style="font-size:15px;"> He proved a boy of ready resources, however. Bob Haven formed his acquaintance in the midst of one of his original and daring schemes for raising money quickly.
Frank paid up his debts and hung around Pleasantville, living upon his surplus. He was at a stage of his career where he was sick of change and adventures. He longed for home. In the friendship of the Haven boys and Bart Stirling, he began slowly to feel his way back to a natural boyhood plane.
One night a terrible fire burned down the Pleasantville Hotel. It needed just such an incident to rouse up in Frank the latent chivalry and courage of his fine soul. At the risk of his life he saved fourteen inmates penned up in the burning attic of the hotel, by helping them across a plank leading into an adjoining building. He braved death again by going back into the roaring flames to save a little sleeping child.
Frank rescued the child, but at fearful cost. He was dreadfully burned, almost blinded. For weeks he lay at the town hospital, hovering betwixt life and death. When he finally recovered, it was to learn that the town had gone wild over his heroism. In the paper they owned called the Pleasantville Weekly Herald, the Haven boys had given him “a write up” that had thrilled the community.
More than that, Frank’s friends had learned that the name they had known him by, Percy St. Clair, was an assumed one. They accidentally discovered his real name, sent word to his native town, and when the injured hero awoke to health again it was to find his devoted mother at his side, nursing him.
Frank now learned that he was some good in the world, after all. The ovation of the grateful and enthusiastic town folks, the loyal, hearty friendship of such comrades as Bart Stirling and Darry and Bob Haven warmed his heart to some of its old-time cheer and courage. The day he left Pleasantville with his mother for their home at Greenville, Frank Newton stepped over the threshold of a new life.
An episode of Frank’s departure was the acquisition of Christmas. This faithful canine Bart Stirling had adopted when he was homeless. Haven Brothers had later employed him to run the pony press in their amateur job printing office. Frank loved dogs, and Christmas had taken a great fancy to him.
The animal whined and ran after Frank when he set out for the train. Frank drove Christmas back, but it was only to find the loyal dog hidden under the car seat, twenty miles on the homeward trip.
When they reached Greenville, Frank wrote about Christmas to his Pleasantville friends. His letter, however, showed his half-hidden reluctancy towards giving up the faithful old dog. Haven Brothers made Frank a present of Christmas by return mail.
Of all this Frank now thought as he made his way towards the business centre of Greenville.
“Hey there, Frank Newton, the very fellow!”
Frank looked up quickly. A rapid voice had interrupted his reverie. Its owner was a Mr. Buckner, a local insurance agent and real estate man.
Mr. Buckner’s office sided on the street where Frank was walking. From its open window the proprietor beckoned animatedly.
“Want me?” called up Frank.
“Sure, if you can hustle,” retorted Mr. Buckner.
“I can always do that if there’s anything in it,” was the laughing rejoinder.
Frank crossed the street at a bound, darted around to the front of the building, and was up the stairs four steps at a time.
CHAPTER II
A FIVE-DOLLAR JOB
Frank found Mr. Buckner at his desk, tearing out a freshly-written slip from his check book.
“Good – sit down,” said the business man. “Ready in a second. Now then,” he added a minute later, after filling out a receipt blank, “want to make five dollars?”
“A week?” smiled Frank.
“A day – an hour, if you can get the action on this job that quick,” responded Buckner briskly. “See here, Frank,” he continued, consulting his watch, “a certain individual started down that south road yonder in his buggy for Riverton half-an-hour ago.”
“Yes, sir,” nodded Frank.
“How soon can he get there?”
“Horse any good?” questioned Frank.
“No, common every-day hack.”
“Well,” calculated Frank, “it’s fifteen miles around by that road. Taking it fairly easy, he’d get to Riverton in about two hours and a-half.”
“Very good,” said Buckner. “Can you do it in less time?”
“On foot?”
“Any way, so you get there.”
“Sure,” said Frank confidently. “I can make it in an hour by crossing the flats.”
“Aha!” observed Buckner, “I see.”
“Direct across the swamp stretch it is barely six miles to Riverton,” went on Frank.
“But there’s no road?”
“Except the trail us boys have blazed out from time to time,” explained Frank, his eyes brightening at the memory of many a famous camping out experience in “the Big Woods.” “I can bike it four miles, wade one, and there’s only an easy mile stretch to come after that.”
“U-um,” muttered Mr. Buckner in a musing tone, half to himself. “I’d rather not excite the suspicions of a certain person already on the road, so your suggestion strikes me very good, Frank. Will you guarantee to get to Riverton first?”
“I will – with time to spare,” promised Frank, readily.
“I rely on you, then. It is quite an important matter. Here is a check for two hundred dollars. It is made payable to James Pryor. He is a fire insurance adjuster at Riverton, with an office over the bank there. You find him out, hand him that check, get him to sign this receipt, and your work is done.”
“That’s easy,” said Frank with a pleasant smile. “It isn’t worth five dollars, though.”
“I’m doing this hiring,” retorted Buckner with a quizzical laugh. “Client’s money, see? By the way, too, do this little commission up trim and neat, and there will be some more work for you from the same party.”
Frank was mightily pleased at his task and the prospects. He stowed the check and receipt in a safe pocket, and started to leave the office.
“My client wants to buy up some salvage from a fire at Riverton,” Mr. Buckner explained.
“I see,” nodded Frank.
“A certain party here has been juggling with the situation. He put in a lot of dummy bids. We learned what his best bid was, and offered the same amount. Just now we got a letter – as he did also – accepting first payment from either of us. By the way, too,” continued Mr. Buckner, with a queer twinkle in his eye, “when you come to find who it is you have helped to outwit, you may experience a decided personal pleasure in the discovery. Report soon as you get back to Greenville, Frank.”
“That will be one o’clock
