The adventure broke up the walking party for that afternoon; but Short and Long, after being three weeks away from home, in hiding, was returned to his father and sister, and the doctor was called to attend him. He was too weak and confused, as yet, to tell his story.
CHAPTER XX
BILLY'S STORY
The Lockwood twins were among the first of Short and Long's school friends who called at the cottage the following morning for news of the injured boy. The physician had kept even the department store detective at a distance. The latter was an officious individual who would have put Billy in jail at once had he had the power to do so.
The regular police, however, seemed to have their doubts about Billy's complicity in the burglary of Stresch & Potter's store, and they kept away from the house, only the patrolman on beat inquiring how he was. As they had promised, either Mr. Belding, the jeweler, or Mr. Hargrew, the grocer, was ready to go bail for Billy Long, if he was arrested.
Of course the boy denied the accusation made against him. As little Tommy had said, he was certainly at home all the night of the robbery. Whether any court would accept Tommy's testimony was another thing.
Billy admitted helping the surveyors in the lot behind the department store. He understood they were surveying for a railroad siding, not for a new street. Information of such engineers might be had at the offices of one of the railroads entering Centerport—if the surveyors had not been the burglars who later broke into the store and burst the safe.
"But those fellows were surveyors, all right, all right," declared Billy Long, weakly. "And they were not the fellows I saw afterward——"
"After what, Billy?" demanded Dora Lockwood, eagerly.