“Yes, it’s wonderful what a change has come over the whole town,” the other scout remarked. “It seems as though the scouts must have given everybody the fever, because it’s going on all around. Even the Italian district has been stirred, for the mayor has offered a splendid prize to the family that has the neatest dooryard on the first of the month. Such a scrubbing and raking and gathering of rubbish never was seen before. Poor old Barney Heath says he’s earned his salary three times over, and that if this thing gets to be a settled habit he must be paid by the load and not by the month under contract. He’ll soon be going to the poorhouse, he vows. But it looks glorious to me, Billy.”
“My folks say we deserve a heap of credit for taking the bull by the horns,” Billy observed, with a grin of pride on his freckled face. “But the women all think it was the way that gang carried on in the mayor’s front yard that gave him all the backbone he’s shown since. Nothing like bringing things home to a man if you want to stir him up.”
“Touch his pocket and you’ll get a response, my father says,” Hugh replied. “I wish I’d been there when he came out of his house that fine Sunday morning and discovered what a mess they’d made of his place! But somehow nobody seems to have been able to get any trace of those who did it. They made sure to leave nothing behind to tell who they were, and have been lying low ever since. I’m rather thinking they’re a bit frightened themselves at their boldness.”
“Huh! I don’t believe anything could scare that Lige Corbley,” grunted Billy; “and speaking of him, there he comes along the street right now with his little lame brother, Benjy. Say, what a queer mixture that boy is, Hugh! Watch him helping Benjy along just as carefully as you would do it yourself! I never could make out what that Lige was made of.”
“And that’s the very reason I told you once that I didn’t think he could be all bad,” said the other in a low tone, for the object of their conversation was now approaching them. “Any fellow who could act like that toward a poor little chap with a twisted leg must have a decent streak in him. And if ever Lige is going to change his ways, you mark my words it’s bound to come about through that same brotherly affection he feels for Benjy. It may never happen, and then again how do we know? Stranger things than that have come to pass.”
A crowd of boys coming along the street stopped to gape in at the window of the sporting goods store, making comments about the football and hockey paraphernalia displayed there in tempting fashion.
Several men and women were also looking in at the gorgeous window of the adjoining jewelry establishment, so that for the time being there was quite a gathering at that one spot.
Lige Corbley, leaving his crippled brother to feast his eyes with the sights in both windows, which he did not often have a chance to survey, passed into the store that displayed fishing tackle and all manner of men’s goods evidently bent on making some small purchase.
In doing this he came in contact with the two scouts, and their eyes met. Lige stared Hugh straight in the face, and what seemed to be a smile of defiance came across his dark countenance. It was as though he had heard what had happened to Whistling Smith, and had been assured that his identity was known to the scouts who had appeared on the scene while he and his pals were defying the mayor by wrecking his well-kept lawn and shrubbery.
Billy turned and looked at his chum after Lige had gone into the store.