CHAPTER II
A FIVE-DOLLAR JOB

Frank found Mr. Buckner at his desk, tearing out a freshly-written slip from his check book.

“Good – sit down,” said the business man. “Ready in a second. Now then,” he added a minute later, after filling out a receipt blank, “want to make five dollars?”

“A week?” smiled Frank.

“A day – an hour, if you can get the action on this job that quick,” responded Buckner briskly. “See here, Frank,” he continued, consulting his watch, “a certain individual started down that south road yonder in his buggy for Riverton half-an-hour ago.”

“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.

“How soon can he get there?”

“Horse any good?” questioned Frank.

“No, common every-day hack.”

“Well,” calculated Frank, “it’s fifteen miles around by that road. Taking it fairly easy, he’d get to Riverton in about two hours and a-half.”

“Very good,” said Buckner. “Can you do it in less time?”

“On foot?”

“Any way, so you get there.”

“Sure,” said Frank confidently. “I can make it in an hour by crossing the flats.”

“Aha!” observed Buckner, “I see.”

“Direct across the swamp stretch it is barely six miles to Riverton,” went on Frank.

“But there’s no road?”

“Except the trail us boys have blazed out from time to time,” explained Frank, his eyes brightening at the memory of many a famous camping out experience in “the Big Woods.” “I can bike it four miles, wade one, and there’s only an easy mile stretch to come after that.”

“U-um,” muttered Mr. Buckner in a musing tone, half to himself. “I’d rather not excite the suspicions of a certain person already on the road, so your suggestion strikes me very good, Frank. Will you guarantee to get to Riverton first?”

“I will – with time to spare,” promised Frank, readily.

“I rely on you, then. It is quite an important matter. Here is a check for two hundred dollars. It is made payable to James Pryor. He is a fire insurance adjuster at Riverton, with an office over the bank there. You find him out, hand him that check, get him to sign this receipt, and your work is done.”

“That’s easy,” said Frank with a pleasant smile. “It isn’t worth five dollars, though.”

“I’m doing this hiring,” retorted Buckner with a quizzical laugh. “Client’s money, see? By the way, too, do this little commission up trim and neat, and there will be some more work for you from the same party.”

Frank was mightily pleased at his task and the prospects. He stowed the check and receipt in a safe pocket, and started to leave the office.

“My client wants to buy up some salvage from a fire at Riverton,” Mr. Buckner explained.

“I see,” nodded Frank.

“A certain party here has been juggling with the situation. He put in a lot of dummy bids. We learned what his best bid was, and offered the same amount. Just now we got a letter – as he did also – accepting first payment from either of us. By the way, too,” continued Mr. Buckner, with a queer twinkle in his eye, “when you come to find who it is you have helped to outwit, you may experience a decided personal pleasure in the discovery. Report soon as you get back to Greenville, Frank.”

“That will be one o’clock at the latest,” pledged the boy.

He glanced at the clock, and was down the stairs quicker than he had come up them. Frank was back home in a jiffy. He made a brief explanation to his mother. Getting out his bicycle he tied to the handles a pair of long rubber boots. Soon he was sailing down the road to the south.

The Big Woods formed a long six-mile barrier between Greenville and Riverton direct. Its centre was practically impassible during wet seasons. It was a dismal, slushy waste. For this reason the only road to Riverton wound in a semi-circle many miles out of the natural course.

Frank entered the woods at a familiar opening near the edge of the town. For two miles there was a hard trodden path, and he made good time on his wheel. For two more, he had to pick a straggling course. Many times he had to dismount from the bicycle and run it past obstacles. However, it was not long before he reached the edge of the flats.

“Capital!” said Frank, after an eager survey of the swampy stretch. “I couldn’t strike it drier. Now then, for a wade.”

Frank ran his bicycle to cover, and drew on the long rubber boots. For a distance of a quarter-of-a-mile he made ready progress by stepping from one dried-up clump of grass or reeds to another. He had to pick his course more particularly, however, as he got to the wet spots. Wading was not difficult, as the water was not deep. Only once did Frank sink above the knees.

“Whew! that was a hot tug,” panted the youth, as he reached the west slope of the flats.

Frank threw himself flat on dry ground and rested for five minutes. Then he arose and removed the rubber boots. He hid these among some bushes and resumed his travels at a lively gait.

Presently Frank was passing the vicinity of a board fence. It reached up fully fifteen feet, and its top was studded with sharp-pointed nails. Frank was not near enough to observe it more than casually. He had no time to make a closer inspection, and, past a reach of timber, it was shut out entirely from his view.

“Hello!” again he exclaimed a few minutes later, and paused this time to look across a ditch. An object of decided curiosity and interest held Frank’s attention. This was a little ragged urchin curled up fast asleep against a clump of dry weeds.

He was barefooted, and up to the knees he was spattered and caked with dry mud. His face was dust-covered, tired-looking and tear-stained. Frank’s sympathy was easily aroused. He voted the little fellow some wretched, homeless lad on a tramp.

By the side of the boy was quite a large bundle. It was enclosed in a newspaper. The breeze blew the sheets aside and the contents were disclosed quite readily to Frank’s view.

“Well!” said Frank, his eyes opening wide, “he’s not a vegetarian, that’s sure.”

The remark was called forth by a sight of a mass of cold cooked meat that might well make Frank stare, on account of its volume and variety. It looked as if the young wayfarer had gathered up a lunch for many days. There were parts of mutton chops, chunks of roast beef, and cuts of pork, flanked by bones and remnants of hash and sausages.

“Hope he’s here when I come back this way,” said Frank. “Looks pretty forelorn. I’d be glad to give him a lift.”

Frank hurried forward now. He soon reached the outskirts of Riverton. Within ten minutes he gained the business centre of the little town. Frank located the bank. He was soon at the door of an office over it bearing the words in gilt letters:

James Pryor, Fire Insurance.

The door was open. Seated behind a wire railing at a desk was a cross-looking old man writing in a book. Frank approached him with the question.

“Is Mr. Pryor in?”

“Eleven,” snapped out the man without looking up from his work.

“You mean he will be here at eleven o’clock?” pursued Frank.

“Yes.”

“I’ll wait for him then,” said Frank, selecting a chair. He felt a trifle disappointed and worried. The “certain other party” was on the road to Riverton. It was part of Frank’s contract to see Pryor before his arrival.

Several people came in and inquired for the insurance man during the next half-hour. Some of them went away saying they would return at eleven o’clock. Some others sat down like Frank, and waited. Frank heard the old clerk explain to one caller that Mr. Pryor was in his private room, but engaged in a most important consultation with a client.

Frank grew restless. He approached the cross-grained clerk again.

“Excuse me,” he said politely, “but I understand that Mr. Pryor is in his private room.”

“What of it? Can’t be disturbed,” snapped out his representative.

Frank retreated. He managed to endure a further tedious wait of a quarter-of-an-hour. Finally he strolled to the window looking down on the street.

“That ‘other party’ is on his way here,” mused Frank anxiously. “Suppose he gets here before eleven o’clock? That gives him an even chance with myself. Oh, the mischief!” exclaimed Frank suddenly. “Now the pot’s in the fire, sure!”

Frank gave a great start, and stared fixedly at a horse and gig that came clattering to a stop just then in front of the bank.

Frank recognized the vehicle and its driver. As he did so, he as quickly guessed that this new arrival must be the “certain party” alluded to by Mr. Buckner.

The new comer was Abner Dorsett, the man who had helped to swindle Frank’s mother out of her fortune.

CHAPTER III
A BUSINESS CALL

Frank watched Dorsett dismount from the gig and tie his horse. He realized that he would be up into the insurance man’s office in a few minutes.

“I must do something, and quickly,” thought Frank. “The second that man sees me he will suspect my mission here. He is a person of substance, and will carry weight. I shall be left if he gets into action first.”

Frank reflected rapidly. The old clerk, as he had already found out, was unapproachable. Frank was seized with a wild impulse to leap over the wire railing and rush past the clerk to the door of Mr. Pryor’s private office.

“Maybe it’s locked, though,” said Frank. “No, I won’t do that. I don’t see that I can do much of anything, except to wait and take my chance of getting the check into Mr. Pryor’s hands before Mr. Dorsett guesses what’s up.”

Frank glanced at the clock. It showed ten minutes to eleven. He went out into the hall and drew back into the shelter of a big fuel box there.

Dorsett came up the stairs, buggy whip in hand. He bustled into the office in his usual self-important way. Frank noticed that the old clerk sat down on him promptly. He was not one bit impressed with the bombastic visitor from Greenville.

Dorsett scowled as the clerk pointed to the clock, and impatiently fumbling the whip, sat down with the others in the office to await the royal pleasure of its closeted proprietor.

Frank did a lot of thinking. He planned all kinds of wild dashes when the door of that private office should open. Then, happening to stroll down the hall, a new idea was suggested to him.

“Would it win?” Frank breathlessly asked himself.

He had come out on a little landing. This was that platform of stairs running down into the rear of the lot that the bank and the insurance office occupied.

Six feet away from it to the left were two windows. They were both open. The low hum of voices reached Frank’s ears. Judging from the situation of the apartment beyond, Frank was sure that he had located the insurance man’s private room.

“I wonder if I dare?” he challenged himself. “I wonder if it would work?”

His eyes snapped and his fingers tingled. Then Frank studied the outlook more carefully. He calculated first his chances of getting to the first window. He also planned just what he would say in the way of explanation and apology once he reached it.

Two feet away from the platform a lightning rod ran straight up the building. Frank seized this. He fearlessly swung himself free of the platform, bracing his toes on a protending joint of the rod.

At the side of the nearest window, top and bottom, were two hinge standards. They had been imbedded in the solid masonry when the place was built to hold iron shutters, if such were ever needed. The bank floor below was guarded with these, but none had been put in place on the upper story.

Frank swung one hand free, and bending to a rather risky angle hooked a forefinger around the upper one of these standards. At the same time he gave his body a swing clear of his footing.

He aimed to land his feet on the sill of the nearest window. In this Frank succeeded. There was no time, however, to chance losing the foothold thus gained. He promptly slid his free hand down under the frame of the raised window. He got a firm clutch. Relaxing his hold of the hinge standard, he stooped.

The next moment, on a decidedly reckless and awkward balance, Frank tumbled rather than dropped inside of the room that was his objective point of assault.

“Hello! what’s this?” instantly hailed him.

Frank nimbly gained an upright position. He faced two men who, seated at a table covered with papers, began to push back their chairs in a somewhat startled way. They stared hard at the intruder.

Frank promptly doffed his cap. He made his most courteous bow.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said in a rather flustrated way, “but which is Mr. Pryor, please?”

“I am Pryor,” answered one of the twain, and Frank saw from the gathering frown on the speaker’s face that a storm was brewing unless he headed it off summarily.

“I must beg your pardon, Mr. Pryor,” said Frank, “but it is a matter of some business importance. I have been waiting for over an hour to see you. It won’t take but a moment, sir,” and Frank swiftly produced the check and the receipt entrusted to him by Mr. Buckner. Before Pryor realized it, they were thrust into his hands and he was looking at them.

“Oh, this can wait,” he said pettishly. “I don’t like this kind of an intrusion, young man.”

“I am very sorry, Mr. Pryor,” interrupted Frank in a gentle, polite tone, “but I am only a paid messenger, and I promised Mr. Buckner to be back with that receipt at a certain time.”

“So you seized the bull by the horns,” broke in Pryor’s companion with a great chuckle. “And outwitted old Grumper, the clerk, ha! ha! Pryor, nail the boy on a year’s contract. He’s got the making in him of a first-class insurance solicitor, in his originality, daring and – ”

“Cheek,” muttered Pryor. “Well, well – here’s your receipt.”

Frank seized the paper that Pryor signed with a swift scrawl of the pen, with an eagerness that was a kind of delighted rapture.

“Oh, thank you, sir,” he said, “and a thousand apologies for my rude intrusion.”

“Hold on,” ordered Pryor, as Frank returned towards the window.

“Yes, unless you carry extra accident insurance,” put in Pryor’s companion. “You might not find it so easy getting out of that window as you did getting in, young fellow.”

Mr. Pryor had gone to the clouded glass door, which Frank knew opened into the main office. He slipped its catch and opened it. Frank understood that he was to pass out that way. He started forward, making a deferential bow to his host.

“Hi, I say, Pryor – one minute!” sounded a voice in the outer office, and Frank wondered what was about to happen as he recognized the tones as belonging to Dorsett.

“In a few minutes,” responded Pryor, with an impatient wave of his hand.

“All right. It’s about the salvage business, you know,” went on Dorsett from behind the wire grating. “Want to pay you the money and close up the deal.”

“Oh, that?” spoke Pryor, with a sudden glance at Frank and a grim twinkle in his eyes. “You young schemer!” he said to Frank in an undertone, with a slight chuckle. “I understand your peculiar tactics, now. You’ll do, decidedly, young man!”

Frank tried to look all due humility, but he could not entirely suppress a satisfied smile. As he passed out Pryor said to Dorsett: “You are too late on that matter. I have just closed the salvage business with Buckner of Greenville.”

“You’ve what?” howled Dorsett, with a violent start. “Why, I’m here first. No one passed me on the road. I – er, hum” – Dorsett turned white as his eye fell on Frank. He glared and shook his driving whip.

The animated and interested friend of Pryor stuck his head past the open doorway.

“I say, youngster,” he asked guardedly, his face all a-grin, “how did you circumvent the old chap?”

“Well, I nearly swam part of the way,” explained Frank. “Thank you, Mr. Pryor,” he added, as the latter opened the wire gate for him to pass out.

The old clerk had sprung to his feet, gaping in consternation at him. Pryor’s friend was convulsed with internal mirth. Pryor himself did not look altogether displeased at the situation.

Frank thought that Dorsett would actually leap upon him and strike him with the whip. The latter, however, with a hoarse growl in his throat, allowed Frank to proceed on his way unhindered.

“We shall hear from this of course – my mother and I,” said the youth to himself as he gained the street. “Mr. Dorsett will store this up against me, hard. All right – I’ve done my simple duty and I’ll stand by the results.”

A minute later, looking back the way he had come, Frank saw Dorsett come threshing out into the street. He kicked a dog out of his path, rudely jostled a pedestrian, jumped into the gig and went tearing down the homeward road plying the whip and venting his cruel rage on the poor animal in the shafts.

Frank started back towards Greenville the way he had come. He was greatly pleased at his success, and cheeringly anticipated the good the five dollars would do his mother and himself.

As Frank passed the spot where he had noticed the barefooted, mud-bespattered urchin lying asleep by the side of the ditch, he could find no trace of the lad.

A little farther on Frank came in sight of the high board fence he had so curiously observed on his way to Riverton.

The wind was his way, and as he approached the queer barrier he was somewhat astonished at a great babel of canine barking and howls that greeted his ears.

“Sounds like a kennel,” he reflected, “but’s a big one. Why, if there isn’t the little fellow with the package of meat.”

Frank wonderingly regarded a tattered, forlorn figure at a distance seeming to be glued right up face forward against the fence.

The boy had piled two or three big boulders on top of one another. These he had surmounted, and was peering through a high up crack or knot hole in the fence.

On one arm he carried the newspaper package Frank had noticed. Bit by bit he poised its contents, hurling them over the fence.

A loud clamor of yelps and barkings would greet this shower of food. Frank drew nearer, mightily interested.

The little fellow would throw over a bone and peer inside the enclosure.

“Get it, Fido!” Frank heard him shout. “They won’t let him – those big ones,” he wailed. “Oh, you dear, big fellow, help him, help him. No, they won’t let him. Fido, Fido, Oh, my! oh my!”

The little fellow slipped down to a seat on the boulders now and began to cry as if his heart would break. Frank approached and pulled at his arm.

“Hi, youngster,” he challenged, “what in the world are you up to, anyhow?”