CHAPTER XIII.

A TRIP TO THE CABIN.

It was exactly a quarter of seven o’clock that night and Renfro with his paper bag almost empty had just turned the corner into South Washington Street when he ran plump--into Mary Dugan. She was puffing as one who had been undergoing great exertion.

“Hello, Hooch!” she managed a casual greeting and then burst straight into a monologue on the difficulties of her journey. She had hired her sister to come over to the Horn house to serve the dinner, and the sister had been late. Mary had boarded the wrong car and had had to transfer on her way out and--

“But Mary,” Renfro exclaimed, “You’re too early! Something broke down with the press, we got our papers late. I haven’t got a single new subscriber and I have two more blocks to deliver.”

“On both sides of the street?” Mary’s question was direct.

“Sure!” Renfro was impatient.

“Then gimme me half of them,” Mary held out her hands on which were gray cotton gloves and which looked like veritable apparitions in the darkness. “Now don’t say I won’t know where to leave ’em. I know I won’t. But we kin work skilful--can’t we? I’ll start right across the street from you and you whistle at every house where I’m to stop.”

“Some girl, Mary Dugan,” Renfro began to count out papers into her hands, “Now where did you learn--”

“Hooch Horn,” Mary interrupted him almost dropping her papers in her eagerness to explain. “You aint learned yet half the clues I learned in that detective course.”

The papers tumbled again, and would have fallen had not Hooch caught them. “It’s them gloves,” Mary was quick to realize the impediments the bulky cotton gloves were in the paper carrying art. Her right one came off with a dash and was thrust into her coat pocket.

“Now gimme the part of the street you know best,” she commanded. “Your whistler will be saved some that way.”

A wave of Renfro’s hand and Mary darted across the street. Without any sign, or any communication except the keen whistles from Renfro, they finished the two blocks in record breaking time. And then they met at the end of the block.

“But I haven’t got any new subscribers, Mary,” Renfro hesitated, “I made my daily quota out several days ago and I can’t break it, you know.”

“And I made my rule agin’ bein’ late at choir practice several years ago,” Mary’s alto voice was very dry, “but I’m thinkin’ this here business is worth breakin’ anything. This here affair of our goin’ down there tonight means either you miss your subscribers or I miss my choir practice and--”

“Mary,” Hooch’s hand went on her arm. “Since you are so good a sport, I can make up my subscribers Saturday and Monday.”

“You ought to be gettin’ them other subscribers from our own part of town, Hooch,” Mary offered advice, “They’d be easier landed and--”

“But it doesn’t seem fair to get into some other fellow’s territory,” Hooch began. “Now--”

Mary interrupted him in a determined voice. “Foolishness! Them circulars you had at home said for you to go anywhere. If you had a good route them other boys would be a comin’ to it mighty fast. And if you have any business sense like the Horns all have, you’ll follow my plan.”

“All right,” Renfro was very meek. Experience had taught him that it was folly to argue with Mary. “We go down this road, Mary, down the middle. It’s as slick as glass and I expect we’d better hold on to each other. We don’t want any broken arms.”

Mary clutched Renfro’s arm with her mittened hand. Together they slipped, they slid, then fumbled, and nearly fell on their way toward the lane which marked the turning off place for the big house, and the little shack.

The sky was clear, there were few trees along the road, and there was a half moon. So Mary and Hooch had no trouble finding the best place to scale the log fence. Mary refused all offers of help. She had climbed rail fences when she was a girl and knew the exact art with which such a crossing was effected. Moreover she added with emphasis that she “was not an old lady yet by any manner of means.”

Still she had not counted on the rails being coated with ice. And no sooner was she at the top of the fence than she was at the bottom on the other side. Fortunately it was on the opposite side of the fence she had landed and when Renfro scrambled over and stood beside her she was on her feet again.

She held herself with dignity and Renfro realizing that there are some things which it would cause a calamity to discuss was silent. She was the first one to speak. “You go to the shack and I’ll go to the big house,” she was the general again though great had been her fall. “It would be suspicious looking to Captain Pete for me, a single maiden lady to come knockin’ at his door this time of night.”

“Yes,” Renfro’s voice was meek. Mary never suspected that he was literally holding his sides to keep from bursting into gales of laughter.

“And,” Mary was all dignity again. “I don’t want any man to be buildin’ up false hopes on me. It is not Mary Dugan who has yet brought ruin to a man from raisin’ their expectations and she don’t begin now with an old time soldier.”

“No, Mary,” Renfro managed another sober response.

Just then there was a crackling and half roaring sound over in the shrubbery of the orchard. Just as Mary and Renfro stopped and clutched at each other a dark form came out with a rush and threw itself against Renfro’s legs.

Mary stumbled, almost fell and then ejaculated a word which she had not used since she had become a choir singer, but Renfro patted the big dog and soothed him. “Lang Tammy, Lang Tammy,” he crooned, and then he felt a broken strap on the dog’s neck, “they’ve had you tied up tonight and you wanted to see me--didn’t you?”

“Whose dog is he?” Mary demanded with asperity, thinking that Renfro had kept something from her.

But Renfro reminded her of the dog which had been with the old man whom he suspected of being Captain Pete’s brother, and who he was sure knew a great deal about the affair. “Yes, I remember,” Mary was the general once again. “You’d better get rid of him if you can. Havin’ him with us would be suspicious.”

Lang Tammy was tugging at Renfro’s bag. For a few seconds Renfro played with him, and while he did Mary fumbled in her pocket. She dropped something on the ice. “Some of my peppermints,” she explained. “My Brother Sam--he allus says if you wants to be friends with a dog just give him some candy.”

And then Renfro uttered a short, sharp command and Lang Tammy was back in the orchard again. Renfro was aware that the big dog would not show up again that night. The afternoon’s tying had offended him. And he would stay away from the big house to get even with his master.

He watched the dark form in the orchard while they went up the lane, and he took the opposite direction from the one in which the big house lay. A few more rods of slipping and sliding and he and Mary arrived at their place of parting. He gave her some instructions about making her way around the big house.

“The main thing, Mary dear,” Renfro was solicitous again, “the main thing is not to fall, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” there was a touch of humor in Mary’s voice, “Me father used to say that I had the most trouble in keepin’ my head but tonight it’s a case of whin me worst trouble is keepin’ me feet I’m thinkin’.”

And then they separated.

Renfro found Captain Pete’s door. The old man unbarred it, held high his little old lamp with the blackened chimney, identified his visitor and gruffly commanded him to come in. The rabbits were ready, but for the life of him he couldn’t see any use of Renfro’s coming so late. When he was young parents didn’t allow their sons to be out so late, and--

“But I had to carry my paper route,” Renfro spoke pleasantly, and the captain thawed to an extent.

When he went to wrap the rabbits in an old newspaper he muttered something about being short on paper and Renfro brought his two extra papers out of his bag. “Seeing you won’t be a regular customer without being shown the advantage of a newspaper, Captain Pete,” Renfro smiled a winning smile, “I’m going to sample you for a while as the boys say. Every night I have an extra paper I’ll bring it down to you and soon I’ll warrant you’ll be a regular customer. I always carry an extra so that if I get a new customer, I can leave the paper right then.”

Pete shook his head. He muttered something about it being too far for a boy to come alone. All of which only made Renfro more determined to visit him. As he had declared the night before the actions of Captain Pete were evident that though innocent himself perhaps, he was not ignorant altogether about the kidnaping of Helen Wier.

Outside of the shack Renfro circled around to avoid suspicion, should Captain Pete happen to open the door again, and worked his way back to the meeting place he and Mary had appointed. He waited, he counted the minutes, he fumed, he fretted and still no Mary arrived. He pulled out his watch with its radio face and saw that it was a quarter after eight o’clock.

“Mary won’t get to sing alto tonight,” he murmured to himself. “We’ll get back to town just about the time it’s over.”

And then Mary came. She clutched at his arm. “I can’t be stoppin’ to talk,” she was hurrying him toward the fence. “I’ve promised the leader I’d get there in time to practice the Sunday anthem and I will keep me promise too. You can go with me on the car, Hooch.”

“And say,” they were at the fence again, “I’ve got a few clues of my own. And,” Mary put her foot on the first rail, “You help me all you can. That falling down sort of affected my constitution, Hooch.”