Part 39 (1/2)

”Git them, Sophie--quick!” she breathed peremptorily.

”Cheese it, Mom!” gasped Sophie, running on tiptoe toward her sleeping father. ”He'll nigh erbout kill us when he wakes up.”

”I don't keer,” said the woman, grabbing the coins when Sophie had collected them. ”He come out o' the woods last night and he had some money an' I hadn't a cent. I sent him to git things from the store and all he brought back--and that was at midnight when they turned him out o' the hotel--was a bag of crackers and a pound of oatmeal. And he's got money! He kin kill me if he wants. I'm goin' ter have some of it--Oh, look! what's this?”

Janice had almost cried out in amazement, too. One of the coins in the woman's toil-creased palm was a gold piece.

”Five dollars! Mebbe he had more,” Mrs. Narnay said anxiously. ”Mebbe Concannon's paid 'em all some more money, and Jim's startin' in to drink it up.”

”Better put that money back, Mom, he'll be mad,” said Sophie, evidently much alarmed.

”He won't be ugly when the drink wears off and he ain't got no money to git no more,” her mother said. ”Jim never is.”

”But he'll find out youse got that gold coin. He's foxy,” said the shrewd child.

Janice drew forth her purse. ”Let me have that five dollar gold piece,” she said to Mrs. Narnay. ”I'll give you five one dollar bills for it. You won't have to show but one of the bills at a time, that is sure.”

”That's a good idea, Miss,” said the woman hopefully. ”And mebbe I can make him start back for the woods again to-night. Oh, dear me! 'Tis an awful thing! I don't want him 'round--an' yet when he's sober he's the nicest man 'ith young'uns ye ever see. He jest dotes on this poor little thing,” and she looked down again into the weazened face of the baby.

”It is too bad,” murmured Janice; but she scarcely gave her entire mind to what the woman was saying.

Here was a second gold piece turned up in Polktown. And, as Uncle Jason had said, such coins were not often seen in the hamlet. Janice had more than one reason for securing the gold piece, and she determined to learn, if she could, if this one was from the collection that had been stolen from the school-house weeks before.

CHAPTER XXV

IN DOUBT

The first of all feminine prerogatives is the right to change one's mind. Janice Day changed hers a dozen times about that five dollar gold piece.

It was at last decided, however, by the young girl that she would not immediately take Nelson Haley into her confidence. Why excite hope in his mind only, perhaps, to have it crushed again? Better learn all she could about the gold coin that had rolled out of Jim Narnay's pocket, before telling the young schoolmaster.

In her heart Janice did not believe Narnay was the person who had stolen the coin collection from the schoolhouse. He might have taken part in such a robbery, at night, and while under the influence of liquor; but he never would have had the courage to do such a thing by daylight and alone.

Narnay might be a companion of the real criminal; but more likely, Janice believed, he was merely an accessory after the fact.

This, of course, if the gold piece should prove to be one of those belonging to the collection which Mr. Haley was accused of stealing.

The coin found in Hopewell Drugg's possession, and which had come to him through Joe Bodley, might easily have been put into circulation by the same person as this coin Narnay had dropped. The ten dollar coin had gone into the tavern till, and this five dollar coin would probably have gone there, too, had chance not put it in Janice Day's way.

”First of all, I must discover if there was a coin like this one in that collection,” the girl told herself. And early on Monday morning, on her way to the seminary, she drove around through High Street and stopped before the drugstore.

Fortunately Mr. Ma.s.sey was not busy and she could speak to him without delaying her trip to Middletown.

”What's that?” he asked her, rumpling his topknot in his usual fas.h.i.+on when he was puzzled or disturbed. ”List of them coins? I should say I did have 'em. The printed list Mr. Hobart left with 'em wasn't taken by--by--well, by whoever took 'em. Here 'tis.”

”You speak,” said Janice quickly, ”as though you still believed Mr.

Haley to be the thief.”

”Well!” and again the druggist's hands went through his hair. ”I dunno what to think. If he done it, he's actin' mighty funny. There ain't no warrant out for him now. He can leave town--go clean off if he wants--and n.o.body will, or can, stop him. And ye'd think if he had all that money he _would_ do so.”