It appeared that he lived in an old-fashioned farm-house, about five miles from where Larry had met him. He did a general truck-raising business, carting his vegetables to a small town just outside of the limits of Manhattan, whence they were sent to market.
“There’s constables there,” he said, “but land sakes, I wouldn’t trust ’em with a case like this, even if my own brother-in-law is on th’ force, an’ has a reg’lar badge. This is a case for real detectives.”
“What sort of a case is it?” asked Larry, who, so far, had not been able to get much satisfaction from the farmer.
“It’s a case of a boy bein’ held in captivity,” explained the man. “I’ve got quite considerable of a piece of land,” he went on, “and part of it, where I raise my late beans, is down in a holler, behind a big hill. About half a mile away there’s an old house that nobody’s lived in for years. There’s some trouble as to who it belongs t’, an’ nobody will take a chance on rentin’ it, ’cept maybe fer a month or so. Anyhow, th’ house has been empty for quite a spell.
“This mornin’ I went out t’ look at th’ beans; when I got on top of th’ hill that looks down in th’ holler, where th’ old house is, I see suthin’ goin’ on there that I didn’t like.”
“What was it?” asked Larry.
“Well, it was two or three rough-dressed men hangin’ around there. Tramps, I sized ’em up for, right away, an’ as we’ve had more or less trouble with them fellers out our way, I looked for all I was wuth.”
“But I thought you said something about a boy,” spoke Larry.
“So I did, I’m comin’ t’ that part of it in a minute. I watched them tramps, an’ see that they was gittin’ a meal. There was smoke comin’ out from the chimbley, an’ one of th’ ragged fellers was pumpin’ water.
“Well, I thinks t’ myself, it ain’t no fun t’ have a colony of tramps camped so close t’ your house. They come in an’ steal late vegetables an’ fruit, an’ land knows it’s hard enough t’ make a livin’ as it is without feedin’ tramps. So I was makin’ up my mind that I’d notify my brother-in-law, who’s a constable, an’ we’d clean th’ place out.