“He must be a new one, and feels his oats,” said Luke.
“I think he was a cheap grafter and wanted to be tipped,” said Neale O’Neil. “That’s what I think.”
“But of course he was an officer of the law,” Mrs. Heard said. “He wore a badge.”
“‘The tin badge of courage,’” said Luke with a laugh. “I don’t know who he could be. But this Mr. Keech who owns this place is the county sheriff. So we have the law on our side while we stop here. Mr. Keech is our friend. We shall stop at his house to-morrow and spend most of the day. We always do when we get around this way.”
The door of the barn was found unbarred, and with the automobile lights and Luke’s lanterns, the party “made camp” very nicely indeed. The automobile was backed in on the floor of the barn, and the big doors left open. The Shepards’ tent—a very good wall tent—was erected on a well-drained piece of ground. It was decided that Mrs. Heard and the girls should sleep in the tent and in the van, while the male members of the two parties put back the motor car cover and made themselves comfortable on the cushioned seats of the car.
Of course, supper came before this scheme of retiring had been adjusted. And a delightful time they had getting the meal and eating it. The food was mostly supplied by the “tin peddlers,” as Agnes insisted upon calling Luke and Cecile Shepard.
“I shall lay in some condensed foods myself just as soon as we find a town again,” declared Mrs. Heard. “These chances of being caught in lonely places without anything to eat come too frequently. Touring the country in a motor car is not very different from being cast away on a desert island!”
The children, of course, thought the experience quite as exciting as anything that had previously occurred.
“I like it better than the Gypsy camp,” said Dot, warmly. “That cart we are going to sleep in is just the cutest thing.”
“Just the same, I am glad Tom Jonah is with us this time,” Tess said. “Everything is so sort of open around here.”