CHAPTER VIION THE TRAIL
TheCurlytops, and Trouble also, were so much taken up with watching the moving picture people leave the meadow that for a time they did not listen to what their father and mother were talking about. But at last Jan heard something said about the Cardwell albums and asked:
“Did we lose them out of our car?”
“No; we had them when we parked here,” answered her father. “I remember putting the box under a robe, so it wouldn’t be in plain sight. It could be mistaken for a fancy box of lunch, I thought, and some hungry boys, thinking it contained sandwiches, might be tempted to take it.”
“Did they?” asked Ted.
“Some one has taken the box with the albums in it,” answered Mr. Martin. “It’s gone!”
“Let’s look again, to make certain,” suggested his wife. “We don’t want to make a fuss and then find the box, after all.”
“I don’t believe we’ll find it,” replied Mr. Martin, and there was a worried look on his face. “It isn’t in the car—it’s been taken out. And what to say to Mr. Cardwell I don’t know! He will be very sorry to learn that the albums are gone, for he never again can get pictures of his twin girls who are dead. And that sailor boy’s picture, too! That’s gone.”
“Oh, perhaps we’ll find the box and the albums,” said Mrs. Martin more cheerfully. “No one would really steal them—they would be of no value to any one.”
“No; and that’s what I can’t understand!” complained the father of the Curlytops. “But the albums are gone, sure enough!”
It really seemed so, for when the children—even Trouble helping—had looked through the car, the box was not to be found.
“Well, I don’t know what to do,” said Mr. Martin, walking up and down with a worried air, beside his auto. “I don’t want to go back and tell Mr. Cardwell we havelost his valuable relics. And yet it isn’t fair to him not to let him know.”
“Maybe he came here himself and got them,” suggested Ted.
“What do you mean, Son?” asked his father.
“I mean that maybe after he gave them to you he found out he was going to Bentville himself, and he came here to tell you. He didn’t see us, because we were looking at the cowboys, and he just took the box out of our car.”
“He wouldn’t do that without telling me,” said Mr. Martin. “No, something else happened. I wish I knew what. I’d like to get those albums back.”
While Mr. Martin was still nervously pacing up and down beside his auto and Mrs. Martin was making another search among the robes and valises for the box, one of the cowboys who had taken part in the moving picture rode past. Ted and Janet looked at him with eager eyes, for he was a hero to them.
Seeing the children, the actor smiled, and then, noticing that something was wrong, he stopped his horse, removed his big, broad-brimmedhat in a bow to Mrs. Martin and asked:
“Is anything wrong? Can I help you? Did some of our people bump into your car? I know that sometimes happens when a crowd gathers as we are taking films.”
“No, nothing like that happened,” answered Mr. Martin. “But I left a box with some valuable books in it here in my car, and now the box is gone. I suppose some one in the crowd thought it contained food and made off with it. I wish they’d bring it back, for the books are of no value except as keepsakes to a family in Bentville where we are going.”
“What sort of box was it?” asked the cowboy, one of the last of the moving picture actors to leave the green meadow near the white bridge.
“It was a dark red wooden box, with inlaid pieces of light wood,” Mr. Martin explained. “It had a brass handle to carry it by. It was a box I used to keep my papers in at my store. But I had put these books in it for safety. I might better have left them out.”
“Was it a box about so long?” asked thecowboy, holding his hands out about two feet apart.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Martin.
“Then I know where it is!” exclaimed the cowboy.
“You do?” cried Mr. and Mrs. Martin together, while the Curlytops gazed at the rider with eager eyes. As for Trouble, he was gazing at the horse and murmuring:
“You aren’t as big as a nellifunt! I fed a nellifunt peanuts once, I did!”
“Yes, I know where your box is; or at least, I know who took it,” went on the actor. “It was all due to a mistake.”
“Who has it?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“I think you will find it in the car of Mr. Harry Portnay, our head actor, or leading man, as we call it,” replied the cowboy, with a smile.
“What would he be doing with old photograph albums?” asked Mr. Martin. “For those are the books in the box—just old photograph albums, though they contain pictures highly valued by those who own them.”
“Mr. Portnay didn’t want the albums,” said the actor, who gave his name as Ned Weldon. “But his helper, Jim Lewis, tookthem to him by mistake. Lewis thought your box was Mr. Portnay’s make-up box.”
“Make-up box? Do you mean the box with false mustaches and grease paint and things like that in it?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“Yes,” answered the cowboy. Later Mrs. Martin explained to the Curlytops that actors when they “dress up” as different characters must also change their faces as well as their clothes. They must sometimes put on powder and paint, as well as false hair and beards. And each actor has what is called a “make-up box,” consisting of many things which enable him to make himself up to look like some one else.
“This is how it happened,” went on Mr. Weldon. “Your car was parked next to that of Mr. Portnay. I remember seeing that as I rode about taking part in the picture. He has the same make and model car that you have.
“During the cowboy race Mr. Portnay happened to want something from his make-up box. I heard him tell Lewis to go and get it. I was sitting on my horse near Mr. Portnay when Lewis came back with a box such as you describe. At first it looked a good bit like Mr. Portnay’s make-up chest,but our leading man knew right away that it wasn’t.
“Lewis, by mistake, had gone to your car and taken your box of albums in place of Portnay’s make-up box. Portnay laughed at the mistake, and sent Lewis back to get the right box.
“Now, in all probability, what happened was this. Instead of putting the box of albums back in your car, Lewis put it in Mr. Portnay’s car and also took from that car the make-up box. He left your box in Mr. Portnay’s car and now our leading man has gone away with it. That’s what happened to your albums, I feel sure. No one took them purposely.”
“Yes, it must have happened as you say,” agreed Mr. Martin. “I’m glad to learn the books weren’t stolen.”
“But how can we get them back?” asked Mrs. Martin.
“The albums aren’t ours—we are carrying them for a neighbor, Mr. James Cardwell,” explained Janet primly.
“Yes, that’s it,” said the little Curlytop girl’s father.
The cowboy actor looked at his watch andseemed to be trying to calculate something in his mind.
“We’re to take more scenes on location, as we call it, to-morrow,” he said.
“Do you mean here?” asked Mr. Martin. “We planned to go on, but if it means getting back the albums we can stay.”
“No, not here,” answered Mr. Weldon. “Our next scenes will be taken at Cub Mountain, about fifty miles from here.”
“I know where Cub Mountain is,” said Mr. Martin. “I’ve been there, but I didn’t intend visiting it on this tour. You see, we are touring around for our summer vacation,” he added.
“I see,” remarked Ned Weldon. “Well, Mr. Portnay and the rest of the company, or at least most of us, will be at Cub Mountain this time to-morrow, or a little earlier. We are taking scenes about a log cabin on the mountain. If you are there you can very likely see Mr. Portnay and get back from him your box which his man took in mistake for the make-up chest.”
“Couldn’t we catch Mr. Portnay before then?” asked Mr. Martin. “I mean, couldn’t we trail after him now and come upwith him somewhere before he reaches Cub Mountain?”
“You might try,” said the man who played the part of a cowboy. “He is going through Midvale, which is about halfway there. Probably he’ll stop in Midvale all night. He’ll be very sorry this has happened, and he’ll be glad to give you back your box.”
“Thank you,” replied Mr. Martin. “Then I think the best thing for us to do is to take the trail after this Mr. Portnay. I can get back the albums without having to worry Mr. Cardwell about them. Come on, children!”
“Yes, I’s comin’,” murmured Trouble.
Into the auto scrambled the Curlytops and Trouble. Mrs. Martin took her place beside her husband, and, waving a farewell to the cowboy actor, they started on the trail of Mr. Portnay.
The green meadow by the white bridge was now almost deserted. The curious ones from the city of Cresco had left, and so had the moving picture people, with the exception of the actor who had solved the mystery of the disappearance of the albums.
“Well, we are having rather an excitingstart of our tour,” laughed Mrs. Martin, as the auto rolled along the smooth road. “First we meet these interesting moving picture people, and then we have to chase after them. It’s very exciting.”
“It’s lots of fun!” laughed Janet.
“I hope we see some more cowboy races,” remarked Ted.
They rode on for several miles, and as they went slowly around a bend in the road, Trouble called out:
“Look! Look! Look at the monkey!”