CHAPTER XAN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
Archie McCormick hesitated for the fraction of a second and then laughed heartily.
“Well, of all the coincidences!” he exclaimed. “Dick, too, and Fitz and Teddy! That doesn’t happen to be Barry Lawrence behind you, does it?”
Dick looked a little surprised.
“Lawrence? No,” he returned as they reached the steps. “This is Mr. Percy Joblots, of Boston. I had an idea he was a friend of yours.”
McCormick looked frankly puzzled, and, as Dick shot a quick glance at Joblots, he caught an odd expression of keen alertness in his eyes which was so much at variance with their usual blank inanity that the Yale man was puzzled. The next instant it had disappeared and the dapper fellow stepped forward with outstretched hand.
“Delighted, I’m thure, Mr. McCormick,” he said. “I’ve heard about you from thomebody, but at the moment I can’t for the life of me think which of my friendth it wath.”
“Glad to meet you,” McCormick said rather shortly.
Then he turned quickly to Dick.
“I was hoping Barry might be with you,” he said. “I met him in Hartford yesterday, and we planned to come up here for a couple of days’ gunning. You know he owns the shack here, and he was to be here at five o’clock. I’ve been waiting here since a little after four, but haven’t seen hide or hair of him. I was just beginning to think of breaking through a window and making myself as comfortable as I could for the night, when you appeared.”
“That’s funny,” Dick said thoughtfully. “We came over with exactly that same idea in view. Made arrangements with Cobmore here, who is Lawrence’s agent, to take the place for the rest of the week. Did he say anything to you about coming here himself?”
He looked at Cobmore as he spoke, and the farmer shook his head decidedly.
“Nary a word,” he returned emphatically. “It’s news to me. He most generally lets me know a couple of days before he wants it, so thar won’t be nobody else here. Be you sure, young feller, it was Barry Lawrence you made them arrangements with?”
There was a faint, but unmistakable note of incredulity in his voice which brought the color into McCormick’s face.
“Of course it was,” he said tartly. “You don’t think I’d take it upon myself to come here without his invitation, do you? We made all the arrangements last night, and would have come down together, but Barry had to go to New York this morning and wasn’t sure what train he would make back. So we decided to meet here. He said he wouldn’t be later than five, but I suppose something has happened to detain him. Very likely he’ll be down later.”
“It’ll be a hang sight later, then,” the farmer grumbled, as he mounted the steps and drew out a bunch of keys. “There ain’t no train on this branch till te-rmorrer morning.”
“What difference does it make, anyway?” Dick said lightly. “We’ll have a bang-up time together, and if Lawrence shows up he’ll just have to join in with us. After getting this far I don’t feel like turning around and going back, especially when he hasn’t even appeared on the scene.”
Cobmore turned the key in the lock and swung the door open.
“Thar you be, gents,” he said. “Make yourselves to hum. You’ve got all the grub you need to-night, an’ ter-morrer I’ll send Jake over with milk and butter an’ a few eggs. I got to be gittin’ back, or the old lady’ll raise my hair.”
They bade him good night and he disappeared into the rapidly falling shadows, while the young fellows trooped riotously into the house.
On a stand in the hall they found a candle and matches, which they lit at once and commenced a tour of inspection.
It was a typical New England farmhouse of the better class, rather more spacious, perhaps, than the majority, and certainly more rambling. The original central building, square and severely plain, had been added to from time to time, a room here, a wing there, until the size of the house had been more than doubled.
This effect was heightened by the long kitchen extension protruding at the rear, which was connected, through the milk room and woodsheds, to the big barn behind, so that the whole mass of buildings, all weatherworn to a harmonious gray, had quite an imposing appearance.
The explorers passed through a room on the right of the hall, which seemed to have been used as a sitting room, and into the dining room behind, which had evidently been the original kitchen. There was a huge chimney here which was not plastered up as it is in many old houses, but gaped wide, a glorious, cavernous opening so vast that it took up almost the entire end of the room, and could accommodate five-foot logs with ease. The hearth, which extended far out into the room, was made of square stone slabs of varying sizes, all of which had been worn smooth by the feet of many generations.
“Gee! What a dandy fireplace!” Fitzgerald exclaimed, as he paused before it in admiration. “The late Mr. Hickey certainly had good taste. Can’t you imagine toasting your feet here of a cold winter’s night, with the wind howling around outside and a regular blizzard raging?”
“We’ll have to try it after supper,” Dick said. “We can’t scrape up a blizzard for you, Fitz, but I expect it will be cold enough for a fire, all the same.”
“You bet your boots,” Buckhart put in. “I’m cold already.”
“My goodneth, yeth!” agreed Joblots, shivering in his resplendant hunting suit. “No furnace heat, I thuppoth.”
Fitz snickered, and they passed on to the kitchen, which proved to be fitted up with a modern range and all the conveniences. In fact, the whole house was comfortably furnished to the smallest detail, and everything was so clean and neat and attractive that the fellows were highly elated at their good fortune.
“It’s too comfortable altogether,” Baxter said, as they congregated in the kitchen, unpacking the supplies they had brought along. “We won’t feel as if we were camping out at all.”
“You have my full permission to spread a blanket out in the grass, my child, if this is too rich for your blood,” Fitz remarked as he perched himself on the table and proceeded to slice bacon. “Me for the comforts of home, though, when they’re around. Camping out is all very nice when you’ve got to; but I fail to see the fun in waking up so stiff you can hardly move, with a cold in your head, sand all through your clothes, and covered from head to foot with nasty, itching bites from black flies or mosquitoes.”
“Oh, come off, little one!” Buckhart put in. “It’s clear you’re not wise to the real joys of camping out when you talk like that. Who cares for such little things as black flies and sand when you’re lying on a bed of balsam boughs, wrapped up in a good blanket, with your feet to the fire and three or four good chums around to talk to or not, as you like? Nothing but the stars above your head, no walls to keep you from breathing all of God’s clean air you can get into your lungs. I tell you, tender one, that’s the best sort of a life to live. You hear me gently warble!”
“Sounds good,” Fitz retorted airily; “but how about the times when there aren’t any stars above your head and when God’s clean rain washes you off that nice balsam bed and gives you a bath when you’d a heap sight rather stay dirty. Not for this child! I have a foolish preference for a roof over me and some kind of a mattress, even if it’s only corn husks, to sleep on.”
Buckhart was about to make an emphatic rejoinder when he caught Dick’s laughing eyes.
“You’re wasting your breath, old fellow,” the latter said quickly. “Fitz is awfully fond of hearing himself talk, but don’t ever ask him to go camping if you don’t expect to be taken up.”
“Slander,” retorted the slim chap; “vile slander!”
He dived into the basket of provisions and brought forth a bottle wrapped in a newspaper.
“Pickles!” he exclaimed, holding it up. “Joy of my heart! How blessed of you, Richard, to remember my fondness——”
He stopped abruptly as his quick eye caught something on the printed page which was around the bottle. For a moment there was silence. Then his eyes widened alarmingly and his whole face took on an expression of mock horror as he fixed an accusing glare on the placid countenance of Archie McCormick.
“Oh, gay deceiver!” he exclaimed severely. “Oh, sly fox! Oh, foolish mortal to think you could keep a secret from the sharp eyes of Desperate Desmond, the Demon Detective of—er—Duluth.”
McCormick grinned.
“Discovered!” he moaned. “And I thought I had covered me tracks so well! Out with it, Dessy. Keep me no longer in suspenders.”
Fitzgerald rolled his eyes ceilingward.
“All day long have I felt a presentiment of approaching evil,” he groaned. “This morning a perfectly black cat winked at me——”
“The saucy thing!” interrupted Baxter. “I hope it wasn’t a lady cat.”
“Winked at me,” continued Fitz, frowning at him; “and that is always a bad omen. But I never thought of this. Even when you announced your trip to Hartford two days ago upon a most flimsy pretext, I did not suspect, but now I know.”
He paused and glared again at McCormick who was grinning from ear to ear. By this time the others were rather curious; Percy Joblots, in particular, sat gaping in astonishment, apparently not knowing quite how to take the erratic Fitzgerald.
“Spit it out, why don’t you?” demanded Buckhart. “You’ll throw a fit if you don’t.”
Fitz swallowed hard and rolled his eyes again.
“It’s my sympathetic nature struggling with an innate sense of justice,” he explained. “But justice triumphs. I know now why you made that mysterious trip to Hartford. On this scrap of paper placed providentially before my eyes—redeemed thus from the ignomy of being a mere wrapper of plebeian pickles, I see a horrible—an appalling—thing.”
He paused again, dramatically, and Buckhart, exasperated beyond endurance, made a sudden dive for him. The slim chap leaped from the table and slipped around behind it.
“Peace, creature!” he declaimed. “Listen to my news. The Second National Bank of Hartford was robbed last night of thirty thousand dollars in cold cash!”
For a moment there was silence. Then a roar of laughter went up.
“You’re pinched, Mac,” Dick gasped. “Desperate Desmond has found you out.”
“Yes, bucko,” the Texan exclaimed; “better confess and divvy up the swag.”
McCormick flushed a little, and the smile on his pleasant face grew a bit forced.
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” he said, in a bantering tone. “I didn’t know he was so smart.”
At that moment Merriwell, happening to glance at Percy Joblots, noticed that he was watching McCormick covertly, but with a strange intentness. In his eyes was that curious look of keenness which Dick had seen once before that night.
But even as he looked, the expression disappeared and the dapper fellow’s face resumed its customary repose.
“But, I thay!” he exclaimed, turning to Fitzgerald. “Thurely you don’t weally mean that?”
The slim chap choked and turned red, but his face was quite serious.
“Isn’t it an awful thing?” he questioned sadly. “I don’t think I shall ever recover from the shock.”
Merriwell noticed McCormick’s distress, and it suddenly occurred to him that Archie’s only brother had been sentenced unjustly to a term in Sing Sing for embezzlement. Naturally the youth would think of him whenever the subject of bank robberies was broached, and he decided that the joke had gone a little too far.
“Stop your nonsense, Fitz,” he said quickly, “and fry that bacon. You’ve been idling there quite long enough.”
“But how about this robbery?” persisted Buckhart, who had become interested. “Did they get away?”
“See for yourself,” Fitzgerald returned, tossing the paper to him. “I have work to do.”
Brad caught the scrap of newspaper and carried it to the lamp.
“Thirty thousand dollars,” he mumbled. “Regular professional job—confederate—traced to——By thunder, boys! They were traced to Middleberry. What do you think of that? Traced to Middleberry and then lost track of.”
Middleberry being the nearest railroad town and not more than twelve miles away, this announcement created considerable interest. Every one desired to learn all the particulars, which were meager enough; and then they began to speculate on where the robbers would naturally hide themselves. The country thereabouts was sparsely settled, many of the farms having been abandoned, and the thick woods offered plenty of chances for secure retreats.
Fitz was quite excited over the possibility of their coming upon the thieves and had even decided how he would spend his portion of the reward, when the ravishing odor of frying bacon, combined with the equally alluring fragrance of the coffee, drove all other thoughts out of their heads; and presently they settled down to supper with appetites which only a long tramp through the woods in the crisp, bracing air of mid-November can give, and for a time conversation languished, while everything eatable in sight was disposed of with remarkable rapidity and thoroughness.
“There!” sighed Fitzgerald, with a searching look at the empty dishes. “No more worlds to conquer.”
“Thunder, little one!” exploded the Texan. “You sure aren’t looking for anything more to eat! You’ve stowed away twice as much as any man here. Where do you put it all?”
“Where do you suppose?” demanded the slim chap. “I’ve got a good healthy appetite, that’s all. I notice you haven’t been exactly backward yourself.”
Dick sprang up and began gathering the dishes together.
“You fellows go ahead and start the fire in the next room while Mac and I wash up,” he said. “There’s a lot of big logs out in the woodshed.”
Brad, Fitz and Baxter promptly departed thither, while McCormick filled the dish pan with water from the kettle and Merriwell dumped his armful of dishes into it. Percy Joblots hovered about as if he did not know exactly what to do.
“Ithn’t there thomething I can do?” he asked presently, in a helpless sort of manner. “I never wathed dithes, but I might try.”
Dick’s lips twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face.
“Two’s about enough for that, I think,” he returned. “You might see if you can find some newspapers to start the fire with.”
The dapper fellow looked vaguely about the kitchen, but, there being nothing of the sort in sight, his eyes returned blankly to Dick’s face.
“I don’t thee any,” he said plaintively.
“Take a candle, then, and look through the other rooms,” Merriwell retorted rather sharply.
He was beginning to tire a little of the fellow’s absolute thick-headedness.
Joblots still hesitated. It seemed almost as if he did not wish to leave the kitchen, but presently he lighted a candle and departed reluctantly.
“Where in the mischief did you get hold of that?” McCormick asked quickly.
Dick smiled at the other’s tone of contempt.
“Picked him up in the woods about a mile down the path,” he explained. “He fired a charge of bird shot at us, and when we got hold of him we found he’d come out for the day’s shooting, missed the last train back, and hadn’t a notion of where he was going to put up to-night. There’s plenty of room here, so we thought he might as well stay and go back in the morning. He doesn’t know one end of a gun from the other, and I shall feel safer when he’s out of the woods.”
“Humph!” grunted McCormick. “I never ran up against such a chump in all my life. He’s a blockhead.”
Dick did not answer at once. He was thinking of the expression he had surprised on the face of the would-be sportsman a little while ago. It was not in the least like the look of a man lacking in sense. He wondered whether Mr. Percy Joblots was quite such a fool as appeared at first sight.
“He does seem pretty inane, doesn’t he?” Merriwell remarked presently. “Funny thing, though, Mac. He was saying that he knew a lot of Yale men, and, when Fitz asked him if they were still at New Haven, he asked about you!”
“About me?” Archie exclaimed incredulously. “Why I never saw the jackass before in my life!”
“I don’t know that he said he knew you,” Dick returned, “but he gave that impression. Anyway, he knew your name.”
McCormick’s face took on a puzzled look.
“That’s queer,” he mused. “Wonder where the deuce he got hold of it.”
Dick did not answer. His quick ear had caught the sound of a soft footfall in the adjoining room, and the next moment Joblots appeared in the doorway.
“I found thome,” he said, holding up a bunch of newspapers. “Big pile of them in the fwont woom. What thall I do with them?”
“Just crumple them up and put them in the fireplace,” Merriwell answered. “Never mind. Here are some of the fellows now. They’ll fix it up all right.”
As he spoke the door to the woodshed opened and the three men appeared carrying four or five big logs and a lot of kindling. They proceeded at once to lay them in the dining-room fireplace, and by the time the dishes were washed a roaring fire was blazing up the cavernous chimney.
“That’s all to the good,” Dick remarked, as he and Archie joined the circle about the hearth. “It certainly is cold outside.”
“It sure is, pard,” Buckhart agreed. “That woodshed was like an ice house.”
Fitzgerald had dragged a sofa up to one side of the blaze and sprawled full length on it.
“I tell you, fellows, we’ll want to put in the night right here,” he remarked. “I hate to think of leaving this lovely warm spot and crawling in between icy sheets.”
“Humph!” snorted the Texan. “How about that mattress you were making such a time about a while back?”
The slim chap patted the stuffed couch appreciatively.
“This is as good as any mattress,” he retorted.
“Where do we come in?” demanded McCormick. “I suppose we can sit up all night on plain chairs.”
Buckhart’s mouth drew down into a firm line.
“Nix on that!” he said emphatically. “No breaking away from the bunch. When we go to bed, little Fitzy will toddle along, too, if I have to tuck him in myself.”
Fitzgerald lay back comfortably, his eyes fixed dreamily on the dancing flames.
“When we capture those bank robbers and divide up the reward,” he mused presently, “I think I’ll buy just such a place as this with my share.”
Merriwell’s eyes gleamed.
“Counting your chickens a little previously, aren’t you, Fitz?” he smiled. “There hasn’t been any reward offered yet. How do you know there will be?”
“Why, of course there will,” the slim chap blurted. “Who ever heard of a bank robbery and no reward. Absurd!”
“I wonder if that paper got it straight about their being traced to Middleberry,” Baxter put in. “It would be funny if we should run into them while we’re out to-morrow.”
“Hard to tell,” Dick returned. “Personally I’m not going to bother my head about them. We came out to shoot, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“But still,” persisted Fitzgerald, “if we——”
He stopped abruptly, and his eyes opened wide. Merriwell also stiffened with a look of keen attention, and in the stillness which followed there came the sound of the front door being opened and closed again.
“Barry!” McCormick exclaimed, his eyes brightening.
No one else spoke. They had all turned toward the door of the sitting room and were watching it with intent interest, for, after a momentary pause in the hall, the sound of footsteps on the bare floor was unmistakable, coming nearer and nearer.
The next instant the figure of a man loomed in the doorway and stopped still, his keen, dark eyes flashing swiftly from one surprised face to another. He was fairly tall, and rather dark, with coal-black hair and a crisp, well-clipped, black mustache. His features were good, but his face wore an expression of domineering harshness which did not improve it. It was evident that he was a man accustomed to having his own way. It was equally plain that at the present moment he was restraining his anger with difficulty.
And he was not Barry Lawrence, nor had any one of the party ever laid eyes on him before.