Chapter V.

THE STRANGER COMES AGAIN.

It became still colder during that night. Renfro Horn awoke near midnight to feel a gale blowing around his ears. He got up, shut his east window and crawled back into bed. “I’ll bet that tin roof is dancing a regular ghost dance on the big house,” he muttered.

He turned over, pulled the blankets closer over his ears. The next minute it was morning, and Mary was calling him. “The pipe’s froze something fierce,” she began, “And you’ll have to eat in the kitchen close to the range.”

“Suits me all right,” Renfro laughed and jumped out of bed.

At the breakfast table his mother began to worry about his route. She predicted that he would freeze his feet, and perhaps his hands, contract pneumonia and lumbago and then her list gave out. His father looked a trifle uneasy while she talked but said nothing.

However, as he and Renfro walked down the street together, respectively toward school and office, he gave his son some warnings. “Better mind them all too, young man,” he seemed very impatient this morning, “if you should happen to get sick, bang goes your paper route and no argument.”

A shrill yell drew their attention across the street. Two morning paper carriers, who went to the Grant School, the same one Renfro attended, were coming in from finishing their delivery. Their paper bags were drawn around their shoulders, and their caps pulled low over their ears.

“Jim froze his right ear almost,” sang the taller boy, “and I gave him first aid. One more merit badge.”

“You bet,” Jim agreed, “If you need any help tonight call on Bob, Hooch.”

“Hooch?” Mr. Horn was amazed.

“Oh, that’s my nickname,” Renfro affected carelessness. This was no time he reflected to tell how it had been created, nor how popular it had become in less than forty-eight hours. So he tried to change the subject. “Jim Noel’s a first class Boy Scout and he’s trying to win enough merit badges to get the eagle rank at the Court of Honor session.”

Mr. Horn nodded, “That’s all right for the other fellows,” he said, “but if you freeze your ears you go to a doctor.”

At that instant Renfro wished he could tell his father--a few things--how he had had not only his ears but his nose nipped during one of his hikes on which he was trying to make some discoveries concerning quail tracks. He himself had bound the snow onto them. And Mary had helped him with the other applications the first aid book advised.

But he kept still.

The weather grew milder during the day. At noon the ice along the curbing near the Grant School was melting a little, but when four o’clock came it had frozen again. Renfro and Jim Noel, hurrying along together discussed a hike and rabbit hunt for Saturday if it stayed cold. But just as they had their arrangements about finished, Renfro remembered the turkey contest.

“Say, Jim,” he broke in suddenly, “I bet a turkey that if I can get off my route work to go I’ll track down more rabbits than you do.”

Jim stared at him. “Great guns!” he ejaculated, “A turkey? How come?”

He stared again when he read the card Renfro showed him. “You’ll never get sixty subscribers on Old Grief, Hooch,” he declared. “Not unless you pay for their subscriptions yourself. Abie Lubin had it for a while and he didn’t make anything, so that’s sure proof it’s no good.”

But Renfro only whistled. He and Jim separated at the next corner. Beyond the edge of the big business districts and thru the residential part of town to his route Renfro hurried. His papers were at the station. He swung the bag on his back, wagered to himself that it would be heavier next week, and started on his route.

He stopped at the most promising houses and asked for new subscriptions. One woman threatened to have him arrested. Another told him that the last boy had been crooked and failed to mark two of her payments, so that the company had sent a collector there; and she added that if he wanted to be a friend of hers he wouldn’t work for a paper which stood for such crookedness.

But Renfro persisted, and before he left her door had her subscription and a week’s payment in advance. He also secured four other subscriptions before he turned into his last square.

“Pretty good, old boy, considering the time you spent in getting warm, and that you’re a new recruit,” he said and then laughed. He had been talking out loud and the woman who was hurrying past him turned round to stare back.

The wind whipped the tops of the trees and made them crackle and roar. The air was so cold that flurries of frost seemed to come out of nowhere but swirl around everywhere. And it was dark except where the street lights or those in the houses threw long hard gleams out into the street.

Suddenly, Renfro stopped. Lurking in the blackness ahead of him was a low set figure, followed by a big dog--the airedale he had seen the night before and the night before that. Renfro dropped onto his knees so that he could be concealed behind the water plug and its shadow, and he watched.

A sudden light from an opened door fell on the big dog, and showed it to be with the short, heavy set man. As soon as the door was closed Renfro was sure he heard a low growl, saw a threatening movement and directly afterward the dog rushed past him, running as if frightened to an unusual degree.

The light was gone again. Renfro put his hands over his eyes a minute to accustom them to the darkness again, and then rubbed them vigorously together. The third and fourth fingers on his left hand felt dull. He slipped off his glove and rubbed them with snow.

A half nervous laugh shook him. Suddenly he had remembered, no doubt on account of the cold water plug against his body, of the time he had put his tongue against a frozen pipe.

The shadow across the street lengthened. The heavy man was slouching down the street again, up to Judge Wier’s shrubbery and then to the window thru which he had gazed the night before. Renfro was sure that it was because there was no light in that part of the house.

But the rest of the house was lighted and if the door were open the stranger could see into the other room. And he lingered long enough and close enough to the window to be studying the features of the whole family if they were there.

Renfro, stiff from his posture and the cold, could not move. The big dog had been afraid of the man. He would no doubt half kill Renfro if he discovered that the boy was following him. Besides, Renfro reflected, if you want to unravel a mystery you have to follow a clue to it and not burst into open opposition.

The lights in Judge Wier’s house changed at that minute. The part which had been lighted was darkened and the front rooms became bright instead. And then the lurking stranger again retired to the shrubbery.

As he had done the night before when he neared the Judge’s house Renfro dropped onto his hands and knees and crawled to the shrubbery but no one was there. Still some one had been there and that some one had had something in mind which would do harm to either the Wier home or family he was sure.

Judge Wier has scores of enemies. He was noted as giving the stiffest sentences of any judge in the city. Auto speeders met with as little mercy at his hands as did the most dangerous criminals.

“I--really--ought--to--warn--him,” Renfro chattered, “but--still--he’ll--laugh.” But he did call a number. A tired central informed him that she could get no one on that line. It seemed to be out of order.

Then Renfro went back to the kitchen and Mary with a determination in his mind. He would find some sort of an excuse to give his parents for being very late the next evening. Then he would follow the short, heavy set stranger. He would see if he took the same direction his dog did every night--down toward the big house where the tin roof rattled and made such warning noises.

An excuse. He frowned, when Mary started to speak but she talked anyway. “Where’s them six turkeys you wanted me to cook, Renny?” she began, “If it’s the cleanin’ of them I have to do then I better begin now and--”

“And,” Renfro interrupted her laughingly, “Mary, you’re a peach with the fuzz still on most of the time. But I know the quality of your mind below.”

He could hardly keep from dancing. Mary had suggested the excuse he wanted. The turkeys. Why he had to have them and what better excuse could he offer his parents than that he was working for new subscribers. His mother might object but his father would want him to win any contest he entered.

But before he told them he wanted to talk to Mary a little longer. “Mary” he began, “got any more rabbits?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t bring them regular.”

“Then,” Renfro, suggested, “how would you like for me to stop out there--Captain Pete’s place is just a little distance from the end of my route--well, let’s say about every other day and buy a couple of rabbits from the old fellow? Put in sort of a standing order?”

“Sure Renny, you’re that thoughtful,” Mary beamed, “And speaking of turkeys, Renny, I read another turkey story today. It has the most beautiful plot. And romance too. The man was a detective and--”

“And, Mary, we’re going to have one too,” Renfro added, “but please, Mary, do be a dear, and don’t call me Renny any more. I’ve got a business name and I want my real friends to use it. After this to you, Mary, I’m Hooch--Hooch Horn,” he imitated the route manager’s tone exactly, “Hooch Horn, if you please, Mary dear.”