res."

Scattergood watched. Presently the "piece" ended and the musicians laid
down their instruments and eased back in their chairs.

"Look," said Mattie.

The bearded snare drummer was performing a queer antic. It was as if his
fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he
drummed. No, he was tightening them so they wouldn't fall off. One
finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to
make certain they were secure.

"I--knowed he'd come," Mattie said, happily.

"Um!... This here's kind of untoward. You keep your mouth shet, Mattie
Strong. Don't you go near that feller till I tell you. We don't want a
rumpus to spoil this here week."

"But he's here.... He's here."

"So's trouble," said Scattergood, succinctly.

The rest of that day Scattergood busied himself in searching out old
friends and neighbors of the Newtons. Nothing seemed to interest him
which happened later than eight years before, but no event of that
period was too slight or inconsequential to receive his attention and to
be filed away in his shrewd old brain. He was looking for the answer to
a question, and the answer was piled under the rubbish of eight years of
human activities--a hopeless quest to any but Scattergood.

Comedy and tragedy were alike interesting to him. Just as he lost no
detail of the old man's conduct when his boy disappeared, so he listened
and laughed when Martin Banks recalled to a group how Old Man Newton had
fallen under the suspicion of bootlegging and how the town had seethed
with the downfall of an elder of the church--and all because the old man
had imported two cases, each of a dozen bottles of the Siwash Indian
Stomach Bitters recommended to cure his dyspepsia. There had been a
moment, said Banks, when the town expected to see Newton shut up in the
calaboose under the post office--until the true contents of those cases
was revealed.

During the afternoon Scattergood sent six telegrams to as many different
cities. Late that night he received replies, and sent one long message
to an individual high in office in the state. It was an urgent message,
amounting to a command, for in his own commonwealth Scattergood Baines
was able to command when the need required.

"It's an off chance," he said to himself, "but it's what might 'a'
happened, and if it might 'a' happened, maybe it did happen...."

Wednesday afternoon the band was thrown into consternation, and the town
into