“Think how selfish we were to sit down and eat supper—we ought to have known something was wrong with him,” grieved Miss Charity. “I’d rather have lost both cows than have anything happen to Bob.”
Betty could not share their fear that Bob was injured. The memory of that one bar down haunted her, though she could give no explanation. Then the cow had come back. Betty had positive proof that the animal had not wandered to the half of the farm she had explored, and Bob’s section had been nearer the house. Why had Daisy stayed away till almost dark, when milking time was at half past five? And the cow had been milked! Betty forebore to call the aunts’ attention to this, and they were too engrossed in their own conjectures to have noticed the fact.
“Well, he isn’t on the farm.” Miss Hope made this reluctant admission after they had visited every nook and cranny. “What can have become of him?”
Miss Charity was almost in a state of collapse, and her sister and Betty both saw that she must be taken home. It was hard work, going back without Bob, and once in the kitchen, Miss Charity was hysterical, clinging to her sister and sobbing that first Faith had died and now her boy was missing.
“But we’ll find him, dear,” urged Miss Hope. “He can’t be lost. A strong boy of fourteen can’t be lost; can he, Betty?”
“Of course we’ll find him,” asserted Betty stoutly. “I’m going to ride to the Watterbys in the morning and telephone to Uncle Dick. He will know what to do. You won’t mind staying alone for a couple of hours, will you?”
“Not in the daytime,” quavered Miss Charity. “But my, I’m glad you’re here tonight, Betty. Sister and I never used to be afraid, but you and Bob have spoiled us. We don’t like to stay alone.”
Betty slept very little that night. Aside from missing Bob’s protection—and how much she had relied on him to take care of them she did not realize until she missed him—there were the demands made on her by the old ladies, who both suffered from bad dreams. During much of the night Betty’s active mind insisted on going over and over the most trivial points of the day. Always she came back to the two mysteries that she could not discuss with the aunts: Who had put the single bar down, and who had milked the cow?
Breakfast was a sorry pretense the next morning, and Betty was glad to hurry out to the barn and feed and water the stock and milk the two cows. It was hard and heavy work and she was not skilled at it, and so took twice as long a time as Bob usually did. Then, when she had saddled Clover and changed to her riding habit, she sighted the mail car down the road and waited to see if the carrier had brought her any later news of her uncle. The Watterbys promptly sent her any letters that came addressed to her there.
There was no news, but the delay was fifteen minutes or so, and when Betty finally started for the Watterbys it was after nine o’clock. She had no definite plan beyond telephoning to her uncle and imploring him to come and help them hunt for Bob.
“Where could he be?” mourned poor Miss Hope, with maddening persistency. “We looked all over the farm, and yet where could he be? If he went to any of the neighbors to inquire, and was taken sick, he’d send us word. I don’t see where he can be!”
Betty hurried Clover along, half-dreading another encounter with the men who had stopped her. She passed the place where she had been stopped, and a bit further on met Doctor Morrison on his way to a case, his car raising an enormous cloud of dust in the roadway. He pulled out to allow her room, recognized her, and waved a friendly hand as he raced by. By this token Betty knew he was in haste, for he always stopped to talk to her and ask after the Saunders sisters.
The Watterby place, when she reached it, seemed deserted. The hospitable front door was closed, and the shining array of milk pans on the back porch was the only evidence that some one had been at work that morning. No Grandma Watterby came smiling down to the gate, no busy Mrs. Will Watterby came to the window with her sleeves rolled high.
“Well, for pity’s sake!” gasped Betty, completely astounded. “I never knew them to go off anywhere all at once. Never! Mrs. Watterby is always so busy. I wonder if anything has happened.”
“Hello! Hello!” A shout from the roadway made her turn. “You looking for Mr. Watterby?”
“I’m looking for any one of them,” explained Betty, smiling at the tow-haired boy who stood grinning at her. “Are they all away?”
“Yep. They’re out riding in an automobile,” announced the boy importantly. “Grandma Watterby’s great-nephew, up to Tippewa, died and left her two thousand dollars. And she says she always wanted a car, and now she’s going to have one. A different agent has been here trying to sell her one every week. They took me last time.”
In spite of her anxiety, Betty laughed at the picture she had of the hard-working family leaving their cares and toil to go riding about the country in a demonstrator’s car. She hoped that Grandma would find a car to her liking, one whose springs would be kind to her rheumatic bones, and that there would be enough left of the little legacy to buy the valiant old lady some of the small luxuries she liked.
“Ki’s home,” volunteered the boy. “He’s working ’way out in the cornfield. Want to see him? I’ll call him for you.”
“No thanks,” said Betty, uncertain what to do next. “I don’t suppose there’s a telephone at your house, is there?” she asked, smiling.
The urchin shook his head quickly.
“No, we ain’t got one,” he replied. “Was you wanting to use Mis’ Watterby’s? It’s out of order. Been no good for two days. My ma had to go to Flame City yesterday to telephone my dad.”
“I’ll have to go to Flame City, too, I think,” decided Betty. “I hope you’ll take the next automobile ride,” she added, mounting Clover.
“Gee, Grandma Watterby says if they buy a car I can have all the rides I want,” grinned the towhead engagingly. “You bet I hope they buy!”
All her worry about Bob shut down on Betty again as she urged the horse toward the town. Suppose Uncle Dick were not within reach of the telephone! Suppose he were off on a long inspection trip!
Flame City had not improved, and though Betty could count her visits to it on the fingers of one hand, she thought it looked more unattractive than ever. The streets were dusty and not over clean, and were blocked with trucks and mule teams on their way to the fields with supplies. Here and there a slatternly woman idled at the door of a shop, but for the most part men stood about in groups or waited for trade in the dirty, dark little shops.
“I wonder where the best place to telephone is,” said Betty to herself, shrinking from pushing her way through any of the crowds that seemed to surround every doorway. “I’ll ask them in the post-office.”
The post-office was a yellow-painted building that leaned for support against a blue cigar store. Like the majority of shacks in the town, it boasted of only one story, and a long counter, whittled with the initials of those who had waited for their mail, was its chief adornment.
Betty hitched Clover outside and entered the door to find the postmaster rapidly thumbing over a bunch of letters while a tall man in a pepper-and-salt suit waited, his back to the room.
“Can you tell me where to find a public telephone?” asked Betty, and at the sound of her voice, the man turned.
“Betty!” he ejaculated. “My dear child, how glad I am to see you!”
Mr. Gordon took the package of mail the postmaster handed him and thrust it into his coat pocket.
“The old car is outside,” he assured his niece. “Let’s go out and begin to get acquainted again.”
Betty, beyond a radiant smile and a furtive hug, had said nothing, and when Mr. Gordon saw her in the sunlight he scrutinized her sharply.
“Everything all right, Betty?” he demanded, keeping his voice low so that the loungers should not overhear. “I’d rather you didn’t come over to town like this. And where is Bob?”
“Oh, Uncle Dick!” The words came with a rush. “That’s why I’m here. Bob has disappeared! We can�
�t find him anywhere, and I’m afraid those awful men have carried him off.”
Mr. Gordon stared at her in astonishment. In a few words she managed to outline for him her fears and what had taken place the day before. Mr. Gordon had made up his mind as she talked.
“We’ll leave Clover at the hotel stable. It won’t kill her for a few hours,” he observed. “You and I can make better time in the car, rickety as it is. Hop in, Betty, for we’re going to find Bob. Not a doubt of it. It’s all over but the shouting.”
CHAPTER XXIII
SELLING THE FARM
“Don’t you think those sharpers carried off Bob?” urged Betty, bracing herself as the car dipped into a rut and out again.
“Every indication of it,” agreed her uncle, swerving sharply to avoid a delivery car.
“But where could they have taken him?” speculated Betty, clinging to the rim of the side door. “How will you know where to look?”
“I think he is right on the farm,” answered Mr. Gordon. “In fact, I shall be very much surprised if we have to go off the place to discover him. I’m heading for the farm on that supposition.”
“But, Uncle Dick,” Betty raised her voice, for the much-abused car could not run silently, “I can’t see why they would carry Bob off, anyway. Of course I know they don’t like him, and I do believe they recognized him as the boy who sat behind them on the train, though Bob laughs and says he isn’t so handsome that people remember his face; but I don’t understand what good it would do them to kidnap him. The aunts are too poor to pay any money for him, that’s certain.”
“Well, now, Betty, I’m rather surprised at you,” Mr. Gordon teased her. “For a bright girl, you seem to have been slow on this point. What do these sharpers want of the aunts, anyway?”
“The farm,” answered Betty promptly. “They know there is oil there and they want to buy it for almost nothing and make their fortunes.”
“At the expense of two innocent old ladies,” added Mr. Gordon.
“But, Uncle Dick, Bob doesn’t own the farm. Only his mother’s share. And the aunts would be his guardians, he says, so his consent isn’t necessary for a sale. You see, I do know a lot about business.” And Betty glanced triumphantly at her uncle.
He smiled good-humoredly, and let the car out another notch.
“Has it ever occurred to you, my dear,” he said casually, “that, if Bob were out of the way, the aunts might be persuaded to sell their farm for an absurdly small sum? A convincing talker might make any argument seem plausible, and neither Miss Hope nor Miss Charity are business women. They are utterly unversed in business methods or terms, and are the type of women who obediently sign any paper without reading it. I intend to see that you grow up with a knowledge of legal terms and forms that will at least protect you when you’re placed in the position the Saunders women are.”
“Miss Hope said once her father attended to everything for them,” mused Betty, “and I suppose when he died they just had to guess. Oh!” a sudden light seemed to break over her. “Oh, Uncle Dick! do you suppose those men may be there now trying to get them to sell the farm?”
“Of course I don’t know that they were on the place when you left,” said her uncle. “But allowing them half an hour to reach there, I am reasonably certain that they are sitting in the parlor this minute, talking to the aunts. I only hope they haven’t an agreement with them, or, if they have, that the pen and ink is where Miss Hope can’t put her hands on it.”
“Do you think there really is oil there?” asked Betty hurriedly, for another turn would bring them in sight of the farm. “Can you tell for sure, Uncle Dick?”
Mr. Gordon regarded her whimsically.
“Oil wells are seldom ‘sure,’” he replied cautiously. “But if I had my doubts, they’d be clinched by what you tell me of these men. No Easterner with a delicate daughter was ever so anxious to buy a run-down place—not with a whole county to chose from. Also, as far as I can tell, judging from the location, which is all I’ve had to go by, I should say we were safe in saying there is oil sand there. In fact, I’ve already taken it up with the company, Betty, and they’re inclined to think this whole section may be a find.”
Betty hardly waited for the automobile to stop before she was out and up the front steps of the farmhouse, Mr. Gordon close behind her.
“I hear voices in the parlor,” whispered Betty, “Oh, hurry!”
“All cash, you see,” a voice that Betty recognized as Blosser’s was saying persuasively. “Nothing to wait for, absolutely no delay.”
Mr. Gordon put a restraining hand on Betty’s arm, and motioned to her to keep still.
“But my sister and I should like to talk it over, for a day or so,” quavered Miss Hope. “We’re upset because our nephew is missing, as we have explained, and I don’t think we should decide hastily.”
“I don’t like to hurry you,” struck in another voice, Fluss’s, Betty was sure, “but I tell you frankly, Madam, a cash offer doesn’t require consideration. All you have to do, you and your sister, is to sign this paper, and we’ll count the money right into your hand. Could anything be fairer?”
“It’s a big offer, too,” said Blosser. “A run-down place like this isn’t attractive, and you’re likely to go years before you get another bid. Our client wants to get his daughter out into this air, and he has money to spend fixing up. I tell you what we’ll do—we’ll pay this year’s taxes—include them in the sale price. Why, ladies, you’ll have a thousand dollars in cash!”
Betty could picture Miss Hope’s eyes at the thought of a thousand dollars.
“Well, Sister, perhaps we had better take it,” suggested Miss Charity timidly. “We can do sewing or something like that, and that money will put Bob through school.”
“Come on, here’s where we put a spoke in the wheel,” whispered Mr. Gordon, beckoning Betty to follow him and striding down the hall.
“Why, Betty!” Miss Hope rose hastily and kissed her. “Sister and I had begun to worry about you.”
“This is my uncle, Mr. Gordon, Miss Hope,” said Betty. “I found him in Flame City. Has Bob come back?”
Miss Hope, much flustered by the presence of another stranger, said that Bob had not returned, and presented Mr. Gordon to her sister.
“These gentlemen, Mr. Snead and Mr. Elmer,”—she consulted the cards in her hand—“have called to see us about selling our farm.”
Mr. Gordon nodded curtly to the pair whose faces were as black as a thunder-cloud at the interruption.
“I’m sure Mr. Gordon will excuse us if we go on with the business,” said Blosser smoothly. “You have a dining-room, perhaps, or some other room where we could finish this matter quietly?”
Miss Hope glanced about her helplessly. Betty noticed that there was pen and ink and a package of bills of large denomination on the table. Evidently they had reached the farm just in time.
“Why, it happens that I’m interested in a way in your farm, if it is for sale,” announced Mr. Gordon leisurely.
He selected a comfortable chair, and leaned back in it with the air of a man who is not to be hurried. A look of relief came into Miss Hope’s face, and her nervous tension perceptibly relaxed.
“This farm is sold,” declared Blosser truculently. “My partner and I have bought it for a client of ours.”
“Any signatures passed?” said Mr. Gordon lazily.
“Miss Hope will sign right here,” said Blosser, hastily unfolding a sheet of foolscap. “She was about to do so when you came in.”
Miss Hope automatically took up the pen.
“Have you read that agreement?” demanded Mr. Gordon sharply. “Do you know what you are signing? I’d like to know the purchase price. I’m representing Bob’s interest.”
“Oh, Bob!” Miss Hope and Miss Charity both turned from the paper toward the speaker. “We think the money will put Bob through school—a whole thousand dollars, Mr. Gordon, and the taxes paid. We can’t run the farm any longer.
We can’t afford to hire help.”
“No farm is sold without a little more trouble than this,” announced Mr. Gordon pleasantly. “You don’t mind If I ask you a few questions?”
“We’re in a hurry,” broke in Fluss. “Sign this, ladies, and my partner and I will pay you the cash and get on to the next town. You can answer this gentleman’s questions after we’re gone.”
“I suppose there is a mortgage?” asked Mr. Gordon, ignoring Fluss altogether.
“Five hundred dollars,” answered Miss Hope. “We had to give a mortgage to get along after Father died.”
“So they’ve offered you fifteen hundred dollars for an oil farm,” said Mr. Gordon contemptuously. “Well, don’t take it.”
“Bob said there was oil here!” cried Miss Charity.
“That’s a lie!” snarled Blosser furiously. “You’re out of the oil section by a good many miles. Are you going to turn down a cash offer for this forsaken dump, simply because a stranger happens along and tells you there may be oil on it? Bah!”
“Keep your temper,” counseled Fluss in a low tone. “Well, rather than see two ladies lose a sale,” he said with forced cheerfulness, “we will make you an offer of three thousand dollars. Money talks louder than fair words.”
“I’ll give you five thousand, cash,” Mr. Gordon spoke quietly, but Betty bounced about on the sofa in delight.
Fluss leaped to his feet and brought his fist smashing down on the table.
“Six thousand!” he cried fiercely. “We’re buying this farm. We’ll give you six thousand dollars, ladies.”
“Seven thousand,” said Mr. Gordon conversationally. He did not shift his position, but his keen eyes followed every movement of the rascally pair. He said afterward that he was afraid of gun play.
“Oh—oh, my goodness!” stammered Miss Hope. “I can’t seem to think.”
“You don’t have to, Madam,” Fluss assured her, his immaculate gray tie under one ear and his clothing rumpled from the heat and excitement. “Sell us your farm. We’ll give you ten thousand dollars. That’s the last word. Ten thousand for this mud hole. Here’s a pen—sign this!”
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 223