Tom, Dick and Harriet/Chapter 12

ARRY told her story later to Roy and Chub, who laughed immoderately and, as Harry thought at first, somewhat unkindly. But after a while she joined her laughter with theirs.

“Oh, he’s a peach!” declared Chub. “He’s too much for us!”

“Nothing of the sort!” said Harry. “He got the better of me to-day, but—”

“A time will come!” suggested Chub.

“And I’ll catch him yet; you see if I don’t! He’s not so awfully smart.”

“Well, he seems to be a heap smarter than any of us,” said Roy. “I vote we leave him alone. When he gets good and ready he will probably tell us what he’s up to.”

“Leave him alone nothing!” said Chub. “Even if we can’t find out what he’s doing, we can make his life a burden to him. And I, for one, propose to do it. Look at the way he treated us in Silver Cove the other day! Let him alone? I guess not!”

“No, indeed,” agreed Harry. “It’s war to the death!”

“‘Revenge!’” suggested Roy laughingly.

“You bet,” answered Chub.

The next day Dick, for some reason, refused to disappear or even attempt to. And that was a great disappointment to Harry, who had made all preparations to follow him and discover his secret—although without the aid of a disguise. When they met, as they did several times in the course of the day, Harry passed him with her small nose held at a disdainful angle. Dick only grinned.

There was hockey practice that afternoon and Dick went down to the rink to look on. Of course Harry and Chub followed at a discreet distance, doing their best to appear unaware of his presence in the world. During practice Dick stood across the rink and smiled amusedly at them whenever they glanced across, a proceeding which drove Harry to heights of exasperation. Once in a lull of practice Roy skated up to them.

“Do you see him over there?” he asked softly.

“Of course we do,” answered Harry disgustedly. “Do you think we’re blind? He’s been grinning and grinning at us for half an hour.”

Roy shook his head gravely.

“Ah,” he muttered, “little he recks—”

Then he dashed away out of Chub’s reach.

But the next day brought triumph to Sherlock Holmes, Vidocq and Estrella De Vere, proving the truth of the old adage which declares that he laughs best who laughs last. For at noon Roy and Chub, tumbling out of School Hall after a recitation, found Harry awaiting them. Her eyes were dancing and she was all excitement.

“Revenge!” she whispered dramatically.

“Good! What’s up?” asked Chub.

“I have tracked him to his lair!” whispered Harry. “All is discovered! The miscreant is in our power! Estrella De Vere has—”

“What do you mean, Harry? Have you found out about Dick?”

“I have discovered all! Listen!”

And Estrella De Vere, the Female Detective, with Sherlock Holmes on one side and Vidocq on the other, passed down the path.

Ten minutes later Dick came out of School Hall and stood for a minute on the porch, looking idly about him. The snow which had covered the campus a foot deep a fortnight before was almost gone, and in places the sere brown turf showed through the worn and tattered coverlid of white. It was quite warm to-day, with a muggy atmosphere and a leaden sky, almost too warm for snow, and yet feeling very much like it. There was a steady drip, drip from the eaves and ledges, and the walks were showing borders of trickling water. Dick frowned and looked anxiously into the sky. What he saw there seemed to please him but little, for the frown deepened.

“Two or three days of this sort of weather,” he muttered half aloud, “and the ice won’t be worth a cent.”

Then, looking carefully about him again, he went down the steps and turned to the right toward Burgess. There were several boys in sight, but, and this was suspicious, neither Chub, Roy, nor Harry was to be seen. He took his books into the study room and deposited them on the big table. Then, the room being deserted, he crossed to one of the end windows and looked stealthily out. Apparently the coast was clear. But he was taking no chances, and so he stole around to a front window and viewed the prospect carefully from there. He seemed puzzled, for he thrust his hands into his pockets, stared steadily for a whole minute at the engraving of “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” which adorned the wall above the fireplace, and whistled softly to himself. Then, having apparently decided upon a course of action, he left the study room, crossed the corridor and opened a door which gave on to a descending stairway leading to the cellar. Down this he went very quietly, reached the furnace room and from there gained the outer air by way of a flight of stone steps. He was in a small stone-paved court behind the building, with the hedge marking inner bounds but a few paces away. There was a gate here, and making his way between a double row of ash barrels he passed through it and plunged into the Grove. Then he turned to the right and wound between the trees, crossing the path to the boat-house and river at right angles, and keeping well out of sight of the windows of the halls. Five minutes of this brought him to the corner of the hedge. Here the trees ceased abruptly and gave way to snow-covered fields. Crouching behind the hedge so that his head was below the top of it, he followed it at right angles to his first course until opposite the barn and stables. Here he raised his head and reconnoitered. There was no one in sight and presently he was wriggling his way through a hole in the hedge. From there he passed around the back of the small stable and fetched up before a small door leading to the basement of the barn. That door required careful handling, for it hung only by one leather hinge. But Dick managed to get through it, displaying a certain degree of familiarity with its idiosyncrasies, and closed it behind him.

He found himself in total darkness, but without hesitation he crossed the earthen floor and climbed a narrow flight of steps. As he went upward the darkness gave way to gray twilight and when he reached the main floor of the barn behind the cow stalls it was light enough to allow him to see distinctly about him. So far he had made scarcely a sound since entering the building, and now he crept very quietly along until he could see the closed door. The barn was deserted save for the inmates of the boxes across the bare floor, and even they were so quiet that no one would have suspected their presence. Dick gave a sigh of relief and walked less stealthily to the back of the barn where a ladder led straight upward to the edge of the loft. He sprang nimbly onto it and ascended until he could crawl over the edge of the upper flooring.

In front of him was a space some thirty feet broad by twenty deep. On one side it was used as a storage place for a couple of old sleighs, the remnants of a windmill and similar discarded truck. On the other side the remains of last summer’s hay was stowed in a mow which ran along over the cow stalls. In the center of the loft, under the small window, was a large packing-box and beside it was a small one. On the larger one were spread several sheets of brown paper, pencils, a square, a rule, a pair of dividers and other tools of the draftsman. There was a good light from the window, in spite of the fact that its four small panes were obscured with dust and spider webs.

Dick went to his improvised table, took up a piece of kneaded rubber which lay there, and played with it while he studied the top sheet of paper. It was pretty well covered with lines and figures, but only the designer knew what they stood for. After a moment he drew the small box up and sat down on it, discarded the eraser for pencil and rule and set to work.

It was very quiet in the barn. Now and then Methuselah moved in his cage and muttered unintelligibly or a bat squeaked somewhere overhead in the darkness. Soon Dick was quite oblivious to everything save the work before him. He drew lines with his pencil, used ruler and dividers, set down figures on a smaller sheet of paper and multiplied or added or subtracted, erased lines already drawn, and through it all wore a deep frown which told how wholly absorbed he was in the task. And so he didn’t hear the soft rustlings which came from the top of the haymow a few feet away when three heads were thrust into view. Heard nothing, in fact, until the silence was suddenly shattered by a sudden “!”

He heard then; oh, yes, quite plainly!

Down dropped his pencil, over went the smaller box with a slam and Dick was staggering away in an effort to find his feet, his face very white and his mouth wide open for the exclamation of alarm which he was too frightened to give. There followed a brief moment of silence during which Dick stared at the three laughing, triumphant faces topping the haymow. Then the color crept back into his cheeks and he slowly closed his mouth.

“Humph!” he said at last.

“Move hand or foot,” cried Chub dramatically, “and you are a dead man!”

“We have you in our power at last!” added Harry. And—

“Little you recked,” said Roy.

Dick picked up the box and began to grin.

“Well, you caught me at last, didn’t you?” he asked. “But I don’t see why Harry left off that lovely disguise of hers.”

“If you hadn’t seen my hair—” began Harry vehemently.

“Be careful what you say,” interrupted Chub, sliding down from the top of the mow, “for it will be used against you.”

The others followed and Roy playfully dug Dick in the ribs.

“Old Smarty was caught at last, wasn’t he?” he cried.

“Took you long enough, though,” said Dick. “And gave you some good exercise, too, eh?”

“We don’t deny, my boy, that you fooled us very nicely several times,” answered Chub, “but the expression on your handsome countenance a moment ago made up for everything.”

“I dare say,” laughed Dick. “I was scared stiff. How did you find out about this drawing-room of mine?”

“That was Harry,” said Roy. “She came in here this morning before school and let ’Thuselah out of his cage and he climbed up here and wouldn’t come down. And as she had to hurry to school she came up and got him and saw the things here. Then she told us about it and after school we hurried over here and hid in the hay.”

“Well,” said Dick regretfully, “I wish I’d stuck to my first plan and gone to the Cove instead of coming up here. Then you’d all have had a nice quiet afternoon in the hay.”

“But you didn’t!” said Harry triumphantly. “And it was the female detective that discovered you. Sherlock Holmes and Vidocq were out-detected by Estrella De Vere!”

“Eh?” asked Dick.

Then they told him all about their impersonations and he thought it was a huge joke, and mollified Harry completely by congratulating her on her triumph over the others. Then they compared notes for the past week.

“Where did you go the day we followed you to the stationery store?” asked Roy.

“I went out the back door and came around to the street and watched from the next corner until you crossed and went into the store. Then I went—about my business.”

“And that reminds me,” said Roy, “that we don’t know yet what you’re up to. Are you going to ’fess up now?”

“Sure. I’d have told you all about it long ago if you hadn’t begun this detective work. When I found what you were up to I thought I’d just give you a run for your money.”

“Is it anything about the F. H. S. I. S.?” asked Harry. Dick shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “The fact is that’s at a standstill, I guess. I’ve had it in mind right along, but I can’t think of any way to go ahead. How about you?”

“I haven’t thought of anything,” Harry confessed. And Roy and Chub answered the same way.

“Well, it’ll come in time,” said Dick. “How about the funds, Harry? Got them safe?”

“Yes, they’re—but maybe I oughtn’t to tell where I keep them.”

“Just as well not to, I guess,” Dick laughed. “Chub might get hard up and borrow them.”

“Look here, Dick, what’s all this mean?” asked Roy, who was staring perplexedly at the drawing on top of the packing-case. “Are you inventing something?”

“Pshaw,” said Chub, “that’s just a problem in trig., isn’t it, Dick?”

“Well, you know all about it, so what’s the use of asking me?”

“No, go ahead and tell us, like a good fellow,” said Roy.

“Well, then, it’s the plan of an ice-boat.”

“Ice-boat!” exclaimed the others in chorus.

“Yes, why not?”

“But—but what’s it for?” asked Chub.

“To sail.”

“You mean you are going to make one?”

“Yes, it’s being made now.”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” Chub exclaimed. “Whatever put that into your crazy head?”

“Oh, I’ve wanted it ever since I saw that one of Thurston’s the day that Roy took a cold bath. So I found out all I could about the things; read everything I could find, you know. That was what I was doing that night in the library when you thought I was reading about fly-casting or something.”

“Didn’t think anything of the kind,” Roy disclaimed. “I saw you turn the pages as we came up.”

“Did you? All right. Well, I finally got some idea about the things and had a talk with a fellow at the Cove. He builds boats, but has never tried his hand at ice-boats before. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it at first, but I finally got him interested. He said I’d better go to some fellow at Poughkeepsie or somewhere who knew all about them, but I told him I wanted it made where I could have a finger in the pie. So he got busy. I made the drawings and he’s building accordingly.”

“Is this it?” asked Roy interestedly, pointing to the plan before him. “No, that’s only the sail-plan. The other’s at the Cove; Johnson has it.”

“That’s what you bought the lumber for!” exclaimed Chub. Dick nodded.

“Yes. And I’ve bought a lot more since then. It’s costing like anything, but it’s lots of fun. I want you all to go over with me Saturday and have a look at it.”

“How big is it, Dick?” asked Roy.

“It’s just a smallish one,” was the answer. “Twenty-nine feet long by eighteen wide.”

“Phew!” cried Roy. “It doesn’t sound small! When will it be done?”

“I don’t know; about a week, I guess. The worst thing is figuring about the sails. You see, I don’t know very much about sailing; never sailed anything in my life but a kite. So it’s puzzling, and I’m more than half guessing. Maybe the fool thing won’t go when it is done.”

“Course it’ll go,” said Chub. “A sail’s a sail.”

“I think it’s perfectly grand!” said Harry with awe. “Will you take me out in it, Dick, when it’s finished?”

“Of course; and if it does manage to go I’m going to send a challenge to that Thurston chap.”

“Say, that’ll be bully!” cried Chub. “And I’m just dying to see the thing. Can’t we go over before Saturday?”

“Maybe, but it won’t be very far along before that time. A lot of the bolts and braces had to be made, and that takes time, you know. Besides, that’s only three days from now.”

“What color are you going to paint it?” asked Harry.

“Well, I’d like to have her red,” answered Dick, “but I suppose it wouldn’t do, for that’s Hammond’s color, and, besides, Thurston’s is red.”

“Paint her blue,” suggested Roy.

“Pink,” said Chub.

“I guess I’ll have her green,” Dick said. “That shows up pretty well at a distance.”

“And call her the Shamrock or the Erin Go Bragh,” laughed Roy. “What are you going to call her, by the way?”

“Haven’t thought much about that yet. Usually they call ’em Icicles or Jack Frosts or Blizzards, but I’d rather have something a little newer.”

“Well, you can name her after me if you want to,” observed Chub modestly.

“Yes, call her the Chump,” said Roy.

“Let’s all think of names for it,” cried Harry. “We’ll write them down so as not to forget them and then we’ll give them to Dick and he can select one.”

“And the one whose name is selected,” suggested Chub, “gets a prize, like—like not having to ride on the boat.”

“You’ll be glad enough to ride on her when you see her,” said Dick.

“Who? Me?” queried Chub. “Well, maybe so; I’m naturally of a brave and reckless disposition. In fact, as far as I’m personally concerned I’d like it, but there is the community to think of. Of course, I owe it to the community to be careful of myself and not—”

“You’re talking a great deal of nonsense, Thomas H. Eaton,” said Harry. “If Dick asks me to go with him I’ll go mighty quick!”

“If it’s any sort of a boat that’s just the way you will go,” observed Roy dryly. “So quick you won’t know what’s happening to you.”

“It must be lovely!” cried Harry, clasping her hands and looking enraptured.

“Has any one seen Thurston’s boat lately?” asked Chub.

“Yes,” Roy answered, “I see it pretty nearly every afternoon. It’s a hummer, too. I think he goes over to school on it in the mornings and back to the Cove in the afternoon, because I’ve seen him heading that way several times about the time we get through hockey practice.”

“The only thing I’m afraid of,” said Dick, with an uneasy glance through the grimy window, “is that we’ll have a thaw before I get her ready.”

“That’s so,” Chub agreed, “it looks like that now. But you can’t tell; it may be frozen tight again by morning. Where are you going to get your sails, Dick?”

“At the Cove. There’s a fellow there makes them. And, say, you fellows, I’ve got to finish this plan this afternoon so as to take it over to-morrow. I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but if you’ll just let me alone for about an hour I can do it.”

“Of course we will,” Harry declared. “We’ll go right away. Come on, Vidocq, and Sherlock Holmes!”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay and help you?” asked Chub. “I’m a terror at planning; once I planned a dog-house.”

“I’ll bet it was a peach!” jeered Roy.

“It was. I put a door at each end so Caesar could get in and out easily, but the fool dog thought it was a tunnel and used to run through it full-tilt like an express train.”

“Get out!” said Dick.

“Fact, really! He’d get a good start and go through like sixty; and he used to whistle as he went in.”

“Chub Eaton!” cried Harry. “You come on home after that!”

“All right,” laughed Chub. “This is no place for genius, anyway. After you, Miss Estrella De Vere.”