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Title: The Safety First Club fights fire

Author: William Theophilus Nichols

Illustrator: Wilson V. Chambers

Release date: February 23, 2023 [eBook #70116]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Penn Publishing Company

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

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

Transcriber’s Notes:

The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

CONTENTS

Chapter I. Sam Bears Witness

Chapter II. The Safety First Club

Chapter III. The Open Air Treatment

Chapter IV. The Club at the Council Rock

Chapter V. Lon Goes Scouting

Chapter VI. Poke Takes a Flyer

Chapter VII. In Which Sam Plays Negotiator

Chapter VIII. Drawing the Line

Chapter IX. The Club Forms Hollow Square

Chapter X. Sam Rejects a Proffered Olive Branch

Chapter XI. Sam Hears of the Saracen

Chapter XII. Concerning Trout and Other Things

Chapter XIII. Playing the Game

Chapter XIV. Again at the Council Rock

Chapter XV. The Dash of the Scary Hen

Chapter XVI. Zorn Shows His Teeth Again

Chapter XVII. Sam Heads a Fishing Party

Chapter XVIII. The Club Turns Fire Brigade

Chapter XIX. A Dream and an Awakening

Chapter XX. The Big Fire

Chapter XXI. Rousing the Neighborhood

Chapter XXII. A Game of Hare and Hounds

Chapter XXIII. An Old Score Settled

Chapter XXIV. When the Truth Comes Out

Chapter XXV. Vindication

“CAN YOU TELL US ANYTHING ABOUT THIS?”

THE

SAFETY FIRST

CLUB

FIGHTS FIRE

BY

W. T. NICHOLS

Author of

“The Safety First Club,”

“The Safety First Club and the Flood.”

Illustrated by

W. V. CHAMBERS

THE PENN PUBLISHING

COMPANY PHILADELPHIA

1923

COPYRIGHT 1923 BY

THE PENN

PUBLISHING

COMPANY

The Safety First Club Fights Fire

Made in the U. S. A.

Illustrations

“Can You Tell Us Anything About This?”

Frontispiece

PAGE

Something Shot Into View

79

Sam Began to Wriggle Out of His Jacket

150

Poke Clung to His Seat

215

The Boys Felt as if They Stood Before an Enormous Furnace

278

The Safety First Club Fights Fire

The Safety First Club

Fights Fire

CHAPTER I

SAM BEARS WITNESS

Sam Parker was studying under difficulties. His intentions were of the best; his industry, as a rule, was proof against distractions. This day, though, there was something in the very air which seemed to interfere with his work.

It was a fine day, a beautiful day. The sun shone brightly; a pleasant breeze was blowing; beyond the open windows of the big assembly hall on the third floor of the high school tree tops were swaying gently. In spite of his efforts Sam’s gaze strayed to them, and lingered on them, to the sad neglect of the instructive remarks on the English paragraph, offered by the text-book lying open on his desk. Topic sentences, somehow, had lost their hold; “proofs” no longer appealed to his reason; conclusions didn’t matter in the least. Sam felt the spell of the spring in his blood, and, to do him justice, fought against its influence.

As a student, the boy had to earn what he gained. He didn’t lack brains by any manner of means; and he stood well in his classes, but this was the result of application rather than of inspiration. He had come up to the hall for a study period because it was quieter than his “home” room, where a recitation was in progress; and a score of other pupils had followed the same plan. They were rather widely scattered in the big space of the hall, and the teacher who was charged with maintaining order had the easiest of tasks. Spring fever might not promote industry, but likewise it did not encourage mischief.

From the window Sam’s glance came back to his comrades of the study hour. Nearly all were classmates of his—Juniors—but only two were among his special chums. Over in a corner a slender boy with thick-lensed spectacles was deep in a calculation, being by long odds the busiest person in the room. Sam, surveying him, chuckled. Willy Reynolds, known to his friends as the “Shark” because of his extraordinary appetite for mathematics, cared very little what the weather might be, or whether the season were winter, summer, spring or autumn, so long as he was provided with an interesting problem. At a little distance from the Shark “Trojan” Walker was dallying with an English exercise. Sam grinned sympathetically, while he watched the slow motion of the Trojan’s pencil; he knew just how his friend was longing to be out-of-doors and making holiday. Trojan was a good fellow, rather a quiet chap, neither a dullard nor brilliant at his books; likable, dependable, and a valued member of the little coterie, of which Sam was the acknowledged leader.

Sam’s smile faded as his glance passed from Walker to a brace of his neighbors. He was not fond of Jack Hagle, and he disliked Edward Zorn. In the case of the former he might have found it hard to put the reason for his opinion into words. Hagle never had harmed him; at times he had tried to be friendly; but there was something in Jack’s personality which didn’t appeal to Sam. “Hagle puts a fellow’s teeth on edge, somehow”—so Sam had said more than once, and it would have puzzled him to make the explanation more definite. As for Zorn—well, he was a schemer, an intriguer, a school and class politician, always working for this, that, or the other thing; now fawning, now blustering, but always keeping the personal fortunes of Edward Zorn in mind. Once or twice Sam and his chums had clashed with Zorn and his allies, and the encounters had not left the feeling of respect one sometimes finds for a stout and honest adversary.

Sam turned again to consideration of the English paragraph. He tried to concentrate his attention upon the printed page before him, and so was not aware that the principal and the sub-master had entered the hall and were talking earnestly with the teacher on duty. The conference at the desk went on for several minutes. The sub-master appeared to be excited. His voice rose a trifle, and Sam looked up. By this time all the pupils were eyeing the group on the platform with varying degrees of interest.

Suddenly the sub-master turned to his chief and put a question. What it was nobody in the body of the hall heard, but everybody saw the principal nod agreement. To Sam at least the agreement did not seem to be at all eager.

“Walker!” the sub-master called out sharply.

The Trojan gave a start of surprise at the summons; rose; went forward. The principal put a query, his tone so low that the words were inaudible a dozen feet from the platform.

“Why—why, I don’t know, sir.”

Sam, straining his ears, barely caught the Trojan’s answer. He quite missed both the next question and the reply. Then the sub-master put in a suggestion:

“Suppose we excuse Walker for a moment. We can—er—er—we can recall him later.”

Again the principal nodded. Sam, closely attentive, was more strongly impressed than before that the head of the school was not enjoying the moment.

The Trojan walked back to his desk. His expression was puzzled. Sam’s guess was that he was racking his memory and failing to recall distinctly something about which he ought not to have been uncertain.

“Hagle!” said the sub-master.

Jack shuffled up the aisle and took his stand before the teachers. His examination was longer than the Trojan’s, but the other pupils heard not a word of it. Then Zorn was called, and again there was an exchange almost in whispers.

The sub-master consulted a list of names written on a card.

“Parker!” he said, after a moment’s reflection.

Sam made his way to the platform. By this time his curiosity was keen enough. Zorn, he noticed, had not gone back to his former seat, but had taken a place well forward, where he hardly could escape hearing whatever might be said.

“That’s a cheeky performance!” Sam told himself—and then forgot Zorn for the moment; for the sub-master was addressing him.

“Parker, perhaps you can help us. There is a point we wish to establish. In a case of—er—er—in a case of disputed ownership of a book, let us say, suppose Walker claimed it——”

“Then I’d say it was the Trojan’s—I mean, Walker’s,” Sam declared without hesitation.

“That is because you are a great friend of his?”

“It’s because Trojan always tells the truth, sir.”

“I see. You give him a general vote of confidence?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam fancied that the principal moved uneasily, as if he didn’t like the course the examination was taking. Yet the head of the school permitted his assistant to go on.

“Well, Parker, it happens that the ownership of a certain book is a matter of some interest to us. We are anxious to establish it definitely. By the way”—the sub-master pushed aside a paper on the desk and revealed a worn and battered text-book it had concealed—“by the way, can you tell us anything about this?”

Sam picked up the book. He glanced at the fly-leaves. They were torn and dog-eared, and bore a dozen scribbled entries. It was plain enough that the book had been handed down from class to class, though it would have puzzled anybody to get much clew to its present ownership from the conflicting scrawls. Then Sam turned to the last printed page, and found there a penciled skull and crossbones.

“If Trojan says this is his Cicero, he’s right, sir.”

“You—er—er—you corroborate him, then?”

Again Sam sensed the principal’s lack of approval of the question; but made mental note, too, that he let the sub-master continue.

“Yes, sir,” said the boy; “though he doesn’t need corroboration.”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“I ought to be—I drew that picture on the last page. Did it one day when I’d borrowed the book from Trojan.”

“Long ago?”

“Two or three months.”

The sub-master frowned. “That is somewhat remote, Parker. If you have a weakness for decorative effects, there has been time since then for you to adorn other texts. And if you haven’t seen this book in months——”

“But I have seen it, sir!” Sam broke in. “When? Last Friday. Just before our class went in for its Latin test I borrowed the book from Trojan to look up a passage. It—it’s pretty freely marked with notes on hard places, you know.”

“So I perceive,” said the sub-master drily.

Sam coughed. “Ahem, ahem! Well, the fellows who’ve had it have written in a lot of things, sir. And—and they help, when you’re in a hurry. And there was one ‘sticker’ I did want to get straight before we tackled the examination.”

“Very much of an eleventh-hour performance, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. We were in the corridor—just before we went in.”

“And you are sure you returned the book?”

“Perfectly sure, sir. Trojan wanted it back—he had something to look up, too.”

“And you gave it to him?”

Sam smiled faintly. “‘Gave’ is hardly the word, sir—he grabbed it.”

“That was the last you saw of the book—in Walker’s hands, in the corridor, outside the examination room?”

“Right there, sir.”

“But you had your own Cicero with you?”

“I guess all the fellows had theirs. But we left them in the corridor—that’s the way we always do, you know.”

The sub-master turned to the principal. “Well, some things seem to be established,” he said. “Do you care to take the witness?”

The principal seemed to hesitate. “No, Mr. Bacon,” he said at last. “You’re quite right—some things we can now accept as established.”

Sam might have considered himself dismissed, but he lingered.

“If there’s anything else I can tell you——” he began; but the sub-master shook his head.

“No; that’ll do for you, Parker,” he said curtly.

Sam, still very much in the fog of uncertainty and wondering greatly that there should be any doubt of the Trojan’s claim to his book, turned away from the platform. As he did so, he caught Zorn’s eye, and was reminded that that youth must have overheard all he had said. Well, he didn’t care; it was all true—so Sam told himself, even as a sense of resentment filled him. It wasn’t Zorn’s affair; playing eavesdropper was a contemptible trick. Sam amended his statement to himself: he did care; he objected strongly to Zorn’s action. At the first opportunity he would say so, forcefully and as publicly as might be. He glared at the other, who, truth to relate, returned the attention in kind. Then, Sam had passed by and was taking his seat at the back of the hall.

The Trojan appeared to be in a brown study. His brow was furrowed, and he was gazing at the wall in the fixed fashion which suggests seeing very little. Jack Hagle had developed sudden absorption in his work, and was bent over the text-book on his desk. The Shark was still deep in his calculation. Nobody else in the room, though, was ignoring, or pretending to ignore, the peculiar affair which had interrupted the study period.

The instructors had their heads together in a consultation which continued for several minutes. Then the principal and sub-master rose, and walked to the door; halted; exchanged a word or two.

“Walker!” the sub-master called, and the Trojan, his manner of perplexity remaining, again went forward. This time he did not return to his seat, but followed the two men into the corridor.

The pupils left in the hall exchanged questioning glances. Every boy there—with the exception of the Shark—felt that something out of the usual run was happening; and most of the number, including Sam Parker, groped vainly for the secret. Sam had a notion that Zorn, and perhaps Hagle, had clew to the mystery, and it is to be confessed that the suspicion annoyed him. Therefore he awaited eagerly the reappearance of the Trojan.

But Trojan Walker did not come back to the hall.

A gong clanged, marking the end of the period. Sam and the others gathered up their books, and streamed out into the corridor, there dividing and going on to their own rooms. In each of these there was the stir of preparation for home-going, for the period closed the day’s work; then came the little pause, while the rows of boys and girls sat quietly, awaiting the dismissal signal. Sam noted that Trojan was not in his accustomed place; but hardly had he made sure of this when the gong clanged again, and the school session was over.

Sam marched out with his classmates, but lingered in the yard. So, as it chanced, did a dozen other boys, among them several of his special chums. There was the Shark, blinking behind his big spectacles. There was “Step” Jones, so called because in height, and thinness, and angularity he suggested a stepladder. There was “Poke” Green, who was so plump that a finger could be poked into him anywhere. There was Tom Orkney, sturdy, reserved, not an ingratiating fellow but sound to the core on better acquaintance. And, finally, there was Herman Boyd, long a member of the clan and possibly the Trojan’s most intimate friend. These boys grouped themselves about Sam as about a leader, and waited, as he waited, for the coming of Trojan Walker.

“Something queer is on,” Sam told them. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out. All I know so far is this.” And he sketched rapidly the incidents of the masters’ visit to the hall.

There was a murmur of surprise, followed by many questions. Sam shook his head.

“Somehow Trojan’s Cicero is mixed up in it—how, I can’t guess,” said he. “I knew the book as soon as I saw it. Every one of the crowd would know it on sight.”

“That’s right,” Step agreed. “I’ve borrowed it a hundred times—got the best lot of written-in notes that ever happened—regular life saver sometimes. Yes, I’d know that bully old book as far as I could see it.”

“Same here!” said Poke Green; then turned to the Shark.

“Look here, old polyhedron, you were in the hall—what’s your theory? What’s all the row about?”

“No theory,” said the Shark calmly. “Wasn’t noticing—had something better to do.”

“What?”

The Shark shrugged. “I could tell you in thirty seconds, but you couldn’t understand in thirty years.”

“I believe you!” chuckled Poke cheerfully.

Zorn, who had drawn near the group, laughed cynically.

“Ho, ho! If I’m not mistaken, you fellows will hear something pretty soon that you can’t help understanding in three seconds instead of thirty. And you won’t like it, at that!”

The friends stared at him; finally Step spoke:

“What is it we’re not going to like?”

“Wait and see.”

“Rats!” said Step scornfully.

Zorn scowled. “Your gang has been putting on a lot of side lately, but you won’t feel so high and mighty after this.”

“How do you know we won’t?” It was the Shark who put the query, though, as a rule, he took small part in such verbal clashes.

“How—how do I know?” Zorn appeared to be staggered by the demand. Suddenly, however, his expression changed, and he pointed to a figure framed by the arch of the great doorway.

“There he is! Let him do the talking for a while.”

The Trojan slowly descended the steps. His face was pale; he moved heavily.

Sam met him and caught his arm.

“What’s the row?” he asked eagerly.

The Trojan hesitated. “I—I—there’s a mistake, a mix-up, somehow. It’s over my Cicero. They—somebody, that is—found it in the desk I sat at when we had the test the other day. Or they say that was where they found it. And the way the thing worked out—that was the worst of it—made me look as if I were lying about it. They began by asking where my Cicero was, and I said I supposed it was with the rest of my books. I thought it was; I hadn’t missed it—you know we’ve had no Latin recitation since the test. Then they sent me back to my seat, and—and”—he hesitated again, glancing almost apologetically at Sam—“and when they afterward took me to the principal’s office, they said they had evidence identifying the book as mine. They hadn’t shown it to me before then. If they had, I’d have claimed it, of course, no matter how they happened to get hold of it. But the way everything happened, you see, seemed to make it a pretty black case against me—lugging a text-book into an examination, and then trying to lie out of it, and——”

Step broke in hotly. “You say somebody identified the book as yours? Who was mean enough to do that?”

Once more Zorn laughed, and it was a taunting laugh. “Ho, ho! Don’t ask Walker that! Get it first-hand!”

Tom Orkney’s hand fell on his shoulder, and Tom spoke sternly:

“You’re aching to make trouble, somehow—anybody can see that. Cut it out! This isn’t your row, unless you’re the telltale—understand?”

Zorn wriggled free. He retreated a pace or two; for Orkney’s hand had been heavy.

“You’re a nice crowd!” he sneered. “They say you call yourselves the Safety First Club. Good name, that! Sure it is! Just fits in with the speed Sam Parker made in saving himself and giving Walker away. Safety First! You bet that’s the rule with every one of you, and the rest can go hang, for all you care!”

Orkney would have charged the enemy, but Sam held him back. The last minute or two had been a trying time for Parker, as any time must be which brings revelation that one has fallen into a most embarrassing predicament. Sam had had his flash of illumination. He saw, all too distinctly, the complications in which he had become involved. Innocently enough he had fallen into the rôle of chief witness against his friend and club-mate. And Zorn had not played eavesdropper without result. That the knowledge thus gained would be used for the annoyance and discomfiture of the clan, Sam had no doubt; but he realized that a fight then and there would in no wise mend matters.

“Easy there, Tom, easy!” he counseled. “We won’t have any scrapping just now.”

Orkney yielded, reluctantly.

“Might as well let me polish him off,” he grumbled. “It’ll have to be done sooner or later.”

“Very likely—but better not now,” said Sam quietly.

“Sure! Always Safety First!” jeered Zorn; and walked away, grinning wryly.

CHAPTER II

THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB

The Safety First Club, to which Zorn had alluded so cynically, bore its name for what its members regarded as good and sufficient reasons.

The club had come into existence in the most natural fashion imaginable. That is, a little group of boys who liked one another had gathered about Sam Parker, had reached a simple but effective organization, and had been permitted to take possession of an unused stable on the premises of Step Jones’s father. This they had fitted up as headquarters, furnishing the place as best they might. Then had happened a series of incidents, of adventures and misadventures, which had served to impress upon the chums the penalties life exacts for heedlessness and carelessness. They had woefully misjudged Tom Orkney, for example—Tom, it may be explained, was not of the original band—and before they came to understanding of the sterling qualities which eventually won him an election to the club, they had undergone experiences well calculated to drive home the lesson of the danger in overhasty thought or action.

Now, it is not to be understood that old heads had been put upon young shoulders. The boys still conducted themselves as healthy, active, well meaning but fallible lads of seventeen or thereabouts, and not as world-worn philosophers of seventy-one. They made mistakes—lots of mistakes. They formed their judgments not on great knowledge but on such knowledge as they had—and when a blunder was made, they tried not to repeat it. And they strove to play the game fairly. Doubtless you know a dozen boys like these, and fancy them not the less because you find them very human.

Sam Parker had put into effect the guiding rule of the club in averting hostilities between Orkney and Edward Zorn, but he had by no means avoided the complications growing out of the affair of Trojan Walker’s Cicero.

The Trojan himself was in serious trouble. Sentence had not yet been passed in his case, but apparently he stood convicted of violating the rule against taking text-books into rooms where examinations were held, and of committing the still graver offense of “trying to lie out of it,” as the school phrase ran.

Sam seemed to be likely to fall heir to the unhappy reputation of being the chief witness against his friend. The story spread rapidly. He could observe its effects when he went to school the next morning. A group of girls fell to whispering as he approached them, and drew aside as he passed; some of the boys nodded stiffly. There was a loud controversy in a corner of the yard, which quieted of a sudden, when he came near. Step, very red of face, said something in a low tone to the youth with whom he had been disputing, and joined Sam, slipping an arm through his and drawing him away.

“Confound a chump, anyway!” he growled. “But I say, Sam! Got anything on for this afternoon? Let’s take a hike somewhere.”

Sam suffered himself to be led out of earshot of the others. Then he spoke crisply:

“What’s the row? Talking about me, are they?”

Step tried to avoid the question.

“There are a lot of idiots in this school. They run away with any fool yarn, or let it run away with them, and——”

“And the yarn this time is about me—about Trojan and me, that is?”

“Why—why, Sam——”

“Yes or no, Step?”

“Well, yes; if you must have it. But I tell you, I put a flea in that fellow’s ear.”

Sam shook his head doubtfully. He was reminded, quaintly, that a flea was a creature of remarkable agility, and he could not but suspect that this flea supplied by the impulsive Step might hop about very busily in the next few days.

“I guess it would be better not to do much talking for a while,” he said soberly.

“What! You’d let all the yapping go on, and say nothing?”

“I’d say as little as I could.”

Step stared at Sam. “Great Scott! If we don’t deny it, everybody will believe it’s all so!”

“Well, deny it, then, and stop there.”

Step whistled softly. “Whe-e-e! Sam, I reckon you don’t know all the trimmings the story is getting. It’s an awful thing for you and for the whole club.”

“I see that,” said Sam. “What hits any one of a crowd like ours hits the whole bunch. That’s the worst of it.”

“But can’t we do anything?” Step demanded impatiently.

Sam’s eyes flashed. There were several things he would have been very glad to do—violent things, some of them. But in the last few months he had learned steadying lessons in the value of self-control. Perhaps it was because he had learned these lessons more thoroughly than had any of his mates that he remained the guiding spirit of the club.

“The first thing to do is to keep our heads. The next is to wait to see just what happens.... Hold on there, Step! Don’t think I’m for lying down and letting everybody trample on us! I’ll fight, and try to fight as hard as any of the rest of you—when the time comes. But I think it hasn’t come yet.”

Step shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if that’s your notion, all right. I don’t believe there’s another fellow in Plainfield who could put it through, but maybe you can.”

“Wait and see,” said Sam very gravely.

The morning session gave plenty of evidence of the spread of the story through the Junior class, and, indeed, through the school. Sam was perfectly conscious of a cooling in the regard in which he was held. At recess the club rallied about him, but other classmates shunned him. It was at recess, too, that the Trojan heard his fate. He came out of the principal’s office, after a five-minute conference, looking as dejected as a boy in physical health could look.

“I get zero on the Latin paper—a clean flunk—to begin with,” he reported. “That’s on a charge of taking a book into the examination. Then I’m laid off, as far as Cicero goes, for the rest of the term. That is on the charge that I tried to squirrel out of the fix and lied about the book.”

“But that’s a half suspension!”

“How’ll you keep up?”

“Where does it leave your standing now?”

“Wouldn’t they give you a chance to defend yourself?”

There was a medley of exclamations and questions. The Trojan made answer in general:

“I don’t know just how it will work out. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“But you can’t drop out!” cried Step hotly.

The Trojan smiled, but the smile had no mirth in it.

“You can’t tell what you can do, Step, till you try,” he said.

“But it would break up the crowd—the club! We’ve been together, and we’ve stuck together since I don’t remember when. And we’ve been in the same class, and we’ve all kept traveling along together through school and——”

“I know all that,” the Trojan interrupted.

The Shark was moved to speech. “Look here, Trojan! Tell me something. They say they found your Cicero where it had no business to be—who found it?”

“One of the Freshmen, I think.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know.”

The Shark snorted. “Huh! Find out!”

“What difference does it make?” asked the Trojan dully.

“All the difference!” snapped the Shark. “Problem, isn’t it? Course it is! How you going to solve it till you have facts to work on?”

“I meant that so long as the book was found in a desk in the examination room, it didn’t matter who found it. The Freshman, whoever it was, gave it to the teacher in charge there.”

“Kid trick!” Step put in.

“Oh, a yearling wouldn’t know any better,” said Herman Boyd. “He wouldn’t intend any harm.”

“Well, now, you can’t be too sure——” Poke began; but the Shark brought the talk back to the main question.

“How do you know, Trojan, it was found in the desk you used that day?”

“How? Why—why, I suppose it must have been.”

“Suppose!” groaned the Shark. “Can’t you fellows ever learn to be exact?”

A little color came into the Trojan’s cheeks at the thrust. “Be reasonable, Shark! If a brick fell from a chimney and hit you, would you—er—er—would you find out, first thing, how tall the chimney was? This—this whole business—well, it just took me off my feet.”

“Huh! Guess it did. But I’ve got my feet under me, and I’d like to get things straight. Now, tell me! What’s the last—the last thing you’re absolutely sure about—about the book, I mean?”

“I left it in the corridor. Sam had borrowed it for a minute, but he gave it back. I had just time to look up a passage before the bell rang. Then I left the Cicero with two or three other books I had—stacked ’em against the wall, just as all the other fellows did with theirs. When we came out, after the examination, everybody was in a rush to get away. I grabbed up my books. I didn’t stop to count ’em. I took it for granted all of them were there. And as we’ve had no Latin recitation since then, it didn’t occur to me to look up my Cicero.”

“Same case here—same to a dot!” testified Poke.

“Nothing to do with the case,” objected the Shark. “We’re figuring on the Trojan’s row. And where did you sit, Trojan?”

“In the back row.”

“Sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“I remember he was there,” Sam corroborated. “I was two rows in front of him.”

“Which desk did you have, Trojan?” the Shark persisted.

“Which? Why—why, one near the middle of the row.”

“Able to point it out surely?”

The Trojan hesitated. “I—I guess so. Only I didn’t notice especially.”

“Umph! Remember your neighbors?”

The Trojan wrinkled his brow. “Let’s see! None of our crowd was very near me.”

“Was Zorn?” Sam queried.

“I think he was over to the left—two or three desks away.”

“And Jack Hagle?”

“Yes, he was near me.”

“How near?” the Shark demanded.

The Trojan shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. Confound it! you fellows seem to forget that I was trying to pass a Latin paper and not mapping the room. I remember Hagle was somewhere around, and Zorn was not very far off. Yes, and Sam was a couple of rows in front of me. But that is all I can recall of what didn’t impress me especially at the time.”

“Umph!” said the Shark, and made no further inquiry.

Here the big gong clanged, and the pupils streamed back into the schoolhouse, the Safety First Club members going with the others. Sam felt a certain relief as he saw the Trojan taking his place in line: he had had disquieting doubts about the course Walker might follow. A fellow smarting under a sense of injustice—Sam’s confidence in the Trojan’s honesty was unshaken—might do something in haste which would lead to deep repentance at leisure. But the Trojan went back to the classroom, and joined in the recitation almost in his usual manner. As it happened, the Latin hour had passed, so that the partial suspension did not interfere with the work he had to do after recess.

Being far from blind, and, in fact, being especially keenly observant that day, Sam gathered more evidence of the spread of the story of the Trojan’s trouble and his own share in bringing it about. Now and then he met glances which were frankly unfriendly: when the divisions changed rooms between periods he made note that some of the girls, passing him in the corridors, took pains to keep as far from him as possible. It was not a pleasant experience for the boy; but for the present, at least, there was nothing he could do but grit his teeth and keep his temper.

Sam’s lessons in self-discipline stood him in good stead. They helped him study his problem, while he resisted temptation to rage against his fate.

Ed Zorn must have been extremely busy in circulating his version of what had occurred in the hall.

That was, to Sam’s mind, a big, outstanding fact. Only Zorn had been near enough to overhear his testimony. The principal and the sub-master would not have spread the story; therefore, Zorn’s responsibility was hardly matter for argument.

Why, though, should he have displayed such zeal in making the affair public property?

Sam shook his head over this question. Zorn was no friend of the Safety First Club; but something more than mere lack of liking was needed fully to explain his conduct. It was still a puzzle to Sam, when the session came to an end, and school was dismissed for the day.

When the Trojan came down the steps, Sam was waiting for him. They walked away together, both keeping silence until they had left the yard. Then, as they turned into a quiet side street, Sam spoke.

“Trojan, there’s just one thing I want you to understand. If I’d dreamed I was getting you into this fix, they couldn’t have pried a word out of me.”

“I know that, Sam,” said the other, evenly.

“But I did get you into it. Somehow, the way things happened, I couldn’t have done more harm if I’d schemed a week! That part of it’s up to me, all right!”

The Trojan kept his eyes straight before him. “Oh, I’m not blaming you,” he said. “What’d be the use? What’s the use now of—of anything?”

“Here, drop that talk!” Sam counseled. “Keep a stiff upper lip! See you don’t get rattled!”

The Trojan stopped short. He turned to his comrade.

“Rattled!” he cried. “Sam, you know what they’ve done to me? It is practically throwing me out of the class! My term marks in Latin are smashed. Pretty chance I’d have to keep up the work outside, even if they’d let me take the final examination! And a clean flunk in Latin would put me down and out. I’d better quit altogether. I’ve been thinking it over. I don’t see anything else to do.”

“It’s the one thing you can’t do—you shan’t do!” Sam protested.

The Trojan’s manner changed; he spoke dully but with a sort of determination.

“I’ve thought it out, I say. You know my case—the case at home, I mean.”

Sam nodded. Trojan’s father, a traveling salesman, was away on a long trip through the West; his mother was a semi-invalid, quite incapable of coming to her son’s assistance in an emergency like this.

“Dropping out’d be the simplest and the best,” Walker went on. “I guess there are other schools—if there aren’t any to take me, I can go to work somewhere.”

“Nonsense! You stay here!”

“I won’t. This is my own affair—I’ve got to settle it for myself.” Then his voice rose. “Sam, they didn’t give me a square deal! It wasn’t fair! They trapped me; they caught me by a trick! I won’t stand it! I’m through with them—I want to be through with anybody that’ll treat me as I’ve been treated!”

Sam stared at him in perplexity. The old Trojan had been easy going, good natured, a fellow who preferred compromise; the new Trojan was curiously grim and determined and unyielding. There was a glint in his eye Sam had never seen there before; his jaw was set stubbornly. The Trojan was in earnest, in deadly earnest. Sam realized this, and his heart sank within him. Nevertheless, he was ready to fight manfully.

“You’re all wrong! It wasn’t a square deal—I’m with you there. But I’m not sure that wasn’t accidental—the way it happened, I mean. There’s something else, though—you can’t go ahead as if nobody but yourself was hit.”

“Oh! Can’t I?” growled the Trojan.

“You can’t, because we’re all in the row. I’m in up to my neck; there isn’t a fellow in the club who doesn’t feel that it’s his fight as well as yours and mine.”

“It’s all right to say that, only you can’t prove it.”

“Why—why——” Sam began; but he was to be spared the need of making his argument.

Around the corner, from the direction of the school, came Poke, walking fast and dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. At sight of the others he pulled up; gave a gasp; betrayed symptoms of a desire to turn and retreat; hesitated; reached decision; strode forward, grinning most unconvincingly. Beneath one of his eyes the flesh was bruised and reddened.

“What’s the matter?” Sam demanded sharply.

The grin on Poke’s usually placid countenance was maintained by patent effort.

“Oh, nothing! Just a—no; nothing’s the matter.”

“Who blacked your eye?”

“’Tisn’t blacked.”

“It’ll be black enough in an hour or two. Who smashed you?”

Poke’s glance went from Sam to the Trojan, but returned swiftly, and a bit appealingly, to the chief of the Safety First Club.

“It’s nothing, I tell you. Can’t a fellow do anything without your holding him up?”

“That depends. When it comes to getting black eyes——”

“Oh, that was just a—a bump that came my way,” Poke put in hastily. “Not worth mentioning. And say! I’m in a hurry, Sam. Can’t stop to talk to you fellows. ’By!”

So speaking, Poke stepped by his friends, taking care to keep out of arm’s reach, and hurried along the street.

The others did not pursue him. Sam looked at the Trojan, and the Trojan met his gaze unhappily.

“You know what that means?” Sam asked with a touch of sternness.

The Trojan nodded. Poke Green, most peaceful of mortals, had been in a fight; moreover, it was to be suspected that Poke neither had shunned nor now repented the combat.

Sam pressed his advantage. “It means that what I told you is true: that this thing brings in every fellow in the club. We’re standing together; the crowd is backing you, and it’ll back me, for I’m going to need friends as you need ’em. We can’t quit cold, either of us. We’ve got to play the game through, clear up this mess, and win out!”

“How can we win?”

“I don’t know yet, but we will win, if it takes all summer.”

“I don’t see what’s to be done.”

“Give me time—give the club time, that is.”

There was a little pause. Then said the Trojan, dejectedly:

“It’ll be no use. Still, if you’re so set about it, Sam—and I suppose it’s only right to stand by the crowd, if it’s standing by me. But what do you want me to do?”

“Promise not to bolt till we’ve had a chance to catch our breath. And promise to let us know—give us fair warning—before you do anything.”

There was another pause.

“Sam,” said the Trojan at last, “Sam, I—I guess I’ll have to promise you so much, anyway.”

CHAPTER III

THE OPEN AIR TREATMENT

Plainfield High School, like most other schools, had its politics. There were, of course, the usual rivalries between the classes; then there were the likes and dislikes of various groups in each class; there was some sharp competition for honors in scholarship, and rather more for the prizes of personal popularity and leadership. In fact, life inside the school was a deal like life outside it, with the same mingling of the ambitious and the indifferent, the industrious and the idle, the prudent and the venturesome, the schemers and the happy-go-lucky souls with never a thought for the morrow.

Taken individually, the boys of the Safety First Club enjoyed popularity above the average, but as a crowd, or a clique, or an organization—whichever you prefer to call it—they had many critics. Frankly, envy had much to do with this state of things. Other “gangs” came together, and flourished for a time, and fell apart: the club continued. Most boys are clannish by instinct, and here was a clan which truly was a standing challenge to less successful organizers. Moreover, it did not try to enlarge its membership; and here again was cause of grievance. There were a dozen juniors who would have prized an invitation to join the Safety Firsts above any reward in the gift of the school. There were several who had made eager overtures to Sam and his allies without result; there were others who had sought entrance to the charmed circle by war, so to speak. Oddly enough, the only one to succeed had been of these open enemies. In his day Tom Orkney had opposed the club bitterly, and so had borne his full share in bringing about complications, from which, as it chanced, nobody suffered so grievously as Tom himself. But the experience had enabled the club to put Orkney to the test. He had not been found wanting, and in the end had gained his place in the clan by the very excellent process of earning it, which, after all, is perhaps the most satisfactory process in the long run.

Sam Parker was under no illusions as to these conditions. He knew the speed with which gossip spreads. He understood perfectly the causes which would prejudice judgment of the trouble in which the Trojan was involved, and in which he himself shared, and from which the other members of the club could not escape wholly. The club would stand together; therefore all the club must feel the effects of the scandal. And Sam, as the head of the club, must justify his leadership.

A year earlier in such a case he might have consulted his father, but now he was bent on working out his problem for himself. Self-reliance was a quality he was trying to develop, and Mr. Parker approved this policy. So Sam, parting at last from the Trojan, went home in thoughtful mood; found that he was late for dinner, and sat himself down at the table to dine alone under the critical eye of Maggie, the maid, a very good friend of his, by the way, but by no means blinded by partiality to his shortcomings.

Sam ate mechanically but with good appetite. He cleared his plate.

“Want some more meat?” Maggie asked curtly.

“Why—why”—he was thinking of anything but his food—“why—why, I guess—not. No, thank you.”

Maggie sniffed skeptically. Moreover, she picked up his plate, disappeared for a moment in the kitchen, returned with a second generous portion.

“Eat that—guess you’ll need it soon enough!” she remarked.

Sam looked up. “Er—er—what do you mean, Maggie?”

“You don’t need telling.... Take your time, though—don’t gobble!”

Sam meekly obeyed. “Oh, all right. I’ve got lots of time. I—I must have been thinking about something else.”

Maggie’s lip curled. “That ain’t what I’d call a secret, exactly. A blind man could see you were wool-gathering.... What scrape you in now?”

“Oh, noth—nothing in particular.”

“Umph! They never are, by your tell.”

Sam, failing to find satisfactory response, made none, and devoted his efforts to his knife and fork. Maggie set her arms akimbo, and surveyed him grimly.

“Well, I must say there’s one comfort: you don’t take out your spite on your victuals.... But how bad is it?”

“It’s—er—er—it’s no killing matter.”

“What are you worrying so for, then?”

“I’m not worrying!”

Maggie smiled oddly. “Well, I do declare! Sam Parker, it’s the first time I ever knew you to be practising to be a play actor!”

Sam wriggled. “Oh, quit your joshing! I’m bothered about—about something. I’ve got to figure out what to do—that’s all.”

“Want any help?”

“No—no, thank you.”

“Umph! Maybe you’d like some pudding, then?”

“No, thank you,” Sam repeated, and pushed back his chair.

“Better think twice about it,” Maggie urged. “It’ll be a long time before supper.”

Sam snatched up his cap, and hurried out, calling back a third “No, thank you,” over his shoulder.

There was a big, old-fashioned barn on the Parker place, part of which was now in use as a garage. Just outside its wide door stood a touring car, the cover of its hood raised. A clean-shaven man in overalls, who had been pottering about the motor, caught sight of Sam, and hailed him cheerily:

“Hi there! Where’s the fire?”

Sam pulled up. “Fire? What are you talking about, Lon? I haven’t heard any alarm.”

Lon Gates, man-of-all-work, coachman, gardener, chauffeur, and general factotum, chuckled. He studied Sam for a moment. They were great friends, were these two, and more than once the man had proved a tower of strength for the boy in time of trouble.

“No fire, eh? Thought you must be goin’ to one, way you was speedin’.”

“Well, I wasn’t.”

“So?” Lon appeared to reflect briefly. “Huh! Then you must ’a’ been like a feller I seen goin’ over a dam one freshet time—lots o’ hurry and no special intention.”

“What happened to him?”

Lon shook his head. “Dunno. Guess he got out of it all right, somehow. Turns out that way now and then.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Sam.

Again Lon surveyed his youthful friend. “Huh! Something botherin’ you, eh?”

“Yes—bothering me a lot.”

There was a pause. Lon, perceiving that Sam was not disposed to explain his trouble, respected his reticence, and asked no questions.

“Guess, mebbe, I made a mistake to stop you,” he remarked at last. “Old Dr. Shanksmare cures a heap o’ misery—him and his open air treatment. Feelin’ as you do, guess you might as well run along.”

But Sam, having been halted, seemed to be in no haste.

“Hang it! there’s nowhere to go,” he complained.

“What’s the matter with goin’ swimmin’?”

“Too cold yet.”

“Try a hike, then.”

“Too hot.”

Lon laid down the wrench with which he had been working; he made quite a ceremony of wiping his hands on a bunch of waste.

“Sam, you kinder remind me o’ the old lady with the plate o’ half-melted ice-cream—she said it was too soft to eat and too hard to drink. Yet it was pooty good ice-cream, at that; so’s this a pooty good spring day, if only you’ll take it right. And so long’s you ain’t feelin’ moved to sob out the sorrows o’ your young life on this sympathizin’ bosom, why don’t you walk ’em off? Get your crowd. Go somewhere. See something.”

“What is there to see?”

“That depends a lot on your eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s a heap of difference between keepin’ your eyes shut and havin’ ’em open and lookin’ for new things.”

“What’s new in this old town?”

Lon took thought. “There’s Crescent lake, for one thing.”

“Crescent lake?”

“Yep. That’s the new name. Used to be Mudgett’s pond. Then some o’ the folks got to readin’ poetry, and tried to call it Half-Moon. Now there’s a syndicate openin’ it up, puttin’ in roads, and sellin’ sites for cottages and camps. And it’s Crescent lake on the advertisements.”

Sam was not enthusiastic. “That doesn’t sound very exciting, Lon,” he observed.

“Gives you something to see, though. They’re goin’ to have a good deal of a place, one way and another—dancin’ pavilion, roller skatin’ rink, swimmin’ beach, all the reg’lation didoes. Got most o’ the buildin’ done now. Why don’t you round up your pals and tramp out to have a look at things?”

“H-m-m!” Sam’s enthusiasm did not increase.

“Old Mudgett’s pond used to be fine for fishin’,” Lon went on. “Nat’ral pickerel ground at the lower end—lily pads—lots of ’em. Then at the upper end there was plenty o’ deep water and rocks for bass. And I guess the new artificial attractions ain’t interfered with that part of it. And what with the woodsy shores—say, Sam, there’s a heap wuss spots than Crescent lake, nay Mudgett’s pond, as the fashionable folks would say.”

“‘Nay’?” Sam repeated doubtfully.

“Yea—nay!” Lon chuckled. “Gettin’ too proud of your Latin to recognize your old French friends when you meet ’em? Or mebbe you’re used to callin’ that special old crony ‘knee.’”

Sam laughed. “I’m afraid to say just what I might call it. But I didn’t know, Lon, that you were such a linguist.”

“Oh, I’m like old Peter Hunker, buyin’ a new slate for his boy. ‘Give me the best ten-cent slate you got in the store,’ says Peter to the clerk. ‘I believe in a liberal eddication.’ And that’s jest my case, Sam. And believin’ in bein’ liberal with it, I spend my French same’s my English—get the idee?”

“Yes,” said Sam, “I grasp it.”

Lon picked up his wrench, and began to busy himself with the motor.

“Think you’ll take a dose o’ Dr. Shanksmare’s medicine?” he inquired.

Sam meditated briefly. A long walk with his chums would give opportunity to discuss the case of the Trojan, his own predicament, and the plight of the club. And even a nominal purpose in a tramp was better than aimless wandering. He felt no burning curiosity about the improvements at Crescent lake, but was willing enough to look them over. Still, the lake was seven or eight miles from town. He mentioned the circumstance, and Lon responded promptly:

“That’s all right—jest distance enough. And I’ll see that you don’t have to walk back. How’s that? Simple enough. I’ve got to take a package for your Ma out to Mis’ Haskins at the Ridge, and comin’ back, I’ll swing round by the foot o’ the lake and pick you up. That’ll be ’long about half-past five. The car’s big enough to load all your crowd, and I’ll have the lot o’ you home in time for supper. What say?”

Sam reached decision. “I say yes. I’ll telephone to the fellows, and if they’ll join in, we’ll make the hike.”

“Now you’re talkin’ sense,” quoth Lon heartily.

“Oh, I guess the scheme is all right.”

“Of course it is,” Lon encouraged. “It’ll do you good to stretch your legs, and mebbe you’ll manage to do a stroke o’ business, somehow. You never can tell, Sam, what’s waitin’ for you round the next turn in the road.”

“I guess that’s so,” Sam admitted.

“Sure it is!” said Lon with conviction. “That’s what makes travelin’ the roads worth while, sonny!”

CHAPTER IV

THE CLUB AT THE COUNCIL ROCK

Of the club there responded to Sam’s call Poke and Step, the Shark, Tom Orkney and Herman Boyd. The Trojan was not at home. On the whole, Sam did not regret the fact that Walker was not to be with them that afternoon: certain matters of common concern could be talked over more freely in his absence.

Poke’s marks of combat were not to be hidden. The bruised flesh beneath his eye was beginning to show a prismatic variety of coloring, in spite of the application of several remedies in favor among the youth of the town; but Sam did not fail to observe that the other boys were careful to maintain an air of noticing nothing out of the common in Poke’s appearance. It was significant testimony to the serious view they took of the whole affair. Even a black eye was not matter for jest. Presently, no doubt, Poke would tell the story; but until he chose to speak, his silence would be respected. Boys, as a rule, are not credited with a high degree of consideration, but at times can display a restraint which many of their elders would find it hard to equal.

On the march Sam managed to have a few confidential words with each of his companions, acquainting them with the Trojan’s promise to take no hasty step. He was gratified to find in each case strong approval of this decision, and just as strong desire to do anything possible to uphold the good name of the club and all its members.

“You tell us what’s the program, Sam, and we’ll stand by you”—that was the way Orkney put it, and the speech fairly represented the spirit of all the party.

A seven-mile tramp, of a fine day, is really play for healthy schoolboys. The club thought nothing of it. Sam felt his spirits rising, and began to be glad that he had accepted Lon’s counsel. He could even join heartily in a discussion of short cuts, and finally carry the decision in favor of the one he approved, which followed a woods road, and then a mere path. The country about the lake was thinly settled, with many wooded tracts, a few swampy patches, and a number of low ridges, from the top of the last of which Step was the first to catch sight of the shining blue of the water. The marchers streamed down the slope, and out upon a little promontory, pleasantly shaded by big trees and with a great rock almost at its tip.

There was a chorus of exclamations. “Bully place!” “Say, we’ve hit the real beauty spot!” “What a camp site this would be, eh?” “How’d happen we never came here before? Looks like a crackerjack of a pond!”

Sam advanced to the water’s edge, and glanced up and down the lake. A sound of hammering from the opposite shore helped him to discover the new pavilion, taking shape in a grove nearly half a mile away; he could make out the lines of the framework and the half-hidden smaller buildings, flanking it and already completed.

“Guess we missed the road,” he said. “Ought to have taken that last turn to the right instead of the one to the left.”

“What’s the difference?” Step demanded. “I’ll bet we’ve found the prettiest place on the shore.”

Poke had been exploring the outcropping ledge.

“Look here, you fellows!” he shouted. “Say, this is the finest old council rock you ever set eyes on!”

The others joined him. On its side toward the water the mass of stone was hollowed out in a sort of half bowl or natural amphitheatre on a small scale. There was room for a score of boys, and the irregularities in the surface of the rock offered bench-like seats. Poke settled himself with an air of triumph in spite of his battered appearance.

“Sit down, everybody!” he suggested. “Let’s be comfortable, and talk it over.”

Orkney glanced at Poke’s discolored countenance.

“If the time to talk has come, you’d better begin,” he said pointedly. “I’d like to know just how you came by that shiner.”

“Guess, can’t you?” Poke queried.

“Yes, but I want the facts.”

There was a murmur of agreement. “Go to it!” Step urged.

“Well, I met a fellow and he said something——” Poke began.

“Who was he, and what did he say?” Herman Boyd interposed.

Poke hesitated, then reached decision. “He—it was ‘Scrub’ Payne. He got to roughing me about—well, about things—our putting on side but not hanging together in a pinch—rot like that, you know!”

“Just what did he say?” Sam asked sharply.

Poke straightened his shoulders. “Well—if you must have it—he said that the Trojan tried to lie out of taking a book into examination, and that he might have got away with it, if Sam hadn’t thrown him down. Then I called him a liar, of course. And—and that’s about all.”

There was a very brief silence. Tom Orkney ended it.

“Scrub Payne, eh?” He repeated the name softly, lingeringly. “Scrub Payne? Twice your height, almost—’bout weigh in in my class, Poke—yes, yes. And spreading that story, was he?”

Sam raised a hand. “Listen, Tom! Listen, all you fellows! We might as well understand that that’s the yarn the whole school has had. And hammering up three or four who talk out loud won’t disprove it.... Wait a minute, Step! Let me finish. I’ve got a score or two to settle, but this isn’t the time to do it. It’s perfectly clear Ed Zorn is at the bottom of the trouble—he’s the only one who heard what was said in the hall. He’s been busy, making mischief. Some day I’ll try to attend to him, but there’s somebody else to think of first, and that’s the Trojan. What’s to be done about him, and for him? He’s agreed not to make a bolt without letting us know, but it seems to me it’s up to us to fix things so he’ll be willing to stay.”

“Say, that’s going to be a contract!” Step exclaimed.

The others nodded agreement.

“It’s the Latin that’s the facer—outside of his feelings,” said Herman Boyd gravely. “He’ll be flunked, if he can’t go to recitations, especially with a zero mark for the test to pull down his term stand.”

The Shark was scowling behind his spectacles. “Let’s do some figuring,” he suggested. “How were his marks up to this mix-up?”

“Oh, fair—along in the eighties,” said Herman.

“What do you mean by ‘along’?”

“Call it eighty-five or eighty-six.”

“How much does a test count?”

“About the same as a week’s recitations,” said Herman, but Step offered “Ten days” almost simultaneously.

The Shark’s scowl increased. “There you go! Can’t you fellows be precise about anything? Which is it?”

The club tried to agree on the point, but failed.

“Anyway, the zero will pull him below seventy,” Herman declared. Seventy being the passing mark, the faces of two or three of the club lengthened.

“Then if he has to stay away from recitations, he’ll have no chance to increase his mark,” groaned Step.

“And what sort of a show will he have in the final examination?” Poke put in.

“No show at all!” said the Shark promptly. “Umph! No need to take to figuring on that.”

“Hold on, fellows!” said Sam. “I don’t get light on the term-stand part of it, but on the other—the final, I mean—well, there’s a way.”

“What way?” two or three demanded together.

“We can work with him afternoons—tutor him—keep him up with the class.”

“Good scheme, Sam!” shouted Step.

“Fine! I’m for it!” added Herman.

“Same here!” said Poke. “I’m no prodigy in Cicero, but I’m good and willing.”

There was evident revival of spirit in the clan.

“I’ll try to class with Poke,” Tom Orkney contributed gravely, but hopefully.

But the Shark was shaking his head dubiously. “Let’s get this thing straight. We can tutor the Trojan—that is, you chaps can—I don’t go much on this language foolishness myself. But if you do, will he be allowed to take the final?”

“Why shouldn’t they let him?” Step asked hotly.

“I’m after facts, not reasons one way or the other. What’s the fact?”

“But they’ll just have to!”

“What’s the fact?” the Shark repeated inexorably.

“I don’t know,” Sam confessed, as the others glanced at him inquiringly.

“Then you’d better find out,” said the Shark simply.

“How?”

“From headquarters. Ask the principal.”

“Oh!” said Sam. His tone was not blithe.

“You’ve struck the right track, Shark!” Poke declared.

“No; I’m putting Sam on it,” the Shark corrected.

There are obligations in leadership as well as privileges. Sam accepted the task set him by his followers.

“The Shark has the idea,” he said. “We ought to know what is what, and I guess it’s up to me to do the asking. I’ll attend to it. But there’s another thing—we ought to agree—have an understanding among ourselves—about what we’ll do—with the crowd at school, you know. We’re going to have our fur rubbed the wrong way. There’ll be a lot of ugly talk. There has been some, as you know, but there’ll be more. We’re going to be a pretty unpopular bunch for a while—and how are we going to take it?”

“Head on!” cried Step. “Give ’em as good as they send!”

“That’s the talk!” vowed Herman Boyd.

Then Orkney intervened. “Easy there, fellows! Let’s have Sam’s notion.”

Now, Sam had done a deal of thinking about the case in all its aspects, and had tried to put to practical use some of the lessons he had learned in the school of experience.

“Well, as I see it,” he began, “there’s only one way to settle this thing, and settle it right.”

“By punching a lot of heads!” Step urged.

“Not a bit of it! Oh, I don’t mean that we mustn’t ’tend to some accounts——”

“Right! I know of one I’ll look after,” said Orkney grimly.

“I’ve made a note of one, myself,” said Sam in quite the same manner. “But it’ll have to wait, and so will yours, Tom. Something else comes first, and that’s disproving the charge that the Trojan lied about the book, and that I gave him away.... Don’t interrupt! Let me finish. The Trojan is innocent, and if he is innocent, there must be some way to prove it. I didn’t intentionally say a word to hurt him, and if we clear his record, mine’ll be cleared, too. Somebody—not the Trojan—took that book into the examination, and left it in the desk where it was found. When we can show who did that, we’re far on the right road. They say murder will out, and if that’s so, I guess crookedness will out, too. It’s what we’ve got to bank on, while we work as hard as we can to discover the truth and the whole truth. And, meanwhile, we won’t be helping anybody by fighting and making the scandal worse than it is. Our job will be to keep our heads, and have our eyes and ears open, and tutor the Trojan.”

“If the principal will agree to let him take the final and to do the square thing about term marks,” Poke supplemented.

“I’ll see the principal.”

There was a little pause. Poke rose from his ledge, and descended the slope of the council rock.

“If we don’t mean to keep Lon waiting, we’d better adjourn the meeting,” he remarked. “But your notion may be all right, Sam—you’ve traces of brains now and then. Only, your way isn’t exactly quick action. It’s going to call for time, maybe a long time. And meanwhile we won’t be really enjoying life.”

Sam rose, too. “Yes, we’re due to start, if we’re to catch Lon,” he said. “But if any of you fellows can offer a better scheme——”

“We can’t!” said Orkney crisply.

“Then you’re ready to try my way, even if it may seem slow?”

“Yes,” said the club, in chorus. “We’ll try it.”

CHAPTER V

LON GOES SCOUTING

With Lon Gates it was not a case of “out of sight, out of mind,” so far as Sam was concerned.

For years Lon had taken a very keen interest in the fortunes and misfortunes of Sam and his friends, had served as their confidant and counselor, and had shared in some of their adventures. Natural shrewdness and long acquaintance combined to give him a rather remarkable insight into their problems, which he found peculiarly entertaining, on occasion. Lon, as he sometimes confessed, “liked to figger out things.” It tickled his sense of humor, and possibly an innocent vanity, now and then to do a little detective work, so to speak; get to the bottom of some case in which the boys were concerned; then amaze them by putting his knowledge to their practical service.

In the present instance Lon was disposed to regard Sam’s difficulty as presumably fairly serious. Putting one thing with another, he inclined to the theory that it grew out of incidents at school. Sam plainly regarded the trouble—whatever it might be—as real. Lon ran over in mind the chances for friction in studies, in athletics, in what may be called the social side of school life. So far as he had heard from the boys of the club, none of these offered especially rough places. He inferred that whatever had happened, had happened unexpectedly and recently; doubtless, within a few hours. Lon whistled softly.

“They say it’s pooty near unanimously voted that it takes two to make a quarrel,” he soliloquized. “There’ll be Sam and his crowd, and there’ll be the other fellers. And mebbe the others’ll be talkin’. I dunno of no jest cause and impediment why I shouldn’t listen and keep my eyes doin’ business as usual. And so—let’s see—what we’ll see.”

Lon knew the town like a book. He knew the playgrounds and the favorite lounging places. Moreover, he had ready excuse for visiting them. There were half a dozen errands to be done; he took the car and sallied forth on his round.

A few small boys were playing on the high school grounds, but he didn’t halt to observe them; they were younger than the club and not likely to be involved in its affairs. At street corners he noticed two or three groups of high school pupils, and marked that they were talking earnestly. Then he came to the field where the baseball diamond was laid out, and where a scrub game was in progress. There was a fringe of spectators about the field, and half a dozen cars and wagons were lined at the curb. Lon drew up behind a truck, whose driver was killing a spare quarter of an hour. The man on the truck nodded.

“H’lo, Lon! How be?”

“Fair to middlin’,” said Lon. “Guess if the weather man was diagnosin’ my troubles he’d be sayin’ something about a faintly developed trough o’ depression, but not flyin’ no storm signals. And how’s the rest o’ the Grand Lodge o’ the Sons of Rest?”

“Holdin’ protracted session, I guess,” quoth the truckman cheerfully. “Business ain’t what it used to be,” he added with a sudden change of note.

“Kinder lucky thing for business, at that,” Lon countered. “Got to keep up with the times, you know—same as we do.... Say! Who’s at bat?”

“Dunno. Guess he ain’t one of the reg’lars.”

“Don’t hold himself like one,” Lon agreed. He ran his eye over the players and spectators. There was something half-hearted about the game, and the boys about the diamond were not displaying keen interest in its progress. None of the club was in sight, but he recognized a number of Sam’s classmates, among them Ed Zorn.

Lon kept closely enough in touch with the affairs of his young friends to be aware that Zorn and the Safety First boys were not on terms of intimacy. It was a logical thing, therefore, for him to watch Ed keenly, his theory being that Sam was involved in some difficulty with his schoolmates. Zorn, in other words, was as likely as anybody else to be concerned in the dispute. So Lon studied the suspect. More, he made a discovery or two.

Zorn, for one thing, was paying no attention to the game. He was sauntering back and forth along the line behind first base, going from one group to the next. Lon noted that almost invariably he became the center of a little cluster of boys, to whom he appeared to talk very earnestly for a moment or two. The performance was repeated so often that Lon made up his mind there was method in it.

“That feller makes me think of a ward worker before a caucus,” he reflected. “Acts as if he wanted to get ’em all goin’ his way, and was handin’ out steerin’ directions.... And there’s that other youngster danglin’ after him, and wigglin’ as oneasy as uninvited company that’s heard the dinner bell ring and ain’t been asked to draw up and set in.”

The lad to whom Lon referred was Hagle, whose movements and bearing justified the comparison he had drawn. Hagle was behaving like a satellite of Zorn, bearing him company, following him about, now drawing close, now retiring, uneasily alert for word of command. Lon whistled softly.

“Talk about coach dogs runnin’ under a wagon or after it——” he said to himself. “Somehow that’s kind of a poor job for a human. And that feller ain’t gettin’ the fun out of it that a dog does; he ain’t happy.... Funny, all ’round, ain’t it?”

The truckman was yawning audibly. Lon gave him a glance.

“Goin’ to be able to tear off a few more minutes from your pressin’ engagements and stay here?” he inquired. “Can, eh? Then keep an eye on my car, will you? Guess I’ll try for a close-up on that bush leaguin’.”

“Huh! Nobody’ll steal your old machine!” grunted the other.

“Nobody has—yet,” said Lon drily. “Hate to give ’em a chance to form the habit. All right! Back in a minute or two, or mebbe nine or ten.”

Lon glanced at his watch as he strolled away; he could spare a quarter of an hour for the task in hand. He was grinning, a bit sheepishly.

“It’s in the blood and you can’t get it out—this taste for tryin’ to be a Shylock Holmes,” he reflected. “But there’s something queer a-doin’, or I’ve got to start in and learn boys all over again.... Now, let’s see—what we’ll see.”

Just then the batter sent up a long, high foul; a fielder and a baseman came charging among the spectators; there was a scurrying of men and boys to avoid ball and players, and when the confusion had subsided and the ball, uncaught, had been retrieved, Lon found himself neighbor to a cluster of youths with Zorn in the center of the ring.

There was a buzz of talk. Voices were not raised—Lon made mental note of the circumstance. Hagle was moving uneasily about the group—“doin’ the flea on the griddle dance,” Lon called it. Then Zorn broke away from the others. Hagle was after him instantly. He said something, and Zorn turned upon him menacingly. Hagle cowered, and shrank back. Zorn moved on, and Hagle trotted at his heels.

It was a curious performance; and it interested Lon. He might be wildly off the track in his suspicions, but, somehow, his theory that Sam’s trouble and Zorn’s activities were related was growing stronger every minute. He saw Ed pause for a few words with other groups; reach the end of the line; turn and retrace his steps, Hagle still following him.

Lon sat down on the ground. He clasped his arms about his knees, and stared industriously at the batter. His ears, though, were devoted to what might be doing just behind him, where Zorn and Hagle were about to pass his station. They came along, Zorn at his easy pace and Jack shuffling closer. He was speaking eagerly, pleadingly, though Lon could not catch the words.

Again Zorn whipped about.

“Oh, muzzle that whine, Jack!” Lon heard this clearly enough. “This thing’s working just right, I tell you.”

“I—I know, but——” Lon lost the rest of it, for Hagle’s voice was weak.

“Well, if you know, act as if you did know.”

Hagle’s voice rose shrilly. “I don’t like it, Ed; I don’t like it, I say!”

Zorn’s laugh was like the snap of a whip. “Go home, then! You don’t have to be here.”

“But—but I——”

“Oh, keep quiet!”

“I can’t. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

“It isn’t right; it isn’t square; it’s——”

Lon heard the slap of Zorn’s hand on Hagle’s shoulder.

“Brace up, Jack! Be sensible. When luck’s running our way, make the most of it. And you don’t have to do anything—just let it run. Just because that gang happened——”

There Zorn broke off. Whether he had observed Lon and recognized him, or whether he thought he had said enough, anyway, Lon could not determine. Out of a corner of his eye, he saw Zorn leading Hagle away.

Lon got upon his feet. In very leisurely fashion he sauntered back to his car.

“I reckon I know more’n I did a while ago,” he told himself. “Still, I’d give a pooty penny to know jest what ’tis I know. Good deal like findin’ an old daguerreotype in the attic, and not bein’ sure whether it’s Uncle Simon that went to the legislater, or t’other uncle that went to jail. Guess I’ll have to do some thinkin’, but, at that, I ain’t ready to allow that I’ve altogether wasted my time this afternoon.”

CHAPTER VI

POKE TAKES A FLYER

It was nearly a mile from the council rock to the road on which the club was to meet Lon Gates on his return from the Ridge; and as the afternoon was well advanced the boys made a forced march of it. All of them were panting from a dog-trot across the last field, when they came to the highway, and saw the Parker car approaching at a leisurely pace. So, when Lon pulled up and grinned at them cheerfully, evidencing no desire for haste, none of them was in a hurry to climb into the machine.

“What did you think of the pond?” Lon inquired. “And how’s the modern improvements progressin’? Gettin’ to be quite meetropolitan, eh?”

Sam laughed. “We could see a lot of building going on, but we didn’t notice a crowd, Lon. Fact is, we stayed on the other side of the lake.”

“Stumbled on a bully place and tied up there,” Step contributed.

Lon wagged his head sagely. “Reckon you made the best pick, at that. As I remember it, the pootiest side of the pond is across from the syndicate’s land. And there used to be a big rock——”

“Scooped out toward the water—like part of a saucer, you know?” Poke broke in.

“That’s the feller.”

“Well, it’s there yet.”

Lon’s eyes twinkled. “Do tell! And yet I don’t know as it’s so surprisin’, rocks havin’ a way o’ stayin’ put. Set a good example for folks, don’t they? But, as I was sayin’, I remember that old rock and the fishin’ we used to have jest opposite it—bass, mostly. And up back a piece was a spring. I tell you, boys, if I was goin’ campin’ at the pond, that’s jest about where I’d tie up.”

“It did seem to be a good place, and I’d——” Sam began, but paused in mid-sentence. “Why—what’s that?”

Everybody had heard the sounds which had caught Sam’s attention. Up the road, in the direction from which Lon had come, something was happening, something extraordinarily and violently noisy. There was a succession of reports; then a broken and uneven rattle; then another series of explosions, louder than before and evidently nearer.

“Great Scott! It must be a machine-gun!” gasped Step.

“If it is, we’ll have to duck,” said Herman Boyd. “The thing’s coming this way.”

“And here it is!” cried Poke.

SOMETHING SHOT INTO VIEW

Something shot into view, a black something which was raising a tremendous cloud of dust and which was traveling at reckless speed. Lon shouted a warning to the boys to stand aside, threw on his power, and steered his car far into the ditch. As he did so, it was as if a roaring cyclone swept past. The noise of it deafened the club, the dust it sent swirling in clouds choked them, its velocity dazed them. That the cause of the commotion was an automobile they realized, but none of them had an idea what manner of car it might be, or, indeed, how many passengers it carried.

Lon steered back into the road.

“All aboard, everybody!” he called. “There’s a feller that’s findin’ the goin’ too good to last. Let’s follow and see if we can pick up enough o’ the pieces to tell what kind of a machine ’twas.”

No second invitation was needed. The boys swarmed into the touring car.

“Hurry!” Sam urged. “That fellow’s in trouble now. You can’t hear his engine any more.”

It was quite true. The loud reports had ceased abruptly; there were no sounds from beyond the bend in the road where the speeding driver had vanished.

Lon gave his young friends an excellent exhibition of how fast a careful chauffeur can go, on occasion. But he had not far to go—less than a quarter-mile, in fact. Then he was throwing on his brakes, and whistling shrilly as he did so.

The other car—or what was left of it—was across the ditch. It lay on its side, with its front axle jammed against a boulder. The cover of the hood had been torn off, and the engine was exposed. The leather top was in ribbons; the cushions had vanished. One back wheel lay against the stone wall bordering the road.

“Jee-ru-salem!” Lon exclaimed. “I’ll bet a lot o’ things happened to the citizen managin’ that joy ride, and happened all of a sudden! But where is he?”

As if in answer a figure raised itself beyond the wall. Lon drew a long breath of relief.

“Say, but I thought he must ’a’ been killed, sure for sartain! It’s an amazin’ mercy he’s got a leg left to stand on!”

With that, Lon was out of the car, and striding to the stranger’s aid, the boys pressing closely behind him. But, as the event proved, there was very little for them to do.

The man—he was a tall, gaunt person with a wisp of chin beard—seemed to have come to no great bodily harm, though his clothing was ripped and torn, his hat was missing, and the sole of one of his shoes flapped like a loose slipper when he moved. From the clump of brush, into which he had been projected, and which mercifully had broken the force of his fall, he limped forward, a step at a time, pausing to bend a knee, test an elbow, or otherwise investigate the extent of his injuries. Lon tried to offer him a supporting arm, but was waved back.

“No; let me stand on my own feet, Mister—kinder a luxury I find it to be able to,” said the man. “Say, but we must ’a’ been goin’ some!”

“All o’ that—and then a little more,” Lon assured him.

The man rubbed his eyes. “I dunno’s I happen to know you folks, but I cal’late you’re the crowd I passed a rod or so back.”

“Call it a couple o’ forty-rods.”

“Well, mebbe. There was sort of a blur side of the road, but I’d got other things to think about. And say! was we touchin’ ground anywhere when we went by you?”

“Not as I noticed,” Lon told him.

The man nodded. “She was a goer, all right, that machine! But she wa’n’t no lady’s drivin’ car. Feller that let me have her said that, and, by gum, he hit it!”

“Looks that way,” Lon agreed. “But don’t you belong over Waterville way? And ain’t your name Haskins? ’Tis, eh? Thought I’d seen you before.”

“Oh, I’m Jabe Haskins, sure enough,” said the other. “Don’t wonder you didn’t recognize me fust-off. Guess I must have aged twenty years while I was shootin’ over that stun wall. You see, I was wonderin’ which of the fifty-seven possible ways I’d hit when I landed; but pshaw! I was clean off the track, for I hit all of ’em. Guess that’s what saved my neck—kinder distributed the shock, y’know. But I’ll never again be the man I was! Whew! but I’m all one ache, and dented from one end of me to the other!”

“Course, if you want to over-speed——” Lon began, but Haskins cut him short.

“’Twa’n’t what I wanted to do, Mister, but what that blessed machine did. Bolted, she did! Took the bit in her teeth, and went it for keeps! Fust time I’d been runnin’ her, y’see. Jest swapped for her. Turned in a hoss and somethin’ to boot and——”

It was Lon’s chance to interrupt. “I’m placin’ you now for sure. Done a lot o’ hoss tradin’, hain’t you, in your time?”

“Yep—that’s my reg’lar line. But I got ambitious and wanted to try my luck with one of them chug-chugs. So we settled a trade, we did, and t’other party showed me how to set her goin’, and I climbed aboard and started out to give her a warmin’-up jog, as you might say. But look here, Mister! we hit a race gait right off, and the more I tried to pull her in, the more we touched only the high places. So all I could do was to hope to hold the track and wait for her to run down—which also she didn’t. Say, what do you s’pose was the matter? Feller I got her from—he’s a left-hander, he is. That make any difference, would it, in her riggin’? All I know is, when I pressed a jimcrack, she jumped; and when I quit that and started in on something else, she jumped harder. Wa’n’t half-broke, she wa’n’t!”

Lon stepped back and inspected the wreck in the ditch.

“Dunno’s I can quite place this machine,” he said presently. “Strange make to me. Never saw one like it before.”

“Good reason—there ain’t no other like her. Only one made and then they bust the mold. Leastwise, that’s what the party said.”

“Umph!” said Lon. He was still looking closely at the car, which was—or had been—a runabout or roadster, with a single seat, very high backed, and a peculiarly lumpy, box-like construction at the rear.

Mr. Haskins took a few limping steps, groaning slightly. It was plain enough that, while he had escaped broken bones, he must be sorely bruised. He glared for a moment at the ruins.

“Party allowed he built her himself,” he explained. “Let on he—he assembled her himself—yes, that’s what he called it, assembled. Got tired of takin’ other folks’ dust on the road, so he figgered on givin’ her plenty of power—and, by gum, he done it! He was makin’ his brags about the engine—said ’twa’n’t the ordinary automobile style, but a special high-speed affair, that’d been meant for one of them flyin’ machines—hey, what’s the matter, sonny?”

The question was due to a sudden movement by Poke, who in new eagerness to examine the motor, almost upset Mr. Haskins.

Poke made no reply. Mr. Haskins, having recovered his balance, resumed his observations:

“Wal, I reckon I was givin’ a pooty fair imitation of flyin’, myself. But ’twa’n’t no business for a man of my age and habits to be in—I see that before we’d gone a hundred yards. And now see what’s happened to the pair of us—me and the machine both! And to think that I gave something to boot in makin’ the trade!”

“Threw in a horse, too, didn’t you?” queried Lon.

Mr. Haskins grinned wryly. “I sure did! That ain’t what hurts, though. The hoss—wal, I didn’t give no guarantee with him; but the money—say, that was real money, and I might as well ’a’ thrown it to the birds! And what have I got to show for it? Jest a junk heap in a ditch that ain’t wuth haulin’ home.”

Poke, who had been peering at the motor, straightened his back, seemed to be about to speak, changed his intention, and moved slowly away from the car. As he passed Step, he touched his arm. Sam in a moment more saw the two, with their heads together, conferring earnestly.

Lon made a leisurely circuit of the wreck, inspecting it from all points of view. Mr. Haskins sat down on the ground, and resumed investigation of his contusions.

“When they get through stickin’ court plaster on me, I’ll be wuss off than a tattooed man in a show,” he announced gloomily. “Talk about barbed wire! ’Tain’t got nothin’ on a good, healthy thorn bush, when you dive in, head fust!”

“We’ll take you to a doctor,” Lon offered. “Whenever you’re ready we’ll start.”

Mr. Haskins, with a groan or two, gained his feet.

Poke left Step, and hurried to Sam.

“Say, got any money?” he whispered. “Quick! Let me have all you’ve got!”

Sam mechanically dug a hand into his pocket. “I—I’ve only some change, Poke. How much do you need? And what do you need it for?”

Poke groaned as soulfully as Mr. Haskins had groaned. “Oh, but you always have money, Sam!” he urged. “Look and make sure!”

Sam’s hand came out of his pocket. It held a half-dollar, a dime, and a few pennies.

“There’s my cash,” he said. “Count it for yourself.”

Poke was a picture of despondency. “’Tisn’t enough—it can’t be enough. I’ve got to have some dollars, anyway.”

“What for?” Sam asked curiously.

Poke clutched his arm. “You know the fix I’m in—about debts, I mean? I owe all you fellows.”

“Nonsense!” said Sam sharply. “We’ve told you over and over again to forget it.”

There were times when the plump Poke could assume an air of melancholy dignity. He had it now, as he said:

“I can’t forget it. You wouldn’t, and couldn’t, if you were in my shoes.”

“Well?” said Sam inquiringly. Poke’s debts, as earlier accounts of the affairs of the Safety First Club have related, followed an unhappy episode, in which a costly vase was destroyed. With the help of his chums, Poke had paid the bill, but the contributions had taxed their resources.

“Well, I mean to pay you fellows back, and I think I see a way to do it. I’ve told Step, and he’s strong for the scheme.”

“Oh, is he?” Sam’s tone was not enthusiastic; Step was more likely to be a sympathizer than a coolly calculating counselor.

“You bet he is! And Step’s all right.”

“Of course he is—he means well. But what’s the idea?”

“The bulliest ever! It’s the chance of a lifetime! But I say, Sam!” Mr. Haskins was limping toward the Parker car. “Sam, I can’t let him go till I find out if the thing can be worked. But, if you haven’t any money, who in the crowd has?”

“Lon might have some. He generally——”

Poke waited to hear no more. He sprang to Lon, caught his sleeve, began to plead with all his eloquence:

“Do me the biggest favor a fellow ever asked you to do! Lend me some money. I’ll pay you back, sure, and I’ll be your friend all my days. Oh, but I’m in dead earnest, ’deed I am!”

“Does look that way,” Lon admitted. “But what do you want money for, out here? How you goin’ to manage to spend it?”

Poke dropped his voice, but Mr. Haskins and Sam heard as well as Lon.

“I want to buy that motor.”

“What! That mess?”

“Yes; I’ve got a scheme. I want it.”

“Heh?” Mr. Haskins had turned, and was hobbling back. “Heh? thinkin’ of buyin’ that engine, be you? What’ll you give?”

“How much will you sell it for?”

“Hundred dollars,” said Mr. Haskins promptly. “Hundred—and dirt cheap at that. That ain’t no common, ordinary machine, young man.”

Poor Poke’s face lengthened. “Oh, a hundred?” he repeated faintly.

“Altogether too much!” Lon said with decision.

Mr. Haskins shot him a wrathful glance but spoke smoothly:

“Oh, call that a fust askin’ price. And, seein’ as how we’re all friends together, and how the machine’s a little jolted, as you might say, suppose you say what you think’s a fair offer.”

Lon turned to Poke, and saw the eagerness in his eyes. He took out an old-fashioned wallet, opened it, extracted a couple of bills.

“Poke,” he said, “I guess you’ve sot your heart on this foolishness. If you have—wal, I ain’t no connooshur on relics, and I dunno the goin’ price o’ curios, but I don’t mind lendin’ you a dollar or two.”

“If you’re lookin’ for speed, young man,” Mr. Haskins urged, “you won’t have to look no further. You seen me and you seen how I was goin’ it, when I wa’n’t half tryin’. And fifty dollars ain’t so wuss when——”

“Oh, fifty’s too much,” Poke said hastily.

“It’s dirt cheap,” Mr. Haskins insisted.

Lon glanced inquiringly at Sam, grunted, and somewhat ostentatiously prepared to return the bills to the pocketbook. Poke blanched, but of all concerned Mr. Haskins appeared to be most deeply affected. There was something like a sob in his voice as he said:

“Oh, come now! ’Tain’t good luck to start a trade and stop this way. And a good, enterprisin’ youngster can have a lot of fun playin’ with a crackerjack engine like this, and so——”

“I don’t want it to play with,” Poke objected with dignity. “And all I care for is the motor; the rest of the machine would be of no use to me.”

Mr. Haskins was watching Lon and the disappearing bills.

“Say, make me a bid, if you don’t like the askin’ price,” said he. “I ain’t hoggish, and I allers did fancy doin’ favors for folks that treat me right.”

“And that hoss you swapped for the car wa’n’t so much of a hoss, after all, come to think of it,” suggested Lon shrewdly.

Mr. Haskins grinned. “I swan! but maybe there’s something to that, too. Still, he could stand up and keep goin’.”

“That’s more’n you can say for the machine,” Lon remarked pointedly.

Mr. Haskins bent over the wreckage for another brief inspection.

“Huh! She does seem to be kinder generally foundered-like,” he admitted. “And you say you don’t care for the hide and hoofs, eh? The body and wheels, I mean? Wal, what’ll you give?”

Poke caught Lon’s eye. For the life of him he couldn’t explain how he seemed to read a message there.

“Te-ten dollars,” he faltered.

Mr. Haskins groaned more dismally than he had groaned because of his bodily hurts.

“Ten dollars,” Poke repeated—firmly this time; for now he read distinct encouragement in Lon’s glance.

Mr. Haskins shook his head, but with no marked vigor.

“It’d be robbin’ the poor, that price!” he objected.

Lon again produced the bills. “One five and another five,” he counted. “That’s right, ain’t it?”

“It’s wuss’n highway robbery, but I—I dunno——” said Mr. Haskins, and drew nearer.

Lon extended the money. “Goin’—goin’——” he began.

“Gone!” cried Mr. Haskins, and snatched the bills. “Done—it’s a trade!”

“And with plenty o’ witnesses,” Lon added emphatically. Then he turned to the trembling and excited Poke.

“The engine’s yours, though I ain’t got a ghost of a notion what you want the junk for.”

Mr. Haskins tittered. “Te he, te he! Mebbe he’s jest takin’ a flyer.”

Then Poke smiled, and the smile was curiously full of meaning.

“You’ve said it for me,” quoth he, very cheerily.

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH SAM PLAYS NEGOTIATOR

Sam, having given his word to the club, duly presented himself at the principal’s office.

Though he had rehearsed carefully the little speech he intended to make, he found himself stammering, and hesitating, and, finally, blurting out a rather incoherent summary of his case.

“It was the way things worked, sir—made me seem to say what I didn’t mean to say. And it was the same with the Trojan—with Walker, that is. Both of us were tangled, and twisted—and—and——”

“Yes?” the principal encouraged.

“Well, and tricked,” said Sam.

The head of the school glanced at him sharply. “That’s an ugly word, Parker,” he said curtly.

Sam reddened, but held his ground. “I don’t mean that it was intended so, but it worked like a trick, sir. If the book had been shown to the Trojan right at the start, and he’d been asked if it was his, he’d have said it was and made no bones about it, even if he hadn’t a notion how you came to have it. But he was asked first where his Cicero was. Now, he hadn’t missed it, and supposed it was with the rest of his books, and——”

“You’re making a statement, Parker, that it might be difficult to prove.”

“I know that, sir. But I know, too, how it could happen that the Trojan didn’t miss his Cicero. There had been no Latin recitation for our class since the test; he had had no occasion to look for the book.”

“Yet we had your word for it, Parker, that he had it with him at the time of the examination.”

“No, sir—just before the time. That’s a big difference.”

“Admitted!” said the principal drily.

“Just outside the room I borrowed the Cicero for a moment. Then I gave it back—the Trojan wanted it. Then the bell rang and we left our books in the corridor.”

“Did Walker?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How can you be sure he did? Did you see him leave his text there?”

“I didn’t see him—at least, I didn’t notice. But he says he did, and I believe him.”

The principal was eyeing Sam keenly. There was a brief pause. Then said he:

“You’ve something to add? Go on!”

Sam summoned all his resolution. “I was talking about being tricked. I was caught, too, by the way the questions were put. Somehow, I seemed to be made to give the Trojan away. I hadn’t any notion of doing that, and there wasn’t any reason why I should, seeing that he hadn’t done anything wrong. But Mr. Bacon seemed to tangle both of us up. Do you remember, sir, how he didn’t go straight at the thing, but fussed around it, and—and——”

“I do remember,” said the principal, when Sam hesitated. There was something in his tone which reminded the boy of his curious doubt that the head of the school had really approved the course the inquisition took.

“Well, sir, in the end I appeared to have done the Trojan a lot of harm, and he’d harmed himself, and it was all a mix-up. That’s what I meant by the trick part.”

“I see,” said the principal. Again there was a pause.

“The Trojan is honest,” was the way Sam resumed the discussion.

“Parker, let me show you the other side of the case,” said the principal quietly. “For some time we have had reason to believe that there has been cheating in examinations, and have been keeping a close watch on all the classes. There is, as you know, a strict rule against taking text-books into rooms where examinations are held. In this case, after your class had taken Latin papers, a Cicero was found in one of the desks. We established, beyond doubt, that it was the desk Walker had used. There was evidence that the book was his. When he was questioned, opportunity was given him to make confession——”

“But that was prejudging him guilty, sir!”

The principal coughed. “I get your point, Parker, but must remind you that we are interested rather in maintaining discipline and doing essential justice, than in following rules of court procedure. Walker’s course was unfortunate. It certainly did not serve to lessen the strong presumption of his guilt.”

“But what was I brought in for?”

“To assist in establishing all available facts. And you furnished some information, which surely bore directly upon the question at issue.”

“I know—it seemed to,” Sam admitted dismally. “That’s the hardest part, so far as I’m concerned.”

“I understand your position,” the principal told him, not unkindly.

Sam took thought for a moment. “Well, sir, there’s another side to the case—what’s the Trojan to do, that is. And—and—was he given a mark on that Latin paper?”

“A mark of zero.”

“Afterward—yes. But was there a mark to begin with?”

“Yes,” said the principal. He opened his desk, took out three or four sheets of paper, closely written in a hand Sam recognized as the Trojan’s. “All the papers were marked at once, as it happened. Walker was given an eighty-two. That was canceled, of course, after the investigation, and is out of the reckoning.”

“I don’t think it should be, sir,” Sam argued. “It’s important. If the Trojan had been doing any crooked work, he’d have turned in a better paper. He usually has had eighty-five or more in examinations.”

The principal consulted a record-book.

“Quite true,” he admitted. “Let’s see! Here’s an eighty-seven—that was a test; he fell just under eighty-five in the next one, but picked up again at mid-year’s. Then I find an eighty-six and next an eighty-seven.”

“All higher than eighty-two,” Sam pointed out.

“Granted. I can’t grant, though, direct application to the main question before us.”

“Which is that you think the Trojan lied?” Sam asked bluntly.

“That is certainly the most serious aspect of the case.”

Sam reflected swiftly. “Well, sir,” he said, “I’m sure he didn’t lie, and I believe some day we can prove he didn’t. But, meanwhile, we’ve got to figure on what he can do. That zero will smash his term-stand. As he isn’t to be allowed to recite with the class in Latin, he’ll have no chance to pull it up; so, even if he came in for the final and did mighty well, he’d probably be flunked.”

“It might be.”

“Well, I—we—his friends, I mean—don’t want to have him flunked. We’d do anything to prevent it. And that brings me to something we’d like to have arranged and understood. If the Trojan keeps up in his Latin by outside work, and this—this other thing is cleared up, and he passes the final, what can be done about his term marks?”

It was plain that the principal, if not persuaded of the Trojan’s innocence, was impressed by Sam’s earnestness.

“If your hopes can be realized, Parker, and if we can be shown that Walker is a victim of circumstances—I warn you, it’s a difficult task you appear to have set yourself—if you can clear his record, you can depend upon me to give him fair play.”

“Then you’ll fix the term-stand part of it?” Sam insisted.

“Yes—on condition the other requirement is met.”

“That we prove he didn’t take the Cicero into the room, and supposed the book was with the rest of his lot?”

The principal smiled. “Proof of the second proposition, Parker, might be beyond even the efforts of the strongest friendship. I fear evidence of his mental processes cannot be secured. But if you can establish the fact that he did not have his text with him that day, while he was working on his paper, it will be quite enough. Convince me of so much, and you’ll have no cause to complain—nor will he.”

“Hurrah!” cried Sam, delightedly.

There might have been doubt in the principal’s expression, but there was surely a trace of sympathy.

“Parker, I wish you success in your efforts, though I am not oversanguine. But you can be assured of this: if we are in error in punishing Walker, we’ll make every effort to make amends.”

“I understand, sir. And all we want is a square deal.”

“Precisely,” said the principal, and there was the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye. “Precisely. The trouble, though, is that on the face of the returns, that is just what Walker is getting now.”

“Then we’ll change the returns!” Sam declared valiantly.

“’Pon my word, Parker, I shall be very glad to see you do it—if you can!” said the head of the school.

CHAPTER VIII

DRAWING THE LINE

Afterward the club was agreed that many things might have happened differently, had it not been for the affair of the class secretary. But the affair took place, and in its effects had an importance beyond anybody’s expectations.

As a matter of fact, class officers had little to do except in Senior year, when the ceremonies and festivities of graduation increased their duties. Several weeks before the troubles of the Trojan and his friends began the Juniors’ secretary had left school, but it had been supposed that the class would not elect a successor for the balance of the term. There was, therefore, more or less surprise when a notice was posted, calling a class meeting to fill the vacancy.

Sam Parker was especially disturbed. There had been some mention of the Trojan as a candidate for secretary at the regular election at the beginning of Senior year, and though Sam himself, as well as some of the other members of the club, expected to transfer to St. Mark’s, a famous fitting school, for the last year of their preparation for college, Walker had intended to finish the course at the high school. In the call for a special election Sam saw a hostile move: the Trojan, in official disgrace, could hardly hope to be chosen, while the successful candidate would, doubtless, seek reëlection in Senior year with the prestige of one victory.

Sam had been having his full share of difficulty, anyway, in dealing with the Trojan. Walker had taken greatly to heart what he considered the essential injustice of his treatment, and though he kept his pledge not to leave the school, there was little energy in his work. From Latin recitations he was barred, as we know. In the case of the others he did little more than file appearance. Sam, doing his best to encourage his chum, was alarmed by the probable results of the class meeting and the almost certain slight upon the Trojan.

The club held council, and bade Sam have charge of the campaign. Accordingly, he took special care to be early at the meeting, and, as soon as it was opened, to offer a resolution to delay action on the choice of a temporary secretary. Step lost no time in seconding the motion.

But if the club had laid its plans, so, too, had the opposition. Two or three boys spoke against postponement. They were influential fellows as it chanced, and their words carried weight. Then one of the girls took the floor, and made a strong plea for immediate action. Sam, keenly watching his classmates, gained two distinct impressions. One was that sentiment was overwhelmingly against him; the other, that though Zorn took no part in the debate, he was the guiding spirit of the other side; for once or twice questioning glances were turned upon him and were met by a nod or a shake of the head, as the case might be.

When Sam’s motion was put to a vote, it met defeat. The chorus of “Noes” gave unmistakable evidence of the prevailing sentiment. Then the class president called for nominations for secretary.

Somebody in the rear of the room sang out “Scrub Payne!” Two or three others seconded the nomination almost simultaneously.

“Anybody else?” inquired the president.

Jack Hagle rose to his feet. “I—I want to nominate Trojan Walker,” he said, unsteadily.

Sam whirled in his seat to stare at Hagle, who took special pains to avoid his eye.

“Nomination seconded?” asked the president briskly.

Sam sent a warning glance at his club-mates. His wits were working, and realizing that the Trojan could not be elected, he meant to do his best to spare him the humiliation of a defeat.

“Seconded!”

Again it was a contribution from the back of the room; Sam was not sure which of a group of half a dozen boys spoke.

“Any further nominations?” queried the president. “If not, we will proceed to vote.”

Sam sprang up. “I wish to withdraw Walker’s name,” he said. “He is not a candidate.”

A murmur of surprise greeted the statement. Plainly enough, this was an unexpected development.

The president’s face betrayed perplexity. Sam made a shrewd guess at the situation: Joe Carson had won the presidency by courting popularity, and this seemed to be turning into an affair in which that popularity might suffer.

“Yes, I withdraw Walker’s name,” Sam repeated.

“Why—why—I hardly know——” the president began.

“Wait a minute, Carson—Mr. President, I mean,” interposed Zorn. “Let Walker speak for himself.”

“He isn’t here—as you mighty well know!” cried Sam hotly.

The chairman rapped sharply with his gavel. “Order, please! Let’s do this according to the rules. Zorn has the floor.”

“I won’t need it long,” said Zorn coolly. “My point is a simple one. When a fellow has been nominated and seconded, he has to be voted on unless he himself withdraws. And if Walker doesn’t want to be considered, he ought to have been willing to take the trouble to come here and say so. Everybody knows his crowd has been booming him for this job. If he’s changed his mind, why isn’t he here to let us know about it?”

Now, as it chanced, Sam had not urged the Trojan’s attendance, and, indeed, had deemed it wiser that he stay away from the meeting. This was hardly a matter for public discussion, however. Step saved the situation by creating a diversion. Up he shot like a jack in the box.

“This is a shame!” he shouted. “It’s a set-up job! I won’t stand for it! Everybody knows Zorn’s a trouble maker, but I didn’t know till now he could bamboozle nearly the whole class into helping in his dirty work!”

The chairman’s gavel was beating a tattoo on his desk. Sam caught Step’s coat and dragged him down into his seat. Zorn scowled, but kept his head.

“I say that in Walker’s absence nobody is entitled to speak for him without his authority—ought to be in writing, at that.”

The president caught at the suggestion. “You make that a point of order?”

“Yes,” said Zorn.

Carson turned to Sam. “Have you any authority?”

“Sure he has!” Step broke in; but the declaration went unheeded.

“I’ve no authority, in writing,” Sam said quietly. “But I don’t need it. I don’t admit Zorn’s point is well taken.”

“I rule it is,” said the president.

“Then I’ll appeal to the class.”

But the class was not with Sam. The vote against him and in support of the chair was five or six to one.

Step groaned loudly. Then informally but perfectly audibly he expressed his opinion of plots and plotters. Angry murmurs rose from the other side. The chairman pounded the desk lustily.

Orkney with difficulty gained recognition.

“I move we adjourn,” he said.

“Second the motion!” cried Poke.

“Mr. President, that’s out of order,” Zorn objected.

“Motion to adjourn’s always in order,” Sam insisted.

“Not with the vote on a secretary pending—you can’t side-track it that way.”

By this time half a dozen members of the class were on their feet. Parliamentary practice was supposed to be one of the benefits of these meetings, and this day the Juniors were trying to put to use all they knew about methods of procedure.

Carson was not enjoying his authority as presiding officer, but in his desire to stand with the majority made up his mind to rule Orkney’s resolution out of order.

Tumult greeted his announcement. Zorn and his followers applauded; Step, Poke, Herman Boyd and Orkney made loud protest. The Shark, unmoved, calmly watched the proceedings through his big spectacles. Sam was busy with plans for the next move. He understood perfectly that the voting strength was against him; that a carefully arranged plan to humiliate the Trojan, and through him the Safety First Club, was being carried out; that he could not avert the election of a secretary, and that all that was left for him was to soften the blow so far as he might.

“Vote! Vote now!” Somebody raised the cry, and many voices repeated it.

The Shark rose in leisurely fashion. Somehow, though he did not seem to raise his voice, he managed to make himself heard.

“Written ballots, then—do it the right way!”

“No, no!” “What’s the use?” “Make it a standing vote!” There was a medley of objections.

Sam gratefully caught at the Shark’s hint. He had no hope, now, of avoiding defeat, but it flashed upon him that a secret vote would give opportunity to learn the real division of sentiment in the class. There might be a number of boys and girls who would yield to popular clamor, if called upon to declare themselves openly, but who would vote according to their true preferences under the protection of a secret ballot.

“Except by unanimous consent otherwise, elections have to be by ballot,” he declared, vigorously.

Carson hesitated. Before he could speak, the Shark cut in:

“Of course! Rule—rule everywhere!”

“Show us the rule!” somebody called out.

“No need—if you know anything, you know I’m right,” said the Shark contemptuously, and sat down.

Zorn shrugged his shoulders, as if the point at issue had little interest; and the president, upon whom the demonstration was not lost, reached decision.

“We’ll take a ballot. I’ll appoint Bert Brown and Herman Boyd tellers. They can prepare the slips, and then collect and count them.”

As the two boys named went forward to the desk, Step whispered to Sam: “What shall we do? Cast blanks? We’re licked, anyway.”

Sam shook his head. “No; we’ll see how many friends we have left. If it had been a standing vote, we might have let it go by default, but now I want to find out what the line-up is.”

With Sam, Orkney, Step, Poke, Herman and the Shark, the club could count upon six votes for the Trojan. The tally gave him five more—eleven in all. Scrub Payne had forty-one.

The meeting was over, and the club had fared badly. Sam and his friends were close together when they left the room; and it is to be related that nobody tried to force his company upon them. Just then the line was very sharply drawn between the two factions into which the class had divided. In fact, as if to emphasize the division, while the club kept on the right side of the street, the great body of the other party chose the left in leaving the school grounds. Step, in a fine rage, was vowing vengeance on Zorn and the rest, Herman and Poke occasionally adding suggestions of ways and means. Orkney and the Shark trudged along in silence, which in the case of the former had a touch of doggedness. The Shark appeared to be merely indifferent. Sam began to lag a little. There were perhaps a dozen stragglers, who could not be said to have attached themselves to either of the rival groups, and among these, no doubt, were the five outsiders who had voted with the club. Sam tried to puzzle out which had been his allies. The meeting had made it evident that the feud which had developed in the class was serious enough to indicate a long struggle; and he was anxious to know whom he could depend upon.

As a matter of fact, his observations brought him little light. Some fellows whom he had deemed his very good friends were openly with Zorn; two or three others—among them Jack Hagle—with whom he had not been on especially good terms, were among the stragglers. So busy was he with his problem that he failed to notice that he had fallen quite a distance behind his club-mates, and had been passed by one or two of the strays. He did observe, however, that Hagle was beginning to sidle toward him.

Wondering what might be in the wind, Sam slackened his pace. Hagle drew nearer. What Sam sometimes had called his “hang-dog” manner was peculiarly in evidence. For a moment or two the pair walked side by side. Then Hagle spoke, nervously, propitiatingly:

“Say, Parker! I—I voted for Walker.”

Sam turned and stared at him. “You? You——”

“Yes, I did!”

“Well, why in thunder shouldn’t you?” Sam demanded with sudden heat. “You’d got him into the mess by nominating him, hadn’t you?”

“I—I thought he ought to have it.”

Sam laughed harshly. “Tell that to somebody else! Much you thought about what he ought to have! All you and your crowd wanted was to put him up so that you could knock him down!”

“But I voted for him, I tell you!” Hagle protested.

“Then Zorn ordered you to do that, too.”

Hagle reddened, but would not meet Sam’s gaze.

“’Tisn’t so! He didn’t want me to——” There he checked himself. “He—he—I mean, I acted on my own hook. Zorn didn’t make me do it. The class has been talking Walker for secretary for weeks, and—and—say, Parker, I figured that because he’s down on his luck, he—he’d feel better if something came his way. I was square about it.”

“Bosh! You knew the game had been fixed to beat him!”

Hagle wriggled. “I knew Scrub Payne was going to run, but I thought Walker ought to have his show. Look here! I—I’m awfully sorry about the whole business—about all Walker’s troubles. It—it’s mighty hard luck for him.”

“It surely is!” said Sam drily.

Hagle began to edge away. “I voted for him, and I wanted to tell you so. That—that’s all.”

“You’ve told!” Sam growled.

The other widened the distance between them. “Well, that—that’s all I’ve got to say,” he mumbled.

Sam made no answer. Hagle seemed to expect none, for he continued to draw away from the leader of the Safety First Club, and did not look back.

CHAPTER IX

THE CLUB FORMS HOLLOW SQUARE

It meant war. The result of the class meeting was so accepted by both the club and its opponents; and though Sam speculated long and earnestly on the reasons for the sudden enmity, he did not attempt to deceive himself about the ugly fact. It was plain that somebody was shrewdly taking advantage of the situation to work harm for the Safety Firsts, and he had no doubt of the identity of the schemer. Why Zorn should have been moved to this pernicious activity Sam did not know: mere lack of friendliness hardly explained it. Zorn had spread the story of the Trojan’s disaster, and had added a most unfavorable version of Sam’s participation. He had worked on popular prejudice against both a cheat and a telltale. These things were to be regarded as accomplished. The practical question remained, what was to be done about them?

Sam had no ready answer to the question. The most he could do was to counsel prudence to the more radical and excitable of the club, urge all the members to watch carefully for anything which might have a bearing upon the affair of the Trojan, and advise especially close study of the doings of Zorn, in an effort to discover, among other things, the cause of his active enmity. On this point the other members of the club could give Sam little light. There had been no bitter quarrel with Zorn; none of the boys could recall any ground for an abiding grudge.

As was to be expected, the club drew closer together than ever. It formed hollow square, as it were, against all attacks. On its side, the other faction showed no desire for reconciliation.

Spring usually saw a series of inter-class baseball games. This year was no exception to the rule; but none of the Safety Firsts played on the Junior nine. The Trojan, perhaps the best second baseman in the school, was passed over; Tom Orkney and Sam, both fair players, were left out. Even the Shark, highly esteemed as an inerrant scorer, was refused recognition. The slights were deliberate, inescapable, undeniable. And baseball was but one among many instances of the feeling of the majority of the class.

On the club’s part all this was received defiantly. Cold shoulder was met by cold shoulder. Sam had no difficulty in keeping his chums in line. Orkney aided him greatly in the task of coaching the Trojan in Latin, and added timely and encouraging suggestions, which were sorely needed. Still smarting under the sense of essentially unfair treatment, the Trojan would have been glad to quit the school. Again and again he rebelled at appearing at the recitations he was permitted to attend, and it required all of Sam’s tact and firmness and Orkney’s encouragement to hold him to his work under the existing conditions. Herman Boyd also lent a hand occasionally, although he was not of much help as a tutor. As for the Shark, he went his way imperturbably. Give him a sufficiency of his beloved mathematics, and he cared not a straw for the opinion of the multitude. Poke and Step had developed some mysterious interest of their own, which kept them busy of afternoons in Poke’s barn. Sam asked no questions about their enterprise. If they wished to hold it a secret, he had no objections.

Sam, in these days, though, felt the double burden of responsibility and unpopularity. Lon Gates, who made it a business to observe him closely, noted his preoccupation and demanded the cause.

“Let’s put our heads together, Sam,” he advised. “They say it’s like lumps o’ sugar in a cup o’ coffee—two’s better’n one. Come now! Out with it!”

Sam hesitated. “I—I—what’d be the use?”

“Dunno yet; that’s for the pair of us to find out.”

“But——”

“But, to begin with,” said Lon briskly, “what’s Ed Zorn got against you?”

“Ed Zorn? Who’s been telling you? I didn’t let it out, did I?”

“Dunno what you may have been talkin’ in your sleep, but I’ll acquit you on what you’ve said while awake.”

“How did you find out?”

“Mebbe I hain’t found much—I’d like to know jest how much. That’s why I’m comin’ to headquarters and askin’ you.”

Sam cherished independence, but at heart he welcomed this opening to talk things over.

“Tell me what you’ve heard,” he suggested.

“After you, sonny—mebbe,” said Lon. “Fire ahead!”

Then Sam told his story, Lon listening most attentively.

“Umph! Fits like the two ends of a busted wish-bone,” he declared.

“Show me your end, then,” urged Sam.

“No. You go on. You’ve said what’s happened to your crowd. Now, what are you tryin’ to have happen to other folks?”

Sam explained what the club had done. “We’re sticking together, of course,” he added. “We’re trying to keep the Trojan up to the mark.”

“Hard work?”

Sam grinned a little wryly. “It isn’t as hard as it is going to be—I can see that clearly enough.”

“Gesso—it’s the stickin’ part o’ the plaster that worries—and that does the real good in the long run.”

“But you haven’t told your part of the story yet,” Sam pointed out.

“’Tain’t a whole lot. It merely bears out your notion that Zorn is gunnin’ for you. But what’s his reason?”

“I don’t know,” Sam confessed. “We’ve been more or less on the outs, but there was no trouble to justify such a grudge as he must have.”

Lon nodded. “My notion, too—from what I’d picked up by scoutin’ round. And I have been seein’ and hearin’ all there was to hear and see, Sam.”

“What’s your theory, then?”

“Theory’s too strong a word—make it guess.

“Well, my guess is that if I was goin’ to prescribe for your case, I’d dose you for politics—school politics. And if that guess is right, I don’t wonder you’re worried. It’s your fust attack, and a feller with his fust touch o’ politics is a good deal like a chap gettin’ acquainted with the hives—he feels as if he was in trouble all over.”

Sam grinned again. “You talk as if you’d had experience, Lon.”

“Umph! Guess I had! Run for third selectman once.”

“And they beat you?”

“They didn’t—that was jest the difficulty. I learned fast enough. And I got enough. I was willin’ to doff the spangles and retire to private life after one term, I tell you!”

“What happened to you?”

“A-plenty! But it’s your case we’re discussin’. Now, if I hain’t forgot all I ever knew about youngsters, there wouldn’t naterally ’a’ been all this stir and circus over a feller takin’ a book where he hadn’t oughter ’a’ took it—and there wouldn’t ’a’ been, either, all this fuss about your givin’ him away and turnin’ state’s evidence, and——”

“But I didn’t,” Sam interrupted.

“I know that well enough. So would the fellers in your class know it, if they stopped to think over the kind o’ goods you’re made of. But they ain’t stoppin’ to think, because the somebody who’s raisin’ all the Cain is keepin’ ’em goin’. It’s a heap like drivin’ cattle. So long’s they’re kept on the move, they’ll tramp along, raisin’ enough dust to keep ’em from seein’ anything in particular. Same way with humans! The driver at your school is takin’ care not to let the herd stop and the dust settle. Pooty good manager, he is!”

Sam nodded. “Yes—if you call it managing.”

Lon was silent for a moment. Then said he, gravely:

“I’ve been talkin’ to you about politics. Now, there’s good politics, and there’s bad politics; but I’m mortal sure it’s bad politics you’re facin’. My tip jest backs up yours. I guess we can bank that between ’em we’re on the right track as to who’s doin’ things, even if we don’t know why he’s doin’ ’em. But, after all, that ain’t the main p’int—which is, what are you goin’ to do about it?”

“Why—why, I’ve tried to tell you.”

“You’ve told more about what you’ve done than about what you’re goin’ to do. So far, you’re all right, Sam. But what’s the comin’ program?”

Sam hesitated. “I—why, I suppose—I——” Then he had an inspiration. “Look here, Lon! What’s your advice?”

“Stick to it!” said Lon emphatically. “Hold your crowd up to the mark. You’re right; the other feller’s wrong. He’s bound to lose in the end. If things didn’t work out that way in the long run, this old world would ’a’ needed a ‘Tenants wanted’ sign back in the time o’ the cave-men. Fight it out, Sam; fight it out, if it takes all summer!”

“Looks as if it might,” Sam confessed.

Lon dropped a hand on his shoulder. “You stand to your guns, sonny! And you make your club stand to theirs. Find something to amuse ’em, something outdoors. I’m great on the open-air treatment.... Let’s see! If ’twas vacation, I’d say, go campin’. But, say! you can work a scheme sorter in that line, anyhow. Why don’t you turn to and build a shack in the woods near town? Oughtn’t to be too close—let ’em have plenty of exercise, travelin’ back and forth.”

Sam meditated briefly. “I—well, I do know of that cracking place—out by the lake. It’s pretty far, though.”

“That’s no objection—not for your purpose. Every time you walk ’em a mile, there’s fifteen or twenty minutes used up that won’t be put into mopin’. Get the idea?”

“Yes,” said Sam, “I do.”

“’Tain’t the wust I ever offered you, son.”

“The more I think of it, the better I like it,” said Sam; and departed to offer Lon’s suggestion to the other members of the club.

The Trojan received it with indifference. “I don’t care—I’m just a passenger,” he declared. Orkney at once said yes, and said it heartily. Herman Boyd was ready for anything. The Shark had no objections to interpose. Then Sam sought out Poke, and found him in his barn, with Step bearing him company.

It was not lost upon Sam that when the pair appeared, in answer to his hail, they took care to close the big door of the barn behind them. He plunged at once into his errand, and was a bit disappointed to note that neither of the others displayed much enthusiasm.

“Oh, I guess it’ll be all right—if you say so,” quoth Poke. “Of course, we’re awfully busy, and there’s lots to do, and—er—er—but you mostly know what you’re about, Sam.”

“Yes, but we’re mighty busy, you know,” contributed Step.

Sam glanced keenly at the pair. The hands of both were grimy, and there were certain greasy spots on their clothes, which stirred his curiosity and reminded him of the mysterious occupation to which they had been giving their spare time.

“What’s up?” he demanded. “Out with it!”

Poke glanced at Step, and Step shot an uneasy glance at Poke.

“Oh, if it is something you don’t care to talk about——” Sam began.

Poke cleared his throat. “Ahem, ahem! It—look here, Sam! It is a sort of a secret, and yet I don’t know why we shouldn’t tell you. Course, we wouldn’t want it gossiped all over town—we can’t have the crowd coming here and trying to get a sight of—of IT! But you—why, it’s different with you, you know.”

“And he’d have to find out sooner or later, anyway,” said Step, in a stage whisper.

“He would—might as well tell him now,” responded Poke. “But it’s to go no farther,” he added, addressing Sam. “You’ll understand why, when I tell you.”

“Fire ahead!” said Sam. “I can’t say I understand anything yet.”

There was no outsider in sight, but Poke lowered his voice.

“You remember that motor I bought? The one from the smashed machine—haven’t forgotten it, have you?”

Sam had not forgotten the incident of the purchase from Mr. Haskins, though he had thought very little about it for some days.

“What! That crazy deal?” he said. “What’s your game?”

“You may call the deal what you please,” said Poke with dignity, “but I won’t admit it was crazy.”

“Never mind that part of it. Go on, go on!” Sam urged. He was recalling, not too distinctly, a story somebody had told him of seeing Poke and Step driving into town with something carefully covered in the back of their wagon. “Go on, I say! You fished the motor out of the wreck, didn’t you, and brought it in?”

“I did,” said Poke.

“We did,” Step corrected.

“Got it here?”

“Yes,” said Poke and Step together.

“Well, what are you going to do with it?”

Step started to say something, and changed his mind. The result was an extraordinary gasp. But Sam understood. Tempted as he was to proclaim great news, Step was surrendering that honor to his chum.

Poke drew a long breath. Then he spoke explosively:

“Flying machine! We’re making one!”

The reception of the sensational tidings should have satisfied Poke’s yearning for dramatic effects. Sam dropped weakly upon a horse-block, which happened to be conveniently near. He stared at Poke blankly.

“You—you’re making a—a flying machine!”

“I am!” Poke declared promptly.

“We are,” Step hastened to amend.

Poke nodded. “Sure! That’s right. We’re both in it.”

“But it was Poke’s idea,” testified Step generously.

“Maybe, but Step has taken hold like a good fellow and helped a lot,” averred Poke, not to be outdone in fairness.

Sam waved an impatient hand. “That’s all right. Tell me about the machine. What is it? Zeppelin?”

“Of course not!” cried Poke. “Zeppelin nothing! It’ll be a plane.”

“Monoplane or biplane?”

“Why—why, we’re working on two or three plans. We’ll see which works out best. They say a monoplane is faster, and a biplane safer. We haven’t settled all the details yet.”

“Go ahead! Tell me some more.”

“Yes, let him have the whole thing,” Step advised.

“Well, it was this way,” Poke explained. “You know that day out by the lake? When Haskins told us about the machine running away with him, he mentioned that it had a mighty high-speed motor—one that’d do in a flying machine, he said. That set me thinking.”

“Poke’s a crackerjack when it comes to that sort of thing,” Step observed admiringly.

Poke modestly disregarded the tribute. “Struck me, Sam, there was my chance. You know I’m in debt to all you fellows——”

“Nonsense!” Sam broke in. “We’ve told you to forget it.”

“How’s a fellow going to forget such things? I couldn’t, if I wanted to. And I saw my chance. You know what they pay aviators for exhibitions at county fairs and such places?”

“No! Do you?” Sam asked pointedly.

“Yes, sir, I do! Hundred dollars a crack! Read it in a paper.”

“Oh!”

“Well, I saw the whole thing in a flash. If I got that high-speed motor and rigged up a plane, and learned to run it—why, two or three exhibitions would pay all my debts and put me on Easy Street. And think of all the fun I’d have! And Step—he—well, minute I suggested it to him, he saw the whole thing just as clearly as I did.”

“Don’t doubt he did,” said Sam.

“So he said he’d take hold and help. He did, and we’re working together. He’ll be entitled to a full share in the credit.”

“Except for inventing the idea, to begin with,” Step corrected.

“Oh, there’ll be glory enough for all,” said Poke easily.

Sam coughed. “H-g-h! I—I guess I understand. Say, though! Your folks know about all this?”

“They know we’re doing something in the barn. And they don’t care.”

“Said so, have they?”

“Well, not—not exactly. But they haven’t tried to stop us. We don’t keep a horse now, you know, so they don’t have to come out this way often. But they wouldn’t mind, anyway.”

Sam did not press the point. “Look here, Poke!” said he. “I don’t know much about flying machines, but the little I know makes me think they’ve got to be all right, or they’ll be all wrong. So, unless you understand how to build ’em——”

“But I do! Saw an article in a magazine and saved it. It’s just full of diagrams and dimensions and all that sort of thing.”

“But there must be problems of weights to be lifted—engine weight, your weight, and so on. And you’ve got to figure out the size of the planes to suit the load and the power.”

Poke waved a lordly hand. “Humph! Don’t you suppose I know that? And don’t you suppose I’m looking out for such details? Well, I am! You trust your Uncle Dudley to be crafty in a thing like this!”

“But——” Sam began; then checked his speech. It was clear that Poke and Step were committed to their amazing enterprise. On the strength of long acquaintance with the pair he had no doubt that somehow or other they would contrive to come to grief; but he failed to see that there was anything he could do about it. Moreover, there were certain present advantages to the Safety First Club in having two of its members so thoroughly occupied.

Poke wagged his head sagely. “Don’t think, Sam, that I’m going into this thing blindfolded. It’s a scientific scheme, and I’m putting it through scientifically. Just you wait and see!”

“All right—I’ll wait. But isn’t there anything to see yet?”

The others exchanged glances.

“Why—why, no,” said Poke. “You can come in and take a look. Of course, we’re messed up, but maybe you can get an idea of what we’re at.”

Sam followed him into the barn. Because doors were kept closed and horse blankets had been hung at windows to preserve secrecy, the place was somewhat dim; but he made out the motor, set upon a pair of wooden horses, with a confusion of wrenches and other tools about it. In the background was a gaunt framework of bamboo poles and wire.

“For the planes,” Poke explained. “We’re still experimenting. But we’re getting there; we learn something every day.”

Sam made observation as closely as he could, but without great enlightenment.

“Well, live and learn,” he remarked, non-committally. “And when do you expect to have the—er—er—the thing finished?”

“Oh, pretty soon,” Poke told him. “We’re getting along faster than you’d think. Step is a star at a job like this.”

“Well, I do seem to be able to work out Poke’s ideas when he can’t do it himself,” Step admitted.

Sam cleared his throat. “Ahem, ahem! I—well, I guess my opinion isn’t of much value, anyway. But there’s something else I want to talk about with you fellows. Now, listen!” And he repeated, rapidly but clearly, the project for a camp near the lake.

Step did not appear to be impressed, but Poke was more responsive.

“Great scheme, Sam! Good sport! Besides, it’ll give us a chance to have the try-outs with the machine without a whole parcel of folks looking on and yawping. Those open fields this side of the woods by the lake will be a bully place—nice and private and plenty of elbow room. Say, I’m with you!”

“Then I am, too, of course,” said Step. “When’ll you start in?”

“Very soon,” Sam told him.

Poke furrowed his brow. “Say, I’m afraid we won’t be able to help much at first; we’ll be busy here, you know. But a little later——”

“Oh, that’ll be all right,” Sam hastened to assure him. “The main thing’s to keep the club together.”

“Sure!” said the others in chorus.

“And that’s always the main thing,” Poke added heartily.

CHAPTER X

SAM REJECTS A PROFFERED OLIVE BRANCH

Of a Saturday, bright and early, Sam and his followers set out for the lake. Only Poke and Step were missing, both having pleaded their exceedingly pressing duties as constructors of a flying machine, and having agreed, readily enough, to endorse the others’ choice of a site for the camp. The Trojan was in the party, hardly as a volunteer and yet making no objection. The Shark marched along with his usual air of indifference, but Tom Orkney and Herman Boyd, who had some inkling of Sam’s real problem and his efforts to solve it, showed both interest and enthusiasm.

Lon had suggested a willingness to carry the club to the lake in the big car, but Sam had preferred a hike, it being his first care to keep his chums occupied. The day was fine, the sky clear, and the morning air fresh and invigorating. The single drawback was the dust in the road. There had been no rain for several weeks, and though the conditions did not yet approach those of a drought, farmers and gardeners were beginning to predict crop failures, unless a change came in the weather. To the boys, however, this danger did not make special appeal; and as the brightness of the spring foliage had not faded, they deemed it a very pleasant day, indeed, and marched along at a brisk pace.

On the way there was more or less discussion of the charms of the lake district, and the rival advantages of the two shores. Herman had a theory that it might be well to establish themselves near the pleasure resort—not too near, of course, but near enough to hear the band when it played. Orkney was strongly for the greater privacy of the other side of the lake. The Trojan and the Shark expressed no preference, and Sam withheld his ideas on the subject.

“We’ll scout all around,” he said. “Then we can pick the best spot. We’ve plenty of time to make the right choice.”

Now, scouting was a somewhat leisurely performance, and not a bad way of passing several hours. The country about the lake was rolling, with a great deal of woodland—largely “second growth” hardwood, as is frequently the case when a pine and spruce country has been lumbered, and birches, oaks and maples come in to take the places of the fallen giants of the forest. In this case the lumbering had taken place so long ago that the new trees had attained considerable size, though the “slash” left by the cutting (the litter of tops, limbs and broken trees not worth removal) was still much in evidence, offering dangerously inflammable material, should a fire ever get a fair start in the tract. Here and there, in the low spots between the ridges and little hills, the boys found swampy areas, where the undergrowth was thick and tangled enough to suggest a jungle. On the side where the pavilion and cottages were in course of erection something had been done in the way of clearing away the woods rubbish, but the club was agreed that the opposite shore had more natural advantages. Even Herman came over to this view at the consultation following luncheon; and there was unanimity of opinion that the best site for a camp would be in the neighborhood of the big Council Rock. Within fifty yards of the great stone was a glade where a tent could be pitched or a shack built; the spring not far away was clear and bubbling; and, finally, between the woods and the road was an open field where Poke and Step could manœuver with their flying machine.

Sam did not feel at liberty to explain to the others the remarkable enterprise in which the pair were engaged, feeling that divulging the great secret was the privilege of the young inventors; but in the talk he laid stress on the advantages of having open ground near by. To this suggestion there was ready agreement. A chance for scrub baseball games appealed to everybody, except perhaps the Shark; there might be even possibilities of tennis. In the case of the after-luncheon discussion the club was prepared to admit that a generally more promising place for a camp hardly could be desired.

Sam, with Poke and Step’s undertaking in mind, strolled away from the group to study the fields with more care; and he was gazing thoughtfully at the expanse of turf, when he heard a step behind him, and turned to see the Shark coming up. The spectacled youth said nothing, but halted beside Sam and surveyed the open ground deliberately.

“How big is it—how many acres?” Sam asked, after a little. With the club it had come to be a habit to turn all calculations over to the Shark, as belonging in his special province.

“Huh! What do you mean?” the Shark countered.

Sam waved a hand in a sweeping gesture. “Why, all that—out there. How much room is there?”

“Clear ground or space within the fences?”

“Clear ground.”

“Ten acres, plus.”

“Oh!” said Sam. “That’s quite a lot.”

“Huh!”

There was an odd note in the Shark’s tone. Sam glanced at him keenly; suspicion seized him that the other might have an inkling of what was in his mind.

“I—I’m wondering if there’s room for—well, for something,” he said suggestively.

The Shark grunted. “Umph! So’m I”; turned; stalked away. Sam chuckled. His suspicion was strengthened, but his liking for the Shark was not lessened. Plainly that youth could keep a secret with the best of them.

Sam strolled on, crossing the field and coming to the road. There he paused for a little. A wagon loaded high with boards for the new buildings went creaking by; a farmer jogged along on his way back from town; then a touring automobile, with much luggage in its tonneau, sped by, raising a great cloud of dust. Plainly, there was a good deal of traffic, of one sort or another, but Sam reflected comfortably that the camp would be far enough from the highway to escape its bustle.

He was about to turn back, when the sharp bark of a motorcycle caught his ear, and in a moment more the machine shot around a bend in the road. It was traveling at a great pace, which slackened quickly when the rider caught sight of the figure by the roadside. Sam could not repress a start of surprise. His eyes were good, and in spite of the semi-disguise of goggles and low-drawn cap he recognized Zorn, even as he perceived that the traveler intended to halt for parley.

Zorn stopped his machine abreast of Sam, hopped nimbly from his saddle, and dropped the support by which it could be held upright. He pushed back his cap and pulled off his goggles.

“Parker, this is lucky,” he said. “I’ve been wanting a chance to talk things over with you, when we’d be nice and private with nobody to rubber.”

Sam met the overture coldly. “I don’t know that I want to talk to you.”

Zorn grinned. “Well, you can’t very well help yourself—unless you run away.”

“Oh, I’ve things enough to say,” Sam responded sharply. “I’ve just been waiting for the right time.”

“Don’t worry—this is it! Never’ll be a better time or place for what you’re going to hear.... Look here! Had enough, have you?”

Sam stared at the other. “Enough? What are you driving at?”

“You oughtn’t to need maps. That election the other day proved that you and your gang are done for—unless I lend you a hand.”

“What kind of a hand?”

Zorn showed his teeth, though his speech was pacific. “A helping hand. You’re in bad—the lot of you.”

“Oh! Are we?”

“You are. The whole school believes you’re a crowd of cheats and tattletales.”

Sam kept his temper, and that he did so was proof of the discipline he had had in self-mastery. Moreover, it had flashed upon him that it was his business to learn, so far as he might, the purpose of Zorn in the campaign he had waged against the club. Purely as a matter of preference he would have chosen to resort then and there to violence, but a fight would cut short the explanation he so greatly desired. So he said, quietly enough:

“There’s no truth in it. Nobody knows that better than you do.”

“I know you gave Walker away.”

“I had no such intention.”

“And he’s under sentence for breaking rules and then lying about what he’d done.”

“Walker neither broke rules nor lied.”

Zorn shrugged contemptuously. “Oh, what’s the use, Parker? You can sing that song till you’re black in the face, and it’ll do you no good. You’re in a hole, and you can’t get yourself or your crowd out. You’ve got to have the helping hand, I tell you, and I’m the only fellow who can extend it to you.”

“Meaning that as you started all the lies about us, nobody but you can stop ’em?”

At that Zorn scowled. “See here, Parker! I’m not fussy, but if we’re to do business, you’d better keep a civil tongue in your head. Cut out the ‘lie’ foolishness! This thing didn’t require lying. You and Walker managed to mess things so, the plain record convicts you.”

“The record, as you call it, is wrong, mistaken.”

“What if it is? It stands till it’s disproved. And who’s going to disprove it? You can’t.”

“Can you?” Sam shot back at him.

“Sure I can,” said Zorn coolly.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Why should I? What have you or your push ever done for me?”

Sam checked the hot speech that trembled on his lips. “Wait a minute, Zorn,” he said. “Let me get this straight. It sounds as if you wanted to strike a bargain. Is that the idea?”

“To a dot! Fine! You’re waking up!”

“And if we do something for you, you’ll clear the record for us? You’ll go to all the people you’ve told your story to, and you’ll take it back? You’ll straighten out things for Trojan Walker with the principal? You’ll tell who did the mean work, who took that book into the examination, who——”

Zorn stopped him. “Pull up, Parker! Suppose there was crooked work—suppose there wasn’t—suppose all the trouble came from a queer accident. I’m not saying which it was. All I am saying is that I can fix your crowd and fix ’em right—clean the slate for ’em—all that. Will you be sensible and make a trade?”

“What kind of a trade?”

Zorn took a step nearer Sam, who was standing on the outer bank of the narrow roadside ditch. The movement brought the two boys very close together.

“This is straight talk—understand? I mean business.”

“All right,” said Sam. “Go on!”

“I’ll see the slate’s cleaned for you and your crowd, if——”

“If what?”

“If you’ll do what I want you to do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Back me up. I’ve got some plans. You can help me—you and your gang. You can help me a lot.”

“How?” Sam shot the query at Zorn.

Zorn’s answer was prompt enough; plainly, he had his ideas clearly formulated.

“The way to get a thing is to make up your mind just what you want and then go for it. Now, I want to be boss of the class and of the school next year—I don’t make any bones about it—to you.”

Sam smiled, a little grimly. “Go on,” he said.

“To be boss, I’ve got to have backing. I need yours—and by yours I mean your whole club’s.”

“Backing for what?”

“Well, to begin with, there’s the meeting to form a County Inter-School Athletic Association. One Junior will be on our school’s committee. I’m after that job, and I want a practically unanimous election by the class. I can have it, if your crowd will swing into line. Then, there’s talk of a school athletic council next year. If I land one, I can land the other, too. Then there’s the Valley Debating League. It hasn’t amounted to much lately, but I can get hold of it, and build it up. And there are some other things—never mind them now, though; they’ll naturally follow the others.”

Sam stared at Zorn; there was more than a trace of amazement in his expression.

“Whew! but you’re scheming to be a regular Pooh-Bah! You want to be the whole thing!”

Zorn nodded coolly. “That’s the ticket, Parker. No use pretending anything else. But there isn’t a thing I’ve mentioned that I can’t have, if your club will play my game. I take off my hat to you for the way you hold your bunch together. What’s more, I know perfectly well that you’ve got a lot of influence in the class—and I want that influence. You’re kind of down and out now, but, as I’ve told you, I can put the lot of you back on your feet. That’s worth something, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Sam quietly.

Zorn grinned. “Good! Now we’re coming down to business.”

A fine line showed in Sam’s forehead. “Zorn, this means you want to trade on the fact you can clear the Trojan of charges of which he isn’t guilty.”

“The Trojan and you, too. They’re more down on you—the class, I mean—they’re sorer on you, Parker, than they are on Walker.”

“Because of the lies—no; I’ll call them reports—you’ve spread?”

“That’s better.”

“Then you own up you did make all the trouble? Just what did you tell about us?”

“Never mind what I said. It was enough—and not too much.”

“And you can say enough more to straighten everything out?”

“That’s right—you’ve got the combination.”

“What will you say?”

“You’ll find out—the day you vote as I tell you to.”

Sam’s expression was growing more belligerent. “Zorn, you’re a miserable skunk, but you’ve trapped yourself. You’ve owned up you practically lied about us. When I tell that to folks——”

“Tell, and be hanged! What good will it do you? Nobody’ll believe you!”

“But you said it!”

At that Zorn laughed. “Ho, ho! Parker, you’re a mark, you’re easy! Where’ll be your witnesses?”

“You mean, you’ll deny it?”

“Sure! That’s the advantage of having nobody else around when you’re talking confidentially.”

Sam gasped. Here was a standard of conduct which was new to him. “You—you——”

“Oh, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Zorn interposed. “I know when to make speeches to a crowd, and when to take ’em one at a time. Nobody has heard what I’ve told you to-day; you can’t bring witnesses. My word is as good as yours—no; better. I haven’t got the school down on me. But that’s not the first question, which is, will you do business?”

“No—not that sort of business!” Sam cried wrathfully.

Zorn scowled. “You’re an idiot, then. I offer you a chance to get yourself and your crowd in right again, and you won’t have it, eh? What do you want? What do you propose to do?”

“Thrash you!” said Sam promptly. “There’s a licking coming to you, Zorn, and after what you’ve said to-day, it’s time you had it.”

Zorn laughed scornfully. “Guess I’ll have something more to say about that, Parker. The fellow that can whip me doesn’t wear your shoes.”

SAM BEGAN TO WRIGGLE OUT OF HIS JACKET

Sam began to wriggle out of his jacket. “You wait a minute, and we’ll see about that!” he said curtly.

But Zorn didn’t wait. There was a second in which Sam, with his arms still held by the sleeves of his half-removed coat, was helpless against attack. Zorn improved the chance, though by the schoolboy code he was violating all the principles of fair play. He struck Sam a vicious blow on the forehead. Under the impact Sam reeled; lost his footing; slipped down the bank of the ditch, and measured his length on the ground. As he struggled to his feet, and completed the task of freeing himself from his coat, Zorn, who had sprung to his machine and started his motor, was out of reach and retreating at speed.

Sam shouted a challenge to him to halt and accept combat. It is doubtful if Zorn heard his voice above the bark of the motor, but at that instant he turned in his saddle and waved a derisive farewell.

CHAPTER XI

SAM HEARS OF THE SARACEN

Sam laid before his friends the story of Zorn’s curious proposal, but said nothing of the manner of his parting with the adversary. Not that he was disposed to forget the treacherous blow; indeed, his determination some day to visit physical retribution upon the other was stronger than ever, but he felt that there were more important and pressing questions to be answered before he could dispose of his personal feud with Zorn.

The offer made by Zorn puzzled the clan. How could he clean the slate, as he had said? How could he establish, to the satisfaction of the faculty, that the Trojan had not broken the rules? How could he persuade the school that Sam had not been an intentional witness against Walker? The club held long and serious debate on these matters. Step was of opinion that Zorn was acting in bad faith, and cared only to secure the support of the club. This obtained, he would simply not attempt to carry out his agreement.

“Why, he’d just snap his fingers at us and laugh in our faces,” Step insisted. “When we kicked, he’d call us easy marks and ask us what we were going to do about it. But if it ever comes to a vote, count me against Ed Zorn, first, last and all the time.”

Poke agreed with his chum. Zorn was bluffing, he argued. Herman Boyd appeared to be less certain that Zorn could do nothing to make good his offer, but was no more disposed than were the others to accept it. The Shark shrugged his shoulders.

“How can you figure this out?” he growled. “No known quantities! All guesswork and say-so!”

The Trojan, who logically might have been expected to display most interest in the proposal, was indifferent. The feeling that he had been treated with gross unfairness was still strong with him, and made him bitter to a degree which sometimes taxed even Sam’s patience.

Orkney had little to say; but, as Sam observed, was not inclined to regard Zorn as unable to carry out his proposal. Questioned in private, Tom confessed a good deal of appreciation of Zorn’s capacity for mischief.

“I’ve been picking up what I could about the stories that have been spread about the school,” Orkney explained, “and they’re corkers, all right! I don’t wonder we’re in bad. About one part truth and nine parts fake—that’s the way with them. But the grain of fact seems to save the mass of falsehood. And they’re clever and ingenious—that’s what makes it so hard to try to disprove them. So I’m sure Zorn is at the bottom of the row, and just as sure that he knows what he is about, and has some definite scheme he is following out. And if part of that scheme calls for undoing what he’s done—why, he’s the one fellow who can undo it.”

“But how?” Sam queried.

Orkney shook his head. “I don’t know. Mind you, he took care not to give you a line on his method. He said, didn’t he, that all the trouble might have come from a ‘queer accident’ or from ‘crooked work’—he wasn’t saying which it was? Well, then! What he meant was that we’d have to deal with his offer blindfolded, as it were, and trust to his word. He was taking pains not to give you any more information than he had to give. It all fits in with the rest of his performance.”

“But you’re not for taking up with him?”

“Not on your life!” said Tom curtly. “We’ll beat him yet, and we’ll beat him without any low-down deals.”

Sam nodded. “That’s my notion, too. Clever as he is, he’ll make some false step, or a break’ll come somewhere. You can’t beat the truth in the long run.”

“You’ve said it!” Orkney agreed with conviction.

Sam laughed. “But Lon said it first,” he remarked.

For all the boys it was a relief to turn from plots and intrigues to the good sport of planning and building the camp. Possibly the plans were more entertaining than their execution. Poke and Step left details to the others, who put their heads together and discussed the rival merits of a tent and a shack, and finally sought Lon’s advice.

Lon, as it proved, favored a tent.

“You see, boys, you’re more or less transients,” he explained. “Now, there’ll be some things that’ll be like the mumps—you can’t tell how much they’ll bother till you’ve had a go with ’em. Take the ’skeeters, for instance. The old pond used to have a sight of ’em, and you don’t know whether they’ve moved out jest because it’s been turned into a lake. Then there’s the fishin’. It used to be prime off the big rock, but fish are notional as folks, and as freaky. Then, too, there’s the permission to use the land—who owns that shore, anyway?”

None of the club could answer the question.

“Well, you’d better find out,” Lon counseled. “Course, in the old days, if you wanted to put in a week or so in the woods, it was a case of move in and welcome, so long’s you behaved and didn’t cut growin’ timber, and didn’t start forest fires——By the way, boys, that’s a thing you’ll have to be careful about; it’s gettin’ powerful tindery in the woods this dry spell. But nowadays we’re gettin’ fashionable, and they’re cuttin’ up lots along the lake shore, and owners may be fussy. So, seems to me I wouldn’t be making many permanent improvements anywhere till I found out whether I was goin’ to be allowed to enjoy the use and usufruct o’ the same.... Two dollars, please!”

“What for?” the boys chorused.

“My fee for legal advice!” Lon chuckled. “Reg’lar office rate, ain’t it? Settle up!”

“Guess you’ll have to charge it,” Sam told him.

“Can’t do that, but I’ll drop out to the camp when you’re settled, and take it out in board and lodgin’s.”

“That’s all right,” Sam declared. “But we’ll want to have you along, anyway.”

“Then find out whose land you’re on, and get his permission. I allers did hate to be waked up at midnight and told to move on because I was trespassin’.”

“We’ll attend to it,” Sam said. It was good and sensible advice, and he meant to improve it; but, as it chanced, there was a difficulty in the way. Division lines in wooded tracts are often very faintly indicated; even neighbors’ ideas on the subject are vague. Sam made inquiries; failed to gain light; discovered nobody who offered objections, and came to the conclusion that a tent pitched near the big rock was not likely to lead to protest.

Tom Orkney had an old tent, somewhat in need of patches and repairs; Herman Boyd produced the remnants of one still older but furnishing material for strengthening the other. The club massed its strength for cutting and sewing, fitting fresh guy ropes and providing pegs. Then one afternoon Lon announced himself ready to transport the equipment to the lake, and Sam started out to round up his clan.

Orkney, the Trojan and Herman were reached by telephone, but the Shark was not at home. Sam, descending upon the airship builders, found him in consultation with Poke and Step. Poke’s barn was more than ever like a cavern of mystery. The blankets at the windows were drawn back for the sake of better light for the workers, but the confusion of tools, cans, motor parts and wire had multiplied since Sam’s former visit. In the midst of it all loomed the framework of the wings.

Sam peered at the machine with lively curiosity.

“Hulloo! Going to make it a monoplane, are you?” said he. “When I was here before you hadn’t decided.”

Poke coughed, and glanced a bit nervously at the Shark. “Ahem! Why—why, Sam, I guess the monoplane will work better, seeing the kind of motor we’ve got—high speed kind, you know. And the Shark—he says——”

The Shark emitted a sound. It was not a groan, nor a grunt, nor yet a chuckle; but, somehow, it suggested all three. Sam turned to him.

“The other day I guessed you knew something about this, though you kept your own counsel—that day we were looking over the open field near the lake.”

“Umph! Then you guessed right.”

“What do you think of the scheme?”

“Crazy!” snapped the Shark.

There Poke intervened. “Let me explain, Sam! I’m not crazy, and the scheme isn’t crazy. There’s a lot of mathematics in flying. That’s why I called in the Shark to figure out things for me. If anybody can do it, he can. Now, you see, flying is just lifting a load in the air and moving ahead. To do that you’ve got to apply power to a propeller. I’ve told the Shark to calculate how many revolutions a minute the propeller has got to make to do the business for us, and what the plane space should be, and a few other little things like that.”

“Yes, that’s all he wants me to tell him!” jeered the Shark.

“Well, that’s why brains like yours are put in anybody’s head,” quoth Poke, philosophically.

“As if I’d ever specialized on aeronautics! Why, I’ve got to dig the whole thing out!”

“Then you haven’t given your opinion yet?” Sam asked.

“Of course not!” cried the Shark; then he grinned. “I did tell Poke one thing, though. I showed him he’d made his first design of a plane so wide he couldn’t get the contraption through the barn door, no matter how he turned it.”

Poke’s face grew a rosy red. “Oh, that! Well, I guess we did make a little miscalculation. But it didn’t matter. All we’ve got to do is to make up for reduced plane area by increasing the speed of the machine—speeding up the propeller and engine, you know.”

“I don’t know,” said Sam. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Well, I’m right about it. You see, the faster we fly, the bigger the lift. I’ve read that, and it’s plain as the nose of your face, anyway.”

Sam looked his doubts. “I should think there might be trouble in increasing the power indefinitely.”

“Oh, Step’s worked out a plan—have the propeller turn three times, say, instead of two for every revolution of the engine—that’s the idea. I don’t know just the ratio—I’m leaving it to Step and the Shark. But it’ll be all right. The Shark’s a wizard for figuring, and Step’s a cracker jack on the mechanical end!”

“Well, you’ve got to do the best you can with things,” remarked Step complacently.

Sam glanced at the motor. “How’s the wreck working?” he inquired.

“Bully!” said Step.

“Pretty well,” was Poke’s verdict.

“You don’t agree very closely,” Sam commented.

“Oh, well, maybe she skips now and then,” Step admitted. “But I—we, that is—we’ll have her humming like a top before long.”

“Yes, Step’ll attend to that part of it,” said Poke confidently.

The Shark appeared to be tiring of the discussion; for he turned to the door. Reminded of the afternoon’s business, Sam stopped him.

“Lon’s all ready to take us out to the lake. We’ll pitch camp before night.”

“All right! I’ll go along,” said the Shark readily.

“You, too, Poke?”

Poke and Step exchanged glances; then said the former, with a trace of reluctance:

“Why—why, I guess so. Course we’ve got lots to do, but we want to hold up our end with the rest of the club. So we’ll come along, and let the Saracen wait a while.”

“The Saracen?” Sam repeated.

“Confound it, Poke! Can’t you keep anything to yourself?” Step cried reproachfully.

“Oh, that just slipped out!” Poke said ruefully. “I didn’t mean to give it away. But ‘Saracen’ is going to be the name of the machine. Kind of appropriate, don’t you think? You know you always picture Saracens skimming around over deserts and—er—er—over things generally. And that’ll be the way we’ll do. Understand?”

“I do,” Sam assured him with all the gravity he could command.

Poke’s expression betrayed relief. “I thought you would—you’ve got all-’round brains, Sam. The Shark, now—course he’s got brains, of a sort—and mighty good ones of a sort they are—but while he’s a corker at figuring, he can’t seem to rise to the—to the—well, to the romance and poetry of a thing like this.”

The Shark shrugged. “I’d be stronger for this Saracen business, maybe, if there was a desert or two handy.”

Sam was enjoying the conversation, but time was slipping away. He joined the Shark by the door.

“You fellows’d better hurry up,” he said to Poke and Step. “Come over to the house. Lon and the car will be waiting.”

“All right! We’ll come,” they answered together; and Sam, taking the Shark’s arm, marched him off.

CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING TROUT AND OTHER THINGS

The boys of the club stretched themselves out, very much at their ease, with the glowing embers of a camp-fire in the center of their circle. The tent was pitched and made securely fast to well-driven pegs; a ditch was dug about it to take care of surplus water in case of a rain; in one corner was a shake-down of spruce boughs, artfully interwoven into a thick, elastic mattress, which promised a restful bed in case any of the party chose to remain over night in camp. Poke had spent two hours in bringing stones from the lake shore and building a fireplace to his satisfaction. Orkney had cleared a path from the glade to the beach. The Trojan and Herman Boyd had stacked a noble pile of fire-wood. Indeed, everybody had been remarkably busy through the afternoon, and had brought a wonderful appetite to supper, when lunch baskets were unpacked, and a coffee-pot sent forth delicious odors to mingle with those others which come only from bacon frying to a turn in skilful open air cookery. And then there had been the trout! But that was almost a story by itself.

Sam had wondered a bit that Lon, instead of aiding in the work, disappeared soon after the party reached its destination. And Lon was gone for hours. He came back, with a rod (cut from a thicket) over his shoulder and a string of trout, at sight of which the boys raised a shout. They rained inquiries upon him. How many had he caught? Where had he found them? Would he show them the brooks? Trout, be it understood, were much sought by anglers thereabouts, and such a “mess” as Lon had caught was a rarity. But Lon, though much importuned, merely shook his head and laughed. He’d caught his trout “over there,” he said, giving the boys the traditional answer of the lucky fisherman. Would he guide them to the brooks? That depended. He’d see—some day, perhaps—meanwhile, here were some fine fish to be cooked and eaten before they lost their freshness. And as for the cooking—well, Lon called attention to the fortunate chance that he had brought along a special frying-pan, and a piece of pork, and some meal; and modestly remarked that he was something of a chef himself when it came to dealing with trout just out of their native waters. As he more than made good his statement, it was a very toothsome as well as a very merry supper to which the club gave its undivided attention.

Then came the leisurely hour about the fire. In the early twilight of the long spring day, when the shadows were thickening under the trees and the air was taking a hint of crispness, it was good to draw close to the glowing bed of coals and snuggling comfortably in jacket or sweater, chat lightly of the day’s incidents and plan improvements in the camp and expeditions about the surrounding country. Lon, with his back against a stump, was a picture of contentment.

“Tell you, boys, this is the life!” he said. “I’d live it all the while, if ’twa’n’t for jest one little drawback.”

“What’s that, Lon?” Step demanded.

“The need o’ gettin’ three square meals a day. Somehow, my constitution seems to require ’em. It’s funny, but ’long about seven in the mornin’, and again at noon, and once more near sundown I begin to get that gone feelin’ under the belt. And when it comes to supplyin’ victuals reg’lar, the woods ain’t in it with what us poets call the haunts o’ man. It’s a pity it’s true, as we say in rhyme.”

“But that isn’t a rhyme.”

“It’s part of one, anyhow. Don’t expect me to give you a whole recitation, do you?”

“I’d rather hear where you caught those trout.”

“That’s tellin’.”

“Oh, well, I’ve seen bigger ones,” said Sam mischievously.

“Humph! so’ve I,” Lon agreed placidly.

“My uncle got a two-and-a-half-pounder once—I saw it,” Poke contributed.

“Square-tail?” asked Herman.

“Sure!”

“Then it had run into some pond.”

“No; he caught it in a brook.”

“I’ve heard of them as big as that,” said the Trojan.

“Fellow last year was showing one that was over three pounds—brook trout, too,” declared Step.

Tom Orkney shook his head. “I know, I know! You hear such yarns, but, somehow, the proof isn’t conclusive. And if you’re talking about the genuine native trout, and not about some of the imported varieties that have been used to stock the streams——”

There he was interrupted by two or three, speaking at once. “I tell you those big fellows are pond fish!” “The native’s the best of the lot, but he won’t grow so big!” “It’s all a question of food supply—my father says so!”

Tom chose to accept none of the challenges. Instead, he turned to Lon.

“Look here! You’ve fished all the streams around here. What do you say about it?”

“I ain’t sayin’, son. I ain’t quite sure what’s the question before the house.”

“It’s how big will a brook trout grow—in a brook?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you must have some idea,” Tom urged. “What’s the biggest you ever saw?”

“It was so big I’d hate to say jest how big it was.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lon deliberated a moment, while the boys, getting hint of a story, drew closer.

“Well, I say I saw the big fellow, but that’s sort o’ misleadin’. I didn’t see well enough to go to measurin’ or estimatin’ in feet and inches, or in pounds, for that matter. But I did see Old Man Freeman’s William Trout, and he was a buster, I tell ye!”

“Freeman’s William Trout?” Sam repeated. “What’s that? A species?”

“Nope—straight brook trout. Leastwise, Old Man Freeman said so.”

“Seems to me I’ve heard of Freeman,” Poke put in. “Guess my father knew about him.”

“Likelier your grandfather. ’Twas a good ways back when he flourished. I was a little shaver fust off in our acquaintance.”

“Let’s have the story!” cried Step.

“Yes—the story!” echoed Poke.

“Well, I ain’t got my notes with me, but I’ll do my best to entertain the company,” said Lon. “Way of it was this: When I was the age of you chaps—no; I guess ’twas when I was a size smaller—there wasn’t anything I’d rather do than get out on a good brook ’long in the spring. And there wa’n’t many brooks in my part o’ the country that I didn’t try to see if they was good or not. So that was how, workin’ along a stream way back in the hills one day, I stumbled on Old Man Freeman’s place.

“It was a new brook to me, and there was a lot of woods, so I was doin’ a heap o’ wadin’, the brook bein’ the nearest thing to a path there was. I wasn’t payin’ much attention to the scenery, and I guess I plumb forgot it when I come to jest about the most promisin’ lookin’ pool you ever sot eyes on. But I hadn’t more’n dropped in my hook when there was a roar like a bull’s, and a wild old codger was rushin’ at me. He grabbed me by the collar, and yanked me up the bank, and began to shake my back teeth loose. Course, I wriggled and fit like a cat, but ’twa’n’t no use. Mebbe that was so plain it kinder reminded him what a little fellow I was, for, after a while, he quit treatin’ me like a bottle o’ medicine before takin’, and stopped to have a good look at me. Then he asked me, mighty sharp, what in tarnation I meant by tryin’ to catch his pet trout Bill, and why I didn’t stay home and tend to my own business, or couldn’t my folks find nothin’ for me to do.

“Well, I got back breath enough to say that I didn’t mean no harm, and I’d never heard tell o’ his Bill, and if he didn’t leggo o’ me he’d be sorry—you know the kind o’ oratory a youngster puts up in a case like that. I guess it didn’t skeer him none; but it gave him a chance to look me over some more. All of a sudden he says, ‘Boy, you watch sharp, and you won’t have to have nobody tell you about Old Man Freeman’s Bill. Now look!’

“Then he lets go my collar, and steps forward, and bends over the water, and pats it two-three times with his cupped hand. And there’s a swish and a swirl, and something comes shootin’ across the pool. And the something’s the biggest trout I’d ever see or ever dreamed of. Not that I made him out like print, as you might say—I couldn’t tell jest where he began or where he ended, but in between them p’ints was a mighty lot o’ concentrated trout. He whirled around the old man’s hand—playin’ tag with him, by jingo!—and then he shot back across the pool like a streak o’ fish lightnin’.

“I guess I gave a gasp like a fish out o’ water. ‘My eye, Mister,’ says I, ‘but he’s bigger’n I be!’

“Now, a joke’s like the measles; you never can tell how good it’s goin’ to take hold; sometimes it’s jest a flat failure like a case o’ mock measles. Then again it’s the real thing. That was the way with Old Man Freeman. Somehow I’d hit his funny bone, and hit it hard. He looked at me for a minute, his face creasin’ crosswise till I thought the skin’d crack. And then he hawhawed. Boys, I tell you, I never heard such a laugh before! It fair creaked, his laughin’ machinery was so rusty from lack o’ use! And he shook till I thought his old clothes’d drop off him. But that laugh did a lot. It made me and Old Man Freeman friends for life.”

“But didn’t he tell you how much his trout weighed?” Poke demanded.

Lon shook his head. “He didn’t; for he didn’t know. He didn’t have no more scales than a hornpout.”

“You mean the big trout didn’t?”

“I mean Old Man Freeman. He didn’t have many o’ what you’d call luxuries. Fact is, he lived like a hermit in a cabin beside the brook. He trapped some, and raised a few vegetables, and got along somehow. He’d no kith or kin, so far’s I ever heard of. And about his only interest in life was his Bill Trout. He’d sit beside the pool, and talk to that fish same’s if he was a human. And he fed him—oh, yes; Bill didn’t go hungry if Old Man Freeman did. Later on I found that if I wanted to be real popular, the way to do it was to bring along a couple o’ pound o’ liver for Bill Trout. And Bill seemed to understand a heap—for a fish. He’d let the old man pet him; and he got so he didn’t mind havin’ me around, though we never got what you’d call real familiar.”

“But you’re not giving us much light on how much a trout can weigh,” Sam objected, as Lon paused.

“Well, for one thing, I ain’t quite through with the story. Happened there was a long spell when I couldn’t go to see Old Man Freeman. I was down country, workin’. Must ’a’ been all of five-six years before I got out to the cabin. The old man didn’t know me fust off, I’d growed so. Fact is, he come at me mighty hostile with a shotgun; but when I’d persuaded him I was jest a small boy shot up a foot or two, he allowed I didn’t need no more shootin’, and was real glad to see me.

“‘And what’s become o’ Bill?’ says I. ‘Hangin’ round the place yet, is he?’

“‘William Trout is very well, thanky; if it’s him you’re alludin’ to,’ says the old codger, mighty solemn.

“‘William Trout?’ says I, kinder questioning.

“‘Yes, William,’ says he, waggin’ his head like a good fellow. ‘It ain’t fittin’ and proper to be puttin’ no nicknames on a fish o’ his heft and trainin’. But come along and take a look at William.’

“Well, we went down to the pool, and Old Man Freeman cupped his hand and slapped the water. There was a sunbeam pourin’ down through a break in the leaves overhead, and hittin’ the water so that right in the middle was a space all bright and shinin’, and around it a band of still and shadowy surface. The big trout must ’a’ been feelin’ his oats that day, for as he shot out of the shadow and into the brightness he gave a leap. Jerusalem! Talk about prisms and rainbows! There he was for jest a second, archin’ like the bow and blazin’ like a sunset, with the gleamin’ drops fallin’ from him in a shower of jewels. Then, splash! He was under again, and the water near the old man’s hand was a boilin’ swirl. This time I didn’t even gasp. I hadn’t breath enough left. I jest stood there, shakin’.”

“But how big was he?” persisted Poke.

Lon hesitated an instant. “I—well, I ain’t sayin’ what my guess would be—and it’d have to be a guess. If I told the whole truth—or what I believe’s the truth—none o’ you’d believe me. I dunno’s Ananias ever went fishin’, but there’s them as’d figger he’d ’a’ had a special gift that way. And I never sot out to qualify in the Ananias class.”

“But you must have some notion?”

“Yes; I have a notion,” Lon said slowly. “It’s a notion that I’ve seen ‘lakers’ paraded as big fish that weren’t as husky chaps as Old Man Freeman’s square-tail William Trout. But that’s as fur as I’ll go.”

There was a moment’s silence in the group about the fire. Sam ended it.

“I’ve heard my father say size was pretty much a matter of conditions. So, with the right conditions, I suppose a brook trout could do pretty well.”

Lon nodded. “That’s about it, Sam. And William Trout was a reg’lar parlor boarder. He lived in a nat’ral trout brook, which means a brook that yields trout food; then Old Man Freeman kept fattin’ up his rations. So he had nothin’ to do but keep on growin’ and growin’.”

“But I should think somebody’d have caught him,” Step put in.

“The old man stood guard. He’d posted his land with ‘No fishin’’ signs, and he was runnin’ a shotgun quarantine to boot. Fact is, he peppered two-three trespassers with birdshot, and after that got to be known he wasn’t bothered much.”

“But why did the fish stay in the pool? Why didn’t he run down stream or up?”

Lon chuckled. “That was where Old Man Freeman figgered again. He liked to let on that William Trout lingered from pure affection for him, but I noticed that what with rocks and wire there was a fairly effective fish-screen below the pool. It didn’t show much, but it was there. And there was another a lot like it higher up. No; the big trout was caged all right. And that, I reckon, was why Old Man Freeman come to be dead where they found him.”

“Go on! Tell us!” cried two or three together.

“Well, that summer I was out to see the old man half a dozen times. He was growin’ mighty stiff and feeble, and more obstinate and notional about William Trout. He’d sit on the bank for hours, mumblin’ to himself and talkin’ to that fish. And William—he was livelier’n a cricket, but, somehow, I never seemed to get a chance to look him over, cool and calculatin’. The old man let on he was worryin’ about what’d happen to William, if he should be took sick, allowin’ that the critter’d die of a broken heart or some such foolishness. I tried to cheer him up, but it didn’t do no good. William’d pine and waste away, and that was all there was to it. But one day, when I heard that Old Man Freeman was dead, and that somebody’d found him lyin’ between the brook and his cabin, and when I went out to the place—well, I’ll own up I took a look for William Trout. I couldn’t spy him nowhere in the pool. I cupped the water, but he didn’t come. Then I prodded around with a pole, and still no William! That sot me thinkin’. I moseyed down to the screen below the pool, and sure enough, the wires was cut. I reckoned I knew what had happened. The old man must ’a’ felt the last attack comin’ on, and used up what strength he had gettin’ to the wire and clearin’ a way for William to scoot—he didn’t mean to have no fellow with a net scoopin’ up the big fish and never givin’ him a chance. And William, he found the gap, and vamoosed; and the old man, he tried to get back to the cabin, and dropped half-way. So that was the end of the story for both of them, so far as I ever heard tell.”

“But didn’t anybody ever catch the big trout?” queried Step.

“Enough tried—they fair wore a path along the bank below the pool; but nobody landed William. There were a couple o’ ponds the brook run through, and he might ’a’ stayed in one of ’em, or then again he might ’a’ navigated right through to the big river. Anyhow, he dropped out o’ sight, and stayed out. And that’s the end of the story. And the moral of it? Well, I dunno’s there’s any moral, exactly, except that you can’t get me to say how big a brook trout can grow.”

“Where’s the brook he lived in?” asked Poke.

“Oh, over there!” Lon said, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Some ways off. And ’twouldn’t interest you boys now—there ain’t no more William Trouts in it.” Then he rose to his feet, and his tone changed. “Look here, youngsters! Time we was movin’ along, if you don’t expect to put up here over night. You get me yarnin’ about my misspent youth, and I don’t notice how late it’s gettin’ to be.”

The club followed his example, and rose, not too willingly. The dusk had deepened, but it was still very pleasant to lounge about the dying fire.

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to go back to town,” Sam said reluctantly. “There’s school in the morning, as usual.”

“That’s so—worse luck!” growled Step.

Lon began to kick dirt upon the embers.

“No use takin’ unnecessary chances,” he remarked. “It’s powerful dry in the woods just now, and you never can tell what’d happen if a breeze should spring up and find a spark to carry. And this ain’t a good country to fight a healthy forest fire in. Too much truck jest waitin’ to burn, I tell you!”

“Huh! I’d like to see a good, ripping old fire once,” said Step. “I’ve never had the luck to be close to one.”

“Then you’ve been luckier than you know,” said Lon drily, and sent a shower of dust upon the coals.

CHAPTER XIII

PLAYING THE GAME

The camp at the lake very quickly proved its value to Sam and his friends. It gave them a place of resort, an occupation. Poke and Step continued to be absorbed in the construction of their aeroplane, but the others were glad to have an excuse for a hike, or an overnight stay under canvas, or a week-end outing. Gradually they were adding to the equipment; and were making a comfortable nest in the woods. Possibly their zeal was increased by the fact that their relations with the rest of the class showed no improvement.

Privately, Sam speculated a good deal about this. In his experience school disputes had a way of wearing themselves out, so to speak. It was quite true that the Safety First Club was not making overtures to the others; but ordinarily in the boy-world, as he knew it, something would happen to make everybody forget temporarily causes of offense and leave feuds a little dulled. In this instance, though, there were no amicable interludes. What might be called a state of armed neutrality continued. Sam, meditating, reached the conclusion that Zorn was still taking the trouble to circulate his stories to the discredit of the club.

In one way or another, Sam chanced to see little of Zorn for a week or two after their roadside interview. He was still urging his chums to keep a close watch upon the doings of the enemy, but none of them made discoveries throwing light upon the problem Zorn offered.

The Trojan continued to demand Sam’s vigilance. He had reached a sort of acceptance of the situation, and with the coaching of his friends in Latin was keeping up his classwork, after a fashion; but there was no heart in his performance. The sense of suffering from injustice rankled, and whatever he did was because of his promise to Sam rather than because of desire to hold his place in the school.

Lon, in these days, was a tower of strength to Sam. He was shrewd and observant, and really understood the position of the club and its difficulties.

“Keep at it; play the game!” was his advice. “I don’t go to say it’s the best game you could have picked out; but then, again, I ain’t sayin’ it’s the wust. And with any game I ever see or heard tell on, the only thing to do was to play it honest and play it through, and keep your eyes open and learn what the game’ll teach you. The one thing that sure ain’t got no use or profit in it is wobblin’, and shiftin’, and changin’ your mind back and forth like a feller experimentin’ with his fust pair o’ shoes that’s rights and lefts. That’s what I says to Poke the other day, when he had me over to take a squint at that blessed Scary Hen o’ his.”

“‘Scary Hen?’” Sam repeated dubiously.

“Yep! That bird contrivance he’s putting together.”

“Oh, you mean his Saracen,” said Sam, enlightened.

Lon nodded. “I’m callin’ it the Scary Hen—I do love a name that fits! You see, he had me in, sort o’ consultin’ engineer-like, to paw over that old motor he acquired from Philanthropist Haskins. It’s sure some engine!”

“But it never will work, will it—for Poke’s purposes, I mean?”

Lon rubbed his chin. “Well, I dunno. Somehow, way I’m built in mind and body, I kinder fancy having a foot or a wheel touchin’ ground. I never was intended to scoot round, bumpin’ the birds. So mebbe I’m prejudiced, when it comes to flyin’ machines. But that old motor—well, it’s an antique, all right, and it’s got trimmin’s I hain’t seen in years, and I reckon it’s a gasoline hog for keeps, but ’tis high speed, sure enough. Likely’s not ’twas made for some old-time racin’ car. And I will say Poke or Step, one of ’em, has got a knack with machinery; for they’ve got Methusaleh to workin’ so well that I wouldn’t trust myself behind him, if he was rigged in a road roller. But as for what they will do with the power they’re generatin’, and the schemes they’ve figgered out to twirl the propeller—say, that sort o’ stuff is all off my beat. I did give ’em a hint or two about changin’ wirin’, but there I stopped. And as for the name of the contraption—say, now, Sam! if those boys don’t scare the feathers off every hen in ten mile, I’m missin’ my guess. That motor’ll work fast enough, but it coughs like a million chokin’ dogs, and the way it misses fire now and then—whew! but it’s enough to make a man or a rooster jump out of his skin! But Poke says mufflers are barred on flyin’ machines, and so there you are! You’ve got to be in the fashion if you bust all the neighbors’ ear-drums.”

Sam, who had no confidence in Poke’s great experiment, next consulted the Shark, whom he found to be pessimistic, but guarded in statement.

“I haven’t got it worked out yet for Poke,” he said, “and until I finish the calculation, I’m not going to open my head, except to remark that I guess most flyers have to make a lot of tests and take some tumbles before they soar. Just now, though, I’m trying to find out just what will happen when a given propeller turns a given number of times in a second and there’s a given area of plane. I don’t know yet, but I’m going to know.”

Well as he knew the Shark and highly as he respected his mathematical talents, Sam was impressed.

“Geeminy! But that’s a stunt you’ve set yourself!”

“Certainly it is,” said the Shark calmly. “If it wasn’t one, I wouldn’t bother with it. I’d never dabbled in aeronautics, you know, and it’s more or less of a job to look up the formulæ. No; if it wasn’t for the sport of calculating——”

“Sport!” Sam interrupted, incredulously.

“Best ever!”

“Well, it’s all in the way you look at it. And—er—er—one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

“Course!” the Shark shrugged. “And if I didn’t find the game worth the candle, you don’t think, do you, that I’d be fussing with this scheme of Poke’s? There’d be a deal easier way to answer the question whether or not his machine would fly—the empirical way.”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“Let him try to fly and see what happens.”

“But he might break his neck.”

“Well, he’d have the answer then, wouldn’t he?”

“Maybe—but it wouldn’t do him much good.”

“True—but the question would be answered,” observed the Shark, unemotionally. “That’s the main point of interest.”

Sam did not think it worth while to dispute the assertion. Instead, he left the Shark to his calculations, and hied him to Poke’s barn.

There a glance revealed much apparent progress. Motor and plane had been brought together—assembled, as Poke hastened to explain.

“If this were a boat, we’d be ready for dock trials,” said he. “That’ll show you how far we’ve got along.”

“Why don’t you make it one of the boat kind—hydro-aeroplanes, aren’t they?” Sam asked. “Then, if you fell into the water——”

“Shucks! I don’t intend to fall,” Poke put in hastily. “And there’d be no use in pontoon attachments. I’m going to do my flying at fairs mostly, where there wouldn’t be any ponds handy; for fairs are where the money will be, and I’m out for the cash.”

“Oh! I remember,” said Sam, and drew closer to inspect the machine.

The contrivance was supported on bicycle wheels. The use of these and of the planes—Poke appeared to have decided on a biplane model—Sam understood in a general way, but he was all at sea about the functions of various levers and cords grouped about the operator’s seat, a bicycle saddle fitted with a back and perched not too securely, by his notion, on the framework. It occurred to the visitor that the spread of wing was not so great as he had supposed it would have to be; and he ventured a remark to this effect.

Poke waved a careless hand. “Oh, that’s all right—increased speed of motor has ’tended to that difficulty. Don’t you worry, Sam!”

Sam said nothing, but moved slowly around the machine, eyeing it closely.

“I’d give you a demonstration—kind of a drill, that is,” said Poke, “if all the rigging were complete. But it isn’t, quite. Step, you see, is working out the details—he’s a crackerjack of a mechanic—regular genius. Just now some of his ideas are sort of—well, sort of in embryo—and things aren’t fixed just the way they’ll be when we’re ready to give an exhibition. That’ll be before very long, though.”

“So?”

“Yes; Step and I have figured out just what to do. When we’re ready for practice flights, we’ll take the Saracen out to the lake, where there’s elbow-room in the big field, and where we won’t be bothered by crowds. There’s an old shed in which we can keep the machine at night, and we’ll take care to lug it out to the lake without attracting attention. This is a private affair till we get ready for public exhibitions, you know.”

“But lots of people must have been getting some sort of an idea about it—an idea, anyway, that you’re up to something.”

“Well, the motor does make a racket when we give it a test whirl. Then some fellows have come rubbering around—that’s true. But Step and I haven’t peeped. Why, the other day, Jack Hagle——” There Poke paused, a line of perplexity showing, of a sudden, in his forehead. “I say, Sam! there was something funny about Hagle’s actions. You know what a queer way he has sometimes—almost hang-dog, it’s so cringing? Well, he was fair ready to fawn all over us, but the funny part was, he wanted to talk about the Trojan. It was as if he made our scheme an excuse for asking about our gang, first in general and then in particular about the Trojan. And he said he was sorry for him—he said it twice. He didn’t explain, though.”

“Did you ask him to?”

“N-no. You see, we wanted to get rid of him, so we didn’t make any more talk than we had to. After he’d gone we happened to think of the queer side of his performance.”

“Umph!” said Sam, non-committally. He regretted that Poke had not encouraged Hagle to talk, but understood that at present the Saracen represented almost everything the builder deemed worth a thought. Jack Hagle, shuffling, vacillating, a weakling, counted for little in the opinion of the boys of the town; it was not cause for wonder that Poke had been glad to be rid of him. But Sam was beginning to suspect that in some way or other, at present beyond his knowledge, Hagle might be able to throw light on the mystery which lay at the bottom of the troubles of the club.

About this time, too, Herman Boyd made a discovery, which caused Sam some uneasiness. There had been a sale of land near the lake, the purchase being made by a syndicate in which Zorn’s father was interested.

“I couldn’t find out just the boundaries,” Herman reported, “but I was told that the tract is across the lake from the pavilion. That’d put it somewhere in our district.”

Sam nodded. “It might, certainly.... If it does, I reckon we may have to move—if Ed Zorn can stir up his father to evict us.”

“Well, the Zorns have taken one of the new cottages. I hear quite a number of families are going to be in the lake colony this summer.”

“Umph! If they don’t bother us, we’ll agree not to bother them,” Sam remarked. “We are managing to flock by ourselves pretty successfully.”

“Oh, that’s our game, all right,” declared Herman.

“And we’ll play it through,” Sam insisted.

“Sure! Only—only,”—Herman hesitated—“only it’s curious, Sam, how long this row with the rest of the class keeps up.”

“Well, we didn’t start it, but we can stand it as long as the other fellows can. They can let us alone, and we can let them alone—and that’s all there is to it.”

But “letting alone” is not always an easy course, in affairs either great or small. So Sam was convinced when he heard of the battle between Tom Orkney and Scrub Payne, who, it will be recalled, had blacked Poke’s eye in the early stages of the feud. Orkney had vowed to avenge his friend, and had not forgotten his pledge. Accordingly, when he came upon Poke and Payne in the middle of an excited group, and heard loud sounds of dispute, he shouldered a way through the press and was just in time to see Scrub cuff the smaller boy.

Orkney caught Scrub’s arm and half turned him in his tracks.

“Take somebody of your size!” he challenged. “Cut out this hazing the kids!”

At that Poke flamed in wrath against his ally. “Kid yourself, Orkney!” he roared. “Say, you keep out of this! I can do my own fighting.”

“All right, fight me—afterward,” said Orkney coolly. “Don’t bother me now, though. I’ve had a date with this fellow for a good while, and I’m going to keep it.”

Payne did not shun combat. Indeed, he hastened it; for he struck Orkney sharply in the chest. Tom, who had been vigilantly watching for just such an overture, countered heavily on Scrub’s forehead. The crowd fell back at once, leaving space for the opponents; and in another instant the fight was in full progress.

In weight there was little advantage on either side, though Payne had greater height and longer reach. Neither was a highly skilled boxer. The one great point in Orkney’s favor was a certain grim determination which counted amazingly in helping him endure punishment, of which, it must be confessed, he took a deal, largely because he was so bent on inflicting it. It was, in short, a “hammer and tongs” affair, as Poke subsequently described it to Sam, with Orkney playing for the other’s head and bent on repaying Poke’s blackened eye in kind; with no rounds, with scant thought of the rules. Long the issue hung in the balance. So well matched were the two, in fact, that many of the onlookers supposed Payne was at least holding his own, when, suddenly, he threw an arm over his sorely battered face, whipped about, and took to his heels, leaving Tom an undisputed victor, but one who manifestly had had to pay for his victory.

Poke escorted Orkney home; then hastened to Sam, to whom he told his tale of battle.

“Say, but it was a ripping old fight!” was his conclusion. “And we were on top! Sam, it’s the turn in the luck for the Safety First Club!”

“I hope it is,” Sam answered gravely. At the moment he was sharply reminded by Orkney’s achievement of his own yet to be settled account with Zorn.

CHAPTER XIV

AGAIN AT THE COUNCIL ROCK

Orkney’s battle with Scrub Payne made a great stir in the school. There were some evidences of a change in the popular temper, which might be taken to bear out Poke’s view that the luck had turned. Sam and his chums noted more signs of good will; they had reason to believe that some of the boys who had voted with them at the election of a class secretary were now ready to ally themselves openly with the club. On the other hand, though, there was nothing to indicate that Zorn was losing his hold upon the majority of the class, between whom and the club the line continued to be sharply drawn.

The club still flocked by itself. No outsider had been invited to visit the camp on the lake shore, and no visitor appeared there. On the other side of the sheet of water activities were increasing. Although the buildings had not been completed, the big pavilion was in condition for use, and a band played there Saturday afternoons and evenings. Some of the cottages were occupied, and there was much travel on the road leading from town to the new resort. On several occasions Sam saw Zorn speeding along on his motorcycle, going at a great pace and raising a thick cloud of dust; and he had glimpses, too, of Jack Hagle driving by in a light wagon. But they were only glimpses. The fine, dry weather held, and the dust was so deep along the highway that the boys, when they hiked back and forth, often preferred to take to the fields, avoiding the smother of the dust clouds.

By night, and with all precautions for secrecy, Poke and Step transferred the dismantled Saracen to the shed by the big field, and then set themselves to reassembling the monster, helped on by a holiday. They declined assistance from their chums.

“You chaps mean well,” Poke told them, “but the machine has a lot of delicate adjustments, and—well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but your fingers would be all thumbs. So you just leave things to Step and me, and we’ll show you.”

“When?” somebody asked pointedly.

“Pretty quick,” Poke replied. “Of course, all the—er—er—all the rigging won’t be in place, but in a jiffy we’ll have things so far along that we can give you a pretty good demonstration.”

Sam was moved to urge caution. “Don’t be in too much of a hurry. We can wait.”

“Don’t you worry!” Poke retorted with a touch of dignity. “We’re going about this whole thing right. We’re going to look mathematically before we leap—understand?”

Sam interpreted this as meaning that the Shark had not yet completed his computations; and the Shark, on inquiry, admitted that this was the case.

“I’m not going to make any mistakes, if I can help it,” he declared. “Too serious business.”

“It surely is,” Sam agreed. “Broken bones are no joke.”

“Huh! It’s worse to find you’re wrong in your calculations!”

Sam surveyed the mathematician sternly. “Confound it, Shark! Can’t you be human?”

“I’m mighty human,” vowed the other. “I hate to have to confess I’ve blundered.”

“But everybody blunders sometimes.”

“Ought not to—not when it’s a case of mathematics.”

Sam thought this over. “Well, I hope there’ll be no slip in your figures this time,” he said soberly.

“Huh! There won’t be,” quoth the Shark calmly. “I’ll know just where I’m at before I say a word.” And with that he resumed his attention to the sheets of mysterious diagrams and computations, which he had brought with him to the camp.

It was a week-end stay the club was making at the lake. All the members were there, but when the Shark returned to his labors in the tent, Sam for the moment found himself alone. Herman was fishing somewhere along the shore, Poke and Step were fully occupied with the flying machine, Tom Orkney had led the somewhat reluctant Trojan aside, and was coaching him on a Latin lesson. Sam strolled over to the big Council Rock and perched himself on one of its ledges. There he was half-meditating, half-dozing, when Herman came into sight, hurrying along at a great pace. Instantly he hailed Sam:

“Say, I’ve found something—got a tip of trouble! Call the crowd together, and I’ll tell you.”

Sam shouted lustily. Step and Poke were out of hearing, and the Shark kept at his task, but Orkney and the Trojan came readily enough. They ranged themselves beside Sam, and awaited Herman’s tidings.

“Well, it was this way,” he explained. “I was fooling along, not catching anything and not caring much whether I got a nibble or not. And, all of a sudden, that young Hagle came out of the bushes, and tiptoed up, as if he were afraid of his life. I don’t like him. So I was pulling in my line and getting ready to quit, when he began to stammer out something about my waiting to hear some important news. I asked him what it was, and he stammered worse than ever, and kept turning and peering around, as if he thought a bear was about to jump out at us. It wasn’t easy to make head or tail of what he said; but finally I caught his drift. It was about the ownership of the land we’re on. Well, it seems it’s part of the tract Zorn’s father bought, and Ed’s stirring up his father to have us fired as trespassers.”

Tom Orkney whistled; Sam’s expression grew anxious.

“I wonder if his father will do it,” said the Trojan.

“I asked about that,” Herman went on. “Hagle thought he might put us off. It wouldn’t be so much because we were we—because it was our crowd, you know—as because the syndicate wouldn’t want to have anybody on the land. And there’s always the chance of campers starting a fire, especially when things are as dry as they are now.”

The boys nodded agreement. “Fire surely would run through the brush like a racer,” quoth Orkney.

“Well,” said Herman, “it was kind of surprising to have Hagle trying to do us a good turn. I guess I blurted out something of the sort. Anyway, Jack got more flustered than ever and more nervous, and between the way he mumbled and his wriggles when he turned to see if anybody was spying on us I didn’t catch half he said. But what I did catch seemed to be about being sorry for something or somebody. And then he broke off short, and beat it. Say! he slipped away like a snake almost! Funny chap, that Hagle, I tell you!”

“Seems to mean well, though,” Orkney observed.

Herman was glancing at Sam as leader of the clan. “What’s your notion about the business?” he asked.

“That for some reason or other Hagle is trying to do us a favor. I don’t know why—I don’t see how we can discover the reason. But we’d better take advantage of his tip.”

“How?” Orkney inquired.

“By going straight to Mr. Zorn and asking permission to stay where we are.”

“That’d be taking the bull by the horns.”

“It’s the best way. If we’ve got to leave, let’s go gracefully and not be kicked out.”

“That’s sense!” the Trojan declared.

“Right!” said Orkney. “But when will you look Mr. Zorn up?”

“Now—right away,” Sam answered. “Very likely he’s at his cottage this afternoon.”

“Want any company?”

Sam deliberated a moment. “Yes. Maybe it would be a good scheme to have the crowd along, so he could look us over and see that we’re not dangerous.”

“Then you’ll take Poke and Step and the Shark?”

“We’ll give them a chance to go, anyway.”

But the Shark, as it proved, preferred to remain in the camp. He growled savagely when Sam looked into the tent.

“Hang it all, don’t interrupt me! Keep away, can’t you? I’m just getting where I’ve tried to arrive for a week. I’ll be there in five minutes more, if only you’ll let me alone.”

“All right; suit yourself,” said Sam, and stepped back. He beckoned to Orkney, the Trojan and Herman, and led the way through the woods to the shed in the big field.

There, evidently, something was doing. The Saracen was standing in plain sight before the shed, poised trimly on the bicycle wheels and with wings symmetrically out-spread. Step was pottering about the motor, while Poke, hands on hips, was surveying the machine with immense satisfaction.

“Hulloo! What! Finished, is it?” Sam inquired with interest.

“Oh, practically,” replied Poke loftily. “Few odds and ends to be adjusted, maybe—that’s all.”

“Do you mean you’re ready to fly?”

“Why not?”

Sam coughed dubiously.

Step, finishing his work on the motor, joined the others. “Some bird of a job there, eh?” he remarked complacently.

“Umph! Proof of the bird is the flying,” said Orkney drily.

Poke and Step exchanged glances. “Oh, she’ll fly fast enough,” the former declared. “Start the motor, then get her to moving, then shift the planes, and—whisk, there you are!”

“Where are you?”

“Up over head, and going like sixty!”

“Shucks! I don’t believe it.”

Again the builders glanced at each other. “Might start her up, and let ’em see how she pulls,” Step suggested.

Sam now noticed that a rope ran from the rear of the machine to a stump, to which it was made fast.

“Oh, you’re anchored, are you?” said he.

“That’s so we can make a test, and judge the power we’re getting from the propeller.”

“Hurrah! Let’s see the wheels go round,” cried Herman.

“Why—why, I guess we can show you,” said Poke.

“Sure we can!” declared Step enthusiastically; and, marching back to the machine, cranked the motor. There was a tremendous sputter, followed by a deafening barking. Step stretched his long arms and tugged at a lever, whereat the propeller began to revolve smoothly and swiftly.

Step shut off the power, and as the noise of the motor ceased peered at his friends. One or two had their hands at their ears, but all appeared to be impressed by the performance.

“Well, what are you going to say now?” he demanded.

“So far, so good,” said Sam. “Only——”

“What’s the use of ‘only’ and ‘if’ and ‘but’ and all such discouraging talk? You’ll never get anywhere by it.”

“The Saracen’s in grand voice—I’ll say so much for him,” Herman volunteered.

“Ho, ho! That isn’t a marker to his performance when he really gets going and warms up.”

Tom Orkney had been regarding the machine intently. “Look here, Step!” he said. “You’ve no self-starter. What’ll you do if the motor stops when you’re doing loops half a mile up?”

It was Poke who made answer. “Huh! What good would a self-starter do?”

“Well, I’d hate to have to get out of the seat and try to walk around on air and crank up,” Orkney pointed out.

Poke reddened. “Much you fellows know about flying! Of course you can’t walk around on air, and rest wrenches on clouds, or crawl under the machine to see what’s wrong! You don’t do things that way.”

“Well, what do you do?”

“Give us a dress rehearsal,” suggested the Trojan.

“I will!” cried Poke excitedly, and climbed to the seat of the Saracen’s driver. There he settled himself, swiftly tested a brace of levers, twanged the wire braces experimentally, and nodded to Step.

“Wind her up!” he ordered. “We’ll show ’em a thing or two.”

Step seized the crank, willingly enough.

“Say, don’t forget, Poke, to advance the spark,” jeered Herman.

“Huh! It’s kept that way!” snapped Poke.

Step spun the crank, and the furious barking of the motor began again. Indeed, it was louder than before and the reports came with much greater frequency. The propeller revolved with a speed which made the blades melt into a sort of hazy halo. The anchor rope tautened. So great was the strain that, to Sam’s anxious eye, the line seemed to shrink.

“Hold on! That’s enough!” he shouted, but the thunder of the mufflerless motor drowned his voice. He turned to his companions—and caught sight of the Shark, approaching at a run and wildly waving a sheet of paper above his head.

Then Poke did something—none of the onlookers knew just what; even Step later had to confess ignorance. But the something was followed by an increase in the furious roaring of the motor. The whirling blades of the propeller spun madly. The anchor line vibrated like a fiddle string. Then, suddenly, it parted with a report audible even in that frightful tumult.

The Saracen shot forward, gliding with swiftly increasing speed on its bicycle wheels. There was a slight slope to accelerate its start, though, truth to tell, there seemed to be no need of such help. The boys saw Poke making strange motions, tugging vainly at the levers, as he dashed away on such a ride as had never entered into even the dreams of any of them.

The Shark came up, breathless with haste. He caught Sam’s arm, and stared dazedly at the departing machine.

“Stop him, somebody!” he gasped. “Just—just worked it out. What’d you let Poke go for before I told him? That—that thing won’t fly!”

CHAPTER XV

THE DASH OF THE SCARY HEN

Nothing had been further from Poke’s intention than such a wild ride as that in which he now found himself engaged.

All he had proposed was a sort of “dock trial”—to use an expression he had once employed in talking with Sam; but now, to his bewilderment and alarm, he was going to sea, so to speak. Great pains had been taken in the adjustment of the bicycle wheels under the plane, and Master Mechanic Step had been proud of their smooth running on their ball-bearings. Indeed, so well had friction been reduced that the Saracen could be wheeled about easily; but now it was all too evident that the wheeling by engine power was also easily accomplished. The push of the swiftly-whirling propeller and the slope was producing a most effective combination. The Saracen shot away from the anchorage as an arrow shoots from a bow, and then bettered the performance of any arrow by traveling faster and faster as it advanced.

Poke did his best to stop the machine—and failed signally. Perhaps in the haste of his surprise he lost his head for a moment, and managed to do the wrong thing; perhaps—and this is quite as probable—the fault lay in the mechanism. The devices for controlling the engine and the wings were still in the experimental stage; and, as it happened, were really more the products of Step’s ingenuity than of Poke’s. Unchallenged credit for the basic idea of a flying machine belonged to the latter, but practical working out of the plans had fallen more and more to his partner in the enterprise; and Step’s way of doing things was not likely to be anybody else’s way. Moreover, Step’s extraordinarily long arms and legs gave him a reach for which pudgy Poke could not hope; and all the levers and controls were adjusted to Step’s liking. Sitting in the saddle, Poke was unable to touch certain cords of high importance in the general scheme of navigation of the craft; his feet swung clear of pedals, also essential to its management. As for the levers upon which he laid hold—well, they wouldn’t work, at least, as he wished them to work. The net result of his early endeavors seemed to be merely a further quickening of the already terrifying speed of motor and propeller and of the pace of the Saracen.

The aircraft dashed down the gentle slope almost as a toboggan might slip down its chute; though its motion had a curiously buoyant quality no toboggan could claim. It was riding such as Poke had never before known. The broad planes seemed to lift it smoothly and lightly over the irregularities in the turf of the field. It swayed, to be sure, but there was something easy and graceful in the lateral motion; something almost birdlike, something which roused Poke’s hope and ambition, once his first panic passed and he discovered that he was not only still alive but also unharmed. He hadn’t intended to try to fly that day, but the feeling of “lift” was undeniably luring. He thought of the doubting Thomases who were watching his performance. He reached decision. He’d show ’em, and show ’em then and there!

He bent forward. Again he seized the levers, by which he expected to shift his planes for the rise clear of earth. He tugged valiantly. Nothing happened. He threw all his strength into another effort—and something did happen! Nothing but the back of the seat saved him from tumbling bodily from the machine, as one of the bars of wood broke short off under the strain.

Poke recovered his balance by a mighty effort. Also he strove to keep his wits about him. Plainly, he could not fly. Seemingly, he could not stop the motor. It was behind him, and placed low down in a peculiarly inaccessible spot. Even the long-limbed Step, in cranking it, had been forced almost to crawl under the machine, while as for reaching it from the seat—that was wholly out of the question. The so-called safety devices of Step’s contrivance were out of commission. Poke, summarizing his situation, set his jaw stubbornly. If he couldn’t fly and couldn’t stop, he might at least be able to steer the Saracen and circle the big field to the edification of all beholders; and trust to luck to halt the motor sooner or later.

POKE CLUNG TO HIS SEAT

Now, the Saracen’s rudder might have been mightily effective in mid-air—this was a matter fated to be left in uncertainty—but it was poorly calculated to guide a runaway machine on the ground. It was a small trailing plane, set vertically. Poke’s attempts to adjust it were in vain, at least so far as securing the desired effect. The Saracen merely lurched to one side; then swung back, dipping its wing deeply; regained an even keel, but began to zigzag in most distressing fashion. Poke again was almost thrown from his seat, and was glad to cling for support to the uprights of the framework. The truth burst upon him that he was purely a passenger on this amazing voyage of his.

Every voyage has to end. Poke began to wonder most apprehensively how this would end. He had read accounts of tremendous speed made by ice-sleds equipped with propellers working in air; but, of course, the big field was not an icy expanse. The pace he was making suggested ice-records—at least, to his fancy—but so far it had been due in part to the slope. Just before him was an almost level stretch. Then came a slight rise, to a low stone wall bordering the road. It occurred to him that it would be very evil fortune to strike that wall.

It must be understood that things had been happening very rapidly for Poke, and very little time had elapsed since he shot away from his friends. It was a mere matter of seconds till he was crossing the level, and beginning to mount the low ridge. There was a diminution of speed, but it was not a marked diminution; and he saw with terror that the Saracen’s momentum would not be checked before the wall was reached.

Then, in hot haste, he did anything and everything he could in a desperate, last chance effort. But the engine roared as violently and rapidly as ever; indeed, he seemed to have contrived to rouse the ancient mechanism to a frenzy of energy. The planes dipped and rose with the swaying of the monster. There was a queer, sidewise lunge; then, swiftly, a bewildering change. A thrill ran through Poke. Of a sudden, the motion of the craft had become smooth, buoyant, marvelously exhilarating. The vibration of the motor remained, but there was no longer the jar of wheels on uneven ground. He could still see the threatening wall, but it was no longer before him, barring the way. It was beneath him. He was vaulting it with a dozen feet to spare. The Saracen was flying!

That second was like no other Poke had known.

Wonderful elation filled him. Forgotten in the glorious instant were his past labors and the uncertainties of his immediate future. Where were the doubters and scoffers now? What wouldn’t the most cynical and pessimistic among them give to be able to share that triumph of flight achieved! His faith was justified; Step’s ingenuity was confirmed by practical performance. The Saracen was in flight!

No dream of Poke’s had ever been more delightful—and no dream could end more speedily than this fleeting jubilation.

The Saracen had risen; now the Saracen fell. In truth, the machine’s performance suggested a tremendous bound rather than soaring; and Poke hardly had grasped the amazing fact that he was going up before the equally important circumstance was impressed upon him that he was coming down. There was nothing for him to do. He was merely a passenger. He was aware of a sharp swerve of course to the left. Instead of a high barrier of trees before him, there was an opening—and the opening was the highway. By sheer good fortune the change of direction in mid-air had saved him from crashing into the further bank, and had brought him into the road leading toward the lake. He felt the jar as the wheels again touched the ground, and came to understanding of what was happening, even if he had no clear notion of how it had been brought about. As by a miracle he was in the road, and traveling at a great pace, the gentle slope of the country lakeward doing its part in promoting his sensational progress.

And what a startling performance it was! Picture a quiet country road, of a sudden invaded by a fiercely panting monster, a sort of winged dragon, rushing along in a tumult of uproar and stirring dense clouds of dust in its passage; the tips of its wings brushing the trees on either hand. Poke, deafened by the whir of the propeller and the savage detonations of the motor, clung to his seat and closed his eyes that he might not behold the perils lurking in his path. What would happen if he met a heavily loaded wagon, or overtook one of the big trucks carrying lumber to the new settlement? Or suppose some rash motorist was speeding toward him! Suppose——

But there was no need to worry himself with conjectures. The real thing impended. Something made him open his eyes. A big touring car was turning a bend in the road just ahead of him. In a flash he recognized the man at the wheel—Lon Gates. In another, he was aware that by some marvel of dextrous steering Lon had shot his car into the ditch, that the Saracen’s wing was grazing his head, that by a miracle a collision had been avoided. Poke couldn’t have seen it, but, somehow, he knew that Lon, wide-eyed with amazement, was staring after the swirl of dust in which the strange chariot was roaring along.

What Lon said Poke couldn’t know. But the words were these:

“Jee-whillikens and Jupiter crickets! Talk about a Scary Hen! A million old biddies cacklin’ and runnin’ from a hen hawk wouldn’t be a marker to that there crazy road rioter! But what’s Poke thinkin’ he’s tryin’ to do? And where’s he supposed to be headin’ for? Way he’s takin’ up the whole road and then a leetle more he’s bound to have trouble and a heap of it mighty quick and enthusiastic! Guess I’d better be follerin’ along, so’s to be able to help pick up the pieces.”

And with that Lon threw on his power, turned the big car about, and hurried in the hazy wake of the Saracen.

Poke, meanwhile, was continuing his wild ride, keeping the road by some freak of fortune. The slight but steady fall in the grade was making amends for any eccentricities of conduct on the part of the ancient motor, which, it must be confessed, was beginning to betray some of its weaknesses. It was missing fire now and then; but, curiously, the breaks seemed to make the uproar all the greater and more ear-splitting. It sufficed, at any rate, to give warning of his approach to a woman, who had been driving tranquilly toward town. Poke, sweeping along, had a glimpse of a frightened horse plunging through a wayside thicket, of a white-faced driver plying a whip frantically, of a buggy careening dizzily. Then his second escape from collision had been made and he was dashing through woods, and praying that the sidewise plunge he believed to be inevitable would not come until he was again in open country.

The snorting of his motor was more irregular—and a bit more terrifying. The whir of the propeller appeared to grow shriller. The “lift” of the machine was less noticeable. One wing, indeed, had suffered much damage at its tip by contact with branches, and on the other side there was an observable sag of the planes. Something had gone wrong astern—just what the trouble was he could not discover. Not that it mattered, though. By this time he was ready enough to let the Saracen go to the scrap-heap, if only he could escape with his life.

He was coming, now, to the border of the wooded tract. Through the trees to the left he had brief sight of the gleaming blue water of an arm of the lake. At that his courage rose a bit. He could swim. If the machine ended its runaway career in the depths, he would fare well enough, if he could avoid going down with the ship. It behooved him to make sure that he would not be caught by parts of the machine if he tried to jump. He bent forward, he strove for firmer footing on the cross braces. And then——

The ending of the Saracen’s dash was as sudden as its beginning. A lurch to the right was not followed by recovery. Instead, the machine held its new course, left the beaten track of the road, plunged into a tangle of undergrowth, which served as an efficient, if painful, brake. Thorns raked Poke’s arms and tore his clothes, just as branches ripped the planes to ribbons and saplings, bending before the machine’s charge, yet contrived to check it. The broken roar of the motor ceased; the whir of the propeller died away. In a second or two the monster of the road was stripped of all terrors, and lay in the midst of a tangled heap of debris, half contributed by its own parts and half by the brush and vines it had uprooted.

Poke had pitched forward from his saddle. Indeed, it was as if a giant arm had picked him up and tossed him bodily through another clump of dense undergrowth—and thereby supplied him with a sort of natural shock absorber. There was a tremendous cracking and crashing of small branches and twigs; and from the farther side of the thicket Poke rolled out upon the ground, shaken from head to foot, bleeding from a score of scratches, his garments fit only for the rag-bag. Yet almost miraculously he had escaped serious harm. Not a bone was broken. He might be sore and aching from forehead to toe, but all his wounds were superficial. He could raise himself on hands and knees, and this he did. Instead, though, of attempting to get upon his feet, he remained as he was for a moment, staring in amazement at the sight which met his eyes.

Poke, as it happened, had been catapulted into a tableau, so to speak, in which Zorn and Hagle figured. Apparently, the noisy approach of the Saracen had interrupted Zorn in the process of disciplining the smaller boy; for he still held Hagle by the collar, while with his victim he gazed spellbound at the picture presented by Poke in the rôle of the human projectile.

CHAPTER XVI

ZORN SHOWS HIS TEETH AGAIN

It occurred to Poke, subsequently, that his appearance on the scene produced upon Zorn and Hagle an effect even more marked than might be accounted for by the extraordinary manner of his approach. The pair were not merely startled; there was an alarm, a consternation hinting at something more than surprise or fear of physical harm. It was odd, too, that they seemed to have difficulty in finding tongue; and it was Poke who spoke first.

“Hul—hulloo, there!” he said, faintly.

Neither answered. Zorn gave a start, and Hagle cowered like a whipped dog; but the lips of neither moved.

With some difficulty Poke got upon his feet.

“Hul—hulloo!” he repeated. “Say, but you fellows must be thinking a lot to say so little!”

At that Zorn, with a warning glance at Hagle, loosed his grip on the latter’s collar.

“Eh? Say so little? There’s a lot to say and ask.” Zorn, having found his tongue, could employ it briskly. “Great Scott! but what have you been up to? You come smashing into us, almost, and then want to know why we don’t make speeches? Look here! What have you been doing? What in the name of all crazy cats is that thing you were riding on?”

Poke turned to glance ruefully at the wreck of the Saracen.

“Oh, that? That’s a—a—er—er—that’s a machine I’ve been fooling with.”

“Umph! Looks more as if it had fooled with you.” Zorn came forward, and gazed with undisguised interest at the ruin. “Umph! Guess I know what this is—or was. Somebody tipped me off the other day that you were monkeying with a flying machine. But I didn’t think you had gumption to do anything with it. But you didn’t fly here, did you?”

“Not exactly,” Poke told him with a degree of dignity. “I—I—well, I came on wheels, as you might say.”

“But—but you aren’t hurt, are you?” Hagle asked tremulously.

“No; not to speak of.”

“I’m glad of that!” said Hagle so heartily that Poke glanced at him wonderingly.

Zorn scowled, and kicked at a broken plane. “You’re lucky to save your neck!” he growled. “Funny the things that don’t kill idiots! But if you aren’t damaged, this contraption of yours is, all right! Mighty few pieces left to put together, I should say!”

Poke was relieved of the need of making reply; for just then Lon Gates came upon the scene, having left his automobile in the road. It took him but an instant to grasp the situation.

“Well, I guess you’ve done it now,” he remarked, having satisfied himself that Poke had come to no great harm. “Way you was scootin’ along—you and your Scary Hen—say, but you was jest playin’ tag with the high places! And as for monopolizin’ things—son, I never see such a road-hog as you was. You wanted everything between the fences, and by jiminy, you was takin’ it! But I’d kinder like to know the end o’ the story. What happened in the last chapter?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Poke confessed. “It—it ended mighty suddenly.”

“But it didn’t end you—that’s the main p’int.”

“No; I’m all right,” said Poke pluckily. A little stream of blood was trickling from a gash in his cheek. He wiped it away with his sleeve. Hagle stepped up to him, and pulling out his handkerchief, fell to dabbing at the wound. It was a most kindly meant attention, but Poke shrank back, in embarrassment. And Lon came to the rescue.

“Well, I guess I may have to find you a barrel to go home in. Them pants o’ yourn is what an artist feller I know would call sorter impressionistic. But, seein’ as how you ain’t killed, I dunno’s there’s any great cause for complaint. And now, with your kind permission, I’ll take a peek at the remains o’ the Scary Hen.”

“Scary Hen!” Zorn repeated, and laughed jeeringly. Nobody, however, paid any attention to him. Poke, closely observed by the pitying Hagle, inspected his scratched hands and rent garments. Lon made the circuit of the wrecked flying machine, uttering an exclamation now and then as he came upon fresh evidence of the completeness of its ruin. And while these things were doing, Sam and the rest of the club, panting from their long run in pursuit of the Saracen, came up.

Broken and hurried queries rained upon Poke, but resulted in slight increase in the general stock of knowledge.

“I don’t know what was the matter; I guess everything was,” he declared. “Nothing worked right. The controls wouldn’t control, and the rudder wouldn’t steer, and the safety things weren’t safe. So I——”

“Hold on there!” Step broke in. He strode up to Poke and shook a finger in his face. “Don’t you go to blaming the apparatus! It was you—you did it all!”

“Eh? I—I did it? Why, I——”

“Yes you did!” cried Step, hotly. “You ought to have known that none of the rigging was really ready, and the safety device was disconnected, and——”

“You didn’t tell me that, and you let me risk my life!” shouted Poke in a rage.

“How’d I know you’d gone crazy?”

“Me crazy!”

“Huh! You look it.”

“Do I? Then it’s your fault! If you hadn’t been making your fool experiments and monkeying with things that were all right, I wouldn’t be in this fix or the Saracen, either. But I’ll show you!”

“Do it—if you’re man enough!” taunted Step, in a fury at the aspersions cast on his mechanical skill.

Poke needed no second invitation. He hurled his ragged and grimy self at his partner, who, on his side, met the charge half-way. There was a wild exchange of unaimed blows, and then they came to a clinch. Sam sprang forward. So did Orkney. By their united efforts they separated the combatants and dragged them apart.

“Stop this scrapping!” Sam commanded, with a gruffness which was not lessened by knowledge that Zorn was grinning widely at the spectacle of discord in the club.

“Quit it!” Orkney ordered, still more curtly.

“Then make him take back what he said,” Step protested.

“It’s true!” shrilled Poke. “Way he left everything, ’twas like trying to drive a horse without reins or bridle!”

“Then you ought to have known enough not to try to ride the Saracen,” Step countered.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Why didn’t you have sense enough to ask? If you’d had your eyes open as wide as your mouth——”

Two things helped to end this abusive debate. One was the action of Sam and Orkney, each of whom shook his captive, not too gently. The other was the appearance of adult investigators of the disaster to the Saracen. A runabout came to a stop in the road, and two men, leaving the car, crossed to the group.

“Whew! This looks like the end of a real joy ride!” said the leader of the pair. “Smashed, and smashed for fair! But what kind of a——Say, Zorn!” he turned to his companion, a stout, middle-aged man. “By the great horn spoon, but here’s what’s left of a make of machine that beats my time!”

Mr. Zorn ran his eye over the tangle of planes and machinery.

“For a guess it’s a flyer of some sort. But where’s the aeronaut?”

Poke, released by Sam, stepped forward. “I—well, I was running it, or trying to run it, sir. And—and—well, things miscued, somehow.”

“But did it fly?”

“Yes, sir, it did—once. And it moved a whole lot.”

From the other side of the wreck Lon contributed his bit: “Speakin’ o’ movin’, this affair made me think of a canal boat—’twas so different.”

Mr. Zorn smiled. “Well, there’s evidence enough here that it didn’t precisely crawl through the bushes. But nobody’s killed, I infer.”

“Not permanently,” chuckled Lon. “Still, clothes suffered—yes, clothes and feelin’s. Pretty solid bump at the last, you see.”

“So I imagine,” said Mr. Zorn. “Lucky the motor didn’t set the scrap-heap afire. But it must have been quite a machine to start with.” And with that he began an observation tour about the Saracen, very much as Lon had made one. His companion appeared to be less interested; for, after fidgeting for a moment, he called out, impatiently:

“Let’s be getting along, Zorn! There’s nothing we can do here, and we’ll be late for our appointment, as it is.”

Mr. Zorn turned, and walked toward his car; but Sam, reminded of the errand he had proposed to do, quickly overtook him.

“Can you give me a minute, sir?” he asked. “It’s about the camp—the place where we’ve pitched a tent, I mean. We hear that it is on your land, and we’d like to get permission to stay there, or rent a little ground, or—or do whatever you think right.”

Ed Zorn had followed Sam. “It’s the squatter business I told you about,” he said to his father, meaningly. “A whole crowd has moved in, bag and baggage.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Zorn; his tone was not encouraging. “So you’re the camping party, eh? H-m-m! I don’t know about it, young man. The woods are mighty dry, and a little carelessness might cost me a pretty penny.”

“We’ll be careful,” Sam urged. “We understand the danger of starting a brush fire.”

“Umph!” said Mr. Zorn doubtfully.

“But we’ll promise——”

“What good are promises?” Ed interrupted.

There he made a mistake. “I think I can attend to my own affairs,” his father said testily. “Suppose you devote yourself to your own, Ed.” Then he turned to Sam. “I’m not ready to say yes or no, definitely. I’ll have to have a look at your place first. It isn’t a matter of rental, but is a matter of safety; I want to see how you are doing things. I’ll come over in a day or two.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Sam.

“Umph! Better wait for results,” quoth Mr. Zorn drily, and resumed his march to the runabout, in which his companion was already seated.

As the little car shot away, Ed Zorn caught Sam, roughly, by the shoulder.

“Look here! You’ll pay for this!” he cried. “You may think you can get around my father with your slick palavering, but it won’t work. Your case will be attended to, soon enough!”

Sam shook himself free. “Keep your hands off me, Zorn!” he said sharply.

“Huh! Let’s see you make me keep ’em off!”

“I’m ready to try. Get that straight—I’m ready to try, right now!”

Sam’s voice was not raised, but there was a note in it that hinted at readiness to meet trouble half-way. Truth to tell, the head of the Safety First Club was beginning to feel the time was ripe for the personal reckoning he meant to have with this enemy.

Zorn’s face darkened. He cast a swift glance at the other boys in the background, and shook his head.

“No; I’m no fool,” he declared. “I’d take you on and never bat an eyelash, but you and your whole gang, all at once? No. I’ll attend to you later on, when you haven’t all your heelers along.”

“I promise you they won’t interfere.”

Zorn snapped his fingers. “That for your promises! I know what I’m going to do, and when I’m going to do it—and this isn’t the time or the place. But when I’m ready, then you want to look out for me, Parker!”

Sam laughed in his face. “Bosh! You’ve been doing us all the harm you can.”

Oddly enough, Zorn laughed in return, but the laugh had no mirth in it. “Think so, do you? Well, you’ll have a chance to change that opinion. I tell you——” Then he checked himself, and called to Hagle, who had been hovering near by. “Here, Jack, come along! Say! get a move on, can’t you?”

Hagle obeyed, though with an air of reluctance.

“Er—er—good-bye, you fellows,” he quavered, and shuffled after Zorn, who already was striding away.

CHAPTER XVII

SAM HEADS A FISHING PARTY

Ever since Lon had recited the tale of Old Man Freeman’s William Trout he had been much importuned by the boys for information about the stream in which the big fish lived and grew mighty. He had chosen to make a great mystery of the matter, but under repeated questioning had dropped a hint here and spoken an inadvertent word there, until Sam, putting one thing with another, was able not only to form an opinion of the direction in which the brook lay, but also to make a shrewd guess at the whereabouts of the hermit’s cabin, or what might be left of it.

Sam had been planning an expedition of exploration and discovery, and the disaster to the Saracen quickened his purpose. Poke took the wreck very much to heart. In imagination he had pictured himself sailing gaily above the heads of admiring crowds; but, to do him justice, he had counted more upon the money returns of his enterprise than upon the attendant glory. Poke was a thoroughly honest chap, and it irked him to be in debt. He had hoped to repay his friends, and now that hope was dissipated, to say nothing of sundry new obligations incurred in the construction of the airplane. Naturally, therefore, he was temporarily taking a gloomy view of life, and was in sore need of soothing diversions.

Step, too, was grieved by the calamity, though his disappointment was not so keen. After all, he was not the originator of the Great Idea; that melancholy honor belonged exclusively to Poke. Hence, when he had reached a more amicable understanding with his partner in regard to the condition of the Saracen’s gear, it was easier for him to take the view that there was no virtue in shedding tears over spilt milk. But Step as well as Poke would be the better for new interests, Sam decided; and quest of the Freeman brook suggested a desirable opportunity.

Mr. Zorn had spoken of inspecting the camp in a day or two, but the week wore away with no word from him. On Friday afternoon the club, in full force, hiked to the lake, prepared to remain there until Monday morning, when Lon was to appear with the big car and whisk them back to town in time for school. The evening passed pleasantly and quietly, their night’s rest was undisturbed, and early Saturday morning Sam marshaled the clan for the march across country. All carried fishing tackle, though it was admitted that angling would be a mere incident of the day.

“I don’t know just how far we’re going, but I’ve got a general idea of the direction,” Sam told the others, who appeared to be willing enough to follow his lead and take chances. So they set out, with Sam at the head of the straggling line, laying his course in part by aid of a pocket compass he carried, and in part by certain landmarks known to all of them.

The route scorned roads, mostly, crossing fields and woods, climbing low hills and dipping into little valleys, edging away from the lake and carrying the party into a region with which they had slight acquaintance. They passed a few farmhouses, but most of the time were out of sight of habitations; for the country thereabouts was thinly settled. The pace was leisurely. The boys had all day before them, and there was plenty of opportunity for Sam to have a confidential word or two, now with one of his friends and then with another.

Orkney, for example, was beginning to worry about the Trojan, in coaching whom he had been especially active of late.

“It’s getting harder to keep him up to the mark,” he explained. “No; I don’t call it a case of quitting—it’s more of a case of not caring. You see, down at bottom the Trojan feels that he wasn’t given a square deal, and the thing rankles. He appreciates the trouble the club is taking for him, and has tried to do his part; but, somehow, he’s no real heart for the job. He doesn’t care—there’s the rub; and that sort of thing makes a difference, when you’re in for a long pull like this one. Oh, I guess he’ll stick it out in a way—go through the motions, anyway, you know—but if we’re to hold him with the class, there’s got to be something to spur him up, and it’s got to come pretty quickly.”

Sam nodded, and his expression grew serious. His opinion was much like Tom’s. The Trojan needed a mental bracer of some sort, but how it was to be found he could not conjecture. As for himself, he had Lon as counselor in seasons of depression, but Lon had not tried to deal with Walker.

Then Tom fell back, and presently Poke drew up with the leader. He was still in his mood of depression, and Sam had to make talk without marked response for a time. At last, though, Poke showed some animation. Curiously, it was mention of Jack Hagle which stirred him.

“It’s a funny thing to say,” he remarked, “and maybe you’ll think I was jarred off my trolley, but when the machine crashed into the bushes and I came that cropper through them, what impressed me most was the way Zorn and Hagle acted. Now, so far as the suddenness of it went, I might have dropped a couple of miles from the clouds; but that pair behaved as if the thing that bothered ’em was not the question whether I was killed or not, but how much I noticed of the thrashing Zorn was giving Jack. I figure if they were so anxious I shouldn’t know about it that, somehow, we were mixed up in whatever caused their row.”

“Isn’t that rather a far-fetched notion?”

“It might be, if Zorn wasn’t in the game. That fellow’d do anything! And he has Hagle completely under his thumb.”

“It’s true,” Sam admitted. “And it’s true, too, that Hagle has shown a sort of friendliness for us once or twice.”

Poke wagged his head sagely. “I tell you, Sam! Mark my words, Hagle knows something about that business of the Trojan’s, and it’s worrying him! And Zorn is terrorizing him, to keep him quiet.”

“But——” Sam began.

“But what?”

“But Zorn said he could clear the slate for us, and I don’t think he’d do it by incriminating himself.”

“Neither would Hagle, would he?”

“It may not sound reasonable, but he might, I think—that is, he’d be more likely than Zorn to weaken.”

“But it was Zorn who spread all the stories through the school. And it was Zorn who cooked up things at the class meeting.”

“I admit that. I also admit I don’t understand the situation, so far as those fellows are concerned.”

“I don’t either,” said Poke. “I’m perfectly sure, though, they’re both in the scheme, somehow. And it almost startled both of ’em out of a year’s growth to see me shooting at them through the bushes. Beyond that it’s all guesswork with me.”

“Same here,” Sam agreed, thoughtfully.

Just then Herman Boyd overtook the leaders and interrupted their talk. Herman was beginning to be skeptical about Sam’s mental mapping of the brook; and one or two of the others expressed doubts as the hours wore away. Sam, however, maintained unruffled composure. He might be wrong, but even if he were wrong, no harm would be done; and so he held his way, declined to halt beside any of the little streams they crossed, and at last pointed out a brook of considerable size, flowing through a valley which was like a gash in the hills.

“That’s it—or it’s my guess, anyway,” he said. “And I think Freeman’s cabin and the pool are a little higher up.”

Poke proposed a halt for luncheon before pursuing their explorations, and the idea met with favor. It was well after noon when their baskets had been emptied, and the quest was resumed. Again the party straggled. It was a go-as-you-please stroll for everybody. Sam and the Shark, who cared little for fishing, were in the van, the others pausing now and then to drop a hook, though with small reward for their trouble. Probably an hour slipped away before Sam came to a pool generally answering Lon’s description of the home of William Trout, and some time passed before his followers began to overtake him. Meanwhile, with the Shark’s aid, he had been searching for the site of the cabin; and had come upon traces of a building of some sort. Evidently there had been a fire, and after that the woods had come in, so that it was by no means easy to estimate the size of the building which once had stood there.

The Shark was not greatly impressed, nor was he inclined to regard the proof as positive.

“Huh! Maybe it’s the place, and, then again, maybe it isn’t. May have been a farmhouse that was abandoned; may have been somebody’s camp.”

“And so it may have been Old Man Freeman’s,” Sam pointed out.

The Shark shrugged. “Huh! ‘Maybe’ doesn’t get you anywhere. I don’t take much stock in these calculations with no given quantities. And Lon may have been fooling you.”

“I don’t think so,” said Sam. “Lon likes to make a good story, but we’ve always found some basis for his yarns.”

“Same as there was basis for Poke’s Saracen, eh? I could have told him, offhand, that he’d get enough push from his propeller to trundle him down-hill, but I had to do a lot of precise calculation to find out that he couldn’t fly far.”

It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to remind the mathematician that his exact knowledge was reached a trifle late to save Poke from disaster, but he refrained from controversy. Step and the Trojan came along; then Orkney and Poke. Sam pointed out the ruins; there was animated discussion. The majority stood with Sam, and opined that pool and cabin site had been found. Then arrived Herman, highly excited and displaying a ten-inch trout he had caught a quarter-mile down-stream. In a jiffy the anglers were scattered along the brook, fishing as for dear life.

Given half a dozen healthy youngsters making holiday, you have a combination which does not make for haste. No more trout were taken, but much time was occupied. The afternoon was half gone, when Sam, reminded of the long tramp home, called the clan together.

As was to be expected, there was less fun and more work about the return journey. Partly for variety and partly because he believed he could save distance, Sam chose a new route, a short cut, as he supposed, and one taking advantage of a long stretch of country road. The grass growing between the wheel tracks showed that it was not much traveled, but when the boys had followed it for some distance they met a farmer jogging leisurely homeward. From him they learned that they were still far from the lake—or the “pond,” as he preferred to call it.

“It’s risin’ three mile,” he said. “Shortest way’ll be for you to stick to the road till you come to a steepish hill off to the left. Climb it, and you’ll be able to see an end of the pond—that is, if the woods ain’t growed up so’s to hide it. I hain’t been sightseein’ for a good while, and I don’t know whether the water shows or not.”

Sam thanked him for the directions. The “steepish hill,” in fact, was one of the landmarks by which he intended to steer, and as the hike was resumed, he kept a sharp lookout for the abrupt slopes. Estimates of distance, though, are seldom accurate, and the boys had tramped on for fully an hour before the hill was reached. From its top the lake was not visible, the woods having grown sufficiently to hide the water, but Sam had no difficulty in placing the depression in which it lay. But lake and camp were still far away, three or four miles at the least.

There was a little mild grumbling.

“Huh! Guess you must have taken the longest way ’round, Sam,” Poke suggested.

“Gee, but I feel as if my legs were doing double duty!” Poke chimed in.

“That’s because you’re built for low gear, Poke,” chuckled Herman.

“Low gear yourself!” snapped the plump youth. “I’m built on modern lines—regular safety bicycle idea. You fellows are like the old-style high wheels—all show and headers!”

Something in the distance had caught Orkney’s attention, and he was studying it intently.

“What’s that yonder—low down; just above the tree tops; sort of hanging over them? Think it’s a dust cloud?”

There was a thin haze in the air, more suggestive of autumn than of late spring. It faintly blurred the horizon, but Sam could make out the thickening, so to speak, to which Tom referred.

“Dust?” he repeated. “I don’t know. Might be, of course, but——”

“But it looks to me more like smoke,” the Trojan interrupted.

“That’s my idea, too,” said Sam sharply.

He started at a rapid pace down the hill, and his club-mates hurried after him.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CLUB TURNS FIRE BRIGADE

It was not a thin haze now, but a blurring gray curtain, half concealing the woods before which it hung. A pungent odor filled the air, which had, too, a curiously irritating, smarting quality, trying and painful to eyes and lungs. The boys, panting from their forced march—the fast walk at which they had descended the hill had quickened to a dog trot and then to a run—pulled up a little uncertainly. They had reached the border of the wooded tract which extended to the lake shore, and in which their camp was situated, and now they knew that the dreaded danger of a forest fire was facing them. Just where it might have started, or how much headway it might have gained, was still to be determined, however; for, though there was smoke a-plenty, no line of leaping flames showed.

Sam ran his eye along the front of the woods. Nowhere was the smoke rolling forth in volumes. It was like the coming of a fog, not yet thick but dimming everything. The breeze was light; so light, indeed, that though he made the test of a wetted finger, he could be sure of little except that the general direction of the air currents was toward the spot where he was rather than toward the lake. So far as it went, this was a hopeful condition. It meant that the spread of the fire would be away from the shore and the tent.

He strained his ears as well as his eyes, hoping to hear the shouts of men fighting the fire, but silence lay upon the woods. Plainly, the alarm had not spread to the summer settlement. The smoke was lying low and drifting away from the lake, and, presumably, had not yet been observed by the men at work about the pavilion.

Sam gave his orders briskly, if a bit breathlessly:

“Spread out—in a line! Don’t get too far apart, though. First fellow that sees anything, yell and yell loud! Now, start in, fellows!”

They obeyed, readily enough, in very open order, as he had directed, and went crashing through the undergrowth.

Sam himself was near the middle of the line. The end man to the left was Tom Orkney, while Herman Boyd had the corresponding place to the right. Sam went straight forward, but the flankers edged out as they advanced, so that they steadily increased the amount of ground covered.

As every one in the party knew, the tract was of the sort to favor a quick spread of a fire. There was a great deal of dry stuff, and the long period of fine weather had made much of it as inflammable as tinder. Besides, the undergrowth was so dense and tangled in places that flames would find abundant opportunity to move along, while the difficulties of coping with them would be increased. Such were the conditions that Sam began to wonder that the whole tract was not in a blaze. The fire must have been going for two or three hours, at least; that it had not made more progress was to be accounted for only by the lack of wind. In the woods, indeed, there was no perceptible breeze, and the air was still and heavy as well as smoke-laden.

Like his mates, Sam plowed ahead, making as much speed as he could. The smoke grew denser, but not very markedly. He was beginning to believe that his own course was not carrying him toward the fire, when a shout, raised by Orkney, was repeated along the line.

Tom had made the looked-for discovery. Dipping into a hollow, which two months before had been a swamp, he had been met first by a heavy puff of gray fog, so to speak, and through it had caught the yellow glint of flames. At his call the other boys hurried to him. No word of command from Sam or from anybody else was needed to set them at the work which was to be done. Breaking branches from trees, they began to beat the burning brush in the rough and ready fashion which sometimes is extremely effective in dealing with a fire of the sort. It was not light work, nor was it pleasant. It seemed as if the smoke increased even as the flames were checked; and now and again one or another of the club had to drop back for a moment, coughing and choking and gasping for air. A fine, dust-like ash, too, was raised in tiny clouds; more disagreeable than the smoke itself and quite as penetrating of throat and lung; while the heat of the fire was sufficient to blister hands incautiously venturing too near it. Yet, as woods fires go, this did not seem a hard one to deal with. The lack of breeze was in the boys’ favor. They were helped, also, by the “lay of the land.”

As has been said, Orkney had come upon the fire in a swampy hollow. Protracted as the drought had been, it had not sufficed to remove all the moisture by the slow process of evaporation, so that there still remained miry patches, which served as natural brakes on the advance of the flames. A gale, of course, or even a brisk wind, would have disposed of such handicaps quickly enough, but in a comparative calm they made a great difference. To Sam it became evident very quickly that the boys were not only checking the slow drift of the fire, but also were beginning to get it under control. He paused for a moment to watch his companions. Orkney was pounding away lustily. The Shark was exerting less effort, but his arms rose and fell with mathematical regularity. The others were performing, each in his own way, Step with tremendous swings of his long arms, Poke with a swift succession of queer little pats, the Trojan and Herman Boyd busily and steadily. Much encouraged, Sam raised a cheery cry and fell to wielding his broom-like weapon with fresh vigor.

It isn’t to be supposed, though, that with all the favorable conditions, the club quickly finished the business in which it was now engaged. The spread of the fire might be checked, but it still burned stubbornly in the area over which it had extended. There were heaps of rubbish, dead twigs and branches and rotting leaves, which smouldered sullenly long after the flames had died down; there were patches of glowing coals, potential danger spots, should a breeze spring up. The boys worked back and forth, invading the burned-over tract, crossing and recrossing it until they were satisfied that immediate danger was over. Then came a sort of patrol for half an hour or more, with search for points threatening a fresh start for the flames. At last, Sam spoke the word for which the others had waited.

“Out! Guess we can knock off now.”

“Good—and a good job at that!” Poke declared.

“Well, I’m ready to call it half a day and quit,” said Herman. “I’ll ’fess up—I’m tired.”

“Yes; it’s hard work,” Sam observed.

Step thrust a finger almost into Poke’s face, and began to laugh.

“Ho, ho! Say, fellows, look at the boy beauty turned boy coal-heaver!”

Poke ran a grimy hand across a grimy cheek. “Huh! You’re no Spotless Town exhibit yourself,” he retorted. “You look as if your home address was ‘Care of any ash-barrel.’”

“What’s the odds, so long as we’ve put out the fire?” quoth Tom Orkney. “But, I say! Anybody thought of the time? Sun’s down, but not one of us noticed it!”

The boys glanced about them as curiously as if Tom had made some remarkable discovery. They had paid no attention to watches or sunshine, and now dusk was coming on. Poke tightened his belt with a jerk.

“Supper time—and past,” he remarked. “Gee, now that I’m reminded of eating, I could get away with about three square meals at once.”

By common consent the club started in the direction in which the camp lay. They skirted the burned patch, but at the farther border Sam halted. The others pulled up too.

“What’s on your mind, Sam?” asked Step.

Sam wrinkled his brow. “There are a few things I don’t quite figure out. I suppose the fire started on this side; for this is the windward side, if you can say there was breeze enough to make a windward and a leeward. Now, what was there here to set it going?”

“I don’t see anything,” said Step, after a pause devoted to observation.

“Nor I,” chimed in two or three others.

“Probably somebody, going through, was smoking, and got careless with a match or cigarette stub,” suggested Tom.

“Maybe,” said Sam, shortly.

“Well, what likelier explanation have you?”

Sam contented himself with shaking his head and saying, “It’s queer, all the same.”

The fire, in spite of its leisurely progress, had extended over perhaps two acres, nearly all of which would class as swamp land, though in many places it was now as dry as any hill. Still, even where the mire had hardened there were hummocks which made walking difficult, to say nothing of the thick undergrowth on which the flames had fed. Anybody, strolling through the woods, would be more likely to make a detour about the hollow than to tramp across it.

“Oh, in a case like this you can’t find out half the time what caused the trouble,” growled Poke. “Come on! Let’s get to the feed.”

“Hope it isn’t far to camp,” said the Trojan.

“Huh! No need to hope!” snapped the Shark.

“Meaning we’ve lost our way?”

“Meaning camp’s just ahead of us. Where are your eyes, anyway?”

“Cheer up, Shark! Don’t be a grouch,” counseled Poke.

The Shark gave a characteristic shrug. “It ought to grouch anybody to see how you fellows don’t figure out things. Not that you ever will, though! But if only you’d kept your wits working, you’d know the tent can’t be an eighth of a mile from here.”

“Confound it! can’t you be exact?” Poke teased, with a wink at the others. “Talking about things that grouch, what’s worse than a fellow who deals in eighths of a mile, when he ought to say twelve hundred and thirty-four ten-thousandths, plus? You vex me, Shark.”

“You—you——” snorted the Shark; then words failed him, and he set off at a round pace.

The others followed, weariedly but willingly. Camp and supper were pleasing thoughts; and the event proved that about the former, at least, the Shark was right. In a moment or two the canvas of the tent showed like a pale blur on the dark background. The rest quickened their steps; but Sam, pausing, looked back.

After all, the fire had started uncomfortably close to the camp. It was borne in upon him that it was a singularly fortunate circumstance for the club that what little breeze there had been had blown in the opposite direction. If some mischief maker had been at work——

Sam’s expression was grave, as he turned and resumed his way. With all his desire to be fair in his judgments, an ugly suspicion was obtruding itself upon him.

CHAPTER XIX

A DREAM AND AN AWAKENING

Tired as he was, Sam was sleeping badly. He was dreaming, and the dream was peculiarly annoying; for it was very like a repetition of the day’s events, enacted over and over again. He was tramping through woods which seemed to have no end; then he was fighting brush fires, which broke out anew as fast as he could extinguish them; then he was coming back to the camp, and supper was to be made ready, and a squabble between Poke and Step over possession of the coffee-pot was to be settled half a dozen times; then when his weary mates had stretched themselves out and were already dozing, something impelled him to leave the tent and revisit the scene of the fire. Sam, tossing and turning, had visions of that trip repeated a score of times. Back and forth he seemed to be trudging. There was moonlight. In it the tent had a ghostlike effect, while the burned-over tract was a weird scene of desolation. There was nothing to indicate danger of the fire reviving, and this was comforting; but the dream, presently, began to include strange and ominous sounds like the beat of great wings, suggesting dragons and other marvelous creations of unchecked fancy. In his waking hours he was not an imaginative chap, but, once his eyes were closed, he could see as wonderful sights as even Poke, who rather specialized in nightmares, could conjure up. Yes, and he could hear sounds quite as strange as Poke ever attempted to describe to a skeptical audience. He was hearing them now; the beat of the wings was almost directly over his head.

Sam sat up with a start. He dug his knuckles into his eyes. He peered about him. There was a wavering patch of faint light—that would be the play of moonbeams before the tent, he told himself. There were shadowy forms about him, where the other members of the club lay asleep. Two or three of them were breathing heavily; snoring, in fact, like good fellows; but he realized that other sounds had awakened him. Then came explanation. The flaps of the tent had been insecurely fastened, and were fluttering in a strong, if fitful, breeze.

Sam crawled out from his blankets. He picked his cautious way to the door of the tent, stumbling over somebody’s shoes, but recovering balance and escaping a fall. He looked out. There were scurrying clouds overhead, fleecy clouds which did not completely hide the moon; the branches of the trees were swaying in a sharp gust. Half sheltered as he was by the canvas, he felt the force of the wind.

“Lucky it wasn’t blowing this way in the afternoon,” he reflected. “It would have been a bad job, if——”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He had not shaken off the influence of the dream, and there was, besides, the ugly doubt concerning the accidental cause of the fire. A moment he stood there, trying to set his wits in order, as he himself would have phrased it. Then, of a sudden, he was as thoroughly awake and alert as fresh alarm could make him.

A thin, grayish vapor was filling the space before the tent. His nostrils caught the pungent odor of wood smoke.

Sam wasted no time, once he had warning of the reappearance of the peril. He sprang back into the tent to rouse his mates; but, even as he did so, he was making swift calculation of the hour. The position of the moon gave him his best hint. Midnight had passed; of that he was quite sure.

“Up, everybody!” he shouted. “Turn out! Fire, fire, fire! Hustle! Get a move on! The fire’s started again, and this time it’ll travel this way! Up with you, everybody!”

There was varied response to the summons. Herman Boyd, a light sleeper, seemed to reach awakening and understanding together; for he was out of bed and on his feet in a second. Tom Orkney sat up and yawned cavernously. The Shark’s voice rose sharply:

“Confound it all! What’s the row about?”

“Row enough!” cried Sam. “Woods afire again!”

“Umph!” growled the Shark; but he reached for his spectacles and having put them on, began to wriggle into his trousers most expeditiously.

The Trojan and Step tried to rise at once, and collided. Both went down, Step falling across the still recumbent Poke, who groaned abysmally, and struck out wildly in the dark. Whereat Step, in self-protection, grappled with his plump friend, and the pair rolled from bunk to ground, adding immensely to the confusion in the narrow space.

For two or three minutes pandemonium reigned. Then Sam, using voice and arm vigorously, succeeded in restoring order, of a sort.

“Hurry, hurry!” he urged; and the exhortation was not wasted. The boys scrambled into their clothes; they dragged on shoes, without much heed to ownership of the articles. Poke and Step, freed from each other’s embrace, made as good time as the rest.

Led by Sam, the club swarmed out of the tent. Once in the open, there was no need for him to declare the danger. Clouds of smoke were driving by them, and beyond the smoke the yellow flicker of flames was visible.

Sam caught up the spade they had used in digging a ditch about the tent. Step noted the action, and gave a shout.

“Hurrah! I know where there’s another—over by the old shed. It’s broken, but it’ll help.”

“Get it!” cried Sam; and away went Step on the run, bounding along with a queer, kangaroo-like gait, which covered ground amazingly.

Tom Orkney and Herman armed themselves with axes. The Shark took a hatchet; the others laid hold upon clubs which might be of use in beating the burning brush. Then they sallied forth for battle.

They had not far to go. Apparently the new fire was close to the tract burned over in the afternoon; but, except in the matter of locality, the situation was entirely changed. The first fire had started when almost a dead calm prevailed; its spread had been slow. Now a strong breeze was blowing, and the line of flame was advancing swiftly. It was sweeping toward the camp, and had gained such headway that Sam, at a glance, realized that the club had its work cut out for it, if it was to save the tent and its contents.

As has been told, the woods near the lake offered plenty of fuel. Sam and his fellows, charging up to the fire, quickly discovered that the beating-out process, which had served well enough in the earlier instance, was no longer effective. Here and there, to be sure, it was possible to check the enemy on a narrow front; but, beyond this, the leaping, yellow tongues continued to gain on either flank.

A spectator, free of anxiety for results, could have found the scene sufficiently picturesque. The wavering illumination played strange tricks with lights and shadows. The moving line of flames suggested a march of torch-bearers, straggling and out of step but always advancing, even if irregularly. Here a tree-trunk stood out in the full glare; there dense, overhanging boughs were like the roof of a cavern. For a dozen yards, perhaps, the fire seemed to frolic in the undergrowth; beyond was a stretch where it raged savagely. The wind sent the smoke swirling through the trees, sometimes in great, rolling volumes, sometimes whipped to streaming ribbons. Blazing twigs and bits of bark sailed away merrily to fall in the thickets and become fresh centers of destruction.

The boys had scant time for such observations, but they did not need to make them to grasp the extent of the danger. Their first attack, as has been related, succeeded in halting the fire for a space of half a dozen rods; but on both sides the yellow tongues advanced, and, indeed, threatened to creep in behind them. Sam marked this peril. He called to Step, who had come up, bringing the broken spade from the old shed; and with him fell back to a comparatively open space well behind the present fighting line—and uncomfortably close to the camp, for that matter.

Sam’s plan was simple, but held promise. It was a rough and ready adaptation of the method often used by farmers in fighting grass and brush fires by plowing furrows across the track of the approaching flames, the freshly turned ground, of course, offering no fuel for them. The boys had no plow, but with the spades, plied desperately, it was possible to dig a shallow trench, which served a double purpose, in that it not only broke the continuity of the carpet of rubbish, but gave chance to widen the safety band by throwing dirt from the excavation over the dead leaves and branches beside it. By great good fortune there was a sort of pathway along which Sam and Step could work, and here they made the dirt fly, while the others did their best to hold back the fire on their immediate front. In this they succeeded, to the extent, at least, of enabling Sam and Step to complete their “safety zone” for a distance which meant a real lessening of the danger to the camp.

Poke, too, had an inspiration. Its source may have been in a quantity of smoke which he had inhaled, and which forced him to fall back, gasping for breath. At all events, as he stood, coughing and rubbing his eyes, a flaming brand fell close beside him. In an instant a new little fire was started. Poke was about to stamp it out, when he took second thought, and permitted it to burn for a moment, not interfering until a patch four or five feet long and half as wide was ablaze. Then in vigorous fashion he plied his club. The result was a patch where fire would not travel again because fire had already ravaged the little space.

It was another instance of hitting upon an old device—that of setting “back fires”; but Poke was vastly pleased by his discovery. He shouted to his friends, who, to tell the truth, were quite ready to try any new move. To put it in military phrase, they had been fighting a rear-guard action, which had its discouraging aspects because of steady, if slow, retirement; and they rallied with a will to Poke’s assistance. The safety zone widened and lengthened; the “back fired” strips bordering the trench extended almost as far as it did. So much accomplished, the boys paused for a little in their labors. They stationed themselves behind the defenses, whose strength was about to be put to the test.

The fire swept up to the barrier. It seemed to beat upon it as surf beats upon a beach. There was no need of a lively fancy to picture a succession of waves; for with the fluctuations of the wind the flames rose and fell like so many combers; while the hint of spray was carried out by tiny showers of glowing embers, which sailed over the obstruction. To these the boys gave prompt attention, with all the greater zeal because they saw that they were holding back the main fire. Five minutes showed their success in this respect. So far as the ditch ran, the great danger was over; they were able to cope with flying sparks falling behind their line. It remained for the Shark to give timely warning of the limits of their success and of the menace still existing on either hand.

“Look! There!” He was tugging at Sam’s arm with one hand and pointing with the other. “It’s getting ’round us! Whew!”

The Shark was pointing to the left, but what Sam saw there made him glance swiftly to the right as well. In both directions was abundant cause for alarm.

What had happened, and was happening, required little explanation. The boys had devoted themselves to blocking the path leading straight to the camp, and had been forced to neglect the flanks of their defenses. There the fire had an unobstructed way. Already it had lapped the ends of the ditch, and was moving on, edging in upon the sheltered area behind the barrier. In other words, the camp now was threatened from both sides, if not from in front. Older heads might have foreseen the situation, but it is probable that the club, with its available force, had done as much as it could have accomplished with the most experienced leadership. The simple fact was that the fire was too big to be fought and beaten by half a dozen boys or men.

Sam kept his head. He made a hurried calculation.

“Fellows, we’ve got to have help. This thing is getting ’way beyond us. And it’s getting beyond a case of saving the camp. It’s going to be a question of stopping the fire before it works around the end of the lake and reaches the pavilion and the cottages.”

The Trojan voiced the complaint that was in the minds of all of the club: “Confound the folks over there! Why haven’t they turned out and given us a lift? Fire fighting’s everybody’s business.”

“If everybody knows about the fire,” Sam amended.

“Geeminy! How can those people help knowing? The smoke is blowing right in their direction. Then there’s the glare. They can’t all be dead over there!”

“But they can be asleep.”

“That’s right,” Poke broke in. “Remember, we were right on the spot, as you might say, and mighty little we worried till Sam happened to be bothered by an uneasy conscience or something. And so——”

Sam cut short Poke’s philosophical observations.

“Never mind that, now! Step, you’d better hustle over to the other side of the lake and wake ’em up. Poke, go along with him, and rout out any neighbors you can find. The rest of us will stay here and hold back the fire as well as we can till help comes. Orkney, take Herman and the Trojan and work along to the left. The Shark and I will go to the right. And Step and Poke, hurry—both of you!”

Step needed no urging. Away he went, on the run, with Poke close at his heels.

CHAPTER XX

THE BIG FIRE

Sam’s generalship had the virtue, at least, of not attempting impossibilities.

It had been shown that by concentrating effort the boys could check the fire for a comparatively few yards; but it was just as clear that such a break in the line of its advance would figure little in the general result. In short, so far as the club was concerned, the fire was out of control. It was spreading rapidly. How far it already had extended Sam did not know. To gain information on this point was one of the reasons for the division of his forces. He had no expectation that Orkney’s squad could accomplish more than he set as a task for the Shark and himself; and this was to do a sort of picket duty, keeping watch on the flames, hindering their progress, if possible, and preparing to report conditions accurately, when reinforcements should arrive.

It quickly became evident that the fire was covering a wide area. Sam and the Shark could catch the gleam of flames far to the right. Seemingly, though, the progress of the conflagration was most irregular. The ground was broken, with many little ravines and small swampy patches; the growth varied in density; the wind apparently had had much greater effect in some places than in others. The two boys moved along at a fairly rapid pace, for the most part; though they halted now and then to extinguish some blaze in bush or grass tuft, where a flying brand had fallen. The smoke was annoying rather than overpowering; for while it was rising in great clouds, these were caught by the strong breeze and swept away. By keeping a little back from the fire line the boys found that they avoided the worst of this trouble, most of the smoke passing overhead. Of course, they could not escape it wholly. Again and again the acrid gray fog closed about them, and left them coughing and gasping for a moment, while the air was again clearing.

Being bent on observation, Sam pressed on. He made mental note of what he saw, and was little encouraged thereby. It was a big fire, and it was going to be bigger still. The chances were excellent that the whole district about the end of the lake would be burned over.

Of a sudden, the Shark plucked at his sleeve.

“Look! ’Most down to the shore we are.”

Sam obeyed the order, and saw that the Shark was right. A tiny bay cut deeply into the land, bringing the water within a hundred feet of where they stood.

“That’s all right—gives us a way out,” said Sam. “If worse comes to worst, we can take to the lake.”

“Umph! Swimming job—water’s deep all along this shore.”

“Well, we can swim, then.”

The Shark nodded. “I guess that’s so, only——” Then he broke off; stared hard at a clump of brush beyond the cove; whistled shrilly.

“What’s up?” Sam demanded curiously.

“Something’s moving over there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I say. Something—or somebody—is stirring in that thicket.”

Sam peered in the direction indicated.

“I don’t see anything,” he objected.

“I don’t—now. I did see something, though.”

Try as hard as he could, Sam made out nothing except the shadowy outlines of the thicket. The light, to be sure, was both faint and trickily deceptive; one might easily be misled by a flutter of branches in a sharp gust.

“What did it look like?” he asked.

The Shark hesitated. “Well—well, it seemed to me somebody was wriggling through the brush.”

“We can settle it quick enough,” Sam declared. He strode to the clump, and as he approached it had a suspicion that he glimpsed a flitting form vanishing in the darkness a score of yards away. But it was only a suspicion; certainly nobody was hiding in the cover he searched.

“Well, what do you think now?” he inquired.

But the Shark had a new point of interest. He had ranged down to the water’s edge, and was staring at an object floating some distance from shore.

“Boat—sure as you’re alive!” he declared.

“So it is—boat gone adrift!” Sam agreed, after a moment’s study of the object.

The Shark meditated an instant. “Look here, Sam!” he said. “Take the way the wind’s blowing—make note where that boat is—gives you one thing sure: Boat must have been beached just about here.”

“You mean to have drifted as that boat’s drifted?”

“Just what I mean. Know what my notion is? Well, it’s that somebody landed in this cove, left his boat, and went into the woods. When he came back a few minutes ago he found that the boat had worked off, and had been carried out into the lake by the wind. Then he saw or heard you and me coming, and bolted through the bushes. That shows that he didn’t want to be seen.”

Sam nodded. “That sounds reasonable. Only why should anybody be afraid of us?”

“Nobody would be—if he wasn’t up to something queer. When things are all right, and square, and aboveboard, everybody tries to pull with everybody else in fighting a forest fire. That fellow—whoever he was—ought to have joined us. Instead, he got away as fast as he could travel.”

Again Sam inclined his head in agreement. “Shark, you’re figuring this thing out right! I had my doubts if you really saw anybody; but the boat makes it a different case. And I’m going to find out who that skulker is. Come on!”

With that Sam plunged into the woods again, the Shark keeping with him. The mystery of the stranger for the moment took precedence over the task of watching the fire.

For a little the boys kept close to the shore, believing that the boat’s owner naturally would try to work back to the cove, and thence swim out to the drifting craft. The Shark had a theory that was just what the stranger had been about to do, when he was frightened off by their appearance; and Sam was disposed to accept it as a reasonable supposition.

Five minutes’ scouting failed to reveal a trace of the fugitive. It showed, too, that the fire in this quarter had spread more slowly, and that the farther the boys advanced, the more distant the flames were from the shore. The pair halted and took counsel.

“That chap’s escaped—for the present, anyhow,” said Sam. “We’d better be turning firemen again.”

“Umph! I’d rather land that runaway,” objected the Shark. “What’s more to the point, we’ve a better chance to do it than to stop the fire.”

Sam reflected briefly. “I guess you may be right,” he admitted. “All the same, we can try to kill two birds with one stone—watch the fire and look for that fellow at the same time. And let’s be at it!”

Again the two set out, this time putting the lake behind them and moving inland. For a space the growth was heavier and the ground “cleaner”—that is, there was less litter of dead leaves and branches. Moreover, a low ridge for the moment hid the fire, so that there was nothing to delay their progress.

Pressing on at a brisk pace, they strained eyes and ears for evidence of the stranger’s presence. Twice or thrice Sam thought he saw or heard something, but in each case it proved to be a false alarm. Once it was a frightened rabbit crossing his path, and again the rustlings might have been made by some smaller woods creature. Presently, though, there was a sound which did not die away in a moment, as the other sounds had died, but steadily increased in volume; a peculiar sound that was like a low roar. Its explanation was not far to seek. The ridge bent sharply to the left. The boys rounded the curve, and halted aghast at the sight they beheld.

For a little the higher ground had concealed the spread of the flames, but now, of a sudden, the pair could view the full fury of the fire. Here it was burning on a scale far greater than any that had marked its progress in other parts of the woods. The crackling of burning brush was quite lost in the roaring of the sheets of flame. The boys seemed to be looking into a huge furnace, in which trees and logs were swiftly being consumed. The forward line of the fire was like a moving wall, being pushed forward by some mighty, if irregular, force. And, as they gazed, Sam and the Shark saw great brands caught up by a sharp gust of the rising gale and carried along in gleaming arcs to fall in the dry timber beyond. They saw vines burned from trees to which they had clung and fall, writhing like serpents in their descent; they saw a resinous pine burst into flame from root to top, as if it were some pyrotechnic set-piece. A shower of sparks fell close to them; there came another, and it was like a fiery rain upon their devoted heads.

The boys gave ground. Compared with this conflagration, the fire in its earlier stages had been as child’s play. It was no longer a question of checking or even hindering its progress. They fell back, reluctantly but helplessly.

“If—if it’s as big—at the other end, they—they won’t be able to stop it this side of the pavilion,” Sam said brokenly.

The Shark was the most undemonstrative of mortals, but now he was wringing his hands in a queer sort of despair.

“Confound it! It—it isn’t fair—a fire like that—it won’t give a fellow half a chance!” he moaned.

“A hundred men would be needed to fight it here.”

“They can’t raise half so many to save the settlement.”

“But the other neighbors——”

“Not enough of ’em to do any good. They’ll have to telephone to town for help.”

Sam considered the case for a moment. “The folks at the pavilion will think of that, of course.... And Step and Poke must have roused ’em by this time. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Not a thing!” said the Shark. “And our camp’s as good as done for, I reckon. Our little stop was all right in its way, but this”—he broke off and waved a hand at the great fire—“this is big business, Sam. It’ll burn over everything on this side of the lake.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Sam gloomily. “Maybe there’ll be time, though, to work back and save some of our plunder.”

“Doubt it,” quoth the Shark crisply. “No harm trying, though,” he added.

Sam gave a parting glance at the furnace, and found it raging more furiously than ever. It was a wonderful sight, fascinating if terrifying. His fancy stirred; there were before him glowing arches and long aisles reaching far back into the woods through which the flames had spread; but in the foreground, where the fire was roaring toward him, it was easy to picture a monster of savage destruction.

“I—I—it makes me think of a—a phrase I never really understood before——” he began.

“Sure! Same here!” exclaimed the Shark. “It’s—er—er—it’s ‘A singed cat’—or ‘A burnt child’—one or the other—‘dreads the fire.’”

Sam’s laugh was a little tremulous. “Ho, ho! ‘Devouring element’—that was what I was thinking about. But you’re on the right track, too, Shark. We’re in a fair way to be singed and maybe burned, if we try to stay here longer.”

THE BOYS FELT AS IF THEY STOOD BEFORE AN ENORMOUS FURNACE

It was no more than the truth. So great was the heat that the boys, even though they were at a considerable distance from the leaping flames, felt as if they stood before the discharge pipes of an enormous furnace. Sam retreated a pace. So did his companion. Then, together, they turned and started back toward the lake.

It was their intention to keep close to the shore and make their way to the camp—if that had still escaped destruction—in the hope of saving the effects they had left in the tent, and then to rejoin the others of the club. They made haste, running when the ground permitted; and came in sight of the water, with no more serious incident than a tumble for the Shark, whose foot caught on a root. On the lake shore, though, they had a reminder of their still unsuccessful quest of the mysterious stranger.

There was a clearly audible crashing of brush very near them. Both boys stopped in their tracks. For an instant they peered into the dim thickets, whence the sounds proceeded. Then, by a common impulse, they sprang forward. The great fire was forgotten, and their one thought was to overtake the person who seemed to be in such fear of detection.

CHAPTER XXI

ROUSING THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Step’s long legs carried him over the ground at a great rate, but Poke did not fall far behind, when the chums started to rouse the people of the settlement near the pavilion. They hurried through the woods, reached the road which wound round the end of the lake, and came presently to a farmhouse, which, naturally enough at that hour, was as dark as the trees before it.

Step unhesitatingly turned in at the gate, and steered for the front door. As his hand touched the old-fashioned brass knocker, however, he heard a savage growl and then a warning cry from Poke, as a big dog came bounding from the shadows near the barn.

Step gave one lusty stroke with the knocker, then sprang aside to avoid the dog’s charge. He took a vigorous kick at the animal, which swerved in time to avoid harm, but also missed its mark; for though it snapped viciously at the boy’s leg, the big teeth failed to meet in his flesh. Step retreated from the porch, and Poke, picking up a stone—luckily he had halted in the roadway—threw it with so sure an aim that the dog yelped with pain, and marking that these were adversaries not to be attacked recklessly, began to bound about Step, barking furiously.

So far as awakening the occupants of the house was concerned, the performance was a great success. Up went a window; a head protruded; a voice spoke wrathfully:

“Clear out, you vagabones! What you mean by skulkin’ around at this time o’ night? Get along with you, or I’ll set the dog on you!”

“Huh! You don’t need to set him on us—he’s a self-starter, all right!” retorted Poke; but Step achieved practical results.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

The head protruded farther from the window.

“Fire? Whereabouts?”

“In the woods—beyond the lake! We saw it, and tried to stop it, but it’s too big for us.”

Down went the window with a bang. There was a moment’s delay. The dog, apparently regarding the affair as taken over by higher authority, was content to snarl and circle Step at a respectful distance. Then the door opened, and a man came out, pulling on a coat as he came. He strode to higher ground beyond the house, turned toward the lake, and uttered a startled exclamation.

The messengers had followed him to the knoll. There they had a first view of the extent of the fire. The glare seemed to light the whole sky to the west. Here and there the flames were in full sight, while above them were rolling masses of smoke.

“Gee-whittaker! Spreadin’ like bad news and travelin’ like Sam Hill! And with this wind blowin’——” The man broke off in mid-sentence; whistled sharply; turned to the boys. “You two hustle along to the cottages. Rout out everybody. And say! Tell ’em from me they’d better get word to town. They’ve got telephones, and now’s the time to use ’em.”

With that the farmer started off, taking the road by which Step and Poke had come; while they, in small need of the counsel he had given, ran toward the pavilion.

The cottage settlement was grouped about the public building. Altogether there were a score of houses, most of them now occupied for the season; so that there promised to be men enough available to make a considerable force of fire fighters. Taking a lesson from their recent experience, the boys raised the cry of “Fire! Fire! Fire!” when they neared the first of the cottages.

The response was prompt. For one thing, there was small need of explanation of the alarm; for from the neighborhood of the pavilion there was an unobstructed view of the opposite shore of the lake and the extent of the fire’s spread. Already the flames were making a wonderful spectacular display, which served as most effective warning to the cottagers of the need of haste in forming their fire brigade. It was almost like a warship’s crew obeying the call to quarters, so hurriedly did every able-bodied man turn out for service. There was some confusion, of course. Poke and Step found themselves in the middle of a little crowd. Two or three were putting questions at once—and not waiting for replies. Plainly, the cause of the fire or the precise point of its beginning was of minor interest and importance, compared with the present danger. There was aimless scurrying to and fro. In one of the houses a woman began to shriek hysterically. Then rose a stern voice of authority. The boys knew the voice. It was that of Mr. Zorn.

“Get axes and spades! Hogan, you’ve got a plow—load it in your light wagon and hitch up on the jump! Mack, you do the same thing! And, Ed!”—his voice rose sharply. “Ed, I say! Hang it! where is that boy?”

There was no reply. Apparently the younger Zorn was not present, nor was his whereabouts known.

Again Mr. Zorn called, loudly and impatiently: “Ed! Ed! I want you!”

There was a brief silence. Then somebody had a suggestion to make:

“Reckon he’s started for the fire—boy fashion—got to see what’s doing, you know.”

“Maybe he’s taken a boat and is crossing the lake,” somebody else hazarded.

“I’ll go and see,” a third volunteered, and ran down to the shore. He was back in a moment or two.

“There’s a boat missing,” he reported. “Likely’s not Ed’s off to see the circus. And I don’t know but he had the right idea. Looks to me as if the heft of the fire was straight across from here.”

“But the danger point for us is at the end of the lake,” Mr. Zorn declared. “That’s the way the fire’ll work around—it won’t jump across the pond. Wish I knew where that boy was, but—well, it’s our business to get to business. Come on!”

Step plucked at his sleeve. “It’s an awfully big fire, sir. We thought at first we could stop it, but we saw we were mistaken.”

Mr. Zorn peered at him. “You’re one of the crowd camping over there, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir—but we didn’t start the fire.”

“Umph! We’ll have to look into that part of it later on. Meant to look you over, but kept putting it off. Now it’s too late.”

He was moving away, but again Step stopped him. “It’s a big fire, an awfully big fire. And it’s getting bigger and bigger all the while. Maybe you’ll need to get help from outside—all the help you can raise.”

Mr. Zorn studied the opposite shore and the fiery picture it presented. The trees close to the water made a dark fringe, through which he had glimpses of the glare of flames, even where the fire itself had not burned its way into clear view. And, as a matter of fact, it was now showing in places which had been dark when the alarm roused the settlement. He tried to gauge the rapidity of its spread; he made note of the stiff breeze; he knew the tinder-like condition of the woods.

“Boy, you’re right,” he said curtly. “Man-size job this is going to be—big enough for all the men we can raise.” He turned to the group. “Jim, you’ve got a telephone in your house. Call up the fire department in town, and tell the chief we want all the men he can send us. He’ll know what apparatus would be of any use. And Joe Briggs!”

“Here!” said a voice.

“Joe, take my car! Go down the main road, and rout out the folks that live along it. If you can get a load of huskies, with axes and spades, turn around and bring ’em back, and have somebody else carry the call. But until you get a load, keep on stirring ’em up yourself.”

“Right-o!” replied Joe Briggs, and ran toward the little garage behind the Zorn house.

Between summer residents and workmen employed on the new buildings, the volunteer fire brigade mustered more than a score of men by the time late comers had joined the others. Altogether, it was a miscellaneously garbed party, just as it was variously equipped for the task in hand. There were men completely, if hastily, dressed; there were men in strictly emergency outfits. Some carried spades or hoes; others had axes. Half a dozen bore lanterns, the light of which revealed the odd variety in the company’s costumes and fire fighting weapons. It was evident, however, that a number knew well the business before them, and it was a very practically efficient little force which Mr. Zorn headed.

Nobody paid much attention to Step and Poke. They had given the alarm and roused the settlement, and there, seemingly, their function ended. No guide was needed to find the fire or show the way to reach it. Off marched the brigade, leaving the chums to follow as they pleased. Neither of them, though, was in haste to go. Poke, peering questioningly at Step, discovered that the latter was regarding him in the same fashion.

“Well?” It was Step who spoke, a curious note in his voice.

“Oh, I’m wondering,” said Poke.

“Same here. And same wonder, I reckon.”

“If it’s about Ed Zorn—yes.”

“It’s about him, and about the boat. And I didn’t notice Jack Hagle, either. But his folks are living out here, just as the Zorns are.”

“Exactly! And those two fellows would be likely to be together in anything. And if they were out on the lake, they must have seen the blaze long ago.”

“What reason would they have for being out at this hour?”

“Might be fishing for pout.”

“I don’t believe it!” Step declared.

“I didn’t say I believe it,” Poke pointed out. “It’s just a possibility. But that isn’t the interesting thing, which is: If either of those fellows—or both of them—saw the fire, why didn’t they row in at once and notify their people? Something queer there, Step; something queer!”

“You’ve said it!” cried Step, with conviction.

Obeying the same impulse, the two moved toward the shore. Across the lake the flames were making a brilliant display, and the field of illumination was extending far out over the surface. It was still a shifting and uncertain light, smoke-dimmed at times and varying as the wind fanned the fire, but, presently, it enabled them to make out a floating object well out from the land.

“Hi! Look—straight out from us!” Poke exclaimed.

“I see it,” Step replied. “Boat, isn’t it?” “Guess it must be.”

“Umph! Then it’s queerer still.”

“What’s queerer?”

“That whoever’s in it didn’t give the alarm.”

Poke stared his hardest. “I’m not sure—I can’t make it out for certain—but is there anybody in that boat, anyway?”

“Give it up. Can’t tell from here.”

“Well, I’m going to find out,” said Poke, and ran to the water’s edge.

Two or three fishing punts were drawn up on the sand. Poke laid hands on the nearest and with Step’s aid pushed it out until it was afloat. Then both boys climbed aboard, and picked up the short oars lying in the bottom of the boat. Five minutes’ work put them alongside the drifting boat. Step caught its gunwale, and made as careful inspection of the craft as was possible in the faint light.

“Umph! Nobody home!” he reported. “Oars laid across the thwarts. Everything left in order; no water in the bottom. I don’t believe it’s a case of anybody tumbling overboard.”

“By ‘anybody’ you mean Zorn?” said Poke.

“Of course.”

Poke took thought. “Looks to me as if he landed somewhere, and didn’t make his boat secure. And the way the wind’s blowing—well, it’s easy guessing her line of drift. But, I say, Step! What’s Zorn doing over on our side at this time o’ night?”

“Let’s find out!” cried Step. With the painter of the punt in his grasp he sprang into the other boat. “Come along, Poke! This’ll be handier to row, and we’ll tow old Snub-Nose.”

Poke accepted the suggestion. “Where’ll we head for?” he asked as he settled himself on a thwart.

The question was answered, but not by Step. From the shore came a hail, quickly repeated.

The boys strained their ears.

“Sounds as if it came from near our camp,” Step asserted.

“And it sounds like Tom Orkney’s voice,” Poke added.

Step made swift survey. “Tell you what! Fire’s turned the ends of our ditch—tent’s a goner!”

Poke nodded agreement. He could see that while the fire had not burned through the timber clear to the shore, it was now very close, in places, to the water’s edge. And one of these places, by his reckoning, had been the site of the camp. He dipped his oar, and Step followed suit. The towing line tautened. Even with the drag of the clumsy punt the pair were able to make fair headway, so hard did they row and so determinedly.

The voice that had hailed them began to give directions. “Pull with your left!... There—that’s enough.... Left again!... Hold her there!... Now a bit on the right—as you are, as you are! Steady, steady—no hurry!... Right again! You fellows have got too much power on one side.... That’s the ticket, and here you are! ’Vast rowing!”

Somebody caught the bow of the boat. Step and Poke turned on their seats to behold Orkney, knee deep in the water, grinning at them. There was a decided increase in the glare from the big fire, and they could make out his face plainly. Back of him, on the sand, were the Trojan and Herman Boyd, their arms full of blankets and other camping paraphernalia.

“Saved what we could,” Orkney tersely explained. “Touch and go getting what we did, at that.... What are you doing with two boats, though? Never mind! The ark in back will do for the freight. Chuck the stuff into her, fellows!”

The punt was drawn in and swiftly loaded. Then Orkney and his followers joined Step and Poke in the lighter boat.

“You’ve stirred up the cottagers, of course?” said Tom.

“You bet we have!” Step declared. “We had ’em going, all right! And they’ve sent on the alarm to town. Jiminy! but they’ll need everybody they can call in from fifty miles around! But, I say! Where’s Sam?”

“He took the Shark and went scouting yonder,” Orkney answered.

Poke stood up in the boat. He peered long and anxiously at the shore.

“I should think Sam would be working back,” he remarked. “Fire looks as if it was worse over that way. Those two fellows couldn’t fight that sort of a whirl any more than they could fight the wind.”

“Right you are,” said Orkney soberly enough.

The boats had drifted away from the beach, and their passengers could survey a wide stretch of burning woods. Nowhere had the fire quite reached the water’s edge, but here and there it had drawn very near to it. Moreover, such tremendous headway had been gained by the flames that it was clear that the growth along the bank was doomed. Whatever the fire-fighters might accomplish would have to be done at the ends of the line.

“Sam and the Shark ought to be coming back,” Poke said nervously. “I—I—what in the world do you suppose is keeping them?”

“Don’t know,” Orkney said shortly. “Course, they can swim for it—if they have to. But what they’re up to——”

Step didn’t wait to hear the end of the sentence, but caught up his oar.

“Let’s meet ’em half-way.”

“Good scheme!” cried Poke, and dropped back on his thwart. “You steer, Orkney,” he added. “The others can keep the sharpest kind of a lookout.”

With the punt dragging behind, the boat’s pace was very moderate. Slow as it was, however, the voyagers cruised for perhaps half a mile without gaining clew to the whereabouts of their missing friends. By this time they had passed the limits of the fire.

Orkney’s face was very grave, indeed, as he guided the boat through a half-circle, and the return trip was begun. The light was strengthening; for now some of the trees overhanging the water were ablaze.

“Keep your eyes peeled for swimmers!” he called to Herman and the Trojan.

They nodded, but said nothing; and the boat moved slowly on. Step and Poke were willing but not finished oarsmen; they splashed water recklessly. The crackling flames were distinctly audible. For a little these were the only sounds on lake or land. Then, of a sudden, there was a shout from both lookouts, which seemed to be echoed from the shore.

Orkney swung the boat’s head; the Trojan was pointing eagerly at figures showing clearly on a sand spit, behind which brush was blazing like a great torch.

“Sam and the Shark, both of ’em!” he exclaimed. Then his voice rose shrilly in excitement and amazement. “Yes, Sam and the Shark, but Jupiter Crickets! See who’re with ’em!”

CHAPTER XXII

A GAME OF HARE AND HOUNDS

When Sam and the Shark plunged into the brush, it was with full belief that they were close upon the trail of the fugitive. Supposedly, too, each had heard the same sounds. It was a curious circumstance, therefore, that they did not keep side by side, but almost from the start drew apart, a fact which escaped Sam’s notice for a little. So intent was he on the pursuit that he failed to observe that the Shark was no longer at his elbow; and discovery of this was delayed until he became aware that the sounds by which he had tried to guide his course had died away. Then, pulling up, he peered eagerly about him. The growth was dense enough to shut off the glare of the fire, and he could make out nothing but lumpy shadows of thickets and black pillars of tree trunks. Even the Shark had vanished in the gloom.

Sam whistled softly, then called. The answer came promptly.

“This way, Sam! You’re off the track.”

“Not a bit of it,” Sam retorted. “But where are you trying to go?”

There was an instant’s pause. Then Sam heard twigs crack under foot, and, presently, made out the Shark approaching.

“What are you waiting for?” the younger boy demanded impatiently.

“You—for one thing,” said Sam. “What did you stray off so for?”

“Stray yourself! I chased a noise till it stopped. Then I stopped, too.”

“Same here! But it’s mighty funny——”

“Huh! I call it exasperating.”

“We won’t fight over words. What I mean is, in a case like this, when two chaps whose hearing is all right, spread like the prongs of a sling-shot—well, it’s queer.”

“I get you. But there’s one explanation: we must be hunting two fellows instead of one. Each of us got after one, and as they scattered, we scattered, too.”

“But where are the two?”

“They’ve either slipped us or outrun us. Or one may have got away, and the other may be hiding within a dozen feet of us.”

“It’s not impossible,” Sam admitted. “But if we search——”

To the left—but not far—something stirred. Sam sprang in the direction of the sounds, which at once grew louder and unmistakable. The hunt was on again, and the quarry was fleeing with more thought of speed than of secrecy.

The Shark was hard on Sam’s heels. On they went, recklessly and almost blindly; for the chase led through dense growth and kept well away from the fire for a time. It bore toward the lake; turned back; sought the deeper woods. Once their course skirted the forefront of flames, and in the glare the boys had glimpses of the fugitive. Then it drove straight through thickets they might have thought impenetrable at any other time. The country grew more irregular in surface. Twice they skirted marshy spots among the hillocks. They climbed low ridges and dashed down into little valleys. In spite of their best efforts they could not be sure they were gaining. They might be running like hounds on a fresh scent, but the game was traveling like a frightened rabbit. Yet, though they might not draw up on the fugitive, they were so close to him that he no longer had a chance to drop unnoticed and let them overrun his hiding place.

For a second time they found themselves on the shore. Then the hare doubled, and led them in an irregular course toward the broken ground. And now the Shark was dropping behind, but Sam was beginning to gain. He could hear the heavy panting of the one who fled before him. Again he had glimpses of the scurrying figure. The light was increasing; for the fellow seemed to be heading straight for the fire. Sam spared breath for an astonished exclamation. He was nearing certainty that he recognized Jack Hagle!

Why should Hagle take so much trouble to avoid a meeting? Sam puzzled over the problem even as he ran. He raised his voice and called, not loudly, to be sure—he lacked wind for a shout—but with sufficient strength to make sure that the hail reached Hagle’s ears. And Jack’s only response was a desperate spurt, which for a moment increased his lead.

Doubt of the other’s sanity seized Sam. Jack now was following a course which bade fair to carry him right into the heart of the conflagration. A second call produced even less effect than the first; for Hagle couldn’t spurt again. Sam began to close the gap between them. It was to be measured in feet rather than in yards; then it was a case of inches intervening between Sam’s outstretched hand and Jack’s shoulder. But the fire was very near now. The glare was all about them; the heat was becoming oppressive; the roar of the flames was in their ears.

“Stop! Stop!” Sam panted. “You—you crazy loon—what’s the matter with you?”

Hagle didn’t stop. Instead, he dodged. The movement saved him from Sam’s descending hand. He plunged blindly down a slope into one of the tiny, pocket-like valleys of the region, which at the moment chanced to be like a peninsula in a sea of fire; for the brush about it was ablaze on every side except that by which he entered.

Sam saw the danger, and was convinced that fear must have driven Hagle mad. He checked his pursuit; Jack was running straight into a trap. He called out, “Come back! Come back!” but Jack gave no heed. He appeared, though, to wake to the peril. At least, he changed course slightly, to avoid a miry pool which lay at the bottom of the depression.

It was as if Sam were looking into a cup, down the slope of which Hagle was slipping. He saw the boy stumble, recover balance, slide to the very edge of the pool; hesitate for a fraction of a second; begin to struggle wildly. There was an instant in which Sam failed to grasp the other’s predicament. Then he perceived that Hagle had been caught in the treacherous footing of the bog; that in spite of his frantic efforts to extricate himself he was sinking rapidly; that already he was mired to the knees.

Sam knew something of the very real peril of the case; quicksands were hardly more engulfing than some of these swampy spots; while the fire added immensely to the need of prompt and efficient aid.

He paused long enough for swift survey of the hollow, of the trees overhanging it, of the advancing flames. By his reckoning there was still time to rescue Hagle, though there was not a moment to waste. He caught a stout branch extending over the pool; clinging to it with one hand, he swung himself down the bank. The branch bent under his weight, but it was sound and of tough fibre. With its help he found that, keeping his feet on comparatively firm ground, he could lean toward the bog and grasp Jack’s collar.

“Steady, there! Keep your head. Try to work one leg free at a time, and we’ll wiggle out, somehow,” he encouraged.

Hagle yielded obedience. Whatever he might have feared from Sam was a trifle compared with his new, and wholly reasonable, fear of the bog and the fire. He did his best to carry out orders; of that there could be no question. But it was no slight task which was to be accomplished. Left to himself, Jack must steadily have sunk deeper in the ooze, and even with Sam’s assistance he could do little more at first than check the sinking. He caught desperately at roots and brush within reach. He floundered almost in the fashion of a novice treading water, now bringing a foot to the surface only to feel its mate becoming more deeply submerged. Sam tugged and pulled, now this way, now that, testing at once the resistance of Hagle’s weight, plus the pull of the bog, and the elasticity of the bough, which was his own dependence in the emergency.

Then the fire came over the ridge, which formed the lip of the cup-like depression. Sam had realized that this soon must happen, and that it had not happened earlier was due to some lucky combination of circumstances, including a greater degree of moisture near the pool than on higher ground. Now, though, a fierce gust caught the flames and swept them along. Little trails of yellow gleamed on the trunk of the tree nearest him, as the bark caught and blazed up. A heap of woodsy debris burst into flame. The heat grew intense. Hagle, in new panic, let go of the brush and clutched wildly at Sam. There was a second in which the branch, bending under its double burden, threatened to break; but, though it creaked dismally, there was no sharp crack of fracture which Sam dreaded to hear. And then, like a most timely reënforcement to a sorely pressed army, came the Shark, panting from his run, half blinded by sweat and smoke, but with his brain in perfect working order.

What the Shark did was simple, but it was done quickly. He picked the best footing that was to be had—it was none too sure footing, at that. He tore off his jacket, tossed an end of the garment within Hagle’s reach.

“Hi there! Let—let Sam alone and hitch on to this!” he shouted, briskly, if brokenly.

Once more Hagle obeyed. He caught the coat and clung to it as a drowning man might cling to a rope. The Shark braced himself as well as he could, and pulled. Sam gave an extra tug at Hagle’s collar. Their combined efforts began to count. Jack succeeded in freeing one leg from the mire, and in keeping it free. Then slowly but surely he managed to draw the other from its imprisonment. The Shark threw every ounce he had into a final magnificent pull. Sam at precisely the right instant relaxed his grip on Jack, who half fell, half was dragged toward the Shark, went down at full length, floundered frantically—and crawled and sprawled to firmer ground. The Shark helped him to his feet, and Sam, who had swung himself down from his bough, got an arm about him.

There still remained an open path for escape from the fire, though it was clear that this way would soon be closed; for the flames were flanking the hollow much as they had surrounded the camp. There was no need to urge going while the going was good. Jack did not dare to look back, but Sam and the Shark, when they mounted the slope, paused to survey swiftly the magnificent, if terrifying, spectacle. Far to left and right ran the surf-like blaze, rising and falling in long billows, breaking as combers break, with showers of fiery spray driving before the strong wind. Involuntarily Sam caught his breath. The savage splendor of it all laid hold upon him, fascinated him. It was left to the Shark to recall him to the practical aspects of their situation by a speech which, oddly enough, was no more practical than Sam’s stirring fancy.

“Huh! Wonder how many millions are going to waste! Geeminy! but I’d like to figure it out!”

“Millions? Millions of what?” Sam asked in bewilderment.

“Huh! Thermal units, of course!” quoth the Shark.

“Ther—ther——?” Sam began; checked himself; laughed explosively; wheeled and began to lead Jack down the pitch on the farther side of the rise.

The Shark followed. He made no effort to resume the discussion, and seemed to be content to hurry after his companions.

CHAPTER XXIII

AN OLD SCORE SETTLED

Sam, the Shark and Hagle made for the lake shore. This was not so much because of any far-seeing, definite plan, as because this was the line of least resistance, so to speak, and because the lake itself offered escape, should the fire cut them off from flight by land. Hagle displayed utter docility. He had done his utmost to evade capture, but, once in the custody of his pursuers, no lamb could have offered less resistance.

At this point there was still a fairly broad belt of woods which the fire had not penetrated, and Sam, presently, slackened his pace. Coming to a little glade, he pulled up.

“We’re all right now,” he told the others. “We’ve got a breathing spell—chance to rest and get our bearings.”

Jack Hagle sank weakly to the ground. The Shark sat down, and clasped his hands about his knees. Sam turned for inspection of their position. There was smoke in the air; the fire was visible through the trees; but by his calculation they could remain where they were for a time without rashness. Either the big fire was serving as a mighty torch or dawn was coming on; at all events, there was light enough in the glade to permit him to make out its extent and even to mark the expression of his comrades’ faces. The Shark was again his imperturbable self; Hagle was a “wreck,” as Sam himself phrased it.

There was a pause. Sam ended the silence.

“Jack!”

Hagle raised his head, but didn’t answer.

“Jack! What made you beat it—run away from us?”

“I——” Hagle’s voice was faint and tremulous. “I—I don’t know.”

“Rot!” snapped the Shark.

Sam motioned to his friend to hold his peace. “Then you took a lot of needless trouble, Jack. What was your idea, anyway?”

Again Hagle failed to respond.

“Look here,” Sam argued. “You are making a big mistake. If you had any good reason for being in the woods at this time of night, you’d better give it. If you don’t, everybody’ll believe there was a bad reason. And with this big fire—I say, Hagle, I shouldn’t like to be blamed for starting it, even by accident.”

“But it was going, when——” Hagle began impulsively, but stopped abruptly.

“When you came across the pond in a boat?”

“I didn’t say I——” Again Jack broke off in the middle of a sentence.

“But didn’t you?”

The Shark had been chafing on the bit, as it were; and now he spoke forcefully:

“What’s the matter with you, Hagle? Haven’t you got the backbone of a rabbit? Haven’t you any gratitude? Say, did you ever hear that word ‘gratitude’ before? Don’t you know Sam saved you just now just as surely as if he’d carried you out of a burning house and down a ladder? Don’t you know that if it hadn’t been for him, you’d be up to your armpits in that bog by this time, with the fire all around you? If you don’t know it, I know it, and you can take my word it’s true. And to see you acting the way you’re acting—huh! but it’s sickening! Get that, and get it straight, will you?”

Perhaps, after all, this treatment was what the case demanded. Hagle cowered under the attack, but when the Shark paused, he raised his head. There was, of a sudden, an air almost of resolution about him.

“I—I’ll tell you fellows. I know Sam saved me—Sam, and you, Shark.”

“Rats! Leave me out!” growled the youth especially addressed.

“I won’t—I can’t! You helped. And I am grateful—I am! Only—only”—Jack faltered miserably—“only what is there for me to tell?”

“You came over in a boat?” Sam suggested. “We saw one drifting away from shore—it was yours, wasn’t it?”

“I—I suppose so.”

“Why did you come across at night?”

“The fire had started up again. We—I mean, I—I saw the glow. I happened to be awake and looked out of the window. So I dressed, and took the boat, and rowed over, to see—to see how much of a start it was getting. And that—that’s the truth, Sam!”

Neither of his hearers had missed the inadvertent use of the plural pronoun. They exchanged swift glances at the betraying “we.” The Shark would have spoken, but Sam raised a warning hand.

“It’s queer, Jack, that you didn’t give the alarm to the people in the cottages.”

“It seems queer now, but—but it—it didn’t look like much of a fire.”

“Maybe you thought you could put it out?”

Hagle squared his shoulders. “No; I wasn’t thinking of that part of it.”

“Then perhaps you expected to wake us?”

“No; I came across just to—to look at things.”

There was a little pause. Then said Sam, very quietly:

“Jack, taking your word for what you did or didn’t do, I don’t see why you bolted away from us.”

Hagle’s shoulders sagged again. “I—I guess there’s no—no sensible explanation for that.”

“You didn’t try to fight the fire, did you?”

“What’d have been the use? It was too big to tackle.”

“You’ve nothing more to tell us?”

Jack hesitated. “No; I—I guess not,” he said at last.

Sam got upon his feet; the Shark also rose.

“Well,” said the former, “we’ll talk this over later on. Meanwhile, let’s get along to the shore; this spot’ll be too hot to hold us presently. Come on, Hagle!”

There was a rustle of brush at the side of the clearing, and a figure appeared. It came forward confidently. Sam spoke sharply.

“Zorn!” he said.

“Huh! Who else would it be?” growled the Shark.

Jack Hagle had been about to rise, in obedience to Sam’s call, but at sight of the newcomer he seemed to change his intention, and paused midway in the movement, resting on his knees. His glance went swiftly from Zorn to Sam, and then back to Zorn.

The Shark wasted no time in courteous preliminaries.

“What do you want, Zorn?” he asked bluntly.

“None of your business!” the other retorted.

“What are you doing here?”

Zorn did not pay the Shark the compliment of appearing to hear him.

“Hagle, I want you,” he said roughly. “Get up!”

Then a curious thing happened—curious, that is, according to the ideas of every boy in the glade. Jack Hagle did not obey his master’s voice.

“Get up!” roared Zorn. “You’re coming with me, and you’re coming on the jump!”

“Hold on there!” Sam interposed. “Hagle is going to do as he pleases.”

Zorn turned on Sam. “You keep out of this, Parker! Don’t you suppose I see through your scheme to break up my crowd? You want to get Jack off by himself, and pump him dry of all he knows and a lot of things he doesn’t know. And that I won’t stand for!... Hagle, you come with me!”

But Jack, still on his knees, merely began to whimper weakly. Zorn strode toward him; found Sam in the way; attempted to thrust him aside. It was a violent push rather than a blow, but it served just as effectively as a challenge.

Sam struck back, and struck hard. The time for the inevitable physical clash with his enemy had arrived, the battle which must be fought out. The blow caught Zorn on the shoulder. He reeled under its force; regained balance; struck, in turn. Sam’s guard saved him, and in another instant the two were at it, in full earnest, fighting rather than boxing, boring in furiously, more intent on inflicting damage than on avoiding it.

In height, weight and reach they were not badly matched, though such advantage as there was, lay with Zorn. Both had some slight, haphazard training with the gloves, after the customary manner of active schoolboys. Both, too, had inklings of the rules; though, to tell the truth, neither paid much heed to them. Sam, to be sure, would not wittingly strike an adversary below the belt, and it is to be recorded that Zorn made no attempt, apparently, to get in a foul blow; but neither bothered himself about the niceties of procedure. Almost at the outset they came to a clinch, and staggered about the clearing, locked in hostile embrace, and jabbing away desperately. Then Sam, who for all his righteous wrath, was the cooler of the two, broke away, because he felt that close quarters were profiting him not at all; and there was a space, in which the rivals battled almost in full form. And here Sam’s clearer head began to avail him. Zorn was getting the worse of the exchanges. Vaguely he understood this, and charging savagely, succeeded in grappling again with his adversary.

Hagle watched the fight as if spellbound. The Shark looked on, critically, if not without prejudice. He knew that both Sam and Zorn were far from fresh, and speculated not a little at the vigor of the combat. Indeed, in his own coldly mathematical fashion he arrived at a fairly accurate notion of the power of the feud between the two leaders and the strength it gave them in this decisive test. He made no attempt to interfere. It was one to one, which was fair, mathematically and every other way. If Zorn defeated Sam the Shark felt it might be his duty to take up the argument in behalf of the Safety First Club; but Sam was not yet defeated. Nay, he appeared to be getting rather the better of it. So the Shark hastily polished his glasses, assured himself that Hagle continued passively neutral, and gave his undivided attention to the fight. It was a good fight—no; it was more; it was a great fight!

Just as there were no seconds, so there were no rounds, no pauses to regain wind. Both Zorn and Sam were panting heavily. Both were bleeding about the mouth, and a lump was forming under Sam’s left eye. But a change was coming in the tactics of each. Zorn was growing more furious, if that were possible; his generalship was more reckless. Sam, on the other hand, seemed to be slowing, but the mathematician was not misled. Shrewdly enough, he decided that Sam was keeping his head and beginning to follow a definite line of strategy, which involved waiting for the fateful opening Zorn’s offensive was almost sure to afford.

It came at last, when the Shark was beginning to wonder at Sam’s endurance and persistence in the new waiting game. Zorn had struggled to gain the prized and effective under-hold; had failed to secure it; had resorted to a rain of blows with one free arm at Sam’s head; had shifted his plan of attack and tried to wear out his opponent by beating a vicious tattoo on his back. Sam, who had been responding in kind, if not in degree, to these attentions, felt a slackening in the grip of the arm Zorn still had about him. He made a feint of breaking away; followed it with a renewal of his more than bear-like hug of his adversary’s body. He worked an arm down to Zorn’s waist-line; he drove his chin into Zorn’s shoulder. Zorn began to give under this leverage. Sam threw all his force into the assault. Back of it was the determination which springs not only from a belief in the justice of a cause, but also the accumulated score of endured wrongs. To his own surprise he found a curious accession of strength, as if from some unsuspected reservoir. There was a moment in which Zorn was thoroughly outclassed and outmatched, and in that moment he went down, falling heavily and with Sam still gripping him crushingly.

The end of the fight was in sight, but had not yet arrived. Zorn, facing defeat, struggled madly. Sam pressed his hard-won advantage. He knew his adversary’s stubbornness; he did not underrate his grit. Zorn fought till he was beaten, decisively, utterly. And then, with Sam astride his prostrate body and Sam’s fist menacing his head, he sullenly yielded. It was a bare movement of the eye-lids which answered the decisive demand.

“Had enough? Give up?”

Ruefully Zorn gave the sign, which told as much as volumes could tell. Sam sprang to his feet, and stood prepared to renew battle, should the other break parole. But Zorn, in truth, had had enough, and to spare. Slowly and painfully he got upon his feet. He stood, silent for a moment, glancing first at Hagle and then at Sam. Jack rose from his knees. He took a step toward Sam, paused, turned to Zorn.

“Ed, I—I——” he began.

“Go with him, if you want to,” Zorn said dully. “What’s the difference what you do—now? I’m whipped. I’m down and out. Do as you please.”

Jack was trembling. “I—I don’t know——”

“I do then!” said Zorn. “I know when I’m beaten. He—he thrashed me—I can’t get away from that.”

“Well, what you got was a good while coming,” said the Shark testily. “Overdue account, I’d call it.”

“I didn’t think Parker had it in him,” Zorn went on. “I’d been waiting for this chance at him ever since he refused to trade. And this—this has smashed everything. I’m whipped. You three know it to-day. The club will know it to-night, and the whole school and the whole town will hear of it to-morrow.”

“You don’t expect us to keep it a secret, do you?” queried the Shark.

Zorn’s answer had all the surprise of the unexpected. “I don’t want it kept secret; I want it told—just as it is. I mean it! Look here! You’ve got your ideas; I’ve got mine. Maybe they don’t agree all around, but if a fellow can whip me, I won’t try to rob him of the credit. I’m no squealer. I won’t try to take away Parker’s credit.”

“As if that wasn’t just what you’ve been trying to do for a month!” the Shark objected.

“I had a reason.” There was a curious patience in Zorn’s tone. “I was playing my game. Things happened my way—so I could make use of them. I did use ’em.”

Sam’s bewilderment at the marked change in his antagonist was beginning to pass. It could not be said that he yet understood clearly the course Zorn was taking; but he was getting glimmerings of the truth. Defeat in fair fight spelled disaster for Zorn’s plans for school dominance. Zorn recognized this. What was more, he was accepting his reverse with a fair-mindedness, so to speak, for which Sam was hardly prepared. It must be, he reflected, that Zorn had his code, which might not be the code of the Safety First Club, but which he would uphold even at cost to himself; he might not hesitate to do unscrupulous things to achieve a definite result, but if he failed, he would accept responsibility for his methods.

A cloud of smoke drove across the clearing. Sam was reminded of the danger which still threatened them.

“Come on, you fellows!” he said, and moved toward the lake shore.

The Shark followed him at once. Hagle glanced questioningly at Zorn.

“I—I—we ought—ought to clear it up—everything,” he faltered.

Zorn nodded. “I’m willing—if you are,” he said.

“I’ve wanted to—for weeks!” cried Jack.

“Then we’ll do it!” Zorn told him with decision; and strode after Sam and the Shark, Jack Hagle trotting at his heels.

CHAPTER XXIV

WHEN THE TRUTH COMES OUT

Sam led his little party straight to the water’s edge, and there almost at once caught sight of the boat with the punt in tow.

There was no waste of time in explanations while the rescuing craft drove shoreward, or while the four were scrambling aboard. Then Step and Poke backed away from the beach, not resting on their oars until the boat was perhaps a hundred yards from the land.

The presence of Zorn and Hagle, Sam’s battered countenance, a not wholly convincing increase in the Shark’s indifference of manner—none of these things escaped the observation of the other members of the club. There was light enough for such study; all along the shore were blazing beacons, huge if smoky torches. The spectacle afforded by the fire, indeed, was now at its finest, and the boat gave a splendid view of the long, fiery line and its weirdly reflected splendors on the surface of the water; but Orkney, Step, Poke, Herman and the Trojan gave a dozen thoughts to Sam and his adventures to one bestowed on the conflagration so near at hand.

“Whew! That’s what I call a real flare-up,” Step declared, but with no marked enthusiasm.

“Our camp’s gone, of course?” queried Sam.

“Yes. We saved some of the truck, though.”

“And you woke up the folks across the lake?”

“You bet we did! They sent to town for help.”

There was a pause in the talk. Hagle, unhappily aware of the interested, if unobtrusive, scrutiny to which he was subjected, sat with bowed head. Sam glanced at him doubtfully. The cowering youth was in marked contrast to Zorn who sat erect, and whose expression was determined, if not defiant. The pair had a story to tell, a story the club was eager to hear, but how was it to be begun?

Step precipitated matters.

“Say, Sam! Picked up company, didn’t you? We—Poke and I—we figured somebody was in the woods besides our crowd.”

At that Jack raised his head. “Look here, you fellows!” he began. “You—you’ve got to know things. I’ll start at the beginning. You know all the trouble started when the Latin book—Trojan’s book—was found in the desk after the examination. Well, I put it there—and I left it there!”

“You did—you!” Step blurted incredulously. “Why, I supposed——” There he broke off, and glanced significantly at Zorn.

“I put it there, and I left it there,” Jack repeated.

“And then let Trojan stand the blame?”

“I—I, somehow, couldn’t help letting him stand it.”

“But one word from you——”

“I know, I know! Only I—I couldn’t manage to say it, because—because——”

“Because I wouldn’t let him,” Zorn put in. “That’s my part of the business; I shoulder the responsibility.”

There was a stir among the club members. Tom Orkney edged nearer Zorn, but Sam spoke quickly:

“Let Jack tell the story—his end of it, anyway.”

Zorn shrugged his shoulders. “All right! Let him go ahead. I won’t try to stop him.”

“Here’s what happened,” Hagle went on. “Every fellow in the class knew the bully, good notes written in the Trojan’s Cicero. Out in the hall, before we went into the room, I saw Sam borrow the book, and give it back to Trojan. Then I saw him put it against the wall. Now, there was one special passage—I just had to have a look at it. So I slipped over and grabbed the book. But then the crowd started into the room, and I—well, before I knew it I was going in, too. And there was the book! I couldn’t let it be seen. So I slipped it under my coat. I’ll be honest—maybe I had a notion of getting a peek at it after we received the question paper. Anyway, I shifted it to the desk as soon as I could. And I left it there. I—I got frightened. The teacher seemed to be keeping a close watch, and when the hour was over and we were dismissed, I didn’t dare risk getting it out of the desk and back under my coat. And I didn’t think—didn’t dream—there’d be trouble for anybody. And I meant to go back for it after school, when nobody was around. I did go back, but the door of the room was locked. And then—then—well, then, I sort of let things slide. But I didn’t mean to bring harm to anybody.”

His voice rose shrilly as he repeated this claim of lack of malicious intention. He waited a moment, as if in hope that some of the club would express acceptance of this view, but none of them spoke. Then he went on, hurriedly and not too coherently:

“Of course, I didn’t want to get anybody else into a mess. I—I wouldn’t have helped to do it if—if I could have helped myself. He—he made me, though. And the way it all happened—why, somehow, I couldn’t seem to do anything right. He—he had seen me take the book in. He just joked me a little about it at first, but afterward—after the faculty began to poke around—he came down on me like a thousand of brick. The things he’d do to me if I didn’t follow his lead! I—I’d always been sort of afraid of him, but now—well, he was different and worse—a lot worse. And then he mixed in soft soap and promises. He’d do things for me, all sorts of things. I’d be right in with the right crowd. And we’d run the school! And the way it all worked—you saw that?” He turned appealingly to Sam, who nodded. “It was queer. When the principal was asking his questions, it seemed as if all I had to do was to say as little as I could, and let everything drift. And then he got me in a corner and——”

“Oh, out with it!” said Zorn. “You’re talking about me, now. Make it plain. I got you in a corner, you say. Well, go on.”

Hagle’s voice trembled, but he obeyed. “Ed put it this way: he went light on the Trojan, and heavy on Parker and the club. He declared Sam had as good as given Trojan away, and said a lot about your crowd being yellow. And he said you had played into our hands. And he told me he could straighten everything out after a while, when we’d got what we wanted.”

There the Shark intervened. “How was he going to straighten things without showing you up?”

“I—I don’t know—I never understood.”

“No; I don’t think he did,” Zorn corroborated. “I had him bluffed. He was afraid of me. As it was, though, once or twice I had to rough him to keep him up to the mark.”

“Look here!” It was Poke’s turn to question. “Remember that day I was trying the flying machine and ended by almost running into you two? It seemed to me as if I was breaking into one of those thrashing bees.”

“I remember—and you were right,” Hagle testified. “He hadn’t trusted me altogether after I voted for Trojan at the election. But I—I just had to do that! I was mighty sorry for Trojan. And the more I thought it over, the worse I felt. Ed kept a close watch on me. He made me trail ’round with him; he made me do things with him.”

“Like starting that?” Sam asked sharply; and waved a hand at the great fire.

“No!” cried Jack and Zorn in a breath.

“We had nothing to do with starting it,” Zorn added emphatically.

Hagle was shaking his head. “No, we didn’t set that going, Sam. Ed woke up and saw the glow, and came over to our house, and threw pebbles at my window till I woke up. Then we took the boat and crossed the lake to see what was happening. The boat drifted off. It was gone when we came back to where we had landed. Then you came along, and—well, we didn’t want you to see us; for you’d think, of course, we’d set the woods afire. And it wouldn’t have been easy for us to explain being there. And so we ran—and, well, you know the rest of it.”

Sam reflected a moment. “Jack,” he said, “if I take your word about the second fire, and agree that it must have been the first breaking out again when the wind rose, how about the first itself? That first fire was very close to our camp. All of us had been away all day. And that fire wasn’t due to spontaneous combustion.”

“I—I don’t know how it started.”

“Were you—you and Zorn, or either of you—on this side of the lake this afternoon?”

Hagle cast an unhappy glance at Zorn, who made answer for him:

“Yes, we were across—both of us.”

A murmur rose from the club.

“We were across; we saw the fire,” said Zorn steadily. “But we didn’t start it. It was going when we came along. Who set it, then? Nobody—intentionally; at least, that’s my idea. You see, there are people going through every now and then; sometimes the workmen take an afternoon off and wander around. Then there are fellows on fishing trips. Some of them are careless with matches and cigar stubs. Somebody was careless to-day—anyway, that’s my theory.... And the fire wasn’t much of a blaze when we saw it.”

“Did you try to put it out?” Sam asked.

Hagle hung his head, but Zorn spoke as steadily as before.

“No; Jack made some motions, but I stopped him. Don’t need to tell me it was near your camp. I saw that. Yes, and I knew it was on my father’s land. And if you’d like the whole truth, you can have it. All along I’d been letting appearances count against you fellows. Well, here was just another chance of the same sort. I figured the fire couldn’t do much damage in almost a calm, and probably you could put it out when you happened along. But the burned-over place would make a fine exhibit to show to my father, to prove the danger of having campers in the woods.... Anything more you’d like to know?”

“Yes, there’s a million things!” cried Step impetuously. “You—you tell us——”

Sam stopped him with a sharp, “Wait a minute, Step!” then turned to Zorn.

“You’ve gone out of your way to cause us a lot of trouble. What was all the scheming for?”

There was frank surprise in Zorn’s face. “Why, I told you once, Parker! Didn’t you understand? I wanted your backing—your club’s backing. I couldn’t get it by favor, so I tried to capture it by force.”

Sam recalled Lon’s suggestion. “You thought you’d work a sort of crooked political game on us, didn’t you?”

“That’s it!” shrilled Jack Hagle. “Ed always is talking about stories he’s heard about political tricks!”

There was light enough to see the red come into Zorn’s cheeks.

“Well, hasn’t a fellow got to have some interest in life?” he demanded. “And if I have heard how things are worked, why shouldn’t I make use of the hints? Politics? Why, yes—if you want to call it that.”

“But there’s such a thing as straight politics, honest politics,” said Sam.

“Certainly! If there wasn’t the right kind, the country’d go to smash,” the Shark contributed. “Just like mathematics! You may make mistakes, but if you stick to it and keep to the rules, you’ll get the right answer in the end. Same way with parties. After all’s said and done they’ve got to play fair and work straight, or they go to smash.”

“Same as Zorn’s schemes!” Step put in, bluntly.

Zorn sat straighter; he faced the club, and spoke with a curious deliberation:

“I’ve got to take my medicine—I know it. What’s more, I want to. You don’t understand, maybe, but it’s the fact.... Now, things have hit me hard to-night. See here! I have had schemes, as you call them. What was I after? Why, to be top-notcher, first all around, head of the school. And I saw how to make it. I must get backing; I needed yours. I saw I couldn’t have it by favor, but luck gave me a chance to put on the screws.... Then to-night Sam Parker thrashed me—out-fought me. It was a fair fight. He beat me, and I’m not whining. I didn’t think he had it in him, but he had.... When I went down, though, everything went down with me. Look here! Maybe, when you were youngsters, you played with toy soldiers. You stood ’em in line. If one was knocked over, all of them tumbled. It’s the same thing in my case now. Don’t you see it? I set out to be cock of the walk. I figured I could whip any fellow in school, if I had to. Well, Sam Parker whips me—and down plump all my play-things! I can’t be the all-round top-notcher; for I’ve met a better man. The whole school gets the story; the crowd quit me. There you have it! First in everything, or first in nothing. That’s the game, as I’ve played it. I’m down and out.”

“So—so am I—but I’m glad of it!” cried Jack Hagle. “You don’t think, do you, I’ve been having a good time? You don’t think I haven’t been miserable? I don’t care what’s done to me! It can’t worry me as awfully as what I’ve been through has worried me—day and night! Expulsion—jail—anything’ll be better!”

Sam glanced at the Trojan. The fellow who had suffered most by the plot had said not a word, while the trickery, of which he had been the victim, was being revealed. Others of the club, too, were looking at Walker, questioningly, wonderingly. Sam cleared his throat.

“Ahem, ahem! I—I say, Trojan, what’s your idea—of the right thing, you know?”

But the Trojan shook his head. “Sam,” he said slowly, “Sam, I leave it to you and the crowd. You know, all along I’ve felt I didn’t have a fair deal—it’s been that that cut me worst. Whatever’s done now, I want to be the square thing—no more, no less. And what’s fair and square I’m not the one to say—I’ve been hit too hard. I leave it to you, Sam—you and the club.”

“And so do I!” cried Jack Hagle.

Sam’s glance went to Orkney, to the Shark, to Step and Poke, and to Herman Boyd. But it was Zorn who put their verdict into words.

“It’s up to Hagle and me to undo the harm, so far as we can. We’ll have to clear Trojan—that’ll mean going to the principal.”

“I’ll do it!” Hagle declared.

“We’ll let the class have the straight story—that’ll be my job, I guess. And about the fire—both of us will be ready to testify you could have had nothing to do with starting it. Anything else?”

Sam shook his head slowly. “I don’t think of anything else now. But”—he paused, conscious of a new feeling for Zorn, not a liking but a feeling lacking much of the old bitterness—“but this is going to be pretty tough for you, Ed.”

“That’s my affair,” said Zorn. He said it simply, evenly, with no trace of gruffness. And Sam understood. They had found the admirable part of Zorn’s code: as he himself might have said, he’d take his medicine without whimpering.

CHAPTER XXV

VINDICATION

In twenty-four hours the big fire had burned itself out. A smart thunder shower, followed by a soaking drizzle, breaking the long drought, helped to check it; just as the valiant labors of the settlement men, reënforced by farmers of the neighborhood and drafts of town firemen and volunteers, counted in preventing its spread around the end of the lake to the pavilion and cottages. But, as a matter of fact, the lake itself and an inlet penetrating deeply into the shore were the most effective checks. Here the fire burned to the water’s edge, and stopped because it there found nothing more to burn; but for a day, in spite of the rain and the efforts of the fire brigade, acrid clouds of smoke hung over the blackened area, proof that in the accumulated woods waste there were still smouldering embers. In the end, of course, these lingering fires died out, and the smoke clouds thinned and vanished; and there was left a scene of desolation and destruction, a stretch of gaunt, charred and leafless trees rising out of a mass of gray, ash-strewn debris.

“Kinder melancholy foreshore for them summer folks to be contemplatin’,” Lon philosophized. “Still, they don’t have to look at it, if they don’t want to. And they’ve got their nice little, fancy-painted houses left, and that’s good luck for them. And in another year or two, the stuff’ll be growin’ green again—old Natur’ is like Charity in coverin’ a multitude o’ sins—and except for the bean-pole effect of the dead trunks, things won’t be so distressin’. No; the lake shore’ll be mended a good long while before some reputations is—eh?”

Sam was of the same opinion. It would be a long, long time before people forgot the performances of Ed Zorn and Jack Hagle. Zorn had carried out his pledge. He had gone among his classmates, and had cleared the slate for Trojan and Sam and the Safety First Club. He had told his father all he knew of the fire. And then he had dropped out. It was no surprise to Sam to learn, one morning, that Zorn had left the school and the town for a time. It was rumored that his father had despatched him to an institution, which was celebrated for its strict discipline, and which continued its term through the summer. In his case out of sight did not mean out of mind, but it did mean that at the school affairs could go on, undisturbed by rash ambition and reckless striving for honors.

Hagle’s case was not to be disposed of so simply. When Sam led him to the principal, he made good his promise of clearing the Trojan. He offered no excuses, but the principal guessed shrewdly at the extent of the evil influence Zorn had exerted upon the weakling. Hagle was not expelled, but the sentence imposed upon the Trojan was shifted to his shoulders, with the addition that his recitation marks were canceled from the day of the test. It meant flat failure for him in the Latin for the term, and consequently the loss of a year—but Jack made no complaint. He told Sam that he felt he was getting off easily, as indeed he was; and he added, truthfully enough, that his greater ease of mind, now that justice was done, was worth all its cost, and more.

The principal asked Sam to remain after Hagle had gone. He studied the boy meditatively, and with a hint of distinct esteem.

“Parker,” he said, “I don’t, as a rule, ask pupils to sit as judge or jury; but, in this instance, I’m moved to seek your opinion. Frankly, I think you have won a right to be consulted. Now, as to Walker——”

Sam waited for him to finish the sentence; perceived that he had no intention of doing so; spoke what was in his heart, and spoke plainly:

“The thing that cut Trojan deepest, sir, was that he didn’t get a square deal—I mean, that’s how he felt. And I felt the same way. You can see for yourself now how things worked out to give us the worst of it. So it seems to me, sir, Trojan ought to come in for just the squarest sort of a deal that can be given him. Of course, I don’t know how Mr. Bacon may——”

At mention of the sub-master, who had conducted the inquiry, the principal made a movement, slight but perceptible. Somehow, Sam knew that his old suspicion had been justified, that the head of the school had not approved the course taken by his assistant.

“Mr. Bacon is not presently concerned in this matter,” said the principal. “You and I are discussing it—and only you and I. I believe on a previous occasion we agreed on the desirability of doing essential justice. But what is essential justice in this case?”

“Clearing Trojan’s name to begin with?”

“Certainly.”

“Then, putting him back where he was in his classes—fixing it so that he doesn’t lose his standing.”

“What’s the situation—with his studies, I mean?”

Sam told him what the club had done to tutor Trojan in Latin, and to encourage him to keep up his work in the other branches.

“Of course, sir, he’s naturally had the snap knocked out of him,” he added. “This thing has hurt his rank all around. He—well, he didn’t care: he kept at it more to oblige us than for his own sake. And—well, there ought to be some allowance made on that score.”

The principal looked thoughtful. “Go on, Parker,” he said.

“As for the Latin—now, sir, it seems to me he ought to be put back where he was, given the mark he made on that paper, and allowed at least his average for the time he couldn’t go to class. And when he takes the final examination, it would be only fair to give him some leeway—we’re not crackerjack tutors, any of us, you know.”

The principal’s eyes twinkled. “Parker, knowledge of what one wants is an advantage at times. It’s quite an order of yours, but—I’ve taken the trouble to investigate Walker’s record from his entrance. And I”—he bent forward and dropped his voice—“I’m going to tell you something—in strict confidence, understand. If Walker will show reasonable industry for the brief balance of the term—why, I can assure you it will require considerable ingenuity on his part to fail to meet my requirements—all around—on this year’s work. Is that satisfactory to you?”

If the principal’s eyes had twinkled, Sam’s glistened. “It’s more than satisfactory, sir—it’s bully!” he cried; and with an impulsiveness he rarely displayed he caught the other’s hand, gripped it hard, and, turning, dashed out of the room to carry the tidings to the club.

The boys received the news as good news—the best of news—but each received it in his own way. The Shark said “Huh!” and blinked furiously behind his big spectacles. Tom Orkney wrung Sam’s hand. Poke chuckled joyously; Step threw his hat in the air; Herman Boyd turned a cartwheel. As for the Trojan, after all the chief in interest—well, he very, very nearly broke down. Probably none of his friends—not even Sam—realized how hard he had been hit, or how the belief that he had been dealt with unfairly had rankled. At times some of the boys had felt that he had been too passive in accepting rather than assisting in their efforts in his behalf; but now the Trojan left them no ground for complaint. With his reputation cleared, he threw himself with an energy which was almost ferocious into the task of making up lost time and preparing for the closing examinations.

“I don’t want to be carried through them; I want to go through them on my own feet!” he declared to Sam, tersely and most earnestly.

As has been related, the school and the town learned more or less of what had happened, though the Safety First Club issued no bulletins. And the former made haste to revise its judgment of the Trojan, and Sam, and their friends. The triumph, in fact, was complete to the point of embarrassment. There was something very like an ovation for the Trojan in the schoolyard, and a cheer, ragged but enthusiastic, was raised in Sam’s honor—and to his vast discomfort. From far off Jack Hagle looked on. He was practically an outcast now, shunned by everybody, but prevented from following Zorn’s example and fleeing the scene of his discomfiture; but Hagle, be it said, weakling though he was, was happier doing his penance than he had been as the tool of the masterful Zorn.

Lon perhaps made the best summary of Jack’s case, his remarks being addressed to the assembled club, gathered of a showery afternoon in the Parker garage. There had been some good-natured jests at the expense of Poke, who recently had brought in the salvage from the Saracen, and who was understood to be meditating further experiments in motor transportation, about which he declined to be communicative.

“Maybe I have an idea, but I’m not advertising it,” he remarked. “I’m going to take my time this trip. You see, the trouble with the Saracen, I’ll always maintain, was because I tried to fly just a wee too quick. As it was, we did fly—a little; otherwise, how’d we have got over that wall and into the road? No; I don’t say there’s going to be another aeroplane; but, whatever it is, I’m not going to hurry too much. You see, I learned something, anyway, from that experience.”

This seemed to give Lon his text.

“I’m right down sorry for that Hagle boy,” he said. “Still, there’s more or less o’ what’s called alleviatin’ circumstances. He’s like a feller that’s been needin’ a bath mighty bad, but when he gets one, finds he’s in awful hot water. And he squirms, and wriggles, and sweats, but all the while it’s doin’ him a heap o’ good. Why? Because he’s gettin’ clean. And when the dirt’s good and thick and caked on, as you might say, it takes a real b’ilin’ out to start it good and proper. But I reckon Hagle’s gettin’ his laundryin’ all right. He’s doin’ well, to date. The next p’int is for him to come out of it with a backbone starched till there’s some stiffness in it. And if that happens—well, it’ll be wuth to him all it cost—and a leetle more. What say to that?”

He might have read agreement in all the faces before him, but nobody put the answer into words.

Lon chuckled softly. “Well, then, if none of you’s moved to give testimony, I’ll say it again: this thing’ll be wuth to Hagle all it cost—and then some—if it makes a man of him. That’s the truth, and truth’ll bear repeatin’. That’s about the best way there is o’ makin’ sure it is the truth.... Tell you what, boys! Truth’s bound to come out top o’ the heap!”

Several heads nodded; but Poke spoke, meditatively, if not doubtfully:

“I know—only sometimes it doesn’t seem to come running.”

“Oh, that’s jest because it happens to have a long way to go in some cases,” said Lon impressively. “But it gets there every time—yessiree, every time!”

The Stories in this Series are:

THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB

THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB AND THE FLOOD

THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB FIGHTS FIRE

Transcriber’s Notes:

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned, except for the frontispiece.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

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Table of Contents

Transcriber’s Notes:

THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB FIGHTS FIRE

Illustrations

CHAPTER I SAM BEARS WITNESS

CHAPTER II THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB

CHAPTER III THE OPEN AIR TREATMENT

CHAPTER IV THE CLUB AT THE COUNCIL ROCK

CHAPTER V LON GOES SCOUTING

CHAPTER VI POKE TAKES A FLYER

CHAPTER VII IN WHICH SAM PLAYS NEGOTIATOR

CHAPTER VIII DRAWING THE LINE

CHAPTER IX THE CLUB FORMS HOLLOW SQUARE

CHAPTER X SAM REJECTS A PROFFERED OLIVE BRANCH

CHAPTER XI SAM HEARS OF THE SARACEN

CHAPTER XII CONCERNING TROUT AND OTHER THINGS

CHAPTER XIII PLAYING THE GAME

CHAPTER XIV AGAIN AT THE COUNCIL ROCK

CHAPTER XV THE DASH OF THE SCARY HEN

CHAPTER XVI ZORN SHOWS HIS TEETH AGAIN

CHAPTER XVII SAM HEADS A FISHING PARTY

CHAPTER XVIII THE CLUB TURNS FIRE BRIGADE

CHAPTER XIX A DREAM AND AN AWAKENING

CHAPTER XX THE BIG FIRE

CHAPTER XXI ROUSING THE NEIGHBORHOOD

CHAPTER XXII A GAME OF HARE AND HOUNDS

CHAPTER XXIII AN OLD SCORE SETTLED

CHAPTER XXIV WHEN THE TRUTH COMES OUT

CHAPTER XXV VINDICATION

Transcriber’s Notes:

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