CHAPTER I

TOM MEETS ONE FRIEND AND IS REMINDED OF ANOTHER

As Tom Slade went through Terrace Avenue on his way to the Temple Camp office, where he was employed, he paused beside a truck backed up against the curb in front of a certain vacant store. Upon it was a big table and wrestling with the table was Pete Connigan, the truckman—the very same Pete Connigan at whom Tom used to throw rocks and whom he had called a “mick.” It reminded him of old times to see Pete.

The vacant store, too, aroused dubious memories, for there he had stolen many an apple in the days when Adolf Schmitt had his “cash grocery” on the premises, and used to stand in the doorway with his white apron on, shaking his fist as Tom scurried down the street and calling, “I’ll strafe you, you young loafer!”

2Tom had wondered what strafing was, until long afterward he heard that poor Belgium was being strafed; and then he knew.

“Wal, ef ’tain’t Tommy Slade!” said Pete, with a cordial grin of surprise. “I ain’t seen ye in two year! Ye’ve growed ter be a big, strappin’ lad, ain’t ye?”

“Hello, Pete,” said Tom, shaking the Irishman’s brawny hand. “Glad to see you. I’ve been away working on a ship for quite a while. That’s one reason you haven’t seen me.”

“Be gorry, the town’s gittin’ big, an’ that’s another reason. The last time I seen ye, ye wuz wid that Sweet Cap’ral lad, an’ I knocked yer two sassy heads tergither for yez. Remember that?”

“Yes,” laughed Tom, “and then I started running down the street and hollered, ‘Throw a brick, you Irish mick!’?”

“Ye did,” vociferated Pete, “an’ wid me afther ye.”

“You didn’t catch me, though,” laughed Tom.

“Wal, I got ye now,” said Pete, grabbing him good-naturedly by the collar. And they sat down on the back of the truck to talk for a few moments.

3“I’m glad I came this way,” said Tom. “I usually go down Main Street, but I’ve been away from Bridgeboro so long, I thought I’d kinder stroll through this way to see how the town looked. I’m not in any particular hurry,” he added. “I don’t have to get to work till nine. I was going to walk around through Terrace Court.”

“Ben away on a ship, hev ye?” questioned Pete, and Tom told him the whole story of how he had given up the career of a hoodlum to join the Scouts, of the founding of Temple Camp by Mr. John Temple, of the summers spent there, of how he had later gotten a job on a steamer carrying supplies to the allies; how he had helped to apprehend a spy, how the ship had been torpedoed, how he had been rescued after two days spent in an open boat, of his roundabout journey back to Bridgeboro, and the taking up again of his prosaic duties in the local office of Temple Camp.

The truckman, his case-spike hanging from his neck, listened with generous interest to Tom’s simple, unboastful account of all that had happened to him.

“There were two people on that ship I got to 4be special friends with,” he concluded. “One was a Secret Service man named Conne; he promised to help me get a job in some kind of war service till I’m old enough to enlist next spring. The other was a feller about my own age named Archer. He was a steward’s boy. I guess they both got drowned, likely. Most all the boats got upset while they were launching them. I hope that German spy got drowned.”

“Wuz he a German citizen?” Pete asked.

“Sure, he was! You don’t suppose an American citizen would be a spy for Germany, do you?”

“Be gorry, thar’s a lot uv German Amiricans, ’n’ I wouldn’ trust ’em,” said Pete.

“Well, there’s some Irish people here that hate England, so they’re against the United States too,” said Tom.

“Ye call me a thraiter, do ye!” roared Pete.

“I didn’t call you anything,” Tom said, laughing and dodging the Irishman’s uplifted hand; “but I say a person is American or else he isn’t. It don’t make any difference where he was born. If he’s an American citizen and he helps Germany, then he’s worse than a spy—he’s a traitor and he ought to get shot.”

“Be gorry, you said sumthin’!”

5“He’s worse than anything else in the world,” said Tom. “He’s worse than—than a murderer!”

Pete slapped him on the shoulder. “Bully fer you!” said he. “Fwhativer became uv yer fayther, lad?” he questioned after a moment.

“He died,” said Tom simply. “It was after we got put out of Barrel Alley and after I got to be a scout. Mr. Ellsworth said maybe it was better—sort of——”

Pete nodded.

“An’ yer bruther?”

“Oh, he went away long before that—even before my mother died. He went to work on a ranch out West somewhere—Arizona, I think.”

“’N’ ye niver heard anny more uv him?”

“No—I wrote him a letter when my mother died, but I never got any answer. Maybe I sent it to the wrong place. Did you ever hear of a place called O’Brien’s Junction out there?”

“It’s a good name, I’ll say that,” said Pete.

“Everybody used to say he’d make money some day. Maybe he’s rich now, hey?”

“I remimber all uv yez when yez used fer ter worrk fer Schmitt, here,” said Pete.

“It reminded me of that when I came along.”

6“Yer fayther, he used fer ter drive th’ wagon fer ’im. Big Bill ’n’ Little Bill, we used fer ter call him ’n’ yer bruther. Yer fayther wuzn’ fond uv worrk, I guess.”

“He used to get cramps,” said Tom simply.

“He used fer ter lick yez, I’m thinkin’.”

“Maybe we deserved to get licked,” said Tom. “Anyway I did.”

“Yer right, ye did,” agreed Pete.

“My brother was better than I was. It made me mad when I saw him get licked. I could feel it way down in my fingers, kind of—the madness. That’s why he went to live at Schmitt’s after my father got so he couldn’t work much. They always had lots to eat at Schmitt’s. I didn’t ever work there myself,” he added with his customary blunt honesty, “because I was a hoodlum.”

“Wal, I see ye’ve growed up ter be a foine lad, jist the same,” said Pete consolingly, “’n’ mebbe the lad as kin feel the tingles ter see’s bruther git licked unfair is as good as that same bruther, whativer!”

Tom said nothing, but gazed up at the windows of the apartment above the store where the Schmitts had lived. How he had once envied 7Bill his place in that home of good cheer and abundance! He remembered the sauerkraut and the sausages which Bill had told him of, and he had not believed Bill’s extravagant declaration that “at Schmitt’s you could have all you want to eat.” To poor Tom, living with his wretched father in the two-room tenement in Barrel Alley, with nothing to eat at all, these accounts of the Schmitt household had seemed like a tale from the Arabian Nights. Once his father had sent him there to get fifty cents from thrifty and industrious Bill, and Tom remembered the shiny oilcloth on the kitchen floor, the snowy white fluted paper on the shelves, the stiff, spotless apron on the buxom form of Mrs. Schmitt, whom Mr. Schmitt had called “Mooder.”

Tom Slade, of Barrel Alley, had revenged himself on Bill and all the rest of this by stealing apples from the front of the store and calling, “Dirty Dutchman”—a singularly inappropriate epithet—at Mr. Schmitt. But he realized now that Mr. Schmitt had been a kind and hospitable man, a much better husband and father than poor Bill Slade, senior, had ever been, and an extremely good friend to lucky Bill, junior, who had lived so near to Heaven, in that immaculate home, as to 8have all the sauerkraut and sausage and potato salad and rye bread and Swiss cheese and coffee cake that he could possibly manage—and more besides.

CHAPTER II

HE DOES A GOOD TURN AND MAKES A DISCOVERY

“What became of the Schmitts?” Tom asked.

“It’s aisy ter see ye’ve ben away from here,” said Pete.

“I’ve only been back five days,” Tom explained.

“Wal, if ye’d been here two weeks ago, ye’d know more’n ye know now about it. Ye’re a jack ashore, that’s what ye are. Ye’ve got ter be spruced up on the news. Did ye know the school house burned down?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Wal—about this Schmitt, here; thar wuz two detectives come out from Noo Yorrk—from the Fideral phad’ye call it. They wuz making inquiries about Schmitt. Fer th’ wan thing he wuz an aly-an, ’n’ they hed some raysons to think he wuz mixed up in plots. They wuz mighty close-mouthed about it, so I heerd, ’n’ they asked more’n they told. Nivir within half a mile uv Schmitt did they go, but by gorry, he gits wind uv 10it ’n’ th’ nixt mornin’ not so much as a sign uv him wuz thar left.

“Cleared out, loike that,” said Pete, clapping his hands and spreading his arms by way of illustrating how Adolf Schmitt had vanished in air.

“Thar wuz th’ grocery full uv stuff and all, ’n’ the furnitoor upstairs, but Adolf ’n’ the old wooman ’n’ th’ kids ’n’ sich duds ez they cud cram inter their bags wuz gone—bury drawers lift wide open, ez if they’d went in a ghreat hurry.”

Tom had listened in great surprise. “What—do—you—know—about—that?” he gasped when Pete at last paused.

“It’s iviry blessed worrd that I know. I’m thinkin’ he wint ter Germany, mebbe.”

“How could he get there?” Tom asked.

“Wouldn’t thim Dutch skippers in Noo Yorrk Harrbor help him out?” Pete shouted. “Gerrmany, Holland—’tis all th’ same. Thar’s ways uv gittin’ thar, you kin thrust the Germans. They’re comin’ and goin’ back all the toime.”

“What do you suppose they suspected him of?” Tom asked, his astonishment still possessing him.

“Nivir a worrd wud they say, but ye kin bet yer Uncle Sammy’s not spyin’ around afther people 11fer nuthin’. They searched the store aftherworrds, but nary a thing cud they find.”

So that was the explanation of the now vacant store which had been so much a part of the life of Tom Slade and his poor, shiftless family. That was the end, so far as Bridgeboro was concerned, of the jovial, good-hearted grocer, and Fritzie and little Emmy and “Mooder” in her stiff, spotless white apron. It seemed almost unbelievable.

“A Hun is a Hun,” said Pete, “’n’ that’s all thar is to’t.”

“What did they do with all the stuff?” Tom asked.

Pete shrugged his shoulders. “Mister Temple, he owns th’ buildin’ an’ he hed it cleared out, ’n’ now he leaves them Red Cross ladies use it fer ter make bandages ’n’ phwat all, ’n’ collect money fer their campaign. He’s a ghrand man, Mister Temple. Would ye gimme a lift wid this here table, now, while ye’re here, Tommy?”

As they carried the table across the sidewalk, a group of ladies came down the block and whom should Tom see among them but Mrs. Temple and her daughter Mary. As he looked at Mary (whom he used to tease and call “stuck up”) he realized that he was not the only person in Bridgeboro 12who had been growing up, for she was quite a young lady, and very pretty besides.

“Why, Thomas, how do you do!” said Mrs. Temple. “I heard you were back——”

“And you never came to see us,” interrupted Mary.

“I only got back Tuesday,” said Tom, a little flustered.

He told them briefly of his trip and when the little chat was over Pete Connigan had disappeared.

“I wonder if you wouldn’t be willing to move one or two things for us?” Mrs. Temple asked. “Have you time? I meant to ask the truckman, but——”

“He may be too old to be a scout any more, but he’s not too old to do a good turn,” teased Mary.

They entered the store where the marks of the departed store fixtures were visible along the walls and Schmitt’s old counter stood against one side. Piles of Red Cross literature now lay upon it. Upon a rough makeshift table were boxes full of yarn (destined to keep many a long needle busy) and the place was full of the signs of its temporary occupancy.

13“If I hadn’t joined the Red Cross already, I’d join now,” said Tom, apologetically, displaying his button. “A girl in our office got me to join.”

“Wasn’t she mean,” said Mary. “I’m going to make you work anyhow, just out of spite.”

Other women now arrived, armed with no end of what Tom called “first aid stuff,” and with bundles of long knitting needles, silent weapons for the great drive.

Tom was glad enough to retreat before this advancing host and carry several large boxes into the cellar. Then he hauled the old grocery counter around so that the women working at it could be seen from the street. The table, too, he pulled this way and that, to suit the changing fancy of the ladies in authority.

“There, I guess that’s about right,” said Mrs. Temple, eying it critically; “now, there’s just one thing more—if you’ve time. There’s a thing down in the cellar with little compartments, sort of——”

“I know,” said Tom; “the old spice cabinet.”

“I wonder if we could bring it up together,” said Mrs. Temple.

“I’ll get it,” Tom said.

“You couldn’t do it alone,” said Mary. “I’ll help.”

14“I can do it better without anybody getting in the way,” said Tom with characteristic bluntness, and Mary and her mother were completely squelched.

“Gracious, now he has grown,” said Mrs. Temple, as Tom disappeared downstairs.

“His eyes used to be gray; they’ve changed,” said Mary.

As if that had anything to do with moving tables and spice cabinets!

The spice cabinet stood against the brick chimney and was covered with thick dust. Behind it was a disused stove-pipe hole stuffed with rags, which Tom pulled out to brush the dust off the cabinet before lifting it.

He had pushed it hardly two feet in the direction of the stairs when his coat caught on a nail and he struck a match to see if it had torn. The damage was slight, and, with his customary attention to details, he saw that the nail was one of several which had fastened a narrow strip of molding around the cabinet. About two feet of this molding had been torn away, leaving the nails protruding from the cabinet and Tom noticed not only that the unvarnished strip which the molding had covered was clean and white, but 15that the exposed parts of the nails were still shiny.

“Huh,” he thought, “whoever pulled that off must have been in a great hurry not to hammer the nails in or even pull them out.”

As he twisted the nails out, one by one, it occurred to him to wonder why the heavy, clinging coat of damp dust which covered the rest of the cabinet was absent from this white unsoiled strip and shiny nails. The cabinet, he thought, must have been in the cellar for some time, whereas the molding must have been wrenched from it very recently, for it does not take long for a nail to become rusty in a damp cellar.

He struck another match and looked about near the chimney, intending, if the strip of molding were there, to take it upstairs and nail it on where it belonged, for one of the good things which the scout life had taught Tom was that broken furniture and crooked nails sticking out spell carelessness and slovenliness.

But the strip was not to be found. A less observant boy would not have given two thoughts to the matter, but in his hasty thinking Tom reached this conclusion, that some one had very lately pulled this strip of molding off of the 16cabinet and had used it for a purpose, since it was nowhere to be seen.

With Pete’s tale fresh in his mind, he struck match after match and peered about the cellar. Against the opposite wall he noticed a stick with curved tongs on one end of it, manipulated by a thin metal bar running to the other end. It was one of those handy implements used to lift cans down from high shelves. It stood among other articles, a rake, an old broom, but the deft little mechanical hand on the end of it was bright and shiny, so this, too, had not been long in the damp cellar.

For a moment Tom paused and thought. It never occurred to him that momentous consequences might hang upon his thinking. He was simply curious and rather puzzled.

He picked up the can lifter and stood looking at it. Then with a sudden thought he went back to the chimney, struck a match and, thrusting his head into the sooty hole, looked up. Four or five feet above, well out of arm’s reach, something thin ran across from one side to the other of the spacious chimney. The can lifter was too long to be gotten wholly into the chimney, but Tom poked the end of it through the hole and upward 17until its angle brought it against the chimney wall.

It was right there that the crosspiece was wedged. In other words, it had been pushed as high, a little on this side, a little on that, as this handy implement would reach, and perhaps kept from falling in the process by the gripping tongs.

Not another inch could Tom reach with this stick. By hammering upward against the end of it, however, he was able to jam it up a trifle, thanks to its capacity for bending. Thus he dislodged the crosspiece and as it tumbled down he saw that it was the strip of molding from the cabinet.

But along with it there fell something else which interested him far more. This was a packet which had evidently been held against the side of the chimney by the stick. There were six bulging envelopes held together by a rubber band. The dampness of the chimney had not affected the live rubber and it still bore its powdery white freshness.

“I wonder if they looked there,” Tom thought. “Maybe they just reached around—kind of. I should think they’d have noticed those shiny nails, though.”

He put the packet safely in his pocket and, 18hauling the cabinet up on his back staggered up the stairs with it.

“What in the world took you so long?” said Mary Temple. “Oh, look at your face!”

“I can’t look at it,” said matter-of-fact Tom.

“It’s too funny! You’ve got soot all over it. Come over here and I’ll wash it off.”

It was a curious thing about Tom Slade and a matter of much amusement to his friends, that however brave or noble or heroic his acts might be, he was pretty sure to get his necktie halfway around his neck and a dirty face into the bargain.

CHAPTER III

HE SCENTS DANGER AND RECEIVES A LETTER

Tom was greatly excited by his discovery. As he hurried to the office he opened the envelopes and what he found was not of a nature to modify his excitement. Here was German propaganda work with a vengeance. He felt that he had plunged into the very heart of the Teuton spy system. Evidently the recipient of these documents had considered them too precious to destroy and too dangerous to carry.

“He might still think of a way to get them, maybe,” thought Tom.

There was a paper containing a list of all the American cantonments and opposite each camp several names of individuals. Tom thought these might be spies in Uncle Sam’s uniform. There was some correspondence about smuggling dental rubber out of the United States to make gas masks in Germany. There were requests for money. 20There was one letter giving information, in considerable detail, about aeroplane manufacture.

Another letter in the same handwriting interested Tom particularly, because of his interest in gas engines—the result of his many tussles with the obstreperous motor of the troop’s cabin launch, Good Turn. Skimming hastily over some matter about the receipt of money through some intermediary, his interest was riveted by the following: