CHAPTER XVIII.

THREE MEN IN THE PLOT.

One instant Renfro stood staring--the next he gave a quick jump. For, with a threatening growl the heavy old man had sprung forward, his fist raised menacingly. Past Captain Pete out thru the open door Renfro jumped and ran together.

Behind him he heard the old man swearing, heard a loud growl, a series of barks, imperative orders “Get him, Tam,” and ran behind the first shelter which offered itself--a low old ash hopper, which had stood near the cabin since pioneer days.

He was not afraid of the big airedale dog but he did have an idea that the old man--might shoot if he happened to be able to get hold of any of the arms Captain Pete kept hanging on the wall, all loaded as he had told Renfro, ready for the first rabbit which would cross his track.

The big airedale shot around the ash hopper. Renfro dropped on his knees to be out of sight. But against Renfro he only sniffed, rubbed his head over his rough mackinaw and whined like a happy child over the joy of finding a playmate once more.

From the open door came sounds of quarreling. Renfro listened, heard Captain Pete tell the other man to call his dog back, that the boy was a friend of his and was not to be harmed.

“But ye warned me agin’ him yourself,” the other growled.

“Call yer dog back!” Captain Pete was determined.

“I aint,” the other’s voice was dogged.

“Then I’ll--” there was a break in Captain Pete’s speech, and Renfro raised on his knees so that he could see the inside of the cabin. Captain Pete was reaching for one of his guns. The other man slouched toward the door and called gruffly. “Lang Tammy, come here,--come here!”

But Captain Pete still held his gun. And Renfro, fearing violence on Captain Pete’s part, softly commanded Lang Tammy to go back into the house. With dragging feet and hanging tail the big dog obeyed his command. Once inside the door, the dog gave a yelp of pain. Renfro rose angrily to his feet but the big door was swung shut.

“Well, I’ll not bring any more papers here without observing the rule of preparedness first,” he declared as he crouched close to the fence and worked his way back to the lane again.

He talked to himself all the way. “And one sure thing, Lang Tammy’s my friend. He even deserts his master for me. But no wonder the way he yelped when he went back into the cabin. Poor doggie.”

At the fence he stopped. Yes, there across the deserted orchard in the lower west window of the big house was a dim light, and moving back and forth across the blind a dim shape. Some one was in the deserted house.

Two men in Captain Pete’s shack! That was the Captain and his brother, Renfro had felt sure of that. But there was another in the big house. “There was a woman,” he remembered the old woman who had carried the supplies and worn the scarf.

Well, he would cross to the house, peep in the window and make sure that it was she. It might--

He stopped--it might be Helen Wier shut in that little room, left alone in the big house while her captor visited at the cabin.

But--he shook his head. That wasn’t probable. They would be afraid she might escape. It must be the old woman whom he had passed back on Washington Street. He would make sure.

Cautiously, he worked his way across the orchard, around the house, close to the west window, and with his face as near the window as he dared place it. But hardly had he gotten it there until the light went out and the noise of footsteps told him that the person inside had gone across into the other room.

With a joyous exclamation Renfro found the peep holes, which he had cut out a few nights before with his knife. Carefully, he put his eyes to the two holes, stared thru them, waited a long time, and then his watch was rewarded.

For with great deliberation an old man, the exact counterpart of Captain Pete carried a lamp to the little table, spent much effort in adjusting it, brought to the table some sort of a little melting pot, under which he lighted a fire and then moved away again.

Renfro remembered the stories he had heard about Captain Pete’s brother being a counterfeiter. Here he was, evidently getting ready to ply his counterfeiting trade again. The little melting pot, and array of instruments he was collecting and bringing to the table. The lamp under the melting pot burned dully. The old man tested the something in it, shook his head, indicating that everything was all right and went away again.

When he returned he carried a large tea kettle, which he proceeded to settle on his knees. Then with the soldering he took from the pot on a long soldering iron he began to mend a hole in its side near the spout.

It was a relieved but disappointed laugh Renfro gave. The old man was doing the most ordinary thing in the world--the old man who looked so much like Captain Pete that no one could doubt their relationship.

Slowly Renfro journeyed down the lane toward the road, Washington Avenue and home again. The old lady had not been in evidence again. The old man in the house was a simple old soul whose part in the crime if he had any was of an unsuspecting accessory.

Again, no doubt Captain Pete knew much, though he might have been innocent of any part of it. But the man with the missing eyebrows? Yes, indeed he was the fellow, and Renfro knew that it was up to him to move quickly and with well thought plans if he got him before he escaped.

He rode home on the car. He was so hungry that he felt that his ribs were caving into his stomach. With home in sight his spirits began to soar. Mary was sure to have him a good warm supper and a good cold dessert to top it off--Mary would be ready to listen to all his adventures and to pat him on the back and urge him to greater effort. Mary was--

And then the light outside the garage door went on and Mary was out there with Renfro’s father gesticulating, talking in loud tones, protesting against his opening the door any wider and trying to command and explain at the same time. Renfro grasped the situation in a minute. He rushed to Mary’s aid.

“Don’t open it wide, Dad, or they’ll all come out,” he begged. “My prize turkeys you know. They are all in the garage but the one I had to give the colored boy for chasing the old woman who would have stolen it anyway--”

“But I have to have my car,” Mr. Horn was impatient. “And besides the garage is no place for these infernal birds anyway. Your mother had no better judgement than to tell all those women I would take them home in the car and I want it in a hurry before the lodge meeting is over.”

He motioned Mary to one side and Renfro to the other. “Can’t you two keep them in the corner while I drive out,” he began.

His hand reached the switch. A button was pressed and the garage was flooded with light. And there on the top of the big Marmon sat a sleepy red and bronze and black mixture of feathers and skin--the largest of Renfro’s prize turkeys. Another was on the hood, the third on the gasoline tank, the fourth on a wheel. The fifth was not in evidence.

Not until he stepped in front of the car did Mr. Horn discover the whereabout of the fifth turkey. Silently and with a gesture which not only accused but did so vehemently, he pointed through the windshield. There on the steering wheel, as if guarding the wheel of state, sat the fifth of the big birds.

“Who ever heard of putting turkeys in the garage?” he began, “You don’t seem to have any sense as to the proper way of doing things. Your mother--”

“Mister Horn,” Mary was the sly strategist again, “Mrs. Horn’s a waitin’ in there for this machine to be takin’ her company home. She’s got the head ache and you know--”

With rapidity then, the work of getting the turkeys into the corner huddled together and Mary’s guarding them, was finished. Mr. Horn backed the machine out. Mary and Renfro followed him and the door was closed.

Outside Mr. Horn’s good humor returned. Mrs. Willis, the wittiest woman in the community, he often said, and the wife of his best friend was on the porch. Before either Mary or Renfro realized what he was doing Mr. Horn had her to the garage, had showed her the turkeys in the corner, told her of the sight which had greeted him when he had opened the door and was laughing about the surprise he had received at the church the day before.

Then it was impossible to keep Mrs. Willis out of the living room where she retold the story to the other members of the Hyacinth Club and led in the laughter which followed. She declared that she was bowed down with admiration for Renfro and wanted him brought before her. So out of the kitchen he was half dragged, the napkin Mary had fastened around his neck still there and the best of his supper back on the table melting.

But when they were thru feteing him and praising him he went back to it, not the least minding the terrible condition in which it then was. For he really believed that his mother, excited by the admiration of the other women, had become proud of him.

“Mary Dugan,” he interrupted Mary who was out of sorts over the large pile of unwashed dishes before her. “Now if you were a fellow whose praise would you rather have--the fellows or your mother’s?”

And Mary being out of patience with all mothers who belonged to Hyacinth Club and made extra work for the “hired help” replied with alacrity, “Why the fellows, of course.”