University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XVIII.
UNDER SUSPICION.

"WHAT d'ye make of them, Elmer?" asked Josh, after the two horsemen had trotted on once more. They had exchanged a few sentences with Elmer, acting as the spokesman for the party, and of course asked what brought the boys down here on such expensive motorcycles as the ones they saw parked close by. Elmer had simply replied that they were on a little pleasure tour, and expected to go no further than Chattanooga. As the bad condition

of the road had tired out some of them, with the walking that became necessary, they had concluded to stop over, and leave their arrival at the bustling city near the foot of Lookout Mountain until another day.

"Well, to tell you the truth, suh," replied Elmer, "I hardly know what to think. They may be, just as they said, gentlemen from the city, taking a ride through the mountains. Then again, it struck me that they looked as if they didn't just swallow all I told them. I saw them give each other a wink several times."

"Just what I was agoin' to say, Elmer," remarked Josh. "And believe me, whoever they may be, they look on us with suspicion, as the book has it. Don't know just why they should, unless they thought Hanky and Rooster here had a sorter hangdog appearance that gave us all away."

"Huh! after seeing you, they wouldn't bother paying any attention to the rest of us, I'm thinkin'?" grunted Hanky Panky in high dudgeon; for he rather prided himself on his frank and honest looks.

Rod was apparently thinking deeply; and he scratched his head as though something managed to elude his grasp, as he went on to say:

"I feel about the same way as you do, Elmer; and that those men, whoever they may happen to be, are puzzled to account for our being down here.

You see, the riding is so punk that it doesn't seem as though anybody with a grain of sense would come along this road on a motorcycle, when he might turn back and try another road."

"Then you don't think they believed what I told them?" asked Elmer.

"They seemed to have some trouble in swallowing it, looked like to me," was what Rod replied.

"But who d'ye s'pose they c'n be?" asked Rooster, looking down the road where the two mysterious horsemen had disappeared.

Elmer shook his head.

"I reckon, now, you'll have to ask me something easier than that, suh, if so be you expect me to answer it. I never saw either of the parties befoah; and to tell you the truth, I don't believe they belong around heah. I know a Southern man every time, when I meet up with one; and if you asked me I'd most positively say both of those men came from the No'th."

"Yep," broke in Hanky Panky, "and let me tell you, they was some interested in the bundles we've got tied on our wheels. I say so because both of 'em squinted that way more'n a few times, like they'd give somethin' to know what we carried along with us. Mebbe they wanted to ask, but felt a bit backward about seemin' to be too inquisitive."

"Hardly that, Hanky," Rod observed; "because, if I'm any judge of men, neither of them

looked like he might be timid. If they didn't ask any more questions, it was from another cause. Perhaps we'll find out some day; and then again we may never know."

"But they rode away in the direction of the city, didn't they?" asked Rooster.

"Just what they did," answered Elmer, "which would seem to go to prove that they told the truth when they said they were from Chattanooga. It is not many miles away from heah, right now. If we happened on a spur, where we would have an unhampered view, I believe you could pick out old Lookout Mountain, and also see the famous Missionary Ridge, where so much fighting went on long ago."

"Well, suppose we start to make ourselves comfortable before night sets in," remarked Rod, who knew how essential it was that they look after the many little matters connected with camping, before the daylight had entirely gone.

After they had been working as they saw fit for some time, Rod managed to get Elmer aside for a further little conference.

"I don't suppose now," he went on to say, to start the ball rolling, "that you've thought up anything about new about those men?"

"I've been bothering my head right along," answered the other, seriously; "and yet I don't seem able to place them. They looked at me as if they

thought I was telling them what was not true, and that we had come down heah for some deeper purpose. Well, we have, but it isn't one that is unlawful. I reckon now I ought to have a right to make a hunt fo' those valuable papers belonging to my poor old grandfather, who is out of his head, and unable to tell us just where he hid the same some yeahs back."

"Of course you have, Elmer, and some way or other we're going to do that same job. The only trouble that I can see is how we might manage to get under the roof of the house that used to cover your head when you were a kid. Of course it's impossible that this Colonel Pepper could have the least suspicion that you meant to visit your old home, or could know anything about what would be apt to draw you down here?"

Elmer drew a long breath.

"I've been bothering my head with that same question fo' some time, Rod," he finally remarked; "and fo' the life of me I can't see however that could be. Up to a short time back you were the only one I shared my secret with, and even you didn't know the whole of it. Then how could wind of my mission ever get to the ears of Colonel Pepper? Fo' I can plainly see you are hinting now that those two horsemen may be friends of his."

"That was one of the things that slipped through my mind, I'll own up," said the other, frankly.

"Of course I don't see how they could know anything about you, the hidden papers, or why you should come down here after all these years. But one thing I'm dead sure about."

"What is that, Rod?"

"Those men are not satisfied with the explanation you gave, to account for five fellows stopping for the night right here; when, by making some sort of a spurt, we could have reached the city. Even after they assured us the road was all right a little further on, and that we would have easy sailing, none of us seemed to act like we felt like making the try."

"Well, p'raps we may nevah run across the gents again, suh," Elmer went on to say, as though more urgent matters were crowding the subject out of his mind; "and right now I am thinking only of how we might manage to get inside that house. If I called on the Colonel, and asked him as a favor to let me sleep once more under the old roof I used to love right well as a boy, I wonder whether he'd accommodate me. And suh, would it be honorabe fo' me to accept such an invitation, and then betray that confidence?"

"I don't see how that need bother you, Elmer," replied Rod, who knew only too well how very touchy the Southern boy was on the subject of "honor," always the very first thing in his thoughts. "The papers do not belong to him, even if he did

buy your old home. You are afraid some question of law might crop up, if you asked him to let you get them, though; and for that reason alone you are justified, in my mind, in taking the same without his knowledge. Think what it may mean for your folks up home -- a fortune going begging, that by every right in the wide world belongs to your grandfather, and no one else. Oh! forget all those squeamish notions, Elmer, and believe what I say."

The other drew a long breath, and then felt for Rod's hand, which he took hold of, and squeezed convulsively.

"I ought to have faith in all you say, Rod, my friend, and I will," he said, a little brokenly, it is true. "Just as you tell me, those papers belong to us, and no one else. The fact that they may be hidden on the property of this Colonel Pepper should make no difference. If he was a real gentleman I would not hesitate about going to him, and stating the case; but I feel positive, from what I remember of the man, that he would laugh at me, and seize the papers himself. Sooner than have that happen, I would forget that I was born south of the Dixie border, and take them, any way I could get the same."

"That sounds like your better self, Elmer; for I take it, one's first duty is to stand by his family, no matter what sort of notions he has about honor, and all that sort of thing. And I firmly believe that between

us we'll manage somehow or other to learn the truth about those blessed papers. If they're there under the hearth-stone in the big living-room, by hook or by crook we'll carry them off; and without harming Colonel Pepper, or anybody else a particle."

"Thank you, Rod," said the Southern boy, with a catch in his voice that betrayed the deep emotion he was feeling; "I don't know what I would have done, but for you, and the rest of my chums. Taking all this long trip away down through this wild region, over poor roads, and without any fun about it, and all for friendship's sake. It's just fine, that's what I think."

"Oh! don't mention it, Elmer," remarked Rod, with a wave of his hand; "why, even our poorest rider, Rooster, was saying a little while back that he thought the magnificent scenery alone was worth all the work we'd had to put up with. And when he could make a remark like that, you can understand that none of us think it any hardship to be with you on this trip."

"It's getting evening now, and the sun's sunk out of sight," remarked Elmer, meditatively; "see, Josh is lighting his cooking-fire, and means to get supper started right away. I can hear the birds chittering away in the bushes, and how it all makes me think of the old days, when I used to listen to the same

sounds, as the fire lighted up the western sky after sunset."

Rod left him there, still engaged in living over some of the far distant past, which had been brought vividly to his mind by the fact that he was once more in the same country of his boyhood days, with the old home not far removed.

Rooster and Hanky Panky were trying to render Josh more or less assistance in starting to get supper ready. They had only eaten a cold "snack" at noon, and hence all of them were looking forward with more or less eager anticipation to partaking of a warm meal.

The coffee-pot and the frying-pan were both doing good service, and the appetizing odors had already commenced to steal out upon the night air, when Rooster jumped to his feet, and stared around him, just as though he suspected some peril menaced them, that the surrounding gloom concealed from view.

"Did you hear it?" he asked hoarsely, gripping Josh by the shoulder, and causing that worthy to drop whatever he was holding, so as to get upon his knees, and raise his head, in order to listen.