Badger," admitted the other, chuckling. "In fact, my mother commissioned me to fetch this gla.s.s of home-made preserves over to her, knowing that Fred's mother has not been at all well. Yes, I own up I was influential in making her think that way, and was on my way when I ran across you fellows."

"Huh! I wouldn't be at all surprised, Jack!" declared Toby, "if you had a scheme in your mind right now to put a crimp in this foolishness on the part of Fred Badger."

"I'm not saying I haven't, remember, fellows," laughed the other, who evidently did not mean to show his full hand just then. "When the time comes perhaps I'll let you in on this thing. I want to do some more thinking first, though. Many a good idea is wasted because it isn't given a foundation in the beginning. Now, suppose you boys wait for me here while I step around and leave this little comfit with Mrs. Badger with my mother's compliments."

"Just as you say, Jack," muttered Steve, looking rather unhappy because lie was not to be taken wholly into the confidence of the other. "Don't stay too long, though, unless you mean to tell us all that happens in there."

Jack only smiled in return, and stepped forward. His comrades saw him suddenly draw back as though he had made a discovery. Then turning toward them, he beckoned with his hand, at the same time holding up a warning finger as though telling them not to make the least noise.

"Now, what's in the wind, Jack?" whispered Toby, as they reached the side of the other.

"Take a peek and see who's here!" Jack told them.

At that both the others advanced cautiously and stared beyond the big clump of high bushes. They almost immediately shrank back again, and the look on their faces announced the receipt of quite a shock.

"Great Caesar! is that chap the man you've both been talking about, tell me?" asked Toby, half under his breath.

"He is certainly the party I saw Fred talking with so mysteriously,"

a.s.serted Jack, positively.

"And the same fellow who was walking along the road with Fred while I sat on my log, fishing," added Steve, convincingly.

"But what under the sun is he doing out here near Fred's house, leaning on that fence, and keeping tabs on the little Badger home, I'd like to know?" Toby went on to say, wonder written in big letters on his face.

CHAPTER IX

A FAIRY IN THE BADGER HOME

"Let's watch and see what it all means?" suggested Steve, quickly.

Even Jack did not seem averse to doing that same thing. In fact, his curiosity had been aroused to fever pitch by so unexpectedly discovering the very man of whom they had been lately talking hovering around poor Fred's home in such a suspicious fashion.

Peeping around the high bushes again, they saw him leaning idly on the picket fence. He seemed to have a stout cane, and was smoking a cigar, though in his undoubted eagerness to keep "tabs" on the humble house he forgot to draw smoke from the weed between his teeth.

"I must say this is going it pretty strong," grumbled Toby, half under his breath; "to have that chap prowling around Fred's home, just like he was afraid the boy'd get out of his grip, and so meant to find a stronger hold on him."

"That's it," a.s.sented Steve; "he wants to learn why Fred seems to hold back. He means to meet the little mother, and the two small girls, one of 'em a cripple in the bargain. It's a shame that he should push himself in on that family, and he a city sport in the bargain. We ought to find a way to chase him out of town, don't you think, Jack?"

"Hold up, and perhaps we may learn something right now," whispered the other, after a hasty look; "because there's Fred's mother coming out of the door."

"Gee whiz! can she be meaning to meet this man?" ventured Toby, apparently appalled by his own suspicion.

"Well, hardly likely," Jack told him, "because the man has ducked down as if he didn't want to be seen by her, though he's looking like everything all the while."

"That's little Barbara Badger, the five-year-old sister of Fred," Steve was saying. "She's got a basket on her arm, too, and I reckon her ma is sending her to the store down the street for a loaf of bread, or something like that. Everybody seems to agree that Barbara is the most winsome little girl in the whole of Chester."

"Barring none," admitted Toby, immediately. "Why, she's just like a little golden-haired fairy, my dad says, and since he's something of an artist he ought to know when he sees one. Yep, you were right, Steve, the child is going after something at the store. I wonder now would that wretch have the nerve to stop Barbara, and try to get some information from the little thing?"

"What if he tries to kidnap her?" suggested Steve, suddenly, doubling up his st.u.r.dy looking fist aggressively, as though to indicate that it would not be safe for the stranger to attempt such a terrible thing while he was within hearing distance.

"Oh! I hardly think there's any fear of that happening," Jack a.s.sured the aggressive member of the trio. "But he acts now as if he meant to drop back here out of sight, so perhaps we'd better slip around this bunch of bushes so he won't learn how we've been watching him."

Suiting their actions to Jack's words, the three boys quickly "made themselves scarce," which was no great task when such an admirable hiding-place as that stack of bushes lay conveniently near by. Sure enough, the stranger almost immediately came around the clump and made sure that it hid him from the small cottage lying beyond. Jack, taking a look on his own account from behind the bushes, saw that Mrs. Badger had started to reenter the house; while pretty little Barbara was contentedly trudging along the cinder pavement.

Evidently the child was quite accustomed to doing errands of this nature for her mother, when Fred did not happen to be around; nor was it likely that Mrs. Badger once dreamed Barbara might get into any sort of trouble, for the neighborhood, while not fashionable, was at least said to be safe, and honest people dwelt there.

"He's staring as hard as anything at Barbara," whispered Toby, who had been peeping. "Why, he acts for all the world like he could fairly eat the sweet little thing up. Perhaps it's a good job we chance to be around here after all," but Jack shook his head as though he did not dream any harm was going to come to little Barbara.

"If he's so much taken up watching her," he remarked, "we can spy on him without his being any the wiser. But take care not to move too quickly at any time; and a sneeze or a cough would spoil everything for us."

Accordingly, they crept forward. Looking cautiously around their covert, the boys could easily see that Barbara Badger had by now turned the bushes and reached the spot where the stranger stood.

Now he was speaking to her, bending low, and using what struck the suspicious Steve as a wheedling tone; though to Jack it was just what any gentleman might use in seeking to gain the confidence of a child who had never seen him before.

Apparently the little girl did not seem to be afraid. Perhaps she was accustomed to having people speak kindly to her on the street, just to see that winsome smile break over her wonderfully pretty face. At any rate, she had answered him, and as he started to walk slowly at her side, it seemed as though they had entered into quite an animated conversation, the stranger asking questions, and the little girl giving such information as lay in her power.

"He's just trying to find out how the land lies in Fred's house, that's what he's doing, the sneak!" gritted Steve.

"Oh! how do we know but what the man has a small girl of his own somewhere?" Jack interposed; "and Barbara somehow reminds him of her.

Besides, can you blame anybody for trying to get acquainted with Fred's sweet little sister?"

Steve subsided after that. Apparently he could find no answer to the logic Jack was able to bring against his suspicions. By skirting the inside of a fence it would be possible for them to follow after the man and the child without disclosing their presence.

"Let's do it!" suggested Steve, after Toby had made mention of this fact.

Accordingly they started to steal along. As the others were walking very slowly the three boys found no great difficulty in keeping close behind them. They could even pick up something of what pa.s.sed between the pair on the cinder pavement. The man was asking Barbara about her home folks, and seemed particularly interested in hearing about mother's pale looks and many sighs; and also how sister Lucy seemed to be able to walk better lately than at any time in the past; though she did have to use a crutch; but she hoped to be able to go to school in the fall if she continued to improve.

Fred's name did not seem to be mentioned once by the man. Even when Barbara told some little thing in which the boy figured, the man failed to ask about him. His whole interest was centered in the mother, the crippled child, and this wonderfully attractive little angel at his side.

Jack also noticed that he had hold of Barbara's small hand, which he seemed to be clutching eagerly. Yes, it must be the man had a daughter of his own far away, and memories of her might be making him sorry that he had engaged in such a disreputable business as tempting Barbara's brother to betray his mates of the baseball team.

Then the man stopped short. He had looked around and discovered that if he went any further he might be noticed from the side windows of the Badger cottage. Apparently he did not wish that the child's mother should discover him walking with her. Jack somehow felt an odd thrill shoot through him when he saw the man suddenly bend his head and press several kisses on the little hand that had been nestling so confidingly in his own palm. That one act seemed to settle it in the boy's mind that there was more or less truth in his conjecture in connection with another Barbara in some distant city waiting for her father to come back home.

"Say, he's acting real spoony, isn't he, Jack?" gasped Toby, taken aback as he saw the man do this. "I reckon now, Steve, your ogre isn't _quite_ as tough a character as you imagined. He's got a spark of human about him, seems like, and like most Chester folks has to knuckle down before that pretty kid."

"Oh! he may be acting that way for a purpose," grumbled the unconvinced Steve, still unwilling to give up. "Such fellows generally have a deep game up their sleeve, you understand. Just wait and see, that's all, Toby Hopkins. I don't like his actions one little bit, if you want to know how I feel about it."

Almost immediately afterwards Toby spoke again in a guarded tone.

"Look at her picking something up from among the cinders, and holding it out! Why, it looks like a shining new fifty-cent bit, which is just what it is. And to think we walked right over it when we came along, and not one of us glimpsed what the sharp eyes of that child have found."

"Huh! mebbe it wasn't there when we came along, Toby!" suggested Steve.

"Just as like as not that chap he dropped the coin, and ground it part-way into the cinders with his toe, then managed so little Barbara should pick it up. There, listen to him now telling her that findings is keepings, and that the money belongs to her by right of discovery. That was a smart dodge, wasn't it? I wonder what his game is. Can you guess it, Jack?"

"I decline to commit myself to an answer," came the reply.