Cherry Ames Rural Nurse by Helen Wells

Author:Helen Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Publishing Company

CHAPTER IX

The Search

THAT EVENING CHERRY TRIED SEVERAL TIMES TO REACH Dr. Hal by telephone, but he was out on emergency cases. At ten o’clock she reached him.

“Hal, I know it’s late,” Cherry said, “but I’d better tell you this immediately. I think someone is making that fake medicine at the abandoned farmhouse.”

“Why do you think so?” Hal sounded tired, but he was not too tired to discuss this question. “Because the ginseng patch grows there?”

“That’s not the only reason,” Cherry said. “I went to the old house late this afternoon, and somebody was in there. … Yes, I went alone. Now don’t scold me, Hal—” She told him about Mrs. Barber’s old formula book, which was missing, and how Floyd had lied about working at the cannery. “I thought I might find Floyd or the formula book, or both, at the old farmhouse.”

“Don’t you go there by yourself again!” Hal said.

“Someone will have to go back there. I was so scared I left before I had a chance to search.”

“Never mind that now,” Hal said. “Listen, I have a lot to tell you. Is it all right if I come over this late?. … Fine, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

They sat on the porch so as not to disturb Aunt Cora. The rain had stopped and the moon shone. In low voices they discussed their difficulties in finding a sample of the remedy for the Food and Drug man.

“Did he come today?” Cherry asked.

“Someone is coming tomorrow.” Hal sighed. “Federal Food and Drug in Des Moines wanted to send a man who’s versatile and skilled enough for this case, and that would be their resident inspector, a Mr. Collinge. But he’s away on official business.”

“Oh, no,” Cherry groaned.

“Oh, yes. However,” Hal said, “I was advised not to wait for him, but to get in touch with the next nearest resident inspector. He’s in Omaha, a Mr. Short. I finally was able to make contact with him at his home in Omaha this evening. And he promised to be in Sauk tomorrow.”

“Thank goodness!” Cherry said. “Is he flying?”

“Driving. It’s fastest because most direct. He has a staff car. He said he’d start tomorrow morning at six, and arrive around two in the afternoon.

“Now look, Cherry.” Hal leaned forward, thinking. “I’d like to be able to tell Mr. Short where the drug is being manufactured, or distributed from, and find him a sample of it. Seems to me that you and I ought to hunt up the pedlar at his shack in the woods and try to buy a jar of that concoction from him—that is, if he’d sell it to us. And maybe, for all we know, Snell or someone else is making the remedy at the shack, or distributing it from there.”

“Yes, we might at least learn something at the shack,” Cherry agreed. “We’d have time to go there before the Food and Drug man arrives at two.”

“Where in the woods does Snell live?”

“Somewhere around Muir, I heard,” Cherry said.

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