"But he hasn't brought Fred!" cried Bunny.
"Maybe the minstrel boy wasn't the one after all," suggested Mrs. Brown.
"Well, I'm inclined to think he was," said her husband.
"Did you see him?" eagerly asked Bunny.
"No, he had run away. That's why I think it was Fred."
Then Mr. Brown explained:
"When I got to the hotel," he told Bunny, Sue and the others, "I saw Dr.
Perry walking around rather nervously. I asked him about the boy, and he
said that when he and his medicine van reached the hotel after closing
the show last night, he found that his banjo player had packed his
valise, taken his banjo, and gone off."
"Where?" asked Mrs. Brown.
"Nobody knows. He left no word. That's what makes me think it was Fred.
He must have seen us in the crowd. And, as soon as he could wash the
black off his face, he hurried to the hotel ahead of Dr. Perry, got his
bag and ran away. Very likely he did not want to see us and hear us give
him the message from his parents. His heart must still be hard against
them. It is too bad, if that was Fred, for I had begun to think I had
found him. Still it may have been some other young fellow. Dr. Perry
said they often came and went without giving any reasons.
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