he started his run to Big Basin again, he would get a little camp
in there by the Inn, and take her along with him when the travel
wasn't too heavy. She could stay at either end of the run, just
as she took a notion. Wouldn't hurt the kid a bit--he'd be
bigger then, and the outdoors would make him grow like a pig.
Thinking of these things, Bud walked briskly, whistling as he
neared the little green house, so that Marie would know who it
was, and would not be afraid when he stepped up on the front
porch.

He stopped whistling rather abruptly when he reached the house,
for it was dark. He tried the door and found it locked. The key
was not in the letter box where they always kept it for the
convenience of the first one who returned, so Bud went around to
the back and climbed through the pantry window. He fell over a
chair, bumped into the table, and damned a few things. The
electric light was hung in the center of the room by a cord that
kept him groping and clutching in the dark before he finally
touched the elusive bulb with his fingers and switched on the
light.

The table was set for a meal--but whether it was dinner or
supper Bud could not determine. He went into the little sleeping
room and turned on the light there, looked around the empty room,
grunted, and tiptoed into the bedroom. (In the last month he had
learned to enter on his toes, lest he waken the baby.) He might
have saved himself the bother, for the baby was not there in its
new gocart. The gocart was not there, Marie was not there--one
after another these facts impressed themselves upon Bud's mind,
even before he found the letter propped against the clock in the