Left Tackle Thayer

CHAPTER VIII

THE MYS­TE­RI­OUS AU­TO

They awoke then, alarmed and con­fused, and stared with sleepy eyes at the white ra­di­ance which, en­ter­ing door and win­dow, showed with startling de­tail the bare walls of their refuge. Even as they looked the light van­ished and, by con­trast, the dark­ness seemed black­er than ev­er.

“Awake, Amy?” whis­pered Clint.

“Yes. Say, what the dick­ens was that?”

“I don't know. Lis­ten!”

From some­where not far away came the steady purring of a mo­tor car. Their minds didn't work very quick­ly yet, and it was ful­ly a minute be­fore Clint ex­claimed: “An au­to! Then we must be near the road!”

He scram­bled to his feet and crept, un­steadi­ly be­cause of chilled limbs, to the door­way. Amy fol­lowed. At first there was noth­ing to be seen. The night was still cloudy. But the sound of the run­ning mo­tor reached them dis­tinct­ly, and, af­ter a minute of strained peer­ing in­to the dark­ness, they made out a line of trees against the sky. Ap­par­ent­ly there was a road be­tween them and the trees and the au­to­mo­bile was in the road. But no lights showed from it.

“Do you sup­pose,” whis­pered Amy, “it's that fel­low look­ing for us?”

“No, but maybe, who­ev­er it is, he will give us--”

Clint's whis­per stopped abrupt­ly. A light flashed a few yards away, such an il­lu­mi­na­tion as might be from a pock­et elec­tric lamp, and a voice broke the still­ness. Clint grasped Amy's arm, warn­ing to si­lence. Foot­steps crossed the ground to­ward the hut.

Again the light flashed, but this time its rays were di­rect­ed to­ward the ground and showed two pairs of legs and some­thing that looked like a stout stick. Then it went out again and the foot­steps stopped. The two men, who­ev­er they were and what­ev­er they were do­ing, re­mained some twen­ty feet from the watch­ers at the door. Now and then they spoke, but so soft­ly that the boys could not hear what was said. Nei­ther could they de­ter­mine what the oth­er sound was that reached them. It seemed al­most as though the men were scuff­ing about the ground, and the ab­surd no­tion that they had lost some­thing and were seek­ing it oc­curred to both. But to look for any­thing in the dark when there was a light at hand was too sil­ly, and that ex­pla­na­tion was dis­card­ed. For ful­ly ten min­utes--it seemed much longer to the shiv­er­ing pair in the door­way--the mo­tor chugged and the men con­tin­ued their mys­te­ri­ous oc­cu­pa­tion. Amy's teeth were chat­ter­ing so that Clint squeezed his arm again. Then the light again flashed, swept the ground for an in­stant and was as sud­den­ly shut off, and the foot­steps re­treat­ed.

The boys eased their cramped po­si­tions. A minute passed. Then they leaped aside from the door­way, for the flood of white light from the car was again il­lu­min­ing the hut and the en­gine was hum­ming loud­ly. A mo­ment of sus­pense, and the light swept past them, moved to the right, fell on a line of bush­es and trees, turned back a lit­tle and bored a long hole in the dark­ness at the bot­tom of which stretched a road­way. And then, with a fi­nal sput­ter of rac­ing en­gine and a grind of gears, the car sprang away up the road, the light dimmed and black­ness fell again. The chug­ging of the au­to di­min­ished and died in the dis­tance. Amy arose stiffly from where he had thrown him­self out of the light.

“Now, what the dick­ens?” he de­mand­ed puz­zled­ly.

“I can't imag­ine,” replied Clint. “And I don't much care. What gets me is why we didn't speak to them!”

“That's so,” agreed Amy. “Some­how, there was some­thing sort of sneaky about them, though, wasn't there? Bet you any­thing they were rob­bers or--or some­thing.”

“Rob­bers don't usu­al­ly trav­el around the coun­try at night in au­tos,” said Clint thought­ful­ly. “But I felt the way you did about them, I guess. I sort of felt that it would be just as well if we didn't butt in! One of them had a club that looked right hefty.”

“Let's go out there and see if we can find any­thing,” sug­gest­ed Amy.

“All right, but I don't sup­pose we can even find the place in the dark.”

They went out very cau­tious­ly and tramped about where it seemed that the mys­te­ri­ous vis­itors had been, and Amy even got down on hands and knees and felt over the ground. But noth­ing of mo­ment re­ward­ed their search, the on­ly thing ei­ther of them dis­cov­ered be­ing a head-​high bush in­to which Clint walked. At last:

“Well, this isn't much fun,” said Amy. “And I'm cold clear through. Now we know where the road is, Clint, let's get on it and walk. At least it will warm us up.”

“All right. I wish I knew what those fel­lows were up to, though. Maybe if we wait­ed un­til day­light--”

“And froze to death! Noth­ing do­ing,” chat­tered Amy. “Cu­rios­ity killed a cat, and al­though I don't feel ex­act­ly kit­ten­ish, I refuse to take any chances. What time do you sup­pose it is?”

“About mid­night, I guess.” Clint drew out his watch, but he couldn't even dis­cern the out­line of it. “A fel­low's a fool to go with­out match­es,” he mut­tered dis­gust­ed­ly.

“Bet you it's a whole lot lat­er than that,” said Amy. “Any­way, let's get go­ing. Which di­rec­tion do you think Whar­ton is?”

They de­bat­ed that for some time af­ter they had reached the road, and in the end they de­cid­ed that the town lay to their left, al­though, as Clint point­ed out, the men in the au­to­mo­bile had gone in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

“They might be go­ing to Thacher,” said Amy. “Any­how, we're bound to get some­where in time. All I ask of For­tune is a bed and a break­fast; and I could do with­out the bed, I guess. Some­where in the world, Clint there are two cups of hot cof­fee wait­ing for us. Is that not a cheer­ing thought?”

“I wish I had mine now,” replied the oth­er shiv­er­ing­ly. “I dare say we're head­ed in the wrong di­rec­tion for Whar­ton.”

“Say not so,” ex­claimed Amy, whose spir­its were rapid­ly re­turn­ing. “Courage, faint heart! On­ward to cof­fee!”

For awhile they spec­ulat­ed on the mys­te­ri­ous mis­sion of the two men in the au­to­mo­bile, but nei­ther of them could of­fer a sat­is­fac­to­ry so­lu­tion of the prob­lem, and fi­nal­ly they fell silent. For­tu­nate­ly the road ran fair­ly straight and they got off it on­ly once. Af­ter they had been walk­ing what seemed to them to be about an hour, al­though there was no way of know­ing, Clint called at­ten­tion to the fact that he could see the road. Amy replied that he couldn't, but in a mo­ment de­cid­ed that he could. To the left of them there was a per­cep­ti­ble grey­ing of the sky. Af­ter that morn­ing came fast. In a few min­utes they could make out dim­ly the forms of trees be­side the way, then more dis­tant ob­jects be­came vis­ible and, as by a mir­acle, the sleep­ing world sud­den­ly lay be­fore them, black and grey in the grow­ing light. Some­where a bird twit­tered and was an­swered. A chill­ing breeze crept across a field, herald­ing the dawn and bring­ing shiv­ers to the boys. Soon af­ter that they came across the first sign of life, a farm with a creak­ing wind­mill busi­ly at work, and a light show­ing wan­ly in an up­per win­dow of the house.

“Some poor fel­low is get­ting out of a nice, warm bed,” so­lil­oquised Amy. “How I pity him! Can't you see him shak­ing his fist at the alarm-​clock and shiv­er­ing as he gets in­to his panties?”

“He's lucky to have a nice, warm bed,” re­spond­ed Clint. “If I had one it would take more than an alarm-​clock to get me out of it!”

“Me too! Say, what do you think about sneak­ing over there to the sta­ble and hit­ting the hay for a cou­ple of hours? Maybe the chap might give us some cof­fee, too.”

“More like­ly he'd set the dog on us at this time of morn­ing,” an­swered Clint. And, to lend weight to his ob­jec­tion, a chal­leng­ing bark came across the field.

“Right-​o,” agreed Amy. “I didn't want any cof­fee, any­way. Isn't that a sign-​post ahead?”

It was a sign-​post, loom­ing black and for­bid­ding, like a way­side gib­bet, where a sec­ond road turned to the left. “Whar­ton, 2 M--Lev­idge's Mills, 4 M--Custer, 6 M,” they read with dif­fi­cul­ty.

“We can do two miles in half an hour eas­ily,” said Amy. “Gee, I can al­most smell that cof­fee, Clint!”

They went on in the grow­ing light, pass­ing an­oth­er farm-​house present­ly and an­oth­er un­friend­ly dog. The grey­ness in the east be­came tinged with rose. Birds sang and flut­tered. A rab­bit hopped nim­bly across the road ahead of them and dis­ap­peared, with a taunt­ing flick of his lit­tle white tail, in the bush­es. Fur­ther on a chip­munk chat­tered at them from the top of the wall and then, with long leaps, raced ahead to stop and eye them in­quir­ing­ly, fi­nal­ly dis­ap­pear­ing with a last squeal of alarm. A sec­ond sign-​post re­newed their courage. Whar­ton, it de­clared, was but a mile dis­tant. But that was a long, long last mile! They were no longer sleepy, but their legs were very tired and the chilly breeze still bored through their coats. But their jour­ney came to an end at last. Strag­gling hous­es ap­peared, hous­es with lit­tle gar­dens and truck patch­es about them. Then came a fac­to­ry build­ing with row on row of star­ing win­dows just catch­ing the first faint glow of the sun. Then they crossed a rail­road and plunged in­to the town.

But it was a silent, emp­ty town, for this was Sun­day morn­ing, and their steps on the brick side­walk echoed lone­some­ly. The aw­ful thought that per­haps there would be no eat­ing-​place open as­sailed them and drew a groan of dis­may from Amy. “Still,” he de­clared, “if the worst comes to the worst, we can break a win­dow and get tak­en to jail. They feed you in jail, don't they?” he added wist­ful­ly.

But near the cen­tre of town a cheer­ing sight met their anx­ious eyes. A lit­tle man in a white apron was sweep­ing the door­way of a tiny restau­rant, yawn­ing and paus­ing at in­ter­vals to gaze cu­ri­ous­ly to­ward the ap­proach­ing trav­ellers. Be­fore they reached him, how­ev­er, his cu­rios­ity ei­ther gave out or was sat­ed, for, with a fi­nal tap of the broom against the door­way, he dis­ap­peared. “Sup­pose,” ex­claimed Amy, “he changes his mind and locks up again!” They urged tired feet to a faster pace and reached the door. On one wide win­dow was the leg­end: “Can­nis­ter's Cafe.” The door was closed but un­locked. They opened it and en­tered.

There was no one in sight, but from be­yond a par­ti­tion which ran across the room at the back came the cheer­ing sounds of rat­tling dish­es and the heart­en­ing fra­grance of cof­fee. There were eight small ta­bles and a lit­tle counter adorned with a cash reg­is­ter and a cigar case, and these, ex­cept­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate num­ber of chairs, com­prised the fur­nish­ings; un­less the var­ious signs along each wall could be in­clud­ed. These an­nounce­ments were print­ed in blue on grey card-​board, and the boys, sink­ing in­to chairs at the near­est ta­ble, read them avid­ly: “Beef Stew, 15 Cents”; “Pork and Beans, 10 Cents”; “Boiled Rice and Milk, 10 Cents”; “Cof­fee and Crullers, 10 Cents”; “Oys­ters in Sea­son”; “Small Steak, 30 Cents”; “Buy a Tick­et--$5.00 for $4.50”; “Corn Beef Hash, 15 Cents; With 1 Poached Egg, 20 Cents.”

Their eyes met and they smiled. It was pleas­ant­ly warm in the lit­tle restau­rant, the sun was peep­ing in at the win­dow, the odour of cof­fee was more de­light­ful than any­thing they had ev­er in­haled and it was ex­treme­ly good to stretch tired legs and ease aching mus­cles, and for sev­er­al min­utes they were con­tent to sit there and feast their hun­gry eyes on the plac­ards and en­joy in an­tic­ipa­tion the cheer that was to fol­low.

“What are you go­ing to have?” asked Amy present­ly.

“Beans and a lot of bread-​and-​but­ter and sev­en­ty-​five cups of cof­fee,” replied Clint rap­tur­ous­ly.

“Corned beef hash for mine. And a lot more cof­fee than that. Say, why doesn't he come?”

Ev­ident­ly the pro­pri­etor had drowned the sound of their en­trance with the rat­tle of dish­es, for the swing­ing door in the par­ti­tion re­mained closed and the lit­tle ledged win­dow be­side it showed on­ly a dim vista of hang­ing pots and saucepans. Amy rapped a knife against the edge of a glass and the noise at the rear ceased abrupt­ly, the door swung open and the man in the en­velop­ing white apron viewed them in sur­prise. He was a bald-​head­ed, pink-​faced lit­tle man with a pair of con­tem­pla­tive blue eyes.

“Morn­ing, boys,” he said. “I didn't hear you come in. Don't usu­al­ly get cus­tomers till most sev­en on Sun­days. Want some­thing to eat?”

“Yes, can we have some­thing pret­ty quick?” asked Clint. “We're near­ly starved.”

“Well, I ain't got any­thing cooked, but the fire's com­ing up fast and it won't take long. What would you want?”

They made known their wish­es and the lit­tle man leisure­ly van­ished again. A clock above the counter an­nounced the time to be twen­ty-​five min­utes to sev­en.

“We might have got him to bring us some cof­fee now,” said Amy.

“I'd rather wait un­til I get my break­fast,” Clint replied. “I won­der when we get a train for Brim­field. I reck­on they don't run very of­ten on Sun­days.”

“Maybe this chap can tell us. We'll ask him when he comes back.”

Oth­er and de­li­cious odours min­gled with the cof­fee fra­grance, and a promis­ing sound of siz­zling reached them. “That,” said Amy, set­tling back lux­uri­ous­ly and pat­ting his waist­coat, “is my corned beef hash. I sort of wish I'd or­dered an egg with it. Or, maybe, two eggs. Guess I will. Some crullers would taste pret­ty good, wouldn't they?”

“Any­thing would taste good,” agreed Clint long­ing­ly.

Ten min­utes passed and the door opened to ad­mit an­oth­er cus­tomer. Af­ter that they drift­ed in by ones and twos quite fast. The boys gath­ered that the new­com­ers were men em­ployed at the rail­way yards near­by, and present­ly Amy ques­tioned one who was read­ing a pa­per at the next ta­ble.

“Can you tell us when we can get a train for Brim­field?” he asked.

“Brim­field? Yes, there's one at sev­en-​twelve and one at nine-​forty-​six.”

“I guess we couldn't get the sev­en-​twelve,” said Amy, glanc­ing at the clock. “The oth­er would be all right.”

“I ain't sure if that one stops at Brim­field, though. Say, Pe­te, does the nine-​forty-​six stop at Brim­field?”

“No,” replied a man at an­oth­er ta­ble. “Ex­press to New York.”

“You're wrong,” vol­un­teered a third. “It runs ac­com­mo­da­tion from here on Sun­days.”

“That's so,” agreed the oth­er. “I'd for­got.”

Amy thanked his in­for­mant and at that mo­ment the pro­pri­etor, who had been in and out tak­ing or­ders, ap­peared with the boys' break­fasts. The baked beans and the hash were siz­zling hot and looked de­li­cious, and the cof­fee com­mand­ed in­stant at­ten­tion. A plate piled with thick slices of bread and two small pats of very yel­low but­ter com­plet­ed the repast. For five min­utes by the clock not a word was said at that ta­ble. Then, hav­ing or­dered a sec­ond cup of cof­fee apiece, the boys found time to pause.

“Gee, but that was good!” mur­mured Amy. “I sup­pose I must have eat­en aw­ful­ly fast, for I don't seem to want those eggs now.”

“How about the crullers?” asked Clint.

“They wouldn't be half bad, would they? Have some?” Clint nod­ded and four rather sad-​look­ing rings of pas­try ap­peared. It was still on­ly a quar­ter past sev­en and, since they could not con­tin­ue their jour­ney be­fore nine-​forty-​six, they con­sumed the crullers and their sec­ond cups of cof­fee more leisure­ly. The lit­tle restau­rant be­gan to get pret­ty smoky, and the com­bined odours of a dozen break­fasts, now that they had com­plet­ed their own repasts, failed to de­light them. But they stayed on, hat­ing the thought of the walk to the sta­tion, quite sat­is­fied to re­main there with­out mov­ing in the warmth and cheer­ful bus­tle. If they could have laid their heads against the wall and gone to sleep they'd have asked noth­ing more. Amy nod­ded drowsi­ly once or twice and Clint stared out the sun­ny win­dow with the som­no­lent gaze of a well-​fed cat. It was, he re­flect­ed, a very beau­ti­ful world. And then their pleas­ant day-​dreams were dis­turbed by the sud­den and rather bois­ter­ous en­try of a big, broad-​shoul­dered man who seemed to take en­tire pos­ses­sion of the restau­rant and quite dwarf its size.

“Hel­lo, boys!” The new­com­er skimmed his hat dex­ter­ous­ly to a peg, pulled out a chair with twice as much noise as usu­al­ly ac­com­pa­nies such an op­er­ation and plumped his big body in­to it with a hearti­ness which al­most set the dish­es to rat­tling in the kitchen. Ev­ery­one in the room ex­cept the two boys an­swered his greet­ing.

“Hel­lo, Mike! How's the lad?”

“Fine! And hun­gry to beat the band! Can, you old ras­cal! Where are you? Fry me a cou­ple of eggs and some ba­con, Can, and draw one.”

“All right, Mike!” The pro­pri­etor's pink face showed for an in­stant at the win­dow. The new­com­er opened a morn­ing pa­per with a loud rustling, beat­ing the sheets in­to place with the flat of a huge hand. “You fel­lows hear about the bur­glary?” he asked.