Howard Roger Garis

“ Why did you let it be known that your son was with you, when he was not?” asked Larry, for a glimpse around the room showed no signs of the boy. There were several pictures of him, however, and Larry easily recognized in them the little lad he had seen standing in the wings.
“Why did I, señor? Because there has been a great crime committed, a crime of cunning and daring, and I must meet cunning and daring with the same weapons. It is no time for force. I realize that. Neither would it have done any good to have started a pursuit at once. The villains are too cute for that. ”

“ As the first notes of the accompaniment music burst out Larry noticed that the singer cast a glance around the big hall, and even up into the galleries.
“She’s looking for that man,” thought the young reporter. “What strange influence has he over her? What’s the mystery I’m just on the edge of, I wonder?”
Madame Androletti began to sing, and as the first few notes rippled out she cast a quick glance into the wings. Few noticed it, but Larry did, and as his eyes followed hers he saw a boy, of about ten years of age, standing behind a representation of a tree trunk, part of the stage-setting. ”

“ Once on deck, though the wind blew with considerable force, it was not quite as bad as Larry had feared. True, there was a heavy sea on, and to those who have never seen the Great Lakes in a storm, let me tell you that a blow there can raise almost as high waves as on the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. The Great Lakes are lakes only in name—they are really inland seas.
“Here we are, Larry!” called Mr. Potter, as our hero started toward the bridge. The young reporter turned to behold, in the glare of a storm lantern, the millionaire and the captain examining the end of the severed cable. ”

“ It was in the West Farms section of the old city of Manhattan, a place of historical interest, but Larry thought little of this now. His mind was too busy with thoughts of the stolen boy.
Leaving behind the big apartment houses, which were springing up on every side, the young reporter soon found himself in a comparatively quiet spot, and he walked along what was once a country road.
“It’s nicer here than in the city,” reflected Larry. “It’s like where we used to live. I almost wish I was back on the farm again. This being a reporter, and solving mysteries, isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. ”

“ Androletti was at once comforted and alarmed. It was joy to her to know that her son was alive. But she was alarmed when Larry spoke of Lake Huron.
“Oh, the terrible water!” she exclaimed. “I know when we came over from Italy, though we were on a great ship, Lorenzo was frightened. He does not like the water, and he never did. I am not afraid of it, but, oh, for him! What shall we do? Where shall we look for him now?”
“Well,” remarked Larry, “I suppose one thing is as good as another. I’m all at sea, except for the fact that it is somewhere on Lake Huron that those men have taken your son. ”

“ Do you wonder I faint, señor?”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed Larry, who had been making rapid notes of the story, with names, dates and other details that I have omitted here.
“And so they took my boy!” cried the singer. “They have stolen him from me! But with your help, good Señor Dexter, you who solved the million-dollar bank mystery, we will get him back, will we not?”
“We will!” cried Larry enthusiastically, though he knew that there was plenty of hard work ahead of him, and but a slim chance that he would be successful.
“I’ll do all I can,” he said, “and so will every one on the Leader. ”

“ Look, is that the boy?” and he showed her a picture of Lorenzo.
“That is him! That is him!” she cried. “Oh, the poor little feller. Who is he?”
“Never mind that now,” spoke Larry. “I’ll tell you later. But where did they go? Did no one see them? Can I have a look in the rooms?”
“For sure you can. I have the keys from the agent of this house. But I know not when those two go—the boy and that man with the bad eyes. One man is only here one day. In the night they go. Listen, detective man: The boy he is never allowed to go out at all. He is kept in the rooms by the bad man. ”

“ He doesn’t act like a criminal. I wonder if, after all, Madame Androletti is right. I’m glad I qualified the yarn, and didn’t say, positively, that Parloti was the one who had the boy.”
Larry was enough of a newspaper man to know how to do this. He did not want to involve the paper in a libel suit. For it is one thing to suspect a man of a crime, and it is another to convict him. And, until a person is convicted no newspaper dare, legally, state that he is guilty.
“Ah, Señor Dexter, of the Leader,” said Parloti, with a slight raising of his eyebrows as Larry entered the room. ”

“ Never was there a cleaner, brighter, more manly boy than Frank Allen, the hero of this series of boys’ tales, and never was there a better crowd of lads to associate with than the students of the School. All boys will read these stories with deep interest. The rivalry between the towns along the river was of the keenest, and plots and counterplots to win the championships, at baseball, at football, at boat racing, at track athletics, and at ice hockey, were without number. Any lad reading one volume of this series will surely want the others. ”

“ Larry laughed to himself. It was not five minutes ago that he had made a sort of vow that he would not worry or do any work until he got to Detroit, and here he was making labor for himself.
But he knew better than to leave the slightest thread loose, and when, by so simple a means as asking questions, he could learn whether or not the kidnappers had been on this steamer, he decided to do it. ”

“ The tramps about the fire sprang to their feet, and were off after the fleeing lad.
“By heck! I can’t stand this!” fairly shouted Mr. Meldron. “I don’t care where the others are, I’m going to close in.”
“So am I!” yelled Larry, as he saw a good chance to rescue the stolen lad.
The farmer raised his gun in the air, and fired. At the sound of it the tramps looked back in alarm, and the boy ceased running.
“Go on! Go on!” yelled Larry. “We’re going to save you!” ”

“ There are adventures in abundance—railroad wrecks, dashes through forest fires, the pursuit of a “wildcat” locomotive, the disappearance of a pay car with a large sum of money on board—but there is much more than this—the intense rivalry among railroads and railroad men, the working out of running schedules, the getting through “on time” in spite of all obstacles, and the manipulation of railroad securities by evil men who wish to rule or ruin.
Books that every American boy ought to own. ”

“ STOLEN BOY
CHAPTER I
A FRIGHTENED SINGER
“Hello, Larry, just the chap I want to see!” greeted Paul Rosberg, one of the oldest reporters on the New York Leader, as a tall, good-looking young fellow came into the city room one September afternoon. “I’ve been hoping you’d show up.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Larry Dexter, the “star” man on the Leader, when it came to solving strange cases and mysteries. “Do you want the loan of five dollars, or has your typewriter gone out of commission?”
“Neither,” replied Paul Rosberg, with a smile, though he knew Larry would oblige him were it necessary. ”

“ Suddenly a girl’s voice called:
“What is it, daddy? Has anything happened? Why are we under way? I thought we had anchored for the night.”
“So we did, Grace, but we have decided to unanchor,” spoke her father, with a grim smile at Larry, and a motion to the young reporter to indicate that he was to keep silent regarding the trouble.
“But what does it mean?” she insisted, from behind her closed stateroom door. “Are we in any danger? I’m going to get up. Shall I call Madame Androletti?” ”

“ Larry was fairly scrambling into his coat, which he seldom wore around the office. He caught up his hat, and jabbed a bunch of copy paper, for notes, into his pocket.
“A letter from the stolen boy,” repeated the city editor.
“That’s what Madame Androletti says. It just came, by mail, and she called me up at once. Say, it may be a good clew, and it may pan out to be nothing; but it’s a story, anyhow!”
“That’s so,” agreed Mr. Emberg. “Get right after it, Larry, and telephone in, to catch the last edition.”
“I will!” cried the young reporter as he hurried from the city room. ”

“ Most unexpected things happen to newspaper reporters. That is one reason why, in spite of the hard work attached to the profession, so many bright young lads like it. It was that way with Larry Dexter. It was the unexpected that he was always looking for, and nearly always he found it.
In this, the fifth book of “The Young Reporter Series,” I have related for you something that happened when Larry unexpectedly went to a concert. Before he knew it he was involved in a mystery that had to do with a stolen boy. ”

“ If they have my son he is sure to be safe.”
“But in what part of the West is he?” asked Larry. “There are not many Indians left in this country. Of course there are plenty of cowboys, but the buffaloes are about exterminated. Where is Lorenzo?”
“Here is the letter!” exclaimed the anxious mother. “The postmark on the envelope is Detroit.”
“Detroit! In Michigan!” cried Larry. “Near the dividing point between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. So they have taken him out to the Great Lakes’ region. Well, it is something to know where to start to look for him.”
“The lakes! The lakes!” murmured the singer. ”

“ Later Larry learned that the boat had been a racer, and was very powerfully engined. But she was in bad order. Even with that she kept ahead.
“Oh, if we only can catch them!” murmured Grace, as she stood beside Larry.
“We’ve just got to!” exclaimed the young reporter.
An hour went by.
“Are we gaining or losing?” asked Mr. Potter of the lookout, a man who had been on the Great Lakes for many years.
“Well, sir, it’s hard to say, in a stern chase. That’s always a long chase, you know. You can’t see whether you’re gaining or losing. ”

“ It gave him a queer sensation to see thrown on the screen the views of the pretended tramps, and the little boy running away from them.
“It isn’t everybody who tries to break up a photo-play drama,” mused the young reporter.
He had a good meal at the house of the farmer, and then, seeking the nearest telephone, he sent in to the Leader a humorous account of what had happened. Even though, in a way, it was a disappointment, Larry got a good story out of it, and, what is more, a “beat.” ”

“ I can find my way if you tell me the number,” interrupted the young reporter. For the work he had in hand he wanted no bell-boy to announce his coming.
“All right,” spoke the clerk indifferently. “Room ten on the first floor. It’s in the rear.”
“They always seem to choose the rear,” mused Larry, as he started up the stairs, for there was no elevator. The hotel was little more than a boarding house. “Always the rear. They want to be in a position to escape if they have to, I guess, as Parloti did before, down the fire-escape. ”

“ Potter,” went on Mr. Emberg. “You’ll win out yet, Larry. Don’t get discouraged.”
The young reporter tried not to be, but it was hard work. For, with all his efforts, he could not seem to get a single new clew to work on. And the old ones had been run into the earth.
“If only something would happen!” complained Larry. “I don’t see why the kidnappers (or the kidnapper if there’s only one) haven’t made a demand for ransom money. They didn’t take that boy away merely for the sake of his company. They want to make something out of him. ”

“ Don’t you want to put someone else on the case? I don’t seem to be making good. Maybe if a new fellow took hold he could see some things I can’t.”
“Larry, you’re going to stick right on this case until you find that boy, or until—well, until it’s been proven that he can’t be found,” said the city editor. “Don’t imagine for a moment that the Leader isn’t satisfied with your work. You’re doing fine. Even when there’s a balk, you get a good yarn out of it. ”

“ I think it will do you good, after sitting in a hot theater. What do you say to a little spin before I take you home?”
“Oh, Larry, I’m afraid you’re getting me into luxurious habits,” she remarked, with a sigh, but it was not a very protesting sigh, and the young reporter at once summoned a taxi.
“Drive about anywhere,” he ordered the chauffeur, who grinned cheerfully in anticipation of a fat fee. Molly settled herself comfortably back among the cushions.
“Well,” she asked, “did going to the theater help you in finding any new clews to the stolen boy, Larry?” ”

“ It’s dreadful lonely down in that hollow, and hardly any one ever goes near the house. It couldn’t be a better place for them kidnappin’ tramps. But what had we best do? I wonder who that poor little boy is, anyhow?”
“I think I know!” said Larry.
“You don’t say! Know him! Well, for land sakes! How comes that?”
“I think he is the stolen boy for whom I’ve been looking a long time,” went on the young reporter. “Most unexpectedly I have stumbled on his place of captivity. It’s lucky I met you,” and he proceeded to tell of the kidnapping of Lorenzo Androletti. The farmer listened, full of wonder. ”

“ It is a lively, rattling, breezy story of school life in this country written by one who knows all about its pleasures and its perplexities, its glorious excitements, and its chilling disappointments. ”

“ It’s just like when some one does something mean to you, and you pretend not to know it for a while, laying low, and holding back, so as to get a better chance to get even with ’em.”
“I see,” agreed the city editor, with a laugh at Larry’s boyish explanation. “And yet the kidnappers must know that Madame Androletti is aware that her son has been spirited away.” ”

“ Potter.
“Larry, are we in danger?” cried Grace. “Is daddy saying we are safe just to make us not worry?”
“As far as I know we are perfectly safe,” answered the young reporter. “For that matter, we are not far from a harbor, and, if the storm gets too bad, we can put in there.”
“Of course,” agreed the millionaire, “but we are not going to. We are going to catch those fellows and get back the stolen boy! It was some of the kidnappers, Madame Androletti, who I believe cut us adrift. Then came this storm, and one of our motors had to go out of commission just at the wrong moment. But don’t worry. ”

“ They had left him and his companion, in order to circle about the suspected house, and were soon out of sight.
“We’re to close in when we hear Bob fire his gun in the air, ain’t we?” asked Mr. Meldron in a whisper, when he and Larry had advanced some distance through the underbrush.
“That’s it. He’s got the farthest to go, and it will take him some little time to get around. We’ll have to wait for him. I hope everything comes off all right.”
“So do I,” said the farmer. “I guess them tramps won’t light out right away. It’s dinner time, and they’re as fond of eatin’ as most folks, I reckon.” ”

“ Every available man was instructed to be on the lookout for the stolen boy, since it was possible he might yet be in New York. Officers, whose posts took in the Italian, and other foreign sections, of the city were told to be on the lookout, and outgoing steamers and trains were watched.
Larry got a fine story, and a beat, about the finding of the torn note, and the flight of Parloti. All the other papers had to copy the account, and Peter Manton received another severe “call down” from his city editor for being “scooped.” ”

“ Larry had come to New York some years before, a farm boy, with an ambition to become a newspaper man. In the first book of this series, entitled “From Office Boy to Reporter; or, The First Step in Journalism,” I told how Larry accomplished this, but not without hard work, and he was in no little danger, because of the mean actions of Peter Manton, a rival copy boy on another paper, the Scorcher. But Larry won out.
In the second book, entitled “Larry Dexter, the Young Reporter,” an account is given of Larry’s “assignments,” or the particular pieces of newspaper work set aside for him. ”