“Looks as if Mose did a little bit of everything,” was Jack’s comment, with a grin.
“He’s about the whole shooting match up here, I guess,” answered Gif. “Come on! Let’s leave our baggage here in a heap and go over to the store.”
With Gif and Jack in advance, the six boys left the railroad station and walked across a broad roadway to where the general store was located. This was in a long and broad two-story wooden building with a one-story addition in the rear. In front was a piazza with two steps, a broad double door, and two show windows filled with various goods which had evidently been there on exhibition for some time.
As the boys entered the establishment it was so dark inside they could for the moment make out but little. Then they saw an elderly man with a heavy gray beard leaning on a broad counter in the rear talking earnestly to two young fellows who were evidently customers.
“Well, that’s the price,” the man behind the counter was saying. “I can’t sell those goods for any less.”
“It’s a fierce price, I’ll say,” remarked one of the would-be customers.
“We could get those things much cheaper in the city,” put in the other youth standing at the counter.
At the sound of the two voices Jack clutched Gif by the arm.
“What do you know about this, Gif!” he gasped. “Am I dreaming, or is that really Tommy Flanders?”
“It’s Flanders all right enough,” answered Gif. “And Paul Halliday is with him. Now what in the world brought those two fellows up here?”