Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/192

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180
RESURRECTION ROCK

"Oh; was there some one connected with him named Robert?" Ethel asked.

"Bob Quinlan? He was his grandson."

"Was?" Ethel repeated. "He's dead?"

"Shot down in flames near Cambrai, he was," Bennet said. "He got into aviation as observer and machine gunner. Papers had something about him, the same week Quentin Roosevelt went. Old Jim—I hear he went sort of nutty not long afterwards. It seemed that Bob was all he had left. Lost most of the rest of his family in disasters, some one said; then the war took Bob. We've the gold star for Bob at our offices now; just the other day father O.K'ed a design for our permanent memorial with his name on it. He worked for us a while, you see. What did you hear about the Quinlans?"

"Where's James Quinlan living now, Ben?"

"We don't know. Father was trying to find him just about Christmas. In connection with that memorial, I think. No; it was money—Bob's government insurance which was coming to Jim. That was it," Bennet corrected positively. "He'd been living on Fifty-seventh Street near Prairie—rented a room in a flat—and he'd left a couple of days before Christmas. Just packed up his valise and moved, giving no explanation. The way the people in the flat told it; we didn't consider anything in particular had happened to him; but we're on the general lookout for him. What do you know about him?" Bennet demanded again.

"How long ago was he associated with grandfather?" Ethel returned. "Where was it?"

"Why, back in the old pine days," Bennet replied impatiently. "Old Jim was head sawyer of one of