Mr. Johnson, the proprietor of the store, rubbed his glasses on the end of his coat, and took the check as it was offered. He scrutinized the signature.
“The—what’s that?” he asked. “The Marsall Investment Company? What in thunder is that?”
Then Jake almost jumped to the counter where the other man stood.
“Here!” he shouted. “That’s a stolen check! That was stolen from a girl at our school! Johnson, you’re a constable, arrest this man!” and Jake did not wait for anything as slow as the constable to make sure of the prisoner, but, with all his splendid, muscular power he grabbed him, and held him securely as any regular police officer might do.
By this time the other men, who were lounging about the store, realized that something interesting was happening, and they, too, “gave a hand.”
Binns, for that was the name by which the husband of the fortune teller was known, was too ugly to know how to help himself. He growled and squirmed and demanded his freedom, but shuffling of feet, and the use of strong words will never help a person in captivity to free himself, and the consequence was that he was taken off to the town lock-up, while Jake, claiming the check, actually took it from Mr. Johnson, and hurried back to Glenwood.
“I did it,” he explained to Mrs. Pangborn, when he had turned the paper over to her—“to save the girl from any of their nonsense about legal stuff. They’ll let the fellow off, but I’ll try to find out about the purse first. He’s got that, somewhere.”
Mrs. Pangborn knew of this man Binns, but had never heard of him attempting robbery before, and it now occurred to her that there was some mystery about the whole affair.
“How could he have known that there was a check in the letter he demanded of Jean?” she thought.
She thanked Jake heartily, but he only laughed, and said it was a pleasure to do anything for the “honor of Glenwood.”