CHAPTER VII
THE HAND IN THE DARK
The three other boys were not a little alarmed by the constable’s wordand manner; but Dan did not show any fear.
“Just pack the earth and stones well around the post, Billy,” he said tohis brother, cheerfully, “while I go back to town with Mr. Somes, andget this matter straightened out.”
Dan knew a little something himself about the town ordinances; he wasaware that a permit was necessary for the opening of an excavation in apublic road. But it was a rule often ignored in such small matters asthis. Chance Avery had set the officious constable at this work, andSomes was just mean enough to delight in making the Speedwells trouble.
And on the way to the house of ’Squire English they would pass theoffice of the council clerk. Dan knew this gentlemen very well, and asSomes pulled up his horse to speak to a friend, the boy hopped out uponthe sidewalk.
“Hey! where you going?” demanded the constable.
“I’ll be right back,” said Dan, dodging into the building and leavingthe constable fussing in the carriage.
The boy found Mr. Parker at his desk and explained quickly what he andBilly were doing down there beside the river road.
“Digging a hole to set a post? Well, go ahead! I reckon nobody willobject,” said the clerk. “You’ll fill it in all right, Dan?”
“But somebody _has_ objected,” explained the boy. And he told Mr. Parkerof the difficulty.
“Pshaw! Josiah ought to be in better business,” declared the clerk, andhe hastily filled out a permit, headed “Highway Department” and gave itto the youth. “Show that to Justice English,” he advised.
He nodded and smiled and Dan knew that the gentleman appreciated thejoke on the constable. The latter was sputtering loudly when Danreturned to the sidewalk. He had got out of the carriage and hitched hishorse.
“Here! you come along with me, Dan Speedwell!” cried the constable.“You’re trying to run away.”
Dan saw Chance Avery grinning widely on the other side of the square. Itwas plain that the captain of the Riverdale Club congratulated himselfthat he had got the Speedwells into trouble.
They went into ’Squire English’s office. The old gentleman was acrotchety man, stern and brusk of speech, and a terror to the evil-doerswho came before him. He did not like boys, having forgotten that he wasever one himself.
“What now? What now, Josiah?” he snapped, looking up from his papers,and glaring under bristling brows at Dan Speedwell.
“This here boy—and some others that I didn’t bring in—are digging holesin the turf along the river road, just beyond Mr. Abram Sudds’ place.You know that piece of turf there, ’Squire, that the town spent so muchto grade and make handsome. Well this here Dan Speedwell was digging ahole in it.”
“You’re old enough to know better than to do that, young man,” said the’Squire, to Dan. “What did you do it for?”
Dan silently tendered the paper Mr. Parker had given him. The justiceput on his glasses, looked at it, and turned on the constablewrathfully.
“What do you mean by bringing him here, when he’s got a permit to sethis post? Think I’ve got nothing more to do, Josiah, than to monkey withfoolish cases?”
“Why—why—he never told me he had a permit!” cried the chagrinedconstable.
“You never gave me a chance to tell you,” declared Dan.
“Get out of here—the whole of you!” snarled Justice English, as thecrowd that had followed Dan and Somes in began to giggle and whisper,just as delighted over the constable’s taking down as they would havebeen had Dan been punished.
The boys, on Dan’s return from the ’Squire’s office, rigged a clumsy,but efficient, swing-arm for the derrick before they were obliged to gohome. But it grew too dark for anything more to be done that night. Sothey piled into the wagon and started for the other side of town.
As they halted at a certain corner to let Jim and Wiley get out of thewagon, a party of girls came along and hailed them.
“Oh, boys!” cried Lettie Parker, who was a jolly girl with more than asuspicion of red in her hair, and the quick temper which is supposed togo with it. “Oh, boys! you are just whom we wished to see. I don’tbelieve any of you have heard about the candy-pulling out at StellaMayberry’s.”
“Stel Mayberry’s?” cried Jim. “I knew she was going to have one; but Ididn’t hear when.”
“It’s to-night. She wasn’t at school to-day, so the word didn’t getaround. I got a note from her, and so did Mildred,” Lettie said. “Andwe’ve been around inviting folks.”
“Never heard a thing about it,” declared Billy.
“But she means for you boys to come,” Mildred Kent, the doctor’sdaughter, said, more quietly. She spoke to Dan. “I hope you can come.We’ll go over on our wheels as soon after supper as we can.”
“We’ll be late getting there, Mildred,” said Dan Speedwell.
“But we can all come back together. You know where she lives?”
“Oh, yes. Down the river road.”
“We’ll hurry along,” said Billy, “so as to get over to Mayberry’s asearly as possible.”
The Speedwells drove away. They went around to several other farmers topick up the evening’s milk before going home. Then, when their choreswere all done and they had supper, Dan and Billy mounted theirmotorcycles and dashed away through the town and out the river roadtoward the farmhouse which was the scene of the evening party.
While within the immediate confines of Riverdale they had to runmoderately; but it was already after half-past eight, they wanted toreach Mayberry’s before the fun was all over, and therefore “let out”the motors when they got upon the river road.
The white highway before them was deserted clear down to the bend atwhich Dan Speedwell had first seen the maroon car of the bank robbers onSaturday afternoon. That trio of criminals had gotten away: all pursuithad been futile.
But as the two boys shot around the bend they sighted an automobilechugging slowly toward them. It was not far beyond where the shadowyoutline of their rudely constructed derrick was visible.
An automobile on this road was no uncommon sight; but the attention ofDan and Billy was called particularly to it because it showed no lights!
The boys flashed past the slowly moving machine at racing pace; yetBilly gained some particular knowledge of the car and its singleoccupant.
“Hey, Dannie!” he shouted. “Did you see him?”
“The fellow at the wheel?”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t help seeing him; but I’m not sure who it was. The car Iknow,” responded Dan.
“Poole’s?” asked Billy, eagerly.
“That’s what it was—Burton Poole’s car,” said the older brother.
“Then I’m sure I made no mistake. My eyes didn’t fool me. That’s ChanceAvery in the car alone, running without a light. It would be a good joketo report _him_ for breaking a town ordinance and have him up beforeJudge English,” cried Billy.
The candy-pull broke up at an early hour, for all hands had to facelessons on the morrow. The girls had come out on motorcycles, too, andthey were a gay party that started for Riverdale after bidding theMayberrys, and those guests who lived near the farm, good-night.
Dan and Mildred Kent got off a little in advance of the rest of theriders, and led the company by several hundred yards. They were verygood friends, Dan having dragged Mildred to school on his sled when theywere both in the primary grade, and the fact that Doctor Kent waswealthy and the Speedwells were comparatively poor never made the leastdifference in their friendship.
“I heard the boys saying something about you and Billy buying an auto,Dan,” said Mildred Kent. “Is it a joke?”
“We can’t tell about that yet, Milly,” responded Dan, chuckling. “Justat present it _looks_ like a joke, for, as Billy says, the machine is upin the air.”
“Do tell me what you ha
ve done,” urged Mildred.
“Wait until we get along the river road a bit and I’ll show you thecar.”
“You don’t mean it’s Maxey Solomons’?”
“It _was_ his,” admitted Dan, cheerfully. “And if we can get it out ofthe tree where it lodged last Saturday, we’ll show some of the folksaround here that it is a real flying machine, although we hope to keepit out of the air for the future.”
They were wheeling along the road at a fast clip, but easily. Just asDan spoke there sounded ahead an echoing crash—the fall of some objectwhich made quite a startling noise on this quiet evening.
“What can that be?” demanded Mildred.
“I declare I don’t know,” said Dan, and quite involuntarily increasedhis speed.
There followed the sudden noise of a rapidly driven automobile—a carthat was just starting ahead of them. In half a minute Dan knew that thecar was hurrying toward Riverdale. Before he and Mildred had traveledthree hundred yards the motor car was almost out of their hearing.
“What do you suppose has happened?” cried the girl.
Dan did not reply. It was a moonless night, but the heavens werebrilliant with stars and their light made pretty plain objects along theroad.
Their swift motorcycles had brought Dan and Mildred almost to the spotwhere the Speedwells had set their derrick in the afternoon. Thecontrivance had disappeared!
“Stop!” shouted Dan, and shut off his power and leaped from his saddle.He ran to the side of the road. There was the stump of the post he andBilly had set. It had not broken off, but had been chopped down with anaxe!
And the whole apparatus had been allowed to fall over the precipice. Inthe darkness below the wall Dan could not see whether or not the fallingderrick had crashed upon the automobile in the tree-top.