He got up and looked in the direction he judged to be south. The trees seemed thinner and he thought there was a clearing just beyond.
“C’mon, Sam,” he said, “let’s see if there’s fire by that smoke.”
A hundred feet and they saw the clearing, a two- or three-acre patch, in the middle of which stood a ramshackle log cabin. Smoke was coming out of the chimney.
Sam Cragg drew a deep breath. “I haven’t done this for a good many years, but here goes…”
He stepped out into the clearing and leaped back instantly as a huge German shepherd dog came out of the cabin and began barking furiously. A man in overalls appeared in the doorway of the house.
“Git him!” he ordered.
The dog was quite willing. He came for the trees with a rush that sent Johnny’s heart leaping into his throat. Sam jumped for an overhanging limb, but misjudged the strength of it and it broke with his weight, crashing him to the ground.
Johnny stooped and tore the limb from Sam’s hands and whirled just in time to thrust it into the charging dog’s face.
“G’wan home, you—” he snarled.
The dog yelped, rushed back a few feet and baring his teeth, set up a furious racket of barking. Sam Cragg scrambled to his feet, found a foot length chunk of decaying wood and threw it at the dog, which dodged it nimbly.
Out in the clearing, the fanner yelled: “Who’s there? What are you doing out there?”
“Call off your dog!” Johnny replied, “before he gets hurt!”
Swearing softly, Sam Cragg was breaking off a stout club for himself from another tree limb. “Man’s best friend,” he muttered.
The farmer came out of the house, gripping a shotgun in his hands. “C’mon out of there, you!…” he called.
Johnny groaned. He made a sudden rush for the dog with the tree limb, then wheeled and started for the thicket again. Sam lumbered along behind, turning now and then to threaten the dog which followed.
He was a persistent dog, keeping on their heels long after his master had dropped out of the chase; for almost a mile, in fact.
“That settles the food question,” Johnny said, when they had finally lost the canine pursuer. “You won’t find a farmhouse up here without a mutt. Besides — I don’t think we ought to show ourselves just yet.”
“But we’ve got to eat!” Sam protested.
“Why? People go days and days without food sometimes. Tighten that belt of yours and let’s put some more miles behind us. Maybe tomorrow…”
Sam Cragg groaned.
It was a warm day and they perspired freely as they ploughed through the woods, crossing dirt roads hurriedly and avoiding clearings and houses. Johnny watched the sun, so that they continued steadily in a more or less southerly direction. Civilization, he judged, was in that direction and he wanted civilization — in big quantities. A city man, he needed a city in which to lose himself.
When the sun was almost overhead, Sam Cragg declared that he could travel no more and threw himself flat on the ground, under a huge cedar tree.
Johnny seated himself beside Sam, resting his back against the tree. The ground looked inviting, but he was afraid if he stretched himself out on it, he would be unable to get up again.
He said: “How about a card trick, Sam?”
Sam’s hand moved to his pocket, then fell to his side. “No,” he groaned. “Not now.”
Johnny grinned wryly as he looked down at his friend. The big fellow’s feet were all out of proportion to his massive body. Sam could stand almost any kind of punishment — except walking. Well, Johnny didn’t like walking either.
He thought of the bad luck that had dogged them ever since they had entered the State of Minnesota. Six weeks ago, that had been. It had rained every day at the Minnesota State Fair. They had scarcely broken even on the week, after paying their hotel bill and incidentals. Sam had been moving south, then, but Johnny had wanted to see the northern country, the Iron Range.
Disaster had overtaken them up there. On top of everything they had been jugged for vagrancy in a one-horse town.
And now murder.
He and Sam were innocent of the charge, of course, but they couldn’t prove it, locked up. They had to take to their heels. The question was, could they elude capture?
Johnny didn’t know. But he was going to give the thing his damndest.
He said to Sam: “Come on, big boy. We’ve got to go.”
Sam rolled over on his broad back and looked bitterly at Johnny. “Go ahead, Johnny. I’ll just wait here for the cops.”
Johnny laughed without humor. Then, suddenly, he twisted his head sidewards and a glint of alarm came to his eyes. “Quiet, Sam,” he said, in a low tone. “Someone’s coming…”
Sam promptly sat up. “I hear them… sounds like a wagon.”
“A wagon! Say… cops wouldn’t be using a wagon, not even up here in Minnesota. I think I’ll just have a look…”
The rumble of wheels and the clop-clop of a horse’s hoofs on earth told him the location of the road. On hands and knees Johnny scuttled towards it.
It was no more than fifty feet away and was merely a winding trail cut through the virgin forest, a real backwoods road.
Chapter Six
The wagon was approaching leisurely, drawn by a single horse. The lone occupant of the wagon was a bucolic appearing youngster in his early twenties. On impulse, Johnny stepped out into the road.
The youth saw him and pulled up his horse. “Hello there, neighbor,” he said cheerily. “Live around here?”
Johnny nodded. “Up the road a ways. How about a lift?”
“Surest thing, neighbor. Hop on.” The youth moved obligingly to one side of the wooden wagon seat. Johnny grinned crookedly. “My brother’s with me. Okay for him, too?” Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned and called, “Oh, Sam! Man wants to give us a lift home. Hurry up.”
Sam Cragg came cautiously out of the woods. The man on the wagon seat nodded, “Hi, neighbor!”
In the act of climbing into the wagon, Johnny looked in the back of it and saw that it was filled with gleaming aluminum pans.
He exclaimed, “Peddler, eh?”
The driver chuckled. “Direct salesman. We don’t like the word peddler — not any more.” He clapped the lines on the horse’s rump and added, “Giddap!” then reached back of him and brought out one of the aluminum kettles.
“Not bad, eh?”
Johnny took the thing in his hand. “No, not bad, at all. What is it?”
“What’s it look like, Mister?”
Johnny was sure his guess would be wrong, so merely shook his head. Sam, however, guessed audibly and the salesman roared until the tears rolled down his cheeks.
When he was able to talk, he sputtered. “It does look something like that, but it ain’t. It’s… it’s a chicken fryer. And… and… aw, hell, reach back in one of the boxes and bring out a bottle — two bottles, one from each box.”
Johnny brought them out and looked at the label. The one on the larger bottle read: “Four Star Lemon Extract,” and the one on the smaller bottle, “Four Star Vanilla Extract.”
“Ah,” he said, “the old lemon extract. I haven’t seen it in years.”
The salesman shook his head. “You’re right, Mister, she ain’t what she used to be. Not no more. Folks is getting too smart. That’s why I’m working the dirt roads. The boys like to stick to the pavements with their cars, but me, I got me old Nellie here and she likes the dirt better than the pavement. And so do I. I don’t make as many calls in a day as I would on the concrete, but I do just as well in the long run, I guess.”
“What’s the deal, Mister?” Sam Cragg asked, coming to life.
“I was just going to get to that, gentlemen,” the salesman said. “You see this bottle of lemon extract? It’s a full sixteen ounces of the best flavoring you ever tasted. What would you figure it’d cost you in the store? A dollar? Cheap at the price. But you know what? I sell it for ninety-nine cents, and with each and every bottle — purely for advertising purposes — I give free, absolutely free, mind you, an eight-ounce bottle of this genuine imported domestic vanilla extract. Now, I’m asking you, gentlemen, is that a bargain or isn’t it?”