Next morning’s Courier, which was Mr. Kenton’s choice among the Central City dailies, had a full half-column about the Vigilantes. The Courier was quite enthusiastic, and predicted that the end of bicycle stealing was in sight. It gave much credit to Warren Scott, referring to him as “the son of Mr. Lyman W. Scott, secretary of the Sproule-Gary Corporation, and one of Central City’s foremost citizens.” At the end of the article it briefly announced that the theft of two more bicycles had been reported to the police. Joe grinned when he reached that. “Maybe, though,” he reflected, as he hurried off, “the thieves hadn’t heard about the Vigilantes!”
During the following week only one bicycle was reported missing. Whether this was due to the vigilance of the Vigilantes or to the fact that owners had pretty well learned their lesson and no longer parked their wheels beside the curb without locking them was a question. In any case, the papers commented favorably, praised the Vigilantes and the Police Department—all save the Evening Star, which, opposed to the present city administration, inquired loudly why the police neither apprehended the thieves nor recovered any of the stolen property. Sam Sawyer was very full of the honor of his position of second chief of the Vigilantes and took his duties very seriously. To Joe he confided that, while the society had not so far actually caused any arrests or returned any stolen bicycles to their owners, it had undoubtedly to be credited with the sudden cessation of theft. With nearly a hundred fellows around the streets watching constantly, he pointed out there wasn’t much chance for the robbers.
The following Monday the papers announced that between Saturday evening and midnight on Sunday eleven complaints of bicycle thefts had reached police headquarters! Some bicycles had been stolen—locks and all—from the curb, some had been taken from yards and porches and one, belonging to a minister on the outskirts of town, had been removed from the church vestibule! The Courier had an impassioned editorial that morning on the subject of the revival of crime and the Star gloated and howled in big black headings and pointed an accusing finger in direction of Police Headquarters. Somewhat to his disappointment, Joe did not encounter Sam that day. Of course Joe deplored the thefts and was sorry for those who had lost their wheels, but he was only human, and he was a little bit huffed because he had not been admitted to the Vigilantes.
It was nearly closing time on Tuesday when Burke, the store manager at the Central City Market, sought Joe in the shipping room. “There’s an order to go out to the North Side, Joe. None of the teams is going that way, so you’d better hustle out on your wheel. The name’s Jordan. Smithy’s putting it up now.”
Joe nodded. He didn’t relish the errand, however, for it had been raining all day and was still at it, and the North Side streets were none too good under the best of weather conditions. But he made no protest and sought Smithy. The address on the slip read “W. H. Jordan, Orcutt Road, 1 h’se beyond Drayton place.” Joe had to look in the directory in the office before he could locate Orcutt Road. The directory informed him that it ran west from Line Street in Bowker’s Addition. With such meager intelligence he set forth at a few minutes past five, his carrier weighted down with bundles.
It was a good twenty minutes journey to Line Street, the latter part of it through a dejected and even unsavory part of town, and, having reached that street, an unpaved thoroughfare sparsely inhabited by truck farmers in a small way, he sought further enlightenment. It was still raining desultorily and the street was deserted by pedestrians. Finally he leaned his bicycle against a rickety fence and pushed through a gate beyond which a small dwelling, built largely of second-hand material, showed in the early twilight. The man who cautiously, even suspiciously, opened the unpainted door to him, proved to be Italian, and Joe had much difficulty in making his wants known. In the end, however, he learned that Orcutt Road was nearly a half-mile further on. The road was a veritable quagmire now, and he was frequently forced to dismount and push his bicycle through the muddy pools and over the uneven roadbed. Even the dwellings of the truck farmers ceased presently and the road—Joe had long since stopped referring to it as a street—stretched interminably away before him toward the darkening horizon with little to break its monotony save an occasional tree or group of bedraggled bushes. Eventually, though, a tumble-down farmhouse came into sight from under a slope of field well away from the road, and Joe decided that it must be the Drayton place. If it was, Orcutt Road could not be much further. Nor was it. Some fifty yards beyond the falling gate giving on to the farmhouse lane, an ill-defined wagon track led to the right and at its junction with the road a leaning post held a board bearing the nearly illegible inscription: “Orcutt Road.” Joe gave up the idea of riding the bicycle any further and detached the laden carrier and set it on his shoulder. The Jordan residence was further along the grass-grown track than he had supposed, and he had to shift his burden more than once before the house came into sight.
It was a very humble dwelling, low, ancient, weathered, half hidden by a plantation of tall poplars doubtless planted many years ago as a windbreak. There were several outbuildings visible, all quite as unkept as the house itself. In one of them a light burned feebly, a lemon-yellow radiance in the gathering gloom. In the house there appeared to be no light at all until having turned from the uncertain road, he crossed a patch of grass and drew nearer. Then three things happened almost simultaneously: a dog barked ferociously from the direction of the house, a voice challenged from nearer at hand and a light sprang dimly into sight behind the narrow sidelights of the entrance.
“You from the store?” asked the voice.
A dark form sprang suddenly into view a dozen paces away and approached. So did the dog, a big black nondescript who growled menacingly as he bounded forward. “Get out o’ here, Gyp! Beat it or I’ll bounce a brick off your bean!” commanded the voice compellingly. Gyp stopped growling and began to sniff instead, circling around the visitor at a few yards’ distance.