The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters | Page 6

but they took him at his word. They accepted his statements without a question--a most unusual thing in his experience. They showed him every kindness. At breakfast Mr. Gates heaped his plate with good things. They were so cordial in their invitation to stay and rest for awhile that he could not refuse them. They showed to him such a spirit of love as made him feel that, after all, Christian people were different from others, and to begin to be sorry that he had taken advantage of the good, old superintendent. They planted in his softened heart seeds of kindness and love which were bound to blossom.
Glen stayed two days, and might have remained longer, but on the morning of the third day, coming down early, he picked up the day-old paper which Mr. Gates had been reading. It was folded back at a place which told of his disappearance from the reform school. He was ashamed to look again in their faces, so he stole out the back way, passed through the barn, and thus made his way out into the dusty road.
His thoughts, as he trudged along, were far from cheerful. Although he had strong, boyish desires to fare forth into the world alone, he much disliked to leave this cheery home. Had he been a clean, honorable boy with a good record he might have stayed there and learned to be a man.
His gloomy thoughts were diverted by the sight of a man who seemed to be having troubles of his own. He was down at the side of an automobile, perspiring freely and vexed with the whole world as he unsuccessfully labored at changing a tire. The automobile was no ordinary car. It had a driver's seat in front and a closed car behind like the closed delivery wagons Glen had seen in town. Bright colored letters announced to the world that J. Jervice supplied the public with a full line of novelties, including rugs, curtains, rare laces and Jervice's Live Stock Condition Powders.
"Can I help you," volunteered Glen. It is worthy of note that the service was freely offered before the man spoke so much as a word. It had not been Glen's habit to volunteer help. He was feeling the influence of the home he had just left.
The offer was not kindly received. The man's reply was so churlish as to leave open the suspicion that he was not naturally a man of pleasant ways.
"Garn away f'm here," he snarled. "I don't need no boys spyin' around my car."
"Who's spyin'?" asked Glen defiantly. "You seem to need somebody pretty bad. You ain't man enough to strip that tire off."
"Nor nobody else wouldn't be," declared the man. "Leastways nobody with jest one pair of hands. While I pry it off one end it slips back on the other. Are you strong?" he asked, stopping to look at Glen.
"I'm pretty stout for my age," admitted Glen, modestly, "but I don't want to help nor spy, if you don't want me."
"I could use another pair of hands," the peddler admitted. "I can't pay you nothing for it, though, unless it be a ride to town."
"That is just what I want," agreed Glen. "It's a bargain."
The perspiration of Mr. J. Jervice had not been without occasion. The tire he was trying to change had done good service--it was, in fact, the very first tire that wheel had ever carried. Perhaps it cherished fond hopes of remaining in service as long as the wheel to which it clung--at least it resisted most strenuously all efforts to detach it. Both Glen and the man were moist with their efforts before it came away, and they accumulated still more dirt and moisture in applying its successor. But at last it was all done, and Glen had already mounted to the seat, while his companion was putting away his tools, when a cart drove up alongside and Glen recognized in the driver, Mr. Gates.
"What's the matter?" he asked, as Mr. Gates pulled up his horse.
"What's the matter?" echoed Mr. J. Jervice; "this boy been doing anything?"
It was not an unnatural question for there was something in Mr. Gates's look and in Glen's questioning tone that betokened affairs out of the ordinary; furthermore, Mr. J. Jervice seemed to be so suspicious of people in general that one might well think he had something to conceal.
"The boy's all right," replied Mr. Gates. "I have something to say to him, that's all. If he will come over here we will drive on a few feet while I say it."
Glen's thoughts flew back to the folded newspaper and he was instantly suspicious.
"I don't want to get down," he said. "This gentleman's agreed to give me a ride to town and I don't want to keep