"That's the chap. Mrs. Thread is a decent little woman, and poor Benny is harmless enough. But she is worried to death about her brother."
Janice, remembering the condition of the ex-drug clerk when he left Polktown for the woods, said heartily: "I should think she would be worried."
"She tells me he tried to get back his job with Massey on Friday night—the evening before he went off with Trimmins and Narnay. But I expect he'd got Mr. Massey pretty well disgusted. At any rate, the druggist turned him down, and turned him down hard."
"Poor fellow!" sighed Janice.
"I don't know. Oh, I suppose he's to be pitied," said Frank Bowman, with some disgust. "Anyhow, Besmith got thoroughly desperate, went down to the Inn after his interview with his former employer, and spent all the money he had over Lem's bar. He didn't come home at all that night——"
"Oh!" exclaimed Janice, remembering suddenly where Jack Besmith had probably slept off his debauch, for she had seen him asleep in her uncle's sheepfold on that particular Saturday morning.
"He's a pretty poor specimen, I suppose," said the engineer, eyeing Janice rather curiously. "He's one of the weak ones. But there are others!"
Janice was silent for a moment. Indeed, she was not following closely Bowman's remarks. She was thinking of Jack Besmith. Mr. Massey had evidently been much annoyed by his discharged clerk.
When she and Frank Bowman, with Hopewell Drugg, had gone to the druggist's back door that eventful Saturday night, Massey had thought it was Jack Besmith summoning him to the door. Massey had spoken Besmith's name when he first opened the door and peered out into the mist.
"Now, Janice," she suddenly heard Frank Bowman say, "what shall we do?"