CHAPTER XXIX
THE ARREST
Sam Carter loitered down the street after leaving the bank, and when Harry King approached, he turned with his ready smile and accosted him.
“Pleasant day. I see you’re a stranger here, and I thought I might get an item from you. Carter’s my name, and I’m doing the reporting for the Mercury. Be glad to make your acquaintance. Show you round a little.”
Harry was nonplussed for a moment. Such things did not use to occur in this old-fashioned place as running about the streets picking up items from people and asking personal questions for the paper to exploit the replies. He looked twice at Sam Carter before responding.
“Thank you, I––I’ve been here before. I know the place pretty well.”
“Very pretty place, don’t you think so? Mean to stop for some time?”
“I hardly know as yet.” Harry King mused a little, then resolved to break his loneliness by accepting the casual acquaintance, and to avoid personalities about himself by asking questions about the town and those he used to know, but whom he preferred not to see. It was an opportunity. “Yes, it is a pretty place. Have you been here long?”
“I’ve been here––let’s see. About three years––maybe a little less. You must have been away from Leauvite 366 longer than that, I judge. I’ve never left the place since I came and I never saw you before. No wonder I thought you a stranger.”
“I may call myself one––yes. A good many changes since you came?”