CHAPTER III.
THE HOME OF THE SAGES.
“Well, what do you know about that?” muttered Hooker wonderingly. “He’sgone.”
“Who?” questioned Fred, reaching the road.
“The man—the man I was talking with. He was sitting right here on thisstone when I came sneaking down through the woods, and I almost shot hishead off. He rose up into view just in time. Where the dickens has hegone?”
In both directions a strip of road lay in plain view, but, savethemselves, there was no human being to be seen upon it.
“When did he go?” questioned Sage.
“After you fired; while I was watching for you to come out of the woods.He was right here within five feet of me. I can’t understand how he gotaway so quickly without my knowing it. He must have put off into thewoods on the other side.”
“What made him do that?”
“You’ve got me. He was a stranger around these parts, and said he waslooking for work. There was something queer about him, too. He was agood, healthy looking specimen, and he didn’t seem like a hobo, thoughhis clothes were rather rough. He talked like an educated man. Say,Fred, he asked about you.”
“About _me_?” exclaimed Sage in surprise. “Why, how was that?”
“Don’t know. He asked if there was a family by the name of Sage inOakdale and how long they had been there. He must be someone who knowsyou, Fred.”
“Describe him.”
Roy did so as well as he was able, but his friend did not seem at allenlightened.
“I can’t imagine who he was,” said Fred. “The description doesn’t seemto fit anyone I know. Did he give his name?”
“No; I forgot to ask it. He talked like a Socialist or an Anarchist,although he didn’t look to be a very desperate character. And he seemednervous and troubled about something or other, but perhaps that wasbecause he fancied he had come so near getting himself shot. When he sawme, with the gun leveled straight at him, he turned pale.”
“I don’t wonder,” said Fred, with a laugh. “It was enough to give anyonea start. I don’t see what made him run away, and I wish he’d waiteduntil I could have taken a look at him.”
“Perhaps he was somebody who knew you before you came to Oakdale.”
Sage frowned a bit. “It doesn’t seem likely, and yet, of course, it maybe so. Well, we can’t fret ourselves about him. Let’s go on with thehunt. Spot is getting restless.”
For some time the pointer had been running back and forth in the road,turning at intervals to gaze inquiringly at his master and whinebeseechingly. Apparently the dog was wondering why the boys shouldlinger there, with the woods all about them and their success thus fargiving ample evidence that there was plenty of game to be had for thehunting.
Absorbed once more in the search for birds, both lads seeminglydismissed all thoughts of the stranger and his puzzling behavior; but,had he possessed the faculty of reading his companion’s mind, Hookerwould have been surprised to discover that, far from dismissing suchthoughts, Sage was not a little troubled by them. Indeed, so deeplyplunged was he in mental speculations that he failed to note when thedog next made a point, and he flushed the bird unexpectedly by thecareless manner in which he stumbled forward through the underbrush.Taken thus unawares, he could not recover his self-possession in time toshoot, and, Hooker being in no position to fire, the game got awayuntouched, not a little to the disgust of Spot.
“What’s the matter with you, Fred?” called Roy sharply. “You almoststepped on that one. Didn’t you see Spot point?”
“No,” was the regretful confession, “I didn’t notice it.”
“I started to call to you, but I thought you knew your business and wereready to pepper away when the bird flushed.”
Later, when they ran into a covey of woodcock, Fred was astonishinglyslow about shooting, and Hooker brought down two birds to his one, whichseemed rather remarkable, as Sage was much the better wing shot. It wasFred, too, who, seeming the first to tire of the sport, finally proposedthat they should go home.
“There’s time enough,” objected Roy. “Practice doesn’t begin until threeo’clock, and it’s not yet noon.”
“But I’ll need to rest up a bit after this tramp. I’ve got enough,anyhow.”
On the way back to the village Sage suddenly asked Hooker once more todescribe the stranger, and when Roy had complied he again asserted thathe had not the least idea as to the man’s identity.
It was nearly one o’clock when Sage reached his home, a comfortable,well-kept story-and-a-half house on the outskirts of the village, but hefound that his mother had kept dinner waiting for him, for which hescolded her in a laughing fashion.
“No need to put yourself to so much trouble, mother,” he said. “I couldhave done just as well with a cold lunch from the pantry.”
“It was no trouble, my boy,” she replied, affection in her tone and inthe glance she gave him. “We knew you would be home, for you said therewas to be football practice this afternoon, and it was your father whosuggested that we should wait for you.”
She was not an old woman, but her hair was snowy white, and there wassomething in her face and the depths of her gentle eyes which indicatedthat her life had not been wholly free from care and sorrow.
Fred’s father, who had been reading in the sitting-room, put aside hisnewspaper and came into the dining-room, rubbing his hands together ashe peered at the boy over the gold-bowed spectacles that clung to hisnose.
“Well, what luck, young man?” he asked. “Did you find any shooting worthwhile?”
“We got seven woodcock and three partridges,” answered Fred; “but Royshot the most of them, though he insisted on dividing them. I made himtake the odd partridge, though, keeping only one for mother, as shedoesn’t care for woodcock.”
“H’m!” nodded Andrew Sage slowly. “How did you happen to let himoutshoot you, Fred? With that new gun of yours, I thought you’d make arecord. Doesn’t it shoot as well as you expected?”
“Oh, the gun is all right. I suppose I was a bit off form.”
He was on the point of telling them of the unknown man who hadquestioned Hooker about the Sages living in Oakdale and then run away insuch a perplexing manner on Fred’s approach, but something seemed tocaution him to remain silent, and he did so.
Like Roy Hooker, the people of Oakdale knew little about the Sages, savethat they had lived in the place for three years having moved there fromsome distant state. Andrew Sage was a man nearly sixty years of age,with the speech and bearing of a person of education and refinement. Hehad purchased a tiny farm of some twenty acres, the buildings of whichwere promptly repaired, remodelled within and thoroughly painted. Thegrounds in the vicinity of the buildings were cleared and graded, withthe exception of a picket-fenced front yard, where an old-fashionedflower garden had been choked out by weeds. Of course the fence wasstraightened up, repaired and given several coats of paint, and theflower garden was restored to its former state of blooming fragrance andbeauty; but this work was done at the direction of Mrs. Sage, who seemedto find in that garden something to occupy her mind and give her manyhours of pleasure. Her knowledge of flowers and their proper care wasmuch superior to the knowledge displayed by her husband in the vegetablegarden, which he planted and attended. The neighbors often remarked thatit was plain enough that Andrew Sage had never turned his hand to suchlabor before coming to Oakdale.
That the Sages possessed an income sufficient to support them modestlywas likewise evident, for they lived comfortably and paid their billspromptly, although Mr. Sage worked upon his own property only, and, asconducted, that brought in practically no revenue whatever.
The little household was held together by strong bands of understandingand affection which would have been apparent enough to anyone who couldhave watched them this day at their belated dinner. Into their pleasantconversation there entered no jarring note, and their thoughtfulness andconside
ration for one another was of the finest sort. The atmosphere ofthat home was truly such as it should be, comfortable, homelike, fraughtwith an indescribable something that always makes such a place thebest-loved spot on earth.
It was natural that Fred’s mother should speak of football and itsdangers and express her regret that he should care to take part in suchsport. And in supporting Fred’s arguments in favor of the game, it wasdiplomatic of his father to seem, in a way, to favor both sides of thequestion, while all the time he was cleverly reassuring the apprehensivewoman. Andrew Sage’s skill in this form of controversy not only made itmuch easier for Fred, but checked, in a great measure, the worriment ofthe boy’s mother.
When he reached the football field that afternoon Fred found Roy Hookertelling a group of boys about the encounter with the mysteriousstranger. Of those boys Billy Piper, familiarly known as “Sleuth” onaccount of his yearning desire to emulate the feats of detective heroesof fiction, appeared to be the most deeply interested. The others showeda disposition to treat the affair as something of minor importance or noimportance whatever.
“Through what I can gather from your statements, Hooker,” said Sleuth,“I am led to infer that this unknown party may have been a red-handedcriminal fleeing from justice. Or, perchance, to look at the matter inanother light, he was a person deeply wronged, seeking to visitretribution on the head of one who had injured him. I say, Sage,” hecalled, catching sight of Fred, “have you any reason to suppose that youor any of your immediate relatives may have a bitter and remorselessenemy who seeks reprisal for some fancied injury in the dark and buriedyears of the past?”
“As far as I know,” answered Fred, “we have not an enemy in the world.”
“And you haven’t a notion as to the identity of the mysterious strangerwho made inquiries about you and then ran away before you could get alook at him?”
“Not the remotest idea.”
“Hah!” breathed Piper in deep satisfaction. “The plot thickens. I scenta mystery of deep and terrible significance. The clues are faint indeed,but they shall not baffle me. If this unknown stranger lingers in thevicinity of Oakdale, I’ll yet lay bare his foul designs and foil him inhis fell purpose.”
“Oh, slush!” cried Phil Springer. “You’ve got another bad attack, Pipe.You bub-better forget it. Here comes Stoney. Let’s start practice,fellows.”
The group dissolved, leaving Piper, his arms folded, his eyes fixed uponthe ground, in profound meditation.