"I won"t involve my friends. I have planned it all out. My mother is coming down to the office to take care of the little business that will come in from the advertising."
"And what will you do?" asked Darry curiously.
"I have arranged to hire a horse and wagon. I shall go out and visit small towns and sell from door to door, or even from the wagon, till I hear from that missing money, or get on my feet again."
"You"re a good one," p.r.o.nounced Darry with an admiring sparkle in his eye, slapping Frank heartily on the shoulder. "You"re a stubborn one, too, so I won"t intrude offers of a.s.sistance only to be turned down."
"All the time," resumed Frank, "I shall be looking out for a trace of Markham. See here, Darry, I can"t get that Dale Wacker off my mind. Who are his companions? Where does he hang out? How am I going to set a watch on him?"
"He may not even be in town," suggested Darry. "You know Bob and I went all over Pleasantville last evening, like yourself seeking a trace of Markham. It looked as if Wacker had flashed into town and out again. We didn"t run across him, and we didn"t find anybody who had seen him since late in the afternoon."
"Say, can I speak a word?" piped in an anxious voice.
It was little Stet who had spoken. Frank and Darry had forgotten all about him. Now Stet got up timorously from the door step.
"Oh, it"s you," said Darry. "Heard all we"ve said, too, I suppose, Stet?"
"Yes, I have," replied Stet. "Had to--ought to--I"m interested, I am. I like you. I like Mr. Newton. You"re both my friends. I like Markham, too. He gave Hemp Carson, the _Eagle_ manager, a setting down for pitching onto me. I don"t like Dale Wacker. Huh! hadn"t ought to. He robbed me of two dollars once. Well, Dale Wacker is in Pleasantville. I saw him this morning. He came in on a farmer"s wagon from somewhere out of town."
"That"s news, anyway," said Darry.
"You were going to give me my regular ten days" vacation next week, you know," continued Stet to Darry. "Make it begin to-day, and I"ll soon find out for you all there is to find out about Dale Wacker"s doings."
"But that is hardly a vacation, Stet?" suggested Frank.
"It will be," chuckled the little fellow, "if I can get my two dollars"
worth of satisfaction out of him by showing him up."
"All right," said Darry, "try it, Stet, if you want to."
Stet went away forthwith. Frank went into details with Darry as to the mail order business. It must remain partially inactive until something encouraging developed.
The morning mail was a pretty good one. About ten o"clock Mrs. Ismond came down to the office, and Frank initiated his mother into the business routine.
"Just get the mail each day, and fill what orders you can," said Frank.
"When you can"t fill an order, return the money. You see, mother, I want to take the bulk of stock on hand with me for quick sales, and I can"t order any more until I get some money ahead."
Frank put in two hours about town trying to look up Markham. The result was quite as discouraging as upon the day previous. He closed an arrangement for the hire of a horse and a light wagon, and packed up some goods at the office, ready for his trip into the country.
Mrs. Ismond, with a woman"s instinctive capacity for neatness, had the office in attractive order by late afternoon, and all the work attended to.
"Don"t get discouraged, Frank," she said, as they were on their way home. "It won"t take a great deal of money to keep up the business in a small way. I sent out a hundred circulars this afternoon, and I will keep on at that average while you are away."
"Why," spoke Frank, "how can you do that, with no mailing list addresses?"
"Oh, I set my wits at work and made quite a discovery," responded Mrs.
Ismond with a bright smile. "The Pleasantville _Herald_ has quite a list of exchanges. I asked Darry to send me some. They come from all over the State. I selected a number of promising names from little news items in the papers. For instance: I took girls" names from church and society items, and boys" names from baseball club items and the like. Good, fresh names, Frank--don"t you see?"
"I do see," said Frank, "and it"s a grand idea, mother."
After supper Mrs. Ismond went upstairs to make up a little parcel of collars, handkerchiefs and the like for her son"s journey.
Frank looked up from the county map from which he was formulating a route, as his mother reappeared. At a glance he saw that she was very much agitated.
"Oh, Frank!" she panted, sinking into a chair pale and distressed-looking.
"Why, what"s the matter, mother?" exclaimed Frank, arising quickly to his feet.
Mrs. Ismond had a worn yellow sheet of paper in her hand.
"Markham," she said, in a sad, pained way. "I was getting out some neckties for you, and by mistake opened the bureau drawer where he kept his belongings. I found this."
"What is it, mother?" asked Frank, taking the paper from her hand. He saw for himself, and his face turned quite as white and troubled as her own.
"Too bad--too bad," said Frank, looking down at the time-worn sheet of paper in a disheartened way.
CHAPTER XXI
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
It was a depressing discovery that Mrs. Ismond had made. Frank sat staring at the paper in his hand in silence for some minutes.
This was a printed sheet. It was headed: "Reward--One Hundred Dollars." In short, the warden of the Juvenile Reformatory at Linwood, offered that amount for the return to that inst.i.tution of an escaped inmate--Richard Markham Welmore.
"Yes, it is our Markham," murmured Frank--"that is his middle name. The description answers him exactly," and again Frank said in a troubled way: "Too bad--too bad."
Frank knew what his mother was thinking of--that they had harbored a convicted criminal, who had weakly yielded to temptation, beggaring them, and going back to his old evil ways.
He now knew what Dale Wacker meant when he spoke of the inventor of the wire puzzle as being in a "snug, tight place." Markham had sought relief from his irksome confinement getting up the pleasant little novelty that had taken so well. Evidently Wacker, when he first called on Frank, was not aware of the fact that Markham had escaped.
Wacker had probably once himself been an inmate of the reformatory. He knew its rules and routine. Coming across Markham on his way to Haven Bros., what more natural, Frank reasoned, than that he should take advantage of this knowledge? His recognition by Wacker would crush Markham. Had Wacker terrified him so that he had led him to some quiet spot, bargained with him, robbed him, sent him back to the reformatory, and laid claim to the reward?
"I am going to find out," cried Frank, starting for his cap, but instantly quieting down again as he reflected farther.
His impulse was to hurry downtown and telegraph the reformatory at Linwood for information. Suddenly, however, he reflected that if his surmises were wrong, and things turned out differently than he theorized, he would simply be putting the authorities on the track of the unfortunate Markham.
"Mother," he said, "nothing will make me believe that Markham voluntarily stole my money. No, this Dale Wacker had a hand in this disappearance.
Perhaps poor Markham met him and fled, and is in hiding. We may hear from him yet."
"But, Frank," suggested Mrs. Ismond in a broken tone of voice, "we are sure now that Markham was a--a bad boy."
"Why so?" asked Frank.
"He was the inmate of a reformatory."