the roots of his hair beingconsumed in the heat of his skin. A quick side glance that required allhis will power to consummate showed him that no one appeared to havenoticed his faux pas and Willie was again slowly returning to normalwhen the proprietor of the restaurant came up from behind and asked himto remove his hat.
Never had Willie Case spent so frightful a half hour as that within thebrilliant interior of The Elite Restaurant. Twenty-three minutes of thiseternity was consumed in waiting for his order to be served and sevenminutes in disposing of the meal and paying his check. Willie's methodof eating was in itself a sermon on efficiency--there was no lostmotion--no waste of time. He placed his mouth within two inches of hisplate after cutting his ham and eggs into pieces of a size that wouldpermit each mouthful to enter without wedging; then he mixed his mashedpotatoes in with the result and working his knife and fork alternatelywith bewildering rapidity shot a continuous stream of food into hisgaping maw.
In addition to the meat and potatoes there was one vegetable in aside-dish and as dessert four prunes. The meat course gone Willie placedthe vegetable dish on the empty plate, seized a spoon in lieu of knifeand fork and--presto! the side-dish was empty. Whereupon the prune dishwas set in the empty side-dish--four deft motions and there were noprunes--in the dish. The entire feat had been accomplished in 6:34 1/2,setting a new world's record for red-headed farmer boys with one splayfoot.
In the remaining twenty five and one half seconds Willie walked whatseemed to him a mile from his seat to the cashier's desk and at thelast instant bumped into a waitress with a trayful of dishes. Clutchedtightly in Willie's hand was thirty five cents and his check with a likeamount written upon it. Amid the crash of crockery which followed thecollision Willie slammed check and money upon the cashier's desk andfled. Nor did he pause until in the reassuring seclusion of a darkside street. There Willie sank upon the curb alternately cold with fearand hot with shame, weak and panting, and into his heart entered theiron of class hatred, searing it to the core.
Fortunately for youth it recuperates rapidly from mortal blows, andso it was that another half hour found Willie wandering up and downBroadway but at the far end of the street from The Elite Restaurant. Amotion picture theater arrested his attention; and presently, partingwith one of his two remaining dimes, he entered. The feature of the billwas a detective melodrama. Nothing in the world could have better suitedWillie's psychic needs. It recalled his earlier feats of the day,in which he took pardonable pride, and raised him once again to aself-confidence he had not felt since he entered the ever to be hatedElite Restaurant.
The show over Willie set forth afoot for home. A long walk lay ahead ofhim. This in itself was bad enough; but what lay at the end of the longwalk was infinitely worse, as Willie's father had warned him to returnimmediately after the inquest, in time for milking, preferably. Beforehe had gone two blocks from the theater Willie had concocted at leastthree tales to account for his tardiness, either one of which wouldhave done credit to the imaginative powers of a Rider Haggard or aJules Verne; but at the end of the third block he caught a glimpse ofsomething which drove all thoughts of home from his mind and camebut barely short of driving his mind out too. He was approaching theentrance to an alley. Old trees grew in the parkway at his side. At thestreet corner a half block away a high flung arc swung gently from itssupporting cables, casting a fair light upon the alley's mouth, and justemerging from behind the nearer fence Willie Case saw the huge bulk of abear. Terrified, Willie jumped behind a tree; and then, fearful lestthe animal might have caught sight or scent of him he poked his headcautiously around the side of the bole just in time to see the figure ofa girl come out of the alley behind the bear. Willie recognized her atthe first glance--she was the very girl he had seen burying the dead manin the Squibbs woods. Instantly Willie Case was transformed again intothe shrewd and death defying sleuth. At a safe distance he followed thegirl and the bear through one alley after another until they came outupon the road which leads south from Payson. He was across the road whenshe joined Bridge and his companions. When they turned toward the oldmill he followed them, listening close to the rotting clapboards forany chance remark which might indicate their future plans. He heard themdebating the wisdom of remaining where they were for the night or movingon to another location which they had evidently decided upon but no clewto which they dropped.
"The objection to remaining here," said Bridge, "is that we can't make afire to cook by--it would be too plainly visible from the road."
"But I can no fin' road by dark," explained Giova. "It bad road by day,ver' much worse by night. Beppo no come 'cross swamp by night. No, wegot stay here til morning."
"All right," replied Bridge, "we can eat some of this canned stuff andhave our ham and coffee after we reach camp tomorrow morning, eh?"
"And now that we've gotten through Payson safely," suggested TheOskaloosa Kid, "let's change back into our own clothes. This disguisemakes me feel too conspicuous."
Willie Case had heard enough. His quarry would remain where it wasover night, and a moment later Willie was racing toward Payson and atelephone as fast as his legs would carry him.
In an old brick structure a hundred yards below the mill where thelighting machinery of Payson had been installed before the days of thegreat central power plant a hundred miles away four men were smoking asthey lay stretched upon the floor.
"I tell you I seen him," asserted one of the party. "I follered thisBridge guy from town to the mill. He was got up like a Gyp; but I knewhim all right, all right. This scenery of his made me tink there wassomething phoney doin', or I wouldn't have trailed him, an' its a goodting I done it, fer he hadn't ben there five minutes before along comesThe Kid an' a skirt and pretty soon a nudder chicken wid a calf on astring, er mebbie it was a sheep--it was pretty husky lookin' fer asheep though. An' I sticks aroun' a minute until I hears this hereBridge guy call the first skirt 'Miss Prim.'"
He ceased speaking to note the effect of his words on his hearers. Theywere electrical. The Sky Pilot sat up straight and slapped his thigh.Soup Face opened his mouth, letting his pipe fall out into his lap,setting fire to his ragged trousers. Dirty Eddie voiced a characteristicobscenity.
"So you sees," went on Columbus Blackie, "we got a chanct to get boththe dame and The Kid. Two of us can take her to Oakdale an' claimthe reward her old man's offerin' an' de odder two can frisk de Kid,an'--an'--."
"An' wot?" queried The Sky Pilot.
"Dere's de swamp handy," suggested Soup Face.
"I was tinkin' of de swamp," said Columbus Blackie.
"Eddie and I will return Miss Prim to her bereaved parents," interruptedThe Sky Pilot. "You, Blackie, and Soup Face can arrange matters with TheOskaloosa Kid. I don't care for details. We will all meet in Toledo assoon as possible and split the swag. We ought to make a cleaning on thisjob, boes."
"You spit a mout'ful then," said Columbus Blackie.
They fell to discussing way and means.
"We'd better wait until they're asleep," counseled The Sky Pilot. "Twoof us can tackle this Bridge and hand him the k.o. quick. Eddie and SoupFace had better attend to that. Blackie can nab The Kid an' I'll annexMiss Abigail Prim. The lady with the calf we don't want. We'll tell herwe're officers of the law an' that she'd better duck with her live stockan' keep her trap shut if she don't want to get mixed up with a murdertrial."
*****
Detective Burton was at the county jail in Oakdale administering thethird degree to Dopey Charlie and The General when there came a longdistance telephone call for him.
"Hello!" said the voice at the other end of the line; "I'm Willie Case,an' I've found Miss Abigail Prim."
"Again?" queried Burton.
"Really," asserted Willie. "I know where she's goin' to be all night. Iheard 'em say so. The Oskaloosie Kid's with her an' annuder guy an' thegirl I seen with the dead man in Squibbs' woods an' they got a BEAR!" Itwas almost a shriek. "You'd better come right away an' bring Mr. Prim.I'll mee
t you on the ol' Toledo road right south of Payson, an' say, doI get the whole reward?"
"You'll get whatever's coming to you, son," replied Burton. "You saythere are two men and two women--are you sure that is all?"
"And the bear," corrected Willie.
"All right, keep quiet and wait for me," cautioned Burton. "You'll knowme by the spot light on my car--I'll have it pointed straight up intothe air. When you see it coming get into the middle of the road and waveyour hands to stop
The Oakdale Affair Page 21