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Title: The Safety First Club

Author: William Theophilus Nichols

Illustrator: Frederic A. Anderson

Release date: February 2, 2023 [eBook #69935]
Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Penn Publishing Company, 1916

Credits: Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB ***

HE DESCENDED THE SLOPE

THE
SAFETY FIRST
CLUB

BY
W. T. NICHOLS

Illustrated by
F. A. Anderson

THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1916

COPYRIGHT
1916 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY

The Safety First Club

To
M. H. M.

A youthful critic with the precious art of
combining frankness and friendliness,
this book is appreciatively dedicated

Introduction

The Safety First idea, along with some other sound rules of conduct which have been hammered out by hard experience of the race, is often easier to put into words than into practice. Like other brakes on machines or men it sometimes seems to cause too much friction, with resulting protest, especially from youngsters impatient of warnings of dangers possible rather than presently pressing.

The fact is, however, that these objectors fail to recognize the true spirit of the rule. Nobody expects active boys and girls to be wrapped in cotton wool and stored away out of all harm’s reach. They have their work to do in the world, and in doing it must take certain risks as the rest of us do. But there are unnecessary risks, just as there are other risks which are not to be avoided; and it is in shunning these unnecessary risks, in learning that reasonable caution is not cowardice, that recklessness is no proof of bravery, and that the way to redeem a mistake is not to repeat it, that the rule is to be truly honored.

In “The Safety First Club” and the volumes which are to follow it are set forth certain adventures of boys who have to deal with problems such as confront healthy young Americans, boys well intentioned but not wise beyond their years, fond of the open, restive under restraint. It is the author’s hope that in their haps and mishaps they may be found likably human.

Contents

I. | “Hedgehog Day” | 11
II. | Sam Takes Chances | 23
III. | The Luck of a Long Shot | 34
IV. | The Club Gets a New Name | 43
V. | Sam Faces the Music | 61
VI. | Dealing with the Ogre | 72
VII. | The Reckoning | 87
VIII. | Beginning the Test | 96
IX. | Poke and Step Put Their Heads Together | 111
X. | Queer Troubles | 124
XI. | The Club Gets a Clue | 135
XII. | Punishment Postponed | 146
XIII. | Not On the Program | 159
XIV. | Sent to Coventry | 173
XV. | The Club Endorses Itself | 182
XVI. | Sam Has a Rude Awakening | 194
XVII. | More Surprises | 202
XVIII. | Lon Discusses Crooked Thinking | 211
XIX. | Of Duels and Conscience | 222
XX. | Sam Makes a Speech | 230
XXI. | Lon Plays Detective | 239
XXII. | Tom Orkney Changes His Intention | 252
XXIII. | Lon Gates Entertains | 266
XXIV. | Peter Groche Scores Again | 281
XXV. | The Blizzard | 294
XXVI. | Old Friends Meet | 307
XXVII. | Peter’s Grudge | 319
XXVIII. | Sam Makes Choice | 334
XXIX. | Squaring the Account | 343
XXX. | In Full Settlement | 355

Illustrations

| PAGE
He Descended the Slope | Frontispiece
His Finger Trembled on the Trigger | 37
“You’re Looking for Trouble” | 156
“Hold Hard, There!” | 216
“He’s Coming ’Round All Right” | 283

The Safety First Club

The Safety First Club

CHAPTER I
“HEDGEHOG DAY”

Sam Parker stepped out upon the side porch of his father’s house, closing the door behind him with a slam. There was a frown on his face, which by no means became it; and the corners of his mouth drooped sulkily. He was, as a matter of fact, in a fit of temper, which did not lessen as he surveyed the dull, gray sky, and saw its promise of a dismal day.

“’Nother spoiled Saturday!” he grumbled. “Nowhere to go and nothing to do—oh, thunderation!”

Now, to tell the truth, it may be that the weather had much to do with Sam’s pessimism, just as it often influences persons a great deal older and wiser than this boy of sixteen. Sam, commonly, was good-natured enough. This day, though, things had seemed to go wrong from the very start. He had overslept; one of his shoes had contrived to hide itself under the bureau; his necktie stubbornly had declined to slip into a smooth and even knot; he was late at breakfast, and the oatmeal was cold, and the eggs were as hard as the Fate which he was beginning to suspect was pursuing him. He had attempted criticism, and his father had checked him rather sharply with the reminder that the breakfast hour was 7:30 and not 7:50. His mother had not hastened to his defense; and even Maggie, the cook, frequently his ally and dispenser of consoling doughnuts and cookies, had failed him when he sought sympathy in the kitchen.

“You got up wrong foot foremost,” she told him. “Get along with you now! This is bakin’ day, and I can’t be bothered.”

Sam, thus repulsed, had clumped out of the kitchen; stormed into the hall; snatched up his cap and reefer; stamped across the dining-room, and flung himself out of the house, without visible improvement in his spirits or his condition. If it was dark within, it was gloomy without. He looked up the street and down; nobody was in sight. He buttoned his coat to the neck, and thrust his hands into his pockets: the world, he perceived, was chilly as well as lonely. Then, of a sudden, he grinned, fleetingly and reluctantly, at vagrant memory of the old story of the child that threatened to go out and eat two smooth worms and three fuzzy fellows because nobody loved it. The baby’s troubles were ridiculously like his own, and for a trying second he realized the resemblance. Then he was frowning harder than ever, with mouth drooping still more sulkily.

In sunnier moods Sam Parker was a good-looking boy. Nobody would have called him pretty; he wasn’t of the “pretty” type, being, indeed, rather wholesome and hearty, with plenty of color in his cheeks—and not a few freckles. For a youth who was rapidly adding to his inches, in the process known as getting his growth, he carried himself well; though, as everybody knows, this period in a boy’s life is not that at which grace of figure or movement is most marked. In other words, there were times when Sam did not know what to do with his hands or his feet, and impressed the painful fact upon all beholders, especially because of a certain impulsiveness, which led him now and then into embarrassing ventures.

Standing on the porch and glowering at all he beheld, Sam was not attractive. Hannibal, his bull terrier, trotting from the barn, noted the storm signals his master was flying, and halting at a safe distance, made great pretense of scratching for a flea which did not exist. Sam whistled, and Hannibal grew busier than ever. The boy took an impatient step, and the dog stopped scratching and bolted for the barn.

Sam, striding after him, pulled up abruptly. A thick-set man in cap, and overalls, and boots, and with a carriage rug in one hand and a brush in the other, appeared in the big doorway.

“H’lo, Sam!” was his greeting. “Good day, ain’t it?”

“Good for nothing!” snapped the boy. “Rotten weather!”

The man’s eyes twinkled. They were pleasant eyes, with little fans of fine wrinkles at the corners, and they lighted up his smooth-shaven, weather-beaten face amazingly.

“Huh! Guess you ain’t looked at the calendar lately. This ain’t June; it’s the fust day of December. And I’m tellin’ you this is pretty good weather for December. What if there ain’t no snow? The wheelin’s all right—your daddy took the car out this mornin’.”

Sam nodded. “I know—he went over to Epworth.”

“Why didn’t you go along?”

“What’d be the use?”

Now, this was not strictly ingenuous. Possibly because of his sulks, Sam had not been invited to accompany his father.

“Sure enough! What’d ’a’ been the use?” said the man with an odd grin.

Sam reddened. “Look here! Bet you I could have gone if I’d wanted to, Lon!”

Lon, otherwise Alonzo Gates, hired man and general factotum, made no response to the challenge, but fell to dusting the rug vigorously. Sam, gloomy browed, drew nearer.

“Tell you, Lon, I could have gone. No fun, though—ride’s too cold. That’s the trouble with this weather—no coasting, no skating, no football, nothing!”

“So?” said the man non-committally.

Hobe, the barn cat, sauntered out of the door. Sam kicked at the animal, which took refuge behind a wooden bucket standing just inside the sill, and from this cover snarled defiance. Whereupon Sam kicked again. This time his foot struck something—the bucket. Over it went, and out shot a gallon or two of soapy water. Hobe darted back into the barn. Lon moved aside nimbly, but not nimbly enough. Splash! went the water upon his boots.

“Wal, now, but you have gone and done it!” he ejaculated. “Nice mess to clean up, ain’t it?”

In Sam’s perverse mood the one thing he cared for was to hide the regret he felt.

“Huh! Oughtn’t to have stuff standing round like that. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lon paused in his labors. “My! but this world’s awful crowded this mornin’, ain’t it?” he remarked. “First there wasn’t room for you ’n’ Hobe; then you jest couldn’t stand for that bucket treadin’ on your toes. Wal, wal!”

Sam snorted wrathfully. What wouldn’t he have given for speech so cuttingly sarcastic that Lon must throw up his hands and beg mercy! But, effective words failing him, he could do no better than offer sounds which were disagreeable rather than intelligible.

Lon chuckled; then grew serious. “See here, Sam!” said he. “I kind o’ guess this is hedgehog day for you, ain’t it?”

“Huh?”

“When you come to think it over,” Lon went on, “a hedgehog’s about the one critter you can’t think of as ever snugglin’ up nice and cozy to anything or anybody. Now, I knew a feller once that had a tame woodchuck that liked to be patted; and I’ve seen the tigers and big cats in circuses purrin’ round their trainers; but I never heard tell of a hedgehog actin’ real sociable and wantin’ to sit in anybody’s lap. And, so far’s I can rec’lect, I never run across a hedgehog that you’d call all-around popular with the neighbors. Whenever one gets close to anybody, he sticks his spines into him. And when a human gets to actin’ like a hedgehog—why that’s when he’s havin’ a hedgehog day—see?”

“Huh!” said Sam again.

Lon gave the rug another flick with the brush.

“By and large, son,” he remarked, “it ain’t good business to have hedgehog days. I know, I know! When you’re feelin’ that way, that’s the way you feel, as the fox said to the bear in the trap. But you ain’t doin’ yourself no good, and you ain’t any perticular help to the rest of the community.”

“Hang the community!”

“Jest what the hedgehog says,” quoth Lon tranquilly. He carried his rug into the barn; brought out another; brushed skilfully for a minute.

“Hunt up some of the boys, Sam,” he advised. “Try lowerin’ your spines, and see if they won’t keep down after a while.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Bad as that, eh?”

Sam disdained to make reply. Lon pursed his lips.

“Sonny, this won’t do. It’s bad medicine. Say, where’ll you be at if you behave like this when you go to St. Mark’s?”

“I’ll get along all right.”

Lon brushed furiously for a little. “I—I dunno’s there’s but—but one way—for some folks to learn things,” he said jerkily. “When you’re there—jest one among two-three hundred boys—it’ll be different, now I tell you! We put up with you; they won’t.”

“Huh! Who’s afraid?”

“I’d be—if I was you.”

“Bah!”

Lon shook his head. “Sam,” he said, “if I thought this was a real in-growin’ attack, I’d be worried a heap wuss than I am. But I’m worried enough as it is. Now, I’ll give you a good tip. If you don’t want to see the other boys, go for a good, long tramp. Walk it off! That’s jest what the real hedgehog can’t do—his legs ain’t long enough.”

“No fun walking—day like this.”

Lon was a patient soul. “Wal, why don’t you go huntin’, then?”

“What for? Rabbits?”

“If you can’t get anything bigger. But you might land a shot at a deer. ’Member what day this is? First of December! Law on deer goes off, and stays off till the fifteenth.”

“Oh!” said Sam. In the new interest he almost forgot, for an instant, that he had a grievance against the universe. But it was only for an instant. “But I wouldn’t have the luck to get a shot at a buck, or a doe, either. The crowd will have started out early, and scared every deer within ten miles of town,” he concluded pessimistically.

“Don’t be too sure of that.”

“’Tis sure!” Sam insisted. “Then what’ll I do for a gun?”

“Got your own, haven’t you?”

“What! Try for a deer with a ‘twenty-two’?”

“Why not? It’s big enough, if it gets to the right spot.”

Sam fell back to his second line of defense. “Well, there’ll be no deer anywhere near town.”

“Who says so?”

“I do!” snapped the boy.

Lon bent toward him, and lowered his voice. “Sam, a feller was tellin’ me last night about a herd that’s been feedin’ in close—right back of old Bill Marlow’s barn—big buck and three-four more. Old orchard in there, you know. And that’s so nigh to town most folks won’t look for ’em there. But there they be—or there they were as late as yesterday, anyhow. And, by gum! if I was you, I’d scout out that way on the chance—that is, if your mother says it’s all right,” he added hastily.

In spite of himself, Sam’s ambition was fired. A shot at a deer! That would be worth while.

“You—you’re certain they were there yesterday?” he asked.

“Bill Marlow told me himself. And you can be sure of one thing—he didn’t tell many other folks. Bill ain’t no gossip.”

Sam nodded. He knew something of Mr. Marlow’s habit of taciturnity. Doubter though he might be, the prospect was brightening. He had heard old hunters tell stories of cases in which deer had been killed almost in the outskirts of the village, while sportsmen ranging farther afield had been rewarded with sight of neither buck nor doe.

“Well, I suppose I might as well have a look,” he said not too graciously.

“Of course you might!”

Sam took a step toward the house. “Of course, with my luck——”

“Oh, you never can tell,” Lon reminded him.

“Still, I might as well be wasting time that way as any other,” said Sam sourly, and quickened his pace.

“Don’t forget to tell your mother!” Lon called after him.

Sam waved a hand in reply, and went on to the house.

CHAPTER II
SAM TAKES CHANCES

In simple fairness it should be said that Sam Parker meditated no breach of parental authority. Indeed, as he was permitted to own a little rifle, and to hunt for small game, it was possible that no serious objection would have been raised to his quest for deer, though there might have been scant faith in his success. But Sam, as it was fated, was not to secure permission for his expedition.

Mrs. Parker was not in the dining-room. Sam saw that the room was unoccupied, and went on to the library. It, too, failed to reward him for his search. So did the living-room. He strode into the hall, and took station by the foot of the stairs.

“Mother! Oh, Mother!” he called. “Say, Mother! Mother!”

There was no reply from above stairs or below.

“But I say, Mother!” His voice rose shrilly in his impatience. “Where are you? Oh, Ma, Ma, Ma!”

A door at the back of the hall opened, but the head which appeared was that of Maggie.

“Don’t make such a racket, Sam!” she cautioned. “What do you want, anyway?”

“Where’s Mother? I’ve got to see her—right off!”

“Well, she ain’t here.”

“Why not?” demanded the boy hotly.

Maggie tossed her head. “Because she can’t very well be in two places at once. And she’s run over to see Mis’ Lake for a minute.”

Sam stamped his foot. “Minute—nothing! I know what that means. She’ll stay half an hour.”

“Well, why shouldn’t she, if she wants to?” said Maggie coolly. And then, being busy, she closed the door and went back to her work.

Sam scowled; hesitated briefly; reached resolution; marched into the library. His little rifle stood in its appointed place against the wall, beside his father’s double-barreled gun. “The armory corner” of the library was a family joke; for though Sam’s rifle was frequently in use, the shotgun had not been taken out of the room in years. It was a fine weapon, of a noted make, and highly prized by its owner, who, however, had not hunted for many seasons; though regularly he planned expeditions in the woods, and bought a fresh stock of ammunition.

Sam laid eager hold upon his rifle; then, of a sudden, seemed to be seized by scorn of it. After all, it was never meant for big game. Why, with its short cartridges and light charges of powder, it was hardly more than a toy! Really, it was intended for target practice.

“Yet, for all that, it’s a rifle,” said the boy to himself. It was odd how, once his prejudice was aroused, arguments presented themselves to strengthen his objections. “And the law says you can’t hunt deer with rifles.”

Here he was speaking by the book. The statute, which provided an open season from December 1st to December 15th, also forbade the use of rifles by sportsmen. Possibly a very lenient judge might have held that Sam’s “pop-gun” hardly classed with the high-power, long-range weapons against which the law was aimed, and might have deemed it annoying rather than dangerous to two-footed or four-footed creatures; but Sam, at the moment, was not disposed to be liberal in his interpretation. He restored the piece to its place. He picked up the shotgun.

Temptation was strong upon him. Wasn’t it true that if he had not been told that he could use the gun he also had not been expressly forbidden to lay hands upon it? Nothing had been said about it either way. And didn’t his father wish him to have some knowledge of firearms? Of course he did! Oh, but it was a wonderfully persuasive voice, which seemed to be whispering in his ear! It was so seductive that it frightened him—a very, very little.

Sam hastily put down the gun. Yet he lingered in its neighborhood. Half absently he opened a drawer in his father’s desk. There, in a corner, was a paper box, labeled “3 1/4 drams, smokeless; shot 00.” Cartridges for deer shooting! Surely here was Fate’s own finger pointing the way.

The boy drew a long breath. He lifted the cover of the box; took out half a dozen of the cartridges; thrust them into a pocket. Then he caught up the shotgun, and strode out of the library.

There was nobody to halt him or question him. Maggie was fully occupied in the kitchen, and his mother had not returned. Leaving the house by the front door, he avoided chance of observation by Lon Gates, who still was at work in the barn. Not that Lon would have stopped him; for the hired man would have supposed him to be sallying forth with his mother’s permission. Nevertheless, Sam preferred to have his going unnoted. He turned the corner of the house—the corner away from the barn; stole back through the yard; climbed a fence, and found himself in a narrow lane. It led to a side street, which, in turn, brought him to a road running into the country.

His gun tucked under his arm, Sam walked briskly; and as the Parker house happened to be on an edge of the town, it was but a very few minutes before he had open fields on either hand. Ahead of him was the low hill on which the Marlow farmhouse stood; and farther on were loftier wooded summits. In summer the scenery of the region was pleasantly picturesque, but on an overcast December day a stranger might have found the prospect somewhat dreary. Sam, cheered by the spirit of adventure, and the better for the exercise, began to shake off his sulkiness; and he was whistling almost blithely when, at a bend in the road, he saw two boys approaching. Physically, they were in marked contrast. One was tall and thin, with a peculiarly angular effect at elbows and knees; the other was short and plump, with a round, good-humored face. Both hailed Sam eagerly.

“Hi there! Where are you going? What you doing with that artillery?” sang out the tall lad.

“Don’t fire! I’ll surrender,” chuckled his companion.

Sam halted. He brought his gun to parade rest. An onlooker might have suspected that he was not seeking secrecy regarding errand or armament in the case of these two friends.

“Hullo, Step!” said he. “Same to you, Poke! And what am I doing? Oh, just looking around on the chance of bagging something.”

The tall youth was carrying a package, wrapped in a newspaper. He laid it on the ground, and took the gun from Sam’s hands, balancing the weapon lovingly and finally raising it to his shoulder.

“Gee, but what a daisy!” he exclaimed. “Whose is it? Yours?”

“Oh, it isn’t exactly mine, Step, but I’m using it,” said Sam.

Any boy could have told how Clarence Jones came by his nickname. “Step” was an abbreviation of “Step-ladder”; and undeniably Master Jones did bear a resemblance to that valuable, if not graceful, article of household equipment.

“Here, let me take the shooting-iron!” the plump youth urged. His name was Arthur Green, but he was called “Poke,” because one so easily could dig a finger into his fat sides. Having placed the basket he had been carrying beside Step’s bundle, his hands were free to lay hold upon the gun. There was a little tussle, and Poke captured the prize.

“My eyes! but this is a crackerjack!” was his comment. “Jiminy, but you’re the lucky chap, Sam! What are you after?”

Sam did his best to appear blasé. “Oh, thought maybe I might get a shot at a buck.”

The reception of the remark was not flattering. “You!” jeered Step; Poke laughed.

“Why not?” Sam demanded, indignantly.

“That’s ri-right; why not?” Poke was quivering with amusement. “All you’ve got to do is to hold the gun and pull the trigger; and if only a deer happens to walk in the way, the gun’ll do the rest.”

Sam snatched the weapon from the jester. “Oh, cut the comedy!” he snapped. “There’s nothing funny about it. I’ll bet you fifty men and boys are out for deer to-day, and I’ve just as good a chance as any of them can have of running into a herd. And if I want to take a chance——Come, now! what’s ridiculous in that?”

Step was disposed to side with Sam. “There’s sense, Poke. Stop your kidding. I want to ask Sam something.”

“Well, what is it?” queried Master Parker guardedly.

“It’s about St. Mark’s. Are you sure you’re going there?”

“Why—why——” Sam hesitated. “Why, I’m practically sure, I guess. Father and I were talking it over last week; and I gathered that if I passed the mid-year examinations here he’d let me transfer.”

Step was rubbing his chin. “Well, that’s what I wanted to know. I’ve been campaigning to get my folks to send me, but they’re hanging off till they learn what your father will do with you.”

Sam’s petulance had vanished. “Great Scott, Step, but it would be cracking if we could go together!” he cried. “Say, Poke, get after your family! We three have been pals ever since we can remember. It’d be bully to take the gang to St. Mark’s.”

Poke shook his head. “Too bad, but there’s no hope for me. Little old High School has got to be good enough for Yours Truly.”

“Oh, the school’s all right,” said Sam. “Only—as my father puts it—it’s case of general versus special. We can fit for college here, but the preparatory course is but one of several, while at St. Mark’s it’s the whole thing. That ought to mean a better ‘fit.’ And you know the fun the fellows have there, and the athletics, and all the rest of it.”

Poke’s expression was uncommonly serious. “You’ve set your heart on going, Sam, haven’t you?”

“It’ll be broken if I don’t go.”

Poke gave a funny little sigh. “Oh, well, they’ll need some of us to stay home and run the errands, I reckon. And I guess I’m unanimously elected. Here’s one, for instance.” And he picked up his basket.

“What have you got there?” Sam asked.

“Eggs! Two dozen—all Mrs. Trask could spare. And fifty-five cents a dozen! Say, when I’m carrying this basket, I feel like a walking cash register!”

Step had resumed possession of his package. “And here’s one of Mrs. Trask’s roosters—five and a half pounds, dressed. I’m some plutocrat myself.”

Sam shouldered his gun. “We’re all pretty richly loaded to-day,” said he. “I suppose if I kill an eight-point buck you won’t care to have me send a haunch to either of you?”

“Oh, well, I’ll take it—as a favor to you,” quoth Step.

“Same here!” chimed in Poke. Then he was seized by an idea. “Look here, Sam! If you shoot anything—short of a heifer calf—bring it down to the club this afternoon, and we’ll have a feed. Both of us are going to be there.”

“But come, anyway,” urged Step. “If you don’t hit bird or beast, you’ll have a story to tell of the big ones that got away.”

Sam nodded. “All right; I’ll be there,” he promised readily.

CHAPTER III
THE LUCK OF A LONG SHOT

At the base of the hill crowned by the Marlow house the woods came close to the road. Years before the pines had been cut off, and in their place had come in a second growth of hard wood, scrubby, tangled and dense. On many of the trees, especially the oaks, dead leaves still were thick, affording cover for game and adding considerably to the difficulties of hunting novices.

Sam climbed the fence, and plunged into the thickets to the right. It was his intention to work around the base of the hill, and thus reach the old orchard, of which Lon Gates had spoken; but he quickly discovered that the plan was more easily made than carried out. There was a good deal of underbrush, and the ground was rough, stony in places and swampy in the tiny valleys. Moreover, as he tried to advance as silently as possible, and to keep a keen, if limited, lookout, his progress was slow as well as wearisome. With all his vigilance, however, he saw nothing and heard nothing to indicate the presence of anything which would serve as target for his aim. No rabbit scurried away, and there was no whir of wings among the branches. As for deer—why, there was nothing to hint that buck or doe was to be found thereabouts.

He had slipped a couple of cartridges into his gun, and felt prepared for any emergency; but an emergency declined to present itself. Even when he reached the little brook, which skirted the hill, the silence of the woods was unbroken, except by the subdued murmur of the stream. He paused for a moment, listening intently but vainly; then moved on, following the course of the brook. The going was now a trifle easier, though clumps of trees and bushes still narrowed the view.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour his progress was absolutely uneventful, and unrelieved by even a false alarm. A turn in the brook warned him that he had passed the farmhouse, and was nearing the old orchard. More cautiously than ever he changed his course, and began to climb the slope on his right, the first, as he knew, of a series of low ridges. He reached its top without mishap, and halted to reconnoiter.

From somewhere, afar off, the wind brought a sound to his ears, which set his pulse bounding and made him tighten his hold on his gun. It was a sound he could not mistake, faint though it was. Some other hunter had found something to fire at; perhaps the lucky fellow had sent a charge of buckshot into a deer!

Just in front of Sam, and on the verge of the farther slope, was a mass of tangled bushes. He dropped to his knees, and slowly tunneled a way through the barrier. From its shelter he could look down into a ravine, beyond which rose the second ridge.

For several minutes he lay motionless in his burrow, peering into the gully and straining his ears for the rustle of branches or the crack of dried twig. Once he thought he heard both from the lower ground to his left; but he could not be sure, and the disturbance was not repeated.

HIS FINGER TREMBLED ON THE TRIGGER

Suddenly, from another direction—straight across the ravine and near the top of the ridge—came sounds of movements in the undergrowth. Instinctively, Sam brought the gun to his shoulder; its muzzle barely protruded from the branches. His finger trembled on the trigger. And then his eager eye had a glimpse of a darker patch amidst the dried leaves, a patch which seemed to be moving very, very slowly.

Sam had heard tales of “buck fever,” and had laughed at the plight of its victims; but now he could sympathize with them. His heart was pumping furiously; he was trembling from head to foot; every muscle seemed to be relaxed and helpless. And, as if to mock him, that dark spot across the ravine grew clearer and more distinct. It was too high from the ground to suggest the presence of any of the smaller animals likely to be found in the woods.

“That—that’s a deer over there!” Sam told himself desperately. “It—it can’t be anything else!”

With an effort he summoned all his will. The swaying barrels along which he glanced steadied. His finger pressed the trigger. There was a roar which seemed to him as loud as thunder. His right shoulder ached under what was like a smart blow from the butt of the gun. A thin wisp of smoke blew away from the muzzle, and was lost in the branches.

On the other side of the gully was violent commotion. The dark spot vanished. In its stead appeared the bare head of a man!

Sam uttered a queer, faint, choking cry of horror. The gun dropped from his hands. His head sank to the ground, and he lay, face downward, for the moment utterly overcome. Through his recklessness and folly he had shot a fellow being. Terrible certainty was his that he had not missed his aim, and that he had wounded, perhaps fatally, the victim of his criminal carelessness. There flashed upon him all the possible consequences of his act—arrest, imprisonment, disgrace; sorrow and suffering for his parents; pain and anguish for the stranger, even if he survived his wounds.

For a little Sam closed his eyes, but he could not keep from his ears the ominous sounds from the other ridge. The man had not cried out; but there was a wild crashing of brush, as if he were writhing convulsively in the thicket. Presently the sounds grew less distinct. The man must be weakening from loss of blood! Sam’s imagination pictured him lying in a crimson pool, and the boy shuddered at the thought. Yet it nerved him to the duty which he knew was his to do.

Sam had faults enough, but lack of courage to face the music, as the saying goes, was not among them. Plainly, the way for retreat was open for him, if he chose to take it; there was nobody to interfere. But Sam, once he had recovered somewhat from the shock of his disaster, set himself resolutely to the task of making such amends as he might.

He crawled out of the protecting bushes, and got upon his feet. For a moment or two he stood, listening intently; but now there was no sound from beyond the ravine. Then, with a sort of grim and unhappy determination, he began to descend the slope. At the bottom he paused again, but heard nothing either to lessen or to increase his anxiety. Then he went on, climbing doggedly and steadily to the clump where first had appeared the dark spot, and then the head of a man. The quiet of the place was unbroken. A new and terrible fear laid hold upon him: perhaps the wounded man had already succumbed. It needed all his grit and courage at last to part the branches and look in at the spot where the man had stood.

Sam looked, and looked again; and felt that he could not believe the evidence of his eyes. For three or four feet in each direction the brush had been trampled down, but there was nobody there!

A great sense of relief filled the boy. At all events, he had not killed anybody! There was even a second in which he cherished wild hope that what he had seen had been merely a vision raised by some trick of over-taxed nerves. But the hope was doomed to swift dismissal. There was blood on the dried leaves on the ground—not much blood, to be sure, but enough to make a fresh, dark stain.

Kneeling, Sam examined the sanguinary traces very carefully. As he rose, his expression curiously combined satisfaction and bewilderment. It was manifest that the stranger’s wound had neither bled copiously nor crippled him; and that he had been able to make off. But whither had he gone? Why had he not charged across the gully? And why had he not raised a warning shout to prevent a second shot?

“Jiminy!” said Sam to himself. “Jiminy! but I don’t believe he got sight of me at all! I was covered by the bushes, and there was hardly any smoke, and if he were looking another way—why—why——” He broke off, frankly unable to weigh and decide the probabilities of the strange affair.

There still remained the possibility of finding and following the man’s trail; but Sam was not especially skilled in such matters. He fancied that for a few yards he could make out evidences of somebody forcing a way through the undergrowth, but then he came to a sort of woods path along the backbone of the ridge, and there lost the slender clews upon which he had depended. Certainly he could discover no more drops of blood.

Sam went back to the trampled space, and searched it minutely from end to end, and from side to side. He had his trouble for his pains. He found nothing to throw light upon the mystery.

“Well, this does beat me!” he confessed, and shook his head in perplexity. “I never heard of anything like it. And I don’t want to hear of anything like it again—ugh!” He gave a little shiver. “I know when I’ve had enough—and too much. I’m going home, and I’m going to get there, and put up this gun, as quick as my legs will carry me to the house. And you can bet I’m going to keep quiet about this. And—and I hope the other fellow will keep quiet, too. Come now, Sam Parker! Brace up! Forward march!”

Thus encouraging himself, Master Sam set off at a round pace for the highway, but when he reached it his speed lessened. He had a new sense of merciful escape from perils when he was out of the dark woods and in the open road; and with it came a peculiar weakness and uncertainty in his knees. He was glad to sit down on a boulder beside the ditch and rest for what seemed to him a long, long time. Finally he rose, and trudged toward the town. He went slowly, and his face was thoughtful.

CHAPTER IV
THE CLUB GETS A NEW NAME

It was well after noon when Sam came up the narrow lane behind the Parker place, and scaled the back fence. Hasty observation from its top showed him that the coast was clear. He stole through the yard, kept the house between himself and the barn, and let himself in at the front door.

The house was as quiet as well ordered homes generally are at that hour, when dinner has been disposed of, and supper is still afar off. Sam tiptoed into the library. With feverish haste he put his father’s gun in its place, first removing the cartridges from the breach. Then he opened the desk drawer, and restored his stock of cartridges to their box. He hesitated a moment over the empty shell, being, indeed, tempted to slip it in with the rest. At a casual glance the box would then seem to be full. But Sam, with all his imperfections, was not given to tricks and deceits.

“I won’t do it!” he said, with decision, and slipped the shell into his pocket.

As he stepped into the hall, Maggie hailed him from the top of the stairs.

“Is that you, Sam?” she called. “I thought I heard the front door open, and I wondered who ’twas.”

So she hadn’t seen him enter the house; therefore she could not know that he had been carrying the gun. Thus was another danger of investigation avoided.

“Yes; I came in that way,” he said. “Father home yet?”

“No.”

“Where’s Mother?”

“Lon’s drivin’ her over to see old Mis’ Hardee at Webster Mills.”

There are times when things do seem to have been arranged most fortunately. Sam could have thrown up his cap and cheered. But Maggie was beginning to descend the stairs.

“Look here, Sam Parker! Why didn’t you come home to dinner?” she demanded.

“Oh, I’m all right. I don’t want anything to eat.”

Maggie continued to descend the stairs. “Don’t, eh? Where’d you get dinner? Did the Joneses invite you?”

“No.”

“The Greens, then?”

“Why—why—no; they didn’t.”

Maggie had reached the foot of the flight. “So you come traipsin’ home after everything’s cleaned up and put away, and expect me to muss up my kitchen for you? I like that! Well, you can just guess again, Sam Parker!”

“But I don’t want anything, Maggie!” Sam said pacifically. “Honest, I don’t. I’m not hungry.”

“That’s lucky—seein’s there ain’t anything,” said Maggie drily. However, she was moving toward the kitchen. “Come along with you, though!” she flung over her shoulder.

Sam followed her meekly. “You don’t need to bother,” he insisted.

Maggie paid not the slightest heed to his protests. “Don’t see how folks can expect to keep a house decent, with all the overgrown boys in town runnin’ in for snacks between meals,” she grumbled. “Well, now you’re here, you might as well sit down.” She pointed to a table, bare but spotlessly clean. “S’pose I’ll have to give you some dry bread or a cracker, maybe. And the water from the faucet’s cold enough to drink at this time of year.”

Sam sat down. “Oh, anything’ll do,” he said humbly.

“Umph!” said Maggie, and opened the door of the oven. “Well, I do declare! How’d that happen?” And from the oven she took a plate, on which was a generous slice of steak, also a big potato. “Goodness gracious! but I must be gettin’ flighty! I’d ’a’ said for sure I put those things in the ice chest. Don’t it beat all how things happen! Course, the meat’s cooked hard as a rock, but you might as well have it as Hannibal.” She set the plate on the table with a bang. “Well, now the stuff’s before you, what are you goin’ to do with it?”

Sam showed her. In spite of the morning’s adventures he had an excellent appetite. Maggie, observing, brought a glass of milk and a large piece of pie from the pantry. Then, standing before him, she studied the youth closely.

“Sam, what you been doin’? What mischief you been up to?”

“Noth—nothing,” mumbled Sam.

Maggie shook her head. “Don’t you try to tell me, Sam Parker! I ain’t known you years and years for nothing. Where you been?”

Sam took thought. Maggie was his sworn ally and help in time of trouble, but he feared she couldn’t be brought to look kindly upon the incidents of his morning.

“Oh! I—I went for a—for a walk—out in the woods,” he stammered.

“Then what?”

“Then I came home,” said Sam.

“So I see!” quoth Maggie drily. “But go on! As you were sayin’——?”

Sam wriggled. “This—this is bully pie, Maggie,” said he, in an effort to change the topic.

Her severity of expression deepened. “Mebbe it is, Sam. But you can’t have another piece ’less you ’fess up.”

“But I—I can’t confess.”

“Bosh!” said Maggie tartly.

Sam, in his turn, regarded her gravely. He had no intention of confiding in his old friend, but plainly it was a point of interest to learn if he struck people as one who was burdened with a terrible secret.

“Well, I got awfully tired, for one thing,” said he. “And it was chilly and—er—er—and lonesome. And so I show it, do I?”

“You show something fast enough—I ain’t sure what.”

“Oh!” said Sam, and pushed back his chair. He got upon his feet, and crossed to the door. His hand on the knob, he looked at Maggie, whose brow was furrowed.

“Say, it was mighty clever of you to save my dinner. Thank you a lot!” he cried. Then he opened the door, and went out hurriedly.

The talk in the kitchen had given him warning. If he would not rouse suspicion, he must increase the gaiety of his air and manner. As he strolled down the street, he was whistling shrilly; and he shifted to a merrier tune when he turned in at the gate of the Joneses’ place, and walking up to the door of a small and very trim outbuilding, knocked thrice.

A few months earlier Mr. Jones, disposing of a pony, whose legs had become a good deal shorter than Step’s, had turned the pony’s quarters over to his son, with the understanding that the little house was to be used for a club, which the boys were forming. Step and his chums at once took possession. They worked like beavers, cleaning, sweeping, painting and furnishing the building, and succeeded in making for themselves a very attractive meeting place. The club—it was called the Adelphi—had flourished mightily, and membership in it was highly prized.

Sam’s triple knock brought no response, being, indeed, somewhat of an empty form and ceremony; and after waiting for a moment—this, too, was part of the accepted program—he opened the door and walked in. Step and Poke were in the lounging room, recently the space given to the pony cart. Its walls were gay with college pennants, photographs, and pictures cut from magazines and newspapers; in one corner was a lounge, worn but still useful; the chairs represented contributions from the attics of several families; there was a serviceable table, on which stood a shaded lamp; and an oil heater effectually dispelled the chill of the afternoon air.

“Hi there, fellows!” Sam sang out. “What are you doing to kill time?”

It had been his desire to impress them with his ease of mind, but neither betrayed much interest in his mood. Step, huddled in an old steamer chair, was a picture of depression and angles, with his knees almost on a level with his ears, and his long arms sagging till his hands touched the floor. Poke was standing before a blackboard, which hung on the wall. As he turned to regard the newcomer, his round face was puckered in a frown.

“Oh, you, Sam?” he said absently.

“Oh, you?” croaked Step like a dismal echo.

Sam glanced from one to the other. “What’s the row?” he inquired. “You two look like chickens with the pip.”

“Chickens? Ugh!” Step fairly shuddered.

“Huh!” snorted Poke; and turning to the blackboard, dabbed viciously at it with the eraser which he had in his left hand.

“What are you doing?” queried Sam. He moved nearer to Poke, and glanced curiously at the board. It had borne, in bold lettering:

Adelphi Club
Rules and By-laws.

Now, however, there was only a chalky smear to show where the lines had been. “What are you doing?” he repeated. “Say, you’ve spoiled it!”

“Huh! This club needs a new name,” growled Poke. “I’m trying to think of one that’ll fit.”

Sam wheeled and addressed the youth in the chair. “Step, what ails him? What ails you? What’s the matter, anyway?”

Step clasped his hands about his knees. “What ails us? Guess you wouldn’t be asking if you knew!”

“Course I wouldn’t!” Sam agreed rather testily to what might be called a fairly self-evident proposition.

“Hang the luck!” groaned the doleful Step.

Poke whipped about. “Confound it, but there’s more than luck!” he cried. “You’re letting us off too easy, Step. Oh, I know—I know what you’d say! We didn’t mean to have it happen, but it did happen; so what’s the use in talking? And it was just like a lot of other things that keep happening to us, and will keep on happening till we have more sense.”

“Huh!” came from the depths of the chair.

Sam dropped a hand on Poke’s shoulder. “Translate, won’t you? You’re worse than old Cæsar when he tells about building his bridge.”

“Darn that dog!” wailed Step.

Sam tightened his grip on Poke’s plump shoulder. “So there was a dog, was there?” said he. “That’s a start, anyway. Go on!”

Poke wriggled free. “Yes; there was a dog, and it was that big hound of Mr. Mercer’s. And it came along, and smelled Step’s chicken, and grabbed for it, and gobbled it, and knocked over my basket of eggs, and ran away. And we chased it, but couldn’t catch it. And Step lost his chicken, and every one of my eggs was smashed. And ain’t that trouble enough for one day?”

“But I don’t quite understand. It—it’s sort of complicated. I don’t see how the hound could grab the chicken and upset your basket all at once.”

Poke shifted weight from one foot to the other. “Well—well, you see, we—we’d sort of stopped to look at a knife Tom Appleton had bought; and we’d set the bundle and the basket on a stone wall; and the dog hit both when he jumped for one. That was the way of it. And say! did you ever hear of anything worse?”

Sam’s smile was bitter. “Anything worse!” he repeated scornfully. What was a poor tale of broken eggs and looted chicken to one who, by pure mischance, had shot a man?

Poke resented his friend’s tone. “Huh! Much you know about it! Dollar and ten cents’ worth of eggs gone—just like that!”

“And a five-and-a-half-pound rooster—five and a half pounds dressed!” chimed in Step.

“Oh, well, that was hard luck,” Sam admitted. It had occurred to him that it was not wise to withhold sympathy if he would avoid suspicion of cherishing some terrible secret of his own.

Poke was one of those ordinarily cheery souls who, on occasion, take melancholy consolation in contemplation of misfortunes.

“I’ve been thinking things over,” he declared. “I’ve got an idea. It isn’t the thing itself that bothers, but the consequences. Look here, now! Mother had promised to make two angel cakes—takes eleven eggs for each cake. And she’d promised one for the church supper, and Jennie was to have the other for her club. And now Mother has got to disappoint the supper committee, and they’d told her they set ’special store by her angel cake. And she’s hot! And Jennie—say, Sam, if you had a sister, you’d know the fix I’m in. Jennie’s just sizzling. So I’m keeping away from the house. Gee, I’d never go home if I could help myself!”

Step waved a long and pitiful hand. “Company for dinner to-morrow!” he said simply. “I’m lying low myself.”

Sam meditated briefly. Since that terrible moment on the ridge he had gone through half a dozen phases of emotion. He had ranged from terror to exultation. His plans had varied from full confession to absolute silence. Now he was disposed to follow a course of inaction, based on a belief that the man had not been badly hurt, and that perhaps nothing ever would be heard of the affair. Of course, if report should be made; or if it should prove that the wounds were serious; or if the victim should turn out to be a poor man unable to pay a doctor’s bill—well, he wouldn’t cross bridges till he came to them. And, meanwhile, he would try to bear himself as if nothing untoward had happened—and thank his lucky stars that he could keep his secret, even for a time.

“Well, that was hard luck!” he said again, and put more heart in the speech.

Poke returned to the blackboard. “Might as well learn a lesson when there’s a lesson to be learned,” he rumbled. “Struck me, too, we ought to post something here to remind us that it pays to keep out of trouble. I’d like to give the club a name that’d mean something—see? I can think of mottoes enough—‘Look before you leap, and then go ’round,’ and ‘You never can tell when it’s loaded,’ and a lot of others—but I’m stumped for a name. Now, if I——”

There he broke off. Sam, elbowing him out of the way, stood before the board. For a second young Parker hesitated. Then he caught up a piece of chalk, and scrawled in big letters:

The Safety First Club.

Poke clapped his hands. “Jiminy! but that’s just the idea I was groping for. Prime, ain’t it, Step?”

Step nodded gloomily. “Fa-fair,” he admitted.

Sam laid down his chalk. He dusted his hands a trifle theatrically.

“Like the name, do you?” said he. “Came to me all of a sudden.”

“It’s a crackerjack!” declared Poke warmly. “Hits the nail right on the head. But that makes me think, Sam—where’s that deer you were going to hit? Haven’t got that haunch in your pocket, have you?”

“No,” said Sam curtly.

“Bet you didn’t see a deer!”

“I—I didn’t.”

Poke was beginning to recover his spirits. “Huh! Knew you wouldn’t,” said he, and chuckled fatly. “This country’s hunted to death. Why, so many men with guns were out to-day that one of ’em had to let drive at another, just for something to shoot at.”

“What!” gasped Sam. “What’s that? What do you mean?”

“Just what I say.”

Sam pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped drops of cold sweat from his forehead. “But—but——” he faltered.

“It isn’t a case of ‘but’ or ‘if.’ Step there knows all about it. He saw them bringing him in.”

Sam’s brain was reeling. “Bring-bringing him in?” he quavered. “Then—then he was badly hurt, after all! And who—who was he?”

Poke was staring in bewildered fashion at Sam. “What’s upsetting you? Why, you’re white as a sheet!”

“Never mind me! Who—who was it?”

“Peter Groche.”

“Pe-Peter Groche? And—and he—he’s wounded—maybe dying?”

Poke laughed explosively. “Not he! Old rascal was never born to be shot.”

“But you said they—they were bringing him in?”

“Yes—to the lock-up!”

Sam dropped into the nearest chair. “I don’t—don’t under-understand,” he said weakly.

“It’s clear enough. Peter shot somebody else—or tried to.”

Step joined in the conversation. “Well, he did wing him,” was his contribution.

“Where?”

“Oh, grazed his head, and plunked him in one hand,” said Step.

Sam dug his finger-nails into his palms. “I don’t mean that—at least, that wasn’t what I tried to ask about. Where did the shooting take place?”

“Out beyond Marlow hill somewhere. But you steered that way, didn’t you?”

“In that general direction.” By a mighty effort Sam controlled his voice.

“Then you may have been within a half mile of Peter Groche,” Step went on. “Maybe you heard his gun. Well, if you didn’t, he fired it, anyway. And he ’most got his man for keeps. But the Major wasn’t hurt badly, and he had had a glimpse of Peter a little earlier, and knew about where he was. So he beat it through the woods after him, and overtook him near the back road. And just then, by luck, along came Sheriff Whaley. So the sheriff and the Major asked Mr. Peter a question or two; and, getting no satisfaction, loaded him in the Whaley wagon and brought him in. And there’s going to be a trial Monday morning. And I guess it’s going to go hard with Groche. You see, he’s had a quarrel with the Major, and there are witnesses to testify that he made threats to get even. Then, too, there was an empty shell in one barrel of his gun, and he wouldn’t give any explanation of how it happened to be there. So I reckon he’ll get all that’s coming to him. The Major’s a bad man to have on your trail—hardest man in town, by thunder!”

“Maj-Major——?” Poor Sam’s tone was that of one whose hopes are dwindling fast.

“Yes siree! Hardest man in Plainville is Major Bates!” declared Step. “Anybody that harms him’ll be put through the works, I tell you!”

Sam got upon his feet. With trembling limbs he moved to the door.

“Why, what’s the matter?” Step called after him.

“What’s your burning hurry?” asked Poke.

Sam opened the door. “That stove makes it too stuffy in here,” he told them. “I—I’ve just got to have fresh air.” And out he went, closing the door behind him with a force suggesting that he did not care for company in his rambles.

CHAPTER V
SAM FACES THE MUSIC

Almost every town has the misfortune to include among its residents a few persons perhaps best described as “undesirable citizens.” In the case of Plainville by far the most undesirable of these was Peter Groche, idler, sot, brawler, and petty thief. On several occasions vigorous efforts had been made to rid the community of his presence; but Peter, unchastened by thrashings or jail sentences for robbing hen roosts or clothes-lines, persisted in turning up like the worst of bad pennies. There was, therefore, general satisfaction in the town when news spread that, at last, he had been caught in an offense so serious that Plainville reasonably could hope to be relieved of him for a term of several years; especially as the irascible, determined and energetic Major Bates was directly interested in his prosecution.

Mr. Parker, returning from his trip to Epworth, heard the news down-town, and brought it home with him. Across the supper table he discussed the matter with his wife, and found her quite of his opinion that a shining example should be made of Peter Groche. The topic, in fact, fairly shared their attention with the annoying absence of the son of the house. Sam had not been home for dinner, Mrs. Parker announced; and now he appeared to have forgotten the supper hour.

“I don’t know what has come over the boy,” she said. “He went out right after breakfast, and nobody but Maggie has seen him since. She says he came in about two o’clock and had lunch; and then went out again. I think you’d better talk to him seriously. He doesn’t understand how important it is to a growing boy to have his meals regularly.”

“Very well; I’ll take him in hand,” said the father.

Mrs. Parker gave a little sigh. “Ah! I feel, sometimes, as if Sam were growing away from me. He’s getting to be such a big fellow, you know. Now and then I can’t but have my doubts that I’m capable of managing him.”

“Still, you’ve done very well so far,” her husband assured her. “Sam’s a pretty good boy, as boys go. I don’t happen to think of any other youngster for whom I’d care to exchange him. But if he’s getting beyond you—well, I’ll try my luck. Only”—he hesitated—“only, when I do, perhaps you’d better make it a strictly masculine session. I may have to lay down some rather rigid rules, and—well, it will be just as well not to have an over-merciful court of appeal too conveniently at hand. Send him to me when he comes in, and Master Sam and I will reach an understanding.”

So they arranged it; and so it came to pass that when Sam walked into the library—the clocks were striking eight as he entered—his mother, after gently chiding him for his tardiness, slipped out. The shaded light, by which his father was reading, left the ends of the room in shadow, and Sam lingered for a moment by the door. At last he came forward, halting directly in front of his father.

Mr. Parker looked up. “Well, young man——” he began, but suddenly his tone changed sharply. “What in the world have you been doing, Sam? You look as if you’d been dragged through a knot-hole!”

Sam’s wan smile was more eloquent than his speech. “I shouldn’t wonder if I did, sir. I’ve been walking around and—and thinking.”

“Where have you been walking?”

“Around town, sir—up and down the streets—anywhere.”

“Thinking all the while?”

“Yes, sir; thinking hard.”

“Been alone?”

“All alone.”

“Umph!” said Mr. Parker.

Sam licked dry lips. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve thought it out,—what I ought to do, sir. And—and I’m here to make a clean breast of things.”

The father studied the boy’s face for a moment. “Sam,” he said slowly, “Sam, I can see that you’re greatly exercised about something or other. What it is I don’t know. I had intended to have you on the carpet for being late for dinner and supper, but I’m afraid this is something more serious. But whatever it is, I hope you’ll do just what you say you wish to do—make a clean breast of it.”

“And face the music!” There was a new note in the boy’s voice, a firmer note.

“That’s part of the game of life, Sam—if you play the game fairly and squarely.”

Sam drew a long breath, and made his plunge. “Father, you’ve heard about the arrest of Peter Groche? They say he shot at Major Bates. Well, he didn’t—but I did!”

Mr. Parker bent forward; he was looking into the boy’s eyes, and the boy did not quail under his scrutiny.

“I don’t ask you if you’re in earnest, Sam. I know that you are. Go on!”

“I took your gun this morning, and went out to the Marlow woods. I’d been told there were deer there. I was crouching under some bushes, and looking across a hollow, when I saw something dark on the other side. It moved, and I fired. Then a man’s head showed. I didn’t recognize him. I was so scared that I burrowed deeper in the bushes—hid for a while, sir. Then I realized I ought to do something. So I crossed the hollow. I found blood spots, but the man had gone away. It seemed as if he couldn’t have been badly hurt. Then I came home. I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell anybody, but—but now they’ve locked up Peter Groche for what I did.”

“When did you learn of the arrest?”

“This afternoon.”

“And since then?”

“I’ve been thinking it over—fighting it out with myself, sir.”

Mr. Parker rose and crossed the room. He picked up the gun, threw open the breach, peered into the barrels.

“You fired only once?”

“Only once, sir. Here’s the empty cartridge.” Sam took the shell from his pocket.

Mr. Parker put the gun in its place, and went back to his chair. There was a little pause; then said he:

“You had your mother’s permission, did you, to take that gun?”

“No, sir,” said Sam.

“Or to go hunting?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you seek it?”

Sam shook his head. “She was out, and I—well, I didn’t wait for her to come home.”

“I see. By the way, were you under an impression that I had ever authorized such an expedition?”

“No, sir,” said Sam frankly. “But, then, you’d never forbidden it,” he added.

“There are several things it has never occurred to me to forbid you to do,” said his father drily.

Sam nodded. “That’s so, sir. I don’t think much of the excuse.”

“There we are of a mind. So you must have realized that you were doing wrong.”

“I didn’t bother—think, I mean—about that part of it; that is, I didn’t seem to comprehend how wrong the thing might be. Of course, I understood that it wasn’t exactly—exactly proper.” Sam had difficulty in picking the word, and did not appear to be over-pleased with his choice.

“Go on,” said his father. “Tell me just what you did when you reached the Marlow woods.”

Sam obeyed. Very carefully he went over the incidents of the morning. He described his cautious advance through the thick growth, his ascent of the first ridge, his discovery of the dark object across the ravine. In detail he explained how he had conquered his attack of “buck fever”; how he had taken aim and fired; how he had been overcome by consternation when the head of a man appeared. He did not deny that he had been slow in crossing the gully. In fact, he made no attempt to present his case in a more favorable light than it deserved.

Mr. Parker did not interrupt the story.

“Sam,” he said, at its close, “this is an extraordinary yarn of yours. It is borne out in part by the empty cartridge shell. I can see, too, that one barrel of the gun has been discharged. Also I am fully convinced that you have tried to present the exact truth about the shooting. I shall assume that the facts are as you have stated them. I don’t need to add that they make the case very serious.”

“I—I’m afraid it is, sir.”

“Yet you haven’t hesitated to make confession?”

Sam moved uneasily. “I—I—oh, but I did hesitate, sir. It was a hard pull to bring myself up to the point. I guess I walked miles and miles before I was ready to come back and tell you everything.”

“I wonder,” said Mr. Parker meditatively, “I wonder if it occurred to you that you might run away from all the trouble.”

The boy reddened. “It did occur to me, sir. And—you may think it a funny way to put it, but it’s true—my legs just seemed to be determined to carry me down to the railroad station. And they did! I was there a long time, looking at time-tables.”

“But finally they lost interest?”

“Yes, sir. I’d reasoned it out that there could be no use in bolting; it wouldn’t help anybody.”

“It very seldom does help anybody, Sam.”

“I guess that’s so, sir.”

There was a long pause, which Mr. Parker ended.

“Sam, we’ve got to consider the next step—no doubt you have considered it; for it necessarily follows your statement. You’ve declared your faith, so to speak; now you’ve got to supplement faith with works.”

The boy nodded. “I know, sir. They’ve locked up Peter Groche. We—I, that is—have got to get him out; for he’s innocent.”

“Precisely.”

Sam could not repress a shudder. “He’s in the police station for something I did. When they release him, I suppose I’ll have to take his place. I don’t know much about law, but that would seem to be—er—er—to be——”

“Essential justice?” queried his father.

“That—that’s my idea, sir.”

“I see. But how do you plan to bring it about?”

Sam squared his shoulders. “By going down to the station and telling the officers what I’ve told you—everything. Then they’ll have to let Peter Groche go. And they—they can keep me.”

“That would be a simple method; but there may be a better one—not so direct, but probably more effective.”

Sam stared at his father. “More effective?” he repeated.

“Yes. The officers might be slow to act. You have to remember that they think the case against Groche is pretty strong.”

“But they’d have to believe me,” Sam urged.

“Not so fast, son! Don’t forget that there is a good deal of circumstantial evidence against Groche. Your story would certainly create a doubt—and a strong doubt—in his favor; but with his reputation for evil doing, they would be reluctant to let him go and risk making a mistake. No; there is a surer way to achieve the result.”

“And that is——?”

“To go straight to Major Bates and give him your version.”

“Oh!” gasped Sam, and blanched at thought of confronting the redoubtable Major, by long odds the most terrifying, overbearing and truculent person in all Plainville. “Oh, I—I’d rather not, Father! They can put me in a cell if they want to, but——”

Mr. Parker rose to his feet. “We’ll go to the Major—at once!” he said, with decision.

CHAPTER VI
DEALING WITH THE OGRE

Major Bates lived in a big, brick house, made gloomy and forbidding by tall evergreen trees growing close to its walls. It had been, in its day, one of the noted mansions of the town, and still maintained much of its former state. Its hedges were trimmed to a nicety; its graveled walks were straight of edge and free of encroaching grass; its lawn was the smoothest to be found for miles around; the brass rails beside the steps shone with frequent polishing. Yet, with all this care, there was something cheerless about the place, something suggesting an institution rather than a home. To his few cronies the Major admitted that he liked to keep his premises “well policed,” as he termed it, in memory of his army days; but the townspeople generally were of opinion that the verdict of a clever woman hit the case perfectly.

“Wonderfully kept up; marvelously well ordered; excellent for everything—except comfortable living.”

Such was her summary. Perhaps nobody but the Major would have taken serious objection to it. He was quite sure that things were as he wished to have them; and it did not occur to him that anybody else was called upon to consider the matter.

This evening he was sitting alone in the big room he called his den, a room whose walls were lined with bookcases, gun racks and cabinets, and decorated with antlered heads of moose and deer. The pictures were few but good. Each hung as if its top had been adjusted with the aid of a spirit-level. The books on the shelves were like soldiers on parade.

The master of the house, seated before his open fire, curiously matched the room. He was very neat and precise in dress; he held himself stiffly, and after a fashion which caused careless observers to credit him with greater height than he possessed. As a matter of fact, he was rather short in stature and thin to gauntness; though it seldom occurred to anybody to speak of him as a little man. Perhaps this was due to his domineering manner and striking face. The Major was a person to attract attention in any company. He had a shock of iron-gray hair, bushy eyebrows, a fiercely beaked nose, and a bristling moustache and goatee. His eyes were keen and piercing, and not often inclined to friendliness.

It need hardly be said that he was not on terms of intimacy with the youth of Plainville. Not that they ventured to annoy him—far from it! Two-thirds of the boys in town would cross the street to avoid meeting him, no matter how clear might be their consciences of recent offense against him. But the Major, striding along, swinging his cane and grumbling to himself as he advanced, was just the sort of figure to which peaceful folk involuntarily yield the crown of the way. And this evening, though he was not marching belligerently through the town, but was sitting before his cheery fire, he looked even more warlike—and war-worn—than in his public appearances. There was a patch of court-plaster on his cheek, and his left hand was wrapped in a bandage.

There was a deferential knock, and the door of the room opened. In stepped a man servant, severe of countenance. He advanced to the Major, and halting, stood at attention.

“Mr. Parker—to see you, sir,” he reported. “Yes, sir; Mr. Parker and Master Parker.”

The Major scowled. “What! Parker and that boy of his? What’s he here for? But show Parker in, of course. If the boy doesn’t want to come, don’t urge him. Perhaps he’ll wait in the parlor.”

But Master Parker, albeit he gladly would have lingered behind, was not to be permitted to escape his ordeal. With dragging foot he entered the den at his father’s heels, and stood unhappily clutching his cap, while his elders shook hands somewhat formally.

“Ah, Mr. Parker, glad to see you!” said the Major. “Be seated, I beg you. And come up to the fire. Chilly evening, sir; chilly, though seasonable.”

“Major Bates, permit me to present my son, Samuel,” said Mr. Parker.

Sam stepped forward with a resigned hopelessness like that of a condemned criminal. He felt himself quailing before the Major’s eye; but felt a surprising—and vaguely encouraging—heartiness in the grip the old soldier gave his timidly extended hand.

“Samuel, I trust you are well,” quoth the Major, courteously enough. Then, not being impressed with the importance of minors in the scheme of the universe, he turned to the boy’s father, after suggesting to his youthful caller that he, too, take a chair near the fire.

Mr. Parker cleared his throat. “Ahem, ahem! Major, I have been given to understand that you have been the victim of an unfortunate accident.”

“Accident!” The Major sat straighter in the chair in which he had just seated himself. “Sir, that’s misuse of English. What I was victim of was a most cowardly and scoundrelly attack. Thank heaven, though, the perpetrator of the outrage was at once apprehended and taken into custody.”

“You’re sure of the identity of the——”

The Major’s eyes flashed; he was guilty of the discourtesy of interrupting a guest.

“Am I sure? Sir, I am as absolutely certain of the miscreant as I am of this”—he touched the court-plaster on his cheek—“and of this”—he waved the bandaged hand. “I’ve two good reasons to remember him, sir.”

“But, Major——”

“Pardon me a moment! You may not know, but it is the fact that the fellow has threatened, repeatedly, to do me harm. It’s an old grudge. Years ago I was fortunate enough to be active in sending him to jail, and he’s never forgotten my modest service to the general welfare. Only last week—on the public street, sir—he reviled me, and declared that he would have revenge. It was a fortunate warning, sir; for this morning, when he and I met in the woods—oh, yes; we passed within ten yards of each other—I took care to keep a weather eye open for just some such performance as he undertook. I’d kept his general bearings, and when he blazed away at me—why, sir, I rushed for him. And by Jove! I got him—as good as caught in the act, sir!”

“But not quite caught in the act, sir. There must have been an interval——”

The Major raised a hand. “Pardon me again! Sir, what you speak of is a trifle, a bagatelle. And there was plenty of circumstantial evidence—empty shell in the right-hand barrel of his gun—barrel fouled by the discharge. And he attempted no denial. Why, sir, he merely stood there and cursed me to my face, the scoundrel!”

“And yet,” said Mr. Parker evenly, “I fear you were—and are—in error.”

“Eh?” The Major bristled. “Eh? You fear I’m in error? Most extraordinary statement, sir! Do you mean to insinuate that nobody shot me?”

“I merely suggest that you may not have been shot by Peter Groche.”

“But who else under the canopy could it have been?”

“I am afraid, as I told you—afraid that it was my son.”

“What!” Up sprang the Major. “Man, what do you mean? This boy?” He whipped about, and peered at Sam. “Why, he’s a mere child! Preposterous, sir; utterly preposterous!”

“I wish that it were!” said Mr. Parker, with feeling. “But the fact remains that he insists he was gunning this morning in Marlow woods; and that he declares that he mistook a man for a deer, and fired at him.”

“Tush, tush! That’s all a piece of boyish imagination. He’s been reading dime novels! Haven’t you, young man?” And the Major shook a bony forefinger in Sam’s face.

“No, sir; I haven’t.” Sam spoke firmly, and his eyes did not fall before the Major’s.

“Do you expect me to believe you were the fellow who winged me?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Major went back to his chair. He dropped into it almost limply. “Out with your story, boy!” said he. “I’ll listen—I’ve got to, I suppose.”

The dreaded moment had arrived. Sam nerved himself to the task before him. The keen, old eyes under the bushy brows never left his face. He felt that they were penetrating every secret of his soul. But, after all, he had nothing but the truth to tell; and there was nothing he wished to conceal. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly, if not more easily, he reviewed the events of the morning. He dealt with his hunt through the woods; described the twin ridges and the valley between. Then the Major broke in upon him.

“By Jove, boy, but you have the lay of the land pat!” he exclaimed. “Go over that again, please—about the bushes where you hid, and the others where you saw something move.”

Sam repeated this part of his story. The Major stalked to a closet, and stalked back, carrying a woolen cap, dark red in color.

“Was that what you saw?” he demanded grimly.

“It might have been—I’m not certain.”

The Major thrust a finger into a hole in the cap.

“That’s where one shot went through. But, by the great horn spoon, Parker! what’s a man to do to secure reasonable safety in the woods these times? I put on a red cap to warn gunners not to pot me for a deer. Have I got to wear sleigh-bells, or carry an automobile horn, to let ’em know it’s a human being that’s coming? I must say things are at a pretty pass, when anybody who wants venison has to take his life in his hand to get it!”

“Agreed!” said Mr. Parker. “That’s one of the reasons why I’ve practically dropped hunting. But that cap, now—strikes me the red might not show very clearly among the dead leaves.”

“What I saw seemed to be dark rather than red,” Sam explained.

The Major pulled at his tuft of beard. “All most extraordinary and yet—queer how the thing might have happened, as the boy says. I’d half made up my mind that scoundrel was gunning for me; so, naturally enough, when that charge of buckshot came my way, I looked where I thought it probably came from. And the puff of smokeless powder isn’t much—it’d have been gone in a few seconds. And sound fools you on direction. Expecting attack from a certain quarter, I’d be pretty sure to place the sound there, whether or no. And the boy declares he was right across the gulch? Umph!”

Sam resumed his account. He made confession to his fright; to the moments which passed before he dared to look at the farther ridge, even though he heard the loud crackling of branches.

The Major nodded. “That fits, too. Soon as I could wrap a handkerchief about the bleeding paw I was off after Groche. But finally you crossed over to see what you’d bagged, eh? Umph! Why didn’t you run away?”

“I—I didn’t think I should.”

“Wanted to, didn’t you?”

“Indeed I did, sir!”

“Umph!” said the Major again. “Well, go on. What did you find?”

Sam described the trampled brush and the spots of blood on the leaves. Also he related his vain effort to follow the trail.

The Major was scowling fiercely. “That’s all, eh? Enough, too, I must say! No, it isn’t, either. Look here, young man! I suppose I must accept this story. You’ve just missed committing murder—yes, murder! Abominable recklessness, abominable! And criminal, highly criminal! You’ve rendered yourself liable to a heavy penalty. You’ll have to suffer——”

Mr. Parker spoke sharply and emphatically: “That is not at present under discussion. Our immediate interest is justice to a wrongly arrested man.”

Up went the Major’s warlike eyebrows. “Eh? What’s that? Justice, you say?” Then he whipped about to Sam. “Boy, do you understand the situation in which you’ve placed yourself? Want justice done, do you? That’ll mean trouble for you. Don’t quibble! Why didn’t you let well enough alone?”

“Why—why, sir——”

“Umph! Your father’s responsible, of course, for your telling the story.”

Again Mr. Parker intervened. “Not so fast, Major. Of his own volition Sam told me what had happened. The affair was a complete surprise to me. It was my suggestion that he repeat his statement to you rather than to the police—and there my responsibility begins. But I’ll add that, as it has begun, I shall regard it as continuing until this matter is settled.”

“Eh?” The Major looked more hostile than ever. “Am I to accept that as a declaration that you are backing the boy?”

“You may accept it as meaning that while I regret deeply his rashness and its results, now that he has made confession, I’m backing him, as you term it—and I shall continue to back him.”

There could be no mistaking Mr. Parker’s earnestness and determination. A thrill shot through Sam. He flashed a grateful glance at his father; then turned to face the Major.

The countenance of the grizzled warrior offered a rare study in conflicting emotions. It betrayed anger, but it also suggested chagrin. Moreover, there was a hint of admiration. There was an instant in which Sam believed that the Major was about to attempt personal chastisement on the spot; there was another in which he wondered if the old man were not struggling with a sense of helplessness. Then, of a sudden, the Major laughed explosively.

“Ha, ha! By the great horn spoon, Parker! I’d do the same, if I stood in your shoes! Blood’s thicker than water, every time. Ought to be, by Jove! when it’s good blood. And it’s good blood that’s made your boy own his mistake and step forward, like a man, to bear the consequences. I hate a sneak, but I take off my hat to a real man, no matter whether he’s young or old. There, there! Hear me out! This thing came near enough to being my funeral to justify me in attending to the arrangements. I’ll telephone to the police, and withdraw my charge against Groche; and I’ll keep my own counsel about why I withdraw it. That’s all right—accidents will happen, and when you’re satisfied a thing is an accident, there’s nothing to do but grin and bear it. Our young friend here can learn a lesson, and be more careful in future. No need for him to gossip about it, eh?”

Sam was speechless at this amazing turn for the better in his affairs; but his father came to the rescue.

“Major, you’re most kindly and generous. If there’s anything I can do, command me! If Groche threatens proceedings for illegal arrest you must permit me to guarantee you against loss in any way.”

The Major shook his head. “Very good of you, sir, but unnecessary—quite. Groche’s language was so abusive that a charge of noise and brawl would lie against him; and, no doubt, the officers will hold him overnight for safe-keeping, and turn him loose in the morning. And he’ll be content to drop the case, so far as the law goes; for he has no love for courts of any sort. But, young man”—he turned to Sam, and there was a wry grin curling his fierce moustache—“young man, you’ve robbed me of the consolation of being a public benefactor. If I could put that scoundrel behind the bars, at cost of a flesh wound or two, I’d count the pain as nothing compared with the service to the community.”

Sam found tongue. “I wish I could tell you, sir, how sorry I am for—for shooting you.”

Once more the Major laughed, and his hand fell, in friendly fashion, on Sam’s shoulder.

“Boy, I’ve been wounded four times,” he said, “but this is the first time the fellow who hit me has had the grace to apologize.”

CHAPTER VII
THE RECKONING

Sam awoke to find the sunshine pouring through the window of his room. Overnight there had been a change for the better in the weather, and Sunday had dawned clear and bright.

The boy yawned, stretched himself luxuriously, rubbed the lingering sleepiness out of his eyes. There was a blissful moment, in which he felt himself in harmony with the unclouded morning, refreshed, untroubled. Then, of a sudden, came recollection of the events of the day before, and understanding that there was still a reckoning to be paid. He might have nothing to fear from courts and officers of the law; Major Bates, ordinarily warlike, had been brought to prefer peace to hostilities; but he had yet to reach complete understanding with his father.

Mr. Parker and Sam had exchanged hardly a word while they walked home from the Major’s house; but at their own door the father had paused briefly.

“You’d better turn in, Sam,” he had said. “We’ll have to go over this matter pretty carefully, but I’m not prepared to do so to-night. And I fancy your own ideas will be none the worse for a little revision, and a clearer head in the morning.”

But Sam, going to his room, had found himself very wakeful. Half an hour later his mother had looked in, and discovered him, fully dressed and huddled in a big chair; and glad, indeed, to see her, as it proved. She had had no reproaches to shower upon him—Sam had wondered if his father’s explanation of his misdeeds had not been extremely merciful; and she had slipped an arm about him, and “mothered” him most comfortingly. And, presently, had appeared her handmaiden and his own loyal ally, Maggie, bearing a tray on which were a bowl of milk and a plate of crackers. Sam, who might have vowed that he wasn’t hungry, in a second had become acutely aware of a lack of something under his belt, and had fallen to with a right good will, his mother watching him approvingly and Maggie voicing her satisfaction in her own fashion.

“Well, say, ma’am, will you look at that, now? It’s not a morsel of supper the poor boy’ll have been puttin’ tooth to! And him sayin’ nothing about it—no; nor his father, either! They’re like as two peas in some ways, ma’am. Oh, them men, them men!”

These were the brighter spots in Sam’s memories. They were pleasant to dwell upon; but they could not relieve the general gravity of the case. A very sober youth it was who dressed mechanically and in due course appeared at breakfast. A deal to his surprise his father and mother greeted him quite as usual. There was nothing to suggest that they regarded him either as a repentant offender or as a hero. At Sunday-school he had another experience of the same sort; for his friends hailed him with matter-of-fact heartiness. Both Step and Poke appeared to have lived down their domestic unpopularity, resulting from the incident of the hungry hound, and to be disposed to regard the world cheerfully, with no suspicion that he was not entirely of their way of thinking.

There was interest displayed in the news that Peter Groche, after a night in the lock-up, had been released from custody; but it occurred to none of Sam’s chums to connect the circumstance with his adventures as a deer hunter. Groche, presented with his freedom, had walked off, mumbling and grumbling. The popular theory was that, sooner or later, he would try to “get even” with the Major, his old grudge being heightened by the recent episode.

“Funny how the Major let up on him!” Poke ruminated. “Well, you never can tell what’ll happen. But I guess there must have been some weak spot, after all, in the case. If there wasn’t, the Major would have hung on like a bulldog.”

“Gee, but I wouldn’t have him after me—not for a farm!” quoth Step.

Sam held his peace. He might have shed fresh light upon the peculiarities of the old soldier, but the present time was not opportune. He had little share in the talk as the boys walked home together; and the mood of silence held him through dinner. Then his father proposed a stroll, and the boy accepted the invitation.

On the top of a hill overlooking the town—not only a sightly place but also one ensuring freedom from interruption—father and son had their discussion calmly and deliberately.

“Sam,” Mr. Parker began, “I’m not going to preach a sermon, but I’m going to take a text. You supplied it when you told me last night that you didn’t regard lack of direct prohibition as making a very good excuse for what you did. The trouble is, you reached that opinion after the fact. In the beginning, I dare say, it seemed quite reasonable to do the thing which wasn’t forbidden.”

“Well, sir, I—I did it,” said Sam sheepishly.

“Exactly! And, in doing it, you yielded to impulse.”

“I sup-suppose so.”

“You had no wish, no intention, to harm anybody,” Mr. Parker went on. “You desired to go hunting—I’ve felt the desire; I know what it is. Then there was my gun, fairly thrusting itself upon you—seemed that way, didn’t it?”

“You’re telling it, sir, as if you’d stood in my shoes.”

“Many a time! I’ve been a boy myself. Also I haven’t forgotten, Sam, the scrapes into which I fell. Some of them taught me a lesson—a lesson you’ll have to learn some day. But to get back to the gun. There it was, ready to your hand. You took it. You put a supply of cartridges in your pocket. Your mother was not at home. You were too impatient to await her return. So off you hurried, taking chances, but meaning no harm. You were very sure of yourself; you knew something about firearms; you were confident that you wouldn’t hurt yourself or anybody else. You thought you were extremely careful in the woods. Yet there you took another chance, still meaning no harm, but barely escaping homicide.”

“I know that, sir.”

“You can count yourself most fortunate that the results were not more serious. But I won’t dwell upon what might have happened. What did happen was quite enough to give you food for thought, and to point the moral of your experience. And that is that before you go ahead you should do your best to be sure you’re right.”

“After this I’ll be sure!”

Mr. Parker smiled a little oddly. “I ask only, Sam, that you do your best to be sure. Often you have to take risks—the practical point is to avoid the unnecessary risks. Hear me through! At sixteen you’re not going to develop the wisdom and foresight of a grown man. I’m not going to demand the impossible. I am going, though, to urge you to profit by the mistakes you’ve made—and that, Sam, is the one best use to make of mistakes.”

“You mean, not to repeat ’em?”

“That is precisely my meaning.”

“Trust me!” cried Sam, with conviction.

“I am going to trust you,” said his father. “In the first place, I am going to assume that we have no need to talk about punishment; perhaps you’ve had a reasonable amount of it as it is, for I suspect you have passed some very trying hours. At the same time, though, I’m not prepared to treat this affair as a wholly closed chapter. I think it will be better for all concerned if you regard yourself, for the next few months, as on probation.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, in other words, you may consider yourself as under test. And the test will be the extent to which you have profited by what has taken place.”

“Oh!” said Sam. “Then you’re waiting to see if I’ve really learned the lesson?”

“You have the idea.”

Sam knit his brows. “It’s awfully kind of you, Father—it’s greater mercy than I’d hoped for. I—I’ll try my prettiest to deserve it. And—and will everything go on just as—just as before?”

“As nearly as may be. Only that brings me to my second point. It has to do with St. Mark’s.”

“Oh!” said Sam again, a bit apprehensively, it must be admitted.

“I think,” said his father slowly, “that for the present we’ll hold in abeyance any plans for sending you away to school. Don’t regard this as a punishment; it is merely part of the probation. St. Mark’s, as you know, allows its students much liberty. It treats them almost as if they were men. And, frankly, Sam, it remains for you to prove that you deserve such confidence. As the boys say, it’s up to you.”

The blow to the boy’s hopes was harder than his father realized. For months Sam had been counting upon an early transfer to the famous preparatory school. At his books, and in sports, he had striven with an eye to the St. Mark’s standards; he had read everything concerning the academy upon which he could lay hands; he had thought of St. Mark’s by day and dreamed of it at night. And now, of a sudden, he learned that his goal was not near, but at a distance which seemed to be all the more unhappy because of its vagueness. Yet, very pluckily, he rallied from the shock.

“Yes, sir; it’s up to me—I understand,” said he. “I’ve got to show that I’m not an utter idiot, that I have some common sense. And I will show it, I will! If I don’t, I won’t be worth sending to St. Mark’s or—or anywhere else!”

CHAPTER VIII
BEGINNING THE TEST

The junior class of the Plainville High School probably was neither much better nor much worse than the classes which had preceded it, and the other classes which were following it, along the paths of knowledge. It had its bright boys and girls and its dullards; its examples of industry and of idleness; its workers and its shirkers; its happy-go-lucky members, who made the most of the day without thought of the morrow, and its budding politicians, who laid wires and pulled them with an eye to future advantage. Perhaps the most distinguishing peculiarity of the class, however, was the influence exerted by a group of boys, with some of whom we have become acquainted.

Just why the Safety First Club (lately the Adelphi) should have been so potent a factor was not easily explained. The faculty, which had suspicion rather than understanding of the fact, did not try to explain it, while certain ambitious youths, not of the charmed circle, insisted that it could not be made clear. The club did not include the coming valedictorian or salutatorian; it had none of the most distinguished athletes; yet the truth remained that its backing was a prime necessity to secure success in any class undertaking. If there were a fund to be raised for the ball team, or if a picnic were planned or a Christmas jollification, wise promoters at once sought the endorsement of the club. As it usually was given in generous measure, there was little general criticism of the coterie, though, as was inevitable, there were envious ones who lost no opportunity privately to say unpleasant things about the members, singly and collectively.

In this, of course, jealousy figured. Several of the boys deeply resented the failure of the club to invite them to become members; and the feeling was bitterest in the case of one Thomas Orkney.

Now and then one comes upon a striking example of the square peg in the round hole. Orkney did not fit. He was comparatively a new boy in Plainville, having lived there but two or three years, and having come with some very firmly established notions of his own importance. At bottom he had his virtues—plenty of them, no doubt; but they were overlaid and concealed by a highly unfortunate manner. His early study had been under tutors, who had helped him to better knowledge of his text-books than to preparation for what may be called the rough-and-tumble experiences of recitations in a large class. If he blundered, and the division laughed, that was a black day in his calendar; and he scowled and sulked, and cherished a grudge against those who had led in the merriment. Worst of all, he often found means to settle these scores, and so had contrived to make himself exceedingly unpopular among his classmates; though, as it happened, he also drew to himself a few supporters and adherents from among the discontented element, which is so frequently to be observed in any organization.

While it could not be said that the juniors were sharply divided into factions, it was certainly true that the relations of the club and of the Orkney “crowd” were strained. Recently there had been two or three incidents, trifling in themselves, but together doing a good deal to increase the rivalry.

Oddly enough, Step Jones, one of the most peaceful of mortals, had succeeded in enraging Orkney. Step, as a rule, was no shining star of scholarship; but by some mental twist he was a very planet in Greek. In Latin he was merely fair, and in French not quite so good, while the less said of his algebra and geometry the better; but, in the speech of his friends, he took to Greek as a duck takes to water. Poke Green accused him of “reading ahead” in Xenophon for the fun of the thing; and declined to withdraw the charge in spite of his almost tearful denials, holding, indeed, that it was confirmed by Step’s success in translating a “sight” passage, which Tom Orkney had stumbled over. Poke forgot all about the episode in an hour, but Tom added another to his growing list of grievances against the club. His average for the term was far above Step’s, but he begrudged the lanky youth even a trifling triumph. And then came the matter of Willy Reynolds.

It may throw light upon the personality of Master Reynolds to explain that he was equally well known as Willy and the “Shark,” neither being used offensively, though one had a suggestion of mildness and the other of ferocity. He was, in fact, a little fellow, slender, stoop-shouldered, and physically the weakest boy in the class. Yet no other junior was less teased or picked upon. Practical jokers passed by Willy Reynolds. There was a gravity about him, not owlish, but distinctly discouraging to frivolity; and an almost hypnotic influence in his meditative and unwavering gaze. He had the prominent eyes of the near-sighted; and he had, too, the unconscious trick of staring steadfastly at man or thing of whose very existence he was barely conscious; and as he stared through big, round lenses, set in a heavy black frame, the effect was impressive, if not terrifying. Consequently, even the most mischievous of his mates preferred to let him alone, especially as they had honest respect for his signal ability in his specialty.

Young Reynolds was a mathematician born. Languages he endured as unavoidable subjects of study; but he reveled in equations and demonstrations, made child’s play of the required algebra and geometry—thereby earning his nickname of the “Shark”—and carried on advanced work under the eye of the principal, himself an adept of the mathematical brotherhood. Willy, of course, was destined for scientific courses at college; but meanwhile, tarrying with the junior class, he filled his contemporaries with wonder and admiration. For example, he solved at sight a problem to which Tom Orkney had devoted vain and wearisome hours. It was all in the day’s work for the Shark, but Orkney noted another score to be repaid with compound interest.

Sam Parker had been a witness of Tom’s discomfiture on both occasions; but, as may be imagined, was not concerning himself deeply with the sullen youth’s moods. As he himself would have put it, he had troubles enough of his own, and was fully occupied with his own affairs when he went to school on Monday morning. On the way he fell in with Step and Poke. The latter was full of the mystery attending the release of Peter Groche.

“It’s mighty queer—our folks were talking it over at breakfast,” said he. “Course, there was a mistake somewhere, or Major Bates never would have let him go. But Peter didn’t let out a word—just growled, and grumbled, and took himself off, shaking his head. He wouldn’t deny that he shot the Major. The police asked him about it, but he gave them no satisfaction. He’s a bad one, I tell you! Regular Indian, if he gets down on anybody!”

“All the more wonder that the Major dropped the case,” declared Step. “He knows Groche from A to Z.”

Poke wagged his head. “There you are! Makes the business all the queerer. Each of them is a sticker, in his own way. And the Major had Groche just where he wanted him. And then, all of a sudden, he let up! What do you make of that, now?”

“Beats me,” Step confessed.

“What’s your notion, Sam?”

Sam did not meet Poke’s inquiring glance. “I think,” he said slowly, “that something must have happened to show the Major that Groche hadn’t shot him.”

“Huh! How do you make that out?” queried Step.

“That’d mean somebody else did the shooting,” observed Poke, the philosopher. “The Major was hit, fast enough—peppered in the head and in one hand. And he didn’t do it himself.”

“Of course not,” said Sam.

“Therefore, some one else did. The Major was sure Groche was the some one. Then he wasn’t sure. In between he’d found out something. Q. E. D.—as the Shark would remark.”

“Q. E. D.,” repeated Sam, for want of anything better.

Step grunted. “Huh! Bet you he’d found out who was who and what was what! But that just thickens the fog.”

“How so?”

“Why didn’t he have the other fellow locked up in Groche’s place?”

“Jiminy! that’s a good point!” cried Poke.

Sam said nothing, and for a moment the three trudged on in silence.

“Oh, well,” said Poke at last, “the Major knows now, but we’ll know sooner or later.”

“How’s that?” Sam asked quickly.

Poke shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, things are bound to come out. They always do. It’s just like a dog burying a bone—if he doesn’t dig it up, some other dog will.”

“Don’t you believe a secret can be kept?”

“Well, I can’t remember keeping many myself,” chuckled Poke. “And they say murder will out, you know. This wasn’t murder, of course, but it came uncomfortably near it.”

“It sure did!” agreed Step.

Sam dug his hands deeper in his pockets. Being human, and companionable, and very fond of Poke and Step, he had been sorely tempted to confide in his friends. But the Major had warned him not to gossip about the affair, and the Major’s wish naturally had great weight. As for Poke’s theory that the story would become known generally, sooner or later—well, Sam had his doubts. So far as he knew, only his parents and the Major shared with him knowledge of what had happened in the woods.

In school that day Sam studied hard and paid close attention to the recitations. That was part of his plan for proving to his father that he could deserve confidence. When the class was dismissed, he made careful selection of the books he would need for home study, and so was a little behind his mates in leaving the building. Within a hundred yards of the school-ground gates, however, he overtook a group of boys, clustered closely about two disputants. One, as he saw, was Step; the other, Tom Orkney.

From a little distance the Shark was regarding the squabble through his big glasses.

“What’s the row about?” Sam asked as he came up.

“Nothing!” said the Shark. “That’s why they’re making such a fuss.”

Sam laughed, but quickly grew serious. Both Step and Tom were talking loudly, each hurling threats and defiance at the other; Step’s long arms were going like a windmill’s, while Orkney’s fists were doubled. From his acquaintance with the methods of adolescent controversy it appeared to be probable that words were about to lead to blows.

“Just one of Orkney’s grouches,” the Shark went on indifferently. “He’s been ruffling his feathers at Step ever since that business in Greek the other day.”

Sam nodded. “That, eh? But they’re going too far—they’ll be mixing it up.”

“Well, Step’s got the reach by fully four inches.”

“Maybe, but Orkney’s a tough customer.”

The Shark turned, and deliberately inspected Sam from head to foot. “You could do him up,” he said with cold-blooded calmness.

“Perhaps. That isn’t saying Step could, though. He hasn’t weight enough.”

At this instant Orkney, catching sight of Sam in the background, changed his tactics. He moved away from Step, and lowered his hands.

“So that’s the game, is it?” he taunted. “Keep blustering, but be sure not to hit a fellow till your gang’s here to back you—that’s your way, Step Jones. Had to wait for Sam Parker, didn’t you?”

Step’s anger was that of the patient man, slow to kindle but hard to extinguish. He struck at his opponent, but long as his arm was, missed him by inches.

Sam instinctively started forward, and forced a way through the ring. Tom fell back a pace.

“That’s right! Pile on—the whole gang of you!” he shouted.

Step, for his part, was more than ready to accept the challenge; but Sam intervened. Impulse—he was willing enough to fight Orkney—had yielded to sobering second thought. It behooved a young man, intent upon establishing his self-control and common sense, to avoid brawling over a trifle on the public street. Sam’s hand caught Step’s collar.

“Here! Drop the fighting!” he commanded.

Step wriggled, but the grip on his collar did not yield.

“Oh, let me at him!” he begged. “We might as well have it out—he’s been pestering me for a week.”

“Never mind! He’ll stop it now.”

“Oh, I will, will I?” snarled Orkney. “I’d like to know who’s going to make me!”

“I might,” said Sam simply.

“Bah! Dare you to try—alone!”

“That’s the way I will try it—some day,” Sam told him. “But not now; no, not now.”

“That’s right—safety first!” sneered the other.

Sam grinned; and it was an odd grin. “Certainly; safety first!” said he.

Step ceased to struggle; but, twisting his neck, stared at his friend. And then the Shark chose to advance.

“Sam’s right,” he announced coolly. “This is no place for a scrap. Besides, there’s no reason for one. Orkney, you’re a chump to be peeved at Step for doing you up in Greek, or at me for putting you out at geometry. See here! You’re a pretty good, all-round performer, but you can’t beat specialists at their own specialties. Get that? And there’s no use in being a general sorehead.”

It was eloquent tribute to the Shark’s moral influence that Orkney appeared to be impressed. At all events, though he scowled fiercely, he received the advice in silence. Two or three boys on the outskirts of the group began to move off. To Sam it seemed to be probable that the storm had blown over. He released his hold upon Step’s collar; whereupon Step, still wrathful, took two long strides; found himself beside Orkney; plucked off his opponent’s cap, and sent it flying through the air. It sailed over a fence, struck the trunk of a tree, and dropped to the ground.

Orkney bristled, but Sam already had laid hands upon Step, and was dragging him back.

“Here! Quit all this foolishness!” the peacemaker ordered.

“Make him get that cap, then!” Orkney insisted.

“Won’t!” cried Step, and struggled to break from Sam’s hold.

Again the Shark intervened. “No; it was a kid trick, but now that it’s done, we’ll let it stay done. Orkney, if you hadn’t bulldozed Step, and started the whole thing, the cap would still be on your head. So I guess it’s up to you to put it back there—or let it stay where it is.”

“Sure! It was a six-year-old’s performance, but the Shark has the right notion,” Sam agreed.

There was an instant in which Orkney hesitated between war and peace. Then he reached a decision which was compromise—and as unsatisfactory as compromises often are. He neither gave battle nor retrieved his headgear. Instead, with a parting scowl, which included all the allies, he wheeled, and marched away, bareheaded.

“You, Step, you bring that cap to my house, or you’ll be sorry!” he called back over his shoulder.

“Never!” shouted Step defiantly.

The Shark stared at the retreating figure. “I’ll be hanged if the whole bunch oughtn’t to be back in the kindergarten,” was his comment. “Of all idiocies! You plumb make me tired, Step—you and that runaway pal of yours!”

“But you wouldn’t get his cap for him if you were in my place,” Step insisted.

“But I’m not in your place,” said the Shark drily.

Sam shook his head. “Let’s stop this squabbling, fellows. One row’s enough at a time. Or, better yet, let’s end one without starting another.”

The Shark’s expression was thoughtful. “If we have ended one,” said he. “Orkney’s a queer duck. There may be more to this ridiculous affair than we dream.”

CHAPTER IX
POKE AND STEP PUT THEIR HEADS TOGETHER

Memory of the successful raid by Mr. Mercer’s big hound and its unhappy results rankled in the breasts of Poke and Step.

It was one thing, they agreed, to be joint victims of hard luck; but it was quite another thing—and a deal harder to endure—to behold the author of their misfortunes jogging about the streets, wholly unpunished for his misdeeds. Step even had a gloomy notion that the dog was plumper than usual, which, if well founded, was higher tribute to the nourishing qualities of the looted chicken than to the prevalence of even-handed justice, to Step’s way of thinking. This view, confided to Poke, met ready acceptance.

“Sure thing! And there ought to be something we could do about it,” observed Poke.

“Oh, I’ll find a way to get even,” Step declared.

“How?”

“Oh, you wait, and you’ll see,” said Step darkly.

Poke, as has been related, had leanings toward philosophy. Now he meditated briefly.

“See here, Step!” he said. “If you’re going to get at this thing, you’d better get at it right. You ought to teach him a lesson.”

“That’s just what I’ll do!”

Poke shook his head. “No; you don’t get me. You’re thinking of letting drive a stone at him, or giving him a whipping, but what’d be the use? He wouldn’t know why you did it.”

“Huh! Guess he would,” growled Step.

“He wouldn’t,” Poke insisted. “That is, he wouldn’t unless you schemed out a way to remind him of the stolen rooster. There’s got to be something to make him see there’s a connection—get me?”

Step sniffed contemptuously. “What you want me to do? Make him a speech or send him a letter about it?”

“Neither,” quoth Poke calmly. “But unless you make him understand that he’s being punished for stealing, he’ll think you’re thrashing him out of pure meanness.”

Step rubbed his chin. “I suppose that’s so,” he admitted. “But how can you work it? How can you make him understand? I’m weak on dog-lingo, myself.”

Poke smiled, a little pityingly. “Listen, and I’ll tell you something I read the other day. There was a chap who owned a dog, and he was a bully dog, except that he would steal chickens. So the man tied a dead hen to his collar, and left it there till—well, till that dog didn’t want ever to see another one or get anywhere near it. And that’s my idea—something like it, anyway—for teaching the hound a lesson.”

Step began to take interest. “Gee, but you have got an idea there! Only, if there’s anything left of the chicken he stole, we don’t know where to find it. And——”

“Don’t need to!” Poke broke in. “Look here now! Say you’re dealing with chickens. What do you come to first?”

“Hen-house,” said Step promptly.

Poke frowned. “No, no! Wake up! You come first to the feathers.”

“Oh, that way? Yes!”

The frown vanished. “Exactly!” said Poke. “So, if we teach that dog to let feathers alone, he won’t bother many chickens—see?”

Step’s manner was slightly skeptical. “Oh, that’s easy to talk about, but, practically, how are you going——”

Poke didn’t let him finish the sentence. “Ever smell burning feathers? Well, I guess you have, all right! And don’t you think that if we tie a pail to his collar, and there are some burning feathers in the pail, Mr. Dog’ll get enough of chickens to last him a lifetime?”

Step was a generous fellow; he didn’t grudge a friend a triumph.

“Gee, Poke, but you’re a corker! How’d you ever work that out? But I say! I can improve on the pail. Up in our attic’s one of those queer, old-fashioned lanterns with tin sides punched full of holes—like a colander, you know. And there’s a double chain to it—guess they used to hang it up outdoors. And there are snaps on the chain—might have been made for us. Only”—he paused an instant—“only how’re you going to be sure the stuff will burn?”

Poke smiled the smile of easy confidence. “Don’t you worry! A few rags soaked in kerosene, and stuffed in with the feathers will take care of that, all right!”

From this discussion and activities which followed, it happened that when Sam turned a corner near Mr. Mercer’s gate he came upon his two chums engaged in friendly overtures to a large and somewhat suspicious dog. Poke, as he saw, had a tempting bit of meat, while Step held behind him a rusty contrivance of tin, from which loops of still more rusty chain depended.

“Halloo! What’s up?” Sam demanded curiously.

“Oh, first class in dog manners—that’s all,” responded Step lightly.

Poke whistled softly, and held the meat nearer the dog, which took a step forward, halted, eyed the tidbit greedily.

Sam, far from clear as to what was afoot and inclined to caution not only by his new resolves but also by acquaintance with other ventures of his friends, watched the proceedings dubiously.

“I don’t yet grasp what’s the game,” he remarked.

Poke was lavishing blandishments upon the dog, and extending the bait; so it was left to Step to make explanation.

“It’s that chicken business. We’re going to get even—teach him a lesson, I mean.... Got a scheme, a crackerjack scheme. Just you keep your eyes peeled.”

“They’re peeled, all right, but——” Sam hesitated an instant. “I say, you fellows, better not get in trouble. Remember, you belong to the Safety First Club!”

“Huh! No chance of trouble—for us!” Step insisted. “Look here, Sam!” He displayed part of the chain with a snap at the end. “Two just like this—see? Well, we’re going to pass one of ’em around the dog’s neck, so-fashion.” In illustration he wound the chain about his own left wrist and for good measure took an extra turn. “Then we fasten it.” Another illustration, the rusty spring of the catch being moved with some difficulty. “Then, having fixed it so he can’t get rid of it, we——”

There Step broke off, for good and sufficient reason. For things were beginning to happen, and the procession of events was moving with startling speed.

The dog, sacrificing caution to appetite, came within Poke’s reach; whereupon Poke, dropping the meat, caught the hound as he tried to gobble up the bait; deftly slipped the second chain about the animal’s neck, successfully worked the snap at the first attempt; wheeled; whipped out a match; struck it, and lighted a rag protruding like a fuse from the old tin lantern, which had been brought from behind Step’s back, as that youth gave Sam an object lesson.

The kerosene-soaked rag flamed fiercely; almost instantly, dense black smoke began to pour from the holes in the lantern. Poke, who had been busy with the contrivance and the dog, with never a thought of complications involving his comrade, sprang back with a shout of glee, which perhaps added somewhat—though increase was scarcely needed—to the terror of the hound, which gave a panic-stricken howl and a tremendous bound.

Step, who had been tearing desperately and quite vainly at the chain about his wrist—the rusty catch stuck as if it had been soldered—was caught off his balance; dragged forward and into a run, which, under the circumstances, he could not check. The big dog, as heavy and powerful as many a sledge-team leader of the Far North, bolted wildly, yet with a general purpose; and this purpose being to seek asylum from the infernal machine at his heels, he dashed through the gate and toward the house, Step following, willy-nilly, his long legs flying and his long arms going like the arms of a windmill in a gale; while dangling from the chain between dog and boy, the old lantern emitted great volumes of choking smoke of most evil odor.

“Say, Step, where you going?” shouted the bewildered Poke, who was still unaware of the difficulty in which his chum was involved. “What’s the matter? The pair of you look like an engine going to a fire!”

Now to this Step, for perfectly good reasons, made no reply. And Poke, seeing that Sam was running after his friend, joined in the pursuit. So the procession swept up the drive, turned a corner of the house, and headed for the side porch, under which the dog had a den of his own, entrance to which was secured by a break in the latticework. Through this opening he shot with a final tug of such violence that Step was jerked forward, falling on his knees, with his head close to the barrier. And as by this time his fright fairly matched the dog’s, and as he fell to shouting for help as lustily as he could against the odds of the suffocating smoke, which poured through the lattice, and as the dog was howling more madly than ever, it may be imagined that there was a pretty to-do under and about the side porch of the Mercer house.

Sam and Poke, naturally enough, tried to drag Step back from his most unpleasant position; but the dog had braced himself, or the chain had caught on some obstruction, so that the only result of their endeavors was to pull Step’s knees from under him, drop him flat on his stomach, and leave him, if anything, rather more helpless than before. Moreover, the cook came hurrying from the kitchen and the hired man from the barn; and jumping to the conclusion that where there was so much smoke there surely must be fire, both dashed buckets of water with better intention than aim. Very little of the water passed through the lattice; a fair share of it spattered Sam and Poke, and a great deal drenched the unhappy Step.

The cook ran back to the kitchen for a fresh supply; but, luckily, the hired man, sighting the chain extending from Step’s wrist, laid hold upon it, and tugged with all his strength, and the dog, recognizing his voice, changed tactics, and charged from under the porch, bounding over the prostrate Step so swiftly that he turned a complete somersault, when the chain tautened again. The old lantern, still smoking voluminously, fell between boy and dog.

“Jee-rusalem!” gasped the hired man in bewilderment.

“Sa-sakes alive!” quavered the cook, who had reappeared with a freshly filled bucket.

Poke began to laugh hysterically; but Sam kept his wits. He caught the bucket from the woman’s hand, and plunged the lantern into the water. There was a long, hissing sound, a final puff of steam—and then comparative peace.

Step sat up. The dog, trembling like a leaf and whining weakly, crawled to the hired man. From the vantage ground of the porch the cook spoke wonderingly and reprovingly:

“Well, I vum, but you boys do beat my time! What on earth do you think you’re up to? Playin’ horse with poor Hector there?”

“No—not a bit; ’twasn’t that at all!” protested Step.

The cook sniffed. “Feathers—burnin’ feathers! I can tell ’em every time! But what’s your notion in puttin’ ’em in that thing?” And she pointed at the ancient lantern.

Step got upon his feet. He fumbled at the chain at his wrist; and, by an irony of fate, the old catch now gave at a touch. Step rubbed the flesh into which the links had sunk. He tried to summon a propitiating smile.

“Oh, the feathers?” he said very mildly. “Oh, yes; the feathers. Why—why, we—we thought Hector there—he—well, he ought to know about ’em.”

“Land o’ love! but the boy’s crazy!”

The hired man scratched his head. “Must say it looks like it, Katy. Still, I dunno—boys’ll be boys. And this young man acted ’sif he was willin’ to learn same time Hector did. They were sharin’, and sharin’ alike, on the smudge-pot, te he!”

Step scowled, but Poke burst into a roar of laughter, which eased the situation. The cook chuckled; Sam smiled. The hired man smote his thigh with his hand.

“Gee-whillikens! but I never saw the like of it! And I guess no great harm’s done. Don’t seem to be no fire under the porch.”

Then Poke found tongue. “It’s this way: The dog stole a chicken, and got us into a scrape. We thought we’d—er—er—we’d teach him a lesson and sicken him of stealing. And feathers and chickens go together—and—er—er—get the idea, don’t you?”

“Sorter!” grinned the hired man. “Kind o’ think I do, sonny. And t’other fellow got tangled up, somehow. Wal, yes, I do see how ’twas.”

“Then, if you don’t mind, we’ll be going home.”

The hired man waved his hand. “I would, if I was you,” he said. “I’d go home and get into some dry clothes.”

The three friends moved down the drive, with Step, a truly disconsolate and melancholy figure between the other two. For a little none of them spoke. It was left to Poke to break the silence with one of his bits of philosophy.

“You’ve got to live to learn,” quoth he. “Now, who’d have thought—no use, though, crying over spilt milk! And what on earth made Step want to chain himself up—no; we won’t talk about that, either. But I say, Sam, I tell you there’s a lot of sense in that notion of yours! Safety First for me after this—yes, sir; Safety First every time!”

CHAPTER X
QUEER TROUBLES

It is not to be supposed that Sam Parker, in spite of his exhibition of new self-control in the affair of Step and Tom Orkney, had taken on the gravity of years. There was, indeed, a change in the boy, but it was subtle rather than manifest. Sam worked a little harder than before, but played with no lack of zest. It was to be noted, however, that there was a decrease in the number of scrapes into which he fell.

Perhaps Hannibal, Sam’s bull terrier, was first to perceive, if not to understand, the change. Hannibal was a sagacious animal, beyond the follies of puppyhood, but still full of interest in the doings of his master and his friends; fond of a long tramp in their company; and very pleased to doze comfortably in a corner of the club room. The new days were much to Hannibal’s liking. Sam never had been cruel to him, but at times may have been a bit thoughtless. Now, though, Hannibal enjoyed a degree of consideration quite unparalleled in his experience.

Lon Gates, shrewdly observant, began to remark that Sam’s visits to the barn resulted in less disturbance of its orderly arrangements.

“Ain’t had a hedgehog day lately, have you, Sam?” he queried. “World don’t seem to be so all-fired uncomfortably crowded as it was, eh? And I dunno’s there’s so much genooine solace in kickin’ over buckets as a feller might think there was.”

“True enough, Lon,” said the boy soberly.

The hired man grinned cheerfully. “They say nobody has to hunt for trouble, and I guess there’s sense in that. Still, it’s amazin’ how often trouble’ll let you alone if you don’t go stirrin’ it up. There’s that wuthless scamp, Peter Groche, now. He wouldn’t ’a’ been locked up over night if he hadn’t been so cantankerous. Course, they really took him in on suspicion, and I must say Groche is about the suspicionest nuisance that infests these parts. And all he got out of bein’ ugly was a sleep behind the bars.”

“That’s so,” said Sam.

“Funny how close-mouthed the Major is ’bout the whole business,” Lon went on. “If only he’d talk he’d make things easier for quite a lot of the chaps that was out gunnin’ that day.”

“Yes?”

Lon chuckled. “Te he! There’s always a reg’lar bargain sale rush when the season opens, but this year it was wuss than usual. Seems as if everybody was sort o’ venison hungry; so it turns out there’s about a dozen fellers who ain’t been able to prove what you’d call a water-tight alibi. That is, they can’t bring witnesses to show that they didn’t pot the Major; and they’re bein’ joshed half out o’ their lives, some of ’em. You see, first and last, a sight o’ folks must have been prowlin’ through Marlow woods that mornin’, and none of ’em happened to think to keep a time register. The huntin’ crowd’s all tore up about it.”

“No doubt,” said Sam. If he had cared to meet Lon’s eye, he might have noted a twinkle, suggesting that the hired man had theories of his own as to the identity of the careless sportsman. But Sam avoided Lon’s gaze, and Lon chose not to make direct inquiry.

“Well, this world does see a heap of entertainin’ things, comin’ and goin’,” he observed. “Good scheme, too—keeps folks from stagnatin’ and gettin’ as dull as ditch water. Plainville’s perkin’ up a lot because of the Major and his unknown party o’ the second part, as we’d be sayin’ if you and me was lawyers.”

Here Lon spoke within the truth. The town was making a nine days’ wonder of the affair; and what the town talked, the school talked, and the club.

Sam, so far as he could, kept out of the discussions; permitted his chums to speculate as they pleased; and watched and waited for the interest in the matter to wear itself out.

Oddly enough, Peter Groche appeared to be following the same policy. He was about town as usual, doing odd jobs when work was unavoidable. No improvement was reported in his habits, but even in his cups his tongue was not loosed, so far as his feud with Major Bates and its recent development were concerned. He grumbled and made threats, to be sure, but he had been grumbling and threatening people for years; and from his incoherent growls his cronies gained no information. If he had an inkling of the secret of Marlow woods, he was keeping it to himself.

Step’s quarrel with Tom Orkney seemed to have led to nothing, even in the way of reprisals. There was no second demand upon Master Jones to recover the cap, nor was there formal notice that he should repay the owner for the seized property. In debates at the club the probability of the latter course had been stoutly upheld by Poke Green, who developed such concern in the outcome that he made a searching expedition, from which he bore back tidings that the cap was not to be found where it had fallen. Step insisted this merely went to show that Orkney, when the coast was clear, had returned to the scene and regained possession of the cap, thus avoiding loss and “saving face.”

“But he’s wearing another bonnet,” Poke pointed out.

“Oh, that’s because he’s too stuffy to admit the truth,” Step declared. “He’s as stubborn as a mule—that’s the whole case in a nutshell.”

The club agreed with this opinion of Orkney more heartily than it endorsed Step’s performance, which was held to be juvenile, albeit not without provocation. Sam’s interference was accepted with respect rather than warm approval. As Poke put it, somebody, sooner or later, would have to thrash Orkney; and Step might as well have tried his hand. Whereat the Shark spoke up from his corner.

“Say, that’s nice doctrine to be preaching at the Safety First Club!”

For an instant Poke was abashed. “Why—why, there’s something in that. I guess I wasn’t thinking of our new name.”

“Well, Sam was,” said the Shark crisply.

“Huh!” grunted Poke. He glanced thoughtfully at Sam; seemed to be about to continue; changed his mind, and let the subject drop.

Sam went home that afternoon to find Lon in uncommonly bad humor. Somebody, it appeared, had opened a faucet in the barn, and left the water running in a merry stream. As a result, half the floor had been flooded, and annoying, if not heavy, damage had been caused. Lacking evidence to the contrary, Lon was disposed to hold Sam responsible.

“But I had nothing to do with it,” the boy explained. “I don’t know how it happened.”

“Foolin’ ’round here, wasn’t you, after school?”

“Yes—but I didn’t touch the faucet.”

“Guess you’re gettin’ absent-minded.”

Sam reddened wrathfully, but kept his head. Very clearly he realized that he had a deal at stake. A youth on probation, as he was, must shun rages as well as keep his record clean.

“Look here, Lon!” he said. “I’m not joking—I’m in earnest. And I tell you I’m not to blame. I mean it—honor bright!”

Lon rubbed his chin. “I swan, but it plumb beats my time! You’re sure you didn’t do it, and I’ll swear I ain’t been walkin’ in my sleep and cuttin’ up didoes for more’n a year. Yet here was the water goin’ like all possessed! Now, who set it goin’?”

“I didn’t,” said Sam decidedly.

“Hanged if I believe you did!” Lon had been studying the boy keenly. “You’ve got as much of Old Nick in you as the next ’un, generally, but you have been behavin’ pretty well lately. And you ain’t a liar any time. So it looks as if we’d got to add this to the list o’ mysteries, ’long with who struck Billy Patterson. Only I do wish I could lay hands on the skunk that made all this mess, and argy with him a while on the error of his ways.” And Lon frowned as he turned his gaze to the water-soaked planks.

Sam went on to the house, but only to find himself again in the rôle of defendant. The complainant this time was Maggie, who swooped down upon him when he entered the kitchen. She caught him by the arm, dragged him across the room, and pointed tragically to a tub, in which were soaking several mud-stained garments.

“See all the trouble you’re makin’ me, you imp!” she cried. “How do you s’pose I’m a-goin’ to do all the work of this big house, with you snoopin’ round, and breakin’ my clothes-line, and lettin’ down half a wash into the dirt? All them things to be put to soak and done over! I tell you I just won’t stand it, I won’t! We’ll see, Mr. Sam, what your mother’ll have to say to such tricks!”

Sam wriggled free. “But, Maggie, you’re all wrong,” he protested. “I didn’t break the clothes-line.”

Maggie sniffed incredulously. “Course not! Must have been Hannibal or the cat! Go ’way with you, tryin’ to bamboozle me with such talk!”

Poor Sam felt like throwing up his hands in despair, or bursting into vehement denials. But once more he was reminded of the stake for which he was playing.

“Honestly, Maggie, I had nothing to do with dropping the wash,” he declared so emphatically that she could not but be impressed. “I didn’t even notice that you’d hung it out. And as for breaking the line——”

“Well, somebody broke it!” said Maggie tartly. “Look at it!” And she snatched a coil of rope from a shelf above the tub.

Sam gravely inspected the parted strands.

“Well, it is broken, fast enough,” he began. “That is”—he was peering hard at the end of the line—“that is, it isn’t broken—I was mistaken; this has been cut.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cut with a knife—and a sharp knife, at that. Made a clean gash. No accident there, Maggie!”

The cook took time to make careful examination.

“My stars, Sam Parker, but you’ve got a head on you, after all!” she declared. “Who’d ’a’ thought it! No; I don’t mean the head—it’s the miserable meanness of the job. But who on earth would be so ugly?”

“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Anyway, though, I’m not the fellow.”

“Well, puttin’ it that way, I don’t suppose you are,” Maggie admitted. “But I’d give a pretty penny to be able to figure out who is.”

“So would I,” Sam agreed gravely.

He had cause to repeat the statement in the next few days. Things went wrong about the Parker place with peculiar persistence. Valuable young trees were broken down; gates, supposed to be kept closed, were found open; Hannibal, for whose care Sam was responsible, was missing over night and came limping home in the morning in badly battered condition. And in each instance it appeared to be incumbent upon the son of the house to prove his innocence. It is an old rule of the books that there is much difficulty in establishing a negative proposition. Sam’s patience was sorely tried, but he kept his wits about him, remembered the demands of his situation, and did his best to win confidence by deserving it.

He had his suspicions, of course, that there was something more than mere coincidence in the succession of troubles. Also he had a theory as to their cause. In amateur fashion he undertook detective work. In other words, so far as he could, he maintained a close, if unobtrusive, watch upon the doings of Tom Orkney.

CHAPTER XI
THE CLUB GETS A CLUE

It was Friday evening, and the Safety First Club was in full session. Sam, Step and Poke were gossiping about school affairs, and with them was Herman Boyd, a new member and a brother junior. Willy Reynolds and Harry Walker, otherwise known as “Trojan,” a recently admitted classmate, were playing checkers in a corner.

The Shark, who was human enough to have his little affectations, pretended to care not at all for the game, holding it to be a poor and trifling substitute for chess; but it was to be observed that he was doing his best to win. Moreover, when he did win, he chuckled gleefully.

“Hew-ee! You ought to have known that last move was coming,” he told his opponent. “But you gave me the opening, and then I had you.”

Trojan Walker laughed. “I’d have known all about it if I could see around two corners at once as you do. Never mind, though! I’ll win yet. Set up your men, Shark.”

Poke strolled over to the players while they were ranging their pieces.

“Fellow who wears glasses like the Shark’s ought to be able to see everything,” he remarked idly. “All the same, Trojan, you’ll notice he isn’t making out much about Orkney’s schemes.”

“Humph! What can Tom do?” objected Herman Boyd. “That row of his with Step is ancient history.”

“Sure! And the time for a come-back was right after the row,” chimed in Trojan.

Poke wagged his head sagaciously. “Don’t fool yourselves!” said he. “Orkney is a sticker. He’s got it in for Step, and for Sam, for that matter. We haven’t had the last of the business, not by a long shot.”

“Hear that, eh, Sam?” asked Herman.

Sam rose from his chair, and crossed to the checker players’ corner.

“I heard it,” said he.

“Well, do you agree?”

“Yes,” said Sam brusquely.

For a moment nobody spoke. All his friends realized that he was taking the matter seriously.

“Why—why—you must have some reason, of course?” Herman ventured.

Sam hesitated. “Maybe it’s more hunch than reason.”

“But what gave you the hunch?”

“Oh, one thing and then another.”

“Huh! That sounds like some of my answers in history!” quoth Poke. “It’s specially like those I make when I’m meeting a total stranger of a question, and trying to be polite, if not communicative.”

The Shark wriggled in his chair; he was growing impatient to resume play.

“Your move, Trojan!” he snapped.

“Wait a minute!” said his opponent. “Sam’s going to elucidate.”

“Well, things have happened and kept on happening,” Sam began; “things that can’t be explained except——But I say, Shark! What on earth’s the matter?”

Young Reynolds, who had turned from the table in disgust at the delay, of a sudden had uttered an exclamation and started to his feet.

“Speak out! What is it?” Sam demanded.

The Shark pulled off his spectacles; held the lenses to the light; inspected them closely; shook his head.

“No; they’re not clouded,” said he, half to himself. “Very curious, I do declare!”

“What’s curious? And what are you driving at?”

“Of course, it might have been a tricky reflection,” mused the Shark. “Or, maybe, it was just an optical illusion.”

Sam caught him by both shoulders. “Wake up! What are you talking about?”

“Then, again, the doctor tells me eye-strain works queerly sometimes.”

Sam shook the slender youth vigorously. “Get back to earth! Let’s have some sense out of all this. Thought you saw something, didn’t you? Well, what was it?”

“Man looking in the window!” said the other calmly.

“Oh!” cried Sam, and whipped about. Certainly no face now was pressed against the pane. He ran to the door, opened it, and sprang into darkness, closely followed by all the other members of the club except the Shark, who was busying himself in polishing his glasses and replacing them on his nose. This task was completed to his satisfaction when the boys came straggling back. Their search had been utterly without result.

They crowded about the Shark, and rained questions upon him. Just what had he seen? How long had he seen it? What had he to say for himself, anyway?

The Shark waved them back. “Here! Don’t walk all over a fellow!” he cried. “What I saw—or thought I saw—was a head. I had just a glimpse—there one instant, gone the next—presto, change business! Looked like a human head.”

“You said it was a man’s,” Sam reminded him.

“Well, it might have been a boy’s—I couldn’t make it out clearly, you understand. It was vague, shadowy.”

“Then, of course, you didn’t recognize the face?”

“No,” said the Shark. “And you’ll understand, too, that I don’t insist that I really saw anything. You know, these glasses of mine—chance of freak of refracted light—all the rest of it. What’s the good, though, of getting all stirred up about it? If anybody was outside, he’s far enough away now. I’ll bet he’s running yet if he heard the crowd galloping out after him. Sit down, Trojan! You haven’t won a game.”

Walker plumped himself into a chair. “Well, you are a cool hand!” he said, with a touch of admiration. “But I’m going to beat you this time, all the same. Whose move is it?”

Step lounged across the room, but the others stood watching the play, which went on briskly, and to the advantage of the mathematical genius. The Trojan, beaten rather disgracefully, pushed back his chair.

“Tackle him, Poke,” he urged. “Or you take him on, Sam. This isn’t my night, I reckon.”

Poke grinned. “Age before beauty! Go ahead, Sam.”

But there was to be no more checker play in the club just then. For, while Sam paused, debating his chance of coping with the skilful Shark, there was a loud crash of a breaking window pane, a little shower of fragments of glass fell to the floor, and a big stone shot across the room, just missing the boys standing by the table, which it struck with great force. Over went the table with a crash, rivaling that of the window. Over, too, went the Shark, untouched but thoroughly startled by the bombardment.

Sam and Poke, Step and the Trojan and Herman Boyd poured out of the club like bees sallying forth to defend the hive. Around the corner of the building they raced, eager to detect the enemy. Prompt as they had been, however, they were too late. The night was very dark; there was much shrubbery about, which, even in its leafless state, afforded cover. The stone-thrower was gone. The boys could not detect a darker shadow betraying his whereabouts, and there was no sound of fleeing feet.

Sam and Poke turned to the right, and the others to the left, spreading out as they neared the barn. The course taken by Sam and his comrade led toward the house, round which they worked their way as rapidly as possible. Strain their eyes as they might, they saw nothing to arouse suspicion; nor were they better rewarded when they moved to the street, and peered up and down road and sidewalk.

“Clean get-away,” Poke said reluctantly. “Fellow must have bolted just as soon as he let drive. And it must have been the chap the Shark saw at the window, of course. What a pity he hasn’t a decent pair of eyes!”

“It’s the biggest kind of a pity,” Sam agreed. “This affair is no joke, Poke. If that stone had struck one of us—whew!”

Poke laid a hand on Sam’s arm. “Come now!” He dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “Fellow who threw that stone was pretty savage, or crazy, or—or revengeful. And—and you won’t need maps or foot-notes to understand who I reckon he is.”

“I wouldn’t ask but one guess,” said Sam.

Poke was silent for a moment, listening intently. “The others have had no better luck than we,” he reported. “Might as well go back, I suppose.”

“All right,” Sam agreed, and they moved toward the club-house.

Meanwhile the Shark, who had picked himself up from the floor and found that he was none the worse for his upset, had been making an investigation on his own account. First, he raised the big stone, shifting it meditatively from one hand to the other, as if he were estimating its weight. Then he crossed to the window and measured the height from the floor of the jagged hole in the glass. This done, he furrowed his brow, pulled out pencil and note-book from his pockets, and fell to making a calculation of some sort. He was still engaged in this when Sam and Poke entered.

“No luck!” Poke informed him. “The fellow got away.”

The Shark didn’t look up. “Hm-m! Thought he would.”

“So that’s why you didn’t try to chase him?”

“Partly. ’Nother reason was that I wanted to do some figuring.”

“On what?”

“Oh, don’t bother me!” snapped the Shark. “I’m right in the midst of things.”

Poke frowned. “You needn’t be so snippy. Sam and I have done some figuring, too, and we’ve been quicker about it than you. And we know—what we know.”

The Shark raised his eyes. “Umph! Don’t be too all-fired sure,” he counseled.

Poke took a step toward him. “See here, you owl! Our figuring has made us certain—morally certain, that is—that we know who threw that stone.”

Usually the gaze of the Shark was unwavering, but now he was blinking rapidly.

“Go slow, Poke,” said he. “Moral certainty doesn’t answer problems in mathematics.”

“Bosh! This isn’t mathematics.”

“’Deed it is!”

“Hold on, boys!” said Sam. “You’re getting nowhere. Now, Shark, listen! Poke and I believe that Tom Orkney did this thing. We hate to think he would, but we believe it because——”

“Because you’re wrong. Tom couldn’t have done it—at least, I don’t admit that he could. It won’t work out that way.”

“Work out?”

The Shark nodded. “Of course, I have to depend on estimates, and I don’t pretend that I can show exact results,” he began; but paused as Step strode into the room, closely pursued by Boyd and the Trojan.

In the middle of the floor Step halted. Not a word said he, but raised a hand dramatically.

The hand held an object, recognized at sight by every boy there. It was the cap, owned by Tom Orkney, which had figured in the celebrated quarrel.

CHAPTER XII
PUNISHMENT POSTPONED

There was a long pause, and a very significant pause it was. The boys stared at the cap in Step’s hand; then they glanced from one to another. Here and there a head nodded, as if in answer to an unspoken question; but it was left to Poke to break the silence.

“Jupiter crickets! That settles it, I guess. Well, I never have liked Tom Orkney, but I didn’t think him up to this sort of thing!”

“Or down to it!” cried Herman Boyd.

“Now you’re talking!” chimed in the Trojan. “Lowest-down trick that ever was!”

“Trick! Huh! Worse than that!” growled Poke. “Why, that rock might have killed one of us!”

The Shark appeared to be estimating the weight of the stone. “Yes; it’s heavy enough,” he said calmly. “If it had struck anybody squarely, the result might have been fatal.”

There was a wrathful gleam in Sam’s eye. “Where did you find the cap, Step?” he demanded. “Let’s get down to business.”

“It was on the ground, back of the barn—low limb of one of the apple trees must have knocked it off his head. Great luck that I stumbled upon it; and that was just what I did. Too dark to see anything, but my foot caught in something, and I stopped and picked the something up. And here it is!”

Poke was wagging his head in his peculiar fashion. “Fellows, it’s as plain as day. Orkney has been too proud to wear the cap to school, but he didn’t mind putting it on at night, when nobody would notice it. Then he came sneaking around the club-house. The Shark must have had a glimpse of him at the window. When we went out to see who was there, he lay low. As soon as we came back into the house, he let drive the boulder at the first chance, and then bolted for all he was worth. He had such a start that he got away; but he didn’t dare stop to pick up the cap. And now, I say, we have him where we want him.”

“You bet we have!”

“That’s hitting the nail on the head!”

“Gee! but it was a cowardly job!”

So spoke the Trojan, Step and Boyd. Poke warmed to his theme, after the manner of orators, encouraged by applause.

“We’ve got him where we want him, and we’ll put him through the works. I tell you, he’ll be mighty sorry before this thing is ended. Why, he ought to be arrested and sent to jail!”

“H-m-m-m!” It was a murmur tinged with disapproval, which Poke did not fail to perceive.

“Wait a minute, fellows!” he said hastily. “I know what you’re thinking, and I guess you’re right. We can take care of this case ourselves. We will, too! If the club can’t defend itself, it ought to go out of business.”

There was another murmur, all approval.

“It may have been Step’s scrap in the beginning, but it’s our scrap now,” Poke went on. “It’s a club affair. That stone was thrown at the bunch—at Sam, for instance, as much as at Step.”

The Shark grunted. “Huh! Be accurate, Poke, be accurate! It wasn’t thrown at Step at all. He was out of range—across the room from the rest of us. He wasn’t in sight from the window.”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“It was the fact—come to think of it,” Step himself admitted. “I remember I’d left the crowd.”

“Humph! Don’t see that that makes any difference,” argued Poke.

“It doesn’t—in one way,” said the Shark. “In another, it does. It means that the person who chucked that stone wasn’t especially after Step. No doubt he took a good look into the room before he let drive. And, as I recall the position of each of us, Sam stood where he must have been the real bull’s-eye of the target.”

“But what diff——”

The Shark did not let Poke finish the query. “The difference between getting things straight or crooked,” he rapped out. “How can you solve a problem——”

“Oh, hang mathematics!” Poke interrupted, in turn. “Cut ’em out! This isn’t a recitation; it’s a row! Let’s hear what Sam has to say.”

Sam had been keeping silent, but with growing difficulty. He was, as we know, naturally impulsive, and still a beginner in the practice of the policy of Safety First. Moreover, he was not a fellow of the sort to make ready excuse for attacks which smacked of cowardice or treachery; and his patience had been sorely tried by the series of depredations about his home. While his clubmates had debated, he had been considering not only the stone-throwing but also the earlier instances of what he was now sure was somebody’s revenge. The cap apparently settled the question of identity. Likewise, the Shark’s observation regarding the target had its weight. Sam struggled to keep his temper, but it was like a case of bottling steam in a boiler and fanning the fire beneath. When you treat a boiler so, there is likely to be an explosion.

“What have I to say?” The words seemed to force themselves from his lips. “You fellows don’t dream how much I could say! This thing to-night is only a link in a chain.”

The others stared at him in amazement.

“Link—link in a chain?” Step repeated.

“Just that! A chain of meannesses! Listen!” And Sam went on to describe briefly, but forcefully, the persecution to which he believed he had been subjected. “And now we’ve had the stoning,” he added. “There is one explanation, and only one. Tom Orkney has dropped Step and taken me on. He hates me more for interfering than he hates Step for squabbling with him. And just as that’s the only explanation, there’s just one way to handle the case—and that’s for me to settle with Tom Orkney. And I will—don’t you worry!”

None of his hearers took his words lightly. All were ready to consider them very gravely. Here, indeed, was an issue for a youthful court of honor; and it behooves such courts, young or old, to pass judgment in all solemnity.

“Well, I guess you’re entitled,” said Poke slowly.

The others, with one exception, nodded assent. The Shark looked unconvinced.

“Talking about chains,” he remarked, “you mustn’t forget the old rule: the chain’s no stronger than its weakest link. And there is a link that may be weak. I don’t say it is, but I do say it may be.”

“Rats!” snapped Step.

The Shark wheeled to face him. “Rats nothing! What’s the record—the school record—for the shot put?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The record. What is it?”

“Oh, thirty or thirty-five feet for the twelve-pound shot.”

The Shark frowned. “Confound it! but can’t you chaps make anything exact? ‘Thirty or thirty-five feet’! How’s anybody to make computations with all unknown quantities?”

“What are you trying to compute?”

The Shark juggled the stone, which he still held. “Humph! This weighs more than twelve pounds, I’ll bet—may run up to fifteen,” said he. “But what am I figuring on? Why, the amount of force required to send it through the arc this stone described.”

“Twelve to fifteen pounds!” jeered Step. “Seems to me you’re furnishing some of the unknown quantities yourself.”

“I am,” said the Shark. “I admit it. I also admit that I can’t reach satisfactory results from such data. But the results I do get—subject to revision, of course—make me doubt that Tom Orkney could have done the job. When I have the stone weighed, and when I measure the distance across the room, and add a good estimate of the distance the thrower stood from the window, I believe I can plot a curve——”

A chorus of shouts interrupted him. The non-mathematical members of the club would have none of such follies. Evidence? Wasn’t the cap evidence enough to convict Orkney?

Stoutly the Shark maintained that one should not put too great faith in circumstantial evidence.

“What! You’d put more in your old curves and calculations?” cried Step.

“Every time!” vowed the Shark.

Sam cut short the discussion. “Look here, fellows!” he said sharply. “I’m going to thrash Orkney, and there’s no more to be said about it.”

“Well, thrash ahead!” growled the Shark. “I don’t object to the general proposition; but I am pointing out that you may be wrong as to your reason for thrashing him.”

“I’ll risk that!” cried Sam hotly. “And I’ll even the score at the first chance I get.”

This decision, warmly admired and praised by the club, seemed to be in a fair way for accomplishment on Monday when Sam, walking alone to school, met Orkney at a street corner.

Meditation had cooled his anger, but had not lessened his determination to have a speedy accounting. He put himself in Orkney’s path, and gave him monosyllabic greeting.

“Huh!” It must be confessed that there was a distinctly challenging note in Sam’s growl.

“Huh!” responded Orkney. In fairness it is to be stated that he betrayed no sign of anxiety; and instead of halting, stepped aside and passed the boy holding the center of the walk.

Sam turned, and overtook him in three long strides. Then they moved on together, but with a space of three or four feet between them.

Orkney gazed straight before him. The sullenness of his expression may have been a trifle more marked than usual. Sam, studying him from the corner of an eye, decided that his enemy was merely playing a waiting game.

There was a moment’s silence. Then said Sam, very grimly:

“This thing has got to stop—see?”

The tone was more impressive than the words. Orkney stopped, and inspected the other coolly.

“Has, eh? Well, what might ‘this thing’ be?” he inquired.

“You know well enough!”

“Guess again. I don’t.”

“You do.”

A dull red showed in Orkney’s cheeks. “That’s the same thing as telling me I don’t tell the truth.”

“Does sound like it.”

“Mean to call me a liar?”

“Yes—if you say you don’t know.”

Orkney’s fists clenched; but Sam, warily watching, saw that the enemy kept himself in hand.

Again there was a pause. Sam broke it:

“There’s no use in your trying to put up a bluff. It won’t go. You understand perfectly what I mean.”

“YOU’RE LOOKING FOR TROUBLE”

“I understand that you’re looking for trouble,” said Orkney slowly. “That’s nothing new with you and your crowd—you think you own the earth, and you’d like to fence in this part of it for your own stamping grounds. You had things your own way till I came along, and you’ve always been down on me because I wouldn’t tail on after your procession. You’d rather interfere with me than eat, any of you. Why, just the other day Step Jones——”

“Leave Step out of this!” Sam interposed. He had not been able to reconcile himself wholly to Step’s performance; and Orkney having found a weak spot in his armor, his tone was more belligerent than ever. “You’re dealing with me and not with Jones this time. And Step doesn’t beat dogs, and cut clothes-lines, and heave rocks through windows.”

“Well, who does?”

“You do!” roared Sam.

Orkney pulled up. He faced his accuser, and his eyes did not fall before Sam’s.

“Parker, you’re talking like a wild man,” he said.

“Wild, am I? Not much! I’ve got proof!”

Orkney shrugged his shoulders. “It’s plain enough you’re looking for a fight, and don’t care how you get it. Now, I tell you, in the first place, that all this stuff you’re hinting and insinuating is gibberish to me; and in the second place that if you want fight I’ll give you all you’re looking for and more, too.”

“Now?” demanded Sam.

“No,” said Orkney, and grinned a queer, savage grin. “What’s more, you know why I won’t fight now. It’s my day to speak for the Lester prize, and a pretty chance I’d have for it, wouldn’t I, standing up before the school with a black eye or a cut lip? You talk about bluffs! Where’s there a bigger bluff than asking a fellow to fight when you know he can’t take you on? Or maybe this is your game: You’re scheming to batter me up so that one of your gang can carry off the Lester, eh?”

“I hadn’t thought of the prize-speaking!”

“Well, I’ve been thinking of it for some time. And I don’t propose to let you ruin my chances.”

Sam fell back a pace. There was an element of reason in the other’s contention, which he could not ignore.

“Well, if I let you off now——” he began.

Orkney’s grin was sardonic. “‘Let me off’ is good, but we’ll also let that pass. I’m busy this morning, as I’ve explained, but after that—well, you can suit your own convenience in picking a time for taking a good licking.”

“This afternoon, then——” stormed Sam.

“Oh, suit yourself!” said Orkney curtly, and marched off.

CHAPTER XIII
NOT ON THE PROGRAM

Sam, following his enemy at a more moderate pace, was burdened by a peculiar sense of helplessness. He was troubled by no doubts of the justice of his cause; but he was annoyed and perplexed by the obstacles Fate threw in his way. They were the harder to consider philosophically because he was quite sure that he was obeying his new rule of Safety First, and that Orkney’s guilt was clearly established. At the same time he had to admit that Tom had offered valid grounds for delaying combat. Altogether the case struck him as one of difficult application of entirely sound principles.

As he turned a corner, however, he forgot Orkney for a little; for within a dozen yards of him he beheld two men in conversation. And one of the men was Major Bates. The other was Peter Groche.

Sam almost halted. He gazed in surprise at the two. The Major had never appeared to be straighter, or fiercer, or more bristling; while Groche’s slouch was never more pronounced. The ne’er-do-well was listening sulkily to the Major’s very energetic remarks, occasionally growling a brief reply to the veteran.

As it chanced, Sam had not met the Major since the night he had made confession. A glance was enough to show that he had nearly recovered from the effects of his wounds; and the ear testified that the vigor of his speech was in no wise abated.

After a second’s hesitation Sam advanced. As he neared the men, Groche, seeming, of a sudden, to catch sight of him, wheeled and shuffled off, growling as he went. The Major swished his cane, as if he regretted that it might not descend upon the retreating legs. Then he, too, saw the boy, and the severity of his expression lessened a trifle.

“Ah, young man!” he said. “Ah, good-morning!”

“Good-morning, sir,” said Sam.

The Major tapped the sidewalk smartly with his cane. “I’m out of hospital. Am I to regard myself as in receipt of your felicitations?”

“’Deed you are, sir!” Sam assured him with unfeigned warmth.

The Major’s eyes twinkled. “Mutually satisfactory state of things, eh? I’m pleased myself. Fact is, I’m so overflowing with good will this morning that I’ve been trying to improve that vagabond.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sam.

“By Jove! but I fancy I made it clear even to his befuddled wits that there is no profit in persistently remaining a social liability. I warned him that if he didn’t mend his ways he’d end in state’s prison. Big, hulking brute like that’s liable, some time, to commit a felony.”

Sam glanced at the retreating Groche. The fellow was big and hulking, and brutish as well—an ugly customer, in short.

“Has he been bothering you again, sir?”

“No,” answered the Major. “I rather anticipated some of his characteristic attentions, but he has quite neglected me. Not that I complain—certainly not! Only I took occasion to point out to him the exceeding unwisdom of again annoying me. Odd, too, how he took the advice. Leered at me, and mumbled, but made no distinct threats. But I must not detain you, young man. You, I infer, are on your way to school?”

“Yes, sir,” said Sam again.

“Then proceed. A moment, though!” The Major’s bushy eyebrows met in a frown, which wholly lacked ferocity. “Your holidays are at hand, I believe. Some day, when you’re at leisure, I should be glad to show you my modest collection of weapons of war and the chase. Ought to interest you, as a budding sportsman with a promising record of large game!”

The Major’s eyes were twinkling once more. Sam blushed hotly.

“I’ll be very glad to come, sir,” he said.

“Then I have the honor to wish you a very good morning,” quoth the Major; and they parted in friendly fashion.

Both Major Bates and Peter Groche soon lost first place in Sam’s consideration. The school session promptly put the Orkney affair to the fore.

The Lester prize for declamation was one of the great honors of the course, and competition always was keen. The contest covered a full term, two boys and two girls entering the lists each Monday. Usually they were seniors, elocution being part of the required work of the final year, but sometimes juniors volunteered, often with a notion of “working off” the requirement ahead of time, but occasionally with a hope of winning.

There could be no doubt that Tom Orkney did his best to win. As it happened, he was fortunate in his competitors. The other boy was a senior, who took the platform simply because he had to take it, and who raced through his selection with an eye single to ending the ordeal in a minimum of time. Then two girls performed conscientiously but ineffectively. And then came Orkney, junior and volunteer.

Tom had chosen an ancient favorite “speaking piece,” so ancient, indeed, that a giggle ran through the hall when the principal announced, “The Parting of Marmion and Douglas.” But the merriment quickly died, as the boy swung into Scott’s stirring verse.

“Good work!” was the involuntary and whispered tribute of Step Jones, who sat beside Sam. “Awfully good work, confound him!”

Sam nodded. Orkney was revealing unexpected dramatic fire; and, unpopular as he was with his audience, was capturing its admiration. One might suspect that he had had professional coaching, but one could not deny that it had been worth while.

There was loud applause—not the customary ripple of hand-clapping but a spontaneous and hearty demonstration—and Tom was smiling when he made his bow to his schoolmates, and another bow to the principal, and came down the steps from the stage. It was not a pleasing smile, for there was in it more than a trace of supercilious triumph.

“Hang the chump! Look at the smirk of him!” complained Step.

Sam made no answer. Orkney was approaching, and for an instant the eyes of the rivals met. Sam’s expression did not change, but the other’s smile lost the little charm it had. Sam found it bitterly taunting; it seemed to say to him, “This was what you schemed to prevent, eh? Well, you didn’t do it, did you?”

Step drove an elbow into his ribs. “You can’t spoil that mug by pounding it! Say, though! When are you going to get at it?”

“Soon as I can,” said Sam simply.

“Date with him?” whispered Step eagerly.

“Not exactly.”

The classes were rising to march out of the hall, but Step found time to make a suggestion.

“Maybe you can catch him down at the pond this afternoon. They say the ice is at last strong enough to hold.”

“I’ll be there,” Sam promised.

Mild as the season had been, the temperature had been falling steadily, if slowly; and the skim of ice on the big mill-pond on the outskirts of Plainville had thickened until it had been for some days in rather perilous use by venturesome skaters. Now, however, Sam believed it was reasonably safe; and when he descended the slope to the pond, its surface was dotted with swiftly gliding figures.

Directly in front of him a lively game of hockey was in progress. To the right, and safely removed from the rushes of the players, were boys and girls, skating singly, or in pairs, or in long lines, hand in hand. To the left, near the dam, were a few youngsters.

Sam shook his head as he observed them. The ice always was thinner there than in other parts of the pond, and there was seldom a season in which somebody did not regret rashness in straying too close to air-holes. At a time like this there was more or less danger anywhere in the neighborhood of the dam.

“It ought to be roped off,” he told himself; but as there appeared to be no means to carry out this precaution he sat down on the bank and began to put on his skates. This he did leisurely, pausing now and then to run his glance over the skaters. At a little distance up the shore some of the larger boys were building a fire, and were having trouble, their fuel consisting chiefly of long boards torn from an abandoned ice-house. Here a little crowd clustered. Sam thought he had a glimpse of Orkney, but was not certain. As he tightened his last strap, however, and stood up, Step came along, arms and legs flying in an effort to recover the partly lost art of the Dutch roll. At sight of Sam the lanky youth went through some extraordinary contortions, checked his speed, and glided alongside his friend.

“Say! It’s all right—he’s here!” was his greeting.

“Who’s here?” asked Sam, quite unnecessarily.

“Humph! Who you s’pose? Deacon Pender?”

“No,” said Sam coolly. “I don’t imagine you were thinking of the deacon.”

“You bet I wasn’t!” rapped Step. “I was thinking of Tom Orkney.”

Sam peered at the crowd by the fire. “Queer I can’t make him out,” he remarked.

“He’s down at the lower end—along with those kids.”

“Oh!”

Step was grinning. “Oh, he tried to butt into the hockey game, but the fellows gave him the cold shoulder. So he had to flock by himself till he saw the young ’uns. He’s with ’em now, teasing and tormenting ’em, I reckon.”

Sam struck out with the experimental feeling of one on runners for the first time in months; made a wide circle, and came back to Step.

“Bit rusty, but I’ll get the swing all right in an hour or so,” he reported.

Step brought him back to the previous question, so to speak.

“What do you want? Don’t mean to fight him on skates, do you?”

“Certainly not,” said Sam testily. “What put such a notion in your head?”

“Well, what are you here for?” demanded Step pointedly.

“Don’t expect to have a fight before all this crowd, do you?”

“Seems to me you’re getting awful fussy.”

“I am, if ‘fussy’ consists in objecting to scrapping with half the town rubbering.”

Step looked hurt. “Don’t you want anybody but yourself to have any fun?”

“I don’t intend to entertain Plainville in a body.”

Step’s expression was bewildered. “Say—say, you ain’t crawling, are you?” he queried.

The suspicion stung Sam’s pride. “Crawling? Not on your life! I’m looking for Tom Orkney, and when I find him I’ll ask him to walk back in the woods with me—he’ll know what for. And you can come along, and one or two of the others, but——”

The cloud vanished from Step’s brow. “Oh, that’s all right!” he said heartily. “Can’t have a mob trailing along, of course. But I say! There’s Orkney now—just shooting out from behind the point. He’s chasing one of the kids.”

Sam’s glance followed the direction of Step’s extended arm.

“Yes, that’s Orkney, fast enough. But what’s he doing?”

“Pestering the youngster!” snapped Step. “Can’t you see? And I declare, if it isn’t Little Perrine he’s worrying!”

Sam watched the swiftly moving figures, one short and slender, the other tall and stout. Little Perrine, barely in the lead, seemed to be hard pressed, for he dodged frequently without being able to throw off his pursuer.

Suddenly Step cried out sharply: “The miserable bully! Look, Sam! he’s driving the kid right down to the dam, where the ice won’t hold him for a minute!”

“Confound it all!” fumed Sam. “Why won’t people think of Safety First? Why won’t——”

There he broke off, aghast at the catastrophe he beheld, but Step’s voice rose shrilly:

“Great Scott! it’s happened! They’re in—both in!”

With appalling swiftness the ice had yielded beneath the weight of the two, and Little Perrine, vanishing as if through a trap-door in a stage, had been followed almost instantly by Orkney.

Step started to the rescue, striking out wildly and shouting as he raced down the pond at top speed. Sam, about to join in the dash, checked himself. He knew well enough how the thin ice near the dam, once broken, would crack and crumble under even slight pressure. “Safety First!” was the thought which flashed upon his brain; safety not so much for himself as for the pair struggling in the water.

Other skaters were speeding after Step: but Sam, turning, hurried to the heap of boards near the fire. He caught up the longest plank on which he could lay hands, and skated down the pond with all the speed his burden permitted. Before him other would-be rescuers, halted by the widening circle of open water, were moving about aimlessly, if pluckily, getting in one another’s way, and risking a general break-up of the ice under their weight. One youth, indeed, had slipped over the edge, but luckily had been dragged back, suffering no more serious consequences than a drenching to the waist.

Orkney was clutching desperately with one hand at the crumbling edge of the ice. At first Sam saw nothing of Little Perrine, but as he dropped his board and thrust its end over the water, he had a glimpse of the boy’s head, pressed close to Orkney’s breast. So Tom, having caused the disaster, was doing what he could to save an innocent victim! Such was Sam’s belief, and the belief of Step and the rest.

The long plank swung nearer and nearer to Orkney. He grasped it, drew himself forward, threw an arm over it; his other arm was still about Little Perrine. Sam, kneeling on the board with Step anchoring its end to the thicker ice, got a firm grip on Orkney’s coat collar. Then came the tug of war. It lasted for thrilling seconds, of which Sam was to have only confused memories, in which were mingled the ominous cracking of the ice, the shouting of the spectators, his own cries of warning to the crowd to move back, Orkney’s struggles, the ghastly pallor of Little Perrine’s face. Slowly, by inches, they gained. Then with a report as sharp as that of a pistol a foot or two of the edge gave way; Orkney dropped back till his shoulders were submerged; Sam’s arms were plunged in water to the elbows. Then Tom made a mighty effort. Sam exerted all his strength. What had been lost was recovered and retained. Then there was another clear gain; and, in an instant more, Orkney and Little Perrine had been dragged to safety.

Tom was able to raise himself on an elbow, but Little Perrine lay unconscious and motionless.

CHAPTER XIV
SENT TO COVENTRY

It was a disagreeable morning, dully lowering and overcast, with now and then a flurry of snowflakes bearing promise of a heavier fall to come, but a crowd of boys and girls lingered in the school yard.

There seemed to be a curious constraint upon everybody. There was no shouting, no practical joking, no horse-play; but there was much low-toned talk in the groups, in which the classes appeared to have gathered unconsciously. Now and then, when late comers hove in sight, there was a stir of expectancy, and necks were craned as eager glances were directed toward the gate. Sam Parker, arriving with Poke Green, was greeted by a murmur of applause; and, flushed with embarrassment, made his way to a party of his chums, who chanced to be standing near the steps leading to the big door.

“Come on—let’s go in!” he said. “What’s everybody waiting for?”

Step Jones laughed harshly. “Ho, ho! This is a reception committee, Sam—reception committee and committee of the whole. It’s for T. Orkney’s benefit.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Sam protested.

“Humph! I may be, but if I am, I’m not lonesome.”

“That makes the thing all the worse.”

“Can’t be much worse than it is.”

Sam shook his head. “Oh, be fair!” he urged. “Remember, Orkney held on to Little Perrine like a good fellow.”

“Yes—after he’d driven him into the water!” growled Step.

“But——”

“But it was like locking the door after the horse was stolen,” Poke put in.

“Right you are!” contributed the Trojan.

“Well, what’s the latest news?” asked Sam. “How is Perrine this morning?”

“Mighty badly off, I hear,” Step told him.

“Delirious all night,” added the Trojan.

Sam looked perturbed, and with reason. “Little” Perrine, as the boy was known to his mates, was a delicate chap, clever at his books—he was a high school freshman at ten—but weak physically and of an extremely nervous temperament; just the sort of lad, in short, to suffer most from such an experience as he had undergone in the icy water. Moreover, he was the pet of the school, and any harm done him would be bitterly resented by the pupils. Indeed, the case promised to go hard with the unpopular Orkney, even if more encouraging tidings were received from those caring for one regarded generally as the victim of his malicious pursuit.

The Shark came hurrying up the walk, carrying a great bundle of books. He nodded at his clubmates, but did not halt. Poke chuckled softly as he passed them.

“There’s cold-blooded science for you!” said he. “Much the Shark cares for a trifling matter of life or death when he’s got a real juicy lot of equations on hand! Why, he put in all yesterday afternoon figuring away with the principal, and now he’s going to have another crack at him before the bell rings. I met him last night, and asked him what he was up to, and what do you suppose he said?”

“Give it up,” said the Trojan.

“So do I,” quoth Step.

“Trajectories!” cried Poke with all the scorn he could command.

Step rubbed his chin. “Well, it takes all sorts of people to fill up the world. But there are mighty few like the Shark, I’ll bet you!... Hulloo, though! There’s Jennie Bruce. She lives next door to the Perrines, and she can tell us the latest.”

Others had the same thought, and crowded about the girl who had just entered the yard. There was a moment’s waiting, and then an angry murmur ran through the throng.

“Whew! That means he’s worse!” Step inferred.

Jennie Bruce broke through the press. She came straight to Sam.

“You should have heard first of all,” she declared. “You pulled both of them out, you know.”

“I hope it isn’t bad news,” said Sam.

“It’s bad enough. No; Little Perrine isn’t dead. He’s better this morning, but the doctor says he may not be able to be out for a week. But that isn’t it, at all!”

“Isn’t what?”

“What I’ve got to tell you, Sam Parker. It’s about last night—and almost all through the night. Poor Little Perrine was out of his head, raving. He seemed to be going over and over it, and then beginning again and going all through it.”

“That is, through the accident?”

Jennie’s eyes flashed. “Accident! You know well enough it was something else. Oh, well, perhaps it was partly accident, but it was something else, too. Don’t stop me! I don’t call it all accident when the poor little fellow was just driven out upon the thin ice! And while he was delirious he kept crying out, ‘Don’t let him get me! Stop him! Don’t let Tom Orkney get me!’ Why, we could hear him over at our house. It was awful!”

“Gee, but it must have been tough!” cried Step.

“Tough!” For a moment Jennie regarded Master Jones half pityingly. “Mercy! but you boys have weak ways of putting things! If you’d heard him shrieking——”

“Hold on!” the Trojan broke in excitedly. “Here comes Orkney!”

There may have been method in the circumstance that Orkney was reaching the school grounds but a few minutes before the opening hour. Perhaps he had hoped that most of his mates would be within the building when he arrived, but he did not falter when his glance fell upon the crowd. Of its temper he could have had little doubt, though probably he had not foreseen the hostility of the reception which awaited him.

Three or four senior girls near the gate deliberately turned their backs to him. As many senior boys looked him full in the face with no sign of recognition.

Orkney squared his shoulders, and raised his head. Looking straight before him, he walked up the path. No one addressed him, and he spoke to nobody till he came to Sam.

“Parker!” Tom’s voice was low and not quite steady.

“Well?” said Sam coldly.

There was a little pause. Orkney was meeting Sam’s searching gaze without flinching, but his sallow face had taken on a grayish pallor.

“Parker, I’ve got something to say to you. And I want to say it now. Yesterday you yanked me out of a bad fix. It was a great job you did. I’d like to have you know I appreciate it, even if I don’t seem to be able to say much more than ‘Thank you!’”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said Sam, hastily and, it may be, gruffly. “Don’t bother your head about it. Forget it!”

“Can’t!” growled Orkney, gruff in his turn. “That brings me to something else I’ve got to say and you’ve got to hear. That other matter—you know?”

Sam nodded. The “other matter,” of course, was the engagement to fight.

“This—this is harder to—to get right.” Orkney plainly found explanation difficult. “You put something up to me, and I said yes. I meant yes; suited me. But you’ve complicated the situation. When you pulled me out of the pond you tied my hands—don’t you see that?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You did, all the same. I won’t go into details, with all these long-ears rubbering; but you don’t need details, anyway.”

The youths referred to as “long-ears” had the grace to retire a pace or two, but their liking for their critic was not heightened.

“I get your drift—guess I do,” said Sam. “But here! You’re free to forget yesterday’s business. Wish you would!”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t—if I could!” There was an ugly gleam in Orkney’s eyes. “That’s out of the question, though. So my hands are tied, as I tell you.”

“They needn’t be.”

Orkney shook his head. “It’s all very well for you to take that attitude, but I can’t. I’m in your debt—deep in it. So there are things I can’t do that I’d mighty well like to do.” And again the ugly gleam was in evidence.

A wave of the old anger seemed to sweep over Sam.

“Go ahead and try ’em, then!” he cried savagely.

Two spots of red, of a sudden, burned in Orkney’s cheeks, but he kept his self-control.

“There’s no use talking—I can see that,” he said grimly; turned, and marched alone up the steps to the great door.

The decisions of youth are decisions of a drumhead court-martial, to be carried out on the spot.

The school had but one verdict to give in the case of Thomas Orkney. As he disappeared in the corridor, there was a chorus of hisses and groans.

CHAPTER XV
THE CLUB ENDORSES ITSELF

The promise of the snow flurries had been borne out in full measure, and now the country about Plainville was covered by a thick, white mantle. Real winter had come at last, for after the storm there had been a sharp drop in temperature, forecasting not only a “white Christmas” but also holidays brisk and invigorating. And Friday night had arrived, with its relief from school cares, and the Safety First Club was in full session. All the members were in attendance, and all were discussing the most sensational bit of news the town had enjoyed since the mysterious wounding of Major Bates.

Tom Orkney had run away!

The fact was established beyond doubt or denial. The boy was gone, nobody knew whither. There was, to be sure, a somewhat popular theory that he had fled to a neighboring large city; but the theory was based on conjecture, and wholly lacked convincing proof.

For forty-eight hours Plainville had been talking about his disappearance, but the topic had lost nothing of its interest. At the club Poke held the floor, and submitted his philosophic view of the case to his friends.

“Orkney’s a stubborn brute, as you fellows very well know. When he makes up his mind, it’s made up, and it stays made up. He’s bolted, and he’ll take precious good care not to come back right away. Where do I think he’s gone? I don’t know, but I’m sure he’s gone far enough. And if you insist on having my personal opinion, I think it’s good riddance of bad rubbish.”

“Humph! Haven’t seen me shedding the sorrowful tear, have you?” demanded Step.

“I haven’t seen any tears,” said Poke. “Why, Orkney hasn’t a friend left, after the way he treated Little Perrine! Don’t you remember how everybody cut him that last day in school?”

“Must have been pretty hard for him,” Sam observed thoughtfully.

“I don’t believe a soul spoke to him,” Poke went on. “That is, none of the fellows or the girls did. The teachers, of course, had to; but they said just as little as they could. Why, he was called up but once, and that was in the Greek class.”

Step moved uneasily. “Say, though! That was a star translation Orkney made! Jiminy! but he must have had an iron nerve to keep his wits about him, with all hands doing their best to show how they despised him.”

“Just what it was—case of nerve!” cried Poke. “Bet you I know just how he felt. He was saying to himself, ‘I’ll show this gang that they can’t rattle me; I’ll show ’em that I don’t give a whoop for their opinion. Let ’em hiss me! I’ll go through this day and prove that they can’t even rattle me.’ And that is just what he did. And when school was dismissed, he walked out as coolly as if he didn’t understand that nobody would travel with him for love or money. You know he’d been building up a sort of crowd of his own? Well, every one of the bunch quit him when the pinch came. But he kept a stiff upper lip right to the end!”

“He surely did,” admitted the Trojan, with a touch of reluctant admiration.

“But all through it he must have been planning what he’d do. My notion is that when he went down the school steps he was saying to himself that it was for the last time. He’d been scheming out what would come next. In the afternoon he got together the few things he meant to take along. He ate supper with his folks as usual. Then he slipped out of the house. And that’s the last anybody in Plainville knows certainly about Tom Orkney.”

From his corner the Shark shot curt comment: “Big mistake he made! Case of quitting!”

“How do you figure that out?” asked Herman Boyd.

“Ran away under fire, didn’t he?”

“But he’d stood the fire all day.”

“Umph! That wasn’t enough.”

Poke waved a hand. “Listen, you fellows! I’ve been meditating on that part of it. And I’ve doped it out this way: Orkney had pride enough to carry him through one day—pride and nerve are the same thing with him, I reckon. But when it came to facing other days, and other days, and then some more—why, that’s where a chap would have to have the backing of a clean conscience. And there were all the tricks he’d played on Sam, and the chance he took of killing one of us with that big boulder, and the dirty deal he gave Little Perrine—why, his conscience must be as spotted—as spotted as an old blotter!”

“So that’s your diagram?”

“Well, as I say, that’s the way I see it.”

The Shark’s lip curled. “Huh! Easy to see what you hope’s true!”

“Well, what’s your mathematical calculation, old Dry-as-Dust?”

“Oh, go on!” snapped the Shark. “You’re the lecturer.”

Poke needed no urging. “Well, I tell you he’d made up his mind to beat it, and he did. And he got away, all right. You know his aunt telegraphed, and telephoned, and called in the police, and offered a hundred-dollar reward; but there was no clue anywhere. Hard luck for her that Tom’s father is out West! They say she’s almost crazy.”

“And Tom’s mother is away, too,” said the Trojan.

“Yes; she’s visiting down South. Those are things, though, we’ve nothing to do with.”

“That’s a queer way to put it,” grumbled the Shark.

“Not at all,” Poke insisted. “You don’t get my point, which is that we may not be responsible for those things, but we are responsible for others. One of them is that we’re the fellows who got on to Orkney’s meannesses, and that Sam here promised him a thrashing and a showing-up. Then, somehow, I can’t help feeling that Sam, in fishing Orkney and Little Perrine out of the pond, helped to bring things to a head. But from the very first—from the time Orkney came to Plainville—it has been our crowd that blocked him, that took the shine off him. The Shark downed him in ‘math,’ and Step made a monkey of him in Greek; but, most of all, we—this club—kept him from bossing the class. And for that, I believe, we ought to be proud to be responsible.”

“Some speech, Poke!” cried Herman Boyd.

“Shouldn’t wonder if there were something in the idea,” contributed the Trojan.

“Thanks, kind friends!” chuckled Poke; but quickly grew serious again. “In a nutshell, my notion is this: If Tom Orkney has been driven out of town, we’ve driven him—and a good job, too, from first to last!”

Two or three heads nodded vigorous assent; but there was a little pause. Step broke it.

“Sam, you’re keeping mighty quiet. What’s your opinion?”

Sam hesitated. “My opinion? I—why, I don’t know that I’d go quite as far as Poke goes, but——”

“But I’m right, in the main,” Poke insisted.

“Well, I guess we’ve been justified in everything we’ve done,” Sam told him. “I know I’ve tried to be fair. And, certainly, there has been evidence enough.”

“You’re right there!” cried the Trojan.

“Every time!” quoth Step.

“I vote aye,” said Herman Boyd.

“Well, everybody knows where I stand,” declared Poke. “We’re unanimous.”

“Hold on a minute!” The Shark rose from his chair, and came forward. “You fellows are talking about justification and evidence, eh? I suppose you’re sure Tom Orkney threw the stone through that window, for instance?”

“If he didn’t, who did?” demanded Step hotly.

“Answer my question first.”

“Certainly we’re sure it was Orkney.”

“I’m not, then,” said the Shark. “Fact is, I’m practically sure it wasn’t he.”

“Oh, come off your perch!”

“I won’t. You can call it a perch if you wish; but I know what I’m standing on, and that’s more than you can claim.”

“Give the infant prodigy and foster-brother of the Binomial Theorem his inning!” sang out Poke. “Go to it, old Four Eyes!”

The Shark, in no wise disturbed by the raillery, produced and unfolded a big sheet of paper, bearing a curious diagram and what appeared to be an elaborate calculation.

“The problem may be stated thus,” he began. “Given a weight of fifteen pounds, seven and nine-tenths ounces, what is the force required to propel it for a distance of thirty-five feet?”

“Thirty-five feet? How do you get that?” queried Step.

“The table stood eighteen feet from the window,” the Shark explained. “The table-top, which the stone struck, was two and a half feet from the floor. I estimate that the stone, if it had not struck the table, would have traveled at least five feet farther. Then it was thrown from a point at least twelve feet from the building—if you take the trouble to inspect the ground you will see that the thrower must have been so far from the wall to have secure footing. Now then, eighteen and five and twelve make thirty-five.”

“Go on!” urged Step.

“We have the weight of the object moved, and the distance moved. To aid us in plotting the curve of flight of the object, we have three known points, or, rather, two known points and one which can be closely approximated. We know the height from the floor at which the stone broke the window-pane—seven feet, nine inches. The table-top, as I have said, was thirty inches from the floor. The approximated point is the distance from the ground (or, rather, from the level of the floor projected for the calculation twelve feet beyond the window), at which the stone began its journey. This distance was not less than five feet nor more than six, allowing for a rise in the ground, and assuming that propulsion began about on a level with the thrower’s shoulder. But whether it was five or six——”

“Hold on! Hold on!” cried Step. “You’ve got me going!”

“Huh! Can’t be made clearer, can it?” expostulated the Shark. “But if you’ll look at the diagram——”

Step threw up his hands in burlesqued horror. “No, no! Take it away! I can’t bear the sight of the thing out of school hours!”

“Never mind about the pretty picture, Shark!” chimed in the Trojan.

“No; if we follow the tune, it’ll have to be by ear,” chuckled Poke.

The Shark shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I didn’t believe you fellows had the sense to understand the process,” he said frankly. “Still, I thought I’d give you a chance. But if I’ve got to jump to the result, I’ll tell you that, having secured my data, I proved conclusively that the stone was thrown by somebody with a lot more muscle than Tom Orkney has. Why, the low trajectory——”

Two or three of the boys were grinning. “There, there! Don’t call names!” jeered Herman Boyd.

The Shark’s glance went from one to another of his friends.

“Oh, well,” he said resignedly, “I guess it’s useless. Only you may be interested to know that the principal went over my work and verified it.”

“What! Didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No; of course not. Had a supposititious case, naturally.”

“Oh!” said two or three, in relieved chorus.

The Shark put the paper back in his pocket. “All right,” he said. “You haven’t disappointed me. I know your limitations.”

But Poke was disposed to argument. “Look here, Shark! You’re banking too much on your rules and formulas. Remember the professors who said a curved ball couldn’t be pitched, and proved it—on paper?”

“Different case—nothing to do with this one.”

“But you overlook the evidence of the cap,” declared Step.

“Bother the cap!” said the Shark, and snapped his fingers. “Doesn’t interest me. It might have got there a dozen ways. What I’m trying to tell you is something that’s absolutely established—mathematically established. And you won’t listen!”

“We might—if you’d just figure out who except Tom Orkney would have done the job.”

“Hang it, I’m no fortune-teller!” growled the Shark.

Again Step appealed to Sam. “What’s your notion? Don’t you still think the club is all right, and Orkney is all wrong?”

“I think,” said Sam, honestly and with full conviction, “I think the weight of the evidence is against him, in spite of the Shark’s calculations. I’ve tried not to be hasty——”

“That’s right—Safety First!” cried Poke.

“And so the Safety First Club is all right!” chimed in Step jubilantly.

CHAPTER XVI
SAM HAS A RUDE AWAKENING

“Wal, I dunno. Once there was an old feller that complained the eels didn’t squirm’s lively as they uster when he was a boy; but, somehow, I reckoned his memory was playin’ tricks with him. It’s the same way with the weather. All the oldest inhabitants’ll keep on tellin’ you the climate’s changin’, and losin’ its grip; but I guess, fust and last, there ain’t much difference. Why, when I was a youngster, they had a joke that this would be a rattlin’ good country if the sleighin’ didn’t get sorter thin for three months in the year; but I don’t recall makin’ snowballs on the Fourth of July. And, when you think it over, you’re likely to be enjoyin’ just about as much concentrated winter this minute as anybody ever really needed in these parts.”

Thus Lon Gates rambled on for the entertainment of Sam Parker, bustling about his work in the barn the while. It was a fine, clear morning, the air still and crisp, and the snow glittering in the bright sunshine.

“Maybe—but this is a bully day,” said Sam cheerfully.

There was a twinkle in Lon’s eye. “Lot better’n that other Saturday, when the hedgehog had all his spines on end, eh? Wal, the weather does make a pile o’ difference in the human feelin’s. And, as I was sayin’, we’ve got jest about enough winter to be real comfortable right this minute—plenty of snow for haulin’, and cold enough to fill the bill. Even zero when I got up this mornin’, and ’tain’t more’n ten above now. And it looks ’sif there wouldn’t be a thaw for a good spell. And that’ll help the lumbermen to get out their logs. Your father can tell you what that means to the fellers in the woods.”

“I’ve heard him talk about it,” said Sam. Mr. Parker was interested in several tracts of woodland; and though his son never had visited a lumber camp, he had some idea of the methods pursued.

“Ought to get him to take you on one of his trips,” Lon observed. “He’ll be makin’ one before long.”

“Wish he would!” said Sam.

Lon bustled into the harness-room. In a moment Sam heard a sharp exclamation of surprise; and out popped Lon, carrying a heavy collar with dangling traces.

“Jest look at that!” he stormed. “Suff’rin’ snakes! but that’s the wust yet! What skunk do you s’pose’d be mean enough to carve a brand new harness that way?”

The leather of the collar was deeply gashed in several places, and the traces were almost severed.

Sam made close examination of the cuts.

“Well, Lon,” he said, “I can’t prove it, of course; but I believe that job was done by the same person who left the water running, and let Maggie’s clean clothes down into the mud, and has been raising all the rest of the hob around here.”

“Maybe. Same line o’ business. But who’d do it?”

Sam hesitated. “I—I—well, I’ve had a suspicion all along, but lately it has become practically a certainty.”

“Speak up! This thing’s past endurin’. Who’s the party?”

“Well, everything points to one person.” Sam was trying to show judicial moderation.

“Who’s he?” asked Lon impatiently.

“Tom Orkney,” said Sam.

“What! The kid that ran away?”

“Yes.”

Lon looked puzzled. “Sure, be you?”

“Morally sure.”

“Wal, I ain’t, then,” said Lon. “Why ain’t I? Orkney’s been gone two-three days, hain’t he?”

“He has.”

“Then we’ve got to leave him out. This job was done last night.”

It was Sam’s turn to betray bewilderment. “But—but we know he’d be ready to do it, and there’s nobody else who would. And——”

“No; you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree!” Lon declared. “I was lookin’ over the harnesses yesterday, and there wa’n’t even a good-sized scratch on this one. So ’twa’n’t Orkney, Sam—not unless he come back to do this ’special.”

“But he did the other things,” Sam insisted.

“Swear to it, could you?”

“Why—why, I could—almost.”

“‘Almost’ don’t go—not in swearin’ folks are guilty.”

“I know that. But we’ve had a lot of evidence——”

“What kind o’ evidence?”

Sam frowned. “Why—why, it has been circumstantial evidence, but there has been a lot of it. And Orkney has had a chronic grouch all along. And he has had it in for all my crowd. And, finally, he ran away. That’s the same as confessing, isn’t it?”

“Confessin’ what?”

“Oh, everything,” said Sam vaguely.

Lon took a moment for thought.

“Sam, I can’t help thinkin’ there’s a mistake somewhere. Now, you mean to be square and fair, and so do your chums, but you haven’t liked this Orkney. I dunno’s there’s any reason why you should like him, but that ain’t the question. I plumb despise a rattlesnake, but I’ve got no call to insist he’s stealin’ my fire-wood. Follow the argyment, do you?”

“Yes; but——”

“Hold on! Wa’n’t there nothin’ nowhere along the line to make you doubt if you were right?”

“Nothing,” Sam insisted; then recalled the Shark’s contention, and made amendment. “There was nothing, that is, except that Willy Reynolds figured it out that Orkney couldn’t have thrown a stone that smashed a window in our club-house. And the Shark—Willy, I mean—is a crank on mathematics. And we found a cap of Orkney’s——”

“One he’d been wearin’ that evenin’?”

“Well, nobody saw him wearing it—nobody saw him, for that matter; for he ducked and ran. And though a face showed outside of the window, the fellow who noticed it didn’t recognize it. But the cap belonged to Orkney.”

Lon did not appear to be deeply impressed.

“Thing like that depends on a lot of other things,” said he.

“But Orkney didn’t try to deny anything.”

“Oh, put it up to him, good and straight, did you?”

“Why—why, in a way.”

“Jesso! But you didn’t say, ‘Now, Orkney, what did you do this thing, and that thing, and the other thing for?’”

“Well, I hinted at things I was going to thrash him for, and——”

Lon laughed. “Ho-ho! Now we’re gettin’ down to cases. You said, ‘I’m goin’ to lick you,’ and he said, ‘Come on and try it.’ Sam, it’s been a good while since I was a boy, but I guess that’s jest about what I’d ’a’ said to a feller of my own size that promised me a hidin’. And I wouldn’t ’a’ asked a bill o’ particulars.”

Sam took a turn the length of the barn floor and back. Lon certainly was presenting a new aspect of the case, a disturbing aspect, unsettling, destructive of comfortable confidence.

“Look here, Lon! What makes you take sides against me?” the boy asked querulously.

“I don’t,” was the curt reply.

“But——”

“Wal, I’ll explain. First place, such didoes as somebody has been cuttin’ up round here don’t quite fit in with what a feller like this Orkney would be likely to do. Maybe he’s a surly customer, but, after all, he’s had good bringin’ up. Second place, bein’ away from town, he couldn’t have chopped up the harness last night. Third place, I’m gettin’ kind of a hunch that I may be able to dig up a clue or two.”

“Connecting somebody else with the case?” queried Sam incredulously.

“Yep.”

“But who——”

“Don’t ask me that, Sam, till I’ve looked around a bit. If I’m right—well, you’ll say it’s the queerest piece of business you ever heard tell of.”

“Oh, don’t stop there!”

“Got to. It’s kinder shapin’ up promisin’, but I ain’t sure. And in a matter like this it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

There was a wry smile on Sam’s face. “Safety First!” he said in a tone which made Lon gaze at him curiously.

“Jest what do you mean?” he asked.

But Sam turned away without answering. Indeed, to make full explanation would have been difficult; for he could have said little more than that he was experiencing a peculiar sensation, to be likened to that of one rudely awakened from a complacent dream.

CHAPTER XVII
MORE SURPRISES

Sam walked out of the barn without any clear notion of what he ought to do; but when he reached the gate his step quickened.

It was Saturday; the morning was his own. It had flashed upon him that he could not do better than investigate the matters which had first seemed to be so conclusive of Orkney’s guilt. Granting that Tom probably had had nothing to do with the damage to the harness, he would attempt to remove all doubt from the value of the best piece of evidence for the prosecution, so to speak. This was the cap found by Step near the club-house.

When Master Jones had snatched the cap from Orkney’s head, and thrown it over a fence, it had dropped upon the dead turf in old Mrs. Benton’s yard. The club’s theory was that the owner had recovered it subsequently and secretly. It remained for Sam to try to discover what really had happened.

Mrs. Benton, if advanced in years, was active and alert. She answered her door-bell in person, and led Sam into her spotlessly neat sitting-room.

The boy plunged at once into his errand. Had she chanced to see a cap lying on her lawn, and did she know what had become of it?

Mrs. Benton nodded vivaciously. A cap—a boy’s cap? Of course, she remembered.

“When I looked out of my window that morning, there it was in plain sight,” she said. “And I must say it looked awfully careless and shiftless—I don’t know what strangers would have thought of the folks living in this house. So I went right out and brought the cap in.”

“And—and—and that was in the morning?” Sam faltered.

“In the morning—early.”

“Somebody came to claim it?”

“Nobody came. I declare! I don’t see how young folks get so regardless of things these days! And that was a perfectly good cap—that is, it would have been perfectly good if it hadn’t been left out in the damp all night.”

“Is it still here, ma’am?”

“Bless you, no, child! It’s gone.”

Sam leaned forward in his eagerness. “Gone where, ma’am?”

“Into the rubbish can, of course.”

“Oh!” said Sam, and sank back in his chair.

Mrs. Benton’s eyebrows rose a trifle. “Bless me, but you wouldn’t expect me to keep my house cluttered up with all sorts of other people’s odds and ends, would you?”

“No, ma’am,” Sam hastened to assure her. “But—but did it stay in the can?”

Mrs. Benton met question with question. “Why? Was it yours?”

“Oh, no,” said Sam. “It wasn’t mine, but I—I—well, I was sort of—sort of interested in it. Do you know what became of it?”

“That’s just what I don’t know.”

“Oh!” said Sam again.

The lady did not miss the disappointment in his tone.

“Somebody took it out of the can,” she explained. “It wasn’t the garbage collector, for that wasn’t his day to come ’round. But I remember that I disposed of the cap after breakfast, and that, when I carried out some potato peelings an hour or two later, the cap had disappeared. There often are people prowling through the alley, you know—tramps, some of ’em—and it was a pretty good cap, after all, if a body wasn’t over-particular. And you say it wasn’t yours?”

“No, ma’am,” said Sam, and rose a bit hastily. “But I’m very much obliged for the information.”

Mrs. Benton followed him to the door. “You’re thanking me for very little,” she remarked. “But if it’ll be any help to you, in whatever you are after, I can add that the cap was taken out of the can somewhere between nine and ten o’clock that morning.”

And in the hour mentioned, as Sam was quite aware, Tom Orkney was fully accounted for, having been in his place in school!

Sam’s step was slow as he moved away from the house, and his brow was furrowed. Undeniably the case against Orkney was weakening. Equally the case for the Safety First Club was tottering.

There came to Sam unhappy recollections of talk about the chain of proofs and its various links, among them the cruelty to Little Perrine. Well, there was nothing for it but to go on with the inquiry he had begun.

Little Perrine, he was told, was very much better, and would be glad to see him. The convalescent was sitting up in bed, and was in excellent spirits.

“Hullo, Sam!” he called out gaily. “Gee, but it’s good of you to look me up! Sit down, and tell me all about how you pulled Tom Orkney and me out of the pond. The folks won’t tell me half enough.”

Sam drew a chair close to the bed.

“Oh, it isn’t much of a yarn,” he said modestly. “I happened to have a plank, so it was no trick at all.”

Little Perrine smiled. “That’s what you say! Doesn’t match the stories other people tell—and I guess they’re nearer the real truth. Everybody declares you did a star job. Funny, isn’t it, that I don’t remember anything about your part of it? One instant Tom Orkney was grabbing for me, and trying to drag me back, and the next—crash! There I was in the water, and Tom had jumped in after me, and was holding me up. Then everything was blurred, and there was a queer singing in my ears—and the next I knew, here I was, in bed. And then things got to whirling round, and I was going through it all again and again. Jiminy! but I bet I yelled like a good fellow!”

“Pretty close call for a kid like you,” said Sam.

“Poof! I’m tough!” insisted the boy. “I’d have been all right—crawled out myself, I would, if it hadn’t been for that sleepy feeling that came over me. But it was all right, anyway. There was old Orkney to hold my head out of water, and you were coming on the run. But, as it is, Orkney’ll have a good laugh on me, I tell you.”

Sam grasped the fact that Perrine had not been informed of Tom’s disappearance.

“Oh, so he—he’ll have the laugh on you?” he asked uncertainly.

“Sure! You see, he’d been telling me to keep away from the thin places. When he came along I was doing stunts—seeing how close to a blow-hole I could skate, you know; and he made a fuss about it. Why, he grabbed me, and lugged me back to shore, and tried to make me promise to quit the funny business. But I got away from him, and beat it for the dam. I didn’t think he’d dare chase me, he weighs so much more than I do. But he pelted after me, and he’d have got me if I hadn’t kept dodging. And then—well, then the thing happened. But old Orkney was a brick, wasn’t he?”

Sam strove to make fitting reply, but achieved only a choking sound.

“Why, what’s the matter?” demanded Little Perrine. “And what makes you look so queer?”

Sam wiped his forehead with his handkerchief; he had a sense of fighting for time.

“Oh, looking—looking queer, was I?”

Little Perrine grinned. “Say! It was as if I’d hit you between the eyes and dazed you.”

Sam laughed, but it was a forced laugh and unconvincing.

“I guess this room’s pretty warm,” said he, and got upon his feet. “I’ll have to be going. You’ll be out, I suppose, in a day or two?”

“Yes. But if you meet Orkney, tell him to come to see me. You wouldn’t mind taking the message, would you? Of course, I know he hasn’t been pals with your crowd, but after all that’s happened——”

“If I should see Tom Orkney I’d be only too glad to deliver your message,” said Sam heavily.

Another link in that famous chain had been fractured. By the testimony of the best possible witness Orkney had not imperiled Little Perrine’s life by driving him upon the thin ice; but, on the contrary, had risked his own to protect the younger and frailer boy.

With dragging step Sam went back to Lon Gates.

“I might as well speak plainly, Lon,” he said. “I’m all unsettled in my ideas.”

Lon regarded him keenly. “So? Ain’t that Orkney the all-round cut-up you thought he was?”

“I—I guess I’ll have to take back some of the things I said.”

“So?” Lon repeated.

“Yes—so!” said Sam with more spirit. “And since it’s so, and since somebody must have made all the mischief, and since it isn’t likely Orkney was the guilty one—why, Lon, I’d amazingly like to know whom you suspect.”

The hired man rubbed his chin. “Wal, I dunno. As things was, I didn’t intend to say nothin’ more till I was surer of my ground. But, seein’ how you’ve kinder cooled down and come to be ready to accept the light o’ reason, maybe I might’s well breathe a whisper or two of what the little birds may, or may not, have been tellin’ me.”

“This has been a day of surprises,” said Sam, “but I’m ready for some more. Fire ahead!”

Lon came a step nearer. They were alone in the barn, but he dropped his voice almost to a whisper.

“Wal, then, I will. Remember that day you went out and potted Major Bates?” he began.

CHAPTER XVIII
LON DISCUSSES CROOKED THINKING

Perhaps you have had the trying and distressing experience of discovering, of a sudden and without warning, that what you devoutly had hoped was a closely guarded secret appeared to be no secret at all. If you have suffered such a shock, you will understand Sam’s sensations. The unfortunate affair of Marlow woods was by no means ancient history, but gossip about it had dwindled, and he had come to believe that the town had set it down as one of those mysteries which never are solved. Yet here was Lon, referring to it as nonchalantly as if it were matter of common knowledge!

For a moment Sam stared, wide eyed and open mouthed, at his ally. Mentally and physically he was overcome. Speech failed him, and he sank weakly upon a feed-box, beside which he had been standing.

There was a touch of sympathy in Lon’s manner. “Sorry if I’ve rubbed your fur the wrong way, Sam. Course, though, when you asked me——”

Sam found tongue. “How did you know? Who told you?”

“Lot o’ folks.”

“A lot!” gasped Sam.

“Yep; a lot. Bill Marlow, and your father, and Maggie, and the Major, and you——”

“Me!” In his amazement Sam was careless of grammar. “Me? Why, I never breathed a syllable!”

Lon grinned. “Wal, you wa’n’t exactly chatty; that’s a fact. But I guess ’twas the things you didn’t say that told me most. Same way with your father. Didn’t know, did you, that I saw him one mornin’ swabbin’ out that gun of his? And he hadn’t been huntin’, and he wasn’t goin’ huntin’. Then there was Maggie. One day we was discussin’ your life and public services, and I sorter gloomed about you, and she flew at me like a hen protectin’ her last chick from a hawk; and then I knew well enough you’d been in some particular big scrape, and she knew, or guessed, more or less what ’twas. Then there was the Major——”

“The Major!”

“Sure! ’Nother case of what you might call eloquent silence. When he turned Peter Groche loose, what more did he do? Nothin’! What more did he say? Nothin’! And the Major ain’t the party to let somebody put a few buckshot into him and grin and bear it uncomplainin’. He’d ’a’ railroaded Peter Groche to jail with all the pleasure in life, and he’d ’a’ done the same thing to any other man that played he was an old buck. But the Major’s a good sport, after all; he hates to fuss with anybody that ain’t his size. See where the argyment’s leadin’, don’t you? So, when you ’fessed up——”

“When I ’fessed up!” Sam seemed to be capable of nothing but repetitions.

Lon chuckled a bit complacently. “Wal, Sam, that’s where I’m on dead reckonin’. But when I’d chewed it all over a few times, it struck me that you was jest the kind of a feller to own up when you saw somebody else was in trouble for what you’d done; and that the Major was jest the old hardshell to be tickled by your givin’ a square deal to that miserable critter, Groche. Course, I’ve kept my eyes and ears open, and I’ve been down town nights, and I’ve talked with folks, and I’ve picked up little things here and there that fitted together. And so I got four, not by puttin’ two with two, but by addin’ an eighth, and three-sixteenths, and a half, and three-quarters, and so on and so on. And—wal, that’s about all of that chapter.”

“Lon, you’re a wonder!”

“Pretty nigh right, wa’n’t I?”

“Nearer than that.”

“Wal, you see, I knew one Sam Parker like a book. And when something happened one mornin’, and he dodged talkin’ about where he was jest then or what he was doin’—wal, I had a mighty good start on Shylock Holmesin’.”

“Sherlock Holmesing,” Sam corrected mechanically.

“Same family, anyhow.”

There was a pause. Then said Sam:

“Lon, I didn’t wish to keep the truth from you especially. If I’d talked about the affair, there’s nobody who’d have heard more about it than you would. But I was advised not to confide in anybody.”

Lon nodded. “Right enough! And I wouldn’t have yipped if, somehow, things hadn’t worked around as they have. And I jest had to let the cat out o’ the bag if I was goin’ to point out the dog I believe has been snappin’ at us. You want to find out who ’tis I suspect, don’t you?”

“Most certainly!”

“Peter Groche!” said Lon emphatically.

“Peter—Peter Groche?” Astonishment again possessed Sam. “Why—why should he have a grudge against me? Didn’t I save him? Didn’t I keep him out of jail? Didn’t they have what seemed to be a complete case against him?”

“Like enough.”

“Then, too,” urged Sam, “he could have had no notion that I was mixed up in the case. The Major didn’t tell him; nobody else told him. But if he had known, he ought to have been grateful. Either way the thing isn’t reasonable.”

“Huh! Peter ain’t, neither!” grunted Lon.

“But what’s that got to do with——”

“HOLD HARD, THERE!”

Lon loved an argument. “Hold hard, there!” said he. “To get at things you’ve got to start right. And it ain’t startin’ right to talk about Peter Groche and reasonable things in the same breath. Look here, now!” Lon picked up an empty liniment bottle, and stood it on its neck; whereupon the bottle fell over on its side. “See what’s happened, don’t you?”

“But it was upside down.”

“Exactly! But that’s the way with Peter Groche—with his brains, I mean. Your mistake is tryin’ to figure on him as a reasonable bein’. But Groche, for years and years, has been like that bottle—all upside down. He’s been carousin’, and loafin’, and stealin’. All his thinkin’ has got warped, and twisted, and crooked.”

“Then he’s crazy!”

“Not quite that. But he ain’t what folks call normal. Oh, I know the breed!”

Sam racked his memory. “You mean he’s a—a degenerate?” he queried.

“That’s the ticket! He’s like pizen ivy: he began by bein’ no good, and he’s got wuss and more of a nuisance the more he spreads out.”

Sam shook his head doubtfully. “All the same, I don’t follow your argument, Lon. If there’s anything to it, we’d have to figure that Peter had some cause to suppose I was in the scrape; for we might as well drop the notion that, all of a sudden, he’d begin to persecute me, unless he had some tip. But I’ve told you I’m sure nobody gave him one. And as I didn’t see him in the woods, he wouldn’t have seen me there.”

“You can’t prove that,” Lon declared. “He’s an old hand at deer huntin’, out o’ season as well as in; and he keeps his eyes peeled mighty sharp. It’s ten to one he had a peek at you, and knew within five rods where you were, when the Major was hit. So it was an easy guess for him, when he was arrested, that you’d figgered in the combination.”

“But——” Sam began.

Lon interrupted him. “You listen, son! I’ll bet you he not only saw you, but believed you saw him. And he was keepin’ tabs on you and on the Major, too—’tain’t a bad idea, at that, for anybody in the woods in the deer season to watch his neighbors and what they’re about. Wal, then, we have Peter, as keen as a weasel, and full as vicious—we have him, I say, with his eyes and ears busy. Bang! goes your gun. Peter hears it. He waits for what’ll happen—always a chance that if you’ve really sighted a buck, the critter may come his way. Wal, again, in a minute or two, something does come, but it ain’t nothin’ on four legs. It’s the Major, and the Major’s fightin’ mad. Somebody’s winged him, and he thinks it’s Peter; but Peter don’t need no map to show where you come in.”

“But I——”

“Let me finish! Peter, bein’ Peter, acts accordin’. He jumps to a conclusion—and that’s that you’ve done what he’d do himself, if he was in your shoes. He figgers you’ve blazed away, and run up to find a dead deer, and come on the Major, dazed and ragin’, and grabbed the chance to put the blame off on somebody else. He credits you with knowin’ the reputation of the Groche fam’ly hereabouts, and with settin’ the Major on a false trail that leads straight to one Peter o’ that name. Then, havin’ set the Major goin’, you vamoose—and that’s what Peter Groche would ’a’ done himself, if he’d been in your fix. What say to that, Sam?”

“I—I don’t know what to say. Only, when the sheriff arrested him, why didn’t he deny——”

Once more Lon stopped the boy in mid-sentence. “There you go again—forgettin’ Peter ain’t like most folks! It’s where the crooked thinkin’—and the crooked livin’—comes in. The Major’s in a passion, and Peter has jawed back till he’s ’bout as mad himself. Most likely the sheriff can’t make head nor tail o’ what he’s growlin’. And Peter’s got his reputation, and everybody knows he’s made threats against the Major, and one barrel of his gun has been fired. So the sheriff thinks it’s a pretty clear case, and loads Peter in his wagon, and hauls him to the lock-up. By that time Peter, mebbe, has been workin’ his crooked wits. He sees well enough nobody’d believe him just then if he said he didn’t do it, so he doesn’t waste his breath that way. And mebbe, too, he gets a notion the case against him won’t be so all-fired convincin’ when it comes to a trial, the evidence bein’ circumstantial, you see. Perhaps he’s schemin’ for damages for false arrest—and then, all of a sudden, they turn him loose. And so he skulks off, with a grudge against everybody, but a particular one against Sam Parker, Esq., who, he believes, lied about him to save himself. Sense, ain’t it—Peter’s kind o’ sense, that is?”

Sam pondered. “Why—why—perhaps.”

Lon wagged his head sagely. “Wal, I’m tellin’ you, Sam, a grudge is jest the one thing in this life Peter’ll live up to. He means to take it out o’ your hide. Now, when things went wrong about the place, and kept on goin’ wrong, and I saw they weren’t due to your footlessness, I had half a notion some kid might be at the bottom of the trouble. But then I began to miss things from the barn—a spare bit, then a wrench, then a new sponge; and I’ll admit that did sort o’ suggest Groche’s manners. And weren’t you tellin’ me a while ago that one of your crowd figgered it out that no boy could have chucked that boulder through your club-house window? Wal, Groche could ’a’ done it. He’s as strong as an ox, confound him! Come now! Piece it all together, and own up it makes quite a case!”

“Perhaps it does,” Sam admitted.

“But I don’t convince you completely?”

Sam hesitated. “Why—why, I don’t know, Lon. I’ve had a lot of jolts to-day, and I’ve got to do some thinking before I can be sure of anybody.... Or of anything!” he added, after an instant’s pause.

CHAPTER XIX
OF DUELS AND CONSCIENCE

The club received such report as Sam felt free to make of his investigation with interest rather than with regret for its share in the misfortunes of Tom Orkney.

If Sam had told the whole story, including the affair in Marlow woods and Lon’s suspicions of Peter Groche, the crowd, doubtless, would have buzzed with excitement, and, incidentally, felt some sympathy for Orkney; but, given merely new light on the matter of the cap and a revised version of the incident at the pond, the boys, as a rule, fell back upon the declaration that Tom was a “grouch,” anyway, and declined to take to themselves any especial culpability. Somebody had committed the depredations at the Parker place; somebody had smashed the club-house window. Maybe Orkney hadn’t done these things, but wasn’t he a chronic sorehead? Of course, it was hard luck for him to be deemed Little Perrine’s persecutor instead of protector, but the misunderstanding was general and not the particular error of the Safety First Club.

Even the Shark, who might have spoken from the text of “I told you so,” let the opportunity pass. His calculations of the flight of the boulder had started him upon an agreeable inquiry into the subject of projectiles, and, as Poke declared, he was as far in the clouds as if he had been sent there by one of the big mortars about which he was reading.

In the club’s opinion that there was nothing to be done, Sam was in a way to coincide, though he would have phrased it that nothing could be done at present. Yet something should be done. This was clear in his mind, though he seemed to be unable to hit upon a practical suggestion.

No news came of the missing Orkney.

Lon Gates, playing detective at every opportunity, confessed that he found nothing either to shake or to confirm his theory of the guilt of Peter Groche. The man, after hanging about town as usual, had dropped out of sight, leaving no word of the destination for which he was bound.

Then came Christmas and a fortnight’s vacation, and Sam shared cheerfully in the festivities of the season. He was in excellent health; he liked fun; he indulged vigorously in winter sports; his appetite remained admirable. But, for all that, there was a change in the boy, quite unobserved by his father, who was held by business cares; vaguely felt by his friends, and distinctly marked by his mother. Mrs. Parker took occasion to have several long talks with her son. She was sure that he had something on his mind, but all her tact did not lead him to confidences. Sam understood her solicitude, and was grateful, if reticent. A fellow who was trying to prove his self-reliance, he reasoned, must work out his problems for himself. Not that he would have declined counsel from older heads—probably he would have welcomed a chance to accept his father’s advice, the affair appearing to him to be peculiarly one for masculine consideration; but he would not seek it.

Mr. Parker, as has been related, was very busy. For one thing, he was arranging a trip into the woods with a capitalist from New York, and plans for the expedition took up much of his time. For another, his method of dealing with Sam on probation was to interfere as little as possible with the boy’s affairs. Sam’s school reports were good; he seemed to be avoiding scrapes; he had distinguished himself in the rescue of Tom Orkney and Little Perrine. On the whole, the father was well pleased with the situation as he observed it.

Sam himself was not pleased. It is not good to have a sense of uncertainty, and of baffled intentions to do right. On the one hand was his remembrance of his precautions in trying to follow out his motto of “Safety First”; on the other, an uneasy conviction that Tom Orkney had suffered unjustly. Sometimes one seemed to outweigh the other; again he vacillated miserably between the two opinions. And one day, not long after Christmas, when his doubts were assailing him sorely, he recalled the Major’s invitation, and sought diversion in a visit to the veteran.

The Major received him with marked favor, cracked a joke or two about his big game record, and began to make the round of what was really a fine collection of arms. There were flint-lock muskets and fowling-pieces; muzzle-loading and breech-loading rifles; cutlasses, sabers and bayonets; huge, old-fashioned horse pistols, revolvers and even a modern, compact, automatic weapon. Of these the Major spoke briefly; but he lingered longer over a case in which lay a brace of pistols, very old in pattern, but of exquisite workmanship.

“I wonder, Sam,” he said, “if you ever have seen such fellows as these? What do you think they are?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” Sam answered.

“Well, what do you imagine they were used for?”

“I haven’t a notion.”

The Major wagged his head. “My boy, it’s a testimonial to the progress of the world that you haven’t a notion. Time was, I’m sorry to say, when a fine, upstanding lad like you would have known only too well what these were and how they were used. These are dueling pistols, sir!”

“Oh!” cried Sam, and bent over the case with increased interest. “And—and were they ever—ever——”

“They were,” said the Major drily. “Oh, yes—more than once. Genuine article, I do assure you! But that sort of thing is over and done with, fortunately.”

Sam straightened his back. “I’ve read about duels, of course. And some of the books speak as if there must have been lots of them.”

“Too many!” snorted the Major. “That’s perfectly true, sir. Principle was all wrong, but it took centuries to make the discovery. Honest men, honorable men mistakenly believed that the way to do justice and to accept justice was by killing each other or standing up to be killed. All wrong; all wrong, sir! The law is the law, and to it we must look for redress for injuries.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sam, a deal impressed by this testimony from one commonly reputed to be a stubborn and unyielding antagonist. “Only—only”—a curious thought had thrust itself upon him—“only, can you always be sure of what the law is? I mean, that is, can you always be sure of what you ought to do?”

“Eh?” The bushy eyebrows came together as if the Major were perplexed by the question.

“Can you always find a law—or a rule—that applies?”

“Well, a law is general in its terms, of course. And you’ve some special instance in mind, haven’t you?”

Sam hesitated. “I—I—well, I’m thinking of a case in which a fellow acted on what he thought was full justification, and found, afterward, that—well, that there had been a lot of mistakes.”

“Honest mistakes?”

“Yes, sir. Only——”

“Pardon me!” the Major interrupted. “Let me cite a case. Once a friend of mine, who had to carry a great deal of money, was set upon by masked and armed men. In what he fully believed was self-defense he shot and killed one of them. It proved that the attack was the work of rash practical jokers. My friend was acquitted, justly. Now, was his case like that which you are considering?”

Again Sam hesitated. “Yes—and no, sir. My case isn’t quite so clear.”

“Little prejudice to begin with—biased judgment?” queried the Major keenly.

“That’s the trouble, sir,” said Sam frankly. “The evidence looked all right, but how can I be certain that it ought to have seemed so?”

“Difficult!” said the Major tersely.

“Well, sir, what would you do if you were in my—if you were in the fix?”

The Major put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “My boy,” he said very gravely, “you’re dealing with a problem which neither I nor anybody else can solve for you. It is a problem to be settled by law, but the law is that of your own conscience. Now, I submit, the court of conscience is supplemental to the courts of the land, but it is severer in its judgments. The other courts may give you the benefit of a doubt, but hardly the court of conscience. And if there were prejudice——” There he checked himself. “No; I’ll say no more; for I’ve no right to seek to influence you unduly. You must reach your own decision for yourself.”

“I understand, sir,” said Sam, with a gravity matching the Major’s.

The pressure on his shoulder increased. “If I’m a judge of human nature, young man,” the Major declared, “you will settle this thing for yourself, and you’ll settle it right!”

CHAPTER XX
SAM MAKES A SPEECH

It was late in the afternoon of Sam’s visit to the Major, and the club members were gathered in their house.

Sam, silent and preoccupied, was sitting in one corner. The Shark, in another, was somewhat skeptically regarding Step Jones, who was describing, for the benefit of the assembled company, a number of big fish that day caught through the ice of the mill-pond. Step’s arms were long, and his imagination was active.

“Gee, but those pickerel were regular old granddaddies!” he averred. “Smallest was this long.” He spread his hands. “Then came two or three about this size.” Another illustration. “Then there was the biggest.” And Step’s hands were moved farther apart.

“Aw, come off!” jeered the Trojan. “You’re thinking of ’em all, put end to end.”

“I’m not,” Step insisted. “What’ll you bet ’twasn’t this long?”

“Huh! You’re dreaming!”

“Dreaming nothing! Didn’t I see the fish?”

“You didn’t see any five-foot pickerel.”

“Tell you I saw one the length I’m showing you.”

Up sprang the Shark, and strode across the room, pulling a tape-measure from his pocket as he advanced. A good deal to Step’s embarrassment, he insisted upon making careful measure of the distance between the outstretched palms.

“Four feet, three and seven-eighths inches,” he announced. “Umph! Some fish, Step; yes, some fish!”

Step lost no time in lowering his arms. “Well, you fellows can josh if you want to; but you can’t prove I’m wrong.”

There was a shout of derision.

“No, sir—I won’t take off an inch!” declared Step.

The Shark grinned. “All right, Step. Only that couldn’t have been a pickerel; it must have been a muskellunge.”

“’Longe in the mill-pond! Sure thing!” snickered Poke.

“No, no,” Herman Boyd put in. “Step’s mixed—that’s all. He’s thinking of what Sam caught—Little Perrine and Tom Orkney.”

Over in his corner Sam roused at the name. “Who’s talking about Orkney?” he called out.

“I am,” said Herman.

“Any news of him?”

“No, thank fortune!” Herman was not an especially vindictive fellow; but he had disliked Tom exceedingly.

Sam rose, and came over to the group about Step.

“Listen, you chaps; I’ve something to say about Orkney,” he began.

“Speech, speech!” shouted Poke.

“Very well; I’ll make a speech,” said Sam. “You may not agree with me, but I’m going to give you the truth as I see it. We’re wrong in this Orkney business; we’ve been wrong all along.”

There was a ripple of dissent.

“Oh, I say, Sam!” protested Poke. “That’s going too far.”

“Not at all,” Sam insisted. “We were wrong in charging Orkney with a lot of things he never did.”

“I know—you’ve harped on that before.”

“Well, I’ll harp on it again.”

“But we thought he did ’em. He was mean enough to do ’em, if they’d occurred to him.”

“Go to it, Poke!” cried Step. “Now you’re shouting!”

Sam frowned. “Here!” he said impatiently. “Do I get my chance to talk, or don’t I?”

Poke made a burlesque bow. “Sir, I yield the floor,” said he.

“I say we made a mistake, and I mean it,” Sam went on. “Not liking Orkney, we forgot the old rule that you’ve got to hold anybody innocent of a charge till he’s proved guilty. Don’t stop me! You’ll try to argue that we had evidence against him, but, as we know now, it wasn’t proof, by a long shot. There was that business of the cap. Did we investigate it? We didn’t. If any one of us had taken the trouble to ask Mrs. Benton about it at the time, there’d be another story to tell. Then every one of us jumped to the conclusion that Orkney came near drowning Little Perrine. Evidence? We hadn’t a bit.”

“But people said——” Poke began.

“Confound what people said! They knew no more than we did. They were jumping to conclusions, too. But we were saying things on our own account. Right here, in this room, Poke told us that we were responsible for blocking Orkney’s ambitions from the first, for taking the shine off him; that the Shark eclipsed him in mathematics and Step skimmed the cream from the Greek; that the crowd of us kept him from bossing the class. And all of us chimed in, and said it was so, and patted our own backs, and——”

“Hold on, Sam!” the Shark broke in. “How’d we do that? We’re not contortionists.”

“Hang it all! Don’t interrupt! You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know; I infer,” corrected the Shark. “Be accurate, be accurate!”

Sam’s temper flared. “What’s the matter, anyway? Don’t you want to hear me?”

“I do,” said the Shark calmly. “You’re talking sense. Therefore use sensible language.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Sam promised, “but listen to me, anyway. What I’m getting at is that, as Poke had it, if Orkney was driven out of town, we had a lot to do with the driving. We called it a good job, but was it? It was not! We didn’t play fair; we didn’t give him a square deal. He was entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and we always counted the doubt against him. I know, I know what you’re thinking—he was a cub, and a chronic grouch, and a trouble maker; but the ugly fact remains that we accused him of a lot of things he didn’t do, and had no intention of doing. And I say, in such a case, it’s up to us to see that, at last, he gets a square deal. I don’t say it so much for his sake as for our own.”

“Umph! Matter of self-respect?” queried the Shark.

“Just that!” said Sam emphatically.

For a moment there was silence.

“But, Sam!” ventured Herman Boyd. “Aren’t you piling it on this crowd? Suppose Orkney was—er—er—os—os—what’s that word I want?”

“Ostracized?” suggested Step.

“That’s it—ostracized. Well, suppose that was what happened to Orkney. We didn’t do it—all. The whole school had a hand.”

“That doesn’t relieve us of responsibility for our part.”

“You’re right, Sam,” said Poke very soberly; for like the others he felt the influence of Sam’s earnestness. “You’re right. We’ve got some responsibility. We were boasting of it the other day, and we can’t crawfish and shirk it now. But what’s the practical thing? What can we do about it?”

“That’s it! What can we do?” echoed Step and the Trojan.

“We can talk, argue,” Sam explained. “We can tell people Orkney has been misjudged. We can spread everywhere the truth about Little Perrine.”

“Well, I’ll go so far, gladly,” said Step.

“Same here!” cried the Trojan.

“Of course,” agreed Poke.

The Shark was frowning slightly. “If you fellows had listened to my demonstration about the flight of the boulder, you wouldn’t have to listen now to Sam. But it’s better late than never.”

“Oh, cut the crowing!” said Step testily.

“Might as well—it’ll be the same story over again next time I try to put anything before you in black and white.”

Step turned to Sam. “I don’t like Orkney,” he said. “I never expect to like him. But I’ll promise to help set him right with the school. If there were any way to find him and bring him back, I’d jump at the chance.”

“Guess you can make that promise for the whole club!” exclaimed Poke.

“Sure!” cried the Trojan. The others nodded, a bit solemnly.

“Then we’ll consider it a definite agreement,” said Sam. “If any of us get a clue, a tip, a hint, the whole club will pull together in whatever may be done.”

Step laughed rather vaguely and glanced at the Shark.

“What are the mathematical odds against getting a clue, old Headlights? Figure ’em out for us.”

The Shark’s lip curled. “Can’t! Problem’s all unknown quantities. But you may have bull luck. It’s always coming to blooming idiots.”

Sam interposed in the interest of peace.

“Stow the joshing, fellows! We’ve reached an understanding, anyway. It’s settled that if anybody gets news of Orkney the club is to share it. I admit I don’t know where it can come from, but I’ll hope for it, all the same.”

Sam spoke guardedly enough, and with no suspicion that at that very moment Lon Gates lay in wait for him. And Lon had news, interesting certainly, and perhaps important.

CHAPTER XXI
LON PLAYS DETECTIVE

“See that, sonny?” Lon, having captured Sam at the gate and led him to the privacy of the barn, had taken a wrench from a shelf and was displaying the implement with much complacency. “’Member it? Ought to! It’s the wrench I told you the other day was lost, strayed or stolen.”

“Oh!” said Sam. “And so you found it?”

Lon chuckled. “Wal, I did sort o’ stumble on it, as you might say. Only there was more’n plain stumblin’ involved, seein’ as how I had to take it away from Peter Groche. And Peter don’t willingly give up what ain’t his—not so long as he has his health.”

“Then Peter’s turned up again!”

“He’s turned up—this afternoon. Guess he’s turned down again, though, before this. I’ll tell you how ’twas.”

“Wait a minute! If he had the wrench, he’d stolen it from us. If he stole it, there’s no doubt left that he played all the other tricks!”

Lon thrust a hand into the bosom of his coat, and struck an attitude.

“Now what do you think o’ me as a sleuth? Ain’t I a reg’lar Shylock Holmes?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” corrected Sam.

“Oh, wal, Shylock’s the name that sort o’ sticks in my head. Guess he must ’a’ been Sherlock’s brother. But then there was Hannibal, too.”

Sam threw up his hands in mock despair. “Go on! Give me the yarn!”

“Wal, me ’n’ Hannibal was goin’ down-town to do an errand for your ma, and we cut across by Lane’s blacksmith shop. The door was open. I was for paradin’ by, unnoticin’, but Hannibal began to growl and scooted for that door. Somethin’ made me whistle him back, and I was tickled I did; for when I peeked in, there was Peter Groche, big as life and uglier’n ever, tryin’ to sell this wrench to old man Lane for a dime. I knew it was ours the minute I clapped eyes on’t, but I jest thought I’d wait a little and listen to what Mr. Groche was purrin’. And he was explainin’ to Mr. Lane that he’d been away for a day or two, and that he was back in town jest to settle his affairs, ’cause he’d picked up a reg’lar job, choppin’ in the woods up Payne’s Stream, and he was goin’ there soon’s he’d cashed in on a little portable property he had no further use for. And then, seein’ as how Hannibal was gettin’ uneasy, I walked in and took Mr. Groche by the collar, and walked him out o’ the shop, and took away the wrench, and told him I guessed there was one bargain sale he’d have to call off.”

Sam’s eyes were opened widely. “Gee! but it took nerve to tackle him! They say he’s an awful scrapper.”

“Mebbe it wasn’t his scrappin’ day. And, of course, a bull terrier growlin’ ’round a feller’s legs is kinder disconcertin’—say, Sam, Hannibal showed plain enough he’d got a score to even with Groche. Don’t wonder at that! ’Member the mornin’ the dog come limpin’ home? Wal, anyhow, Peter didn’t put up a fight. He jest scowled, and cussed, and swore he’d found the wrench. Then I told him I supposed the wrench must ’a’ met him on the street and followed him home, and he shut up on that part of it. Then I called him a thief, and a few other pet names; and he acted queer, I swan he did!”

“What did he do?”

“Swelled up like a frog. Didn’t call names back at me, but behaved contemptuous-like, as if I was a cheap ’un to worry about a plain old wrench. Said he had money enough to buy me; or, anyhow, he knew where he could get a bunch of it for the askin’. Then I laughed at him, and he puffed up more’n ever. What’d I think of an even hundred dollars, heh? Wal, it was his, whenever he chose to say ’bout a dozen words. And there wa’n’t nobody else in Plainville that could say ’em. He knew something, he did! And then he sputtered so there was no makin’ head or tail of his nonsense.”

Sam caught Lon’s arm. “What else happened? Tell me—quick!”

There was an excitement in the boy’s tone that made Lon stare at him.

“Why—what—what’s stirrin’ you up, Sam?” he demanded.

“I’ll tell you afterward. Go on!”

“Huh! That’s what Groche did. You see, Hannibal lost patience and took a nip at his calf, and Peter jest missed kickin’ Hannibal; and it struck me the gaiety of our social circle was gettin’ feverish. So I grabbed Hannibal’s collar, and told Groche that if I saw him again I’d have him arrested for thievin’. Over on the railroad a freight was gettin’ ready to pull out on the branch line. I hinted he’d better jump it, and let it give him a lift, if he was headin’ Payne’s Stream way. And I was sorry he couldn’t stay to collect that ghost hundred dollars he was dreamin’ about, but Hannibal wouldn’t be denied much longer; so he’d better beat it. Which also he done.”

“You mean he ran for the train?”

“Yep! And caught it—saw him.”

“And he’s going to Payne Stream?”

“Looked mighty much that way. But what you drivin’ at, Sam?”

“Wait a minute! Father’s camps are up there, aren’t they?”

“Yes; he’s got gangs lumberin’ three-four places along the stream.”

“Hurrah!” cried Sam.

Lon’s jaw sagged. “What—what in Sam Hill’s got into you? This ain’t the Fourth of July.”

Sam was still clutching the man’s arm. “Look here, Lon! Wake up! Groche has been up-stream, got a job, come to town for some reason or other. You’ve started him back.”

“Jesso!”

“He boasted he could make a hundred dollars by telling something?”

“That’s what he said.”

“But you didn’t give him a chance to earn the money?”

“No. Still, of course, most likely he was lyin’——”

“For once he may have been speaking the truth. And it happens there’s just one way to pick up a hundred in Plainville so easily.”

“How’s that?”

“By winning the reward for news of Tom Orkney!”

Lon’s expression was crestfallen. “Of all the chuckleheads!” he groaned. “And I didn’t tumble! I guess I’m jest a one-idea-at-a-time feller. But that one idea that I’d got Groche dead to rights on the stealin’ seemed big as a mountain—hid everything else. But I’ll bet you’re right! Groche spotted the kid up in one o’ them camps on Payne Stream, and came back to collect easy money——”

“Sure he didn’t get it?” Sam broke in.

“Yep! I scared him off. You see, ’twas a mite livelier’n I let on jest now. And what between me ’n’ Hannibal and that wrench—reckon I was wavin’ it sort o’ free and vi’lent—and the risk o’ bein’ arrested—wal, I guess Groche was glad to go while the goin’ was good. Then, too, he may ’a’ figgered he could come back to pick the plum when things had quieted down—see?”

Sam nodded. Lon was no braggart; no doubt the brush with Groche had been very nearly a full-sized fight.

“Wal, what’ll you do now?” Lon queried curiously. “Say! That hundred’d come in pooty handy, eh?”

“Oh, I couldn’t take it!” Sam said quickly. “That doesn’t mean, though——”

There he checked himself; wheeled; and strode toward the house. His brain was working actively; a plan was taking shape, a plan hard to execute, perhaps, yet not impossible. And if it could be carried out, it might go far toward wiping out the balance against the Safety First Club in the matter of Tom Orkney.

Sometimes Fortune comes to meet those who seek her favors. No sooner had Sam set foot in the house than he realized that there was an unusual air of excitement in the normally tranquil establishment. Nor had he long to wait for enlightenment.

The supper bell rang, and very willingly he took his place at table; for, as has been set forth, his cares had not blunted his appetite. Three minutes later, however, he had laid down knife and fork, and was listening eagerly.

“We ought to make a fairly early start in the morning,” his father remarked. “Warren will arrive on the nine o’clock train this evening, and can get a good night’s rest. Perhaps we’d better have breakfast about seven.”

Mr. Warren was the New Yorker Mr. Parker was to take into the woods! And they were to depart in the morning for the camps on Payne Stream!

“Father!” cried Sam.

Mr. Parker glanced in surprise at his son. “Well, what is it, young man?” he asked.

“The biggest favor I ever begged of you! Take me with you!”

“On this trip?”

“Yes, sir. I can’t tell you how much I want to go.”

Mr. Parker shook his head doubtfully. “It’s a long haul—we’re going in to the new camps, and maybe beyond them. I’m afraid——”

“But it’s such a tremendous favor, Father!”

“Exactly! But——” Mr. Parker paused. He had noted Sam’s earnestness; had marked how the boy was bending forward, and how his hands gripped the edge of the table. “But, you see——” Now he had caught his wife’s eye, and again hesitated. For some strange reason she was endorsing her son’s plea. He read the unspoken message; he saw her little nod of affirmation. “Why—why, give me a moment to consider,” he concluded.

“It’s vacation, you know,” said Mrs. Parker softly.

“I know—but I hadn’t thought of——”

“But you’ll think of it now, won’t you?” implored Sam.

Once more husband and wife exchanged glances.

“The fact that I hadn’t thought of taking you, Sam, doesn’t bar considering the proposition now,” said Mr. Parker. “Well, I dare say it can be arranged if——”

“Bully!” cried Sam enthusiastically. “Oh, but that’s fine, sir! And I want my crowd to go—the club—you know, sir!”

“What!”

“Yes, the club—all of ’em. That’s the best part of it.”

“Possibly—for the club,” said Mr. Parker drily. “But I’m not planning a wholesale migration.”

“Still,” suggested Mrs. Parker, “there’s the big sleigh.”

“There is.”

“And the boys wouldn’t mind a little crowding.”

“Not they! Warren may have prejudices.”

“You can share the front seat with him. And I believe the roads are well broken.”

“Only so far as the first camp.”

“But that’ll do for us,” cried Sam. “You can leave us there, and go on with Mr. Warren, and pick us up when you come back. You won’t be more than a couple of days away from us, and we’ll keep out of mischief.”

“Why not put Lon in charge of the boys?” added Mrs. Parker.

Her husband laughed outright. “It’s no use—I’m outvoted two to one! But that is a happy thought about Lon. And jammed as we’ll be, an extra passenger will make little difference. Only understand, son!” He turned to Sam. “You’ve promised good behavior. Don’t forget that.”

Sam was grave enough. “I won’t forget that I’m on probation, sir. But—but then it’s settled?”

“You may consider it so.”

“Whoop! Excuse me, please!” Up sprang Sam so hastily that his chair was almost overturned. He dashed into the hall and caught up the telephone.

Mr. Parker glanced inquiringly at his wife.

“There’s more animation than I’ve seen manifested for weeks,” he observed. “Sam has seemed to be rather subdued lately.”

“I’ve noticed it. And I confess I haven’t understood it.”

“Effect of his escapade with my gun, perhaps?”

“Not wholly. I’m sure there’s something else on his mind.”

From the hall floated Sam’s eager voice:

“Course your folks will let you go, Step. Make ’em, make ’em!... Yes, yes; I tell you there’s a special reason. Biggest chance that ever happened!... No, no; I can’t tell you now, but we’ll get the gang to the club, and you’ll have the whole story.... No, no—just bring along your snow-shoes.... But you’ve got to come—every fellow’s got to!... What’s that?... Sure, there’s a clue!... No; I shan’t talk over the wire.... Get permission to come along; that’s all you need worry about.... Say, hang up now, won’t you? I want to catch Poke and the rest before any of ’em go out for the evening.”

Mr. Parker smiled quizzically. “My dear lady,” he said, “I confess that I find difficulty in comprehending the mental processes of your son.”

His wife gave a little sigh. “Ah! Sam is too much for me sometimes. And this is one of the times. But”—and her face brightened—“but I’m confident he has some excellent reason for setting his heart on this expedition.”

“Well, I hope so, at least,” said Mr. Parker, rather resignedly.

CHAPTER XXII
TOM ORKNEY CHANGES HIS INTENTION

There are three ways in which one may travel from Plainville to the woods about Payne Stream. One is partly by rail, involving a jolting journey over the branch line to a flag-station, and then a trip over roads which quickly dwindle to trails. The other routes are by highways, neither being direct. Mr. Parker, choosing the more promising of the two, brought his party in sight of the No. 1 camp in mid-afternoon.

The pace had been very moderate, but rather because Mr. Parker spared his horses than because of hard going. In the more thickly settled districts the sleighing was excellent, while the last lap of the journey was over a “tote road,” worn smooth by the passage of sledges carrying supplies to the lumbermen. Midway there had been a stretch, over which travel evidently had been very light. Here, as Lon explained to the boys, was a district of abandoned farms, some of whose houses, fast falling into ruin, he pointed out to them. Then he indicated groves of flourishing young trees, growing on land which within his memory had been under cultivation, and philosophized a little on the “hard grubbin’” on the hill farms.

Wrapped in their fur coats, Mr. Parker and Mr. Warren shared the front seat, and afforded shelter for the other passengers. The rear seats had been removed from the sleigh, and Lon and the boys filled the bottom of the vehicle, with plenty of straw and robes to keep them warm. On the whole they did very well; though it is not to be denied that they were quite willing to alight and stretch their legs when the sleigh drew up at the door of a big log hut, low but long and with an ell at the rear. Smoke was curling from two chimneys, one in the middle of the main building and the other in the ell, but nobody was in evidence. When Mr. Parker raised a shout, however, the door opened, and out came a thick-set, ruddy, middle-aged man, in sweater, corduroys and heavy boots.

“Hullo there!” he sang out cheerfully. “Glad to see ye, Mr. Parker! Wasn’t lookin’ for ye quite so early. And this is Mr. Warren, ain’t it? Proud and happy, sir, to make your acquaintance. Wha’je think of this, now? Kinder remind ye of Fifth Avenue, eh?”

“Well, I’ve seen snow on the avenue—when it was very new snow—that looked like that you have here,” said Mr. Warren.

The thick-set man chuckled, and shook hands with Mr. Parker. Then he repeated the ceremony with Mr. Warren, being duly presented as Mr. Kane, foreman, or “boss” of No. 1 camp. Then for the first time he seemed to observe Lon and the club.

“Hullo some more—a whole lot more!” he exclaimed. “Wha’je got in behind, Mr. Parker? New crew of lumberjacks?”

Mr. Parker briefly explained, and there were more introductions.

“Kinder wedged in, ain’t they?” inquired Mr. Kane. “Guess I’d better play block and tackle.”

With that he put out an arm, caught Step by the collar, and fairly swung him to the ground. Whereupon Step’s friends swarmed over the side of the sleigh, and fell to stamping their feet vigorously, in an effort to quicken sluggish circulation.

“Go in, boys, go in,” Mr. Kane urged hospitably. “Go in and warm up. Goin’ to let these fellers stay with me, ain’t ye?” he added.

“Yes,” said Mr. Parker. “Hope you can put ’em up, and put up with them, for a day or two, while Warren and I go farther on.”

“Sartain sure! Plenty o’ room, and grub, and blankets. Only ain’t ye goin’ to stop at the Hotel de Kane?”

“On the way out we will. Just now I’m anxious to get in touch with Wells——”

“Wal, now, if he didn’t go through to No. 2, not half an hour ahead of ye!”

Mr. Parker cast a weatherwise look at the sky, and gathered up the reins.

“Then I think Warren and I will push on,” said he. “There’s a feel of more snow in the air, Kane. So, if you’ll just keep a sharp eye on these young scamps and show them what a lumber camp is like——”

“Trust me!” chuckled the cheery foreman.

Sam had drawn a little apart from his friends and was glancing keenly about him. At that hour, of course, the choppers were at work, probably at some distance from the camp, but other employees might be in or near the cabin. Already he had observed a fat man peering from the door of the ell. That would be the cook, no doubt. The jingle of bells told him that his father was resuming the journey, and his ears warned him that Mr. Kane was shepherding his flock of guests indoors.

Sam was as chilled and stiff from the long ride as were his friends, but he still lingered at his post of observation. It was no more than a chance, at the best, that Orkney, if he had come to the woods, was at this especial camp; but Sam was making the most of the chance. In full session of the club it had been decided that, if the runaway were discovered, Sam should first reason with him in private, falling back, if necessary, upon the support of the others.

Except where a clearing had been made for the camp, and where ran the narrow tote road, towered tall pines, doomed to fall as the choppers worked their way from the borders of the tract to its center. Here the snow had fallen deep and without drifts, such as the travelers had seen in the more open country. Sam shivered a little. The cheerful and vociferous boss had followed his charges into the cabin, and, of a sudden, the watcher was oppressed by the silence and the loneliness of the woods. Instinctively he took a step toward the main door of the camp; halted; listened intently. Then he heard again, and with certainty, the sound which he had half believed a trick of imagination. It was the crunch of dry snow under a hurrying foot.

Sam strode forward. As he turned the corner of the building, he caught sight of a figure moving obliquely toward the runner tracks leading to No. 2 camp. In spite of the low-drawn cap and the rough Mackinaw he recognized Orkney.

“Slipped out of a back door, and around the other side of the camp and started for another get-away,” he reflected. “Bound not to be seen, if he can help it. Thunder, but he is as stubborn as they make ’em!”

Orkney was in haste, but Sam pursued still more rapidly. The tote road bent sharply to avoid a great boulder. Orkney vanished around the bend, without giving evidence that he suspected he was followed; but when Sam passed the big rock, and thus shut himself from view from the camp, he beheld Orkney, faced about and standing defiantly in the middle of the road.

Sam, too, pulled up. For a moment neither boy spoke. Sam advanced a pace. Orkney contented himself with holding his ground.

“Well, what do you want?” he growled.

“You,” was Sam’s terse response.

“Cut out the guff! I’m in a hurry.”

Sam took another step forward. “See here, Orkney! I’ve got things to tell you. You made a mistake when you bolted.”

“That’s my own lookout. I’m satisfied.”

“I’m not.”

“Huh! It’s no affair of yours.”

“I tell you it is,” Sam insisted. “Helped drive you out of town, didn’t I?”

“What’s that? ‘Drive me out?’” snorted Orkney. “Not much! Nobody drove me—least of all you and your gang of swelled heads!”

Sam kept his temper. “Might as well face things as they are. You ran away because everybody was down on you, because everybody cut you, because——”

“Not on your life!” Orkney broke in fiercely. “I don’t care a rap for the whole school or the whole town!”

“All the same you couldn’t stand the gaff. So you turned tail and bolted. And here I find you a wood-chopper and——”

“No siree! Can’t you get anything straight? I’m cookee. Know what that is? Cook’s helper. Or, rather, I was. I’ve quit the job. I’m moving on.”

“You’re running again—from us!”

“I’m running from nobody. But I don’t choose to stay where a lot of prying sneaks are butting in.”

Sam took another step. This proffering of the amende honorable was proving to be even more difficult than he had feared, but he kept himself in hand.

“Orkney,” he said earnestly, “you’ve got to hear me. The other day I charged you with a lot of rascality. I was mistaken. I take back what I said. Then, like everybody else, I thought you as good as shoved Little Perrine into the pond. That was another mistake; I’m sorry for it.”

Orkney was more puzzled than pleased. “Eh? Sorry, are you? Well, if you want to apologize——”

“Apologize” is a word which, sometimes, grates on the ear. Sam flushed.

“Go slow there!” he said sharply; then, with a change of tone, went on: “If I’m apologizing, it’s for the things I did because I was fooled, deceived. And the club are with me in this. But I’m not apologizing, and they’re not apologizing for thinking you a grouchy sorehead. You’ve made your own troubles, mostly. We’ll let that pass, though. I’m not here to call you names; I’m here to tell you that, if you’d stuck it out and not run away, things would have cleared up for you. As it is, we’re ready to do what we can for you if you’ll come back. We’ll spread the truth. You can make a fresh start.”

“With the help of your bunch! I see myself doing it!”

“Look at the case fairly. We came here in the hope of finding you. We came to make the offer.”

“Got a tip where I was, eh? Well, I know who gave it. Fellow from Plainville, who’d been hanging around the camp, disappeared for a couple of days, and then came back.”

“Groche—Peter Groche? Is he here now?”

“Was this morning. It was none of his business, and it’s none of yours, Parker—mixing up in my affairs this way.”

“But it is our business!”

Orkney’s jaw was thrust forward obstinately. “See here, Mr. Sam Parker, you’re going too far. You’re banking on a notion that on account of what you did for me at the pond I’ve got to come when you whistle. Get that out of your head! I told you I couldn’t very well fight you—you know why—but there’s a limit. You don’t own me!”

Sam had not thoroughly mastered the rôle of bearer of the olive branch. “Mighty glad I don’t own you! If I did, I’d get rid of you very quick!” he rapped out. “And if you want to fight—why, the slate’s clean; you don’t owe me anything.”

Orkney dropped a bundle he had been carrying under one arm. Sam, observing this readiness to clear for action, struggled between zest for the fray and duty, as he saw it.

“Listen, you—you chump! Show common sense, can’t you? Come home with us. We want you to have a square deal. We’ll back you up—so far as we can. Little Perrine swears by you—we’ll spread his story. And there’s another thing—maybe you don’t guess how awfully broken up your aunt is. She’s almost crazy. She’s done everything she could to trace you. She’s offered a reward——”

“What’s that? A reward?”

“Yes—hundred dollars for news of you.”

“Oh-ho!” Orkney’s cynical grin was a taunt in itself. “Oh-ho! So that’s your lay, eh? You’re after me because you and your gang are after the hundred? Well, you don’t get either—see?”

Orkney had passed the limits of endurance. Rage seized Sam. To be charged with mercenary motives was more than he could bear. He sprang at Tom, and at the same instant that vigilant youth leaped to meet the attack. There was a furious exchange of blows, each combatant seeking to inflict punishment and making no effort to avoid it. Then the pair grappled, and swayed back and forth, struggling desperately for the mastery.

It was a fight, and a real fight; but one carried on under unusual conditions. Both boys were in heavy winter clothes; there had been no time to discard overcoats or jackets, or even the thick gloves they wore. So they were, in some degree, like armored knights of old, come to grips in full panoply, by which they were at once hampered and protected; while the yielding snow offered most uncertain footing. Now they were in the tracks of the tote road; now they had reeled into snow that rose above their plunging knees; now they were floundering back to the path. Sam, slipping, went to his knees. Orkney, over-eager to press his advantage, lost it; for though he landed a blow on his opponent’s forehead, it was at cost of the precious “under hold.” Sam’s arms were locked about Tom’s waist; his chin was pressing hard against the other’s shoulder. Orkney swayed backward under the pressure. He made a frantic effort to break free; failed; lost footing. Down he went into the deep snow, Sam falling upon him and still holding him fast.

But the battle was far from ended. Orkney writhed and twisted. He struck at Sam, raining ineffective blows upon his head and shoulders. He kicked furiously, sending the snow flying in showers. Indeed, he fought determinedly but vainly, until at last Sam, keeping his wits, had slowly shifted position, and was astride his prostrate foe’s body. Then, with one of Sam’s hands at his throat, and the other hand clenched and poised above his unprotected face, Orkney sullenly accepted defeat and ceased to struggle.

“You—you had enough?” Sam panted.

“Y-Yes!” gasped Orkney with all imaginable reluctance.

“Give up?”

“Yes.” It was barely a whisper, but Sam caught the word.

“All—all right!” he said, breathlessly but cheerfully, and got upon his feet.

Orkney sat up, but did not attempt to rise. His expression betrayed intense chagrin.

“I—I won’t admit you—you licked me, but—but you got me down,” he said brokenly. “And—and I gave up. But that—that doesn’t settle anything.”

To his surprise Sam laughed.

“Sure settles one thing, Orkney! You said you—you wanted to fight me, but couldn’t—’member? Well, somehow, we seem to have dodged the difficulty.”

Tom seemed to find a certain grim consolation in this aspect of the case.

“That’s so. But—but what do you want me to do now?”

“Stand up!” said Sam promptly. “We’ll brush the snow off each other. Then we’ll go back to the camp. You’d better slip in the way you slipped out. I’ll go in at the front door, and tell the fellows you’re working here, and I’ve had a talk with you. Then you’ll happen along naturally. The crowd will be decent.”

Orkney made a grimace. “S’pose I’ll have to see ’em—might as well have it over. But see here, Parker! Mind you, I haven’t promised to go back to Plainville.”

“But you’ll think it over?”

“Well,” said Orkney reluctantly, “I’ll agree to that. Yes; I’ll stay a day or two, anyway, and think it over.”

CHAPTER XXIII
LON GATES ENTERTAINS

What easily might have been an embarrassing situation was dealt with capably by the Safety First Club. Hardly had the jovial Mr. Kane welcomed the belated Sam and demanded how in the world he had happened to stray from the rest of the party and what he had been doing to amuse himself out in the cold; and hardly had Sam explained as nonchalantly as might be that he had chanced to meet a schoolmate, who was serving as cookee to the camp, and had paused for a chat with him, when the door in the partition shutting off the cook’s domain opened, and Orkney appeared.

There was brief, but tense, silence as Tom advanced toward the group. Then Step, who chanced to be nearest, spoke.

“H’lo, Orkney!” said he brusquely but not harshly.

“Howdy, Step!” responded Tom, quite in the same manner.

“Oh, up here for a while, eh?”

This was Poke’s contribution. The others nodded, a bit stiffly, maybe; and the Shark regarded the newcomer solemnly through his glasses. Nowhere was there sign of hostility, even if warmer welcome were lacking. There was not a boy there but guessed shrewdly at what had taken place; but not for love or money would one of them have betrayed his knowledge by speech or look. At times the methods of youngsters in their teens curiously resemble those of Indians—at least, to the extent of jealous hiding of emotion. Both Tom and Sam bore a mark or two of their encounter, but for the present these were things to be carefully ignored.

Mr. Kane, as he himself would have said, “sensed” something queer; but though he glanced quickly and inquiringly from face to face, he could make nothing of the manner of his guests. And then Orkney going about his duties and the boys resuming their talk, he gave up the problem, and turned to Lon, from whom he demanded the latest news of the outside world.

It was Sam’s first opportunity to inspect a lumber camp, and he studied with keen interest the long, low room, with its walls of logs, its big stove, its line of bunks against each wall, and its “deacon’s seat,” or bench built beside the bunks. The windows were few and small. Roughly as the house was built, it was very solidly put together, while drafts were lessened by moss packed between the logs. Here and there hung spare clothing and extra boots. There was no attempt anywhere at adornment or decoration, but order of a sort seemed to be maintained, the order which places everything where it can be most handily come at.

Dusk was falling, and the choppers began to straggle into the camp. With them came the “yard men,” whose business it is to handle and pile the logs, and the teamsters. Strapping big fellows were most of Kane’s crew, roughly clad for rough work, hard as nails, and hungry as bears. Among the last to arrive was Peter Groche, who slouched into the big room, grunted when his eyes fell upon Lon and the boys, halted for an instant, regarding them evilly, and finally made his way to what appeared to be his especial corner. There he remained until the whole company trooped through the doorway in the partition to the combined kitchen and dining-room.

This filled the ell of the camp. There was a range in one corner, and a table of boards ran the length of the room, benches serving as seats. Behind these were two bunks for the cook and the cookee. The supper, everything being eaten from tin plates, made up in quantity what it lacked in variety. Beans, baked with pork, formed the principal dish, most excellent beans and in seemingly inexhaustible supply. Then there were enormous camp doughnuts, which would have appalled a dyspeptic, but which proved to be singularly toothsome and comforting after a day in the open. Tea, sweetened with molasses, was drunk from tin cups. The boys may not have been able to match the huge appetites of the woodsmen, but they ate and ate until, as Poke whispered to Step, he’d have to stop or hitch two belts together; for the food, simple as it was, was well cooked and tempting enough to hungry folk, young or old.

Sam divided attention between Orkney and Peter Groche. The cookee, of course, was busy throughout the meal, devoting himself to his tasks and going about them in businesslike fashion. Sam fancied Tom was not in high favor with the men, though it certainly could not be alleged that he neglected them. Still, Tom’s was a dogged and silent manner of performance not calculated to secure popularity anywhere.

At table Groche’s appearance was at its worst. He ate greedily and enormously, fairly shoveling the food into his mouth. Sam observed that the man kept his eyes on his plate, spoke to none of his neighbors, and showed no interest in the talk which began to be heard when the supper drew to a close. He was the first to rise, and shuffled out as if glad to go; but when the boys trooped into the main room, there was Groche, perched in his corner and sucking at a black pipe. And there he remained until dislodged by no less heroic a champion than the Shark.

Now the Shark, as has been related, had the quaint habit, into which near-sighted persons, given to reflection, sometimes fall, of fixing his gaze upon some object and holding it there without any especial concern in the object, or consciousness of its existence. As it happened, the Shark had chanced to wonder what might be the weight of a layer of snow two feet deep, spread evenly over one square mile; and being more charmed with the computation than with the conversation of his friends and hosts, he sat down opposite Peter, brought him into range of his big spectacles—and promptly forgot his very existence.

Groche, on his part, woke up gradually, as it were, to the baleful and unwinking intensity of the scrutiny to which he seemed to be subjected. He glared at the Shark, growled deep in his throat, tried to stare down the unconscious youth over the way. Failing utterly in this, he dropped his eyes, pulled desperately at the black pipe, shifted position, stole a side-long glance at his vis-à-vis. The Shark was still contemplating him with unruffled composure and deadly concentration.

Groche bent forward, scowling his fiercest. The Shark ignored the demonstration. Groche made an abrupt and threatening motion. The Shark didn’t move an eyelash. A strange fear clutched the heart of the ne’er-do-well. He had heard frightful tales of the evil eye. What the evil eye might be he had no notion, but also he had no intention to risk learning. Up he jumped, retreating the length of the room; while the Shark, wholly absorbed, stared at the wall instead of Mr. Groche, without being aware of the change in view.

Sam, the observant, had not missed Groche’s strategic movement, though he did not grasp its cause. Nor did he fail to perceive that Peter from his new post was sourly surveying the group by the stove, with especial regard for Lon and himself. But then came Orkney to distract Sam’s attention.

Tom, his work finished, took the place the Trojan made for him on the bench. His air was not markedly sullen, but it was reserved; and it could not be denied that the talk, which had been going merrily enough, began to drag. Sam, hurrying to the rescue, started a topic, which drooped and languished. Tom was attentive but unresponsive; so were the club members. Both sides were trying to be fair, and the result was chilling.

Sam caught Lon’s eye, and telegraphed a message for help. Lon understood. He nodded in reply. Clasping his hands about a knee, he fell to rocking his body back and forth. Of a sudden he broke into a loud laugh.

“Haw, haw, haw! If he wa’n’t jest the plumb ridiculousest old critter!”

“Who was?” asked Herman Boyd.

“Old man Wallowby,” chuckled Lon. “Dunno jest what made me think of him. Long before the time of you boys he was.”

“I remember him,” said Mr. Kane. “Queer old codger as ever was. Folks used to say there was only three things he never seemed to get around to—washin’, workin’, or worryin’.”

“Jesso!” Lon agreed; then made correction: “Say, though! There was one time he was worried, fast enough. Ever hear tell o’ the night he fit the bear?”

“Fit a b’ar?” echoed the foreman. “No; new one on me.”

Several of the lumberjacks, who had been listening to the talk, drew closer.

“There’s two-three b’ar hangin’ ’round No. 3 camp,” one of them volunteered.

“Never mind them, Jake,” interposed Mr. Kane. “Le’s hear about old Wallowby’s run-in.”

Lon ran a glance about the expectant group.

“Wal,” he drawled, “I dunno’s I can tell the story the way Wallowby told it to me, but I’ll try. You know, the old humbug uster give out that he was a nat’ral bonesetter, and uster wander about, foragin’ off the country and pretendin’ to look for broken bones. That’s how he got wind of old Calleck, who must ’a’ been a good deal of the same breed. Only Calleck was a yarb doctor, and a bigger freak’n Wallowby himself. He was all the while prowlin’ through the woods, diggin’ up roots for his medicines; and he called himself a hermit; and he built himself a mighty queer house off by his lonesome, a stone house, and——”

“I’ve seed it,” one of the men broke in. “What’s left of it’s standin’ over on the South Fork, not ten mile from here. But ’twa’n’t all stone. Calleck got tired o’ luggin’ rock, and topped it off anyhow he could.”

“Like enough!” said Lon. “I’ve never been to the house, but that’s about the fashion old Calleck’d ’a’ done any job. But I’ll get on to where Wallowby and the bear come in. Wallowby’d been cruisin’ down in the villages, and I guess he’d sorter wore out his welcome in spots. Way he put it to me was he got to longin’ for the congenial society of a brother scientist, and so he tramped off to find Calleck. He’d never seen him and he didn’t know jest where the stone house was, but everybody was amazin’ glad to give him directions and push him along; and so he moseyed up into the woods.

“It was along in December, but the ground was still bare; though it had been mighty cold, and it kept gettin’ colder all the while Wallowby climbed the hills. Got dark, too, and the wind was risin’. ’Cordin’ to Wallowby ’twas perishin’ cold, and black as a cellar, before he woke to the fact that he was as good as lost.

“He stopped and tried to figger out his bearin’s, but it was no use. It was a second growth, hard wood country, with a lot o’ scrub stuff mixed in; and he’d been fallin’ over roots, and duckin’ branches till his notions o’ north and south was twisted as a corkscrew. Looked like he was in for a night in the brush, but to keep from freezin’ he wrapped an old blanket shawl—he always carried one—around his head, and kept goin’. ’Twa’n’t no pleasure trip, believe me! He shivered when he told about it, but he owned up he shivered wuss that night when he thought he heard something pantin’ off to the right. What with the old shawl over his ears he wa’n’t quite sure; but, anyhow, he stepped out livelier’n ever, and then plunk! he bust through a bush and into a clearin’. And in the clearin’ was a big black spot that meant a house o’ some sort.

“Wallowby made for that house same’s a woodchuck makes for his hole when there’s a dog after him. He went round the corner of it so fast that he couldn’t stop, when, all of a sudden, he saw waddlin’ ’round the other corner something big and black, and loomin’ like a mountain. And he heard that pantin’ so loud it sounded like a steam engine. And then, not bein’ able to clap on the brakes quick enough, he butted fair into the thing. His hands hit the thing’s body, and he could feel thick fur. He tried to yell, but all that’d come out of his throat was a hoarse growl. And then what was like a big claw raked his arm, and laid open three-four deep gashes across the back of his hand.

“’Twas a mutual surprise party all right. Wallowby turned, and headed for the bush, as if he was more like a scared jack-rabbit than a woodchuck. But he didn’t go far. He fell over a root, and before he got up it broke on him that the bear was makin’ for cover on the other side o’ the house.

“Wallowby told me he didn’t lose sight of the argyment that, if he didn’t get into that house, he’d freeze. With the blood tricklin’ from his hand he wa’n’t anxious to risk old Bruin changin’ his mind and comin’ back, so he sneaked round to the back o’ the place. He had no weapon but a jack-knife with a broken blade, but he got it out.

“‘And would you believe it?’ he says to me. ‘It was like Tophet for darkness, but, jest as I got to the house, that miserable critter came pantin’ at me! He let drive with that murderin’ claw of hisn, and I dug into him with the knife. And then, somehow, each of us was reminded of his own business, and done accordin’. I got back into the brush, and sot there thinkin’. I was all of a sweat, and freezin’ at the same time; for the chill was gettin’ into the very marrow of my bones. And, pooty soon, studyin’ that lump of a house like it was a chicken pie Thanksgivin’ mornin’, I managed to make out the chimney against the sky. It was a whoppin’ big chimney, big enough for a man to drop through. And the roof sloped ’most to the ground.

“‘Wal,’ says Wallowby, tellin’ the story, ‘I didn’t need two hints. I got holt of the edge of that roof, and I wriggled up and clumb to the chimney. And then I heard that pantin’ ’tother side o’ the stack, and next minute me ’n’ that fool bear was buttin’ our heads together. I rolled down the slope and over the edge, and ’most druv the breath out o’ my body. But, all the same, I heard an awful thud as the bear fell off ’tother side.

“‘Wal, I sat there a minute or two gettin’ my wind back and my mad up. I couldn’t stay where I was—I’d ‘a’ froze stiff. And if I’d got to bet by a bear, I’d be something better’n a cold lunch, anyhow. And, besides, all my life I’d been helpin’ sufferin’ humanity dirt cheap; but I drew the line at sellin’ my life anything but dear to a wuthless old he-bear. So up I got, grippin’ the knife, and started full tilt for the front door. If that bear interfered, he’d take his chances o’ gettin’ hurt. But would you believe it? Just as I dove for the door he riz up in the darkness ahead o’ me and done the same thing, simultaneous. We whanged away at each other, and then, sir, sure as I’m standin’ here! we jammed through that door together; and fell over a stool; and he went one way, and I went another. And the knife flew out o’ my hand, and hit a log smoulderin’ on the hearth, and a flame shot up. And there on his hands and knees, glarin’ at me and wheezin’ like a broken bellows, was the ornariest old codger in a buffalo coat you ever set eyes on!

“‘“Wal,” says I; “wal, but you got a mighty peculiar way o’ treatin’ company! Ain’t you got no better manners?”

“‘“Why—why”—Calleck gasps—“I—I took ye for—for a bear.”

“‘“Same here,” says I; “only vicy versy. And what you want to go pantin’ like one for?”

“‘“It’s the—the asthmy,” says he. “And what for do you go—go traipsin’ ’round with—with that mess o’ shawl disguisin’ the human figger?”

“‘I stuck out my bleedin’ hand. “Anyhow, I ain’t grown claws,” says I.

“‘“Huh! neither have I,” says he, and shows what he’s carryin’. And it’s a little rake he uses to dig for his roots.’

“And that,” Lon concluded, “is old Wallowby’s own yarn o’ the biggest bear fight that ever was pulled off in these parts, I guess.”

There was a roar of applause and laughter, led by the cheery boss of the camp; even Tom Orkney was grinning. Sam sent a grateful glance at the breaker of the social ice. And then, as Mr. Kane prepared to match one bear story with another, he saw Peter Groche get upon his feet and lounge clumsily to the door.

CHAPTER XXIV
PETER GROCHE SCORES AGAIN

Sam had found his bunk-bed of spruce boughs amazingly comfortable and, snuggling under the blankets, had promptly dropped asleep. He was healthily tired from his day’s travels; it was odd, therefore, that distressing dreams came to disturb his rest. He began to toss and turn, and writhe and groan. A giant’s hand, clutching at his throat, seemed to be about to strangle him. There was a crushing weight upon his chest; a trip-hammer was beating furiously in his head. Then some vague monster had seized him, and was bearing him away with appalling speed.

The boy cried out in terror, and struggled desperately. Of a sudden he was free of the monster’s grasp; he was falling from a dizzy height, and about to be dashed to pieces. And then, just as destruction impended, the dream passed, and he awoke to a reality sufficiently perilous.

He was lying, half in, half out of the bunk. The camp was full of smoke, dense, acrid, stifling. His eyes smarted and his throat was parched and burning. At his side lay Poke, breathing stertorously. Sam made him out by a flickering light, which came from the direction of the cook’s quarters. Beyond him was Step, raised on an elbow and coughing chokingly.

“Fire! Fire!” A startled voice raised the alarm, and others repeated the cry. Men began to stagger by him, stumbling as they went and groping wildly. Then three or four, led by Mr. Kane, charged the other way. The boss was shouting orders. There was the crash of an axe vigorously plied. The glass fell from a shattered window, and a draft of cool air fanned his face.

Sam, fully awake at last, sprang from the bunk. Step, too, had gained the floor. Between them they dragged Poke from his blankets, and put him on his feet.

“Take him out, Step!” Sam directed, and set himself to the task of rousing the Trojan, who appeared to be in the half unconscious condition in which Poke was. The Shark, having very calmly adjusted his spectacles on his nose, was tugging at Herman Boyd’s shoulder. Sam lent a hand, and with his aid Herman was started for the door.

Tom Orkney overtook them. He was breathing with difficulty, but managed to gasp out that the ell was all ablaze. Then came the foreman and a lumberjack, carrying a helpless form.

“Cook—right where smudge was thickest—overcome,” Tom explained hoarsely.

Through the doorway they pressed into the cold, still air of the starless night. Mr. Kane touched Sam’s arm.

“All your crowd out? Good! Keep ’em out till we get the fire under. ’Twon’t be long, what with unseasoned logs and the snow on the roof.”

Then he was dashing back into the camp, and shouting orders to his men. Tom Orkney bent over the cook, who was lying in the snow.

“HE’S COMING ’ROUND ALL RIGHT”

“He’s coming ’round all right,” he reported. “We’ll bring out some blankets——”

Sam and Step rushed into the camp, and emerged with their arms filled with heavy coverings. Tom made use of two, while the others were distributed among the boys. Luckily they had turned in “all standing” and were fully clothed except for their shoes, which Step recovered by a second trip into the building.

“Lon’s safe—saw him in there,” said he. “When he heard we were all right he stayed to help fight the fire. Gee, but the kitchen’s a furnace!”

“I know—I saw it, and I don’t understand it,” Orkney declared. “There was some grease about, of course—can’t help that with all the frying. Still, the way the blaze ran——”

There he checked himself. “You mean you suspect——?” queried Step.

“I mean it spread mighty fast,” said Orkney drily.

“Think it caught from the stove, don’t you?”

“Huh! Cook’s a very careful man.”

A bucket brigade was forming to bring water from a hole chopped in the ice of the stream, and the boys volunteered their services. Somebody had found a ladder, and now the fire was being attacked from the roof as well as below. Mr. Kane had plenty of men, and employed them skilfully, though, of course, his equipment was limited. The roof of the ell fell in, and for a few minutes flames shot through the opening thus left, but their inroads upon the main camp were quickly checked, the heavy logs of the walls, the snow, and the lack of wind all contributing to the result. In half an hour the fire was under control, and in another Mr. Kane officially declared it out.

Two or three men were told off to build a new partition, temporarily filling the gap caused by the fire, and the rest of the crew and the boys gathered about the big stove in the main camp. Garments drenched in the bucket brigade service were hung up to dry; the cook, now quite recovered, brewed a great can of steaming tea. Then there was a sort of informal roll call. None of the boys appeared to be the worse for his adventures, and the lumberjacks seemed to find the break in the monotony of life rather enjoyable. But the foreman, “counting noses,” as he put it, made a startling discovery.

Peter Groche was missing!

Nobody could recall seeing the man after the alarm was given. Anxious search of the ruins of the ell, conducted by the aid of lanterns, revealed no charred evidences that he had perished. It led, however, to the discovery of a half-burned cloth, smoked and discolored, and giving forth the unmistakable smell of kerosene.

The cook rushed out of the camp, returning presently with a five-gallon can.

“See this!” he cried excitedly. “And this!” He held the can upside down, but no stream poured from its open neck. “Nigh full ’twas yesterday, and now it’s dry as a bone! That’s why the fire went through my place in jumps. He must ’a’ sneaked in and soused everything with the stuff after I went to sleep.”

“Huh! He might ’a’ done it with a waterin’ cart for all you’d knowed it, once you got to snorin’!” jeered one of the choppers.

The cook hotly insisted that he had full right to sleep soundly after feeding a “gang of two-legged wolves,” but the foreman stopped the controversy.

“Steady there, all around!” he commanded. “This is a crazy job, but it’s a bad job and a state’s prison job. But sure’s my name’s Kane, I’ll land the scoundrel that done it!” He glanced at his watch. “It’ll be gettin’ light in half an hour. Dayton and ‘Stub’ Cyr, I want ye!”

Two of the men—stout fellows both—stepped forward.

“You take after Groche. You know the woods. He’ll have left a trail——”

From the background somebody spoke. “My snow-shoes are gone. He’s stole ’em!”

“Like enough! And that’ll mean Groche won’t stick to the tote road. He’ll strike out ’cross country—Canady way, mebbe.”

Lon pushed to the front. “See here!” said he. “Let me in on this, will you? Guess I’ll toddle along with your two.”

“Eh?” said Mr. Kane in surprise.

Lon’s expression was determined. “Sure’s I’m risin’ two-year old, this is my party, as you might be sayin’. I got a sorter runnin’ account with that critter. And I can tell you this: he wa’n’t aimin’ to singe your hair, Mr. Kane, so much as he was layin’ for me and some other folks. I oughter tackled him last night, but I didn’t; and now I’ve got all the more reason for tacklin’ him good and plenty. And I’m makin’ no brags, but if I lay paws on him, I’ll bring him in, and don’t you forget it! So, if you’ll jest fit me out with snow-shoes and one or two other trinkets, I’ll be a heap obleeged to you.”

The foreman inclined his head. “All right—jest as ye say, Gates. ’Nother pair o’ long legs like yourn won’t do no harm to the hunt. We’ll outfit ye.”

Lon crossed to Sam.

“You see how ’tis,” he said, lowering his voice. “I jest plain got a call for this job. Your father’d say ’twas all right if he was here. But if I take my eye off you for a while, Sam, you’ve got to give me your word you’ll keep out o’ mischief and keep the rest out of it. I guess you can do it—you’ve been toein’ the mark like a major lately.”

Sam’s eyes twinkled. “Like Major Bates, for instance?”

“Yep—seein’ as how he’s the only real, blown-in-the-bottle major I know. And that reminds me: this trip I’ll be a genooine Shylock Holmes.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Sam corrected.

“No,” Lon insisted; “Shylock’s better. Chap, wa’n’t he, that stood out for his pound o’ flesh? Well, that’s me—only I’m goin’ to bring in nigher two hundred. And I’m goin’ to bring it in on the hoof—Peter Groche’s hoof, at that!”

So matters were arranged. As soon as the light strengthened sufficiently, Lon and Stub Cyr and Dayton set out. Meanwhile, the cook had contrived breakfast. The bill of fare was that of supper, but Sam observed that the tin plates were not heaped so lavishly. And, observing, he was stricken by doubts.

At the first opportunity he drew Mr. Kane aside.

“I wish you’d tell me something,” he said. “The fire has left you short of supplies, hasn’t it?”

“Wal, kinder,” the boss admitted. “Most of the grub, ye see, was stored in the ell. But ye needn’t worry; we won’t starve. I’ve started a team for Coreytown for supplies. It ought to be back by night.”

Sam meditated for a moment. “Look here, Mr. Kane! We’re half a dozen extra mouths to feed, and we can’t help being more or less in your way. And there isn’t any reason why we should stay. All of us brought our snow-shoes, and it’ll be just as much sport—yes, more—to be marching out on them as to be tramping about the camp. Father’ll understand. With the early start we’ll make, we can reach Coreytown long before dark. It isn’t over a dozen miles——”

“Call it fifteen.”

“Well, fifteen, then. It’ll be bully fun for us.”

It was the foreman’s turn to deliberate. “Wal, I dunno. Hate like time to be seemin’ to throw ye out! Only we can’t make ye extry comfortable, mussed up the way we be. And goin’ out would be safe enough. Track’s plain, and the road’s broke. I dunno, I dunno.”

“I think we’d better not stay, sir.”

“Wal, suit yerself, of course. There’s kinder a feel o’ more weather in the air, but likely’s not it’ll hold off a spell. And the road’s in good shape. Then, too, there’s the short cut. If ye knew the lay of the land it’d save you a lot o’ distance. The road’s the long way ’round, ye know—makes jest about a right-angle.”

The Shark and Step, who had come up, overheard this.

“You mean, then,” queried the former, “that we could lessen effort by taking the hypothenuse?”

The foreman smiled. “Or words to that effect, sonny.”

“I comprehend the proposition perfectly,” the Shark solemnly assured him. “It may be regarded as elementary.”

“I’m for the march,” Step declared. “Say, it’ll beat old Xenophon’s Anabasis to a frazzle!”

“I’m for anything that’ll do that!” cried Poke, who had joined the group. “Enteuthen exelaunei on snow-shoes, by Jiminy!”

“Umph! Never did get the hang o’ French myself,” quoth the boss. “But you fellers’d better talk over things in plain English. Then let me know what ye decide on.”

Herman Boyd, called to the conference, added his vote to those of his friends. Tramping out on snow-shoes would be the greatest kind of a lark. The Trojan was of the same opinion.

Tom Orkney and Mr. Kane were in consultation in a corner. When the foreman moved off, Sam joined Orkney.

“The boys are unanimously for tramping down to the settlements,” said he.

“I know. The boss told me how you felt,” Tom answered.

“Seems wisest. Grub’s short here, and the trip will be easy. Lon can come out when he’s ready. Most likely my father will pick him up.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, not free from embarrassment.

“I—I hope you’ve been thinking things over,” Sam ventured. “You said you would, you know.”

“I have thought them over,” said Orkney stolidly.

“You’ll come with us?”

Orkney hesitated. “I—I—well, I’ve laid the facts before Mr. Kane. And he—he’s a mighty square man, Parker!”

“He’ll release you? And you’ll come?”

“Yes,” said Orkney very soberly; “yes, I’ll come.”

CHAPTER XXV
THE BLIZZARD

The youthful adventurers were on the march, and were tramping along on their snow-shoes in high spirits. Long-legged Step led, followed in order by Poke, Herman Boyd, the Trojan and the Shark. Then came Orkney, lagging a little, with Sam at his heels. All were warmly clothed, but their luggage was of the lightest, being limited, indeed, to a small axe, carried in a holster, attached to Herman’s belt.

For a half mile the tote road led through a growth of pine and spruce; but then, at the crest of a little hill, they came to a more open tract. The road bent to the left; but straight before them was an inviting slope.

Sam saw the leaders halt and put their heads together. When he came up to them Step was speaking eagerly.

“Why not, fellows? Gee, but we might as well have all the fun that’s going! Who wants to go poking along an old sleigh track when he might be cutting across country? And think of what we’d save! Mr. Kane said the road made a right angle—you figure it out, Shark.”

“Huh! No given quantities,” snapped the Shark.

“Why not? Call it fifteen miles to Coreytown. Say the angle is half-way. What’s the answer, Old Skeesicks?”

“Nine-decimal-point-two-plus,” answered the Shark promptly.

Step was exultant. “What did I tell you! Six miles to the good!”

“But what’s the direction?” demanded Sam.

“Why, straight ahead,” said Step, and pointed down the slope.

“How do you know?”

“Must be.”

“I don’t see why.”

Poke took a hand. “Look here, Shark! Can’t you figure out the course?”

The Shark frowned. “You never heard of the word ‘exact,’ did you? You want me to treat a wiggling road like two straight lines meeting at a right angle. But if you’ve got to assume everything, you might as well pile it on. So, if you assume that there is a right angled, isosceles triangle—two sides equal, understand?—then each of the acute angles will be of forty-five degrees. And so, to travel to the hypothenuse, you’d steer forty-five degrees from the line of the road.”

“Oh, sure!” said Step hastily. “Sure you would! But I haven’t a compass, or dividers, or—or whatever it is you use.”

“Got a watch, haven’t you?” snorted the Shark. “Well, use that! Fifteen minutes on the dial equals ninety degrees. Forty-five degrees is the same as seven minutes, thirty seconds. There’s your angle for you. Hang it! don’t you fellows know anything?”

Step pulled out his timepiece. “Fine! Just as I said—straight ahead. And say! See that big hill—way off—pointed top! It’s a bit misty, but it’s right on our line, and it makes a cracking landmark. Come on, you chaps!”

“Suits me,” said Poke.

“Ditto,” declared the Trojan.

“Here also,” chimed in Herman Boyd.

The Shark, scornfully indifferent, said nothing. Tom Orkney also was silent. It was a trifle, but significant: he was with the club, but not of it.

Sam’s expression was dubious. The “weather,” forecasted by the camp boss, seemed to be threatening to break. The low lying clouds had grown denser in the last quarter hour, and the wind was rising. In the shelter of the pines its strength had not been manifest, but once beyond the edge of the woods, nobody could fail to heed the force of the chilling blasts. Still, it would be as keen along the tote road as anywhere else. Sam was not losing sight of his motto of “Safety First”; but at the moment it did not occur to him that harm was likely to befall half a dozen active, able-bodied youngsters. Yet he hesitated. The plan had been to follow the road, and it had been approved by Mr. Kane.

Step, confident in the support of a majority of the club, started down the hill. After him trailed the Trojan, Poke, Herman Boyd, and the Shark. There was nothing for Sam to do but to follow, in company with Tom Orkney.

At first progress was easy. The snow was smooth, and though the wind increased it was at their backs. Presently there was a brisk snow squall, the tiny flakes driving in a blinding cloud. Step quickened his pace, and led the party to the shelter of a clump of trees.

The squall passed, but left a narrowed horizon. The peak of the big hill, which was to have served as a guide-post, had vanished. There was even a good-natured dispute as to the general direction in which it lay. Step, insisting that he was certain of its bearings, set off again, leading in a détour about the grove. Then came a hill, not lofty but so steep that he circled its base. Down upon the squad swept another squall, fiercer than the first. The boys struggled through it, enjoyed a moment’s respite, and again found themselves in the midst of swirling, stinging clouds of icy particles.

Orkney was having trouble with the snow-shoes he had borrowed from Mr. Kane; the Trojan took a header over a fallen tree; Poke slipped down a bank. None of the mishaps was serious, but together they served to bring the party to a halt.

When the savage gusts subsided for a little the boys moved on. Step, as guide, did his best to hold a straight line, but failed signally. The country was broken, irregularly wooded, full of hummocks and tiny valleys as confusing as a maze. Moreover, the snowfall was becoming heavier, being so dense at times that it shut off the view as completely as if it were a fog.

An over-tight thong made Herman Boyd fall out of line to readjust the fastenings of one of his snow-shoes; and he was so long in rejoining the party that Sam passed a word or two of caution. “Don’t straggle” was his advice. Its effect was seen in a closing of the gaps. By this time there was no shouting or joking. Nobody was frightened, but it had dawned upon the most heedless of the club that they had their work cut out for them. Halts became more frequent; in them there was a tendency to huddle.

According to Sam’s reckoning the trail leading from the branch railroad to the camps crossed the district in which they were, but they had not stumbled upon it. Still, it could be missed easily; for it was little traveled, and such drifts as were forming would quickly hide its traces. Orkney thought that Peter Groche might have taken the short-cut on his last trip from Plainville, but did not believe that it had been used by anybody else in a week. Presumably the tote road was to their left, but its distance was indefinite. As for turning back—well, Sam considered the idea but briefly. It would involve not only a hard tramp in the teeth of the storm but also confession of failure. Besides, to find the camp would be no easy matter; for in many places the party’s own tracks undoubtedly had been blotted out.

In a general way Step, as well as Sam, had counted upon keeping the wind at their backs; but in one of the pauses for rest the Shark called attention to the fact that his spectacles were dimmed by a thin layer of snow on the lenses.

“Been driving straight in my face for the last three minutes,” he declared. “We’re utterly twisted, or the gale’s shifting every which way.”

“Well, I’m doing my best,” Step insisted. “Say, though! If you’re so clever in turning a watch into all sorts of things, make it a compass, won’t you? Seems to me I’ve heard it can be done.”

“Certainly it can,” said the Shark. “Very simple method. Only you’ve got to be able to see the sun. No chance of that now.”

There was dismal murmur of assent. Overhead there was no break in the dark clouds.

When the next halt was made, debate on the direction of the wind was resumed. It led to agreement that, as the Shark’s phrase was, it was shifting every which way. There was agreement, too, that its force was waxing. And, having reached these not very cheering conclusions, they could do nothing but trudge on.

Half an hour later they had impressive evidence of the danger of their plight. Herman Boyd, falling out again to retie his snow-shoes, had such difficulty with the stubborn rawhide that he lost sight of his companions, and, when he tried to overtake them, discovered that their tracks, made but a few minutes before, had been obliterated by the driving snow. Meanwhile the others, alarmed by his absence, had turned back, in open order, at Sam’s suggestion; but, even with this precaution, covering as much ground as possible, they nearly missed Herman. Luckily the Trojan, on the extreme left of the line, finally heard a faint shout, and answering lustily, had the relief, presently, of seeing the wanderer flounder out of the heart of a blinding cloud of flakes.

Then came a council of war. There must be no more straggling. Whatever happened, all must keep in touch.

Poke was the next to be found in trouble. Down he slumped in the snow, and feebly resisted when Sam and Orkney tried to raise him. The web of one of his snow-shoes had pulled away from the frame, and, incidentally, had wrenched his ankle. All this involved a halt, while the Trojan and Step repaired the damaged shoe with a spare strip of rawhide—it was a slow and painful job for numbed fingers—and Sam argued zealously with Poke on the exceeding folly of dropping into a doze.

When they went on, a change had been made in the procession. Step now kept close to the crippled Poke, giving over the leadership to Sam, who, on his part, brought the Shark to the second place in the line. The Shark, as has been said, was physically the weakest of the club, but so far had fared better than some of his stouter friends. As before Orkney acted as rear guard.

Sam’s plan was simple, but perhaps as wise a plan as he could have made in the conditions. It was to find the valley of some stream and follow it out of the hill country. In the lowlands there would be the chance of reaching some farm, if not a village. Shelter was coming to be the first great need. The storm was getting worse and worse. The snow was falling as heavily as ever, the wind blew with almost hurricane fury, and the cold was intense. It penetrated the heaviest coats and mufflers. The boys shivered even as they toiled on, pluckily if weariedly following their guide.

For a little, Fortune seemed to be kinder. They came to what may once have been a woods road, which for half a mile gave them a clear, if winding, path. Then the road ended in a tangled, upland swamp, through which there was no passage.

While they slowly circled the obstacle Sam’s brain was busy. It was his business, evidently, to search for the brook draining the swamp; but so great was the extent of the marshy tract that at last he gave up the task, and turned into a ravine leading between low hummocks. After him trailed a slow procession, its pace regulated by the limping Poke.

Sam turned to the Shark.

“How far have we come—if you had to guess?” he asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Guess, anyway.”

The Shark took thought for a moment or two. Then he glanced at his watch.

“We’ve been out six hours and——”

Sam groaned. “Six? I feel as if it was nearer twenty-four!”

“It’s six. We traveled fast at the start, but we’ve been crawling lately. Call it twelve miles, all told.”

“Oh, more than that!”

“Huh! Guess yourself, then!”

“But even twelve ought to bring us somewhere. And the farms stretch some distance this side of Coreytown.”

“Umph!” was the Shark’s non-committal comment.

Sam glanced ahead. They were nearing the mouth of the ravine, beyond which the ground appeared to fall sharply. Again he turned to the Shark.

“Never saw a fiercer storm,” said he.

“Blizzard!”

“May last a couple of days.”

“They do,” said the Shark grimly, and burrowed deeper in the upturned collar of his coat.

“Well, we can’t stand much more like this. We’ll have to stop and try to do something—rig a windbreak, maybe.”

“And freeze?”

Sam’s eye rested for an instant on the laboring Poke.

“Perhaps we can get a fire going. Anyway, we’ve got——”

There he broke off, amazed by the eagerness with which the Shark was rubbing his glasses with gloved fingers.

“What is it?” Sam asked in haste.

Out shot the Shark’s arm. “Look yourself! There’s something yonder! Oh, if only——”

But his speech was drowned by a jubilant shout. In spite of the driving snow, and in spite, too, of a veil of intervening branches, Sam had made out a chimney and the shoulder of a steep roof.

CHAPTER XXVI
OLD FRIENDS MEET

Down the slope rushed the boys like charging troops bursting into an enemy’s stronghold. Cold and weariness were forgotten. They dashed through drifts; they broke through thickets; they swung themselves over the ruins of an ancient rail-fence. Then they were in a clearing, and hurling themselves at the door of a little house, against which the snow lay banked to the window sills.

Sagging hinges and rusted bolt gave before the attack. The door yielded, and in poured the club like an irresistible tide. Once within the shelter, however, the boys pulled up abruptly, glancing about them with expressions portraying wonder and disappointment.

At a glance it was plain that the house had not been tenanted for a long time. The room in which they found themselves was fairly large, but bare of furnishings, unless a broken chair, an empty box and a strip of ragged carpet in one corner could be so described. A great fireplace at one end yawned cold and empty. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and such light as sifted into the place came through breaks in the windows rather than through the grimy panes remaining intact. Overhead was a ceiling of rough boards, through whose cracks much snow had sifted, testifying to the condition of the roof; while beneath each window a considerable bank of snow had formed. The walls gave protection, in a measure, from the blasts, but the air had a damp chill more paralyzing than the cutting wind.

Sam was the first to rise to the situation.

“Here, fellows, we’ve got to have a fire!” he sang out. “Herman, take that axe of yours and go for the old rails in the fence. Step and Trojan, go with him, and mind you lug in the driest stuff you can find—if there is anything dry. Shark, help Poke out of his snow-shoes. Now, Orkney”—he turned to the silent Tom—“you and I’ll tackle the fine work. Got any matches?”

Orkney drew a handful from his pocket. “Lucky I was cookee at No. 1,” said he. “Had to look after the fires, you know.”

Sam had torn a board from the old box, and with his knife was ripping off long, curling shavings. He had built them in a neat pyramid on the hearth, when Step and the Trojan staggered in, their arms full of billets. They stood, watching Sam closely, while he made careful choice of their offerings. As he had feared, none of the wood could be called dry, though some of it was not quite so wet as the rest.

Poke and the Shark were beating their arms against their bodies.

“Guess I’ve got a few frosted fingers, all right!” Poke announced ruefully.

“Then don’t get too close to the fire at the start,” Sam counseled. “Now a light, Orkney! Touch her off!”

Tom’s chilled hands threatened to bungle the task, but Sam, for reasons of his own, did not offer to assist. He wished Orkney to feel that he was to be counted a full companion in the adventure.

Orkney, sheltering a flickering match in his palm, knelt by the fireplace. Most cautiously he thrust the match into a crevice in the pile of shavings. A tiny flame shot up. It spread swiftly, the yellow tongues licking the heavier wood stacked above the kindling. Sam sprang to the box, and ripped off pieces of the sides. These he deftly placed on the blazing shavings. Steam and smoke began to rise, and, caught in a down-draft from the long unused chimney, belched into the room in a choking cloud.

Sam again raided the broken box, and Orkney followed his example. One on each side of the hearth, they fed the fire with strips of board, till at last the heavier wood was fairly ignited. The chimney by this time was warming to its work, and drawing fiercely.

The Shark, rubbing his nose in curiously experimental fashion, was surveying Poke intently. Suddenly he bent; picked up a handful of snow from a drift under a window; crossed to Master Green, and without warning fell to scrubbing that young man’s nose. Poke with a howl shrank back.

“What the dickens do you think you’re trying to do?” he demanded indignantly.

The Shark shook his head reprovingly. “That’s it—spoil everything! They say that’s the way to treat a frosted nose, but how am I going to find out if you won’t stand still?”

Poke tenderly caressed the feature under discussion. “What do you want to know for?” he inquired.

“Because I guess my nose is nipped, too,” said the Shark calmly. “So I thought I’d see how the treatment worked.”

Herman Boyd entered, fuel bearing. He brought a report, too, that between the old fence and a fallen tree near by there need be no lack of fire-wood.

Sam cut pieces from the old carpet, and stuffed them into the holes in the windows. Orkney, taking a hint, replaced the door in position.

“Say, you two!” Step called out. “You act as if you thought we were going to make a regular visit.”

“Maybe we are,” Sam told him. “We’d be crazy to go on while the blizzard lasts.”

“Right you are!” Step agreed, but drew a long face.

For a moment the boys listened to the howl of the gale. Then Poke settled himself on the floor near the fire.

“Might as well make yourselves comfortable, fellows,” he remarked. “I’d rather be here than outside, I tell you!”

The Shark followed his example, and so did the Trojan and Step. Orkney and Sam took opposite ends of the semicircle. Poke was smiling a sickly smile.

“I believe in making the best of things,” he announced. “I’m not exactly happy—my ankle hurts and my nose’ll never be the same to me that it was—but I’m not kicking. I’m glad to be here, as I’ve explained. But how long do you expect to linger in this bower, Sam?”

“I think we’ll have to stay all night, anyway.”

“Huh! Any idea where we are?”

“Not an idea.”

“I scouted around a bit,” said Herman. “No sign of a road or other houses.”

Sam nodded. “My notion,” he said, “is that we’ve tumbled on some way-out, back-of-nowhere abandoned farm. It’s been abandoned so many years that the brush has sprung up all about it. Somehow I don’t believe it’s near any village. And now that we’re here—well, Safety First, you know.”

“That’s right!” chimed in the Trojan.

“We’ll be safe enough,” Sam went on. “We’ll lay in plenty of wood, and keep the fire going—and that’s about all we can do.”

Poke laid a hand on his stomach. “That’s well enough,” said he. “Only do I hear anybody suggest dinner or supper? If it’s just the same, I’d like to have ’em both right now.”

The Shark pulled out a big camp doughnut. “The cook gave me this, bless him!” he remarked.

“I ate mine, worse luck!” sighed Herman.

“And I also,” groaned Poke. “It went ages ago.”

“Same here!” declared the Trojan.

Both Sam and Orkney, it proved, had been provident. Each produced a doughnut.

“Share and share alike,” Sam ruled. There was some demur from Poke, but the division was made. In a few moments the last crumb had vanished.

“My! but that’s just an appetizer!” sighed Poke.

It occurred to Sam that diversion was needed. “You firemen, rustle in more wood—a lot of it!” he directed. “Orkney, it looks as if there were a back room. Let’s explore!”

The “back room” proved to be a shed-like extension, in worse condition than the house itself. It yielded, however, a number of mildewed sacks, a wooden bucket, and a battered iron pot, in which, hung from a crane in the fireplace, snow could be melted.

Herman, Step and the Trojan brought in huge armloads of wood. They declared that it would be needed; that the temperature was falling, and that the night would be Arctic.

“Whoof! but it’s awful outside!” Herman avowed. “Bet it’ll hit thirty below!”

This, as the boys knew, was by no means improbable. In Plainville thermometers now and then showed such readings in cold snaps, while even lower marks had been recorded in the hills.

Sam built up the fire with generous hand. Its light as well as warmth was welcome, for the early dusk was closing in. The boys ranged themselves before the hearth. Coats were stripped off; shoes were removed, and toes were toasted comfortably. After all, the adventurers could count themselves lucky. If they had doubts on the point, they had but to listen to the shriek of the wind and the crackling sound of the snow driving against the windows.

There was little talk. Now and then one or two of the party uneasily shifted position, but the others seemed to be content to sit quietly, gazing thoughtfully at the fire. The Shark especially was absorbed in reflections.

Step, his right hand neighbor and one of the more nervous of the brotherhood, wriggled his long legs, stretched his arms, turned, and peered at the impassive Shark.

“Oh, I say!” he broke out impatiently. “What’s the use of being a graven image? Come to life, Shark!”

Very deliberately the youth addressed gave his attention to Step.

“Huh! I’m very much alive,” he remarked calmly. “I’m doing something with such brains as I happen to have.”

“How? What?”

“I’m thinking.”

“How we’ll get out of this fix?”

The Shark frowned. “That would be wasted effort. There’s nothing we can do till the storm ends. Meanwhile, I entertain myself sensibly.”

“But how?” Step insisted curiously.

An instant the Shark hesitated. “I—I don’t know that you’d be interested.”

“Hang it! I’d be interested in anything.”

“Very well, then,” said the Shark. “Visualize a cube!”

Up went Step’s hands. “Don’t shoot! I’ll come down. Also I’ll bite.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a catch, isn’t it? Go ahead! Spring your joke!”

The Shark looked disgusted. “Joke nothing! See here, Step! You know what a cube is, don’t you? Well, visualizing one means just picturing it in your mind. Remember the formula, don’t you, for A + B, cubed? It’s A cubed + 3A squared, B + 3AB squared + B cubed. Now, take numbers instead of letters—take easy numbers. Call A + B fifteen.”

“Er—er—all right. It’s fifteen. I don’t object.”

“Likewise, we’ll call A ten and B five. Therefore the block representing the cube of A + B will be made up of a cube of A—say, we’ll call the units inches——”

“I’m willing.”

“Then the cube of A,” the Shark went on, “will be a rectangular block, ten inches in each direction. On three of its faces we place what I may term flat blocks, each ten inches square and five inches thick—they’re the A squared B fellows. Then come what we’ll describe as the long blocks, five inches two ways and ten inches the other. Finally, there’s the cube of B, a block five inches high, five inches wide, five inches thick. Putting these together, and picturing each clearly in mind——”

Step’s long arm shot out. His hand fell on the Shark’s shoulder.

“You villain! You traitor! Doing stunts like that—in vacation! You ought to be——”

But the Shark didn’t wait to hear the punishment he deserved. He shook off Step’s hand. He glared at the critic.

“Course I’m not fooling with any kindergarten fifteen!” he cried hotly. “Just mentioned that to try to get down to your understanding. But I have been working ninety-seven, and I tell you——”

But what the Shark had to tell was to remain his secret. From without the house came sounds, clearly to be distinguished from the tumult of the gale.

Blows were falling upon the door. The boys sprang to their feet, but before they could respond to the summons the door was thrust back, and into the room reeled a man, covered with snow from head to foot. After him hobbled a second man, like the first plainly in sore straits from his battle with the blizzard, but holding fast to the end of a rope, which was passed about the leader’s body and knotted securely below his shoulder blades.

From the club rose a shout, which mingled wonder and welcome. For the man who held the rope was Lon Gates, and the man he drove before him was Peter Groche.

CHAPTER XXVII
PETER’S GRUDGE

Groche, stumbling forward, pitched in a heap on the floor. Lon, staggering to the wall, clung to it for support.

“You—you fellows—here—all of you!” he gasped.

“All of us—safe and sound,” cried Sam, and tried to lead him toward the fire. Lon resisted.

“No, no! Take—take it easy. I—I’m better off here for a while. But—but what you doin’—doin’——” his voice trailed weakly.

In a dozen sentences Sam told him. Lon’s eyes opened wide.

“Wal, wal! And the storm catched you! And such a whopper of a howler of a storm, gee whillikens!”

“We know about it. But where did you come from?”

Lon pulled off his cap, and bending down, scooped up a handful of snow from the drift under the window.

“Wait a minute—fust aid treatment fust!” said he; and began to rub his face and ears. “No; lemme be! You—you can’t help me. I’m like—like an old cat—got to lick my own scratches.”

Perforce Sam desisted. Lon, working deliberately and carefully, winced now and then.

“Got through the hide in places,” he admitted. “This ain’t no night for a polar bear to be out. Wow! but that wind did sting and cut!”

Sam laid finger on a clean gash in Lon’s coat. “Wind didn’t do that, did it?”

“No,” said Lon; but he limped to Groche and studied the prostrate figure for a moment before he went on:

“No; knife done it—’twas his only good jab at me.”

Lon drew a little nearer the fire, but kept a wary eye on Groche. His voice was gaining strength, though he still spoke huskily.

“Wal, three of us started from the camp, you know. Stub picked up the trail. It led north. That meant the critter was steerin’ for the Canady line. But the storm turned him back—that’s how I got him.”

“You alone?” asked Sam eagerly.

“I’m comin’ to that. One time it seemed ’sif the blow was goin’ to spoil our chances, for it drifted the trail over; but it headed Groche off, too. He knew he couldn’t buck a blizzard. So, finally, he give up and made a ’bout face. We three’d separated—spread out, you know—lookin’ for his tracks. So there wa’n’t nobody with me when, all of a sudden, I clumb over a little rise, and there was Mr. Peter leggin’ it before the wind for all he was wuth. And I was right atop of him, ’most. And then I got this.” And Lon touched the cut in his coat.

“But you had a pistol, hadn’t you?”

Lon’s smile was grim. “Kane had seen that I was heeled proper, but I’d sot my heart on roundin’ up my man without makin’ a sieve of him. Why, I’d even took a rope along to hog-tie him. So I didn’t shoot. I jest clubbed the revolver and patted him over the head with it till the butt broke off. By that time, though, he was ready to quit.”

“Great Scott, but what a fight it must have been!”

“Wal, ’twas quite some. What with him tryin’ to carve me up, and me doin’ a bass drum solo on his head—oh, wal, you can figger out as well as I can what happened. I was too busy to be takin’ picters. But I’ll say this for him: he fit like a wildcat.”

“How about your end of it?”

Lon shook his head. “Sam, I’m a man o’ peace. And I got enough of the other thing to-day to last me till I’m ninety-eight and come into my second wind. But that’s all I know about the scrap.”

For a space nobody spoke. Every one of the boys was picturing for himself that desperate grapple of two strong men, struggling for mastery in the midst of the raging storm.

“But afterward—after you’d downed him—what happened?” queried Sam at last.

“Mighty little—for a while. I was hopin’ the lumberjacks, missin’ me, would scout back and pick us up, but they didn’t come. Reckon they were havin’ troubles o’ their own. Finally, seein’ as how keepin’ still meant freezin’, I tried to work toward the camp. But bless you, boys! it wa’n’t no use; I couldn’t find my own tracks. And I’d got all tangled on direction. So I reasoned with Groche for a spell—he knows them woods better’n he knows any book. I roped him the way he’s fixed now, and told him, ‘Giddap! Le’s go somewhere.’”

“And then——?” Sam urged.

“Yes; tell us!” chimed in two or three of the others.

Thus encouraged, Lon told his story, and a strange story it was of captive forced to guide captor; of slow and painful plodding through growing drifts; of halts in the lee of wood or hill, while the storm increased, and the wind blew more fiercely, and the cold deepened. After a time he felt sure that Groche, while avoiding the camp, had some other refuge in mind.

“He’s brute enough,” Lon explained, “to have the brute’s instinct for makin’ for a burrow. So I give him his head, and let him go it.”

How long they toiled on, or how many miles they covered, Lon had no notion. The feeble light of afternoon faded into the gloom of night. Yet Groche seemed to be sure of his course. Lon even fancied that there was a slight increase in the pace. And then, of a sudden, he saw the flicker of the fire through a window of the old house.

“Then you’ve no more idea than we where we are?” said Sam.

“No more idea than——” Lon began, but broke off abruptly, as his glance, ranging the room, fell upon something which caught his attention. He stepped close to one of the walls, peered at it sharply, and gave an odd laugh.

“Wal, I’ll be jiggered! Who’d ’a’ thought it? Lookee here, boys! Stone work part way up, then wood! Say, but it beats cat fightin’!”

“What do you mean?”

Lon turned to the group by the fire. He was grinning in spite of his weariness.

“I mean this is the house old Calleck built up in the woods, the house where old Wallowby fit the bear. So that’s proof of the story—see?”

“Proof!” cried the Shark skeptically.

“Why not? Said there was such a house, didn’t I? Sure I did, and now I go and produce it. Rest follows as a matter of course.”

“Rats!” snapped the Shark in disgust.

“Rats nothing!” jeered Step. “All you’ve got to do, Shark, is to—to visualize it—yes, that’s the scheme. Take a dose of your own medicine for keeping the brain clear, can’t you?”

“Bosh!” growled the Shark; and in high dudgeon turned his back on the company. It happened that, as a result of the movement, he faced Groche, upon whom unwittingly he trained his gaze, while he meditated darkly upon the extreme unreason of his clubmates.

Groche had been lying like a log on the floor, but now he stirred restlessly. He raised himself on an elbow. For a moment he tried, as he had tried once before, to stare down the unblinking Shark; and failed as completely as he had failed on the former occasion. He struggled to a sitting position. He raised an arm, as if to ward off the hypnotic influence of the steady eyes behind the big glasses. And he broke into speech, incoherent, savage, and terror-stricken.

Lon limped forward, but Sam was before him, catching Groche’s arm. At this the ruffian turned upon him.

“You—you, I’ll get ye, if I hang for it!” he shouted. “You’re at the bottom of it all! You lied about me, and you set that old bloodhound, Bates, on me!”

“But you’re mistaken; I didn’t,” Sam said earnestly.

“You done it, you done it!”

Sam glanced at Lon. “I guess you reasoned out the truth of it,” said he.

Groche swore viciously, tried to rise; groaned, and sank back to the floor.

“You lied about me, and threw that job o’ yourn on me!” he snarled. “I’ll get even with ye, I’ll get even with ye yet, if I die for’t!”

Lon wagged his head sagaciously. “Jesso, Sam, jesso! Them’s the undoubted sentiments o’ Peter Groche, Esq. Once—twice, comin’ along, I tried to talk with him, but all I could make out was that he’d got it in for you for keeps. And as for the why of it—wal, I dunno’s you’re ready to have that talked over in open meetin’.” And Lon winked meaningly.

“Oh!” Because Sam understood, his tone was startled. “Oh! That?”

“Exactly! The beginnin’ o’ the trouble,” said Lon, and winked again.

“The be—the beginning——” Sam repeated doubtfully.

Perhaps Lon felt himself justified in dwelling on his own shrewdness.

“Fact is, Sam,” said he, “you’re kind o’ bothered, because you’re still half calculatin’ on what a reasonable bein’ would ’a’ done. But Groche, as I’ve told you, ain’t reasonable—not our kind o’ reasonable. Jest bear that in mind. Allow that he got it into his crooked brain that he hated you—hatin’s his long suit, I reckon. Now, you’re thinkin’—bein’ what you are, you can’t help thinkin’ it—that when nothin’ much happened to Peter, and they let him go, he ought to have realized he’d been mistaken, somehow, in draggin’ you in. But that ain’t Peter Groche’s method. He’d got you in his bad books, and there you stayed. It’s all plain as print to me, son. It’s one idee at a time for Peter, and he ain’t the sort o’ feller to go seekin’ further light, or askin’ the questions a decent man would ask. What if he was let out? He’s been put in, and that was all he thought about. So he ’tended to all the sculduggery about our place—which was bad enough. But he hated a mite too hard, and went a mile too far, when he played firebug; and now we’ve got him for something that’ll spell state’s prison for him. And that’s why I was so dead sot on bringin’ him in alive.”

“I see,” said Sam gravely.

Now, to this conversation there had been a group of eager, if puzzled, listeners. Save for Groche’s reference to Major Bates as a “bloodhound,” and the discussion of his brief confinement, no clue to the mystery had been given to the boys; and these matters carried a suggestion so unexpected and so surprising that none of them readily grasped it. When Sam said, “I see,” two or three of the others moved uneasily.

“Jiminy! I don’t!” cried Poke explosively. “I don’t want to seem prying or inquisitive, but you’ve got me guessing. It’s worse than Greek; for that I can dig out, if I have to. But there’s no vocabulary to help here.”

Sam’s glance went from one to another of his friends. He read in the face of each something very like the thought Poke had put into words. He drew a long breath.

“Fellows! I’ll tell you. I meant to keep it a secret, but I guess you’re entitled to know. What Lon referred to as the beginning of the trouble was—well, it was the—er—er—the accident to Major Bates. I shot at what I thought was a deer in Marlow woods, and I hit the Major!”

“Whew!”

“You did that, Sam!”

“Shot the Major!”

“Jupiter crickets, but I wouldn’t have been in your shoes for a farm!”

So the club voiced its astonishment. Sam waited for the hubbub to subside. Then said he:

“I intended to say nothing to anybody, but when Groche was arrested—why, there was only one square thing to do. The old Major was bully; so was my father. Groche was turned loose, and I supposed that was the end of the story. But then things began to happen—you know well enough what they were, and how we explained ’em.”

Two or three nodded; as many more stole repentant glances at Tom Orkney.

“We made a bad mistake,” Sam went on. “I won’t dwell on all the mistake led to; but I will say that it seems to me a clear case of one blunder brought about by another. If I hadn’t shot the Major, there wouldn’t have been any raids on our barn—and we’re certain Groche was the raider: so far Lon’s theory is backed by facts. I blundered by believing somebody else did the tricks, and that led to the third blunder in jumping to the conclusion that the somebody smashed the club window that night. Wait a minute, though!” He turned to Orkney. “You’re following this, aren’t you? You get the combination all right?”

“Yes,” said Orkney simply.

“There was a complication that night. Remember the cap of yours that Step threw over Mrs. Benton’s fence?”

“I remember it—but I never saw it again.”

“Well, we found it outside the club. What we thought about it was another of the mistakes. Not till a good while later did we learn that Mrs. Benton had put it in her rubbish can, and somebody prowling through the alley had carried it off.”

“Groche—sure’s you’re a foot high!” commented Lon. “He’s always skulkin’ through the back-streets. Pinched it, didn’t you, Peter?”

But Groche, though stirred by Lon’s toe to make answer, merely growled inarticulately.

“Well, I think we can safely assume Groche did take it,” Sam continued. “Even at first the Shark raised a doubt——”

“Doubt!” broke in the Shark. “Huh! Don’t you fellows know an absolute demonstration when you see one? What I proved was that that stone was thrown by a grown man, and a strong man, to boot!”

“Well, it’s all part of the chain,” said Sam. “One thing is linked with the next. If I hadn’t shot the Major, Groche wouldn’t have had a grudge against me, you fellows wouldn’t have been mixed up in the trouble, we wouldn’t have had reason to make a trip to the camp, we wouldn’t be here storm bound. And—and”—he glanced at Orkney—“and things that have happened wouldn’t have happened.”

A readier fellow, a more tactful fellow, might have found in Sam’s words something very like an overture for full reconciliation. More or less clearly everybody understood the situation. All eyes were upon Orkney, some openly, some covertly; but even in the flickering light of the fire Tom’s face bore a curiously set and stolid expression.

Poke relieved the tension.

“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “Jiminy! but I can’t get over it, Sam! Think of you going out and potting Major Bates, of all men! And then think of you keeping it a secret from the crowd! That’s funnier yet. But the funniest thing of all is that we didn’t dope it out. Why, there hasn’t been one of us that didn’t feel you were acting as if you had something on your mind. Yet with all the Shark’s calculations and with all my good common sense, we were as unsuspecting as babes in the woods!”

“Common sense! Poke’s common sense!” roared Step. “Say, that’s the richest joke sprung in a hundred years!”

Peter Groche, aroused by the shout which met this sally, lifted his head. He stared evilly at Sam, and his features were contorted as grotesquely as a gargoyle’s.

“He tried to plant the job on me, I tell ye!” he growled hoarsely. “Boy, I’ll get ye for that—I’ll get ye if I swing for’t!”

“Wal, I guess you’ll have to wait and do a little time fust in a cell,” quoth Lon.

Peter Groche made no reply. His head had sunk to the floor.

CHAPTER XXVIII
SAM MAKES CHOICE

The long night had dragged to an end. A pale glimmer at the windows told of the coming of a clouded dawn, while outside the old house the storm raged in unabated violence.

Sam, awakening from a doze, replenished the fire. The other boys were still sleeping, each in the posture which, to his notion, minimized the hardship of a bed of rough planks. The Shark was rolled up like a ball; Step lay flat on his back, his long arms and legs sprawling; the Trojan had pillowed his head on Herman Boyd’s shoulder; Poke, his forehead resting on his arm, was breathing very regularly and audibly; Tom Orkney, a little apart from the others, was stirring restlessly.

Lon was sitting beside Peter Groche, for whom the remnants of the old carpet and the bags from the shed served as a mattress. Peter was either ill or shamming artfully. Lon and the boys had had a hard time with him during the night; for though at intervals he lay in what seemed to be a stupor, these had been separated by quarter-hours and half-hours in which he writhed and struggled and cried out deliriously. They had done the little they could for him; and Lon had remained on duty as combined guard and nurse.

Sam dropped beside his ally.

“Well, how is he?” he whispered.

“Dunno,” Lon answered dubiously. “If he was anybody else, I’d call him a mighty sick man. Bein’ Peter Groche, mebbe he’s soldierin’. He’d be powerful glad to get away—don’t lose sight o’ that.”

Sam bent over the suspect. Groche’s face was flushed; his breathing was labored.

“Certainly he’s feverish, Lon. And he couldn’t feign that, could he?”

“Umph! I ain’t no doctor.”

“Wish you were!”

“So do I,” said Lon. “As ’tis, I dunno—the pair of us went through enough to send some folks to hospital, what with that rassle and then the tramp through the drifts. And I did hammer him up—had to, or he’d ’a’ done for me. Clear case o’ survival of the fittest—feller that fit hardest, you know. And I ain’t in what you’d call the pink o’ condition myself. Sam, I’m as stiff as a bunch o’ ramrods, and I ain’t got a j’int that feels as if it had been greased in a coon’s age. That’s one trouble—I don’t dare take chances with him. If he got two jumps’ lead, I’d never catch him. And for all his takin’s on, and his wild yellin’, and them fever signs—wal, jest remember he’s as tough as an oak knot and as crafty as a fox. And he’s got the biggest kind o’ cause to bolt, if he can. Arson’s a state prison job, sonny.”

“So I suppose. Only”—Sam hesitated—“only that wouldn’t be ground for failing to call a doctor or—or carrying him to one.”

Lon listened for a moment to the shriek of the gale.

“You’re right enough, Sam,” he admitted. “But he can’t be took out—not in a blizzard like this, ’specially as we don’t know where to take him. And as for tryin’ to go for a doctor—wal, it’d be risky, mighty risky. I ain’t in shape, but I wouldn’t dare leave that wildcat with you boys, anyhow. And as for sendin’ any of you, that’d be a big risk, too. ’Tain’t ’sif we knew where we were, you know; and I’d hate to take chances o’ losin’ worth-while youngsters for the sake o’ that critter.”

“But can’t anything be done?”

“We can wait for the storm to blow itself out.”

“But how long will that be?”

“Dunno. The big blizzard of ’88 done business for three days.”

Sam rose. He tiptoed to the door, and peered through a yawning crack beside it. Then he came back to Lon.

“I can’t see much change, except that the clouds are not quite so low or so heavy. And it’s colder than ever.”

“Like enough! Nor’easter shiftin’ to nor’wester.”

Sam took thought, and while he deliberated, Step awoke, sat up, yawned loudly. Poke followed suit, and in a moment more Herman Boyd and the Trojan were rubbing their eyes. Then the Shark uncoiled himself. Last of all Orkney shook off his slumbers.

Sam turned again to Lon.

“Look here!” he said in a low tone. “We can’t stay here three days.”

“Probably we won’t have to.”

“That’s too uncertain. We’ll have to do something. We haven’t a crumb of food, and we’re half starved.”

Lon nodded sympathetically. “I know, I know! If I had a hedgehog here, right now, I’d eat him raw, quills and all.”

Again Sam studied the flushed face of Peter Groche.

“Lon, there is something to do!” he said. “We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to send out an expedition for help.”

“But, Sam, I tell you I ain’t fit, and——”

“You’re to stay here, and watch Groche.”

“But who’ll go?”

“Two of the crowd.”

“Countin’ yourself one of ’em?”

“Certainly! And I’ll pick the other.”

With an effort Lon got upon his feet. He limped across the room and back again.

“No use, Sam!” he groaned. “I’d stall worse’n a balkin’ mule in the fust forty yards. No; you’ll have to give up the notion.”

“But my notion is that you’re to stay here, and watch Groche.”

“All right—but you’ll stay, too. I’d be plumb crazy to let you go. ’Tain’t ’sif we had the lay o’ the land. If we had, ’twouldn’t be so much like startin’ from nowhere for nowhere, in a blizzard, and with the thermometer ’way below zero.”

“But we do know where we’ll start from—that is, we have a general idea.”

“Eh?”

“Wait a minute!” said Sam. “This is Calleck’s house, isn’t it?”

“Ain’t any doubt o’ that, but——”

“But Calleck’s house stands near the South Fork. Don’t you remember what the lumberman said? Don’t you know he told us Calleck started to build with stone, but finished the house any way he could? And doesn’t that description fit this place?”

“It sure does. This is Calleck’s cabin, fast enough. Still——”

Again Sam interrupted: “You know—in a general way, as I say—how the South Fork runs?”

“Y-e-s,” Lon admitted reluctantly. “Empties into Blake’s River right at Coreytown.”

“Exactly! And the lumberjack said the house was about ten miles from the camp. Now, I’ve been trying to figure out the map, as the Shark would figure it, and I don’t believe we’re three miles from the village.”

The Shark had caught the mention of his name; also he had grasped the problem presented.

“Three miles?” he repeated. “Huh! good enough—as a guess. Of course, I don’t call that figuring. If you’ll give me the true distances——”

“Never mind, Shark!” said Sam promptly. “We’ll waive decimals and let it go at three miles, more or less. Then all we’ll have to do will be to find the South Fork, and follow the valley down-stream. And there’s a doctor at Coreytown, I’m sure; and the people won’t have to be asked twice to help us out.”

Lon rubbed his chin. “Umph! There is a grain o’ sense in the scheme. Say, though, Sam! Where’s that Safety First idea you uster have on your mind?”

“It’s there now—Safety First for the whole crowd!”

Lon glanced at Groche. The light was strengthening, and the alarming appearance of the man’s face was undeniable. A very sick man was Peter Groche, at least to the eye of a layman.

“Jiminy, but something’s got to be tried!” Lon confessed. “And followin’ the South Fork would be different from stragglin’ aimless. I dunno, I dunno!”

Sam pressed his advantage. “I do know, then. And Lon! The quicker I start, the better.”

“I reckon that’s true,” said Lon slowly. “Yes; if you’re dead sot to go, there’s no good in lingerin’. And you’re as husky as any of the boys. But who’ll you be takin’ with you?”

As one the club stepped forward, and volunteered.

“Choose me, Sam!”

“No; I’m the one!”

“Here, I’m your man!”

“Say! I’ve got a right to go!”

“Cut it out! He wants me, I tell you!”

They rained their appeals upon him, the Shark last but not the least earnest:

“Take me, and I’ll figure out anything you want. I don’t care if the thing’s all guesses and unknown quantities!”

But Sam met the eager glances of none of his friends. His eyes were on Orkney, standing aloof and gravely observant.

There was a tense pause. Then said Sam, very quietly, yet with a ring in his voice:

“Sorry I can’t say yes to everybody. But—but whenever you’re ready, Orkney, we’ll make the plunge.”

CHAPTER XXIX
SQUARING THE ACCOUNT

Imagine a winding valley, sparsely wooded, deeply banked with snow; a valley through which the gale sweeps with unchecked fury, whipping the bare limbs of the trees, catching up the crest of one shifting drift and sending it, a swirling mass of white, to build up another snowy ridge, in its turn to be leveled by the caprice of the storm; a valley bare of habitations, as lonely and deserted, apparently, as if it were buried in the depths of a great forest. Such was the course along which Sam and Tom Orkney fought their way. The cold was intense. The wind cut like a knife. Its force was so great that, when the windings of the valley forced them to face it, they could make progress but at a snail’s pace.

By Sam’s reckoning they had made about a mile of their journey. How long a time it had taken he did not know—an hour certainly, perhaps much more. There had been frequent halts, both for consultation and rest; for here and there thickets were obstacles to the advance, while both boys felt the weakening effect of their fast. They were not acutely hungry, but each was aware of a dully persistent sense of a void beneath his belt.

Studying the storm, however, Sam had caught a gleam of encouragement. Surely the clouds were riding higher, and were showing signs of breaking. The wind was not increasing. It was unlike the rising and falling squalls of the day before; for it was now a steady, hard blow. This change, along with the drop in temperature, convinced him that Lon had been right in assuming that the gale had hauled into the northwest, with a promise of clearing, if not warmer, weather. Though the air was full of flakes, caught up by the wind, the snowfall had almost ceased.

Sam put his mouth close to Orkney’s ear.

“Guess it’s blowing itself out!” he shouted.

Orkney nodded. “My notion, too. But it won’t quit for a while yet.”

“Sure! Nothing for us but to plug ahead.”

And they “plugged.” The slang fitted the case. Orkney’s foot caught on a hidden root, and he pitched forward on hands and knees. The snow yielded under his weight; an unsuspected bank revealed itself; and Tom, the center of a small avalanche, slid a dozen yards toward the frozen surface of the South Fork.

Sam, hurrying after him, helped him to regain his feet. “Thanks!” said Orkney, and shook himself like a Newfoundland emerging from a swim.

In five minutes he had his chance to reciprocate. Sam caught a bad fall over a boulder, barely hidden by a drift.

“Glory! That shook me up!” Sam confessed. “’Twouldn’t be a good thing for a fellow to be out here alone and get hurt, eh?”

“No,” said Orkney.

“But, pulling together, we’ll pull through!” cried Sam, and clapped him on the shoulder.

They went on, but only to share a mishap. The snow had bridged a brook running down to the Fork; and the arch caved under them. Down they went to their armpits in the snow. They scrambled out of the hole uninjured but breathless.

“We—we’ll look out for those places,” Sam panted; but in spite of their watchfulness he soon was caught in a worse trap. Another gully—and deeper—lay beneath a smooth surface. Sam, being slightly in the lead, vanished almost at the feet of the astonished Orkney, who dropped to his knees, groped in what was like a white whirlpool, and was lucky enough to lay hold of Sam’s collar. Then, by dint of much tugging and hauling, aided from below by the victim of the accident, he at last succeeded in rescuing his companion from the depths.

This time both boys were glad to lie on the drift for a time, while they were regaining wind and strength. Sam was the first to speak.

“Good turn you did me then. Regular cavern down there. Rather think there was water at the bottom of it.”

“Might be,” said Orkney. “Maybe rapids in the brook—they don’t freeze up often.”

Sam gave his companion a friendly dig in the ribs.

“Guess that came near evening up a little thing I did for you once—that pond business.”

“Nonsense!” said Orkney gruffly. “Come on! Let’s move!”

He got upon his feet, and Sam followed the example.

“Right! Mustn’t let ’em get tired waiting back at Calleck’s old house. Wonder what they’re doing now.”

“Envying me the chance you gave me!” said Orkney sharply; and plowed ahead without waiting for a reply.

Sam trudged after him. No doubt Orkney had spoken no more than the truth. The members of the club, tarrying with Lon and Peter Groche, would envy the adventurers. Some of them, Sam feared, might find it hard to forgive the preference he had shown Orkney; but he did not repent his choice. Physically, neither Poke nor the Shark was fit for such a forced march; Step was not a powerful fellow; Herman Boyd and the Trojan were sturdy chaps, with plenty of grit, but somewhat dependent upon good leadership. Orkney, on the other hand, not only had dogged resolution and persistence, but also worked well in “double harness,” as Sam phrased it. He was as far from yielding too much as from claiming too much. Though he might lack certain agreeable qualities, he was showing sound mettle under strain.

If Sam did not regret his selection of a companion, still less did he question the venture they were making. As he reasoned out the plight of the party, there was more than the condition of Peter Groche to warrant the expedition. As things were, two or three days might pass before anybody realized that the club had gone astray in the woods. Mr. Kane would suppose the boys had followed the tote road to Coreytown, and had reached the village; while the people there had had no warning that the party was on the way, and so would have no cause to send out searchers for the wanderers.

“Clear case of having to help ourselves,” Sam reflected; and pressed on determinedly.

But it was slow work, exhausting and taking toll of brain as well as muscle. Sam was no longer reckoning time or distance. Sometimes he led; sometimes Orkney. Often both halted, and, dropping in the snow, lay there till one or the other staggered to his feet, and gave a hand to his comrade.

They still kept to the valley, but by degrees were drawing away from the stream and climbing the right bank on a long diagonal. This resulted not so much from intention as from various obstacles encountered along the lower slope. The higher ground seemed to be clearer, the drifts not so deep. Once they came to a long stretch, where the gale had almost swept away the snow. Here they made easier progress, though it was far from rapid. In spite of their exertions the cold had laid numbing hold upon them, and their limbs were heavy as lead.

It had come to be a question of endurance, of tenacity as well as courage.

Their danger was great. In their plight they had to fight a constant temptation to pause over-long in the partly sheltered hollows among the drifts. There was another temptation to close their eyes and burrow deeper in the snow; but always one or the other roused to the fatal peril of yielding. Now it was Sam, and again it was Orkney, who shook off the numbing spell of the storm, and dragged the other from his resting place in the snow.

There could be no turning back. Each understood that they must push on at all hazards.

Both Orkney and Sam had heard tales of lives lost in the great blizzard of 1888, and other tales of men perishing in storms by no means so furious or prolonged as that famous tempest. Hardly a winter passed without claiming its victims even in the thickly settled region about Plainville; and though these unfortunates for the most part were thinly clad, poorly nourished tramps or human derelicts, there were not lacking instances of able-bodied men losing their way and succumbing to exposure. And here was a storm, not quite equaling the great blizzard, perhaps, yet accompanied by quite as bitter cold.

So, at least, the boys were misled by no false estimate of their desperate straits. Dulled though their senses might be, they did not lose grasp of the truth that they must struggle on and on, so long as strength remained to put one foot before the other.

Yet, though they but vaguely perceived it, a slight change for the better was taking place in the weather.

Overhead there were rifts in the clouds. To the northwest a patch of pale blue sky showed for a moment; was lost; reappeared, and grew in size. But the gale still blew strongly, if not with quite its earlier savage fury; and there was no rise in temperature.

They toiled on doggedly. Still veering slightly to the right, they came closer and closer to the summit of the ridge. Finally they gained it. Beyond was a broader valley.

Sam clutched Orkney’s arm.

“Look!” he gasped. “Yonder—a house! See it? Not a mile away!”

“There’s another—nearer—lower down!” cried Tom.

Sam gazed hungrily in the direction in which the other pointed.

“I see it! We can make it! Hur-hurrah!”

“Hur-hurrah!” echoed Orkney; but he caught at Sam’s arm, as Sam had caught at his. For a moment they clung to each other, swaying with weakness, dazed a little, it may be, by the sudden brightening of their hopes.

“Let—let’s rest a bit,” said Sam unsteadily. “Then—then we’ll go ahead. Noth-nothing can stop us now!”

“Not when we can see smoke whipping from that chimney!”

“Sure! Smoke means fire—and people—and everything!”

“And almost within arm’s reach!”

In fact, the house with the smoking chimney was a weary distance from them; but unexpected help was nearer at hand. For, while they still stood gazing into the broad valley, a curious procession emerged from a clump of woods at the bottom of the hill. It was a long line of yoked oxen, pair following pair through the snow, while about them floundered shouting men, urging them on with whip and goad.

Sam’s voice rose in an exultant cry. “See that! Whole neighborhood turned out to break roads! Come on, Tom; come on!”

But Orkney, clutching his arm the tighter, held him back.

“Wait a minute! I’ve got to tell you something. I want to tell it now—while we’re alone.”

“Oh! another time——”

“There’ll be no other time as good,” Tom insisted. “Look here, Parker! I’ve never hit it off with you, with your crowd. We’ve jarred each other. You didn’t like me; I didn’t like you. But now I’ve seen your bunch in trouble, and I’ve seen how you stick together through thick and thin. And your fellows have been fair to me.... I’ve never had a crowd like that. I didn’t believe there could be such a crowd.... No; don’t try to pull away! You’ve got to hear me! I started back with you, because that seemed to be the sensible thing to do. I expected the fellows would roast me, snub me, rub it in that I’d been a fool to bolt. I meant to stand it and say nothing; but back in Plainville I’d get even, fast enough.... Well, if I kept quiet, I saw things. It just forced itself on me, after a while, that maybe I hadn’t got along with you because I didn’t know how to get along with anybody.... I heard what you said about your mistakes and the crowd’s mistakes, and I understood. Bother all that, though! I know I’ve made enough mistakes of my own.... Hold on! There’s one thing more, and it’s the biggest thing of all—to me. Every one of your fellows wanted to come with you on this trip, but you chose me. It was the biggest thing you could have done for me. It squared the account—and more.... And that’s all I’ve got to tell you, except that the slate’s clean, so far as I am concerned; and that I won’t worry you or your crowd. I’m going back to Plainville, and I’m going to take my medicine. And I reckon you won’t hear me whine.”

Sam, genuinely embarrassed yet honestly pleased and relieved, tried to escape the restraining hand.

“You—you bet I won’t, Tom!” he said awkwardly but kindly. “No danger of that! You’ve proved the stuff that’s in you—the gang knows it as well as I do. And—and after this day—I don’t believe you’ll find things in Plainville so hard, after all.”

Then he freed himself, and started down the hill. The men in the road caught sight of the figures on the ridge, and raised a welcoming hail.

CHAPTER XXX
IN FULL SETTLEMENT

Plainville was on the last day of the nine traditionally allotted to discussion of affairs of high interest or importance.

The town had been stirred by the story of the adventures of Sam and his friends, and the boys, a good deal to their surprise, had found themselves treated like heroes. Plainville had had a taste of the big storm—huge drifts still rose in many places—and was ready to give full credit for plucky endurance of the hardships, both of the club’s wanderings to the old Calleck house and of the forced march of Sam and Orkney to the settlements; while the dash of a rescue party to the stone house and its return with the other members of the club, and Lon and the stricken Peter Groche, formed another chapter which caught the public fancy.

Groche was still in Coreytown, under treatment by doctors and guard by officers. The event proved that he had not been shamming that night when Lon watched him with suspicious eye. A very sick man, indeed, was Peter for a few days; but now tidings had come that, thanks to a rugged frame and a vigorous constitution, he was beginning to rally, with every prospect that, presently, he would be well enough to stand trial on the very grave charge of arson. Some doubt was expressed, to be sure, of his mental condition; but the chances were strongly in favor of his retirement behind the walls either of prison or asylum. At all events, Plainville heartily endorsed the opinion of Major Bates, and counted itself well rid of its least desirable citizen.

The Major, it is to be related, took keen delight in Sam’s version of the happenings in the woods, and learning, incidentally, that the secret of his wounds had become public property—at least, the property of the club—invited the boys to dinner, in order, as he explained, that he might present his side of the case. For the club it was an occasion of impressive state and ceremony, but the Major was a delightful host, quickly put them at their ease, told lively tales of war and peace, and finally made a speech which brought out three rousing cheers for Sam Parker and three times three for the orator.

Tom Orkney was at the dinner. The Major invited him, along with the rest and quite as a matter of course. And Tom, though his manner was reserved, didn’t fail to enter into the spirit of the occasion.

To tell the truth, his reception, in general, had been beyond his expectations. Had he been older and more experienced, he might better have understood that little heed is given to an old story when a new story is being told. Tom Orkney, runaway, was an old story; Tom Orkney, joint adventurer with the club, was a new story. Moreover, Little Perrine had been singing his praises, and Sam and his friends were losing no opportunity to proclaim his pluck and grit. So, when school opened after the holidays, Orkney, to his bewilderment, found himself enjoying a degree of favor in curious contrast to the chill reception for which he had nerved himself.

Lon Gates still limped slightly, but otherwise appeared to be none the worse for his battle with Peter Groche. Lon was not boastful. He pretended to make a joke of his capture of the desperado; and, in private, confided to Sam that he felt a bit like a fellow who had been able to bring in a stolen horse, but hadn’t known enough to lock the stable door before the horse was stolen.

“So I reckon I ain’t quite so much of a genooine Shylock Holmes as I let on to be,” he added. “Course, as the old lady said when she broke her false teeth on a hick’rynut but didn’t swallow ’em, things might be wuss, but then again they might be better. I ought to ’a’ had that Groche locked up for stealin’ the wrench, when I had him dead to rights; but I didn’t know enough. If I’d foreseen what was comin’—— Oh, wal, if I’d been able to do that, folks’d been dragging me off to be President of the United States, instead o’ lettin’ me stay here to help your father try to keep you in order.”

Mr. Parker, weather bound in No. 3 camp by the blizzard, had had his first intimation of the club’s peril and escape when he reached Coreytown on his way out. He came home to find Sam comfortably settled. The father listened attentively to the son’s narrative, but made no comment. Sam was puzzled a little by this, and not a little disappointed. He would have given much to know precisely his father’s opinion of his conduct throughout the episode.

But Mr. Parker reserving judgment, Sam went about his own affairs, and was very busy. There was school, with study and recitations; coasting, sleighing and snow-shoeing filled the afternoons; then there was a club question, which brought him into frequent conference with the other members. And at last this question was decided; and it was the evening of the ninth day; and he was hurrying through his supper because, decision having been reached, the club was to meet that night in full session.

Sam had made his excuses, and was rising from the table, when his father detained him.

“I wish you’d give me a few minutes, Sam,” he said. “It’s something which may interest you. Step into the library, and I’ll join you presently.”

Sam, at once curious and impatient, had not long to wait. Mr. Parker seated himself at his desk, glanced at a memorandum, turned to the boy.

“Well, Sam,” he said slowly, “about time we took account of stock and balanced the books, isn’t it?”

“I—I suppose so, sir,” his son answered uncertainly.

“Let’s see! Some weeks ago we reached an understanding. There had been an untoward incident, due to your—er—er—well, call it your precipitancy. At the time it seemed wise to put you on probation. Well, how have you behaved?”

“Why—why”—Sam stammered—“why, I—I’ve——”

Mr. Parker’s glance was searching, but his lips were smiling.

“To the best of my information, you’ve behaved remarkably well!” said he emphatically.

“Oh!” It was all Sam could say.

“Yes,” his father went on. “I’ve been at some pains to inquire into your conduct. I’ve examined and cross-examined Lon and the boys who were with you at the camp and afterward. By the way, two of them were unusually excellent witnesses.”

“Yes, sir?” said Sam questioningly.

Mr. Parker’s smile broadened. “One was Willy Reynolds, who——”

“What! The Shark?... That’s a nickname we have for him, you know.”

“Ah! The Shark?”

“Yes, sir—he’s a bug on mathematics.”

“A bug, therefore a Shark—I don’t quite master the sequence of ideas, but never mind that! Master Reynolds struck me as a quaint person, but instructive. He seems to seek precision of statement, and begrudge unnecessary words. Then there was young Orkney—very intelligent fellow, and a very good friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“I hope so!” said Sam with sincerity.

“They were the star witnesses, but all testified to the same effect—that you acquitted yourself creditably. Now, I don’t say that you displayed the wisdom of age—I’ve told you that I do not look for the head of sixty on the shoulders of sixteen—but you do seem to have combined a degree of prudence with resolution and resourcefulness in emergencies. All the boys say you were practically in command of the party. If that is true, even if you didn’t keep your friends from trouble, you brought them out of it. And that brings me from past to future. Once I told you I hesitated to let you go to St. Mark’s because I feared you couldn’t take care of yourself. Now what shall I say when I find you caring for others as well as yourself?”

Sam drew in his breath sharply. “Oh! St. Mark’s! Why—why, sir, I—I haven’t thought of it lately.”

“Well,” said his father quietly, “you are at liberty to think of it now.”

Sam tried to utter his thanks—and failed. There was a lump in his throat which forbade speech.

“It happens,” said Mr. Parker, “that I have had some talk recently with Mr. Jones and Mr. Green. Both seem to be willing to have their boys go to the school if you go, too; though Mr. Jones favors the change next September rather than at the close of this term.”

Then Sam found tongue. “Hurrah! Step and Poke going, too! And September’ll suit me just as well. I’ll be glad to finish out the year here. And—and it doesn’t have to be kept a secret, does it?”

“Not unless you so desire.”

“Whoop!” shouted the delighted Sam, and rushed out of the library. Thirty seconds later he was out of the house, and running toward the club.

All the other members were present when he burst in upon them; but before he could recover breath to spread his news, the Shark interposed.

“Don’t you try to start anything, Sam, till we’ve ’tended to business. Look here!” He pulled out his watch. “Seven-twenty-eight—and the time set’s seven-thirty.”

“Bother your watch, Shark!” cried Step. “Likely’s not it’s ’way off.”

The Shark frowned upon the doubter. “This watch,” he said severely, “has an average gain of twenty-two seconds, plus, a month. It was set by a jeweler’s chronometer four days ago. If you will take the trouble to compute the error which has arisen since then, and subtract——”

“Hold on! No rough work like that goes!” jeered Poke. “Twenty-two plus nothing! What’s the fraction? If we’re going to be accurate, let’s be accurate!”

For an instant the Shark stared at Poke.

“You—you talking of accuracy! Holy smoke!” he growled in disgust. “You couldn’t tell a vernier from a vulgar fraction!”

Sam thought he saw a chance to break in.

“Listen, you fellows——” he began; but this time the Trojan stopped him.

“Put it off till the show’s over, Sam. We want this thing done right, you know.”

“Sure! And you’ve got to make the speech, Sam!” chimed in Herman Boyd.

Sam’s jaw dropped. “Speech? Oh, thunder! but I can’t!” he protested.

“All the same, you’ll have to. It’s got to be put straight—the way we feel about it—all that.”

Poke wagged his head knowingly. “It’s the proper caper,” said he, in his philosophical fashion. “People always make speeches when they’ve got to break the ice and don’t know exactly how to go about it.”

Here was American common practice, if not the soundest of doctrine. The club was impressed.

“That’s so,” said two or three together.

“But——” Sam’s objection was cut short by a knock at the door.

The Trojan pushed him forward. Plainly there was no escape from the rôle his friends were forcing upon him.

Sam opened the door. Then, rising to the occasion, he caught the hand of a youth who stood on the step, and drew him into the room. Back of him the other boys formed a smiling semicircle.

“Tom Orkney,” said Sam very earnestly, “you don’t know how pleased I am to see you here. But I want you to understand that your election was unanimous, and that every one of us is mighty glad to have you a member of the Safety First Club!”

Transcriber’s Notes:

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned, except for the frontispiece.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The following change was made:

p. 339: hand changed to land (the land. If)

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