The Crimson Sweater/Chapter 23

Y noon the news was all over school: Roy Porter was on inner bounds for the rest of the term!

"Emmy told him," confided Sid importantly to a group of Juniors and Middlers awaiting the dinner summons on the steps of Burgess, "that if it wasn't for his good record all year he would have suspended him!"

"Gee!" quoth the youngest boy in school, "that's pretty fierce, just for fishing on Sunday!"

"He was poaching," explained Sid. "Anyhow, Emmy says he was. Old Mercer swears he saw him on his place yesterday afternoon. Why, a couple of years ago there was a fellow fired for poaching!"

"Gee!" echoed the youngest again in wide-eyed amaze.

"Well, Sid, who'll play first?" asked another of the audience. Sid shook his head dispiritedly.

"Patten, I s'pose. I think it's a beast of a shame, that's what I think! Take a fellow off the nine just five days before the big game! Of course Hammond'll lick us."

"Sure!" was the concurrent opinion.

"If Patten goes back to first you may get his place at right-field," suggested the youngest boy.

"Maybe I will," answered Sid gloomily, "but who wants to play if Roy's out of it?"

And the countenances of the audience answered:

"Who indeed?"

"I'll bet if we wanted to we could get him back on the nine," said Sid presently.

"How?" asked half a dozen voices eagerly.

"Oh, I know a way," was the unsatisfying reply.

"Go on and tell us, Sid!"

"I would if you'd promise never to tell anyone, cross your heart and hope to die."

Everyone promised instantly and fervidly.

"Supposing, then," resumed Sid, "that a whole raft of us were caught fishing on old Mercer's place. What would happen?"

"We'd all get suspended," piped up the youngest boy promptly.

"Inner bounds," suggested someone else.

"Huh! I guess not! It isn't likely Emmy would suspend half the school," replied Sid scornfully. "He'd see the injustice of it, of course, and give us all a good blowing up and let us go. And if he let us go he'd have to let Roy off too. It would be a—a—" Sid paused for a word—"it would be in the nature of a popular protest!"

"That's so," said one of the number. "He couldn't punish all of us very well."

"He might, though," muttered the youngest uneasily.

"Oh, we don't want you in it," answered Sid contemptuously.

"I'm going if the rest do," was the dogged answer.

"We'd ought to get a whole lot of fellows, though," one of the Middlers said.

"Yes, about twenty," answered Sid. "We can do it, too, you bet! Supposing we call a meeting of the Middlers and Juniors for this afternoon after supper?"

"Good scheme! Whereabouts?"

"At the boat-house. You fellows tell it around, but don't say what the meeting's about. If you do Emmy'll hear of it, sure."

Then the dinner bell rang and the informal conclave broke up.

"Wait for me after dinner," whispered Chub to Roy at the table. "I want to see you."

"All right," answered Roy cheerfully.

He was trying very hard to hide the fact that he was terribly down in the mouth. The half-curious, wholly sympathetic looks of his companions followed him all through the meal and he was glad when it was over. Chub caught up with him on the steps and together they crossed the walk and found seats under one of the elms well away from possible eavesdroppers.

"Tell me all about it," demanded Chub, scowling fiercely.

So Roy told him.

"You don't think he will let you off in time for the game Saturday?" asked Chub.

"No, I'm pretty sure he won't. He's dead certain it was me that Mercer saw."

Chub jumped to his feet.

"Where are you going?" asked Roy suspiciously.

"To see Emmy," was the answer. "I'll tell him that you didn't wear your red sweater and that you couldn't have been on old Mercer's place because you were with me."

"Don't be a fool!" said Roy. "What's the good of getting into trouble yourself? He'll ask what you were doing and you'll have to 'fess up; and then the nine won't have any captain on Saturday."

"I don't care," answered Chub stubbornly. "I got you into the hole and the least I can do is to get you out."

"But you wouldn't get me out! You'd just throw yourself in with me. Look here, now, Chub; Emmy isn't going to take any stock in your story. He'll just think that we concocted it between us this morning. Besides, you left me for almost an hour and you can't swear that I didn't go over to Mercer's while you were gone. It's only a quarter of a mile from where you left me."

"But you were asleep!"

"So you say."

"Well, weren't you?"

"Yes, but Emmy won't believe it. He'll think we were both out fishing and that I went to Mercer's; and instead of being minus a first baseman on Saturday the team will be short a first baseman and a second baseman too; also a captain."

"But it isn't fair," cried Chub. "I was the only one that fished, and now you're getting the blame for it. It was all my fault, anyhow; I made you go along when you didn't want to."

"Nonsense; I didn't have to go."

"But you went to please me."

"Oh, well, what if I did?"

"It isn't fair," muttered Chub. "If I play in that game and you don't I'll feel like a brute."

"You don't need to, Chub. Besides, there's the school to think of. You know plaguey well we'll get done up brown if you don't play—"

"We will anyway, I guess," interpolated Chub sadly.

"—And that isn't fair to the nine and the school. You've got to do everything you can to win that game, Chub. You don't suppose that I mind being out of it if we're going to win, do you?"

"But we need you, Roy! Who's going to play first?"

"Patten, of course; he can do it."

"He can't bat like you can."

"He'll do all right," answered Roy cheerfully. "Now you keep your mouth shut, old man, will you?"

"I suppose so," Chub muttered. "But I hadn't ought to."

"Yes, you had, too. I'm not the main thing, Chub; there's the school."

"You're a brick," said Chub. "All right; I'll keep mum as long as you want me to. But if you change your mind all you've got to do is to say so and I'll do all I can with Emmy. Promise to tell me if you change your mind?"

"Honor bright; but I sha'n't change it; I don't mind, Chub, as long as we win."

"Win! Thunder, we aren't going to win! We're going to get everlastingly walloped!"

"No, we're not," answered Roy hopefully. "We're going to win; you see."

"Look here," said Chub after a moment's silence, "you didn't poach on Mercer and I didn't. Who the dickens did?"

"I can't imagine. I dare say it was some fellow from the village."

"With a crimson sweater on? Not likely. I suppose it couldn't have been your sweater, eh?"

Roy shook his head.

"How do you know?" pursued Chub.

"'Cause mine was locked in my trunk."

"Sure?"

"Certain."

"Someone might have had a key that fitted the lock, though."

"They might have, but—" Roy paused and scowled thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, Chub, my trunk wasn't locked yesterday afternoon. I remember now. I locked it after we got back."

"Was the sweater there?"

"I didn't look."

Chub whistled softly.

"Bet you anything some fellow swiped it and wore it," he declared. "Let's go see if he put it back."

They hurried up to the dormitory and Roy unlocked his trunk, threw back the lid and opened the till.

"I thought I left it here on top," he muttered, diving through the contents of the till. "Maybe I put it underneath, though." Out came the till and out came most of the contents of the trunk. But there was no crimson sweater. Roy turned to Chub in distress.

"I don't care if they took it," he said, "but I hope they'll bring it back! I wouldn't lose that sweater for anything!"

"Lock your trunk again," said Chub, "and let's get out of here. Some one's coming. Let's go somewhere and think it over."

"If we only knew who was away from school yesterday afternoon," said Roy when they were once more under the trees.

"We know that Ferris and Burlen were," answered Chub suggestively. "They said so."

"And Ferris saw you borrow that pole from Tom!" said Roy. Chub sat up suddenly.

"I'll bet that was Tom's pole that old Mercer brought with him!" he cried.

"But you left it at Deep Hole, and I didn't leave there until long after four, I guess."

"But you said you didn't see it when you left!"

"That's so; I'm pretty sure it wasn't there," answered Roy, thinking hard. "But how could anyone have got it?"

"Don't know, but I'll bet someone did. They might have sneaked up while you were asleep. Horace Burlen could do it."

They looked at each other a moment in silence. Then,

"If he took the sweater I'll bet he's thrown it away," said Roy sorrowfully. "He wouldn't be likely to bring it back again."

"Why not? He found the trunk unlocked and maybe thought he could put it back again without anyone knowing anything about it. See? That's just about what happened, Roy. I'll bet he did the whole thing to get you in trouble."

"Wasn't Tom in the dormitory when we got there?"

"Yes."

"Then maybe he was there when Horace got back; and Horace couldn't get at my trunk without being seen."

"What do you suppose he'd do with it?" asked Chub.

Roy shook his head.

"Put it in his own trunk maybe," he answered.

"Come on," said Chub.

Back to the Senior Dormitory they hurried, for each of them had an examination at two and it was almost that hour now. The dormitory was empty and Chub stood guard at the head of the stairs while Roy crossed the room and examined Horace's trunk.

"Locked," he announced softly.

Chub joined him and they stood for a moment looking at the trunk as though striving to get an X-ray view of its contents.

"Maybe we could find a key to fit it," whispered Chub.

"I wouldn't like to do that," answered Roy, shaking his head.

"No more would I," answered Chub, "but I'd do it if I was just a little more certain that the thing was in there. I'd like to bust it open with an axe," he added savagely.

Then the two o'clock bell rang and they hurried downstairs.

"Keep mum about it," said Chub, "and we'll get to the bottom of it yet."

"The trunk?" asked Roy with a weak effort at humor.

"You bet!" was the answer.

Roy watched practice that afternoon. He stood on the school side of the hedge which marked inner bounds and, out of sight himself, saw Patten playing on first. It was lonely work and after a while the figures on the green diamond grew blurred and misty. Then, suddenly, Brother Laurence's advice came back to him and Roy brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and turned away.

"'When you're down on your luck,'" he murmured, "'Grin as hard as you can grin.'"

So he tried his best to grin, and made rather a sorry affair of it until he spied Harry walking toward the tennis courts with her racket in hand. He hailed her and she waited for him to come up.

"I'm awfully sorry, Roy," she greeted him. "I told dad you didn't do it."

"And he believed you at once," said Roy despondently.

"N-no, he didn't," answered Harry. "He—he's a little bit stupid sometimes; I often tell him so."

Roy laughed in spite of his sorrow.

"What does he say then?" he asked.

"Oh, he just smiles," answered Harry resentfully. "I hate people to smile at you when they ought to answer, don't you?"

Roy supposed he did. And then, in another minute, they were side by side on the stone coping about the stable yard and Roy was telling Harry everything, even to the examining of Horace's trunk and the reason for it.

"That's it!" cried Harry with the utmost conviction. "He did it! I know he did!"

"How do you know it?" asked Roy.

"Oh, I just do! I don't care if he is my cousin; he's as mean—!"

"Well, suspecting him won't do any good," said Roy. "We can't see into the trunk. And, anyhow, maybe he didn't bring the sweater back at all."

"Yes, he did too," answered Harry. "Don't you see he'd want to put it back again so that you couldn't say that someone had taken it and worn it? It's there, in his trunk."

"And I guess it'll stay there," said Roy hopelessly. "He won't be fool enough to take it out now."

"Couldn't you make him open his trunk?"

"I don't see how. I couldn't go and tell him I suspected him of having stolen my sweater; not without more proof than I've got now."

"I suppose not," answered Harry thoughtfully, her chin in her hand and the heel of one small shoe beating a restless tattoo on the wall. "You might—" she lowered her voice and looked about guiltily—"you might break it open!"

"And supposing it wasn't there?"

"But it is there!" cried Harry. "I know it is!"

"Wish I did," grunted Roy.

"Well, we'll just have to think of a way," said Harry presently, arousing herself from her reverie. "And now I must go on, because I promised to play tennis with Jack Rogers. I'm sorry."

"That's all right," answered Roy. "I—I've got some studying to do, anyhow."

Harry turned upon him with alarm in her face.

"Now don't you go doing anything desperate, Roy Porter!" she commanded. "You just sit still and hold tight and—and it'll come out all right. You leave it to me!"