CHAPTER XIVMAROONED!
“Gone!” exclaimed Hugh. “My word! But how——”
“Cut out the comedy, Jimmy,” said Nick. “Aren’t they there, really?”
“Well, you come and have a look. Maybe your sight is better than mine. I haven’t my glasses with me and so, of course, I may be mistaken, but nevertheless and notwithstanding——”
“Well, I’ll be switched!” muttered Nick, holding a flaring match aloft in the darkness. “Now how the dickens——”
“I guess,” offered Dud, “that getting in and out of them to drink pushed them off.”
“That’s the jolly story,” agreed Hugh. “But they were there the last time I went down.”
“Who took the last drink?” asked Jimmy.
“You did, didn’t you? Did you see both canoes then?”
Jimmy turned to Nick in the gloom and considered. At last: “I didn’t notice,” he confessed. “It was pretty dark then——”
“But I say,” interrupted Hugh, “what are we going to do, eh?”
“Beat it home, ’Ighness,” responded Nick, “if you know what I mean. There’s no use looking for the pesky things tonight. I dare say, anyway, they’ll run aground somewhere before they get very far. What we’ve got to do is foot it back. How far is it, Jimmy?”
“About a mile and a half,” answered Jimmy gloomily, “and most of the way across this plaguey marsh. Unless we strike across that direction and find the Yarrow road.”
“That would be worse than looking for the canoes,” said Nick. “Best thing to do is follow the river as well as we can. Come on!”
“I say, if I fall in you might sing out so I’ll know which way to swim,” suggested Hugh. “Tomorrow I’m going to buy an anchor for that canoe, Nick; that is, if I ever find it.”
“Gee!” muttered Jimmy.
“What’s the matter?” asked Nick.
“I was just recalling the interesting fact that the canoe we were in belongs to young Twining, the little beast, and he will be likely to be quite peevish if it’s lost.”
“How inconsiderate!” laughed Nick. “He’s a junior, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all right then. You can point out to him that it’s a great honor for him to have his canoe lost by an upper middler. Besides, it’ll turn up in the morning. Oh, thunder!”
“I should say so!” agreed Hugh, scrambling out of the ditch he had followed Nick into. “’Ware water, fellows!”
Dud and Jimmy escaped that time, but during the next half-hour or so they had their share of misfortunes. There was no moon and the stars were partly hidden by light clouds and it was impossible to see more than a pace ahead at any time. They never actually tumbled into the river, but they frequently stumbled down the bank and only saved themselves by prompt laying hold of whatever they could reach, as when Nick, walking too close to the edge and finding himself slipping, promptly clutched Hugh’s leg and nearly doubled the catastrophe! It seemed more like an hour than a half-hour since they had left the willows before they caught sight of the old bridge looming indistinctly above them. After that the rest was easy, for they had only to break their way through the bushes that clad the embankment and foot it along Crumbie Street to the corner of the campus, their path now illumined by the infrequent street lights. Under the first of them they stopped to take stock. Every one of them was wet to the knees or above and plastered here and there withthe nice, dark, rich mud of the marshes. It was almost eight o’clock and any hope they may have entertained of reaching their various rooms undetected had long since vanished. Nick sighed philosophically as he turned to continue his journey, his shoessquish-squashingat every step.
“Anyway,” he said, “when we tell them we lost the canoes and had to walk home they’ll just have to believe us! That is the one bright spot in the surrounding gloom.”
“I’ve always wondered,” mused Jimmy, “how it would feel to be on probation.”
“You ought to know by this time,” chuckled Dud. “You’ve been there twice already.” For some reason, Dud seemed less troubled by the impending disaster than the others.
Jimmy sniffed. “I don’t know, Mr. Baker, where you get your information, but you have been sadly misled. The other occasions to which you doubtless allude——”
“Shut up, Jimmy,” warned Nick. “And, say, we’d better part company about now. You and Baker beat it up here and Hugh and I’ll amble careless-like over to River Street. I hate to attract attention, I’m that modest. Nighty-night!”
“Same to you,” replied Jimmy. “And thanks for a pleasant party. Although I must say that yourarrangements for getting us home were a bit—ah—primitive!”
“Don’t mention it! Farewell, brothers. We meet in prison!”
Whether by design or accident, Mr. Russell’s study door was wide open as Dud and Jimmy quietly slipped from the stairway well into the first-floor corridor of Trow, and, although they didn’t think it advisable to stop to pass the time of day with the instructor, they stopped just the same.
“Ah, Logan, is that you?” It was “J. P.’s” voice. The two boys retraced their steps and halted at the doorway.
“Yes, sir,” replied Jimmy brightly.
“And Baker, too, I see. Well, young gentlemen, where have you been? We missed your bright and smiling faces at supper tonight.”
Mr. Russell seemed to be in a pleasant mood, though one couldn’t always be certain from appearances, and so Jimmy, as spokesman, smiled his most winning smile and answered truthfully: “In the mud, sir.”
“Indeed? Yes, I see. All the evidence tends to corroborate your quaint statement. But why in the mud, Logan?”
Jimmy hesitated an instant and then decided to make a clean breast of the matter. Mr. Russellheard him through, smiling pleasantly. And when the tale was told he said: “A most interesting narrative, Logan, on my word. You show a nice sense of dramatic construction. But really, boys, I’m rather afraid trouble will come of this. You know there’s a rule about being in bounds by six o’clock on Sundays, eh? By the way, you brought your fellow miscreants back with you, I trust? I refer to Ordway and Blake.”
“Yes, sir; they’re back,” replied Jimmy dispiritedly. Mr. Russell’s tone now wasn’t so reassuring.
“And they, too, were—ah—in the mud?”
Jimmy grinned. “You’d think so if you saw them! They fell right in a ditch once!”
“Really?” Mr. Russell smiled quite broadly. “Well, I suppose it’s all a grand lark with you youngsters, eh? Dear, dear, what a thing it is to be young! Get those wet things off, boys, and stay in your room for the rest of the evening. Possibly——” He caught himself up. Then: “We’ll hope for the best. Hm! Better look to your ways for awhile, though, both of you. How about that little matter we spoke of recently, Baker? Any—ah—any developments?”
“No, sir. I—I quit.”
“Wise youth! Go your ways, young gentlemen. Ponder on your sins and”—Mr. Russell tookup his book again—“refresh your souls with the sweet communion——”
The rest was only a mumble. Dud and Jimmy stole noiselessly away.
Fortune was good to them on the morrow. They were assembled, a sober quartette, in Dr. Duncan’s office after breakfast and gravely reprimanded and told that only a diligent application to studies could wipe out the stain of their guilt. Promises of unfaltering labor being at once forthcoming from each, they were dismissed with a final admonition to mend their ways and, they thought, a sigh of relief from the principal, never at his best in the rôle of Stern Authority.
After a ten o’clock recitation, Nick and Jimmy hurried up the river in Nick’s canoe and recovered the lost craft, Twining’s being found lodged against the bridge timbers and Hugh’s a half-mile up the stream, entangled in a sunken branch. That, to all appearances, ended the affair, but in reality there was one important consequence that was lost sight of, which was the acceptance of Dud into the circle in which Nick Blake and Hugh Ordway revolved. It didn’t happen all at once, and for a week or two Dud himself didn’t realize it, but at the end of that period he suddenly discovered himself sitting with Hugh and Nick and Bert Winslow and Ted Trafford in Nick’s room very gravely discussingsuch important subjects as The Value of the Sacrifice Hit, Overhand versus Underhand Pitching, When to Use the Pinch-Play and The Duties of a Third-Baseman on a Bunt to His Territory with a Man on Second. Perhaps Dud didn’t take a very large part in the discussion, but when he had anything to say he found voice to say it, and a few remarks from him on the subject of underhand pitching were well received. But the main thing was that he was there, not on sufferance but, as it seemed, quite naturally and as a matter of course. He surreptitiously pinched himself, found he was actually awake and then, for a moment, was visibly embarrassed.
I don’t pretend that either Hugh or Nick would have been broken-hearted if Dud hadn’t been present that evening, nor shall I attempt to guess just how much of the friendliness they displayed was due to sympathy. On the other hand, they were more than willing to have him there, and, when they thought of it, were at some pains to make him feel welcome. Ted Trafford took his cue from his host, and Bert Winslow’s attitude was one of careless toleration. He still looked on Dud with suspicion. Jimmy Logan couldn’t foist any lemon on him, as he once eloquently put it to Hugh! Still, he didn’t actually dislike the younger boy, and, save for an occasional mildly sarcastic comment occasionedby what he called Dud’s cheek in trying to squirm his way into upper class company and the first team, he treated the latter decently enough. The evening ended with ginger-ale and grape-juice, mixed in equal proportions in a pitcher, the scant remains of a pineapple cheese and some crackers. Ted Trafford and Dud went back to Trow together, rather silently since Ted was sleepy and Dud had nothing important to say, and parted in the corridor. Dud reflected afterwards that Trafford might have said, “Come and see me some time, Baker,” or something to like effect. But he didn’t. He merely nodded sleepily, yawned and murmured: “Night!” Dud was a bit disappointed, and without cause. Ted Trafford, who was a big, good-hearted senior, would have issued that invitation had it occurred to him that the younger boy would have set any store by it. As it was, the thought didn’t enter his mind. If Baker was a friend of Nick and Hugh, why, that was all there was to it. “Any friend of my friend,” is the way Ted would have put it.
Followed a week bare of real incident. Dud, like the other members of that picnic party, applied himself doggedly to his lessons in an effort to get square with the Office again and turned out each week-day afternoon for baseball practice. Sometimes he pitched for the scrubs and more often his work consistedof serving them up to the batters at the net and, afterwards, being relieved by Kelly or Brunswick, practicing batting himself. The first game of the season came off that Wednesday afternoon, with the second team as the opponent. It wasn’t much of a contest. Errors swelled the score of each team and all sorts of delays slowed the game up so that there was time for only seven innings. Dud took no part, the twirling being performed by Ben Myatt for three innings and by Nate Leddy for the rest of the game. The second team pitchers were severely handled and the first won by the decisive score of 17 to 7.
If there was any special sensation in that contest it was in the sudden eminence of “Hobo” Ordway as a batter. Hugh, going into the line-up in the fourth inning, came twice to bat and on each occasion smashed a long, clean two-bagger into left-center. In the field he had only three chances, but he took them all. It was only in throwing in that Hugh was weak. Jimmy went to right field for three innings, made one rather brilliant running catch of a long fly, failed to get a hit and retired in favor of a pinch hitter in the sixth. After that Wednesday game life settled down again rather monotonously, but not uninterestingly, for Dud. On Saturday the team journeyed away and played Portsmouth Grammar School and won handily against aweak adversary. Dud didn’t accompany the team as a member nor did he go along with the half-hundred ardent rooters. Neither did Jimmy. Mr. Russell in refusing their request for leave, intimated that the afternoon might be spent far more profitably in study. “J. P.” was kindly but firm. Doubtless his advice was well-meant and worthy of consideration, but I regret to say it was not followed. Instead, the two boys went trout fishing in Three Gallon Brook, a mile back of school. Dud used flies and got not even a nibble. Jimmy, with a plentiful supply of angle-worms, landed a four-inch sunfish. As no one, so far as they were aware, had ever caught, seen or suspected the presence of a trout in Three Gallon Brook, they were not disappointed. The only feature of the excursion not counted on occurred when Dud slipped from a rock during the effort to free his line from a snag and landed in three feet of extremely cold water. Fortunately that happened after Jimmy had landed his catch and so they were about ready to go home, anyway. Jimmy carried the sunfish back to school dangling from an alder branch. That is, it dangled until they reached the school grounds. Then it was placed tenderly in Jimmy’s coat pocket and smuggled to Number 19. When he returned from supper he brought salt, and the fish was fried over the gas—with the door and transom carefully closedand both windows wide open—and consumed in a peculiarly flabby and underdone condition. Jimmy partook with gusto, or pretended to, but Dud did scant justice to the repast. Jimmy said he was jealous. Gus Weston happened in before the penetrating aroma of the sunfish had been entirely dissipated and asked anxiously what the trouble was. Whereupon Jimmy stopped trying to dislodge a bone that had worked its way in back of his tongue and described movingly the size, ferocious aspect and fighting qualities of that fish, recounting with much detail the long, exhausting struggle incident to its capture. And Weston diplomatically vowed that he believed every word of it; and had either of them a rattling good detective story to lend him?