“Wal, I dunno. Once there was an old feller that complained the eels
didn’t squirm’s lively as they uster when he was a boy; but, somehow,
I reckoned his memory was playin’ tricks with him. It’s the same way
with the weather. All the oldest inhabitants’ll keep on tellin’ you the
climate’s changin’, and losin’ its grip; but I guess, fust and last,
there ain’t much difference. Why, when I was a youngster, they had a
joke that this would be a rattlin’ good country if the sleighin’ didn’t
get sorter thin for three months in the year; but I don’t recall makin’
snowballs on the Fourth of July. And, when you think it over, you’re
likely to be enjoyin’ just about as much concentrated winter this
minute as anybody ever really needed in these parts.”
Thus Lon Gates rambled on for the entertainment of Sam Parker, bustling
about his work in the barn the while. It was a fine, clear morning,
the air still and crisp, and the snow glittering in the bright sunshine.
“Maybe--but this is a bully day,” said Sam cheerfully.
There was a twinkle in Lon’s eye. “Lot better’n that other Saturday,
when the hedgehog had all his spines on end, eh? Wal, the weather does
make a pile o’ difference in the human feelin’s. And, as I was sayin’,
we’ve got jest about enough winter to be real comfortable right this
minute--plenty of snow for haulin’, and cold enough to fill the bill.
Even zero when I got up this mornin’, and ’tain’t more’n ten above
now. And it looks ’sif there wouldn’t be a thaw for a good spell. And
that’ll help the lumbermen to get out their logs. Your father can tell
you what that means to the fellers in the woods.”
“I’ve heard him talk about it,” said Sam. Mr. Parker was interested
in several tracts of woodland; and though his son never had visited a
lumber camp, he had some idea of the methods pursued.
“Ought to get him to take you on one of his trips,” Lon observed.
“He’ll be makin’ one before long.”
“Wish he would!” said Sam.
Lon bustled into the harness-room. In a moment Sam heard a sharp
exclamation of surprise; and out popped Lon, carrying a heavy collar
with dangling traces.
“Jest look at that!” he stormed. “Suff’rin’ snakes! but that’s the wust
yet! What skunk do you s’pose’d be mean enough to carve a brand new
harness that way?”
The leather of the collar was deeply gashed in several places, and the
traces were almost severed.
Sam made close examination of the cuts.
“Well, Lon,” he said, “I can’t prove it, of course; but I believe that
job was done by the same person who left the water running, and let
Maggie’s clean clothes down into the mud, and has been raising all the
rest of the hob around here.”
“Maybe. Same line o’ business. But who’d do it?”
Sam hesitated. “I--I--well, I’ve had a suspicion all along, but lately
it has become practically a certainty.”
“Speak up! This thing’s past endurin’. Who’s the party?”
“Well, everything points to one person.” Sam was trying to show
judicial moderation.
“Who’s he?” asked Lon impatiently.
“Tom Orkney,” said Sam.
“What! The kid that ran away?”
“Yes.”
Lon looked puzzled. “Sure, be you?”
“Morally sure.”
“Wal, I ain’t, then,” said Lon. “Why ain’t I? Orkney’s been gone
two-three days, hain’t he?”
“He has.”
“Then we’ve got to leave him out. This job was done last night.”
It was Sam’s turn to betray bewilderment. “But--but we know he’d be
ready to do it, and there’s nobody else who would. And----”
“No; you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree!” Lon declared. “I was lookin’
over the harnesses yesterday, and there wa’n’t even a good-sized
scratch on this one. So ’twa’n’t Orkney, Sam--not unless he come back
to do this ’special.”
“But he did the other things,” Sam insisted.
“Swear to it, could you?”
“Why--why, I could--almost.”
“‘Almost’ don’t go--not in swearin’ folks are guilty.”
“I know that. But we’ve had a lot of evidence----”
“What kind o’ evidence?”
Sam frowned. “Why--why, it has been circumstantial evidence, but there
has been a lot of it. And Orkney has had a chronic grouch all along.
And he has had it in for all my crowd. And, finally, he ran away.
That’s the same as confessing, isn’t it?”
“Confessin’ what?”
“Oh, everything,” said Sam vaguely.
Lon took a moment for thought.
“Sam, I can’t help thinkin’ there’s a mistake somewhere. Now, you mean
to be square and fair, and so do your chums, but you haven’t liked this
Orkney. I dunno’s there’s any reason why you should like him, but that
ain’t the question. I plumb despise a rattlesnake, but I’ve got no call
to insist he’s stealin’ my fire-wood. Follow the argyment, do you?”
“Yes; but----”
“Hold on! Wa’n’t there nothin’ nowhere along the line to make you
doubt if you were right?”
“Nothing,” Sam insisted; then recalled the Shark’s contention, and made
amendment. “There was nothing, that is, except that Willy Reynolds
figured it out that Orkney couldn’t have thrown a stone that smashed a
window in our club-house. And the Shark--Willy, I mean--is a crank on
mathematics. And we found a cap of Orkney’s----”
“One he’d been wearin’ that evenin’?”
“Well, nobody saw him wearing it--nobody saw him, for that matter; for
he ducked and ran. And though a face showed outside of the window, the
fellow who noticed it didn’t recognize it. But the cap belonged to
Orkney.”
Lon did not appear to be deeply impressed.
“Thing like that depends on a lot of other things,” said he.
“But Orkney didn’t try to deny anything.”
“Oh, put it up to him, good and straight, did you?”
“Why--why, in a way.”
“Jesso! But you didn’t say, ‘Now, Orkney, what did you do this thing,
and that thing, and the other thing for?’”
“Well, I hinted at things I was going to thrash him for, and----”
Lon laughed. “Ho-ho! Now we’re gettin’ down to cases. You said, ‘I’m
goin’ to lick you,’ and he said, ‘Come on and try it.’ Sam, it’s been
a good while since I was a boy, but I guess that’s jest about what I’d
’a’ said to a feller of my own size that promised me a hidin’. And I
wouldn’t ’a’ asked a bill o’ particulars.”
Sam took a turn the length of the barn floor and back. Lon certainly
was presenting a new aspect of the case, a disturbing aspect,
unsettling, destructive of comfortable confidence.
“Look here, Lon! What makes you take sides against me?” the boy asked
querulously.
“I don’t,” was the curt reply.
“But----”
“Wal, I’ll explain. First place, such didoes as somebody has been
cuttin’ up round here don’t quite fit in with what a feller like this
Orkney would be likely to do. Maybe he’s a surly customer, but, after
all, he’s had good bringin’ up. Second place, bein’ away from town,
he couldn’t have chopped up the harness last night. Third place, I’m
gettin’ kind of a hunch that I may be able to dig up a clue or two.”
“Connecting somebody else with the case?” queried Sam incredulously.
“Yep.”
“But who----”
“Don’t ask me that, Sam, till I’ve looked around a bit. If I’m
right--well, you’ll say it’s the queerest piece of business you ever
heard tell of.”
“Oh, don’t stop there!”
“Got to. It’s kinder shapin’ up promisin’, but I ain’t sure. And in a
matter like this it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
There was a wry smile on Sam’s face. “Safety First!” he said in a tone
which made Lon gaze at him curiously.
“Jest what do you mean?” he asked.
But Sam turned away without answering. Indeed, to make full explanation
would have been difficult; for he could have said little more than that
he was experiencing a peculiar sensation, to be likened to that of one
rudely awakened from a complacent dream.