The superintendent and his helpers were in the distant "upper field," working around the roots of some young fruit trees. But for the maids, busy indoors, the Place was deserted of human or canine life.
Thus, luck was with the two intruders.
Through the fence-gap in the oak-grove, bored Titus Romaine's hugest and oldest and crankiest sow. She was in search of acorns and of any other food that might lie handy to her line of march.
In her owner's part of the grove, there was too much competition, in the food-hunt, from other and equally greedy pigs of the herd.
These she could fight off and drive from the choicest acorn-hoards. But it was easier to forage without competition.
So through the gap she forced her grunting bulk; and on through the Place's half of the oak-grove. Pausing now and then to root amid the strewn leaves, she made her leisurely way toward the open lawn with its two-hundred-year-old shade-oaks, and its flower-borders which still held a few toothsome bulbs.
The second intruder entered the grounds in much more open fashion. He was a man in the late twenties; well-set up, neatly, even sprucely, dressed; and he walked with a slight swagger. He looked very much at home and very certain of his welcome.
A casual student of human nature would have guessed him to be a traveling salesman, finely equipped with nerve and with confidence in his own goods. The average servant would have been vastly impressed with his air of self assurance; and would have admitted him to the house, without question. (The long-memoried warden of Auburn Prison would have recognized him as Alf Dugan, one of the cleverest automobile thieves in the East.)Mr. Dugan was an industrious young man; as well as ingenious. And he had a streak of quick-witted audacity which made him an ornament to his chosen profession. His method of work was simple.
Coming to a rural neighborhood, he would stop at some local hotel, and, armed with clever patter and a sheaf of automobile insurance documents, would make the rounds of the region's better-class homes.
At these he sold no automobile insurance; though he made seemingly earnest efforts to do so. But he learned the precise location of each garage; the cars therein; and the easiest way to the highroad, and any possible obstacles to a hasty flight thereto. Usually, he succeeded in persuading his reluctant host to take him to the garage to look at the cars and to estimate the insurable value of each. While there, it was easy to palm a key or to get a good look at the garage padlock for future skeleton-key reference; or to note what sort of car-locks were used.
A night or two later, the garage was entered and the best car was stolen. Dugan, like love, laughed at locksmiths.
Sometimes,--notably in places where dogs were kept,--he would make his initial visit and then, choosing a time when he had seen some of the house's occupants go for a walk with their dogs, would enter by broad daylight, and take a chance at getting the car out, unobserved. If he were interrupted before starting off in the machine, why, he was that same polite insurance aunt who had come back to revise his estimate on the premium needed for the car; and was taking another look at it to make certain. Once in the driver's seat and with the engine going, he had no fear of capture. A whizzing rush to the highroad and down it to the point where his confederate waited with the new number-plates; and he could snap his fat fingers at pursuit.
Dugan had called at the Place, a week earlier. He had taken interested note of the little garage's two cars and of the unlocked garage doors. He had taken less approving note of the three guardian collies: Lad, still magnificent and formidable, in spite of his weight of years;--Bruce, gloriously beautiful and stately and aloof;--young Wolf, with the fire and fierce agility of a tiger-cat. All three had watched him, grimly. None had offered the slightest move to make friends with the smooth-spoken visitor. Dogs have a queerly occult sixth sense, sometimes, in regard to those who mean ill to their masters.
This morning, idling along the highroad, a furlong from the Place's stone gateway, Dugan had seen the Mistress and the Master drive past in the smaller of the two cars. He had seen Lad with them. A little later, he had seen the men cross the road toward the upper field. Then, almost on the men's heels, he had seen Bruce and Wolf canter across the same road; headed for the forest. And Dugan's correctly stolid face rippled into a pleased smile.
Quickening his pace, he hurried on to the gateway and down the drive. But, as he passed the house on his way to the garage where stood the other and larger car, he paused. Out of an ever-vigilant eye-corner, he saw an automobile turn in at the gateway, two hundred yards up the wooded slope; and start down the drive.
The Mistress and the Master were returning from the post office.
Dugan's smile vanished. He stopped in his tracks; and did some fast thinking. Then, mounting the veranda steps, he knocked boldly at a side door; the door nearest to him. As the maids were in the kitchen or making up the bedrooms, his knock was unheard.
Half hidden by the veranda vines, he waited.
The car came down the driveway and circled the house to the side farthest from Dugan. There, at the front door, it halted. The Mistress and Lad got out. The Master did not go down to the garage. Instead, he circled the house again; and chugged off up the drive; bound for the station to meet a guest whose train was due in another ten minutes. Dugan drew a long breath; and swaggered toward the garage. His walk and manner had in them an easy openness that no honest man's could possibly have acquired in a lifetime.
The Mistress, deposited at the front veranda, chirped to Lad; and started across the lawn toward the chrysanthemum bed, a hundred feet away.
