The Mystery Megapack

thrifty farmer! Oh, Frank, I don’t believe I’m going to like it here. Let’s go to some civilized resort, and give up our rental here!”
    Weston put a reassuring arm across her shoulder and gently urged her back to her room.
    “Shucks! Wait till tomorrow, and see how different you feel in the bright sunshine. I don’t believe there are any dangerous people living within twenty miles of us. This was the act of some tramp crazy with hooch, or dope. They’ll catch him; and nothing exciting will happen here again for fifty years more. But isn’t it queer that this should occur the very night we arrived to enjoy the simple life!”
    Contrary to their expectations, both fell asleep within fifteen minutes, nor were they troubled with bad dreams. They were roused only when Romeo, the bobtailed cat, scandalized at the idea of lying abed after the sun was up, perched on Weston’s pillow and patted his face with imperative paws. He opened his eyes, grinned, and called out to Annie that it was a grand morning, and that he could do with a bit of breakfast!
    As Weston had prophesied, his wife felt differently about their new home in the bright morning sunshine. Robins and bluebirds were singing, and selecting home sites. Down on the shore, crows were strutting up and down, their sharp beaks attacking periwinkles and mussels. The island of Mt. Desert stood out so clearly that one could make out automobiles crawling up its steep mountain roads. In the lilac bush at the corner of the kitchen, a peabody bird lighted and uttered its joyous song, which our northern cousins insist is a repetition of the word: “Canada.”
    Annie sang too, as she wrestled with coffee, ham and eggs and toast, all at one time on her stove aflame with seasoned kindling. Frank surveyed his bristly chin in the mirror of his bureau, grinned, and decided not to shave that day. That was one of the petty tyrannies he had come up here to escape! No, and he wouldn’t wear any necktie, either. Just a flannel shirt open at the neck, the new corduroy trousers, and on his feet a pair of easy buckskin shoes. Bareheaded, he would wander about and get the lay of the land after breakfast. He too sang, discordantly, but none the less happily.
    But before breakfast was fairly over, they had a caller, two of them, in fact; one remained outside, at the wheel of the stanch old touring car. The other, a determined-looking man with a square chin and sea-blue eyes, a man in his vigorous fifties and wearing loose blue serge and a slouch hat, knocked at the door. By daylight, there was nothing ominous about this knocking; it didn’t seem nearly as loud as the summons of Jason Hodge in the blackness of night.
    He nodded at Frank as he answered the door, a piece of buttered toast in one hand and toast crumbs sprinkling his flannel shirt.
    “Mr. Weston? From New York? Thought so. I’m Thomas, Joe Thomas from Allsworth—sheriff. Suppose you’ve heard about what happened last night?”
    “Hodge came over to tell me,” Weston said. “He knew we have no telephone. Won’t you come in, Mr. Thomas? We can rustle up a cup of hot coffee—”
    The sheriff interrupted him with a gesture of one hand.
    “Much obliged; but this is my busy day. What time did Jason tell you about what happened at Bronson’s place?”
    “Why—I don’t know exactly; I think I’d just fallen asleep, and we retired about ten o’clock. Couldn’t have been much later than ten thirty.”
    “Then you really don’t know what all could have taken place afterward.”
    “Why, no. We locked up tight, and then went to sleep again; and you’re the first one I’ve seen since I talked with Hodge.”
    The sheriff nodded. “Just so. Well, there was another outrage along toward three o’clock. Same fellow, apparently; anyhow he was masked, and he had plenty of time to walk over to old man Tucker’s cabin. That’s beyond Cranberry Beach a few miles; nearest neighbor is a mile away. Tucker has always had the reputation of being a miser. I don’t know why; I doubt if he’s got ten dollars to his name. But anyhow, this bandit—whoever it was—broke into his shack, woke up the old man and tried to make him tell where his money was hid. Didn’t get nothing out of him. Not even when he tied him up and held lighted matches to the soles of his feet and did other devilish things I haven’t time to go into now. He left along about half past four, as well as Tucker can figure out. The poor old codger is