_ CHAPTER I. A JOLT ON A QUIET DAY
"There's just one thing that I keep thinking about on a day like this," Dave Darrin sighed contentedly.
"What's that?" Tom Reade wanted to know. "Supper?"
Darrin turned, favoring Reade with a flash of disgust from his large, dark eyes.
"I'm still waiting for the information," insisted Tom after a short pause.
"You may as well wait," retorted Dave. "You wouldn't understand what I feel, anyway. Any fellow who can keep his mind on supper, on a grand June day like this-----"
"I imagine that you'll keep your mind on the meal when you reach the table," predicted Tom, grinning.
"That'll be time enough," Dave rejoined. "But I'm not going to profane the woods, on a perfect June day, by thinking of kitchen odors."
"Say, aren't you feeling well?" asked Tom gravely.
"That's just the point, I guess," broke in Dick Prescott, with a light laugh. "Dave is feeling so extremely well and happy-----"
"Now, you're shouting," Darrin assented. "But it's no use for poor Reade to ponder over the glories of nature. All he can think of is the region bounded by his belt."
"Glories of nature?" repeated Reade. "If that's what you're talking about, why didn't you announce your subject earlier? Yes, sir; nature is at her greenest best to-day. Just look off through that line of trees, and see how the light breeze moves the tops in that field of young corn, and-----"
"Corn?" flared Dave. "Something to eat, of course! Tom, you're hopeless when it comes to the finer things of life. You ought to have been born in a pen, close to a well-filled trough. Corn, indeed!"
"This country would probably be bankrupt if there were no corn crop, and you'd be digging hard for a living, instead of being a lazy schoolboy," retorted Reade, with an indulgent smile. "Let me see; how many hundred million dollars did Old Dut tell us the annual corn crop brings in wealth to this country?"
All of the other boys, save Dave, glanced at Tom, but all shook their heads. Statistics do not mix well in a Grammar School boy's head.
"Oh, well, it was a lot of money, anyway," Tom pursued his subject. "I wouldn't mind having all the money that the American corn crop brings."
"So you could buy the fanciest kinds of food, I suppose?" jeered Dave Darrin.
"Never mind, Darry; if I had a lot of money I'd buy you the biggest and softest mattress I could find, so that you'd have nothing to do but lie off by yourself, look up at the green leaves and dream your summers away. That lying on your back and looking up at the sky is what you call reverie, isn't it?"
"Quit your kidding!" ordered Dave.
"Is it reverie?" asked Harry Hazelton, "or just plain laziness that ails Dave?"
"Laziness, of course," laughed Tom. "Dave, I guess Harry has more sense in naming things than any of us. Yes; that's it! And Dick thought it was merely poetic temperament."
"Temperament? What's that?" grinned Dan Dalzell. "Is that what you get in June by adding up the column of figures in the thermometer?"
To signify his lack of interest in the talk, Darrin rolled over on his side, turning his gaze away from the other boys. In another minute Dave's eyes were closed, his lips open and his breath coming regularly and audibly.
Such was the droning effect of the warm June breezes on this glorious afternoon.
"Give Dave the chorus of 'He Was the Sleepiest Boy,'" whispered Greg to the others. "Put a lot of steam into every line!"
At a sign from young Holmes the drowsy chorus rolled out, punctuated by timely yawns.
Darry rolled over, yawning, too, an easy-going smile on his face.
"Greg," he charged, "I'm certain that you put the crowd up to that outrage. When I summon up energy enough I'm going to thrash you."
"All right," agreed Greg, "I'll take boxing lessons within a year or two, so as to be prepared for you."
"I wish this were to-morrow afternoon," grumbled Harry Hazelton.
"I'm glad it's to-day," sighed Dave easily.
"But to-morrow will be Monday, and we can play baseball."
"And just because to-morrow will be Monday," retorted Dave, "Old Dut will expect us to bring in those fifteen examples in insurance."
"We'll be all past that, by afternoon," Dan broke in. "Then, as soon as the bell rings to dismiss school, we'll all pile outside and have a ripping practice on the diamond."
"Yes; we'll have to get a lot of practice," Dick assented. "Otherwise, you know, the North Grammar will just wipe up the field with us Wednesday afternoon."
"The North Grammar!" sniffed Greg scornfully. "Hi Martin's crowd? Huh!"
"Those North Grammar boys have been practising," Dick insisted. "Hard work is what tells in athletics."
"Well, hang it, didn't you keep us running all through the spring?" demanded Dalzell. "Didn't you say that would put us away at the top in Grammar School baseball?"
"It will help us a long way," assented Dick. "Yet it won't do everything. Each of us has to be as nearly perfect as possible in the position that he has to play. That's why we really need a lot more practice than we've had on the real field."
"The worst of it is" suggested Tom, "that we've got all of the best players in the school on our regular nine, and the scrub nine isn't made up of fellows who can really give us any work."
"Don't croak, Dick," begged Dave. "This day is too perfect to have it spoiled by any calamity howling."
Presently Darrin rolled over on his side once more. Greg took a peep, became suspicious, and started to hum:
"He was the Sleepiest Boy."
Smack! came a small sod, with which Dave had slyly provided himself in advance.
"Ugh! Gr-r-r-r!" sputtered young Holmes, leaping to his feet and spitting out the stuff from his mouth. It was mostly the grass side of the sod that had struck his teeth, but a little of the loam had gone in with it.
"Good enough for me, I suppose," grimaced Greg, seating himself once more when he had cleaned his mouth fairly well. Dave, who had turned over to grin at Greg, soon rolled back to his old posture on the grass.
Greg, however, was not disposed to let the matter pass as easily as the others imagined. Shortly Holmesy jumped astride of Dave and rolled that youth over on to his back.
"I didn't eat all of the sod," young Holmes announced. "You may have the rest, Darry. How does it taste?"
Dave shut his mouth tightly, but Greg held his nostrils. The instant that Darrin opened his mouth for air Holmes rammed in the piece of sod. Then he jumped up, retreating.
It was now Dave's turn to jump up and work vigorously getting the stuff out of his month.
"Tastes immense, doesn't it, Dave?" called Holmes tantalizingly.
No answer in words came from Darrin, but he suddenly wheeled, charging straight at Greg. Doubtless the latter would have gotten out of the way safely, but that Dick thrust out a foot, tripping Dave as he bounded by.
Darrin came down upon his knees. The hotheaded youth was now very close to being angry in earnest.
"Hold up, Dave!" Prescott advised. "You started it, you know. You will have to show that a joke is just as funny whether it's going or coming."
"That's right, old chap," agreed Dave, halting and beginning to cool. "Greg, come here and shake hands."
"You shake hands with Tom," Holmes retorted suspiciously. "I appoint Tom my substitute, with full powers."
"I'd sooner fight Tom than you," mused Dave, gazing down at Reade, who did not appear to be very much disturbed. "Tom is the fellow who's always bringing his appetite along on the finest days that heaven has sent us."
Dick Prescott lazily drew out his watch and glanced at it. Then he rose, remarking:
"You may stay here and get all the comfort you can out of nature, Dave. But it's half past five and I guess the rest of us will want to be nearer to the source of kitchen odors."
"Whew! If it's any such time as that I'm going to move fast," cried Harry Hazelton, leaping to his feet. "At our house supper is on at six o'clock, and anyone who gets in late has to take what's left."
"Are your folks so poor as that?" laughed Tom.
"Hardly," returned Harry. "But both dad and mother are sticklers for everyone being in his seat on time."
By this time five of the chums had started across the broad, sunny field toward the rather dusty road.
"Coming, Dave?" Dick called, looking back.
"Oh, yes," grunted Darrin. "But I hate to see all of you fellows running as though you didn't know whether you'd ever get another meal."
"I wonder what is Dave's sudden grouch against the eats," Tom mused aloud. "I've seen him at a few meals, and he was always a clever performer."
"Probably Dave has been eating too much for this time of the year, and has a touch of indigestion," Greg laughed.
Darrin overheard the discussion as he came along, but he did not choose to enlighten his friends. However, unintentionally, Greg had touched upon a part of the trouble. Dinner, that Sunday, at the Darrin cottage, had been unusually tempting, and Dave had eaten heavily. For that reason, when he had joined the crowd in the early afternoon, Dave had felt just a bit sluggish. The walk out into the country had roused his digestion a bit, and had left him in just that state where he could contentedly lie on the grass and doze half of the time.
On this bright Sunday all six of our Grammar School boys had attended church and Sunday school as usual. Then, the day being so fine, they had met and gone away on this tramp, which had ended in a "resting match" on the cool grass under the shade of trees.
All of our readers are familiar with these six fine American boys. Our readers were first introduced to Dick & Co., as Prescott and his chums were locally known, in the first volume in this series, "_The Grammar School Boys Of Gridley_." Therein the reader made the acquaintance of six average American boys of thirteen, and followed them through their sports and adventures---which latter were many and startling indeed.
In the second volume of the series, "_The Grammar School Boys Snowbound_," the same six were shown at winter sports just before Christmas. The detection, on Main Street, of a trio of Christmas shopping thieves led to a long chain of rousing adventures. Right after Christmas, Dick & Co., securing permission from their parents, went for a few days of forest camping in an old log cabin of which they had been given the use. Another phase of their adventure with the shopping district thieveries turned up in the woods and contributed greatly to the excitement of their experience. While still camping in the old, but weather-proof cabin, the Grammar School boys found themselves snowbound in one of the greatest blizzards that had happened in that section in years. Being hardy boys from much outdoor life, however, Dick & Co., as our readers know, turned hardship into jolly fun, and incidentally made a great discovery in the woods that turned their camping expedition into the local sensation of the hour. The reader also remembers how some of the poorer specimens of High School boys and a few local young "toughs," under the leadership of Fred Ripley and Bert Dodge, tried to drive them from their forest camp.
In the third volume of the series, "_The Grammar School Boys In The Woods_," Dick Prescott and his chums, each now fourteen years of age, found the most startling of all the exciting happenings that had been crowded into their short lives. How they came upon two dangerous, tattered specimens of humanity in the woods, how these two contrived to make Dick and Greg take unwilling part in an attempt to rob one of the local banks, the mystery of the haunted schoolhouse, and a host of other lively incidents---all these are so familiar to the reader of these volumes as to need no repetition. And Dick & Co., through the series of exciting adventures they had encountered, had become the best-known boys in and around the little city of Gridley. Being leaders of other boys, they had naturally made some enemies, but that is to be expected in the case of all who are born to lead, or who fit themselves for leadership.
And now, on this glorious June Sunday afternoon, we find our schoolboy friends enjoying the sacred day quietly, yet looking forward to the opening of the contests on the diamond between the three local Grammar Schools, the North, Central, and South Grammars.
The road they had chosen on this Sunday afternoon was one over which they had seldom traveled. It was not the road to Norton's Woods, to the great forest, nor yet the one that went by the "haunted schoolhouse." It was in a wholly different direction from Gridley.
"It's a long way home, this," complained Tom Reade, as the boys plodded along the dusty highway. "And I'm hungry."
"Hungry?" snorted Darrin. "Of course you are. You fellows sang a verse to me a while ago. Tom, how do you and your fellow-porkers like this lay?"
Taking a deep breath, Dave started to sing a travesty, to the air of "America."
"My stomach, 'tis of thee,
Sweet gland of gluttony,
To thee I sing! Gland---"
"Stop it," ordered Tom threateningly, as he advanced upon Darrin.
"Stings, does it?" inquired Dave sarcastically.
"Yes, it does," Reade retorted bluntly. "To my mind 'America' is as sacred as any hymn ever written, and I won't hear it guyed! That's no decent occupation for an American boy."
"That's right," nodded Greg Holmes.
"Well, I won't yield to any of you in being American to the backbone," Dave retorted hotly.
"Prove it," said Tom more quietly.
"I'll prove it by my whole life, if need be," Darrin went on warmly. "Tom Reade, I'll be glad to meet you when we're sixty years old, talk it all over and see who has been the better American through life!"
"Great!" laughed Dick Prescott approvingly. "That'll be a fine time to settle the question. And that time is---let me see---forty-six years away."
The other boys were grinning now, and Dave and Tom, catching the spirit of the thing, laughed good-humoredly.
"But this does seem a mighty long way home," Dan complained.
"I can show you fellows a shorter way, if you want it," Prescott proposed.
"We all live on Missouri Avenue. Show us," begged Hazelton.
"It's through the woods," Dick continued. "I warn you that you'll find some of it rough going."
"Then I don't know about it," Greg replied with fine irony. "We fellows are not very well used to the woods."
"It's twenty minutes of six," declared Dan, glancing at his watch. "Some of us are in danger of eating nothing but cold potatoes tonight if we don't get over the ground faster. Find the short cut, Dick."
"It starts down here, just a little way," Prescott answered. "I'll turn in when we come to the right place."
Dick and Darrin were now walking side by side in advance. Right behind them came Greg and Dan, while Tom and Harry, paired, brought up the rear.
"In this way," called Dick, turning sharply to the left and going in under an archway of trees. It was over velvety grass that he led his chums at first. After something like an eighth of a mile the Grammar School boys came to deeper woods, where they had to thrust branches aside in making their way through the tangle.
"My Sunday suit will look like a hand-me-down by the time I get home," muttered Greg Holmes.
"It does now," Dave called back to him consolingly.
"We suspected that Darry's grouch was due to dyspepsia," laughed Holmes. "Now I am sure of it. David, little giant, take my advice---fast to-night."
"I will, if the rest of you fellows will," challenged Darrin quickly.
"The truth is out," Tom burst out laughing. "Darry, by that slip of the tongue you admitted that you've been eating too much and that you're all out of sorts."
Dave did not deny. He merely snorted, from which sign of defiance his chums could gain no information.
They had gone another quarter of a mile through the woods when Dick, now alone in the lead, suddenly halted, holding up one hand as a signal to halt, while he rested the fingers of his other hand over his lips as a command for silence.
"What is it?" whispered Darrin, stepping close.
"Fred Ripley, Bert Dodge and some of their fellows," Dick whispered, at the same time pointing through the leaves.
"Well, we don't have to halt, just because they're around," retorted Darrin, snorting. "If they try to pick any trouble with us we can give 'em as good as they send. We've done it once or twice already."
"But we don't want to go to fighting on Sunday, if there's any way to avoid it," young Prescott urged, at which four of his chums nodded their heads approvingly.
"I'm not looking for any fight, either," muttered Dave. "Yet it goes against the grain to halt just in order to let that gang slip by without seeing us."
"There are five of us against your single vote, Darry," Dick reminded him. "Let us have our way."
"Well, we don't need to skulk, do we?" queried Dave.
"Oh, no," Dick assured him. "All we will do is to keep quiet and not bring on a fight with that tough lot."
"Huh!" muttered Darrin, as though he could not see the difference between that and skulking.
Presently, after holding a hand behind him to signal silence and stealth, Prescott started on in the lead. He wanted, if possible, to see just where Ripley, Dodge and their crowd went, so that the Grammar School boys would not run too suddenly into them. The "Co." trailed on in Indian file behind their leader.
Finally Dick halted again, his chums crowding on his heels. They looked out into a clearing beyond. There, amid trees, stood a small three-room house, looking still quite new in its trim paint, though the building had stood there idle for some five years. At one time the city had planned a new reservoir site on a hill just above, and this little cottage had been intended for the reservoir tender. Then a better site for the reservoir had been found, and, to date, the cottage had not been removed.
"Ripley and his crew went around that cottage to the door side," Dick whispered.
"Are they in the cottage?" Dave demanded.
"I don't know. They went around to the other side. Let's wait and see if we can guess what's up."
So, forgetful of their suppers for the time being, Dick & Co. waited, screened by the bushes.
"There's smoke coming up out of the chimney," whispered Tom Reade.
"Yes," nodded Dick. "I had just noticed that. I'm wondering what it can mean. No one has any right to break into the cottage."
"Fred Ripley and Bert Dodge, because they have a lawyer and a bank officer for fathers, don't feel that they need any rights when they want to do a thing," muttered Darrin resent fully.
It was impossible to see what might be going on inside the cottage, for the simple reason that all of the windows were shuttered tightly.
"Let's go ahead," begged Dave, after a few more moments spent in idle watching. "I want to know why that crowd has broken into the cottage."
Truth to tell, even the leader of Dick & Co., usually very discreet, felt himself a victim of curiosity.
"Shall we try to find out the secret, fellows?" Prescott inquired.
"That's just what we ought to do," responded Greg. "Especially as Ripley and Dodge have always been so mean to us."
Dick went forward, with his best imitation of the way he imagined an Indian scout would approach a strange house. Greg and Dan were at his heels, while Dave and Harry went around the other side of the cottage, Tom remaining well to the rear to watch.
Some low, vague sounds came from within the cottage. These were not such noises as scurrying rats would make, so the boys were quick to conclude that human beings were moving inside.
But what could possibly be going on? The noises that the Grammar School boys heard were hard to classify.
At last Dick and Dave met before the door of the little cottage. Nor were they much surprised at finding that the door of the cottage stood perhaps a half an inch ajar.
This, however, did not furnish light enough to give a glimpse of what was happening inside.
"Two or three of us may as well slip inside, eh?" whispered Dave to Dick.
"Wait! Listen!" counseled Prescott. "We don't want to please that crowd by stepping right into a trap. And I've an idea that by this time they must know that we're around here."
"If they knew, they'd be out here making faces at us," retorted Darrin wisely.
"And ordering us to get off the earth," supplemented Greg, in a whisper.
"Listen," whispered Dick. "Perhaps we can guess what they're doing."
"I can guess what they're doing," murmured Reade, who had now moved around to the front with his chums. "I've been watching the smoke of that fire come up through the chimney. Humph! I don't believe Rip and Dodge are doing anything worse than a little camping. There must be a stove in there, and they're cooking some supper---playing at camping out."
"I don't smell anything cooking in there," rejoined Dick with a shake of his head. "We can't hear anything sizzling over the fire, either."
"Then what-----" began Harry curiously.
Bang! interrupted a crashing explosion inside the building. Boom! Then the door flew wide open, followed by a single great belching of white smoke.
Through the center of this cloud was hurled a human figure. A man struck the ground and lay there, senseless or lifeless, a pool of blood quickly forming on the ground beside him. _