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"Lem Wacker subbed for him once, didn't he?" inquired Bart pointedly. "Yes, for a day or two--say! you don't think--" began the watchman, with a start of suspicion. "I'm not thinking anything positive," interrupted Bart--"I am only seeking information. When Wacker subbed for the old switchman, did he have a special key...
Bart's lips shut close. He went outside, looked keenly around, and jumped down from the platform. The watchman trailed out after him, watching him in a worried, discouraged way. There was no doubting the word of a trusted employee like McCarthy, and Bart realized that he felt very badly over the matter. "What is it, St...
"How do you know?" "Look at those fresh wheel tracks," directed Bart, pointing to the road. "They sided a wagon up to the platform, right here. So close, that a wheel or the body of the wagon scraped along the edges of the boards. The paint was fresh. And it was bright red," added Bart. "You're a good one to guess that...
"Are you sure of that?" "Yes, it was the same one that his scapegrace nephew, Dale Wacker, was caught peddling the stolen pickles in. I saw Lem painting it fresh out in his shop only two days ago. You know I live just beyond him." "What color?" "Red."
"Then Lem Wacker must know something about this burglary!" declared Bart. CHAPTER XVI AT FAULT "I am sorry," again said the night watchman, after a long thoughtful silence on the part of Bart.
"I know you are, Mr. McCarthy," returned Bart, "but nobody blames you. I've got to get back that trunk, though! you are positive about Lem Wacker's wagon being newly painted?" "Oh, sure." "And red?" "Yes, a bright red. Wacker lives near us, as I said. I strolled down the alley day before yesterday. I saw his shed doors...
"He seems to have done it--so far as that trunk is concerned!" murmured Bart. "Mr. McCarthy, you and I are friends?" "Good friends, Stirling." "And I can talk pretty freely to you?" "I see your drift--you think Lem Wacker had a hand in this burglary?"
"I certainly do." "Well, I'll say that I don't think he's beyond it," observed the watchman. "You'll find, though, he only had a hand in it. His way is generally using someone else for a cat's-paw." "I am going to ask you to do something for me," resumed Bart seriously--"I'm going to get back that trunk--I've got to ge...
"That will come in time." "No one can blame you. They can't expect you to sit up watching all night, nor carrying trunks to bed with you for safe-keeping." "No, but the head office, while it might stand an accidental fire, will not stand a big loss on top of it. My ability to handle this express proposition successfull...
The same buckboard that had driven up the afternoon previous, came dashing to the platform as McCarthy spoke. It was in charge of the same driver, who promptly hailed Bart with the words: "That trunk gone yet?" "No, not yet," answered Bart.
"Then I'm in time. Mrs. Harrington wanted to put something else in--this box. Forgot it, yesterday," and the speaker fished up an oblong package from the bottom of the wagon. "It will have to go separate," explained Bart. "Can't do that--it's a silk dress, and not wrapped for any hard usage. Why, what's happened!" pres...
Bart thought it best to explain, and did so. It made him feel more crestfallen than ever to trace in the way his auditor took it, that he anticipated some pretty lively action when Mrs. Harrington was apprised of her loss. "You can tell Mrs. Harrington that everything possible is being done to recover the trunk," Bart ...
"Are you going on a hunt for Lem Wacker?" "I am." Bart went first to the Haven home. He found Darry Haven chopping wood, told him of the burglary, and asked him to get down to the express office as soon as he could. "If you don't come back by nine o'clock, I will arrange to stay all day," promised Darry.
Then Bart went to the house where Lem Wacker lived. It was characteristic of its proprietor--ricketty, disorderly, the yard unkept and grown over with weeds. Smoke was coming out of the chimney. Someone was evidently astir within, but the shades were down, and Bart stole around to the rear. The shed doors were open, an...
Bart knew who she was, and she apparently knew him, though they had never spoken together before. The woman's face looked interested, and then worried. "Good morning, Mrs. Wacker," said Bart, courteously lifting his cap. "Could I see Mr. Wacker for a moment?" "He isn't at home." "Oh! went away early? I suppose, though,...
"No, he hasn't been home all night," responded the woman in a dreary, listless tone. "You work at the railroad, don't you? Have they sent for Lem? He said he was expecting a job there--we need it bad enough!" She glanced dejectedly about the wretched kitchen as she spoke, and Bart felt truly sorry for her. "I have no w...
"With his horse and wagon?" "Why, yes," admitted the woman, with a sudden, wondering glance at Bart. "How did you know that?" "I noticed the wagon wasn't in the shed." "Oh, he sold it--and the horse."
"When, Mrs. Wacker?" "Last night some men came here, two of them, about nine o'clock. They talked a long time in the sitting room, and then Lem went out and hitched up. He came into the kitchen before he went away, and told me he had a chance to sell the rig, and was going to do it, and had to go down to the Sharp Corn...
Bart backed down the steps, feeling secretly that Lem Wacker would have a hard time disproving a connection with the burglary. "Take care of the dog!" warned Mrs. Wacker as she closed the door. Bart, passing a battered dog-house, found it tenantless, however. "I wonder if Lem Wacker has sold the dog, too?" he reflected...
Bart walked rapidly back the way he had come. It was just a quarter of seven when he reached a half-street extending along and facing the railroad tracks for a single square. The Sharp Corner was a second-class groggery and boarding house, patronized almost entirely by the poorest and most shiftless class of trackmen. ...
"Mr. Green," he said, approaching the bar, "I am looking for Lem Wacker. Can you tell me where I may find him?" "Eh? oh, young Stirling, isn't it? Wacker? Why, yes, I know where he is." He came out slowly from the obscurity of the bar, blinking his faded eyes. Bart knew he would not be unfriendly. His father, one storm...
Every Christmas day since then, Green had regularly sent a jug of liquor to his father, with word by the messenger that it was for "the squarest man in Pleasantville, who had saved his life." Mr. Stirling had set Bart a practical temperance example by pouring the liquor into the sink, but had not offended Green by decl...
"He was," assented Green. "Came here about ten, and hasn't left the house since." "Why!" ejaculated Bart--and paused abruptly. "He is here now?" "Asleep upstairs." "And he has been here since--he is here now!" questioned Bart incredulously.
"He was, ten minutes ago, when I came down--" asserted Green. Bart stood dumbfounded. He was at fault--the thought flashed over his mind in an instant. It would not be so easy as he had fancied to run down the burglars, for if what Silas Green said was true, Lem Wacker could prove a most conclusive _alibi_. CHAPTER XVI...
A FAINT CLEW "What's the trouble, Stirling?" inquired Silas Green, as Bart stood silently thinking out the problem set before him. "You seem sort of disappointed to find Wacker here. If you didn't think he was here, why did you come inquiring for him?" "I knew he came here last night," said Bart. "Mrs. Wacker told me s...
"No, I think not," answered Bart after a moment's reflection. "Then is there anything else I can do for you, or tell you? You seem troubled. They say I'm a crabbed, treacherous old fellow. All the same, I would do a good turn for Robert Stirling's son!" "Thank you," said Bart, feeling easier. "If you will, you might te...
"By themselves?" "Yes. Once, when I went in with refreshments, Wacker was in a terrible temper. It seemed he had lost all his money, and he had staked his rig and lost that, too. One of the two men laughed at him, and rallied him, remarking he would have 'his share,' whatever that meant, in a day or two, and then they ...
"What became of the two men?" "They sat watching the clock till closing time, one o'clock, went out, unhitched the horse, and drove off." "I wish I knew who they were," murmured Bart. "I suppose I might worry it out of Wacker, when he gets his head clear," suggested Green.
"I don't believe he would tell you the truth--and he might suspect." "Suspect what?" demanded Green keenly. "Never mind, Mr. Green. Can I take a look into the room where they spent the evening?" "Certainly--go right in."
Bart held his breath, nearly suffocated by the mixed liquor and tobacco taint in the close, disorderly looking apartment. His eye passed over the stained table, the broken glasses and litter of cigar stubs. Then he came nearer to the table. One corner was covered with chalk marks. They apparently represented the score ...
Bart wondered if he had better try to interview Lem Wacker. He decided in the negative. In the first place, Wacker would not be likely to talk with him--if he did, he would be on his guard and prevaricate; and, lastly, as long as he was asleep he was out of mischief, and helpless to interfere with Bart. The young expre...
When Wacker woke up, he would simply say he had sold his rig to two strangers, and, so far as the actual burglary was concerned, would be able to prove a conclusive _alibi_. The men who had committed the deed had driven off with the wagon and trunk, and by this time were undoubtedly at a safe distance in hiding. Bart w...
"Bart," he said anxiously, "Mrs. Colonel Harrington drove down here a few minutes ago." "About the trunk, I suppose." "Yes, and she was wild over it. Said you had got rid of the trunk to spite her, because she had had some trouble with your mother." "Nonsense! Anything else?"
"If the trunk don't show up to-day, she says she will have you arrested." Bart shrugged his shoulders, but he was consciously uneasy. "What did you tell her, Darry?" he inquired. "I put on all the official dignity I could assume, but was very polite all the time, informed her that mislaid, delayed and irregular express...
"Good for you!" laughed Bart. "Keep an eye on things. I'll show up, or wire, by night." "Any clew, Bart?" "I think so." Bart went straight to the home of Professor Abner Cunningham.
That venerable gentleman--antiquarian, scientist and profound scholar--had a queer little place at the edge of the town where he raised wonderful bees, and grew freak squashes inside glass molds in every grotesque shape imaginable. He was a friend to all the boys in town, and Bart joined him without ceremony as he foun...
"Surely. Glad to tell you anything," assured the professor, happiest always when he was talking, and willing to talk for hours with anyone who would listen to him. "Come into the library." "I really haven't the time, Professor," said Bart. "Please let me ask if you had charge of getting up that directory of the county ...
"Well! well! well!" muttered Professor Cunningham in a musing tone. "Hank, proper name Henry; Buck, proper name Buckingham--hold on, I've got it! Come in!" insisted the professor animatedly. "Oh, you haven't time? Buckingham? Sure thing! Wait here, just a minute." The professor rushed into the house, and in about two m...
The Professor again flitted away to the house, and darted back again with a new volume in his hand. "Here you are!" he cried, selecting a printed page. "'Millville, population two hundred and sixty, not on railroad. R.S.T. Tappan, Tevens, Tolliver'--Ah, 'Buckingham Tolliver, Henry Tolliver,' must be brothers, I fancy. ...
A DUMB FRIEND At three o'clock that afternoon Bart Stirling sat down to rest at the side of a dusty country road, pretty well tired out, and about ready to return to Pleasantville. When old Professor Cunningham gave him the names Buck and Hank Tolliver, Bart was positive that the same covered the identity of the two me...
While discussing these points mentally, however, a farmer driving west came down the road. He had a good team, said he was passing through Millville, seemed glad to give Bart a lift, and so it was that the young express agent found himself on the solitary lookout there, two hours before noon. He experienced no difficul...
They patched up an abandoned shack over on the bottoms, the postmaster at Millville told Bart, and lived by fishing, hunting and their depredations on orchards and chicken coops. In one of their nightly forays about a year previous they were captured and fined heavily. They could not pay the fine and were sent to jail ...
It seemed probable, Bart theorized, that if they had made for hiding in any of their familiar woodland haunts, they had reached the same by driving through Millville before daylight, and when nobody was astir. Bart finally found a woodcutter who knew where the Tollivers had had their camping place the week previous. He...
It was all of no avail. At three o'clock in the afternoon, tired, bramble-torn and a little discouraged, he sat down by the roadside to rest and think. He began to censure himself for taking the independent course he had pursued. "I should have telegraphed the company the circumstances of the burglary, and put the matt...
Bart suddenly sprang to his feet, for, studying the animal more closely, something familiar presented itself and he ran out into the middle of the road. "Come here--good fellow!" he hailed coaxingly, as the animal approached. But with a slight growl, and eyeing him suspiciously, it made a detour in the road, passing hi...
The dog halted suddenly, faced about, and stared at Bart. Then, when he repeated the name, it sank to its haunches panting, and, head on one side, regarded him inquiringly. The animal was a big half-breed mastiff and shepherd dog that Lem Wacker had introduced to his railroad friends with great unction, one Christmas d...
Wacker had estimated its value at five hundred dollars. Next day he cut the price in half. New Year's day, being hard up, he confidentially offered to sell it for five dollars. After that it went begging for fifty cents and trade, and no takers. Lem kicked the poor animal around as "an ornery, no-good brute," and had t...
Christmas was making for home. It was hardly possible that the animal knew Bart, for, although he had seen it several times, he had never spoken to it before. The call of its name, however, had checked the animal, and now as Bart drew a cracker from his pocket and extended it, the dog began to advance slowly and cautio...
"This looks all right," ruminated Bart speculatively. "If I can only get Christmas to go back the way he came, I feel I have found the right trail." Bart finally arose, and the dog, too. The animal turned its face east, wagged its tail expectantly, and eagerly studied Bart's face and movements. As he took a step up the...
At length Bart induced the dog to go ahead. It led the way with evident reluctance. It would stop and eye Bart with a decidedly serious eye. He urged it forward, and finally it got down to a slow trot, sniffing the road and looking altogether out of harmony with its forced course. Christmas was about twenty yards ahead...
The dog circled him, but could not be induced to leave the main road. Bart made a grab for the trailing rope. The animal eluded him, gave him one reproachful look, turned its nose east, and shot off, headed for home like an arrow. "I've lost my ally," murmured Bart, "but I think I have got my clew. Christmas does not l...
As he got past them, Bart came to a decisive halt, and stared hard and with a thrill of satisfaction. Twenty feet away, under a spreading tree, a horse was tethered, and right near it was a red wagon--holding a trunk. CHAPTER XIX FOOLING THE ENEMY
Our hero's impulse was to at once spring into the wagon and see if the trunk was still intact. A natural cautiousness checked him, however, and he was glad of it a minute later as he detected a rustling in the thick undergrowth back of the tree. A human figure seemed suddenly to drop to the ground, and a little distanc...
Bart's mind worked quickly. He felt that it was up to him to play a part, and he prepared to do so. He was morally certain that two persons in fancied hiding were watching his every movement, and they must be Buck and Hank Tolliver. Bart hoped they had never seen him before; he felt pretty certain that they did not kno...
He walked up to the horse, stroked its nose, and said boisterously: "Wish I had this layout--wouldn't I reach California like a nabob, though!" Then Bart went back to the stump. He purposely faced the patch of brush where he knew his watchers were lurking. Ransacking his pockets, with a comical, quizzical grin on his f...
"Honesty is the best policy--there you are, landlord! and much obliged for the handout." Then, striking a jaunty dancing step, he started to cross the clearing, whistling a jolly tune. "Hey!" Bart half expected the summons. He halted in professed wonderment, looked up, to the right, to the left, in every direction exce...
"Look here, you!" Bart now turned in the right direction. A man of about thirty had revealed himself from the brush. He had small, bright eyes, a shrewd, narrow face, and Bart knew from discription who he was--Buck Tolliver. "Why, hello! somebody here?" exclaimed Bart, feigning surprise and then fright, and he made a m...
"Don't you bolt," ordered Buck Tolliver, advancing--"come back here, kid." Bart slowly retraced his steps. Then he manifested new alarm as a second figure stepped out from the brush. Recalling what the Millville postmaster had told him, the young express agent was quickly aware that this second individual was Buck's br...
"What you doing here?" he demanded, with a suspicious frown. "Nothing," said Bart, with a grin. "Where do you come from?" "Me--nowhere!" chuckled Bart, winking deliberately and then, walking over to the horse, he fondled his long ears, with the remark: "If I had a dandy rig like you've got here, I bet I'd go somewheres...
"Where would you go?" inquired Buck Tolliver curiously. "I'd go to California--that's the place to do something, and make a name, and amount to something." Bart's off-handed ingenuousness had completely disarmed the men. He pretended to be busy petting the horse, but saw Buck Tolliver slip back to his brother, and a fe...
"Did you ever see me around here before?" chaffed Bart audaciously. "Don't get fresh! This is business." "Why, yes--I reckon I could find my way from Springfield to Bascober." Bart had mentioned two points miles remote from the Millville district.
"He'll do," spoke Hank Tolliver for the first time. "Ask him, Buck." "Do you want to drive that rig a few miles for us for a dollar?" asked Buck Tolliver. "Me?" cried Bart. "I guess so!" "Can you obey orders?"
"Try me, boss." "He'll do, I tell you. What do you want to waste time this way for!" snapped Hank Tolliver irritably. "Hitch him up," ordered Buck to Bart. "Come on, Hank." Bart chuckled to himself. He did not know what all this might lead to, but it was a famous start.
While he was putting on the horse's harness and hitching him up, the brothers spread a piece of canvas over the wagon box. This they tucked in, and completely covered trunk and canvas with long grass pulled from the edge of a water pit near by. Bart had the rig in full starting shape by the time they had concluded thei...
"Why should they?" "Oh, they may. If they do, you're from--let me see--Blackberry Hill, remember?" "All right--with a load of garden truck, eh?" propounded Bart ingeniously. "You hit it correct. What we want you to do is this: Drive down to the main road, and turn west. Keep on straight ahead, and don't turn anywhere. ...
"Why," said Bart, "aren't you going with me?" "No," answered Buck Tolliver definitely. "Why not?" "None of your business," snapped out Hank.
"Oh!" "You mind yours, strictly, or there will be trouble," warned Buck, and Bart saw from the look in his hard face that he was a dangerous man, once aroused. "You do this job with neatness and dispatch, and it will mean a good deal more than a dollar." "Crackey!" cried Bart, snapping the whip hilariously--"maybe this...
Bart climbed up to the seat. He started up the horse, the Tollivers following after the wagon till they reached the main road. "When I get to the mill--" began Bart. "We'll be there to meet you," announced Buck Tolliver. "I don't see," growled Hank in an undertone to his brother, "why we would take any risk riding unde...
"You leave this affair to me," retorted Buck. "If the kid gets through all right, then we're all right, aren't we?" "I suppose so." "And we've got to wait as we agreed--for Wacker." Bart had just turned into the main road. At the mention of that ominous name, the young express agent brought the whip down upon the horse...
CHAPTER XX BART ON THE ROAD "Get up!" The rig that Bart was driving sped along the dusty country road at a good sharp pace.
The young express agent was undergoing the most vivid mental perturbation of his career. He kept whistling a jolly air, with a sidelong glance observed that his recent companions had turned back towards their camp in the clearing, and then, dropping his assumption of the reckless young adventurer, stared seriously ahea...
If Bart got through in safety, they could assume that the hunt for the missing trunk was not very active, or had been started in some other direction. Bart had comprehended that they could take a short cut to the old mill. He had actually laughed to himself at the ease with which he had obtained possession of the trunk...
"I have decided," he spoke definitely after a quarter of an hour. "I shall turn to my left the first road I come to. The B. & M. does not touch short of eight miles from here, but somewhere to the southeast is Clyde Station. Once there, I'll risk the rest." The road was not an easy one. It was not very smooth, and grew...
He jumped out to lighten the load and coax up the horse. Then he stood stock-still, straining his eyes across the valley. "I declare!" said Bart in a tone of profound concern, "I got away just in time, but if that is Lem Wacker, he has appeared on the scene just ten minutes too soon to suit me." Over at the break in th...
If it was Lem Wacker--and Bart believed that it was--just one thing was in order: to get that trunk to some town, to some station, to some friendly farmhouse, in hiding anywhere, before the pursuit, sure to follow, was started. Bart ran on, with a last glance at the lone distant figure. He could not afford to wait to s...
Bart ran along the road. It turned between two walls of slate. Then came the open again. Here the road descended somewhat. The horse stood at a halt. He had run easily a few rods, one wheel had struck a deep rut, and the wagon had broken down. It lay tilted over on one side, one wheel completely caved in. Bart was dism...
Here, however, the landscape was barren in the extreme. There was not a house visible. Bart was in a dilemma, but he decided how he would act. He first ran back to the spot whence he had last viewed the break in the woods. A glance stirred him up to prompt and decisive action. Three men were now in view. They were runn...
"Lem Wacker and the Tollivers, sure!" murmured Bart. "They know the wagon is up here somewhere, and they will be here in less than half an hour." Bart's one idea now was to locate some pit or cranny where he could stow the trunk where it could not be readily found. This done, he would start on foot in the direction of ...
"Why!" said Bart, in some astonishment, "there's a railroad track--" He leaned over, and scrutinizingly ran his eye along the dull brown stretch of raised rails. "And a hand car!" shouted the young express agent joyfully. CHAPTER XXI
A LIMB OF THE LAW The single track which Bart had discovered lined the bottom of the hill, followed it for a distance, and then running across the valley disappeared in among other hills and the timber. It was a rickety concern, was unballasted, and looked as if, loosely thrown together, it had never filled its origina...
No one was in sight about the place, yet lying in plain view on the hand car were three or four coats and jumpers and as many dinner pails. "I have no time to figure it out," breathed Bart quickly. "The first thing to do is to get the trunk down there." Bart ran back to the wagon. He hurriedly pulled away the grass cov...
"It's all right," he said with satisfaction, after a critical inspection. "There is the paster I slapped over the front. The trunk could not have been opened without tearing that." He got a good purchase on a handle and landed the trunk in the road. Then he dragged it up to the barrier, removed a board, and, perspiring...
"I can hardly wait to find out," declared Bart. He pushed off the clothing and dinner pails and lifted on the trunk. Then Bart made a depressing discovery--the hind gearing was locked with a chain running from wheel to wheel. This was unfortunate. Turning a heap of slate, he came suddenly and with delight upon an open ...
It was a regular construction case, and full of shovels, crowbars, pickaxes, sledges and drills. Bart selected a crowbar and his efforts to twist and snap the chain resulted in final success. With a thrill of satisfaction he sprang upon the car. The handles moved easily and responsively to the touch. A grumbling roar c...
They were nearer than he fancied, for a sudden shout rang out, then a chorus of them. A piece of rock, hurled down from the crest of the hill, struck his wrist, nearly numbing it. Glancing up, Bart saw the two Tollivers and Lem Wacker getting ready to descend. There was a sharp incline and a short curve not ten feet ah...
He held some object in his hand. Bart crouched by the side of the pumping standard, and the hand car spun out on the tracks crossing the valley, just as the thunder-storm broke forth in all its fury. Bart's back was to the wind, and the wind helped his progress. As the tracks led into the timber, Bart took a last glanc...
"It's the B. & M., and that is Lisle Station!" he soliloquized with unbounded satisfaction. Fifteen minutes later, wringing wet with rain and perspiration, Bart drove the hand car up to a bumper just behind a little country depot, and leaped to the ground. "Hello!" hailed a man inside, the station agent, staring hard a...
"See here," he said briskly, "this is Lisle Station?" "Sure." "On the B. & M. Then the afternoon express is due here from the east in twelve minutes." "You seem to be well-posted."
"I ought to be," answered Bart--"I am the express agent at Pleasantville." "What!" ejaculated the man incredulously. "Yes," nodded Bart, smiling. "Won't you help me get this trunk to the platform?" The station agent came outside and lent a hand as suggested, but he remarked:
"The express doesn't stop here." "Flag it." "My orders--" "Won't interfere, in this case," insisted Bart. "That trunk has got two thousand dollars worth of stuff in it, and was stolen. I recovered it, the thieves are after me, and it has got to go to Cedar Lake on Number 18."
"Well! well! well!" muttered the station agent in a daze, but hastening to place the stop signal. Bart went inside and unceremoniously approached the office desk. He wrote on a slip of paper, placed it in his pocket, shifted the trunk to the head end of the platform, and stationed himself beside it. "Is all that you're...
"Where did you get the hand car?" "I found it. Oh, by the way! I wish you would explain to me about that railroad; what is it, what excuse has it got for existing?" "Oh, that?" said the station agent "It's the old quarry spur. A company built it five years ago with grand plans for shipping mottled tiling slate all over...
"There's four men who live here who got the privilege of digging out slate for a big plumbers' supply house in the city. They go to the quarry and back on the hand car daily. Did they loan it to you?" "No," said Bart, "I was in a hurry, and had to borrow it without permission." "They'll have a fine walk back here in th...
"I can do that," answered the station agent. Number 18 came sailing down the rails. As she slowed up, everyone on duty from the fireman to the brakeman was on the lookout for the cause of the unusual stop. The conductor jumped off and ran up to the station agent, and while the latter was busy explaining the situation B...
"You're right, Mr. Travers," assented Bart. "Here's a special and urgent. Get it aboard before the conductor comes up and jumps all over me for stopping the train." Travers popped down in a lively fashion. They hoisted the trunk together and sent it spinning into the car. "Cedar Lake, make a sure delivery, Mr. Travers,...
Bart told the station agent a very little about the history of the trunk. He left a dollar to pay for the broken hand car lock. He was in high spirits as he caught the east bound train. The whistles were blowing for a quarter of six as he reached Pleasantville and leaped from the engine, where a friendly engineer had g...
Darry turned with a joyful face. It fell as he glanced beyond his young employer to the empty platform. "No trunk!" he murmured in a low, disappointed tone. "Too heavy to carry around, you see!" smiled Bart lightly. "Who is this gentleman? Oh, I see--good afternoon, Mr. Stuart." "Afternoon," crisply answered the strang...
He was a young limb of the law, employed since the previous year in the office of Judge Monroe, the principal attorney of Pleasantville. Stuart was a butt for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He was only nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seeming to have the idea that nothing but a severe ...
"I represent Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy, Attorneys," grandly announced Stuart. "We are employed by Mrs. Harrington to prosecute an inquiry as to a missing trunk." Darry looked very serious, Bart smiled serenely in the face of his imperturbable visitor. "What is there to prosecute, Mr. Stuart?" he inquired. "We have co...
"Well?" interrogated Bart. "Your employee--assistant? here, declined to act without your authority." "Quite right. I give it, though. Darry, make out transcripts of the records. That is all clear and regular." Bart turned on his heel, ran his eye over the office books, and bored young Mr. Stuart terribly by paying no f...