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Page 39
"Oh, sure."
"And red?"
"Yes, a bright red. Wacker lives near us, as I said. I strolled down the
alley day before yesterday. I saw his shed doors open, and Wacker
putting on the paint. I remember even joking him about his experience in
painting the town the same color once in awhile. He took that as a
compliment, Lem did. It seems he traded for the wagon some time ago. He
told me he was going to start an express company of his own."
"He seems to have done it--so far as that trunk is concerned!" murmured
Bart. "Mr. McCarthy, you and I are friends?"
"Good friends, Stirling."
"And I can talk pretty freely to you?"
"I see your drift--you think Lem Wacker had a hand in this burglary?"
"I certainly do."
"Well, I'll say that I don't think he's beyond it," observed the
watchman. "You'll find, though, he only had a hand in it. His way is
generally using someone else for a cat's-paw."
"I am going to ask you to do something for me," resumed Bart
seriously--"I'm going to get back that trunk--I've got to get it back."
"The company ought to provide you with a safe, decent building."
"That will come in time."
"No one can blame you. They can't expect you to sit up watching all
night, nor carrying trunks to bed with you for safe-keeping."
"No, but the head office, while it might stand an accidental fire, will
not stand a big loss on top of it. My ability to handle this express
proposition successfully is at stake and, besides that, I would rather
have almost anybody about my ears than Mrs. Harrington."
"The colonel's wife is a Tartar, all right," bluntly declared the night
watchman. "Hello! here's somebody from Harrington's, now."
The same buckboard that had driven up the afternoon previous, came
dashing to the platform as McCarthy spoke.
It was in charge of the same driver, who promptly hailed Bart with the
words:
"That trunk gone yet?"
"No, not yet," answered Bart.
"Then I'm in time. Mrs. Harrington wanted to put something else in--this
box. Forgot it, yesterday," and the speaker fished up an oblong package
from the bottom of the wagon.
"It will have to go separate," explained Bart.
"Can't do that--it's a silk dress, and not wrapped for any hard usage.
Why, what's happened!" pressed the colonel's man, shrewdly scanning the
disturbed countenances of Bart and the watchman. "Door lock smashed,
too, and--say! I don't see the trunk!"
He had stepped to the platform and looked inside the express shed.
Bart thought it best to explain, and did so. It made him feel more
crestfallen than ever to trace in the way his auditor took it, that he
anticipated some pretty lively action when Mrs. Harrington was apprised
of her loss.
"You can tell Mrs. Harrington that everything possible is being done to
recover the trunk," Bart told the man as he drove off. "Now then, Mr.
McCarthy," he continued, turning to his companion, "I am going to ask
you to take charge here till I return. I will pay you a full day's
wages, even if you have to stay only an hour."
"You'll pay me nothing!" declared the watchman vigorously. "I'll camp
right in your service as soon as the seven o'clock whistle blows, and
you get on the trail of that missing trunk."
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