ON GUARD
The radio boys had heard enough. Silently they tiptoed from their
vantage point, putting off the tremendous desire to exclaim about what
they had heard until they had put a good distance between themselves
and the shack.
Then they overflowed with wonder and excitement.
"Say, wait till we spring this news on Mr. Salper!" cried Herb. "The
man will near go off his head."
"Gosh, you couldn't blame him," said Joe, in an awed tone. "I wouldn't
like to have those three fellows after my hard-earned cash myself."
"Then he was right when he thought there was somebody after his
money," said Bob, striding along so swiftly in his excitement that
poor Jimmy had hard work to keep up with him. "We thought he was kind
of crazy, but I guess he knew what he was talking about all the time."
"But I say, you got all the best of it, Bob," said Herb. "Why couldn't
you let the rest of us get a glimpse of some honest-to-goodness
sharpers?"
"They weren't much to look at," said Bob, with a frown. "That man they
called Mohun was one of the ugliest scoundrels I've ever seen."
"Was he any worse than Cassey?" asked Jimmy, curiously.
"If he was he must have been going some," added Herb, with conviction.
"I guess nobody could be much worse than Cassey," said Bob, frowning
at the memory of the stuttering scoundrel's evil acts. "But he's just
as bad. When he jumped at that big fellow with the bushy eyebrows I
thought he was going to bite him. He has teeth that stick away out
over his under lip."
"Must be a beauty," commented Herb.
"I say," said poor Jimmy, fairly running in his effort to keep up with
the other boys, "you're not going toward the hotel, Bob. May I ask
where you are going?"
"Why, Doughnuts, you shouldn't have to ask," broke in Joe, before Bob
could respond. "Don't you know there is only one place where we could
be going after hearing such rotten news as we've just heard?"
"We're going to the Salpers, of course," finished Herb, with a
condescending air that irritated the plump and puffing Jimmy.
"Well, you needn't be so fresh about it," he grumbled, rubbing his
empty stomach ruefully. "It's nearly dark----"
"And it's dinner time," added Joe, with a grin. "How well we know you,
Doughnuts."
"Well," grumbled Jimmy, grinning reluctantly, "I don't see why the
Salpers can't wait till we can get something to eat."
"It won't take us long," said Bob, who had been thinking hard as they
tramped along. "We'll just stop in and tell them what we've heard and
then go on. I don't suppose there is anything that we can do."
"I guess Mr. Salper will do all that's necessary when he finds his
money threatened," said Joe significantly.
"I reckon he's had a hunch that something of this kind has been going
on for a long time--in fact, he as much as told us so," said Bob. "But
I guess these rascals were so clever he couldn't put his finger on
them."
"I wonder what kind of deal they were talking about," mused Herb.
"It was a crooked one, anyway," said Bob, decidedly. "All you had to
do was to look at them to know that."
The little shack in the woods was a long way from the Salper place,
and so, in spite of their hurry, the boys did not reach it until just
on the edge of dark.
The entire family was gathered in the living room of the Salper
cottage, even Mr. Salper himself, and the boys threw their bomb right
into the midst of them.
Mr. Salper had seemed inclined, as he usually did, to draw apart by
himself, but at the very beginning of the boys' story, he evinced an
almost fierce interest.
He questioned them minutely while the girls and Mrs. Salper listened
wonderingly.
"You said the name of one of the men was Mohun?" he asked, throwing
away the cigar he had been smoking and bending earnestly toward Bob.
"What did he look like?"
The disagreeable impression the man had made upon him was still so
vivid that Bob had no trouble at all in giving a graphic description
of the fellow.
Mr. Salper's face grew blacker and blacker as he listened and he
pulled out another cigar, biting off the end of it viciously.
"That's the fellow I've been suspecting all along," he said, finally.
"Slick fellow, that Mohun. Whenever a man gets too eager to do things
for you I've learned to suspect him. Yet, closely as I've watched this
man, I haven't been able to get a thing on him. As far as we could
find out, he was perfectly square. But, by Jove, this puts an entirely
new face on things."
He paused for a moment, puffing hard on his cigar while the others all
watched him anxiously. The ill humor which had been hanging over him
for so long seemed magically to have vanished. Now that his suspicions
had been so unexpectedly justified, bringing with them the need for
action, the broker was a different man, entirely. His brow had cleared
and there was an eager light in his keen eyes.
"You fellows have done me the greatest of possible services," he said,
turning to the radio boys--he had forgotten up to that time to thank
them for what they had done. "If you could know what it means to me to
have this information----"
He broke off, running his hand excitedly through his hair, his eyes
gazing unseeingly out of the window.
"I must act and act quickly," he muttered, after a minute. "There is
surely no time to lose. You said this man Mohun was urging haste?" he
added, turning to Bob.
The latter nodded. "Said he'd quit if they didn't get a move on, or
words to that effect," he told his questioner, and Mr. Salper smiled a
preoccupied smile in response.
"Then Mohun will get what he wants. He has a way of getting what he
wants," he said, again with that air of speaking to himself. "I'm glad
to know it's Mohun--very glad!"
Although Bob had given as good a description as was possible of the
other two men who had been in the shack with Mohun, Mr. Salper did not
recognize them.
"Probably a couple of dark horses," he said, and dismissed the
subject. Evidently, to him, Mohun was the most important of the
rascals and the one it was necessary to deal with at once.
After repeated thanks from Mr. Salper and outspoken gratitude on the
part of Mrs. Salper and the girls, the boys managed to get away.
They hurried on toward the Mountain Rest Hotel, talking excitedly of
what had happened.
"That was sure just dumb luck," remarked Joe as he sniffed of the cold
brisk air and began to realize that he was very hungry. "Our happening
on that little shack just as we did," he added in response to an
enquiring look from Bob.
"You bet," agreed Herb. "That was the time our luck was running
strong. It will do me good if those scoundrels get come up with,
especially the one with the big teeth."
"Oh, stop talking and hurry up," begged Jimmy, who, in his eagerness
to get back to the hotel and dinner, was actually leading the others.
"It seems ten miles to the house when your poor old system is crying
aloud for grub."
They laughed at him but followed his example just the same, for they
had been tramping many hours and their appetites were never of the
uncertain variety.
But just before they reached the welcome lights of the cottage they
realized to their surprise that it was snowing again. So fast were the
flakes coming that by the time they reached the door of the hotel they
were well powdered with them.
"Hooray!" shouted Herb. "We sure are getting our money's worth of snow
this winter."
"You bet," agreed Bob, adding happily: "And this one looks like a
'lallapaloosa.'"