In the meantime, the object of their solicitude was talking with his mother. His return had surprised the good woman, who, knowing the distance Margie lived from the village centre, had not expected Fred for at least half an hour. "What brings you back so soon?" she asked, immediately suspecting trouble and anxiously scrutinizing the boy, to see if he were injured. "The girls decided to spend the night with Grace." "I'm so glad you weren't obliged to take that long walk back alone. I entirely forgot, until you were gone, that this was hazing night--or I should have asked Sandow and Buttons to go out with you and Margie." From the expression on the face and the look in the eyes of the mother he loved so dearly, Fred realized that she would add to her already heavy burden, worry over him, every time he escorted Margie to her home. "Now, Momsy, you must quit worrying about me _right now_," he said, affectionately putting his arm around her waist. "I'm old enough and big enough and strong enough to take care of myself. You know, I like Marg, and I like to walk home with her. But if you are going to be nervous every time I do, I'll have to stop going with her--and I don't want to." "But I can't help being anxious about you, Fred. With your father away, you are all I have. If anything should happen to you, I think it would drive me crazy." Never before had the boy realized the depth of the love his mother bore him, and at its revelation he was sorely perplexed. Well he knew that his rival would never cease his attempts to waylay him. Of the outcome, should Bart make the trial alone, he had no misgivings, but he knew the bully's nature too well, to think he would essay the deed single handed. And in the light of his mother's remark, about the effect any injury to him would have upon her, he was sorely perplexed. "Oh, Momsy, you don't mean that," he exclaimed. "Any boy is liable to get hurt. _Please_ say you don't mean it--and promise me not to worry." "I'll try not to," agreed the lad's mother, evading an answer to his first entreaty, and adding, hastily, "now, run to bed. I've locked up the house, so everything is all right." Glad of the opportunity to be alone, Fred kissed his mother and went to his room. Upon his return, he had intended to tell her of the incidents of his walk, but her words had made him understand the recital would only add to her worry, and he had refrained. But alone in his room, his mind reverted to the discovery of Mr. Montgomery and his brother-in-law, searching the ground by the bank. "I wish I knew what it was they were hunting for," he muttered to himself. "It must have been either valuable or important for them to want to find it to-night, instead of waiting till to-morrow, when they could search by daylight." Then his chum's repetition of what his father had said, in regard to Mr. Montgomery's going into the bank after hours, recurred to him, and with it an idea so startling that he sat up in bed.