AN INQUIRY
The rain dripped from the porch roof and a curtain of drizzle fell
between the house and the gate where the gray horses stood. The
bewhiskered individual had a rubber blanket over his knees and the
water dripped from the brim of his hat into his lap--just as it dripped
from the roof over Hiram Strong's head.
On the back seat of the old-fashioned carryall sat a second man. But
Hiram could not see him very well at first.
"Hey!" yelled the bewhiskered man, "you ain't all deaf in there, are
you?"
"Not all of us," replied Hiram. "I still have my hearing unimpaired.
But 'hay' is for horses. It doesn't mean much to me. What do you want?"
Suddenly the man in the rear seat of the vehicle thrust forward his
head. He wore spectacles and was evidently no farmer. He demanded:
"Have you any information of, or do you know anything personally
about, Theodore, or Teddy, Chester, or a man calling himself by such
name?"
"Never heard of him," declared Hiram.
"He is supposed to have come this way."
"I might say that lots of people drive this way--especially in summer."
"He would probably have been walking," said the bespectacled man
confidently.
"Not many strangers walk by here, I admit."
"And if he came this way--as seems probable--it was months ago. Early
last spring, to be more exact."
"Why," laughed Hiram, "I would not be likely to remember anybody who
passed here so long ago."
"Suppose he asked for work?" put in the bearded driver of the carryall.
"He'd be likely to. Ted wasn't lazy."
"You may remember the men who asked you for work last season?" repeated
the more professional looking man with emphasis.
Hiram began to think this man was a lawyer. An inquiry of importance
was being made, and he grew interested. He put his head back into the
house door and asked Jim Larry to get his umbrella. In a moment, when
the boy had brought it, Hiram went out to the carriage to discuss the
matter more at his ease.
"You do remember the fellow, hey?" asked the bearded man, his little
blue eyes sparkling. "I bet you do!"
"I won't say 'yes' or 'no' so easily," laughed Hiram. "When was it the
man was supposed to come this way?"
The man on the rear seat of the carryall gave a date. It was well back
in the spring.
"It was after that date--soon after, we believe. We know almost
positively that he came through Pringleton and was heading this way."
"Heading for Sunnyside?" asked Hiram in surprise.
"Is that the name of this place? I don't mean to say that he was coming
to this particular farm. Only that he was walking in this direction."
"Really," said Hiram, who had been trying to think of the incidents of
the previous spring, "I don't know that there were many tramping people
who asked me for work at that time."
"Do you run this farm--a kid like you?" demanded the bewhiskered one in
surprise.
"Yes," Hiram said with his customary smile, "I try to. I would know
if anybody came along asking for work. And at that time I was having
ditching done and hired almost every man I could get."
"I don't know about Ted doing ditching," said the driver of the
carryall. "He was a notch above that."
"At that season of the year I presume a farm worker is not likely to
have his pick of jobs," the other man suggested shrewdly.
"I feel almost sure I would have remembered anybody who came here and
whom I did not hire if he really wanted work at that time," said the
young farm manager thoughtfully. "But there was nobody by that name."
"He might not have given you that name," the legal looking man said
quickly.
"No?"
"Mr. Post knew him by that name," continued the gentleman, indicating
the driver.
Hiram was shocked to sudden and keen attention. But he controlled his
features. He asked, after a moment, as though he had been thinking:
"What did this Theodore Chester look like?"
Here the bearded individual answered. The other man did not seem so
familiar with the lost one's personality as was the driver of the
carriage.
"Tell you, he wasn't much to look at. Kind of slimpsy lookin'. Lean
like. But he could work. Had a sleight with him about most things."
"You are not giving the young man a very clear description
of--er--Ted," interrupted the legal looking man. "What color are his
eyes and his hair?"
"Oh, his eyes are sort o' blue, or blue-gray, and his hair is brownish.
Leastways, I should say it was. And he had kind of crinkly wrinkles
about his eyes when he laughed--"
"How old was the man?" interrupted Hiram quickly.
"He is twenty-three years old this very month," replied the man from
the back seat of the carryall.
"He looks older," said the bewhiskered farmer.
"Of course, you have no photograph of him?" asked Hiram slowly.
"Wish I had!" exclaimed the other man. "I would plaster this whole
country with reproductions of it if I had one."
"Yes? Well," said Hiram, "I do not know any such man. At least, I do
not remember any such asking me for work or passing this farm."
"Well!" sighed the bewhiskered man, and took up his reins.
"If you should ever see such a person let me hear about it, will you?"
asked the other quickly, and thrust his hand into the rain with a card
in it.
"What did he do?" asked Hiram as the gray horses started.
"He ran away from me, young fellow," the bearded man said shortly and
grimly, and the carryall rolled away.
Hiram looked at the card. It read: "Eben Craddock, Attorney at Law,"
with an address in a Cincinnati office building.
"Odd thing," muttered Hiram, slipping the card into his pocket. He went
back to the house, leaving the umbrella on the porch to drip. He went
in and found that Jim Larry seemed to have followed Orrin out through
the rear door.
He sat down and picked up his book again; but he could not fix his mind
on the story he had been reading. That bearded man's name was Post and
the young man of twenty-three had run away from him.
The date the lawyer had mentioned as that on which the fugitive
was supposed to have come through Pringleton was the very day--he
remembered it now--on the evening of which he had found Orrin so ill
and helpless in the calf pen here on Sunnyside Farm!
This was a good deal of a nut to crack--and it was a meaty nut when
Hiram Strong had cracked it. However, both the man named Post and the
lawyer had refused to give any details of why they were hunting the
mysterious individual called "Theodore Chester." If he was a fugitive
and a criminal why had they been so secretive?
"I have the lawyer's card. Somehow I don't trust that fellow with the
whiskers at all," muttered Hiram. "And I've know Orrin more than eight
months, and know nothing but good of him."
So he said nothing regarding the inquiry for Theodore Chester to either
of his companions. As for Orrin, he did not appear again at the house
until dark.
For some reason hard to explain Hiram was willing to take a chance on
Orrin.