Jot gasped with horror. The last match went out and left him standing
there in the dark. After one instant's hesitation he made a bound for
the bed. "Kent! Kent! Wake up!" he whispered shrilly. He shook the
limp figure hard.
"Thieves! Murder! Wake up, I tell you, Kent! We're robbed!"
"M-m--who's rob--Oh, say, lemme alone!" murmured poor Kent, drowsily.
Jot shook him again.
"I tell you thieves!" he hissed in his ear. "The money's gone! Do you
hear? It isn't under the pin-cushion where we left it! It's gone!
We've been robbed, Kent Eddy!"
The limp figure strengthened as if electrified and rose to a sitting
position. Kent's eyes flew open.
"What?" he cried.
"Get up quick, Kentie, and we'll wake Old Tilly up! Maybe we can catch
'em!"
"Catch who? I wish you'd talk English, Jot Eddy!"
Old Tilly was slumbering peacefully, oblivious to thieves and
five-dollar bills alike. It took a long time to wake him and longer
yet to make him understand the dire thing that had happened.
"Get up! Get up! We've got to catch 'em!" concluded Jot.
"Yes, the thieves--catch the thieves, you know!" Kent explained. "I
don't s'pose you'll lie there all night and let 'em cut off with our
money, if you are Old Tilly!"
Then something funny happened. Anyway, it seemed funny to Old Tilly. He
buried his face in the pillow and choked with laughter.
"It's gone to his head!" whispered Jot, in alarm.
"No, to his t-toe!" giggled Old Tilly, purple in the face.
"Yes, sir, he's crazy as a loon. Let's call father, Jot!"
"Hold on!--wait! It's all right, boys! The money is, and I am, and
everybody is! Just wait till I get my laugh out, won't you?"
"No, sir, but we'll wait till you get out o' bed and that's this very
minute!" Jot exclaimed wrathfully. He was dancing up and down with
impatience.
Old Tilly slowly brought a lean, shapely leg into view from beneath the
sheet. To the boys' amazement it was covered with a long black
stocking. Old Tilly, like the other boys, had been barefooted all day.
"Thought I might as well get a good start in dressing!" he chuckled.
"Nothing like being read--"
"Oh, come off!"
"Well, I wish it would; there's something in the toe that hurts. Ow!"
He drew off the stocking and gravely examined the snug little wad in the
toe.
"The money!" cried Kent.
"Yes, sir, the money!" Jot echoed in astonishment.
"Why, so it is!" Old Tilly said in evident surprise. "Then the thieves
didn't get away with it, after all! I call that a lucky stroke--my
getting partly dressed overnight! No, hold on, you little chaps--don't
get uppy! I'll explain, honest I will! You see, I got up after a while
and put the money there for safe-keeping. I'd like to see the thief
that would look there for it! He'd get a good kick if he did!"
It was half an hour later when the trio settled back into sleep again.
In the east already there were dim outriders of day trailing across the
darkness.
Without further incident the three knights-errant got under way next
day. In a glare of July sunshine they rode away in search of
adventures, while Father and Mother Eddy in the kitchen doorway looked
after them a little wistfully.
"Bless their hearts!" mother murmured tender-wise.
"Good boys! Good boys!" said father, coughing to cover the break in his
voice.
"I say, this is great!" called Jot, who led the van, of course. "This
is the way to do it!"
[Illustration: "I say, this is great!" called Jot.]
"Yes, sir!" Kent cried in high feather, "it feels as if you were reg'lar
old knights, you know! Isn't it jolly not to know what's going to
happen next?"
Old Tilly's wheel slid up abreast of Kent's and proceeded sociably.
"Esau Whalley's farm 'happens next,' and then old Uncle Rod King's
next," Old Tilly said calmly. "I guess we better wait till we get out
o' this neck o' woods before we settle down to making believe!"
But three wheels driven by three pairs of sturdy, well-muscled legs get
over miles swiftly, and by ten o'clock the boys had turned down an
unfamiliar road and were on the way to things that happened. Before
noon knightly deeds were at their hand. Jot himself discovered the
first one. He vaulted from his bicycle suddenly, as they were bowling
past a little gray house set in weeds, and the others, looking back, saw
him carrying a dripping pail of water along the path to the kitchen
doorsteps.
"The pail was out there on the well curb, asking to be filled," he
explained brusquely, as he caught up with them, "and the old woman
pumping into it didn't look as if lugging water agreed with her.
Besides, I wanted a drink."
"You didn't get one," retorted Kent, wisely.
Jot cast a sidewise glance upon him.
"I said I wanted one, didn't I? Anybody can want a drink."
"And take your remedy. Dose: lug one pail o' water for an old woman.
If not successful, repeat in ten min--"
Jot made a rapid spurt and left his teaser behind. When Old Tilly had
come abreast of him again, he reached out a brotherly hand and bestowed
a hearty pat on his arm.
"Good boy!" he said, and unconsciously his voice was like father's,
miles back in the kitchen doorway. It was the way father would have
said it.
"That's the way to do. We'll pick up 'errands' to do for folks. What's
the use of being knights?"
And Old Tilly's turn came next, in the way of driving the cows out of
somebody's corn patch and propping up the broken fence. If it took but
a few minutes, what of that? It saved a bent old man's rheumatic leg's,
and the gay whistle that went with it drifted into an open window and
pleased a little fretful child.
"My turn next!" shouted Kent, gliding away from them out of sight over
the brow of a hill.
"Good luck to you!" called Jot. "We're going into camp to take a bite.
No use being in such a rush."
"When you come my way, drop in!" floated back faintly. They tilted their
wheels against trees and threw themselves down in the shade to rest.
Jot was ravenous with hunger.
"Cakes are all right to begin on," he said, regarding mother's bountiful
store with approval. "But when I strike the next store you'll see the
crackers and cheese fly!"
"I don't mind taking a hand in the scrimmage myself!" laughed Old Tilly,
munching a fat cake. "I say, wasn't Kent foolish to go scooting off
like that? Might as well have begun easy. I move we ride nights and
mornings mostly, and loaf noons. There's a moon, 'silver mo-oo-on'--"
His voice trailed lazily into song. It was pleasant lounging in the
shade and remembering the hay was all in and adventures ahead.
An hour or so later they moved on at a leisurely pace, looking for Kent.
The general direction had been agreed upon, so they experienced no
anxiety. It added to the fun to hunt for him.
"Where in the world did he go to?" queried Old Tilly, laughing. "He
disappeared like a streak of lightning!"
"I see him--there, under that tree!" cried Jot, waving a salute. "He's
lying down and enjoying life."
But it was a tired old man under the tree, and, from his forlorn face,
he did not seem to be "enjoying life." He was very old, very shabby,
very tired. His unkempt figure had collapsed feebly by the way
apparently. What astonished the boys was the wheel that lay on its side
near him. He did not look like a wheelman.
"Hold on. Old Till, I say!" called Jot in sudden excitement, forging
ahead to his side. "I say, that looks like our wheel--mine and Kent's!
I guess I know our wheel!"
Jot was riding the borrowed machine. Kent had the one they owned
jointly.
"You're right, sonny; it looks that way!" rejoined Old Tilly, excited in
his turn. "But we can't pounce on it and cut, you know. How do we know
what Kent's up to?"
Jot grunted derisively. "Probably he's given it to the old duffer for a
birthday present--hundredth anniversary!" he scoffed. "That would be
taking his turn at doing knight-errands. Let's go right on and not
disturb the poor old man--"
"Let's have sense!" remarked Old Tilly, briefly. "We'll forge on ahead
and hunt Kent up before we arrest tramps for bike-lifting. When he says
he's been robbed it'll be time to holler 'Stop, thief!'"
"Yes, come on!" Jot called back as he shot ahead. "I haven't a doubt but
we'll find Kentie's got his bike tucked away all safe in the toe of his
stocking!"
They came almost instantly into the outskirts of a snug little
settlement. The road was flanked on both sides by neat white houses.
Trig little children scurried out of their way, cheering shrilly.
Somewhere there was music. [Transcriber's note: the word "trig", above,
is as it appears in the original book.]
"Hark!" Jot cried.
"Hark yourself! That's a good hand-organ," Old Tilly said; and he
hummed the familiar tune, and both wheels sped on to the time of it, as
it seemed. The music grew louder. "Look up in that dooryard, will you!
Jot Eddy, look at the chap that's grinding it!"
Jot uttered an exclamation of astonishment.