"Now turn the hat around, Bristles," he cried, "and look inside!"

Upon doing so the other uttered an exclamation.

"Here they are, two letters that give the thing away---C.J. as plain as print could be!" was his cry.

"Glad that you think the same way we do," Colon told him. "And now, I reckon you wonder what Fred's going to do about it."

"If it were myself, I'd take this hat to c.o.o.ney, and ask him if it was his," Bristles went on to say, in his fiery fashion. "Course he'd have to acknowledge the corn, and then I'd proceed to give him the licking he deserves."

"We'd kind of expect that of you, Bristles," remarked Colon, magnanimously, "but you see, Fred'n me, we made up our minds that we'd given that bunch a pretty good layout as it was. What they need is something to show the people of this town what a tough lot that Buck Lemington is dragging around with him."

"But how could you do that?" the other asked.

"Fred thought of taking the hat to school, and telling the story around, to the teachers and the pupils," Colon explained, in his accommodating way. "When they learned how these toughs meant to injure Riverport's chances of winning the great Marathon, just to gratify a little private spite, the town would soon get too hot for Buck and his cronies. They'd have to emigrate for a little while, till the storm blew over."

"That sounds good to me!" declared Bristles, changing his way of thinking, for while a very determined boy, he could always be reached by argument, and was open to conviction, "and I hope you carry the plan out, Fred. I'd just like to see those boys put under the ban for a while. Some of them by rights ought to be in the State Reformatory, according to my notion. They're getting too fresh with what they call their pranks, and don't even stop at endangering human life."

"Well, of course we're glad that you haven't such a terrible cold, Bristles," remarked Fred, "but all the same Colon here is sorry for one thing."

"What might that be?" asked the said Colon.

"You see," continued Fred, "after I told him about how you called me up, and wanted an interview right away, because you had something important to tell, Colon here began to get terribly excited. He kept wondering what it was you meant to explain; and I know that after we'd run that mob off, nearly the first thing he said was that he felt cheated out of a sensation, because you didn't want me so bad after all."

At that Bristles laughed loud and long, at the same time looking queerly at his guests out of the tail of his eye.

"Too bad to disappoint you, isn't it, fellows?" he went on, in a tone of mock sympathy, "but say, maybe I might scare up some little news after all, that'd kind of take the place of the thrilling story they hatched up for me."

"Let it be on the strict level then, Bristles," warned Colon, severely, as he shook his forefinger at the other; "we don't want you to invent any old yarn just to please us."

"What I'm going to tell you," began Bristles, very solemnly, "is straight goods, believe me. I don't know whether Fred here will think it of much importance, but late this afternoon I chanced to run across an old acquaintance. Guess who it was, boys."

"Huh! I bet you it was Corny Ludson!" exclaimed Colon, quick as a flash.

Bristles started, and looked keenly at the long-legged chum.

"Well, you hit mighty close to the bull's-eye, then, Colon," he remarked; "but you forget I never saw that same Corny Ludson in my life that I know of, and so how could he be an old acquaintance. But he's got a little girl named Sadie, a niece, or ward, or something like that, you may remember."

"Then you saw her?" asked Fred, eagerly enough, for he had been wondering lately what could have become of those two children.

"Not only saw her," continued the other, "but talked with her."

"Tell us about it, Bristles," urged Colon.

"Why, it was this way," began the other, complying briskly. "She was just coming out of the cheap grocery, and had several bundles in her arms, as if she might have been buying bread, and some such things. I knew her just as soon as I set eyes on her, for she wore that same old frowsy red dress, and had a little tad of a shawl pinned over her shoulders. The poor thing looked like a wind'd blow her away, with her thin, pinched face, and big startled eyes."

"Oh! let all that drop, Bristles," expostulated Colon. "What we want to know is, how did you come to speak to her, and did she remember you?"

Bristles was bound to tell his story in his own way. Without paying any attention to this nagging on the part of the tall chum, he kept facing Fred, and went on deliberately.

"There was a horse and buggy standing at the curb, and say, you never in all your life saw such a dilapidated outfit. Talk to me about the famous 'one hoss shay,' it couldn't have been a circ.u.mstance beside that rig.

Everywhere the shafts were tied up to hold, the harness patched till it looked all strings, and the animal, well, he was a walking skeleton. Any other time I'd have laughed myself sick, but I couldn't do that then, with that poor little thing being the one that drove such an outfit."

"What did you say to her?" asked Fred.

"Oh! I said 'howdy-do, Sadie, don't you remember me?' and she looked scared at first, and then she actually smiled. She said she hadn't forgotten the two boys on the river, who had been so kind to Sam and her.

I asked her where she'd been all this time, and she looked kind of confused and said, 'Oh! around everywhere!' as if they might be a pack of regular Gypsies, and never knew what it was to have a home of their own."

"But you say she had some sort of a rig with her," expostulated Colon at this point of the narrative, "and wouldn't that look as if they'd squatted down somewhere or other, for a spell?"

"Maybe it would," replied Bristles, "but the chances are they only borrowed the outfit for the occasion from some poor farmer, paying for its use by fetching him home some supplies from town. But just then I remembered about that pin we found in the cave, and I took it out of my pocket, unwrapping the paper, and all of a sudden holding it before her."

"Did she recognize the breast pin?" Colon asked.

"You'd have thought so by the way her little face lighted up," said the other, "and reaching out the hand that didn't carry a package, she took bold of it. Then I made a fool move, just like my silly ways. I sprung the trap too soon!"

"You told her where you'd found it, said you thought it might be hers, just because you remembered her wearing something like that, didn't you?"

asked Fred.

"Sure I did, and you just ought to have seen the scared look that came over her face," Bristles admitted. "She looked all around as if she was afraid that Corny'd be popping up, and then shook her head again and again, saying the pin wasn't hers. But, Fred, I know the poor little girl was telling a fib, because she was afraid if she owned up to the old piece of fake jewelry that she seemed to value so much, it might get somebody in a peck of trouble; and we know who that is, don't we?"

"We certainly do!" replied Fred; and he started to tell Bristles how Colon learned Corny Ludson had also been in Riverport that afternoon, acting in a suspicious manner.

CHAPTER XVII

LINING UP FOR THE TRIAL SPIN

The next morning opened cloudy, and rather warm for the season, much to the regret of all those fellows who had planned to take a spin over the twenty-five mile course laid out by the committee of arrangements.

So long as it did not rain, they were not to be kept from carrying out their ambitious plans. About eight o'clock Bristles and Colon, standing in front of the picket fence that divided the Carpenter garden from the road, saw Fred coming up the street.

"There's Fred," announced Colon, "and I hope Sid shows up soon, because we'd better be making an early start."

The way in which he looked up at the sky when saying this caused Bristles to instantly remark:

"Now, I reckon you're thinking it's going to rain on us before we get back home again. That left leg of yours that you got hurt once, is a regular old barometer, it seems, Colon."

"I don't know just how it comes," admitted the other, "but nearly every time it gets to itching and burning, we do have a spell of bad weather.

Over at my house when they see me rubbing that leg, they begin to hunt up rubbers and raincoats to beat the band. It's gotten to be next door to infallible, dad says."

"All right, we'll forgive you if you do bring a dash of rain to-day,"

warned the other, "but be mighty careful how you let that leg get to itching toward the end of next week. Why, a rain'd play the d.i.c.kens with all our plans for that glorious long run."

"You don't smash a thermometer every time it tells you how hot or cold it is, do you?" demanded Colon. "Then why d'ye want to blame things on my leg barometer? Just as if it had anything to do with the weather, 'cept to warn you ahead. Seems to me I ought to have a gold medal, instead of abuse. But here's Fred, and looking as if he was in apple pie trim for making the grand rounds to-day."