On the way out of Chapel the next morning Butler, the proctor, handed a note to Frank and another to Jimmy. Frank opened the envelope and read the curt message:
"Frank Armstrong."Sir: You will come to the office of Dr. Hobart at ten o'clock this morning and show reason why you should not be suspended from Queen's School for meddling with the Chapel bell last night."Very truly yours,"A. M. Cooper,Secretary."
"Frank Armstrong.
"Sir: You will come to the office of Dr. Hobart at ten o'clock this morning and show reason why you should not be suspended from Queen's School for meddling with the Chapel bell last night.
"Very truly yours,
"A. M. Cooper,Secretary."
"Very pretty note I have," said Frank. He pursed up his lips and gave a low whistle, at the same time handing the letter to Jimmy.
"Mine is sharp and to the point," said Jimmy, grinning feebly, and he handed the one that he had received to Frank as they walked slowly along. The notes were identical, with the exception that the names were different.
"How do you suppose that man Butler is so stupid as to think we did that little trick last night?" said Jimmy scornfully. "I'd like to punch his nose for him."
"It does look stupid, that's sure, but when you consider it as I have done, you'll have to admit that we seem to be in the wrong."
"Oh, get out, we can prove we had nothing to do with it," said Jimmy hotly.
"How? It looks as if we had been caught with the goods on, unless some one saw the real perpetrators of the alleged joke."
Jimmy was finally obliged to admit that it didn't look so good as he had thought at first. There was an indignation meeting over in Honeywell, in which all our friends participated. All talked at once and Butler was threatened with destruction in every key. But in spite of the disgust of every one that Frank and Jimmy should be under suspicion, every one also recognized that appearances were against them. "The only hope for you," said David, who had been thinking hard over the subject, "is to find the real fellows and make them confess."
"They're likely to," snorted the Codfish. "They will save their own skins if they can."
At ten o'clock Frank, with Jimmy at his heels, knocked on the door of Dr. Hobart's room in Warren Hall, and a moment later they were in the presence of the Doctor himself. The latter did not look up for a time, but sat writing at his desk for several minutes while the boys shifted uneasily from foot to foot. Finally the Doctor laid aside his pen, swung about on his swivel chair and transfixed Frank with his piercing eye. The glass eye stared straight ahead stonily.
"What were you young men doing in the tower of the Chapel last night?" The question was shot suddenly by Dr. Hobart, so suddenly that both boys almost jumped. "Wait, let us have Mr. Butler here." He turned and pressed a button which connected with a room near his own where Mr. Butler was waiting. The proctor came in. "Sit down, Mr. Butler," said Dr. Hobart. "What is the accusation against these young men, Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Turner? What did you find in the tower last night?"
Thus admonished, Mr. Butler told of his being disturbed in his room at about half-past nine. The bell began to clang wildly. He ran to the front door of the Chapel, and finding it locked, remembered that there was a door in the rear.That door he found open. As quickly as possible he got a light and climbed the tower to the floor of the belfry where he found "this young man," indicating Turner, lying on the floor in a pool of water, nearly unconscious, with Armstrong working over him.
"And what did you make of that, Mr. Butler?" inquired the Doctor in a cool and even voice.
"They said that they had been chasing a cat and that Turner had fallen and hurt himself, and put the blame for meddling with the Chapel bell onto some unknown boys who had preceded them," Mr. Butler finished, smiling sarcastically.
"Well," said Dr. Hobart, turning to the boys; "what have you to say to this?"
"What Mr. Butler says is the truth," answered Frank, looking the Doctor steadily in the eye; "but there were a number of things that happened before he came."
"Yes, and what were they?"
"We went up to find Mrs. Bowser's cat, which had come into the Chapel in the morning——"
"Or was brought in," interrupted Mr. Butler.
"I do not know how she got in, but she got in somehow, and when the boys tried to catch her she became frightened and hid."
"And you came to the conclusion that she liked belfries and had hidden up there."
"No, sir," said Jimmy. "Frank came out to have a walk before going to bed. I had been in his room and as it was cold we raced up to the Chapel, where I slipped and fell. While we were standing there, we thought we heard a cat crying up in the tower."
"And why didn't you report it?" said the Doctor.
"It was late," Frank returned, "and when we found the small door in the tower open, we thought we might be able to find her ourselves and return her to the lady, who was much worried about the loss of her pet. We were particularly anxious to get it for Mrs. Bowser."
"Very generous-minded, indeed," said the Doctor, stroking his chin. "And so you went up alone?"
"Yes, sir, we went up alone, and while we were in the upper part of the tower, the boys who were disturbing the bell came up. We heard them planning to do something, but could not make out what it was at first."
"And why didn't you make your presence known?" inquired the Doctor.
Both boys looked at each other. Why hadn't they? This was the question that each was asking himself. "We were waiting," said Frank, after a noticeable hesitation, "to find out, if we could, who they were. But they spoke so low that we could not recognize their voices, nor could we see who they were because there was so little light."
"So, so," said the Doctor musingly; "and what then?"
"When they had put the water in the bell and were working at the prop which held the bell in the position they wanted it, something gave way and the bell swung back to its natural position. Turner, here, started to get down, then slipped and fell. When I saw him fall, I started after him and let go of the cat, which flew down stairs. Mr. Butler found us, as he says he did, but we were not responsible for what happened to the bell."
The Doctor heard the recital to the end, while Mr. Butler smiled sarcastically and knowingly, glancing from the boys to the stern old gentleman who was cross-questioning them. After deliberating a full minute, Dr. Hobart spoke again:
"You said a moment ago that you were particularlyanxious to get the cat for Mrs. Bowser. Why were you particularly anxious?"
"Because," blurted out Jimmy, "she helped us out of a scrape once." He could have bitten his tongue off after he had said it, but it was too late to draw back.
"So," said the Doctor, pricking up his ears. "And what was the scrape?"
"Oh, just an accident," said Frank.
"Yes, and what kind of an accident?" There was nothing for it but to tell the story of the wrong box which had reached Mrs. Bowser's house the winter before. Frank told it in a straightforward fashion, but he could feel the blood mounting to his face. The Doctor stiffened perceptibly as he listened. Frank refrained from bringing either the Codfish or Lewis into the story.
"So you are in the habit of practical joking?" he said coldly. "It is a poor business, my young gentlemen, and it must be stopped. We will have no practical jokers around Queen's School. This is a place for study and not for pranks. Your case has been much weakened by what I have just heard. It seems to me I remember, too, Armstrong, that you played a practical joke onsome one by pretending to be drowned last year, did you not, and disturbed the whole school? I remember you were before me at that time."
"He took the place of a boy who was being hazed," Jimmy burst out hotly, "and it served the hazers right."
"Yes, Turner, perhaps it did, but I remember it disturbed the School. In the face of the tendency for practical joking that these incidents seem to prove," turning to Frank, "can you expect me to believe you are guiltless in the matter of the bell?" The tone was sharp and the glance which accompanied it keen and penetrating, but Frank replied steadily: "We had nothing to do with the bell, sir."
"Is this your fur glove, Armstrong?" said the Doctor, opening a drawer of his desk and producing a glove which Frank thought he recognized as his own. He stepped forward, looked it over carefully, and finally turned the wristband back, where, plainly inked, were the letters "F. A."
"Yes, sir, that is my glove."
"And this one," continued Dr. Hobart. "Did you ever see this before?" handing him another glove, the counterpart apparently of the first.
"Yes, sir, that is also my glove. It's the mate of the one you showed me first."
"Very well, Armstrong. One of these gloves was found by Mr. Butler in the Chapel belfry and the other in your room; is that not so, Mr. Butler?"
"Yes, Dr. Hobart. I found that glove," indicating the first one shown, "under the bell this morning, and the other lay on the top of his trunk in his sleeping room, where I went to look for evidence this morning."
The boys stared at each other in amazement and from Dr. Hobart to their accuser. "I do not see how the first glove got up there," said Frank at last. "I was in my bare hands when I went out last night, as I only meant to be gone a few minutes."
"Mr. Butler, please bring that young man in here."
The proctor walked from the room, was gone a few minutes and returned, followed by none other than Chip Dixon. Dixon nodded curtly to the two boys and faced the Doctor jauntily.
"You say, Dixon, that you saw these two boys entering the rear door of the Chapel last night?" inquired the Doctor, indicating the supposed culpritsby a jerk of his head in the direction of Frank and Jimmy.
"I did not say it was Turner and Armstrong. I said I saw two boys near the door, and that it looked like these two here. One of them had something in his hand which looked like a bucket."
"Which one was that?"
"Armstrong, sir; or at least the one I took to be Armstrong."
"What time was that?"
"I think it was about a quarter past nine or perhaps a little later."
"We were just under the belfry at that hour," Jimmy snapped out. "The clock striking the quarter startled me. I remember it well." Frank nodded in approval.
"It may have been earlier," continued Dixon. "I didn't think anything much about it till after the racket in the tower. Then I remembered that I had seen some boys around the Chapel, and recalled that they looked like Turner and Armstrong."
"That will do, Dixon, you may go," said the Doctor.
When Dixon had left the room, the Doctorturned to our friends again. "You do not look like boys who would do such silly mischief as that of last night, but all these stories fit together with such nicety that I am forced to believe that you were responsible. These little things that look like jokes sometimes have a very serious result. For instance, that water which filled the bell came down and badly damaged the ceiling in the robing room on the ground floor, and, moreover, it ruined a valuable etching, a gift from one of our alumni, which hung there in that room."
"But we did not do it," said Frank, "nor did we have anything to do with it in any way, shape or manner." His voice was trembling as he spoke. Jimmy was too savage to speak, but stood glowering at the Doctor.
Unfortunately the Doctor, although a distinguished scholar, was not entirely in sympathy with his pupils. He sometimes forgot that he had been young himself once, and there were not a few in the School who said that "Old-Pop-Eye" had always been as old as he was then. He was too much immersed in the technical side of his school work and school problems to acquaint himself with the units that made up his school. Hewas apt to judge harshly. And his judgment in this case was harsh.
"In view of all the circumstances," said the Doctor, after studying the boys for a minute or two, "I should suspend you both from Queen's School or dismiss you entirely. We want boys here who come to study and not to play idle tricks and destroy school property. I feel convinced that you were concerned in this work of last night, for the evidence is strongly against you. I can perhaps put no greater punishment upon you than to say to you that for the remainder of the School year you can take part in no athletics as the representatives of Queen's School. I understand that you both have played on School teams." The Doctor paused. "If I find you concerned in any other escapades of this character, I have no other course than to ask you to withdraw from the School."
Jimmy was about to burst forth in violent denial, but stopped and held himself in check. Frank said very calmly, "Dr. Hobart, I say it again: I had nothing to do with this affair of last night; neither had Turner. I think I can prove it to your satisfaction some day. May we go?"
"Yes," said the Doctor, who had turned to his desk again.
The boys almost staggered from the room and down the stairs. It had been an unexpected blow. At the foot of the stairs, Lewis, the Codfish and David were waiting. They bore them off to Honeywell, where the whole scene in the Doctor's office was rehearsed. Most uncomplimentary things were said about the Doctor and almost murderous threats raised against the proctor, Butler, who, the Codfish protested, had "poisoned Doctor Hobart's mind against Frank and Jimmy."
"And what's to become of our baseball nine?" cried the Codfish.
"And the hockey team, and the track contest?" echoed David.
"I told you to let that blooming old cat stay where she had got herself," grumbled the Codfish. "A black cat is unlucky. Don't you remember Poe's story about the black cat?"
"She was unlucky enough for me," said Frank ruefully. "But maybe we'll come out of it all right."
"How do you suppose that glove of mine got up into the tower?" said Frank. "I certainlydidn't have my gloves with me. I wouldn't naturally have one in my pocket and one in my room."
"I distinctly remember seeing them both on the trunk yesterday morning," said David. "I've been thinking about it since you told what Butler found."
"I know positively," cried Frank eagerly, "that I didn't have them on yesterday. I didn't have occasion to use them."
"Then it's a put-up job," said the Codfish. "Some one who has it in for you sneaked in here and got that glove for a purpose."
"Who could it be, do you suppose?" questioned Jimmy. "Dixon wouldn't do such a trick in spite of his general meanness and his disposition toward Frank. And who else is there?"
"Gamma Tau!" said the Codfish suddenly. "They have members in this dormitory and it would be the easiest thing in the world to get in here, for the door is never locked. The gloves were in plain view on the trunk."
"I think you have the answer," said David. "Frank has been too popular to suit our friends, the Gammas, ever since he won fame as a drop kicker. Now this talk of another society hasset them going, but I say, it was a dirty way to do it."
"Well, we'll beat them yet," said Jimmy, jumping up and smashing a fist into the palm of the other hand. "And if I ever get a real good chance at Dixon, I'll give him a thumping he won't forget for fifty years!"
"And I'll help you," said the Codfish, throwing out his narrow chest and thumping it valiantly. At which all laughed.
Queen's School took the disbarment of Frank Armstrong and Jimmy Turner from athletics as a serious blow to their chances in baseball and on the track. Even the Gamma Tau boys, who bore no particularly kindly feeling toward these two, missed their strengthening presence—or at least they seemed to. There were some who, whatever they might have said before the School, inwardly rejoiced that "these disturbers of the peace" had been neatly shelved by Old Pop-Eye. Chip Dixon was among the latter. He could never repress a smile when he met Frank or Jimmy. And Jimmy ached to take him in hand and show him something that might not have been good for Dixon. But the opportunity did not come and peace was preserved.
Hockey came and went, and the School team, captained by Dixon and filled up with his followers from Gamma, lost miserably to Warwick.Jimmy and Frank watched the game from the side of the improvised rink on the Wampaug.
"There are better players among the Freshmen," said Jimmy contemptuously, "but they have no chance. I could pick up a team among the class teams that would beat the School team at hockey to a frazzle."
And Jimmy spoke the plain truth. Chip had followed his usual method of picking out his team from his Society, and he had no eyes for their faults. But the School was fretting under the burden of Gamma Tau and of Dixon himself. How much longer he was going to be allowed to boss everything was a matter of speculation in many a room after books were laid aside.
"Thank goodness, it is his last year!" said Lewis one night, when the possibility of the continuance of Dixon as a dictator was being discussed.
"Yes, but there is Howard Hotchkiss coming along. He is sure to be the next boss." Hotchkiss was in the third class. He was not an athlete, but a masterful fellow who could be depended upon to keep the prestige of the School in the hands of Gamma and not let it get away for a moment.
"The threatening storm against the Gamma is growing every day," said David, "and when it comes, there is bound to be fun. Two of the editors on theMirror, Pickering and Westover, refused the last elections and they are hot for an opposition society."
"Will it come, do you think?" inquired Frank.
"I wouldn't be surprised to see the sentiment of the class blaze out into action at any moment. Only to-night Pickering suggested a class meeting for a conference on a new society. He has been talking it over with a lot of his friends, and he feels pretty sure we could put something through if we all got behind it. The only trouble is that there are so many toadies to the old Society of the Gamma who say one thing and do another. Most of them grab for a chance to get into Gamma like a drowning man grabs at a straw."
"I'm for a new society," said Frank, "which will have its elections on merit, and which will make no distinctions between athletes, good students, or good fellows who are neither athletes or brilliant at their studies."
"Oh, ho, I think I have heard you say that theGamma could be reformed!" said the Codfish derisively.
"That was before I knew much about it. They are so hardened and set in their own notions that the only way to reform them is with a good big club."
A few days later the subject of a new society came up again, and on the night of a certain day in May about a dozen of the prominent boys in the class met in Frank's room to talk it over together. Before the boys separated, it had been agreed to call a meeting of the class in the big room of the Library, where the whole matter was to come up. There was to be a general debate on the subject, and Armstrong, as befitted his position as an athlete in the class, was to make the principal speech. In the room were, of course, several friends of Gamma Tau, and it was not long before the information had penetrated to Dixon and other leaders of the old Society.
"Going to form a new society, are they? Well, we'll see about that! The School isn't big enough for what it has now in the way of societies. We'll pack that meeting full of our own men of the class and block everything they try. We'll see what they can do to old Gamma!"
Meanwhile, the Queen's baseball team continued to lose steadily. With Frank out of the game, there was no pitcher who could do even passable work. Dixon, in desperation, gave up his position behind the bat to the substitute catcher, a fellow named Watson, and went into the box himself. But he only lasted for one game, the game with Porter School, in which the latter fairly buried Queen's under the score of 14 to 3! It was then that resentment began to show itself in even the mildest of the students. The feeling was particularly strong in the second class, of which our friends were members. David Powers wrote an article on the situation for theMirror, but the article never appeared in that paper, for the Chief Editor of the paper, under whose eye the article fell, was a Gamma boy, and he thought it too outspoken. David Powers promptly resigned from the paper, and the reason of his resignation soon became known to the class and the school at large. The incident strengthened the determination of every one to have a fight with Gamma to the death, and particularly roused our friends in Honeywell.
Affairs came rapidly to a climax. David and the Codfish put their heads together and prepareda poster calling on the class to meet in the Library room set aside for meetings of the class by the School authorities. The School woke up one morning in the latter part of May to find the posters boldly displayed on tree trunks and on various conspicuous points about the School. The announcement of the meeting was ripped down by the Gamma boys, who well knew what was going on, but the poster had had its effect and every one was on tip-toe.
At last the eventful day arrived. The Codfish and David, with the help of Lewis and Jimmy, had spent many hours on the constitution of the society. Fifteen boys were to be chosen from the Second Class and they were to be selected on merit. Two members of the teaching staff were to be taken into the society as honorary members and they were to be consulted in the elections. David, who had spent days on the work, had searched the constitutions of all the school societies he could get hold of and had, with his associates, selected the best from them and rejected what seemed not suitable for the new society. The draft of the constitution was to be presented that night before the class meeting in the Library, where discussion would be open. Frank, whowas looked upon as a popular leader, had been chosen, as we have said, to present the whole matter at the meeting.
"If I'm going to do this stunt," said Frank, after the boys had returned to their room after supper that evening, "you've all got to clear out and let me have a little time to myself. I've got to think what I'm to say."
"All right, Napoleon," said the Codfish, "we'll skip and let you compose yourself. If any big thoughts stick, look us up," and he scampered out of the door, eager to talk the coming great event over with others of his class.
Frank was left alone, and he set himself to work up a speech that should present the matter to his classmates. He was before his little desk in Honeywell thinking hard and chewing the end of a lead pencil as an aid, when there came a rap on the half-open door.
Frank turned around and saw a small boy standing just outside the door.
"Hello, son, what is it?" he said, turning again to the matter before him.
"Please, are you Frank Armstrong?"
"I'm that chap," said Frank, scratching away with his pencil.
"Well, please," said the boy, "there's a man wants to see you."
"That's nice; where is he?"
"Down at the baseball field."
"Down at the baseball field!" echoed Frank. "Why doesn't he come up here? I haven't time to go down to the baseball field to see a man. I've got important business on to-night. Tell him I'll see him to-morrow. I haven't time to see him to-night, unless he comes up here."
"Oh," said the boy, "he said this was very important for you; that he had some news to tell you about the trouble in the bell tower."
Frank gave a long whistle and stood up, interested at once. He looked at the clock over the mantel. It was half past seven and the meeting was set for eight o'clock.
"He said he could tell you who did the mischief in the bell tower and prove it to you," continued the boy, "but that he couldn't come up to your room."
"I've half a mind to go and see this strange man who knows so much. I can be back in half an hour or less," he said half to himself. Then to the boy, "All right, kid, I'll go along with you, for that business of the bell tower is somethingI'd like to get to the bottom of myself." Then aside, "I'll pick up Jimmy and the Codfish and we'll see what he knows."
"The man said you must come alone, for he doesn't want to be seen by any one at the School except yourself."
"More mystery. All right, kid, tell him I'll be along in a minute and I'll be alone."
The boy waited to hear no more, but darted out of the door and was off like a flash. Frank followed more leisurely after folding David's draft of the constitution and putting it in his inside coat pocket, along with some of the scribbled notes of his speech. "I can think of what I'm going to say as I go along," he thought, "and no time is lost. I wonder why this fellow is so secret about the appointment."
He picked up his cap from the desk, tripped gayly down the steps and out into the yard. None of his friends happened to be in view, and he hurried on in the gathering twilight across the yard, down past the end of Warren Hall, and down the pitch of the hill to the playground below. Over in the distance the baseball stand loomed darkly. But on the open field there was still plenty of light. He headed directly for thebaseball stand, whistling brightly. "What on earth can this man have to tell me?" he said over and over to himself. "Well, I'll know presently."
He had now come to the outfield of the baseball diamond. Peering ahead into the shadow cast by the stand, he thought he saw a figure moving. Advancing to the diamond itself he spoke out loudly:
"Hullo, any one here want to see me?"
A figure slouched out of the shadow and approached Frank to within a distance of ten or fifteen feet. "You are Frank Armstrong?" said a voice that Frank had never heard before.
"Yes," answered Frank. "What is all this about? If you have anything to tell me, tell it to me quick, for I've got to get back."
"It's pretty important news for you, kid," said the man, coming a step or two closer. "I happen to know all about that affair, who did it, and why it was done, and I've got the proofs for you. Look at that paper," he added, drawing a folded sheet of white paper from his pocket and handing it to Frank. Frank reached for the paper, took it, and bent his head in the dim light to read the writing. As he did so, the strange man sprang upon him, threw an arm around his neck andheld him as securely as in a vise. The attack had been so sudden that Frank was powerless to make the faintest resistance. And even had he had the chance, he would have been helpless in that fierce clasp.
"Hey, Bill," called his captor, "come over here and help me truss him up. We've got him, all right."
There was a sound of feet running across the grass, and in an instant two more men appeared from the shadow of the baseball stand. Each seized an arm of the captured boy, and the man who had made the first attack released his hold on Frank's neck.
"What's this all about?" said Frank huskily. The stranger had nearly choked the wind out of him in the tight grasp in which he had held him until help arrived. "I have no money."
"We don't want your money, kid," said one of the men. "We just want you, and everything will be easy for you if you come along without kicking."
"Come along where?"
"Never mind, that's our little secret."
Frank opened his mouth to yell for help, buta big hand immediately closed over it and shut off his cry. "Come, none of that!"
"Put that towel over his mouth!" said one of his captors. A towel was whipped out by one of them and in a jiffy he was effectually prevented from making any outcry, and it had been so placed that he could not see. "Now, come along, young fellow, we're not going to eat you."
Two of the men linked their arms in his, and, preceded by the third, they set out at a rapid pace toward the path that ran down along the river edge. Frank tried to hang back, but he was firmly urged forward, and, seeing the uselessness of resistance in the face of such overwhelming odds, he gave up and went along quietly, waiting a chance to escape by some stratagem.
After a walk of a few minutes, Frank's captors halted and turned toward the river. Frank felt the cold chills race up and down his spine as he stood, held firmly between the two. "What does it all mean?" he thought to himself. The man who had preceded them disappeared for a moment in the alder bushes which fringed the bank. In a moment his voice sounded from below:"The boat's here; hurry it up and let's get it finished."
Half walking and half sliding, they reached the water's edge. Without any ceremony Frank was forced into the boat, the others followed, and one of the men, after pushing off, began to row rapidly. Two or three hundred yards down stream he beached the boat, sprang out and held her, while the others, still grasping Frank, scrambled out awkwardly. The boat was pulled up a little and then, in the same order as the procession had started, it continued on what seemed to be an old road overgrown with grass. Five minutes of twisting and turning through trees and tangled shrubbery, during which time Frank, by moving his face muscles, had uncovered one eye, brought them to a house, but it was shrouded in the deepest gloom. No lights shone from its windows and no sounds of life came from within. All was dreary and desolate, and a chill struck to Frank's heart as he suddenly recognized the place. It was the Jackson house on the back road to Hamilton, and it was reported to be haunted. Some deed of blood had been done there years before and the house since that time had been vacant. After nightfall few ventured that way.Queer lights were said to have been seen about the house at night. The road was little traveled by man or beast at any hour. Through a broken gate hanging crazily by one hinge the procession passed, and up the overgrown walk to the door. Halting here, the leader fumbled in his pocket and produced a key, which he inserted in the lock of the door. There was a grinding sound as the bolt shot back.
"Here's where you stay for a few hours, young fellow," said one of his captors. "Nice comfortable shack. You'll have lots of visitors in there and you needn't be a bit lonesome."
Frank fought hard against his imprisonment. He struggled and scratched and kicked with all his might, and braced against the door jamb. But he was soon overpowered and pushed within. The door was jerked back quickly and Frank was alone in the haunted house. Turned by the key on the outside, the lock shot squeaking back into its socket. Just then the clock on the Queen's School tower boomed the hour of eight!
Finding himself trapped, Frank threw himself on the door and wrenched at the knob with all his strength. It held firm. Again and again he drove his shoulder against the panels, but the door, though old, was stout, and resisted his savage attacks. Soon he gave up in despair the attempt to escape that way.
"I'm kidnapped for sure," he said aloud, and his voice sounded strangely hollow in that empty hallway. He shivered, for, although the night outside was mild and warm, inside there was a deadly chill in the air as if the sunlight had never touched it. A half moon was hanging in the sky and lit the countryside faintly, but in here was the deepest gloom. Tiny slits of light came through the chinks here and there in the boarded windows and cast long knife-like bars across the floor, but instead of lighting the place they actuallymade it seem blacker because of the contrast.
Frank was not a coward, but he would have given a good deal to be safely out of the place. The whole house seemed full of noises. He turned his back to the door and faced the stairway, which, now that his eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, he could make out dimly. He could trace it about half way up to the floor above, where it disappeared into utter blackness. As he strained his eyes and ears a board creaked near him, as if a human foot had trod on it. He recoiled as if shot and turned his eyes in the direction of the noise. But there was no repetition of the sound. Away down the hall where his vision could not penetrate came a rustle as of silk, and then what appeared to be a few stealthy steps; then silence, broken only by the sighing of the night wind around the corners of the house.
It was all Frank could do to keep from yelling with fright, for the noises of the old house had gripped his nerve. But by degrees, as he stood there with his back to the door, he gained control of himself. There was nothing to hurt him, he argued with himself; the noises were only natural ones; the rustlings were perhaps made by thewings of birds that had made their nests in the old house, finding entrance through the chimney, maybe, or through a broken upper window.
"Oh, what a dummy I am," said Frank to himself, "to allow myself to be caught this way! I have been spirited off here and locked up for a while so that Gamma may have its own way up at the Library meeting. But David and Jimmy and the Codfish can carry it through as well or better than I could. They can present the scheme and read the constitution—the constitution," he gasped aloud; "I have it in my pocket!" His hand flew to his pocket. There it was, sure enough, a bulky bundle of papers.
"That settles it. I've got to get out of this hole somehow." There was a determined ring to his voice as it echoed from the bare walls. He left his place by the outer door and turned into the room on the right, the door of which stood partly open. Guided by the chinks of light he examined the windows one after the other. Two of them were broken, but they were securely boarded up from the outside. The window at the side of the room had not even a sash. Raising his foot he drove it here with all his might against the barricading boards, but they did notbudge to his repeated blows. He gave up this room as a bad job, and felt his way into the hall once more and across it to the opposite front room. Here he had no better luck. The windows were securely shut and boarded like the windows in the other room. At one of them, where there was an opening of several inches between the boards and where the light came through more strongly than at any other of the windows, he smashed the glass with his foot and, getting hold of the edge of the board, tried to wrench it loose with his hands. He might as well have tried to shake down the door post. The nails, driven in years before, had probably rusted, and the boards would have had to be split to fragments before the nails would release them.
Nothing daunted, Frank kept on. He pushed open doors that squeaked on rusty hinges and battered at the barriers across the windows. Once in his rounds he caught his toe on some obstruction on the floor and fell headlong. The crash woke the echoes in the old house and set in motion scores of mice and rats that went scurrying, squeaking and chattering across the floors.
Retracing his steps, Frank once more found himself, without further mishap, in the hallwhere he had started his futile round. "I'll try it upstairs," he said, and advanced boldly toward the upper regions of the house. The stairs creaked and groaned horribly as he ascended, and he heard the patter of the feet of rats as they scurried before him. It was none too pleasant a sound. Two of the rooms he tried on the second floor brought no better result, but in the third, at the back of the house, he found a displaced board and a broken sash.
"So this is where our friends, the birds, get in," he said. "The question is, can I get out?"
He stuck his head through the opening and looked down. Below there was nothing but blackness. "I don't dare risk it. I might break my neck in a cellarway if I dropped." He drew in his head, refreshed by the breath of free night air, and continued his search. Stumbling through the gloom of the upper hall, his hand came in contact with a ladder. He gave it a jerk, but it was nailed securely to the floor. "The attic!" he exclaimed aloud; "if there's a skylight and I can get out on the roof perhaps I can make some one hear."
Up the ladder he went. If it was black below, it was still blacker where he was now penetrating,for not even a ray of moonlight entered. The air was close and stifling, and in the attic of the old house, where he found himself in a few moments, he could scarcely breathe. His entrance there disturbed some night birds that had taken possession of the place, and they flew about uttering angry cries and dashing so close to him that he could feel the fanning of air from their wings. With his arm across his face, he felt for a ladder which must lead to the skylight, if indeed there was a skylight in the roof above. After traversing half the length of the house and colliding with the corner of the chimney, his hand touched wood. It was another ladder, and his heart jumped with joy at the touch. The rounds were covered with a thick layer of dust, deposited there through many years of disuse. Up its short length Frank went cautiously till his head touched the roof. He felt around carefully till his hand touched a hasp. With a sudden jerk he pulled it aside and with his head pressing against the skylight, bored upward. To his great joy the heavy skylight moved and swung up on its rusty hinges, and in another moment he was out on the roof of the house with the stars above his head.
What a relief it was to be out of that dismalhouse! The horrors of it lay below him, but was he any better off? Could he make any one hear him, and, if they did hear him, would any one be likely to come to such a place? Wasn't he in as bad a fix as before? These questions jumped into his brain in rapid succession.
"Help! Help!" Frank raised his voice and shouted. Again and again he shouted, but there was no answering hail. Off to the left he could plainly see the lights of Queen's School. As a bird flies, it was not more than half a mile from his perch to the Library where his friends were holding their meeting and no doubt wondering where he was. What were they thinking of him? He began hitching along on the roof toward the front of the house, his intention being to attempt a descent, hand over hand, along the roof's edge to the eaves, where, if he could see the ground, he might risk a drop.
Hitching along laboriously, Frank encountered an obstruction when he was halfway to the end of his journey. He felt of it. It was an insulator, and stretching away from it on both sides was a wire of small diameter. "Telephone," said Frank to himself. "How I wish I had an instrument." He climbed over it and went on. Suddenlyhe stopped: "By Jove, I wonder if that is our wire to Queen's Station? It certainly comes down this way." He was thinking hard.
"Itisthe wire!" he shouted joyfully. "I remember now Murphy said he put an insulator on this old house because there were no trees near to take the span."
Instantly he turned back to the wire. On one side of the insulator the wire was stretched tightly, but the other side hung sagging. He reached out and pulled on the slack side and found that he could draw it up a foot or more.
"Just the thing!" he exclaimed joyfully. "Now we'll see what happens!"
Straddling the roof, Frank again took hold of the slack loop of the wire and pulled with all his strength. When he had hauled it as tight as possible, he reached down and put a coil around his foot, and was overjoyed to find that he could hold the wire in position that way, although the strain almost pulled him apart. Then, taking his knife, he began to saw at the wire. When he had made a little notch in it he worked it back and forth, bending it this way and that, and suddenly it fell apart.
"Hurrah!" shouted Frank. "Now we'll see if any one hears me."
Taking a broken end of wire in each hand he began tapping them together. Carefully he called:F-F-F-F-F-F;JC-JC-JC-JC. These were the calls of his own room and of Jimmy's. He was using the ends of the broken wire to send Morse signals. After each attempt, with fingers moistened to accentuate their sensitiveness to any return signal, he waited. Thus calling and waiting he kept on for several minutes. "They're probably all in the Library, but Murphy ought to hear me if the wire is cut in at the Station."
Varying the call ofQ, which was the Station, with calls ofFandJC, Frank kept on, but with the strain of the wire pulling on his foot and cutting into the flesh he was nearly exhausted.
Suddenly in response to his call ofF-F-Fcame a shock which made him jump. Some one had opened a telegraph key somewhere on the line. The current had been broken and closed. He tapped slowly, making the letters very plain so that no one could misunderstand, "C-o-m-e q-u-i-c-k h-a-u-n-t-e-d h-o-u-s-e F-r-a-n-k." Over and over he repeated his message. Suddenly there came a succession of electric thrills alongthe wire as if a key had been rattled rapidly, and Frank received the signals plainly through his moistened fingers "O-K." He had been heard and understood. With a sigh of relief, he let go of the loose end of the wire and shook it free of his foot. The released wire went swishing down the roof and the connection was broken for good.
Carefully Frank made his way back to the skylight and backed down the ladder into the darkness beneath. "I'll be ready for them—if they come," he added dubiously. "And the back room where the board is off is more comfortable in spite of the rats than this sharp roof." Down among the startled birds that beat madly around the attic he went again, down the second ladder to the floor, and then made his way to the back room, where he settled himself on the window ledge waiting for his rescue, if rescue it was to be.
Frank found himself in comfort compared to his position on the roof, but he soon began to wonder whether he had not better, after all, take a chance of a drop in the darkness. He got up, examined the opening, found it too small to squeeze through, and was preparing to make the best of it on his ledge, when his ear caught thesound of a step in the lower part of the house. He stood up with body bent forward listening intently.
There was no imagination about it this time. It was a slow step, sometimes shuffling, then again firm and quick. Occasionally it stopped, seemingly irresolute. Then it began again. Whatever or whoever it was, the owner of the step appeared to be going the round of the rooms. Now it was on the stairs ascending. Frank listened with his heart in his mouth. Slowly the step came on, reaching the landing, stopped, began again and came on shufflingly in his direction. Frank stepped on the window ledge and reached for the opening between the boards. Suddenly a light flared up, and through the open door Frank saw a boy standing with a lighted match in his hand. It lit the gloom only for a moment and went out in the draft. Frank, startled by the sight, gave a yell. There was an answering groan, the sound of a falling body and then silence. Almost at the same moment shouts were heard outside. Frank sprang to the opening and answered the hail with all the power of his lungs: "Here, here, 'round at the back of the house!" There was the sound of crashing through thetangle of shrubbery and a voice from below—Jimmy's voice—calling, "What in thunder are you doing there?"
"Taking a moonlight meditation," returned Frank flippantly; "but hurry up, I've had enough. Rip off a board on one of the lower windows if you can. I'm in trouble up here."
Lights flashed below and the sound of several different voices came to Frank's ears. Reassured by the presence of his friends, Frank groped his way to the door in front of which his visitor had fallen. He found the huddled heap of humanity, touched the face and felt it warm, which relieved him greatly. From below came the sound of ripping wood and breaking glass, and, in another minute, Jimmy, with a lantern in his hand, bounded up the stairway, followed by Lewis and several other boys. All were astonished to see Frank, his face streaked with dust and grime, standing by the side of a prostrate figure. The rays of the lantern were directed to the face of the one on the floor.
"Bronson!" all exclaimed in a breath.
"Great Scott!" cried Jimmy in amazement, "what are you fellows doing here and what's the matter with Bronson?"
Bronson, who had fainted from fright when he heard Frank's yell in the darkness, now opened his eyes and sat up, looking around dazedly. Suddenly he seemed to remember: "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" he cried piteously, grabbing Jimmy by the legs. "I'll tell all about it, but don't leave me here. He'll come back."
"Tell us what? Who'll come back?" ejaculated Jimmy.
And there on the floor Bronson poured out his story in broken sentences and with hanging head. He told how the Gamma had planned the kidnapping of Frank to break up the meeting, with the hope that the attempt to form a new society might be checked and the absent boy discredited. The attempt, as it proved, had been partly successful, for, despite the eloquent words of the Codfish and David, who had striven to hold it together until Frank could be found, the Gamma element in the meeting had broken it up. It was on Jimmy's return to the room that he had heard Frank's signal and gone in search of him.
"Was Dixon in this scheme?" said Frank, when Bronson finished.
"Yes," was the answer.
"And was he responsible for the affair in the bell tower?"
"No; Whitlock, Colson and I were the ones in that. But I'll make it right with Dr. Hobart. I'll confess everything. Only don't leave me here, please don't."
On the way back to Queen's School, Bronson freely confessed his part in the affair of the haunted house. He had been detailed by Dixon to see that the men who had been hired to spirit Frank away, carried out their part of the work, and he was hidden near the path when Frank was marched past him. Just as he started to leave, there arose alongside of him the gigantic figure of a man, who, muttering something about being on his property, drew him to the back of the house and, entering by the cellarway, left him there, fastening the door on the outside. More dead than alive from fear, Bronson had heard Frank shuffling around on the floor above him, and then, when the noise ceased, with a few matches he had in his pocket he started to find his way out. During Frank's absence on the roof he had gained the first floor, and it was he whom Frank heard when he returned to his post by the broken window. The shock of Frank's voicewhen Bronson, searching for a means of escape, had penetrated to the second floor, was too much for his shaking nerves, and he collapsed on the floor. The men who had kidnapped and carried off Frank were three men from the village, one of whom was a locksmith, which accounted for his possession of a key to the old house.
It later came out that the gigantic man who had captured and incarcerated Bronson, was none other than a half-witted negro of the village, who was abroad at all times of the night, and who, unknown to any one, had a way of entering and leaving the old house by an open cellarway. It was probably he who, by showing lights in the house at night, had terrified the villagers into the belief that the place was haunted.
Before Bronson was allowed to go that night, he was taken to Frank's room, where, under the dictation of the Codfish, he wrote and signed a full confession of the part he had played in the bell tower incident, and of his knowledge of the kidnapping of Frank.
The next morning the School was startled by the announcement that Dixon, Bronson and Whitlock were not to be found. During the night, either separately or together, they had packed their suit-cases and departed, leaving instructions for the forwarding of the remainder of their goods. Murphy, the night operator, reported later that they had been seen boarding the early morning train for Milton. Dixon, alone, left word behind him. The note was directed to the manager of the Queen's Baseball Association and contained his resignation as captain of the nine.
"It was just as well he went," said Jimmy, when he heard the news, "or there would have been the biggest scrap on that this School ever saw. After what he did to Frank last night, he was going to get the worst licking that a kid ever got," and Jimmy flexed his arms and clenched his fists.
"I think I'd have taken a hand at him, myself!" said Frank.
"Me, too," said the Codfish. "If ever I'd have laid this on him," indicating his right fist, "he would go home in an ambulance."
"Or you would have, eh, scrappy old Codfish?" said Lewis. "I don't know but I'd have had a shy at him, myself."
Dixon's departure cleared the atmosphere of the School at once. You may be sure that no time was lost in carrying Bronson's confession to Doctor Hobart, and that stern old man, quick to repair the wrong he had done to Jimmy and Frank, called them to his office.
"Young gentlemen," he said, "I have an apology to make to you. I see I was wrong and I am glad that I was wrong. You are reinstated in all the privileges of the School. I hope you will pardon an old man for leaning too strongly on circumstantial evidence, furthered by untruthful testimony."
It was a joyful crowd that met that afternoon on the diamond. By unanimous consent of the School nine, Frank Armstrong was elected acting-captain to fill out the remainder of the term, and when practice began every boy who couldget there was on the bleachers to watch. Jimmy took his place behind the bat and caught and threw with his old-time ability. Frank pitched wonderful ball and threw the spectators into an enthusiasm of cheering when he struck out batsman after batsman of the Second nine as they faced him.
After the Chapel exercises next morning, Dr. Hobart announced to the whole School there assembled, that he had visited the punishment for the misdoings in the bell tower upon the wrong boys, and then publicly expressed his sorrow that he had made a mistake. "The real perpetrators, with one exception," he added, "have left School, and that one exception has not yet been dealt with. I have further to say that the Society of Gamma Tau, which has been responsible for this and other disturbances, is from this day forth abolished and any boy in the future, either offering an election to or accepting one from this Society, should any attempt be made to carry it on in secret, will be summarily dismissed from Queen's School."
To the surprise of every one, the abolition of Gamma Tau was not taken seriously to heart bythe School. Its domination had for some years become irksome, and even the members of it, with the exception of a few of its leaders, among whom was Howard Hotchkiss, admitted that it was a good thing for the School to have it done away with.
Whether the killing of the Society by Dr. Hobart's edict had anything to do with it or not, or whether it was the snap that Frank and Jimmy put into the team, none could say, but it was certain that for one cause or another the School rallied around the nine like one man. From a disorganized body the nine was brought into playing form in remarkably short time, and in the last of the preliminary games of the season won over the strong Butler Academy by six runs to one.
Jimmy and Frank worked like Trojans, in these last days of the term, to get the team into shape for the Warwick game. And the School was back of them. By presence and by voice every one helped at the practice. Finally, at the end of examinations, the day of the great contest came around. Warwick, with a nine strong and experienced, came down to Queen's confident of wiping out the stain of defeat of theprevious June. Robinson, the left tackle of the Warwick eleven, was captain of the nine and played first base. He had heard, as had every one in Warwick, of the resignation of Dixon as captain and the incident helped to further their belief that Queen's would be, as he said, "easy picking." Down with the Warwick team came a great crowd of heelers to see the "funeral," as one of them expressed it.
The "funeral" did not come to pass in just the way that Warwick had expected. For three innings it was nip and tuck between the two nines without a run being scored on either side. Frank was in great form, and, while he used few curves, he was able to put the ball exactly where Jimmy wanted it; and between the two of them they had the Warwick batters swinging wildly at balls which they could not hit.
In the fifth inning, through a hit and an error by the Queen's right fielder, Warwick scored a run, and in the sixth added two more. This was the signal for great yelling in the Warwick sections of the stand, but Queen's came back with two earned runs in the seventh. Jimmy's two-base hit started the trouble.
Frank's great pitching, when the bases were full with only one out, cut Warwick out of what looked like a certain score in the eighth inning, but the Queen's batters could do nothing against Warwick in this inning. The game came to the ninth without further runs, and Queen's still one behind. Warwick tried desperately to get a runner across, and with their fastest man on third, when hits were not forthcoming, tried to work the squeeze play. Frank and Jimmy nipped the runner neatly at the plate. Opinions were freely expressed that Queen's would not score, but when Taylor, the Queen's first baseman, came up and singled, the Queen's heelers let loose a howl of joy. Their glee was cut short when Taylor, in trying to steal second, was thrown out.
With one gone, Frank came to the bat.
"You are due for a hit," said Jimmy, as he left the bench. "Get on and I'll bring you in."
Frank clenched his bat and faced the Warwick pitcher with determination in his eye. Up to the present time he had done nothing in the way of hitting, and the Warwick pitcher held him rather cheaply. Twice he sent the ball across the plate for strikes, and twice the ball went wide.
"Give him a good one," howled a Warwickboy; "let him hit it if he can. He couldn't hit a barn!"
Straight over the plate came the next ball, and Frank met it with a short powerful swing. Away flew the ball over the third baseman's head, struck the ground in short left field, and, with a spin on it, rolled on and on over the close-cropped grass. The left fielder chased it desperately, but before he got his hands on it, Frank had turned second. The left fielder slammed it straight and hard, and Frank dived for the last fifteen feet, beating the ball to third only by inches. As he stood on the bag and dusted himself with his cap, Jimmy sauntered easily to the plate.
"Come on," said Jimmy to the Warwick pitcher, when the yelling had died down; "come on, and I'll do it again just like that," and he grinned at the worried boy in the box. The ball flew wide.
"Don't lose your nerve," taunted Jimmy; "put it over."
Again the Warwickian tied himself up into a knot and again flew the ball. It was to Jimmy's liking. He swung a full swing with all the force of his sturdy young body behind it, and, in the language of the diamond, hit it "right on thenose." Just what happened to that ball no one knows to this day. It rose on its long flight between third and short stop, carried over the head of the left fielder like a golf ball cleanly hit, struck far beyond him and rolled down among the alder bushes which fringed the river. The fielder tore after it, disappeared from view, and, after a minute or two, came back holding up both hands. They were empty. But it would have made no difference whether he had had the ball at that time or not, for Jimmy had completed the circuit of the bases, and the bat boy was picking up the scattered bats and mitts by Queen's bench. Queen's had won the game! It was a glorious finish to a season that had begun in anything but glory, and then and there, before the Queen's team left the bench, after a rousing cheer had been given for the defeated Warwicks, Frank Armstrong was elected captain for the following year, while the Queen's stands yelled their approval.
"It was worth all our trouble for that last inning, wasn't it?" said Jimmy.
And Frank, grinning happily, admitted that it was.
The further doings of Frank Armstrong and his friends at Queen's School will be told in the next volume of this series, entitled "Frank Armstrong, Captain of the Nine."
THE END.