I
Nanother moment the fleeing one had darted around the corner.
Five members of Dick & Co., angry all the way through, were the first to reach that corner.
"There he goes, down the alley-way to the livery stable!" roared Dave Darrin. "After him, fellows!"
But by the time that the five reached the stableyard the fugitive was out of sight. Men hurried up, and a quick search was made of the neighborhood. It was soon certain, however, that the fellow had made good use of his time and had gotten away. Two policemen who were among the latest arrivals on the scene gave it as their opinion that further chase would be worse than useless.
So Dick's chums turned back, to see how their leader had fared.
Dr. Bentley was leaning over the boy, who, white and lifeless, lay at the edge of the sidewalk.
"Take him to the drug store, doctor," urged one of the women.
"He'll revive quicker in the open air, madam," answered the physician.
"Is young Prescott very badly hurt?"
"I can't tell yet," said Dr. Bentley. "There doesn't seem to be any fracture of the bone at the point where he was struck. And the back of his head seems to be sound and whole. I think Master Dick is simply stunned."
Dr. Bentley stepped over to his auto, took out a drug case and selected a vial from it.
"Get me a glass of water, someone, and promptly," he directed.
The water was quickly brought. After pouring a few drops from the vial into it, the medicalman supported Dick's head and poured some of the stuff into his mouth.
After a short time Dick opened his eyes.
"Wh-what kicked me?" he asked slowly.
"The fist of that gentleman with soap-made fits," replied the physician dryly. "Take a few deep breaths, Prescott. Now, a little more from the glass. Breathe hard again. There, do you feel as though you'd like to get on your feet?"
"Certainly," Dick replied.
Dr. Bentley helped him to his feet, supporting him and urging him to try to walk a little. At about this time Dave and the others returned at a trot.
"Dick, I guess you saved some of us from losing more in the way of valuables," smiled the medical man grimly. "For one, I'm ashamed of myself. A man who has been practising medicine more than twenty years should know too much to be taken in by sham fits on the part of a thief who plays his trick in order to rob a crowd of Christmas shoppers."
"You think he meant to rob us, then, doctor?" pressed a woman in the crowd.
"That fellow certainly did mean to do it," replied Dr. Bentley with emphasis. "It's an old trick in a crowd—this sort of sham sickness."
"And he got all my Christmas money—every cent of it—and carried it off with him!" wailedone woman, who looked as though she could not afford to lose much money.
"He snatched my locket with the diamond in it!" vengefully exclaimed another woman, exhibiting the broken ends of a neck chain.
"My purse is gone. I had forty-two dollars in it."
"I didn't get off very lightly, ladies," replied Dr. Bentley. "My scarf pin wasn't so extremely valuable, but I feel badly about the watch, and I shall feel worse when I realize its loss more fully. That was my father's watch, and I valued it above money."
"The police ought to catch that scoundrel," declared one of the women losers.
"Of course they ought," cried another. "If they don't catch the thief what good are the police, anyway?"
"I don't care much about their finding him, unless they also find my forty-two dollars on him," mournfully proclaimed another of the losers.
"I am sorry for you, ladies. I don't deserve any sympathy, or very little, for myself. Well, as the scoundrel has gotten away, and as young Prescott is growing stronger, I shall go on my way to other patients who need me."
Dick was still rather dizzy and weak, but Dave's right arm supported him.
"Does your head ache?" inquired Greg.
"Guess," advised Dick dryly.
As the two policemen had given up looking for the fugitive, and had gone back to their posts, the crowd was melting. It was nearly noon, and most people on the streets were moving homeward.
"Guess you won't have a large appetite for the coming meal," observed Tom Reade to Dick. "Whew! What a crack that sounded like when the scoundrel struck you! It must have jarred away some of your appetite."
"I can't tell about that until I try to eat," Dick answered.
"No matter whether you eat much or not, but you want to be sure to ask your mother for two cups of strong coffee with your dinner," advised Darrin, with all the readiness of the amateur physician.
"I guess I'll go home, fellows," announced Dick, as the noon whistles blew. "I advise the rest of you to hustle, too. Remember what you've got to spring on your fathers when you get home. We want to have the whole thing settled when we meet this afternoon. Try to put it through, all of you, won't you?"
"I'm going to see you as far as your door, Dick, old fellow," Dave insisted.
"Oh, I'll be feeling fine in another hour," Dickprotested. "It just knocked my senses for a minute or two."
Shortly after one o'clock the chums gathered again on Main Street. Dick now looked as keen as ever, and his eyes were shining.
"It's all settled for me," he announced. "I can go camping."
"So can I," Dave reported with satisfaction.
"Dad almost as good as said I could go," Tom declared. "He'll agree to it by to-night."
"How about you, Dan?" queried Dick.
"I can go—not," groaned Dalzell.
"I hope to go," announced Greg. "All I could get out of my father was that he was in a rush, but that he'd talk it over with me to-morrow and let me know what he had to say."
Hazelton admitted that he was in the same plight, as to a delayed decision, but he did not speak as though he were very hopeful of being permitted to go.
"It'll just be a shame if we can't all go," Dave declared seriously. "It won't be a quarter as much fun unless we have the whole crowd."
"Say, watch that slim, well-dressed fellow with the brown derby," whispered Hazelton. "See him coming along behind the two women. I'm sure I saw him, earlier this morning, talking with the same fit-thrower that bumped Dick."
"Humph! So did I," muttered Dick. "I remember. This slim fellow was with a short, thick-set man with a black moustache."
"Right!" nodded Harry.
"They must all be members of the same gang of thieves, then," flashed Dick. "I've read in the newspapers that the thieves who work the Christmas trade generally go in gangs. By crackey! Did you see that?"
"Yes!" muttered Tom Reade excitedly.
"What?" questioned Greg.
"Why," explained Dick, "Mr. Slim put his hand in a woman's skirt pocket. He slipped a wallet from her pocket to his."
"That's what he did," nodded Tom.
"Come along," urged Dick. "We'll see if we can come across a policeman before Mr. Slim gets all the money in the town."
Falling in by twos the Grammar School boys, full of excitement, trailed after the slim, neatly dressed thief.
Two blocks lower down the boys ran across Policeman Whalen, who, in citizen's clothes, had been turned out to watch for thieves.
In an undertone Dick called attention to the slim fellow, who was still moving along in the moving crowds of shopping women. Whalen cautiously took up the trail, while Dick & Co. fell back somewhat.
Two minutes later Whalen made a sudden leap forward, seizing the suspected young man by the coat collar.
"Stand by, till I shake ye down!" roared the policeman, thrashing the thief about until the slim one's teeth chattered. A small morocco purse fell to the sidewalk.
"Why, that's mine!" cried a woman.
"I know it, ma'am. I saw this spalpeen take it from your pocket," nodded Policeman Whalen. "Come along with me, lad! And ye come, too, ma'am, and claim your pocketbook."
"Oh, I'm so glad you saw him do it," quivered the young woman, her face white from the shock caused by the thought of losing her Christmas money.
"I wouldn't have seen him do it," admitted Whalen honestly, "only Dick Prescott called my attention to the spalpeen."
The prisoner, who realized that he could not twist himself away from the strong clutch of the policeman, scowled at Dick as the young woman thanked him.
A crowd formed in an instant, but Whalen broke up the excitement by starting promptly along with his captive.
Dick & Co. turned and followed a little way. The crowd that kept in the wake of the policeman was soon a dense one.
"You'll be sorry for this, youngster!" growled a low, angry voice just behind Dick.
Like a flash Prescott wheeled. It was not plain, however, who, in all that throng, had spoken to him. But Dick's roving gaze soon made out, several yards away, a man in brown, wearing a gray overcoat. The fellow was marching along with the throng as though he, too, were an idle spectator.
"That's the fit-thrower's other friend," flashed through Dick's mind. "He must have been the fellow who spoke behind me just now, too."
"Oh, let's not go any further," proposed Tom Reade. "We've seen folks arrested before this."
"Come along," said Dick shortly, not caring to explain his reasons just at this moment.
So the chums kept on in the wake of the crowd. A block further on a uniformed policeman stepped forward to have a look at Whalen's prisoner.
"Moll-buzzer," explained Policeman Whalen briefly to his brother of the force. A "moll-buzzer" is a thief who robs women in crowds.
The uniformed policeman fell back and the crowd moved forward, but Dick seized the second policeman's coat sleeve.
"There's another of the gang," whisperedDick, pointing to the black-moustached man in the gray overcoat.
"Are you sure?" demanded officer number two.
"Positive," whispered Dick. "At least, we saw them talking together early this morning."
At this moment the man in the gray overcoat turned. He saw Dick and the policeman talking in low tones. Without waiting an instant the man in the gray overcoat darted forward, trying to break through the crowd.
"Grab him!" shouted the policeman.
Three or four men moved closer to obey.
"Look out!" yelled some one frantically. "He's got a pistol."
The citizen helpers drew away quickly at that information, but the delay had been enough to enable the policeman to close in on his man. With his locust stick the officer struck down the pistol hand and snatched away the weapon. An instant later two prisoners were marching toward the police station, the second one having been taken only on suspicion.
"Bully for you, Dick Prescott!" cried Grocer Smith, laying a heavy but approving hand across Dick's shoulders.
"Oh, we all recognized the pair," Prescott answered modestly. "They were together this morning, and the fit-thrower was with them."
"You boys will be sorry for making unfounded charges of this sort," called back the black-moustached prisoner angrily. "Wait and see if you're not."
"Cut out the gloom, man!" ordered the uniformed policeman, giving his captive a twist that hurt. "Don't be trying to frighten small boys."
At the station house the crowd hung about outside.
"Going inside, Dick!" asked Dave eagerly.
"No one has asked us to. I guess we'd better wait out here unless we're invited inside."
The young woman, whose pocketbook had been taken, went inside. She identified her property and made a charge against the pick-pocket. Both prisoners again heard the name of Dick Prescott mentioned.
The crowd melted after a little. Later the two prisoners were taken before Justice Lee. Mr. Slim was sent away for six months on the charge of pocket picking. The thick set captive in the gray overcoat, because he could not give a good account of himself, was sentenced to ninety days in the workhouse for vagrancy. Police and court were determined to do all in their power to protect the Christmas shoppers.
"Now, as to our camping plans," Dick resumed, a little later in the afternoon. "Youfellows who aren't yet sure that you can get leave to go, will have to keep right on the trail until that permission is given. You can say that some of us are going, and that may help you some at home."
"It may help the rest," suggested Dan Dalzell mournfully, "but nothing will do me any good. I'm dished. No camping out in winter is going to come my way."
"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure," urged Dick. "But, at least, you can be sure you won't go if you don't try some more coaxing."
"Say, you come and do the coaxing yourself to-night, when dad is home," begged Dan.
"I will, if you think it will do any good, Danny," Prescott agreed.
"At any rate, your little speech can't put the matter any further back than it stands right now," Dalzell declared. "And, oh, dear! I do want so badly to go with you fellows! I never wanted anything as much before."
"Say, we'll all go together, early this evening," proposed Dick, his eyes now snapping. "We'll call in a body at the house of each fellow who hasn't yet secured leave to go on the winter camping party. We will all present the case. Perhaps we can put it through for the whole six. If we can't all go there won't be nearly as much fun."
Very soon, indeed, after supper, Dick & Co. were all assembled once more.
"You won't need to go to my house," Tom explained triumphantly. "My father says I can go and he has brought mother around to agree to it."
"Whose house shall we go to first, then?" asked Dick.
"Come to mine," begged Dan woefully.
So to the Dalzell home they went. The boys pleaded their case both with Mr. and Mrs. Dalzell. Neither parent, however, would do more than say that "they would see."
At Greg Holmes's house victory was quickly won, and Greg was happy. Next Dick & Co. went in force to Harry Hazelton's home, where the coaxing was renewed.
"I want to sleep over this scheme, Harry," said Mr. Hazelton finally, "and I think your mother does, too. We don't want to see you miss any good times that you really ought to have, so I think, if the rest are going, we shall probably decide to let you go, too. But I won't say 'yes' to-night. I'll wait and see how the idea strikes me to-morrow."
"Oh, I guess you're fixed, all right, Harry," grunted Dan when the Grammar School boys had filed out of the Hazelton house. "But—oh, poor me!"
"And now, see here, fellows, we want to get around into the stores before we lose any more time," suggested Dick. "We don't want to forget that each fellow is to spend half his money in buying the best present he can get for his mother."
"Do you think it will pay—in my case?" asked Dan dolefully.
"Shame on you, Danny boy!" growled Dave Darrin, giving Dalzell a sturdy shaking.
"Was there ever a time that it didn't pay a fellow to remember his mother whenever he had a chance?" demanded Dick. "If my mother had said 'no' and had stuck to it, I'd be mighty glad over being able to get her a solid Christmas present just the same."
Within another hour the presents had been bought, the crowd sticking together and giving collective advice for the benefit of each individual.
Then Dick went home. Instead of passing through the store, where both his parents were, he took out his key and made for the door that admitted to the living rooms above. Over the knob was tacked a piece of paper. Dick took it off and carried it upstairs with him, where, in the light of the parlor, he read this message, in scrawling print:
"Wait and see if you ain't sorry!"
"This must be from the fit-thrower!" thought young Prescott, with an inward jump.
He was soon to know.
T
HROUGHthe night Dick slept as only an active, tired out boy can sleep. If he woke once he had no recollection of it in the morning.
This, too, despite the fact that it was Christmas, and he had all of a boy's natural desire to know what the day was to bring him.
Rat-tat-tat! sounded Mrs. Prescott's soft fist on Dick's bedroom door that morning.
"Wake up, son!" Mrs. Prescott called for the second time.
"I—I'm awake," gasped Dick sleepily.
"Get up, then, son. Have you forgotten that this is Christmas?"
"No'm; I haven't." Dick's feet struck the floor heavily, and he reached out for his clothing. "Merry Christmas, mother! Is dad there?"
"He's out in the kitchen, raking the fire. Don't you hear him?"
"Yes'm. Say, mother, have you seen your presents yet?"
"I found a handsome gold chain from your father on my bureau."
"Was that all you found?"
"Yes."
"Where did you look?" chuckled Dick.
"Why, on the parlor table, as usual, to be sure."
"Better look again, mother," laughed Dick.
By this time he was nearly dressed. He heard Mrs. Prescott going back into the parlor.
"I don't find anything else here for me," Mrs. Prescott called back in a puzzled voice.
"Mother, at this rate, you'll soon be needing specs," called Dick, throwing open his bedroom door and looking out.
"But I don't see anything else for me, Richard," insisted his mother, as the boy entered the parlor.
"Look again, mother. Surely, you——"
Then Dick halted suddenly, staring hard at the table, and at the mantel beyond.
"Why, I left——" he began, and then looked more puzzled. At last he grinned as the solution of the mystery came into his mind.
"It's just one of dad's jokes," he laughed. "Or else dad forgot. I gave it to him last night, to lay on the table after you had gone to bed. You see, mother, this is the first Christmas that I have had money of my own with which to buyyou something really nice. I'll ask dad where it is."
"Who's taking my name in vain?" called Mr. Prescott, as he came through the hallway and looked in the parlor. "Merry Christmas, Dick."
"Same to you, sir. But, say, what happened to that little package I handed you for mother?"
"I put it on the table before retiring last night," replied Mr. Prescott. "It must be there—but it isn't, is it?"
"Honest, now, dad, this isn't a joke, is it?"
"Not on my part, anyway," replied the elder Prescott rather blankly.
"Now, I suppose that you're both playing a little joke on me, trying to make me curious and impatient," laughed Dick's mother.
"But where is the package?" demanded Dick, exploring all around. His father lent a helping hand in the search.
"Oh, never mind, Dick, dear," urged his mother. "My surprise is bound to turn up. It couldn't have walked out of these rooms. Look at your own package, my boy."
Dick turned to glance eagerly at a not very large box, against which rested a card bearing his own name. He saw, at a glance, that the box bore the imprint of one of the Gridley jewelers.
"I can guess!" cried Dick. "I know what's in the box!"
"Suppose you made a wrong guess?" laughed his mother teasingly. "Better open it and make sure."
Dick picked up the box with trembling fingers.
"Mighty light, whatever it is," he murmured. Then he took off the cover.
"What's this?" choked Dick. "O-o-o-h!"
For all he saw resting in the box was a slip of white paper on which had been poorly printed, in lead pencil, the words:
"Merry Christmas, Master Butt-in!"
"Some of Dad's fooling," laughed Dick a moment later.
"Not much it isn't," retorted Mr. Prescott, taking a quick step forward. "Let me see that paper."
Dick handed it over, and his father read the words.
"What on earth does this mean?" he demanded. "What we put in that box was your first watch, Dick. A silver-cased watch and a very neat gold-plated chain."
One look at his father and a swift glance at his mother convinced the boy that they had not been parties to any joke. Yet where were the watch and chain?
"Who could have left this slip of paper here?" asked Mrs. Prescott.
"Hardly any one outside of the family," replied Mr. Prescott. "I don't understand this at all."
"And mother's gift, too?" pondered Dick aloud, growing more puzzled every instant.
"Well, certainly no one else has been in this flat," went on Mrs. Prescott.
But Dick flew first to one parlor window, and then to the other. Next he crossed the parlor in two bounds, dashing to his bedroom. He came back, holding the slip of paper he had taken from the outer door the night before.
"The two slips look as though they had been printed by the same fellow, don't they?" inquired the boy.
"Yes," nodded Mr. Prescott. Dick told him about finding the other slip on the door the evening before.
"But who could play such a mean trick?" insisted Mrs. Prescott.
"The fit-thrower, very likely," Dick answered.
"The fit—what?"
Then Dick hastily recalled to them his adventures of the day before.
"And one parlor window is fastened," Dick went on. "The other has its catch slipped. The fit-thrower must have climbed up in the night, slipped the catch with a thin blade and prowled around in here just to spoil our Christmas."
"It looks that way," nodded Mr. Prescott slowly, his usually calm eyes filled with disappointment. Then he added, to his wife: "My dear, I'm very glad, indeed, that I placed your chain on your bureau last night, instead of leaving it here on the parlor table."
"And poor Dick doesn't get any present!" cried Mrs. Prescott, her eyes filling a bit. "O Dick, this year we thought we'd please you more by putting all the money we could spare into one present, so we got your watch and chain that you've wanted for so long. It's—it's too, too bad!"
Mrs. Prescott, though seldom given to tears, now sank to the sofa, pulled out her handkerchief and gave brief vent to her own great disappointment.
"Never mind, mother; it may turn up all right yet," urged Dick soothingly, as he rested one arm around her waist. "But if Mr. Fits really did break in here and take your present, then I feel as though I'd enjoy trailing him to the end of the earth and seeing him shoved away behind strong bars!"
"It seems almost fantastic," declared Mr. Prescott, "but I'm afraid, Dick, that the scoundrel you've told us about really did break in here on purpose to spoil your Christmas. If he didn't come in person he must have sent someone."
"Oh, well, anyway," protested Dick, trying to stifle his disappointment, both on his mother's account and his own, "probably we'll all live to see more Christmases. But, mother, I'm awfully sorry about the loss of your gift. Dad thought, too, that I had made a fine choice."
"Indeed you did, young man," remarked Mr. Prescott. "You know, my dear, that the last time you went to the opera house it was a gala occasion, and you regretted that you didn't have a really nice fan to carry? Dick remembered that, and he got you a fan. It was a handsome one. I didn't believe that a young boy could have as much taste as our son displayed in choosing that fan. And now—it isn't here!"
Then each tried to cheer the other up, but despite their best efforts it started in as a gloomy Christmas morning. The Prescotts, while not by any means poverty stricken, were yet in very moderate circumstances. Dick knew well enough that his parents would not be able to duplicate his much-wanted Christmas gift, and that he would have to wait until some dim time in the future before he could hope to carry a watch of his own.
So all three went out to the breakfast table. Dick, to do him justice, thought more of his mother's loss than of his own.
"Are you going to the police about this, mydear?" Mrs. Prescott asked her husband presently.
"I could," the elder Prescott replied, "but I don't imagine it would do much good. The stuff that has been taken isn't likely to be restored to us. I doubt if the police would think it even worth any effort. It isn't an important robbery, as crime goes. It was just a little trick of revenge."
"Mr. Fits is revenged all right, then," admitted Dick, with a bitter smile. "Oh, I only hope that I get a fair chance to pay him back one of these near days! But, at any rate, my Christmas isn't going to be spoiled. You have already agreed to my going away on the camping trip to-morrow, and that is going to be more fun for me than two Christmases."
"I'm glad you're looking forward so to enjoying your vacation in the forest," smiled Mrs. Prescott. "It does seem fortunate that you have such a treat at hand to repay you for your disappointment."
Suddenly Dick looked blank for an instant. Laying down his knife he employed his right hand in making a frantic thrust into one of his trousers' pockets. Then he fished up a banknote.
"Thank goodness that is all right," he gasped. "Mr. Fits didn't think to look for that. It'smy five dollars left out of Mrs. Dexter's present, and is the money that I'm going to pay my share of the camp expenses with. But, on second thought, I believe I'll drop out of that camping scheme."
"Why?" asked Mr. Prescott, in a rather sharp, queer voice.
"Because this five dollars will fool Mr. Fits in another way. I can go to-morrow and get mother another fan like the first one."
Mr. Prescott's eyes flashed proudly for a moment as he answered, a bit huskily.
"You could do that, of course, young man, but your mother would never forgive you for cheating yourself out of the one pleasure you want most."
"Sometimes," spoke Dick gravely, "there's more fun in doing without a pleasure, when you can find another that is worth more to you."
The tears stood in Mrs. Prescott's eyes. She rose and dropped both arms around her boy.
"If we absolutely needed your money, Dick," she said, "I know how cheerfully you would do without your pleasure for our sakes. But this is a case where your going camping will be worth more to us all than anything else that five dollars would buy. Besides, think how disappointed your friends would be over not having their leader."
"I appreciate your mother's feelings so much, lad," went on Mr. Prescott, "that I forbid you to spend your remaining money on anything for your mother. She has had her greatest happiness in knowing that you spent half of the first considerable sum of money you ever had in buying something for her. That is as far as you can go. Illness alone preventing, Dick, you'll go camping, and you'll pay your full share into the camping fund. Besides, I'm glad to say that the indications are that a much better business year is coming, and that probably we'll soon be able to have all the things within reason that we may want."
So Christmas, if it ran rather shy on presents in the Prescott household, was at least a season of extremely good feeling among three people whose sympathies ran staunchly together.
"The fellows will be waiting to see me," laughed Dick after breakfast. "So, if I haven't anything to show 'em, at least I've got something to tell them that will make their hair stand up. And I wonder if Mr. Fits visited any of their homes last night?"
Laughing, though doubtless he felt quite unlike it, Dick Prescott put on coat and hat and went out into the Gridley streets.
"H
EY! Hear about Dick Prescott?"
"What?"
"His Christmas got 'pinched'!"
"No!"
"Sure."
Rapidly indeed did the news travel about. Dick told it to his own chums first. The news "leaked" and traveled up and down the streets as Gridley boys began to come forth to compare their Christmas experiences.
Just as certainly, too, the news didn't lose any on its rounds. By the time that the yarn had been carried to the further end of Main Street, Dick's holiday losses had mounted up to a total of: A gold watch and chain, a diamond stickpin, a twenty dollar gold piece, a suit of clothes, silver plated racing skates, a camera, a cornet and a host of lesser articles.
"Whee! The Prescotts must have been making money this year," commented Ben Alvord, when he heard the long list of presents named.
"Say," proposed Dave Darrin indignantly, "we'll hike all over Gridley and just see if we can't run into Mr. Fits somewhere. If we findhim we'll jump him all together, and then holler for the police."
Quite a bit of searching the six members of Dick & Co. did that morning, though all without the least success. It presently dawned on these Grammar School boys that Mr. Fits must have left Gridley far behind.
"We'll keep our mind on the camping, anyway," proposed Dick. "We want to start to-morrow morning. We ought to meet at eight o'clock, and then get away together as soon after as we can."
"And hoof it twelve miles?" asked Hazelton.
"No; as we'll have so much stuff to carry, we'll have to pay someone to drive the stuff out there for us. If we have a wagon we may as well ride on it."
"I hope you fellows will all have a good time," suggested Dan Dalzell generously, though his own face still wore a doleful look. For his father and mother had held out against his going. All of the other boys had secured permission.
"It's a shame you can't go, Dan," blazed Dave.
"That's what I think," muttered Dan. "Huh! I've a good mind to run away from home."
"You'd get spanked when you went back," laughed Tom Reade.
"Huh! I ought to run away and never come back," growled Dan.
"Oh, cut that out—do!" urged Dick. "Be a fellow of good sense, Danny. Your father and mother have their own reasons for not wanting you to go."
"Their reasons don't do me any good," uttered Dan resentfully.
"Would it do any good if we all went down to your house and tried coaxing for you?" asked Greg Holmes.
"Not a bit," declared Danny gloomily.
"Say, will you fellows wait here a little while?" begged Dick. "I want to run home a minute. I'll be right back."
"Go ahead," nodded Dave.
Dick started on a trot, for he had a new thought as to a possible way of securing Dan's happiness.
As young Prescott turned a corner and raced homeward, he was espied by a boy on the other side of the street.
"Hey, Dick!" challenged Hen Dutcher gleefully. "What time is it?"
Dick flushed, but wisely made no answer.
"Humph!" muttered Hen to himself. "Just as well his watch did get the run-off. Now Dick Prescott won't be hauling his old timepiece out every two minutes in school to see what time it is."
Dick reached home somewhat out of breath.
"Who's been chasing you?" demanded Mr. Prescott, snatching up a cane that stood in the corner of the parlor. He assumed a ferocious expression, which, with one of as peaceable a disposition as Dick's father possessed, looked more than out of place.
"I haven't got time to joke, dad," objected the boy, dropping into a chair. "But I've got something very particular that I want you to do for me, and it will make Christmas really jolly after all if you can do it."
Then Dick unfolded his plan, while Mr. Prescott looked uneasy.
"Why, Dick, my boy, if Dalzell's parents don't want him to go camping it would look very strange in me to call on them and urge them to exchange their own good judgment for mine. It would look like an impertinence on my part. Dan's father and mother are the very best judges as to whether he should be allowed to go away several days camping. In fact, although I've consented to it, I'm not sure that I have shown the best kind of judgment in the matter."
"Oh, I don't want you to urge the Dalzells very hard, dad. I'm not just asking that. But I think, if you talk it over with them, perhaps——"
"It's a queer bit of business for me," remarked Mr. Prescott.
"But will you go, Dad? Please."
"Yes," agreed Mr. Prescott very reluctantly.
"Can you—can you just as easily go soon, dad?"
"Ye-es. I'll go now. It's such a queer piece of business that I shall be thankful when I have it over with."
"And you'll say the best word you can think of, won't you?"
"If you don't stop soon, young man, I may change my mind and back out altogether."
But Dick, who knew well enough that his father's promise, once given, was never gone back on, thanked him and then danced joyously out into the street again.
"What was the matter, Dick?" asked Tom Reade, curiously, when he rejoined his chums. "Did you forget something?"
"There was something I wanted to talk to dad about," responded Dick evasively.
"What——" began Dan, without an inkling of a true guess.
"Be still, you Danny boy," ordered Dave Darrin bluntly. "The family affairs of the Prescotts should be no concern of yours."
Though, very much to his regret, Dick did not possess a watch, he nevertheless managed to keep very good track of the time. Something more than an hour later he led the fellows aroundto his own corner. He was just in time to see Mr. Prescott returning.
"You stay here a minute," young Prescott directed, then set off at a run to join his father.
"Did you—did you——" he panted, as he reached his parent.
"Yes," replied the head of the family, a bit stiffly. "I made a nuisance of myself over at the Dalzells. I talked and talked. They talked, too, and both Mr. and Mrs. Dalzell asked me if I thought it at all safe to let such a busy little gang of hooligans as you boys go off on such an expedition. All I could say was to point out the fact that I had given you leave. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Dalzell gave their consent to Dan's going. So now I hope you're satisfied."
"Satisfied? Oh, dad, thank you! This is the best Christmas ever. Thank you! Whoop!"
With that young Prescott executed an about-face and went charging back to where he had left his chums.
"Are you crazy?" demanded Dan curiously.
"No; but you'll be, in a minute. Dad went over to see your folks, and they've given in. You're to go with us."
"H
AVEwe got everything?" demanded Tom Reade anxiously.
"I think so," nodded Dick.
"No one ever yet started off on any big jaunt without forgetting something, you know," Greg explained.
"Well, let every fellow take a look around and see if he can find anything that we ought to have, and haven't," suggested Dick.
Six pairs of eyes did some anxious searching.
It was nearly ten o'clock on the morning after Christmas. Dick & Co. stood in Miller's grocery store, having mounted guard over an extensive supply of groceries, meat and personal belongings. What a stack of stuff there was!
Dick and Dave had been delegated to do the buying. Starting with a capital of thirty dollars, they had expended a little more than nineteen dollars with the butcher and grocer. Joe Miller, the grocer's son, had gone to hitch up a pair of horses to a roomy truck wagon. Their conveyance to camp, some twelve miles distant, was to cost them four dollars, and Miller had made a low price at that. Dave, as the treasurerof the outfit, now had nearly seven dollars left, but of this, four would be required to pay Joe Miller for the return trip.
In addition to food supplies, each of the six boys had brought along underclothing, shirts and an extra pair of shoes. These personal belongings were packed in bags.
Then, besides, each boy had a roll of bedding—a pillow, sheets and old blankets and comforters for each. There were also, either in bedding rolls or in bags, some few toilet articles. There was also a box of old kitchen ware. Tom Reade had brought a Rochester lamp; Greg and Dan had contributed lanterns and Dick a dark lantern.
"I see one thing we haven't got, but ought to have," said Harry Hazelton to Dick.
"What's that?" asked the latter.
"A shotgun. Joe Miller has a good one, and I know he'd lend it to us if we asked him."
"We won't ask him," Dick replied.
"Now, why not? We have money enough so we can afford to buy some shells, and——"
"Harry, did you tell your folks you expected there'd be a shotgun along on this trip?"
"'Course not. I didn't know there would be one."
"Do you think your folks would have let you come if they had thought of such a thing?"
"Maybe not. But they didn't say a word against our having one."
"Harry, if our parents were to hear that we had taken a shotgun along they'd be worried to death," said Dick gravely.
"Humph! We're old enough to manage a gun," remonstrated Hazelton.
"Perhaps we are, but it would worry our home folks just the same. Boys are always believed to be careless with firearms. We don't want any shotgun along, and then we won't have any need to be sorry about it afterwards."
"But there'll be rabbits and other game that we might get."
"Dave has brought his air-rifle, and has plenty of 'pills' for it. And Tom brought along his bow and half a dozen arrows. We can take care of the little game we may see."
"That's right," broke in Dave, who had been listening. "If we were fools enough to take along a shotgun it'd be many a day before we'd get leave to go on another camping jaunt."
So better counsel prevailed, and Joe Miller was not asked to loan his shotgun. In due time Joe drove around to the door of the store, and the work of loading began.
"Hey, you fellows, where are you going?" hailed Ben Alvord, stopping and gaping in wonder.
"Camping," replied Dick with an air of importance.
"Whee! Say, take me along?" coaxed Ben.
Dick hated the task of refusing, but Dave came to his rescue.
"Got five dollars, Ben?"
"Quit your kidding," retorted Alvord.
"That's what each fellow paid to get into this outfit," Dave went on. "We couldn't feed any more fellows unless they contributed their share in cash."
"How long you going to be gone?" asked Ben.
"Maybe two weeks."
"Whee!"
"It will depend somewhat on how long it takes us to eat up our table stuff," laughed Dick.
"My, but you fellows are in luck!"
A few more of the Grammar School fellows happened along. There was much envious talk. There were also several pleas to be taken along, but the mention of the five dollar assessment silenced all such requests.
"All ready!" called out Joe Miller at last. "You youngsters jump on lively, for we've got a long way to go."
With a glad whoop Dick & Co. piled aboard the truck, stowing themselves away as comfortably as might be.
"Giddap!" grumbled Joe at the horses.
"Say!" shouted Ben Alvord as the start was made.
"Well?" answered Dan.
"Who's going to do your cookin'?"
"We are."
"Wow! You won't all live to tell the tale, then. Got any medicines with you?"
"There, I knew we'd forgotten something," declared Tom Reade solemnly. "S'posing any of us should get sick?"
"We'll make up our minds that we're not going to," replied Dave. "Fellows camping out in winter haven't any right to get sick."
"Still, we might. Might have colds, especially," remarked Dick thoughtfully. "Oh, I say, Joe! Haul up, quick!"
Dick was standing up, using his arms to signal an automobile that was coming toward them.
"Well, who's sick?" smiled Dr. Bentley, stopping his auto.
"Doctor, I have six free patients here for you," Dick announced solemnly.
"Good!" laughed the physician. "That's the kind I like best. What are you boys up to?"
"We're going camping, doctor, out in the forest, and may be gone a fortnight. Just this minute it struck us that we hadn't a bit of medicine with us in case any of us got sick. We don't expect to be, of course, but——"
"I see," nodded the doctor, smiling pleasantly. "One thing is sure. If you have a few simple remedies along with you you're less likely to be ill than if you had forgotten to make any preparation. In that case worry might doitsshare. Now, let me see."
Dr. Bentley reached up a drug case from the bottom of his car.
"Here's a bottle of stuff for colds," he went on, selecting a bottle and writing on the label. "There, the directions are straight. Going to cook for yourselves?"
"Certainly."
"Then indigestion is your most likely trouble." Dr. Bentley began to write on the label of a second bottle. "And here's a little vial, in case any of you get a real fever. Be careful to follow the directions closely."
Then Dr. Bentley took out his prescription book and wrote on two leaves.
"Here's a prescription for a liniment, and something else," he added, tearing out the two pages and passing them to Dick. "You'll notice that I've written on these that the druggist is to give you the goods with all discounts off. That'll make the stuff come cheap, for I don't suppose you're overburdened with wealth on this trip."
"And now, doctor, how much for the stuff you've given us?" asked Dick.
"Giddap," retorted Dr. Bentley, giving his machine a start. "I helped introduce four of you boys to this world, so I'm in a measure responsible for you."
"Stop at the drug store, Joe," Dick called out, as the horses were started.
"Say, wasn't that fine of Dr. Bentley?" glowed Dick, as they rode along.
"Sure," nodded Dan, "but our folks will find it somewhere in their bills, between now and summer."
"Dan, for that," warned Prescott, "we'll wash your face in the first snow that falls out in the woods."
"We surely will," confirmed Tom Reade.
The stop at the drug store was made, whereby the cash capital was lowered by eighty cents. Then Dick & Co. were off in earnest.
So late had the start been made that the boys did not expect to reach their log cabin until after two o'clock. Over Christmas most of the snow had disappeared. There was not enough for good sledding, but just enough to make the going on wheels rather difficult.
Before noon, appetite asserted itself. Fortunately the boys had brought along lunches for use on the road. These were devoured with much relish, Joe Miller, of course, being invited to share with them.
By one o'clock the horses headed into the forest. For the first mile or so there was a fair sort of road, but after that it dwindled down to something more like a trail.
"Isn't this grand, Joe?" exclaimed Greg.
"What?" demanded Joe.
"This great old forest, this silence, this grandeur of solitary nature?"
"It ought to do first rate for lunatics, and such like," answered Joe, gazing with disfavor at the bare trees and desolate looking bushes. "What have you boys been doing that you've got to spend a fortnight away from comfortable livin'?"
"Why, we're doing this for pleasure," said Dan Dalzell.
"Humph!" muttered Joe, and there the matter rested.
It was nearly half past two when the horses were finally hauled up before the log cabin. But now the truck was bare of boys. Dick & Co. had leaped overboard the instant they came in sight of the cabin, and had scampered on before for a look at the place.
"Say, this is great!" cried Greg. "The old cabin looks good and solid, too."
"But how do you get in?" queried Dan, bracing his shoulder against the door and pushing hard. "The place seems to be locked."
More boys tried their shoulders against the door, but it did not yield.
"We'll have to try the windows," proposed Dave. "Hurry and see if they're fastened. This one is."
All the windows proved to be fastened.
"We don't want to break any glass," said Tom Reade ruefully. "We might have a big freeze around here, and then we'd appreciate window glass."
Here was a poser, indeed.
"There doesn't seem to be any keyhole, and yet the door is locked," muttered Dick, studying the door. "Hold on! What's this string for?"
He took hold of a cord that appeared to run through the wooden barrier. Giving the cord a hard pull, Dick once more pushed against the door. It yielded and swung open.
"Hurrah!" sounded the chorus.
"We're bright ones," laughed Dick. "Thought we knew a lot about log cabins, and we clean, plumb forgot the latch-string."
"Let's get inside and get warm," begged Dan.
"Let's get warm by tumbling the things off the wagon," dissented Prescott. "I know Joe is in a big hurry to get started back."
So the stuff was bundled off in rapid order, after which Joe backed his team and swung it around.
"I hope you fellows have a real, nice, loony time!" was Joe's parting salute.
"Now, let's get the stuff inside," urged Dave. This was done with speed, if not with order.
"Now, I'll go out and chop firewood," proposed Dave. "Who'll go with me?"
"Let's all go out and take a look around," suggested Dick. "We want to know all of our surroundings before dark, which isn't a great way off."
"We can't have a fire too soon to suit me," grumbled Dan.
Outside one of the first sights that met their eyes, back of the cabin, was a pile of four foot logs that would have measured five or six cords.
"Now, that's what I call bully," gloated Dalzell. "It won't take us long to have a real fire going in that big chimney-place."
"Let's see what this other little shack is," urged Dick, leading the way to a log shanty some eight feet by ten. Again it was necessary to pull a latch-string, after which the door of the shanty yielded.
"Why, there's a cook stove in here, and a table and a couple of chairs," cried Tom. "This must have been the summer cook house."
"We'll use it for our jail to lock up the bad ones in," jested Dick. "There are no bunks here for sleeping."
"What do you say if we get some of those logs and start a fire in the big cabin?" pleaded Dan. "I'm getting chilled."
The idea prevailed. But the youngsters found snow between the logs, which were tightly frozen in place. After a good deal of work and much panting, Dick and Dave succeeded in freeing one log.
"Huh!" grunted Dan, who had not done any of the work. "Getting these logs is going to be harder work than chopping down young trees."
Whistling, Tom Reade had gone around to the cabin. Now, with a whoop of glee he returned, bearing a crowbar.
"Found this in one corner of the cabin," he explained. "Now, we'll pry logs loose in fast order."
His prediction turned out a good one. Within five minutes more than a dozen of the logs had been loosened and Dick & Co. busied themselves in carrying the logs around and into the cabin.
"Now, Danny Coldfeet, we'll soon have your flame red medicine ready," laughed Dave Darrin jovially. "Get one of the coal oil tins, Danny boy. Greg, tear off some of the paper to stuff under the logs. Hurry! Then I'll lay the fire. Tom, you and Harry bring the logs closer."
Some nearly burned bits of log lay in the broadfireplace under the chimney. Dave bent over to lift these charred bits out. Three or four he tossed back of him. Then suddenly he stiffened up, sticking a finger in his mouth.
"Ouch!" he grunted.
"What's the matter?" asked Tom.
"I burned my finger," sighed Dave.
"Burned your finger—in a dead fire?"
But Dick, stirring the burned bits of wood with his shoe, suddenly lay bare some dull red coals.
"Look-a-here, fellows," hailed Dan in the same moment. "Here's meat and bread, and part of a can of tomatoes on the table. The bread ain't old enough to be mouldy."
"Fellows," announced Dick Prescott, moving about, "there's some one living here—some one besides ourselves!"