Three Young Knights | Page 3

succession.
The money was gone!
CHAPTER II.
Jot gasped with horror. The last match went out and left him standing
there in the dark. After one instant's hesitation he made a bound for the
bed. "Kent! Kent! Wake up!" he whispered shrilly. He shook the limp
figure hard.

"Thieves! Murder! Wake up, I tell you, Kent! We're robbed!"
"M-m--who's rob--Oh, say, lemme alone!" murmured poor Kent,
drowsily.
Jot shook him again.
"I tell you thieves!" he hissed in his ear. "The money's gone! Do you
hear? It isn't under the pin-cushion where we left it! It's gone! We've
been robbed, Kent Eddy!"
The limp figure strengthened as if electrified and rose to a sitting
position. Kent's eyes flew open.
"What?" he cried.
"Get up quick, Kentie, and we'll wake Old Tilly up! Maybe we can
catch 'em!"
"Catch who? I wish you'd talk English, Jot Eddy!"
Old Tilly was slumbering peacefully, oblivious to thieves and
five-dollar bills alike. It took a long time to wake him and longer yet to
make him understand the dire thing that had happened.
"Get up! Get up! We've got to catch 'em!" concluded Jot.
"Yes, the thieves--catch the thieves, you know!" Kent explained. "I
don't s'pose you'll lie there all night and let 'em cut off with our money,
if you are Old Tilly!"
Then something funny happened. Anyway, it seemed funny to Old
Tilly. He buried his face in the pillow and choked with laughter.
"It's gone to his head!" whispered Jot, in alarm.
"No, to his t-toe!" giggled Old Tilly, purple in the face.
"Yes, sir, he's crazy as a loon. Let's call father, Jot!"

"Hold on!--wait! It's all right, boys! The money is, and I am, and
everybody is! Just wait till I get my laugh out, won't you?"
"No, sir, but we'll wait till you get out o' bed and that's this very
minute!" Jot exclaimed wrathfully. He was dancing up and down with
impatience.
Old Tilly slowly brought a lean, shapely leg into view from beneath the
sheet. To the boys' amazement it was covered with a long black
stocking. Old Tilly, like the other boys, had been barefooted all day.
"Thought I might as well get a good start in dressing!" he chuckled.
"Nothing like being read--"
"Oh, come off!"
"Well, I wish it would; there's something in the toe that hurts. Ow!"
He drew off the stocking and gravely examined the snug little wad in
the toe.
"The money!" cried Kent.
"Yes, sir, the money!" Jot echoed in astonishment.
"Why, so it is!" Old Tilly said in evident surprise. "Then the thieves
didn't get away with it, after all! I call that a lucky stroke--my getting
partly dressed overnight! No, hold on, you little chaps--don't get uppy!
I'll explain, honest I will! You see, I got up after a while and put the
money there for safe-keeping. I'd like to see the thief that would look
there for it! He'd get a good kick if he did!"
It was half an hour later when the trio settled back into sleep again. In
the east already there were dim outriders of day trailing across the
darkness.
Without further incident the three knights-errant got under way next
day. In a glare of July sunshine they rode away in search of adventures,
while Father and Mother Eddy in the kitchen doorway looked after

them a little wistfully.
"Bless their hearts!" mother murmured tender-wise.
"Good boys! Good boys!" said father, coughing to cover the break in
his voice.
"I say, this is great!" called Jot, who led the van, of course. "This is the
way to do it!"
[Illustration: "I say, this is great!" called Jot.]
"Yes, sir!" Kent cried in high feather, "it feels as if you were reg'lar old
knights, you know! Isn't it jolly not to know what's going to happen
next?"
Old Tilly's wheel slid up abreast of Kent's and proceeded sociably.
"Esau Whalley's farm 'happens next,' and then old Uncle Rod King's
next," Old Tilly said calmly. "I guess we better wait till we get out o'
this neck o' woods before we settle down to making believe!"
But three wheels driven by three pairs of sturdy, well-muscled legs get
over miles swiftly, and by ten o'clock the boys had turned down an
unfamiliar road and were on the way to things that happened. Before
noon knightly deeds were at their hand. Jot himself discovered the first
one. He vaulted from his bicycle suddenly, as they were bowling past a
little gray house set in weeds, and the others, looking back, saw him
carrying a dripping pail of water along the path to the kitchen
doorsteps.
"The pail was out there on the well curb, asking to be filled," he
explained brusquely, as he caught up with them, "and