CHAPTER VLON GOES SCOUTING
With Lon Gates it was not a case of “out of sight, out of mind,” so far as Sam was concerned.
For years Lon had taken a very keen interest in the fortunes and misfortunes of Sam and his friends, had served as their confidant and counselor, and had shared in some of their adventures. Natural shrewdness and long acquaintance combined to give him a rather remarkable insight into their problems, which he found peculiarly entertaining, on occasion. Lon, as he sometimes confessed, “liked to figger out things.” It tickled his sense of humor, and possibly an innocent vanity, now and then to do a little detective work, so to speak; get to the bottom of some case in which the boys were concerned; then amaze them by putting his knowledge to their practical service.
In the present instance Lon was disposed to regard Sam’s difficulty as presumably fairlyserious. Putting one thing with another, he inclined to the theory that it grew out of incidents at school. Sam plainly regarded the trouble—whatever it might be—as real. Lon ran over in mind the chances for friction in studies, in athletics, in what may be called the social side of school life. So far as he had heard from the boys of the club, none of these offered especially rough places. He inferred that whatever had happened, had happened unexpectedly and recently; doubtless, within a few hours. Lon whistled softly.
“They say it’s pooty near unanimously voted that it takes two to make a quarrel,” he soliloquized. “There’ll be Sam and his crowd, and there’ll be the other fellers. And mebbe the others’ll be talkin’. I dunno of no jest cause and impediment why I shouldn’t listen and keep my eyes doin’ business as usual. And so—let’s see—what we’ll see.”
Lon knew the town like a book. He knew the playgrounds and the favorite lounging places. Moreover, he had ready excuse for visiting them. There were half a dozen errands to be done; he took the car and sallied forth on his round.
A few small boys were playing on the high school grounds, but he didn’t halt to observe them; they were younger than the club and not likely to be involved in its affairs. At street corners he noticed two or three groups of high school pupils, and marked that they were talking earnestly. Then he came to the field where the baseball diamond was laid out, and where a scrub game was in progress. There was a fringe of spectators about the field, and half a dozen cars and wagons were lined at the curb. Lon drew up behind a truck, whose driver was killing a spare quarter of an hour. The man on the truck nodded.
“H’lo, Lon! How be?”
“Fair to middlin’,” said Lon. “Guess if the weather man was diagnosin’ my troubles he’d be sayin’ something about a faintly developed trough o’ depression, but not flyin’ no storm signals. And how’s the rest o’ the Grand Lodge o’ the Sons of Rest?”
“Holdin’ protracted session, I guess,” quoth the truckman cheerfully. “Business ain’t what it used to be,” he added with a sudden change of note.
“Kinder lucky thing for business, at that,” Lon countered. “Got to keep up with the times, you know—same as we do.... Say! Who’s at bat?”
“Dunno. Guess he ain’t one of the reg’lars.”
“Don’t hold himself like one,” Lon agreed. He ran his eye over the players and spectators. There was something half-hearted about the game, and the boys about the diamond were not displaying keen interest in its progress. None of the club was in sight, but he recognized a number of Sam’s classmates, among them Ed Zorn.
Lon kept closely enough in touch with the affairs of his young friends to be aware that Zorn and the Safety First boys were not on terms of intimacy. It was a logical thing, therefore, for him to watch Ed keenly, his theory being that Sam was involved in some difficulty with his schoolmates. Zorn, in other words, was as likely as anybody else to be concerned in the dispute. So Lon studied the suspect. More, he made a discovery or two.
Zorn, for one thing, was paying no attention to the game. He was sauntering backand forth along the line behind first base, going from one group to the next. Lon noted that almost invariably he became the center of a little cluster of boys, to whom he appeared to talk very earnestly for a moment or two. The performance was repeated so often that Lon made up his mind there was method in it.
“That feller makes me think of a ward worker before a caucus,” he reflected. “Acts as if he wanted to get ’em all goin’ his way, and was handin’ out steerin’ directions.... And there’s that other youngster danglin’ after him, and wigglin’ as oneasy as uninvited company that’s heard the dinner bell ring and ain’t been asked to draw up and set in.”
The lad to whom Lon referred was Hagle, whose movements and bearing justified the comparison he had drawn. Hagle was behaving like a satellite of Zorn, bearing him company, following him about, now drawing close, now retiring, uneasily alert for word of command. Lon whistled softly.
“Talk about coach dogs runnin’ under a wagon or after it——” he said to himself. “Somehow that’s kind of a poor job for a human. And that feller ain’t gettin’ the fun outof it that a dog does; he ain’t happy.... Funny, all ’round, ain’t it?”
The truckman was yawning audibly. Lon gave him a glance.
“Goin’ to be able to tear off a few more minutes from your pressin’ engagements and stay here?” he inquired. “Can, eh? Then keep an eye on my car, will you? Guess I’ll try for a close-up on that bush leaguin’.”
“Huh! Nobody’ll steal your old machine!” grunted the other.
“Nobody has—yet,” said Lon drily. “Hate to give ’em a chance to form the habit. All right! Back in a minute or two, or mebbe nine or ten.”
Lon glanced at his watch as he strolled away; he could spare a quarter of an hour for the task in hand. He was grinning, a bit sheepishly.
“It’s in the blood and you can’t get it out—this taste for tryin’ to be a Shylock Holmes,” he reflected. “But there’s something queer a-doin’, or I’ve got to start in and learn boys all over again.... Now, let’s see—what we’ll see.”
Just then the batter sent up a long, highfoul; a fielder and a baseman came charging among the spectators; there was a scurrying of men and boys to avoid ball and players, and when the confusion had subsided and the ball, uncaught, had been retrieved, Lon found himself neighbor to a cluster of youths with Zorn in the center of the ring.
There was a buzz of talk. Voices were not raised—Lon made mental note of the circumstance. Hagle was moving uneasily about the group—“doin’ the flea on the griddle dance,” Lon called it. Then Zorn broke away from the others. Hagle was after him instantly. He said something, and Zorn turned upon him menacingly. Hagle cowered, and shrank back. Zorn moved on, and Hagle trotted at his heels.
It was a curious performance; and it interested Lon. He might be wildly off the track in his suspicions, but, somehow, his theory that Sam’s trouble and Zorn’s activities were related was growing stronger every minute. He saw Ed pause for a few words with other groups; reach the end of the line; turn and retrace his steps, Hagle still following him.
Lon sat down on the ground. He claspedhis arms about his knees, and stared industriously at the batter. His ears, though, were devoted to what might be doing just behind him, where Zorn and Hagle were about to pass his station. They came along, Zorn at his easy pace and Jack shuffling closer. He was speaking eagerly, pleadingly, though Lon could not catch the words.
Again Zorn whipped about.
“Oh, muzzle that whine, Jack!” Lon heard this clearly enough. “This thing’s working just right, I tell you.”
“I—I know, but——” Lon lost the rest of it, for Hagle’s voice was weak.
“Well, if you know, act as if youdidknow.”
Hagle’s voice rose shrilly. “I don’t like it, Ed; I don’t like it, I say!”
Zorn’s laugh was like the snap of a whip. “Go home, then! You don’t have to be here.”
“But—but I——”
“Oh, keep quiet!”
“I can’t. I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it.”
“It isn’t right; it isn’t square; it’s——”
Lon heard the slap of Zorn’s hand on Hagle’s shoulder.
“Brace up, Jack! Be sensible. When luck’s running our way, make the most of it. And you don’t have to do anything—just let it run. Just because that gang happened——”
There Zorn broke off. Whether he had observed Lon and recognized him, or whether he thought he had said enough, anyway, Lon could not determine. Out of a corner of his eye, he saw Zorn leading Hagle away.
Lon got upon his feet. In very leisurely fashion he sauntered back to his car.
“I reckon I know more’n I did a while ago,” he told himself. “Still, I’d give a pooty penny to know jest what ’tis I know. Good deal like findin’ an old daguerreotype in the attic, and not bein’ sure whether it’s Uncle Simon that went to the legislater, or t’other uncle that went to jail. Guess I’ll have to do some thinkin’, but, at that, I ain’t ready to allow that I’ve altogether wasted my time this afternoon.”