CHAPTER XX
A BARGAIN
Before Hiram Strong and Orrin Post reached the strip of woodland that divided the open field of Sunnyside from the old Pringle place they heard somebody shouting. After the passing of the rain and the terrible gale of wind the whole countryside seemed very quiet. This raucous voice could have been heard a mile:
"Fire! Fire!"
"It must be his house," Orrin panted, having some difficulty in keeping up with the young farm manager.
"That flame is too far back for the house," Hiram rejoined with confidence.
"The barn, then?"
"It is something at any rate," was the grim reply.
The flames were streaming high in the air; yet before the young fellows reached Battick's gate the fire seemed decreasing. They could still hear Battick hoarsely shouting.
Entering by the gate they dashed around the house and out behind the barns. Hiram had felt, although he had not said it to Orrin, that he knew the nature of the disaster. Yancey Battick's stack of wheat was more than half consumed!
He had been running madly from pump to stack, trying to throw enough water on the sheaves to put out the fire. But the blaze had burned up through the very heart of the stack. It must have, indeed, to have burned the wheat at all after the exceedingly heavy rain of three hours before.
"You're too late! Too late!" shrieked the man wildly. "They have got me again. What did I tell you, Strong?" for he recognized the young manager of Sunnyside by the fading light of the fire.
"Why didn't you pull the stack to pieces?" shouted Orrin, beginning to burrow into the bottom of the stack which the fire seemed not to have consumed, a good deal as a terrier would burrow for a rat. "Come on, Hiram. We can save some of this wheat."
But the sheaves which he dragged out proved to have had their heads entirely burned. Although the flames soon flickered out and left but a smouldering heap, there was but very little wheat left.
"They got me again! They got me again!" mourned the shaken Battick. "What did I tell you, Mr. Strong?"
"Why, Mr. Battick, do you really believe some enemy burned your wheat stack?"
"It certainly was no friend of mine," returned the man laughing wildly.
"You said a true word there, Brother," Orrin Post remarked bluntly. "Whom do you suspect?"
"Who about here knew anything about this wheat?" asked Hiram. "Yes, you might as well let Orrin know about it. I can assure you I have not told him."
"What's that?" asked Post curiously.
"This wheat!" almost sobbed Yancey Battick. "It was a special variety that I was raising for seed. They have burned it up on me! Oh, the rascals!"
"Who do you suspect?" demanded Orrin again. "Couldn't it have been set on fire by accident?"
"How by accident? There was no lightning accompanied that tempest. I tell you somebody came here and set it off. I have had as bad done to me before."
"Who could it have been?" Hiram murmured. "And so soon after that terrible wind. You wouldn't think anybody would have gone out in that gale to do a neighbor an ill turn."
"Hey!" ejaculated Orrin suddenly. "There's that Ad Banks."
"Where?" demanded Hiram turning around quickly.
"I don't mean that he is here now," Orrin said grimly. "But don't you remember we saw him coming down the road in this direction in the middle of that rain storm?"
"So we did," Hiram agreed.
"Banks isn't at home now," said Yancey Battick, looking at the two young fellows doubtfully.
"We saw him all right," Orrin declared. "Jim Larry who works up at Sunnyside knows him well. Lives right on the next farm to the Bankses."
"Mr. Battick!" exclaimed Hiram, smitten by a new thought, "have you ever had any trouble with Ad Banks?"
"I told you once I had to run him off my place."
"And there is something I did not tell you," Hiram went on. "Remember the day I was over looking at your wheat field? Back there in the spring, I mean?"
"Yes, I remember, Mr. Strong," said Battick, reddening.
"When I left you that day I chanced to see Adam Banks sneaking through the underbrush away from that very log on which we had been sitting to talk!"
"Had he been eavesdropping?" demanded Battick angrily.
"Like enough. I did not give it much thought at the time. But he may have learned at that time all about this special wheat."
"He did it!" ejaculated Battick. "He was paid to do it, I bet."
"We-ell," said Hiram thoughtfully, "that's rather jumping at conclusions without much evidence. But it might be."
"It is!" repeated Yancey Battick. "They told me Ad Banks went over to Loomisville to work."
"That is right," Orrin said.
"That," said Battick significantly to Hiram, "is where I lived before I came here. They robbed me of my Mortgage Lifter Oats over in that neighborhood."
Orrin looked at him curiously, but Hiram understood.
"You think they might have sent Ad over here to do this?" the manager of Sunnyside said thoughtfully.
"I'm sure they did."
But Hiram was not convinced. He began to see flaws in this theory.
"How did Banks set it off? How could anybody have set it off?" he queried.
"With a match," said Orrin, grinning faintly in the lantern light.
"That's all right," Hiram said. "But we saw Banks coming down this way when the rain was almost over. This stack was thoroughly wet on the outside by that time."
"It was set off somehow inside," interposed Battick. "When I looked out of my door after the big wind the flames were shooting right out of the peak of the stack. It had been smouldering all that time deep down in the heart of the pile."
"Yes. Well, like the famous query about the old woodchuck's hole: How did the fire get there?"
"What do you mean?" asked Battick and Orrin in unison.
"If the fire had been set before the wind, it would have spread much sooner. Doesn't that stand to reason?"
"Uh-huh!" agreed Orrin, although Battick looked doubtful.
"Of course! And if it was set on fire after the wind stopped, how did the incendiary get his fire into the heart of the wet stack?"
"You're just asking questions," snarled Battick. "Why don't you say something that is worth while?"
"I will say something," replied Hiram. "I'll say this much: Perhaps your stack was not burned by an enemy, Mr. Battick. It might even be your own fault."
"What do you mean?" snapped the other with a sour look.
"You are a smoker," said Hiram; "and it might be that you dropped a match when you were stacking this wheat. It's been done more than once."
"What do you mean?" cried Battick, "That it has taken all this time for a match to ignite? Do you mean by spontaneous combustion?" he scoffed.
"Not at all. I mean that it may have been ignited by the sharp little teeth of a field mouse. Such things have happened."
"That's right!" exclaimed Orrin. "I believe a fodder stack where I worked once was burned in that way."
"Mice and rats have been my bane since I came to this old Pringle place to live," admitted Yancey Battick slowly. "But I think your idea is far-fetched, Mr. Strong."
"At least, it is as good an idea as that Adam Banks set the stack off. We ought to find proof before we accuse the fellow."
"I don't mean to accuse him. What good would that do?" demanded Battick in disgust. "The harm is done. I've lost my wheat—"
"But you have all that in the house for fall seed," Hiram said.
"Yes," growled Battick. "And I mean to guard that with my gun. I mean to warn everybody that I'll put something besides rock-salt in my shotgun after this."
"Whew!" ejaculated Orrin Post, "you sound very savage."
"I do not blame you for feeling as you do, Mr. Battick," said Hiram cautiously, "even although I think you have jumped to a wrong conclusion. But I am sure trying to shoot your neighbors, good or bad, will not help you. I have an idea I'd like to talk over with you and will do so the next time I am down this way. But it is time we were all in bed now."
He and Orrin started back for Sunnyside. The latter asked Hiram:
"Where do you suppose that Ad Banks did go, Strong?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"Do you really think he had nothing to do with that fire?"
"At least, Battick can show no proof. Suspicion only, breeds trouble. I am inclined to blame the field mouse instead."
"Humph! Well, maybe," grumbled Orrin Post.
"At any rate it will do no good to spread abroad any suspicions you may feel about it."
"We-ell."
"Promise me you will not speak of Banks in connection with the fire."
"Oh, all right! If you don't want me to," said Orrin promptly.
"It's a bargain," Hiram rejoined, and they dropped the subject for the time being.