CHAPTER IX

DICK IMITATES A TAME INDIAN

"Hello! hello!" yelled Tom Reade, pacing up and down the road with his lantern, holding his watch in the other hand. "Oh, Dick! Dave!"

But up the road there sounded no answer. Looking utterly worried, Reade came back into camp.

"I don't like the looks of this, fellows," he announced. "There's something wrong. Something has happened to one or both of the fellows. They left here before eight o'clock, and now it's twenty minutes of eleven. If everything had been all right, they'd have been back here by half-past nine o'clock at the latest."

"Suppose we haul down the tent, pack the outfit and move on down the road, looking for some trace of them," proposed Greg.

"No; that would delay the start too much," Tom replied, with a shake of his head. "Whoever goes out to hunt for Dick and Dave must move fast and not be tied to a horse and wagon. I'm going, for one. Who will go with me?"

"I will," promptly answered Dan, Harry and Greg, all in one breath.

"We'll have to leave one fellow to watch the camp," Reade answered, with a shake of his head. "Hazy, I'm afraid the lot will have to fall to you."

"I'd rather go with you," Hazelton declared.

"Of course you would," Tom assented. "But at least one good man must stay here and look after our outfit. So you stay, Harry, and Dan and Greg will go with me."

"Going to take the lantern?" asked Greg, jumping up.

"Yes," Tom nodded, "but we won't light it unless we need it. Just for finding our footing at some dark part of the road the electric flash light will do."

Full of anxiety the trio set out on their search.

But in the meantime, what of Dick and Dave?

Theirs had been a busy evening. After the first rough pummeling, which left them breathless and sore, the tramp who had directed the rough work turned to his friends of the road.

"These young gents have furnished us with some exercise," he grinned wickedly. "Now, suppose we make 'em supply us with a little amusement?"

"It's risky, close to the road," returned one of the tramps who had been back in the shadows. "We don't know when someone will come along and butt in on our sport."

"Two of our crowd can go out as scouts," replied the ringleader.

"They'd better," nodded the adviser, "and even then we'd better take the cart, the old man and these young gents further back into the woods."

Neither Dick nor Dave had said anything so far, for they were too sore, and too much exhausted.

At the leader's command two men went down to the road, to watch in both directions.

"Give the whistle—-you know the one—-if anyone comes along that's likely to spoil the fun," was the ringleader's order.

Reuben Hinman had been deprived of the last dollar in money that he had with him. Quaking and subdued, the old man obeyed the order to mount his cart and drive the rig farther into the woods.

"Take the young gents along, and see that they behave themselves," directed the ringleader.

Dick and Dave did not yet feel in condition to offer any resistance or defiance. Even with the two "scouts" out on the road there were still six of the tramps left to take care of them.

The odds looked too heavy for another fight it when the last one had been so unsuccessful.

As Dick and Dave got to their feet and started along, followed and watched by the tramps, Dick tottered closer to his companion, managing to whisper:

"We've got to gain time, Dave. Pretend to be weak—-crippled—-badly hurt."

That was all. Prescott fell away again without his whisper having been detected by their captors.

Before quitting the spot near the road the ringleader had scattered the campfire so effectually that the embers would soon die out.

A full eighth of a mile back from the road the order was given to Hinman to rein in his horse.

"We're far enough from the road, now, so that we ain't likely to be spotted," said the boss tramp. "Now, let's see what these young gents can do to amuse us. Maybe they know how to sing and dance."

But Dick had sunk wearily to the ground, forcing his breath to come in rapid gasps.

"Get up there, younker," ordered the boss tramp.

"You've hurt me," moaned Dick, speaking the truth, though trying to convey a stronger impression than the facts would warrant.

"And we may hurt you more if you don't get cheerful and help make the evening pass pleasantly," sneered the boss tramp harshly.

"Wait till I—-get so—-I can get my breath—-easier," begged Dick pantingly.

The boss turned to Darrin.

"Young fellow, wot can you do in the entertaining line?" demanded the fellow leeringly.

"Nothing," Dave retorted sulkily. "After you've kicked a fellow so that he's so sore he can scarcely move, do you expect him to do a vaudeville turn right away?"

"Get 'em on their feet," ordered the boss tramp. "We'll show 'em a few things!"

But Dick protested dolefully, sinking back to the ground as soon as the tramp who had hold of him showed a little compassion by letting go of his arm.

"Give me time, I tell you," Dick insisted in a weak voice. "Don't try to kill us, on top of such a thrashing as you gave us."

"Let go of me," urged Darry still speaking sulkily. "If you want anything better than a sob song you'll have to give me time to get my breath back."

As though satisfied that they could get no sport out of the high school boys for the present, the tramps allowed them to lie on the ground, breathing fitfully and groaning.

Dick was watching his chance to get up and bolt, depending upon his speed as a football player to take him out of this dangerous company. Darrin was equally watchful—-but so were the tramps. Plainly the latter did not intend to let their prey get away from them easily.

As for Reuben Hinman, obeying a command, the peddler had alighted from his wagon and now sat with his back against a tree. He had no thought of trying to get away, well knowing that his aged legs would not carry him far in a dash for freedom. The peddler's wearied horse stood and dozed between the shafts.

"It's about time for you younkers to be doing something," urged the boss tramp, after some minutes had slipped away.

"If you'll find the strength for me to stand up," urged Dick, "maybe I can dance, or do something."

"Did we muss you up as much as that?" demanded the boss tramp. "It serves you right, then. You shouldn't have meddled in our pastimes. Maybe it was all right for you fellers to get your horse and wagon back this morning, but you shouldn't have meddled to-night."

"I guess maybe that's right," nodded Darrin sulkily, "but you went in too strong in getting even. You had no call to cripple us for life."

"Oh, I guess it ain't as bad as that," muttered the boss tramp, though there was uneasiness in his voice.

So the tramps sat and smoked about a fire that one of their number had lighted. Another fifteen minutes went by.

"Come, it's time for you fellers to get busy, and give us something—-songs, dances, comic recitations, or something like that. That's what we brought you here for," declared the boss, rising and prodding Darrin with one foot.

But Dave gave forth no sign. His eyes were half open, yet he appeared to see nothing.

"Here, what have you been doing to my friend?" demanded Dick, crawling as if feebly over to where Darry lay. "Great Scott! You haven't injured him, have you?"

Dick acted his part as well as Dave did, but the boss tramp was not inclined to be nervous.

"No," he retorted shortly. "We haven't done much to either of you young fellers not a quarter as much as we're going to do if you don't both of you quit your nonsense soon. Help 'em up, now."

Dick allowed himself to be lifted to his feet and supported in a standing position by one of the most powerful-looking of the tramps. Darrin, however, continued to act as if he were almost lifeless.

"Give him the water cure," ordered the boss tramp, in an undertone to one of his confederates.

Going to the peddler's wagon the one so directed took down a pail. He went off in the darkness, but soon came back with a pail of water. Slipping up slyly, he dashed the water full in Darry's face.

With a gasping cry of rage Dave Darrin started to spring to his feet. Then, remembering his part, he sank back again to the ground.

"Raise him," directed the boss tramp. "He'll find his legs and stand on 'em. We are not going to let this show wait any longer!"

So Dave was roughly jerked to his feet. He swayed with pretended dizziness, next tottered to a tree, throwing his arms around it.

"You start something!" ordered the boss tramp of Prescott.

Feeling that now the chance might come for both of them to make a break for liberty, Dick answered, with a sheepish grin:

"If I can get wind enough I'll see if I can do an Indian war song and dance."

"Go ahead with it," ordered the boss. "It sounds good."

Once, three or four years ago, Dick had heard and seen such a war song and dance done at an Indian show in the summer time.

"I'll see if I can remember it," he replied.

Crooning in guttural tones, he started a swaying motion of his body. Gradually the unmelodious noise rose in volume. Brandishing his hands as though they contained weapons, he circled about the tree, gradually drawing nearer to Darrin.

"That song is mighty poor stuff," growled one of the tramps.

"Ready, Dave! Make a swift break for it!" whispered Prescott.



CHAPTER X

REUBEN HINMAN PROVES HIS METTLE

Uttering a loud whoop, Dick pushed Dave lightly.

At the same instant both young football players gathered for the spring, then started to speed away.

But they had had no chance to be quick enough, for some of the tramps had moved closer.

Both fugitives were seized, and now the battle was on again—-two boys against overwhelming odds.

Right at the outset, however, a new note sounded.

"Go into it!" roared Tom Reade's voice. "Give 'em an old-fashioned high school drubbing."

Three more figures hurled themselves into the fray. And now, indeed, the battle raged. On the part of the high school boys there was no longer any thought of retreat, though it was still a matter of six men against five lads.

In the excitement of their friends' arrival, Dick and Dave were able to wrench themselves free.

Though those on the defense were boys, they were boys of good size, whose muscles had been hardened by regular training, as well as by grilling work on the football field.

Reade, in his first onset, hit one of the tramps such a blow that the fellow went to earth, where, though conscious, he preferred to remain for a while. Then it was five against five. But Dan soon got in a belt-line blow that put another tramp out of the fight.

From the road the two scouts ran up. When they saw, however, how the fight was going, they slunk off.

It was soon all but over. The boss tramp, however, armed with a club, crept up behind Prescott, aiming a savage blow at his head.

The blow would have landed, but for a new interruption.

With a cry that was more of a scream of alarm, old Reuben Hinman threw himself forward into the fray. Both his lean arms were wrapped around the tramp's legs.

Down came the tramp, just as Dick wheeled, falling heavily across Reuben Hinman, knocking the breath from the peddler.

Tom and Dave seized the boss tramp, as he tried to get up, hurling him back to the earth and sitting upon him.

"Let me up! Lemme go!" yelled the tramp.

"Keep cool," advised Tom. "You're likely to stay with us a while."

"Don't let him go," cried Prescott. "That wretch has all of Mr. Hinman's money in his pockets."

"He'll give it up, then," guessed Reade.

"Come back here, you men!" roared the boss tramp, finding that all his fellows had fled.

"Call 'em all you want," mocked Reade. "They won't come back. They're too wise for that."

Dick, having given the order for the holding of the one tramp who remained, now gave all his attention to Reuben Hinman.

"The poor old man must be rather badly hurt," Prescott declared. "I can't get him to talk. Did you fellows bring a lantern with you?"

The lantern was lit and brought forward.

"I don't know what the matter is with him," said Dick at last. "But that's all the more reason why we must get him where he can have attention. The village of Dunfield is four miles below here. We must get him there at once. And we'll march the hobo there, too, in the hope that the village has a lock-up."

"It hasn't," snarled the tramp.

"Oh, we wouldn't take your word on a vital point like that," jeered Darry.

"The first thing you'll do will be to give back this poor old man's money," Dick went on, eyeing the tramp.

"I haven't got it," came the prompt denial. "I turned it over to Joe and Bill, and they've got away with it."

"You're not going to like us a bit, my man," smiled Prescott. "We are not the kind of fellows to take your word for anything. We're going to see whether or not you have the money. We're going through your clothing for it. Poor old Mr. Hinman will need it for the care that I am afraid he is going to require. Search the fellow, Tom."

Greg now aided Dave in holding the vagabond. The tramp made such a commotion during the search that Dick and Greg added their help in holding him.

Out of a trousers' pocket Tom dragged the peddler's money sack. It was still tied.

"Let me have it," said Dick, and took it over by the campfire, where he untied the sack and peered into it.

"There's a roll of bills and at least ten, dollars in change in the sack," Dick announced, "so I think that none of the money has been taken."

"That's my money you've got," snarled the tramp.

"Tell that to the Senate!" Tom suggested.

Greg and Dan now aided Dick in lifting Mr. Hinman to the floor of his wagon, where they laid him on a pile of rags. Mr. Hinman was breathing, and his pulse could be distinctly felt.

"Dave, I guess you and I had better go along with the wagon," Dick suggested. "Now, see here, Tom, you and the other fellows go back to camp and act just as if we were all there. Start in the morning, as usual. You ought to be in Fenton by noon to-morrow. If Dave and I don't join you before that time, then you'll find us at Fenton."

"What are you going to do with the hobo?" Reade wanted to know.

"Roll him over on his face and tie his hands. Then we'll hitch him to the back of Mr. Hinman's wagon, and I'll walk with him and see that he goes along without making trouble, while Dave drives."

At this moment Reade alone was occupied in sitting on the captive, Dave having risen when it was suggested that he go with Dick to Dunfield.

"Here—-quick!" yelled Reade, as the boss tramp gave a sudden heave.

But like a flash the hobo sprang up and darted off through the darkness. Tom, Dave and Dan started in swift pursuit, but the tramp soon doubled on his pursuers in the darkness and got away.

"Let him go," counseled Dick. "We've enough else to occupy our attention."

So Greg ran out to pass the word to the pursuers to discontinue the chase. Tom, when he returned, was very angry.

"You'd no business to leave the fellow like that, Darry," he growled, "and I was a big fool not to be better on my guard. That fellow will make trouble for us yet—-see if he doesn't."

"There was no use in chasing him any further, if he eluded you in the darkness," Dick remarked. "Dave, you get up on the wagon beside Mr. Hinman. I'll drive his horse."

Only as far as the road did Tom Reade, Dan and Greg accompany them, going ahead with the lantern to show the way.

"Now, you know the plan, Tom," Dick called quietly. "Fenton—-at noon to-morrow."

"Good luck to you two!" called Reade. "And keep your eyes open for trouble."

"It will be someone else's trouble, if we meet any," laughed Darrin gayly.

"I wonder how it was that Tom and the other fellows didn't run into one of the scouts that the tramps had out," said Dick, after they had driven a short distance.

"Tom told me that they did catch a glimpse of a scout prowling by the road side, so they went around him," Darrin replied. "They slipped past the fellow without his seeing them."

As Dick held the reins he also eyed the dark road closely as they went along. He was not blind to the fact that the tramps might reassemble and rush the wagon, for these vagabonds would want both the peddler's money and what they would consider suitable revenge on the high school boys, for their part in the night's doings.

However, the village of Dunfield was reached without further adventure. Dave woke up the head of a family living in one of the cottages, and from him learned where to find the local physician. Then Dick drove to the medical man's house.

Dr. Haynes came downstairs at the first ring of the door bell, helping the boys to bring the still unconscious peddler inside.

There, under a strong light, with the peddler stretched on an operating table, the physician looked Reuben Hinman over.

"I can't find evidence of any bones being broken," said the physician. "It's my opinion that shock and exhaustion have done their work. Reuben is a very hard-working old man."

"Then you know him?" Dick asked.

"Everyone in this part of the country knows Reuben," replied the doctor. "He's one of our characters."

"He must have a hard life of it, and make rather a poor living," Prescott suggested.

"I guess he would make a good enough living, if——-" began the physician, then checked himself.

"Are you going to bring the man to consciousness, doctor?" asked Dave.

"Yes; after I get a few things ready. I don't believe we'll have much trouble with him, though we'll have to get Reuben home and make him rest for a few days."

"Where does he live?" Dick inquired.

"In Fenton. Reuben has a queer little old home of his own there."

"Has he a wife?" Dick asked.

"She died fifteen years ago."

"Are there any children to look after Mr. Hinman?" Darry asked.

"He has children, but—-well, they don't live with him," replied Dr. Haynes, as though not caring to discuss the subject.

Then the physician went to work over the peddler, who presently opened his eyes.

"Drink some of this," ordered the physician. "Now, you begin to feel better, don't you, Reuben?"

"Yes; and I've got to get up right away and see what I can do about getting back my money," cried the peddler.

"Don't try to get up just yet," ordered Dr. Haynes.

"If your money is worrying you, Mr. Hinman, I have it," Dick broke in, showing the sack.

A cry of joy escaped the peddler. He sank back, murmuring:

"You're good boys! I knew you were good boys!"

"You take the money, Doctor, if you please, and turn it over to Mr. Hinman when he's able to count it," urged Prescott, handing the sack to their host.

"Now, Mr. Hinman will want to sleep a little while, so we'll go outside and chat, if you've nothing pressing to do," suggested the physician.

Dick and Dave thought they might learn more about the odd peddler, but Reuben Hinman's affairs was one subject that the physician did not seem inclined to talk about.

"Now, if you young men want to take Reuben over to Fenton," said Dr. Haynes, at last, "I'll telephone Dr. Warren from here, and he'll be expecting you. It'll take you about two hours to get over to Fenton at the gait that old Reuben's horse travels."

This time a mattress was placed on top of the pile of rags, and the peddler was made as comfortable as possible for the trip.

"Remember, Reuben, you've got to stay in the house and take care of yourself for three or four days," was Dr. Haynes' parting injunction.

"I can't spare the time from my business," groaned the old man.

"You'll have to, this time, Reuben, as the means of being ready to do more business. So be good about it. You have two fine lads taking care of you to-night."

"I know that, Doctor."

It was five o'clock in the morning when Dick and Dave drove into the main street of Fenton. Yet they found an automobile in the road, and Dr. Warren, a very young man, hailed them.

"Drive right along, boys. I'll show you the way to the house," called the Fenton physician.

It was a very small and very plain little house of five rooms into which Reuben was carried, but it was a very neatly kept little house.

Reuben Hinman was put to bed and made as comfortable as possible.

"Are there any relatives to take care of this man?" Dick asked.

"There are relatives," replied Dr. Warren, with an odd smile, "but I guess we won't ask any of them to care for Reuben. There are a couple of good women among the neighbors, and I'll call them to come over here soon."

It was after six in the morning when Dr. Warren left the peddler, with two motherly looking women to take care of him.

Dr. Warren, after some conversation with the boys, returned to his home.

"As this is where we're going to meet Tom and the other fellows," said Dick, "I propose that we see if we can find a restaurant and have something to eat. Then we'll try to hire a couple of beds and leave a call for noon. I'm both hungry and fagged out."

They found the restaurant without difficulty, and also succeeded in hiring two cots in an upstairs room over the restaurant.

"Reuben Hinman is becoming a good deal of a puzzle to me," murmured Dave Darrin, as the chums ate their breakfast.

"He's almost a man of mystery," agreed Dick, "though not quite, except to us. I imagine that these Fenton people know all about our peddler friend."

"Both doctors seemed to know a lot about the old man," remarked Dave thoughtfully. "Yet it was strange; neither of them would really tell us anything definite about Mr. Hinman."

"If doctors told all they know about people." smiled Dick, "I believe that life would become exciting for a while, but before long there would be fewer doctors in the world than there are now."

At just twelve o'clock Dick and Dave were called. They sprang up, somewhat drowsy, yet on the whole greatly refreshed. After washing they dressed and went forth in search of their camp outfit and friends.



CHAPTER XI

TOM IDEALIZES WORKING CLOTHES

After the reunion at Fenton the high school boys enjoyed many days of "hiking" and of all-around good times, yet nothing happened in that interval that requires especial chronicling.

Nor in that time did Dick & Co. hear any more of Reuben Hinman, as they were now some distance from Fenton.

"We'll make Ashbury to-night," Dick announced one morning. "We'll go about two miles past the town, halt there for two or three days' rest, and then—-back to good old Gridley for ours."

"Gridley's all right. Fine old town," Tom declared. "But as for me, I wish we didn't have to go back there for another two months, instead of feeling that we have to be there in a fortnight from now."

"This has been a great hike," Dick agreed, "and a fortnight of life of a kind that has had nothing but joy in it. Yet we've the years ahead to think of, haven't we?"

"What has that got to do with going back to Gridley?" demanded Danny Grin.

"Well, what are we going to the high school for?" questioned Dick Prescott.

"I'm going because the folks send me," Dan declared. "Can't help myself."

"Don't you want to get anywhere in life?"

"I suppose I do," Dalzell assented half dubiously.

"Danny boy, I'm ashamed of you," Dick exclaimed, though his eyes were smiling. "Are you content, Dan, to grow up and use your fine muscles in performing the duties of a day laborer?"

"Not exactly," Dan answered.

"You'd rather be president of a big railroad company?"

"Yes, if I had to choose between the two jobs."

"Then perhaps you can get a glimmering of why you're in high school," Dick went on. "When you compare the railway president and the laborer, the difference between them lies a good deal in the difference in their natural abilities. Yet a lot depends, too, upon the difference in their training. You don't find many college graduates wielding the pick and shovel for a living, nor many high school graduates doing so, either. By the way, Dan, what are you going to do in life?"

Dalzell shook his head.

"Then within the next year you had better go after the problem and make your decision hard and fast. Fasten your gaze on something in life that you want, and then don't stop traveling until you get it, and it's all yours! A boy of seventeen, without an idea of what he intends to do in life has already turned down the lane that leads to the junk heap. Get out of that road, Danny!"

"What are you going to do in life yourself?" challenged Danny Grin.

"I'm going to West Point if there's any possible chance of my winning the nomination from our home district. There's a vacancy to be competed for next spring."

"Some smarter boy may win it away from you," Danny Grin retorted.

"He'll have to hustle, then," Dick rejoined, his eyes flashing.

"But suppose you do lose the nomination and can't go to West Point—-what will you do then?"

"I have plans, in case I can't get to West Point," Prescott answered quietly. "However, as yet I won't admit the defeat of my West Point ambition."

"I'd try for West Point myself, if it weren't for Dick being in the way," Greg declared. "But I never could get past Dick in an exam."

"If you want it, come on and try," begged Dick. "Our Congressman gives the nomination to the boy in the district who can stand up best under an exam. Go in and try for it, Greg! Work like a horse when high school opens. You might get it."

"And take it away from you?" blurted Holmes.

"If you can get it from me, you ought to do it, Holmesy. The best men are needed in every walk of life. I'll promise, in advance, not to be 'sore' if you can win it away from me."

"Yes! I'd try all winter," scoffed Greg, "and then in the end some sad-eyed fellow from a back-country village would bob up and win it away from us both."

"Let the sad-eyed fellow have it, if he is the better man," Dick agreed heartily. "But fear of defeat isn't going to hold me back. Don't let it stop you, either, Greg!"

"It's going to be Annapolis for mine—-the United States Naval Academy and a commission in the United States Navy!" Darry declared, his eyes snapping.

"I'd rather like that, too," Danny Grin declared.

"Then go after it," urged Dick Prescott. "Get some real plan in your mind of what you're going to do in life, and then follow that plan, night and day, until you either win or drop from exhaustion."

"Wouldn't I be a funny-looking lamb in a midshipman's uniform?" queried Dalzell blinking fast.

"No funnier looking than any of the rest of us," Dick retorted. "Now, Tom isn't talking much, but we all know what he's going to do, for he has already been working at it. He has been studying surveying, for he means to make a great civil engineer of himself one of these days."

"And I'm going into the game with him," declared Hazelton.

"That's because you've always had Tom about to tell you what to do, and to keep you from butting your head into things in the dark," jeered Danny Grin. "Hazy, you're going to become an engineer just because you shiver at the thought of trying to do anything in life without having old Tommy Long-legs to advise you when to wash your face or come in out of the rain."

"Harry is a pretty bright surveyor already," Tom declared. "He has been keeping mum about it, but Harry can go out into the country with a transit and run up the field notes for a map about as handily as the next kid in his teens."

"I should think you'd like the Army or the Navy, Tom," mused Dalzell aloud.

"Nothing doing," Reade retorted. "I want to be one of the big and active men of the world, who do big things. I want to map out the wilderness. I want to dam the raging flood and drive the new railroad across the desert. I want to construct. I want to work day and night when the big deeds are to be done. That's why I wouldn't care for the Army or Navy; it's too idle a life."

"An idle life!" exclaimed Dick and Dave in the same breath.

"Yes," Tom went on dryly. "Did you ever see an Army or a Navy officer?"

"I've seen several of them," Dick replied, "and have talked with some of them."

"Same here," added Darrin.

"Did you see the officers in uniform?" Reade pressed.

"Yes, of course——-" said Prescott.

"Their uniforms were nice and neat, weren't they?" Tom asked.

"Of course," Prescott answered.

"Then that was because your Army or Navy officers hadn't been doing any hard work that would ruffle the neatness of their uniforms," finished Tom triumphantly, "and there you are! I can dress up on Sundays or holidays, but on the work days, when I'm a civil engineer, I want to wear clothes that show that I'm not afraid to tackle the rough and hard things of life."

"Then you might join Dan in being a day laborer," teased Dick laughingly.

"Oh, no! I want to use my brain along with my muscles, and that's why I'm going to be a civil engineer."

"Army a Navy officers may have had an easy time of it once," Dave went on warmly, but times have changed. Our fighting men, to-day, are obliged to hustle all the time to keep up with the march and progress of science. I asked an Army officer, once, what he did in his spare time. He looked at me rather queerly, then replied, 'I sleep.'"

"He was lazy as well as offensively neat, then," laughed Tom. "As for me, I enjoy my old clothes, and that is one of the reasons why I'm having so much fun out of this trip. I don't have to dress up!"

"You'd feel first rate if you could be dressed up for a few hours, go into a hotel dining room, have a good meal and then slip into a ballroom for a dance," laughed Prescott.

"Bosh!" flared Tom. "I'm no dandy, and all I want is to be a man."

"How do you stand, Harry?" grinned Dave Darrin. "Do you agree with Tom that dirt is the best stuff with which to decorate one's clothing?"

"I never said that," broke in Tom hotly. "I'm as ready for a bath and clean clothing as any of you. I like to wear old clothes—-not soiled ones!"

"If anyone happens to overhear us talking," laughed Hazy, "he'll think that we're all planning to take up prize fighting as our work in life."

"I don't like to hear the officers of the Army and Navy scoffed at as a lot of idling, time-wasting dandies," Darry asserted.

"And I don't like to be accused of liking dirt on my clothes, just because I am going to be a civil engineer," Tom explained in a milder voice.

An ideal bit of green forest, at the edge of a limpid lake, appealed to Dick & Co. as the noon stopping place.

"I've a good mind to fish," remarked Danny Grin.

"Go ahead, if you want to," Dick assented, "but we've got a lot of fresh meat that we simply must cook this noon, for it may not keep until night."

"It would take you an hour or more, even though the fish bit readily, to catch enough fish to feed this little multitude," Tom remarked.

"I don't want to wait that long for my meal to-day."

"I don't believe I want to wait, either," Dalzell agreed, and gave up the idea of fishing.

Luncheon went on in record time that morning. It was not later than half-past eleven o'clock when they sat down to the meal, and but a few minutes past noon when the dishes were stacked up, ready to be washed.

"Whizz-zz!" whistled Dave, as the sounds made by a swiftly driven automobile reached their ears. "Someone is hurrying to get his noon meal. Just hear that old spurt wagon throb!"

The boys sat some hundred feet in from the highway. The automobile did not interest them much until——-

Bang!

Then the car stopped with a scraping sound.

"Gracious!" exclaimed Danny Grin, jumping up at the sound of the explosion. Then he sat down once more, looking sheepish.

"Give up the Annapolis bee, Danny boy," laughed Tom. "That was nothing but a tire blowing out. If you got into the Navy, and a fourteen-inch gun went off when you weren't expecting it, you'd be half way to the planet Neptune before your comrades could call you back."

"How easily we make light of other people's troubles," mused Prescott.

"What makes you say that?" asked Darrin.

"Why, for instance, that party down in the road has been stopped by a blown-out tire. Probably they were in a hurry to get somewhere, too. Now, they're delayed perhaps a half an hour, but it doesn't give us a flicker of concern."

"It interests me, anyway," Reade announced, rising. "Anything in the mechanical line does. It may even be that the man driving that car doesn't know just how to put on a new tire. I'm going to saunter down and see."

Five members of Dick & Co. didn't take the trouble even to glance keenly at the halted car.

Tom took a dozen steps, then suddenly shouted back:

"Fellows, your indifference will vanish, now. Look who's here!"



CHAPTER XII

TROUBLE WITH THE RAH-RAH-RAHS

A broad-shouldered man, his back to Dick & Co., was assisting a middle-aged woman to alight from the car.

As Tom's voice reached their ears five girls exclaimed in delight, then began to wave their hands in most friendly fashion.

Dick & Co. were on the run by this time, for the broad-shouldered man was Dr. Bentley, the woman Mrs. Bentley, and the five girls Laura Bentley, Belle Meade, Susie Sharp, Clara Marshall and Anita Murray.

"Hm! Young men, I'm beginning to feel annoyed," remarked Dr. Bentley with pretended severity, though he shook hands pleasantly enough with the boys. "Whenever Mrs. Bentley and I take some of Laura's friends for a spin anywhere you appear to have our route and you bob up on the map."

"Then we'll withdraw, sir, at once," Dick suggested.

"No, you won't," retorted the doctor. "Young Reade is engaged, on the spot, to help me fit on a new tire. Perhaps Hazelton will help. The rest of you may disappear, and take the ladies with you, if you will. Yet, really, it looks as though you learn our route and follow it."

"That isn't fair, doctor," Dave rejoined. "We're on foot, and have been away from Gridley for something over a fortnight. It is you who must have been following us, with that seven-passenger automobile of yours. And may I remind you, sir, that you wouldn't have bursted the tire if you hadn't been driving at something under a hundred and eighty miles an hour in the effort to overtake us?"

"I'm beaten", laughed Dr. Bentley. "I take it all back. I agree that the appearances are all against me. But I didn't know that you young scions of Gridley were on the road. I was driving fast in order to bring the ladies to Ashbury in time for luncheon. And now, they won't get it."

"Small loss to them, and great gain to us," smiled Dick. "We have provisions enough in our wagon to offer all the luncheon that your party can possibly care to eat."

"No, no! We've encroached upon your hospitality too often in the past," replied Dr. Bentley, with a shake of his head. "We won't be delayed long. Just how long, Reade, do you think it is going to take us to fit on the new tire?"

"The car ought to be ready to run again in fifteen minutes," Tom answered truthfully.

"And we can make Ashbury in another fifteen minutes," Laura's father continued. "So we won't rob the pantry of Dick & Co. to-day."

Dick and three of his chums conducted Mrs. Bentley and the five high school girls in under the trees. Of course the girls wanted to see the outfit, though it was now packed on the wagon.

"Are you going far, this trip?" Dick inquired.

"Ashbury will be the end of our run," Mrs. Bentley answered.

"And of ours, too," Dick nodded. "We agreed to that this morning."

"But we are to stay at Ashbury two or three days," Laura added. "Dad has been making arrangements for us at the hotel there, and he calls it a fine summer place. We know some people who are stopping there now, so we are going to have a pleasant little time of it, I expect. When do you reach Ashbury, Dick?"

"To-night," Prescott answered.

"Mother," Laura went on, "aren't you going to invite the boys to luncheon at the hotel tomorrow?"

"I shall be delighted to do so, if they will accept," replied Mrs. Bentley smiling.

"We'd cause a sensation in the hotel, wouldn't we?" laughed Danny Grin, looking down ruefully at his dusty "hike clothes."

"You have other clothing with you, haven't you?" asked Susie Sharp.

"Nothing better than what we're wearing now," Greg replied.

"Come, just the same, anyway," urged Mrs. Bentley. "You boys are on a rough trip, and you're not expected to have large wardrobes with you. So I shall expect you all at the Ashbury Terraces by noon to-morrow."

"And there's to be a dance there to-morrow night," Belle continued, a trifle mischievously. "Of course, you will come to the dance."

"Yes—-if you invite us!" Dick took up the challenge thus unexpectedly.

"Then you're surely invited," laughed Susie Sharp. "Aren't they, Mrs. Bentley?"

"Yes; if they promise to come," agreed the doctor's wife. "And, perhaps, they would rather dine than lunch with us, and then they can attend the dance after dinner."

"That would be much better, thank you," Dick replied gratefully.

But the other fellows eyed him askance, in wondering amazement. What on earth could Dick mean by accepting for himself and chums a dinner and dance invitation when they had nothing to wear save their road-worn and travel-stained hiking clothes?

"Dick is getting careless—-making such an engagement for us for to-morrow evening," Tom confided to Hazelton, when the news was related to him.

"Well, you won't need to mind, anyway," laughed Harry gleefully. "You, of all fellows, can't kick, Tom, after the way you've been glorifying life in one's working clothes."

Dr. Bentley was delighted to have such capable young men as Reade and Hazelton on hand to put on the new tire, for the man of medicine, though a clever surgeon in some lines, was but little of a machinist. He worked with finer tools than those that his repair box carried.

Twenty minutes later the new tire was on and had been pumped up.

"All ready!" sang out Tom.

"You might have dallied longer on that job," Dick answered reproachfully.

"Are you anxious to keep us hungry girls away from our luncheon that much longer?" cried Susie Sharp.

"Well, whose fault is it that you are not having your luncheon, here and now?" smiled Prescott. "You didn't like our cooking, though."

"Don't I?" chirped Miss Sharp. "If it weren't for making you vainer than you are, Dick Prescott, I'd tell you that the trout luncheon you gave us at the second lake still lingers in our memories."

Regretfully, the boys escorted the high school girls down to the road, assisting them and Mrs. Bentley into the car.

"To-morrow evening, then!" called Mrs. Bentley. "Be at the hotel by half-past five o'clock, won't you?"

"Without fail," Dick smiled back, "unless circumstances beyond our control prevent us."

Good-byes were eagerly called, Dr. Bentley warmly expressing his thanks to Reade and Hazelton for their assistance. Then, with a warning honk, the big car started away.

Then all hands turned upon Dick. "Prescott, why on earth did you let us in for a dinner and dance to-morrow night?" quivered Greg.

"Look at us—-the only outside clothes we have with us!" exploded Danny Grin.

"We're frights!" chimed in Dave.

"We'll disgrace the girls," blurted Tom, "unless in the meantime we can find some real tramps with whom to trade clothes."

"We'll feel ashamed enough to drop, when we get among civilized folks," moaned Harry.

"This is a fine chance to prove or disprove Tom's theory that a fellow ought to feel most at home in his old working clothes," chuckled Dick.

"Was that why you did it—-accepted that dinner and dance invitation?" gasped Dave.

"Partly," laughed Prescott.

"I won't go!" flared Reade, his face showing red under its heavy coat of tan.

"Oh, yes, you will," Dick insisted, "or else admit that you perjured yourself when you idealized your working duds this morning."

"And are you really going to-morrow night?" Greg insisted.

"I certainly am," young Prescott affirmed.

That was too much of a poser for the other members of Dick & Co. Nothing more was said on the subject, though the five boys did considerable thinking.

Toward five o'clock they came in sight of Ashbury. A few minutes later they had reached a point where the highway turned into one of the streets of the town.

Here a uniformed bell-boy from the Ashbury Terraces Hotel approached them.

"Is Mr. Prescott in this party?" he inquired.

"That's my name," Dick answered.

"Then I am requested by Dr. Bentley to guide you to a camping place inside the Terraces' grounds," replied the bell-boy. "Dr. Bentley has arranged it with the manager."

This was a surprise, indeed, but Dick & Co. followed their guide, who turned in through a gate at some distance from the handsome summer hotel. Their guide led them to a grove on a broad terrace, from which the high school lads had an excellent view of one of the porches of the hotel.

"Look at the smartly dressed people over there!" groaned Greg, as soon as the bell-boy had left them. "Look at those girls, in their gowns of white lace! Look at the fellows over there, in flannels and white duck! Look at——-"

"Shut up!" commanded Tom hoarsely. "Don't rub it in."

"Dick," suggested Darry, with some bitterness, "we'll feel like princes in our flannel shirts and khaki leggings, won't we?"

"I've an idea," offered Danny Grin. "By way of dressing up we can leave off our khaki leggings and give our trousers an extra brushing all around. We'll look quite respectable, after all!"

"Gentlemen," remarked Tom Reade solemnly, "I have the honor to make a motion to the effect that Messrs. Darrin, Holmes and Dalzell be appointed a committee of three to take Dick Prescott away and drown him in the nearest sizable body of water!"

"Carried!" proclaimed Hazelton.

Instead, however, all hands fell to work putting up the tent and preparing for supper.

"Rah, rah, rah!" rose joyously on the air. Then, out of the woods behind the camp appeared eight young men in multi-colored raiment. Gorgeous bands surrounded their straw hats; their blazer coats resembled so many rainbows. Yet, apart from their coats of many colors, these young men were smartly dressed, and it was plain that they carried with them considerable of an estimate of their own importance. Their average age appeared to be about twenty-one years.

"Rah, rah, rah!" rang the chorus again. Then one of the eight, moving in advance of The others, called back:

"Fellows, what have we here?"

"Gipsies!" called another.

"Plain hoboes!" from a third.

"It's a gang of juvenile desperadoes escaped from some reformatory," declared a fourth.

"Rah, rah, rah!"

With noisy yells the eight young men descended upon the camp.

"Don't you think you'd better steer off?" called Dave, putting himself as much as he could in their way.

"Why, it talks!" cried one of the rah-rah-rah fellows, in mock astonishment.

"Just like a human being!" added a third.

"Wonder what these animals are doing here?" propounded another.

So they invaded the camp, poking their heads in at the tent entrance, examining the wagon with a good deal of curiosity, and poking into the boxes containing the food that Dick and Greg had just laid out with a view to starting preparations for supper.

"Now, gentlemen," called Dick, "if you think your curiosity has been sufficiently gratified, do you mind clearing out and letting us alone?"

A variety of mocking replies greeted that proposition.

"We don't like to be disagreeable, you understand," Dave hinted, "but, really, we begin to feel that we have had a great sufficiency of your company, gentlemen."

"What are you going to do about it?" demanded one of the eight intruders rather aggressively.

Dave Darrin doubled his fists, ready to fight, now, at any further provocation. Even good-natured Tom looked about for some sort of club. But Dick answered, coolly:

"What are we going to do? First of all, we are merely going to suggest for your consideration the idea that gentlemen don't remain where they're not wanted."

"Freshie!" yelled one of the eight contemptuously.

"Toss him in a blanket," advised another.

"We don't mind your presence as much as your bad manners," Dick remarked coldly. "Will you kindly take your leave?"

"No!" shouted three or four of their tormentors derisively.

Dave, his fists still clenched, bounded forward. One chap, in an especially brilliant blazer, reached out to box Darry on the ear.

That blow never landed, but the tormentor did—-on the earth.

"Eight rainbow hoboes, Looking for life's leaven, One bumped his eyelash, And then there were but seven!"

improvised Danny Grin joyously.

"Clean out this camp!" yelled one of the others.

"Come on and do it, then!" yelled Tom Reade, losing all patience at last.

Dick & Co. suddenly presented a solid fighting rank that had accomplished great things on the gridiron. In this formation they advanced toward their tormentors.

There might have been an ugly clash, but one of the eight shouted:

"Come on, fellows! Don't tease the babies. They haven't had their warm milk yet."

Away darted the rainbow eight, Darrin's victim being on his feet by this time and foremost in the retreat.

"Rah, rah, rah!" came back on the air as the high school boys broke a formation for which they had no further need at present.

"Those fellows are plainly guests at the hotel, and we're going to have trouble with them yet," Prescott predicted wisely.



CHAPTER XIII

A SNUB AND THE QUICK RETORT

At half-past five o'clock the next day, Dick & Co. strolled up to the porch of the Ashbury Terraces Hotel.

From one of the parlors a cry of recognition in a girlish voice floated out. Then appeared the Gridley High School girls, with Susie Sharp in the lead.

"I thought you told us you didn't have any other than your hike clothing with you!" Susie cried accusingly to Tom Reade.

"We didn't. We told you the truth," Reade rejoined.

"Then these——-"

"These new clothes were bought with money from the treasury," Reade informed her.

"Does our appearance suit you, ladies?" Greg asked smiling.

"You look like so many tailor's models," replied Belle Meade, adding, sweetly: "If that is any praise."

Certainly Dick & Co., clad in well-fitting white duck suits, presented a creditable appearance.

"We've been preparing our friends at the Terraces for a different looking lot of young men," laughed Susie. "We have told them that a number of high school boy friends of ours were coming over to dinner and the hop attired in the same clothes they have been wearing in camp and on the road. Now we must apologize to them for presenting fashion plates."

The explanation, as Dick presently furnished it to Laura Bentley, was a simple one. Dick had been handling the funds of the six boys on this expedition, which had held out much longer than any of his chums had known. At the time of accepting the invitation young Prescott had felt sure that an Ashbury clothier would be able to furnish proper clothes for his party, and his guess had proved a correct one. Moreover, the treasury of Dick & Co. had been easily able to endure the drain, for these white clothes had not been costly.

Mrs. Bentley presently joined the little Gridley group of young people on the veranda. That good lady noted, with secret pleasure, the well-groomed appearance of her young guests.

"Rah, rah, rah!" came boisterously up the veranda, as the camp visitors of the evening before suddenly appeared. "Rah, rah, rah!"

Then, halting in a compact group midway on the veranda, they shouted in chorus:

"S-A-U-N-D-E-R-S! Saunders! Saunders! Siss-boom-a-a-ah! Rah, rah, rah!"

"College boys!" exclaimed Susie Sharp in an impatient undertone. "College boys, and the worst of their kind. They're noisy nuisances!"

"So far as any other guest has been able to discover they haven't any manners," Belle added.

Then, espying the girls and their guests the rah-rah-rah boys came briskly up the veranda.

"Good evening, Miss Meade!" called one of them, lifting his hat. "Glorious evening, isn't it? How many dances may I have the honor of claiming at the hop to-night?"

Belle Meade blushed slightly and drew back a step, resenting the young man's familiarity.

In front of the presumptuous youth stepped Dave Darrin, with eyes flashing.

"Kindly keep your distance, young man!" Dave advised, in a tone of dangerous quiet.

"Who asked you to speak?" inquired the rah-rah youth mockingly.

"I am a friend of the young lady, and she finds your presence an intrusion," replied Darry, controlling himself by a mighty effort.

"All guests of the hotel are supposed to be acquainted," urged the rah-rah youth, reddening a trifle.

"These young ladies do not wish to recognize you and your friends as acquaintances," replied Dave. "Kindly efface yourselves!"

"Don't make your lack of breeding too conspicuous," Dick advised, in a quiet undertone, to another of the intruders who had pushed forward to join in the conversation.

A sudden sense of discomfort seemed to sweep over the eight presuming young men. They turned and moved away, though muttering among themselves.

"That is the kind of young men I thought they were," Laura observed. "I am glad that you boys sent them off about their own affairs."

Dr. Bentley joined the young people last of all.

"I have just returned from a long walk," he explained. "I have to make the most of these brief summer vacations of mine."

When dinner was announced, Dr. and Mrs. Bentley and the young people took seats at a long table reserved for their party.

It was a pleasant meal in the midst of an animated scene.

Over at another table the rah-rah boys made a good deal of noise until the head waiter went to them, uttering a few words in low tones. After that the rah-rah youngsters quieted down considerably.

A delightful half-hour stroll on the verandas followed the dinner. Then, like most of the guests, the Gridley young people drifted into the hotel ballroom where the musicians were playing a march.

Dick secured Mrs. Bentley for the first dance, as the doctor preferred to remain on the veranda. Then, after the first dance, a general change of partners was made.

But the Gridley boys were too well bred to claim all the dances with their girl friends. Laura and her friends had other acquaintances at the hotel. Dick & Co. stood back to give these other young men a fair opportunity of securing some dances with the girls.

It was eleven o'clock when the hop had finished. For a few moments Dick & Co. chatted with the Gridley High School girls on the porch. Then they prepared to take their leave.

"We've had a splendid time, for which we must thank you all," Dick declared. "We did not look for any such pleasant evening as this has been when we left home on our hike."

"We are indebted to you all for the most delightful time of our lives," Tom stated formally with a very low bow.

"We couldn't have had a nicer time under any circumstances. Thank you all," Dave Darrin said, on taking leave.

The other boys found words in which to fitly express their pleasure and gratitude.

Then, as Mrs. Bentley and the girls went in side the hotel, the Gridley High School boys wheeled to march back to camp.

"I wonder what the head waiter said to the rah-rah boys?" asked Reade curiously.

"I don't know, but I can guess the meaning of what he said," laughed Darry. "Did you ever see such an ill-bred lot of fellows before!"

"They're not college boys," Dick declared quietly. "I don't know where they came from, but certainly none of them have ever been through as much as a year in any real college."

"They're about as frisky as some college boys," retorted Danny Grin.

"College boys may be full of mischief, at times," Dick returned, "but at least they know how to behave well when they should do so. College men never think it funny to be rude with women, for instance. College men are usually the sons of well-bred parents, and they also acquire additional finish at college. Moreover, the English language is one of the subjects taught in colleges. These cheeky rah-rah boys were very slip-shod in their speech. I don't know who these fellows are, but they're not real college men."

"Say, it must be nice," remarked Hazelton, "to be able to travel about the country, stopping at such nice hotels. Laura and her friends manage to have pretty good times."

"Their families are all better off than ours, in a worldly sense," Dick replied. "When you stop to think of it, there are far more girls than boys in our good old high school who come from comfortable homes. Perhaps two dozen of our high school fellows come from homes of considerable wealth. The rest of us don't. More than half of the Gridley High School girls come from families where servants are kept. I wonder if it is that way, generally, in the United States?"

Prescott had unwittingly stumbled upon a fact often noted. The homes of plain American wage earners send more boys than girls to high school. The well-to-do families send more of their boys to private schools, while their girls are more likely to attend high school.

However, as the boys neared their camp, all other thoughts were driven from their minds.

Tom Reade, who was leading, stopped abruptly, holding up one hand.

"Now, what do you think of anyone who would do a trick like that?" he demanded with a sharp in-drawing of his breath.

"The sneaks!" breathed Darry fiercely.

"Who could have done it?" gasped Greg.

For the tent was down—-flat. The wagon lay on its side, nor was the horse anywhere in sight.

"Did those rascally tramps follow us and watch their chance?" demanded Dave Darrin hotly.

"I don't believe the tramps did it," spoke Prescott, in a very quiet voice, though an angry flush rose to his face. "I believe that we must look in a different direction for the offenders."

"The rah-rah hoodlums?" gasped Greg Holmes.

"Yes," Dick nodded.



CHAPTER XIV

DICK & CO. MAKE AN APPLE "PIE"

"Then I wish we had 'em here!" sputtered Tom Reade vengefully. "I could eat two of them at this moment, and without salt!"

"They need salting badly!" growled Dave Darrin angrily.

The tent was not only down. Each guy rope had been cut in the middle, so that the cordage could not be used again.

"I never saw anything more sneaking!" cried Reade in rage and disgust.

"Unless it will be the way that we shall sneak up behind the rah-rah crowd and square matters!" remarked Darry meaningly.

"First of all, we must be sure of their guilt," warned Dick. "It won't do to try to even up a score that's based only on suspicion. Wait until I get a lantern out of the wreck, and then we'll explore the ground to see if we can discover any real proof against the rascals."

"Let's get into our working clothes first," proposed Reade. "We might want to wear these white clothes again before we get home."

So Tom and Dave held up a part of the canvas while Dick slipped in under the folds of the tent to find the box in which they had left their hike clothing.

"The box isn't here," Dick called. "Neither can I see any of the bedding."

"Get hold here, fellows, and lift up more of the canvas," Reade called.

"There isn't anything in the tent. All the stuff has been cleaned out." Prescott announced in a voice of disgust.

"It was the tramps, then," Dave declared. "The rah-rah boys wouldn't take the risk of stealing anything."

"Hold on! I've found a lantern," called Prescott. "I'll come out with that."

He appeared a moment later, lighting the lantern.

"Now, let's see what we can find," he urged. Not far away the high school boys came upon the prints of sharp-toed shoes.

"The tramps didn't wear shoes that would make these prints," declared Dick. "Neither do any of our crowd. Fellows, we owe our surprise to the rah-rah humorists."

"Then we'll pay 'em back in good measure," cried Darry in exasperation.

After some searching Dick & Co. came upon their clothes chest, at a distance of some hundred yards from camp. The chest had not been rifled, for it was locked and the key rested in Dick's pocket.

"Help me with it, Tom, and we'll carry it back," said Prescott in a low, hard tone. "We need our working clothes at once, for there is work to be done to-night!"

The needed change of costume was quickly made. Off came the white suits, which were carefully folded and put away. Then on went the khaki and flannel clothing.

"Dan, you stay with the tent," Dick ordered, with the air of a general. "Greg, you and Harry make it your main business to see if you can find the horse. The rest of us will concern ourselves with finding out whether the rah-rah fellows are still outside the hotel."

"Here's the horse—-grazing," shouted Greg, two minutes later.

"Run back, Dave, and pilot Greg and Harry here, after they've staked the horse down," Prescott suggested. "We don't want to make too much noise, for our tormentors may yet be about somewhere."

"Hazy stumbled upon some of the blankets," Greg announced, when he and Harry joined Dave. "I don't believe any of our stuff has been carried off, Dick. It has just been scattered."

"Perhaps we'd better gather in all our camp stuff first, then," Dick decided. "We can't afford to lose any of our camp outfit."

Ten or fifteen minutes of searching, with the aid of the lantern, resulted in recovering all of their scattered possessions, even to the last of the cots, pillows and blankets.

"Now, let's make a sweep of the dark parts of the hotel grounds, and we may happen upon the rah-rahs, still chuckling over the fun they've had with us."

But the five boys had not gone far when they were stopped by a well-dressed young stranger of about twenty.

"Mr. Prescott?" asked the stranger.

"Yes," nodded Dick.

"I am one of the bell-boys at the hotel. When I went off duty I asked the manager's permission to change my uniform for citizen's clothing and watch those eight noisy fellows."

"The college boys?" asked Harry quickly.

"They're not college boys!" returned the young stranger. "They've been giving a fake Saunders yell, and that was what made me dislike them, for I've just finished the sophomore year at Saunders myself. I'm working at the Terraces as bell-boy to help pay next year's tuition at Saunders. The manager permitted me to watch those fellows, but somehow they got away from me. I got track of them again near to your camp. Just as I came along they were scooting away, but a glance showed me the mischief they had worked, so I followed them."

"Do you know where they are now?" Dick asked eagerly.

"I know where they were ten minutes ago," replied the bell-boy.

"Then please take us to them as quickly as you can," begged Darry vehemently. "I'm fairly aching to pass the time of night with them!"

"I'll do it," agreed the bell-boy. "Follow me, please."

"I wonder why they went to all that trouble to be so disagreeable to us," Prescott muttered, as the little party strode along.

"You had some dispute with that crowd, on the hotel porch to-night, didn't you?" asked the bell-boy.

"Yes; they tried to address some of our girl friends, whom they didn't know and we objected to their insolence."

"That was what made the rah-rah boys sore," went on the bell-boy. "I heard them talking about it before I left them. It seems, too, that the manager sent the head waiter to stop their nonsense in the dining room to-night. For some reason these sham college boys blame you fellows for that humiliation also. So they're chuckling over what they've done to your outfit to teach you to mind your own business, as they put it."

"I hope we catch up with 'em before they get back to the hotel," uttered Tom fervently. "But warn us, please, whenever we get so close that they're likely to hear our voices."

The bell-boy now led them through an orchard.

"There seem to be a lot of apples on the ground," remarked Prescott, halting.

"Green ones—-they're no good," replied the bell-boy.

"Then they are good—-just what we want!" ejaculated Prescott. "Hold on, fellows! Fill your hats with these apples."

"What are you going to do when you come upon these fellows?" asked the bell-boy.

"Scuttle 'em—-the way they did our tent!" Tom retorted.

"I hope you pay them back generously," muttered the bell-boy. "I've a score to settle with them for trying to blacken good old Saunders! But see here! Up to date, at least, they're guests of the hotel, and I'm an employe there. Now, if they get too much the better of matters in a scrimmage, I'll sail in with you boys, even though I have to resign my hotel job. But, if I see that you can handle 'em all right, I shall just stand by without taking any part in the fight"

"We understand your position, and appreciate it," Dick replied. "We thank you, too, but we believe that we can take care of them all by ourselves. If we can't, then we'll take our drubbing."

"You boys have done some things in athletics, haven't you?" asked the bell-boy, noting the way that each of the five present members of Dick & Co. carried himself.

"Gridley High School football team last season," Dick replied, a trace of justifiable pride in his voice.

"You were?" demanded the bell-boy eagerly. "Then shake! My name is Gerard. We know a lot about the Gridley High School brand of football at Saunders."

Introductions were quickly passed.

"Now, I'd like to feel that I'm really one of you, and I'll fight shoulder to shoulder with you!" chuckled Gerard.

"Please don't try to take a hand in any fight that may occur," Prescott begged. "If you're working your way through college, just keep your eye on your job. Don't mix up in any trouble with the guests."

"We'll soon be at the spot where I left the bunch," said Gerard, a few moments later.

Over a rise of ground the bell-boy led Dick & Co. Then he pointed to a little grove of chestnut trees.

"There is the rah-rah crowd," he whispered. "You see, they have one of your lanterns, and they're lunching on some of your food supplies that they brought along with them."

"I wonder what those freshies are saying now," came in a laughing voice, from the rah-rah group under the chestnut trees.

"Their potted chicken is all right, anyway," laughed another. "Cut me off another slice of the bread. Whee! This college mischief on a dark night gives one an appetite."

Dick gave whispered instructions to his own forces, then signed to Gerard, who drew back into the shadow.

"I'd like to see the fresh kids now," jeered another rah-rah youth.

"May all your wishes in life be as promptly fulfilled!" muttered Tom Reade under his breath.

"We might have had a nice time to-night dancing with the girls from Gridley if their kid friends hadn't stepped in and spoiled it all in their juvenile way," grumbled another.

"We've finished up all the borrowed food," said another. "What shall we do next?"

"For 'next,'" roared Dick Prescott, "you fake collegians will stand up and take your medicine!"

There was instant consternation in the group under the chestnut trees. All the rah-rah boys leaped to their feet, but, ere they could stir, there was a whizzing sound on the air.

Plunk! Plunk! Ker-plunk! Missiles were flying through the air and the rah-rahs were stopping a good many of them with their own persons.

"Hey! Stop that!" bellowed one of the rah-rahs. "You—-wow!"

For his utterance had been for the moment stopped by a large-sized green apple that had struck him full in the mouth.

"Hey! Let up!"

But nothing could stay the fast and furious volley of green apples until Dick & Co. had exhausted their ammunition. Most of the shots found targets, too.

Once they had had time to recover from their bewilderment the rah-rahs turned in full, inglorious flight, without attempting to strike a single blow in their own defense. Who was going to be fool enough, anyway, to run blindly into a storm of flying green apples?

Dick and his chums expended the last of their ammunition while chasing the rah-rahs. Their missiles gone, the Gridley boys put on full speed, ran after and overhauled some of their late foes and drubbed them well.

But at last, by common consent, Dick & Co. came to a halt.

"I reckon we paid the score," laughed Prescott. "They ought to let us alone hereafter."

"No doubt they will," replied Gerard grimly, coming up with the Gridley boys. "I haven't a doubt that the manager will order them to leave the hotel in the morning."

After extending their heartiest thanks to Gerard, the Gridley boys returned to their camp. There, from their supplies, they rigged new guy-ropes and erected their tent. Soon after, all hands turned in, feeling quite secure against another visitation that night.

The manager, at first, the next morning, said nothing whatever to the rah-rah youths. But, at about ten o'clock a constable appeared and gathered in all of them on a charge of disturbing the peace.

Dick & Co. were not even asked to go the justice's court. The hotel manager and bell-boy were on hand, but the crest-fallen lot of rah-rah youths all pleaded guilty. They paid fines of ten dollars apiece.

Then, on their return to the hotel, they were informed that their rooms were wanted at once.

The manager and Gerard personally escorted the rah-rah boys off the grounds of the Ashbury Terraces, and they were seen no more thereabouts. Who they were was not learned, but Gerard's word was accepted that the rah-rah boys had no connection with Saunders College.

Dick & Co. had two more pleasant meetings with their high school friends before an about-face was made, and the return hike to Gridley started.

Their liveliest adventures were yet ahead of them.



CHAPTER XV

MAKING PORT IN A STORM

"Did you ever see a blacker, more peculiar looking cloud coming than that one?" demanded Tom Reade, as the high school boys emerged from the gloom of a long, narrow forest road into comparatively open country.

"Is it a coming storm, or an optical delusion?" pondered Dick, halting and staring hard.

"It looks like pictures I've seen of water spouts," Greg declared.

"That's what it is," Dick replied quietly. "Though I've never seen one before, it's hard to be fooled, for that chap looks just like his published photographs. And look at that queer, brownish, half-yellowish sky back of it. It certainly looks forbidding."

"And we're going to have a stormy afternoon of it!" muttered Dave.

"The waterspout will go by to the north," Reade conjectured, studying the oddly-shaped, rapidly moving and twisting blackish cloud, "but we're going to be right in line with the main storm that is traveling with it."

"And we've got to prepare against the weather, too!" Dick cried, with sudden realization. "Fellows, the storm that is coming down on us isn't going to be any toy zephyr!"

After leaving Ashbury the boys had decided to return to Gridley by a different road.

"There's the place for us, if we can make it!" cried Dick an instant later, pointing toward the slope.

"Dave, whip up the horse. He has to travel fast for his own safety. Tom and Greg, you get behind and push the wagon up the slope. We'll all help in turn. But hustle!"

The crest of the rise of ground being made, the boys found themselves entering another forest. Dick here found the ground as favorable to his purpose as he had hoped it would be, for on the further side the land sloped downward again, and was well-wooded.

"Drive in there!" called Prescott, pointing, then ran ahead to find the best spot for pitching the tent.

"Whoa!" yelled Prescott, when he had reached the spot that he judged would do best for camp purposes. "Now, Dave, go over to the other side of the horse! Help me to get him out of the shafts. The poor animal must be our first consideration, for he can't help himself. The rest of you unload all the stuff from the wagon as fast as you can move."

Slipping the harness from the horse, Dick fastened a halter securely, then ran the horse down into a little gully where the animal would be best protected from the force of the wind that would come with the storm.

Driving a long iron stake into the ground, Dick tethered the animal securely. Then he ran back to help his chums.

"Here's the best site for the tent," Prescott called, snatching up a stick and marking the site roughly. "Now, hustle! No; don't use the wooden stakes for the tent ropes. Drive the long iron stakes, and drive them deep!"

Then Prescott ran back with oats and corn for the horse, leaving a generous feed for the animal.

"You'll need plenty to eat, old fellow, for the storm is going to be a long and cold one."

Then Prescott ran back at full speed to his chums who were erecting the tent.

First, the four corner stakes were driven, and the guy-ropes made fast.

"Greg and Dan can drive all the other pins, if they hustle," Dick announced. "Tom, you and Dave get the floor planks down, and rig up the stove—-inside the tent."

"There won't be time to lay the flooring," Reade objected, taking a hurried squint at the now more threatening sky.

"There's got to be time to lay the flooring, unless you all want to sleep in water to-night," Dick insisted. "Harry, just break your back with the loads of wood that you bring in. I'll fill all the buckets with water."

In ten minutes more everything had been carried inside the tent. Big drops of rain were beginning to patter down.

"We've everything ready just in time to the minute," Tom Reade observed with a satisfied chuckle.

"Not everything quite ready," Prescott retorted. "Tom, if you're going to grow up to be an engineer there's one thing more you should see the need of."

"What?" challenged Reade blankly.

"Get the pick and shovel! You and I will do it. Let the rest get in under shelter!"

Standing in the rain, Tom and Dick hastily dug two ditches at either end of the tent. These ditches were no creditable engineering jobs, but they would, at need, carry a good deal of water down the slope.

By this time the rain was falling heavily. In the distance heavy thunder volleyed, and the sky was growing blacker every minute.

"One more job," called Dick. "Dave and Greg, tumble out with the shelter flap!"

This was a great sheet of canvas that had to be fastened in place over the tent roof, and at a different pitch.

"We'll be drowned before we get the shelter flap in place," grumbled Tom.

"And we might as well be out in the rain, if we don't have it up," Dick retorted. "Open her up! Now, then—-up with it!"

The shelter flap was placed with difficulty, for now the wind was driving across the country, blowing everything before it. The other two boys leaped out to help their chums. The shelter flap was made secure at last, the ropes being made fast to the surrounding trees.

By this time the wind was blowing at the rate of fifty miles an hour. The sky was nearly as black as on a dark night, while the rain was coming down "like another Niagara," as Harry Hazelton put it.

"We don't care whether we have a dry tent or not, now," laughed Dan Dalzell, as the six boys made a break for cover. "We're soaking, anyway, and a little more water won't hurt."

"I'll get a fire going in the stove," Dick smiled. "Soon after that we'll be dry enough—-if the tent holds."

The stove was already in place, a sheet-iron pipe running up one of the tent walls and out through a circular opening in the canvas of the side wall opposite from the wind.

While Dick was making the fire, Tom Reade filled, trimmed and lighted the two lanterns.

"Listen to the storm!" chuckled Prescott. "But we're comfy and cheery enough. Now, peel off your outer clothes and spread them on the campstools to dry by the fire. We'll soon be feeling as cheery as though we were traveling in a Pullman car."

Within a short time all six were dry and happy. The lightning had come closer and closer, until now it flashed directly overhead, followed by heavy explosions of thunder.

Not one of the boys could remember a time when it had ever rained as hard before. It seemed to them as though solid sheets of water were coming down. Yet the position of the tent, aided by the ditches, kept their floor dry. Dan, peering out through the canvas doorway, reported that the ditches were running water at full capacity.

"This will all be over in an hour," hazarded Greg.

"It may, and it may not be," Dick rejoined. "My own guess is that the storm will last for hours."

As the howling wind gained in intensity it seemed as though the tent must be blown to ribbons, but stout canvas will stand considerable weather strain.

"If we had driven the wooden pins for the guy-ropes," muttered Greg, "everyone of them would have been washed loose by this time."

"They would have been," Dick assented, "and the tent would now be down upon our heads, a drenched wreck. As it is, I think we can pull through a night of bad weather."

In an hour the flashes of lightning had become less frequent. The wind had abated slightly, but there was no cessation of the downpour.

"I pity anyone who has to travel the highway in this storm," muttered Dave. "This isn't weather for human beings."

"Yet every bird of the air has to weather it," observed Hazelton.

"Yes," muttered Tom, "and a good many of the birds of the air will be killed in this storm, too."

Night came down early. The wind and rain had sent the temperature down until it seemed to the high school boys more like an October night. The warmth and light in the tent were highly gratifying to all.

"As long as the tent holds I can't think of a blessed thing we have to go outside for," sighed Reade contentedly.

"We don't have to," laughed Dick. "Fellows, we're away off in the wilderness, but we're as happy as we could be in a palace. How about supper?"

That idea was approved instantly.

"We'll have two suppers to-night," proposed Tom. "That will be the visible proof and expression of the highest happiness that can be reached on a night like this."

Even by ten o'clock that night there was no abatement in the volume of rain falling. The wind still howled.

"Are we going to turn in, soon?" inquired Dave.

"My vote," announced Tom indolently, "is for another supper, and turn in at perhaps two o'clock in the morning."

"I second the motion—-as far as another supper goes," chimed in Danny Grin.

"It wants to be a supper of piping hot stuff, too," declared Greg. "It's warm here in the tent, but the surrounding world is chill and drear. Nothing but hot food will serve us."

Preparations for the meal were quickly under way.

"I hope everyone within the reach of this storm is as comfortable as we are," murmured Hazelton.

"Why, we're so happy, we could entertain company with a relish," laughed Reade.

"Say, what was that?" demanded Greg.

From outside came a faint sound as of someone stealthily groping about outside in the storm.

"Bring a lantern, quickly!" called Dick, going toward the tent door.

As Greg played the rays of light against the darkness outside, Dick suddenly sprang forth into the dark. Then he returned, bearing in his arms the pitiful little figure of old Reuben Hinman, the peddler.

"Look at his head!" gasped Reade, in horror, as Prescott entered with the burden.

From a gash over the peddler's left temple blood was flowing, leaving its dark trail over the peddler's light brown coat.

Dick carried the stricken old man straight to his own cot, laying him there gently.

"Who can have done this deed?" gasped Greg, throbbing with sympathy for the poor old man.

Outside other approaching steps sounded. Dave and Tom, snatching up sticks of firewood, sprang forward.



CHAPTER XVI

HOME, HOSPITAL AND ALMSHOUSE

Greg flashed the lantern on four hulking, bedraggled ragged men.

"Hello! It's the same kids!" cried a hoarse voice out in the storm. "They'll be glad to see us."

"You keep out of here!" ordered Reade, thrusting his stick at the face of the first tramp—-the boss tramp—-who tried to enter.

"No!" countermanded Dick Prescott. "Let even the hoboes come in. Let anyone come in on a night like this."

"Now, that's decent of you," admitted the boss tramp, as he sloshed heavily in, followed by three companions. Two of these tramps had been with the "boss" on another well remembered occasion. The third was a stranger to Dick & Co.

"My, but you've got a real house in here a true port in a storm," observed the boss tramp, as he halted to stare about him. "Friends, this is the best thing we've seen today."

"It is," agreed the other tramps solemnly.

The glance of the newcomers did not rest upon the face of Reuben Hinman, for Prescott had gently spread a blanket so that it effectually concealed the little old peddler.

"What have you men been doing?" asked Dick, straightening up and eyeing them coldly, steadily.

"Drowning in the woods," replied the boss, "for we knew we couldn't find a house or barn within two miles, and the road is like a river you need a boat for travel to-night. When the storm came we men made a brush lean-to and kept as dry as we could under it. But it got worse and worse. But at last we caught sight of your light shining through the trees. So we headed for it. We hoped you'd have a stove with a fire in it, and you have—-so we're all right, and much obliged."

"Keep back there a bit," ordered Dick, so firmly that the tramps obeyed. "Dave, help me to lift this cot over within a few feet of the stove. Be as gentle as you can."

Four tramps looked on in solemn curiosity as they saw Darrin and Prescott lift a cot on which lay something completely covered by a blanket.

Then Dick turned down the blanket, revealing the bruised, bleeding head of Reuben Hinman.

"What do you men know about this?" Prescott demanded, eyeing them compellingly.

But the tramps' look was one of such astonished innocence that Prescott began to wonder whether he had wrongly suspected these knights of the highway.

"Why did you do—-this?" Prescott sternly insisted.

"We—-we didn't do it!" exclaimed the boss tramp fervently. "We didn't even know that this old party was anywhere out in the storm. We——-"

Moaning, Reuben Hinman stirred slightly then opened his eyes dreamily.

"Mr. Hinman, can you talk?" asked Dick gently.

"Ye-es," faintly admitted the peddler.

"Then how were you hurt, sir?" Dick pressed in the same gentle voice.

"I—-I saw the light. Tried—-to drive my horse—-in. Wagon turned over. Fell off—-and hurt my head," replied the peddler, whispering hoarsely.

"You're fully conscious, Mr. Hinman, and know just what you're saying?" Dick pressed.

"Yes, Prescott. I know."

"Then no one else assaulted you to-night, sir."

"No—-one."

"I feel like saying 'thank heaven' for that!" exclaimed Dick in a quiet voice, as he straightened up, his eyes a trifle misty. "I hate to think that the earth holds men vile enough to strike down a weak old man like this!"

"And on such a night," added Tom Reade.

"Oh, we're pretty bad," said the boss tramp, huskily, "but we didn't do anything like that."

"At first," Dick went on, "I thought you hoboes had done the deed. That was why I asked my friend to let you come in. I wanted to keep you here until we could find someone who would take care of you."

"We didn't do it," replied the boss tramp, "and the old man says we didn't."

"No; no man struck me—-I fell," chimed in the peddler weakly.

"We'll help you take care of the old man," offered the boss tramp.

"If you mean what you say," Prescott proposed, "then take one of these lanterns and go down by the road to see what you can find out about Mr. Hinman's horse and wagon. Or did you see them as you came up?"

"No, for we came through the woods," replied the boss tramp. "I'll take the lantern. Come with me, Joe."

Out into the dark plunged the two tramps, to face the heavily falling rain. For once, at any rate, they were doing something useful.

At a signal from Dick, Greg put some water on the stove to heat. Prescott found some clean cloth in their wardrobe box and bathed the wound on Mr. Hinman's temple, then washed his entire face. The wound proved to be broad, rather than deep, and was such as might have been caused by falling on sharp pebbles. Then Dick bound up the wound.

Next, Dick and Greg undressed Mr. Hinman and rubbed him down, then rolled him in dry blankets and laid him on another cot not far from the stove.

"Come out, you other hoboes," called the boss tramp's voice. "Come and help us right the peddler's wagon and bring that and the horse up here."

The other two tramps went reluctantly out into the storm.

A bottle full of hot water, wrapped in a towel, was placed at the peddler's feet.

In the meantime the tramps got the wagon into a sheltered position, then staked the horse out close to the place where the Gridley horse was tethered. This having been accomplished, they came back to the camp, to find a new aroma on the air.

"That stuff smells good. What is it?" asked the boss tramp.

"Ginger tea. We've made some to give to Mr. Hinman."

"Will you give us some, too?" asked the tramp. "We're all of us chilled and hoarse."

"I will," Dick nodded, "if you men will undertake to fill the buckets before you try to dry yourselves. Otherwise, we shall run out of water."

Grunting, the boss tramp and one of his companions listened while Dick directed them where to find running water. Out again into the storm they lurched, and soon had all the water buckets filled and in the tent.

While the tramps dried their clothing, Prescott kept his word about making ginger tea.

"This seems like the best stuff I've had since I was a baby," remarked the boss tramp, in a somewhat grateful voice.

"Maybe that's because you've worked for it," suggested Reade thoughtfully.

"I wonder," grunted the hobo. "I wonder."

Later on Dick and his chums prepared a supper, of which all partook except the peddler, who needed sleep and warmth more.

The tramps slept on the floor, later on. Tom, Dave and Harry slept on their cots, while the other three high school boys remained awake.

Toward two o'clock in the morning Dick found Reuben Hinman's skin becoming decidedly feverish, and began to administer nitre.

"I'd mount our horse, and try to ride for a doctor, if I thought I could get one," murmured Greg.

"You couldn't get one here to-night," volunteered the boss tramp, who had awakened and had risen on one elbow. "Neither an automobile nor a buggy could be driven over this wild road to-night. The water is three feet deep in spots—-worse in some others."

Though the deluge outside still continued, all would have been cheery inside had it not been for the alarm Dick & Co. felt over the increasing fever of the poor old peddler. His breathing became more and more labored.

Dave awoke and came over to listen and look on.

"I'll try to go for a doctor," he whispered.

"You might even reach one," Dick replied. "I'd be willing to try myself, but we couldn't get a physician through on a night like this."

"At least I'll go down and have a look at the road," muttered Reade, rising, wrapping himself up as best he could, and taking a lantern.

Tom presently returned, looking like a drowned rat.

"It's no go," he announced gloomily. "The road is a river."

"Sure it is," muttered the boss tramp, "or—-as you lads have been so decent to me—-I'd go myself and try to find a doctor."



CHAPTER XVII

TWO KINDS OF HOBO

Toward daylight the rain ceased. Dawn came in heavy and misty, but after an hour the sun shone forth, dispelling the low-lying clouds.

Dick was sound asleep at this time, Tom and Harry having relieved the other watchers. All of the tramps lay stretched on the hard wooden floor, since none of the high school boys cared to have one of these fellows lying on his cot even when it was not in use.

"Go down and take a look at the road, Hazy," Tom desired, after the sun had been out for an hour.

"The water's running out of the road, or drying off, pretty fast" Hazelton reported on his return. "Still, a doctor would have a hard job getting over the road as yet."

"Did you see anyone trying to get over the road with a vehicle?" Reade inquired.

"Not a soul or a wheel," Harry answered. "As far as travel goes the road might as well be a strip of the Sahara Desert."

Reuben Hinman's breathing was so labored that it disturbed the watchers a good deal.

"We're doing all we can for you, and we'll get better care for you, just as soon as we can," Tom explained, resting a hand on the fever-flushed face.

"I know," wheezed the old man painfully. "Good boy!"

By eight o'clock all hands were astir.

"Are we going to get any breakfast to-day?" asked the tramp known as Joe.

"Yes," nodded Dick, choking back the temptation to say something caustic.

By nine o'clock the meal had been eaten. The stove now made the tent so hot that Mr. Hinman's cot had to be moved to the farther end and the tent flaps thrown open to admit cooler air.

Greg had attended to feeding both of the horses, which had gotten through the dismal night without very much discomfort.

Now Dick went down to look at the road.

"I'm going to mount our horse, bareback, and keep straight on up the road," he announced, coming back. "I will not have to go very far before I find a physician."

"No, you're not going, either," broke in the boss tramp. "I am going."

"But, see here, I can't very well let a stranger like you go off with our horse," Dick objected smilingly.

"You don't have to," retorted the other. "I'll go on foot, and I'll make the trip as fast as I can, too. But maybe you'd better give me a note to the doctor. He might not pay much attention to a sick call from a fellow who looks as tough as I do."

"If I let you go, can I depend upon you to keep right on going straight and fast, until you deliver a note to a doctor?" asked Prescott, eyeing the boss tramp keenly.

"Yes!" answered the tramp, returning the glance with one so straightforward that Dick felt he could really trust the man. "And if the first doctor won't or can't come, I'll keep on going until I find one who will take the call."

"Good for you!" cried Tom Reade heartily. "And if it weren't for fear of startling you, I'd say that the next thing you'll be doing will be to find and accept a job, and work again like a useful man!"

"That would be startling," grinned the fellow, half sullenly.

Dick wrote the note. Away went his ill-favored looking messenger. Dick turned to administer more nitre to the peddler.

"Do you expect to move on at all to-day?" Dave asked of Dick.

"It wouldn't be really wise, would it?" Dick counter-queried. "Our tent and shelter flap are pretty wet to take down and fold away in a wagon. We'd find it wet going, too. Hadn't we better stay here until to-morrow, and then break camp with our tent properly dry?"

All hands voted in favor of remaining—-except the hoboes, who weren't asked. They would remain indefinitely, anyway, if permitted, and if the food held out.

But Dick soon set them to work. One was despatched for water, the other two set to gathering wet firewood and spreading it in the sun to dry out. Nor did the trio of remaining tramps refuse to do the work required of them, though they looked reluctant enough at first.

Two more hours passed.

"I'm afraid our friend, Hustling Weary, is having a hard time to get a doctor who'll come down the road," Dick remarked to Darrin.

"Oh, the doctor will come, if Weary has found him," Dave replied. "Doctors always come. They have to, or lose their reputations."

Half an hour later a business-like honk! was heard. Then, through the trees Dick & Co. saw an automobile halt down at the side of the road. A tall, stout man, who looked to be about sixty-five years old, but who displayed the strength and speed of a young man, leaped from the car, followed by the tramp messenger.

"Mr. Prescott?" called the big stranger.

"Yes, sir," bowed Dick.

"Dr. Hewitt. Let me see your patient."

For some minutes the physician bent over the peddler, examining and questioning the old man, who answered with effort.

"I must get Hinman to a hospital some miles from here," the physician explained, aside, to Dick. "The poor old man is going to have pneumonia, and he'd die without hospital care. Probably he'll die, anyway. I'll give him a hypodermic injection in the arm, then wait for him to become quiet. After that we'll move him to the tonneau of my car and I'll take him to the hospital. I telephoned Hinman's son, over at Fenton, telling him where his father and his wagon are. The son ought to come over and take charge of the outfit."

It was three quarters of an hour later when Dr. Hewitt examined his patient, then remarked:

"He can be moved now, as well as at any time."

"There's someone coming," announced Reade, as the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard. Tom went out to look at the new arrival.

A man of forty, rather flashily dressed, though somewhat mud-spattered, rode up on a horse that looked much the worse for being abroad on the bad roads.

"I understand that Mr. Hinman is here, ill," began the stranger.

"He is," Tom nodded. "Have you any interest in him?"

"Mr. Hinman is my father."

"Come right in," Tom invited, throwing open the flap of the tent.

"Hold my horse, will you?"

Something in the younger Hinman's way of making the request caused Reade's backbone to stiffen.

"I see that you have a piece of halter rope," Tom replied. "You may tie your horse to any one of the trees. They don't belong to me."

The son frowned, but led his mount to a tree, hitching it there. Then he turned and entered the tent.

"How are you, father?" asked the younger Hinman, crossing to the cot and bending over the old man.

"Better, already, I think," replied Reuben Hinman feebly.

"I should hope so," replied Timothy Hinman, looking more than a trifle annoyed. "You had no business to be out in that storm."

"I couldn't help——-" began the old man slowly, but Dr. Hewitt broke in almost fiercely:

"Your father is in no condition to talk, Mr. Hinman. I telephoned you so that you might come over and take charge of the horse and wagon. There is quite a bit of stock on the wagon, too, I believe."

"My father must have considerable money with him," the young man hinted.

"He has some," Dick replied. "I do not know how much."

"I will take charge of his money for him," offered young Hinman.

"You will do nothing of the sort," broke in Dr. Hewitt, scowling. "Hinman, your father will be some time at the hospital, and he will want to be able to pay his bills there. He will also want to be able to purchase some comforts for himself while convalescing. So your father will take his money with him to the hospital."

"He can turn it over to me, if he has a mind to do so," insisted the younger man.

"You get out of here!" ordered the doctor, speaking decisively, though in a low tone. At the same time he pointed to the doorway of the tent. Just then the doctor looked as though he might rather enjoy the opportunity of throwing young Hinman out into the open air. The peddler's son walked outside of the tent with an air of offended dignity.

"Now, will four of you young men take hold of that cot, gently, and carry it out to my car?" asked Dr. Hewitt.

Dick, Dave, Tom and Greg served as the litter bearers. Then, under Dr. Hewitt's instructions, they lifted the old man into the tonneau of the car as though he had been an infant. The boss tramp had already taken his place in the tonneau of the machine. After blankets brought by the physician had been wrapped about the peddler the tramp contrived to rest the old man against his own broad shoulder.

"Good-bye, father," said the younger Hinman, who had looked on with a frown on his face. "I hope you'll be all right soon."

Reuben Hinman tried to smile. He also moved as though trying to stretch out a hand to his son, but the folds of the blankets prevented.

Dr. Hewitt went back to the tent to get his medicine case, which he had intentionally left behind. As he went he signed to Dick & Co. to accompany him.

"You young men haven't done anything for the old man for which I am going to commend you," said the physician bluntly. "You've simply done what any upright, humane, decent people would have done for a stricken old man, and you've done it well. But by contrast you noticed the younger Hinman's conduct. He is not worried that his father is ill, but hopes that the old man will soon be back at his work. Of course, he hopes that his father will be at work, soon; for when the old man stops working the younger man will very likely have to go to work himself."

"You don't mean, doctor, that that big, healthy-looking fellow is supported by his father?" gasped Dick Prescott.

"That's just what I mean," nodded the man of medicine.

"Why, I didn't suppose that old Mr. Hinman earned much."

"In the tin-peddler's business it's nearly all profit except the wear and tear on horse and wagon," smiled the physician. "One who isn't fitted for that line of work would starve to death at it, but Reuben Hinman has always been a shrewd, keen dealer in his own line of work. Strange as it may seem, Reuben is believed to make more than three hundred dollars a month. He gives it all to that son and two daughters. He wanted to bring his children up to be ladies and gentlemen—-and they are! They are all three of them too shiftless to do any work. They take the old man's money, but they won't live with him. They are too busy in 'society' to bother with the old man. On what he is able to turn over to his children every month they keep a rather pretentious home in Fenton, though they live a full mile away from their father. They never go near him, except for more money. If they meet him on his wagon, or when he is walking in his old clothes, they refuse to recognize him. Yet, though Reuben Hinman isn't a fool in anything else, he is very proud of the fact that his son is a 'gentleman,' and that his daughters are 'ladies.' Now, in a nutshell, you know the tragedy of the old man's life. Young Tim Hinman would, if he could, take the old man's money away from him at once and let him go to the hospital as a charity patient."

"Humph!" muttered Dick, and then was silent.

Timothy Hinman, when Dr. Hewitt and the boys stepped outside the tent, was inspecting the dingy old red wagon with a look of contempt on his face.

"What am I going to do with this crazy old rattle-trap?" inquired young Hinman plaintively. "Would one of you boys accept a dollar to drive this over to Fenton, and put the horse up in my father's barn? The trip can be made in two days of good driving."

Dick Prescott shook his head in order that he might avoid speaking.

"I came by train, within five miles of here, then hired a horse and rode over here," the younger Hinman went on. "So I've got to take the horse back to where I got it, and then return by train. So I'll pay a dollar and a half to the boy who will drive this rig back to Fenton."

This time there was no response to the magnificent offer.

"See here," muttered young Hinman half savagely, "it's more than the job is worth, but I'll pay two dollars to have this rig driven home. Will you take the job?"

He looked directly at Dick Prescott, who replied bluntly:

"Thank you; I won't."

"But what on earth am I going to do with the horse and wagon, then?" demanded Timothy Hinman, as though he found Prescott's refusal preposterous.

"I would suggest," offered Dick coolly, "that you drive your father's rig home yourself."

"I drive it?" gasped the son.

"Certainly."

"But it's no job for a gentleman!" protested the younger Mr. Hinman, looking very much aghast.

"Then I don't know whether or not the owner of these woods would consent to your leaving your father's property here," replied Prescott, as he turned on his heel.

Dr. Hewitt had watched the scene with a good deal of amusement. Now the physician turned to see whether his patient were as comfortable as possible.

"My man," said the doctor, to the boss tramp, "you hold my patient as comfortably and skillfully as though you had once been a nurse. Were you ever one?"

"No, sir," replied the tramp. "It just comes natural."

"I've been looking for a man to work for me," continued Dr. Hewitt, regarding the tramp with calculating eyes. "I believe that you've got in you the making of a real man if you'd only stop being a tramp. How would you like to try it out?"

"I dunno," replied the boss tramp, looking a bit staggered.

"If you go to work for me, I don't want you to take it up as a casual experiment," went on the man of medicine. "I haven't any time for experiments. But, if you'll declare positively that you're going to make a useful man of yourself, and that you'll live up to what I expect of you, I'll take you on. I won't have an idler about my place, and I won't tolerate any use of alcohol. If you shirk or drink—-even once out you go. But I'll start you at ten dollars a month and board, and raise you—-if I keep you—-two dollars a month until you're getting thirty dollars a month and board as a steady thing. Are you man enough to take me up, and to make it worth my while to take you on?"

"Yes," replied the boss tramp huskily, after a struggle with himself.

"All right, then, we'll see how much a man you are. By the way, what's your name?"

"Jim Joggers," replied the tramp.

Dr. Hewitt eyed the fellow keenly for a few seconds, before he replied, with a slight smile: