-should print a lot o' stuff about Carder
shootin' guns and foamin' at the mouth when he saw the girl he was
goin' to marry fly up into the sky _and't wa'n't so_--ye see, 't would
go mighty hard with our editor."

"Why didn't he send somebody right out to the farm to inquire?" asked
Ben.

The grocer smiled, looked off, and shook his head.

"You say you've met Rufus Carder? Well, ye don't know him or else ye
wouldn't ask that. Don't monkey with the buzz-saw is a pretty good
motter where he's concerned. I'm lookin' fer Pete now. This is his day
to come in an' stock up. He's so stupid he couldn't make up anything,
and we'll know fer sure if there's any truth at all in the story."

"Who is Pete--a son?" Ben put the question calmly, considering his
elation at his good luck. He had made up his mind that he might have to
spend days in this soporific hamlet.

The grocer looked at him quickly from under his bushy eyebrows.

"What made ye ask that? Some folks say he is. Say, are you one o' these
here detectives? Be you after Carder? Pete's a boy they took out of an
asylum, and if he'd ever had any care he wouldn't be bandy-legged and
undersized, but don't you say I've told ye anything, 'cause I haven't."

Ben smiled into the startled, suspicious face. "Not a bit of it," he
answered. "I'm just motoring about these parts on a little vacation, and
I got out of cigarettes, so I called on you."

"There's Pete now!" exclaimed the grocer eagerly, hurrying out from
behind the counter and to the door.

Other of the neighbors recognized the Carder car and came out to
question the boy, who by the time he entered the grocery found himself
confronting an audience who all asked questions at once. Pete's shock of
hair stood up as usual like a scrubbing-brush; he wore no hat, and his
dull eyes looked about from one to another eager face. Ben had strolled
back of a tall pile of starch-boxes.

"Is it true an areoplane come down in Mr. Carder's field yisterday?" The
question volleyed at the dwarf from a dozen directions.

He stared at them all dumbly, and they cried at him the more, one woman
shaking him by the shoulder.

"Look here, shut up, all of you!" said the proprietor; "let the boy do
his business first. Ye'll put it all out of his head. What d'ye want,
Pete?"

The dwarf drew a list out of his pocket and handed it to the grocer upon
which the bystanders all fell upon him again.

As Ben regarded the dwarf, he felt some reflec