Jeff looked away without answering. Murchison waited expectantly. Finally Jeff looked back. "Well, all right," he agreed. "How about taking another tapestry?" Jeff asked. "Oh, you have another?" Jeff showed him _The Fall of Satan_. Raold Murchison examined it and turned to Jeff. "A fair enough piece and I'll speculate. Shall we say fifty dollars?" "Let's say seventy-five?" "I'm taking a chance but--Will you accept my personal check?" "Certainly." Raold Murchison wrote a check and waved it in the air until it dried. "If you should be in Ackerton again, Mr. Tarrant, the Murchison Galleries are ever ready to be of service." He left and Jeff leaped high to click his heels in the air. He had hoped to get fifty dollars for both tapestries. He had two hundred and a strong hint that more tapestries would be welcome. He fairly danced down to the desk. "When is the next train for Delview?" he asked. The clerk consulted a time table. "Five-three." "Thanks." Jeff ran out on the street and hailed a taxi. "The nearest place where I can buy a kitten," he directed, "and stay with me. I want you all afternoon." "Sure, Bub." Half past four, and five pet shops later, Jeff found what he wanted. Of three white Angora kittens in the window, one was almost the twin of Granny's departed pet. It watched Jeff shyly, and arched its back against his hand. Then it promptly proceeded to bite his finger. Plainly it was a kitten with character. "I want it!" Jeff told the astonished proprietor. "Put it in a cage or something because it's going on the train!" Lifted into a second-hand bird cage, the kitten spat its indignation and fell to swiping at shadows with a silky paw. Jeff laid five dollars, the requested price, on the counter and thrust his hand into the pocket where the miniatures lay. "Present for you," he said, scattering them across the counter. He rushed to the cab. "Hotel Kennard and don't spare the gasoline. I have to be at the station by five-two!" He made it with a whole minute to spare. 10. BOMBSHELL Dan Blazer, going up the trail toward Granny Wilson's with the shotgun in one hand and Pal's leash in the other, was a little angry and more than a little resentful. Though Jeff had said that Dan was going to take care of Granny, the boy had convinced himself that he was actually to be taken care of. He resented it because he and Jeff had a pact--Dan had promised to do anything Jeff said--but Jeff seemed to have forgotten. If he wanted to stay at Granny's, he had only to say so and nothing else was necessary. Dan turned to pull the balky Pal along. "Come on!" he ordered. "Come on, Pal! Jeff's going to Ackerton and he doesn't want either you or me with him!" Pal, who had wanted to go with Jeff but who was beginning to get the idea that he was not supposed to, stopped straining back on the leash. He was not wholly abandoned, as he had been when Johnny went away, and that was a comfort.