g Tom's shirts. Now with painstaking effort, pricking his fingers many
times, he sewed the buttons back where they belonged. The task finished,
he was in nothing short of an exalted state of mind. So that again for
supper he made biscuits and gravy.

Then came the bombshell. It was Big Tom who cast it, figuratively
speaking, among the supper plates. He had come scuffing his way in, his
look roving and suspicious--if not a little apprehensive. But what he
had to say he had saved, as was his habit, for meal time. "Sa-a-ay!" he
began, helping himself to a generous portion of his favorite dish;
"who's that dude that's been hangin' 'round here lately?"

Johnnie's tongue felt numb, and his throat dry. He thought of the laws,
hoping he might remember one that would help him. He could remember
nothing. There was a spy in the house--a spy as evil as Magua. And that
spy deserved to be killed. He resolved that, later on, up on the roof,
he would have a splendid execution.

Meanwhile Cis had come to the rescue. "You mean Mr. Perkins, the
scoutmaster?" she asked. She was white, Johnnie noticed, and did not
look at Barber.

"Scoutmaster!" repeated the longshoreman. "So that's it, is it? I
guessed you was up to some deviltry!"--this to Johnnie. "And let me tell
you somethin': none of them crazy idears 'round here! D' y' understand?"
(This was how much he appreciated biscuits and gravy!)

"Yes, sir," murmured Johnnie. But he thought what a pity it was that
some one had not made a scout out of Big Tom.

"None o' that foolish business," went on Barber; then to Cis, noticing
her paleness, perhaps. "What's eatin' _you_?"

"Nothing. I feel tired to-night," she answered weakly.

"Go t' bed."

She went, and as if she was grateful to get away, though the sun was
still shining on the roofs of the houses opposite. She did not even
glance at Johnnie, and shut herself in.

"What time t'morrow will that guy come?" the longshoreman wanted to know
as soon as Cis was gone.

"'Bout 'leven." Johnnie could not help but wonder how he was ever to get
on if the laws bound him so tight to the truth, and the truth would
prove the undoing, the wrecking of all his dearest plans.

"'Leven," mused Barber. "Hm!--Well, y' needn't t' put up no lunch for me
in the mornin'. I'll come home for it. I jus' want t' take a look at
that scout gent."

CHAPTER XXI

THE MEETING

A TERRIBLE dread filled Johnnie's heart--that heart which had always
kn