"That's about the way those light-ship men put it when I threatened to have Captain Jack punished for kidnapping me," said Roy. "That may be law, but it isn't justice. I wonder where the White Squall and Tony and Bob are now."
"I shouldn't think you would care," replied Arthur. "I know I shouldn't if I had been treated as you have."
"I don't much care what becomes of the ship and her officers, but I am sorry for the crew. I tell you that Tony and Bob were shanghaied the same as I was."
Becoming weary of Plymouth and its surroundings at last, the boys took the road again, this time with their faces turned toward Mount Airy. They went back by a different route, as they intended to do when they set out; but they had another reason for it now. Moneywould not have hired them to return across the mountains and take their chances of capture by Matt Coyle and the Buster band. Now that they could think over their adventures with calmness, they were surprised at the ease with which they had slipped through those ruffians' fingers. They knew they couldn't do it again, and they would have gone home by rail rather than try the mountain route a second time. There was one thing about it, Arthur repeatedly declared: The man who wrote their guide-book must be posted so that he could warn wheelmen to keep away from Glen's Falls until the mischief-making squatter and his new allies had been arrested and lodged in jail.
On the afternoon of the second day after leaving Plymouth, the boys came suddenly upon a couple of tramps who had halted under the shade of a tree by the road-side to eat the bread and meat they had begged at the nearest farmhouse. But these men were not like the other tramps they had seen. They were sailors on the face of them, and looked out of place there in the country so far from salt water. Roy Sheldon was sure there was somethingfamiliar about them, and hardly knowing why he did so, he called out, as he moved past them, "Bob, Tony," whereupon the men jumped to their feet and stared hard at him without saying a word. They were evidently frightened, and would have taken to their heels if they had seen the least chance for escape.
"I declare, I believe they are Tony and Bob," said Roy, who was utterly amazed at the effect his words had produced upon the tramps; and turning about, he rode back to the tree under which they stood. "How in the name of all that's wonderful did you get stranded here?"
"Is—is it Rowe Shelly?" one of the men managed to ask.
"Yes, sir, they are Tony and Bob," exclaimed Roy, getting off his wheel and nodding at his companions. "Dusty as they are, I know them. What's the matter?" he added, as the men began backing away as if they did not want him to come any nearer. "You are not afraid of me, are you? I am not a ghost, and neither am I Rowe Shelly, although my name sounds somewhat like his, and I havebeen told that I look like him. I am a different boy altogether. Now let's have the straight of this thing before we go any farther. I saw you carried to sea on the White Squall. How did you escape from her, and where is she now?"
"At the bottom of the ocean," replied one of the men; and the boys thought from the way he spoke he was glad to be able to say it.
"At the bottom of—" began Roy, incredulously. "Serves her just right. She had no business to—but everything goes to show that you took me aboard of her on purpose to have me kidnapped. What have you to say about it? Sit down and eat your dinner. You can talk just as well, and you act as though you were very hungry."
"So we are, sir," said the one whom Roy had picked out, and who he afterward addressed as Tony. "We never done such a thing before, sir, but we had to come to it. It's no use trying to hide the truth any longer, for it has come out on us. Yes, sir; me and Bob did take you aboard that ship on purpose."
"There, now," cried Joe, indignantly, while Arthur Hastings looked and acted as though he wanted to light.
"But what object did you have in doing it?" continued Roy. "Who put you up to it—Willis?"
"He's the very chap, sir: but we've been punished for it, and we hope—"
"You've nothing whatever to fear from me, if that is what you want to say," interposed Roy, who was impatient to get at the bottom of what was to him a deep mystery. "You know how I got away, and here I am, safe and sound. Your actions proved that you did not think you were going to be shanghaied yourselves—what are you looking for?"
"You're right we didn't know it, sir," answered Tony, who pulled out his ditty-bag, and after a little fumbling in it drew forth a piece of soiled paper which he handed to Roy. "That, sir, is the letter I took to Cap'n Jack that night. If I had only known what was writ onto it, me and Bob would have kept clear of that ship, you may be sare. The cap'n dropped it on deck shortly after you wentoverboard, and I made bold to pick it up without saying a word to him about it. I thought it would come handy some day. Read it for yourself, sir, and you will see that me and Bob was innocent of any intention of doing the least harm to you, sir."
"Didn't you know that I was going to be kidnapped?" exclaimed Roy, almost fiercely. "You did. Everything goes to prove it; but you thought you could get me into trouble and slip off the ship without getting into trouble yourselves."
"Not a bit of it, sir," said Tony, with so much earnestness that Roy was almost ready to believe him. "Read that paper, and then I will tell you just what was said and done in my house on the beach while you was fast asleep up-stairs."
The letter, which bore neither date nor signature, ran as follows:
"Captain Jack Rowan:—Knowing that you have been delayed nearly three weeks waiting for a crew, I send you three men who, I think, will be of use to you. Two of them used to be sailors, but the other is green and will have to be broken in. Ask no questions, but take them along.A Friend."
"Captain Jack Rowan:—Knowing that you have been delayed nearly three weeks waiting for a crew, I send you three men who, I think, will be of use to you. Two of them used to be sailors, but the other is green and will have to be broken in. Ask no questions, but take them along.
A Friend."
Roy Sheldon was so surprised that he could not speak again immediately. He leaned his wheel against the tree, looked first at Tony and then at his friends, and finally sat down on a convenient bowlder.
"Seems to me that there letter clears me and Bob of everything except taking you aboard the White Squall when we didn't want to do it," said Tony, after a pause. "We was as innocent as babbies of what happened afterwards."
"If you didn't want to do it what made you?" demanded Joe.
This brought Tony to the story he had to tell; and as I believe I can make it clearer to you than he did to Joe and his friends, I will tell it in my own language.
Rowe Shelly's guardian, who was fond of the water, kept a swift sailing-vessel as well as a steam yacht, and Tony and Bob Bradley belonged to it. The colonel furnished them a house, gave them regular employment during the yachting season, and in the winter time permitted them to make what money they could by shooting water-fowl at the lower end of theisland for the New London markets. They knew nothing whatever of the colonel's private affairs. They had heard a good many rumors.
"I want to say a word right there," interrupted Roy. "Where did those rumors come from?"
The boys had seated themselves on the ground on each side of the sailors, who ate their dinner as they talked. Tony acted as spokesman, but his brother jogged his memory with a word now and then. The former could not say where the rumors came from, but the mischief was all done by an old sailor, who settled on one of the uninhabited islands in the harbor and went to fishing for a livelihood. Rowe Shelly chanced to run athwart his hawse one day while sailing about in his boat. He talked with the old fellow for more than two hours, and when he came home he exploded a bomb-shell in his guardian's ear. In other words, he told the colonel that there was no relationship between them; that he had no business with the money he was squandering; that his father had not been lost at sea, as the colonel affirmed; that he was still alive, andso was his mother; that they lived in Chelsea, Maryland; and that he was going to them as soon as he could get off the island.
"I know that was a sassy way for him to talk to the man who had always been so good to him, seeing that he hadn't no better evidence than an old sailor-man's unsupported word to back him up," said Tony, "but the way the colonel acted satisfied Rowe at once that there was more'n a grain of truth in what he had heard. The first thing he done was to take away the boy's boat, and shut him up on the island as close as if it had been a jail, and his second, to get rid of the fisherman. How he done it nobody seems to know; but he wasn't never seen again, nuther by Rowe Shelly nor nobody else. But the mischief had been done, and the first thing we knowed, Rowe Shelly couldn't be found. How he got off the island nobody couldn't tell, but he and his bisickle was gone. They was gone for more'n two weeks; but Willis, who acts like he was as big a man on the island as the colonel himself, follered him up and ketched him with the help of detectives."
"How did this fisherman happen to know so much about Rowe's father and mother?" inquired Arthur.
"He was shipmates with 'em; lived next door to them in some town down South," replied Tony. "He knowed the little boy, Rowe Shelly, and used to trot him on his knee and tell him stories of furrin parts, and he knowed well enough that there was some sort o' hocus-pocus about it, or the colonel wouldn't never had that money the old grandfather left. You see it sorter hurt the old feller when Cap'n Shelly, who was his only child, married a widder with a growed-up son against his will, and it hurt him, too, to have the cap'n keep on going to sea when he didn't want him to; and so he said that the cap'n shouldn't never have a red cent of his money. But when Grandfather Shelly found that he'd got to pass in his checks, and that the dark river was waiting for him, he gives in and willed all the money to the cap'n, provided he would settle down on shore."
When this happened, as you have already heard, Captain Shelly was at sea. His ship,the Mary Ann Tolliver, was lost, and as nothing was heard from him or any of the crew everybody supposed that all hands had been lost with her. This was the opportunity for the rascally step-son, and straightway he was up and doing. With his mother's full and free consent he was appointed Rowe's guardian and administrator of the property that had fallen to him, and then he was in clover. Finding that the boy's mother was in his way, and that she was strenuously opposed to any squandering of Rowe's money, he proceeded to rid himself of her presence. He did not exactly turn her out of doors, as Rowe thought he did, but helosther—sent her away on a visit, and when she returned he wasn't to be found. He and Rowe were in Europe, and there they stayed until the guardian thought she had had ample time to die or forget him. Then he came back, bought an island in New London harbor, so that he could not readily be intruded upon and Rowe could not easily slip out of his grasp if he wanted to, and set himself up for a gentleman of wealth and leisure.
In the mean time Captain Shelly and someof his men, who had been picked up and carried to some distant port, returned, and the captain and his wife were reunited; but the former, being broken in health and spirits and ruined financially (every dollar he owned in the world went down with his ship), did not and could not make any very persevering effort to find out what had become of his scapegrace step-son and the little boy who was worse than orphaned. After a year or two spent in useless search he gave them up for lost; but others interested themselves in the matter, not for the purpose of aiding in restoring Captain Shelly to his rights, but simply to benefit their own pockets, and two of them, who succeeded in learning enough to keep Rowe's guardian in constant fear of exposure, were Willis and his son, Benny, who were given a home and paying situations on the island.
"If that isn't the biggest piece of villainy I ever heard of I wouldn't say so," exclaimed Joe, his face flushing with honest indignation. "Did you ever talk to Rowe Shelly about these things?"
"Who? Me?" cried Tony, in surprise."Not by a great sight, sir. If I had, I would have been bundled off that there island so quick that I couldn't have told what my name was. I had a good home, and didn't want to lose it by meddling in things that didn't concern me."
"Well, your story agrees with the one Rowe told us on the night our friend was kidnapped and taken to the island, and I, for one, am inclined to believe it."
"I give it to you, sir, just as I got it," answered Tony. "You asked what them rumors was that we heard, and I have told you. If there wasn't no truth in 'em, what made the colonel act as he did—take the boy's boat away from him and keep him close about home, with orders to all of us from Willis to watch out for him?"
"That also confirms Rowe's story," said Arthur. "You know he told us he thought every one on the island was hired to keep an eye on him. We are all satisfied so far," he continued, turning to the old sailor. "Now, go ahead and tell us how you came to take Roy Sheldon over to that ship when you didn't want to?"
"Me and Bob never served aboard that ship till we was shanghaied on her," answered Tony, "but we had heard enough about her to make our hair stand on end. She was so rotten in some places that you could jab a knife into her timbers the whole length of the blade, and the companies wouldn't put a cent of insurance on her, and nobody but such reckless men as Cap'n Jack and his mates would sail on her. They got good pay for doing it, and for shipping crews against their will and holding a still tongue about the vessel's condition. But she's gone now," said Tony, rubbing his horny hands together almost gleefully, "and nobody will ever be fooled with her again. She sprung a leak in less'n half a gale 'bout two hunderd miles off the Cape, and went down like a log spite of all we could do at the pumps. We kept her afloat for seventy-two hours, and just as we were nigh going down, the brig Sarah West took us off and brung us into Plymouth."
"Where are you going now?" asked Roy.
"Back to the island where our families is," replied Tony. "We ain't got no place else togo, but we ain't going to stay there. We'll take our dunnage and go somewheres else, for fear that the island may sink into the harbor with such men aboard of it. We dassent stay there no longer. If Rowe has got safe off, knowing what he does, he'll kick up a row there, and if they'll let me into court, I'd just like to shove this paper at the judge and ask him will he take a squint at it, if he wants to see what sort of a landshark that man Willis is. We are powerful glad to see you again," he added, extending his hand to Roy, who shook it cordially, "and to know you didn't come to no harm all along of our taking you aboard the White Squall."
After this Tony went on with his story, to which, in order to make it plain to you, I will add a few things that he did not know. They came out months afterward, but this is the place to speak of them.
Although the housekeeper and all the people who were on the jetty when the yacht arrived were willing to believe that Roy Sheldon was really Rowe Shelly, Willis himself was perfectly well satisfied that he and Babcock hadmade the biggest kind of a blunder. The question was: How should he get out of his difficulty? Willis looked everywhere for Benny, who was his right-hand man in all emergencies; but that worthy had gone over to the city that afternoon, and would probably return on a hired tug some time in the morning. You will remember that while Mrs. Moffatt was talking to Roy, and urging him to let her send up a lunch to that he might have a bite handy in case he became hungry before morning, the superintendent paced the room lost in thought. As he looked at the matter, it was absolutely necessary that Roy should be got rid of before daylight, and so effectually that no trace of him could be discovered. The superintendent's first thought was to drug him, put him into a boat, and shove him out into the harbor in time for the storm, which was already muttering in the distance, to blow him to sea. But that would involve too many risks of a rescue, and Willis at last decided to hold to his original plan and "take Tony into his confidence."
When he went downstairs with Mrs. Moffatthe left the house and hurried to Tony's cabin on the beach.
"The minute he come into the door I knew there was something the matter of him," said the sailor, "for I had never seen him look so queer and wild before; but how he ever made out to pull the wool over my eyes and Bob's as he done by the ridikilis tale he told us, is something I can't now get through my head. Nuther can Bob, and we've talked about it a hunderd times or more. Seems now that we'd oughter known it wasn't so, but we didn't. 'Boys,' says he, mighty soft and palavering like, but all the while acting as though there wasn't nothing wrong, 'I want you to do something for me. Two weeks ago Cap'n Jack Rowan of the White Squall borrered five hundred dollars of the old man (that was Colonel Shelly, you know), and the old man told me to be sure and get it of him before he sailed. While I was in the city I got a letter from the cap'n stating that if I would send for the money to-night, I could have it; so I want you and Bob to take Rowe and go and get it. I'll give him an order for it. Be lively, forthere'll be a gale on in an hour or so.' That was what Willis said to me and Bob; and although we didn't much like the idee of going aboard the White Squall, knowing what sort of a chap Cap'n Jack was, we told him we'd go, like a couple of fools. 'All right,' says he. 'You get the boat ready, and I'll go and tell Rowe to hurry up. But mind, you mustn't say one word to him where you're going. If you do, he'll stay ashore and I won't get that money.' And then what does that old scamp do," exclaimed Tony, with rising indignation, "but run up to the house and write this here letter to Cap'n Jack, telling him that here was three men for him, and he'd best take us along without asking no questions."
"Then he came into the room where I was and told me a funny story, too," said Roy, who was listening with all his ears. "I should like to know who came in with him, and what the pair of them would have done if I had not awakened just as I did."
"I guess it was Benny," said Bob; and he guessed right. "Them two is both tarred with the same stick."
Benny was ashore, as I told you, and by the merest chance met the detective Babcock, who made a clean breast of the whole business; whereupon Benny hired a tug, and started for home. By the time he got there he was as frightened as was his father, whom he met setting out for Tony's house.
"You needn't waste words with me," said the dutiful son, the minute he saw that his sire was about to begin a lengthy explanation. "I saw Bab, and he told me all about it. You are a pretty pair, I must say. Who is this chap who looks so much like Rowe, and what are you going to do with him?"
"His name is Roy Sheldon, and he is a Mount Airy wheelman," replied Willis. "I am going to send him to sea on the White Squall."
"The very plan I had in my own head," said Benny, approvingly. "Who's going to take him there?"
"I thought of asking Tony and Bob. I'll offer—"
"Don't offer them a cent," interrupted Benny. "Tell them to go and get five hundred dollars that Cap'n Jack borrowed of the old man, and send this wheelman along as Rowe Shelly, to get it. Understand?"
No; the superintendent did not quite grasp his son's meaning, and he was afraid Roy might not be willing to personate Rowe Shelly. It took Benny a long time to explain, but he succeeded at last, and then he asked his father if there was not some way in which he could get a glimpse of Roy so that he could satisfy himself that a mistake had been made. This was the way he came to be introduced into the presence of the young wheelman, who was fast asleep. The moment Benny's eyes rested upon the boy's face he knew he had never seen him before.
"You've done it as sure as the world," said he, in a savage whisper. "Get rid of him. Send him to the White Squall, and have Tony and Bob shanghaied at the same time, or they will get you into deeper trouble. Wake him up, tell him you have found out who he is, and say that you're going to send him back to his friends. In that way you can get him off without any fuss, and—"
Just then Roy stirred in his sleep, and Benny took to his heels, barely having time to close the door behind him before the boy was wide-awake.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION.
"Bennyis old man Willis's son," Tony hastened to explain. "If you was to shake 'em both up in a hat, it is hard to tell which one of 'em would come out first for meanness. That's our story, sir. You know what happened after we got aboard the White Squall."
"What did Willis mean when he called you off on one side saying that he had an order for you?" inquired Roy. "Did he want me to believe that he was about to send you to the city for goods?"
"I don't know what he meant you should believe; he jest wanted to give me a few parting instructions. He said you didn't much like the idee of going out in that wind, and that if you raised a fuss about it after we got started, we must quiet you by saying that we dassent turn around for fear of a capsize.He said, furder, that we mustn't talk to you more'n we could help, for you'd kick if you found you was going aboard the White Squall. He said you had the order for the money in your pocket, and what was writ on the paper he give me was meant to hurry Cap'n Jack up, so't we could get back to the island before the wind riz any higher. But t'wasn't no such thing," continued Tony, wrathfully. "It told Cap'n Jack to take us to sea and say nothing about it."
"And were you stupid enough to believe that our friend Roy was Rowe Shelly? You stood within arm's-length of him, and it looks to me as if you ought to have seen at a glance that it wasn't any one you knew," said Arthur, forgetting that he had once stood within less than arm's-length of Rowe Shelly, and never suspected that he wasn't Roy Sheldon until he had come pretty near being thrown on his head.
"We never knew the difference," said Tony, earnestly, "for the reason that we didn't know there was anything wrong. We knew Rowe had run away, and as me and Bob supposedthat he had been ketched and brung back, like he was before, we didn't ask no questions. Of course we thought it was Rowe that we were going to take off to the ship after that money, and why should we not? How could we tell one from t'other when the night was so dark, and they were both dressed alike and the wind blowed so loud that we couldn't recognize his voice?"
"What did you think when you saw him jump into the harbor?" inquired Joe.
"Well, sir, we was scared to death, and there isn't no manner of sense in saying we wasn't. We wouldn't never dared to show our faces in New London again if I hadn't found this letter, 'cause we'd been afraid that we might be tooken up for trying to make way with Rowe, though Lord knows we wouldn't a raised a finger against him. What's writ onto this here paper will clear us, won't it, sir?"
"I think it will; but if you need any more evidence, drop a line to me. I will give you my address," said Roy. "What made you back away from me when I got off my wheeland walked toward you? Did you think I was a ghost?"
"I ain't quite sure that there is such things as ghosts in the world," replied Tony, "though in my time I've talked to more'n one who has seen 'em; but wouldn't you feel kinder oneasy under them circumstances? We took you aboard the ship a purpose, like we told you, but we didn't do it to get you used like you was."
"Then you knew that ship was the White Squall, and that she was not going into the harbor for shelter?" said Joe.
"Course we did, sir. What would any craft want to run from a fair sailing wind like that for? We knew she was going to sea, and was in a hurry to get you aboard so't you could get the money we thought you wanted. We thought it kinder queer 'cause you didn't give the cap'n the order when I give him the letter, but we didn't mistrust anything till we seen you go overboard. Of course we knew before that, that we had all been shanghaied; but what I mean is, that we never mistrusted till then that mebbe you wasn't Rowe Shelly.We didn't think he'd have the pluck to jump overboard, for he isn't much of a boy for going a swimming. When we was running into Plymouth some of them Bethel fellers flung a lot of papers aboard of us, and me and Bob happened to get hold of one that told us all about it, only it didn't say anything about Rowe Shelly. Ain't your name Peter Smith?"
"Not much," replied Roy, with a laugh. "But I am the fellow who jumped overboard, all the same. Now, what induced you two to tramp back to New London instead of shipping on some vessel that would take you there?"
"There are two reasons for it," answered Tony. "In the first place, there wasn't no ship in port that was going where we wanted to go; and in the next, we've had enough of the water and thought we'd like to stay on shore for a spell. You see, we ain't by no means as young as we used to be, and can't stand the hard knocks as well. We never got a blow after we was drove for'ard that night, 'cause we know what a sailor man's duty is and we done it; but them was a rough lot ofofficers, I tell you. Do you know where Rowe Shelly is now?"
"I am sorry to say we don't," replied Arthur. "We hoped to hear from him before this time, but if he has written us, the letter hasn't caught up with us. But we can tell you one thing: when you get back to the island you'll not find matters as they were when you left. My two friends here saw Rowe, mistook him for me just as Willis and Babcock mistook me for Rowe, had a long talk with him, and put some ideas into his head. Colonel Shelly will have to give up Rowe's money and get out of that—you'll see; and if Captain Shelly is still alive, he will come to that island and take possession."
Joe Wayring and his friends spent the best part of the afternoon in Tony's company and Bob's, and did not take leave of them until they had learned as much of Rowe Shelly's history as the men were able to tell them. They also asked after Captain Jack; but that worthy and his mates had disappeared the moment the Sarah West had reached the wharf at Plymouth, and Tony could not say where theywere. No doubt they had gone to New London on the cars, while the foremast hands, having no money at their command, had to ship again as soon as they could, or turn tramps for a season as Tony and Bob had done. Roy gave them his address, advised them to use all the means in their power to open communication with Rowe when they reached the city, and stand by to aid him in getting his rights; and then he and his friends shared their small stock of money with them, and once more turned their faces toward Mount Airy.
"Didn't I tell you that you were taken aboard the White Squall on purpose?" said Joe, as they shot around the first bend in the road and left the sailors out of sight. "I guess you are willing to believe it now."
"And I think you are equally willing to believe that I was right when I said that Tony and Bob were shanghaied the same as I was," retorted Roy. "That man Willis is a schemer from way back. I shall always think that the easiest way for him to get out of his difficulty would have been to send me ashore, as I thought he was going to do. I never wouldhave made him trouble, for up to the time I was sent aboard that ship I was treated as well as I wanted to be."
"I think Willis was afraid he would lose his situation if he told the colonel that he had made a mistake, captured the wrong boy, and given Rowe a chance to get away," said Arthur.
"I don't see why he should be, for if I understand the situation, his employer would not dare discharge him," continued Roy. "For some reason or other Willis made up his mind that the only thing he could do was to get rid of me; he was afraid to hire Tony and Bob to take me aboard that ship and leave me there, for that would give them a hold upon him; so he thought the best way was to get rid of the whole of us in a lump. I will say this much for Willis: he came pretty near doing it. I felt tolerable mad at Tony and Bob when you fellows suggested that they had been hired to have me kidnapped, and here I've gone and divided my last dollar with them."
"And we felt just as angry at Rowe for getting you into a scrape, and yet we are ready tostand by him," said Joe. "On the whole, I am satisfied with what we have done on this trip."
I thought he had reason to be. There was no one along the route who knew what Joe had done to avert that railroad disaster, but the folks at home had been posted before this time. On the day they left Plymouth Arthur and Roy mailed the full details of Joe's "Wild Ride," but the latter knew nothing of it until a week had passed, and they stopped for the night at a railway station where they found their trunks and a package of mail waiting for them. When Joe glanced at his mother's letter beginning: "My dear boy, how could you do it? I am frightened every time I think of it," and the first line of Uncle Joe's, which ran: "I am proud of my brave namesake. You have covered yourself with glory enough for one summer, and had better come home and relieve your mother's anxiety," he knew just what had been going on, and congratulated himself on having escaped return orders until his face was toward Mount Airy. All he said to his friends was:
"You fellows spread ink a trifle too freely while we were in Plymouth. If I had suspected it, I would have dropped the pair of you over the end of the pier like a couple of kittens."
"Perhaps that wouldn't have been so easy, either," replied Arthur. "More than twenty days' steady wheeling has brought us a tolerable muscle, I want you to remember. But what's the odds? It was bound to come out, and Roy and I kept still about it until we were homeward bound. When you write all you've got to do is to tell Uncle Joe we're coming."
Joe wrote that very night, and his letter contained a complete history of Roy's doings in New London harbor, and told how Arthur had come near getting them into serious trouble by shooting Matt Coyle's watch-dogs. He omitted nothing, and when he finished, he flattered himself that he had described the thing in language so graphic that Roy and Arthur would be invited to expedite their return.
The next time they came up with their letters, they also found papers containing somesurprising as well as gratifying intelligence. Every man in the Buster band, including Matt Coyle and his gang of train-wreckers, had been arrested and put under lock and key. Acting upon the advice given him by the young wheelmen, Mr. Holmes had gone to New London and identified his property; that is, the implements that had been used to force that big rock from its bed and roll it upon the track. It was by his suggestion (which in the first place came from one of our three friends, as you will remember) that a couple of officers, disguised as tramp hunters, came to Glen's Falls and proceeded to "spot" every man they wanted. More strange tramps came in at intervals, and when the officers, for that was what they really were, were nearly equal in number to the law-breakers, they "corralled the whole business and ran them in." To quote from Roy Sheldon, who was so highly excited that he wanted to yell, it was a "pretty slick scheme," and by the time Matt was through serving the sentence that would surely be passed upon him, they would no longer stand in any fear of him, for theywould be big enough to punch his head if he didn't let them alone.
"But I am really afraid our friend Bigden will see fun now," said Roy, in conclusion. "If Matt gets half a chance he will tell all he knows."
"I don't believe the things he did in the Indian Lake country will be brought against him," said Joe. "He'll come in for trying to wreck the train; and by the time he has been punished for that, he won't want to get into any more scrapes."
"And where will we come in? Look here, Bub," exclaimed Roy, shaking his finger at Joe. "When you took that unworthy revenge upon Art and me, and told your mother what we have done and suffered since we have been on the road, you told her that we laid in the bushes and heard all Matt and his fellow rascals had to say, didn't you? I thought as much. Well,thatwill be sure to come out, with all the rest of the things, and the last one of us will besubp[oe]naed. If any one of us spread ink too freely, you are the man."
"I didn't see Matt that night," protestedJoe, "for it was so dark I couldn't see anybody."
"No matter, you heard his voice. You will be called upon to tell how you knew it was his voice, and all that, and the first thing you know there'll be something wormed out of you that you don't mean to tell."
Joe Wayring did not like to think about that, but still he did not eat or sleep any the less for fear of it. He enjoyed the homeward run and so did his friends, for they had done what they set out to do, and more too. They stopped for one night at the Lafayette House, and spent the evening at the Academy of Music; but there was no detective waiting to take one of them by the arm when they came out, and neither did they meet any one who could give them any information concerning Rowe Shelly. They sent a despatch to their parents, telling where they were, and when they would be home, and the result was that about three miles out of Mount Airy they found a delegation of wheelmen waiting for them. Of course the drug-store crowd was not represented, but Tom Bigden and his cousinswere there. Joe thought he knew what Tom had come for, and was made sure of it when Tom ranged alongside of him, after a short halt had been made and the hand-shaking was over, and in a roundabout way began making inquiries concerning Matt Coyle. Joe was sorry he couldn't tell much about him, but he said enough to set Tom's fears at rest. He declared—not as if he thought Tom had the least interest in the matter, but merely as an item of news—that he would not prosecute Matt for stealing his canoe or tying him to a tree, because he would have enough to answer for when he was brought up for putting that rock on the railroad track. Joe was not revengeful, but he did want to see the squatter punished for that.
It is hardly necessary to add that Tom Bigden breathed easier after his talk with Joe, and when he left the latter at his gate and told him he was glad he and his friends had had an enjoyable run and come safely home, in spite of everybody and everything that had tried to hinder them, the words came from his heart. Tom had been on nettles ever since he read inthe papers that Matt was still alive, and in a fair way to be brought to justice, and although he felt relieved, he knew he would not sleep soundly until Matt's trial was over and prison doors had closed upon him.
"Six hundred and forty-two miles in thirty-five days," said Joe, when he had kissed his mother and shaken hands with every one who was on the back porch. "A little over eighteen miles a day. That wouldn't be anything to brag of if the roads had been good all the way; but when you take the mountains and long patches of sand into consideration—"
"And Matt Coyle and the train-wreckers," added Uncle Joe.
"They didn't delay us any to speak of," replied the young wheelman, "but that Roy Sheldon, with his black eyes and lame arm, did. Well, I'm glad to get back, and why don't you say you are glad to see me?"
Every one of them had said so more than once, for I had heard them, and besides, they showed it very plainly by their actions. Everybody in town was glad to see him, and he had so much visiting to do that for a time I wasentirely neglected. One morning I had a chance to say "hello!" to the Canvas Canoe and Fly-rod as they were carried across the porch and down the path that led to the lake, and when they returned at dark I exchanged a few words with them before they were taken up-stairs. In as few words as possible I told them where I had been and what I had seen during my long absence, and in return Fly-rod told me that he had that day seen two old acquaintances; or as he expressed it, "the whole of one and a part of the other."
"In the show-case in which I stood before Joe Wayring bought me, were a couple of high-priced lads, a split-bamboo and a double-barrel shot-gun, who wouldn't say a civil word to me because I was worth only six dollars and a half," said Fly-rod, with a ring of triumph in his tones. "The gun was purchased by a dude who went into the woods because it was fashionable, and the bamboo became the property of one of the handsomest little girls you ever saw. Well, I saw that rod to-day lying flat in the mud, while his owner was paddling in the water with bare feet. He was rusted allover where there was any thing to rust, and you could see daylight between his ribs where they had been glued together. He was ashamed to speak to me, for he had boasted that he was going to Canada to do battle with the lordly salmon. A little while afterward we heard a booming up the lake and saw a commotion in a boat whose crew were engaged in shooting wood-ducks. The Canvas Canoe took us up there in a hurry, and we found that a gun had burst in the hands of one of the party—the very dude who bought that double-barrel shot-gun. There wasn't much left of the gun, nothing but the stock and locks, in fact, but I knew him. The dude wasn't hurt, for a wonder, but he was mad, and the minute he recovered from the fright into which he had been thrown, he grabbed the wreck of that gun and sent it as far as he could into the bushes. HereIam, sound as a dollar, thanks to the good treatment I have received, supple as ever and ready to catch another black bass any time I am called upon."
The next thing that interested me was hearing a letter from Rowe Shelly read on theporch. He hadn't written before for the very good reason that he had nothing to say; and although he had plenty now, he had no time to say it, for he was going after his father and mother who were alive and well, but poor owing to ill health. He went into hiding, as Joe said he did, and found a lawyer to interest himself in his case; but although the latter went to work very quietly, Colonel Shelly and Willis and Benny had taken the alarm and cleared out. His parents had been advertised for and found, and Rowe was going to them by the first train. He would have more to tell them in his next letter, and wanted them, one and all, to get ready to visit him the minute he sent them word. He owed them everything he had, or was going to have, and they would see that he wasn't the boy to forget such things.
And neither did Roy Sheldon forget those men on the light-ship. Of course they did nothing more than their duty when they pulled Roy out of the water and took care of him, but that did not lessen the boy's gratitude nor his father's, either. Mr. Sheldon made it his business to drop into a bank shortly after Roy came home, and when he left it those old sea dogs had a handsome sum of money to draw on, though they were advised to let it accumulate so that they would have something to fall back upon when they became too old to attend to the light-ship.
Before I went into winter quarters I had the satisfaction of knowing that everything had turned out just as Joe Wayring and his friends wished. Rowe Shelly found his parents and easily established their identity, with his lawyer's help, and the rascally guardian, as well as those who aided him in keeping the boy out of his rights, were overhauled before they had left the city many miles behind; but they were not brought to trial. They simply surrendered their ill-gotten gains, Captain Shelly took quiet possession of his island home, and that was the end of the matter so far as they were concerned; but the gossips had something to talk about for weeks afterward. Joe Wayring and his friends were not needed when Matt Coyle was brought before the court in Bloomingdale, for those tramp detectiveshad all the evidence they wanted to send him and his gang to prison. Then Tom Bigden felt safe, and I hope he has turned over a new leaf as he has often promised to do. Although every one in Mount Airy heard of the things that George Prime threw up to him, there were few who believed them, thanks to the way Joe and his chums stuck to him through thick and thin.
A few days ago Rowe Shelly wrote that he was ready and waiting for Joe and the "rest of his crowd," and the sooner they came to see him the better he would like it. They will accept the invitation for the coming holidays; and if I am any judge of boys' tastes they will find few topics of conversation that will be of more interest to them than the incidents I have attempted to describe in my story, and which happened duringThe Rambles of a Bicycle.
THE END.
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HORATIO ALGER, JR.
The enormous sales of the books of Horatio Alger, Jr., show the greatness of his popularity among the boys, and prove that he is one of their most favored writers. I am told that more than half a million copies altogether have been sold, and that all the large circulating libraries in the country have several complete sets, of which only two or three volumes are ever on the shelves at one time. If this is true, what thousands and thousands of boys have read and are reading Mr. Alger's books! His peculiar style of stories, often imitated but never equaled, have taken a hold upon the young people, and, despite their similarity, are eagerly read as soon as they appear.
Mr. Alger became famous with the publication of that undying book, "Ragged Dick, or Street Life in New York." It was his first book for young people, and its success was so great that he immediately devoted himself to that kind of writing. It was a new and fertile field for a writer then, and Mr. Alger's treatment of it at once caught the fancy of the boys. "Ragged Dick" first appeared in 1868, and ever since then it has been selling steadily, until now it is estimated that about 200,000 copies of the series have been sold.
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