DICK AND JOE BLOCK MUDGETT AND TIM BUNKER’S SHADY ENTERPRISE.
Mudgett had seized the old miser by the arm and was dragging him out of
the buggy when Dick Armstrong sprang upon him like a young tiger and
bore him to the ground. At the same instant Joe Fletcher ran around the
vehicle and hit Tim Bunker such a whack over the head with his cudgel
that the Walkhill youth saw unnumbered stars and hastened to make his
escape over the back of the buggy.
But Joe cut him off, and the two boys were soon mixing it up pretty
lively, with all the advantage in Joe’s favor.
In the meantime Dick found Mudgett a tough proposition to get away
with, while the bearded man discovered in the strong and active boy a
hard nut to crack.
Old Adam Fairclough, thus relieved of his assailants, stood helplessly
aloof, and watched the struggle that was going on about him.
He seemed to be utterly bewildered by the condition of affairs that had
faced him on his return home.
And while this lively scrimmage was going on in the front of the
house, Luke Maslin in the rear took advantage of the opportunity to
scramble out of the window through which he had been forced to effect
an entrance, and, reaching the ground, he took to his heels and made
off into the line of woods beyond the fence as fast as his heels would
carry him.
“Let me up, you young imp!” exclaimed Mudgett, panting for breath
after several ineffectual efforts on his part to dislodge Dick from an
advantageous position on his chest.
“Do you give in?” asked the almost equally breathless boy, refusing to
budge an inch from his perch.
“No, hang you for a meddlesome little monkey! But if you don’t let me
up, I’ll break your head!”
“I don’t think you will, Mr. Mudgett,” answered Dick, stoutly.
“You know my name, eh? Who the dickens are you, anyway?” said the
rascal in a tone that showed his surprise.
“Never mind who I am,” returned the lad. “I’ve got you dead to rights
now, so you might just as well throw up your hands at once.”
“Not on your life!” gritted Mudgett, renewing the struggle.
But he might just as well have saved his strength, for Joe having
mastered Tim Bunker and bound his arms behind his back with the
whip-lash belonging to the buggy, now came to his chum’s assistance,
and Mudgett, with a villainous scowl, gave up the fight and suffered
himself to be secured with one of the traces which Joe took off the
horse.
“I’m afraid these men meant to kill me, thinking I had money,” said old
Adam Fairclough to Dick, in trembling tones, when the lad stepped up to
assure him that he no longer was in danger of molestation. “But I’m a
poor old man. Poor--very poor.”
“They were in the act of breaking into your house to rob you when we
turned up, intending to prevent them carrying out their plan, which I
fortunately overheard.”
“Why should they want to rob me when I’m only a poor old man?” cried
the miser, in a pathetic voice.
“They think you have lots of money hidden in your house,” replied Dick.
“Not a cent--not a single cent!” wailed the old man, beating the air
with his arms in a sort of abject denial.
Dick of course believed Adam Fairclough was not telling the truth.
He had always heard people say the man was worth thousands of dollars.
That he owned half a dozen good farms which he rented out to thrifty
tenants.
That he held mortgages on a dozen more.
That he had a strong-box filled with family plate that had not been
used for fifty years, and a second one stuffed with gold and banknotes
he had taken out of circulation in order to hoard up for the mere
pleasure of accumulation.
Probably the old man’s wealth was greatly exaggerated, but there seemed
little doubt that he was tolerably rich.
Dick led him around to the back of the house and showed him the broken
window.
“They sent you a letter saying your brother William in Walkhill was
dead; isn’t that so?” asked the boy.
“Yes, yes; but it was false--my brother is not dead at all.”
“That was a trick to get you away from here so they might search the
house during your absence.”
Then Dick told him the whole story of what he had learned at the old
deserted farmhouse.
“You are a good boy--a brave boy,” said the poor old miser, shaking the
lad by the hand in a pitiful way, for he appeared to have but little
strength after the shock he had sustained. “If I wasn’t so very, very
poor, I’d reward you.”
“Don’t worry about that,” replied Dick, with a cheerfulness that put
the old man more at his ease. “If you’ll let us stay here for the rest
of the night, it’s all we want.”
“You shall stay--yes, yes, you shall stay; but there isn’t anything I
could give you to eat. I’m so poor I can’t buy much.”
From the appearance of both his horse as well as himself it was evident
the miser didn’t squander much of his money on food of any kind.
They were both shrivelled and dried up like a pair of animated mummies.
Indeed, when Dick led the animal off to its stable he almost fancied he
could hear its bones rattle with each step it took.
“Poor old beast!” he murmured sympathetically. “How I’d like to give
you one good, square meal! But I fear the shock of it would lay you
out.”
And the mare, as if it understood him, looked at him with her
saucer-like eyes in hopeless resignation.
Such a thing as a square meal to her was a dream, never to be realized.
The old man wouldn’t have the prisoners taken into the mansion.
He was afraid of them, and so Joe tied them securely to posts in the
stable.
Inside the house there were bolts and bars without number.
Every room appeared to be completely furnished, but the old-fashioned
mahogany pieces, that must have been valuable in their day long ago,
were now given over to the ravages of dust and neglect.
Adam Fairclough ate and slept in one little room at the top of the
building, of which the boys caught only a momentary glimpse as the old
man led them past to another room in which were a bed, some chairs, and
other articles in a fair state of preservation.
There the miser left them after assuring Dick once more that he was
miserably poor and sorry he couldn’t do better by them.
“Gee!” grinned Joe when they were alone, “what a liar the old fellow
is!”
“Never mind, old man,” replied his chum. “It’s none of our business.
We’ve done our duty, and I can sleep like a top on the strength of it.
There’s one thing I’m glad about--Luke Maslin has skipped.”
Next morning old Fairclough produced some weak boiled coffee and a
plate of hard bread and cheese, which he offered to them for breakfast
with every evidence of earnest hospitality, repeating his refrain of
abject poverty.
He wrote down the boys’ names in a big, leather-bound book, making a
large cross opposite Dick’s name.
When they went out to the stable to look after Mudgett and Tim Bunker
they were surprised to find that the rascals had managed to liberate
themselves somehow and had taken French leave.
The boys didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry, but, on the whole,
they were pleased to find they would not have to appear against the
housebreakers.
Then they bade the old man good-bye, advising him to be very careful
against any future attempts of a like nature.
They reached the deserted farm about nine o’clock, looked after the
horses, made their stomachs happy with a substantial meal, and then
hied themselves to the nutting-ground, where they spent most of the
day gathering up the remainder of the crop.
Not knowing but they might possibly be surprised by the fugitives,
Mudgett and Tim Bunker, if they passed the night in the house, they
left the place before dark and put up at Farmer Haywood’s for supper
and a bed.
Next day they arrived back in Albany and disposed of their final load
of nuts, the whole speculation netting them the sum of $375.
That same afternoon Dick sold the team for nearly $400.
“I think we can afford to take the train for New York,” he said after
figuring up his cash capital, which he found amounted to $850.
And Joe readily agreed with him, for he had $155 tucked snugly away in
an inside pocket.