Harry Irving Shumway

“ He jumped out of his car. We went out to meet him.
"Gone," he said laconically to our inquiring look. "But somebody was there all right. What the devil they wanted is more than I can fathom. Nothing disturbed—isn't much to disturb. But it bothers me. You're sure about that gun?" His eyes bored us.
Hunky faced him.
"Quite," he said quietly. "I know guns. Also, I know the look in eyes behind them. I'm a physician and I have to know people. This old woman had some good reason for wanting to scare us away." ”

“ There were hundreds of these beautiful yellow heads swaying in the sunlight, and they were in strange contrast to the drab and weather-beaten background of the house.
"Going to pick you a nosegay," he said. "You haven't energy enough to gather wild flowers for yourself, so I'll do it for you." ”

“ The connection must have been between the old deserted house, which we had stumbled on by mistake, and the wreck. Evidently they had planned to carry the stuff in cases to the deserted house and thence over
the road by automobiles. Undoubtedly, we would find several big high-powered cars when we got to the house.
The District Attorney, Hunky and I went into the caboose after checking up the loot which proved to be over one hundred cases. Some of the crooks were stretched out and some sitting up. Two of them would never do any more robbing in this sprightly existence. ”

“ Now I was awake. "Yes, and how many old ladies up in this section of the hinterland speak with an unbucolic accent. I know the local dialect, and she doesn’t belong."
"We'll stop here for gas," said Hunky, guiding the car around another which was filling from a tank by a country store.
A thick-set young man was turning the gasoline pump-handle and another man, athletic in build and in his early thirties, was watching the flow into the tank of his car. ”

“ WHEN you're rolling along through the country at forty miles an hour, and have been so doing for several hours, any excuse to stop and stretch is a welcome excuse. It gives you an opportunity to light a longed-for pipe and takes the kinks out of your back. I lighted mine.
My friend, Doctor Wilbur Hunneker, whom I have never called anything but Hunky, vaulted from the driver's seat without the formality of opening the door. ”

“ It is deserted. No one has lived there for fifteen years."
"I thought so, too—consequently when I ventured through a door and looked smack into the barrel of an unprepossessing revolver you can realize I was surprised some."
The young District Attorney pushed his hat up from his forehead. There seemed nothing at all that could be hidden from his eyes, and now he bent their gaze on Hunky. ”