Janice was rather glad it was a moonless evening as she walked side by side with her cousin down Hillside Avenue. It was one of the first warm evenings of the Spring and the neighbors were on their porches, or gossiping at the gates and boundary fences.
What about? Ah! too well did Janice Day know the general subject of conversation this night in Polktown.
"Come on, Janice," grumbled Marty. "Don't let any of those old cats stop you. They've all got their claws sharpened up."
"Hush, Marty!" she begged, yet feeling a warm thrill at her heart because of the boy's loyalty.
"There's that old Benny Thread!" exploded Marty, as they came out on the High Street. "Oh! he's as important now as a Billy-goat on an ash-heap. You'd think, to hear him, that he'd stole the coins himself—only he didn't have no chance't. He and Jack Besmith wouldn't ha' done a thing to that bunch of money—no, indeed!—if they'd got hold of it."
"Why, Marty!" put in Janice; "you shouldn't say that." Then, with sudden curiosity, she added: "What has that drug clerk got to do with the janitor of the school building?"
"He's Benny's brother-in-law. But Jack's left town, I hear."
"He's gone with Trimmins and Narnay into the woods," Janice said thoughtfully.
"So he's out of it," grumbled Marty. "Jack went up to Massey's the other night to try to get his old job back, and Massey turned him out of the store. Told him his breath smothered the smell of iodoform in the back shop," and Marty giggled. "That's how Jack come to get a pint and wander up into our sheep fold to sleep it off."
"Oh, dear, Marty," sighed Janice, "this drinking in Polktown is getting to be a dreadful thing. See how Walky Dexter was to-night."