Then he saw Peleg draw a long breath. Leaving the two buckets standing there, the boy started on a run for the barns.
“Now what’s he up to?” ventured Ralph, staring after the runner in dismay.
“Isn’t your father out there doing something?” asked Rob, giving Peleg the benefit of the doubt.
“That’s a fact, he is,” admitted the other. “I wonder if Peleg means to hand him over my pocketbook. I forgot to tell you that he must know I’m the owner, because it’s of a peculiar pattern, and he has seen me handle it many times.”
“We’ll stay here a bit until the coast is clear, and then investigate, if that suits you, Ralph.”
After a brief interval Peleg came back again and carried off the two buckets of swill for the pigs. He did not look at all ruffled, or act as if he had any weighty secret on his mind, from which Rob took heart, and believed the boy had done the square thing.
“Shall we look your father up now?” asked Rob, presently, when things had settled down again to their accustomed calm.
“I suppose so,” his companion replied, “but I’m feeling a little shaky, to tell you the truth, Rob.”
“Well, I’m not,” said the scout leader. “One thing about it, Ralph, you don’t want your father to know you had deliberately dropped your pocketbook so as to test Peleg, do you?”
“By no means,” answered Ralph, hastily. “I understand what you’re aiming at, too. So I’ll make out that I’ve missed my pocketbook and have come out to see if I dropped it about the barns this morning. Kind of mean to act that way; but you understand that I want to keep it from dad. If I’ve made a mistake about Peleg, it would be too bad to get him down on the boy.”