The soap man was interesting to me because he was the first spy that I had ever come in contact with. I figured that he must be a sort of detective.

Still, I considered, in the course of my thoughts, he was a queer-looking and a queer-acting detective. Not at all like the detectives that I had read about in stories.

For instance, there was his shabby old horse. What was his object in keeping it? Was it to create the impression, beyond all possible doubt, that he was indeed a poor soap peddler, traveling by horse and buggy from town to town?

As a spy he knew who we were. He knew that we were on Mr. Ricks’ side. To him we were the enemy, sort of. Tom especially.

Why, then, had he hired us, out of all the boys in Tutter, to peddle his fake beauty soap? Was he planning to make some secret use of us later on when we were least likely to suspect it? [84]

That was a thing to keep in mind, I concluded, looking out for myself.

Scoop said that we should go ahead and sell all of the soap that we could. There was money in it for us.

“But we’ll fool mister spy,” he said, “if it’s his scheme, in hiring us, to get all of us away from the house at the same time. One of us will always stand guard here to keep him out.”

“I locked myself in this afternoon,” spoke up Tom.

“That’s the stuff,” waggled Scoop. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Having had our supper, we were gathered on the front porch of the brick house. The sun had gone down. It was fast getting dark. And on the moment, as I watched the creeping shadows deepen and lengthen under the eerie pine trees, I wondered uneasily what new adventures the night would unfold for us. I had the feeling, sort of, that we were heading into something risky.

Scoop got up.

“Come on, Jerry,” he signaled.

Peg wanted to know where we were going.

“Over to the mill,” Scoop informed, “to settle [85]up with mister spy. You better stay here with Tom. We’ll be right back.”

Getting Romeo’s oats from the back porch, we cut around the barn, Mr. Ricks’ workshop, and crawled under a rusty wire fence. We could see the horse in the mill yard. It made a queer gurgling throat sound when we gave it the oats. Poor old nag!

The soap man was nowhere in sight in the lower part of the mill.

“S-h-h-h!” motioned Scoop, tiptoeing across the big empty room. He paused at the foot of the stairs and cupped his hand to his ear.

“Hear anything?” I breathed, at his elbow.

“No. But I bet he’s up there.”

“Let’s call,” I suggested, uneasy under the mill’s crowding shadows, “and bring him down.”

“Why not go up? We may find out something.”

“Risky,” I said. I looked up the stairs. “See how dark it is.”

“Don’t be a calf, Jerry. Come on.”

Bang!

All of a sudden a hinged board came down of its own weight, striking Scoop, who had taken the lead up the stairs, on the head. And in the same moment a pan clattered to the floor. [86]

I was scared stiff.

“Who’s there?” the soap man whispered hollowly down the stairs.

Scoop rubbed his head.

“Why don’t you kill a fellow?” he growled.

“Um.… What are you doin’ in here?” came the suspicious inquiry.

“We came to settle up.”

“Got some money fur me?”

I could imagine from the speaker’s quick inquiry that he was licking his lips. The tone of his voice suggested it.

“I almost wish I hadn’t,” grumbled Scoop.

“You run into my stair trap,” the old man told us, with a kind of smug grin on his thin face, when he had joined us at the foot of the stairs, having lighted his way down with a candle.

I saw right off what he meant. He had fixed a string on the stairs, connected to the hinged board and the balanced pan. In the darkness Scoop had stepped on the string without knowing that it was there, springing the trap and thereby sounding the alarm of our presence in the enemy’s territory.

The old man held out his hand, rubbing his thumb and fingers. [87]

“Well,” he said, as a hint for us to hurry up and give him his money.

“You must have something up there,” said Scoop, pointing up the stairs, “that you don’t want us to see.”

“What I’ve got up there,” came the quick, sharp response, “you hain’t goin’ to see. An’ if you know what’s good fur you, you’ll keep away from here nights after this.”

He stuck his candle on a beam and counted the money that we gave him. In the flickering light he made a queer picture. There was something about him that gave me the shivers.

What was his secret? What was he doing upstairs that should require him to set a stair trap so that he would be warned of our near-by presence in case we came into the mill?

“I can’t let you have any more soap to-night,” he told us, when he had finished counting his money. “Fur I hain’t got it ready yet. But I’ll have it fur you early to-morrow mornin’.”

“Do you make it?” quizzed Scoop.

The old man ignored the question.

“Cloudy,” he said, squinting out of the door. “Looks a good bit like rain. Good night, boys. An’ don’t furgit what I told you: This hain’t no [88]healthy place fur you to be hangin’ around after dark.”

Hurrying back to the brick house, we excitedly told our chums about our queer adventure in the old mill.

“We’ll separate,” planned Scoop, “and work in pairs. That’ll be the safest. Peg, you and Tom can stay here and guard the house. Jerry and I will watch the mill. And if the spy comes out, we’ll follow him.”

“I’ve had jobs I liked better,” I told him, uneasy.

“Keep the doors locked,” he instructed the house guards. “If we want to get in, we’ll tap on the kitchen window. Like this—see?” and he gave two taps, then one tap, then three taps.

I went with him to the mill, dropping onto my stomach in the weeds just without the mill door. It was good and dark now. But our eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. If the soap man came out of the mill, a moving black shape, we would be sure to see him even if we didn’t hear him.

An hour passed. I was beginning to get stiff.

“What was that?” breathed Scoop, clutching my arm. [89]

I hadn’t heard anything.

“There!”

I sharpened my ears. Thump! thump! thump! It was a muffled sound. Only by straining my ears could I distinguish it above the ordinary night sounds that came out of the mill-pond marsh.

“It’s in the upper part of the mill,” whispered Scoop. “Let’s go in and find out what it is.”

“No!” I cried, in a sudden panic, sort of.

Thump! thump! thump!

Scoop got up and tiptoed to the mill, a few feet away, putting his ear to the thick stone wall.

“Jerry!”

I joined him.

“I can hear it plain,” he told me. “Put your ear to the wall.”

“What the dickens?…” I said, bewildered.

“He’s drilling a hole in the stone wall. What we hear is the thump! thump! of his hammer.”

He suddenly clutched my arm.

“Down!” he hissed in my ear.

I fell flat.

“What was it?” I breathed, trembling all over.

“There’s some one over there by that elm tree. See?” [90]

My heart was making an awful racket.

“Looks like a boy,” breathed Scoop, squinting. “Here he comes. He’s going into the mill.”

Two-three minutes passed.

Bang!

“It’s the stair trap,” Scoop cried in my ear. “The boy walked into it. Here he comes. On the run. Listen, Jerry! I’m going to follow him. I want to find out who he is. You wait here till I get back.”

He was gone before I could speak up.

A light had appeared in the mill. I could hear the soap man grumbling to himself as he came down the stairs. Holding the candle above his head, he pottered to the mill doorway and looked out.

“It’s them snoopy kids,” he muttered, and his face was dark and threatening in its expression. “I’m goin’ to lay it on them with a strap if they don’t mind me an’ keep away from here.”

He went back up the steps, resetting his trap, blowing out the candle when he got to the top floor.

The big clock in the college chapel tower donged ten times. Then, at fifteen-minute intervals, it donged the quarter hours.

Eleven o’clock! Scoop had been gone for more [91]than an hour. Where was he? Why didn’t he come back?

It was moonlight now. And with the cold white light had come a dampness that penetrated my sweater and set me to shivering. I pumped my arms to speed up my blood. I got warm after a few minutes. But I still shivered. It was my nerves.

I stuck it out another half hour. Then I got up, wabbling at first on my cramped, trembling legs. Limping to the brick house, I signaled to Peg and Tom to let me in.

“Who is it?” Peg inquired through the kitchen window.

“Jerry,” I told him.

He opened the door for me.

“Where’s Scoop?” Tom inquired.

While I was talking, telling my story, the missing one signaled on the window.

“Is Jerry here?” he inquired quickly of Peg, when he was inside.

I stepped into sight.

“I went to the mill to get you,” Scoop panted, looking worried. “I was scared when I couldn’t find you. Did anything happen to you?”

I shook my head.

“Jerry just came in,” Peg explained. “He got [92]to shivering and couldn’t stand it any longer. He was telling us about the boy that you followed. Who was it?”

The panting newcomer dropped wearily into a chair.

“Gosh, I’m tired!” He gave a jerky laugh. “Where do you suppose I’ve been?”

“Tell us,” urged Peg.

“First,” I put in, “tell us who the boy was.”

Scoop shook his head.

“I don’t know, Jerry.”

“Didn’t you follow him home?” I inquired, disappointed.

“Sure thing.”

“Then you ought to know who he is.”

“I followed him into the country,” said Scoop, “to Mrs. Kelly’s house, and watched him crawl in through a window. Once I got pretty close to him, though not close enough to see his face. He seemed to be about your size, Jerry. Had on knee pants. And that’s all I can tell you about him.”

“I didn’t know,” Peg spoke up, “that Mrs. Kelly had a boy living with her.”

“Neither did I,” said Scoop. “That’s what puzzles and mystifies me. Who is he? And why did he go to the old mill? It wasn’t to see [93]the soap man, or the two would have met and talked together.”

Pat! pat! pat!

“The spy!” breathed Tom, listening to the footsteps on the porch.

The doorknob turned. We heard more muffled footsteps. Then silence.

“Go lay down,” Peg told Scoop, “and get some sleep. For you look tired out. We’ll take care of things while you sleep.”

“Just a minute,” said Scoop, feeling in his pockets. He brought out a piece of cloth, handing it to me.

“Did you ever see it before, Jerry?”

I took the piece of cloth and squinted at it.

“Why,” I said, surprised, “it’s the patch that you and Peg sewed on my old corduroy pants.”

One time when I was playing at Scoop’s house I tore an awful hole in the seat of my pants, a knock-about pair that I wore on Saturdays. Peg was there. And he and Scoop, in fun, took me down and sewed a heart-shaped patch over the hole. They even went to the trouble of putting a red edge on the patch, using some of Mrs. Ellery’s fancy darning cotton. I didn’t mind their joke. I got just as much fun out of it as they did. Afterwards Mother wanted to rip off [94]the patch and put on something less showy. But I wouldn’t let her change it.

“I heard the kid’s pants rip,” Scoop went on, “when he went through a barbed-wire fence. And when I came to the fence, there was this patch. I thought it was the one that I had helped to sew on Jerry. I wasn’t sure though.”

Peg scratched his head.

“But how could a strange kid get hold of Jerry’s pants?”

“You tell me,” said Scoop, wagging his head, “and I’ll tell you.”

“Are you sure it’s your patch?” Peg inquired of me.

I told him that it was, beyond all doubt. And I tried to remember the last time that I had worn the old corduroys. It came to me slowly that I hadn’t seen them in my clothes closet for a good many weeks.

How had they come into the possession of this strange boy? Why was he wearing them instead of his own pants? Who was he?

I pondered the mystery, puzzled. [95]