THE LION AND THE MOUSE

THE LION AND THE MOUSE

By JOSEPH B. AMES

(1878-). An American engineer and author. After his graduation from Stevens Institute Mr. Ames at first devoted himself entirely to engineering. He has been prominent in promoting the work of the Boy Scouts. Among his books are the following:The Mystery of Ram Island; Curly of the Circle Bar; Curly and the Aztec Gold; Pete the Cowpuncher; Under Boy Scout Colors; Shoe-Bar Stratton; The Emerald Buddha.

(1878-). An American engineer and author. After his graduation from Stevens Institute Mr. Ames at first devoted himself entirely to engineering. He has been prominent in promoting the work of the Boy Scouts. Among his books are the following:The Mystery of Ram Island; Curly of the Circle Bar; Curly and the Aztec Gold; Pete the Cowpuncher; Under Boy Scout Colors; Shoe-Bar Stratton; The Emerald Buddha.

Realism and romance may be combined in a story of school life as well as in a story of any other kind.The Lion and the Mousetells, in part, of ordinary, everyday events, and in part, of events that are distinctly out of the ordinary. The characters are the characters of school life,—two boys of entirely different natures but, after all, one at heart,—and subordinate characters who belong in the realm of real life. Many of the events of the story are commonplace enough. On this basis of reality there has been founded a story of quick event, a story of the unusual, entirely probable, centering around character and character development.

Realism and romance may be combined in a story of school life as well as in a story of any other kind.The Lion and the Mousetells, in part, of ordinary, everyday events, and in part, of events that are distinctly out of the ordinary. The characters are the characters of school life,—two boys of entirely different natures but, after all, one at heart,—and subordinate characters who belong in the realm of real life. Many of the events of the story are commonplace enough. On this basis of reality there has been founded a story of quick event, a story of the unusual, entirely probable, centering around character and character development.

Big Bill Hedges scowled out of the locker-room window and groaned softly. There was something about that wide, unbroken sweep of snow which affected him disagreeably. If only it had been crisscrossed by footprints, or the tracks of snow-shoes or toboggans, he wouldn't have minded it nearly so much. But there it lay, flat, white, untrodden, drifting over low walls and turning the clumps of shrubbery into shapeless mounds. And of a sudden he found himself hating it almost as much as the dead silence of the endless, empty rooms about him. For it was the fourth day of the Christmas vacation, and, save the kitchen staff, there were only two other human beings in this whole great barracks of a place.

“And neither of them is really human,” grunted Hedges, turning restlessly from the window.

With a disgusted snort he recalled the behavior of those two, whom so far he had met only at meal-time. Mr. Wilson,the tutor left in charge of the school, consumed his food in a preoccupied sort of daze, rousing himself at rare intervals to make some plainly perfunctory remark. He was writing some article or other for the magazines, and it was all too evident that the subject filled his waking hours. And “Plug” Seabury, with his everlasting book propped up against a tumbler, was even worse. But then Hedges had never expected anything from him.

Crossing to his locker, the boy pulled out a heavy sweater, stared at it dubiously for a moment, and then let it dangle from his relaxed fingers. For once the thought of violent physical exertion in the open failed to arouse the least enthusiasm. Ever since the departure of the fellows, he had skeed and snow-shoed and tramped through the drifts—alone; and now the monotony was getting on his nerves. He flung the sweater back, and, slamming the locker door, strolled aimlessly out of the room.

One peep into the cold, lofty, empty “gym” effectually quelled his half-formed notion of putting in an hour or two on the parallel bars. “I'm lonesome!” he growled; “just—plumb—lonesome! It's the first time I've ever wished I didn't live in Arizona.”

But the thought of home and Christmas cheer and all the other vanished holiday delights was not one to dwell on now; he tried instead to appreciate how absurd it would have been to spend eight of his twelve holidays on the train.

A little further dawdling ended in his turning toward the library. He was not in the least fond of reading. Life ordinarily, with its constant succession of outdoor and indoor sports and games, was much too full to think of wasting time with a book unless one had to. But the thought occurred to him that to-day it might be a shade better than doing absolutely nothing.

Opening the door of the long, low-ceiled, book-lined room, which he had expected to find as desolately empty as the rest, he paused in surprise. On the brick hearth a log fire burned cheerfully, and curled up in an easy chair close to the hearth, was the slight figure of Paul Seabury.

“Hello!” said Hedges, gruffly, when he had recovered from his surprise. “You've sure made yourself comfortable.”

Seabury gave a start and raised his head. For a moment his look was veiled, abstracted, as if his mind still lingered on the book lying open in his lap. Then recognition slowly dawned, and a faint flush crept into his face.

“The—the wood was here, and I—I didn't think there'd be any harm in lighting it,” he said, thrusting back a straggling lock of brown hair.

“I don't s'pose there is,” returned Hedges, shortly. Unconsciously, he was a little annoyed that Seabury should seem so comfortable and content. “I thought you were upstairs.”

He dragged a chair to the other side of the hearth and plumped down in it. “What you reading?” he asked.

Seabury's eyes brightened. “Treasure Island,” he answered eagerly. “It's awfully exciting. I've just got to the place where—”

“Never read it,” interrupted the big fellow, indifferently. Lounging back against the leather cushions, he surveyed the slim, brown-eyed, rather pale-faced boy with a sort of contemptuous curiosity. “Do you readallthe time?” he asked.

Again the blood crept up into Seabury's thin face and his lids drooped. “Why, no—not all the time,” he answered slowly. “But—but just now there's nothing else to do.”

Hedges grunted. “Nothing else to do! Gee-whiz! Don't you ever feel like going for a tramp or something? I s'pose you can't snow-shoe, or skee, but I shouldn't think you'd want to stay cooped up in the house all the time.”

A faint, nervous smile curved the boy's sensitive lips. “Oh, I can skee and snow-shoe all right, but—” He paused, noticing the incredulous expression which Hedges was at no pains to hide. “Everybody does, where I live in Canada,” he explained, “often it's the only way to get about.”

“Oh, I see.” Hedges' tone was no longer curt, and a sudden look of interest had flashed into his eyes. “But don't youlikeit? Doesn't this snow make you want to go out and try some stunts?”

Seabury glanced sidewise through the casement windowsat the sloping, drifted field beyond. “N—no, I can't say it does,” he confessed hesitatingly; “it's such a beastly, rotten day.”

His interest in Plug's unexpected accomplishments made Hedges forbear to comment scornfully on such weakness.

“Rotten!” he repeated. “Why, it's not bad at all. It's stopped snowing.”

“I know; but it looks as if it would start in again any minute.”

“Shucks!” sniffed Hedges. “A little snow won't hurt you. Come ahead out and let's see what you can do.”

Seabury hesitated, glancing with a shiver at the cold, white field outside and back to the cheerful fire. He did not feel at all inclined to leave his comfortable chair and this enthralling book. On the other hand, he was curiously unwilling to merit Bill Hedges' disapproval. From the first he had regarded this big, strong, dominating fellow with a secret admiration and shy liking which held in it no touch of envy or desire for emulation. It was the sort of admiration he felt for certain heroes in his favorite books. When Hedges made some spectacular play on the gridiron or pulled off an especially thrilling stunt on the hockey-rink, Seabury, watching inconspicuously from the side-lines, got all hot and cold and breathlessly excited. But he was quite content that Hedges should be doing it and not himself. Sometimes, to be sure, he wondered what it would be like to have such a person for a friend. But until this moment Hedges had scarcely seemed aware of his existence, and Seabury was much too shy to make advances, even when the common misfortune of too-distant homes had thrown them together in the isolation of the empty school.

“I—I haven't any skees,” he said at length.

Hedges sprang briskly to his feet. “That's nothing. I'll fix you up. We can borrow Marston's. Come ahead.”

Swept along by his enthusiasm, Seabury closed his book and followed him out into the corridor and down to the locker room. Here they got out sweaters, woolen gloves and caps, and Hedges calmly appropriated the absent Marston's skees.

Emerging finally into the open, Seabury shivered a little as the keen, searching wind struck him. It came from the northeast, and there was a chill, penetrating quality about it which promised more snow, and that soon. By the time Seabury had adjusted the leather harness to his feet and resumed his gloves, his fingers were blue and he needed no urging to set off at a swift pace.

In saying that he could skee, the boy had not exaggerated. He was, in fact, so perfectly at home upon the long, smooth, curved-up strips of ash, that he moved with the effortless ease and grace of one scarcely conscious of his means of locomotion. Watching him closely, Hedges' expression of critical appraisement changed swiftly to one of unqualified approval.

“You're notmuchgood on them, are you?” he commented. “I suppose you can jump any old distance and do all sorts of fancy stunts.”

Seabury laughed. He was warm again and beginning to find an unwonted pleasure in the swift, gliding motion and the tingling rush of frosty air against his face.

“Nothing like that at all,” he answered. “I can jump some, of course, but I'm really not much good at anything except just straight-away going.”

“Huh!” grunted Hedges, sceptically. “I'll bet you could run circles around any of the fellows here. Well, what do you say to taking a little tramp. I've knocked around the grounds till I'm sick of them. Let's go up Hogan Hill,” he added, with a burst of inspiration.

Seabury promptly agreed, though inwardly he was not altogether thrilled at the prospect of such a climb. Hogan Hill rose steeply back of the school. A few hay-fields ranged along its lower level, but above them the timber growth was fairly thick, and Paul knew from experience that skeeing on a wooded slope was far from easy.

As it turned out, Hedges had no intention of tackling the steep slope directly. He knew of an old wood-road which led nearly to the summit by more leisurely twists and curves, and it was his idea that they take this as far as it went and then skee down its open, winding length.

By the time they were half-way up, Seabury was pretty well blown. It was the first time he had been on skees in nearly a year, and his muscles were soft from general lack of exercise. He made no complaint, however, and presently Hedges himself proposed a rest.

“I wish I could handle the things as easily as you do,” he commented. “I work so almighty hard that I get all in a sweat, while you just glide along as if you were on skates.”

“I may glide, but I haven't any wind left,” confessed Seabury. “It's only practice you know. I've used them ever since I was a little kid, and compared to some of the fellows up home, I'm nowhere. Do you think we ought to go any farther? I felt some snow on my face just then.”

“Oh, sure!” said Hedges, bluffly. “A little snow won't hurt us, anyhow, and we can skee down in no time at all. Let's not go back just yet.”

Presently they started on again, and though Seabury kept silent, he was far from comfortable in his mind. He had had more than one unpleasant experience with sudden winter storms. It seemed to him wiser to turn back at once, but he was afraid of suggesting it again lest Hedges think him a quitter.

A little later, still mounting the narrow, winding trail, they came upon a rough log hut, aged and deserted, with a sagging, half-open door; but the two boys, unwilling to take off their skees, did not stop to investigate it.

Every now and then during the next half mile trifling little gusts of stinging snowflakes whirled down from the leaden sky, beat against their faces, and scurried on. Seabury's feeling of nervous apprehension increased, but Hedges, in his careless, self-confident manner merely laughed and said that the trip home would be all the more interesting for little diversions of that sort.

The words were scarcely spoken when, from the distance, there came a curious, thin wailing of the wind, rising swiftly to a dull, ominous roar. Startled, both boys stopped abruptly, and stared up the slope. And as they did so, something likea vast, white, opaque curtain surged over the crest of the hill and swept swiftly toward them.

Almost before they could draw a breath it was upon them, a dense, blinding mass of snow, which whirled about them in choking masses and blotted out the landscape in a flash.

“Wough!” gasped Hedges. “Some speed to that! I guess we'd better beat it, kid, while the going's good.”

But even Hedges, with his easy, careless confidence, was swiftly forced to the realization that the going was very far from good even then. It was impossible to see more than a dozen yards ahead of them. As a matter of course, the older fellow took the lead, but he had not gone far before he ran off the track and only saved himself from a spill by grabbing a small tree.

“Have to take it easy,” he commented, recovering his balance. “This storm will let up soon; it can't possibly last long this way.”

Seabury made no answer. Shaking with nervousness, he could not trust himself to speak.

Regaining the trail, Hedges started off again, cautiously enough at first. But a little success seemed to restore his confidence, and he began to use his staff as a brake with less and less frequency. They had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when a sudden heavier gust of stinging flakes momentarily blinded them both. Seabury instantly put on the brake and almost stopped. When he was able to clear his eyes, Hedges was out of sight. An instant later there came a sudden crash, a startled, muffled cry, and then—silence!

Horrified, Seabury instantly jerked his staff out of the snow and sped forward. At first, he could barely see the tracks of his companion's skees, but presently the storm lightened a trifle and of a sudden he realized what had happened. Hedges had misjudged a sharp curve in the trail and, instead of following it, had plunged off to one side and down a steep declivity thickly grown with trees. At the foot of this little slope Seabury found him lying motionless, a twisted heap, face downward in the snow.

Sick with horror, the boy bent over that silent figure. “Bill!” he cried, “what has—”

His voice died in a choking sob, but a moment later his heart leaped as Hedges stirred, tried to rise, and fell back with a stifled groan.

“It's—my ankle,” he mumbled, “I—I've—turned it. See if you can't—”

With shaking fingers, Seabury jerked at the buckles of his skees and stepped out of them. Hedges' left foot was twisted under him, and the front part of his skee was broken off. As Paul freed the other's feet from their encumbering straps, Bill made a second effort to rise, but his face turned quite white and he sank back with a grunt of pain.

“Thunder!” he muttered. “I—I believe it's sprained.”

For a moment or two he sat there, face screwed up, arms gripping his knees. Then, as his head cleared, he looked up at the frightened Seabury, a wry smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

“I'm an awful nut, kid,” he said. “I forgot that curve and was going too fast to pull up. Reckon I deserve that crack on the head and all the rest of it for being so awfully cocky. Looks as if we were in rather a mess, doesn't it?”

Seabury nodded, still unable to trust himself to speak. But Hedges' coolness soothed his jangled nerves, and presently a thought struck him.

“That cabin back there!” he exclaimed. “If we could only manage to get that far—”

He paused and the other nodded. “Good idea,” he agreed promptly. “I'm afraid I can't walk it, but I might be able to crawl.”

“Oh, I didn't mean that. If we only had some way of fastening my skees together, you could lie down on them and I could pull you.”

A gleam of admiration came into the older chap's dark eyes. “You've got your nerve with you, old man,” he said. “Do you know how much I weigh?”

“That doesn't matter,” protested Seabury. “It's alldown hill; it wouldn't be so hard. Besides, we can't stay here or—or we'll freeze.”

“Now you've said something,” agreed Hedges.

And it was true. Already Seabury's teeth were chattering, and even the warmer blooded Hedges could feel the cold penetrating his thick sweater. He tried to think of some other way out of their predicament, but finally agreed to try the plan. His heavy, high shoes were laced with rawhide thongs, which sufficed roughly to bind the two skees together. There was no possibility, however, of pulling them. The only way they could manage was for Hedges to seat himself on the improvised toboggan while Seabury trudged behind and pushed.

It was a toilsome and painful method of progress for them both and often jolted Hedges' ankle, which was already badly swollen, bringing on a constant succession of sharp, keen stabs. Seabury, wading knee-deep in the snow, was soon breathless, and by the time they reached the cabin, he felt utterly done up.

“Couldn't have kept that up much longer,” grunted Hedges, when they were inside the shelter with the door closed against the storm.

His alert gaze traveled swiftly around the bare interior. There was a rough stone chimney at one end, a shuttered window at the back, and that was all. Snow lay piled up on the cold hearth, and here and there made little ridges on the logs where it had filtered through the many cracks and crevices. Without the means of making fire, it was not much better than the out-of-doors, and Hedges' heart sank as he glanced at his companion, leaning exhausted against the wall.

“It's sure to stop pretty soon,” he said presently, with a confidence he did not feel. “When it lets up a little, we might—”

“I don't believe it's going to let up.” Seabury straightened with an odd, unwonted air of decision. “I was caught in a storm like this two years ago and it lasted over two days. We've got to do something, and do it pretty quick.”

Hedges stared at him, amazed at the sudden transformation.He did not understand that a long-continued nervous strain will sometimes bring about strange reactions.

“You're not thinking of pushing me all the way down the road, are you?” he protested. “I don't believe you could do it.”

“I don't believe I could, either,” agreed the other, frankly. “But I could go down alone and bring back help.”

“Gee-whiz! You—you mean skee down that road? Why, it's over three miles, and you'd miss the trail a dozen times.”

“I shouldn't try the road,” said Seabury, quietly. His face was pale, but there was a determined set to the delicate chin. “If I went straight down the hill back of this cabin, I'd land close to the school, and I don't believe the whole distance is over half a mile.”

Hedges gasped. “You're crazy, man! Why, you'd kill yourself in the first hundred feet trying to skee through those trees.”

“I don't think so. I've done it before—some. Besides, most of the slope is open fields. I noticed that when we started out.”

“But they're steep as the dickens, with stone walls, and—”

Seabury cut short his protests by buttoning his collar tightly about his throat and testing the laces of his shoes. He was afraid to delay lest his resolution should break down.

“I'm going,” he stated stubbornly; “and the sooner I get off, the better.”

And go he did, with a curt farewell which astonished and bewildered his companion who had no means of knowing that it was a manner assumed to hide a desperate fear and nervousness. As the door closed between them, Seabury's lips began to tremble; and his hands shook so that he could scarcely tighten up the straps of his skees.

Back of the cabin, poised at the top of the slope, with the snow whirling around him and the unknown in front, he had one horrible moment of indecision when his heart lay like lead within him and he was on the verge of turning back. But with a tremendous effort he crushed down that almost irresistible impulse. He could not bear the thought of facingHedges, an acknowledged coward and a quitter. An instant later a thrust of his staff sent him over the edge, to glide downward through the trees with swiftly increasing momentum.

Strangely enough, he felt somehow that the worst was over. To begin with, he was much too occupied to think of danger, and after he had successfully steered through the first hundred feet or so of woods, a growing confidence in himself helped to bolster up his shrinking spirit. After all, save for the blinding snow, this was no worse than some of the descents he had made of wooded slopes back there at home. If the storm did not increase, he believed that he could make it.

At first he managed, by a skilful use of his staff, to hold himself back a little and keep his speed within a reasonable limit. But just before he left the woods, the necessity for a sudden side-turn to avoid a clump of trees through which he could not pass nearly flung him off his balance. In struggling to recover it, the end of his staff struck against another tree and was torn instantly from his grasp.

His heart leaped, then sank sickeningly, but there was no stopping now. A moment later he flashed out into the open, swerved through a gap in the rough, snow-covered wall, and shot down the steep incline with swiftly increasing speed.

His body tense and bent slightly forward, his straining gaze set unwaveringly ahead, striving to pierce the whirling, beating snow, Seabury felt as if he were flying through the clouds. On a clear day, with the ability to see what lay before him, there would have been a rather delightful exhilaration in that descent. But the perilous uncertainty of it all kept the boy's heart in his throat and chained him in a rigid grip of cold fear.

Long before he expected it, the rounded, snow-covered bulk of a second wall seemed to leap out of the blinding snow-curtain and rush toward him. Almost too late, he jumped, and, soaring through the air, struck the declining slope again a good thirty feet beyond.

In the lightning passage of that second field, he tried to figure where he was coming out and what obstacles he mightencounter, but the effort was fruitless. He knew that the high-road, bordered by a third stone wall, ran along the foot of the hill, with the school grounds on the other side. But the speed at which he was traveling made consecutive thought almost impossible.

Again, with that same appalling swiftness, the final barrier loomed ahead. He leaped, and, at the very take-off, a gasp of horror was jolted from his lips by the sight of a two-horse sledge moving along the road directly in his path!

It was all over in a flash. Helpless to avoid the collision, Seabury nevertheless twisted his body instinctively to the left. He was vaguely conscious of a monstrous looming bulk; of a startled snort which sent a wave of hot breath against his face, and the equally startled yell of a human voice. The next instant he landed badly, his feet shot out from under him, and he fell backward with a stunning crash.

His first conscious observation was of two strange faces bending over him and of hands lifting him from where he lay half buried in the snow. For a moment he was too dazed to speak or even to remember. Then, with a surging rush of immense relief, he realized what had happened, and gaining speech, he poured out a hurried but fairly coherent account of the situation.

His rescuers proved to be woodsmen, perfectly familiar with the Hogan Hill trail and the old log-cabin. Seabury's skees were taken off and he was helped into the sledge and driven to the near-by school. Stiff and sore, but otherwise unhurt, he wanted to go with them, but his request was firmly refused; and pausing only long enough to get some rugs and a heavy coat, the pair set off. Little more than two hours later they returned with the injured Hedges, who was carried at once to the infirmary to be treated for exposure and a badly sprained ankle.

His rugged constitution responded readily to the former, but the ankle proved more stubborn, and he was ordered by the doctor not to attempt even to hobble around on it for at least a week. As a result, Christmas dinner had to be eaten in bed. But somehow Hedges did not mind that very much for Paul Seabury shared it, sitting on the other side of a folding table drawn up beside the couch.

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