He hurried outside to the pantry window at the back of the house, followed by Russ, Rose and the others. Supper was over except for the dessert, and this finish of the meal was to have been the shortcake. With this gone—well, there wasn’t any dessert, that’s all! Mr. Bunker looked carefully under the window, motioning to the others to keep back so they would not trample in any footprints that might remain in the soft ground. Carefully Mr. Bunker looked and then he said: “Some boy went there, reached in and took the cake.” “What makes you think it was a boy?” asked Farmer Joel. “Because of the size of the footprints. They are not much larger than those Russ would make.” “I wonder if Ralph was here?” murmured Rose. “No, I saw Ralph and his Jimsie dog going over to Woodport right after dinner,” remarked Adam North. “He said he was going to be gone all day. Ralph didn’t take the cake, nor did his dog Jimsie. Of that I’m sure.” “Then I know who it was!” suddenly exclaimed Russ. “Who?” they all asked. “That peddler, the shoe-lace boy!” Russ answered. “He was mad because we wouldn’t buy anything, and he sneaked around and took Rose’s shortcake off the window sill.” Russ started toward the road. “Where are you going?” asked his father. “I’m going to chase after that shoe-lace boy and make him give back the strawberry shortcake!” cried Russ. CHAPTER XIV THE SHORTCAKE COMES BACK Before his father could stop him Russ had run out on the porch. Laddie, too, left his seat and started after his brother. “Charles!” exclaimed Mrs. Bunker, “are you going to let them go after that boy? He’s big and might hurt them!” “I guess Russ and Laddie together are a match for that mean little peddler,” answered Mr. Bunker. “But perhaps I’d better trail along after them to see that they don’t get hurt,” he added, getting up. “I hardly believe, however, that they can catch that peddler. He must be a long way off by this time.” The two oldest Bunker boys were already out in the road, looking up and down for a sight of the shoe-lace peddler. “Which way do you think he went, Russ?” asked Laddie. “I don’t know,” was the answer, for the boy who it was thought had taken Rose’s strawberry shortcake was not in sight. “But here comes a man driving a team,” Russ went on. “We’ll ask him if he saw this peddler down the road.” A neighboring farmer who was known to Russ and Laddie just then approached Farmer Joel’s house. Mr. Bunker, who was slowly following his two sons, heard Russ ask: “Did you see anything of a shoe-lace peddler down the road, Mr. Harper?” “A shoe-lace peddler?” repeated Mr. Harper. “Um, let me see now. Yes, I did pass a boy with a pack on his back down by the white bridge,” he answered. “That’s the fellow!” exclaimed Russ. “Come on, Laddie!” “Charles,” said Mrs. Bunker, following her husband out to the front gate, the other little Bunkers trailing along behind, “do you really think you ought to let them go?”