The Black Dog Mystery (15 page)

“And what did they want that paint
fo
r
?” Djuna went on. “What were they going to paint with it? That’s what
I
can’t understand.”

“To paint a house with,” suggested Tommy.

“Oh, no!” Djuna objected. “There wasn’t enough. And, besides, it was all sorts of colors–red and yellow and green and everything. Nobody would paint a house that way!”

“Well, they could paint a sign with it, anyway,” said Tommy, “for a store, maybe.”

“Maybe,” said Djuna, doubtfully. “But a man with a store wouldn’t go around stealing paint. No, it wasn’t that. At first I thought maybe it was someone who wanted to paint boats with it; but there isn’t anyone around here that owns a boat, except Mr. Boots and Mr. Sedd. And Les’ wouldn’t dare steal it and use it right where Mr. Boots might see him, any day. Gee, what
could
anybody use it for?”

“
I
know!” said Tommy suddenly, after thinking some more. “A circus wagon!”

Djuna giggled. “That sounds more like it,” he agreed. “There are all kinds of colors on a circus wagon. The only trouble is, there
isn’t
any circus around here.”

“Well, what’s the use of trying to guess, anyway?” scowled Tommy. “I don’t see what we can do, except keep our eyes open, until we really find something that’s all painted up that way. But if they took it over as far as Riverton, why, we prob’ly wouldn’t
ever
see it. Nobody ever takes us there, hardly ever.”

“What
I
thought,” said Djuna, “was that if Mr. Boots would only go and tell Captain Crackle, then the police could look around to see if they could find any truck that had got paint splashed on its floor. There prob’ly would be, because those cans were already open, and they’d be sure to splash over when the truck bounced. But what’s the use? Mr. Boots won’t do anything about it!”

Tommy rested his chin on his hands and thought hard.

“Say!” he exclaimed suddenly, sitting up straight. “What was Mr. Boots staying in Riverton all that night for? That was the night before the bank robbery!”

Djuna looked miserable. “That’s just what I’ve been thinking about,” he said in a low voice, staring at the ground. “I don’t
want
to think about it, but I can’t stop. Oh, gee, Tommy, I
wish
he wouldn’t act so queer! If he’d only
tell
us anything! I’m awful worried! Listen, Tommy, promise you won’t say a single word to anybody until we really find out something, will you?”

“Cross my heart, I won’t say a thing,” Tommy promised. “But, gosh, wouldn’t it be awful if Mr. Boots was mixed up in it!” Horrified at the very thought, he stared at Djuna with his eyes big as saucers.

“Don’t you ever say any such thing!” exclaimed Djuna indignantly. “He couldn’t be; it just isn’t possible! He wouldn’t
do
such a thing, and you know it!”

“Well, I never said he did,” protested Tommy, flushing. “But you said yourself he acts as if he’s afraid of whoever it was that stole his paint. Maybe he ran into those bank robbers when he was over in Riverton! Maybe they’re the ones that stole his paint, too, and that’s why he’s scared to do anything about it. They’d
shoot
him!”

“Oh, shucks, Tommy, bank robbers wouldn’t bother to steal paint!” Djuna said impatiently. “All
they
want is money! What do
they
want with a lot of old paint? Don’t be silly.”

“Well, I don’t care,” said Tommy stoutly. “What’s he scared of, then?”

“Oh, gee, I don’t know,” said Djuna despondently. “It just seems as though the more I think about it, the more mixed up I get!”

He kicked gloomily at a chunk of wood on the floor. “Ouch!” he said, rubbing his toes. For a while he caressed his foot thoughtfully.

“You know what I’m going to do?” he demanded, jumping up again. “I’m going to talk to Mr. Morrison some more about it. He’s the only one that’s got any sense around here! I’ll bet he can help us!”

“I thought you said not to talk to anybody about it,” objected Tommy.

“Well, I did,” Djuna admitted. “But he’s different. You want to go over there with me, right away?”

“I guess so,” said Tommy. “I’ve got to cut our lawn, though, sometime.”

“Well, I’ll help you,” Djuna offered. “It won’t take a minute.”

But it took a good deal longer than a minute. It took them all the rest of the morning. And after that they had to rake up the grass, and by that time Djuna had to go home for lunch. When he got back it was after one o’clock. His little black dog came trotting along with them.

They went, as usual, by way of the old deserted gravel pit, then turned off on the path through the woods and soon came to the north end of Lost Pond, where they had left Mr. Boots’s rowboat the day before.

“I wish we had some oars,” said Tommy, looking at the boat wistfully. “Then maybe we could find that fishing-rod. Mr. Morrison said you could have it, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to borrow Mr. Boots’s boat again till he says I can,” Djuna said gloomily. “He was sort of mad because I upset in it.”

They made their way in single file along the narrow path that led on around the end of the lake. The bushes pressing close on the path, on both sides, were still wet with the rain that had fallen the afternoon before, for the woods were so thick that the sun hadn’t had a chance to dry them off.

“This is the way I came when I found you yesterday,” remarked Tommy.

“Well, it’s a good thing you
did
find me,” answered Djuna. “I’ll bet I never could have got the water out of that boat if you hadn’t helped. It would have taken an awful long time to tow it all the way to the end of the lake. Gee, look how long it’s taken us to get just halfway!”

They struggled on, pushing the bushes aside to keep from being hit by the branches, and sometimes slipping on the muddy path.

“I don’t believe anybody has ever been along here since the Indians!” panted Djuna, as the path got narrower.

“Gee, I’d hate to have to come along here at night!” gasped Tommy, puffing for breath. “You could get lost just as easy as anything!”

“You wouldn’t catch
me
coming here at night,” answered Djuna. “No, sirree, I should say not! Gee, you might step right on a snake, or something!”

But at last the woods got a little thinner, and pretty soon they caught sight of the south end of the pond, and of the little dock where Les’ Sedd’s rowboat was tied. With a sigh of relief, they walked on around the end of the pond and found their path joining the one that led from the dock to Les’ Sedd’s tumbledown shack, farther on in the woods beyond the pond. Champ was still leading the way, and now darted on ahead as if he had recognized a familiar road.

In a few minutes this path brought them to the open field, surrounded by the woods, on the far edge of which stood Les’ Sedd’s house. The cleared space covered three or four acres, most of which he had planted with potatoes, together with a little corn. The house was built of old boards which had never been painted, and it looked as gray and shabby as Les’ Sedd himself. It was a small house, with only two rooms. The shingles on its roof had grown black with age—some of them had fallen off; and the ridgepole itself sagged in the middle like the backbone of an old horse. There were no curtains inside the windows, and the faded window-shades were wrinkled and torn. Outside the shack, a few tired-looking hens wandered around, pecking at the bare ground occasionally with a dejected air, as if they didn’t really expect to find anything there to eat.

On a bench outside the door, Les’ Sedd was sitting in the sun, his head resting on his hands, his shoulders sagging dejectedly. Mr. Morrison wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but Les’ Sedd’s battered old motor-truck was standing at the other end of the shack and, beyond it, could be seen the roof of a small automobile.

“I guess Mr. Morrison’s here,” said Djuna hopefully, as they came in sight of the shack. “I think that’s his car, behind the truck.”

“Of course it’s his,” said Tommy. “Mr. Sedd hasn’t got any car, just that old truck.”

Champ had dashed on ahead, and the boys could see him trotting up to the bench where Mr. Sedd sat staring at the ground. Sedd seemed to be asleep, because he never looked up until Champ was right in front of him. Champ’s arrival seemed to startle him into wakefulness. The boys saw him lean over and pat Champ’s head. But Mr. Sedd’s next movements were surprising. He suddenly jumped to his feet and looked wildly around. As soon as his eyes fell on the two boys, who had just started to come toward him from the opposite side of the potato-field, he began waving his hands at them, frantically, as if to tell them to go away.

Startled, the boys stopped short. “What’s the matter with him?” gasped Djuna.

Mr. Sedd continued to motion wildly to them to go away. He said never a word. And then, looking back over his shoulder again and again at his own house, as if he were trying to escape from it without being seen, he began tiptoeing towards them with rapid strides. As he crept cautiously but swiftly toward them, his head bobbing forward on his long neck after each backward glance at the house, he was so strange a figure that the boys didn’t know whether to laugh or run.

“Gee, what’s he going to do?” whispered Tommy. “Maybe we’d better run!”

“I’m not going to run!” said Djuna. “He won’t hurt us!”

They stood their ground. But Mr. Sedd had not gone a dozen silent strides from his own door when a sudden shout stopped him in his tracks.

“Sedd!” shouted a voice from inside the house. “Sedd! Where are you?”

It was Morrison’s voice. Les’ Sedd fairly jumped at the sound. He whirled about, started running back like a frightened chicken. “Comin’!” he yelled, in a quavering voice. “I’m comin’, Mr. Morrison!”

But as he reached his house, he turned to make one last despairing gesture at the boys, before popping through the door, again waving frantically at them to go away. The boys gave each other one bewildered glance, and Tommy’s last bit of courage failed him. He turned and fled. Djuna darted forward and gathered Champ up in his arms. Then he walked slowly after Tommy, looking back over his shoulder from time to time, to see if anyone came out again from Les’ Sedd’s house.

He found Tommy peering out from behind a tree on the edge of the woods.

“What did you run for?” Djuna asked quietly, as he put Champ down on his feet. “Nobody was chasing us.”

“Well, gee whizz, he acts like he was crazy!” Tommy said indignantly. “I wasn’t going to stay around there, no, sir!”

“I don’t know whether he’s crazy or not,” said Djuna thoughtfully. “What
I
can’t understand is why he didn’t
say
anything. If he wanted us to stay out, why didn’t he say so, instead of just waving his arms at us? That’s what scared
m
e
!”

“He’s crazy, I tell you!” repeated Tommy, earnestly. “I don’t want to go anywhere near him!”

“Well, I wanted to talk to Mr. Morrison,” said Djuna, gloomily, “but I don’t suppose we can, now. Gee, I wonder what he’s staying in the house for? Maybe he’s sick. Maybe that’s why Mr. Sedd didn’t yell at us. Maybe Mr. Morrison was asleep and he didn’t want to wake him up. Sure, that must have been the reason!”

“But, gee, he didn’t
sound
sick when he yelled at Mr. Sedd!” he added reflectively.

“Yes, but he sounded
mad
,” agreed Tommy. “Maybe he’s got a temper’ture, or something.”

“Well, if he’s sick in bed, he prob’ly doesn’t want to talk to us,” Djuna concluded. “Come on, we might just as well go on home, doggone it!”

But Champ, who was always restless, had had an idea of his own. While the boys were talking, he had wandered off farther into the woods, scuffling around here and there, always on the alert for some new adventure.

“Let’s see where he’s gone,” suggested Tommy. “Don’t whistle at him—we don’t want to get that crazy old Mr. Sedd making any more fuss. Don’t make any noise.”

Djuna nodded, and the two boys went silently on through the woods, in the direction the little black dog had gone. Soon they came to another faint path, almost overgrown with ferns, which had plainly not been used for many years. They could only guess that it had once been a path, because the old stumps of trees that had been cut down long ago bordered it and showed that the woods had once been cleared away to make the path. The old path led down a gentle slope, and just beyond it was the bed of a rocky brook, at the bottom of which was only a thin trickle of water, although it looked as though the brook might have been a pretty big one, once upon a time, but had dried up. At one place there was a long footbridge across it, whose timbers had long since grown rotten and had collapsed into the bed of the brook. They caught a glimpse of Champ, just a little way ahead of them, and followed him, the old path keeping alongside the dry bed of the brook.

Soon the path joined still another path, one that was more plainly marked, which slanted away in another direction. As they reached this point, the boys stopped short, in astonishment. There, only a few feet away, but half-hidden by the trees, was Les’ Sedd’s tumbledown house! They had, without realizing it, circled through the woods around his potato-field and had come right back to it!

“Gee, grab Champ, and let’s get out of here!” whispered Tommy, anxiously.

Champ had turned in the other direction on the new path, which sloped still farther downward. They got one last glimpse of his stubby black tail as he turned a bend in the path, and they started after him hurriedly.

Above the bushes which lined the path they caught sight of the roof of an old house, towards which the path led.

“Gee, who lives
there?”
whispered Djuna. “I thought
nobody
lived around here except Mr. Sedd!”

Tommy clutched Djuna by the sleeve. “You know what that is?” he demanded excitedly. “That’s the
haunted
house!”

“What do you mean?” whispered Djuna. “Doesn’t anybody live there?”

“Oh, it’s just an old empty house,” answered Tommy nervously. “But I wish Champ would come back!”

“Well, I’m going to get him,” whispered Djuna resolutely. “You wait here.”