“Well, I was mighty dry, for a fact,” agreed Pepper, smacking his lips; “I feel a lot better now. I’ve ridden all the way in from beyond Powell’s Cove, and it’s a mighty dusty trip.”
“How’d you get that tut-tut-tear in your coat?” asked Ding-dong, regarding a rent in Pepper’s neat khaki motor-cycling coat.
“Why, that happened out at Powell’s Cove,” was the response. “I meant to tell you about it. I was dry as an old crust out there, and I saw a small ranch house standing quite a way back from the road. It was a lonesome-looking sort of a place, but I judged I could get a drink there, so I chugged up to the door.
“It was open, and not seeing anyone about, I went in uninvited. From a room in the back I heard voices, and so I walked in there, too. There were two men sitting at a table. One of them was explaining something to the other, and they had on the table what looked to me like a model of a torpedo, or something of that sort.”
“Yes, of a torpedo. Then, too, there were a lot of plans.”
“Her-her-hold on!” cried Ding-dong, his words tripping all over each other in his excitement. “Wer-wer-what did the men lul-lul-look like?”
“How do you expect me to get on with my story if you keep butting in?” he asked in an aggrieved tone of voice.
“I’ve a per-per-particular reason,” cried Ding-dong.
“Well, one had a big black beard, an ugly-looking customer, and the other——”
“Hokey!” yelled Ding-dong, while Pepper looked on in a rather alarmed way, as if he thought his young companion had gone suddenly insane; “it’s Minory for a bet! Minory, the fellow that swiped the wireless torpedo!”
“What, the one you told me about? That invention of the Professor What’s-his-name?”
“The same fellow,” cried Ding-dong. “What a shame the professor has gone East! I’ll wire him at once.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait and see if you haven’t made a mistake?” asked Pepper soberly. “You know it might not be the same at all. Other men than Minory have black whiskers. My pop has, for instance.”
“That’s so,” said Ding-dong in a chastened voice. “But go ahead, Pep, and tell me the rest.”
“All right, I’d have finished by this time if it hadn’t been for you,” said Pepper. “Well, the minute I appeared, both men jumped up and glared at me as if I’d been a mountain lion or something. The black-bearded fellow made a run for me and shouted out to know what I wanted there. I told them I was after a drink of water, but the fellow grabbed me by the arm. I wrenched free, but I tore my coat in doing it. That was the rent you saw.