THE WAR-PATH

Mrs. Ray in the post-office managed to keep track of Mrs. O'Neil's personal sweeping of the Lathbun bedroom until it was terminated. Then she left the United States Government's appointment in charge of Mr. Ray's first wife's youngest daughter, and hied herself down the hill.

Mary Cody and Mrs. O'Neil were in the kitchen discussing the results of the investigation when she entered.

"Well, you'll never guess what I found," said the landlord's wife; "you'd never guess if you guessed till Doomsday."

"What did you find?" Mrs. Ray tucked in the ends of her shawl with fierce joy,—"a pistol?"

"No;" Nellie O'Neil's brown eyes glowed and her face shone; "guess again."

"Oh, I can't guess," said Mrs. Ray, impatiently. "A monkey? A love-letter from the king of England? A lot of stamps? I don't know,—I can't guess."

Mrs. O'Neil nodded her head very slowly, and with deeply seated meaning.

"Go on," said Mrs. Ray, "tell me. I'm in a hurry. Yes, I am."

"I found six case-knives!"

"Six case-knives!"

"Yes, that's what I found."

"Six case-knives! Well, of all the—What did they want them for?"

"One was broke off short."

"Any blood on it?"

"Oh, Mrs. Ray!"

"Well, I just asked."

"They were all clean."

"And one broke off?—hum!"

"What do you think about it, Mrs. Ray?"

"I hope it'll be a lesson to Sammy Adams never to take two strange women in on a rainy night again. The Bible, even, is severe on strange women."

"Did he take them in?" Mrs. O'Neil opened her brown eyes widely.

"Take them in! He kept them all night. Haven't you heard about it? And never told me, either. That's just like a man. Flattering himself that I'd give a second thought to any woman living. Six, you say, Nellie, and one broke off?"

"The broken one is one of the six."

"They could have broken it off in his heart, just as easy! My, to think of the chances that man took! Didn't they have anything else? Did you look under the mattress?"

"Yes,—I looked everywhere. There's a hair-brush that I'd have thrown into the gorge a year ago if it had been mine, and a bent pin and a broken mirror, and that's all."

"I declare. Well, it's a very good thing that I set you to looking them up. Yes, indeed. I shall look them up in all directions now, myself. I shan't leave a stone unturned that I can even tip up on one side. To think of those case-knives! And one broke off! And Sammy Adams taking them in like that! But then, it isn't for you to criticize him, Nellie, for you've taken them in yourself. You can thank your stars you haven't had a case-knife stuck in you before now. How do they carry them, anyway?"

"They were wrapped in a piece of red flannel."

"Red flannel! Why, you said all they had beside the knives was the hair-brush and the mirror. Red flannel,—hum! So blood wouldn't show on it, I expect. Was the edge of the blade of the broken one rusted at all?"

"Not that I noticed."

"Noticed!"

"Don't you want to come up and see for yourself, Mrs. Ray?"

"I don't know. They might come in. It wouldn't look well for any one in the employ of the United States Government to be found spying about, you know. I'm always having to consider my country. Yes, indeed. But what do you suppose they have those knives for? I never heard of such a thing in all my life. Even if they used them for tooth-brushes, they'd only want one apiece."

"I think you'd better come up-stairs."

"And Sammy Adams taking them in like that! That poor innocent! Not but what he was a fool; think of me opening my doors to two tramps!"

"Come on up-stairs. They won't be back till noon. They've gone chestnutting in the Wiley wood. They can't be back till noon."

The door opened just here, and Alva came in with Lassie behind her.

"Have you told them?" Mrs. Ray asked.

"What is it?" Alva asked.

"We don't know what to think about Mrs. Lathbun and her daughter," said Mrs. O'Neil.

Alva glanced quickly into both their faces and then at Lassie.

Mrs. Ray tucked the ends of her shawl in, folded her arms, and closed her lips tightly for a second before opening them to speak. "I never did like their looks," she declared. "I'm not surprised over what's come out!"

"I never liked their looks, either," said Lassie, "but what is it? Has anything happened?"

"No," said Mrs. Ray, "nothing in particular, only we're beginning to find them out. You can't pretend to be somebody forever without any trunks. Case-knives are good in their way, but they don't take the place of trunks."

"Case-knives!" Alva exclaimed. "Oh, what do you mean?"

"There, Nellie, you see how they strike any one," said Mrs. Ray, with deep meaning.

"But have they case-knives with them?" Alva asked,—"not really?"

Then Mrs. O'Neil told her story.

"You'd better all lock your doors nights after this," said Mrs. Ray; "you don't want to take Sammy Adams' chances if you can help it."

"But what should they have the knives for?" Lassie asked.

"They have their reasons," said Mrs. Ray, darkly; "you know you told me the other day, Nellie, that the reason why they sat in the kitchen with their feet in the oven so much was because their shoes was all wore out; they've got their reasons for everything they do, depend on it. If they're honest, why don't they have their shoes patched when they're wore out? If they were respectable, why didn't that girl buy some black laces instead of wearing brown ones. I always keep black shoe-laces in my grocery business."

"Maybe she doesn't know that," suggested Lassie.

"Yes, she does know," said Mrs. Ray, "for I told her so one day when she played come for mail."

"I didn't know you kept shoe-laces," said Mrs. O'Neil. "I've always bought them in Buffalo."

"Well, I do. Yes, indeed. I keep pretty nearly everything—except case-knives. There's nothing out of place in keeping shoe-laces in a grocery business, not until after you begin to wear them, and for my own part they seem to me just as decent as shoe buttons which all the town would be up in surprise if I didn't have them in my grocery business."

"Yes, I knew you kept shoe buttons," said Mrs. O'Neil.

"I keep everything, except strange women travelling after dark. My store is a general one. I thank heaven there's nothing of the specialist in me. I'd of starved if there was, or been obliged to charge very high for very little work, which would mean starving in a while anyhow, so being no doctor I couldn't stay a specialist long even if I tried."

"I think you ought to come up-stairs and see their room, Mrs. Ray," Mrs. O'Neil said, going back to the main question.

"What is it about their room?" Lassie asked.

"There isn't anything about it—that's what it is," said Mrs. Ray; "respectable people always have things about their room. Yes, indeed. But of course women walking across country nights can't carry much fancy fixings even if they don't mind stopping all night wherever the rain catches them."

"Did they stop over night anywhere?" Lassie asked.

Mrs. Ray adjusted her shawl. "Such doings!" she muttered; "I never heard the like. That's one way to work the game. I never had any game. I just had the work. Whenever there came up something as had to be done that nobody in town could do, I was glad to learn how for the money. Yes, indeed. And now they come along and live on the fat of the land, case-knives and all."

"Do let's go up and see the room," pleaded Mrs. O'Neil.

Mrs. Ray wavered. "Well, if Mary Cody will stand in the hall and watch?" she stipulated.

"And you must come, too," said Mrs. O'Neil to her two guests; "there isn't anything to see—it isn't prying—it's just the wonder how they can get along without anything at all that way."

Alva was rather pale.

"Do let's go," Lassie whispered.

Alva smiled sadly. "Yes, we'll go," she said.

Mrs. O'Neil called Mary Cody and stationed her below. Then they all four mounted the stairs and went along the plain hall to the plain door at the end.

"You keep everything very neat, Nellie," said Mrs. Ray; "it's a pity you don't stick to nice people who can appreciate nice things. If you go taking in people like the Lathbuns too often, you might just as well give up and get the name for it. I wouldn't dare stay under the same roof with them, myself."

Mrs. O'Neil made no answer, simply pressing the door at the end of the hall and—as the door yielded—entering first.

Mrs. Ray and Lassie were next. Alva did not go in, but stood still in the doorway.

It is hard to conceive the special effect of that interior on each of the four.

"Did you have any little things around before you swept?" Mrs. Ray asked, standing in the middle like the head of some royal commission in the days of the Dissolution.

Mrs. O'Neil—in the capacity of the layman left to represent the monks flown—replied that she had found all as bare as now.

"Well, you told the truth, Nellie," her friend remarked; "there's the hair-brush and here's the mirror. But where are the knives?"

Mrs. O'Neil pulled open the upper drawer, and in one corner lay the roll of red flannel.

Mrs. Ray unrolled the knives and examined them with care. A case-knife is rather limited as to its power of revelation, however, and she soon laid them down.

"Well, I never!" she said, with heaviest emphasis.

"What do they sleep in, or wash with?" Mrs. O'Neil suggested.

"The towels are yours, of course, Nellie?"

"Of course."

Lassie looked around the simple bedroom with its absolute bareness. She felt pitiful.

"They're comin' over the post-office hill!" Mary Cody suddenly yelled below. The effect was magical.

Lassie and Alva fled into their room.

"I feel like a burglar myself," exclaimed the young girl, as she shut their door.

Mrs. Ray was going down the stairs in the hall outside. "There," she exclaimed, "did you hear that? That's the way it goes when you harbor criminals. They're very catching."

"Oh, do you really think they're criminals?" Mrs. O'Neil asked, in great distress.

"Well, Nellie, put the case-knives and Sammy Adams together, and then the way they pick up other folks' chestnuts and having no comb and only half a brush for the two of 'em—it looks bad in my eyes."

"But what shall I do?" Mrs. O'Neil asked.

"Ask Jack if they pay their board regularly; that'll help you to know some," propounded the postmistress solemnly, and then she returned to her government duties forthwith.