Chapter 9 AN ADVENTURE ON THE ROAD

Thad gave utterance to an ejaculation, and then followed it up by saying:

"Well, now, I like that! After all, Hugh, I may not have to bother giving the Chief that tip you mentioned, if Owen here has discovered something big. Tell us about it, Owen, please; since you've got us excited by your news."

"I couldn't get over to practice this afternoon, Hugh, as of course you noticed," the other commenced to say. "But it wasn't any fault of mine, I give you my word. I had to do several things around the house for mother. One of the pipes had frozen and had to be thawed out. Then there were other jobs that kept me busy for an hour. Finally, when I began to hope I might get down a short time before you closed shop, she remembered an errand that would take me out on the road leading to Hobson's Mill-Pond. I had to go to Farmer Brown's for some butter and eggs."

All this was said with such a lugubrious expression that Hugh had to laugh.

"It's plain to be seen you started on that walk feeling anything but pleased, Owen," he went on to remark. "Of course you'd much rather have been skating with the balance of the crowd over at our new rink. Well, what happened?"

"Just this, Hugh. I was well out of town, and walking briskly along, thinking of the game we expect to win on Saturday, when someone suddenly turned a bend ahead. I saw that it was a boy who was smoking a cigarette like everything,-yes, Tip Slavin, if you please. He discovered me at about the same second, and, say, you ought to have seen how he flipped that coffin-nail thing from his lips, and came on as bold as anything."

Thad chuckled.

"Huh! guess you got him dead to rights that time, Owen. Did you accuse him of being a thief?" he asked hurriedly.

"Well, hardly, because, you see, I wasn't begging for a fight; and there's no doubt in the world that's what would have followed. But I made out as if I hadn't noticed anything out of the way, and just nodded careless like to Tip as we passed by."

"I admire your way of grasping the situation," said Hugh impressively, "because already I can guess you had some sort of scheme in your mind to make use of your discovery."

"Just what I did," chortled Owen. "I walked on, and turned the bend he had come around. Then I crept back, and peeked, taking care he didn't glimpse me. When I saw him stop as if deciding on something I was disappointed, because I expected he meant to come back after it; but then he seemed to think it not worth while, and later on passed out of sight in the distance."

"And then you hunted for the cigarette he had thrown away, I suppose?" ventured Thad.

"Oh! I'd noted the exact spot where he was at the time, and also on which side of the road he'd tossed the stub; so I didn't have much trouble about picking it up; after which I continued on my way. Hugh, here it is."

"With that Owen took something from his pocket, carefully wrapped in the folds of his handkerchief. It turned out to be a half-smoked cigarette. Hugh fastened his eyes instantly on some small printing in blue ink, giving the name of the manufacturers down in Virginia.

"It's the same make as those found under the Disney barn-floor," he said impressively; "and that alone would be proof that Tip has a cache somewhere back along the road to the mill-pond, perhaps in a hollow tree in the woods. A clever police officer could easily find it by following back Tip's trail, and learning just where he came out of the woods. I myself happen to know his left shoe has a triangular patch across the toe,-that would serve to identify the tracks anywhere."

"Listen to that, will you, Owen?" gasped the wondering Thad. "If my chum here doesn't take up the line of an investigator of crime for a livelihood believe me there'll be a great loss to the world. I wonder now, Hugh, if you've got tabs on all the fellows, so that you could tell who made any footprint in the mud?"

Hugh only laughed as he went on to say:

"It was just a mere accident that I knew that about Tip's mended sole, and it might never happen again. But when Owen here told us about a hidden cache I only gave you my opinion as to what would be the easiest way to discover its location. But what will you do about it, Owen,-let the Chief know of your discovery, or keep mum?"

"Why, I look at it this way," said the other, with a line of perplexity marked upon his usually smooth forehead; "if it was only a suspicion I might keep quiet, not wanting to injure Tip, though I've got little cause to love the brute. But since I actually know something that would prove a valuable clue to the officers, I'm afraid it would be what I've heard a lawyer call 'compounding a felony' if I refused to inform on Tip. How about that, Hugh? I want to do the right thing, even if I hate to be an informer."

"It's up to you, Owen, and your duty is plain enough," said Hugh.

"Then I ought to see the Chief, you mean?" asked the other.

"I'd advise you to do so, for your future peace of mind, if nothing else," Hugh told the hesitating boy, who thereupon drew a long breath, and remarked:

"I'm more than half sorry now I went back to look for this cigarette; because only for my picking up such positive evidence I needn't get into this nasty game. But I'm in now, and I'll have to shoulder my share of the responsibility, I guess. So, while the thing is still fresh in my mind, I'll trot around to Headquarters to wake up our sleeping Chief. Things have come to a pretty pass here in Scranton when boys have to lend a helping hand to the police force so as to nab a petty thief."

With that Owen left them. When he had a duty to perform, however unpleasant it might be, Owen was accustomed to grappling with it, and not compromising.

Thad looked after the other and remarked:

"How queer things do come about, Hugh. Just to think of Owen discovering Tip sauntering along the road and smoking one of those stolen cigarettes. Pretty cute of him, too, sneaking back and hunting for the evidence. I suppose it'll wind up in Tip being locked up with Leon, and eventually going to the Reform School."

"Few people will be sorry," observed Hugh, although he felt a twinge when his mind reverted to the mothers of the two boys.

"I wonder what Nick thinks of it all," mused Thad. "He must realize that he had a narrow squeak of it; because, only for that sudden change of heart on his part, brought around by what you did about those nickeled skates, he might have been in the cooler right now, along with crafty Leon."

As they had arrived at the point where their paths diverged, the two chums separated. Hugh had returned home somewhat earlier than customary, as he had something to do for his mother, just as Owen had admitted was the cause of his absence from the ice that same afternoon.

Usually boys like to linger on the ice until long after the shades of night have settled down and time for supper is perilously near. With a jolly bonfire blazing on the bank, and the skaters going and coming all the while, the prospect is so alluring that it is indeed difficult for any lad to break away. And the father who has not forgotten his own shortcomings of long ago is apt to wisely overlook some such transgression of parental authority, when the ice beckons, and, in spite of good intentions, all outdoors seems to grip a fellow in fetters of steel.

Some little time later Hugh might have been seen in a neighbor's family sleigh heading out of town. There was plenty of snow for this sort of thing, though the ice had been kept well cleared through the use of brooms handled by many willing hands. The skating had not been injured in the least, for they flooded the pond each night afresh, giving it a glittering new surface by morning.

Hugh had to go a couple of miles out. He, too, was bound for a farm, to fetch back a sack of potatoes that his mother had purchased, and which should have been delivered before then, only that the one horse on the place had taken a notion to fall sick, and that rendered the farmer helpless.

It was already well on toward sunset when Hugh started out. He expected to be overtaken by twilight before getting back home; but that was a small matter, since he knew the road very well, and with the snow on the ground it would not be really dark at any time.

It was certainly bitter cold. Hugh wore warm gloves especially suited for driving, or any purpose when the zero mark was approached by the mercury in the tube of the thermometer. He also kept his ears well muffled up by means of a toque of dark blue worsted, which he wore under his ordinary cap.

As he had on a heavy wool-lined pea-jacket that buttoned close up under his chin the boy found nothing to complain about in that cold atmosphere, for his blood coursed through his veins with all the richness of healthy youth.

"But all the same," he was telling himself, as he passed an humble cottage where, through a dingy window, a lone lamp could be seen; and some children gathered about the kitchen stove, "I'm thinking this bracing weather that we boys have wanted to see so much, is pretty hard on poor folks. The world is unevenly divided, as mother often says; some have too much for their own good; and others far too little for comfort."

He presently arrived at his destination. The neighbor's horse, while not at all fleet, was a steady goer, and Hugh had not allowed him to "loaf on the job" so long as he could touch the whip to the animal's broad back.

The sack of potatoes was soon tucked away in the back part of the big sleigh. He also bundled some extra coverings about it, which he had brought along with him, to prevent any chance of the precious tubers freezing. A basket, with some other things, was also stowed away in the back of the vehicle; after which the boy said good-night to the farmer, and started on his return trip.

Hugh was about half-way home when something occurred to excite him not a little, though at the time he did not even suspect what an intimate relation it might have in connection with certain facts that he and his chum had only recently been discussing at length.

His horse suddenly gave a series of snorts, and at the same time shied to one side as if startled. Hugh gripped the lines tighter, and strained his eyes to see what was wrong, while, perhaps, his heart did start to beating faster than ordinary, although he could not be said to be alarmed in the least, only excited.

A wavering figure started out toward him. Then Hugh discovered, greatly to his surprise, that it was a woman, and that she held by the hand a child of about five, a boy at that.

She tried to speak to him, but seemed overcome with weakness, as though she might have been trudging along until exhausted by want of food and the severe cold. Hugh guessed that possibly the couple must have come out of a side road he had passed a few hundred feet back, for they were certainly not there when he went by on the way to the farmer's place.

He saw her stretch out her hand toward him, caught the feeble words, "Help-my poor little boy!" and then, to Hugh's utter dismay, she sank to the ground in a heap!