“You give me his full name, uncle—” “Uncle Mose all de chillun in de fambly calls me.” “Give me your sailor’s full name and I’ll try to find out where he is.” “Oh, Missie, if you do dat de Lawd’ll bless you de res’ o’ yo’ days. He name Charles Whitlaw Tradd. De bes’ blood in all de low country flows in he veins.” Kitty wrote down the name and said, “It may take some time, but I’ll come back to see you if I can find out where he is.” “Lawdy, Missie, hit good to talk to real quality folk like y’all once more. You sho’ put me in mind o’ ole Massa’s bride when he brung her home to de island. You’s as much like her as two peas in a pod.” “Thank you,” said Kitty, and curtsied as she knew the old-fashioned girls used to do. “We must be going now, but we’re glad we met you.” “It do a lonely old man good to talk to folks like you,” he said with a respectful bow. “I ain’t got nothin’ but memories to live wid now.” When he was out of hearing Brad whistled softly, “Kit, I’ll have to hand it to you for learning a lot from him. You worked your way right into his heart and found out plenty.” “Oh, really, Brad, I didn’t purposely treat him nice just to pick him. I warmed to him the minute I saw him. He’s the real thing.” “You bet!” Suddenly Kitty stopped short, and exclaimed, alarm in her tone, “Brad, where’s Billy?” “Why, I’d forgotten about him!” “I did too. I haven’t seen him since long before we met the old man.” Kitty ran ahead into the pine grove calling, “Billy! Billy, where are you?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER TWELVE THE LOOKOUT Kitty had never felt so conscience-stricken in her life as when she found Billy was lost. “Maybe he went back and joined your father and Miss Dawson,” Brad suggested. “I don’t think so. We’d come too far. He trailed us all the way, pretending to be shooting at us from behind trees. Oh, Brad, do you suppose he fell from that bluff into the water?” “But he can swim like a fish.” “You go along the bluff and I’ll go through the thicket,” she directed. She ran from him, darting here and there, calling frantically. If anything had happened to Billy she would never forgive herself for being so preoccupied with this strange jig-saw puzzle she and Brad were trying to work out. Suddenly she stopped short under the towering pines, tears streaming down her eyes. “Oh, Billy darling, where are you?” she wailed. “Kitty will die if anything has happened to you.” Suddenly she caught the queer little noise he made in his throat when pretending to fire a machine gun at her. She glanced around, startled. He was nowhere in sight. That must have been something she heard, because she so wanted to hear it. “Billy,—where are you?” she called almost desperately.