Chapter 4. Hiram Pries A Secret Loose

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_ CHAPTER IV. HIRAM PRIES A SECRET LOOSE

When he left home Fred Ripley had no clearly defined idea as to what he meant to do.

However, he had in one pocket a keen-bladed pocket knife. Well wrapped in paper a short but sharp-edged chisel rested in one of the side pockets of his coat.

At the outset his only purpose was to do irreparable mischief to the war canoe. The means of accomplishing that purpose he must decide upon when he reached the boatyard.

How dark it was, and how hot! Late as the hour was the baking heat of the day did not seem to have left the ground. Fred walked along rapidly, fanning his perspiring face with his straw hat.

"They'll have their war canoe in the water in a few days, will they?" the lawyer's son muttered. "Humph!"

Through the side streets he went, keeping a sharp lookout. Conscious of the fact that he was bent on an unworthy errand, Fred did not care to be recognized abroad at this unusual hour.

In a few minutes he had reached the boatyard. This was surrounded by a high board fence, and the gate was locked.

"It won't do to get over the fence," young Ripley decided. "I might be seen and watched. But I know a way."

At one corner of the yard the fence ran almost, though not quite to the bank of the river.

Keeping well within the shadow of the fence, young Ripley hastened toward this point.

Here the amount of space was not sufficient for him to step around the end of the fence. However, by grasping it on both sides Fred could swing himself around it and into the boatyard. He did so with ease, then halted, peering cautiously about the yard.

"No one here," the lawyer's son decided at last. "Whew! I wouldn't dare even to stumble over a tramp taking a nap here. This is ticklish business, or it would be if I were caught here. Now, where is the canoe?"

Early in the evening the moon had shone, but now the stars gave all the light there was to be had. It was so close in the yard that Fred soon pulled off his jacket, carrying it or his arm.

Nowhere in the open yard was the canoe to be seen. There were three semi-open sheds. Into each of these in turn Ripley peered. The canoe was nowhere to be found.

"I'm a fool to lose my sleep and take all the risk for this!" grunted the boy, halting and staring moodily about him in his great disappointment. He now glared angrily at a large building, two-thirds boathouse and one-third boat-building shop.

"Hiram Driggs had the canoe taken in there!" muttered the boy. "Just my luck. I couldn't get into that building unless I broke a window---and I don't dare do that."

Still determined to get at the canoe, if possible, Fred stole down to the inclined platform from which boats were carried to the water. But the water-front entrance to the boathouse also proved to be locked.

"There's no show for me here," grunted the young prowler. "I wonder if any of the windows have been left unlocked."

His good sense told him that it would be a serious matter indeed to raise a window and enter the building---if he were caught.

But Fred, after a few moments of strained listening, decided to take the chance. At any hazard that he dared take he must get to the war canoe and put it out of commission for all time.

He tried three of the windows. All of them proved to be locked.

"I'm going to have some more of my usual luck," groaned young Ripley. "I wonder why it is that I always have such poor luck when I have my heart most set on doing a thing?"

He was slipping along to the fourth window when he heard a sound that almost caused his heart to stop beating.

Merely the sound of footsteps pausing by the gate to the boatyard---that was all, for a moment. But Fred cowered in acute dread.

"Who's in there?" called a steady voice, that filled Fred Ripley with consternation, He knew that voice! It belonged to a member of the Gridley police force.

"Talk about your tough luck!" shivered Fred. "This is the limit! Now, I'm in for it."

For a few moments he crouched close to the boathouse nearly paralyzed with fright. His consternation increased when a sound over by the fence indicated that the policeman was trying to mount that barrier.

Now, Fred's courage returned, or enough of it to enable him to try to escape. Bending low, he turned and ran swiftly, almost noiselessly. His speed astonished even himself. He gained the corner of the fence by which he had entered the yard. Taking a firm hold, he swung himself around the fence and out of sight just as the policeman's head showed over the top of it.

Fortunately for the fugitive, the policeman, in climbing the fence, had made noise enough to drown the slight sounds produced by Ripley's frenzied flight.

His first thought being of burglars, the policeman drew his revolver as soon as his feet touched the ground inside the yard. With his left hand he held an electric pocket flash lamp, whose rays he flashed into the dark places.

Fred did not stop until he found himself safely within the grounds of his home. There he halted, fanning himself with his hat and taking long breaths. If discovered by anyone he could easily claim that he had found the night too hot to sleep inside and had come outdoors for air.

The next morning, about ten o'clock, Hiram Driggs, who had already been visited by Dick & Co., on their way to Katson's Hill, was called upon by Policeman Curtis of the Gridley force. Curtis, being off duty, was in citizen's clothes.

"Did you miss anything out of the plant this morning, Mr. Driggs?" inquired the guardian of life and property.

"Nothing that I know of," Driggs answered. "Why?"

"I thought I heard burglars about here last night, while on duty," the policeman explained. "I came up over the fence, and looked about the place, but couldn't find anything. Yes, I did, too, though. I'll talk about that in a moment. You see, I went off duty at one o'clock this morning, so I didn't spend much time here. I'm on house reserve duty to-day. Now, for what I found here. I didn't find a living soul in the yard, but on the ground, near one of the open sheds, I came upon a chisel wrapped in a newspaper. I hid it, then, but I'll show it to you now. Maybe it belongs to the shop, and if so I've no business with it. But, if you don't recognize the chisel as yours, then I'll take it up to the station house and turn it over to the chief."

"After all that stretch o' talk," smiled Driggs, "you ought to show me a whole case full of chisels."

"I hid it over here," Curtis explained, going over to one of the open sheds. "I tucked it in under this packing case. Here it is, now, just where I left it. Do you recognize it as yours?"

From the newspaper wrapping Driggs took the small but keen-edged implement. He regarded it curiously. Then he turned the paper over slowly.

"Do you recognize it?" persisted the policeman.

"Mebbe," said Driggs. "I guess you can leave it here. But, in case any question should come up about it in the future, suppose you write your autograph on the handle of the chisel."

Driggs passed over his fountain pen, the policeman obligingly obeying the request for his signature on the wood.

"Now, just for good measure, write your name across the top of the newspaper, too," Driggs proposed. Curtis did so.

"You seem to attach a good deal of importance to this find," hinted the policeman.

"Mebbe," assented Driggs indifferently. "Mebbe not. But you and I will both know this paper and the chisel again, if we see it, won't we?"

"We ought to," nodded the policeman. "But you don't consider the matter as important enough, then, to interest the police?"

"I wouldn't think o' bothering the police force about a trifling little matter like this," returned Driggs carelessly.

Just as soon, however, as the policeman had gone, Driggs darted into his private office. There he took up the telephone receiver and asked for Lawyer Ripley's residence number.

"Is Master Fred at home!" he inquired, when a servant of the Ripley household answered the telephone. Fred was at home, the servant replied, and then summoned Fred to the telephone.

"Well, who is it, and what is it?" asked Fred crossly.

"Hiram Driggs," responded the boat builder dryly. "That's 'who is it.' As to 'what is it,' if you'll take a quick run over to my office at the boatyard I'll tell you the rest of it."

"What on earth can you want to see me about?" Fred demanded.

Even over the wire, the note of dismay in Ripley's voice was plainly evident to Driggs, who chuckled.

"I can't tell you, over the wire, all that I want to see you about," Driggs replied. "You'd better come over here at once. I can promise you that it's something interesting."

"I---I don't believe I can come over to-day," Fred answered hesitatingly. "The weather is too hot."

"Mebbe the weather will get hotter, if you don't come," Hiram Driggs responded calmly.

"That's a joke, eh?" queried Fred. "Ha, ha, ha!"

"Depends upon the feller's sense of humor," Driggs declared. "Well, you're coming over, aren't you?"

"Ye-es, I'll come," Fred assented falteringly, for his guilty conscience made a coward of him. "You're a fine fellow, Mr. Driggs, and I'm glad to oblige anyone like you. I'll be right over."

"Thanks, ever so much, for the compliment," drawled Driggs in his most genial tone. "Such a compliment is especially appreciated when it comes from a young gentleman of your stripe. Good-bye."

That word "stripe" caused Fred Ripley to have a disagreeable chill. He remembered that "stripes" are an important part of the design on a convict's suit of state-furnished clothes.

"But he needn't think he can prove anything against me," Fred muttered to himself, as he started down the street. "Of course, I know I lost that chisel last night, and Driggs may have found it in his boatyard. But he can't prove that the chisel belongs to me, or to our house. There are lots more chisels just like that one. If Driggs tries to bluff me he'll find that I'm altogether too cool for him!"

Nevertheless, it was an anxious young man who walked into the boat builder's office a few minutes later. Hiram Driggs, smiling broadly, held out his hand, which Fred took.

"Sorry I wasn't here when you called last night," said Driggs affably.

"I don't know what you mean," Fred rejoined promptly. "I didn't call at your house last night."

"Oh, no," Driggs replied. "I meant when you called here."

"I didn't call here, either."

"Ever see this before?" asked Driggs, holding up the chisel.

"Never," lied Fred.

"That's curious," said Driggs musingly. "Officer Curtis, the man on this beat, found the chisel here, and it was wrapped up in part of this newspaper."

Driggs brought forth from one of the drawers of his desk the newspaper in question.

"What has that scrap of paper to do with it?" asked Fred, speaking as coolly as he could.

"Why," explained Driggs, turning the paper over, "here's the mail sticker on this side, with your father's printed name and address pasted on it just as it came through the post-office."

Fred gasped audibly this time. Driggs surveyed his face with a keen, tantalizing gaze.

"Mebbe 'twas your father, then, who was in the yard last night, and who refused to answer the policeman's hail," suggested the boat builder. "I'd better go up to his office and show him these things and ask him, I guess."

"But I don't believe my father will know anything about it," spoke young Ripley huskily.

"Then your father will want to know something about it," Driggs went on. "He's a man of an inquiring turn of mind. Let's run up to his office together and ask him."

"No, no, no!" urged Fred, his face growing paler.

"Then why were you here last night?"

"I wasn't here," protested the boy.

"Perhaps I can tell you why you were here," Driggs went on, never losing his affable smile. "You don't like Dick Prescott, and you don't like his boy friends. Prescott has been too many for you on more than one occasion. But that is no reason why you should enter my yard after midnight. That is no reason why you should want to do harm to a war canoe or to any other property that happens to be in my yard. I really don't know whether you're to be blamed for being a glib liar, Ripley. You've never given yourself much practice at telling the truth, you know. But I have this to say: If anything happens to that canoe, or to anything else here, I shall make it my business to get hold of Officer Curtis, and he and I will drop in and show your father this chisel, and this piece of paper that it was wrapped in. As you will see, Curtis has written his signature on the paper and on the handle of the chisel, so that he may identify them again at any time. Now, Ripley, I won't look for you to pay this yard any more visits except in a proper way and during regular business hours. Good morning!"

Hiram Driggs held out his hand as smilingly as ever, and Fred took it in a flabby grasp, feeling as though he were going to faint. Then without a word Ripley slunk out of the office, while Driggs gazed after him still smiling.

"The mean scoundrel!" panted Fred, as he hurried away, his knees trembling under him. "There isn't a meaner fellow in town than Hiram Driggs, and some day he'll go and tell my father just for spite. I know he will! Now, I've got to find some good way to account for that paper and chisel I'll put in the day thinking up my story." _

Read next: Chapter 5. Birch Bark Merchants

Read previous: Chapter 3. Buying Fuel For A Bonfire?

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