It was a very humble dwelling, low, ancient, weathered, half hidden by a plantation of tall poplars doubtless planted many years ago as a windbreak. There were several outbuildings visible, all quite as unkept as the house itself. In one of them a light burned feebly, a lemon-yellow radiance in the gathering gloom. In the house there appeared to be no light at all until having turned from the uncertain road, he crossed a patch of grass and drew nearer. Then three things happened almost simultaneously: a dog barked ferociously from the direction of the house, a voice challenged from nearer at hand and a light sprang dimly into sight behind the narrow sidelights of the entrance.
A dark form sprang suddenly into view a dozen paces away and approached. So did the dog, a big black nondescript who growled menacingly as he bounded forward. “Get out o’ here, Gyp! Beat it or I’ll bounce a brick off your bean!” commanded the voice compellingly. Gyp stopped growling and began to sniff instead, circling around the visitor at a few yards’ distance.
“I’ve got an order here from the Central City Market for Jordan,” said Joe. “All right?”
“Sure,” answered the other. “Give it to me.” He proved to be a boy some two years older than Joe; perhaps eighteen. He was tall and broad-shouldered and uncouth. His clothes seemed too large for him and fell into strange wrinkles as he stepped close to take the wire basket. He wore no hat, and Joe found the fact oddly worrying him for the instant. Then, as he yielded the carrier and said, “Four dollars and thirty cents to pay, please,” he knew why.
“All right,” said the boy gruffly in his unpleasant voice, and started toward the rear of the house, Joe was following more slowly when the other turned. “You wait here,” he said in a threatening tone. “Watch him, Gyp.”
The dog growled and Joe stopped very still. For several minutes boy and dog stared at each other there in the rain and gloom, but Joe didn’t see Gyp at all. He saw, instead, a figure in a dark slouch hat bending over the handlebars of a shining purple bicycle, and although the hat was now wanting, he knew beyond the possibility of any doubt that the youth on the bicycle and the unpleasant-voiced boy who had disappeared beyond the corner of the house were one and the same.