CHAPTER XIVTHE LAST GOALThe second half began. A blast from the referee's whistle sent the two teams scurrying to their positions. Again Sheffield and the Elkana center faced each other in the middle of the floor; again the official tossed the ball high into the air; again he blew his warning signal as it reached the top of its flight.But here the repetition of the first play of the game ended. As Sheffield raised his right arm for the tap, his elbow jabbed against the breast of his opponent, topping the boy off-balance. With a desperate effort, the latter tried to straighten and swing for the falling ball; but he was an instant too late. Sheffield whanged it straight and hard into Kiproy's waiting arms."Oh!" gasped Bunny, on the substitutes' bench. It was like the cry from some hurt.No shrill of the referee's whistle marked the foul. Clearly, the official had been watching the flight of the ball, rather than the two opposing players who had leaped for it as it fell, and had thus failed to detect any unfair interference.But the spectators had seen. A little hiss of disapproval grew to a buzzing growl, like a tiny breeze that nods the daisies in a distant field and snarls through the bushes as it comes close.Kiproy bent to make a pass. Sheffield held up a staying hand."Wait!" he called. In the tense silence that followed, Bunny could hear him clearly. "I interfered with that toss-up—unintentionally; jabbed the Elkana center with my elbow. Call a foul, Referee!"The noise broke anew, but it was the clapping of hands this time, and the stamping of feet and little shouts of approval, like a rollicking gale at play. Bunny looked out at Sheffield, through what seemed queerly like a fog, and said, "Oh, that's fine!" And even when some Elkana fellow was given a free trial for goal and netted a basket, he repeated, "Yes, that's fine!" At that moment, he liked Sheffield more than he ever had before.Over at the blackboard, the boy rubbed out the ten under Elkana's name and traced an eleven in its place. Lakeville's total was still eight.Sheffield outjumped the opposing center on the next toss-up, which was free of any semblance of foul, and whacked the ball to Barrett. Peter whirled completely around, to throw off the guard hovering in front of him, and started a dribble. But just as he was ready to make the pass, some Elkana player stepped in and captured the ball. It was not an unusual incident, butit made Bunny squirm. Peter had been just the tick of a watch too slow.After that, things began steadily to go wrong. The four players who had been in the tank started to shrink when they should have charged, to submit weakly to an opponent's making a pass when they should have scrimmaged for a toss-up, to be always the tiny fraction of a second too late in catching, shooting, dodging. Elkana scored. It scored again. After perhaps three minutes of play in the second half, the figures on the blackboard read: Lakeville, 8; Elkana, 15."We're licked," Bunny muttered, digging his finger tips into moist palms, "unless—"It was like a cue for Sheffield's action. Before the ball could be put into play again, the Lakeville captain stepped to the referee's side and said something in a quick, decisive manner. The man nodded. Then Sheffield lifted a beckoning finger toward the substitutes' bench.Bunny looked at the other three, as if expecting one of them to rise at the signal, and the other three looked at Bunny the same way. None of them seemed to know which substitute he wanted."Come on!" called Sheffield gruffly; then, after one heart-breaking instant of hesitation, "All of you!"At that, of course, they dropped the single blanket they had thrown over their shoulders and scampered out upon the floor. They tried to look unconcernedduring the little journey, but nobody was much deceived. Barrett, Kiproy, Collins and Turner, walking wearily and dejectedly toward the bench, passed them without speaking.There was no time for Sheffield to coach them in the style of game he wanted them to play. Possibly, too, he thought any instructions of his would be so much wasted breath. All he could do was to hope for the best, in a forlorn sort of way, and trust to their natural ability to net a basket when the opportunity offered. They knew the formations and the signals; individually, he admitted, they were crack players. Well—Lakeville had practiced its deceptive forward crisscross at least one hundred times. When Sheffield hit the ball on the toss-up, he sent it directly across the floor to S. S., playing left guard, on the double hope that this unexpected maneuver would fool Elkana again and that young Zane would be ready for the catch.Never had Bob Collins played it better. With a deceptive lunge, S. S. shook off the player hovering about him, dashed forward, took the pass, dribbled the ball till the very last safe moment, and then shot it across to Bi, at right guard. From him it zigzagged back to the opposite side, into Jump's waiting hands, and, with just enough delay to pull in the baffled Elkana players, on to Bunny, playing in one corner of the court, within easy looping distance of the basket.All this time, of course, Sheffield had been racingdown the middle, till he was now squarely in front of the goal, with only one negligent guard anywhere near him. But Bunny was also clear for the moment."Shoot it!" shouted the captain, eyes already raised to the basket for the try.Bunny poised the ball in his hands. Sheffield's guard shuffled toward the danger zone. But even as he drew back his arms, Bunny whirled and made an overhand pass to his captain. So unexpected was this play, and so rapid the throw, that Sheffield came near being taken unawares.But he set himself in time. Hard and true came the ball, zipping against his open palms, with every last Elkana player temporarily paralyzed by surprise. With something very like a smile, Sheffield balanced himself, taking plenty of time, and nonchalantly looped it upward for the gaping basket in front of him. It was a perfect goal.Score: Lakeville, 10; Elkana, 15."Nice work!" Sheffield grunted to Bunny.He wasn't sure—yet. But a minute later, when Jump, in the very shadow of the goal, lifted the ball high above his head and then flicked it back to his captain, six feet behind him, Sheffield knew for certain. He made that basket, too, and he ran laughing for the next toss-up, as if all the people in Elkana couldn't stop his team now. The Scouts were doing just what he had trained those others to do, just what he had declared the Scouts would never agree to do. They werefeeding him the ball; they were playing, not for the applause and glory of shooting goals, but for the bigger thing, for the team itself.Score: Lakeville, 12; Elkana, 15.Neither side scored during the next few minutes. But that worried Bunny not one whit, and he guessed Sheffield felt the same about it. For Lakeville had come into her own at last, as if her five players were a single body with ten arms and ten legs. They rushed the ball toward their goal, tapping, tossing, dribbling, shooting it from boy to boy, looping it for the basket, scrambling after misses, and turning from offense to defense when Elkana took possession of it and began a march, with many side trips, in the other direction.Elkana had not fought victoriously throughout the season without sound cause. Its team answered this new challenge like thoroughbreds. Put upon their mettle, the five players rose to a skill they had never shown before, and swept down the floor to the climax of another basket."Never mind that!" grinned Bunny, passing a grimy hand over his streaked face. "We'll beat 'em yet!""You bet we will!" Sheffield flashed back.Hard on the heels of this stiffening determination, Lakeville scored again, and yet again. Sheffield shot both goals, but Bunny knew he was ready enough to give credit to the machine behind him.Elkana led now by a single point. The score board read: Lakeville, 16; Elkana, 17.Sixty seconds later, in a most peculiar manner, came the chance to tie the score. Lakeville had already failed on a direct side-center pass formation and on a single side cross-forward play that had counted in other games. Wisely, Sheffield called for the forward crisscross that had twice baffled Elkana.It looked as if the play were to go through. Backward and forward across the floor, the ball wove its way, till it was time for the final pass to Sheffield, already in a favorable position to shoot the basket. But just at the last, an Elkana player sensed the trick. With flying arms, like a Holland windmill adrift, he swept down upon the Lakeville captain.Sheffield dodged. So did the Elkana boy. Sheffield dodged back again, to confuse his opponent. The result was a semi-success. The other player had guessed wrong, and what happened was as much a surprise to one as the other.With a crash, the two collided solidly. Sheffield fell flat on his back, the Elkana boy piled on top of him, and the referee's whistle shrilled."Foul for charging!" the official announced. "Free trial for goal for Lakeville!"Bunny Payton fairly wriggled with eagerness. "Tie score if you make this goal!" he exulted, as Sheffield clambered to his feet dabbing at his eye with an open hand. "Not hurt, are you?""No. Where's the ball? Everybody ready?"Bracing himself, feet apart, directly behind the foul line, Sheffield took the ball in both hands, raised it suddenly in an overhand loop shot—and missed the basket by a good six inches!Nobody spoke. Nobody told him it didn't matter; for it did, mightily. Nobody even asked what the trouble was. But that wide miss, by a center who could net a goal nine times out of ten on free throws, was like a dash of cold water to the Lakeville team."But we won't quit," Bunny told himself, trotting into position for the next toss-up. "He'll have another chance in a minute."It came even sooner than he expected. Scurrying here and there over the floor, apparently without aim or purpose, but in reality dodging and running with preconceived plan, the Lakeville five edged closer and closer to the basket, till in the end Sheffield caught a long pass almost in front of the goal. With a quick leap to one side, he shook off the Elkana guard; with the precision born of much practice, he looped the ball up and over.The shot was long. Hitting the backboard a full foot above the net, the ball bounced back against the outer edge of the metal ring, hung uncertainly a moment, and then trickled free to the floor. For the second time in as many minutes, Sheffield had failed."Three minutes to play!" the timekeeper called, as they raced back to their positions.Three minutes! And Lakeville one point behind! Bunny balled his nervous hands into hard fists and tried to swallow the lump that kept coming up in his throat. There was a chance yet, of course, but with Sheffield shooting wildly—For the third time in succession, a little later, the Lakeville captain missed the basket. This throw was the worst of the three; a blind man, Bunny told himself bitterly, might have come as close. What was the good of feeding Sheffield the ball, if he chucked away his chances like that?There couldn't be much more than a minute to play now. When Sheffield lined up against the Elkana center once more, he spat out a curt, "Everybody in it this time," and jumped and batted the ball to S. S. Thatinwas the signal for the old forward crisscross. Bunny shook his head doubtfully, but ran to his place.The ball darted to and fro, like a swallow winging for safety: from S. S. to Bi, from Bi to Jump, from Jump to Bunny. Everybody was running and shouting, quite as if each player had gone suddenly insane. "Here you are!" somebody would call. "Shoot it!" "Watch out!" "Careful!" "Plenty of time!" "Plenty of time!" And then, having tantalized some opposing rusher, "Come on!" "Shoot it!"By now, Sheffield was down the floor, in front of the basket and a little to the left. But Bunny was as close on the other side and less carefully guarded. Elkana, you see, had discovered that Lakeville's captainwas usually the final link between the last pass and the try for goal. As a result, its players were beginning to watch him like hawks."Shoot it!" yelled Sheffield, trying vainly to shake off the Elkana guard.Bunny bounced the ball long enough to give this order time to register in his brain. "He means for me to try for a basket," he decided happily. He tapped the ball to the floor again. "And I can make it, too; I know I can."None of the Elkana players seemed to be worrying about him in the least. Bunny dribbled the ball a little nearer the goal, keeping a wary eye on Sheffield, who was twisting and doubling and flopping about, like a—like a chicken with its head off."That's just what he looks like," Bunny grinned to himself. "Shucks! If I did pass him the ball, he'd throw it wild. He's done it three times now.""Shoot it!" ordered Sheffield, in a frenzy of excitement. He ran back a few steps and threw up his hands. Bunny wanted to think he was pointing toward the goal, but some curious prick of his conscience suggested that he might be motioning for a catch.There was only a second or two to decide now. Down in his heart, Bunny was sure—absolutely sure—that he could make the goal. He could already see himself holding the ball with both hands in front of his chest, pushing it upward till his arms were straight from shoulders to fingertips, and launching it, straightand true, upward and over and down, in a great looping shot that would nestle it in the swaying net below the iron hoop. He knew, just as certainly as he knew he was standing there, that he could score that goal."And I don't think Sheffield can," he argued stubbornly. "He—he's like a chicken with its head off."Out of the corner of his eye, as he dribbled the ball, he saw an Elkana boy sweeping toward him. It must be now or never. With a quick lunge ahead, he diverted the other's straight line of charge; then, stepping backward abruptly, he found himself clear for the moment. The ball bounded from the floor and plumped upon the open palm of his right hand.But something stayed the left hand from clapping upon that side of the leather, preliminary to the try for goal. Instead, turning a little, he swung his right arm in a circle, shouted a warning to Sheffield, now temporarily free of heckling guards, and shot the ball to him."It's playing the game," he said to himself in a half-whisper. Just the same, it hurt, even more than he cared to admit, to make that sacrifice.The Lakeville captain seemed to catch the ball exactly in position for looping it toward the basket. In the twinkling of an eye, Sheffield had tossed it upward, using the same overhand shot Bunny had partially begun.Up and up sped the ball, with ten open-mouthed players following its course with twenty popping eyes; up and up, till it seemed it would never stop, and then,after a languid pause in mid-air, down and down, going faster every instant, till it plopped squarely within the metal rim of the basket and swished on into the hanging net.The goal was scored. Lakeville now led, 18-17.In the midst of a scrimmage, directly after the next toss-up, a sudden crack from the timekeeper's pistol signaled the end of the game. Lakeville had won. The road to the championship would be easy traveling now.Sheffield took his honors without any display of emotion; he was that sort of winner. To the four substitutes who had made possible the victory, he merely said, "Good work, fellows!" But Bunny guessed he meant a good deal more than the words expressed."Why didn't you try for that last basket yourself?" he asked Bunny, as they piled downstairs to the dressing room. "You could have scored.""Yes, I think I could," Bunny admitted honestly. "I was afraid of you, too, after you had missed those others, but—""Something in my eye," explained Sheffield; "got it in when I took that tumble. That's why those shots went wild. But it was out before your last pass.""I gave you the ball," Bunny went on doggedly, "because I knew that was the kind of game you had planned—feeding it to you and letting you shoot the baskets. You didn't exactly tell us, of course, but weknew. And a Scout is supposed to be obedient to his leader and—""I see," nodded Sheffield, and let the matter drop. "By the way, why didn't you fellows go swimming with the rest this afternoon?""How—how did you know about that?""Heard you talking to Barrett and Kiproy and Collins and Turner just before I called them for the second half. But I don't see why—Yes, I guess I do, too. Your Scouts asked you if they could, didn't they?""Yes.""And you wouldn't let them, I suppose. Right!" He turned to Bunny with a smile in his eyes. "Obedience to the leader again, eh? Sort of apron strings. H'm!"Bunny couldn't make out whether Sheffield was sneering or just turning the matter over in his mind. But when he began a stumbling explanation, the captain cut him short with a question."Would you Scouts object," he asked, "to being tied—well, say loosely—to my apron strings in basketball?""Why—""Because if you wouldn't mind accepting me as a leader in the game," Sheffield went on evenly, "I have an idea we might show those other high schools quite a nifty little team."In view of the fact that Lakeville simply romped through the balance of the schedule to the championship,it is to be supposed that the Scouts didn't object to obeying the captain. In any event, after another week of strenuous practice, the notice on the bulletin board of the high school read:NOTICE!The following basketball players will report at 12:30 Saturday afternoon, ready for the trip to Harrison City:Left ForwardPaytonRight ForwardHendersonCenterSheffieldLeft GuardZaneRight GuardJonesSubstitutesKiproy, Barrett, Collins, Turner(Signed)RoyalSheffield,Captain.
THE LAST GOAL
The second half began. A blast from the referee's whistle sent the two teams scurrying to their positions. Again Sheffield and the Elkana center faced each other in the middle of the floor; again the official tossed the ball high into the air; again he blew his warning signal as it reached the top of its flight.
But here the repetition of the first play of the game ended. As Sheffield raised his right arm for the tap, his elbow jabbed against the breast of his opponent, topping the boy off-balance. With a desperate effort, the latter tried to straighten and swing for the falling ball; but he was an instant too late. Sheffield whanged it straight and hard into Kiproy's waiting arms.
"Oh!" gasped Bunny, on the substitutes' bench. It was like the cry from some hurt.
No shrill of the referee's whistle marked the foul. Clearly, the official had been watching the flight of the ball, rather than the two opposing players who had leaped for it as it fell, and had thus failed to detect any unfair interference.
But the spectators had seen. A little hiss of disapproval grew to a buzzing growl, like a tiny breeze that nods the daisies in a distant field and snarls through the bushes as it comes close.
Kiproy bent to make a pass. Sheffield held up a staying hand.
"Wait!" he called. In the tense silence that followed, Bunny could hear him clearly. "I interfered with that toss-up—unintentionally; jabbed the Elkana center with my elbow. Call a foul, Referee!"
The noise broke anew, but it was the clapping of hands this time, and the stamping of feet and little shouts of approval, like a rollicking gale at play. Bunny looked out at Sheffield, through what seemed queerly like a fog, and said, "Oh, that's fine!" And even when some Elkana fellow was given a free trial for goal and netted a basket, he repeated, "Yes, that's fine!" At that moment, he liked Sheffield more than he ever had before.
Over at the blackboard, the boy rubbed out the ten under Elkana's name and traced an eleven in its place. Lakeville's total was still eight.
Sheffield outjumped the opposing center on the next toss-up, which was free of any semblance of foul, and whacked the ball to Barrett. Peter whirled completely around, to throw off the guard hovering in front of him, and started a dribble. But just as he was ready to make the pass, some Elkana player stepped in and captured the ball. It was not an unusual incident, butit made Bunny squirm. Peter had been just the tick of a watch too slow.
After that, things began steadily to go wrong. The four players who had been in the tank started to shrink when they should have charged, to submit weakly to an opponent's making a pass when they should have scrimmaged for a toss-up, to be always the tiny fraction of a second too late in catching, shooting, dodging. Elkana scored. It scored again. After perhaps three minutes of play in the second half, the figures on the blackboard read: Lakeville, 8; Elkana, 15.
"We're licked," Bunny muttered, digging his finger tips into moist palms, "unless—"
It was like a cue for Sheffield's action. Before the ball could be put into play again, the Lakeville captain stepped to the referee's side and said something in a quick, decisive manner. The man nodded. Then Sheffield lifted a beckoning finger toward the substitutes' bench.
Bunny looked at the other three, as if expecting one of them to rise at the signal, and the other three looked at Bunny the same way. None of them seemed to know which substitute he wanted.
"Come on!" called Sheffield gruffly; then, after one heart-breaking instant of hesitation, "All of you!"
At that, of course, they dropped the single blanket they had thrown over their shoulders and scampered out upon the floor. They tried to look unconcernedduring the little journey, but nobody was much deceived. Barrett, Kiproy, Collins and Turner, walking wearily and dejectedly toward the bench, passed them without speaking.
There was no time for Sheffield to coach them in the style of game he wanted them to play. Possibly, too, he thought any instructions of his would be so much wasted breath. All he could do was to hope for the best, in a forlorn sort of way, and trust to their natural ability to net a basket when the opportunity offered. They knew the formations and the signals; individually, he admitted, they were crack players. Well—
Lakeville had practiced its deceptive forward crisscross at least one hundred times. When Sheffield hit the ball on the toss-up, he sent it directly across the floor to S. S., playing left guard, on the double hope that this unexpected maneuver would fool Elkana again and that young Zane would be ready for the catch.
Never had Bob Collins played it better. With a deceptive lunge, S. S. shook off the player hovering about him, dashed forward, took the pass, dribbled the ball till the very last safe moment, and then shot it across to Bi, at right guard. From him it zigzagged back to the opposite side, into Jump's waiting hands, and, with just enough delay to pull in the baffled Elkana players, on to Bunny, playing in one corner of the court, within easy looping distance of the basket.
All this time, of course, Sheffield had been racingdown the middle, till he was now squarely in front of the goal, with only one negligent guard anywhere near him. But Bunny was also clear for the moment.
"Shoot it!" shouted the captain, eyes already raised to the basket for the try.
Bunny poised the ball in his hands. Sheffield's guard shuffled toward the danger zone. But even as he drew back his arms, Bunny whirled and made an overhand pass to his captain. So unexpected was this play, and so rapid the throw, that Sheffield came near being taken unawares.
But he set himself in time. Hard and true came the ball, zipping against his open palms, with every last Elkana player temporarily paralyzed by surprise. With something very like a smile, Sheffield balanced himself, taking plenty of time, and nonchalantly looped it upward for the gaping basket in front of him. It was a perfect goal.
Score: Lakeville, 10; Elkana, 15.
"Nice work!" Sheffield grunted to Bunny.
He wasn't sure—yet. But a minute later, when Jump, in the very shadow of the goal, lifted the ball high above his head and then flicked it back to his captain, six feet behind him, Sheffield knew for certain. He made that basket, too, and he ran laughing for the next toss-up, as if all the people in Elkana couldn't stop his team now. The Scouts were doing just what he had trained those others to do, just what he had declared the Scouts would never agree to do. They werefeeding him the ball; they were playing, not for the applause and glory of shooting goals, but for the bigger thing, for the team itself.
Score: Lakeville, 12; Elkana, 15.
Neither side scored during the next few minutes. But that worried Bunny not one whit, and he guessed Sheffield felt the same about it. For Lakeville had come into her own at last, as if her five players were a single body with ten arms and ten legs. They rushed the ball toward their goal, tapping, tossing, dribbling, shooting it from boy to boy, looping it for the basket, scrambling after misses, and turning from offense to defense when Elkana took possession of it and began a march, with many side trips, in the other direction.
Elkana had not fought victoriously throughout the season without sound cause. Its team answered this new challenge like thoroughbreds. Put upon their mettle, the five players rose to a skill they had never shown before, and swept down the floor to the climax of another basket.
"Never mind that!" grinned Bunny, passing a grimy hand over his streaked face. "We'll beat 'em yet!"
"You bet we will!" Sheffield flashed back.
Hard on the heels of this stiffening determination, Lakeville scored again, and yet again. Sheffield shot both goals, but Bunny knew he was ready enough to give credit to the machine behind him.
Elkana led now by a single point. The score board read: Lakeville, 16; Elkana, 17.
Sixty seconds later, in a most peculiar manner, came the chance to tie the score. Lakeville had already failed on a direct side-center pass formation and on a single side cross-forward play that had counted in other games. Wisely, Sheffield called for the forward crisscross that had twice baffled Elkana.
It looked as if the play were to go through. Backward and forward across the floor, the ball wove its way, till it was time for the final pass to Sheffield, already in a favorable position to shoot the basket. But just at the last, an Elkana player sensed the trick. With flying arms, like a Holland windmill adrift, he swept down upon the Lakeville captain.
Sheffield dodged. So did the Elkana boy. Sheffield dodged back again, to confuse his opponent. The result was a semi-success. The other player had guessed wrong, and what happened was as much a surprise to one as the other.
With a crash, the two collided solidly. Sheffield fell flat on his back, the Elkana boy piled on top of him, and the referee's whistle shrilled.
"Foul for charging!" the official announced. "Free trial for goal for Lakeville!"
Bunny Payton fairly wriggled with eagerness. "Tie score if you make this goal!" he exulted, as Sheffield clambered to his feet dabbing at his eye with an open hand. "Not hurt, are you?"
"No. Where's the ball? Everybody ready?"
Bracing himself, feet apart, directly behind the foul line, Sheffield took the ball in both hands, raised it suddenly in an overhand loop shot—and missed the basket by a good six inches!
Nobody spoke. Nobody told him it didn't matter; for it did, mightily. Nobody even asked what the trouble was. But that wide miss, by a center who could net a goal nine times out of ten on free throws, was like a dash of cold water to the Lakeville team.
"But we won't quit," Bunny told himself, trotting into position for the next toss-up. "He'll have another chance in a minute."
It came even sooner than he expected. Scurrying here and there over the floor, apparently without aim or purpose, but in reality dodging and running with preconceived plan, the Lakeville five edged closer and closer to the basket, till in the end Sheffield caught a long pass almost in front of the goal. With a quick leap to one side, he shook off the Elkana guard; with the precision born of much practice, he looped the ball up and over.
The shot was long. Hitting the backboard a full foot above the net, the ball bounced back against the outer edge of the metal ring, hung uncertainly a moment, and then trickled free to the floor. For the second time in as many minutes, Sheffield had failed.
"Three minutes to play!" the timekeeper called, as they raced back to their positions.
Three minutes! And Lakeville one point behind! Bunny balled his nervous hands into hard fists and tried to swallow the lump that kept coming up in his throat. There was a chance yet, of course, but with Sheffield shooting wildly—
For the third time in succession, a little later, the Lakeville captain missed the basket. This throw was the worst of the three; a blind man, Bunny told himself bitterly, might have come as close. What was the good of feeding Sheffield the ball, if he chucked away his chances like that?
There couldn't be much more than a minute to play now. When Sheffield lined up against the Elkana center once more, he spat out a curt, "Everybody in it this time," and jumped and batted the ball to S. S. Thatinwas the signal for the old forward crisscross. Bunny shook his head doubtfully, but ran to his place.
The ball darted to and fro, like a swallow winging for safety: from S. S. to Bi, from Bi to Jump, from Jump to Bunny. Everybody was running and shouting, quite as if each player had gone suddenly insane. "Here you are!" somebody would call. "Shoot it!" "Watch out!" "Careful!" "Plenty of time!" "Plenty of time!" And then, having tantalized some opposing rusher, "Come on!" "Shoot it!"
By now, Sheffield was down the floor, in front of the basket and a little to the left. But Bunny was as close on the other side and less carefully guarded. Elkana, you see, had discovered that Lakeville's captainwas usually the final link between the last pass and the try for goal. As a result, its players were beginning to watch him like hawks.
"Shoot it!" yelled Sheffield, trying vainly to shake off the Elkana guard.
Bunny bounced the ball long enough to give this order time to register in his brain. "He means for me to try for a basket," he decided happily. He tapped the ball to the floor again. "And I can make it, too; I know I can."
None of the Elkana players seemed to be worrying about him in the least. Bunny dribbled the ball a little nearer the goal, keeping a wary eye on Sheffield, who was twisting and doubling and flopping about, like a—like a chicken with its head off.
"That's just what he looks like," Bunny grinned to himself. "Shucks! If I did pass him the ball, he'd throw it wild. He's done it three times now."
"Shoot it!" ordered Sheffield, in a frenzy of excitement. He ran back a few steps and threw up his hands. Bunny wanted to think he was pointing toward the goal, but some curious prick of his conscience suggested that he might be motioning for a catch.
There was only a second or two to decide now. Down in his heart, Bunny was sure—absolutely sure—that he could make the goal. He could already see himself holding the ball with both hands in front of his chest, pushing it upward till his arms were straight from shoulders to fingertips, and launching it, straightand true, upward and over and down, in a great looping shot that would nestle it in the swaying net below the iron hoop. He knew, just as certainly as he knew he was standing there, that he could score that goal.
"And I don't think Sheffield can," he argued stubbornly. "He—he's like a chicken with its head off."
Out of the corner of his eye, as he dribbled the ball, he saw an Elkana boy sweeping toward him. It must be now or never. With a quick lunge ahead, he diverted the other's straight line of charge; then, stepping backward abruptly, he found himself clear for the moment. The ball bounded from the floor and plumped upon the open palm of his right hand.
But something stayed the left hand from clapping upon that side of the leather, preliminary to the try for goal. Instead, turning a little, he swung his right arm in a circle, shouted a warning to Sheffield, now temporarily free of heckling guards, and shot the ball to him.
"It's playing the game," he said to himself in a half-whisper. Just the same, it hurt, even more than he cared to admit, to make that sacrifice.
The Lakeville captain seemed to catch the ball exactly in position for looping it toward the basket. In the twinkling of an eye, Sheffield had tossed it upward, using the same overhand shot Bunny had partially begun.
Up and up sped the ball, with ten open-mouthed players following its course with twenty popping eyes; up and up, till it seemed it would never stop, and then,after a languid pause in mid-air, down and down, going faster every instant, till it plopped squarely within the metal rim of the basket and swished on into the hanging net.
The goal was scored. Lakeville now led, 18-17.
In the midst of a scrimmage, directly after the next toss-up, a sudden crack from the timekeeper's pistol signaled the end of the game. Lakeville had won. The road to the championship would be easy traveling now.
Sheffield took his honors without any display of emotion; he was that sort of winner. To the four substitutes who had made possible the victory, he merely said, "Good work, fellows!" But Bunny guessed he meant a good deal more than the words expressed.
"Why didn't you try for that last basket yourself?" he asked Bunny, as they piled downstairs to the dressing room. "You could have scored."
"Yes, I think I could," Bunny admitted honestly. "I was afraid of you, too, after you had missed those others, but—"
"Something in my eye," explained Sheffield; "got it in when I took that tumble. That's why those shots went wild. But it was out before your last pass."
"I gave you the ball," Bunny went on doggedly, "because I knew that was the kind of game you had planned—feeding it to you and letting you shoot the baskets. You didn't exactly tell us, of course, but weknew. And a Scout is supposed to be obedient to his leader and—"
"I see," nodded Sheffield, and let the matter drop. "By the way, why didn't you fellows go swimming with the rest this afternoon?"
"How—how did you know about that?"
"Heard you talking to Barrett and Kiproy and Collins and Turner just before I called them for the second half. But I don't see why—Yes, I guess I do, too. Your Scouts asked you if they could, didn't they?"
"Yes."
"And you wouldn't let them, I suppose. Right!" He turned to Bunny with a smile in his eyes. "Obedience to the leader again, eh? Sort of apron strings. H'm!"
Bunny couldn't make out whether Sheffield was sneering or just turning the matter over in his mind. But when he began a stumbling explanation, the captain cut him short with a question.
"Would you Scouts object," he asked, "to being tied—well, say loosely—to my apron strings in basketball?"
"Why—"
"Because if you wouldn't mind accepting me as a leader in the game," Sheffield went on evenly, "I have an idea we might show those other high schools quite a nifty little team."
In view of the fact that Lakeville simply romped through the balance of the schedule to the championship,it is to be supposed that the Scouts didn't object to obeying the captain. In any event, after another week of strenuous practice, the notice on the bulletin board of the high school read:
NOTICE!The following basketball players will report at 12:30 Saturday afternoon, ready for the trip to Harrison City:Left ForwardPaytonRight ForwardHendersonCenterSheffieldLeft GuardZaneRight GuardJonesSubstitutesKiproy, Barrett, Collins, Turner(Signed)RoyalSheffield,Captain.
NOTICE!The following basketball players will report at 12:30 Saturday afternoon, ready for the trip to Harrison City:Left ForwardPaytonRight ForwardHendersonCenterSheffieldLeft GuardZaneRight GuardJonesSubstitutesKiproy, Barrett, Collins, Turner(Signed)RoyalSheffield,Captain.
NOTICE!
The following basketball players will report at 12:30 Saturday afternoon, ready for the trip to Harrison City:
CHAPTER XVAN ALARM OF FIREPalms propping his chin, elbows braced on knees, Specs McGrew squatted on the family's front steps, staring out at the street."I wish it was over," he grumbled. "Why don't Roundy and Jump come? Say, Bunny, if I had a five-dollar bill in my pocket, I'd give it to anybody who could pick me up right out of this morning and set me down somewhere to-morrow morning."Bunny laughed. "Oh, the game won't be as bad as all that. Still, if you don't want to play, I guess we can persuade S. S. to take your place at short.""Huh?" Specs twisted his head round. "Let S. S. play against Belden instead of me! Not if I know it! Just the same, I wish it was over, and down in your heart I bet you do, too."The peace of a June morning hung over Lakeville, a quiet that was even deeper than usual; for not only was this the day when the Lakeville High baseball team went to Belden to play the last game of the season, but it was also the day of Dunkirk's great Home Coming Picnic; and a long excursion train, crowded tothe platforms, had left the village at 7:30. The town was deserted. As Specs put it, "A cyclone or a fire could walk right down Main Street without having a chance to say 'hello' to anybody." In spite of the quiet, though, there were at least a generous baker's dozen of boys in and around Lakeville whose hearts beat hippety-hop whenever they stopped to think of the game that afternoon.For the baseball season had gone well. The whole school year, indeed, had been a procession of athletic triumphs, first in football, then in basketball, and finally in baseball. Best of all, every last boy and girl in Lakeville High was ready to admit that the Black Eagle Scouts had done their share and more. In the beginning, of course, the patrol was a target for scorn; but gradually, as its members proved that the Scout way of doing things was a good way, and made for harmony and loyalty and the pull-together spirit that won victories, sentiment began to swing toward the organization until, in the end, it was pretty generally agreed that to be a Boy Scout was to be somebody worth while in high school.With two championships stowed safely away, it was only natural that the baseball season should have begun with a hip-hip-hurray. With but two exceptions, every boy in school had tried for the team, and the lucky candidates had won their places only after the hardest kind of struggle. Of the Scouts, Roundy was at first base, Jump at second, and Specs at short.Bunny and Bi alternated in the pitcher's box. For the rest of the school, Barrett caught, Sheffield held down third base, and the outfield was made up of Collins, Kiproy and Turner.Professor Leland had proved a most enthusiastic coach, and the lively competition for places on the team had kept all the players on tiptoe. The nine, moreover, had run on greased rollers. Buck Claxton himself had nominated Bunny for captaincy of the team, and by the best sort of example had shown that the leader's orders were law. With this spirit and discipline, the team had progressed steadily from victory to victory. Its one setback had come from a semi-professional outfit of Dunkirk, and that score had been only seven to four against Lakeville. They had beaten Dunkirk High, Grant City, Deerfield, Mason, Harrison City and Elkana. Belden, slated for the last game of the season, was not only the one team in the district that remained undefeated, but also it could and did lay claim to the championship of the State. To beat Belden, therefore, meant to round out the school year with pennants in three major sports."Why didn't Bonfire try for the baseball team?" Specs asked suddenly. "I've never understood that. He tried for everything else."Bunny peered down the street for the expected Scouts before he answered. "I don't know. Bonfire's hard to understand. But he had some good reason; it wasn't because he was afraid to try.""He's seen all the games and been at all the practices," said Specs, stretching his legs. "He has eyes like—like a fox. Do you remember that tip he gave me about the Dunkirk pitcher with his funny inshoot? But he hasn't even handled a baseball, not since Molly's picnic."Specs was still chuckling over the memory when the appearance of Jump and Roundy changed the subject. Bunny hopped to his feet."Now we can start. We meet the rest of them at the schoolhouse at nine-fifteen.""By to-night we'll be State champs," said the placid and confident Roundy. "I saw Molly and Mr. Sefton and Horace Hibbs scooting down the street in the Sefton automobile early this morning. They had streamers and pennants enough to open a store. I'm glad they are going to be there to cheer for us."Carrying their uniforms in bulky suit cases and telescopes, the four Scouts started down the street."Everybody's gone," observed Jump, as they strolled down Maple Avenue toward the high school. "Seems a shame to leave the town like this.""Oh, there are some chickens and a couple of dogs and about a thousand pet cats left behind," Specs retorted. "They can take care of things." He looked up the street. "Hello! Prof. and the others are waiting for us at the corner."On the high-school lawn, opposite Grady's barn, the remainder of the team, with substitutes and a fewothers, were gathered. Professor Leland was looking at his watch."How about Sheffield?" queried Bunny, joining the coach. "Has he come yet?"The man shook his head. "Sheffield's always two minutes late. He has seven miles to cover in that machine of his, but he generally waits till the last second." He glanced about anxiously. "We have nearly the entire squad here, and Ferris can play third if he has to, but I want Sheffield.""I might wait here," Bunny suggested, "say, for ten minutes. Roy always leaves his car in Grady's barn, so he's sure to pass this way. When he does come, I'll get him to the station on the run."The coach breathed a sigh of relief. "That's the plan, Payton. I'll leave the uniforms and bat bag with you, too, and you can pile them on Ernie Langer's dray when he comes. Then you can ride with him to the station and keep him from going to sleep."Since the entire patrol had voted to go to Laurel, Bunny ventured another suggestion. "There are eight of us here who have worked together; nine altogether, counting Prissler, who is training to be a tenderfoot. If we all stay with the baggage, we can carry it to the station, in case Langer should be late."Professor Leland considered. "Langer is coming, all right. But if I thought there was a chance of his being behind time, I'd let the squad carry the baggage to the station now. Still, your way keeps us from takingany chances at all." He paused to study his watch. "Remember, the train stops at 9:40 only to let off and take on passengers. Youmustbe there on time. At three o'clock this afternoon, when the game is called, I don't want to play with four or five substitutes.""We'll be there," chorused the Scouts, while Bunny and Bi carefully set their watches with that of the coach.It was eighteen minutes past nine when Professor Leland and his players, minus the Scouts, started up the street toward the station."We can wait till nine-thirty if we have to," Bunny decided, "and then make the train by the skin of our teeth. But I hope old Slowpoke Langer and his dray come along before that. Roy Sheffield ought to be here now."It was Mr. Langer, however, who arrived first, sleepily jogging his horses toward the corner. At exactly twenty-six minutes past nine he drew up beside the pile of baggage."Whoa, there! Whoa! Ain't been waiting for me, have you?" he inquired genially, as he removed his straw hat to wipe his forehead."I've been waiting for you ever since I've known you," answered Specs. "What are those horses of yours—one cylinder or two?"Mr. Langer smiled contentedly. "You might not think it," he observed, "but these here horses used tobe fire horses in Elkana when they was young. And they're just as good a team to-day as that pair of plugs they got in our fire station." He climbed laboriously from his seat, with some intention of assisting the Scouts in loading the bags and baseball apparatus into the dray. But as the boys were tidily finishing the job before Mr. Langer fully made up his mind about the best way to begin, he thought better of his ambition, and leaned one arm on the wagon and went on with his conversation."Take that fire department in this here town," he ruminated, picking a spear of grass to chew between words. "Why, it ain't run like a fire department any more than it's run like a church." He squinted thoughtfully at a pebble in the road. "Come to think of it, there ain't much difference between that fire department and a church. There's just one man of the Second Reformed Church left in Lakeville to-day, and that's Pete Mullett, the janitor; and there's just one man left in the fire department, and that's Dave Hendershot, the driver."Bunny pricked up his ears. "You don't mean there's only one man to hitch up the hose cart and put out the fire?"Mr. Langer nodded. "Yep. Dave was left in charge, with three helpers, and they told him they wanted to go to Dunkirk. And Dave was good-natured, and they was just volunteers, anyhow, and he let 'em go. Of course, I'll be around to give Davea hand, but that ain't no way to fight fires." Mr. Langer nodded more decisively than before and plucked a second blade of grass."Coming late, the way Royal Sheffield does, isn't playing the game either," said Specs suddenly. "We have just one minute more to wait. It's 9:29 already."Bunny verified the time. As Specs said, the missing player had but a single minute of grace before the procession started toward the station."He may get here on time, even if we don't hustle him up," suggested S. S.Bonfire Cree laughed. "He'd have missed the Harrison City game if the train hadn't been held up on account of a hot box.""He's a dandy, he is!" commented Specs. "Back before you fellows won that basketball game for him, I heard him say once that we Scouts weren't interested in anything except ourselves, but I notice he never puts himself out for anybody.""Give him a fair show, Specs," Bunny suggested gently. "Remember, he isn't here to speak for himself.""He'll be speaking for himself in two seconds," said Bonfire, pointing down the street toward a scarlet motor car which at that moment was tearing along near the corner.Barely braking enough to turn without skidding, Royal Sheffield drove the automobile up the drivewayto the barn; then, a moment later, lounged down the path to the Scouts."Make it fast, Sheff," warned Bunny. "We have just time to catch the train, not a second more. Throw your stuff on the dray. All right, we 're off. How about it, Mr. Langer? Can we all pile on your wagon?"Mr. Langer nodded. Promptly, without waiting for the captain of the team to decide the matter, Sheffield scrambled up to the driver's seat."I notice you're making yourself comfortable!" snapped Specs, balancing uneasily on the side of the dray."Is that so!" Sheffield flung back carelessly. "Well, I'm following your lead. I notice you fellows have been hanging around to ride to the station.""Hanging around!" Specs raised his voice angrily. "Why, the only reason we stayed behind was to—""Better cut it, Specs!" Bunny said decisively.A silence followed. With much slapping of lines and verbal encouragement, Mr. Langer waked his fire horses and set them in motion. In time, even, they broke into an unwieldy trot, jolting and jouncing the stiff-springed dray over the ruts."Too much luxury for me!" groaned Bonfire. "I'd rather run alongside than be shaken to pieces."He dropped from the dray, glancing back down the street."Bunny! Oh, Bunny! Look!"He was standing in the middle of the road, jaw dropped, eyes bulging, forefinger pointed toward the corner from which they had come."What's the matter, Bonfire?""It's a fire—back there—by the corner! There's a house on fire!"
AN ALARM OF FIRE
Palms propping his chin, elbows braced on knees, Specs McGrew squatted on the family's front steps, staring out at the street.
"I wish it was over," he grumbled. "Why don't Roundy and Jump come? Say, Bunny, if I had a five-dollar bill in my pocket, I'd give it to anybody who could pick me up right out of this morning and set me down somewhere to-morrow morning."
Bunny laughed. "Oh, the game won't be as bad as all that. Still, if you don't want to play, I guess we can persuade S. S. to take your place at short."
"Huh?" Specs twisted his head round. "Let S. S. play against Belden instead of me! Not if I know it! Just the same, I wish it was over, and down in your heart I bet you do, too."
The peace of a June morning hung over Lakeville, a quiet that was even deeper than usual; for not only was this the day when the Lakeville High baseball team went to Belden to play the last game of the season, but it was also the day of Dunkirk's great Home Coming Picnic; and a long excursion train, crowded tothe platforms, had left the village at 7:30. The town was deserted. As Specs put it, "A cyclone or a fire could walk right down Main Street without having a chance to say 'hello' to anybody." In spite of the quiet, though, there were at least a generous baker's dozen of boys in and around Lakeville whose hearts beat hippety-hop whenever they stopped to think of the game that afternoon.
For the baseball season had gone well. The whole school year, indeed, had been a procession of athletic triumphs, first in football, then in basketball, and finally in baseball. Best of all, every last boy and girl in Lakeville High was ready to admit that the Black Eagle Scouts had done their share and more. In the beginning, of course, the patrol was a target for scorn; but gradually, as its members proved that the Scout way of doing things was a good way, and made for harmony and loyalty and the pull-together spirit that won victories, sentiment began to swing toward the organization until, in the end, it was pretty generally agreed that to be a Boy Scout was to be somebody worth while in high school.
With two championships stowed safely away, it was only natural that the baseball season should have begun with a hip-hip-hurray. With but two exceptions, every boy in school had tried for the team, and the lucky candidates had won their places only after the hardest kind of struggle. Of the Scouts, Roundy was at first base, Jump at second, and Specs at short.Bunny and Bi alternated in the pitcher's box. For the rest of the school, Barrett caught, Sheffield held down third base, and the outfield was made up of Collins, Kiproy and Turner.
Professor Leland had proved a most enthusiastic coach, and the lively competition for places on the team had kept all the players on tiptoe. The nine, moreover, had run on greased rollers. Buck Claxton himself had nominated Bunny for captaincy of the team, and by the best sort of example had shown that the leader's orders were law. With this spirit and discipline, the team had progressed steadily from victory to victory. Its one setback had come from a semi-professional outfit of Dunkirk, and that score had been only seven to four against Lakeville. They had beaten Dunkirk High, Grant City, Deerfield, Mason, Harrison City and Elkana. Belden, slated for the last game of the season, was not only the one team in the district that remained undefeated, but also it could and did lay claim to the championship of the State. To beat Belden, therefore, meant to round out the school year with pennants in three major sports.
"Why didn't Bonfire try for the baseball team?" Specs asked suddenly. "I've never understood that. He tried for everything else."
Bunny peered down the street for the expected Scouts before he answered. "I don't know. Bonfire's hard to understand. But he had some good reason; it wasn't because he was afraid to try."
"He's seen all the games and been at all the practices," said Specs, stretching his legs. "He has eyes like—like a fox. Do you remember that tip he gave me about the Dunkirk pitcher with his funny inshoot? But he hasn't even handled a baseball, not since Molly's picnic."
Specs was still chuckling over the memory when the appearance of Jump and Roundy changed the subject. Bunny hopped to his feet.
"Now we can start. We meet the rest of them at the schoolhouse at nine-fifteen."
"By to-night we'll be State champs," said the placid and confident Roundy. "I saw Molly and Mr. Sefton and Horace Hibbs scooting down the street in the Sefton automobile early this morning. They had streamers and pennants enough to open a store. I'm glad they are going to be there to cheer for us."
Carrying their uniforms in bulky suit cases and telescopes, the four Scouts started down the street.
"Everybody's gone," observed Jump, as they strolled down Maple Avenue toward the high school. "Seems a shame to leave the town like this."
"Oh, there are some chickens and a couple of dogs and about a thousand pet cats left behind," Specs retorted. "They can take care of things." He looked up the street. "Hello! Prof. and the others are waiting for us at the corner."
On the high-school lawn, opposite Grady's barn, the remainder of the team, with substitutes and a fewothers, were gathered. Professor Leland was looking at his watch.
"How about Sheffield?" queried Bunny, joining the coach. "Has he come yet?"
The man shook his head. "Sheffield's always two minutes late. He has seven miles to cover in that machine of his, but he generally waits till the last second." He glanced about anxiously. "We have nearly the entire squad here, and Ferris can play third if he has to, but I want Sheffield."
"I might wait here," Bunny suggested, "say, for ten minutes. Roy always leaves his car in Grady's barn, so he's sure to pass this way. When he does come, I'll get him to the station on the run."
The coach breathed a sigh of relief. "That's the plan, Payton. I'll leave the uniforms and bat bag with you, too, and you can pile them on Ernie Langer's dray when he comes. Then you can ride with him to the station and keep him from going to sleep."
Since the entire patrol had voted to go to Laurel, Bunny ventured another suggestion. "There are eight of us here who have worked together; nine altogether, counting Prissler, who is training to be a tenderfoot. If we all stay with the baggage, we can carry it to the station, in case Langer should be late."
Professor Leland considered. "Langer is coming, all right. But if I thought there was a chance of his being behind time, I'd let the squad carry the baggage to the station now. Still, your way keeps us from takingany chances at all." He paused to study his watch. "Remember, the train stops at 9:40 only to let off and take on passengers. Youmustbe there on time. At three o'clock this afternoon, when the game is called, I don't want to play with four or five substitutes."
"We'll be there," chorused the Scouts, while Bunny and Bi carefully set their watches with that of the coach.
It was eighteen minutes past nine when Professor Leland and his players, minus the Scouts, started up the street toward the station.
"We can wait till nine-thirty if we have to," Bunny decided, "and then make the train by the skin of our teeth. But I hope old Slowpoke Langer and his dray come along before that. Roy Sheffield ought to be here now."
It was Mr. Langer, however, who arrived first, sleepily jogging his horses toward the corner. At exactly twenty-six minutes past nine he drew up beside the pile of baggage.
"Whoa, there! Whoa! Ain't been waiting for me, have you?" he inquired genially, as he removed his straw hat to wipe his forehead.
"I've been waiting for you ever since I've known you," answered Specs. "What are those horses of yours—one cylinder or two?"
Mr. Langer smiled contentedly. "You might not think it," he observed, "but these here horses used tobe fire horses in Elkana when they was young. And they're just as good a team to-day as that pair of plugs they got in our fire station." He climbed laboriously from his seat, with some intention of assisting the Scouts in loading the bags and baseball apparatus into the dray. But as the boys were tidily finishing the job before Mr. Langer fully made up his mind about the best way to begin, he thought better of his ambition, and leaned one arm on the wagon and went on with his conversation.
"Take that fire department in this here town," he ruminated, picking a spear of grass to chew between words. "Why, it ain't run like a fire department any more than it's run like a church." He squinted thoughtfully at a pebble in the road. "Come to think of it, there ain't much difference between that fire department and a church. There's just one man of the Second Reformed Church left in Lakeville to-day, and that's Pete Mullett, the janitor; and there's just one man left in the fire department, and that's Dave Hendershot, the driver."
Bunny pricked up his ears. "You don't mean there's only one man to hitch up the hose cart and put out the fire?"
Mr. Langer nodded. "Yep. Dave was left in charge, with three helpers, and they told him they wanted to go to Dunkirk. And Dave was good-natured, and they was just volunteers, anyhow, and he let 'em go. Of course, I'll be around to give Davea hand, but that ain't no way to fight fires." Mr. Langer nodded more decisively than before and plucked a second blade of grass.
"Coming late, the way Royal Sheffield does, isn't playing the game either," said Specs suddenly. "We have just one minute more to wait. It's 9:29 already."
Bunny verified the time. As Specs said, the missing player had but a single minute of grace before the procession started toward the station.
"He may get here on time, even if we don't hustle him up," suggested S. S.
Bonfire Cree laughed. "He'd have missed the Harrison City game if the train hadn't been held up on account of a hot box."
"He's a dandy, he is!" commented Specs. "Back before you fellows won that basketball game for him, I heard him say once that we Scouts weren't interested in anything except ourselves, but I notice he never puts himself out for anybody."
"Give him a fair show, Specs," Bunny suggested gently. "Remember, he isn't here to speak for himself."
"He'll be speaking for himself in two seconds," said Bonfire, pointing down the street toward a scarlet motor car which at that moment was tearing along near the corner.
Barely braking enough to turn without skidding, Royal Sheffield drove the automobile up the drivewayto the barn; then, a moment later, lounged down the path to the Scouts.
"Make it fast, Sheff," warned Bunny. "We have just time to catch the train, not a second more. Throw your stuff on the dray. All right, we 're off. How about it, Mr. Langer? Can we all pile on your wagon?"
Mr. Langer nodded. Promptly, without waiting for the captain of the team to decide the matter, Sheffield scrambled up to the driver's seat.
"I notice you're making yourself comfortable!" snapped Specs, balancing uneasily on the side of the dray.
"Is that so!" Sheffield flung back carelessly. "Well, I'm following your lead. I notice you fellows have been hanging around to ride to the station."
"Hanging around!" Specs raised his voice angrily. "Why, the only reason we stayed behind was to—"
"Better cut it, Specs!" Bunny said decisively.
A silence followed. With much slapping of lines and verbal encouragement, Mr. Langer waked his fire horses and set them in motion. In time, even, they broke into an unwieldy trot, jolting and jouncing the stiff-springed dray over the ruts.
"Too much luxury for me!" groaned Bonfire. "I'd rather run alongside than be shaken to pieces."
He dropped from the dray, glancing back down the street.
"Bunny! Oh, Bunny! Look!"
He was standing in the middle of the road, jaw dropped, eyes bulging, forefinger pointed toward the corner from which they had come.
"What's the matter, Bonfire?"
"It's a fire—back there—by the corner! There's a house on fire!"
CHAPTER XVIALONG THE FLOORPlacing both hands on the sideboard of the dray, Bunny vaulted lightly to the ground. From where Bonfire stood, the thin eddy of smoke could be seen looping over the tree tops at the corner."It's Peterson's house!"Bonfire shook his head. "The smoke shows too far north for that. It's either Crawford's or some shed near there."For a long moment Bunny watched the white wreath tail up above the highest leaves; then, abruptly, he raced after the jogging dray."Stop that team!" he shouted.Mr. Langer pulled up deliberately, hastened a little in the process, perhaps, by Roundy, who seemed on the point of taking the reins into his own hands."Everybody out! We can't leave a fire like that with nobody in town.""Oh, rats!" snapped Sheffield. "We'll turn in an alarm at the station. What's the fire department for? Let it burn!"Mr. Langer seemed in doubt. "Wal, I dunno." He scratched his head thoughtfully. "I dunno. Mebbe, now—""You're hired to get us down to the station," Sheffield reminded him. "The best thing for you to do is to hurry up and make that train."Bunny hesitated. The welfare of the baseball team which he captained demanded that no time be lost. On the other hand, if a serious fire had started, it was more important to check it than to play any game."If there is a real blaze—" he began."It doesn't matter whether it's a real blaze or not," Sheffield interrupted. "We are on our way to play for the high-school championship of the State. That's more important than anything else.""No, Sheff," disagreed Bunny; "no, it isn't. Winning a baseball championship wouldn't be as important as saving Lakeville from a bad fire. Now, would it?""Oh, it's probably only a smudge," urged Sheffield. "How about it, Langer? Didn't you see a bonfire over there?"Mr. Langer scratched his head again. "I dunno if I did and I dunno if I didn't. But—"Bunny made up his mind. "Drive ahead, Langer. Sheffield, you see that the stuff gets to the station on time and tell Professor Leland that we will catch the 11:30 train. That will bring us to the Belden field by just three o'clock. Scouts over here!"Almost before Mr. Langer could get under way, his dray was lightened of its load of Black Eagles, who scrambled to the ground, following Bunny and Bonfire at a dead run."It's not a little blaze," panted the observant Bonfire. "Look how that smoke hangs in a cloud over the trees. It's coming from the top of some building.""It's the Crawford house!" Specs urged, as he sprinted up to the two leaders. "You can tell it's the Crawfords', because—No, it isn't either. It's—"Bunny, Bonfire and Specs came to a paralyzed halt. In one voice, they finished the sentence:"—Grady's barn!"Already that building had loomed into sight. From an opening near the peak of the roof, smoke was leisurely twining into the air, as if it had a perfect right to be doing that sort of thing in that sort of a place. No one else in town seemed to have noticed the warning, and a thicker puff of smoke brought no answering cry of "Fire!""Let her go!" said Specs spitefully. "We will turn in an alarm and keep it from burning anything else, but we might just as well let the old shack go up in smoke. Grady has it insured.""But Sheffield's automobile is in there," protested Bonfire, "and that isn't insured. I heard Roy say so.""That's what I thought," Specs agreed calmly. "But Mister Royal Sheffield thinks we haven't any business monkeying with fires this morning, and I votewe go back to the station and tell him that we were mistaken and that he was right."Bunny frowned. "We'll go right on being Scouts and living up to the Scout law, just as we did before we ever knew Sheffield. Jump and S. S., you two pike down to the fire department and hustle Dave Hendershot up here with the hose cart. Prissler, you chase downtown and rouse people. Roundy, break into the schoolhouse and ring the bell for all you're worth. Nap, you take the school telephone and call Central and the fire department. The rest of us will do what we can right here."However much the Scouts would have preferred to stay at the scene of action, they hesitated not at all in obeying these necessarily curt orders. Three runners scurried away toward Main Street; two others made a bee line for the janitor's entrance of the high school."Oh, all right!" grunted Specs. "Now we can go ahead and be heroes and save dear old Roy's car for him. I'd certainly like to see the blamed thing saved—that is, all except the tires and the motor and the tool box and the lights and a few other things."Whenever Specs reached this particular mood, it was best to let him talk his way out of it. Bunny ignored him completely and ran toward the burning building.Grady's barn was the usual two-story structure, its peaked roof topped by an old-fashioned cupola. At the front, two swinging doors were locked by a woodenbar within, a smaller side entrance being used for ordinary comings and goings."Locked with a big padlock," said Bunny, testing the side door while Bonfire and Specs hurried to the west side of the building.Bi returned from an excursion to the rear. "Back door's nailed fast," he reported. "There are iron bars across the inside of that back window, too."Through this latter opening, Bi had seen the smoke thickening inside, but he had failed to discover any way of breaking through to smother it. It was evident that when Mr. Grady had turned over his horseless barn to Royal Sheffield, he had made it thoroughly burglar proof."If I had an ax," Bi muttered wistfully, "I'd smash through that door in a hurry."With a common impulse, Bunny and Bi picked up a long board, to use as a battering-ram against the sagging double door. Under the blows, the barn resounded, but the doors remained as tightly shut as before."Got to break through pretty soon or stop trying," Bunny gasped, as they halted the attack to regain wind. "If we once get inside anywhere, we can open those double doors and roll out the car. After that, we might save the barn. But if the gasoline ever explodes—well, that will finish everything.""Let's try it again!" Bi lunged against the door with fierce energy. "Maybe the big wooden bar thatholds across the middle will jump loose if we jar it enough. Ugh!" He grunted as the board struck the door."All together, Bi! Once more! I think I felt it move." They hammered the wood home, but in spite of the whirlwind of blows the door did nothing but sag a little and stick fast."Thank goodness!" ejaculated Bunny, as they halted after this assault. "Roundy's found the bell, anyhow.""Dang! Bang! Dang! Bang!" The clapper of the high-school bell was swinging wilder and harder against the metal sides than ever before in its short life."Now, if that brings help, and if Nap gets a little action over the telephone, and if Jump and S. S. bring up the hose cart, we have a chance even yet. Where's Bonfire? And where's Specs?"As if in answer to his name, Bonfire appeared, red-faced and breathless, holding a short two-by-four in his hand."Looked all over Peterson's woodshed for an ax, but couldn't find a thing except this. You can see the fire through the little stall window. It's just beginning to wake up. Didn't Specs find anything?""Specs! Isn't he with you?""With me? No!" Bonfire's eyes opened wide."He started with me. He was going to the Crawfords' and—let's see—he turned and—" Theboy stopped speaking. Fumbling the plank in his hand, he dropped it and then scooped it from the ground in a rush toward the door."Come on!" he shouted, attacking the barn in a wild burst of frenzy. "We've got to break in! We've got to! Specs is inside!"Bunny caught him by the arm. "We can't break through here. It's solid. How do you know Specs is inside?"The other Scout was quivering with excitement. "I know it. I looked through the stall window. There was a board loose in the floor, near the fire. I pointed it out to him. For a joke, I told him a thin fellow might crawl underneath the barn, pry it loose, and come up inside. And he's done it! We've got to get him out!"The school bell still clanged at top speed. Far down the street, Bunny could see two men running. He fancied he could hear galloping hoofs and the rumble of the hose cart. But if Specs was wallowing in that smother of smoke, all this help would come too late. He pounded on the side of the barn with his futile fist."Specs! Specs!" he shouted.Bi ground his fingers into his palms. "If he can only get to the door, he can open it, but—"There was no answering sound from within.Bonfire, who had disappeared, darted suddenly from one side of the barn."He's in there," he said. His face was white, and he spoke jerkily. "You can see his tracks. I crawled under. The board has been lifted up, but the blaze is all over the hole and I couldn't get through."Something cried to be done. Something must be done. As Bunny tried to collect his thoughts, his eye glimpsed a tiny gap between the base of the door on the right and the top of the ramp. It stretched near the hinge side, high enough to take the end of a plank. With a shout of relief, he slapped the end of the board into the crevice. Using the two-by-four as a fulcrum, he began levering the door upward and outward."All together now! Smash that hinge!" he gulped, choking from a whiff of smoke that puffed into his face from the crack.This command was unnecessary. Already the other two were throwing all their weight and strength on the long end of the lever."Hard! Everybody, hard!"Came a creaking, groaning, splintering of the wood. It was the signal of the break to come. The Scouts were bracing for a last effort when, quite without warning or effort on their part, the bar stretched across the inside of the double door swung upward, the sides flew open, and out stumbled Specs. Himself, he had unloosed the holding bar and opened the doors."I'm all right!" he gagged. "Not burned! Get the car out quick! Leave me alone! I'll be O. K. in a minute, I tell you!" He staggered over to a plot of grass.While Specs lay flung on the ground, blinking his smoke-reddened eyes and breathing heavily, the other three wheeled the car into the open just as the hose cart, carrying S. S. and Jump and a crew of four others, drew up at the hydrant."Prissler ran down the street and yelled 'Fire!' at the top of his voice," explained S. S. "That's how these men happened to know about it and run to the fire house. He—There he comes now, with another bunch he's roused."Fortunately, except for a little scorched paint, the car was undamaged. As for the fire itself, within ten minutes the volunteer workers gathered by bell and telephone and little Prissler's Paul Revere race through the village had the flames changing into a welter of thick, white smoke. The barn had suffered, but it was not beyond repair."I got in all right," Specs explained to the boys, "and I had a wet handkerchief tied over my face, and I crawled along the floor as if I was looking for a needle, and I generally acted the way a fireman ought to act. I'd been all right, too, if I hadn't bumped my elbow and then stuck my head up to see what did it. I must have swallowed some smoke or something, because I had to lie quiet till I could get enoughstrength back to finish the job. That was when I heard you calling to me.""But I thought you didn't care about saving Sheffield's car," teased Roundy, who had come back from his bell ringing."I don't!" Specs flared indignantly. "But if I hadn't tried to help, I'd have been breaking about half the Scout laws. Just the same," he added a little viciously, "I'm going to tell Royal Sheffield that I wish it had been somebody else's car."At this characteristic fling, the Black Eagles rolled merrily on the grass, winding up in an informal pyramid, of which Specs was the bottom layer."Look here!" said Bunny, suddenly piling off. "We had better find out about that later train."It was Nap, arriving on the scene from his telephoning, who capped this remark."I called up the station," he said. "That's what kept me. The team was gone. The second train—the one we thought we were going on—was taken off this week. There isn't another on the schedule that will get us to Belden in time for the baseball game!"
ALONG THE FLOOR
Placing both hands on the sideboard of the dray, Bunny vaulted lightly to the ground. From where Bonfire stood, the thin eddy of smoke could be seen looping over the tree tops at the corner.
"It's Peterson's house!"
Bonfire shook his head. "The smoke shows too far north for that. It's either Crawford's or some shed near there."
For a long moment Bunny watched the white wreath tail up above the highest leaves; then, abruptly, he raced after the jogging dray.
"Stop that team!" he shouted.
Mr. Langer pulled up deliberately, hastened a little in the process, perhaps, by Roundy, who seemed on the point of taking the reins into his own hands.
"Everybody out! We can't leave a fire like that with nobody in town."
"Oh, rats!" snapped Sheffield. "We'll turn in an alarm at the station. What's the fire department for? Let it burn!"
Mr. Langer seemed in doubt. "Wal, I dunno." He scratched his head thoughtfully. "I dunno. Mebbe, now—"
"You're hired to get us down to the station," Sheffield reminded him. "The best thing for you to do is to hurry up and make that train."
Bunny hesitated. The welfare of the baseball team which he captained demanded that no time be lost. On the other hand, if a serious fire had started, it was more important to check it than to play any game.
"If there is a real blaze—" he began.
"It doesn't matter whether it's a real blaze or not," Sheffield interrupted. "We are on our way to play for the high-school championship of the State. That's more important than anything else."
"No, Sheff," disagreed Bunny; "no, it isn't. Winning a baseball championship wouldn't be as important as saving Lakeville from a bad fire. Now, would it?"
"Oh, it's probably only a smudge," urged Sheffield. "How about it, Langer? Didn't you see a bonfire over there?"
Mr. Langer scratched his head again. "I dunno if I did and I dunno if I didn't. But—"
Bunny made up his mind. "Drive ahead, Langer. Sheffield, you see that the stuff gets to the station on time and tell Professor Leland that we will catch the 11:30 train. That will bring us to the Belden field by just three o'clock. Scouts over here!"
Almost before Mr. Langer could get under way, his dray was lightened of its load of Black Eagles, who scrambled to the ground, following Bunny and Bonfire at a dead run.
"It's not a little blaze," panted the observant Bonfire. "Look how that smoke hangs in a cloud over the trees. It's coming from the top of some building."
"It's the Crawford house!" Specs urged, as he sprinted up to the two leaders. "You can tell it's the Crawfords', because—No, it isn't either. It's—"
Bunny, Bonfire and Specs came to a paralyzed halt. In one voice, they finished the sentence:
"—Grady's barn!"
Already that building had loomed into sight. From an opening near the peak of the roof, smoke was leisurely twining into the air, as if it had a perfect right to be doing that sort of thing in that sort of a place. No one else in town seemed to have noticed the warning, and a thicker puff of smoke brought no answering cry of "Fire!"
"Let her go!" said Specs spitefully. "We will turn in an alarm and keep it from burning anything else, but we might just as well let the old shack go up in smoke. Grady has it insured."
"But Sheffield's automobile is in there," protested Bonfire, "and that isn't insured. I heard Roy say so."
"That's what I thought," Specs agreed calmly. "But Mister Royal Sheffield thinks we haven't any business monkeying with fires this morning, and I votewe go back to the station and tell him that we were mistaken and that he was right."
Bunny frowned. "We'll go right on being Scouts and living up to the Scout law, just as we did before we ever knew Sheffield. Jump and S. S., you two pike down to the fire department and hustle Dave Hendershot up here with the hose cart. Prissler, you chase downtown and rouse people. Roundy, break into the schoolhouse and ring the bell for all you're worth. Nap, you take the school telephone and call Central and the fire department. The rest of us will do what we can right here."
However much the Scouts would have preferred to stay at the scene of action, they hesitated not at all in obeying these necessarily curt orders. Three runners scurried away toward Main Street; two others made a bee line for the janitor's entrance of the high school.
"Oh, all right!" grunted Specs. "Now we can go ahead and be heroes and save dear old Roy's car for him. I'd certainly like to see the blamed thing saved—that is, all except the tires and the motor and the tool box and the lights and a few other things."
Whenever Specs reached this particular mood, it was best to let him talk his way out of it. Bunny ignored him completely and ran toward the burning building.
Grady's barn was the usual two-story structure, its peaked roof topped by an old-fashioned cupola. At the front, two swinging doors were locked by a woodenbar within, a smaller side entrance being used for ordinary comings and goings.
"Locked with a big padlock," said Bunny, testing the side door while Bonfire and Specs hurried to the west side of the building.
Bi returned from an excursion to the rear. "Back door's nailed fast," he reported. "There are iron bars across the inside of that back window, too."
Through this latter opening, Bi had seen the smoke thickening inside, but he had failed to discover any way of breaking through to smother it. It was evident that when Mr. Grady had turned over his horseless barn to Royal Sheffield, he had made it thoroughly burglar proof.
"If I had an ax," Bi muttered wistfully, "I'd smash through that door in a hurry."
With a common impulse, Bunny and Bi picked up a long board, to use as a battering-ram against the sagging double door. Under the blows, the barn resounded, but the doors remained as tightly shut as before.
"Got to break through pretty soon or stop trying," Bunny gasped, as they halted the attack to regain wind. "If we once get inside anywhere, we can open those double doors and roll out the car. After that, we might save the barn. But if the gasoline ever explodes—well, that will finish everything."
"Let's try it again!" Bi lunged against the door with fierce energy. "Maybe the big wooden bar thatholds across the middle will jump loose if we jar it enough. Ugh!" He grunted as the board struck the door.
"All together, Bi! Once more! I think I felt it move." They hammered the wood home, but in spite of the whirlwind of blows the door did nothing but sag a little and stick fast.
"Thank goodness!" ejaculated Bunny, as they halted after this assault. "Roundy's found the bell, anyhow."
"Dang! Bang! Dang! Bang!" The clapper of the high-school bell was swinging wilder and harder against the metal sides than ever before in its short life.
"Now, if that brings help, and if Nap gets a little action over the telephone, and if Jump and S. S. bring up the hose cart, we have a chance even yet. Where's Bonfire? And where's Specs?"
As if in answer to his name, Bonfire appeared, red-faced and breathless, holding a short two-by-four in his hand.
"Looked all over Peterson's woodshed for an ax, but couldn't find a thing except this. You can see the fire through the little stall window. It's just beginning to wake up. Didn't Specs find anything?"
"Specs! Isn't he with you?"
"With me? No!" Bonfire's eyes opened wide.
"He started with me. He was going to the Crawfords' and—let's see—he turned and—" Theboy stopped speaking. Fumbling the plank in his hand, he dropped it and then scooped it from the ground in a rush toward the door.
"Come on!" he shouted, attacking the barn in a wild burst of frenzy. "We've got to break in! We've got to! Specs is inside!"
Bunny caught him by the arm. "We can't break through here. It's solid. How do you know Specs is inside?"
The other Scout was quivering with excitement. "I know it. I looked through the stall window. There was a board loose in the floor, near the fire. I pointed it out to him. For a joke, I told him a thin fellow might crawl underneath the barn, pry it loose, and come up inside. And he's done it! We've got to get him out!"
The school bell still clanged at top speed. Far down the street, Bunny could see two men running. He fancied he could hear galloping hoofs and the rumble of the hose cart. But if Specs was wallowing in that smother of smoke, all this help would come too late. He pounded on the side of the barn with his futile fist.
"Specs! Specs!" he shouted.
Bi ground his fingers into his palms. "If he can only get to the door, he can open it, but—"
There was no answering sound from within.
Bonfire, who had disappeared, darted suddenly from one side of the barn.
"He's in there," he said. His face was white, and he spoke jerkily. "You can see his tracks. I crawled under. The board has been lifted up, but the blaze is all over the hole and I couldn't get through."
Something cried to be done. Something must be done. As Bunny tried to collect his thoughts, his eye glimpsed a tiny gap between the base of the door on the right and the top of the ramp. It stretched near the hinge side, high enough to take the end of a plank. With a shout of relief, he slapped the end of the board into the crevice. Using the two-by-four as a fulcrum, he began levering the door upward and outward.
"All together now! Smash that hinge!" he gulped, choking from a whiff of smoke that puffed into his face from the crack.
This command was unnecessary. Already the other two were throwing all their weight and strength on the long end of the lever.
"Hard! Everybody, hard!"
Came a creaking, groaning, splintering of the wood. It was the signal of the break to come. The Scouts were bracing for a last effort when, quite without warning or effort on their part, the bar stretched across the inside of the double door swung upward, the sides flew open, and out stumbled Specs. Himself, he had unloosed the holding bar and opened the doors.
"I'm all right!" he gagged. "Not burned! Get the car out quick! Leave me alone! I'll be O. K. in a minute, I tell you!" He staggered over to a plot of grass.
While Specs lay flung on the ground, blinking his smoke-reddened eyes and breathing heavily, the other three wheeled the car into the open just as the hose cart, carrying S. S. and Jump and a crew of four others, drew up at the hydrant.
"Prissler ran down the street and yelled 'Fire!' at the top of his voice," explained S. S. "That's how these men happened to know about it and run to the fire house. He—There he comes now, with another bunch he's roused."
Fortunately, except for a little scorched paint, the car was undamaged. As for the fire itself, within ten minutes the volunteer workers gathered by bell and telephone and little Prissler's Paul Revere race through the village had the flames changing into a welter of thick, white smoke. The barn had suffered, but it was not beyond repair.
"I got in all right," Specs explained to the boys, "and I had a wet handkerchief tied over my face, and I crawled along the floor as if I was looking for a needle, and I generally acted the way a fireman ought to act. I'd been all right, too, if I hadn't bumped my elbow and then stuck my head up to see what did it. I must have swallowed some smoke or something, because I had to lie quiet till I could get enoughstrength back to finish the job. That was when I heard you calling to me."
"But I thought you didn't care about saving Sheffield's car," teased Roundy, who had come back from his bell ringing.
"I don't!" Specs flared indignantly. "But if I hadn't tried to help, I'd have been breaking about half the Scout laws. Just the same," he added a little viciously, "I'm going to tell Royal Sheffield that I wish it had been somebody else's car."
At this characteristic fling, the Black Eagles rolled merrily on the grass, winding up in an informal pyramid, of which Specs was the bottom layer.
"Look here!" said Bunny, suddenly piling off. "We had better find out about that later train."
It was Nap, arriving on the scene from his telephoning, who capped this remark.
"I called up the station," he said. "That's what kept me. The team was gone. The second train—the one we thought we were going on—was taken off this week. There isn't another on the schedule that will get us to Belden in time for the baseball game!"
CHAPTER XVIITOUCH AND GOThe Black Eagle Patrol stared blankly at Nap."No train!" S. S. repeated dully."Not a sign of one." Nap had an irritating air of being pleased to act as bearer of bad news. "And the only possible automobile road on this side of the hills makes it a six-hour trip. That's why the Seftons started at seven this morning.""I suppose," suggested Jump, somewhat nettled, "I suppose you are going to say you're Waterlooed."Nap shook his head with a superior smile."If you remember—I mean, if you've ever read about that campaign of Napoleon's when he crossed the Alps—""No, I don't remember it and I never read about it," Bi said bluntly, "and I don't expect to read about it, either, unless some teacher makes me; but if you have an idea up your sleeve, shake it out.""What's the plan, Nap?" Bunny queried patiently."Just this." Nap hid his disappointment at being cut short. "The R. A. & S. railroad runs through Harrison City, and the station is only about a milefrom the other side of the lake. I have telephoned all over, and here's what I found out: There's a train over there, leaving Harrison City at 10:50. Of course, the R. A. & S. doesn't run to Belden, but you can get to Deerfield on it, where there is a bus line to Belden, sort of doubling back a ways, you see. If we make that 10:50 train, we'll be at the ball park by two o'clock."Bunny nodded. "Good work, Nap; that fixes us. Now, if Roundy can borrow the launch—"Roundy was sure he could."—we'll scoot across the lake, leave the boat at the yacht club there, hike the mile to the Harrison City station, and catch the train. Come on; we haven't any time to spare."It took only a few seconds to make sure that their services at the deceased fire were no longer needed, and that Royal Sheffield's automobile would be safely stowed in the garage on Main Street. Once assured on these points, the patrol struck out, at an alternate walk and trot they often practiced, by the shortest of short cuts to the boathouse.It was astonishing how well things went, so far as getting started was concerned. The boathouse key was hanging conveniently in its place; the launch's gasoline tank was filled to the brim; the engine started off as promptly as if it were accustomed to acting that way, instead of having what Roundy aptly called "cranky fits.""We'll make it in a walk," announced Nap, consulting his watch. "It's just 9:57 now. We'll cover those four miles of lake in thirty minutes. That's 10:27. Maybe we'll waste five minutes landing and getting the boat taken care of; that will bring it to 10:32. And if we can't cover the mile to Harrison City and get on the train in eighteen minutes more, we ought to turn in our Scout badges."The others nodded agreement."Somebody camping on Shadow Island," broke in Bonfire from his post of lookout in the bow of the boat."I don't see any smoke," Bi commented. "I don't see any tents, either. There's somebody standing on the shore, but there's a boat there, too. Chances are it's just a fisherman."Bonfire pointed to a little gap in a maple grove."Do you see that line of washing to the left, hung between those two trees? Did you ever hear of any fisherman who went over to Shadow Island to do his washing?""I'm licked," Bi admitted. "Who is it? Are you enough of a Sherlock Holmes to tell us from here?""I know who it is." S. S. joined the conversation. "It's two families from Harrison City, cousins of Marion Genevieve Chester. She told me so, and she's over there visiting them to-day."Specs snorted. "I guess it won't break her heart if we pass right by without calling on her. She hasabout as much to do with us as she has with a bunch of rattlesnakes, and that's not a whole lot.""She thinks we still dislike her for being president of the student association," Bunny observed mildly. "And she hasn't forgotten how Bi allowed her to get scared at Molly's picnic. She just thinks we haven't any use for her and wouldn't lift a finger to get her out of any trouble.""Marion Genevieve Chester! Wow, what a name!" mocked Specs.The laughter that followed was a little uncertain. Seating arrangements at school had made the girl, Bunny and S. S. all next door neighbors. To the surprise of these two Scouts, at least, they had found her snobbishness mainly the outcome of a solitary childhood, a thin veneer that was slowly but surely wearing off. Though her fancied superiority to the other pupils had not yet vanished, the give and take of school life was gradually rubbing it away.Smoothly, purringly, the launch clove its way toward the yacht club on the far side of the lake, while Shadow Island, the scene of Bunny's initiation into the Black Eagle Patrol,[2]dropped astern."On the home stretch and running like a watch," Roundy declared. "We'll have time to get there and play an inning of baseball before the train starts. We can—""Shipwreck ahead!"It was Bonfire's cry that brought the passengers of the boat to a sudden alertness."Tipped just now! Two of them in it! One of them stood up! There they are!"The little craft ahead was keel up, with two heads bobbing alongside and two arms hugging tightly the side. Faintly, the light breeze brought cries of distress."One of them's a girl!""They're both girls!""What are they hollering for? They're all right if they just hang on. They can see us coming.""You mean they're all right if they don't get panicky.""Turn the engine loose, Roundy."Roundy wiped a perspiring forehead. "The engine's doing all it can right now."Bunny gave rapid-fire directions. "Roundy, if there's any rescuing to do, you're the prize swimmer; so you'll do it. S. S., you handle the engine and the steering gear. Everybody else, stand ready to help. Bring our starboard up as close to the boat as you can and hold it there."Shoes and stockings kicked off, Roundy leaned over the side. "If they are all right, we can just pull them in; but if they are too scared, I'll jump in after them." He broke off to chuckle."What is it?""I'll eat my hat if the girl on the right isn't Marion Genevieve Chester!"There was an eager second of straining."It's Marion Genevieve, all right, and she's so scared she doesn't know her stylish name.""Bring us up close, S. S. Graze it if you can."No doubt remained that one of the two girls clinging to the upturned boat was Marion Genevieve Chester. But while her companion saved strength by holding quietly and allowing the water to support as much of her weight as possible, Marion Genevieve not only exhausted herself by screaming, but in addition wasted her muscle reserve by striving vainly to pull herself higher out of the water.The launch was now within twenty feet. It slowed down."Better be ready to go overboard, Roundy. Always the chance of an accident, you know."Bunny had hardly given the warning when, with a last frantic cry, the girl threw up two wild arms and splashed back into the water."Go over, Roundy!"Before her head could sink beneath the surface, the Scouts realized that something had happened to Roundy Magoon. Kicking wildly with his left leg, he had drawn back from the rail to the cockpit."Roundy!"Marion Genevieve's pale face, washed over by a tiny ripple, slipped beneath the water.Snarling as though a wild beast had attacked him, Roundy snatched at the coil of rope that Nap had accidentallykicked into his path. With his fingers, he tore at the hemp line that had snarled about his ankle.The girl was above water again, coughing and spluttering and groping for some tangible support."Roundy!"And then, quite without command or plan, the balance of the Black Eagle Patrol, plus little Prissler, took his place.Bunny was over first, with Bi, Jump and Specs close seconds. Nap followed, hard pressed by Bonfire. Then S. S. and Prissler, and, last of all, the freed Roundy.Swiftly, surely, they cut their way to the helpless girl, with Bunny in the lead. Catching her dress near the back of her neck, he held her face clear of the water till, by clasping both hands under her chin, he was able to swim slowly on his back and tow her to safety.Jump and Nap swam alongside; Bonfire was lending a hand to the other shipwrecked miss; Prissler, who was obviously not as much at home in the water as the others, wisely put back for the launch; while S. S., ploughing through the water like a fish, was already clambering aboard, ready to start the engine. Bi, Roundy and Specs joined forces in towing the upturned craft toward the power boat.The rest was comparatively simple. The Scouts made no work at all of climbing back into the launch; and, with feet well braced, Bi and Specs easily liftedthe two girls over the side. Marion Genevieve sank down on the leather cushions, weak and faint, though frightened rather than harmed. The other girl, who introduced herself as Marion Genevieve's cousin, was able to laugh good-naturedly."We stood up in the boat," she said, "because we wanted to change seats. And—well, that's all!""It may be all as far as you are concerned," thought more than one Scout, "but we're going somewhere in a hurry, and now we'll have to take you back to Shadow Island and tow that capsized boat, to boot."But nobody was impolite enough to say this aloud.Whatever Bunny wished to do, it was plain that he had no choice in the matter. Though Marion Genevieve was not dangerously ill or faint, she kept up a moaning for her mother that could not be disregarded. Roundy, still a little disgruntled over his mishap, turned to the patrol leader, who nodded toward Shadow Island. With a line fast to the swamped boat, the launch engine started and they began to move slowly toward the shore line. It seemed to every boy that hours were being wasted, but nobody complained.Not till she was once more on dry land did Marion Genevieve seem to come fully to herself. Then, while her relatives were still trying to thank the patrol, she suddenly remarked, "Why—whyallof you are wet!""Couldn't help it," said the cheerful Specs. "We all dove off the boat and forgot to take our umbrellas."There were several emotions trying to express themselves on Marion Genevieve's face, but all she managed to say was, "I—I thank you—all of you! I'm very, very grateful.""Oh, that's all right, Marion Genevieve," Specs laughed.The girl's glance wavered. She picked at her wet dress. "I—Please!" she said imploringly. And then it came out, as if it wrenched her very soul. "My name isn't Marion Genevieve," she told them. "It's Mary; my middle name is Jennie. I was called after two aunts of mine."She was staring straight at Bunny now. He felt his cheeks redden. It was a hard position in which to put a fellow, he told himself, and probably he'd say the wrong thing. But when he spoke, it was honestly and naturally."I think Mary is a nice name," he said.The girl's low "Thank you!" meant a good deal more to the Scouts than they were able to understand just then. Afterward, Specs tried to put it into words."She said it," he told the others, "as if she was sorry she had been so—so snippish to us, and as if she wanted us to forget and make up and—and everything. I'll bet you Mary's going to be a regular girl after this. I like her about twice as much as I ever did before."But this was afterward. At the moment, the Scouts merely nodded in an embarrassed manner and set aboutthe task of shoving the launch into deep water, despite an almost irresistible appeal from the campers to wait for a treat of strawberries and cake and lemonade."Well," remarked Roundy, when Shadow Island once more lay astern, "I'm glad we were there when we were needed. Just the same, I'm afraid we've lost out. I'll talk to the engine, but we can't go any faster than just so fast.""There's time yet," Bunny insisted; "there must be time yet."Far and faint across the two-mile stretch of water came the sound of a bell. It pealed from the tower of Harrison City's big church: four chimes—half-past ten.Two miles of water and a mile of land to cover in twenty minutes! The Scouts looked despairingly at the steadily throbbing engine."It can't be done!" muttered Roundy. "It can't be done!"FOOTNOTE:[2]See "The Boy Scouts of Black Eagle Patrol."
TOUCH AND GO
The Black Eagle Patrol stared blankly at Nap.
"No train!" S. S. repeated dully.
"Not a sign of one." Nap had an irritating air of being pleased to act as bearer of bad news. "And the only possible automobile road on this side of the hills makes it a six-hour trip. That's why the Seftons started at seven this morning."
"I suppose," suggested Jump, somewhat nettled, "I suppose you are going to say you're Waterlooed."
Nap shook his head with a superior smile.
"If you remember—I mean, if you've ever read about that campaign of Napoleon's when he crossed the Alps—"
"No, I don't remember it and I never read about it," Bi said bluntly, "and I don't expect to read about it, either, unless some teacher makes me; but if you have an idea up your sleeve, shake it out."
"What's the plan, Nap?" Bunny queried patiently.
"Just this." Nap hid his disappointment at being cut short. "The R. A. & S. railroad runs through Harrison City, and the station is only about a milefrom the other side of the lake. I have telephoned all over, and here's what I found out: There's a train over there, leaving Harrison City at 10:50. Of course, the R. A. & S. doesn't run to Belden, but you can get to Deerfield on it, where there is a bus line to Belden, sort of doubling back a ways, you see. If we make that 10:50 train, we'll be at the ball park by two o'clock."
Bunny nodded. "Good work, Nap; that fixes us. Now, if Roundy can borrow the launch—"
Roundy was sure he could.
"—we'll scoot across the lake, leave the boat at the yacht club there, hike the mile to the Harrison City station, and catch the train. Come on; we haven't any time to spare."
It took only a few seconds to make sure that their services at the deceased fire were no longer needed, and that Royal Sheffield's automobile would be safely stowed in the garage on Main Street. Once assured on these points, the patrol struck out, at an alternate walk and trot they often practiced, by the shortest of short cuts to the boathouse.
It was astonishing how well things went, so far as getting started was concerned. The boathouse key was hanging conveniently in its place; the launch's gasoline tank was filled to the brim; the engine started off as promptly as if it were accustomed to acting that way, instead of having what Roundy aptly called "cranky fits."
"We'll make it in a walk," announced Nap, consulting his watch. "It's just 9:57 now. We'll cover those four miles of lake in thirty minutes. That's 10:27. Maybe we'll waste five minutes landing and getting the boat taken care of; that will bring it to 10:32. And if we can't cover the mile to Harrison City and get on the train in eighteen minutes more, we ought to turn in our Scout badges."
The others nodded agreement.
"Somebody camping on Shadow Island," broke in Bonfire from his post of lookout in the bow of the boat.
"I don't see any smoke," Bi commented. "I don't see any tents, either. There's somebody standing on the shore, but there's a boat there, too. Chances are it's just a fisherman."
Bonfire pointed to a little gap in a maple grove.
"Do you see that line of washing to the left, hung between those two trees? Did you ever hear of any fisherman who went over to Shadow Island to do his washing?"
"I'm licked," Bi admitted. "Who is it? Are you enough of a Sherlock Holmes to tell us from here?"
"I know who it is." S. S. joined the conversation. "It's two families from Harrison City, cousins of Marion Genevieve Chester. She told me so, and she's over there visiting them to-day."
Specs snorted. "I guess it won't break her heart if we pass right by without calling on her. She hasabout as much to do with us as she has with a bunch of rattlesnakes, and that's not a whole lot."
"She thinks we still dislike her for being president of the student association," Bunny observed mildly. "And she hasn't forgotten how Bi allowed her to get scared at Molly's picnic. She just thinks we haven't any use for her and wouldn't lift a finger to get her out of any trouble."
"Marion Genevieve Chester! Wow, what a name!" mocked Specs.
The laughter that followed was a little uncertain. Seating arrangements at school had made the girl, Bunny and S. S. all next door neighbors. To the surprise of these two Scouts, at least, they had found her snobbishness mainly the outcome of a solitary childhood, a thin veneer that was slowly but surely wearing off. Though her fancied superiority to the other pupils had not yet vanished, the give and take of school life was gradually rubbing it away.
Smoothly, purringly, the launch clove its way toward the yacht club on the far side of the lake, while Shadow Island, the scene of Bunny's initiation into the Black Eagle Patrol,[2]dropped astern.
"On the home stretch and running like a watch," Roundy declared. "We'll have time to get there and play an inning of baseball before the train starts. We can—"
"Shipwreck ahead!"
It was Bonfire's cry that brought the passengers of the boat to a sudden alertness.
"Tipped just now! Two of them in it! One of them stood up! There they are!"
The little craft ahead was keel up, with two heads bobbing alongside and two arms hugging tightly the side. Faintly, the light breeze brought cries of distress.
"One of them's a girl!"
"They're both girls!"
"What are they hollering for? They're all right if they just hang on. They can see us coming."
"You mean they're all right if they don't get panicky."
"Turn the engine loose, Roundy."
Roundy wiped a perspiring forehead. "The engine's doing all it can right now."
Bunny gave rapid-fire directions. "Roundy, if there's any rescuing to do, you're the prize swimmer; so you'll do it. S. S., you handle the engine and the steering gear. Everybody else, stand ready to help. Bring our starboard up as close to the boat as you can and hold it there."
Shoes and stockings kicked off, Roundy leaned over the side. "If they are all right, we can just pull them in; but if they are too scared, I'll jump in after them." He broke off to chuckle.
"What is it?"
"I'll eat my hat if the girl on the right isn't Marion Genevieve Chester!"
There was an eager second of straining.
"It's Marion Genevieve, all right, and she's so scared she doesn't know her stylish name."
"Bring us up close, S. S. Graze it if you can."
No doubt remained that one of the two girls clinging to the upturned boat was Marion Genevieve Chester. But while her companion saved strength by holding quietly and allowing the water to support as much of her weight as possible, Marion Genevieve not only exhausted herself by screaming, but in addition wasted her muscle reserve by striving vainly to pull herself higher out of the water.
The launch was now within twenty feet. It slowed down.
"Better be ready to go overboard, Roundy. Always the chance of an accident, you know."
Bunny had hardly given the warning when, with a last frantic cry, the girl threw up two wild arms and splashed back into the water.
"Go over, Roundy!"
Before her head could sink beneath the surface, the Scouts realized that something had happened to Roundy Magoon. Kicking wildly with his left leg, he had drawn back from the rail to the cockpit.
"Roundy!"
Marion Genevieve's pale face, washed over by a tiny ripple, slipped beneath the water.
Snarling as though a wild beast had attacked him, Roundy snatched at the coil of rope that Nap had accidentallykicked into his path. With his fingers, he tore at the hemp line that had snarled about his ankle.
The girl was above water again, coughing and spluttering and groping for some tangible support.
"Roundy!"
And then, quite without command or plan, the balance of the Black Eagle Patrol, plus little Prissler, took his place.
Bunny was over first, with Bi, Jump and Specs close seconds. Nap followed, hard pressed by Bonfire. Then S. S. and Prissler, and, last of all, the freed Roundy.
Swiftly, surely, they cut their way to the helpless girl, with Bunny in the lead. Catching her dress near the back of her neck, he held her face clear of the water till, by clasping both hands under her chin, he was able to swim slowly on his back and tow her to safety.
Jump and Nap swam alongside; Bonfire was lending a hand to the other shipwrecked miss; Prissler, who was obviously not as much at home in the water as the others, wisely put back for the launch; while S. S., ploughing through the water like a fish, was already clambering aboard, ready to start the engine. Bi, Roundy and Specs joined forces in towing the upturned craft toward the power boat.
The rest was comparatively simple. The Scouts made no work at all of climbing back into the launch; and, with feet well braced, Bi and Specs easily liftedthe two girls over the side. Marion Genevieve sank down on the leather cushions, weak and faint, though frightened rather than harmed. The other girl, who introduced herself as Marion Genevieve's cousin, was able to laugh good-naturedly.
"We stood up in the boat," she said, "because we wanted to change seats. And—well, that's all!"
"It may be all as far as you are concerned," thought more than one Scout, "but we're going somewhere in a hurry, and now we'll have to take you back to Shadow Island and tow that capsized boat, to boot."
But nobody was impolite enough to say this aloud.
Whatever Bunny wished to do, it was plain that he had no choice in the matter. Though Marion Genevieve was not dangerously ill or faint, she kept up a moaning for her mother that could not be disregarded. Roundy, still a little disgruntled over his mishap, turned to the patrol leader, who nodded toward Shadow Island. With a line fast to the swamped boat, the launch engine started and they began to move slowly toward the shore line. It seemed to every boy that hours were being wasted, but nobody complained.
Not till she was once more on dry land did Marion Genevieve seem to come fully to herself. Then, while her relatives were still trying to thank the patrol, she suddenly remarked, "Why—whyallof you are wet!"
"Couldn't help it," said the cheerful Specs. "We all dove off the boat and forgot to take our umbrellas."
There were several emotions trying to express themselves on Marion Genevieve's face, but all she managed to say was, "I—I thank you—all of you! I'm very, very grateful."
"Oh, that's all right, Marion Genevieve," Specs laughed.
The girl's glance wavered. She picked at her wet dress. "I—Please!" she said imploringly. And then it came out, as if it wrenched her very soul. "My name isn't Marion Genevieve," she told them. "It's Mary; my middle name is Jennie. I was called after two aunts of mine."
She was staring straight at Bunny now. He felt his cheeks redden. It was a hard position in which to put a fellow, he told himself, and probably he'd say the wrong thing. But when he spoke, it was honestly and naturally.
"I think Mary is a nice name," he said.
The girl's low "Thank you!" meant a good deal more to the Scouts than they were able to understand just then. Afterward, Specs tried to put it into words.
"She said it," he told the others, "as if she was sorry she had been so—so snippish to us, and as if she wanted us to forget and make up and—and everything. I'll bet you Mary's going to be a regular girl after this. I like her about twice as much as I ever did before."
But this was afterward. At the moment, the Scouts merely nodded in an embarrassed manner and set aboutthe task of shoving the launch into deep water, despite an almost irresistible appeal from the campers to wait for a treat of strawberries and cake and lemonade.
"Well," remarked Roundy, when Shadow Island once more lay astern, "I'm glad we were there when we were needed. Just the same, I'm afraid we've lost out. I'll talk to the engine, but we can't go any faster than just so fast."
"There's time yet," Bunny insisted; "there must be time yet."
Far and faint across the two-mile stretch of water came the sound of a bell. It pealed from the tower of Harrison City's big church: four chimes—half-past ten.
Two miles of water and a mile of land to cover in twenty minutes! The Scouts looked despairingly at the steadily throbbing engine.
"It can't be done!" muttered Roundy. "It can't be done!"
FOOTNOTE:[2]See "The Boy Scouts of Black Eagle Patrol."
FOOTNOTE:
[2]See "The Boy Scouts of Black Eagle Patrol."
[2]See "The Boy Scouts of Black Eagle Patrol."