e purposely faced the patch of brush
where he knew his watchers were lurking.

Ransacking his pockets, with a comical, quizzical grin on his face, he
produced a solitary nickel, placed it ostentatiously on the tree stump
and remarked:

"Honesty is the best policy--there you are, landlord! and much obliged
for the handout."

Then, striking a jaunty dancing step, he started to cross the clearing,
whistling a jolly tune.

"Hey!"

Bart half expected the summons. He halted in professed wonderment,
looked up, to the right, to the left, in every direction except that
from which he was well aware the hail had come.

"Look here, you!"

Bart now turned in the right direction. A man of about thirty had
revealed himself from the brush.

He had small, bright eyes, a shrewd, narrow face, and Bart knew from
discription who he was--Buck Tolliver.

"Why, hello! somebody here?" exclaimed Bart, feigning surprise and then
fright, and he made a movement as if to run for it.

"Don't you bolt," ordered Buck Tolliver, advancing--"come back here,
kid."

Bart slowly retraced his steps. Then he manifested new alarm as a second
figure stepped out from the brush.

Recalling what the Millville postmaster had told him, the young express
agent was quickly aware that this second individual was Buck's brother,
Hank.

Buck was the spokesman and leader. He came up near to Bart and looked
him over critically.

"What you doing here?" he demanded, with a suspicious frown.

"Nothing," said Bart, with a grin.

"Where do you come from?"

"Me--nowhere!" chuckled Bart, winking deliberately and then, walking
over to the horse, he fondled his long ears, with the remark: "If I had
a dandy rig like you've got here, I bet I'd go somewheres, though!"

"Where would you go?" inquired Buck Tolliver curiously.

"I'd go to California--that's the place to do something, and make a
name, and amount to something."

Bart's off-handed ingenuousness had completely disarmed the men. He
pretended to be busy petting the horse, but saw Buck Tolliver slip back
to his brother, and a few quick questions and answers passed between
them. Then Buck came up to him again.

"See here, kid, are you acquainted around here at all?"

"Did you ever see me around here before?" chaffed Bart audaciously.

"Don't get fresh! This is business."

"Why, yes--I reckon I could find my way from Springfield to Bascober."

Bart had mentioned two points miles remote from the Mil