When he had finished getting his clothes on, Ripley stalked moodily past the main group.
“You mucker,” he hissed, “I suppose you feel swelled up over having had a chance to fight gentleman. You—–“
“Oh, Ripley, dry up—do!” interjected Ted Butler. “You call yourself a gentleman, but you talk and act more like well, more like a pup with the mange!”
“A pup with the mange! Great!” came the gleeful chorus from a half score of freshmen.
“I’m not through with you, yet, Prescott!” Fred Ripley called back over his shoulder. “I’ll settle my score with you at my convenience!”
Then, as he put more distance between himself and the other Gridley High School boys, Ripley added to himself:
“That settlement shall stop at nothing to put Dick Prescott in the dust—where he belongs.”
“Oh, freshie, but you’ve coolness and judgment,” cried Thompson, approvingly. “And you’ve broken one cad’s heart today.”
“I’m sorry if I have,” declared Dick, frankly, generously. “I wouldn’t have had any heart in the fight if he hadn’t started in to humiliate me. I wouldn’t have cared so much for that, either. But he started to say something nasty about my parents, and I have as good parents as ever a boy had. Then I felt I simply _had_ to fit a plug between Ripley’s teeth.”
Fred Ripley had pain in his eyes to help keep him awake that night. Yet he would have been awake, anyway, for his wicked brain was seething with plans for the way to “get even” with Dick Prescott.
CHAPTER VI
FRED OFFERS TO SOLVE THE LOCKER MYSTERY
For a week Gridley High School managed to get along without the presence of Fred Ripley. That haughty young man was at home, nursing a pair of black eyes and his wrath.
Yet, in a whole week, a mean fellow who is rather clever can hatch a whole lot of mischief. This Dick & Co., and some others, were presently to discover.
All outer wraps were left in the basement in locker rooms on which barred iron doors were locked. In the boys’ basement were lockers A and B. Each locker was in charge of a monitor who carried the key to his own particular locker room.
As it happened Dick Prescott was at present monitor of Locker A.
If during school hours, one of the boys wanted to get his hat out of a locker the monitor of that locker went to the basement with him, unlocking the door, and locking it again after the desired article of apparel had been obtained.
Thus, in a general way, each monitor was responsible for the safety of hats, coats, umbrellas, overshoes, etc., that might have been left in the locker that was in his charge.
Wednesday, just after one o’clock one of the sophomore boys went hurriedly up the stairs, a worried look on his face. He went straight to the principal’s office, and was fortunate enough to find that gentleman still at his desk.
“What is it, Edwards?” asked the principal, looking up.
“Dr. Thornton, I’ve had something strange happen to me, or to my overcoat, if you prefer to put it that way,” replied Edwards.
“What has gone wrong?”
“Why, sir, relying on the safety of the looker, I left, at recess in one of my overcoat pockets, a package containing a jeweled pin that had been repaired for my mother. Now, sir, on going down to my coat, I found the pin missing from the pocket.”
“Did you look thoroughly on the floor, Edwards?”
“Yes, sir; hunted thoroughly.”
“Wait; I’ll go down with you,” proposed the principal.
Both principal and student searched thoroughly in the locker. Dick, as in duty bound, was still there, on guard at the door.
“Mr. Prescott,” asked puzzled Dr. Thornton, did any student have admittance to the locker after recess today?”
“None, sir,” answered Dick promptly.
“Hm! And you’re absolutely sure, Mr. Edwards, that you left the little package in your overcoat pocket?”
“Positive of it, Dr. Thornton.”
“It’s so strange that it startles me,” admitted the good principal.
“It startles me a good deal,” confessed Edwards, grimly, “to think what explanation I am to offer my mother.”
“Oh, well, it _must_ turn up,” replied Dr. Thornton, though vaguely. “Anyway, Edwards, there has been no theft. The door is locked, and the only two keys to it are the one carried by the monitor and a duplicate which is kept locked in my own desk. You’ll probably find it in one of your pockets.”
“I have been through every pocket in my clothes at least seven times, sir,” insisted the dismayed Edwards. “And that is a rather valuable pin,” he added; “worth, I believe, something, like fifty dollars.”
“Rest assured that we’ll have some good explanation of the mystery before long,” replied the principal as soothingly as he could.
Edwards went away, sore and disheartened, but there was nothing more to be said or done.
Thursday morning Dr. Thornton carried the investigation further, but absolutely no light could be shed on the missing pin.
But at recess it was Frank Thompson who came upstairs breathless.
“Dr. Thornton,” he cried, excitedly, “it’s my own fault, of course, but I’m afraid I’ve seen the last of my watch. It’s one that father carried for a good many years, and at last gave me. The works are not very expensive, but the case was a gold one.”
“How did you lose it?” inquired the principal, looking up over the gold rims of his spectacles.
“Why, I had to hurry to make school this morning, sir, and, as you know, it’s a rather long walk. So I carried my watch in the little change pocket in my reefer in order to be able to look at it frequently. I reached the locker just in time not to be late, and forgot and left my watch in the reefer. When I went down just now I found the watch gone.”
“Oh, but this is serious!” gasped Dr. Thornton, in dismay. “It begins to look like an assured fact that there is some thief at work. Yet Prescott alone has a key to that locker.”
“Prescott is all right. He’s no thief,” put in Thompson, quickly.
“I agree with you, Mr. Thompson. I consider Mr. Prescott too manly a fellow to be mixed up in anything dishonest. Yet something is wrong—very wrong. For the safety and good name of us all we must go to the bottom of this mystery.”
That, of course, was all the satisfaction Thompson could expect at the moment. He went out to the remainder of his recess, feeling decidedly blue. Nor was Dr. Thornton any less disturbed.
When recess was over, the entire body of students was questioned in the general assembly room, but no light was forthcoming.
“Of course, in view of what has happened,” counseled Dr. Thornton, “the young gentlemen will do well to leave nothing of value in their coats in the locker rooms. And while nothing distressing, has yet happened in the young ladies basement, I trust they will govern themselves by what has happened on the young men’s side.”
Dick Prescott felt much concerned over it all, though he did not imagine that anyone suspected _him_ of any share in the disappearance of articles of value.
Friday there were no mishaps, for the very simple reason that no one left anything of value in the locker rooms.
On Monday Fred Ripley was back again. With the aid of a little help from the druggist the haughty young man presented two eyes that did not show any signs of having been damaged. Fred himself offered no comment on his absence. He seemed anxious to be on especially good terms with all of the upper classmen with whom he usually associated.
During the first period of the morning Ripley had no recitation on. He sat at his desk studying. Presently as permitted under the rules, he whispered softly with the boy seated behind him.
Then, suddenly, Ripley rose and tip-toed down the aisle to the desk. The principal himself sat there in charge.
“Dr. Thornton,” began Ripley, in a low voice, “I was away last week, and so didn’t hear all the school news. I have just learned about the locker room thefts, and so I’m uneasy. Just as the bell rang I was having trouble with the pearl and diamond scarf-pin that I often wear. There wasn’t time to adjust it, so I dropped it in my overcoat pocket. I would like to go down to my coat, now, and get it.”
“Prescott is reciting in IV. Physics,” replied Dr. Thornton, rising. “However, in view of all that has happened, I think we shall do well to go down and call him out of class. I don’t want any more valuable articles to be missing.”
Principal and student went quietly to the floor below. Dr. Thornton thrust his head into the physics laboratory and quietly called Dick out, explaining what was wanted.
“You’ll come, too, won’t you, doctor?” asked Ripley.
The principal nodded without speaking. As the three reached the barred door, Dick inserted the key, then threw open the door. Fred marched over to his coat, thrusting his hand into a pocket.
“By thunder, it’s gone!” gasped Fred.
In an instant Dr. Thornton bounded into the locker room. He himself explored every pocket in the boy’s coat.
“Strange! strange!” muttered the bewildered principal.
“All the other thefts happened in this locker, didn’t they?” inquired Ripley, suspiciously.
“Yes—if thefts they were,” admitted Dr. Thornton.
“Nothing missing from the other locker room?”
“Nothing.”
“Doctor,” went on Ripley, as though loath to utter the words, I hate to suggest anything of the sort. But—er—but—has the monitor of this locker been searched after any of the—er—disappearances?”
“Ripley, you forget yourself!” cried the principal.
“What do you mean!” flared Dick, in the same breath, turning crimson, next going very white.
“Doctor, I’m sorry,” spoke Ripley, with great seeming reluctance, “but that pin is a costly one. I ask that the monitor be searched!”
CHAPTER VII
DICK’S TURN TO GET A JOLT
“Ripley, you don’t realize what you are saying!” cried Dr. Thornton, gazing at the sophomore in very evident distress.
“I only know that I’m all broken up, sir, over losing my costly pin,” persisted Fred. “And I know my father will be angry, and will raise a row at the School Board’s meeting.”
Dick Prescott, standing by, had turned from scarlet to white, and back again.
“But Ripley,” explained the principal, almost pleadingly, “the act would be illegal. No one has a lawful right to search the person of anyone except a properly qualified police officer. And even the police officer can do so only after he has arrested a suspected person.”
“Oh, then I suppose, sir, there’s no show for me to get any real justice done in this matter,” muttered Fred, with an air of feigned resignation.
But by now Dick Prescott felt that he must speak—or explode.
“Dr. Thornton,” he cried, chokingly, “the charge made against me, or, at least, implied, is an outrageous one. But, as a matter of justice to me, now that the hint has been cast, I ask that _you_, sir, search me right here and now.”
“Then you’ve had time to hide the pin!” muttered Fred, in a very low voice.
Dick Prescott heard, but he paid no heed to the fellow.
“Dr. Thornton, will you search me—_now_?” insisted the young freshman.
“But I don’t want to, Prescott,” appealed the principal. “I haven’t the remotest suspicion of you, anyway, my dear boy.”
“I ask the search, sir, just as a matter of justice,” Dick insisted. “If it were not too strong a word, then I would say that I _demand_ to be searched here and now.”
Suiting the action to the word, Dick Prescott, standing proudly erect, raised both arms over his head.
“Now, please, doctor, just as a matter of simple justice,” begged the young freshman.
“Oh, very well, then, Mr. Prescott,” sighed the principal. “But I never had a more distasteful task.”
Into one of the side pockets Dr. Thornton projected a shaking hand. He drew out only some scraps of paper, which he promptly thrust back. Then he inserted a hand in the jacket pocket on the other side.
“Ouch!” suddenly exclaimed the principal, in very real pain.
He drew the hand out, quickly. A drop of blood oozed up at the tip of his forefinger.
“Mr. Prescott,” demanded Dr. Thornton, “what is that pointed object in your pocket?”
“_What_?” demanded Fred Ripley, tensely.
Dick himself thrust a hand into that pocket, and drew forth—Fred Ripley’s missing pin.
“What—why—who—–” gasped the freshman, suffocatingly.
“Oh, yes, of course,” jeered Fred Ripley. “Astonished, aren’t you—you mucker?”
The last two words Ripley uttered in so low a tone that the principal, gazing in horrified fascination at the pin that he now held in his own hands, did not hear.
“You coward!” cried Dick, hotly, and clenched his fist, intent on driving it against the sophomore’s face.
But Dr. Thornton knew enough about High School boys’ fights, to galvanize himself into action. Like a flash he bounded between the two boys.
“Here, here, Prescott, none of that!” he admonished.
“I—I beg _your_ pardon, sir,” gasped Dick, in a tone which made it very plain that he did not include his enemy in that apology.
“May I trouble you for my pin, sir, now that it has been recovered?” asked Fred, coolly.
“Why—um!—that depends,” replied Dr. Thornton, slowly, speaking with a painful effort. “If you, or your father, have or would have any idea of a criminal prosecution, Ripley, then it would be improper to return your pin. It would have to be turned over to the police as an exhibit in evidence. _But_ do you intend anything of that sort, Mr. Ripley?”
“Why, that’s as _you_ say, doctor,” replied the sophomore, quickly. “It’s a matter of school discipline, and belongs to your province. Personally, I know that I would rather not have this matter go any further.”
“I—I don’t know what to do,” confessed Dr. Thornton, in anxious perplexity. “In any event, before doing anything, I think I had better consult the superintendent and the Board of Education. Mr. Prescott, I will say, freely, that I am most loath to believe anything of this sort against you can be possible. There must be—must be—some—er explanation. I—I—don’t want you to feel that I believe your guilt as yet assured. I—I—–“
Here Dr. Thornton broke down, dabbing at his eyes with his handkerchief. Almost unconsciously he passed the pin, which he was yet holding, to Fred Ripley.
“Lock the locker door, Mr. Prescott—and give me the key,” requested the principal.
Dick passed over the key, then spoke, with more composure than might have been expected under the circumstances:
“Dr. Thornton, I am as innocent of any thieving as you yourself can be. Sooner or later the right of this will come out. Then you will realize that I didn’t steal anything. I’ll prove myself innocent yet, sir.”
“I hope so, my boy, I—I—hope so,” replied the principal.
As they ascended, Fred Ripley stepped aside to let the other two go first. He was afraid to have Dick Prescott behind him just then.
No sooner had the trio entered the general assembly room than it quickly dawned on all the students of both sexes that something was unusually wrong.
Dick’s face was red as fire. Had he been guilty of the thefts, he might have been cooler about it all. Conscious innocence often puts on the appearance of guilt.
Somehow, Dick got to his seat. He picked up a book, mechanically, and pretended to be deeply absorbed in study.
“What’s up?” whispered the fellow seated behind Fred.
Ripley turned enough to raise his eyebrows significantly and let his questioner see him do it. Instantly all seated near the lawyer’s son became intensely curious.
Wondering glances strayed from over book-tops, even from the far corners of the big assembly room.
Then the curious glanced at Dr. Thornton so often that the much disturbed principal soon called another teacher to the desk and left the room.
At recess, Purcell, of the sophomore class, was found in charge at the door of Dick’s old locker room. Ripley held his tongue until he was out in the school yard. Then he broke loose before those who would listen to him—and the number was large.
Dick & Co. had gathered by themselves in another corner of the yard. Here, however, they were soon joined by a small mob of the fellows, especially of the freshman class. Dick had his say. He didn’t want to say much, but he related, in a straightforward way, what had happened.
“It’s one of Fred Ripley’s mean tricks,” declared one of the freshmen. “Fred Ripley can’t fool anyone. He put that pin in Dick’s pocket himself.”
“But two thefts—two things were missed last week, when Ripley wasn’t at school at all,” spoke one boy, in an undertone.
“Yes; that’s the queer part of it,” agreed another boy. “Ripley couldn’t have had anything to do with those other cases.”
This latter was the view that was occurring to Mr. Thornton, as he sat in the principal’s room, poring and pondering over the whole distressing matter.
Thompson and the other football leaders came trooping over to Dick & Co. as soon as they heard the noise. Prescott was a hero with the football crowd. There was no use in telling them anything against their little freshie hero.
“Prescott, it would look foolish to talk much,” declared Thompson, in a voice that was husky from real emotion. “Just give me your hand, old man!”
Dick took the proffered hand, pressing it hard and gratefully. Then the rest of the football squad pressed forward, each insisting on a hearty handshake.
“Nobody except those who want to, will stomach this silly charge against Dick,” grunted Tom Reade to Dan Dalzell. “See how it’s turning out? Our old pal and leader is holding a regular reception.”
“‘Scuse me,” begged Dan, hastily. “There’s Laura Bentley beckoning to me.”
He hastened over to the girl’s side. There were tiny drops in the corners of Laura’s eyes that looked like suppressed tears.
“Dan,” she said, coming straight to the point, “we have heard, of course. What a silly charge! See here, you pals of Dick’s are going to walk home with him from school this noon?”
“Surest thing that ever happened in the world,” declared Dalzell, fervently.
“Just so,” nodded Laura. “Well, if you won’t think it strange or forward, six of us girls want to walk along with you boys. That will be a hint that the freshman class, if not the whole H.S., passes a vote of confidence in Dick Prescott, the most straightforward fellow in the class or the school.”
“Bully for you, Miss Bentley!” glowed Dan. “We shall be looking for you young ladies when school lets out.”
When the outside bell rang for reassembling, such a guard of honor had chosen to gather around Dick, and march in with him, that it looked more like a triumphal procession.
“I feel better,” sighed the boy, contentedly to himself, as he dropped into his seat. “What a bully thing a little confidence is!”
When school let out, Dick & Co., each partner escorting one of the freshman girls, strolled down the street. A good many more of the students chose to drop in behind them. Dick could say nothing, but his heart swelled with pride.
“The way to get famous and respected, nowadays, is to steal something, and to get found out,” sneered Fred Ripley, bitterly, to Clara Deane.
Straight to his own door did some two score in all of the Gridley H.S. students escort Dick Prescott.
“Three cheers for Dick!” proposed some one.
“And for Dick and Co.!” shouted another voice.
The cheers were given with gusto. So much noise was made, in fact, that Mrs. Prescott came to open the door.
Something in his mother’s face—a look of dread and alarm—spoiled the cheering for Dick. As soon as he could he got inside the house.
Little did the young freshman suspect the ordeal that awaited him here.
CHAPTER VIII
ONLY A “SUSPENDED” FRESHMAN NOW
“What’s wrong mother? Have you heard—–” the boy began, as soon as the door was closed.
“Yes, Richard.”
“But, mother, I am inno—–“
“Oh, Dick, of course you are! But this fearful suspicion is enough to kill one who loves you. Come! Your father is in the store. Dr. Thornton is upstairs. He and—and—a policeman.
“Policeman!” gasped Dick, paling instantly. “Do they mean to—–“
“I don’t know just what they mean, Dick I’m too dazed to guess,” replied his mother. “But come upstairs.”
As Dick entered their little parlor he was dimly aware that the High School principal was in the room. But the boy’s whole gaze was centered on a quiet little man—Hemingway, the plain clothes man from the police station.
“Don’t look scared to death, Prescott,” urged Dr. Thornton, with a faint attempt at a smile. “We want to go through with a little formality—that is all. This matter at the High School has puzzled me to such a degree that I left early today and went to consult with Mr. Hemingway. Now, he thought it best that we come around here and have a talk with you.”
“I can begin that talk best,” pursued Hemingway, “by asking you, Prescott, whether you have anything that you want to say first-off?”
“I can’t say anything,” replied Dick, slowly, “except that I know nothing as to how any of the articles missed at school came to vanish. Ripley’s pin was found in my pocket today, and I can only guess that some one—Ripley, perhaps dropped it in my pocket. Ripley has some feelings of enmity for me, anyway. We had a fight last week, and—” Dick could not repress a smile—“I thrashed him so that he was out of school for several days.”
“But Ripley was not at school for the last few days, until today,” broke in Dr. Thornton. “Now, a pin and a watch were missed while Ripley was not attending school.”
“I know it, sir,” Dick nodded. “As to those two articles I cannot offer even the ghost of an explanation.”
“I don’t like to accuse you of taking Ripley’s scarf-pin, nor do I like to suspect him of putting up such a contemptible trick,” explained Dr. Thornton, thoughtfully. “As far as the incident of the scarf-pin goes I am willing to admit that your explanation is just as likely to be good as is any other.”
“Prescott, what did you do with the other pin and the watch?” shot in Policeman Hemingway, suddenly and compellingly.
It was well done. Had Dick been actually guilty, he might either have betrayed himself, or gone to stammering. But, as it was, he smiled, wanly, as he replied:
“I didn’t do anything with them, Mr. Hemingway. I have just been explaining that.”
“How much money have you about you at this moment?” demanded Hemingway.
“Two cents, I believe,” laughed Dick, beginning to turn out his pockets. He produced the two copper coins, and held them out to the special officer.
“You may have more about you, then, somewhere,” hinted the officer.
“Find it, then,” begged Dick, frankly, as he stepped forward. “Search me. I’ll allow it, and shall be glad to have you do it.”
So Policeman Hemingway made the search, with the speed and skill of an expert.
“No; you’ve no more money about you,” admitted the policeman. “You may have some put away, though.”
“Where would it be likely to be?” Dick inquired.
“In your room, perhaps; in your baggage, or hidden behind books; oh, there’s a lot of places where a boy can hide money in his own room.”
“Come along and show me a few of them, then, won’t you please?” challenged the young freshman.
Mrs. Prescott, who had been hovering near the doorway, gave a gasp of dismay. To her tortured soul this police investigation seemed to be the acme of disgrace. It all pointed to the arrest of her boy—to a long term in some jail or reformatory, most likely.
“Madame,” asked the plain clothes man, stepping to the door, “will you give your full consent to my searching your son’s room—in the presence of yourself and of Dr. Thornton, of course? I am obliged to ask your permission, for, without a search warrant I have no other legal right than that which you may give me.”
“Of course you may search Richard’s room,” replied his mother, quickly. “But you’ll be wasting your time, for you’ll find nothing incriminating in my boy’s room.”
“Of course not, of course not,” replied Hemingway, soothingly. “That is what we most want—_not_ to find anything there. Will you lead the way, please? Prescott, you may come and see the search also.”
So the four filed into the little room that served Dick as sleeping apartment, study-room, den, library and all. Hemingway moved quickly about, exploring the pockets of Dick’s other clothing hanging there. He delved into, under and behind all of the few books there. This plain clothes man moved from place to place with a speed and certainty that spoke of his long years of practice in this sort of work.
“There’s nothing left but the trunk, now,” declared the policeman, bending over and trying the lock. “The key to this, Prescott!”
Dick produced the key. Hemingway fitted it in the lock, throwing up the lid. The trunk was but half filled, mostly with odds and ends, for Dick was not a boy of many possessions. After a few moments the policeman deftly produced, from the bottom, a gold watch. This he laid on the floor without a word, and continued the search. In another moment he had produced the jeweled pin that exactly answered the description of the one belonging to Mrs. Edwards.
Dick gave a gasp, then a low groan. A heart-broken sob welled up in Mrs. Prescott’s throat. Dr. Thornton turned as white as chalk. Hemingway, an old actor in such things, did not show what he felt—if he really felt it at all.
“These are the missing articles, aren’t they?” asked the policeman, straightening up and passing watch and pin to the High School principal.
“I believe them to be,” nodded Dr. Thornton, brokenly.
Mrs. Prescott had staggered forward, weeping and throwing her arms around her son.
“O, Richard! Richard, my boy!” was all she could say.
“Mother, I know nothing about how those things came to be in my trunk,” protested the boy, sturdily. After his first groan the young freshman, being all grit by nature, straightened up, feeling that he could look all the world in the eye. Only his mother’s grief, and the knowledge that his father was soon to be hurt, appealed to the softer side of young Prescott’s nature.
“Mother, I have not stolen anything,” the boy said, more solemnly, after a pause. “I am your son. You believe me, don’t you?”
“I’d stake my life on your innocence when you’ve given me your word!” declared that loyal woman.
“The chief said I was to take your instructions, Dr. Thornton,” hinted Hemingway.
“Yes; I heard the order given,” nodded the now gloomy High School principal.
“Shall I arrest young Prescott?”
At that paralyzing question Dick’s mother did not cry out. She kissed her son, then went just past the open doorway, where she halted again.
“I hesitate about seeing any boy start from his first offense with a criminal record,” replied the principal, slowly. “If I were convinced that this would be the last offense I certainly would not favor any prosecution. Prescott, could you promise—–“
“Then you believe, sir, that I stole the things that you hold in your hand?” demanded the young freshman, steadily.
“I don’t want to believe it,” protested Dr. Thornton. “It seems wicked—monstrous—to believe that any fine, bright, capable boy like you can be—–“
Dr. Thornton all but broke down. Then he added, in a hoarse whisper:
“—a thief.”
“I’m not one,” rejoined Dick. “And, not very far into the future lies the day when I’m going to prove it to you.”
“If you can,” replied Dr. Thornton, “you’ll make me as happy as you do yourself and your parents.”
“Let me have the watch and pin to turn over to the chief, doctor,” requested Hemingway, and took the articles. “Now, for the boy—–?”
“I’m not going to have him arrested,” replied the principal, “unless the superintendent or the Board of Education so direct me.”
From the other side of the doorway could be heard a stifled cry of delight.
“Then we may as well be going, doctor. You’ll come to the station with me, won’t you?”
“In one moment,” replied the principal. He turned to Dick, sorrowfully holding out his hand.
“Prescott, whatever I may do will be the result of long and careful thought, or at the order of the superintendent or of the Board of Education. If you really are guilty, I hope you will pause, think and resolve, ere it is too late, to make a man of yourself hereafter. If you are innocent, I hope, with all my heart, that you will succeed in proving it. And to that end you may have any possible aid that I can give you. Goodbye, Prescott. Goodbye, madam! May peace be with you.”
Half way down the stairs Dr. Thornton turned around to say:
“Of course, you quite comprehend, Prescott, that, pending official action by the school authorities, you must be suspended from the Gridley High School!”
As soon as the door had closed Dick half-tottered back into his room. He did not close the door, but crossed to the window, where he stood looking out upon a world that had darkened fearfully.
Then, without having heard a step, Dick Prescott felt his mother’s arms enfold him.
CHAPTER IX
LAURA BENTLEY IS WIDE AWAKE
Suspended!
That did not mean expulsion, but it did mean that, until the school authorities had taken definite action on the case, young Prescott could not again attend H.S., or any other school under the control of the Board of Education.
The five other partners of Dick & Co. had faced the school defiantly when taking Dick’s books from his desk and strapping them to bring home.
Dan Dalzell thrashed a sophomore for daring to make some allusion to Prescott’s “thefts.” Tom Reade tried to thrash another sophomore for a very similar offense, but Reade got whipped by a very small margin. That fact, however, did not discourage Reade. He had entered his protest, anyway.
Dave Darrin extracted apologies for remarks made, from three different sophomores. All of the partners were diligent in protecting and defending the reputation of their chief.
Every day the “Co.” came to see Dick. They made it a point, too, to appear on the street with him. Not one member of the football team “went back on” the suspended freshman. All treated him with the utmost cordiality and faith wherever they met him. Laura Bentley and some of the other girls of Dick’s class stood by him unwaveringly by chatting with the suspended freshman whenever and wherever they met him on the street.
“Pooh, old man, a fellow who has all the brains you displayed in making that football stroke doesn’t need larceny as an aid to getting ahead in the world,” was the way Frank Thompson put it.
“Thank you, Thompson. It’s always good to have friends,” smiled Dick, wistfully. “But, just now, I appreciate them more than ever.”
“The football team and its best friends are giving Fred Ripley the dead cut,” pursued Thompson. “And say, you know the junior class’s dance comes off the night after tomorrow night. Juniors are always invited, but members of other classes have to depend on favor for invitations. We’ve fixed it so that Ripley couldn’t get an invite. He tried, though. Now, Prescott, you’ll receive an invitation in tomorrow morning’s mail. Fix it to be there, old man. Do! You’ll find yourself flanked by friends. If any fellow looks at you cross-eyed at the junior dance, the eleven will throw him out through a window!”
Dick looked more wistful than ever. He had never had many lessons in dancing, but he took to the art naturally. Had life been happier for him just then he would have been glad to take up the invitation. Besides, Dave Darrin had told him that Laura Bentley was invited and meant to go.
“Now, you’ll come along, of course,” asked Thompson, coaxingly.
“No-o-o,” hesitated Dick, “I don’t believe I shall.”
“Oh, nonsense, old man!”
“I believe I’d rather not,” replied Prescott, sadly; “though I’m tremendously grateful to those who want me to come and who would try to make it pleasant for me.”
Thompson argued, but it was no use.
“Why, every one of your partners is going,” said Frank. “Here comes Dave Darrin now. He’ll tell you so.”
“Nope,” said Dave, with all the energy at his command. “We understand we’re to be invited, and we’d give almost anything to go, but Dick & Co. don’t go unless the Dick part of the firm is with us.”
The junior dance came off, and was a good deal of a success in many ways. Only one of the ten boys of the freshman class who were invited attended. Eight girls of the same class were invited, but only two of them accepted. Laura Bentley decided, at the last moment, against attending.
Within ten days two important games came off between the Gridley H.S. and other crack high school teams. Gridley won both.
“It would be cheeky in me to go to the game, when I’m suspended—hardly a H.S. boy, in fact,” Dick explained to his partners. “But you go.
“No, sir!” muttered Greg Holmes.
“Not if you feel that you can’t go,” protested Harry Hazelton. “Dick & Co. go together, or not at all.”
Gridley H.S. won both games by the skin of their teeth.
“We can’t succeed much longer without our mascots,” Thompson declared impressively before all the members of Dick & Co. The six freshmen, walking along the street together had been rounded up and haled into the store where the football squad held its “club” meetings.
“Humph! I’d be a poor mascot for any body,” muttered Dick. “I haven’t been able to bring even myself good luck.”
“You just come to a game once, all six of you,” begged Ben Badger. “Then you’ll see how we can pile up the score over the enemy! Don’t let it get out of your heads that you’re our real, sure-thing mascots. Why, if it hadn’t been for you six youngsters we probably wouldn’t be playing football any more this season.”
Other members of the squad tried to ply their persuasive powers, but all in vain. Dick Prescott, though not breaking down or wilting under the suspicion that lay against him, felt convinced that it would be out of place for him to attend High School affairs while on the suspended list.
“Humph!” grunted Thomp. “The only thing I can see for us to do is to spend a lot of the Athletic Association’s money in hiring a swell detective to come to town and find out who really did take the things at the old H.S. Then we’d have you with us again, Dick Prescott.”
Though under such long suspension Dick was not going backward much in his studies. He had his books at home, and every forenoon he put in the time faithfully over them.
One of these November evenings Dick had the good fortune to have Dave Darrin and Greg Holmes up in his room with him. The other partners were at home studying.
Dick and his friends were talking rather dispiritedly, for the long suspension, without action, was beginning to wear on them all. Dick’s case was now quietly before the Board of Education, but a result had not yet been reached by that slow-moving body. Of course, the members of the Board had now more than a good idea that Dick & Co. had been behind that “dead ones” hoax; but the members of the Board were trying to do their duty in the suspension case, and tried not to let any other considerations weigh with them.
“We’ve all heard that old chestnut about the silver lining to the cloud,” observed Dave, dejectedly. “If it’s true, then silver seems to be mighty scarce these days.”
“Richard! Ri-i-ichard!” called the elder Prescott, loudly, from the foot of the stairs that led up from the store.
“Yes, sir,” cried Dick, bounding to the door and throwing it open.
“Laura Bentley has called us up on the ‘phone. She says she wants to talk to you quicker’n lightning, whatever speed that may indicate. She adds, mysteriously, that ‘it’s the biggest thing that ever happened!'”
“Coming, sir!” cried Dick, bounding down the stairs, snatching at his cap and reefer as he started, though he could not have told why he picked up these garments. Dave and Greg, acting on some mysterious impulse, grabbed up their reefers and hats, and went down the stairs hot-foot after their chum and leader.
“Hullo!” called Dick, reaching the telephone instrument in the back room of the store. “Yes, Miss Bentley, this is Prescott.”
“Then listen!” came the swiftly uttered words. Dick discovered that the girl was breathless with excitement and the largeness of her news. “Are you listening?”
“I’ll catch every word,” Dick replied.
“Well, I’m at Belle Meade’s house. Belle and her mother are here. Mr. Meade is out. You know where the house is—corner of Clark Street and Stetson’s Alley?”
“Yes; I know.”
“Well, the room between the dining-room and the parlor is in darkness, and has been all evening. There’s a window in that room that opens over the alley. The Meade apartment is on the second floor, you know. Well, Belle was passing that window—in the dark—and she heard voices down below in the alley. She wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but she heard one of the speakers raise his voice and say, excitedly: ‘See here, I did the trick, didn’t I? Ain’t Dick Prescott bounced out of school! Ain’t he in disgrace! And he’ll never get out of it!'”
“Then another voice broke in, in a lower tone, but Belle couldn’t hear what was said. She’s back in the dark by that open window now,” Laura Bentley hurried on, breathlessly. “The two parties are still there, talking. It’s hardly a minute’s run from where you are. Can’t you get some one in a hurry, run up here and jump on the parties? _Please_ do, Dick! It’ll be the means of clearing up this whole awful business!”
“Won’t I, though?” answered Dick, breathlessly, into the ‘phone. “I have two chums here now. We’ll be there like greased lightning—and, oh, Miss Bentley, _thank_ you!”
Neither Dave nor Greg needed to ask any questions, for both had stood close to the receiver, drinking in every word. Now they shot out through the front of the store with a speed and turbulence that made studious Mr. Prescott gasp with amazement.
“Careful, now, fellows!” warned Dick a few moments later. “We want to _hear_, as well as _catch_! Softly does it.”
Well practiced in running, not one of the three freshmen was out of breath by the time that they reached the head of Stetson’s Alley.
Just before turning the corner at the head of the alley, Dick and his freshmen chums halted to listen and reconnoiter.
Peeping cautiously around the corner, Dick, Greg and Dave made out dimly one figure well down the alley. There was not light enough there to recognize the fellow. And the three boys could make out some one past this first fellow, but the second individual stood well in the dark shadow of the delivery doorway of a store.
“Let’s see if we can’t creep up a little nearer,” whispered Dick Prescott, softly.
“They may see us coming,” warned Dave.
“If they do, we’ll just make a jump in and nab them anyway,” Dick rejoined. “Remember the main game—capture!”
Cautiously, a foot at a time, and in Indian file, the three freshmen stole down the dark alleyway. Then Dick halted, passing back a nudge that Dave Darrin passed on to Greg Holmes.
“Now, ye needn’t think ye’re goin’ to renig,” warned the fellow who was nearer to the boys. “I done the whole job against Prescott, and I done it as neat as the next one. Why, _you_ never even thought of the trick of slipping that watch and pin into Prescott’s trunk, did ye? That was _my_ brains. I supplied the brains, an’ you’ve got to raise the cash to pay for ’em! How did I do that trick of slippin’ the watch an’ pin into Prescott’s trunk! Oh, yes! Of course, ye wanter know. Well, I’ll tell ye when ye hand me the rest o’ the money for doin’ the whole trick—then I’ll tell ye.”
Something in a very low whisper came, in response, from the second party who was invisible to the prowling freshmen.
Dick Prescott felt that there was no need of prolonging this scene. He had heard enough.
“Now, rush ’em! Grab ’em—and hold ’em!” shouted Dick, suddenly.
As the three freshmen shot forward into the darkness something that sounded like an almost hysterical cheer in girls’ voices came from the open, dark window overhead.
But neither Dick nor his chums paused to give thought to that at this important moment.
The unknown who had been doing most of the talking wheeled with an oath, making a frantic dash to get out of the alley and onto the street.
But Dick shot fairly past him, dodging slightly, and made a bound for the second party to this wicked conference.
Just beyond the doorway in which this second party had keen standing was a yard that furnished a second means of exit from the alley.
It was this second party to the talk that Dick was after. He left the other fugitive to his two active, quick-witted chums. They were swift to understand, and grappled, together, with the rascal fleeing for the street.
The three went down in a scuffling, fighting heap.
Like a flash the fellow that Dick was after seemed to melt into the adjoining back yard. Prescott, in trying to get in after him in record time, fell flat to the ground just inside the yard.
Yet, as he went down Prescott grabbed one of his fugitive’s trouser legs near the ankle.
“Let go!” hissed the other, in too low a voice to be recognized.
Before Dick, holding on grimly, had time to look upward, the wretch lifted a cane, bringing it down on Dick’s head with ugly force.
CHAPTER X
TIP SCAMMON TALKS—BUT NOT ENOUGH
If that ugly blow hadn’t proved a glancing one, Dick Prescott might have been for a long siege of brain fever.
As it was, he was slightly stunned for the moment.
By the time he could leap up and look about him, rather dizzily, his late assailant had made a clean escape.
“No time to waste on a fellow who’s got away,” quoth Dick.
He staggered slightly, at first, as he hurried from the yard back into the alleyway.
“Now, you quiet down!” commanded Dave Darrin hoarsely. “No more from you, Mr. Thug!”
“Lemme go, or it’ll be worse for ye!” threatened a harsh voice that, nevertheless, had a whine in it.
“What use to let you go, Tip Scammon?” demanded Darrin. “We know you, and the police would pick you up again in an hour.”
“Lemme go, and keep yer mouth shut,” whined the fellow. “If ye don’t, ye’ll be sorry. If ye _do_ lemme go, I’ll pay ye for the accommodation.”
“Yes,” retorted Dave, scornfully. “You’d pay us, I suppose, with money you picked up in some way resembling the trick you played on Dick Prescott.”
“Well, money’s money, ain’t it?” demanded Tip, skeptically.
“Some kinds of money are worse that dirt,” growled Greg Holmes.
This was the conversation, swiftly carried on, that Dick heard as he stepped back to his friends.
Scammon was lying on his back on the ground, with Dave seated across his chest. Greg bent back the wretch’s head, holding a short club that the two freshmen had taken away from Tip in the scuffle.
“Where’s the other one, Dick?” gasped Dave, as he saw young Prescott coming back alone.
“He got away,” muttered Dick. “He hit me over the head, and stunned me for a moment, or I’d be holding onto him yet.”
“Who was he?” demanded Greg, breathlessly.
“I don’t know,” Dick admitted. “I’d give a small part of the earth to know and be sure about it.”
That admission of ignorance was a most unfortunate one. Tip Scammon heard it, and the fellow grinned inwardly over knowing that his late companion had not been recognized.
“What are we going to do with this fellow, Dick?” asked Dave.
“I’m wondering whether he ought to be arrested or not,” Dick replied. “Fellows, I feel mighty sorry for Tip’s father.”
And well might all three feel sorry. So, far as was known, this crime against Dick was the first offense Tip had committed against the law. He was a tough character, and regarded as one of the worse than worthless young men of Gridley. Tip was a handy fellow, a jack-of-all-trades, with several at which he might have made an honest living—but he wouldn’t. Yet Tip’s father was old John Scammon, the highly respected janitor at the High School, where he had served for some forty years.
“I say, fellows, I wonder if we can let Tip go—now that we know the whole story?” breathed Dick.
“Say, I’ll make it worth yer while,” proposed Tip, eagerly.
“How about the law?” asked Dave Darrin, seriously. “Have we any right to let the fellow go, when we know he has committed a serious crime?”
“I don’t know,” replied Prescott. “All I’m thinking of is good, honest old John Scammon.”
“It’d break me old man’s heart—sure it would,” put in Tip, cunningly.
At the first cry from Belle and Laura Bentley, however Mrs. Meade, who was also in the secret, had hurried down into Clark Street. Just as it happened she had espied a policeman less than a block away. That officer, posted by Mrs. Meade, now came hurrying down the alleyway.
“Oho! Tip, is it?” demanded the policeman. “Let him up, Darrin. I can handle him. Now, then, what’s the row about?”
Thereupon Dick and his chums had to tell the story. There was no way out of it. Officer Connors heard a little of it, then decided:
“The station house is the place to tell the rest of this. Come along, Tip. And you youngsters trail along behind.”
Though the station house was not far away, a good-sized crowd was trailing along by the time they reached the business stand of the police. Tip was hustled in through the doorway, the three young freshmen following. Leaning over the railing, smoking and chatting with the sergeant at the desk, was plain clothes man Hemingway.
“Hullo,” muttered that latter officer, “what’s this?”
“A slice out of one of your cases, I guess, Hemingway, from what I’ve heard,” laughed Connors. “According to these boys, Tip is the fellow who knows the inside game of the High School thefts.”
“Let’s have Scammon in the back room, then,” urged Hemingway, leading the way to the guard room. The sergeant, also, followed, after summoning a reserve policeman to the desk.
Then followed a sharp grilling by the keen, astute Hemingway. Dick and his chums told what they had heard Tip say before they pounced upon him. Tip, who was a round-headed, short, square-shouldered fellow of twenty-four, possessed more of the cunning of the prize ring than the cleverness of the keen thief.
“I’ve been caught with the packages on me,” he admitted, bluntly, and with some show of bravado. “I guess I can’t get outer delivering ’em.”
“Then you stole that pin and the gold watch from the locker at the High School?” demanded Hemingway, swiftly.
“Yep.”
“How did you get into the locker room?” shot out Hemingway.
“Guess!” leered Tip, exhibiting some cheap bravado.
“Maybe I can find the answer in your clothes,” retorted the plain clothes man. “Stand still.”
The search resulted in the finding of about ten dollars, a knife, and three queer-looking implements that Hemingway instantly declared to be pick-locks.
“You used these tools, and slipped the lock, did you?” asked Hemingway.
“Didn’t have to,” grinned Tip.
“Took an impression of the lock, then, and made a key, did you?”
“Right-o,” drawled Tip.
“I’ll look into your lodgings,” muttered Hemingway. “Probably I’ll find you’ve got a good outfit for that kind of work. I remember you used to work for a locksmith.”
Tip, however, was not scared. He knew that there was nothing at his lodgings to betray him.
“Then you used these picklocks to open Prescott’s locked trunk with?” was Hemingway’s next question.
“‘Fraid I did,” leered Tip.
“What time of the day did you get into the Prescott flat?”
“‘Bout ten o’clock, morning of the same day ye went through Prescott’s trunk an’ found the goods there.”
“The same goods that you placed in the trunk, Tip, after breaking into the Prescott flat while Mr. and Mrs. Prescott were down in their store and young Prescott was at the High School?”
“That’s right,” Tip grinned.
“You picked the lock of young Prescott’s trunk, stowed the watch and pin away in there, and then sprung the lock again?”
“Why, say, ye muster seen me,” declared Scammon, admiringly.
“The week before that day you must have been at the High School, helping your father, especially in the basement during session hours.”
“I sure was,” Tip admitted. “I had ter, didn’t I, to have a chance ter get inter the locker room?”
“What did you say the name of the fellow was who hired you to do the trick?” swiftly demanded Hemingway, changing the tack.
“I b’lieve I _didn’t_ say,” responded Tip, giving a wink that included all present.
“Tell me now, then.”
“Not if ye was to hang me for refusing,” declared Scammon, with sudden obstinacy.
“Yet you’ve told us everything else,” argued the plain clothes man.
“Might jest as well tell ye everything else,” retorted Tip. “Didn’t these High School kids find the packages on me?”
“Then tell us who the chap was that you were talking with tonight.”
“Not fer anything ye could give me,” asserted Tip Scammon, with great promptness.
“Oh, well, then,” returned Hemingway, with affected carelessness, “Prescott can tell us the name of the chap he grappled with in that back yard.”
“Yep! Let young Prescott tell,” agreed Tip with great cheerfulness. That was as far as the police could get with the prisoner. He readily admitted all that was known, and he had even gone so far as to tell how he had stolen the watch and the pin, and how he had secreted them in Dick’s trunk, but beyond that the fellow would not go further.
“Did you have anything to do with placing Ripley’s pin in Prescott’s pocket?” questioned Hemingway.
“Nope,” declared Tip, in all apparent candor.
“Know anything about that?”
“Nope.”
“Then how did you know that that particular morning was the right morning to hide the other two stolen articles in Prescott’s trunk?”
“I heard, on the street, what was happenin’,” declared Tip, confidently. “So I knew ’twas the right time ter do the rest of the trick.”
At last Hemingway gave up the attempt to learn the name of the party with whom Tip had been talking in Stetson’s Alley on this night. Then Tip was led away to a cell.
“Come on, fellows,” muttered Dick to his chums. “Since Tip is under arrest, anyway, and has confessed, and since the whole thing is bound to become public, I want to run down to ‘The Blade’ office, find Len Spencer, and send him up here to get the whole, straight story. _With this yarn printed I can go back to school in the morning_!”
“Now, see here, Dick,” expostulated Dave Darrin, as the three chums hurried along the street, “in the station house you told the police you didn’t get a look at the other fellow’s face.”
“Well, that was straight,” Prescott asserted.
“Do you mean to say you don’t know who the fellow was—you really don’t?” persisted Dave Darrin.
“I don’t know,” Dick declared flatly.
“You’ve a suspicion, just the same,” asserted Greg Holmes, dryly.
“Possibly.”
“Who was it, then?” coaxed Greg Holmes.
“Was it Fred Ripley?” shot out Dave Darrin.
“Will you fellows keep a secret, on your solemn honor, if I tell you one?” Dick questioned.
Dave and Greg both promised.
“Well, then,” Prescott admitted, “I’m convinced in my own mind that it was Fred Ripley that I had hold of for an instant tonight. But I didn’t see his face, and I can’t prove it. That’s why I’m not going to tell about it. But this fellow wore lavender striped trousers, just like a pair of Fred’s. There is just a chance or two in a thousand that it wasn’t Ripley—and I’m not going to throw it all over on him when I can’t prove it. Fellows, I know just what it feels like to be under suspicion when you really didn’t do a thing. _It hurts—awfully_!”
CHAPTER XI
THE WELCOME WITH A BIG “W”
Ben Badger sat perched aloft among the bare, spreading branches of a giant maple near one corner of the school grounds. The maple stood at the curbing of the sidewalk.
Down below stood nearly a hundred High School boys of Gridley.
That Ben was on sentry duty was apparent from the eager looks that those below frequently cast up at him. At times, too, the general impatience sought relief in questions hurled at Ben.
Finally, from the lookout aloft came down the rousing hail:
“Here he comes! fellows! Here he comes! No—here _they_ come! The whole crowd—Dick & Co.!”
A flutter passed through the crowd below, vet not one of the Gridley H.S. boys stirred from the ranks just within the school yard gate.
Back on the main steps of the High School building nearly three score of the young ladies were irregularly grouped. They were silent, but expectant.
For “The Blade” had been read in many a Gridley home that morning. The news had traveled fast over Gridley. Though the paper had contained no announcement that Prescott would return to school, every High School boy and girl had felt sure of that.
Down the street, three abreast, came Dick & Co., with proud, firm stride. Very likely the partners were even more exultant than was Prescott himself.
Then the freshman sextette came in full sight from the gateway.
“Who’s this?” yelled Ben Badger in his loudest voice.
From the crowded tanks below welled up the chorus:
“Dick & Co.! Dick & Co.! Good old Dick! Bully old Co.!”
Prescott and his chums halted, thunderstruck by the volume and force of that unexpected chorus.
Immediately on top of it rolled out lustily the complicated High School yell, given with a vim never before heard off the football field.
And then:
“What’s the matter with Dick Prescott?” demanded Ben Badger, in stentorian tones.
From one half of the H.S. boys came the roaring response:
“He’s the whole cheese.”
Then, from the other half:
“—–for a _freshman_!”
Dick & Co. recovering from their amazement, were coming on again now. Young Prescott’s heart thumped hard. He was no popularity-chaser, but only the fellow who has been down hard, for a while, knows how good it is to be _up_ once more.
As Dick neared the gate Ben Badger dropped down out of the bare maple tree, for Ben had yet other duties on the reception committee.
He and Frank Thompson suddenly snatched Dick Prescott out of the ranks of his chums, and hoisted him aloft. This these two husky first classmen were well able to do.
Across the school yard they started with him, while the rest of the fellows followed, giving voice to the High School yell:
“T-E-R-R-O-R-S! Wa-ar! Fam-ine! Pes-ti-lence! That’s us! That’s us! G-R-I-D-L-E-Y H.S.! Rah! rah! rah! rah! Gri-i-id-ley!”
The girls grouped on the steps parted, letting the leaders and followers through.
With the rush as of an army the excited youngsters bore Dick Prescott up a flight of stairs. Half a dozen of the fellows sprang ahead of Badger and Thompson, throwing open one of the doors of the general assembly room.
Again the High School yell broke loose, sounding, in that confined space, as though it must jar the rafters loose.
Dr. Thornton had risen from his chair behind the desk. It was before coming-in-hour, and there was no rule that commanded quietude before the bell rang. Yet such a din had never before been heard in the room.
But just then Dr. Thornton caught sight of red-faced, happy-looking Dick Prescott on the shoulders of Badger and Thompson. Then the principal laughed in sheer good humor.
Wheeling, Badger and Thompson carried Dick straight up to the platform, where they deposited their human burden at the edge.
“Welcome to our city!” yelled Badger, sonorously.
“Mr. Prescott,” greeted Dr. Thornton, holding out his hand, “I am heartily glad to see you back here.”
“No more pleased, sir, than I am to be here,” returned the young freshman. “And I must thank you, doctor, for the promptness with which you sent the note around to me informing me that the suspension had automatically ended.”
While the cheering was going on out in the yard, and while Dick was being carried in triumph into the building, Fred Ripley and Clara Deane had just turned in out of a side street and come within view of the demonstration.
“They’re shouting out something about Prescott,” murmured Clara.
“Oh, I suppose the mucker has been allowed to sneak back into school,” returned Ripley, in disgust.
“It’s a shame to allow that class of young fellows in a high school,” declared Miss Deane. “If a higher education is necessary for such people, they ought to be sent to a special school of their own.”
“If Gridley H.S. goes on being cheapened I shall go to some good private prep. school somewhere,” hinted Fred.
“That _would_ be a splendid idea,” glowed Clara. “I wouldn’t mind going to some good seminary myself.”
“If we do, let us hope we can find a town that will contain both schools,” suggested Fred, with an attempt at gallantry. “For that matter, Clara, there are co-ed private schools, you know.”
“I don’t want to go to one,” retorted Miss Deane, promptly. “Co-ed schools are just like co-ed colleges. The boys may have a good enough time, but the co-ed girls are shoved into the background. Co-ed boys pretend they don’t know that the co-ed girls are alive. The High School is better, for a girl, than any co-ed private school, for in the High School girls are treated on an even footing with boys.”
“We’ll both of us keep that prep. school idea in mind, though,” proposed Ripley, just before the pair entered the school building.
By the time that this exclusive pair entered the general assembly room the scene before them was none too pleasing. The congratulatory crowd being too large for Dick alone, his five partners were holding separate little receptions for groups, relating how Dick, Dave and Greg had captured Tip Scammon. Such speculation there was as to who Tip’s unrecognized companion could have been the night before. As Fred stepped into the big room he was conscious of many unfriendly glances that were sent in his direction.
As early as possible Dick Prescott sought out Laura Bentley and Bell Meade, and to them he expressed his heartiest thanks for the splendid aid they had given him toward this present happy moment.
So great was the clamor, in fact, that, when the gong outside struck the “minute-call” at 7.59, no one in the assembly room seemed to hear it. Then came the jingling of the assembly bell in the big room. A murmur of surprise ran around, for time had passed rapidly since Dick’s appearance. In another moment the only sound was that of quiet footfalls as the young ladies and gentlemen of the Gridley H.S. moved to their seats. In a few seconds more only the ticking of the big clock was heard.
CHAPTER XII
DICK & CO. GIVE FOOTBALL A NEW BOOST
By recess the feeling had quieted down. Dick Prescott was only a freshman, but it is safe to say that he was the most popular freshman who had ever “happened” at Gridley H.S.
However, the noisy spirit of welcome had spent itself Dick & Co. were given a chance to go away quietly by themselves and talk over their own affairs.
Fred Ripley appeared to be the only unhappy boy in the lot. He kept to himself a good deal, and the scowl on his face threatened to become chronic.
Recess was nearly up when Thomp and Captain Sam Edgeworth, of the eleven, approached Dick & Co. A nod from Edgeworth drew Prescott away from his chums.
“Prescott, as you know, we don’t usually allow freshmen to mix much with us in the athletic line. But the fellows feel that you are a big exception. You couldn’t possibly make the team this year, of course, but we well, we thought you might like a bit of the social end of the squad. We thought you might like to come around to our headquarters and see us drill and hear our talk of the game. Would it interest you any?”
“Would it?” glowed Dick. “Why, as much as it would please a ragpicker to be carried off to a palace to live!”
“Do you care to come around and see us this afternoon?” pursued Captain Sam. “Say three o’clock.”
“I’d be delighted.”
“Then come around and see us, Prescott. Maybe you’ll be interested in something that you see and hear.”
“I wonder—–” began Dick, wistfully.
“Well, what?” asked Thomp.
“Could you possibly include my chums in that invitation? They’re all mightily interested.”
“Yes,” nodded Thompson, “they’re interested, and they all helped you to spring that trick on the Board of Education. It’s more than half likely that we owe the continuance of football this season to Dick & Co.”
“Bring your friends along, then,” agreed Captain Sam Edgeworth, though he solemnly hoped, under his breath, that he wasn’t establishing a fearful precedent by showing such wholesale cordiality to the usually despised freshmen.
“We’ll use all six of you as our mascots,” laughed Thomp.
“And er—er—” began Dick, a bit diffidently, “we have something that we’ve been talking over, and we want to suggest to you—if you won’t think us all too eternally fresh.”
“Anyway, the idea’ll have to keep,” muttered Edgeworth, as the gong clanged out. “There goes the end of recess.”
The long lines were quickly filing in at two entrances? and the work of the school day was on again.
It was barely a quarter of three when Dick & Co. walking two-and-two, came in sight of the otherwise unoccupied store that formed the football headquarters.
“We’re too early,” muttered Prescott, consulting his watch. “We’ll have to take a walk around a few blocks yet, fellows.”
“Why?” Dan Dalzell wanted to know. “What difference does a matter of a few minutes make?”
“Haven’t you had it rubbed into you enough that you’re only a measly freshman?” laughed Dick. “And don’t you know a freshman is called a freshman only because he can’t dare to do anything that looks the least little bit fresh? From an upper classman’s point of view we’ve had a thumping big privilege accorded us, and we don’t want to spoil it by running it into the ground. So I vote for a walk that will make us at least two minutes late going into the football headquarters.”
“My vote goes with yours,” nodded Dave Darrin.
The good sense of it appealed to all the chums, so they strolled away again, and came back three minutes late, Outside the door they halted. Some of the awe of the conscious freshman came upon two or three of the chums.
“You go in first, Dick,” urged Tom Reade.
“It was you who got the invite, anyway,” hinted Greg Holmes.
Laughing quietly Dick turned the knob of the door. He went in bravely enough, but some of his chums followed rather sheepishly.
Fred Ripley, who had dropped in five minutes before, saw them at once, and scowled.
“‘Ware freshmen!” he called, rather loudly.
Nearly all the members of the regular and sub teams were present. Most of them were going through an Indian club drill at the further end of the room. At Fred’s cry several of them turned around sharply.
“Oh, that’s all right,” called out Edgeworth. “These particular freshmen are privileged. Welcome, Dick & Co.!”
“Privileged? Welcome?” gasped Ripley, in a tone of huge disgust. “What on earth is the High School coming to these days?”
“If you don’t like to see them here, Ripley,” broke in Thompson, “you know—–“
“Oh, well!” growled Fred, with a shrug of his shoulders. Then, disdaining to look at Dick & Co., this stickler for upper class exclusiveness turned and stalked out of the store, closing the door after him with a bang.
For some minutes Dick and his chums stood quietly against the wall at one side of the big, almost bare room. Then Edgeworth called out:
“Now, fellows, we’ve had enough of indoor work. We’ll take a brief rest. After that we’ll go over to the field and practice tackles and formations until dark.”
Released from the drills Thomp came over to shake hands with the freshmen visitors. Edgeworth presently strolled over, and a few others.
“By the way, captain,” spoke up Thompson, finally, “I think Prescott told us that the mighty freshmen intellects of Dick & Co. had been trying out their brains in the effort to get up some new football stunts.”
“That’s so,” nodded Sam.
“Have we time to listen to them?”
“Yes,” decided the football captain; “if it doesn’t take them too long to explain.”
Ben Badger kicked forward an empty packing case.
“Here’s a platform, Prescott. Get up and orate!” he called.
Dick laughingly held back from the packing case until Badger and Thomp lifted him bodily and stood him on top of the box.
“And cut it short, and make it practical,” admonished Ted Butler, “or take the dire consequences!”
“Why, I don’t know, gentlemen of the football team, that it’s much of an idea,” Dick began, “but my chums and I have been thinking over the complaint of the Athletics Committee that you haven’t as much money, this season, as you’d like.”
“Money?” echoed one. “Now, you’re whispering. Whoop!”
“Money—the root of all evil!” shouted another.
“Get wicked!” adjured a third.
“What my friends and I had to suggest,” Dick went on, “was that, as we understand it, the folks of the town don’t contribute much cash for upholding the fame of High School athletics.”
“The School Alumni Association does pretty well in that line,” replied Edgeworth. “The public in general do pretty well by buying tickets rather liberally to our games. It’s the expenses that are the great trouble. You see, Prescott, instead of maintaining one team, we really have to support two, for the subs are necessary in order to give us practice. Then the coach’s expenses are heavy. Now, the Alumni Association owns our athletic field, but a lot of lumber and carpenter work is needed there every year, making repairs and putting in improvements. Then, when we play high school teams at a distance from here the railroad expenses eat up enormously.”
“And we have to play mostly teams at a good distance from here,” laughed Ben Badger, “for we’ve played the nearby elevens time and again, and Gridley has eaten up the other fellows in such big gulps that we have to get on dates, these days, with teams so far away that they don’t know much about us.”
“But there’s plenty of money in the town,” replied Dick. “The business men have some of it. The wealthy people have a lot of it, too. It is a Gridley brag that the people of this city are public spirited to the last gasp. Now, if you can get public spirit and money on good speaking terms there wouldn’t need to be any lack of funds for High School athletics.”
“All right,” nodded Edgeworth, trying to conceal a slight impatience “But how are you going to introduce public spirit effectively to money?”
“That’s what we freshmen have been wondering,” Dick replied. “Now, every student in the Gridley H.S.—boy students and girl students—gets a share of the reflected glory that comes from the work of one of the best high school elevens in the United States. So, as we see it, the whole student body should get together in the raising of funds. And when I say ‘funds,’ I don’t mean pennies or dimes.”
“This is becoming interesting,” called out Ben Badger.
“That my chums and I would suggest,” Dick continued, “is that the whole student body of Gridley H.S. be enlisted, and sent out to scour the town, holding, out a subscription paper that is properly worded at the top.”
“How worded?” demanded Ted Butler.
“My freshmen chums and I have prepared a draft of the paper. May I read what we suggest as a heading for the paper?”
“Hear! Hear!” cried a dozen.
“Thank you,” Prescott acknowledged, gratefully. Then, drawing a paper from his pocket, he read as follows:
_”‘Gridley is justly proud of its public spirit, and rejoices in having the best in several lines. Few if any cities in the United States possess a High School football team that can down the eleven from Gridley H.S. We are proud of our High School, and as proud of its reputation in athletics. We believe that Gridley prominence in athletics should be fostered in every way, and we know that real athletics cost money—a lot of it! We, The Undersigned, therefore subscribe to the Athletic Committee of Gridley H.S. the amounts of public spirit set down opposite our names in dollars.'”_
After Dick Prescott had ceased reading it took nearly a full minute for the cleverness of this direct appeal to local pride to strike home in the minds of the football squad. Then loud applause broke loose.
“Freshie!” roared Sam Edgeworth, over the din, “that’s genius, compressed into a hundred words!”
“It’s O.K.!” declared Thompson, with heavy emphasis.
“Bully!” roared Ben Badger.
Then one pessimist was heard from:
“It’s good, but it takes something mighty good to force people to part with their own cash.”
“Don’t you think that, with every H.S. boy and girl going around with the paper, it will force subscriptions?” Dick inquired.
“Oh, well,” granted the pessimist, “I believe it will cost enough money out of the public to pay all the cost of printing the subscription papers anyway.”
“If we didn’t need that kicker on the team, we’d throw him out of here,” laughed Sam Edgeworth, good-naturedly.
Then the matter was put to informal vote, and it was decided to ask the permission of the Athletic Committee to put through the scheme presented by Dick & Co.
“And now it’s time to be off for the field,” proclaimed Sam Edgeworth, with emphasis. Coach Morton will be waiting for us, and he isn’t the man who enjoys being kept waiting.”
“Come along with us, Dick & Co.,” called Thompson. “You’ll have a chance to see whether you approve of our way of handling the game.”
So Dick and his partners went along. Though they could only stand at the edge of the field and look on, yet that was rare fun, for no other freshmen were on the same side of the fence.
As all six of the boys knew considerable about the theories and rules of football, and as all of them watched closely the plays between Gridley H.S. and the subs, they soon saw the reason why Gridley had one of the most formidable High School teams in the country.
“Oh, for the day when _we_ can try to make the team!” uttered Dick Prescott, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.
The fund-raising scheme offered by Dick & Co. went before the Athletic Committee that same evening. It was accepted, as Prescott and Darrin, hanging about outside the H.S. building, learned an hour later.
In three days more the subscription papers had been printed and were distributed. Every boy and girl in the school received one, with instructions to bring it back, “filled out”—or take the consequences.
Then the canvassing began.
Would it work? Dick & Co. felt that their own reputations hung in the balance. And it was bound to be the case that some of the students, though they took the papers, did a lot of prompt “kicking” about it.
_Would it “work”_?
CHAPTER XIII
“THE OATH OF THE DUB”
For a full week the boys and girls of Gridley H.S. scoured the town, trying their fortune everywhere that money was supposed to lurk.
The great Thanksgiving game was coming on. Gridley was to play the second team of Cobber University. This second team from Cobber had beaten every high school team it had tackled for the two preceding years.
Gridley, in this present year, had not met with a single defeat in a total of nine games thus far played. In six of the games the opponents had not scored at all.
But could Cobber Second be beaten?
The Cobber eleven was one of the finest in the country. Even the second team was considered a “terror,” as its record of unbroken victories for two years testified.
So much awe, in fact, did Cobber Second inspire among the high school teams that Gridley was the only outfit to be found that dared take up the proposition of a Thanksgiving Day game with the college men.
“Gridley can’t win!” the pessimists predicted.
Even the heartiest well-wishers of Gridley H.S. felt, mournfully, that too big a contract had been undertaken.
Dick & Co., however, under the inspiring influence of their leader, were all to the hopeful.
“We’ll win,” Dick proclaimed, “because Gridley needs the game. When Gridley folks go after anything they won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. That’s the spirit of the town, and the High School is worthy of all the traditions of the town.”
“Talk’s cheap, and brag’s a good dog!” sneered Ripley.
Three sophomores who overheard the remark promptly “bagged” Fred and threw him over the school yard fence.
“Come back with any more of that,” warned one of the hazers, “and we’ll scour your intellect at the town pump.”
Being a freshman, Prescott didn’t say too much. Neither did his chums. Yet what they did say was bright and hopeful. Their spirit began to soak through the student body.
“You see, gentlemen,” Coach Morton warned the football squad one morning at recess, “you’ve _got_ to win. The school believes you can do it, and the town is beginning to believe it. If you lose to Cobber Second you’ll forfeit the respect of all the thousands of Gridley folks who are now saying nice things about you.”
“Write it down,” begged Thompson. “We’re going to beat Cobber Second off the gridiron.”
“Good!” cheered Mr. Morton. “That’s the talk. And be sure you live up to it!”
“We’ve got to live up to it,” asserted Thomp, solemnly.
“Right-o!” came the enthusiastic approval from as many members of the student body as could crowd within easy hearing. The girls were all there, too, for in these days the girls were as much excited as others over the prospects of winning.
“Shall I tell coach and students, Cap?” called Thomp to Edgeworth.
“It won’t do any harm,” nodded Sam. “Confession will make our deed more binding.”
“What deed?” demanded Coach Morton, scenting some mystery that he was not yet in on.
“Why, you see, sir,” proclaimed Thomp, “every member of the team, and every sub who stands any show to get into the game, has taken the oath of the dub.”
“‘The oath of the dub’?” repeated Sub-master Morton. “That’s a new one on me.
“It’s a new one on us all,” admitted Thompson, gravely. “We’ve taken the oath, but it’s so dreadful that most of us shivered when it came our turn to recite the patter—the ritual, I mean.”
“What is this ‘oath of the dub’?” asked the coach.
“It’s fearful,” shivered Thomp. “Any of you fellows feel better able to explain?”
He glanced around him at the other visible members and subs of the school eleven, but they shook their heads and shrank back.
“Well, then, I’ll have to tell you myself,” conceded Thomp, with an air of gloom. “It’s a fearful thing. Yet, as I’ve been through with it once, one more time can’t hurt me—much.”
Thomp made an eloquent pause. Then, reaching his right hand aloft, his eyes turned toward the sky, he recited, in a deep bass voice:
“I have pledged my honor, as a gridiron specialist, that Gridley H.S. shall lug away all the points of the game from Cobber Second. If we fail, then may everyone who espies me mutter: ‘There goes a dub!’ May the word ‘dub’ haunt me in my waking hours, and pursue me, mounted on the nightmares of slumber! May my best friends ever afterward refer to me only as a ‘dub.’ For if I fail the school, then am I truly a ‘dub,’ and there is no help for me. If I fail, then may I never, so long as life lasts, be permitted to lose sight of the patent fact that I _am_ a ‘dub’! So help me _Bob_!”
A roar of laughter and approval went up from all who heard. Coach Morton tried hard to preserve his gravity, but his sides shook, and his face reddened from the effort. At last he broke loose. When he could control his voice Mr. Morton demanded:
“What genius of the first class invented the ‘oath of the dub’?”
“It wasn’t a senior, sir,” Thomp confessed.
“What junior, then?”
“Not a junior, either.”
“_Who_, then?” insisted the submaster.
“Tell him, Sam.”
“That oath, Mr. Morton, required and received the concerted brainpower of—–“
“Dick & Co.!” shouted the football squad in chorus.
A good-natured riot followed.
“Dick & Co. will soon get the notion that they’re the whole High School,” growled Fred Ripley to Purcell.
“They are a big feature of the school,” laughed Purcell. “You’re about the only one, Fred, who hasn’t discovered it. Rub your eyes, man, and take another look.”
“Bah!” muttered Ripley, turning away. Just then the gong clanged the end of recess.
“Now, that ‘the oath of the dub’ has been given out,” suggested Dick Prescott to his chums, after school, “we ought to find Len Spencer and give it to him. He’ll print it in tomorrow’s ‘Blade’ and that will send local pride soaring. That’ll help a whole lot to success with the subscription papers.”
After the papers had been in circulation a week the Athletics Committee held an evening session, in the room of the Superintendent of Schools, in the H.S. building.
By eight o’clock nearly a hundred and fifty of the boys and girls had assembled. More came in later.
The subscription papers, and the amounts for which they called, were turned in to Coach Morton. It was soon noticed that many of the subscriptions had been paid by check.
Laura Bentley was the first to turn in a paper.
“Twenty dollars,” she announced, quietly, though with evident pride.
“Eleven dollars,” announced Belle Meade.
After a good many of the girls had made accounting they boys had a brief chance.
When it came Dick Prescott’s turn he spoke so quietly that those