"Who's that hollering back there; looks like Corney Shays?" remarked Semi-Colon just then, so sharply that the entire group paused to look back.
"It is Corney, late as usual, and with his nerve along; because he wants us all to stop and wait for him," declared Dick Hendricks. "Come along boys, and let him catch up if he can."
"But he acts mighty queer," said Fred.
"You're right he does," added Bristles, taking the alarm at once. "Look at him waving his arms. Say, fellers, something's gone wrong, bet you a cooky. I just feel it in my bones. Oh! what if Colon's been taken sick right now the day before?"
They stood there, silent and expectant, until the running Corney had drawn near.
"What ails you, Corney?" demanded Dick.
"It's Colon!" gasped the other, almost out of breath, and much excited in the bargain, they could see, for his eyes seemed ready to pop out of his head.
"Don't tell us he's sick!" cried Bristles, in real horror.
"Disappeared—never slept in his bed last night, his ma says! Gone in the queerest way ever, and just when Riverport depended on him to win the prize to-morrow!" was what the almost breathless Corney gasped.
"Oh!what d'ye think of that, now?" cried Bristles.
"How could Colon ever do it; and all Riverport depending on him so?" exclaimed the tall student, Henry Clifford by name, who was always deeply interested in the field sports of his mates, though too delicate himself to take any part in them.
"Why, what d'ye think he's done?" demanded Bristles, aggressively, turning on him.
"Perhaps he just got so nervous over this business that he couldn't stand the push, and thought he'd better skip out," replied the other, weakly.
"Rats! tell that to your grandmother, will you, Clifford!" burst out Semi-Colon, quick to rally to the defense of his cousin. "Nobody ever knew him to flinch when it came to the test; ain't that so, fellers?"
"Sure it is," cried Bristles, sturdily; "and when I saw him last night he was just feeling asif he had a walkover ahead. No, if Colon has disappeared there's some other reason besides a sudden fear of being beaten. He never went of his own account."
"Tell us some more about it, Corney," said Fred, himself considerably shaken by the stunning news brought by the runner.
Corney had by now succeeded in regaining his breath.
"Well, he's gone, that's a dead sure thing," he began. "I went around to his house to get him to come. Found several other fellows sitting there on the bank outside the fence. They didn't have the nerve to go in and ask for Colon, you see. But I walked up to the door, and knocked. Mrs. Colon came out, and smiled to see the mob there, like she might be feeling proud that her boy was so well thought of."
"Oh! cut it short!" growled Dick Hendricks. "Get down to facts. What did she say?"
"That she was letting Chris sleep longer this morning, because he was working so hard these days; but would go and wake him up. A minute later I heard her call out, and then I ran in, fearing that something had happened to our chum. She was there in his room, wringing her hands, and carryin' on like everything. Then I saw that the bed hadn't been slept in. Fellers, it gave me a cold creep, because you see, I justknewsomething terrible must have happened to poor old Colon."
Fred tried to keep his head about him in this trying moment. He knew that this peculiar disappearance of Colon could not be an accident; nor had the long-legged sprinter gone away of his own accord. There must be more about the matter than appeared on the surface.
"One thing I think we can be sure of, right at the start," he remarked, seriously; and it was wonderful how eagerly the others listened to what he was about to say, as if they had more than ordinary confidence in Fred Fenton's judgment.
"What is that, Fred?" asked Dick Hendricks.
"Colon never went off willingly," the other declared.
"Sure he didn't; but who could have done it, Fred?" demanded Bristles, clenching his fists aggressively, and looking ready for a fight, if only he knew on whom to vent his anger.
"That's where we're all up a tree, and we'd better turn back right now," Fred declared. "No use practicing this morning, with Colon lost to us. Who'd have any heart to do his best?"
"Just what I was going to say, boys," spoke up Corney. "Come along back to his home with me. There's getting to be the biggest excitement in old Riverport that you ever heard tell of.Even when I chased after you they were running about in the streets, talkin' about the latest sensation. Women was gatherin' in knots on the corners, and discussin' it from all sides. They had sent for the chief of our police force, and I saw him headin' that way as I came along, with a whole mob of the fellers at his heels."
"Whew! ain't this a stunner, though?" gasped the tall student, hurrying to keep up with the excited little bunch of schoolboys as they headed back toward the town.
Just as Corney had declared, they found the place buzzing with excitement. All thought of business seemed to have been utterly abandoned for the time being; and merchants, as well as clerks, gathered outside the stores, engaged in discussing the news that had burst upon them.
Fred, Bristles and the rest were soon at Colon's home.
"Gee! look at the crowd; would you?" ejaculated Corney, as they came in sight of some scores of men, women and the younger element, who jostled each other in front of the house. "Ain't it funny how a thing like this spreads? Talk to me about wildfire—excitin' news has got it beat a mile. Why, they're still comin' in flocks and droves. The whole town will be around here before long."
"Can you blame them?" remarked DickHendricks; "look at us right now, heading for the hub of the wheel for all we're worth. But there's one of the constables keeping 'em out of the gate. Wonder if he'll let us in?"
"He's just got to," said Corney. "I'll tell him Mrs. Colon sent me out to get the whole bunch, and he'll pass us all right."
Several did get in with the bold Corney, among them Fred and Bristles; but the main part of the group had to content themselves with kicking their heels against the fence, and waiting to get any additional news when their comrades came out.
Inside they found Judge Colon, looking very much flushed. The missing boy was his nephew, and he was taking more than usual interest in the matter.
Just now he seemed to be trying to comfort the alarmed mother, who, being a widow, with her only boy taken away in this mysterious manner, was much in need of sympathy and advice.
"Depend upon it, Matilda," the judge was saying; "it will prove to be only some wild prank on the part of his mates; Christopher will turn up presently, safe and sound. You say he went out last night; do you happen to know where?"
"He was over to my house, Judge," spoke up Bristles, boldly, wishing to give all the information in his power.
"Ah! yes, it's you, Andrew, is it?" the gentleman remarked, looking around. "And about what time did he start away for home, may I ask?"
"It couldn't have been much after ten, sir," replied the other. "We were playing cribbage, and he got the odd game. Yes, I remember, now, he said his mother would be in bed anyway when he got home."
"And I did retire about nine, as I usually do," remarked Mrs. Colon, upon whose face the marks of tears could be plainly seen. "I didn't hear Christopher come in, because I slept unusually well the early part of the night. Then came that cruel shock this morning, when I saw his bed all made up, and knew he hadn't come home at all."
"You went to the door with him; didn't you, Andrew?" the judge went on, with the persistence a lawyer might be expected to show when he had a willing witness on the stand, and was bent on getting every fact, however slight, from him.
"Yes, sir, I even went out to our gate; and we stood there for nearly five minutes, I guess, talkin' about athletic matters. Then he said good-night, and walked down the road. There was a moon in the west, and I could see Colon swinging along in that sturdy way he has. Then I turned around and went up to bed."
"When you stood there at the gate did anybody pass by?" asked the judge.
"No sir, not a living soul," responded Bristles, after a few seconds of thought.
"And you didn't hear any suspicious sounds, like boys laughing partly under their breath; did you, Andrew?"
"Not a chuckle, sir," replied the other. "It was just a fine night, I noticed, and looked like we'd have good weather right along for the meet. But if you think there are any fellers in this town mean enough to kidnap Colon, just to give us a black eye to-morrow, I must say I can't understand it, sir."
"Well, I believe I have known of a certain lot of young fellows who happen to hold forth around Riverport, and who would not be above doing a thing like that, given just half a cause," the judge replied, meaningly; and every one knew whom he had in mind, for their thoughts immediately flew to Buck Lemington and his cronies.
"But perhaps it wasn't any prank of boys at all," Bristles went on, eagerly; "Colon said the night was so bright he had half a notion to take a two mile dash out over the Grafton road, just to wind up his big day. I advised him not to think of it, but he only laughed. But he's awful set in his ways, sir, once he makes up his mind."
"He said that; did he?" asked the judge, apparently thinking that there might be something worth while taking note of in this latest assertion.
"Yes, sir, he certainly did," the boy answered. "Colon's a queer fish anyhow, and does heaps of things nobody else'd ever think of. Now, what ifhedid start on that run; why, something might have happened to him—perhaps he tripped, and fell, and broke a leg, so he couldn't even crawl home."
The mother started to cry again as she pictured her boy suffering all through the night as Bristles described so recklessly. And so the judge moved aside with several of the boys, the better to talk unheard by Colon's mother.
"Things are beginning to take on shape, I see," he remarked, grimly. "Possibly the boy did foolishly start on that late run by moonlight, and met with trouble. Some people with whom I talked on the way here were of the opinion he had been kidnapped by tramps, and was being held for a ransom, just as if this might be Sicily or Greece."
"I don't think that way, Judge Colon," said Fred, speaking for the first time.
"I'm pleased to hear that you have another idea, my boy; let us know its nature," said the lawyer, who had always been favorably impressed with the sterling worth of Mr. Fenton's son, and now hoped he had struck on a plausible explanation of the odd mystery.
"My idea is," Fred began, modestly, yet firmly, "that Colon has been abducted by some of those Mechanicsburg fellows, who know they haven't a ghost of a chance to win the three shorter running events on the schedule, with him in line. They've got a college man for a coach, you see, sir, and like as not he's been telling them of the tricks that are played among all the big universities; so they've just thought to spoil our game for us by holding our best man a prisoner till after the meet."
Judge Colonlooked keenly at Fred as he made this suggestion.
"I don't suppose now, my boy," the gentleman remarked, "you have any reason to suppose that what you say is the actual fact; that is, proof positive?"
"No sir, I haven't," replied Fred. "It is only an idea that came into my mind."
"Based upon what, might I ask?" the judge continued.
"Well, I've known that a good many Mechanicsburg boys have been down here lately, curious to see what sort of a showing Riverport would make in the meet."
"Yes, quite natural that they should want to know; because these must be anxious and trying times for the young people of the three towns," the judge remarked.
"And," Fred went on, "of course they've heard a lot about our sprinter; for Riverport boys are like all other boys, and like to brag, especiallywhen they've really got a phenomenon of a runner, like our Colon, to boast about."
The judge smiled at that; for was not that same wonder a member of his family—a Colon?
"And you think then, Fred, some of those up-river boys, convinced that if Christopher ran in the meet he would easily capture all the prizes in his class, made up their minds that something must be done to prevent such a wholesale delivery? You suspect, Fred, that they got up a bold little scheme to actually abduct the boy on one of the two nights preceding the tournament?"
"Do you believe it impossible, Judge?" asked the boy, quickly.
"Well, to be frank with you, I don't," answered the gentleman, gravely. "Indeed, while my knowledge of boy nature is not so extensive as that of some persons, I've got one myself who can think up more schemes in a minute than I could solve in an hour. And, Fred, I should be pleased if your supposition turned out to be true. It would at least relieve my mind with regard to graver things; however unpleasant the absence of Christopher might prove to the school that believes in him."
"But he may be found in time!" declared Corney Shays, who had listened to all this talk with bated breath, and wide open eyes.
"He will, if a pack of hounds like the boys of Riverport school are worth their salt!" avowed Bristles.
"That has the right sort of ring to it," remarked the judge, with kindling eyes. "And in order to induce men, as well as boys, to take part in the hunt for your missing comrade, I'm going to offer a reward of one hundred dollars for his return inside of twenty-four hours, uninjured. I'll have half a dozen cards posted in the public places of the town, so that every person will know of my offer."
"Hurrah for the judge!" burst out the impetuous Corney.
"Then the sooner we get to work, fellows," said Fred, impressively, "the better."
"Yes, spread the news as fast as you can," observed the judge; "tell it to that crowd of boys outside the fence, and get them to scatter with it all over town. Scour the whole territory, looking in every barn and woodshed to see whether they may have kept him a prisoner there. Boys sometimes can be more or less thoughtless, and even cruel when engaged in what they term sport. As the old saying has it, 'this is often fun for the boy, but death to the frog.' Be off, boys; and success to you!"
Apparently the judge was not quite so much concerned as before Fred had made his suggestion. The unpleasant idea of lawless tramps having caught Colon, to hold him for ransom, had begun to lose plausibility in the mind of the reasoning lawyer.
"Come along, fellows!" cried Bristles, who scented the pleasures of action, with something of the delight that an old war-horse does the smoke of battle.
They hurried out of the house, leaving to the judge the task of explaining to Mrs. Colon how the situation had improved.
There was an immediate scattering of the clans. Boys ran this way and that, telling the astonishing news to every one they met. Housewives stood in doorways and anxiously inquired as to the very latest theory to account for the mysterious disappearance of a Riverport lad. Such a thing had never happened before, save when little Rupert Whiting wandered off in search of butterflies, and was found two days later, living on the blueberries that grew so abundantly in the woods.
And when the latest suggestion, connected with the boys of Mechanicsburg, began to be current it created no end of unfavorable comment.
Meanwhile Fred and several of his chums had started in to see what they could do toward finding Colon. As usual they looked to Fred to do pretty much all the planning. Somehow, in timeslike this, when boys are called upon to meet a sudden emergency, they naturally turn toward the strongest spirit. In this case it happened to be Fred.
"Now, in the beginning, fellows," he remarked, when he found that only Corney, Sid Wells, Bristles, and Semi-Colon were gathered around him; "we'vegot to go into this thing with some show of system."
"That's right," admitted Corney.
"Too many already just prancing around," observed Bristles, scornfully; "up one road, and down another, peekin' into barns, and asking questions of every farmer around. All that's what we call 'wasted endeavor,' at school. Fred, system is the thing. But just where do we make a proper start, so as to cover the field, and not go over the same ground twice?"
"That's just it," replied the other; "we want to map out our course beforehand, and then stick to it. Now, to begin with, Bristles, let's decide which way Colon would have gone from your house, if he had really made up his mind that he must have a last two mile practice spin before he went home, and to bed."
"Say, I can tell you that right off the reel," declared Bristles, officiously.
"Then get busy," remarked Corney.
"Why, you see," said Bristles, "when hetalked of doing that little stunt, he said he'd a good notion to run up to the graveyard and back, which would make an even two miles."
"But you didn't say anything about that before?" Fred objected.
"Clean slipped my mind," his chum admitted, frankly; "fact is, I never thought it made the least difference what Colonsaid. The main thing seemed to be he was gone, like the ground had opened and swallowed him. But if he took that run, Fred, make up your mind it was up there."
Corney gave a little whistle.
"Gee! the loneliest old road inside of ten miles around Riverport, too. I guess old Colon must have been wanting to give them fellers the best chance ever. If he'd been offered a prize to accommodate 'em, he couldn't have hit the bulls-eye better."
"Then that's the road we want to take," said Fred, decisively. "Don't mention it to anybody, but come along. Somebody who knows all the quirks of that road better than I do, lead off. And every fellow keep on the lookout, right and left, for signs."
So they hurried away toward the house where the Carpenters lived.
Bristles showed them just where he stood when, in the moonlight, he saw the last of his tall chum, turning to wave a hand at him.
With that they started off. Little talking was indulged in, for all of them understood that they had a serious matter on their hands. With Colon gone, their hopes of landing a majority of the prizes offered for the various events of the athletic meet would begin to grow dim indeed. It would take the heart out of other contestants on the part of Riverport, and in all probability accomplish just the end those who had abducted Colon had in view.
After they had passed along for some little distance, eagerly scanning every object in sight, their hopes fell a trifle. Boylike, they had imagined that as soon as they started out upon this promising theory they would find plenty of evidence calculated to prove its truth.
"Ain't seen a sign of him yet!" grumbled Corney; "and we're nigh half-way to the old graveyard, too."
"Wait!" said Fred, as he suddenly drew up, and the others followed suit; though none of them could imagine what had caused their leader to stop his quick walk.
"Seen something; have you, Fred?" asked Bristles, eagerly.
"Why, I was wondering," Fred remarked, quietly, and with a twinkle in his eye, "if they grew things like that around here on bushes, instead of blueberries!"
He pointed down as he spoke. Alongside the road at this point lay a ditch that was a couple of feet lower than the surface of the pike. Straggly bushes partly over-ran the watercourse; and caught on the twigs of these was some sort of object that had attracted the attention of the observant boy.
"Say, it's a cap!" ejaculated Corney.
"And a good cap, too; not an old cast-off thing!" Sid declared.
"Hold on, let me take it up out of there with this stick," said Fred. "No use getting our feet wet; and besides, it's easier this way."
So saying, while the others clustered around, he reached down, and deftly thrusting the end of the stick under the cap, drew it to him.
Immediately Bristles uttered a loud cry of astonishment, not unmixed with joy.
"You recognize the cap, then; do you?" asked Fred.
"Sure thing," answered Bristles, promptly. "It's Colon's cap."
"Whatmakes you so sure it belonged to him?" Fred asked.
"Oh! I know it as well as I do my own cap," replied Bristles. "It's a queer mixture, you can see; and here's the place where Colon shot that arrow through it one day, when he asked me to throw it up in the air for him."
"And I ought to know it too, Fred," remarked the short legged cousin of the missing boy. "Because I bought it for Chris. You see, I lost his other for him, and I had to spend some of my hard-earned cash to get him a new one. I found that at Snyder's Emporium; and I thought he'd kick like fun because it was so odd; but say, he just thought it the best thing ever! That's Colon's headgear, all right."
"Then we'll consider that point settled," Fred went on to say. "The next thing on the program to decide is, how does it happen to be lying here in this ditch? As I remember it, there wasn't much of a wind last night when I went to bed,and it doesn't seem then that it could have blown off his head when he was running."
"There wasn't a ripple in the leaves of the trees," declared Bristles.
"And if it did blow off, wouldn't he have stopped to look for it in the moonlight?" remarked Sid Wells.
"Colon is too careful of his things not to make a hunt for his cap," came from Semi-Colon, who ought to know if any one did, about the peculiarities of his own cousin.
"Well, the cap was here," Fred said; "and we found it; now why was it lying in the ditch as if it had been thrown there, or knocked off in a scuffle?"
"Wow! now perhaps we ain't gettin' down to brass tacks!" ejaculated Bristles.
Fred bent over to examine the road, along the edge of the ditch.
"Looks like somethin' might have been going on here," Corney suggested.
"You're right," Sid added, excitedly. "Why, anybody with one eye could see there'd been a scramble around here. Look at the scrapings in the dust; would you? just like a pack of fellows had set on one; and the bunch were jumping around him, trying to get away, and the others holding on. Fred, here's where it must have happened, sure!"
"I think so myself," returned the leader of the five boys, gravely surveying the tell-tale marks in the dust of the road.
"Eureka! ain't we the handy boys, though, to get on the track of the kidnappers so quick?" exclaimed Bristles, proudly.
"Go slow," advised Fred; "we've only made a start as yet. Even if it happened here we don't know who jumped on Colon, and captured him. It might have been those Mechanicsburg fellows; or the three tramps who searched the Masterson farmhouse; and then again, why, perhaps some of our own Riverport boys may have been having a little fun, as they would call it, giving the rest of us a bad scare, just to have the laugh on us."
"Say, do you think Buck Lemington and his bunch would get down as low as that?" demanded Bristles.
"I didn't mention his name," replied Fred; "but you all knew what was on my mind. Well, from what I've seen of Buck, it strikes me he'd never stop one minute if the idea once came into his mind. Perhaps some of you noticed that he wasn't running around like the rest of the fellows. Buck was watching the row, and I thought once I saw him grin as if he might be enjoying something."
"And Fred," spoke up Corney just then, "youjust ought to have seen the ugly look he gave you when you happened to pass. Buck's never gotten over it because when you dropped into Riverport his star began to set. It's been going lower all the time, and he keeps nursing his ugly feeling for you. Some fine day he means to get you when you're not thinking, and even up all scores. Look out for him, Fred."
"I used to think Buck hated me about as bad as he could anybody," remarked Sid; "but lately I've changed my mind. I never gave him one-half the cause to feel ugly that Fred has."
"You don't say," remarked the one mentioned, looking surprised; "what have I done to Buck that is so dreadful? I've tried to mind my own business, and never went out of my way a single step to bother with him."
"But it justhappened," ventured Sid, "that your way was Buck's own road in some cases. Now, time was, and every fellow here will bear me out in what I say, when Buck used to take a certain pretty girl to lots of places. They squabbled more or less; but Buck wouldn't allow any other fellow to be Flo's escort. All that is changed these days. She cuts him dead; and every time she turns him down he grins and grits his teeth, and I reckon thinks of you kindly—not."
"Oh! well, that's ancient history," remarkedFred, smiling. "And it cuts no figure in what we're trying to find out now. If Colon was waylaid here, and made a prisoner, how can we discover who did the job?"
As he spoke he once more threw himself down on hands and knees as if bent upon closely examining the dusty road.
"I can see a plain footprint here, that has a mark I'd know again," he presently exclaimed. "Do any of you happen to know whether Colon is wearing a shoe with plain patch on the sole running diagonally across about half way down?"
Bristles spoke up immediately.
"He wasn't last night, and that's a cinch. Because he had on his running shoes, and they were new this season. I know, for he showed me where he meant to have a little extra sewing done on each shoe to-day, for fear something might happen in the races, and he has only the one pair. I handled both, and the soles didn't have a sign of a patch, Fred."
"Then that settles one thing," remarked the other; "we've got a clue to the first of his enemies, whoever he proves to be. And wherever we go we'll keep a sharp lookout for that shoe with the patch on the sole. Get down here, fellows, and take the measure of it right now."
While they were doing this Fred was lookingaround; and no sooner had his four chums regained their feet than he was ready with a new proposition.
"There's a house over yonder," he said; "now, it's possible we might learn something if we asked questions. No harm trying it, anyway, so come along, boys."
A woman stood in the doorway. She seemed to be a farmer's wife, and she had been watching the actions of the five boys, puzzled to account for their queer behavior.
Thinking that the quickest way to enlist her sympathy would be to relate what a peculiar thing had happened on the preceding night, Fred politely accosted her, and as quickly as he could find words to do so, told the story of Colon's vanishing.
"Now, you see, ma'am," he went on, after he had aroused her interest in this way, "we've reason to believe that they jumped on our chum right over where you noticed us examining the ground. And seeing you standing here, with your house so near the place, I thought that perhaps you might have heard something last night."
"Well, that's just what I did," the farmer's wife replied, thrilling the boys who had clustered around the doorway where she stood.
"Do you happen to know about what time it might have been?" asked Fred.
"Along about half after ten, I should say," she answered.
Fred looked at his chums, inquiringly.
"Just to the dot," declared Bristles, "Mebbe you remember that I said it was some time after ten when Colon broke away. Then we stood talkin' at the gate a little bit; and when he got this far on his mile dash up to the graveyard, it must have been close to the half hour. That tallies fine, Fred."
"What was it you heard, ma'am?" Fred continued, after the talkative Bristles had had his say, and subsided again.
"Why, I'd gone to bed long before. My man is as deaf as a post, and never hears a thing. I thought I caught a shout, like a boy whooping. We've got a few trees of fine Baldwin apples back here, and twice now, boys from Riverport have raided the orchard; so I'm on the watch to fire a gun out of the window to give 'em a scare."
"And you thought they were in your trees again; did you?" asked Fred, when the woman paused.
"That's what struck me at first," she went on; "but as soon as I got up I knew better; because all the noise came from up the road there. I stayed by the window listening and heard a lot of shouting. Then it was all still, and pretty soon a covered wagon went past the house."
"Which way; toward Riverport or in the other direction?" Fred inquired.
"Oh!" the woman replied, "it was going up toward the graveyard; but then I didn't think that so strange, because I've seen that same limpy white horse, and the covered wagon, go by here lots of times for years now."
"That is, you knew it, and could even tell it in the moonlight?" the boy asked.
"It belongs to old Toby Scroggins," she replied. "The hoss limps, and you can always hear Toby saying 'gad-up! gad-up!' every ten feet, right along."
"I know him, and what she says is so," remarked Sid. "Why, years ago he had the same old crowbait of a horse, and the boys mocked him when he'd keep using the whip, and telling the beast to get along."
"Did you hear Toby talking to his limping nag last night, ma'am?" asked Fred.
"Why, lands! no, I didn't, now you mention it," she answered; "but then sometimes he goes to sleep on his wagon, returning from market, where he buys corn for his hogs, 'stead of raisin' it like the rest of us. And he lives a long way up the road, you see."
Fred turned upon his companions.
"What do you think, fellows," he asked; "was that wagon filled with corn last night, orhad it a lot of boys under the cover when it passed here, one of them being our missing chum, Colon?"
"I reckon you've struck pay dirt, Fred," declared Corney.
"My opinion too!" echoed Semi-Colon.
"Count me in on that, and make it unanimous!" Bristles remarked.
"And what about you, Sid?" asked Fred, turning on his nearest chum.
"H'm! I not only agree to all you say, Fred, but I reckon I know right now where they've got Colon shut up. He's in the haunted mill, boys!"
Severalof the other boys had uttered exclamations when Sid made this statement. Fred, however, did not seem to be very much impressed.
"A haunted mill!" he repeated; "that's something new to me. I thought I'd heard about everything queer around Riverport; but I didn't know you had ghosts hanging out here. Where's it at, Sid; and why do you call it haunted?"
"Oh! I'd almost forgotten all about that place," the other replied; "you see none of the boys ever go up any more to the mill-pond swimming, since Dub Jasper from over in Mechanicsburg way, got caught in that sucker hole, and near drowned. Folks said it was too dangerous for us there. But I thought I'd told you about the old mill, and how it hadn't been used for years now."
"But is it haunted; did anybody ever see a ghost there?" asked Fred, determined to get at the truth.
"Shucks! no," Bristles broke in with; "theboys just started to call it that because it looks so gloomy like, standin' there deserted. We used to play around it. I've slid over on the big wheel myself, lots of times, and gone all the way around, under water as well. But I guess there's no real ghost about it, Fred."
"All the same," continued Sid, "it would make a great place to keep a fellow so nobody could find him. I understand that the owner closed it up, boarded the windows, and locked the doors, after we quit going there."
"How far away is it from here?" Fred next inquired.
"All of three miles, I should say," the woman remarked; for she had been listening to what the boys were saying, with more or less interest.
"And about as far from Mechanicsburg," Sid went on. "You see, it's on a road that runs into this some ways up. And old Toby, he lives about half a mile further on. Now, I wonder how they ever got his limpy horse? Perhaps they hired it for the time; or else just sneaked it out of his barn, to come down here with."
"Just now," remarked Fred, "we don't care much about how they did it. What we want to do is to start right off, and get up there to that same region of the mill. Are you good for the hike, fellows?"
"Are we?" echoed Bristles; "why, if you saythe word we'll give you a run for your money, Fred, and put you in practice for to-morrow."
"Let's start right now," suggested Corney.
When the second mile had been covered, Semi-Colon was gasping for breath, but sticking to it gamely. He was a most persistent little fellow, and had always played a good game of ball, despite his lack of stature.
Fred eased up a bit. There was no great need for haste, after all. The day was before them, and they must by now be getting up in the region where the mill spoken of was to be found.
He kept a bright lookout ahead, but trees concealed much of the view, so that he could hardly have made any discovery. Besides, upon asking Sid, he learned that the deserted mill was not upon this road at all; but down a private lane, that was almost wholly overgrown with briars and bushes, not having been used for teams in nearly twenty years.
They had met very few persons on the road—a haywagon headed for Riverport to supply some of the local demand; a farmer making his way slowly homeward after an early visit to the market with produce—these two going in opposite directions made up about the sum total.
In these days it had become such a common sight to meet groups of boys clad in running togs, and sprinting along the country roads, that neitherdriver paid much attention to the bunch that loped easily onward.
"There's where the Mechanicsburg road joins this one," Sid had said, as they passed the junction point; but there was no reason why they should stop; though Fred did find himself wondering whether, if he examined the ground very carefully around on that other turnpike, he would discover such a thing as a footprint, with the sole patched.
"If it was done by Mechanicsburg fellows," he remarked, "I reckon they'd have come out here then, and gone along the road to borrow Toby's white horse with the covered wagon. It must have been that last which drew them; because, you see, they could hide inside, and nobody would think they were carrying off a fellow."
"We're getting pretty close now, Fred," remarked Sid; "suppose you slacken up, and give Semi-Colon a chance to get his wind. He's nearly done for."
"Ain't neither!" snapped the game little fellow, stubbornly; "c'd keep it up—all morning—if I—had to."
But Fred immediately stopped running, falling back into a walk. He was looking ahead along the road.
"There's a boy just passing that opening yonder, and coming this way," he remarked; "andstrikes me he doesn't look like a regular buck-wheat farmer's boy."
"Where?" demanded Sid, eagerly, and immediately adding; "Ginger! if it ain't that Wagner, the Mechanicsburg fellow who always puts up such a stiff fight in baseball, football and the rowing contest. Now whatever in the wide world d'ye think he can be doing here, three miles and more from home?"
"Oh!" said Fred, drily, "perhaps they've heard the news up there, and some of their boys have started out to see about earning that hundred dollars reward. It might have been telephoned up, you know."
"But all the same you don't believe that, Fred!" Corney exclaimed.
"It looks mighty suspicious, in my eyes, with that deserted mill so near by, and us believin' they've got our chum held up there," Bristles remarked, mysteriously.
"I don't think he saw us, do you, Fred?" asked Sid.
"To tell the truth I don't; because he seemed to be looking the other way," answered the one spoken to. "And perhaps it might be just as well for us, boys, to make ourselves scarce right now. Here's some bushes where we can hide."
"What do you mean to do, Fred; jump out and grab Wagner, and make him own up?" demanded Corney, as the five boys started to conceal themselves back of the bush patch.
"Well, we ought to know what he's doing over here, and right now of all times. You said we were close to the old lane that leads to the mill, didn't you, Sid?" asked Fred.
"It lies just a stone's throw further along the road than the spot where you saw Wagner through that opening in the trees," the other remarked.
"H'st! he's a-comin', fellers; you want to lie low, and stop gabblin'," warned Bristles, who happened to have chosen a position where he had a clearer view along the road than his mates.
So they relapsed into silence, waiting for the other boy to get opposite, when it was expected that Fred would give a signal for them to spring out and surround Wagner.
They could hear him whistling, as if perfectly care-free. Fred was reminded of Gabe Larkins, the butcher's boy, who used to have such a tremendous whistle, as though by this means he would defy anyone to even suspect that he could be guilty of wrong doing.
Another thing Fred noticed, as he peered out at the advancing boy; Wagner was not in running costume, which would go to prove that a desire to practice could hardly have taken him away over here, three miles from home.
It looked suspicious, to say the least. Bristles was moving uneasily, as though he began to fear that Fred might want to let the other pass by; such a course would be very unpleasant to Bristles, impatient of restraint. He hoped that they would make a prisoner of the boy from Mechanicsburg, and force him by dire threats to confess to what he and his comrades had done with the crack Riverport sprinter, Colon.
Wagner, besides being the captain of the athletic track team that expected to compete with the other schools, happened to be the best short distance runner in Mechanicsburg. Thus it would be most of all to his interest to have Colon fail to take part in the meet. Fred bore this in mind when trying to figure out whether the problem could be solved in this way.
Meanwhile Wagner came on, still whistling merrily. He did not look like a guilty conspirator, Fred thought; but then it is not always safe to figure on appearances in such a matter.
Now the boy was almost directly opposite the place where Fred and his four chums lay concealed. If they expected to surround him, there was no more time to be lost.
"Hello! Wagner!"
With the words Fred jumped out from the sheltering bushes. The others were just as spry, and almost before Wagner knew it they hadformed a complete cordon around him. Had he thought of running, it was now too late, for retreat was cut off. But Wagner just stood there and stared at them, his face showing signs of either real or cleverly assumed wonder.
"Well, this is a surprise!" remarked Felix Wagner, as he continued to stare at the five Riverport fellows who had leaped out so suddenly from the brush alongside the road, and completely surrounded him.
Fred was keeping his eyes on the other's face. He had expected to see Felix appear confused; but, strange to say, he was nothing of the sort.
"You just believe me, it is a surprise, all right!" exclaimed Bristles, half elevating one of his clenched hands menacingly.
Wagner observed the threatening gesture. He looked from Bristles to the rest of the group by which he was encircled. Then a grim smile broke over his face.
"Hello!" he said, briskly; "seems to be catching don't it? Our new doctor over in Mechanicsburg says one disease can be cured by a dose of the same sort of trouble. He's different from the old fashioned kind of doctors. I heard about what happened to your friend, Colon; a man ina car that I knew, stopped me about a mile up the road and asked me if I'd seen anything of him. Then he told me about how he had disappeared in the queerest way ever. And now it looks like you wanted to put me in the cooler, so there wouldn't be any sprinting at all to-morrow. Well, you've got me, boys. Now, what do you want?"
"Sounds pretty nice, Felix, but it won't wash," grunted Corney, shaking his head as if to indicate that he did not believe one word of what he heard.
"Own up, Wagner, that it was all your doings!" said Sid, coaxingly.
"Yes, what have you done with my cousin? It'll go easier with you if you turn in and help us find him!" exclaimed little Semi-Colon.
Fred said nothing. He was still watching the varied emotions that fairly flew across the expressive face of Felix Wagner. Gradually he found himself believing more than ever that the Mechanicsburg fellow was innocent. What he had seen of Felix in the various games played between the boys of the rival schools had inclined him to look on the other as a pretty decent sort of chap.
"Well, I declare, is that what ails you?" burst out Wagner, presently, as he looked around the circle of angry faces.
"Just what it is," replied Sid.
"We've traced you all the way up here, and we're bound to rescue our chum, or know the reason why," Bristles declared.
"You thought that old covered wagon of Toby's, and his limping white horse, would be a smart dodge; but we found you out," Corney threw at the boy at bay.
Then the comical side of the affair seemed to strike Wagner. He threw back his head and laughed heartily.
"Oh! yes, it looks funny to you, perhaps!" cried little Semi-Colon; "but just think of what his poor mother suffered when she went into his room this morning, and found that Colon hadn't slept in his bed all night, and that he couldn't be found anywhere. Now, laugh again, hang you!"
Wagner instantly sobered up.
"I don't blame you one little bit for feeling sore at me, if you think I had any hand in such a low-down business," he said, earnestly. "Why, I can prove it by Mr. Ketcham, the gentleman in the car I told you about, who gave me the news, that I was hot under the collar, and said, over and over again, that it was a mighty small way to win games."
"Oh! you said that, did you, Felix?" mumbled Bristles, eyeing the other suspiciously; for he was slow to change his mind, once it was set on a thing.
"More than that," continued Wagner, stoutly; "I told him plainly, and he's on the committee of arrangements for your town too, that I'd never run in a race when my worst rival had been spirited away just to throw the game, either to us or Paulding."
"Gee! that sounds straight!" muttered Sid.
"Stop and think a minute, Sid Wells," the accused lad went on; "you've known me a long time, and we've been rivals from the days when we were knee high to grasshoppers; but did you ever know me to attempt a dirty trick? Haven't I always played the game for all it was worth, but square through and through?"
"That's right, Felix, you have," assented Sid, heartily.
Even Bristles found himself compelled to nod his head, as if ready to say the same thing if asked.
"All right then," Wagner went on, "I give you fellows my sacred word of honor that I never dreamed such a thing had been thought of or attempted, until Mr. Ketcham told me, a little while ago."
"But what are you doing away out here, Wagner?" asked Corney.
"Not taking a practice spin, because you haven't got on your running clothes," Semi-Colon declared, meaningly.
"Sure I haven't, because I promised my mother I'd only run this afternoon. She's afraid I'm going it too strong, and that I'll break down under the strain to-morrow. And besides, I'm in apple-pie shape for the race right now. As to my being here, why I went over early this morning to Tenafly with my father's lawyer, Mr. Goodenough, to attend to some business for my dad. Ask him if it isn't so?"
"Oh! was that it?" remarked Bristles; "why, didn't he go himself, Felix; tell us that?"
"We had to have the doctor over last night to see dad; he had another attack of lumbago, and can't move this morning. And, as this matter had to be looked into to-day, he asked me to go with his lawyer, and bring back the papers. I've got 'em right here."
Wagner flourished some legal-looking documents as he said this. They settled the matter, so far as Fred was concerned.
"Wagner, you'll have to excuse the way we jumped out on you," he said, smilingly. "You couldn't blame us. We've tracked that covered wagon right up here. We happen to know that it belonged to Farmer Toby; and a woman heard the struggle on the road when Colon was captured. And you see, some of the boys are dead sure our chum is being kept hidden in what they call the old haunted mill, right beyond us."
"Whew!" ejaculated Felix, apparently now deeply interested. "Where could a better hiding place be found for keeping a fellow, I'd like to know? And boys, if you're going to rescue Colon, count me in the game. Now don't say a word, because I won't take no for an answer."
"That's mighty nice of you, Wagner," said Sid, thrusting out his hand with his usual impulsiveness; "but perhaps you'd better think twice before you make up your mind to join in with us."
"Say, why should I hold back?" demanded the other, aggressively; "I don't think I'm any more of a coward than the rest of the bunch. Here, let me get a club, like the one Bristles Carpenter has."
"But hold on, Felix; perhaps you might not like to use it?" suggested Fred.
"Think so?" cried the other; "then you've got another guess coming, Fenton. Just why mightn't I want to get in a few whacks at the cowardly curs that kidnapped Chris Colon?"
"Well, they might turn out to be some of your best chums," replied Fred.
"Wantin' to do you what they thought a good turn," added Corney.
"By cutting out the fellow you had to fear most of all, my cousin Chris," Semi-Colon continued.
"Oh! that's the way the land lies, does it!" observed Wagner, grimly. "You believe this job was the work of Mechanicsburg boys; do you? Well, I think differently, that's all. But if it turned out to be my best chum I'd just as lief thump him as not. I'd be ashamed to own a chum who would be guilty of such a trick. I'd never look at a prize won under such conditions, without turning red, and feeling foolish."
"But see here, how'd you get over to Tenafly, Wagner; and why didn't you go back the same way?" demanded Bristles.
"We went over on the seven-ten train this morning. The agent will tell you so, for he sold us tickets, and was chatting with both of us. Mr. Goodenough met a friend over there who invited him to stay to dinner. So I said, rather than wait until noon, I'd just pump it on foot for home. I thought it might be a good way to tune up for the afternoon whirl, without breaking my word to mother. That's all."
"And it's enough," said Fred. "Fall in, Wagner, and come along with us. We might be glad to have another fellow along, if it happens that after all tramps carried Colon off, as some people say."
"All right, fellows, I'm with you," remarked Felix. "And I declare, if here isn't just the stick I'm looking for, sound enough to send ina home run with. Must have been waiting for me."
With these words Wagner joined the little group that hurried along the road. As they reached a certain place Sid, who was in the lead, suddenly turned aside. It was what had once been a serviceable lane, but which was now overgrown with weeds and underbrush.
"Wait a minute," Fred remarked, in a low voice.
They saw him looking closely at the ground, and almost immediately he raised a smiling face toward the balance of the group.
"We made a center-shot when we guessed about this old mill, boys," he observed, nodding; "because here are the plain tracks of a wagon; it came in lately too, and went out again. The tracks show that it was here since that last little shower, which was two nights back. Now for the mill, Sid."
Gripping their cudgels tightly in their hands; and with compressed lips, as well as determined-looking faces, the little bunch of boys followed the sunken lane as it left the main road, and ran into a wilderness of woodland.
Then suddenly they realized that there was a musical sound of dripping water close by. It seemed to thrill every nerve, and make six boyish hearts beat at a double pace.
Two minutes later, on emerging from the tangle, they saw the ruined old mill before them. And it certainly did look just as "spooky" as Sid had declared, when he suggested that they might find their missing comrade hidden there.
Fredtook charge of the combined forces. Somehow the others appeared to look to him to do this.
"Seems to be all boarded up across the windows," he remarked.
"I told you I'd heard the owner did that a long time ago," said Sid, at his elbow.
"And the doors look like they might be locked tight, too," Fred continued.
"Oh! we can bust one in; that's easy," chuckled Bristles, who was always ready to proceed to extreme methods; where Fred might think to try strategy, he would attempt force.
"But they must have found some way to get in; and unless we made sure to guard that point, they'd have a way to escape handy," the leader went on.
"Say, wouldn't that be hard luck, though?" Corney exclaimed; "for us to rush in one door, and have the bunch of kidnappers pop out another."
"I'd be half sick if I didn't get a chance to see who they are," ventured little Semi-Colon.
"And me, if I lost a splendid opportunity to use this lovely club," Bristles remarked, swinging the article in question around his head, until it fairly whistled through the air.
"Is there any hole they might get out of, Sid?" asked Fred.
"Well," replied the other, speedily; "if I was in there, and heard some hot-headed fellows banging on the door with all sorts of clubs, I think I'd make a break for the old wheel, and take my chances climbing down. If one of the rotten paddles broke, it'd mean a ducking in the pond below; but I'd risk that."
"All right," Fred said, quickly; "we'll try to stop up that leak, Corney."
"That's me," replied the other, stepping out of the line.
"You and Semi-Colon guard the wheel; and if anybody tries to escape that way, I don't need to tell you what to do."
"And we'll do it, all right; won't we, Semi?" Corney boasted, immediately swinging around, and heading toward the spot where the moss-covered wheel of the deserted mill could be seen, with little streams of water trickling over it from the broken sluiceway above.
"The rest of us will tackle one of the doors,and break it in, if it's fast," Fred went on to say.
"And don't let's be all day about it, either," remarked the impatient Bristles, who was fretting all the while because he could not be doing something.
"Come on!" said Fred.
He headed straight for the nearest door as he spoke, with three anxious followers at his heels. Felix Wagner was looking particularly well pleased. He had not anticipated such a treat when deciding to walk all the way back from Tenafly that morning. And he felt that things were all coming in his direction at a furious rate.
"Fast; eh, Fred?" asked Sid, as he saw the other make a vain attempt to open the door of the mill; through which doubtless the office had been reached in times past, when the neighboring farmers all came here daily to have their grist ground, and to carry home their flour.
"It sure is; I can't seem to budge it," came the reply.
"Wonder if they went in here?" hazarded Bristles, himself giving a fierce though ineffective push.
"We can settle that easy enough," remarked Fred; "by seeing if there are any signs of new footprints here before this door."
"Well, you do take the cake thinkin' upthings," muttered Bristles, as he dropped down to examine the soil.
"They're here, all right, Fred!" he announced quickly, in a thrilling whisper.
"Perhaps you even see that shoe print that shows the patch?" asked Fred.
"Right you are," Bristles immediately announced; "just what you told us to watch for. Boys, we've tracked the abductors of our chum to their lair; and now to smash in the door, and jump 'em!"
"But however in the wide world do you think they got in here, if the old door is locked?" demanded Wagner, curiously, and wondering if Fred could give an answer to that question as easily as he seemed to solve other mysteries.
"I think a key has been used here lately," replied the other. "I can see marks around the keyhole to tell that. Chances are, they had one made to fit the door. A smart fellow could take an impression of the lock with wax, or something, and a locksmith would make him a key that would answer.
"But, perhaps, if two or three of us could get our shoulders against the old thing we might manage to force it. The chances are it's pretty punk, being so old; and the lock must be rusty, too."
"Then let's make a try; and me to be one ofthe pushers," Bristles said, as he began to get his sturdy frame locked in an attitude where he could exert the most force.
Fred and Wagner took their places alongside, managing to crowd in; while even Sid put his stick against the upper part of the door, as though meaning to add to the united pressure as well as he could.
"Ready?" asked Fred.
"Yep!" came from Bristles; while Felix grunted his assent.
"Then all together, now!" exclaimed the leader.
"She moved then, Fred!" gasped the pleased Bristles.
"Once more, fellows, and all together, give it to her!" Fred continued; and the three exerted themselves to their utmost to break the door's fastenings, or hinges, by a combination of their strength, which was considerable.
"Listen to her squeak, would you?" called out Bristles. "Again, fellows, for the honor of old Riverport! Together with a will!"
"Yo-heave-o!" cried Wagner, for the time being willing to be classed as one of the Riverport crowd, since he was working hand in glove with them.
The door cracked more than ever under this strain.
"She's giving way!" declared Bristles."We're doing the business all right, boys!"
"Keep moving!" called out Sid, encouragingly, and wishing one of the workers might back out, so that he could find a chance to exercise his muscles on the job.
One, two, three more tremendous pushes and there was a crash as the door gave way before the united efforts of the three determined lads. Either the rusty lock had been unable to hold out longer, or else the hinges were in a state of complete collapse.
Indeed, so suddenly did the result occur that Bristles was unable to keep on his feet. His support being withdrawn, he went plunging headlong with the falling door.
"Ouch!" they heard him cry out, as he struggled there on the floor amid a whirl of dust.
"Are you hurt?" asked Fred, anxiously; for the other had come down pretty hard.
"N-no, not much, I guess," Bristles replied, as he began to struggle once more to his feet, aided by Fred's ready hand; but as the breath had been pretty well knocked out of him by the concussion, Bristles, for once, lacked words to explain his feelings.
The balance seemed to be waiting for the dust to settle, or their companion to get possession of his war-club again, before advancing into the mill.
"Let me head the crowd, Fred, because I knowevery inch of the place," Sid insisted, as he pushed through the now open door.
"Wait, and let's give a call," suggested Felix. "If Colon's in here he might be up in the loft, or down in the pit, goodness knows where. Tune up, fellows, and see what's what!"
They all shouted together, and the result was such a medley of sounds that it was doubtful if even their chum could have recognized familiar voices among the lot making up the chorus.
"I heard something like a cry!" declared Sid, immediately after the echo of their shout had died away in the empty mill.
"You're right," added Wagner, "for I caught the same thing. And, Sid, I reckon it came from off yonder in the machinery room, where we used to play, long ago, you remember."
"It's mighty dingy in here," complained Bristles, finding his voice again.
Indeed, the interior of the deserted mill did look as though it might harbor all sorts of strange things, such as bats and owls, that could find a way in and out through broken window panes, or holes in the siding. And Bristles, to tell the truth, although he would never have admitted the fact to one of his chums, did secretly feel just alittlebelief in supernatural things. A graveyard was a place nothing could tempt him to visit after dark, at least alone.
Fred waited no longer. He had managed to get his bearings now, and believed he could find his way about, though after coming from the brightness of the sunshine outside, one's eyes had to get accustomed to the half-gloom of the cob-web-festooned mill interior.
"Come on!" he simply said, as he started quickly for the door leading out of the office into the main part of the mill.
And even while he was thus moving, he, too, caught a plain, unmistakable movement beyond, that told of the mill being occupied by others besides themselves. In this anxious, yet determined, frame of mind, then, Fred Fenton led his three chums past the portal of the door, and into the mill proper.