A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
That afternoon Scoop drove up to the old mill in one of his pa’s
delivery wagons.
“What’s the idea?” inquired Peg.
“The idea is,” Scoop returned grimly, “that we’re going to get rid of
these blamed cats.”
Red let out a crazy yip.
“I thought maybe you were going to put velvet cushions in the delivery
wagon and take the cats out for an airing,” he giggled.
“You guessed it,” was Scoop’s unexpected acknowledgment.
Red stared.
“I’m going to take them on an airing trip into the country,” laughed
Scoop, “and drop them at a farmhouse.”
“Yes,” I put in, “and have Bill Hadley land on us like a ton of lead.
Help yourself,” I added, motioning him away, “but leave me out of it.”
“Bill Hadley doesn’t own the whole country,” argued Scoop, bobbing his
head. “Not so you can notice it. He can stop us from dropping the cats
in town, but he has no authority outside of the city limits.”
“I never thought of taking the cats outside of town to get rid of
them,” came thoughtfully from Peg.
“This noon,” proceeded Scoop, “pa was telling how he got stalled south
of town in our auto and had to hoof it to the Walkers Lake dairy farm
to borrow gasoline to get home. They keep their gasoline in a corncrib
and pa says he never seen so many mice in all his life. One ran up
his pants leg. I laughed when he told about it. Then I pricked up my
ears when he suggested in a joking way that I go to the farm and sell
Mr. Hibbey some of our best mousers. Right away I saw that here was a
chance to get rid of the cats. Only we won’t try to sell them--we’ll
let Mr. Hibbey have them for nothing.”
“All of them?” gasped Red, letting his eyes turn to the long row of cat
boxes.
“All we can take in one load,” laughed Scoop.
“Who is the lucky man who gets the rest?” Peg wanted to know.
“Oh,” said Scoop, “we’ll drive north of town on our second trip and
drop the remaining cats along the Treebury pike.” He looked at his
watch. “Three-thirty. Um---- Let’s make it snappy, fellows, so we can
complete the second trip before supper time. I don’t mind telling you
that I’m dead anxious to kiss this feline rest farm good-by.”
Under his directions we loaded the yowling cats into two of the
biggest crates. When the crates were jammed full we drove out of town,
whistling and singing so that the people we met on the road wouldn’t
notice the cats. Coming within sight of the dairy farm we proceeded
cautiously, because, as Scoop said, it was just as well not to let the
farmer see us in the act of dropping the cats. When we were nicely
screened by the trees and bushes that paralleled the roadbed on both
sides we loosened the slats of the crates. Gee-miny crickets! It was a
sight to see the cats boil out of the crates and disappear across the
field in the direction of the big barn. I told the fellows that Mr.
Hibbey’s mice and rats would have a bad case of heart failure when they
saw that army of four-legged traps descending upon them.
“Let’s hope,” laughed Scoop, “that Mr. Hibbey doesn’t have heart
failure.”
Returning to town we tied the old horse to a telephone pole and ran
up the hill to the cat farm. About to dash into the mill our attention
was drawn to a letter thrust into the handle of the door latch. It was
addressed to the Tutter Feline Rest Farm. Tearing open the envelope
Scoop read aloud:
I want to buy a dozen of your cats and will pay fifty cents apiece.
Put the cats in my basement. I am leaving the east window unlocked.
When I get back from Ashton to-morrow I will pay you your money.
MISS MARY PRINDLE.
“Why,” spoke up Red, when Scoop’s voice trailed away, “Miss Prindle is
the old maid who soaked me on the head with a broom.” His eyes searched
ours. “What do you suppose she wants of twelve cats?” he added, a
puzzled look settling into his freckled face.
“We should worry what she wants of them,” laughed Peg, “if we can get
fifty cents apiece for them.”
Scoop walked quickly to the row of cat boxes.
“A dozen,” he mused. “I wonder if we have that many left.”
When we came to count the remaining cats all we could find was eleven.
“Hot dog!” cried Red, as we loaded the cats into a crate. “Here’s where
we make five dollars and fifty cents.”
It was twenty minutes to six when we drove up in front of Miss
Prindle’s house and carried the crate of cats into her yard. Mrs.
Wheeler, who lives next door and usually knows everything that goes on
up and down the street, came inquisitively onto her porch and stared.
“Goodness gracious!” she cried. “What are you boys intending to do with
all those cats?”
“They’re for Miss Prindle,” informed Scoop.
“She’ll skin you alive if you leave them in her yard.”
“She ordered them from us,” declared Scoop.
“Ordered them?”
“Sure thing. She’s paying us fifty cents apiece for them.”
Mrs. Wheeler had a dizzy look on her face as we took the cats one at a
time and dropped them through Miss Prindle’s basement window. Then we
carried the empty crate to the wagon and drove away.
“To-morrow,” said Scoop, as we rattled down the dusty street, “we’ll
come back and collect our pay.”
That evening Red and I went to the first picture show. We were full of
giggles. What put us that way was the happy thought that henceforth we
wouldn’t have to bunk with a flock of yowling cats.
“If I live to be five hundred years old,” said Red, “I never want to
touch another cat.”
“You and me both,” I agreed.
“It’s like being turned loose from jail,” he added, “to be relieved of
the worries of running that old cat farm.”
“Easy,” was my warm reply.
After the show we each bought a soda, because, as Red pointed out,
there was no need of us being tight with half of Miss Prindle’s five
dollars and fifty cents coming to us the following morning.
When the sodas were down we bought two peach sundaes. Then we stopped
at a fruit stand and spent twenty cents for bananas. We got a lot for
our money because they were so ripe.
“How about some apple pie smothered in cream?” suggested Red, when we
came even with Mugger’s all-night restaurant.
“Hot dog!” I said, starting for the door.
Coming from the restaurant ten minutes later, we ran into Scoop and
Peg. The latter had a big watermelon in his arms. What with the apple
pie in my stomach on top of the bananas and everything, I can’t say
was I very hungry, but when Scoop invited Red and me to fall into line
I didn’t back down.
“Where you heading for?” Red wanted to know.
“The Commercial House alley,” informed Scoop.
“Bid Stricker is up the street with his gang,” put in Peg, shifting his
hold on the melon and squinting back. “They had their heads together
like they were cooking up some scheme to get us, so we better watch out
for them. Scoop says we can climb the hotel fire escape, then if they
come into the alley we can soak them with our melon rinds.”
“I’d like to soak them with a donnick,” growled Scoop, “after the dirty
trick they played on us last night.”
Pretty soon we came to the brick-paved alley that parallels the Tutter
hotel on the dining room side. Here an iron fire escape zig-zags its
way up the building’s brick walls to the roof. Mounting to the first
balcony we got our pocket-knives in hand and waded into the melon.
Sure enough the Strickers were hot on our trail. They came sneaking
into the alley, squinting into the shadowy places and talking in
whispers. It never occurred to them to look up the fire escape.
Bid Stricker stopped directly beneath us.
“They came this way,” he said in a low voice.
“Sure thing,” said Jimmy.
“Wonder where they are,” said Bid.
Peg touched each of us in turn to attract our attention.
“We’ll show ’em where we are,” he whispered, sort of gritty-like. “Each
one get a rind. When I count ‘three,’ let ’er fly. Ready? One, two,
three.”
I aimed for the top of Bid Stricker’s head. He let out an awful yip
when my juicy rind landed “kerflop!” on his bean. It was as good as a
circus to see him hipper out of the alley into Main Street, the others
tumbling along on his heels.
“You guys think you’re awful smart,” he yelled at us from the mouth of
the alley. “Just wait, though! You’ve got something coming when you git
home to-night.”
“Please sell us some cats,” yipped Jimmy Stricker.
“Sure thing,” another cried. “We’ll pay you fifty cents apiece for
them.”
Then the whole gang went, “Haw! haw! haw!”
“They’re sore,” said Scoop, “because we sold the cats to Miss Prindle
and made some easy money.”
After a bit we started for home and there was the Strickers half a
block behind us. First one would hoot at us, then another.
“We’ll go to Jerry’s house,” suggested Scoop, “and lay for them.”
Shortly after that we turned into our lawn. The porch light was burning
and I could see Dad and Mother and Red’s pa and ma. Miss Prindle was
there, too. I wondered at that, because she and Mother aren’t very
thick.
Dad got his eyes on us.
“Come here,” he called.
Standing on the porch steps, Miss Prindle wheeled and pierced us with a
pair of angry eyes.
“How dare you put your cats in my basement?” she cried. “I should have
you arrested.”
Dad held up his hand.
“Just a minute, Miss Prindle. Suppose we give the boys a chance to
defend themselves. Maybe there is some mistake.”
“I know what I am talking about,” snapped Miss Prindle. “They put the
cats in my basement and my nearest neighbor saw them do it. One of the
dirty creatures fell into a crock of fresh crabapple marmalade, and in
addition there are broken fruit jars all over the basement floor.”
Dad turned to me with a sober face.
“How about this, Jerry? Did you put any cats in her basement?”
I nodded, sort of dizzy-like.
“She told us to,” I explained.
Miss Prindle gasped and stared at me as though I was the biggest liar
that ever walked on two legs. It made me hot.
“Yes, you did,” I fired at her. “You wrote it in a letter.”
“I did no such thing,” she denied.
“How about this?” said Scoop, and he handed the letter to Dad, who read
it aloud.
“I never wrote that,” declared Miss Prindle. “It’s just a part of your
scheme to annoy me.”
“Maybe,” Dad put in quietly, “some one has played a joke on the boys.
Have you thought of that, Miss Prindle?”
A joke! On the instant I went sick and disgusted in the thought that
the Stricker gang had made monkeys out of us. Yes, sir, that was it. I
could see it now. And I felt the ice cream coming up in my throat, only
it didn’t get up very far because the watermelon jumped on it and held
it down and then the bananas jumped on the watermelon and the apple pie
came up for air and I wanted to lay down on my stomach and groan.
“Joke or no joke,” snapped Miss Prindle, “they’ve got to come over to
my house and get their cats.”
Dad put a steady hand on my arm.
“I reckon, Jerry, you better take the cats back to the old mill,” he
advised. “And to-morrow,” he said to Miss Prindle, “I’ll stop in and
settle for any damage the cats have done to your crabapple marmalade.”
“Of course,” said Miss Prindle, sort of coming down from her high
horse, “I don’t want to be unnecessarily sharp. But when a neighbor
told me how the cats came to be in my basement I naturally concluded
they had been put there to annoy me.”
“I don’t think Jerry would do a trick like that,” Dad said quietly.
“Nor my Donald, either,” put in Mrs. Meyers, meaning Red.
Well, it was nice to have our folks stick up for us, but I can’t say
did it put any happiness into us. Growling to ourselves we got some
sacks and went over to Miss Prindle’s house and caught the cats. We
were good and hot and we didn’t care whether they went into the sacks
tail end first or head end first. I guess not! On the way to the old
mill we told each other that we’d get even with the Stricker gang if it
took us seventeen years.
It was nine-thirty when we plodded up the hill and opened the door.
Peg lit the lantern. Taking a cat from his sack he shoved it into the
nearest box.
“Git in there,” he growled.
“You, too,” I said, grabbing a cat and shoving it into a box.
The cats disposed of, we sat in a circle and looked at one another.
“Weren’t we the champion dumb-bells,” wailed Scoop, “to let the
Stricker gang pull that joke on us?”
“We sure were asleep at the switch,” Peg agreed unhappily.
“The thought that the Stricker gang got the best of us is what hurts
the worst,” proceeded Scoop. “To-morrow we can easily get rid of the
cats in the country; and I guess it won’t kill us to bunk here one
more night. But to think that we let Bid Stricker slip it over on
us---- Oh, oh! It makes me sick.”
“They were watching us,” I informed, “when we went over to Miss
Prindle’s to get the cats. They know we’re here in the mill. After what
they did last night it may be well for us to be on our guard.”
Scoop jumped to his feet and snapped his fingers.
“Jinks! That reminds me that I never told you about my ghost scheme.”
“Ghost scheme?” we questioned in chorus.
“The idea came to me this morning,” said Scoop, “but I forgot to
mention it.”
Before he could proceed with an account of his scheme the sound of
creaking wagon wheels came to us from in front of the mill and a gruff
voice called out, “Who-oa!” We stared at one another, wondering who was
planning to make a call at that time of night. Then a lantern flashed
in the doorway and a man bounded into the mill--the angriest man I ever
set eyes on. It was Mr. Hibbey, the proprietor of the Walkers Lake
dairy farm.
“Durn your measly hides,” he roared at us. “I got a notion to take a
horsewhip to you.”
“Wha-at’s the matter?” inquired Scoop, going white.
The man shook his big fists at us.
“You know well enough what I be talkin’ ’bout, you young pirates!
Thought you’d be perty slick, heh, droppin’ your pesky cats on my farm?
Thought I wouldn’t know ’bout it, heh? Well, I’ll show you a trick or
two, by gum! Jest you trot out to my wagon an’ git your blamed cats an’
make it snappy.”
Scoop gave a gasp and clutched my arm like he had a bad case of wabbly
knees.
“You--you haven’t brought the cats back?” he fumbled.
“You’re durn tootin’ I brought ’em back.”
The cats were in a big box on the farmer’s wagon. Discouraged and
disgusted we lugged them up the hill into the mill.
“I’m lettin’ you off easy this time,” growled the farmer, as he untied
his horse and climbed onto the wagon seat. “But if you put any more
cats on my farm I’ll git the sheriff after you, an’ don’t you furgit
it, nuther. I mean business, by heck!”
When the cats were distributed in their boxes, Scoop sat down and wiped
the sweat from his face.
“Fellows,” said he in a hollow voice, “this is _awful_.”
“Awful is right,” I put in.
Red gave a groan.
“And to think,” he reminded, “that a few hours ago we were gay and
happy in the thought that we had kissed the old feline rest farm
good-by.”
Peg was counting the cats. Suddenly he straightened and turned to us
with a queer look on his face.
“Fellows,” he inquired, “how many cats did we have this morning?”
“One hundred and fifty,” informed Scoop, “including Lady Victoria.”
Peg gave a scattered laugh.
“Well,” said he, “I don’t know where the others came from, but we now
have one hundred and fifty-five.”
“It’s that blamed farmer,” screeched Scoop. “He brought back cats that
don’t belong here.”
“If this keeps up,” I put in, “we’ll soon have a corner on all the cats
in the county.”
“Yes,” Scoop agreed dismally, “and a corner on all the troubles and
worries.”
We went dejectedly into the side room where the cots were.
“What is that ghost scheme you were going to tell us about?” Peg
reminded.
Red brightened.
“Yes, Scoop, hurry and put us wise,” he said, “and we’ll work it on the
cats and scare them to death.”
“It was my scheme,” said Scoop, “for two of us to dress up as ghosts
and scare the Strickers. We can use these sheets,” he added, indicating
the bed clothing on the cots.
“I’ll be a ghost,” offered Peg.
“And I’m the other one,” I put in quickly.
Peg was full of enthusiasm.
“We’ll fix up real spooky,” he said, “and if those Zulutown bums come
sneaking around here to-night we’ll scare the liver out of them. It’ll
be fun,” he added, with sparkling eyes, “and help to keep our minds off
of our cat troubles.”
This kind of talk got us all excited. Like the others I could think of
nothing more pleasing and satisfying than turning the tables on Bid
Stricker and his companions. And I was glad I was going to be one of
the ghosts.
“You two fellows can hide on the hillside,” planned Scoop, “and watch
the door. If they come, creep down the hill and head them off.” He
looked into Peg’s face and laughed.
“Can you give an honest-to-goodness graveyard groan?” he inquired.
Peg’s grin put his mouth from ear to ear.
“Listen to this,” he bragged, and lifting his chest he went:
“O-r-r-r-r-r! G-r-r-r-r-r!”
“Fine!” complimented Scoop. “If you do that well when you come up
behind them in the dark you’ll scare them cold. Carry a club,” he added
grimly, “and aim for their shins.”
Our plans completed, Peg and I took the sheets and started up the hill.
It was necessary to pick our way because the moon that had painted the
world with white light the previous night now lay hidden behind a bank
of clouds.
I don’t know how long we crouched in silence, vague gray shadows
against the black hillside. It may have been thirty minutes. An hour
maybe. I have found that the minutes always drag when one is keyed up
and expectant. My legs got stiff and the prolonged silence began to put
an edge on my nerves.
Peg yawned.
“Sleepy?” I whispered.
He told me he was.
“So’m I,” I returned.
“Must be close to midnight.”
“Easy.”
“Bet they won’t come. It was earlier than this when they came last
night.”
“If they don’t come pretty soon,” I said, “we’ll----”
Peg’s fingers closed convulsively on my wrist.
“What was that?” he cut in.
My heart was racing.
“Sounded like some one in front of the mill,” I told him.
We lay perfectly still, straining our eyes and ears. In the faint
light of the hidden moon we could trace the outline of the old mill.
It seemed fearfully big and angular and grim. I was strangely reminded
of a glowering, ill-natured giant. I experienced an unexplainable
feeling of oppression, as though the giant were preparing to put forth
a tremendous foot and squash me as I have seen ants squashed under
people’s feet on concrete sidewalks.
Peg squeezed my hand.
“They’re coming, Jerry. Get your sheet ready.”
I put the sheet over my head. It was like being shut in a barrel.
“I can’t see a thing,” I complained.
There was a sound of tearing cloth.
“Poke a couple of holes through the sheet for your eyes,” Peg
suggested. “That’s what I’ve done. I can see pretty good.”
Fixing eyeholes in my sheet, I followed him down the hill. Each step
was measured carefully so as not to make an unnecessary sound. It would
upset our plans to have the Strickers hear us coming.
I was directly behind Peg when we reached the door of the mill.
Glancing inside, I detected a round splotch of moving light. I
suspected it was a flashlight in the hands of one of the Strickers.
Peg started forward with outstretched arms. Against the faint light
that penetrated the room through the open door he looked fearfully
spooky. I told myself, with satisfaction, that the Strickers were
scheduled for the scare of their lives.
“O-r-r-r-r-r!” went Peg. This set the cats to yowling. It was a fearful
din.
There came a frightened cry. The flashlight went out. Hearing some one
near me I made a wide swing with my club. It struck goal. There was a
terrified yell in the darkness. Then Scoop and Red tumbled into the
room with the lantern.
“Head ’em off, fellows,” clamored Scoop. As he darted across the room,
lantern in hand, his fast-moving legs made dancing shadows on the
wooden walls. These shadows gave the room the appearance of being full
of hurtling people. But when I tore off my sheet I found that we had
the room to ourselves. Whoever had stopped the full swing of my club
had escaped through the doorway into the night.
“Where are they?” yelled Scoop, helping Peg out of his sheet.
The latter had a dazed look on his face.
“It wasn’t the Strickers,” he said slowly.
Scoop stared.
“It was some one else,” Peg continued. “A man. He had a flashlight. He
seemed to be looking for something.”
“Looking for something?” Scoop echoed dully.
Peg nodded.
“I think he was looking for something in the cat boxes.” There was a
brief silence as Peg let his eyes meet ours in turn. “If it wasn’t such
a crazy idea,” he added, “I’d say the man was _looking for a certain
cat_.”
I had wondered at the feeling of oppression that gripped me on the
hillside. It was then unexplainable. Now I understood. The queer
thought that the old mill was a formidable, destructive giant was a
premonition. That is a big word, but I know what it means. And on the
instant I wondered uneasily if dangers as well as strange adventures
lay ahead of us.
Not for one minute was I in doubt regarding the identity of the cat the
man was seeking under cover of darkness. Of all the cats sent to us
Lady Victoria was the only one possessing distinction. The rose-colored
cat, of course, was dead and buried; but the mysterious prowler didn’t
know that.
My mind crowded full of conflicting, puzzled thoughts, an involuntary
cry dropped from my lips when Scoop darted across the room and pounced
upon an object that lay just within the open door. It was a man’s cap.