From their favorite chairs at the large, screened windows the two lads watched the occasional passerby, also the clock. "He'll be miles away by this time. We better hike over to the garage," proposed Paul when half an hour had passed. "Well, _sir!_" exclaimed Billy, at the same moment. "There's Mr. Peek. Let's say how do you do!" Even as he was speaking, Worth hastened out to the sidewalk. The old gentleman, the tragic story of whose life was written in his stooping figure and melancholy face, recognized the boy at once. He was pleased to be so cordially greeted. "It's the first time I've been to town for 'most a year," said he, as he also shook hands with Paul. "I don't seem to know any of the young folks, any more, and not many of the older ones I meet." As Mr. Peek said he was just starting for home and that he was on foot, Billy spoke up: "Our car's right here. We will take you home, Mr. Peek." "We have something on hand, you know. Shall we let it go?" Paul whispered. Worth nodded and the visible pleasure of the aged farmer as he climbed awkwardly up to a front seat could not but give his young friends pleasure also. "You must have been up pretty early if you walked to town this morning," observed Worth to the old gentleman at his side. "Y-a-a-a-s," Mr. Peek replied, drawing the word out to great length, as if he were really thinking of something else. And after a long pause he said, "Did I tell you t'other day about someone bein' around my house in the night?" Yes, he had told them, the boys answered, and he went on: "It has fretted me every day. An' last evenin' I got to feelin' so down in the mouth and glum I just concluded I'd get some cartridges for my old rifle. It'd make me feel safer to know I had a loaded gun right handy. So I went to town first thing this mornin'. I might 'a' drove, but my old horse is 'bout the same as I be,--almost ready to say good-bye." Mr. Peek was lost for a time in his own meditations. The Torpedo whirred along at an easy speed and he seemed to enjoy greatly the pleasant motion of the car and gentle sweep of the wind. "'Tain't much like water power, is it?" he remarked, as if he had been contrasting in his mind the machinery and appliances of _his_ young manhood with the automobiles and electric motors of the present day. "I suspect you boys never saw a water wheel," he said musingly. No, they had not, said Billy, and in answer to a question whether they would like to see one, both he and Paul were quite sure they would. The car was rumbling along the lonely South Fork now. The old mill, the gray, old house of the miller, empty and cheerless, the pond and the icehouse were but a little way forward.