Mollie clutched the
sides of the seat in a grip of something like despair. The boys looked
wonderingly at one another, and then at the strange figure that had
tumbled out of the bushes.
"Oh, it's the hair-tonic peddler!" exclaimed Mollie a moment later, as
she got a glimpse of the man. He had risen and was brushing the dust off
his rusty black suit.
"The who?" asked Will.
"A man who sells hair-tonic," explained Betty in a low voice, for the
stranger was looking at them now.
"At your service, ladies and gentlemen!" exclaimed the proprietor of
Bennington's Hair-Tonic. "I see you remember me," and he smirked at the
girls--that hard, and rather cruel, look never leaving his face, even
when he smiled.
"Oh, yes, we remember you," replied Betty, coolly. She now had control
of her nerves.
"Don't talk to him too much," advised Allen, in a low voice. "You never
can tell who these fellows are, nor what their game is."
"Ob, he's harmless," replied Betty, in a return whisper. "We met him on
the road one day, and supplied a bolt that he had lost from his wagon."
"All the same," insisted Will, "he might----"
He was interrupted by Mollie, who asked:
"Where is your wagon?"
"I left it in a secure place," replied the hair tonic man.
"What were you doing up there?" asked Allen, nodding in the direction
whence the man had taken his tumble.
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