In town he lingered around the post-office and the stores where the villagers occasionally gathered to gossip, hoping to learn what he desired without making inquiries. He joined some boys near the drinking fountain in the square, but took little part in their characteristic chatter.
“You’re glum to-night, Shultzie,” said Hunk Rollins. “Got a grouch on?”
“Oh, no,” was the answer. “I’ve had bad news from home. Father’s sick, and I may have to give up school. It wouldn’t surprise me to get a telegram to-morrow.”
“Oh, gee!” cried Chub Tuttle. “Don’t think you’ll have to go for good, do you? With Hooker hurt and you gone, the nine will be mighty weak.”
“Has any one heard anything from Hooker to-night?” Shultz desperately forced himself to inquire.
“Only that he seems to be about the same,” answered Harry Hopper. “He hasn’t talked much yet. We’re all waiting to find out what he will have to say when he does talk. The old Prof seemed to think it was going to bump somebody. We’ve been trying to figure out who it will be. Fred Sage is Roy’s closest friend, but he wasn’t out of the house Saturday night, so he don’t know anything about it.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Shultz, “if the whole thing turned out to be sort of a tempest in a teapot. It doesn’t seem at all likely that anybody knows the facts and is keeping still. I’ll wager Hooker took a tumble and hurt himself on his way home.”
“But the question is, where had he been?” said Tuttle, munching a peanut. “He must have been out with somebody at that hour, but nobody has come forward to say he was with him. That’s what makes it look suspicious.”
“Well, I’m going home,” announced Shultz, who had no relish to discuss the matter. “Perhaps we’ll hear something new in the morning.”
In his small back room at Caleb Carter’s he tried to divert his mind a while by reading, but gave it up at last and decided to go to bed. He was half undressed when, chancing to turn toward the window, which looked out upon the roof of the ell, he staggered as if struck a blow, his mouth open, his eyes bulging, both hands outflung.