I shouldn’t wonder if I find out I’m a pretty mean kind of cuss, and didn’t know enough to know it.”

“Alan! Stop it! I say! Oh, it was great. And you did it all. Did you see how happy he looked when they cheered, and how surprised? And Alan, he told me he was going to study the Bible with us. He told me how you had been talking to him.”

While they were talking it over, Lancey, in her little faded pink frock, with her heart all happy and sorry, and her face all shining and kind of teary around the lashes, was walking demurely back to the millinery store with her bundle, utterly forgetful of the scolding she would probably receive because she was a minute late from having watched the express out of sight. But, for once, Lancey didn’t care.

When Alan left Sherrill at her home and drove back to the hardware store, his heart grew suddenly heavy. The affairs of his father’s business settled down upon his shoulders like so much lead. There were all the papers of the safe to be checked over, to make sure nothing was gone. How was he to know anyway? Was there a list somewhere? He must find out somehow.

Then there was that Rawlins coming to see him at eleven o’clock, and somehow he felt less prepared to meet him than ever. If he could only take him out and thrash him, as he had done on the intruder the night before. Perhaps he had already! If the tale Lancey Kennedy had told to Bob meant anything at all, it might mean that. In which case, would the man come at all? And would he be able to recognize his opponent of the midnight fray? There was that to investigate of course, and perhaps he should do it at once. He might have to out the police on the matter. He must see Lancey. How the dickens was he to do that, and keep his promise to Bob not to let her aunt see him talking to Lancey? Well, it must be done somehow.

And then there was the mortgage. The real great trouble of all! What should he do next? Oh, if Judge Whiteley would only come home.

Lancey relieved him of one trouble as soon as he arrived at the store by running in for a paper of tacks, and although she seemed in a great hurry, she answered all his questions quite clearly, so that when she left he felt fairly sure that Rawlins was his burglar, for Rawlins was boarding at Mrs. Brower’s. But what could he want from the safe? And—did he get it or not? If only his father was able to be asked a few questions. But the doctor’s orders were very strict. He must not be disturbed for several days yet.

Alan spent an hour going over all the papers he could find, carefully, and only grew more and more perplexed. He tried to think of some friend of his father’s that he could ask to come and help him, but he was sure that his reticent father would not have been willing to confide his troubles to anyone but Judge Whiteley. And Judge Whiteley seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He groaned inwardly at the responsibility thrust upon his young shoulders.

At half past ten there came a telegram from the city.

WAS IN BAD AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT YESTERDAY. AM IN HOSPITAL. MY REPRESENTATIVE WILL CALL ON YOU THIS AFTERNOON AT FIVE, FULLY EMPOWERED TO ACT. THIS WILL BE YOUR LAST CHANCE. RAWLINS

 

After Alan had read this twice he put on his hat, went over to the Brower boardinghouse, and asked if he might see a man named Rawlins who was boarding there.

Mrs. Brower seated him in her dismal little parlor and toiled up to the third story back. It was some minutes before she returned bearing an open note in her hand.

“Why, he isn’t here. He was called to the city on the early train this morning,” she said, glancing down at the paper in her hand as if to verify her statement.

“When will he be back?” asked Alan, trying to get a glimpse of the handwriting on the note.

“Well, I can’t say fer sure,” said the woman. “I guess fer supper.