“Then he didn’t go to the circus, after all,” remarked Tubby, as though that one thought occupied his mind; truth to tell, had the stout scout been given his own choice in the matter, he might have preferred seeing the acrobats and the tightrope walkers under the big round-top, rather than listen to the warblings of those who were to take part in the concert.
“He seems to hesitate and look around him,” said Rob, meaningly, to Ralph Jeffords. “What sort of a building is that, anyhow? It looks as though it might be given up to offices and shops.”
“Just what the Handy Building is,” explained Ralph. “There are a lot of different business people represented there. Some people call it the Arcade Building. You can see plenty of lights there, for most of the offices keep open till ten o’clock at night. Among others I might mention who occupy space in there, Rob, is one Hardman, a curio dealer. I’ve been in his rooms lots of times when I had some money I felt like investing in old coins and foreign postage stamps for my collection.”
“Stamps!”
Rob only repeated the word after the other, but there was a world of meaning connected with the way he did it. Like a flash there came to him the remembrance of the loss Ralph had claimed to have suffered, when he failed to discover the several packets of valuable stamps where he believed he had left them, ready for mailing back to a city dealer from whom he had received them for making selections.
Could it be possible that Peleg had yielded to some sudden temptation, and purloined those packets? Was his errand to Wyoming really to dispose of the stamps, after he had taken them from the sheets to which they had been slenderly attached?
Rob was conscious of a chilly feeling around the region of his heart as he continued to watch the boy standing there. It was not difficult to imagine Peleg battling with the strong temptation. That might account for his looking dubiously up at the building, and hesitating before taking a fatal step in wrong-doing.
“Well, he’s gone in!” said Sim, presently. “I guess Peleg really had some business in town, and didn’t mean to go to the show. I c’n see that all sorts of people have offices in that building, lawyers, doctors and even a curio dealer. Do we go on now, Ralph, or are you meaning to wait for Peleg?”
“Oh! we’re going on, all right, Sim; Peleg said nothing about wanting to attend the entertainment. Perhaps, after he’s through with his important business here he may drift back to the circus lot. That would be more in his line, I guess. Come on.”
“What were those packets of stamps worth, Ralph?” Rob managed to ask without being overheard by any of the others, for Tubby and Andy chanced to be engaged in a little dispute concerning something that had arisen, as with Sim they trudged along ten feet or so in the rear.
“Something like fifteen dollars, I should say,” replied the other, gloomily.
Rob knew that it was not so much the value of the missing packets that bothered Ralph Jeffords as the fact that a boy to whom his father had been so kind had apparently betrayed a trust, and stolen from the son of his benefactor.
“And you think Peleg has been pretty keen on making money, do you?” continued the scout leader.
“Yes, that’s a fact,” he was told, moodily. “I never knew a fellow more eager to scrape cents and dollars together. He would do any kind of extra work after hours if only he could make ten cents by it.”
“But you wouldn’t call him a money-lover, or a miser, would you?” queried Rob.
“That was what I thought at first, and I didn’t like it one bit,” Ralph explained, frankly. “So I mentioned the matter to Peleg one time. He told me that he was the oldest of the children left by his father when he died. One sister just younger than Peleg works for a family not a great many miles away from here. The others, three of them, are in an orphan asylum, you know. Well, would you believe it, Peleg told me he had an ambition to get enough money together, somehow, to sooner or later have an humble home, where all the Pinder children might live together!”
Rob caught his breath.
“That was a noble resolution for Peleg, wasn’t it?” he exclaimed.
“I believed so,” replied Ralph, disconsolately. “It made me think a heap of the boy, and I tried every way I could to encourage him. That’s what makes it cut me so hard now, to suspect that he could steal from me.”
Somehow, what he had heard seemed to encourage Rob more than ever in his belief that Peleg must be innocent. The circumstances all seemed to point strongly toward his being guilty; but Rob plucked up fresh hope after learning what a splendid excuse the boy had given for scrimping, and saving every cent he could gather together.
In imagination Rob could even see the happy faces of the little Pinders when they eventually found themselves under a roof of their own, if such happiness was indeed ever going to come their way. Brave, loyal, brotherly Peleg, how few boys would have dreamed such dreams as came to him at night, and visions by day?
“Oh! it doesn’t seem possible that he could be guilty of doing such a mean thing as taking your stamps, Ralph,” he told the other.
Somehow, even the confidence Rob had in the boy who was under suspicion seemed to make Ralph Jeffords feel better.
“Your saying that does you credit, Rob,” he told his new friend; “and because of the faith you seem to feel in him, I’m going to try again and believe Peleg innocent. But, all the same, that won’t prevent me from finding out the truth.”
“No, you owe that much to Peleg,” admitted Rob. “One way or the other, you’ve got to learn the answer to this puzzle. How will you go about it?”
“There’s one way that might tell the story,” confided Ralph. “I can come down to town tomorrow morning on some errand, and take occasion to drop in at the Arcade.”
“You mean to see the curio dealer, and put a few questions to him; is that the programme, Ralph?”
“Yes. He knows me very well, and would keep my secret,” continued the other, as he sighed heavily, evidently anticipating the worst. “I’d have the money with me to buy them back if Peleg did sell them, because I wouldn’t want Mr. Hardman to have the boy arrested as a thief. That would leave it all in my hands. I’d have to consult my father before I decided what I finally ought to do in the matter.”
“Well, something may happen between now and tomorrow to change your plans. For instance, you may even possibly discover the stamps somewhere. I’ve hidden things myself, and for a short time forgotten where I put them. Then somebody else may have taken them, not to steal them, it might be. Oh! there are lots of loopholes through which they could have passed. And after you’ve learned the truth you’re surprised to find how easy it was to misjudge any one.”
“But what else would take Peleg in there?”
“I confess I couldn’t give even a guess,” admitted the scout leader; “but he said there was some news in that letter he received that made him want to come to town. For all we know, it might have something to do with the sister who is in service, or even the three smaller children in the asylum. Poor Peleg has been dreaming of doing great things, you know, Ralph.”
“You are certainly the grandest fellow to stand by any one who is down I ever met!”
“Oh! I don’t know that I’m different from any scout who wears the khaki, and has taken the scout oath to try and be useful to others. You’d do just as much if you had the chance, and I know it, Ralph. But suppose we drop Peleg for the time being, and speak of something else? The other fellows must be wondering why we keep our heads together so long, and talk in undertones.”
“I’m agreeable, Rob. Notice how the wind has commenced to rise. It was quiet when we left home, and now you can hear it rustling through the trees at a great rate. Do you think it’s going to storm?”
“I don’t happen to be the weather sharp of the troop,” laughed Rob, “so you mustn’t depend too much on my prediction.”
He looked up at the sky, and then around him, after which he ventured to say:
“I think there will be quite a blow during the night, for those clouds are passing over in a hurry; but it isn’t likely we’ll have to go home in a rainstorm.”
Apparently, the other trio must have also been paying attention to the rising wind, for just then Tubby called out:
“Hope you’ve got a gilt-edged fire department in your town, Ralph. If a fire did happen to break out tonight, with this breeze going, it would likely eat up a few of your buildings. How about it?”
“Why, we’ve got a pretty good fire department, such as you are apt to find in towns of this size,” replied the other, seriously. “It’s partly a volunteer one, of course, and they’ve got quite a few medals won in State rivalries, competing with other companies. Fact is, we’re a bit proud of the Wyoming Fire Department. They can smash windows faster, and get a hose up to a burning house five seconds quicker than the best of them.”
All of the boys laughed at hearing Ralph say this.
“Whee!” exclaimed Tubby, “I wouldn’t like to be under that old circus tent if a big storm did come swooping along. I guess it’d go flying over the mountain-tops like a kite.”
“I was in a circus once when we had a terrific storm,” admitted Ralph. “I’ll never forget the way the frightened people behaved. The canvas flapped wildly, and made the most terrifying noises going. We expected to have the whole business come down about our ears any minute, but fortunately the wind passed over, and the animals quit howling so that the people could quiet the youngsters. It was something awful while it lasted.”
“Are we going inside the hall now?” asked Andy, who had grown tired of walking around the town seeing the “sights”; for while these may have amounted to something in Ralph’s estimation, they were very common in the eyes of fellows who had done so much traveling, and had even seen considerable of the war in Europe, as well as the wonders of New York City.
“We might as well, because it’s getting close to the time for the performance to begin,” the guide replied.
There seemed to be a good many people all moving in the same general direction as themselves. These were, doubtless, the holders of tickets to the entertainment that had been the magnet drawing them to town on this particular night fated to be set down with a red mark in the history of Wyoming.
Presently they joined the line before the door of the hall in which the concert was to be held. Apparently it was bound to be a popular affair. Ralph privately informed his mates that most of the people were coming just to hear the little girl with the Patti-like voice. In this way he aroused their curiosity to a high pitch; though none of them claimed to be fine judges of operatic music, or able to decide the exact quality of a wonderful voice, still they knew good singing, and were considerably interested in what Ralph had told them of the girl who was leading the printed programme as Anna Burgoyne.
“Her father was connected with the opera over across the water years ago,” explained Ralph. “Her mother, too, used to sing in public, so you see Anna comes by her wonderful voice honestly. But just you wait and see, that’s all.”
They found the hall already well filled with an audience that counted as most of the people worth while in and around Wyoming; though the circus doubtless served to attract quite a crowd, as it always does.