"
He got into the auto beside Jack, and the two started off slowly.
Cora and Walter also started, and the search for the missing twenty
thousand dollars was continued.
Jack and Lem did not talk much on the way back. Lem Gildy was not
an accomplished conversationalist, and Jack was too anxious to find
the wallet to care for the distraction of talk. Several times he
thought he saw the pocketbook, but each time it was a flat stone or
a clod of dirt that misled him.
They reached Chelton, and Lem asked to be set down in a secluded
street.
"Why?" asked Jack curiously.
"Because if some of me chums saw me ridin' in a swell wagon like
this they'd never speak to me again," and Lem grinned and showed all
his yellow teeth. "I was afraid we wouldn't find that pocketbook,"
he added.
"Well, maybe Cora will," said Jack.
"Yes," said Lem slowly, "maybe she will--or some one else will."
His tone was so peculiar that Jack asked quickly:
"What do you mean, Lem?"
"Oh, nothin'," and the fellow assumed an injured air. "Only if a
pocketbook is lost, some one's bound to find it, ain't they?"
"I suppose so," assented Jack, and as he drove his car through the
streets of Chelton, after the unsuccessful search, he found himself
vainly puzzling over Lem's strange manner.
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