Ben, smothering a laugh, came up the steps, lifting his cap and smiling, his eyes twinkling.
“The biter bit, the tables turned, Miss Grace,” he said.
“Ben, explain what it all means,” pleaded Grace. “Tom won’t.”
“WHY,” SHE FALTERED, “IT IS MART WALTERS!”
“It’s like him not to,” declared Tom’s staunch chum. “I got a hint from a friend early in the evening that the Barber boys were on the rampage. I missed Tom by ’phone and started to intercept him on his way here, when I ran across the crowd talking with Mart Walters. I learned the whole scheme, and followed Walters to a hut where the gang had imprisoned Tom, and—well, I set Tom free and tied and gagged Walters in his place.”
“What for?” questioned Grace.
“To give him a needed lesson,” answered Ben promptly. “When the crowd returned I suppose they had arranged if Walters didn’t come back to them they were to ‘fix’ Tom, as they called it. Two of them carried a feather bed. Two others carried pails of soft soap. It seemed they intended to use tar, but couldn’t get any. They ripped open the bed, deluged Walters with the soap, mistaking him for Tom, rolled him in among the feathers, and—you saw him. They never got onto the fact that it was the fellow who had hired them who got the dose they intended for Tom.”
“Why did he hire them?” inquired Grace.
“Because that Aldrich cad plotted with Walters to scare Tom away from coming here to see you,” explained Ben bluntly.