Corporal Manning sat for a moment in grim silence. “Then I don’t know,” he said finally, “who you can depend on. Maybe Barriscale will get away with it after all. He’s a crack-a-jack at wire-pulling. Did you say there’s a bunch of the boys up at the armory?”
“Yes; dozens of ’em.”
“I guess I’ll go up there myself and see how the land lies.”
“I wisht you would. An’ I’ll go on up to ’Cormack’s an’ see what can be done.”
Chick shuffled hastily out, but Manning rose from his seat, went to the door, and called after him.
“You tell Hal,” he said, when the boy came back to the step, “that he can depend absolutely on Charlie Moore and me. I don’t know whether he’s counting on us. I haven’t promised him anything; but he ought to know now on whom he can rely.”
“That’s good!” replied Chick; “I’ll tell him.” And he turned again and hurried away.
Manning stood for a minute in the store door gazing at the crowds in the street, and then, without going back to finish his soda, he started toward the armory.
Twenty minutes later Chick rang the door-bell at the McCormack house. Hal, himself, came to the door, and, when he saw who was there, he drew the boy into the hall, and then into the library.