"Come," said he to the lad, "we'll go an' see." And he started off down the road at that long loose stride of his, which was swifter than a trot and much less tiring.
"Hold on a minute, Tug," drawled a rasping nasal voice.
"What is it, Hawker?" demanded Blackstock, turning impatiently on his heel.
"Ye hain't asked no thin' yet about the Book Agent, Mister Byles, him as sold ye 'Mother, Home, an' Heaven.' Mebbe he could give us some information. He said as how he'd had some talk with poor old Jake."
Blackstock's lips curled slightly. He had not read the voluble stranger as a likely highwayman in any circumstances, still less as one to try issues with a man like Jake Sanderson. But the crowd, eager to give tongue on any kind of a scent, and instinctively hostile to a book agent, seized greedily upon the suggestion.
"Where is he?" "Send for him." "Did anybody see him this mornin'?" "Rout him out!" "Fetch him along!" The babel of voices started afresh.
"He's cleared out," cried a woman's shrill voice. It was the voice of Mrs. Stukeley, who kept the boarding-house. Every one else was silent to hear what she had to say.
"He quit my place jest about daylight this morning," continued the woman virulently. She had not liked the stranger's black whiskers, nor his ministerial garb, nor his efforts to get a subscription out of her, and she was therefore ready to believe him guilty without further proof. "He seemed in a powerful hurry to git away, sayin' as how the Archangel Gabriel himself couldn't do business in this town."
Seeing the effect her words produced, and that even the usually imperturbable and disdainful Deputy Sheriff was impressed by them, she could not refrain from embroidering her statement a little.
"Now ez I come to think of it," she went on, "I did notice as how he seemed kind of excited an' nervous like, so's he could hardly stop to finish his breakfus'. But he took time to make me knock half-a-dollar off his bill."
"Mac," said Blackstock sharply, turning to Red Angus MacDonald, the village constable, "you take two of the boys an' go after the Book Agent. Find him, an' fetch him back. But no funny business with him, mind you. We hain't got a spark of evidence agin him. We jest want him as a witness, mind."