Hitter the other day, and he advised me to wait a while
before writing again. Something queer happened while I was in his
office, too."
"What was it'?"
"Well, you remember the man who got off the Boston express that day,
and acted so strange about his boxes of stuff he wanted shipped to the
Pacific coast?"
"Sure," replied Ned and Bob at once.
"Well, through some mistake one of the boxes was left behind. Mr.
Hitter, had it in his office, intending to ship it back to the man,
for it wasn't worth while to send one box away out west, but it fell
and burst partly open. The box was in one corner of the room, and,
while I was there Mr. Hitter's dog went up to it and began sniffing at
it. All at once the dog fell over, just as if he'd been shot. He
stiffened out, and we thought he was dead, from having eaten something
poisoned he found on the floor."
"Was he?"
"No, after a while he seemed to come to, and was all right, but he
looked sick. Mr. Hitter said there must be something queer in that
box, to make the dog act that way, and he and I smelled of it, taking
care not to get too close."
"What was in it?" asked Ned.
"I don't know. It was something that smelled rather sweet, and
somewhat sickish. Mr. Hitter said it might be some queer kind of
poison that acted on animals, but not on human beings, and he put the
box up on a high shelf where his dog couldn't get at it. But I thought
it was rather queer stuff for a man to be sending away out to the
coast.
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