remember. Kind of bind us together, you know, till you come back.”
Bob caught his breath softly, and then after a pause, he spoke huskily, hesitantly, “Oh God—I’m pretty much of a sinner, I guess. I—don’t think—I’d be much good—to You—but I need somebody—mighty bad! If You’ll take me—I’m Yours.”
He caught his breath again in a little gasp and added, “Thanks for sending Mac into my life—and for this great chance to go in his place.”
They talked a long time after the light was out and they were in bed, Alan explaining what it meant to be born again, what he had meant by “robe of righteousness,” showing his new friend how Christ had taken his sins entirely upon Himself and nailed them to the cross when He died, and that if he was willing to accept that freedom from the law that had been purchased on the cross, he had a right to stand clear and clean before God, not in his own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ.
Bob asked a lot of questions. The whole subject was utterly new to him. The clock struck two before the boys turned over and decided to get a little sleep. Alan had forgotten all about his own worries in the joy of leading another soul into the Light. Both boys were just drifting off into unconsciousness when they were vaguely aware of a car stopping before the door of the house. A moment later a pebble sharply struck the glass of the window, and a low whistle followed this signal.
They were alert and upright at once, and Alan sprang out of bed and went to the window.
“Who’s there?” Alan called softly, sharply from the window.
“That you, Mac?” whispered Keith Washburn softly. “Say Mac, did you leave a light on in the store?”
“Why, no!” said Alan. “Of course not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Abso-tively!” said Alan. “I know because I stumbled over a box of tin things Joe had left in the way.”
“Well, there’s one on there now,” said Keith impressively. “Just saw it as I went by. And what’s more it’s moving around like a flashlight, in the back of the store.”
“Wait a second. I’ll be down!” said Alan, flying into his clothes.
CHAPTER IV
Don’t get up, Bob,” said Alan struggling into a sweater. “Remember you’ve got a journey to go to tomorrow. It’s likely nothing. Go to sleep. I’ll be back in three jerks of a lamb’s tail.”
“Cut it!” said Bob, jerking on his shoes. “Whaddaya think I am, anyway, Mac?”
Keith was waiting for them downstairs, the engine running softly, and he had the car moving before they were fairly in.
“Sure you weren’t dreaming, Wash?” asked Alan, wondering why his teeth had a tendency to chatter, and trying to remember whether he had finally brought those papers home with him or left them in the safe. He had a ghastly feeling that he had left them in the safe. Oh, if Dad were only well!
“Dreaming!” said Keith contemptuously. “Well, I might have been of course. I saw the light when I first rounded the corner of the post office and I thought it was odd. Thought you must have forgotten to turn it out, or else you decided to leave it burning. But when I got around the front of the store, it was all dark, so I concluded I had been mistaken. Thought it was just a reflection or something. But when I got down to your corner, I looked back, and it flashed up again and moved around. Then I decided you had gone down to the store after something, but somehow I wasn’t easy and thought I’d better see if I could get in touch with you. Thought maybe you could explain it.”
They were rounding the corner into the main street now, and suddenly Bob laid a detaining hand on the wheel.
“Better stop here, Washburn,” he suggested. “If you go nearer, the engine can be heard.”
“That’s right, Lincoln. I ought to have thought of that. I’ll park here in the shadow, and we’ll sneak up. Probably it’s only some trick of the streetlights reflecting somewhere, and I’ll feel like two cents. Probably I’ve only got a case of nerves, riding half the night. If it is, I’ll feel cheap as dirt to think I woke you up, but it’s always just as well to be on the safe side.”
“Sure thing,” said Alan with set lips, as he swung to the ground softly and wondered for the fortieth time whether he had taken those papers home or left them in the safe.
“There is a light in there,” whispered Bob as they stole along, walking on the grass at the edge of the pavement so that their feet made no sound. “There! See there! It’s moving around. Now, it’s gone. No, there it is again.”
“I’ll slide around to the alley,” whispered Alan. “It might be I can look in the back window. They’re operating down by the safe, whoever it is. You two watch this side and the front, will you?”
“Don’t do anything rash, Mac! Perhaps we better call the officer. He ought to be in the region about now.”
“No, wait! I want to get a line on things first,” said Alan as he slid off into the darkness, plunging swiftly down the alleyway that separated his father’s store from the millinery store just beyond, and passed the window behind his father’s desk.
Softly Washburn and Lincoln stepped up to the front of the store and tried to look through the front windows, but the window decorations prevented their seeing more than an indefinite dancing light that went here and there, and sometimes disappeared entirely.
Keith stepped to the door and peered through the window, but a stand full of brooms stood right in his line of vision, and he could not be sure, though once he thought he saw a dark form move across the dim distance, and then the light appeared from a new angle.
How did the man get into the store, if man it was?
Softly, he slid his hand down to the door latch and tried it, taking great care, but the creaking old latch suddenly gave out a grating sound, and simultaneously the light inside the store went out. There followed a dull thud, as of heavy metal books falling. And then a crash of metal, a lot of heavy metal articles falling against one another, a sort of scuffling sound, and then silence. Ominous silence.
Frantically Keith put his shoulder to the door and tried to push it open, but the old door was held by heavy bolts at the top and bottom, and was made of strong oak planks. Keith could not do anything but rattle it.
“We’d better call Mac and break this door open,” said Keith. “This looks odd!” But Bob had already disappeared down the alley, and Keith tiptoed to the corner of the store, with a sharp eye out, however, toward the front that there should be no possibility of anyone escaping in that direction.
Meanwhile, Alan, as he ran down the alley, had been still trying to solve the problem about those papers. Had he taken them home or left them in the safe? And what were they worth anyway? Deeds and securities! Insurance papers! If they were lost or stolen, did it spell calamity, or was everything recorded that they would lose nothing? And why would anybody want to get any of these papers? It must have something to do with the people who were trying to foreclose the
