The Doings of Percival

When Hanson returned that afternoon, his round face was beaming. His big blue eyes stared right into Phil's.

"Say,--by yiminy,--you some kid! You quiet Brenchfield's she-devil!"

"And what about that?"

"What about it! That no good for Sol Hanson. I know all about him.

Somebody tell me. By yiminy! you make d.a.m.n good blacksmith. Some day we put up signboard, 'Hanson and Ralston, General Blacksmiths.' We get all the trade in this d.a.m.n Valley."

"Who told you about she-devil, Sol?" asked Phil curiously.

"Oh, somebody! He not speak very much but he say plenty when he be good and ready. He watch round corner. Brenchfield make she-devil wild. You speak to her and she get quiet."

"It wasn't Jim Langford who told you, Sol?"

"Langford,--no! Langford's mouth all st.i.tched up. He say nothing at all. You wait!"

Sol put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

In a second, the half-witted, ragam.u.f.fin Smiler bobbed his grinning face round the door post. Hanson waved him in and when the youngster saw that only Sol Hanson and Phil were inside he raced round and round Phil in sheer delight, like a puppy-dog round its master. He rubbed his hand up and down Phil's clothes, and he kept pointing to himself and to Phil. Phil could not make out his meaning.

"He says you and him good pals," interpreted Hanson.

"You bet we are, Smiler!" said Phil, patting the boy's matted hair.

"Smiler and me make a deal. We going to live together after this,"

said Sol. "Smiler he got n.o.body. Smiler hungry most all the time; dirty, no place to sleep; just a little mongrel-pup. I got lots of grub, nice shack, good beds. Smiler get lots of bath. Smiler and me we going to be pals. What you say, Smiler?"

The boy grinned again and gurgled in happy acquiescence.

"But the kid can't talk?"

"Oh, he talk all right; you bet! He talk with his head, and his eyes, his feet and his hands; talk every old way only you don't savvy his kind of talk."

As soon as work was over, Phil hurried up the hill home. He had had a trying day of it one way and another and he was longing for a refreshing bath and a clean-up.

He popped his head into Langford's room, but Langford either had not come or had been in early and had gone out again.

Whistling softly, he went into his own. His whistle ended abruptly, for his bedroom looked as if it had been struck by a cyclone.

Everywhere, in wild confusion, lay shirts, collars and clothes; books, papers and personal belongings. The drawers of his bureau were pulled out and the contents scattered. Someone evidently had been in on a thieves' hunt and had been neither leisurely nor nice about the job.

Phil could not, for the life of him, imagine why anyone would want specially to ransack his of all the choice of rooms at Mrs. Clunie's.

He had nothing worth stealing, while many of his landlady's boarders were fairly well endowed in the matter of worldly possessions.

He leaned over the bannister and called excitedly for Mrs. Clunie.

"Guid preserve us a'; what's wrang?" she exclaimed, pulling her dress up in front and hurrying up the stairs.

Phil showed her into his room without a word. The moment she saw the state of it, she threw up her hands in amazement.

"Goodness sakes, Mr. Ralston! It looks as if there had been thievin'

bodies here."

"Have any strangers been in the house?"

"Not a soul, Mr. Ralston, except the man you sent wi the note to let him ha'e your spurs that were in the bureau drawer."

"But I didn't send any man, and I didn't write any note!" put in Phil.

"You didna? Oh, the slyness o' him! As sure as my name's Jean Clunie, he was the thief."

"Well!" said Phil ruefully, "he has made a deuce of a jumble of my clothes. But he came to the wrong room if he came for valuables."

"I was busy and I told him to run up and get them. Oh, the cunnin'

de'il. Is there nothing missing?"

"Nothing that I know of; certainly nothing valuable, for I don't own any such!"

"Bide a minute till I get that note," exclaimed the perspiring and excited landlady.

She returned in a minute with the paper.

Phil read it over. It was written in a rough hand, in pencil.

_Mrs. Clunie_,

Please allow bearer into my room to get my spurs for me. He will know where to find them.

PHIL RALSTON.

Phil scratched his head.

"Well, that beats all!"

"And you never wrote it?"

"Not I!"

"But he took your spurs, for I saw them in his hand."

Phil glanced about him.

"Yes!--I guess he has taken my spurs."

"My, but I'm the foolish woman. I never heard tell o' the like o' it before. This place is gettin' as bad as the ceety o' Glesca."

"What was the man like, Mrs. Clunie?"