and a traitor and when he discovered that I had found him out he vamoosed. I expect to swear out a warrant for his arrest tomorrow. Shortly before my usual time for coming home, I received a letter by messenger, supposedly from Mr. Mills, chairman of a special hospital committee that is looking after the sick members of striking miners' families. I had been expecting a call of a meeting and this letter stated that it was important that I be present. He lives out on the Foothill pike near the quarries. I thought that I would make a quick run out there and call you up from his home and let you know how late I would be. Well, I didn't get there. It seems that Jake was one of the conspirators in a plot to get me out there and waylay me. By the way, that makes me think I ought to call Mills up and find out if he did call a meeting. The notice was on his stationery and it is just possible that wasn't a fake."

In a few moments Mr. Stanlock was talking with Mills on the phone. The latter was astonished, declared that he had no idea of calling a meeting that night.

"Well, it's lucky I kept the notice," the mining president muttered. "That'll be something interesting to show to the police tomorrow."

* * *