FOUND OUT AT LAST
"Why, hello! Paul! I didn't hear you ring. Did you fly in through the window?"
Jack sprang up from the easy chair he had been occupying in the library of his own home, when his chum suddenly appeared before him.
It was about ten o'clock on the morning following the hunt for the lost boy; and the remarkable occurrences that had accompanied it up in the woods above Stanhope.
"Oh! you know I told you I might slip in by the back door this time; and that is just what I did," replied Paul, speaking in an unusually guarded tone.
"That's a fact!" exclaimed Jack, beginning to show signs of excitement; "and I remember that at the same time you promised—"
"I'd try my best to solve the puzzle about those disappearing old coins, and tell you to-day," said his chum, breaking in. "Well, perhaps I may, though my most promising clue has turned out a bit of a fizzle."
"But you have another up your sleeve, you said?" continued Jack, eagerly.
"Yes, I believe I have," Paul admitted. "Some time later, when we get this queer affair off our hands, I want to talk with you about a lot of things connected with this scout movement. I got some good ideas from a bunch of papers left at our house for me. Guess who remembered us in such a bully way?"
"Give it up. I might mention every gentleman in town, and then some," laughed Jack; "for they're all watching what we're doing, with interest. But go on and tell me who it was, Paul."
"Mr. Peleg Growdy," came the surprising answer.
"Well, you don't say?" exclaimed his chum, delight showing in his voice; "so the old man has really seen a great light, has he? I guess he's taking more interest in our troop than anybody else in town. That night's work was the best thing that ever happened for the boys of Stanhope, as well as for Peleg. I take off my cap to him after this, Paul."
"But wait; that isn't all. You know that Si Growdy is a nephew of his? Well, he's without a home no longer. Peleg sent for him, and they had a long talk. Si told me this morning that he's really been adopted by his uncle, and is going to make his home with him. What d'ye think of that, Jack?"
"Just immense, that's what," declared his companion, slapping a hand on Paul's shoulder; "I'm glad we went there and cleaned up the old man's dooryard. Some of the boys thought it silly at the time; but they understand things better now. He was just needing something like that to touch his heart. Up to then he thought all boys were pests. We opened his eyes some, eh?"
"That's right, we did. But about those coins!" said Paul, smiling once more.
"Yes, first tell me who it was you suspected that has turned out innocent?" asked his chum.
"There he lies yonder, sleeping, with one eye open and watching us!" remarked Paul, pointing across the room.
"What! Carlo! You actually suspected him of taking my coins? Why, Paul, whatever put that notion into your head?" demanded Jack, in sheer astonishment.
"Well," returned Paul; "perhaps it was silly, but then you've taught him to fetch a basket from the baker's, and do lots of stunts. I didn't know but what the sly old chap might be helping himself to your coins, and palming them off on the butcher for a supply of bones."
"That would have been the limit!" gasped his friend. "But you found out that he was innocent, did you?"
"I finally went in and talked with Mr. Griggs; but he said Carlo just came in once in a while, looking so pitifully at him, that he didn't have the heart to refuse a bone. So none of your lost coins have gone into his till, Jack."
"Oh! that would have been the queerest thing ever, had he done it. But now about the other clue you have—tell me about it, Paul," continued the anxious one. Paul had seated himself where he could keep an eye down the street in front of the house. And while his chum was talking he had smiled as if he might have discovered something out there that pleased him very much.
"Come right up to your den with me, Jack, and leave Carlo shut in here," he said, rising; "and when we get upstairs open the window to air the room. Then I shall ask you to let me hide there behind something, while you go downstairs, pass out, and along the street in plain view."
"Say, that's a mighty queer thing to do," ventured the other.
"It's all a part of my plan. You must leave the door of the den open too. And Jack, after you get around the corner I want you to sneak back to the rear of the house, and come up again, crawling into the den here, if everything is quiet."
"Oh! all right, if you say so, Paul," Jack observed; "but you've sure got me guessing to beat the band, right now. Here's the window open. Now shall I get busy, and meander off?"
"Right away. Please carry it out just as I said. You ought to be back here inside of six or seven minutes; and I guess that will be time enough before the circus begins, Jack."
So the owner of the little den at the top of the house gave his chum one last look of bewilderment, and turning, hastened down the stairs.
Paul, with a glance around, chose a certain corner for his hiding-place. Here he could see without exposing himself to view; and squatting down he prepared to await developments.
A minute later he got up, and moved an old screen partly across the floor, so that it hid the open door. When Jack returned, he could crawl alongside the hiding boy without showing himself to any one in the room, or beyond the window.
Hardly had five minutes crept by when Paul heard a slight sound. It came from the stairs, and he smiled, knowing that his chum had lost no time in carrying out his part of the plot.
So Jack came sliding in, and was soon nestling down at Paul's side, brimming over with curiosity, yet deterred from asking questions by the fact that Paul had put up a warning finger.
Several more minutes passed by, when Jack was thrilled to see something moving in the direction of the partly open window. It seemed to be a long cane fishing rod, that had a dark colored lump at the end of it.
The rod continued to advance slowly into the den. It was, of course, in the hands of some one perched in the window of the attic belonging to the empty house so close by; and Jack could easily guess now who that person must be.
Scissors Dempsey, once his friend, but latterly a crony of Ted Slavin!
Now the end of the rod seemed to hover above the little box containing all that were left of Jack's old coins. And even as he and Paul looked they saw it descend until the light box was tilted partly over, when the point of the long rod was pushed into it vigorously. Jack was reminded somewhat of a human hand groping about. And then, as the fishing pole was rapidly withdrawn, he saw one of his few remaining old coins sticking to the black lump at its terminus!
The game was now clear. Scissors, inspired by a love of fun, or a desire to mystify Jack, perhaps make him suspect that one of his chums was taking the coins, had come every day into this empty house belonging to his father. Whenever he found the window in Jack's den open he amused himself with this strange fishing.
Paul beckoned to his chum, and then silently crept out of the den, which he was easily enabled to do, thanks to the screen he had placed to cover the open door.
Once down on the next landing Jack clutched his sleeve.
"Well, would you dream of such a thing as that?" exclaimed the latter, nearly ready to explode with laughter, yet feeling a bit angry at the same time. "What under the sun d'ye suppose he's doing such a stunt for, Paul?"
"We'd better put it up to Scissors," replied the other, quickly.
"Then you suggest waiting for him as he comes out, and telling him we know all about his fishing for my coins?" asked Jack.
"Come along. He might be satisfied with just one to-day. You see it's getting harder, with so few left in the box," and Paul led the way downstairs again.
"But what's he got on the end of that pole?" demanded his chum.
"I think it must be a lump of rather soft tar, or pitch," came Paul's answer, readily enough. "I found a little on one of the coins left the last time we examined them; and you said that the fourth stuck to the side of the box. Yes, that's what it is. Now, let's wait over by the front door, for that's the way he goes in."
Five minutes later the front door of the empty house opened, and a tall boy, with spindly legs, came slily out. He stopped to turn a key in the lock. Then, as he wheeled, it was to find himself facing two fellows who were probably the very last boys in Stanhope he expected to see.
"Just in time to explain how you came to think of that clever little fishing dodge of yours, Scissors," remarked Paul; "and to give back all those old coins you've been raking in so smartly. Thought it lots of fun, didn't you? And meant to twist my chum up so he'd think one of his own crowd had been taking them?"
"Yes," Jack said, in turn, looking as angry as he could; "and if you don't turn every blessed copper piece over to me right away, there's going to be trouble at your house, understand that, Scissors?"
The guilty one turned red in the face. Then he laughed as though he wanted to consider it a joke.
"Oh! come off!" he exclaimed, with a gesture of disgust; "can't you take a little fun, Jack? Of course I meant to give 'em all back again, after I'd had my sport out of the game, and got the last coin. They're upstairs here, right now. Come along in, and I'll show you. The slick trick is gone up in smoke now, anyway; since you got on to my curves. But I wouldn't make such a big fuss over nothing."
"It wasn't the coins, because they don't count for much; but just think how I felt at even suspecting that some fellow who was my friend had been taking them," said Jack, as he and Paul followed Scissors into the empty house.
And from the sneer on the other's face as he looked back, Paul was inclined to believe that this was just what he had been doing the thing for. He disliked Jack as much now as he had once cared for him; and would probably enjoy nothing better than to see him turn on some friend, perhaps even his best chum.
The coins were found, as he had said, in a marble-bag in the attic. While Jack was counting them, Paul knelt at the window, and experimented with the long fishing rod he found on the floor. He discovered that he could manage to tilt the little box on the table quite easily, though it needed some labor before he brought one of the coins across the open space, glued to the pitch at the point of the rod.
"All there, ain't they?" demanded Scissors.
"Yes," replied Jack; "though so sticky I'll have to wash them in something like benzine. Perhaps you did do it for a lark, Scissors; but I'll make sure that a screen is in that window whenever it's open after this."
"Huh! I guess the feller that invented this racket could get up somethin' just as good if he wanted," and that was all Scissors ever said about it to the boy he had wronged.
Jack, having recovered his property, did not care to do anything further about the robbery. Later on Scissors himself told his cronies, thinking it to his credit; and they more than a few times tried to joke Jack about his disappearing coins. But he took it all in good humor, and after a while the thing was apparently forgotten, because the boys of Stanhope had many other things of importance to engage their undivided attention.