LITMIR.BIZ

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take but a moment, sir,” and Frank swiftly produced the check and the receipt entrusted to him by Mr. Buckner. Before Pryor realized it, they were thrust into his hands and he was looking at them.

      “Oh, this can wait,” he said pettishly. “I don’t like this kind of an intrusion, young man.”

      “I am very sorry, Mr. Pryor,” interrupted Frank in a gentle, polite tone, “but I am only a paid messenger, and I promised Mr. Buckner to be back with that receipt at a certain time.”

      “So you seized the bull by the horns,” broke in Pryor’s companion with a great chuckle. “And outwitted old Grumper, the clerk, ha! ha! Pryor, nail the boy on a year’s contract. He’s got the making in him of a first-class insurance solicitor, in his originality, daring and – ”

      “Cheek,” muttered Pryor. “Well, well – here’s your receipt.”

      Frank seized the paper that Pryor signed with a swift scrawl of the pen, with an eagerness that was a kind of delighted rapture.

      “Oh, thank you, sir,” he said, “and a thousand apologies for my rude intrusion.”

      “Hold on,” ordered Pryor, as Frank returned towards the window.

      “Yes, unless you carry extra accident insurance,” put in Pryor’s companion. “You might not find it so easy getting out of that window as you did getting in, young fellow.”

      Mr. Pryor had gone to the clouded glass door, which Frank knew opened into the main office. He slipped its catch and opened it. Frank understood that he was to pass out that way. He started forward, making a deferential bow to his host.

      “Hi, I say, Pryor – one minute!” sounded a voice in the outer office, and Frank wondered what was about to happen as he recognized the tones as belonging to Dorsett.

      “In a few minutes,” responded Pryor, with an impatient wave of his hand.

      “All right. It’s about the salvage business, you know,” went on Dorsett from behind the wire grating. “Want to pay you the money and close up the deal.”

      “Oh, that?” spoke Pryor, with a sudden glance at Frank and a grim twinkle in his eyes. “You young schemer!” he said to Frank in an undertone, with a slight chuckle. “I understand your peculiar tactics, now. You’ll do, decidedly, young man!”

      Frank tried to look all due humility, but he could not entirely suppress a satisfied smile. As he passed out Pryor said to Dorsett: “You are too late on that matter. I have just closed the salvage business with Buckner of Greenville.”

      “You’ve what?” howled Dorsett, with a violent start. “Why, I’m here first. No one passed me on the road. I – er, hum” – Dorsett turned white as his eye fell on Frank. He glared and shook his driving whip.

      The animated and interested friend of Pryor stuck his head past the open doorway.

      “I say, youngster,” he asked guardedly, his face all a-grin, “how did you circumvent the old chap?”

      “Well, I nearly swam part of the way,” explained Frank. “Thank you, Mr. Pryor,” he added, as the latter opened the wire gate for him to pass out.

      The old clerk had sprung to his feet, gaping in consternation at him. Pryor’s friend was convulsed with internal mirth. Pryor himself did not look altogether displeased at the situation.

      Frank thought that Dorsett would actually leap upon him and strike him with the whip. The latter, however, with a hoarse growl in his throat, allowed Frank to proceed on his way unhindered.

      “We shall hear from this of course – my mother and I,” said the youth to himself as he gained the street. “Mr. Dorsett will store this up against me, hard. All right – I’ve done my simple duty and I’ll stand by the results.”

      A minute later, looking back the way he had come, Frank saw Dorsett come threshing out into the street. He kicked a dog out of his path, rudely jostled a pedestrian, jumped into the gig and went tearing down the homeward road plying the whip and venting his cruel rage on the poor animal in the shafts.

      Frank started back towards Greenville the way he had come. He was greatly pleased at his success, and cheeringly anticipated the good the five dollars would do his mother and himself.

      As Frank passed the spot where he had noticed the barefooted, mud-bespattered urchin lying asleep by the side of the ditch, he could find no trace of the lad.

      A little farther on Frank came in sight of the high board fence he had so curiously observed on his way to Riverton.

      The wind was his way, and as he approached the queer barrier he was somewhat astonished at a great babel of canine barking and howls that greeted his ears.

      “Sounds like a kennel,” he reflected, “but’s a big one. Why, if there isn’t the little fellow with the package of meat.”

      Frank wonderingly regarded a tattered, forlorn figure at a distance seeming to be glued right up face forward against the fence.

      The boy had piled two or three big boulders on top of one another. These he had surmounted, and was peering through a high up crack or knot hole in the fence.

      On one arm he carried the newspaper package Frank had noticed. Bit by bit he poised its contents, hurling them over the fence.

      A loud clamor of yelps and barkings would greet this shower of food. Frank drew nearer, mightily interested.

      The little fellow would throw over a bone and peer inside the enclosure.

      “Get it, Fido!” Frank heard him shout. “They won’t let him – those big ones,” he wailed. “Oh, you dear, big fellow, help him, help him. No, they won’t let him. Fido, Fido, Oh, my! oh my!”

      The little fellow slipped down to a seat on the boulders now and began to cry as if his heart would break. Frank approached and pulled at his arm.

      “Hi, youngster,” he challenged, “what in the world are you up to, anyhow?”

      CHAPTER IV

      A BREAK FOR LIBERTY

      The little ragamuffin addressed by Frank raised his dirt-creased, tear-stained face pathetically. He looked at his questioner for a moment and then went on crying harder than ever.

      “Well,” said Frank, “this is a queer go. Come, little son, brace up and tell what is the matter with you. Who is Fido – a dog?”

      “Sure. He’s in there, he’s been in there for two days now, and I cannot get him out.”

      “There appears to be a good many dogs in there, judging from the racket,” said Frank. “What kind of a place is this, anyhow?”

      “It’s the pound,” explained the urchin. “Belongs to Riverton, but Sile Stoggs runs it. Know Stoggs?”

      “I don’t,” answered Frank.

      “He’s a brute – Oh, what a brute!” cried the little fellow. “Was a constable – the mean kind. Turned a poor woman out of her house in the cold last winter. She died, and her two big brothers met Stoggs one dark night and nearly kicked the life out of him. He had to give up business, for they crippled him.”

      “Go ahead,” encouraged Frank.

      “He had some pol – politicattle friends, I think they call it. One of them was a sharp lawyer. He raked up a lot of old ord – ordinants.”

      “Ordinances, I suppose you mean?” suggested Frank.

      “Yes, sir, that sounds more like it, – anyway, village laws, see? They said Riverton should have a pound. They worked it so that Stoggs got the job of poundmaster. The town pays him a big rent for these old barracks. Used to be a trotting park. He drives around in a little dog cart, and picks up all the stray horses and cows he can catch. Then the owners have to pay two dollars to get them out of the pound. Stoggs gets half. Wish that was Stogg,” and the boy kicked a dirt clump so hard that he stubbed his toe and winced.

      “And what about the dogs?”

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