_ CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION
At heart young Prescott was frightened enough. Yet he was also aroused to a fury of resistance.
With an ugly growl Driggs started in to shake the lad once more. Just at this moment, however, Dick found a chance on which he had been doing some frenzied calculating.
As he hung from Driggs's outstretched hand Dick's foot was just about on a level with one of the fellow's knees. Dick drew his foot back like a flash, delivering a lusty kick.
The blow glanced. Even at that Driggs's knee-cap suffered. With a groan of pain Driggs let go and stood by to rub his injured knee.
"You young fiend!" hissed Ab. Dexter, grabbing Dick by the collar.
Driggs tried two or three limping steps.
"Anything broken there?" demanded Ab. anxiously.
"No; but I've got to have cold water to bandage it with, right away," replied Driggs. "Give me hold of the young pest's collar, and I'll hold him all right until you get in again. But hustle with the water."
By this time Driggs had sunk into one of the chairs. Ab. dragged the boy to him and the other ruffian took vindictive hold.
"I'll settle with you, you little varmint, after I get my knee attended to," growled Driggs. "If you try any more tricks I'll let even my knee go and choke the life out of you."
Dexter hurried from the room. Dick, who felt that seconds must be made to count now, turned like a flash, sinking his teeth in the wrist of the hand that gripped his collar.
"You young----" began Driggs, in a wild temper, starting to rise from the chair as the pain forced him to let go of Dick's collar.
But Prescott, moving only two steps, caught up the other chair, bringing it down on the head of the ugly rascal.
"Dexter! Dexter--quick!" roared Driggs. "The boy's getting away!"
It was dark now, in the lower hall, as Dick, darting down the stairs, made out the form of Ab. Dexter as the latter hastened in through the outer door.
"Out of the way, or I'll hurt you with Driggs's knife!" panted the fleeing boy.
In that instant Abner Dexter proved Dick's suspicion that he was at bottom a coward. Ab. drew up close to the wall, and Dick, with the speed of the hunted deer, dashed from the house.
"It may take Ab. a little while to find that I haven't got Driggs's knife," grinned the boy.
For more than a quarter of a mile Dick Prescott ran at the best speed that he could summon. Then, after glancing back, he slowed down to a walk, breathing hard. It was fortunate that he knew these forests so well, or he might have been at a loss to find the path leading in the most direct way to Gridley.
Finally he came out on a more traveled road. After keeping along for another half mile or so he heard a horse behind him and the sound of wheels as well.
"I won't take any chance on that," muttered the boy. Bounding over a stone wall he lay low until the vehicle came up. Peering between the stones of the wall Dick made out an unmistakable farmer.
"Hey, there!" cried Dick, leaping up and bounding over the wall. "Give me a ride, please, mister!"
"Well, I swan! Who are ye--dropping from the skies that-a-fashion?" demanded the astounded driver, reining up.
"Grammar School boy from Gridley," Dick replied. "Going that way?"
"I guess I've seen you before," murmured the farmer, as Prescott went closer. "Your pa runs a bookstore, don't he?"
"Yes. Are you going to Gridley?"
"Straight."
"Then please take me."
Not waiting for an answer Dick climbed up to the seat.
"How do you come so far out of the way?" asked the farmer, as he started the horse.
"I'd tell you, but for one thing," Dick laughed.
"What's that, son?"
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Wouldn't believe old Prescott's boy?" demanded the farmer. "Well, I would if the boy is half as square as his dad."
Thus encouraged Dick began to tell his story. Some past events the farmer already knew. This inclined him very strongly to believe Dick's strange tale.
Once in Gridley the farmer drove the Grammar School boy straight to the police station.
"Dick Prescott?" shouted the chief. "Boy, your parents are crazy over your disappearance. What part of the skies did you drop from? And I've four of my men out trying to track you! Tell me what has happened."
"I will if you'll walk around to the store with me," Dick offered, smiling. "But the first thing I'm going to start to do is to show my father and mother that I'm safe."
The farmer good-naturedly offered to drive them both around to the Prescott store. On the way Dick told some of his story. The rest had to wait until he had shown himself to his parents. Then Mr. and Mrs. Prescott heard the story, too.
"This isn't really a case for me," said the chief of police. "It's for the sheriff. I must get him on the 'phone."
The news spread with great rapidity. Dave Darrin, Greg Holmes and all the other chums of Dick & Co. were on hand by the time that Dick had finished a belated supper with splendid appetite.
"May I go out on the street with the fellows?" Dick asked his mother.
"Yes; if you'll keep on the lighted parts of the streets," smiled his mother. "Although I'm not very much afraid of any more trouble overtaking you when you have all your friends with you."
Later that night a party of sheriff's searchers came upon Driggs, not far from the old mill site. The fellow, fearing prompt pursuit, had endeavored to get away, but the pain in his stiffening knee had prevented his going very far. Ab. Dexter had started with his injured confederate, but had finally played the sneak and fled. However, Dexter, too was caught later that night, while endeavoring to board a train two stations away from Gridley.
Mrs. Dexter, of course, was notified as to what had happened.
For this latest outrage against Dick the rascally pair were not tried. This was for the very simple reason that Dick would have furnished the sole evidence for the prosecution, and the law would have required another witness to corroborate young Prescott's testimony.
However, both men were held as fugitives from justice, for having jumped their bail on their original trial. Both were now held without bail and were presently tried before the higher court.
Both were found guilty, of course. As it is the privilege of the court of resort to impose a heavier punishment than the original one appealed from, Dexter and Driggs were both sent to jail for a year--the highest penalty possible under the circumstances.
"That man will bother me worse than ever as soon as he gets out," complained Mrs. Dexter to Dick and Dave one day.
"If he finds you," added Dick, by way of a hint.
"If he finds me? What you mean by that?"
"Mrs. Dexter, you're not obliged to live in Gridley. Why don't you slip away from here, one of these near days, without letting a soul know where you and your little girl are going. With all your money you could go to Europe or to the Pacific Coast. At a great distance from here you can live securely. Dexter will never have any money if he has to earn it. Go a few thousand miles from here, and, even if Dexter found out where you were, he wouldn't be able to reach you. No--don't tell even us where you are going."
Mrs. Dexter followed that very sensible advice. She and Myra vanished completely one day not long after.
Before that good but timid woman went away, however, she did her best to provide some suitable reward for the Grammar School boys who had proved her staunchest friends and protectors, but they refused to consider any reward.
Dexter, when at last at liberty, must have known of his wife's flights to parts unknown, for he never revisited Gridley, and was not again heard of there.
Dick Prescott's last and greatest adventure placed him securely on the pinnacle of local fame. Where, in all the world, was there another Grammar School boy who had been through as much, or shown as much daring?
Even that shrewd and rather dryly spoken judge of boys and girls Old Dut, took the latest happenings as the text for a little address to the members of his class. He wound up by saying:
"In a few months more this present class will have passed on, some going to High School and many more to their life employment. This present class will be gone, and another class here in its place. Yet I believe I can say in all truthfulness that I shall remember this present class always with pride as the class containing the bravest and brightest boys--and the finest girls--of any class that has been graduated from the Central Grammar School."
It is not our purpose, however, to take leave of Dick Prescott and our other young friends. There was too much yet ahead of them--absorbing happenings that merit being recorded in other volumes. We shall meet Dick, Dave, Greg, Tom and all of the chums once more in the next volume, which is published under the title: "The Grammar School Boys Snowbound; Or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports." Here we shall find them amid stranger and even more thrilling adventures.
[THE END]
[H. Irving Hancock's Book: Grammar School Boys of Gridley] _