Freddy and the Perilous Adventure by Walter R. Brooks Page B

sheriff. But Freddy did not turn round. For he knew that if there was a warrant out for his arrest, as the dirty-faced boy had said, the sheriff would have to do his duty and arrest him, no matter how good friends they were. So he only turned halfway around and saluted with his walking stick, and said in a deep voice: “Good morning, sir; good morning.”
    But the sheriff didn’t drive on. He got out and came and stood beside Freddy. He didn’t look at the pig, but just stood staring at the poster and pulling at his wisp of grey beard. And after a minute he said: “Stranger in these parts, aren’t you?”
    â€œI am, sir, and my name is Jonas P. Whortleberry,” replied Freddy, making up the first name that came into his head.
    â€œDear me,” said the sheriff; “not one of the Albany Whortleberrys?”
    â€œDistantly related, I believe,” said the pig. “My own home is in Orinoco Flats,” he added, making up another name.
    â€œFine, thriving community, I’m told,” said the sheriff.
    â€œMy goodness,” thought Freddy, “I wonder if there really is such a place?” But it was such fun making up names, that he could not resist the temptation to go on. “I am just returning from my daughter’s wedding in Ishkosh Center,” he said. “My car broke down some distance back, and since, as the head of an important banking house, I get far too little exercise, I am walking on until my chauffeur effects the necessary repairs, when he will, I presume, overtake me.”
    â€œMay I ask your chauffeur’s name?” inquired the sheriff.
    â€œHerman Duntz,” said Freddy without hesitation.
    â€œAh, yes. Good sound stock, the Duntzes. My wife’s third husband was a Duntz.”
    This remark puzzled Freddy a good deal. In the first place, the sheriff wasn’t married, and in the second place, if he had been, could he have been his wife’s fourth husband? And in the third place, there weren’t any Duntzes anyway.
    â€œI think I must be getting on,” he said. “Good day to you, sir.”
    But the sheriff continued to stare at the poster without looking at Freddy, and then he said thoughtfully: “Yes, yes. So must I. You haven’t,” he said suddenly, “seen a pig anywhere up the road, have you? A handsome, decidedly intelligent looking pig?”
    Freddy, remembering the difficulty he had had trying to see just such a pig in the pond, said truthfully that he had not.
    â€œAh,” said the sheriff. “Perhaps it is just as well. You see, I’m the sheriff, and while this pig is a good friend of mine, I’m looking for him, and if I see him—” He hesitated a minute. “—if I see him,” he repeated, “I’ll have to arrest him. Stole a balloon, they say.”
    â€œThat—that’s a funny thing to steal,” said Freddy uneasily.
    â€œI can’t figure it out,” said the sheriff. “This pig—he’s as honest and open as the day. Well, sir, you’re a man of the world; I’d like your opinion. This pig—” And he told Freddy the story of the balloon ascension. “He was to bring the balloon down in a mile or two,” he concluded, “but he didn’t; he just disappeared—pig, balloon, ducks,—the whole kit an’ bilin’ of ’em vanished off the face of the earth. And this Golcher, he’s pretty mad. Naturally. The balloon’s his means of livelihood, and he was to get $200 for an ascension at Boomschmidt’s circus day after tomorrow. But what I can’t figure is what a pig, even a criminal pig, which this Freddy ain’t—what he’d want with a balloon.”
    â€œVery odd business,” said Freddy, in his deep banker’s voice. “But I understand that these balloons are very tricky affairs. Isn’t it within the bounds of possibility that something