Scattergood patted her arm.  “I calc’late,” he said, softly, “that God hain’t never invented no institution that beats the love of a good woman....  I’ll look around, Mattie....  I’ll look around.”

It was the next morning, at the ball game, when Mattie spoke to Scattergood again.

“I’ve seen him,” she whispered, and there was a note of happiness in her voice and a look of renewed youth in her eyes.  “He’s here, like I said.”

“Where?”

Mattie lowered her voice farther still.  “Look at the band,” she said.

“Nobody resembles him there,” said Scattergood, after a minute.

“Wait till they stop playin’—­and then see if they hain’t somebody there that takes holt of the fingers of his right hand, one after the other, and kind of twists ’em....  Look sharp.  Mavin he allus done that when he was nervous—­allus.  I’d know him by it, anywheres.”

Scattergood watched.  Presently the “piece” ended and the musicians laid down their instruments and eased back in their chairs.

“Look,” said Mattie.

The bearded snare drummer was performing a queer antic.  It was as if his fingers were screwed into his hand and had become loosened while he drummed.  No, he was tightening them so they wouldn’t fall off.  One finger after another he screwed up, and then went over them again to make certain they were secure.

“I—­knowed he’d come,” Mattie said, happily.

“Um!...  This here’s kind of untoward.  You keep your mouth shet, Mattie Strong.  Don’t you go near that feller till I tell you.  We don’t want a rumpus to spoil this here week.”

“But he’s here....  He’s here.”

“So’s trouble,” said Scattergood, succinctly.

The rest of that day Scattergood busied himself in searching out old friends and neighbors of the Newtons.  Nothing seemed to interest him which happened later than eight years before, but no event of that period was too slight or inconsequential to receive his attention and to be filed away in his shrewd old brain.  He was looking for the answer to a question, and the answer was piled under the rubbish of eight years of human activities—­a hopeless quest to any but Scattergood.

Comedy and tragedy were alike interesting to him.  Just as he lost no detail of the old man’s conduct when his boy disappeared, so he listened and laughed when Martin Banks recalled to a group how Old Man Newton had fallen under the suspicion of bootlegging and how the town had seethed with the downfall of an elder of the church—­and all because the old man had imported two cases, each of a dozen bottles of the Siwash Indian Stomach Bitters recommended to cure his dyspepsia.  There had been a moment, said Banks, when the town expected to see Newton shut up in the calaboose under the post office—­until the true contents of those cases was revealed.

During the afternoon Scattergood sent six telegrams to as many different cities.  Late that night he received replies, and sent one long message to an individual high in office in the state.  It was an urgent message, amounting to a command, for in his own commonwealth Scattergood Baines was able to command when the need required.