Westy did not burden himself with two guns; he hid the one he had found in the bushes, then bent his course eastward through the woods. If he had been going straight to Chandler to catch the train, he would have cut through the woods southeast, emerging at the edge of the town. But he changed his course now and went directly east because he wanted to reach the little settlement known as Barrett’s. This was on the road which bordered the woods to the east and ran south into Chandler. Westy would not exactly be going out of his way, he would simply be losing the advantage of a short cut. Barrett’s was the nearest and seemed the likeliest place from which one given to illicit hunting would come. At Barrett’s he would inquire for Luke Meadows. The name on the rifle saved him the difficulties and delays of tracking. For with the culprit’s name, Westy felt that he could easily be found. In about fifteen minutes, he emerged from the woods at Barrett’s. He had been there before, but one sight of the place now made him glad that he had not brought the telltale rifle with him. He felt that if he had, Meadows or Meadows’ cronies might relieve him of it and put an end to its availability as evidence. It was safe where it was.... Barrett’s was one of those places that grow up around a factory and subsist on the factory. Sometimes quite pretentious little villages grow up in this way and attain finally to the dignity of “GO SLOW” signs and traffic cops. But in this case the factory having put Barrett’s on the county map closed up its door and left Barrett’s sprawling. There was a settlement and no factory to support it. When the Barrett Leather Goods Company stopped making leather goods, a couple of dozen men and as many more girls were thrown out of employment. With the leather goods factory closed there was nothing for the working people of Barrett’s to do but move away or subsist as best they could by hook or crook. The better sort among the inhabitants moved away. Those that remained soon became a dubious set whose professional activities were, at the least, shady. Barrett’s was a sort of hobo among villages, an ill-kept, prideless, lawless place, having all the characteristics of a shiftless man who had gone to the bad. The countryside shunned it. And it was not considered a safe place for the youth of the surrounding villages, especially at night. Every now and then, some one from Barrett’s was taken to Chandler and thence sent to jail.... CHAPTER IX ON THE TRAIL Barrett’s was not accustomed to visits from nattily attired boy scouts with rifles slung over their shoulders and the lolling youths of the settlement stared at him and commented audibly as he passed. “Hey, what’s that you got over your shoulder?” one of them called. “That, oh, that’s a soup spoon,” said Westy, quite unperturbed. “Do you know where Luke Meadows lives?”