A bell jingled in the lower room as our captor wound up the crank of his country telephone. [[142]]
“Gimme Ashton two-six-six-four,” he ordered gruffly. “Hello. That you, Ham? Yep, it’s me—Herm. Yep. Say, you know them young fellers that put the greased pig in your windy—yep, the ones you called me up about at dinnertime. I told you they’d gone on to Steam Corners. Wal, they just come back an’ I’m a-holdin’ ’em fur you. Yep, got ’em shet in the attic bedroom. What’s that? You can’t come over till to-morrow? You’re lookin’ fur who? A gal? No, I hain’t seen nothin’ of a gal in a green rowboat. What’s that? She tried to murder her grandfather? Pshaw! A twelve-year-old gal! Kin you imagine it? Wal, if I see her I’ll hold ’er. Git over as early as you kin to-morrow. No, you needn’t worry ’bout that. If they do try to escape I’ll fill their legs with bird shot. I’ve give ’em fair warnin’ an’ they’ll have better sense ’an to try it. So long.”
We hadn’t said a word in the time that our captor was telephoning. And it was well for us, as we now realized, that we had given the one-sided conversation close attention. For we had thus learned the cause of our arrest.
“They’re after us for the greased-pig trick,” Scoop said, searching our eyes in turn. “What do you know about that?” he whistled. [[143]]
“I thought it was for helping the girl,” Peg said, studying.
“So did I.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Dog-gone!” the leader burst out, with flushed cheeks. “Weren’t we the champion boobs, though, to walk into that old hayseed’s trap? Got us up here to sign a book! Slick, all right. But I thought we were too smart to get tripped up by a trick like that. Gr-r-r-r-r!” and the angry speaker gritted his teeth. “It makes me furious to think that we didn’t have sense enough to suspect the truth.”
“We were asleep at the switch, all right,” Peg agreed, nodding dismally.
Red set up a howl.