The Crimson Sweater/Chapter 21

HE presence of the strange boats on the Inner Beach was not discovered until just before breakfast. Roy had said nothing to anyone of the night's adventures. Otto Ferris was noisily hammering a spoon on a new dish-pan when Kirby burst excitedly on to the scene.

"Mr. Buckman, there are three new boats on the beach, sir!"

"New boats?"

"Yes, sir, rowboats."

"Where did they come from? Whose are they?" asked the instructor, bewilderedly.

"I don't know, sir. They're not ours."

"Someone must have come in the night," said Horace. "Maybe campers."

"Well, after breakfast we'll have a look around," said Mr. Buckman.

As soon as grace had been said Roy spoke up.

"Those boats belong to Hammond, Mr. Buckman," he said.

"To Hammond? How do you know, Porter? What are they doing here?"

"I brought them, sir."

A howl of laughter arose. Mr. Buckman smiled genially.

"I suppose there's a joke somewhere," he said. "Get rid of it, Porter."

"Well, yes, there is a joke, sir," answered Roy quietly. "And I guess it's on Hammond."

Something in his tone silenced the laughter and from one end of the trestle table to the other the fellows forgot the sizzling ham and eggs before them and looked eagerly at Roy.

"You've been up to something!" cried Chub.

"I've been up half the night," answered Roy.

Excited yells and exclamations followed this announcement. Fellows jumped from their places and crowded about him.

"Out with it!" they cried. "What's up? Where did you find the boats? When was it?"

And so Roy began at the beginning, hugely enjoying the amazement the story created. Time and again he was interrupted by excited questions; thrice Chub literally fell on his neck and hugged him until torn away by eager members of the audience. And when the story was finished they dragged Roy from the bench and sat upon him and pummelled him joyfully. He was more than satisfied with the sensation he had created; he was even glad for the sake of his aching ribs that it hadn't been any greater. And then he was dragged off to the beach and made to go through the narrative all over again, pointing out where he stood and where "Jim" stood, Mr. Buckman following as interestedly as any. And in the middle of it they found the note under the stones.

"Found!" (it ran) "Five boats. Owner may have same by applying to Hammond Academy and describing property."

"Cheeky dubs!" growled Post.

Chub, who during the last few minutes had been looking grave and sorrowful, broke in aggrievedly.

"It was mighty mean of you to keep the whole thing to yourself, though," he said. "You might have let me in on it."

Roy had to explain the impossibility of doing so, but Chub was disconsolate until, an hour or so later, a boat was seen leaving the Hammond landing. Then the entire camp went to the end of the island and watched in silent enjoyment the approach of the Hammond boat. It held four fellows, and it didn't head straight for the island; evidently they weren't quite certain what had become of their boats. They passed the end of the island, each fellow apparently trying to look unconcerned, waved to the group on the point and kept on toward the other shore. But when the Inner Beach was in sight and the boats revealed to view they stopped rowing, talked a minute among themselves and then turned and rowed slowly toward the beach. The campers walked dignifiedly around to meet them.

It was a sheepish-looking quartette that beached their boat and advanced toward the group. The leader was Schonberg. Beside him was a tall, good-looking fellow whom Roy rightfully guessed to be "Jim." Schonberg spoke first.

"Hello, you fellows," he said sadly. "You're mighty smart, aren't you?"

"So-so," answered Horace amiably.

"I s'pose we can have our boats?" asked Schonberg.

"Help yourself," answered Horace with a grin.

Schonberg saw the grin, strove to look unconscious and finally grinned back. That broke the ice. Ferry Hill howled its enjoyment and the three ambassadors joined in, though with less spontaneity.

"Come on up, you fellows," said Chub. "Let's chin."

So they came up and sat down at the edge of the bushes.

"It's one on us," said Schonberg, "isn't it, Jim?"

Jim laughed, plucked a blade of grass, stuck it in the corner of his mouth and said he guessed it was.

"What I'd like to know, though," he added puzzledly, "is how the dickens you did it."

"Ask this fellow," suggested Chub, nodding toward Roy.

The ambassadors looked inquiringly at Roy. Roy explained. The ambassadors opened their eyes, looked blankly incredulous and finally convinced.

"Well, I'll be blowed!" muttered Jim. "That's what Joyce meant when he asked about my cold!"

"What do you think of that?" exclaimed Schonberg. The other two shook their heads, plainly at a loss for words to adequately express just what they did think. Then there were a lot of questions, which Roy answered cheerfully, and finally Schonberg got up.

"Well, you did us to a turn," he said frankly. "As for you, Porter, you—" he hesitated; then—"you ought to come to Hammond!" he finished, evidently bestowing the highest praise he could think of.

"Thanks," answered Roy with a laugh, "but I was there last night and found it mighty cold."

"If we'd known it was you," said Jim, "we might have made it warmer for you."

"That's just what I thought, and so I took particular pains not to tell anyone."

Ferry Hill assisted Hammond to launch her three boats. Hammond expressed her thanks. Each bade the other good-bye. Hammond rowed away. Then the formal politeness of the parting was suddenly marred by one of the ambassadors who had thus far scarcely spoken. He was a thin, scrawny youth and wore glasses. When the boats were a little way off shore and headed toward home he looked defiantly across at the group on the beach and shook his fist.

"Just you wait until next year, you fresh kids!" he shouted. Schonberg told him to dry up and Jim splashed him with water, but he of the spectacles would not be stilled. "We'll show you next time," he added venomously. Ferry Hill laughed; all save Post. Post blew a kiss.

"All right, dearest!" he called back.

"Dearest" replied at some length, but his utterances were marred by Jim who promptly pulled him backward into the bottom of the boat. So Hammond, acknowledging defeat, took her departure, trailing her recovered war-craft dejectedly behind.

Ferry Hill was in raptures all day long; and a week later when school had begun once more and the camp was only a memory, Roy found himself a hero indeed. The returning students listened to the tale with wildest delight and Horace Burlen's supremacy was a thing of the past. Only the veriest handful of loyal subjects remained about his fallen throne. Ferry Hill acknowledged a new leader, and his name was Roy Porter.

Horace accepted his overthrow with apparent good grace, but that he was far from reconciled subsequent events proved. Roy took his honors coolly and modestly. A youth less well-balanced might have been badly spoiled. The younger boys followed Roy about and hung breathless on his lightest word. Quarrels and arguments were laid before him for adjustment and there were always one or more worshiping subjects at hand eager to run his errands. But Roy did his own errands and refused to be spoiled by the adulation of his friends. Horace's overthrow, however, pleased him well. He had never forgotten or forgiven that youth's insult to his crimson sweater, and revenge was sweet.

Meanwhile April passed into May and May ran swiftly toward June. Hammond came over and played the first of a series of three games on the diamond and won decisively by twelve runs to five. Neither Post nor Kirby proved effective in the pitcher's box and the playing of the other members of the team was listless and slow. Ferry Hill made as many errors as runs and secured only four hits off of Rollins, the opposing pitcher; who, by the way, proved to be the "Jim" of Roy's midnight adventure. Chub was in despair. Mr. Cobb rated the players soundly after the game and threatened all sorts of dire punishments if they didn't do better. Roy had one error to his credit, but aside from that had played a fairly good game. The second Hammond game was two weeks away and in the meanwhile every effort was made to better the team. Practice became stiffer, and stiffer substitutes were tried in almost every position. Up to the last week of May there had been little to choose between Post and Kirby, but in the game with Highland Academy on the twenty-eighth of the month, Post showed such excellent form that it was decided to save him for the next Hammond contest.

Affairs on the river were meanwhile promising far better. The first Four was rowing finely, Whitcomb at stroke, Hadden at 2, Burlen at 3 and Gallup at bow. Otto Ferris had failed to get out of the second boat, where, with Fernald, Walker and Pearse he was daily making the first row its hardest to win out in the Practice races.

On the track things were in poor shape. Hammond would not compete with Ferry Hill in track and field games and so there was but little incentive for the latter school. Still, a handful of boys went in for running, hurdling, pole-vaulting, jumping and shot-putting in preparation for the preparatory school meet.

Those boys who neither rowed, played baseball nor performed on the track—and there weren't many such—essayed golf or went fishing on the river or along one or the other of the two nearby streams. The streams were the more popular, though, for they afforded excellent sport with rod and fly, Wissick Creek especially yielding fine trout, principally for the reason that it ran for several miles through private estates and had been carefully preserved for many years. The best pools were posted and once in a great while a case of poaching came up before the Principal, but as poaching was held to be a dire offence, punishable with expulsion, the fellows as a general thing contented themselves with such portions of the stream as were open to the public. Of course, fishing on Sunday was strictly prohibited, but sometimes a boy would wander away from school for a Sunday afternoon walk with a fly-book in his pocket and an unjointed rod reposing under his clothes and making him quite stiff-kneed in one leg. Such things will happen in the best regulated schools just as long as trout will rise to a fly and boys' nature remains unchanged.

Roy and Chub and Bacon and the others making up the first nine had no time, however, in those days, for fishing, either legal or illegal. They were busy, very busy. And the nearer the second Hammond game approached, the busier they were. Mr. Cobb worked them right up to the eve of that important contest. If they lost it would not be for lack of hard practice.

All Ferry Hill crossed the river in a blazing June sun, brown and white banners flying, to watch and cheer. Even the crew men postponed rowing until after the game. It was a hard-fought battle from first to last, in which the honors went to the pitchers. Hammond started with her second choice twirler, he giving place in the seventh inning to Jim Rollins. Ferry Hill used Post all through and he didn't fail her. Neither side scored until the fifth, and then Ferry Hill got a man to second on an error, and scored him by making the first hit of the game, a two-bagger that placed Chub on second, where he stayed, while Roy flied out to center-field and brought the inning to a close. In the sixth an error by Bacon, at short, started things going for Hammond. Her first man up stole second. Her next batsman sacrificed and sent him to third from where he scored on a long fly to the outfield which Patten couldn't handle fast enough. Then nothing more happened until the eighth, when Bacon was hit by Rollins, stole second, went to third on a sacrifice and scored on a passed ball. Hammond failed to solve Post's curves in their half of that inning, Ferry Hill had no better luck in the first of the ninth and Hammond, in the last half of the ninth, placed a man on first and then went out in one, two, three order.

Ferry Hill had won, but she had won on errors largely, and the outlook for the deciding game, when Rollins would pitch all through, was far from bright. But at least Ferry Hill had rendered that third game necessary, and that was something to be thankful for. And the fact that she had played with vim and snap and had made but two errors was encouraging. Ferry Hill went home with banners still flying and her cheers echoing back from shore to shore. And Roy, because he had accepted every chance and had played a faultless game at first-base, found himself more of a hero than ever.

More practice followed, interspersed with minor contests with neighboring schools. Ferry Hill seemed to have found her pace, for she disposed of three visiting nines in short order, and on the Saturday following the Hammond victory traveled down-river and won from Prentice Military Academy by the overwhelming score of 16 to 2. Chub's spirits had risen since the last Hammond game and it was his old self that tumbled upstairs from the Junior Dormitory the next morning before rising bell and snuggled into Roy's cot.

"Get over, you log," he whispered, "and give me some room."

"Room! You've got the whole bed now! If Cobb sees you—"

"Let him; who cares? Say, Roy, let's go fishing to-day. I feel just like it."

"And get found out and put on inner bounds? No; thanks!"

"We won't get found out, Roy, my boy. We'll just go for a walk this afternoon and take a couple of rods with us.

"I'll borrow one for you. I've got flies to burn. We'll go to a place I know, a dandy hole; regular whales there! What do you say?"

"I say you're a silly chump to risk it."

"Tommy rot! Come along!"

"I'll go along, but I won't fish."

"What a good little boy!"

"That's all right, Chub, but I don't want to go on bounds just when the Hammond game is coming along. It's only a week, you know. You take my advice and be good."

"I can't be good—to-day. I feel too kittenish," added Chub with a gurgle of laughter. "There goes the bell. Will you come?"

"Yes, but won't fish."

"Oh, pshaw! Yes, you will. I'll borrow a rod for you anyhow."

And Chub slipped out of bed and scampered downstairs again.

At three o'clock two boys sauntered idly away from school in the direction of the river. One of them held himself rather stiffly and his side pocket bulged more than usual. But there was no one to notice these trivial things. Once on the river bank they doubled back and struck inland toward the Silver Cove road, Chub leading the way.

"Gee!" he said, "I'll be glad when I can take these poles out! They're mighty uncomfortable."

"Did you bring two?" asked Roy.

"Sure! When you see the way those trout bite you'll want to take a hand yourself. I borrowed Tom's. Otto Ferris had to come nosing around and saw it, but he won't tell. If he does I'll make him wish he hadn't!"

"He might tell Horace," said Roy uneasily. "If Horace thought he could get me into trouble he'd do it mighty quick."

"Oh, he's a back-number," answered Chub gaily. "This way, over the fence and across the pasture; it's only about a quarter of a mile from here."

Soon they were treading their way along the bank of a fairly wide brook, pushing through the alders and young willows. After a while Chub stopped and jointed his pole.

"You're going to fish, aren't you?" he asked.

Roy shook his head.

"No, especially since there's a chance that Ferris will tell Horace. I don't want to get hung up for the Hammond game. You go ahead, if you've got to, and I'll watch."

"All right, if you won't. What's that?"

He started and turned, peering intently through the bushes.

"Thought I heard someone," he muttered.

"Hope it wasn't Cobb or Buckman," said Roy fervently.

"Oh, they don't spy," answered Chub, selecting a grey fly from a pocket of the book that had swelled his pocket. "Well, here goes for that nice black place over there where the little eddy is."

The line flashed in the air and fell softly into the shadowed water. After that Chub seemed to forget Roy's presence entirely. Roy leaned back with hands clasped behind his head and watched; that is, he watched for a while; then his eyelids closed and with the babble of the stream and the drowsy hum of insects for a lullaby he went to sleep.

When he awoke the shadows had lengthened perceptibly and Chub was not in sight. From the cramped condition of his neck and arm he judged that he had slept hard and long. He got to his feet and called softly. There was no answer. Evidently Chub had wandered further along stream. Roy waited a while, then, as it was fast approaching supper-time, he started home. As he reached the fence back of the athletic field Chub jumped into the road a few rods above and hurried toward him.

"You're a great one," called Roy. "I waited almost half an hour for you to come back there."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Chub. "You see I couldn't get even a nibble there and so I thought I'd go on up-stream. You were having a lovely sleep and I hated to wake you. I tried two or three pools and found nothing doing. Didn't get even a bite all afternoon. And when I got back you were gone. What did you do with Tom's pole?"

"Tom's pole?" echoed Roy blankly.

"Yes, did you leave it there? I couldn't see it."

"Why, it wasn't there! At least, I don't think it was. Are you sure you didn't take it with you?"

"Sure; I only had my own. That's funny. It's too late to go back now. I'll go up in the morning and see if I can find it. If I can't I'll have to buy him another one."

"I'll do the buying," answered Roy. "You borrowed the old thing for me."

"Nonsense; it's my funeral. You said you didn't want it, and I insisted on getting it for you. Well, maybe I'll find it. Come on, we'll have to hurry a bit."