“Did anybody happen to see Peleg after the fire broke out?” called Ralph, over his shoulder, as he continued to pilot the big car, the headlights showing him all inequalities in the road, so that he could avoid most of the “bumps.”
“I did,” spoke up Andy, immediately. “Let’s see, I think it was just about the time that fat mayor was going around shaking hands with us, and giving us that taffy about his change of heart regarding the scouts.”
“Then Peleg should have known we meant to clear out pretty soon,” interrupted Tubby, slowly, “so if he had a particle of sense, and really wanted to come back home in the car with the crowd, why, seems to me he’d have hung around.”
“Well, he didn’t,” added Andy. “I saw him grinning as though tickled half to death about something. Perhaps now it pleased him to see that mayor grabbing our hands so,—well,—I might say effusively. How about that, Ralph; would Peleg care if he saw you being patted on the back, and made a hero of?”
“He might, and then again perhaps it was something else that made him seem so happy,” replied Ralph.
The other boys may not have understood the real meaning of those words, but Rob did. He knew Ralph was hinting to him that the farm boy may have held back from joining them because he began to feel ashamed of what he had done, and could not bear to face the owner of the stolen stamps so soon after selling the packets to the curio dealer.
Even that failed wholly to convince Rob. When he believed in any one it was hard to make him change his opinion. Why should Peleg seem so well satisfied with himself? Surely, the getting of a few dollars, more or less, in a shady transaction too, of which he must later on feel ashamed, would hardly cause him to appear so happy.
Rob confessed that he could not make it out at all. He was really too tired to continue bothering his brains over the puzzle.
“Perhaps tomorrow, when Peleg comes home again, we may find out what it all means,” he told himself. “There’s no way of finding out right now; and so what’s the use fussing with it?”
Accordingly, Rob put the affair out of his mind. If it came to the worst there was a speedy way of learning the truth, just as Ralph had mentioned; by going to town again, with the excuse that he wanted to see what Wyoming looked like after the great conflagration, Ralph could drop in and see the curio dealer. Being ready to buy back the stamps, if Peleg had really sold them, he could influence Mr. Hardman to return the stolen property.