Tuesday morning Lynn slipped down to Carters with a little cake she had made all white frosting and sprinkles of nuts. Her face was white but brave with a smile, and she said her mother wanted to know how Mrs. Carter's neuralgia was getting on.

But Mrs. Carter was the only one in the village perhaps who had not heard the rumor, and she was gracious and pleased and said she wished Mark was home, he loved nut cake so much.

“You know he was called back to New York suddenly last night didn't you?” she said. “He felt real sorry to leave so soon, but his partner wired him there was something he must see to himself, and he just took his car and went right away as soon as he got back from taking that girl home. He hoped he'd get back again soon though. Say, who was that girl? Wasn't she kind of queer to ask Mark to take her home? Seems somehow girls are getting a little forward these days. I know you'd never do a thing like that with a perfect stranger, Marilyn.”

The girl only stayed a few minutes, and went home with a braver heart. At least Mark was protecting his mother. He had not changed entirely. He wouldn't let her suffer! But what was he doing? Oughtn't he to be told what rumors were going around about him? But how could it be done? Her father? Perhaps. She shrank from that, Mark had so withdrawn from them, he might take it as an interference. Billy? Ah, yes, Billy!

But Billy did not appear anywhere, and when she got back she found that Shafton's car had been finished and was ready to drive, and he wanted her to take a little spin with him to try it, he said. He warily invited her mother to go along, for he saw by her face that she was going to decline, and the mother watching her daughter's white face said: “Yes, Marilyn we will go. It will do you good. You have been housed up here ever since you came home.” And there was nothing for the girl to do but succumb or seem exceedingly rude. She was not by nature rude, so she went.

As they drove by the Saxon cottage Billy was just coming out, and he stared glumly at the three and hardly acknowledged Marilyn's greeting. He stared after them scowling.

“Hell!” said Billy aloud, regardless of Aunt Saxon at the front window, “Yes Hell!” and he realized the meaning of his epithet far better than the young man he was staring after had the first night he had used it in Sabbath Valley.

“What was that you said Willie?” called Aunt Saxon's anxious voice.

“Aw, nothing!” said Billy, and slammed out the gate, his wheel by his side. Now! Something had to be done. He couldn't have that going on. He was hurt at Mrs. Severn. She ought to take better care of her daughter! In sullen despair he mounted and rode away to work out his problem. It was certain he couldn't do anything with Saxy snivelling round. And something had to be done!

Billy managed to get around the country quite a little that morning. He rode up to Economy and learned that Mr. Fenner, the tailor, was sick, had been taken two nights ago, was delirious and had to have two men to hold him down. He thought everybody was an enemy and tried to choke them all. He rode past the jail but saw nothing though he circled the block three times. The Chief stood out in front talking with three strange men. Billy sized them up for detectives. When there was nothing further to be gained in Economy he turned his steed toward Pleasant Valley and took in a little underground telephone communication between a very badly scared Pat and a very angry Sam at some unknown point at the end of the wire. It was then, lying hidden in the thick undergrowth, that a possible solution of his difficulties occurred to him, a form of noble self sacrifice that might in part do penance for his guilt. Folded safely in his inner pocket was the thirty pieces of silver, the blood money, the price of Mark Carter's freedom and good name. If he had not taken that he might have fixd this Pat so he would be a witness to Mark's alibi. But according to the code he had been taught it would not be honorable to squeal on somebody whose money he had taken. It wasn't square. It wasn't honorable. It was yella, and yella, he would not be if the sky fell. It was all the religion he had as yet, not to be “yella.” It stood for all the fineness of his soul. But he had reasoned within himself that if in some way he could get that money back to Pat, then he would be free from obligation. Then he could somehow manage to put Pat where he would have to tell the right thing to save Mark. Just how it could be done he wasn't sure, but that was another question.

When Pat had trundled away to the train he rolled himself out from ambush and went on his way across Lone Valley by a little tree-shaded path he knew that cut straight over to Stark mountain.

Not a ripple of a leaf showed above him as he passed straight up the mountain to the old house, for the watchful eye looking out to see. Billy was a great deal like an Indian in his goings and comings, and Billy was wary. Had he not seen the winking light? Billy was taking no chances. Smoothly folded in his hip pocket he carried a leaf of the New York paper wherein was offered a large reward for information concerning jewels and bonds and other property taken from the Shafton country home on pretense of setting free the son. Also there was a stupendous reward offered for information concerning the son, and Billy's big thought as he crept along under the trees with all the stealth of a wild thing, was that here was another thirty pieces of silver multiplied many times, and he wasn't going to take it! He could, but he wouldn't! He was going to give these folks the information they wanted, but he wasn't going to get the benefit of it. That was going to be his punishment. He had been in hell long enough, and he was going to try to pull himself out of it by his good works. And he would do it in such a way that there wouldn't be any chance of the reward being pressed upon him. He would just fix it so that nobody would particularly know he had anything to do with the clews. That was Billy all over. He never did a thing half way. But first he must find out if there was anybody about the old house. He couldn't get away from those three winks he had seen.

So, feeling almost relieved for a moment Billy left his wheel on guard and crept around to his usual approach at the back before he came out in the open. And then he crept cautiously to the cellar window where he had first entered the house. He gripped Pat's old gun with one hand in his pocket, and slid along like a young snake, taking precaution not to appear before the cellar window lest his shadow should fall inside. He flattened himself at last upon the grass a noticeless heap of gray khaki trousers and brown flannel shirt close against the house. One would have to lean far out of a window to see him, and there he lay and listened awhile. And presently from the depths beyond that grated window he heard a little scratch, scratch, scratch, tap, tap, tap, scratch, tap, scratch, tap, steadily, on for sometime like his heart beats, till he wasn't sure he was hearing it at all, and thought it might be the blood pounding through his ears, so strange and uncanny it seemed. Then, all at once there came a puff, as if a long breath had been drawn, like one lifting a heavy weight, and then a dull thud. A brief silence and more scratching in soft earth now.

He listened for perhaps an hour, and once a footstep grated on the cement floor, and coals rattled down as if they were disturbed. Once too a soft chirrup from up above like the call of a wood bird, only strangely human and the sounds in the cellar ceased altogether, till another weird note sounded and they began again.

When he was satisfied with his investigations he began slowly to back away from his position, lifting each atom of muscle slowly one at a time till his going must have been something like the motion picture of a bud unfolding, and yet as silent as the flower grows he faded away from that cellar window back into the green and no one was the wiser. An hour later the watchful eye at the little half moon opening in the shutter might have seen a little black speck like a spider whizzing along on the Highroad and turning down toward Sabbath Valley, but it never would have looked as if it came from Stark mountain, for it was headed straight from Lone Valley. Billy was going home to get cleaned up and make a visit to the parsonage. If that guy was still there he'd see how quick he would leave! If there wasn't one way to make him go there was another, and Billy felt that he held the trick.

But as fate would have it Billy did not have to get cleaned up, for Miss Severn stood on the front porch looking off toward the mountains with that wistful expression of hers that made him want to laugh and cry and run errands for her anywhere just to serve her and make her smile, and she waved her hand at Billy, and ran down to the gate to speak to him.

“Billy, I want to ask you,—If you were to see Mark Carter—of course you mightn't, but then you might—you'll let him know that we are of course his friends, and that anything he wants done, if he'll just let us know—”

“Sure!” said Billy lighting off his wheel with a downward glance at his dirty self, all leaves and dust and grime, “Sure, he'd know that anyhow.”

“Well, Billy, I know he would, but I mean, I thought perhaps you might find something we could do,—something maybe without letting him know. He's very proud about asking any help you, know, and he wouldn't want to bother us. You may discover something he—needs—or wants done—while—he is away—and maybe we could help him out, Father or Mother or I. You'll remember, won't you Billy?”

“Sure!” said Billy again feeling the warm glow of her friendliness and loyalty to Mark, and digging his toes into the turf embarrassedly. Then he looked up casually as he was about to leave:

“Say is there a guy here named Shafton? Man from n'Yark?”

“Why, yes,” said Lynn looking at him curiously, “Did you want to see him?”

“Well, if he's round I might. I got a message for him.”

She looked at him keenly:

“You haven't seen Mark to-day, have you, Billy?”

“Aw, naw, 'taint from him,” he grinned reassuringly, “He's away just now. But I might see him soon ya know, ur hear from him.”

Lynn's face cleared. “Yes, of course. His mother told me he was suddenly called back to New York.”

“Yep. That's right!” said Billy as if he knew all about it, and pulled off his old cap with a glorious wave as she turned to call the stranger.

Billy dropped his wheel at the curb and approached the steps as he saw Shafton coming slowly out leaning on a cane. He rustled the folded newspaper out from his pocket with one hand and shook it open as only a boy's sleight of hand can do, wafting it in front of the astonished Laurie, and saying with an impudent swag,

“Say, z'your name Shafton? Well, see that? Why don't you beat it home? Your ma is about t'croke, an' yer dad has put up about all his dough, an' you better rustle back to where you come from an' tell 'em not to b'leeve all the bunk that's handed out to 'em! Good night! They must need a nurse!”

Laurie paused in the act of lighting one of his interminable cigarettes with which he supplied the lack of a stronger stimulant, and stared at the boy curiously, then stared at the paper he held in his hand with the flaring headlines, and reaching out his hand for it began to laugh:

“Well, upon my word, Kid, where'd you get this? If that isn't a joke! I wonder if Opal's seen it. Miss Severn, come here! See what a joke! I'm kidnapped! Did you ever hear the like? Look at the flowery sentences. It's almost like reading one's own obituary, isn't it?”

Marilyn, glancing over his shoulder at the headlines, took in the import of it instantly. “I should think you'd want to telephone your mother at once. How she must have suffered!” she said.

Laurie somewhat sobered agreed that it would be a good idea:

“The mater's a good old scout,” he said lightly, “She's always helping me out of scrapes, but this is one too many to give up her emeralds, the Shafton Emeralds! Gosh but dad will be mad about them! And Oh, say, call that boy back will you? I want to give him a dollar!”

But Billy had faded down the road with mortal indignation in his breast. To think of giving up a ten thousand dollar reward and having a dollar flung at you! It seemed to measure the very depth of the shame to which he had descended.

The Severns came a few paces out of their indifference to this self-imposed guest and gathered around the sheet of newspaper while Laurie held an intensive conversation with his family beginning with several servants who were too excited at first to identify his voice.

But at last he hung up the receiver and turned toward them:

“Well, I guess there's nothing for it but for me to pull out. The mater doesn't think she'll be satisfied till she has her hands on me. Besides I've got to get things started about those jewels. Dad and mother are too excited to know what they're about. I declare, it's like being dead and seeing how they feel about it.”

There was a boyish eager look about the young man's face that made him for the first time seem rather loveable, Mrs. Severn thought. The mother in her rose to appreciation. Lynn was so glad that he was going away that she was almost friendly during lunch. And when the young man was about to depart he went to Mr. Severn's study and wrote a check for five hundred dollars:

“Just in appreciation of your kindness,” he said as he held it out to the minister.

The minister looked amused but did not offer to take it:

“That's all right,” he said pleasantly, “We don't keep boarders you know. You were welcome to what we could give you.”

“But, my dear sir, I couldn't think of not remunerating you,” declared Laurie.

“And I couldn't think of taking it,” smiled the minister.

“Well, then take it for your poor people,” he insisted.

“From what Lynn tells me you have more of those than we have,” answered the minister.

The young man looked annoyed:

“Well, then take it for something for your church, another bell or something, anything you're interested in.”

“I can give you an address of a young missionary out West who is having a hard time of it, and has a very needy parish,” said the minister taking out his fountain pen and writing the address on a card, “but I should prefer that you would send it to him yourself. He wouldn't take it from me, but if you'd send it he'll write and tell you what he does with it, and he'll tell me too, so it will give pleasure all around. He's a game young chap, and he's given his life. You couldn't help but like him.”

Laurie had to be content with this, though he felt annoyed at having to write a letter to a missionary. He felt he shouldn't know how to address him.

“I'll send it to-night when I get home,” he declared, “or no, I'll send it now,” and he sat down at the minister's desk, and scribbled a note. It read: “Your friend Severn won't take anything himself for kindness to me, so he's letting me send you this for your work. Here's wishing you good luck.” This he signed and handed to the minister with a relieved air as if to say: “There! That's that!”

“You see,” said Laurie getting up and taking his hat again, “I want to come back here again and see your daughter. I may as well tell you I'm crazy about your daughter.”

“I see,” said the minister gravely, albeit with a twinkle in his eye, “The fact is I'm somewhat crazy about her myself. But in all kindness I may as well tell you that you'll be wasting your time. She isn't your kind you know.”

“Oh, well,” said Laurie with an assured shrug, “That's all right if I don't mind, isn't it?”

“Well, no,” said the minister smiling broadly now, “You forget that she might mind, you know.”

“I don't get you,” said Laurie looking puzzled as he fitted on his immaculate driving glove, “She might mind, what do you mean?”

“I mean that my daughter minds very much indeed whether her men friends ask in a certain tone of voice for something to drink at midnight, and use language such as you used when you first arrived here, smoke continual cigarettes, and have friends like the young woman who visited you last Sunday.”

“Oh! I see!” laughed Laurie thoroughly amused, “Well, after all, one doesn't have to keep on doing all those things you know—if it were worth one's while to change them.”

“I'm afraid,” said the minister still amused, “that it would have to be worth your while to change before she would even consider you as a possibility. She happens to have a few ideas about what it takes to make a man, her ideal man, you know.”

Laurie smiled gaily:

“Perhaps I can change those ideas.”

“Help yourself young man. You'll find it a task, I assure you.”

“Well, I'm coming back, anyway.”

“We shall welcome you,” said the minister politely, but not at all gladly, and Laurie departed without his usual complacency, assuring the minister that he had found Sabbath Valley the garden spot of the world and meant to return soon and often.

Billy watched him from the graveyard enclosure whither he had retired to write a letter, and he made a face and wasted a gesture of defiance after his departing car. So much Billy felt he had accomplished toward reparation. He was now attempting a third act.

On the smooth end of the old stone he had a newspaper spread, and upon that a sheet of letter paper which he had extracted from Aunt Saxon's ancient box in the old secretary in the corner of the kitchen. Kneeling beside the stone he carefully inscribed the following words:

He folded the paper with his smudgy fingers, and stuffed it into a soiled envelope on which he wrote Mark's name, and as he had seen Lynn write down in the corner of a note that he had taken to Monopoly for her, “Kindness of Billy,” so he wrote “Kindnus of Cheef.” Then he mounted his wheel and rode to Economy. After some apparently aimless riding he brought up at the back of the Chief's garage where he applied a canny eye to a crack and ascertained just how many and what cars were inside. He then rode straight to the bank where he was pretty sure the Chief would be standing near the steps at this hour. Waiting a time of leisure he handed him the envelope:

“Say, Chief, c'n I trouble you to d'liver that?”

The Chief looked at the envelope and then at Billy and opened his lips to speak, but Billy forestalled him:

“I know you don't know where he is at all now, Chief, o' course, but I just thought you might happen to meet up with him sometime soon. That's all right, Chief. Thank ya.” Billy ended with a knowing wink.

The Chief turned the envelope over, noted that it was unsealed, grinned back and put it in his pocket. They had been good friends, these two, for several years, ever since Billy had been caught bearing the penalty for another boy's misdemeanor.

“That's all right Billy,” said the Chief affably, “I won't forget it—if I see him! Seen anything more of those automobile thieves?”

“Nope,” said Billy sadly, “but I gotta line on 'em. 'f'I find anythin' more I'll callyaup!”

“Do!” said the Chief cordially, and the interview was closed.

Billy bought some cakes at the bakery with ten cents he had earned running an errand from the grocery that morning, and departed on important business. He had definitely decided to give up his thirty pieces of silver. No more blood money for him. His world was upside down and all he loved were suffering, and all because he had been mercenary. The only way to put things right was to get rid of any gain that might accrue to himself. Then he would be in a position to do something. And Pat was his first object now. He meant to give back the money to Pat! He had thought it all out, and he meant to waste no time in getting things straight.

He went to the Economy post office and on the back of a circular that he found in the waste basket he wrote another note:

“Pat. This is blood money an' I can't kep it. I didunt no when I undertuk the job wot kind of a job it was. Thers only one way fur yoo to kep yur hid saf, an that is to tel the trooth abot wot hapuned. If yoo ar wiling to tel the trooth put a leter heer sayin so. If yoo don't I am havin' you watshed an you will los yoor job an likely be hanged. We are arumd so be keerful. This aint yella. This is rite.

“THE KID.”

It was a long job and he was tired when it was finished, for his days at school had been full of so many other things besides lessons that literary efforts were always strenuous for him. When he had finished he went out and carried three parcels for the meat market, receiving in return thirty cents, which exactly made up the sum he had spent from his tainted money. With this wrapped bunglingly in his note he proceeded to ambush near Pleasant Valley. He had other fish to fry, but not till dark. Meantime, if that underground telephone was being used at other times in the day he wanted to know it.

He placed the note and money obviously before the little hidden telephone from which he had cleared the leaves and rubbish that hid it, and then retired to cover where he settled himself comfortably. He knew Pat would be busy till the two evening trains had arrived, after that if he did not come there would likely be no calls before morning again, and he could go on his way. With a pleasant snack of sugar cookies and cream puffs he lay back and closed his eyes, glad of this brief respite from his life of care and perplexity. Of course he couldn't get away from his thoughts, but what a pleasant place this was, with the scent of sassafras and winter green all around him, and the meadow lark high in the air somewhere. There were bees in the wild honeysuckle not far away. He could hear their lazy drone. It would be nice to be a bee and fly, fly away from everything. Did bees care about things? Did they have troubles, and love folks and lose 'em? When a bee died did the other bees care? Aw Gee! Mark in—j—No! He wouldn't say it! Mark was in New York! Yes, of course he was. It would all come right some day. He would catch those crooks and put 'em in jail—no, first he'd use 'em to clear Mark. When he got done here he was going up to watch the old house and find out about that noise, and he'd see whether Link and Shorty would put anything more over! Link and Shorty and Pat, and that sissy Shafton and Sam, whoever Sam was! They were all his enemies! If Mark were only here how they would go to that old haunted house together and work this thing out. He ought to have told Mark everything. Fool! Just to save his own hide! Just to keep Mark from blaming him! Well, he was done saving himself or getting ill gotten gains. Him for honesty for the rest of his life.

The bees droned on and the lark grew fainter and fainter. Billy's eyes drooped closer shut, his long curling lashes lay on his freckled cheeks the way they lay sometimes when Aunt Saxon came to watch him. That adorable sweep of lash that all mothers of boys know, that air of dignity and innocence that makes you forget the day and its doings and undoings and think only, this is a man child, a wonderful creature of God, beloved and strong, a gift of heaven, a wonder in daytime, a creature to be afraid of sometimes, but weak in sleep, adorable!

Billy slept.

The afternoon train lumbered in with two freight cars behind, and a lot of crates and boxes to manipulate, but Billy slept. The five o'clock train slid in and the evening express with its toll of guests for the Lake Hotel who hustled off wearily, cheerily, and on to the little Lake train that stood with an expectant insolent air like a necessary evil waiting for a tip. The two trains champed and puffed and finally scampered away, leaving echoes all along the valley, and a red stream of sun down the track behind them from a sky aflame in the west preparing for a brilliant sunset. The red fingers of the sun touched the freckles on Billy's cheek lightly as if to warn him that the time had come. The shutters slammed on at the little station. The agent climbed the hill to his shack among the pines. Pat came out the door and stood on the platform looking down the valley, waiting for the agent to get out of sight.

And Billy slept on!

---