“Practice nothing. Why the old fool cannot write his name.”
It was plain to Nick Carter that there was something back of this that would be worth looking into.
Farmer Grout was evidently a man that it would be worth while watching; he, too, might be one of the band that had been terrorizing the neighborhood, and then might he not be the man that had furnished the poison that had tipped the steel projectiles that had been found in the bodies of the men who were found within a few yards of the home of Jack Weeden?
If he was connected with the gang, he would probably need something with which to patch up the members of it when they were wounded, and he might be a skillful surgeon who had allied himself with this band of outlaws and posed as a farmer to throw off suspicion. The robbery, too, might have been part of the scheme to put the authorities off the scent, if at any time they should find out anything that tended to point the finger of suspicion at him. It was evident that this man, Weeden, had as carefully a selected gang of villains as could be found in the United States.
“We were speaking of Jack Weeden a few moments ago,” said Nick; “tell me, who is his doctor?”
The farmer looked worried.
“I don’t know anything about him, as I have told you,” was the sullen reply.
“Don’t you think that as a neighbor you ought to know? Suppose you were asked to go for the doctor for him some night, what would you do?”
“I suppose that if I was asked to go for the doctor,” replied the farmer slowly, “I would—well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what I would do.”
Sallie giggled.