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Page 44
"I am going to ask you a foolish question, perhaps, Professor,"
continued Bart, "for an accurate person like you of course took down
only correct names, and not nicknames. Here is the gist of it, then. I
am looking for two men, and I know only that they live outside of
Pleasantville, and call themselves Buck and Hank."
"Well! well! well!" muttered Professor Cunningham in a musing tone.
"Hank, proper name Henry; Buck, proper name Buckingham--hold on, I've
got it! Come in!" insisted the professor animatedly. "Oh, you haven't
time? Buckingham? Sure thing! Wait here, just a minute."
The professor rushed into the house, and in about two minutes came
rushing out again.
He had an open book in his hand, and stumbled over flower beds and walks
recklessly as he consulted it on the run, spilling out some loose papers
it contained, and leaving a white trail behind him.
"You see here the value of keeping notes of everything," he panted, on
reaching Bart--"nothing is lost in this world, however small. Here we
are: 'County at large.' Now then, in my private notes: 'Allessandro'
uncommon name--'look up--probably Greek.' 'Alaric, Altemus, Artemas,
Benno, Borl, Bud--derived from Budlongor, Budmeister--Buck'--I've got
it: 'Buckingham, last name Tolliver, residence: Millville, occupation
none.' Hold on. We've got the clew--now for the town record."
The Professor again flitted away to the house, and darted back again
with a new volume in his hand.
"Here you are!" he cried, selecting a printed page. "'Millville,
population two hundred and sixty, not on railroad. R.S.T. Tappan,
Tevens, Tolliver'--Ah, 'Buckingham Tolliver, Henry Tolliver,' must be
brothers, I fancy. That's all I've got on record. Information any use to
you?"
"Is it?" cried Bart, in profound admiration of the old bookworm's
system. "Professor, you are the wisest man and one of the best men I
ever met!"
CHAPTER XVIII
A DUMB FRIEND
At three o'clock that afternoon Bart Stirling sat down to rest at the
side of a dusty country road, pretty well tired out, and about ready to
return to Pleasantville.
When old Professor Cunningham gave him the names Buck and Hank Tolliver,
Bart was positive that the same covered the identity of the two men who
had been at the Sharp Corner with Lem Wacker.
Bart had started at once for Millville. His first intention was to get a
conveyance at the livery stable, his first impulse to solicit the
co-operation of the town police.
While discussing these points mentally, however, a farmer driving west
came down the road. He had a good team, said he was passing through
Millville, seemed glad to give Bart a lift, and so it was that the young
express agent found himself on the solitary lookout there, two hours
before noon.
He experienced no difficulty whatever in finding out all about the
Tollivers inside of twenty minutes after his arrival.
They were the last members of a shiftless, indolent family who had lived
on the edge of Millville for twenty years.
When the father and mother died the family broke up. The two boys, Buck
and Hank, kept bachelor's hall at the ricketty old ruin of a house on
the river until ejected by its owner for non-payment of rent, and then
went to the bad generally.
They patched up an abandoned shack over on the bottoms, the postmaster
at Millville told Bart, and lived by fishing, hunting and their
depredations on orchards and chicken coops.
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