CHAPTER IV.
JOE DECLARES HIS INNOCENCE.
For a moment Joe could not speak. Here he was accused of robbing Simon Pepper’s jewelry shop that very night, when he had not been near the place.
He felt in his pocket. True enough, his pocket-knife was gone.
“Oh, I’ve got the knife safe enough,” sneered Simon Pepper. “You needn’t look for it.”
“Perhaps Joe dropped the knife yesterday, when he came for the clock,” suggested the lawyer.
“No, he didn’t. I swept up, and I would have found it before.”
“Joe has been out bicycling with my son.”
“I can’t help that! He robbed the place, I feel sure of it,” snapped Simon Pepper. “I’m going to have him locked up, and then have his house searched.”
“You can search the house, and welcome,” said Joe promptly. “You will find nothing there belonging to you.”
“Maybe I will—unless you have taken the stuff off to some other place,” retorted the unreasonable jeweler.
In vain Mr. Burns protested that Joe might be innocent. The hot-headed jeweler would not listen, and the upshot of the matter was that Joe was marched to the justice’s house.
Here, as late as it was, a hearing was had.
The watchmaker told his story, and told of the pocket-knife.
Then he procured a search warrant, that he might search Mr. Johnson’s home.
Joe accompanied the crowd to the house. His mother sat up waiting for him. She was very much disturbed, as Joe was in the habit of returning home much earlier than was now the time.
“Oh, what is the matter!” she cried.
“It’s all right, mother,” cried Joe. “Mr. Pepper has got it into his head that I robbed his shop, but I didn’t, and he can’t prove it.”
“Oh, Joe!”
Mr. Johnson was called, and soon he learned the particulars of the case on hand.
He believed Joe’s story that he was innocent.
Simon Pepper, with a constable, who had come along, now searched the house from cellar to garret. Of course, not a thing belonging to the watchmaker was found.
“Didn’t I tell you so!” cried Joe, and not without a slight ring of triumph in his tones.
After searching the house the party went to the barn, and to the woodshed, but all to no purpose.
“You can easily see that you have made a mistake, Mr. Pepper,” said Joe’s father.
“I don’t see. Maybe he has already sold the stuff he took,” growled the watchmaker.
He would not listen to Joe’s story of the accident on the road, and of what had happened at old Josiah Arkley’s house.
He wanted Joe arrested, and the justice had to take his complaint.
But the official knew Mr. Burns very well, and at once accepted bail from the lawyer for the boy.
“And I’ll defend you when the trial comes off,” he said to Joe. “We all believe you innocent.”
Joe went home with his father rather downcast. It was one thing to be innocent, but it was quite another to prove it. He knew many in the village would look at him as a thief.
A shadow on one’s character is very depressing.
On the following day Joe called on Dick Burns, and found him much improved, but still unable to go out. It would be some time before Dick would be able to ride his wheel again.
“Pepper must be crazy!” declared Dick. “Never mind, I’ll tell what I know of the matter. You were with me nearly all the evening.”
“One thing is certain,” said Joe. “His store was robbed. I wonder who did it?”
“Maybe tramps,” suggested Dick, and there the question dropped.
Joe was glad of one thing, and that was that Dick’s sister also looked on him as being innocent.
Several days went by, and Joe’s trial was set down for the last Wednesday in the month.
In the meanwhile the boys at Elmwood, four miles from Lockport, got up an amateur bicycle tournament.
Joe entered the two-mile event, along with half a dozen boys from Elmwood, and three lads from Lockport.
Among those from the latter place was Lemuel Akers. The big boy was conceited enough to think he would win the race, although there were a score of boys in the district who could ride better than he.
Joe was not so certain of himself, but he told Dick he would do his best.
“And that’s all a chap can do, you know,” he said.
“Do your best, Joe, and you will win,” said his chum confidently.
The day for the races dawned bright and clear, and among those who attended were Joe’s parents and the entire Burns family.
Joe cut a very trim figure as he rode on to the track in the parade, which headed off the entertainment.
Only one boy looked at our hero with disdain, and that was Lemuel.
As he passed Joe he muttered something about “jailbird.”
“What’s that?” demanded Joe sharply.
“You heard me well enough,” sneered the big boy.
Scarcely had he spoken when Joe leaned from his seat and struck Akers over the mouth with the flat of his hand.