“Well?”
“You’ve made the claim of having been thinking, but you haven’t offered the slightest proof.”
“What I was thinking, fellows, was that we are obliged to meet the South Grammar nine on the diamond to-day.”
“We’re not afraid of them,” scoffed Dave.
“No,” Dick went on, “but I’ve an idea that we’re up against an ordeal, after a fashion. You all know what a guyer Ted Teall is—how he nearly broke up our match with the Norths last Wednesday afternoon.”
“Ted can’t do any guying this morning,” declared Greg readily. “If he does, the umpire will rule him out of the game, and that would snap all of Ted’s nerve. No; Ted won’t guy us to-day.”
“But I’ll tell you just what will happen to us,” Dick offered. “The spectators who come from the South Grammar aren’t under the umpire’s orders. You may be sure that Ted has posted the fellows from his school on a lot of things that they can yell at us. Oh, we’ll get guyed from the start to the finish of the game.”
“If they go too far,” hinted Dave, “we can thrash some of the funny ones afterwards.”
“I shan’t feel like thrashing anyone for having a little fun with us,” remarked Reade.
“Thrashing wouldn’t do any good, anyway,” Dick continued. “Besides which, we might just happen, incidentally, to be the fellows that got the worst thrashing if we started anything like that going. I don’t object to good-natured ridicule. But the South Grammar fellows may have some things to yell at us that will rattle our play. That’s what I want to stop.”
“How can you stop it?” queried Greg.
“That’s what kept me home a little later than I intended to stay there,” Dick replied. “I have been thinking, since last night, how I could take some of the starch out of Ted Teall, and have some way of throwing the horse laugh back on the South Grammar boys in case they start anything funny enough to rattle us.”
“How did the thinking get on?” Tom wanted to know.
“I believe I’ve something here that will do it,” Prescott replied, taking an object from one of his pockets and holding it up.
“It looks like a home-made ball for babies to play with,” remarked Dan Dalzell, grinning.
“It’s a home-made ball, all right,” Dick nodded. “Yet I don’t believe that I’d let a baby have it to play with.”
“What’s the matter with it?” Tom asked. “Loaded?”
“Some one told you,” protested Prescott, pretending to look astounded.
“What are you going to do with that thing?” Dave insisted.
“If I have a chance I’m going to get Ted Teall up in the air, and before the crowd, too,” Dick asserted.
“With this ball?” Greg asked, taking it from his friend’s hand.
“Yes.”
“Hm! I don’t see anything about it to shatter the nerves of a hardy youth like Ted Teall,” Greg muttered. “This ball is just wound with string and covered with pieces of old glove. Why, it’s so soft that I don’t believe I could throw it straight.”
Greg raised the home-made ball to throw it.
“Here! Don’t toss it, or you may put it out of business,” objected Prescott, taking it away from his friend.
“If the ball can’t be thrown, then what on earth is it good for?” questioned Darrin.
“I’ll come to that by degrees,” Dick promised. “Did you know that dad has secured a license this year to sell fireworks at his store?”
“Yes,” nodded several of the boys.
“Well, yesterday, Dad had a lot of samples come in from the manufacturers. There were a few of the extra big and noisy torpedoes,” Dick explained. “I got one of them and wrapped this string and leather around it.”
Then, in low tones, Dick confided to his comrades the use to which he hoped to put the ball. There were a good many grins as the plot dawned on the young diamond enthusiasts.
“That’ll be a warm one, if it works,” grinned Reade.
“Say, but I shall be hanging right around to see it happen,” declared Darrin.
Originally this Saturday game had been scheduled for two in the afternoon. However, so many of the schoolboys in town wanted to have Saturday afternoon for other fun that the time had been changed to nine in the forenoon.
“Hadn’t we better be starting?” asked Dick, looking at his watch.
“Yes; I want to be in at the death of Teall,” agreed Reade.
All in uniform the Central Grammars started down the street, though this time they did not march. As they moved along other boys joined them, some from the Central and others from the North Grammar. By the time that Dick’s nine and substitutes neared the field more than a hundred fans trailed along with them.
Nearly three hundred other boys were walking about on the field, or lying down under the trees.
Already the South Grammar boys were on the field, practicing by way of warming up.
“Hello! Here come the bluebells!” yelled a group of South Grammar fans and rooters.
“Blue? You bet they’ll be blue when the game is over!”
“Hey, Prescott! What’ll you take for the letters on your shirt?”
“Gimme that yellow curl over your forehead? I saw it first.”
“Oh, my, don’t the Little Boys Blue look sweet?”
In silence the Central players marched by their tormentors. Dick gazed across the field to see Ted Teall swinging a bat at the home plate.
“Teall!” called Dick, as he and the others dropped their jackets at the batters’ benches.
“Hello!” returned Ted. “I’m glad to see that you fellows really had the nerve to come to-day.”
“I saw you doing some pretty wild batting, Teall,” laughed Dick Prescott. “That kind of work won’t save you when I get started. Shall I throw you in a few real ones—hard ones—before we get at it in earnest?”
“Go on!” retorted Ted scornfully.
“Oh, I won’t hurt you,” Prescott promised.
“You bet you won’t,” boasted Teall.
“He’s afraid, even before the game starts,” jeered a group of Central Grammar boys. “That’s right, Ted. Guard your life.”
“Don’t be afraid, Teall,” Dick urged tantalizingly. “Trying to hit some of my deliveries will be something like an education for you.”
“Bosh!” sneered Teall.
“Then why won’t you try a few?”
“I will, if you really think you can throw a ball that will rattle me any,” Teall agreed, grinning broadly.
“Go at him, Dick!”
“Whoop! Show him what a cheap batter he is.”
Laughing, balancing a ball in his hands, Dick glided out on to the diamond.
“Ready, Ted? Just see what you can do with one like this,” Dick mocked.
It was a swift ball, but a straight one. To a batsman of Teall’s skill it was not a difficult one to hit. Ted swung his bat and gave the ball a crack that sent it far out into outfield.
“Is that the best you can do?” jeered Ted.
“Oh, I’ve one or two better than that,” replied Dick, pretending to feel flustered.
Again Prescott sent in a swift one, and once more Teall sent the leather spinning over the field. Hoots and cat-calls from the Souths filled the air. The Central fans began to look a bit uneasy. What was their champion pitcher doing, to let Teall get away with his deliveries as easily as this?
A third ball Dick drove in, with the same result as before.
“Say, what you fellows need is practice,” leered Ted.
“Look out that I don’t catch you yet,” mocked Dick Prescott, bending to scoop up the returning ball from the ground. Then he wheeled like a flash to confront the batsman.
This time, by a quick substitution, Dick held the home-made ball. He twirled it for an instant, then sent it in toward the plate.
“Just—as—easy!” scoffed Ted, whirling his bat, then reaching out for the ball.
Crack! Teall hit it soundly.
Bang! With such force had the batsman struck that he exploded the large torpedo inside the home-made ball. There was a rattling explosion, and Teall, unable to figure, in that first instant, what had happened, sent the bat flying.
“Ow-ow-ow!” yelled startled Ted, leaping up into the air. When he alighted he ran a dozen or more steps as fast as he could go, then halted and looked around him. For an instant Teall’s face expressed panic.
Then mocking laughter from hundreds of throats greeted him.
“I knew any little thing out of the ordinary would rattle you,” smiled Dick. “Don’t lose your nerve. It wasn’t anything.”
“Just a fresh idiot’s attempt to be funny!” growled Teall, his face now red with mortification.
“Laugh, Ted, confound you!” urged Tom Reade. “Laugh! Don’t be a grouch.”
“What you need, Teall,” teased Dave Darrin, “is some nerve tonic. You ought not to let yourself get into such bad shape that you almost faint when you hit the ball.”
For once Ted Teall’s ready tongue went back on him. He could think of nothing to say that would not make him look still more ridiculous.
“I guess he’ll be good, for one game at least,” grimaced Dick as he turned to his teammates.
Chapter VII
TED TEALL FACES THE STORM
The game had gone into the third inning, with the Centrals retired from the bat and the Souths now in from the field.
In the second inning Greg, backed splendidly by Tom and Dick, had scored a run for his side—the only run listed as yet.
In this third inning, with South Grammar now at the bat, two men were out, and one on second when Ted Teall stepped to the plate.
“Put a real slam over on ’em, Ted!” shouted a South fan.
“Drive a ball over into Stayton and then fill up the score card while the Centrals are looking for it!” advised another Teall partisan.
“Centrals?” jeered another boy from the South. Grammar. “Centrals? Show ’em they’re just plain hello-girls!”
Ted grinned broadly at this “hello-girls” nickname. Just then another fan from the southern part of Gridley piped up:
“Ted, eat ’em. They’re only nine pieces of blue cheese!”
That was going too far, and it was time for Central Grammar to take notice effectively.
“Bang!” roared one half of the Central fans.
“Ow-ow-ow!” yelled the other half of the Central boosters, leaping up into the air.
Even Ted Teall had to laugh at this mortifying reminder of his terror when he had struck the torpedo ball. The next instant his face went deep red, for everyone on the field appeared to be laughing and jeering at him.
“Confound Prescott and his tricks!” muttered Teall under his breath. “It’ll take a lot of thinking for me to get even with that trick.”
Whizz-zz! went the ball by Ted’s body, just below shoulder-high.
“Strike one!” called the umpire sharply.
“Centrals will get me rattled with that bang-ow-ow! of theirs every time they spring it on me,” thought Ted savagely.
“Strike two!”
Again Ted had failed to realize that the ball was coming. In his anger be wondered whether he’d rather throw his bat at the umpire or at smiling Dick Prescott.
“Strike three!” called the umpire’s steady voice. “Side out.”
Then Ted, in sheer exasperation, did hurl his bat a score of feet away.
“Bang!” came in a volley of Central voices.
“Ow-ow-ow!” wailed the other half of Old Dut’s boys while the North Grammars joined in.
“Go it, you boobs!” muttered Ted, shaking his fist at the spectators.
“Hurrah!” cheered Spoff Henderson from the subs’ bench. “We know how to stop Ted Teall’s mouth now!”
Teall happened to hear the remark.
“Oh, you fellows are a lot of boobies!” sputtered Ted wrathfully.
“Anyway,” Toby Ross leered back at him, “we’re not so young that we yell when we hit a ball by mistake.”
In the fourth and fifth innings the Central Grammars, though they booked some base hits, did not succeed in getting any runs through. However, they succeeded in preventing Teall’s nine from scoring, which kept the score still at one to nothing. In the first half of the sixth Harry Hazelton was brought home from third by a good one by Dan. Then the side went out. In this inning Teall again had a chance at bat. Before batting he stalked over to where a lot of his schoolfellows were grouped and muttered:
“Don’t you fellows shoot any funny remarks in this inning. Keep quiet.”
“Huh!” shot out one of the boys. “What’s the matter with you, Ted?”
“No matter. But I don’t want any funny line of talk steered over to the Centrals to-day.”
“Seems to me you’ve changed a lot, Ted,” grinned one of his classmates. “Yesterday afternoon you put us up to a lot of funny things to holler to-day.”
“Forget ’em,” ordered Ted.
“Dick Prescott certainly stabbed you with that torpedo,” grinned another South. “Ted, your nerve is gone for to-day.”
“Don’t get too funny with me, or I’ll see you after the game,” threatened Teall, as he stalked away, for he was now on deck, and due to go next to bat.
The second man for the Souths struck out.
“Teall at bat!” called the score-keeper.
Hi Martin and a lot of the North Grammar boys had come to the field late. Hi didn’t like to see the score two to nothing in favor of the Centrals. He would have preferred to have the Souths win.
“Let’s get Prescott rattled?” whispered Martin.
“I don’t believe you can do it,” replied Bill Rodgers. “Prescott is a mighty cool one.”
“Yes, we can,” insisted Hi. “I’ll tell you what to boiler just the instant that Teall picks up the stick and Prescott starts to twist the ball.”
Ted, all unsuspicious, and believing that he had stilled his own band of teasing torments, picked up his bat and went to the plate.
“Put it over the robbers, Ted!” came from Hi Martin’s crowd. “Don’t be afraid of the Centrals—the fellows who stole their uniforms from a lunatic in the woods.”
Dick heard the senseless taunt and understood it. But it didn’t anger or confuse him. Instead, the ball left his hand with surer guidance.
But a crowd of Central fans also heard, and imagined that the yell came from one of the groups of Souths.
“Bang! bang!” yelled a lot of Central Grammar boys with enthusiasm.
“Ow-ow-ow! Ow-ow-ow!” came the response.
“Strike one!” called the umpire. Ted, his face crimson and his eyes flashing fire, threw his bat from him.
“Teall, pick up your bat,” ordered the umpire. “If you do that again I’ll order you from the game.”
“I don’t care if you do!” trembled on Ted’s lips, but he caught the words in time. He gulped, swallowed hard, hesitated, then went tremulously to pick up his stick. However, his grit was gone for the day. He struck out and retired.
“Ow-ow-ow!” yelled a few of the Central fans in the eighth, and Dave Darrin struck a two bagger, bringing Prescott in safe from second, scoring a third run and landing Darrin on second. Had not Ross struck out immediately afterward there would have been other runs scored. The count was now three to nothing in favor of the Central Grammars.
“Prescott’s fellows are playing some ball,” declared Bill Rodgers.
“Hub! You mean that the Souths don’t know how to play,” sneered Hi Martin.
“Teall’s fellows are playing well,” argued Rodgers. “If you watch, you’ll see that the luck of the Centrals depends a lot on the way they run the bases. Whew! They go like greased lightning when they’re sprinting around the diamond.”
“Well, why shouldn’t they run?” demanded Hi. “Prescott and his fellows have been running every day since the snow went away.”
“I wish our Norths had been running all the time, too,” sighed Bill.
The Souths were playing desperately well in the field. Dick’s side came in for the ninth, but did not succeed in getting another run.
“Now, watch ’em closely, fellows,” counseled Dick, as, from the benches, he started his men out to the field. “The Souths are mad and game, and they may get runs enough in this last half to beat us. Play, all the time, as if you didn’t know what it was to be tired. Keep after ’em!”
Dick struck the first South Grammar fellow out. The next man at bat took first on called balls. The next hit a light fly that was good for a base. The player who followed sent a bunt that Dave, as short-stop, fumbled. And now the bases were full.
“Oh, you Ted!” wailed the South fans hopefully. “Do your duty now, Teall!”
Ted gripped the bat, stepping forward. As he reached the plate he shot at his schoolmates a look of grim resolution.
“I’ll bring those three fellows in, if I have to kill the ball, or drive it through a fielder!” muttered Ted resolutely. “If we can tie the score then we can break this fearful hoodoo and win the game yet.”
“Don’t let that pitcher scare you, Ted!” yelled a South encouragingly. “He hasn’t a wing any longer. It’s only a fin.”
“Codfish fin, at that,” mocked another.
“Bang!” retorted a dozen Central fans.
Before the answering chorus could come Dick Prescott held up a hand, looking sternly at his sympathizers.
“Strike one!” called the umpire, and once more Teall reddened.
“I’ve got to brace, and work myself out of this,” groaned red-faced Teall. “There’s too much depending on me.”
“Ball one!”
“Now, I hope the next one will be good, and that I can hit it a crack that will drive it into the next county,” muttered Ted, feeling the cold sweat beading his forehead.
He judged wrongly, on a drop ball.
“Strike two!”
“Drive a plum into that pudding in the box, Ted,” sang out one of his classmates.
“Ow-ow-ow!” shrieked a score of watching Central Grammar boys. That was the last straw. Ted felt the blood rush to his head and all looked red before him.
“Strike three! Side out! Game!” came slowly, steadily from the umpire. Then the score-keeper rose to his feet.
“Central Grammar wins by a score of three to nothing.”
This time Ted Teall didn’t throw his bat. Gripping it savagely, he stalked over to a group of his own schoolmates.
“What fellow was it that started the yelling?” demanded Ted huskily.
“Why?” challenged three or four of the Souths.
“I want to know who he is—that’s all,” muttered Ted.
In a moment there was a mix-up. But Teall wasn’t popular at that moment. A captain who had led his men into a whitewash was entitled to no very great consideration.
“Let go of that bat!” roared Ted, as he felt it seized. “Let go, or I’ll hit some one with it.”
“That’s what he wants to do anyway,” called out one of the boys. “Yank it away from him!”
The bat torn from him, Ted Teall was fighting mad. He was so ugly, in fact, that he was borne to the ground, three of his own classmates sitting on him.
“You’re all right, Ted,” announced one of his classmates. “All that ails you is that you’ve got a touch of heat. Cool off and we’ll let you up.”
“There’s one guyer who has lost his hold on his favorite pastime of annoying other people,” remarked Tom Reade grimly.
“Dick’s trick was the slickest that ever I saw done in that line,” chuckled Dave Darrin. “But I wonder how our fellows tumbled to the idea of calling ‘bang’ first, and then following it up with ‘ow-ow-ow’?”
“Want to know very badly?” Tom questioned.
“I surely do,” Darry nodded.
“Well, then,” Tom declared, “I put some of the fellows up to that trick.”
Chapter VIII
TWO RIVALS PLAN DIRE REVENGE
“I wonder what Ted Teall will do after this when he wants to play rattles on the other side?” inquired Harry.
Dick & Co. were now making the most of Saturday afternoon. Having no money to spend, and no boat in which to enjoy themselves on the river, they had gone out of Gridley some distance to a small, clear body of water known as Hunt’s pond.
When sufficient time after dinner had passed, they intended to strip and go in swimming, for this pond, well in the woods, was, by common understanding, left for boys who wanted to indulge in that sport.
“I don’t believe Ted will get very funny, in the immediate future,” replied Tom reflectively. “His fellows came to the field, all primed with a lot of funny remarks they were going to shoot at us during the game. Yet the only fellows who got hit by any flying funny talk were the Souths themselves. I have been wondering if ‘Bang—ow-ow’ was what cost the Souths the game?”
“I don’t quite believe that,” replied Dick. “Yet I am certain that it took a lot of starch out of Ted himself. Do you remember that time when he went over and spoke to his fellows?”
“Yes,” nodded Greg.
“Well,” Dick pursued, “I’ve heard since that that was the time when Ted went over and begged his fellows to ‘can’ all funny talk until the game was over.”
“But they didn’t,” chuckled Dan.
“That was why Ted was so angry at the end.”
“Anyway,” Tom insisted, “Teall isn’t likely to bother us any more.”
“Either he’ll quit on the funny talk,” agreed Prescott, “or else he’ll go to the other extreme and be more tantalizing than ever.”
It would greatly have interested these Central Grammar boys had they known that the subject of their conversation was even then listening to them. Ted Teall, sore and angry, had come away from town all by himself. He wanted a long swim in the pond, to see if that would cool off the anger that consumed him.
Hearing voices as he came through the woods, Ted halted first, then, crawling along the ground, made his way cautiously forward. And now the captain of the South Grammar nine lay flat, his head hidden behind a clump of low bushes.
“Having fun over me, are they?” growled Ted.
“It was a rough trick to play, of course,” laughed Dick. “But I felt so wholly certain Ted’s fellows would start in to break us up that I felt I had to spring that torpedo trick in order to shut the other crowd up in advance.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” thought Teall angrily.
“But now there’s something else to be thought of,” Prescott went on. “Teall is bound to feel sore and ashamed, and he won’t rest until be has done his best to get even with us.”
“Teall had better leave us alone,” replied Tom, shaking his head. “Ted’s brain isn’t any too heavy, and he’ll never be equal to getting the better of a crowd with a Dick Prescott in it.”
“We won’t do any bragging just yet,” Prescott proposed.
“That’s right. You’d better not,” Ted growled under his breath.
“Fellows,” announced Dan Dalzell, “I’ve made an important discovery.”
“I wonder if he saw me?” flashed through Teall’s mind, as he tried to lie flatter than before.
“Name the discovery,” begged Hazelton.
“Look at your watches, fellows,” Dan continued, “and I think you’ll find that it’s now proper time for us to go in swimming.”
“So it is,” Darrin agreed. “Hurrah!”
Little more was said for a few moments. All the fellows of Dick & Co. were busy in getting their clothing off.
“Say, but I hope you fellows get far enough away from your duds!” breathed Teall vengefully, as he watched through the screen of leaves.
“Do you fellows think we had better leave a guard over our clothes?” queried Dick, as they stood forth, ready for swimming.
“Not!” returned Dalzell with emphasis. “If I agreed to it, it would be just my luck to have the lot fall to me. For the next half hour I don’t want to do a thing but feel the water around me all the way up to my neck.”
“What’s the use of a guard over our clothes?” queried Dave. “There isn’t another soul besides ourselves in these woods this afternoon.”
“Go on thinking that!” chuckled Teall.
Running out on a log and putting his hands together, Dick dived.
“How’s the water?” called Tom.
“Cold,” Prescott answered, blowing out a mouthful as he struck out for the middle of the pond. “You’d better keep out.”
“He wants the pond all to himself,” muttered Tom, and dived at once.
In a moment all six boys were in the water, sporting about and enjoying themselves.
“I wish they’d get further away from here,” thought Ted wistfully. “They’re hanging right around here. If I show myself they’ll all swim in. There wouldn’t be time to do anything.”
All too late Ted heard some one coming through the woods behind him. He crouched, ready to crawl away to privacy, but found himself too late. Hi Martin parted the bushes as be forced his way through.
“Hello, Teall,” called the North Grammar captain.
“Hush—sh—sh!” warned Ted, putting a finger to his lips.
“What’s the matter?”
“Prescott and his crew are out there swimming, and their clothes are right below.”
“I see,” nodded Martin. “You want to get the clothes?”
“Sit down here, out of sight, and keep quiet, won’t you?” urged Teall.
Hi sat down quietly. He didn’t like Teall especially, but he disliked Prescott, and perhaps here was a chance to serve Dick’s discomfort.
“If they’d only swim away for a little stretch!” whispered Ted.
“I see,” nodded Hi Martin rather pompously. “Too bad, isn’t it? Now, Teall, you and Prescott both come from mucker schools, and I don’t know that I ought to butt in any. But I don’t mind seeing you torment Prescott a bit. You wait. I’ll go in, and maybe I can challenge those fellows to swim down the pond that will take them away from this point.”
Ted’s face had flushed sullenly at Hi’s remark about “mucker schools.” At another time Teall might have been ready to fight over a slighting word like that. Just now, however, he craved help against Prescott more than anything else.
“All right,” urged Ted. “You decoy that crowd away from here for a few minutes, and maybe I won’t do a thing to them!”
“I’ll see what I can do for you,” returned Martin, going down to the edge of the pond.
“How’s the water, fellows?” called Hi.
“Fine,” returned Dick with enthusiasm.
“Room enough in the pond for another?” Hi asked.
“Surely. Come on in.”
“I believe I will,” Hi answered, seating himself and fumbling at his shoe-lacings.
A couple of minutes later Hi dived from the log and swam out to the other boys.
“Are you fellows any good on swimming distances?” Martin asked, as, with lazy stroke, he joined Dick & Co. The North Grammar boy was an expert swimmer and proud of it.
“I guess we can swim a little way,” Prescott replied. “I don’t remember that we ever swam any measured courses.”
“Can you swim down to that old elm?” asked Hi, indicating a tree at the further end of the pond.
“We ought to,” smiled Dick.
“Come along, then,” invited Hi, starting with a side stroke.
Dick & Co. started in irregular fashion, Darrin and Reade soon spurting on ahead of Martin.
“How long can you tread water?” inquired Hi, after they had reached the neighborhood of the elm.
This sport is always interesting to boys who are good swimmers. Forthwith some endurance tests at treading were started. Then Hi showed them all a few “stunts” in the water, some of which Dick & Co. could duplicate easily, and some which they could not.
Thus the minutes slipped by. Hi, for once in his life, went out of his way to be entertaining to Central Grammar boys. But, at last, he muttered to himself:
“I guess Teall has had plenty of time for his tricks. If he hasn’t, then all afternoon wouldn’t he time enough.”
“Hello, Hi,” called Dick. “Where are you going?”
“Back to dress,” Martin replied. “I’ve been in long enough.”
“I guess we all have,” Dick nodded, himself turning back. His chums followed.
“I don’t know whether I’ll dress or not,” remarked Tom Reade, as he shot ahead of the others. “If I find I don’t want to dress, then I’ll just sit on the bank and dry my skin before going in again.”
Continuing his spurt, Tom kept on until be reached the log from which the first diving had been done. He waded ashore, looked about in some bewilderment, and then called over the water:
“Say, fellows, just where was it that we left our clothes?”
“Why, barely a dozen feet back of the log,” Dick called from the water.
“Hardly ten feet from where my clothes lie,” added Hi Martin, his face solemn, but with an inward chuckle over the rage of six boys that he knew was soon to follow.
“But where are your clothes, Martin?” asked Tom, staring about him. “Where is anybody’s clothes?”
The look in Hi’s face changed rapidly. He took a few swift, strong strokes that bore him to shore.
Then, indeed, Martin’s wrath and disgust knew no bounds. For his clothing was as invisible as that of the Central Grammar boys.
Chapter IX
HI MARTIN TRIES TO MAKE TERMS
“Confound that fellow Teall!”
This angry expression slipped past Hi’s lips unguardedly.
By this time Dick Prescott was on shore. His quick, keen glances took in the patent fact that some one had removed all the discarded clothing from sight.
“So Ted Teall was around here, and you knew that he was going to take our clothing?” demanded Dick, flashing a searching look at Hi Martin.
When too late, Hi Martin saw how he had put his foot into the mess by his indignant exclamation.
“And, knowing that Teall was going to slip away with our clothing,” Dick went on, “you went into the water and lured us away to the lower end of the pond. That was what you did to us, was it, Martin?”
Hi shook his head, then opened his mouth to utter an indignant denial.
“Don’t try to fool us,” advised Dick bitterly. “Martin, you may have thought it funny, but it was a mean trick to serve us, and I am glad that Teall has shown you how little he likes you.”
Under ordinary circumstances Ted might have left Hi Martin’s clothes behind. It had been Hi’s impolitic remark about “mucker schools” that had decided Ted to take away Hi’s belongings as well.
“That Teall is a dirty sneak,” cried Hi.
“He was simply a comical genius as long as he took only our clothes,” Dick retorted. “But now that your things are gone as well, it’s a mean, low-down bit of business.”
“Martin,” observed Tom Reade dramatically, “thine own ox is gored.”
“Talking won’t bring back any duds,” grunted Harry Hazelton. “Teall can’t have gotten very far with such a load. Let’s rush after him.”
“You lead the way, then, son,” suggested Dick, “and instead of following you, we’ll wait here until you bring the things back.”
“I wonder which way he went?” puzzled Hazelton.
“Probably straight to the road,” smiled Dick grimly. “That’s the shortest cut, and the road isn’t far from here.”
“But I can’t go near the road in this—this—fix,” sputtered Harry, looking down at his wet, glistening skin.
“Exactly,” nodded Prescott. “Nor can any of us go. That’s the joke. Like it? Ha, ha, ha!”
Dick’s laugh had anything but a merry sound. None of the boys had a truly jovial look, nor was it to be expected of them. Tom was solemn as an owl, Harry fussy; Dan was grinning in a sickly sort of way, as was Dave Darrin. Greg Holmes, utterly silent, stood with his fists clenched, thinking how he would like to be able at this moment to pounce upon Ted Teall.
“It’s an outrage!” sputtered Hi Martin, white to the roots of his hair. He was walking about, stamping with his bare feet on the ground, the fingers of both his hands working nervously.
“Oh, well, you won’t get any sympathy in this crowd,” Tom assured Hi glumly. “You were party to this, and all that disturbs you is that any one should dare take the same kind of a liberty with you. We don’t care what happens to you, now, Martin.”
“What shall we do with Martin, anyway?” demanded Dan Dalzell.
“Nothing,” returned Dick crisply. “He isn’t worthy of having anything done to him.”
“Let’s call ‘Ted’ with all our might,” proposed Harry.
“You can, if you want to,” Dick rejoined. “I doubt if he is now near enough to hear you. Even if he did hear, he’d only snicker and run further away.”
After a few moments more Dick and his chums, as though by common consent, squatted on the sand near the edge of the pond. It was warmer for them that way. Martin edged over close to them. Not one member of Dick & Co. did the captain of the North Grammar nine really like, but in his present woeful plight Hi wanted human company of some kind, and he could not very well go in search of people who wore all their clothing.
While the swimmers had been occupied in the water at the lower end of the pond, Ted Teall had been wonderfully busy.
First of all, Ted had loaded himself with about half the clothing belonging to Dick & Co. The shoes he had carried by tying each pair by means of the laces and swinging three pair around his neck. The first load be carried swiftly through the woods until be came to a thicket where he hoped he would find concealment.
Then he had gone back for the other half of the clothing. This, upon arrival at the thicket, Ted dropped in on top of the first installment.
“Now, I guess I ought to hide somewhere where there won’t be the least danger of them finding me. Then I can see the fun when those fellows come ashore,” chuckled Teall. “Hold on, though! There’s one more debt to pay. That confounded Hi Martin called the South Grammar a ‘mucker’ school. I believe I’ll hide his clothes, too, for his saying what he did. But I’ll have to go carefully, and see whether the fellows are still out of sight.”
Ted returned with a good deal of caution. Then he discovered, by the sound of voices, that the swimmers were still at the lower end of the pond.
“Plenty of time to get Hi’s duds, too,” chuckled the pleased joker. He slipped down close to the beach, gathering up all of Martin’s garments and the hat and shoes.
“Say, it must be fine to have a pretty well fixed father,” murmured Ted wistfully. “All these duds of Hi’s are of the best quality. I wonder if I’ll be able to wear clothes like these when I’m earning my own money?”
Then he started off, going more slowly than on his two previous trips, for he felt that he had plenty of time. But at last the nearing voices of the returning swimmers warned him.
“They can’t see me,” chuckled Ted. “If any of ’em chase me, I can make a quick dash for the road and they won’t dare follow me there. They’d be afraid of running into other people.”
So Ted even dallied for a while. Some of the angry words uttered reached his ears and delighted him.
“Hi Martin is hot with wrath, and I’m glad of it,” chuckled Ted to himself. “So he thought I’d spare him, did he! Huh! The next time he’d better be a little more careful over his remarks about ‘mucker’ schools!”
Then Ted walked on again leisurely.
“I believe I’ll let these fellows stay here until about dark, hunting for their clothes, and not finding ’em,” reflected Teall. “Then I’ll have Ed Payne drop around and tell ’em just where to look. They can’t thump Payne, for he won’t be guilty of anything but helping ’em. Then maybe Dick Prescott will pitch dynamite again for me to bat at!”
Teall gained the thicket that concealed the other clothing. Just as he was about to cast Martin’s belongings after the other wardrobes, he was disturbed by a sound close at hand.
With a start Ted looked up. Then he felt uneasy; frightened, in fact. At his side stood a shabbily dressed man of middle age. The man’s cheeks were sunken, though they burned with an unhealthy glow. There was, in the eyes, also a light that made Ted creepy.
“S-s-say, wh-what do you want?” stammered Teall.
“So you are a thief, and at work?” inquired the man, who had rested a thin but rather strong hand on Ted’s shoulder.
“A thief?” Teall repeated indignantly. “No, sir! And nothing like it, either.”
“Is all the clothing in there yours?” demanded the stranger sternly.
“No, sir,” Ted answered promptly.
“Then—–“
“You see,” Ted went on more glibly, and trying to conceal the fact that he was very uneasy under those burning eyes, “it’s just a joke that I’m playing on some fellows who are swimming.”
“You consider that sort of a joke humorous?” demanded the stranger, tightening the grip of his hand on Teall’s shoulder until the boy squirmed.
“It’s not a bit worse than what one of them did to me this morning,” Ted asserted, strongly on the defensive now. “And I don’t know what business it is of yours, mister. Who are you, anyway?”
“My name,” replied the other quietly, “is Amos Garwood.”
“Amos Gar—wood?” Ted repeated. At first the name conveyed no information to him. But suddenly he remembered the name that had been on everyone’s tongue a few days before.
“The crazy man?” cried Ted, his voice shaking. Then the woods rang with his startled combination of whoop and prayer.
“This is no place for me!” gasped Teall huskily, as, frantically, he tore himself free of that grip on his shoulder.
Without more ado Ted Teall broke through cover for the road. Never before had he realized how fast it was possible for him to sprint. Terror is an unexcelled pacemaker at times.
That whoop, followed by the yell of fear, traveled until it reached the boys at the lakeside. The distance and the breeze must have robbed the voice of some of its terror, for Dick sprang to his feet like a flash.
“That was Ted Teall’s fine voice!” he cried, running up the slight slope. “Come on, fellows! We’ll travel straight in that direction—and we’ll find our clothing.”
Nor were any of the boys very far behind Dick in the mad race. Though two or three of them stepped on stones on the way, no one gave a thought to so slight an accident.
Nor was it long ere they burst from cover and came upon Amos Garwood, standing as though lost in thought, for Garwood was trying to comprehend Teall’s words, “the crazy man.”
All in a flash Dick recognized the man. So did his chums. Hi Martin alone was in the dark.
“Good afternoon,” was Garwood’s greeting, as he looked up as though coming out of a trance. “You are looking for your clothing, I imagine?”
“Marvelous what a good guesser you are, sir,” gasped Tom.
“You’ll find your clothing in this thicket,” announced Garwood, indicating the spot with a wave of one arm.
Dick and Tom piled into the thicket, passing out the mixed-up articles to the other boys. A quick sorting was made and each item claimed.
“Say!” cried Hi, greatly disturbed. “There isn’t a single thing of mine here.”
“Serve you right, then,” uttered Tom, as he drew an undershirt over his head. “You don’t deserve anything to wear.”
“You fellows didn’t hand out my things,” uttered Hi, darting into the thicket. He searched savagely at first, then despairingly. Not a shred of his wardrobe was to be found.
“What became of my clothes?” Martin demanded, stepping out into the open. Tears brimmed his eyes now.
“Clothes? Your clothing?” asked Amos Garwood, again coming to a realization of things about him. “Why, I believe the boy who yelled and ran away from here carried one armful of things with him.”
“Which way did he run?” throbbed Hi.
“That way.” Garwood pointed to the road.
“You fellows get a few things on and run after Teall as fast as you can go,” ordered Hi. “Quick! Don’t lose a moment. Do you hear?”
“Yes,” nodded Prescott.
“Hustle, then!”
“Forget it,” requested Dick, deliberately drawing on a shoe over a sock, next doing the lacing slowly and with great care.
“Which one of you will go!” asked Hi, turning appealingly to the others.
“Hear the echo?” mocked Dave Darrin. “The echo says, ‘which one?'”
“Say, you fellows are meaner than poison!” Hi exploded tremulously.
“You have a very short memory, Hi,” retorted Greg Holmes.
“Who was it that put up the job on us? Who helped Teall to do it?” asked Harry Hazelton.
“But I’m sorry for that,” protested Hi Martin, tears again coming to his eyes.
“I believe you,” Dick nodded cheerily. “You’re indeed sorry—sorry for the way it turned out for yourself.”
“But aren’t you fellows going after Teall and my clothes?” insisted the naked one.
“We’re not going to chase Teall,” Darrin answered, “if that’s what you mean. But, see here, Martin, I’m not going to be downright mean with you.”
“Thank you,” said Martin gratefully. “You always were a good fellow, Darrin.”
“I’m going to be a good fellow now,” Dave pursued. “I’m not going to chase Teall, for we don’t know which way he went, and he’ll be hiding. But I’ll go around to your house and tell your folks where you are, and what a fix you’re in.”
I’ll go to-night, just as soon as I’ve eaten my supper.”
“You—you great idiot!” exploded Hi.
“Now, for that insult, I take back my promise,” Dave retorted solemnly. “You needn’t talk any more, Martin. I won’t do a blessed thing for you now.”
“Dave, you’re altogether too rough on a fellow that’s in hard luck,” remonstrated Greg, then turned to Martin to add:
“Hi, it’s no use to go chasing Ted Teall, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m all dressed now, and I’ll go straight to your house and get some clothes for you, so you can come out of these woods and walk home. I’ll do it for half a dollar.”
“Thank you, Holmesy, I’ll do it,” Martin eagerly promised. “And I’ll thank you, too, from the bottom of my—–“
“You can keep the thanks,” proposed Greg gravely. “But you can hand over the half dollar.”
“E-e-eh?” stammered Hi, nonplussed, rubbing one hand, for an instant, over his naked thigh in the usual neighborhood of the trousers’ pocket.
“Fork over the half dollar!” Greg insisted. “This is a strictly cash-in-advance proposition.”
“Why, you—you—you—–” stuttered Hi in his wrath. “How can I pay in advance when Ted Teall is a mile away from here with my—my trousers and all?”
“Cash right in hand, or I don’t stir on your job,” insisted Greg.
“I—I’ll pay you a whole dollar as soon as I can get home,” Hi offered eagerly.
“Hi Martin, after what you’ve done to us to-day,” demanded Greg virtuously, “do you think there’s a fellow in this crowd who’d take your word for anything? If you don’t pay right now, then I won’t stir a step for you.”
Again tears of helpless rage formed in Hi’s eyes. Amos Garwood stood looking on, unseeing. But Dick Prescott’s thoughts were flying like lightning. He knew that, somehow, Garwood ought to be seized and held until the friends searching for him could be notified.
Chapter X
“BABBLING BUTT-IN”
“You fellows seem to think that everything is done when you get your own old duds back,” complained Hi Martin angrily. “You don’t seem to think that there’s any need of doing anything for me.”
“Why should we?” demanded Dick curtly. “You’re the fellow who helped put up a job to hide our clothes. Now, you yell because you can’t find your own.”
“I’ll go and get you some other clothes, whenever I’m paid for it in advance,” Greg smilingly repeated his offer.
Dick’s brain was busy with plans for holding Amos Garwood until the latter’s father and friends could take charge of him.
“You’re all the meanest lot!” protested Martin, tears of anger standing in his eyes.
“And you’re the funniest fellow,” mocked Tom. “To see a lot of sport in playing a trick on us, but howling like a dog with a can tied to his tail when you find yourself the only one stung by the joke.”
“I’m going to leave here,” Dick suddenly declared.
“Oh, I wish you would find my clothes and bring them to me,” begged Hi.
“Come along, Greg. You, too, Dave. The rest wait here until we come back.”
Dick shot a significant look at Tom Reade, then glanced covertly in Amos Garwood’s direction. Reade understood and nodded.
“I don’t really need or want you along with me, Dave,” Dick murmured as soon as the three boys were out of sight of the others. “What I wanted was a chance to talk to you. Amos Garwood must be held, if necessary, until we can find some men to seize him and turn him over to the authorities. Be careful and tactful with him, but don’t let him get away from you. The other fellows will help you, if necessary. I’m taking Greg with me, just so that Greg may run in one direction and I in another, in case we don’t find help easily. But you get back and help Tom and the others. Of course you won’t lay hands on Amos Garwood unless it becomes necessary, but in any case don’t let him get away from you. Now, hurry back, for, if Garwood suspects, and shows fight, it will take all four of you to hold him. But if you all talk naturally and pleasantly, I don’t believe he will be suspicious, or make any effort to get away.”
Dave nodded, turning back, while Dick and Greg hastened to the road. Barely had they turned into the highway, when, a short distance, ahead, they espied a boy standing under a tree.
“There’s Ted, and he has Martin’s clothes with him,” called Dick quietly. “Let’s hurry up to him and get him to take the clothes back.”
“A precious lot I care whether Hi Martin ever has any clothes again,” Greg retorted.
“Oh, well, Greg, there’s such a thing as a joke, and there’s such a thing as carrying it too far. Hi Martin has had his dose of punishment already. We can afford to be decent and let up on him now. Hi, there, Ted!”
Teall looked as though uncertain whether to run or to stand.
“Don’t be afraid, Ted,” Dick called pleasantly. “A joke is all right, and we admit that it was on us.”
So Ted, after a first start of suspicion, decided to remain where he was.
“Hi Martin sent you after his duds, I reckon?” inquired Ted as the other two boys ran up to him. All of Hi’s apparel lay on the ground near Teall’s feet.
“He certainly wanted some one to come,” laughed Dick. “But, say, Teall, the thing has been rubbed in too hard. Run back with the things. You’ll find all hands where you hid our things.”
“And I’ll find the crazy man there, too, maybe,” ventured Teall. “Also, I’ll run right into a gang that is just waiting to trim me. I thank you kindly, but if any one is to go back into that crowd with Hi’s things, it will be some one else. I won’t go—too much regard for my health, you know.”
“Greg, you carry Hi’s clothes back,” urged Dick. “I’ll take Ted with me.”
“I will not,” flared Greg in open revolt.
“Be a good fellow,” begged Dick.
“That’s all right,” grumbled Greg Holmes. “But I’m no valet to any North Grammar boy.
“If you fellows won’t either of you do it,” protested Dick, “I’ll have to do it myself, and—oh, dear! I’m in such a hurry to get help to take care of Garwood.”
“What about that crazy man, anyway?” demanded Ted, his mouth agape with curiosity.
“I don’t believe he’s crazy at all, though he may perhaps be a little flighty in his head,” Prescott answered. “At any rate, he isn’t violent. There’s no danger in him. Ted, won’t you take back these—–“
Teall shook his head with vigor.
In the meantime four Grammar School boys had stationed themselves around Garwood, who stood under a tree chewing a blade of grass. Hi, either from modesty or humiliation, had retired into a clump of bushes.
“They’ve gone to find that boy who took the clothes, I suppose,” remarked Amos Garwood, looking towards Dave Darrin. “That was a strange boy, a very nervous boy,” continued Garwood aloud. “Just as soon as I told him my name, he turned and fled like a streak of lightning. I wonder what ailed him?”
“I wonder?” repeated Dave solemnly.
“And that boy said something else that made me very curious,” went on Amos Garwood. “He said something about a crazy man. I almost thought he referred to me, though the boy himself was the only one who showed any signs of being crazy. What did he mean?”
“He hasn’t told us,” Dave rejoined.
But Hi, who felt that he was being shamefully used by the crowd, suddenly broke in with:
“If your name is Garwood, then Ted Teall meant that you’re the one that’s crazy. And I know where the boys have gone. They’re not looking for my clothes at all. They’re looking for constables to come and seize you!”
“You shut up, Hi Martin!” raged Tom Reade, making a dash at Hi’s leafy screen.
But the harm was done. Amos Garwood changed color swiftly.
“Ha, ha! Ho, ho!” he laughed harshly. “I begin to understand now. But no one shall seize me. I won’t let any one take me.”
He started madly through the bushes, not seeking a path. Dan, who was nearest him as be passed, leaped and threw both arms around the man, bringing him to the ground. Dave leaped to aid Dalzell, nor was Hazelton long in getting to the spot. Tom Reade decided to defer the punishment of Martin, and went to the aid of his friends instead.
Though he had been downed swiftly, Garwood was almost as speedily on his feet, fighting desperately. Darrin he seized and hurled several feet into a thicket. Dalzell sought again to wind his arms around the fellow’s legs, but was brushed aside as though he had been a fly.
Tom Reade received a blow against his right shoulder that sent him reeling away, while Hazelton, in trying to get a new hold, was boxed over his left ear in a way that seemed to make the earth revolve about him.
Hardly had the scrimmage started when Garwood was free.
“No one shall stop me, or hinder me!” cried Amos exultingly, then wheeled and raced through the forest.
After him, as soon as they could recover their faculties, dashed the Grammar School boys. For a minute or two they had him in sight. Then Garwood, on his long legs, sped ahead and out of sight. For another half minute they could hear the man’s progress through the brush. After that all was so still that Darrin and the others halted, gazing perplexedly at each other.
“Where is he?” gasped Tom.
“Which way did he go?” breathed Dan.
Though they listened, neither sight nor sound now aided them.
“Of all the sneaks and trouble-makers!” cried Dave Darrin indignantly. “Hi Martin ought to be tied to a tree and switched until he can’t see! He’s a regular babbling butt-in.”
“What good did it do him to meddle in that fashion?” burst from Reade. “The mean, worthless fellow! And we had plenty of reason to feel grateful to Colonel Garwood, Amos’s father, after the handsome uniforms that were given us.”
“It must have been Hi’s reason for spoiling our plan,” muttered Hazelton. “He didn’t want us to be able really to earn the uniforms.”
“Come on,” urged Dave. “We mustn’t lose a bit of time. If we spread out and keep on we may sight Garwood again.”
“Huh!” muttered Reade. “If Garwood has gone right ahead at the speed with which be started, then he’s in the next county by this time. We won’t see him again to-day.”
After a few minutes of searching the other boys came to the same conclusion.
“Out into the road, then,” ordered Dave, who naturally took command when Prescott was absent. “We want to head off any men Dick may have found and tell ’em what has happened.”
They turned, making rapidly for the road. As it happened, they came out near where Ted Teall stood guarding Hi’s clothing.
“Have you seen Dick?” was Darrin’s hail. “Yes; he and Holmesy have run down the road to get some men. Here they come now with the men,” Ted answered, pointing.
Dick had had the good fortune to find help before going far. With such a reward as had been offered for the capture of Amos Garwood, it was not difficult to find men who could be interested in taking part in such a capture.
“What are you all doing here?” Dick yelled up the road.
“Garwood got away from us,” Dave shouted back. “Hi Martin spoiled the game for us, and we simply couldn’t hold Garwood.”
Then Dick, Greg and the three men hurried up. Dave and Tom told the story.
“What a miserable hound Martin is!” burst from indignant Dick.
“So that boy spoiled us from getting a good slice of a fat reward, did he?” growled one of the three men. “Where is he?”
“Up in the woods,” muttered Dick, “waiting until some one takes him his clothes. Ted Teall, you’ve simply got to return the booby’s outfit to him.”
“Won’t do it,” retorted Teall.
“But you took them away from him,” Dick insisted.
“Suppose I did?”
“It may prove a serious matter, to steal any one’s clothing,” Prescott retorted. “And Hi Martin’s father is a hot-tempered man. Ted, if I were in your place I don’t believe I’d run the risk of being arrested. A joke is one thing, but keeping any one’s clothes, after you’ve taken ’em, is proof of intention to steal. I don’t believe I’d take the risk, if I were you.”
The men were turning back down the road now, having decided to telephone the Gridley police and then turn out more men and go into the woods for an all-night search. Dick & Co. turned to go with the men.
“Say, you fellows,” Ted called after them. “You going to shake me like that? Who’s going back into the woods with me, if I take these clothes to Hi?”
“No one,” Dick retorted over his shoulder. “You don’t have to take the clothes back, you know, unless you happen to consider it safer to do it.”
“Hang those fellows,” sighed Ted, as be gazed after the retreating Dick & Co. “Well, I guess they’ve got me. The wise thing will be for me to take these duds to Hi before he catches cold.”
So Ted gathered up the articles of apparel and with them started back into the woods.
“Hi, Hi!” he called, as be neared the thicket.
“Here,” came an angry voice.
“Here’s your old duds,” growled Teall, as he reached the thicket that concealed young Martin, and threw the things on the ground.
“It’s about time you brought ’em back,” snapped Hi, making a dive for his belongings.
“I had a good mind not to do it at all,” retorted Teall hotly.
“You’d have found yourself in hot water if you hadn’t done it,” Hi declared testily, as, having drawn on his underclothing, he seated himself to lace up his shoes. Then he rose and reached for his trousers.
“See here, Ted Teall,” cried Hi suddenly, holding the trousers forward, “what did you do with my gold watch that was in the pocket of these trousers.”
“I didn’t see your old watch,” grumbled Ted.
“Then you lost it out of the pocket while running through the woods, did you?” insisted Hi angrily.
Teall felt cold sweat come out on his neck and forehead. Well enough did he remember the gold watch, which was the envy of most of the schoolboys in Gridley. Nor was there any denying the fact that the watch was absent.
“Honest, Hi; honest,” he faltered. “I didn’t see the watch at all.”
“You’ve got to find it, just the same,” retorted Martin stubbornly. “If you take things away and lose them you’ve got to find them, or make good for them. Now, Mr. Smarty, I’m going home, and you’re going to find the watch.”
“Say, you might help a fellow and be decent about it,” pleaded Ted.
“I didn’t lose the watch, and I won’t help you look for it,” snapped back Hi Martin, as he strode away. “But if you aren’t at my home with that gold watch before dark to-night, then you may look for things to happen to you! Find the watch, or wait and see what the law will do to you, Mr. Ted Smarty!”
Right on the spot Ted Teall started to look, a feeling of dull but intense misery gnawing in his breast.
“Oh, gracious! But now I’ve gone and done it!” groaned Teall, beginning to shake in his shoes. “Now, I’m in a whole peck and half of trouble, for I’ll never be lucky enough to find that watch again!”
Chapter XI
TED FEELS THE FLARE-BACK
Ted didn’t find the watch, nor did the men searchers get anywhere near a reliable trail of Amos Garwood.
As for Dick & Co., they aided in the search for a while, then went home to supper, feeling that they had done their present duty as well as boys might do it.
Ted Teall slunk home considerably after dark. Fortunately, as it happened, his parents didn’t force him to tell his reason for being late, but Ted sat down to a supper that was cold and all but tasteless. However, Teall could find no fault with his supper. He was so full of misery that he didn’t have the slightest idea what the meal was like.
“I wonder if I’d better run away from home before I’m arrested?” puzzled Ted, as he secured his hat and stole away from the house. “Br-r-r-r! I don’t like the idea of being hauled up in court.”
It finally occurred to him that, if the officers were on his track, the news would be known up in town.
“If I nose about Main Street, but keep myself out of sight, and keep my eyes peeled for trouble,” reflected wretched Ted, “I may find out something that will show me how to act.”
So to Main Street Ted slowly made his way, keeping an alert lookout all the time for trouble in the form of a policeman.
At one corner Ted suddenly gasped, feeling his legs give way under him. By a supreme effort of will he mastered his legs in time to dart into a dark doorway.
“Huh! But that was a lucky escape for me,” Teall gasped, as he came out from the doorway, peering down the street after the retreating form of Hi Martin’s father. “I guess he’s out looking for me. He’ll want his son’s gold watch. Crackey! I wonder if folks will think I’m low enough down to steal a fellow’s watch?”
If Teall was rough, he was none the less honest, and had all of an honest boy’s sensitive horror of being thought guilty of theft.
“Yet the matter stands just this way,” Ted reflected as he moped along. “The watch must have been in the trousers when I snatched ’em up, and the watch wasn’t there when I returned the trousers. What will folks naturally think? Oh, I wonder if there ever was as unlucky a fellow in the world before?”
A great lump formed in Ted’s throat as he puzzled over this problem.
“Hello, Teall!” called a hearty voice. “Was Hi much obliged when you gave him back his duds this afternoon?”
Dick Prescott was the speaker, and with him were his five chums.
“Nothing like it,” muttered Ted, turning as the boys came up. “Say, something awful happened to-day, and I’m in a peck of trouble!”
“Tell us about it,” urged Tom Reade.
Ted started to tell them, mournfully.
“I don’t believe a word of that, Ted,” Dick broke in energetically.
“I’m telling you just as it happened,” Teall protested.
“Oh, I guess you are, all right. But I don’t believe Hi had his watch with him. If he had had it, he would have worn a chain or a fob, and I didn’t see any, did you, fellows?”
“If I thought he had fooled me—–” muttered Ted vengefully. Then, with a change of feeling, he continued:
“But I don’t believe he was fooling me. Hi was too mad, and he looked as though he’d like nothing better than to see me get into big trouble over it.”
“You went all over the ground where you’d been?” Dick asked.
“Must have gone over it seventeen times,” Ted declared positively. “I didn’t quit looking until it was so dark that my eyes ached with the strain. But not one sight did I catch of the watch.”
“Don’t worry any more about it, Teall,” urged Dave Darrin. “Like Dick, I don’t believe, for an instant, that Hi had his watch with him.”
“Here comes Hi now, out of the ice cream place,” whispered Greg.
Young Martin certainly didn’t look much worried as he gained the street. For a few seconds he looked about him. He saw Dick & Co. and scowled. Then he caught sight of Ted, despite the latter’s trying to shrink behind Reade.
“See here, Teall, did you find my watch?” demanded Hi, stepping over to the group. His manner was aggressive, even threatening.
“N-n-no,” stammered Ted.
“Then I don’t believe you looked for it,” insisted Hi.
“Didn’t I, though? Until after dark,” Ted rejoined.
“Then why didn’t you find it?”
“Because I didn’t happen to see it—that was the only reason,” Teall retorted.
“There may have been another reason,” observed Hi Martin dryly.
“Do you mean to say that I tried to steal it?” flared Ted, now ready to fight.
“How do I know?” Hi asked.
“If I thought you meant that—–“
“Well?” asked Hi Martin, gazing coolly into the flashing eyes.
“You know better!” choked Teall.
“Of course you know better, Hi Martin,” Dick broke in. “Ted Teall isn’t any more of a thief than you are.”
“You fellows have no share in this matter,” Hi retorted coldly. “I’ll thank you to keep out, and to mind your own business.”
A little way down the street Hi caught sight of his father approaching. He turned to Ted to inquire:
“You say that you looked faithfully for my watch until dark?”
“Yes; I did,” Ted shot back at him.
“And you didn’t find the watch?”
“No, sirree; I didn’t.”
“Oh, well, then,” drawled Hi, “I guess—“
Grinning broadly, he thrust a hand in under his clothing, drawing out his gold watch.
“I guess,” Hi continued, “that it’s time now to quit looking. It’s quarter of nine. Good night!”
At sight of that watch Ted Teall’s eyes bulged. Then the nature of the outrage dawned on him. In a moment all his pent-up emotions took the form of intense indignation.
“You mean fellow!” hissed Ted, his fists clenching. “You—–“
“Teall, when you play jokes,” warned Martin coolly, “you always want to be sure to look out for the flare-back. Don’t forget that. Good evening, father!”
Hi slipped off by the side of his parent just in time for Ted to slow down and realize that he couldn’t very well thrash Hi with the elder Martin looking on.
Tom and Greg began to laugh.
“Oh, cheer up, Ted,” Dick smiled. “All’s well that ends well, you know.”
“But this matter isn’t ended yet,” cried Ted Teall excitedly, shaking his fist at Hi Martin’s receding back. “It isn’t ended—no, sir!—not by a long shot!”
Chapter XII
THE NORTH GRAMMAR CAPTAIN GRILLED
Nor was Teall long in finding his opportunity to be revenged.
On the following Tuesday, immediately after school, the North and South Grammar nines met on the field. It was an important meeting, for, under the rules governing the Gridley Grammar League, whichever of these two teams lost, having been twice defeated, was to retire vanquished; the victor in this game was to meet the Central Grammar to contest for the championship.
On the toss Captain Ted Teall won, and elected that his side go to bat forthwith.
The instant that Ted stepped to the plate a score of North Grammar fans yelled:
“Bang!”
From another group of Norths came:
“Ow-ow-ow!” This was followed by some fantastic jumping.
“Huh! Those fellows don’t show much brains!” uttered Teall wearily. “They have to steal a josh from the Centrals.”
It did not annoy Ted to-day. He had expected this greeting, and had steeled himself against it.
Dick & Co., with a lot of other fellows from Central Grammar, looked on in amusement.
“It’s a pity one of Hi’s fellows hasn’t ingenuity enough to work up a new ‘gag,'” Tom remarked dryly.
“They’ll never rattle Teall again with a ‘bang,'” smiled Prescott.
When the Souths went to grass, however, and the Norths took to the benches, all was in readiness for Hi, who came forth third on the batting list. The first two men had been struck out.
“Come on in!” yelled a dozen tormentors from South Grammar onlookers. “The water’s fine!”
In spite of himself Hi frowned. He had been expecting something, but had hoped that the events of the preceding Saturday afternoon would be left out.
Hi made a swing for the ball, and missed.
“Who’s seen my duds?” went up a mighty shout.
“Confound the hoodlums!” hissed Martin between his teeth.
As mascot, the Souths had brought along a small colored boy, who attended to a pail of lemonade for the refreshment of Ted’s players. Ere the ball came over the plate a second time this mascot was seen running close to the foul lines. Over one arm he carried jacket and trousers; in the other hand he bore a pair of shoes and of socks. That the clothing was patched and the shoes looked fit only for a tramp’s use did not disguise the meaning of the scene from any beholder, for the news of that Saturday afternoon had traveled through the school world of Gridley.
“Cheer up, suh!” shrieked the colored boy shrilly. “I’se bringing yo’ duds!”
Then the ball came from the box, but Hi was demoralized by the roar of laughter that swept over the field.
A moment later the rather haughty captain of the North Grammar nine had been struck out and retired. His face was red, his eyes flashing.
“Teall, we might expect something rowdyish from your crowd of muckers,” declared Martin scornfully, as the sides changed.
“If I were you, Martin, I wouldn’t do much talking to-day,” grinned Ted. “It’s bad for the nerves.”
A half a dozen times thereafter the colored boy was seen scurrying with “the duds.” He took good care, however, to keep away from the foul lines, and so did not come under the orders of the umpire.
Whenever the mascot appeared with his burden he raised a laugh. Hi could not steel himself against a combination of anger and hurt pride. Some of the North Grammar girls in whose eyes he was anxious to stand well were among those who could not help laughing at the ridiculous antics of the colored lad.
Toward the close of the first half of the third inning Teall again came to bat. There were no men out in this inning, and two men were on bases.
“Now we’ll see how you will stand a little jogging,” muttered Hi under his breath as he crossed his hands in signal to some of the North Grammar fans.
Just as Ted picked up his bat a dozen boys squeaked:
“What time is it?”
This was followed by:
“Who stole my watch?”
Another lot of North tormentors—those who had them—displayed time pieces.
“That’s almost as bad as a stale one,” Ted told himself scornfully.
Just then the ball came just where Teall wanted it.
Crack! Ted hit it a resounding blow, dropped his bat and started to run. Amid a din of yells one of the Souths came in, another reached third and Ted himself rested safely at second base.
In that inning the Souths piled up five runs. Thereafter the game went badly for the North Grammars, for most of the players lost their nerve. Hi, himself, proved unworthy to be captain, he had so little head left for the game. The contest ended with a score of nine to two in favor of the South Grammars.
“That will be about all for the Norths,” remarked Ted, with a cheerful grin, as be met Hi Martin at the close of the game. “Your nine doesn’t play any more, I believe.”
“I’m glad we don’t,” choked Hi. “There’s no satisfaction being in a league in which the other teams are made up of rowdies.”
“It is tough,” mocked Ted. “Especially when the rowdies are the only fellows who know how to play ball.”
Hi stalked away in moody, but dignified silence. Yet, though he could ignore the players and sympathizers of other nines, it was not so easy to get away from the grilling of his own schoolmates.
“Huh!” remarked one North boy. “You told us, Martin, that you’d prove to us the benefit of having a real captain for a nine. Why didn’t you?”
“Martin, you’re all wind,” growled another keenly disappointed North. “You talked a lot about what you’d do with the nine—and what have you done? Left us the boobies of the league. We’re the winners of the leather medal.”
“Why didn’t you play yourself, then?” snarled Hi.
“I wish I had. But we Norths were fooled by the talk you gave us about how baseball really ought to be played and managed. You’re the school’s mascot, you are, Hi Martin. Not!”
In the meantime Dick Prescott was being surrounded by anxious Central Grammar boys.
“Dick,” said one of them, while others listened eagerly, “you beat the Norths. But you didn’t give them any such drubbing as the Souths did to-day. Are they a better nine than ours?”
“No,” Prescott answered promptly.
“Yet they whipped the Norths worse than we did. Can we down the Souths?”
“Yes,” nodded Prescott.
“Why can we?”
“For the simplest reason in the world, Tolman. We’ve got to. Isn’t that a fine reason?”
“It sounds fine,” remarked another boy doubtfully. “But can you whip another crowd just because you want to?”
“If you want to badly enough,” Dick smiled.
“Hm! I’ll be surer about that when I see it done.”
“It’ll happen next Friday afternoon, if rain doesn’t call the game,” Prescott promised.
“What do you say to that, Darrin?” demanded another Central boy.
“Just what Dick said.”
“What’s your word, Tom!”
“You heard what our captain said,” Reade laughed. “I always follow orders. If Dick Prescott tells me to pile up seven runs against the Souths I’m going to do it.”
“I hope you do,” murmured another boy. “Yet it seems against us—after the way we saw the Souths play to-day.”
“Or rather,” added Dick quietly, “the way the North Grammars didn’t play. They’d have put up a lot better game if their captain hadn’t lost his nerve and his head.”
As the Central Grammar boys left, most of them in one crowd, there was a rather general feeling that Dick was just a bit too confident. Or, was he simply “putting it on,” in order to bolster up the courage of his players?
Dick Prescott, at least, was qualified to know what he really expected. He really was confident of victory in the game that should decide the league championship.
“If you feel that you can’t be beaten, and won’t be beaten, but that you’ve got to win and are going to win, then that’s more than half the points of a game won in advance,” he told his chums. “Fellows, in baseball or anything else, we won’t say die, either now or at any later time in life. We’ll make it our rule to ride right over anything that gets in our way. That way we can’t know defeat.”
“Unless, finally, we ride to our deaths,” laughed Tom.
“What of it?” challenged Dick. “That wouldn’t be defeat. The man who rides to death in the search for victory has won. He has carried the winning spirit with him to the very finish. Or else the history we’ve been studying at school is all a mess of lies.”
“There’s a lot in that idea,” nodded Dave thoughtfully.
“There’s more in it every time that you think of it,” Dick contended.
Thus Dick was starting, in Dick & Co., the never-give-up spirit which made them almost invincible later as High School boys.
Wednesday and Thursday were days filled with eagerness for the Central Grammar boys. The members of the baseball squad were not by any means the only ones on tenterhooks. Every boy in the upper grades of the school was waiting impatiently to learn who would be the winners of the championship.
Somewhat to the astonishment of the Central Grammar boys Captain Dick, on Wednesday afternoon, gave his team only a brief half hour of diamond practice. Thursday afternoon they didn’t play at all. Instead, the nine and its subs. went off on a tramp through the woods.
“What we want to-morrow above all,” Dick explained, as he marshaled his forces, “is steady nerves. There’s nothing like a good walk in the cool and shady spots for tuning up a schoolboy’s nerves for an ordeal. A walk is good whether you’re facing an exam. or a championship game.”
“May the rest of us go with you!” called one of the Central boys outside the squad.
“We can’t stop you,” Dick replied, “but we’d rather you let the ball squad go by itself.”
“All right, then,” cried three or four. The fourteen of the squad marched away, unhampered by any followers.
Once outside the town and halted under a grove of trees, Dick turned to his teammates.
“Fellows,” he said quietly, “I believe some of you have been anxious to know what the man on the clubhouse steps said.”
“It’s coming, at last!” gasped Tom Reade. “Well, let us hear what the man on the clubhouse steps said. It must be one of the choice pieces of wisdom of all the ages.”
“It is,” Dick replied quietly.
“Then let us hear shouted Dave.
“Not now,” Prescott answered, shaking his head solemnly. “But, fellows, you win to-morrow’s game and you shall all hear just what the man on the clubhouse steps said.”
“Win?” retorted Tom Reade. “Dick Prescott, with a bribe like that before us, we’re bound to win! We couldn’t do anything else.”
Then they went further into the woods. Dick had brought his players here in search of peace, quiet and nerve rest. Had he had even one prophetic glimpse of what was ahead of some of them that afternoon it would have been far better to have remained in town.
Chapter XIII
“BIG INJUN—HEAP BIG NOISE”
“Say, we don’t want to just go on walking. There’s no fun in that,” objected Spoff Henderson.
“We’re out for rest more than for fun,” Dick replied. “The walk and the rest this afternoon are all by way of preparing for the big game to-morrow afternoon.”
“But wouldn’t there be more rest about it if we had a little fun?” Spoff insisted.
“Perhaps,” Dick nodded. “What’s your idea of fun?”
“Why not play ‘Indians and Whites’?” put in Toby Ross eagerly.
“That would be just the sort of game for to-day,” Dave approved.
“That’s what I say,” nodded Tom.
“Dick, you’re used to these woods,” Spoff went on. “You be the big Injun—the big chief. Choose two more of the fellows to be Injuns with you, and the rest will be whites.”
“All right,” nodded Dick. “Dave and Tom can go with me. Who’ll be your captain?”
“Greg!” cried Spoff.
“Holmesy,” said Ross in the same breath.
So Greg Holmes was chosen captain, to command the whites.
“Give us the full six minutes, Greg, won’t you?” Dick called, as he and his two fellow “Injuns” prepared to enter the deep woods.
“Of course I will,” Greg nodded. “You don’t think I’d cheat, do you?”
Those of the boys who were proud owners of watches hurriedly consulted their timepieces. Greg retained his in his hand.
“Now,” called Dick, and away he started, followed by Braves Darrin and Reade.
As the Gridley boys had their own version of “Indians and Whites,” a description of the game may as well be given here.
The Indians always chose a chief, the whites a captain. Chief and braves started away at the call of time. Six minutes later, to the second, the whites started in pursuit. The whites must keep in one band, as must also the Indians. Yet, in trailing, the whites could spread out, while the Indians must keep together.
Though the Indians were allowed to double on the trail, they were not permitted to run. Nothing faster than an ordinary walk was