Part 2 (1/2)
”Listen, fellows,” he told them; ”I've known for some little time that Hen was acting queerly. He failed to attend the last two meetings, and when I asked him about it he avoided my eye. I've been wondering what it all meant, and intended to have a good heart-to-heart talk-fest with Hen as soon as I got a chance.”
”Hold on,” said Toby. ”I wonder now if that man I saw him with could have had anything to do with this ugly business.”
Elmer turned on him like a flash.
”It may have more to do with it than you think, Toby,” he remarked; ”when was it you saw them, and where?”
”Just yesterday morning,” replied the other, ”and down at the bridge over the creek. Hen nodded to me when I rode past on my wheel, but it struck me even at the time he acted like he hoped to goodness I wouldn't bother stopping to say anything.”
”And a man you didn't know was with him, you say?” questioned Elmer.
”Well, I didn't just glimpse his face, for you see he turned his head away as I pa.s.sed, but I made up my mind he was a stranger in these regions, so far as I could see.”
”That looks mighty suspicious, I should say, suh!” declared Chatz, positively. ”That stranger is the n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile, according to my mind, suh.”
”Mebbe poor weak Hen has been cowed and bulldozed into doing the whole thing,” suggested Lil Artha, sagely.
”Now, I wonder if that could weally be tho?” remarked Ted.
”We ought to get busy and do something right away, Elmer,” observed Toby Jones.
”I'm glad to know that's the way you feel about it,” continued the patrol leader. ”This is a bad piece of business. It's up to the boys of the Wolf Patrol to find out the truth. I had laid out another scheme for our last outing of this vacation, but everything must give way to tracking our comrade down, and learning the whole truth!”
”Bully for you, Elmer!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lil Artha, looking delighted.
The others were almost as exuberant in their expressions of approval.
Just a brief time before some of their number had been wondering what could be done to give them a short siege in the woods to wind up the vacation period; and here along comes this necessity calling to the other members of the ”Wolf Patrol to awaken and defend the honor of their organization.
”Here, jump aboard all of you but Landy, and he can come along on his wheel,” ordered Elmer, making room after he had seated himself back of the steering wheel.
”Are you meaning to go to Hen's house?” called out Landy, looking worried because he was to be left behind, and would have to straddle his wheezy old wheel once more.
”Yes, if you care to toss your machine in those bushes, Landy, and can get aboard, come along!” called out Elmer, relenting when he caught that piteous expression on the other's rosy face.
In another moment they were off, Landy having been hauled aboard. The runabout had never been made to carry such a full cargo of pa.s.sengers; but then boys can hang on like monkeys, and are ever ready to accept chances.
They were quickly at the Condit house. Like the home of Landy, it stood on the border of the town, with a back gate opening on a side road. Altogether, there may have been two acres in the place.
By now fully two dozen curious people were in and around the house upon which such a sudden catastrophe had fallen. They talked among themselves, asked questions, examined the queer note signed by Hen, and shook their heads pityingly as they observed the white face of the boy's suffering aunt.
Mr. Condit was a rather severe man. He looked very angry, and kept calling the boy hard names as he told how Hen must have known the combination of the safe; and doubtless doubled at least the amount taken in hard cash, as it is human nature to make even troubles seem many times as large as they are.
Elmer and the others managed to see the convicting note. They were all of the same opinion as Landy; and agreed that no one but Hen could ever have written those fateful words.
”I never would have believed he could ever be such a silly gump!” was what Lil Artha remarked, after surveying the crooked writing, which, of course, he knew only too well.
After they had hung around for some time, and Elmer had asked all the questions he could think of, the boys went outside to talk it over.
”Right now some of those people are looking at us in a sneering way, suh,” observed the touchy Southern boy, indignantly; ”and I give you my word fo' it they're beginning to say among themselves that Hen Condit belonged to the wonderful Wolf Patrol. Elmer, we've suttinly got to do something to clear the good name of our patrol.”