“It’s Nip, sure as guns,” both boys declared in a single breath.
“Didn’t say his name, or from whar he came, but his tongue did wag cause he had a jag. He talked ’bout everything under the sun, till I thought at last he was almost done; when he said sumpin’ ’bout havin’ found a deed, then he bought a great big lot o’ feed; then he put on his snow-shoes an’ started off, shapin’ his corse almost due north.”
“When was it he was there?” Bob asked eagerly.
“’Twas yesterday he left the store, ’bout two o’clock or a little more.”
“Was that all he said about the deed,” Jack asked.
“Not another word did he say, though he jabbered there almost all day. Ye see I didn’t pay much ’tention ter anything he happened ter mention, but when Bill Smith came in ter feed, an’ said yer dad had lost a deed, I thought that mebby the one he’d got was perhaps the one yer dad wanted a lot.”
“Of course it was,” Jack declared, as he threw a stick of wood in the stove. “Don’t you think so, Bob and Tom?” and he looked from one to the other.
“It sure looks that way,” Bob replied, and Tom nodded assent. “But,” he continued slowly, “it seems rather funny that he didn’t try to make something out of it. It don’t seem like Nip to miss a chance like that.”
But further questioning caused Ezra to remember that the man had said something about wanting to get across the border as soon as he could and that the deed would have to wait.
“That’s it,” Jack almost shouted. “Nip had been up to some of his tricks and had to make tracks. That’s what’s the matter.”