CHAPTER X

MOTHER WIT AND THE GRAY MARE

For some reason, that lively young "female Mercury," as Jess Morse sometimes dubbed her, Bobby Hargrew, did not hear of this new raid upon the girls' gym. early that morning; so, like the other pupils of Central High, she could not visit the athletic building until after school. She went then with Nellie and Laura and Jess, and the quartette were almost the first girls to enter the building that day.

"It's a dreadful thing," said Laura, in discussing the affair.

The girls were all noticeably grave about the matter this time. There was little excitement, or talk of "how horrid it was" and all that. There was a gravity in their manner which showed that the girls of Central High were quite aware that the case was serious in the extreme.

One of their number was accused of being the instigator of these raids on the gymnasium. True, or false, it was an accusation that could not be lightly overlooked. Laura Belding was particularly grave; and Nellie Agnew had cried about it.

The four friends went out into the field and examined the footprints in the earth.

"Those were never Hessie's 'feetprints,' for, big as her feet are, she never wears boots like _those_!" giggled Bobby.

"He was a shuffler--that fellow," said Jess. "See how blurred the marks are at the heel?"

"And he shuffled right up to this window--And how do you suppose he opened it, if, as Mr. Jackway says, it was locked on the inside?"

"Mystery!" said Bobby.

"Give it up," added Jess. "What do you say, Mother Wit?"

"That is the way he opened it," said Laura, softly, looking up from the foot prints.

"What's that?" cried Jess.

"Why--I hear you talking, but you don't say anything!" laughed Bobby. "_How_ did he open it?"

"From the inside," said Laura.

"Why, Laura!" gasped Nellie. "You do not distrust Mr. Jackway?"

"Hush! Of course not," cried Jess, in a lower tone.

"No, I do not distrust him," said Laura Belding.

"What do you mean, then, by saying that the fellow opened the window from the inside?"

"And that's ridiculous, Laura!" cried Jess. "He walked up to the window from across the field--you can see he did. And there's no mark showing how he went away. He did not leave by the window. He could not have been inside when he came from outside----"

"Hold on! Hold on!" warned Bobby. "You're getting dreadfully mixed, Jess."

"But I don't see what Laura's driving at," declared her chum.

"Why," said Mother Wit, calmly, "the person who made those shoe prints walked backwards. Don't you see? That is what makes the shuffling mark at the heel. And see! the step is so uneven in length. He escaped by the window; he didn't enter by it."

"Well!" cried Nellie Agnew. "That explains without explaining. The mystery is deeper than ever."

"Why is it?" demanded Jess.

"Don't you see? Before, we thought we knew how the fellow got in. It seems to be an easier thing to get out of the gym. than into it. But now Laura knocks that in the head. The mystery is: How did he get in?"

"Oh, don't!" cried Bobby. "It makes my head buzz. And Laura is a regular lady detective. She's always finding out things that 'it would be better, far, did we not know!'"

She said this to Nellie Agnew, when they had separated from Laura and Jess, and were walking toward home.

"Say! do you know how Laura explained that canoe tipping over with Purt Sweet and Lily Pendleton?" pursued the lively one.

"I didn't know that they had an accident," laughed Nellie. "Those canoes are awfully ticklish, I know."

"I should say they were! Well, Purt and Lil borrowed Hessie's canoe and they no more than got started before they went head first into the water--and Lil, of course, helpless as usual, had to be 'rescued.' The number of times that girl has been 'rescued' this season is a caution!"

"I do admire your elegant language," said Nellie, reprovingly. "But what did Laura say?"

"She explained it all for them. Both Purt and Lil were trying to tell how such a wonderful thing chanced to happen as an overturn, when Laura said she could explain it satisfactorily to all hands. She said that Purt had made a mistake and parted his hair too far on one side, and that had overbalanced the canoe!"

"Well, they do swamp awfully easy," laughed Nellie. "I guess Laura has found the right explanation of how the villain left the gym. But there is one explanation that I would like to have--a much more important one," concluded Nellie.

"What's that?"

"_Who_ did it?"

"I thought that was pretty well understood," growled Bobby.

"No girl could have climbed over that fence, that's sure!"

"Oh, I grant you that!" cried Bobby. "But she paid to have it done. There are plenty of tough fellows from down at the 'Four Corners' who work at the slaughter house. They could be hired to do it."

"Hush, Bobby!" commanded the doctor's daughter. "I feel terribly condemned. I am afraid we are accusing Hester wrongfully. A girl couldn't have two such very opposite sides to her character," and she promptly told her friend what Dr. Agnew had related regarding Hester's rescue of little Johnny Doyle from the sewer basin.

"Gee! that was some jump, wasn't it?" demanded the admiring Bobby. Then she shook her head slowly. "Well," she remarked, "nobody ever said Hester wasn't brave enough. She was brave enough to slap your face!" and then she giggled.

"I don't care," said Nellie, slowly. "I fear we went too far when we asked Mrs. Case to take her off the team. And I'm _sure_ it isn't right for us to accuse her of being the cause of the trouble at the gym.--without further and better evidence."

"Oh, dear, Nell! you're a great fuss-budget!" cried the effervescent Bobby. "Are you sure that your Daddy Doctor saw quite straight when he saw Hester save the kid? You know, he's getting awfully absent-minded."

Nellie smiled at her, taking Bobby's jokes good naturedly.

"I know father is absent-minded," she admitted. "But not as bad as all that."

"I don't know," returned Bobby, with apparent seriousness. "The other day when he put the stethoscope to me before practice, I expected to see him take the receiver away from his ear and holler 'Hello, Central!' into it."

"I'll tell him that!" promised Nellie.

"All right. Do your worst," giggled Bobby. "It will be a month old before he gets around to sound my heart action again, and he will have forgotten all about it by then."

The Saturday following a crowd of the girls went out to visit Eve Sitz, and Nellie and Bobby were included in the automobile load that left the Beldings' house right after luncheon. Saturday mornings Laura always helped in her father's jewelry store, while Chet was behind the counter as an extra salesman in the evening; so the Beldings' chauffeur drove the car to the Sitz farm for the girls.

There were chestnut and hickory woods on, and near, the Sitz farm, and the girls had in mind a scheme for a big nutting party just as soon as Otto Sitz--Eve's brother--should pronounce the frost heavy enough to open the chestnut burrs and send the hickory nuts tumbling to the ground.

There was always plenty to do to amuse the young folk--especially young folk from the city--on the Sitz place. This day Otto and the hired men were husking corn on the barn floor, and Nellie, and Bobby, and Jess and the Lockwood twins were supplied with "corn pegs" and sat around the pile, helping to strip the golden and red ears.

Eve had an errand down at the nearest country store, so she put the old gray mare into the spring cart with her own hands, and Laura rode with her.

"We had a nice colt from old Peggy last year, and two weeks ago it was stolen. Otto had just broken her to saddle, and she was a likely animal," Eve said. "Old Peggy misses her, and whinnies for her all the time," she added, as the mare raised her head and sent a clarion call echoing across the hills.

"Hasn't your father tried to find the thief--or the colt?" queried Laura.

"Yes, indeed. He's over to Keyport to-day to see the detective there."

"But the colt may be outside the county," urged Laura.

"That's so, too. We haven't any idea where Jinks went. That was her name--Jinksey. She doesn't look much like Old Peggy; but she was worth a hundred and fifty dollars, if she was worth a cent! More than father could easily afford to lose. And then--Otto really owned her--or would have owned her when he came of age. Father had promised Jinks to him."

"It's a shame!" cried Laura, always sympathetic. "And you have no suspicion as to who could have taken her?"

"No. Down beyond the store--beyond Robinson's Woods, you know--there is a settlement of people who have a hard name. They rob the gardens and orchards on the edge of town----"

"Toward Centerport, you mean?"

"Yes."

"The Four Corners' crowd!" cried Laura.

"Yes."

"Oh, that gang are a bad lot. Once Chet and I motored through there and an ugly fellow named Pocock came out and fired a charge of bird-shot into a rear tire. He said an auto had been through there the week before and killed his pig, and he was going to shoot at every machine he saw. We've never taken that road again."

"That Hebe Pocock is an awfully bad fellow," said Eve, seriously. "He tried to work for us once, but father wouldn't keep him more than a day. And he's been mad at us ever since."

"Maybe some of those fellows in that gang stole your Jinksey."

"How are we going to know? Father or Otto wouldn't dare go down there and look around. And I guess the police are afraid of those fellows, too."

"Let's drive down past the store," suggested Laura, thoughtfully, after the old mare had again lifted up her voice.

"Oh, my, Laura! What for?"

"Something might come of it."

"I guess nothing but trouble."

"I've got what Chet and Lance call 'a hunch,'" said Laura, slowly.

"We--ell----here's the store."

"Just a little farther, Eve," said Laura, taking the reins herself, and clucking to the old mare.

They passed the store on the trot. Around the first bend they came in sight of the little hollow where the roads crossed, making the renowned "Four Corners." Coming up the road was a boy on a bay colt. Instantly the old mare whinnied again, and the colt answered her.

"It's Jinksey!" gasped Eve.

"We're going to get her--if you're sure!" declared Laura.

"Of course I'm sure. I'd know her anywhere--and so would Old Peggy."

The colt snorted again, and the boy riding her tried to pull her out into a side path, to cut across the fields. Eve stood up and shouted to him. Laura urged the gray mare on, and she went down the hill at a tearing pace.