He called together three or four of his most prudent townsmen, and set them at work making inquiries and doing a sort of detective work. Presently it was found that a farmer in an adjoining town had, on the evening of the day after Joe’s disappearance, while driving a cow from pasture, seen a rough-looking man ride a gray horse out of a wood-lot, and had found the place where the man and the horse had apparently passed several hours, and eaten a meal or two.
This clew was followed up. Still farther on other traces of the real thief were found. He had now passed quite beyond any jurisdiction of Squire Bidwell, but the authorities were notified of what had been learned, and were on the alert.
Callipers was well known through previous misdeeds. The man who had been seen answered his description. For a long time he evaded pursuit; but at last, as we have seen, he was apprehended, the very day after he had turned Old Charlie over to Rosencamp on the canal.
Late one September afternoon, after a day of sunshine and blue skies, Joe’s father sat on the westerly porch of the farmhouse, looking away toward the lake, on which the shadows were now falling deeply, and thinking of what had occurred on its shores on a memorable day in June.
On the steps at his feet, her chin in her hands, thinking also of poor Joe, sat his daughter Jennie. Mrs. Gaston, busy with some household task, moved about in the rooms near by.
Suddenly through the lane around the corner of the house came Squire Bidwell. He declined Mrs. Gaston’s invitation to enter the house, and Mr. Gaston’s invitation to take a chair on the porch. Then with some embarrassment, as though he were treading on delicate ground, the squire said,--
“Neighbor, you remember that gray horse you used to have?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Gaston, coldly. “I remember him.”
“Well, some of us were talking about that horse the other day, and--and we kind of thought we’d look him up. We haven’t found him yet--”
“I suppose we know who took him,” said Mr. Gaston, uneasily.
“I don’t think you do, Gaston,” said the squire. “It wasn’t Joe.”
Mrs. Gaston had approached, and called out eagerly, “Mr. Bidwell!”
“No,” repeated the squire, “it wasn’t your boy. It was a common horse-thief,--a bow-legged, stumpy fellow by the nickname of Callipers.”