cleaned stove lidswith a piece of bacon rind and laid out as many strips of bacon as thelid would accommodate. Instantly the room was filled with the deliciousodor of frying bacon.
"M-m-m-m!" gloated The Oskaloosa Kid. "I wish I had bo--asked for more.My! but I never smelled anything so good as that in all my life. Are yougoing to boil only three eggs? I could eat a dozen."
"The can'll only hold three at a time," explained Bridge. "We'll havesome more boiling while we are eating these." He borrowed his knife fromthe girl, who was slicing and buttering bread with it, and turned thebacon swiftly and deftly with the point, then he glanced at his watch."The three minutes are up," he announced and, with a couple of small,flat sticks saved for the purpose from the kindling wood, withdrew theeggs one at a time from the can.
"But we have no cups!" exclaimed The Oskaloosa Kid, in sudden despair.
Bridge laughed. "Knock an end off your egg and the shell will answer inplace of a cup. Got a knife?"
The Kid didn't. Bridge eyed him quizzically. "You must have done most ofyour burgling near home," he commented.
"I'm not a burglar!" cried the youth indignantly. Somehow it was verydifferent when this nice voiced man called him a burglar from braggingof the fact himself to such as The Sky Pilot's villainous company, orthe awestruck, open-mouthed Willie Case whose very expression invitedheroics.
Bridge made no reply, but his eyes wandered to the right hand sidepocket of the boy's coat. Instantly the latter glanced guiltilydownward to flush redly at the sight of several inches of pearl necklaceprotruding accusingly therefrom. The girl, a silent witness of theoccurrence, was brought suddenly and painfully to a realization of herpresent position and recollection of the happenings of the precedingnight. For the time she had forgotten that she was alone in the companyof a tramp and a burglar--how much worse either might be she could onlyguess.
The breakfast, commenced so auspiciously, continued in gloomy silence.At least the girl and The Oskaloosa Kid were silent and gloomsteeped. Bridge was thoughtful but far from morose. His spirits wereunquenchable.
"I am afraid," he said, "that I shall have to replace James. Hisdefection is unforgivable, and he has misplaced the finger-bowls."
The youth and the girl forced wan smiles; but neither spoke. Bridge drewa pouch of tobacco and some papers from an inside pocket.
"'I had the makings and I smoked
"'And wondered over different things,
"'Thinkin' as how this old world joked
"'In callin' only some men kings
"'While I sat there a-blowin' rings.'"
He paused to kindle a sliver of wood at the stove. "In these parloustimes," he spoke as though to himself, "one must economize. They aretaking a quarter of an ounce out of each five cents worth of chewing, Iam told; so doubtless each box must be five or six matches short of fullcount. Even these papers seem thinner than of yore and they will onlysell one book to a customer at that. Indeed Sherman was right."
The youth and the girl remained occupied with their own thoughts, andafter a moment's silence the vagabond resumed:
"'Me? I was king of anywhere,
"'Peggin' away at nothing, hard.
"'Havin' no pet, particular care;
"'Havin' no trouble, or no pard;
"'"Just me," filled up my callin' card.' "Say, do you know I've learnedto love this Knibbs person. I used to think of him as a poor atticprune grinding away in his New York sky parlor, writing his verse of thethings he longed for but had never known; until, one day, I met a fellowbetween Victorville and Cajon pass who knew His Knibbs, and come to findout this Knibbs is a regular fellow. His attic covers all God's countrythat is out of doors and he knows the road from La Bajada hill toBarstow a darned sight better than he knows Broadway."
There was no answering sympathy awakened in either of hislisteners--they remained mute. Bridge rose and stretched. He pickedup his knife, wiped off the blade, closed it and slipped it into atrousers' pocket. Then he walked toward the door. At the threshold hepaused and turned. "'Good-bye girls! I'm through,'" he quoted and passedout into the sunlight.
Instantly the two within were on their feet and following him.
"Where are you going?" cried The Oskaloosa Kid. "You're not going toleave us, are you?"
"Oh, please don't!" pleaded the girl.
"I don't know," said Bridge, solemnly, "whether I'm safe in remaining inyour society or not. This Oskaloosa Kid is a bad proposition; and as foryou, young lady, I rather imagine that the town constable is looking foryou right now."
The girl winced. "Please don't," she begged. "I haven't done anythingwicked, honestly! But I want to get away so that they can't question me.I was in the car when they killed him; but I had nothing to do with it.It is just because of my father that I don't want them to find me. Itwould break his heart."
As the three stood back of the Squibbs' summer kitchen Fate, in theguise of a rural free delivery carrier and a Ford, passed by the frontgate. A mile beyond he stopped at the Case mail box where Jeb andhis son Willie were, as usual, waiting his coming, for the rural freedelivery man often carries more news than is contained in his mailsacks.
"Mornin' Jeb," he called, as he swerved his light car from the road anddrew up in front of the Case gate.
"Mornin', Jim!" returned Mr. Case. "Nice rain we had last night. What'sthe news?"
"Plenty! Plenty!" exclaimed the carrier. "Lived here nigh onto fortyyear, man an' boy, an' never seen such work before in all my life."
"How's that?" questioned the farmer, scenting something interesting.
"Ol' man Baggs's murdered last night," announced the carrier, watchingeagerly for the effect of his announcement.
"Gosh!" gasped Willie Case. "Was he shot?" It was almost a scream.
"I dunno," replied Jim. "He's up to the horspital now, an' the doc sayshe haint one chance in a thousand."
"Gosh!" exclaimed Mr. Case.
"But thet ain't all," continued Jim. "Reggie Paynter was murdered lastnight, too; right on the pike south of town. They threw his corpse outena ottymobile."
"By gol!" cried Jeb Case; "I hearn them devils go by last night 'boutmidnight er after. 'T woke me up. They must o' ben goin' sixty mile anhour. Er say," he stopped to scratch his head. "Mebby it was tramps.They must a ben a score on 'em round here yesterday and las' night an'agin this mornin'. I never seed so dum many bums in my life."
"An' thet ain't all," went on the carrier, ignoring the other's comments."Oakdale's all tore up. Abbie Prim's disappeared and Jonas Prim's housewas robbed jest about the same time Ol' man Baggs 'uz murdered, er mostmurdered--chances is he's dead by this time anyhow. Doc said he hadn'tno chance."
"Gosh!" It was a pater-filius duet.
"But thet ain't all," gloated Jim. "Two of the persons in the car withReggie Paynter were recognized, an' who do you think one of 'em was, eh?Why one of 'em was Abbie Prim an' tother was a slick crook from Toledoer Noo York that's called The Oskaloosie Kid. By gum, I'll bet they get'em in no time. Why already Jonas Prim's got a regular dee-dectiff downfrom Chicago, an' the board o' select-men's offered a re-ward o' fiftydollars fer the arrest an' conviction of the perpetrators of thesedastardly crimes!"
"Gosh!" cried Willie Case. "I know--"; but then he paused. If he toldall he knew he saw plainly that either the carrier or his father wouldprofit by it and collect the reward. Fifty dollars!! Willie gasped.
"Well," said Jim, "I gotta be on my way. Here's the Tribune--there ain'tnothin' more fer ye. So long! Giddap!" and he was gone.
"I don' see why he don't carry a whip," mused Jeb Case. "A-gidappin' tothat there tin lizzie," he muttered disgustedly, "jes' like it was asgood as a hoss. But I mind the time, the fust day he got the dingedthing, he gets out an' tries to lead it by Lem Smith's threshin'machine."
Jeb Case preferred an audience worthy his mettle; but Willie was betterthan no one, yet when he turned to note the effect of his remarks on hisson, Will
ie was no where to be seen. If Jeb had but known it his younghopeless was already in the loft of the hay barn deep in a small,red-covered book entitled: "HOW TO BE A DETECTIVE."
Bridge, who had had no