CHAPTER IIIWHO WAS THE THIEF?
Paulcalled for Kirke on the following Saturday, long before breakfast-time. He had driven in from the ranch in Mr. Keith’s two-seated wagon, drawn by a pair of little brown mules, and was evidently in a prodigious hurry.
“Hello, Selkirk!” he shouted to the side of the house. “Stir around lively. Mr. Keith wants Sing Wung to get to work on the well early.”
“I’ll be there in two seconds,” returned Kirke, thrusting a tumbled head through an open window. “All dressed but my hair.”
“Good! Can’t you eat your breakfast on the road?”
“To be sure. I can eat anywhere, everywhere.”
The tumbled head disappeared; and Paul began to munch a buttered roll just brought him by his sister Pauline. Their home was just across the street, and she had watched for Paul, and rushed out to meet him, and now stood leaning against the front wheel of the wagon, chatting with him. She was a warm-hearted, impulsive girl, rather too heedless and outspoken at times. She had no mother to guide her, and lacked the gentle manners of her friend, Molly Rowe.
“You ought to put on your hat, Polly. You’re getting as brown as a Mexican,” remarked Paul, with brotherly frankness, as he attacked a second roll.
“Black, you should say,” corrected she coolly. “I’ve noticed it myself. You’re an albino. I’m a negress. I’ve no manner of doubt people call us ‘the black and white twins.’”
“What about Shot, Paul? Has he been heard from?” called Molly from behind the window-shade of her chamber.
“Oh, I hoped he had turned up by this time. No, we haven’t seen a sign of him, Molly; but we’ve found this.”
Here Paul held up a dog’s collar.
“Shot’s collar!” cried Molly.
“You don’t mean to say you’ve found that and haven’t found the dog?” exclaimed Kirke, rushing down the steps of the veranda, flourishing in one hand a gripsack, in the other a small bunch of bananas. “Where did you find it, Paul? And when?”
“Last night, Kirke, in the hedge of the olive-orchard.”
“In the hedge?”
“Yes, tucked under it, ’way out of sight.”
“Then somebody hid it there—Sing Wung! I’ll bet ’twas Sing Wung!” muttered Kirke, as he mounted the wagon. “Hekilled Shot. Got mad with him and killed him, and then saved his collar. He thought he could get money for it.”
“Has somebody killed Shot?” piped half-dressed Weezy, screening herself from view behind her sister. “Oh, dear, dear! Poor little Shot!”
“Deah, deah, poo’ ’ittle S’ot!” echoed Don, running to the casement in his ruffled white night-dress, and standing there quite unabashed.
“Such a sweet, lovely little dog as he was!” went on Weezy, in a tearful voice. “Just as white and good as he could be. S’pose he’s got up to heaven yet, Kirke?”
“The idea, Weezy!” Kirke’s tone was at once grieved and scornful. “Who ever heard of a fox-terrier’s going to heaven?”
“Don’t good little fox-terriers go to heaven? Nobody ever told me that before,” sighed Weezy, as Paul turned the mulestoward Chinatown. “O Kirke, don’t you wish Shot had been a good little skye-terrier ’stead of a fox? He would have gone to heaventhen, you know!”
“It’s no sign Shot is dead, Weezy, dear, because he just happened to lose his collar,” cried Pauline, stepping back from the wheel with a smothered laugh. “He’ll come trotting home, wagging his tail, one of these days, you’ll see!”
It was like Pauline to prophesy pleasant things. She was always hopeful, always cheerful. They called her the merriest member of The Happy Six.
“Yes, Polly, and you’ll see, too,” was Kirke’s gloomy rejoinder. “Good-by, everybody.”
“Good-by, Sobersides,” retorted Pauline, brushing her sleeves, which had rested upon the dusty tire. “Good-by, Twinny, love, I’ll be happy to meet you later in Europe, both of you.”
Kirke hardly smiled at this nonsensical farewell. He cared very little just now about Europe, or any other foreign country. He could only think of Shot’s collar found in the hedge. Somebody had hidden it there; and in his heart Kirke convicted Sing Wung.
“That collar was expensive, you know, Paul,” he broke forth, before they had reached the first corner. “He was going to sell it at one of the second-hand stores.”
“How could he have sold it? That would have given him away, Kirke. Shot’s name is on it.”
“Poh! couldn’t the villain have ripped off that plate?”
“Not very easily. Besides, Kirke, if Sing Wung really meant to sell the collar, why didn’t he carry it home with him yesterday?”
“Perhaps he couldn’t screw his courage up. He might have been afraid of getting caught taking it.”
Though by nature unsuspicious, Kirke was a boy of strong prejudices. Since making up his mind that the Chinaman was guilty of a crime, he could no longer tolerate him.
“But how are we going to prove that Sing Wung put the collar in the hedge?” asked Paul earnestly. “Mr. Keith says it isn’t fair to condemnanybodyon circumstantial evidence.”
“Fudge! What more evidence does he want? Didn’t we both see Sing Wung stoning my Shot? And has anybody set eyes on my Shot from that day to this?”
“No,” said Paul, “it does look dark against Sing Wung, I confess, and I’m just as mad with him as you are.”
“I shouldn’t think Mr. Keith would keep such a sneak. He ought to discharge him, and I’ve a great mind to tell him so,” returned Kirke, as if his opinion and advice would carry great weight with that gentleman.
“Oh, he can’t discharge him now, Kirke! How can he, right in the height of the barley harvest?”
“He can hire somebody else.”
“No, he can’t for love or money. The Mexicans and Chinamen are all engaged for the season by this time. Besides, there’s the well not half done.”
Kirke bit his lip. He knew that this well was needed at once. He had seen for himself how Mr. Keith’s young orange-trees were turning yellow for want of proper irrigation. As they approached the Chinese quarter of the city, he broke the silence by remarking grimly,—
“I sha’n’t speak to Sing Wung. I want him to know I suspect him.”
“Do you suppose he’ll take thecue?” asked Paul, attempting his sister’s trick of punning.
Sing Wung was waiting for them at the door of his whitewashed cabin. He was dressed asusual in loose blue trousers and a frock of lighter blue denim, his long cue wound about his head in a coil and tied with narrow, indigo-colored ribbon.
“He has the blues awfully, hasn’t he?” whispered Kirke, not to be outdone by Paul in the play upon words.
“One of his relatives must have died,” was Paul’s low answer as he drew in the reins. “I’ve heard that the Chinese wear blue ribbon on their hair for mourning.”
“If he’s mourning for my dog, it looks well in him,” mused Shot’s bereaved master; and to emphasize his indignation Kirke turned away his head while Sing Wung climbed to the back seat of the wagon.
Paul cracked the whip, and the grotesque little mules trotted on, flapping their broad ears at every step, as if they considered them wings and were preparing to fly.
“The grass is getting brown,” remarkedPaul, when they had left the city behind them, “as brown as hay. And phew! isn’t the road dusty!”
“Sneezing dusty,” answered Kirke; “I don’t believe the people that live in that shanty over yonder have to spend any money for snuff.”
As he spoke he pointed to a wretched hut a little removed from the highway, and entirely surrounded by dirt.
“Mateo lives there,” said Paul carelessly.
“Who’s Mateo?”
“Mateo? Oh, he’s a lazy, no-account Indian, who helps sometimes on the ranch.”
“I wonder if he isn’t the fellow that mended our thill for us the other day?” mused Kirke. “We broke down somewhere near here. How does he look? Is he fat?”
“Fat as butter. He ought to be, you know, considering they call him agreaser.”
Kirke giggled, and Paul looked highly gratified at the success of his witticism. Hethought he might get up quite a reputation as a humorist, if Pauline didn’t always say the funny things before he had a chance. He was glad to feel that he was entertaining Kirke: he couldn’t bear to see the boy so downhearted.
The mules were frisky that morning, and reached the end of the journey in excellent season.
“Heap soon!” grinned Sing Wung, as he alighted upon the ground, apparently not at all disturbed because Kirke had taken no notice of him whatever.
“Oh, you can laugh, can you?” thought Kirke, hopping down over the opposite wheel. “You ought to be howling, you dog-murderer!”
“You’re early, Sing Wung,” said Mr. Keith, who had come out to shake hands with the boys. “You’ve got ahead of Yeck Wo.”
“Hasn’t Yeck Wo come yet?” asked Paulquickly. “You don’t suppose the man is sick again, do you, Mr. Keith?”
“I’m beginning to fear it, Paul.”
“If he is, what’s to be done, Mr. Keith?”
Paul still stood by the wagon, reins in hand. He was very much interested in the progress of the well, and wanted the digging to go on, since Kirke had come on purpose to watch it.
“Sha’n’t I go for Mateo, Mr. Keith?”
“No, Paul, thank you, not quite yet. I don’t want Mateo as long as there’s any hope of Yeck Wo. But if Yeck Wo doesn’t come, I may ask you later to go for Mateo. We’ll tie the mules here under the pepper-tree to have them handy.”
“No workee?” asked Sing Wung, not quite understanding what was said.
“Yes, yes, Sing Wung, you can go right to work here,” said Mr. Keith, leading the way to the new well. “Come boys, please,and help me lower him down in the bucket. He must go to digging.”
The boys sprang forward with alacrity, feeling that now the fun had fairly begun.