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The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

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Title: The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

Author: Ruel Perley Smith

Illustrator: Louis D. Gowing


        
Release date: April 5, 2009 [eBook #28504]
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Language: English

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THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE

Or, The Mystery of the Mill

by

RUEL PERLEY SMITH

Author of "The Rival Campers Series," "Prisoners of Fortune," etc.

Illustrated by Louis D. Gowing







Boston
The Page Company
Publishers

Copyright, 1907
by The Page Company

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

All rights reserved

Made in U. S. A.

New Edition, May, 1925

The Colonial Press

C. H. Simonds Co., Boston, U. S. A.




[Illustration: "HE HANDED THE PACKAGE TO COLONEL WITHAM."]




CONTENTS

       I. AN INLAND VOYAGE

      II. TURNED ADRIFT

     III. THE OLD MILL

      IV. THE TROUT POOL

       V. SOME CAUSES OF TROUBLE

      VI. CAPTURING AN INDIAN

     VII. A LONG RACE BEGUN

    VIII. CONQUERING THE RAPIDS

      IX. AN EXCITING FINISH

       X. HENRY BURNS MAKES A GIFT

      XI. COL. WITHAM GETS THE MILL

     XII. THE GOLDEN COIN

    XIII. A SAILING ADVENTURE

     XIV. THE FORTUNE-TELLER

      XV. A HUNT THROUGH THE MILL

     XVI. THE GOLDEN COIN LOST AGAIN

    XVII. A STRANGE ADMISSION

   XVIII. GRANNY THORNTON'S SECRET

     XIX. THE MYSTERY OF THE MILL




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"HE HANDED THE PACKAGE TO COLONEL WITHAM"

"AT THE SOUND OF THE MAN'S VOICE, HENRY BURNS AND JACK HARVEY HAD SPRUNG
UP IN AMAZEMENT"

"THE WATCHERS ASHORE SAW THE CANOE SLOWLY TURN AND FACE THE SWIFT
CURRENT"

"HE SEPARATED THE LINE INTO TWO COILS, WHIRLED ONE ABOUT HIS HEAD AND
THREW IT FAR OUT"




THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE




CHAPTER I

AN INLAND VOYAGE


The morning train from Benton, rumbling and puffing along its way
through outlying farmland, and sending its billows of smoke like sea
rollers across the pastures, drew up, ten miles from the city, at a
little station that overlooked a pond, lying clear and sparkling at the
base of some low, wooded hills. An old-fashioned, weather-beaten house,
adjacent the station, and displaying a sign-board bearing the one word,
"Spencer's," indicated that Spencer, whoever he might prove to be, would
probably extend the hospitality of his place to travellers. Here and
there, widely scattered across the fields, were a few farmhouses.

The locomotive, having announced its approach by a mingled clanging and
whistling that sent startled cattle galloping for the shelter of the
thickets, came to a dead stop at the station; but, as though to show
its realization of the insignificance of Spencer's, continued to snort
and throb impatiently. Certain important-appearing trainmen, with
sleeves rolled to the elbows, hastily throwing open the door of the
baggage-car, seemed to take the hint.

Presently a trunk, turning a summersault through the air, landed,
somewhat damaged, on the platform. A few boxes and packages followed
likewise, similarly ejected. Then, through the open doorway, there
appeared the shapely, graceful bow of a canoe. Whatever treatment this
might have received, left to the tender mercies of the trainmen, can
only be imagined; for at this moment two youths, who had descended from
one of the passenger coaches, came running along the platform.

"Hold on, there," said the larger of the two, addressing a man who stood
with arms upreached to catch the end of the canoe, "let me get hold with
you. We don't want to be wrecked before we start,--eh, Henry?"

"Hope not," responded his companion, quietly taking the bow of the
canoe, which the larger youth relinquished to him, while the latter
stepped to the car door and put a stalwart shoulder and arm under the
stern, passed to him by a man inside.

Together, the two boys deposited their craft gently on a patch of grass
near-by; the locomotive puffed away from Spencer's, dragging its train;
the station agent resumed his interrupted pipe. Soon the only sounds
that broke the stillness of the place were the clickings of a single
telegraph instrument in the station and the scoffing voices of a few
crows, circling about the tops of some pine trees that overlooked the
farmhouse.

The prospect that met the eyes of the boys was most enticing. On one
hand lay the little pond, reflecting some great patches of cloud that
flecked the sky. All about them, as far as eye could discern, stretched
the country, rolling and irregular, meadow and pasture, corn and wheat
land, and groves of maple, pine and birch.

Flowing into the pond, a thin, shadowy stream wound its way through
alders and rushes, coming down along past Spencer's, invitingly from the
fields and hills. It was the principal inlet of the pond, flowing hence
from another and larger pond some miles to the westward.

"Well, Henry, what do you say?" said the larger boy. "Looks great,
doesn't it?"

"Ripping, Jack!" exclaimed the other. "I feel like paddling a mile a
minute. Let's pick her up and get afloat."

They reached for the "her" referred to--the light canoe--when the
station agent, welcoming even this trifling relief from the monotony of
Spencer's, approached them.

"That's a right nice craft of yours," he remarked, eying it curiously.
"Going on the pond?"

"No, we're going around through the streams to Benton," replied the
elder boy. "Think there's water enough to float us?"

"Why, p'raps," said the station agent. "It's a long jaunt,
though--twenty-five or thirty miles, I reckon. Calc'late to do it in one
day?"

"Why, yes, and home in time for a late supper. We didn't think it was
quite so far as that, though. How far do you call it to the brook that
leads over into Dark Stream?"

"Oh, two or three miles--ask Spencer. He knows more'n I do 'bout it."

Spencer, a deliberate, sleepily-inclined individual, much preoccupied
with a jack-knife and a shingle, "allowed" the distance to be a matter
of from a mile and a half, to two miles, or "mebbe" two and a half.

"Henry Burns, old chap, get hold of that canoe and let's scoot,"
exclaimed his companion, laughing. "Tom and Bob said 'twas a mile.
Probably everyone we'd ask would say something different. If we keep on
asking questions, we'll go wrong, sure."

Henry Burns's response was to pick up his end of the canoe, and they
went cautiously down through the tangle of grasses to the stream. The
buoyant craft rested lightly on its surface; they stepped aboard, Henry
Burns in the bow, his companion, Jack Harvey, in the stern, dipped their
paddles joyously together, and went swiftly on their way.

It was about half-past seven o'clock of a June morning. The sun was
lightening the landscape, yet it was by no means clear. The day had, in
fact, come in foggy, and the mist was slow in burning off from the
hills. Often, at intervals, it hung over the water like a thin curtain.
But the mystery of an unknown stream, hidden by the banks along which it
wound deviously, with many a sharp twist and turn, tempted them ever to
vigorous exertion.

Just a little way ahead, and it seemed as though the narrow stream were
ending against a bank of green. Then, as they approached, an abrupt
swerving of the stream one way or the other, opened up the course anew
for them. This was a matter of constant repetition. Theirs were the
delights, without danger, of exploration.

"Warming up a bit, isn't it, Jack?" said Henry Burns, laying aside his
paddle for a moment and peeling off a somewhat dingy sweater. "I'm not
so sure about getting the sun for long, though."

"Nor I," replied his companion, driving the canoe swiftly with his
single paddle till the other had freed himself of his garment and was
braced, steadily, once more; when he, too, laid his paddle across the
gunwales and stripped for the work. "I don't just like the looks of
those clouds. If we were in the old Viking now, I'd say put on all sail
and make for harbour; for it looks like rain by and by, but no wind."

"Well, this is all one big harbour from here to Benton," laughed Henry
Burns. "Avast, I sight a cow off the port bow. Never mind the cow? All
right, on we go. If it rains hard, we'll run ashore and hunt for a barn.
Wouldn't Tom Harris and Bob White laugh to see us poking back by train,
instead of making the trip?"

"Oh, we won't turn back," said Harvey. "Besides, there's no train in to
Benton till night. Fancy spending the day at Spencer's station! It's
through the streams for us now, rain or shine."

As though to demonstrate more fully his determination, Harvey dipped
with a sharper, quicker stroke, put the strength of two muscular arms
into his work, and they sped quickly past the turns of their winding
course. Perhaps either Tom Harris or Bob White, of whom Henry Burns had
spoken, might have wielded the paddles with a bit more of skill, have
kept the course a little straighter, or skimmed the turns a trifle more
close; but neither could have put more of life and vim into the strokes.
A large, thick-set youth was Harvey, strongly built, with arms bronzed
and sinewy--clearly a youth who had lived much out of doors, and had
developed in sun and air.

Harvey's companion was considerably slighter of build, but of a
well-knit figure, whose muscles, while not so pronounced, played quickly
and easily; and whose whole manner suggested somehow a reserve strength,
and a physique capable of much endurance.

Had they possessed, however, more of that same skill and familiarity
with canoeing which comes only with practice, they would have perceived
more clearly the speed with which they were travelling, and how great a
distance already lay between them and the point where they had embarked.

"Queer we don't come to that inlet," remarked Harvey, at length. "I
haven't seen anything that looked like the land-arks: the two houses,
the road and a bridge, that Tom spoke of."

"No," replied Henry Burns, but added, reflectively, "unless we passed
them at least three-quarters of a mile back. But there wasn't any inlet
there. Hang it! Do you suppose Spencer was right after all?"

"May be," said Harvey. "Let's hit it up a little harder; but watch sharp
for the brook."

"Aye, aye, skipper," said Henry Burns.

But at this moment the glassy surface of the stream dimpled all over
with the sudden fall of raindrops; a compact, heavy cloud wheeled
directly overhead and poured its contents upon them, while, afar off,
the fields were still lit with patches of sunlight. They scrambled as
hastily as they could into their sweaters again.

"Let it come," said Henry Burns, resuming his wet paddle; "it's only a
cloud-bank that's caught us. We'll work out of it if we keep on. Then
the sun will dry us."

They pushed on in the rain, peering eagerly ahead for some signs of the
landmarks that would show them the brook. Then, all at once, to their
amazement, the stream they were following divided into two forks; the
one at the right coming down from higher land, broken in its course, as
far as they could see, by stones and boulders that made it impassable
even for the light canoe; the other branch emerging from a thick tangle
of overhanging alders and willows.

"Well now, what do you make of that?" cried Harvey, in disgust. "That
can't be the brook, to the right, and the other doesn't look as though
it led anywhere in particular." He stopped paddling, and squeezed the
water out of his cap.

"We've come past the brook," replied Henry Burns. "It's rainy-day luck.
We've got to go up to that farmhouse on the hill and find out where we
are."

"I haven't seen a farmhouse for more than half an hour," exclaimed
Harvey.

"No, but there are cattle in that pasture, and a track going up through
the grove," said Henry Burns. "We'll follow that. It won't be any
blinder than this stream."

They brought the canoe in upon the muddy bank, slumped into the ooze,
pulled the canoe half out of water and started off.

"Nice trip!" said Henry Burns. "And the worst of it is, I have a
suspicion I know just where that brook is. I can see it now. There was a
tiny bit of a cove, a lot of rushes growing there, and two houses back
about a quarter of a mile. But it was dry--no water running--and it was
so near the station I didn't suppose that could be the place."

"It isn't so dry by this time," remarked Harvey.

"No, and neither are we," said Henry Burns. "Look out!"

He dragged one leg out from a mud-hole into which he had sunk to the
knee. The path they were following led through clumps of fern and
brake, almost waist high. These, dripping with rain, drenched them as
they pushed their way through. Some fifteen minutes of hard travelling
brought them to a little rise of land, from the top of which they could
see, down in a valley beyond, a farmhouse.

"More wet day luck," muttered Harvey. "We're in for it, though. It's a
good half mile more."

They tramped on, in silence. The particular cloud that had first wet
them had blended much with others by this time, and it was still
raining. But they came up to the house soon, and, the big barn door
standing open invitingly, they entered there. A man and two boys, busily
engaged mending a harness, looked up in surprise.

"Sort er wet," the man commented. "Come from the city, eh? Well, I guess
it's only a shower. What's that? The brook that runs into Dark Stream!
Huh! You're two miles past it."

Henry Burns and Harvey looked at each other helplessly. Then Harvey
grinned.

"It's so tough, it's almost a joke, Henry," he said.

"Great--if it had only happened to somebody else, say your friend Harry
Brackett," replied Henry Burns. "Guess we won't tell much about this
part of the trip to Tom and Bob, though. What do you want to do, go back
to the station, or keep on?"

"Back!" exclaimed Harvey. "Say, I'm so mad, I'd keep on now if every
drop of rain was as big as a base-ball. I'll never go back, if it takes
a week--that is, if you're game?"

"Come on," said Henry Burns quietly.




CHAPTER II

TURNED ADRIFT


Soon they were on their way again, with the sky lightening a little and
the rain almost ceased. They plunged through the tangle of dripping
brakes, down to the shore; pushed off once more in midstream, and
started back the way they had come.

There was not quite so much spirit to their paddling as there had been
on the way up. Every stroke had meant to their minds, then, just so much
of their journey accomplished. Now they knew they were striving only to
put themselves on the right track again, and that there would be four
wet miles of wasted effort. However, they were still strong, and the
canoe went rapidly down stream.

The two miles seemed nearer four when Henry Burns suddenly pointed with
his paddle ahead and said, soberly, "There's the place, Jack. I saw it,
coming up, but I thought it was only a patch of bull-rushes. We can't
get a canoe through, anyway. Let's go ashore and have a look at the
country."

They paddled in and scrambled up the bank. Sure enough, there was what
would be a small brook, at some stages of water, coming in from across
country; doubtless with water enough, in the spring of the year, to
float a canoe; but now impassable. They followed it up through a wheat
field to a road, from which, to their relief, a stream of about the
dimensions of the one they had been following--not quite so large--was
to be seen. A horse drawing a wagon at a jog trot came down the road,
and they accosted the occupant of the seat.

"How many miles to Mill Stream by the way of Dark Stream?" he said,
repeating their question. "Well, I reckon it's fifteen or sixteen. Water
enough? Oh, yes, mebbe, except p'raps in spots. Goin' round to Benton,
you say? Sho! Don't esactly envy yer the jaunt. Guess there'll be more
rain bime-by. Good day. Giddap."

"Wall, I reckon," said Henry Burns, dryly, imitating the man's manner of
speech, "that I don't ask any more of these farmers how many miles we've
got to travel. According to his reckoning, we'd get to Benton sometime
to-morrow night. The next man might say 'twas fifty miles to Benton, and
then you'd want to turn back."

"Never!" exclaimed Jack Harvey, grimly. "Let's go for the canoe."

They got the canoe on their shoulders, and made short work of the carry.
But it was after ten o'clock when they set their craft afloat in Dark
Stream; and the real work of the day had just begun.

Knowing they were really on the right course, however, cheered them.

"Say," cried Harvey, in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, "we'll not stop at
Benton, at all, perhaps; just keep on paddling down Mill Stream past the
city, down into Samoset river, into the bay, and out to Grand Island.
Make a week of it."

But even as he spoke, a big rain drop splashed on his cheek, and another
storm burst over them. Down it came in torrents; a summer rainfall to
delight the heart of a farmer with growing crops; a shower that fairly
bent the grass in the fields with its weight; that made a tiny lake in
the bottom of the canoe, flooded back around Harvey's knees in the
stern, and which trickled copiously down the backs of the two boys
underneath their sweaters.

"What was you saying about Grand Island, Jack?" inquired Henry Burns,
slyly.

"Grand Island be hanged!" said Harvey. "When I start for there, I'll go
in a boat that's got a cabin. I guess Benton will do for us."

They looked about for shelter, but there were woods now on both sides of
the stream, and through them they could get no glimpse of any farmhouse.

"Well, I wouldn't go into one if I saw it, now!" exclaimed Harvey. "I
can't get any wetter. Pretty soon we'll begin to like it. I'll catch a
fish, anyway. This rain will make 'em bite."

He unwound a line from a reel, attached a spoon-hook, cast it over and
began to troll astern, far in the wake of the canoe. It was, in truth,
an ideal day for fishing, and the first clump of lily pads they passed
yielded them a big pickerel. He came in fighting and tumbling, making
the worst of his struggle--after the manner of pickerel--when he was
fairly aboard. Once free of the hook, he dropped down into the puddle in
the canoe and lashed the water with his tail so that it spattered in
Jack Harvey's face worse than the rain. Harvey despatched the fish with
a few blows of his paddle.

"Guess I won't catch another," he said shortly. "I can't stand a shower
coming both ways at once."

Henry Burns chuckled quietly to himself. "Let's empty her out," he
suggested.

They ran the canoe ashore, took hold at either end, inverted the craft
and let the water drain out. Then they went on again. It was a fair and
pretty country through which the stream threaded its way, with countless
windings and twistings; but the rain dimmed and faded its beauties now.
They thought only of making progress. Yet the rain was warm, they could
not be chilled while paddling vigorously, and Henry Burns said he was
beginning to like it.

Presently, in the far distance, a village clock sounded the hour. It
struck twelve o'clock.

"My, I didn't know it was getting so late," said Henry Burns. "What do
you say to a bite to eat?"

"I could eat that fish raw," said Harvey.

"No need. We'll cook him," responded Henry Burns. "There's the place,"
and he pointed in toward a grove of evergreens and birches. "That
village is a mile off. We don't want another walk through this drenching
country."

They were only too glad to jump out ashore.

"You get the wood, Jack, and I'll rig up the shelter and clean the
fish," said Henry Burns. Drawing out a small bag made of light duck from
one end of the canoe, they untied it and took therefrom two small
hatchets, a coil of stout cord, a fry-pan, a knife and fork apiece and a
strip of bacon; likewise a large and a small bottle. The larger
contained coffee; the smaller, matches. They examined the latter
anxiously.

"They're all right," said Harvey, shaking the bottle. "Carry your
matches in a bottle, on a leaky boat and in the woods. I've been in
both."

Taking the cord and one of the hatchets, Henry Burns proceeded to
stretch a line between two trees; then interlacing the line, on a slant
between other trees, he constructed a slight network; upon which, after
an excursion amid the surrounding woods, he laid a sort of thatch of
boughs.

"That's not the best shelter I ever saw," he said at length, surveying
his work, "but it will keep off the worst of the rain."

It did, in fact, answer fairly well, with the added protection of the
heavy branches overhead.

In the mean time, Harvey, having hunted for some distance, had found
what he wanted--a dead tree, not so old as to be rotten, but easy to cut
and split. Into the heart of this he went with his hatchet, and quickly
got an armful of dry fire-wood. He came running back with the wood, and
a few sheets of birch-bark--the inner part of the bark--with the wet,
outer layer carefully stripped off. They had a blaze going quickly,
with this, beneath the shelter of boughs.

They put the bacon on to fry, and pieces of the fish, cut thin with a
keen hunting-knife. The coffee, poured from the bottle into a tin
dipper, they set near the blaze, on some brands. They they gazed out
upon the drizzle, as the dinner cooked.

Harvey shook his head, gloomily.

"We're in for it," he said. "It's settled down for an all day's rain."

"I hope so," responded Henry Burns, with a twinkle in his eye, "I like
it--but I wish I could feel just one dry spot on my back."

They ate their dinner of fried bacon and pickerel and coffee beside a
fire that blazed cheerily, despite an occasional sputtering caused by
the rain dripping through; and when they had got half dry and had
started forth once more into the rain, they were in good spirits. But
the first ten minutes of paddling found them drenched to the skin again.

They ran some small rapids after a time, and later carried around a
little dam. The afternoon waned, and the windings of the stream seemed
endless. It was three o'clock when, at a sudden turn to the right, which
was to the eastward, they came upon another stream flowing in and
mingling with the one they were following. Thenceforth the two ran as
one stream, the banks widening perceptibly, the stream flowing far more
broadly, and with increased depth and strength. The way from now on was
to the eastward some three or four miles, and then almost due south to
Benton, a distance of ten of eleven miles more.

They were soon running swiftly with the current, shooting rapids, at
times, of an eighth of a mile in length, going very carefully not to
scrape on submerged rocks. And still the rain fell. There were two dams
to carry around, and they did this somewhat drearily, trudging along the
muddy shores, climbing the slippery banks with difficulty, and with some
danger of falling and smashing their canoe.

Five, six and seven o'clock came; darkness was shutting in, and they
were three miles from Benton. To make matters worse, with the falling of
night the rain increased, pouring in such torrents that they had
frequently to pause and empty out their canoe.

A few minutes after seven, and a light gleamed from a window a little
distance back from the stream, less than a quarter of a mile.

"There's our lodgings for the night, Jack," said Henry Burns, pointing
up through the rain. "I don't mind saying I've had enough. It's three
miles yet to Benton, or nearly that, there are three more dams, and as
for walking, the road must be a bog-hole."

"I'm with you," responded Harvey. "If it's a lodging house, I've the
money to pay--three dollars in the oiled silk wallet. If it's a
farmhouse, we'll stay, if we have to sleep in the barn."

Presently they perceived a landing, with several rowboats tied up. They
ran in alongside this, drew their canoe clear up on to the float, turned
it over, and walked rapidly up toward the house from which the light
shone.

"We're in luck for once," said Harvey. "There's a sign over the door."

The sign, indeed, seemed to offer them some sort of welcome. It bore an
enormous hand pointing inward, and the inscription, "Half Way House."

"I wonder what it's half way between," said Henry Burns, as they paused
a moment on the threshold of the door. "Half way between the sky and
China, I guess. But I don't care, if the roof doesn't leak."

The picture, as they entered, was, in truth, one to cheer the most
wretched. Directly in front of them, in line with the door, a fire of
hickory logs roared in an old-fashioned brick fireplace, lighting up the
hotel office almost as much as did the two kerosene lamps, disposed at
either end. An old woman, dozing comfortably in a big rocking chair
before the blaze, jumped up at their appearance.

"Land sakes!" she ejaculated, querulously. "What a night to be comin' in
upon us! Dear! Dear! Want to stay over night, you say? Well, if that
ain't like boys--canooering, you call it, in this mess of a rain.
Gracious me, but you're wet to the skin, both er yer. Well, take them
wooden chairs, as won't be spoiled with water, and sit up by the fire
till I make a new pot of coffee and warm up a bit of stew and fry a bit
of bacon. Canooering in this weather! Well, that beats me."

"The proprietor, you say? Well, he's up the road, but he'll be in,
soon. You can pay me for the supper, and fix 'bout the stay in' over
night with him. I jes' tend to the cookin'. That's all I do."

She called them to supper in the course of a quarter of an hour, and had
clearly done her best for them. There was coffee, steaming hot, and
biscuit, warmed up to a crisp; bacon, freshly fried, with eggs; a dish
of home-made preserves, and a sheet of gingerbread.

"Eat all yer can hold," she chuckled, as they fell to, hungry as
panthers. "Canooering's good fer the appertite, ain't it? It's plain
vittles, but I reckon the cookin's good as the most of 'em, if I say it,
who shouldn't."

She rambled on, somewhat garrulously, as the boys ate. They did full
justice to the cooking, stuffed themselves till Henry Burns said he
could feel his skin stretch; paid the old woman her price for the
meal--"twenty-five cents apiece, an' it couldn't be done for less"--and
went and seated themselves comfortably once more by the fire in the
office. They settled themselves back comfortably.

"Arms ache?" inquired Harvey of his comrade.

"No," replied Henry Burns, "but I don't mind saying I'm tired. I
wouldn't stir out of this place again to-night for sixteen billion
dol--"

The door opened, and a bulky, red-faced man entered, stamping, shaking
the rain from his clothing like a big Newfoundland dog, and railing
ill-naturedly at the weather.

"It's a vile night, gran'," he exclaimed; then espying his two
newly-arrived guests, he assumed a more cordial tone.

"Good evening. Good evening, young gentlemen," he said. "Glad you got in
out of the storm--hello! what's this? Well, if it don't beat me!"

At the sound of the man's voice, Henry Burns and Jack Harvey had sprung
up in amazement. They stood beside their chairs, eying the proprietor of
the Half Way House, curiously. He, in turn, glared at them in
astonishment, fully equal to theirs, while his red face went from its
normal fiery hue to deep purple, and his hands clenched.

[Illustration: "AT THE SOUND OF THE MAN'S VOICE, HENRY BURNS AND JACK
HARVEY HAD SPRUNG UP IN AMAZEMENT."]

"Colonel Witham!" they exclaimed, in the same breath.

"What are you two doing here?" he cried.

"What new monkey-shine of yours is this? Don't you know I won't have any
Henry Burnses and Jack Harveys, nor any of the rest of you, around my
hotel? Didn't yer get satisfaction enough out of bringing bad luck to me
in one place, and now you come bringing it here? Get out, is what I say
to you, and get out quick!"

"You keep away, gran'," he cried to the woman, who had stepped forward.
"Don't you go interfering. It's my hotel; and I wouldn't care if 'twas
raining a bucket a drop and coming forty times as hard. I'd put 'em out
er doors, neck and crop. Get out, I say, and don't ever step a foot
around here again."

Henry Burns and Jack Harvey stood for a moment, gazing in perplexity at
each other.

"Shall we go, or stick it out?" asked Harvey, in a low voice.

"Why, it's a public house, and I don't believe he has a right to throw
us out this way," said Henry Burns. "But it means a fight, sure, if we
try to stay. I guess we better quit. It's his own place, and he's a
rough man when he's angered."

Ruefully pulling on their sweaters--at least dry once more--and taking
their paddles, which they had brought with them, from behind the door,
they went out into the night, into the driving rain.




CHAPTER III

THE OLD MILL


The two boys, thus most unexpectedly evicted, stood disconsolately on
the porch of the Half Way House, peering out into the storm. The
character of it had changed somewhat, the rain driving fiercely now and
then, with an occasional quick flaw of wind, instead of falling
monotonously. And now there came a few rumblings of thunder, with faint
flashes of lightning low in the sky.

"Well, Jack," said Henry Burns, at length, speaking with more than his
customary deliberation, "wet night luck seems to be worse even than wet
day luck. But who'd ever thought we'd have such tough luck as to run
across Col. Witham up here, and a night like this? The boys never said
anything about his being here."

"No--and he's got no right to put us out!" cried Harvey. "If you'll
stand by, I'll go back into that office and tell him what I think of
him."

"He knows that already," replied Henry Burns, coolly. "Wouldn't be any
news to him. Say, I see a light way up on the hill to the left. Suppose
we try them there. I wish we could see the road and the paths better,
so as to know where we are."

As though almost in answer to this wish, a brilliant flash of lightning
illumined the whole sky; and, for a brief moment, there stood clearly
outlined before them, like a huge magic-lantern picture, the prominent
features of the landscape.

Past the hotel where they stood, the highway ran, gleaming now with
pools of water. Some way down the road, the land descended to a narrow
intervale through which a brook flowed, with a rude wooden bridge thrown
across in line with the road. Farther still down the road, and a little
off from it, beside the larger stream which they had travelled all day,
an old mill squatted close to the water, hard by the brink of a dam.
Away up on the hillside, some three quarters of a mile off, a farmhouse
gave them a fleeting glimpse of its gables and chimneys. Then the
picture vanished and the black curtain of the night fell again.

"All right," assented Harvey, to the reply of his comrade, "I suppose we
better go without a fuss. It isn't getting out in the rain here that
makes me maddest. It's to think of Col. Witham chuckling over it in
there, snug and dry."

"He isn't," said Henry Burns. "He never chuckles over anything. He's
madder than we are, because we got our suppers and a drying out. Come
on, dive in. It's always the first plunge that's worst."

They stepped forth into the rain and began walking briskly down the
road. They had gone scarcely more than a rod, however, when something
brushed against Jack Harvey, and a hand was laid lightly on his arm. He
jumped back in some alarm, for they had heard no footsteps, nor dreamed
of anybody being near.

To their relief, a girl's merry peal of laughter--coming oddly enough
from out the storm--sounded in their ears; and a slight, quaint little
figure stood in the road before them.

"Oh, how you did jump!" she exclaimed, and laughed again, like some
weird mite of a water-sprite, pleased to have frightened so sturdy a
chap as Jack Harvey. "I won't hurt you," she continued, half-mockingly.
"I'm Bess Thornton. Gran' got the supper for you. Oh, but I'm just
furious at Witham for being so mean."

Henry Burns and Harvey, taken all by surprise, stood staring in
amazement. A faint glimmering in the sky came to their aid and they
discerned, indistinctly, a girl, barefoot and hatless, of age perhaps
twelve, poorly dressed in a gingham frock, apparently as unmindful of
the rain as though she were, indeed, a water-sprite.

"Well, what is it?" asked Henry Burns. "Witham doesn't say come back,
does he?"

"Not he!" cried the little creature, impetuously, "Oh, the old
bogey-man! He's worse than the wicked giant in the book. I wish I was a
Jack-the-giant-killer. I'd--"

Words apparently failing her to express a punishment fitting for Col.
Witham, the child shook a not very formidable fist in the direction of
the tavern, then added, sharply, "Where are you going?"

"Up to that house on the hill," said Harvey. "They'll take us in there,
won't they?"

The answer was not encouraging.

"No-o-o, not much he won't," cried the girl. "Oh, don't you know old
Farmer Ellison? He's worse than Witham. He hates you."

"Guess not," said Henry Burns. "We never saw him."

"No, but you're from the city," said the child. "He hates all of you.
Haven't I heard him say so, and shake his old cane at Benton? He'll cane
you. He'll set the collies on you--"

"I'd like to meet anything that I could kick!" cried Harvey, clenching
his fist. "What kind of a place is this we've got into? That's what I'd
like to know. Henry, where in this old mud-hole shall we go? Think of
it! Three miles to Benton on this road."

"That's what I've come to tell you," said the child, "though I'd catch
it from Witham if he knew--and old Ellison, wouldn't he be mad?"

The very idea seemed to afford her merriment, and she laughed again.
"Come, hurry along with me," she continued. "It's the old mill. I know
the way in, and there's a warm fire there. You'll have to run, though,
for I'm getting soaked through." And she started off ahead of them, like
a will-o'-the-wisp.

"Here, hold on a minute," called Henry Burns, who had gallantly
divested himself of his sweater, while the rain drops splashed coldly on
his bare arms. "Put this on. I don't need it."

But she tripped on, unheeding; and twice, in their strange flight toward
the mill, the lightning revealed her to them--a flitting, odd little
thing, like a figure in a dream. Indeed, when they saw her, darting
across the bridge over the brook, just ahead of them, they would
scarcely have been surprised had she vanished, as witches do that dare
not cross running water.

But she kept on, and they came presently, all out of breath, in the
shadow of the old mill. The three gained the shelter of a roof
overhanging a narrow platform that ran along one side, and paused for a
moment to rest.

It was a dismal place, by night, but the child seemed at ease and
without fear.

"I know every inch of the old mill," she said, as though by way of
reassurance. "You've just got to look out where you step, and you're all
right."

Had it not offered some sort of shelter from the storm, however, the
place would hardly have appealed to Harvey and Henry Burns. The aged
building seemed to creak and sway in the wind, as though it might fall
apart from weakness and topple into the water. The stream plunged over
the dam with a sullen roar, much as if it chafed at the barrier and
longed to sweep it altogether from its course and carry its timbers with
it. Once the lightning flashed into and through all the cobwebbed
window-panes, and the mill gave out a ghastly glare.

"Nice, cheerful place for a night's lodging," remarked Henry Burns.
"Perhaps we'd better roost right here. I don't exactly take a fancy to
the rickety old shell."

"Oh, but it's lovely when you're inside," exclaimed the child, almost
reprovingly. "There's the meal-bags to sleep on. And look, you can see
the stove, in through the window, red with the fire. It keeps things dry
in the mill. I've slept there twice, when gran' was after me with a
stick."

"All alone?" asked Henry Burns, looking at the child wonderingly, and
feeling a sudden pity for her.

"Why yes," said she. "There's nothing to be afraid of--only rats. Ugh! I
hate rats. Don't you?"

"Go ahead," said Henry Burns, stoutly. "We'll follow you. It looks like
a real nice place, don't it, Jack?"

"Perhaps," muttered Harvey.

The girl crept along the platform and descended a short flight of steps
that led to the mill flume--a long box-like sluice-way that carried the
water in to turn the mill wheels. These wheels were silent now, for two
great gates at the end of the flume barred out the waters. The girl
tripped lightly along a single plank that extended over the flume. The
boys followed cautiously.

"Can you swim?" asked Harvey.

"Why, of course," said she.

Presently she paused, took a few steps across a plank that led to a
window, raised that, climbed in and disappeared.

"Come on," she called softly. "I'll show you where to step."

"Whew!" exclaimed Harvey. "This is worse than a gale in Samoset Bay."

"Oh, it's lovely when you get inside," said Henry Burns--"all except the
rats. Come along."

They climbed in through the window, dropping on to a single plank on the
other side, by the child's direction.

"Now stay here," she said, "till I come back."

It was pitch dark and they could not see where they were; but they could
hear her light steps as she made her way in through the mill and
disappeared.

"She'll never come back," exclaimed Harvey. "Say, wake me up with a
good, hard punch, will you, Henry? I know I'm dreaming."

But now they perceived the dull glimmer of a lantern, turned low, being
borne toward them by an unseen hand. Then the figure of the girl
appeared, and soon the lantern's rays lighted up vaguely the interior of
the mill.

They were, it proved, still outside the grinding-rooms, in that part of
the mill where the water would pour in to turn the wheels. It was gaunt
and unfinished, filled with the sound of dripping waters; with no
flooring, but only a scanty network of beams and planking for them to
thread their way across.

They followed the child now over these, and came quickly to a small
sliding door, past which they entered the main room on the first floor.
There, in truth, it would seem they might not be uncomfortably housed
for the night. A small box-stove, reddened in patches by the burning
coals within, shed warmth throughout the room. There were heaps of empty
meal-bags lying here and there. And, for certain, there was no rain
coming in.

And now, having been guided by their new acquaintance to their lodgings,
so strangely, they found themselves, almost on the moment, deserted.

"Here you are," said the child, with somewhat of a touch of pride in her
voice. "Didn't I say I'd get you in all right? Don't turn that light up
too bright. Someone might see it from the road. And get out early in the
morning, before old Ellison comes. Good night and sleep tight. And don't
you ever, ever tell, or I'll catch it. I don't need the lantern. I can
feel my way."

The next moment she was gone. They would have detained her, to ask more
about herself; about the mill wherein they were; to ask about Ellison,
the owner. But it was too late. They heard her steps, faintly, as she
traversed the dangerous network of planking, and then only the steady,
dripping sound came in through the little doorway.

"Well," exclaimed Harvey, throwing himself down on a pile of meal-bags,
close by the fire, "this isn't the worst place I ever got into, if it is
old and rickety. Don't that fire feel good?"

He drew off his dripping sweater and hung it on a box, which he set
near, and rubbed his arms vigorously.

"This is such a funny old room I can't keep still in it," he continued.
"The fire feels great, but I want to explore and see what kind of a
place I'm in."

"Oh, sit down and be comfortable," replied Henry Burns. "Just make
believe you're in the cabin of the _Viking_."

"Say, Henry," exclaimed Harvey warmly to his friend's reply, "do you
know I'm half sorry we let the _Viking_ go for the summer. Of course
'twas mighty nice of Tom and Bob to ask us to spend the summer in Benton
with them; but I don't know as canoeing and fishing and that sort of
thing will do for us. I'd like to have a hand on the old _Viking's_
wheel right now."

"Oh, we'll get sailing, too," answered Henry Burns. "We're going to try
the pond, you know. Hello, there's a wheel, now. Looks like a ship's
wheel, at that--only rougher. You can stand your trick at that, if you
want to, while I sit by the fire."

He was sorry he spoke, the next moment, for Harvey--never too
cautious--gave a roar of delight, and darted over to where his friend
had pointed.

There, attached to a small shaft that protruded from the wooden
partition which divided the two lower rooms of the mill, was a large,
wooden wheel, with a series of wooden spokes attached to its rim, after
the manner of a ship's wheel.

"Hooray!" bawled Harvey, seizing the wheel and giving it several
vigorous turns, "keep her off, did you say, skipper? Ay, ay, we'll clear
the breakers now, with water to spare.

"Here you," addressing an imaginary sailor, "get forward lively and
clear that jib-sheet; and look out for the block. Hanged if we want a
man overboard a night like this, eh, Mister Burns?"

"Say, Jack, I wouldn't do that," replied Henry Burns, laughing at his
comrade's antics. "You don't know what that may turn."

"Don't I, though!" roared Harvey, jamming the wheel around with a few
more turns. "Why, you land-lubber, it turns the ship, same as any wheel.
This is the good ship, _Rattle-Bones_, bound from Benton to Boston, with
a cargo of meal--and rats. We've lost our pilot, Bess--what's her
name--and we've got to put her through ourselves.

"Hello!" he cried suddenly, checking himself in the midst of his
nonsense and listening intently. "What's that noise? Henry, no joking, I
hear breakers off the port bow. We're going aground, or the ship's
leaking."

Henry Burns sprang up, and both boys stood, wondering.

Out of the darkness of the other part of the mill there came in a sound
of rushing water, plainly distinguishable above the roar of the water
flowing over the dam, and the dashing rain and the gusts of wind. Then,
as they stood, listening curiously, there came a deep, rumbling sound
out of the very vitals of the old mill; there was a gentle quivering
throughout all its timbers; a groaning in all its aged structure; a
whirring, droning sound--the wheels of the mill were turning, and there
was needed only the pushing of one of the levers to set the great
mill-stones, themselves, to grinding.

"Jack," cried Henry Burns, "you've opened the gates. The wheels are
turning. We've got to stop that, quick. Someone might hear it."

He sprang to the wheel, gave it a few sharp whirls, turned it again and
again with all his strength, and the rushing noise ceased. The mill, as
though satisfied that its protests against being driven to work at such
an hour had been availing, quieted once more, and the place was still.

Still, save that the wind outside swept sharply around the corners of
the old structure, moaning about the eaves and whistling dismally in at
knot-holes. Still, save that now and again it seemed to quiver on its
foundations when some especially heavy thunder-clap roared overhead,
while the momentary flash revealed the dusty, cobwebbed interior.

One standing, by chance, at the door of the mill that opened on to the
road, might have espied, in one of these sudden illumings of the night,
a farm wagon, drawn by a tired horse, splashing along the road past the
mill, and turning off, just below it, on the road leading to the house
on the hill.

The driver, a tall, spare man, thin-faced and stoop-shouldered, sat with
head bent forward, to keep the rain from beating in his face. He was
letting the horse, familiar with the way, pick the road for itself.

All at once, however, he sat upright, drew the reins in sharply, and
peered back in the direction of the mill.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" he exclaimed. "If that isn't the mill. I must be
crazy. It can't run itself. Yes, but it is, though. What on earth's got
loose? It's twenty years and it's never done a thing like that. Back,
there. Back, confound you! I'll have a look."

The horse most unwillingly backing and turning, headed once more toward
the main road, and then was drawn up short again.

"Well, I must have been dreaming, sure enough," muttered the driver. "I
don't hear anything now. Well, we'll keep on, anyway. I'll have a turn
around the old place. There's more there than some folks know of. I'll
see that all's safe, if it rains pitchforks and barn-shovels. Giddap
Billy."

A few moments later, Henry Burns and Harvey, having tucked themselves
snugly in among the meal-sacks close by the fire, with the lantern
extinguished, roused up, astounded and dismayed, at the sound of
carriage wheels just outside, and the click of a key in the lock of the
door. They had barely time to spring from their places, and dart up the
stairs that led from the middle of the main floor to the one next above,
before the door was thrown open and a man stepped within.

They were dressed, most fortunately, for canoeing; and they had gained
the security of the upper floor, thanks to feet clad in tennis shoes,
without noise. Now they crouched at the head of the stairs, in utter
darkness, not knowing whither to move, or whether or not a step might
plunge them into some shaft.

"It must be Ellison," whispered Harvey. "What'll we do?"

"Nothing," answered Henry Burns, "and not make any noise about it
either. He heard your ship, Jack. Sh-h-h. We don't want to be put out
into the rain again."

Farmer Ellison shut the door behind him, and they heard him take a few
steps across the floor; then he was apparently fumbling about in the
dark for something, for they heard him say, "It isn't there. Confound
that boy! He never puts that lantern back on the hook. If he don't catch
it, to-morrow. Hello! Well, if I've smashed that glass, there'll be
trouble."

Farmer Ellison, stumbling across the floor, had, indeed, kicked the
lantern which had been left there by the fleeing canoeists. That it was
not broken, however, was evidenced the next moment by the gleam of its
light.

By this gleam, the boys, peering down the stairway, could make out the
form of a tall, stoop-shouldered man, holding the lantern in one hand
and gazing about him. Now he advanced toward the little door that opened
into the outer mill, and stood, looking through, while he held the
lantern far out ahead of him.

"Queer," he muttered. "I closed that door before I went up, or I'm
getting forgetful. But everything's all right. I don't see anything the
matter. Ho! ho! I'm getting nervous about things--and who wouldn't? When
a man has--"

The rest of his sentence was lost, for he had stepped out on to one of
the planks. They heard him, only indistinctly, stepping from one plank
to another; but what he sought and what he did they could not imagine.

"He must think a lot of this old rattle-trap, to mouse around here this
time of night," muttered Harvey. "What'll we do, Henry?"

"Hide, just as soon as we get a chance," whispered Henry Burns. "He may
take a notion to come up. There! Look sharp, Jack. Get your bearings."

Again a sharp flash of lightning gleamed through the upper windows,
lighting up the room where they were, for a moment, then leaving it
seemingly blacker than before.

"I've got it," whispered Henry Burns. "Follow me, Jack."

The two stole softly across to an end of the room, to where a series of
boxes were built in, under some shafting and chutes, evidently
constructed to receive the meal when ground. Henry Burns lifted the
cover of one of these. It was nearly empty, and they both squeezed in,
drawing the cover down over their heads, and leaving an opening barely
sufficient to admit air.

They had not been a minute too soon; for presently they heard the sound
of footsteps. Farmer Ellison was coming up the stairs. Then the lantern
appeared at the top of the stairway, and the bearer came into view.

They saw him go from one corner to another, throwing the lantern rays
now overhead among the tangle of belting, now behind some beam. Then he
paused for a moment beside one of the huge grinding stones. He put his
foot upon it and uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.

"All right--all right," they heard him say. "Ah, the old mill looks
poor, but there's some men dress just like it, and have money in their
pockets."

Then he passed on and up a flight of stairs leading to the third and
highest floor of the mill. He did not remain long, however, but came
down, still talking to himself. And when he kept on and descended to the
main floor, he was repeating that it was "all right," and "all safe;"
and so, finally, they heard him blow out the light, hang the lantern on
a hook and pass out through the door. The sound of the wagon wheels told
them that he was driving away.

Quickly they scrambled out from their hiding place, descended the stairs
and crouched by the fire.

"Well, what now?" asked Harvey. "Guess we'll turn in, eh?"

But Henry Burns was already snuggling in among the meal-bags.

"I'm going to sleep, Jack," he said. "Didn't you hear old Ellison say
everything was 'all right'?"

"Yes. I wonder what he meant," said Harvey.

"Oh, he said that just to please us," chuckled Henry Burns. "Good
night."

The bright sun of a clearing day awoke them early the next morning, and
they lost no time in quitting the mill.

"Jack," said Henry Burns, as he followed his companion across the
planking of the flume, "you look like an underdone buckwheat cake.
There's enough flour on your back for breakfast."

"I'd like to eat it," exclaimed Harvey. "I'm hungry enough. Let's get
the canoe and streak it for Benton."

They were drawing their canoe up the bank, a few moments later, to carry
it around the dam, when something away up along shore attracted their
notice. There, perched in a birch tree, in the topmost branches, with
her weight bending it over till it nearly touched the water, they espied
a girl, swinging. Then, as they looked, she waved a hand to them.

"Hello," exclaimed Henry Burns. "It's Bess What's-her-name. She's not
afraid of getting drowned. That's sure."

The boys swung their caps to her, and she stood upright amid the
branches and waved farewell to them, as they started for Benton.




CHAPTER IV

THE TROUT POOL


The brook that flowed into Mill Stream, just above the old mill, itself,
came down from some heavily wooded hills a few miles to the northeast,
and its waters were ever cold, even in hottest summer, save in one or
two open places in the intervening meadows. It was called "Cold Brook"
by some of the farmers. Henry Burns and Harvey and Bess Thornton had
crossed this brook, by way of the bridge on their flight to the mill.

A wayfarer, standing on the little bridge, of an afternoon, keeping
motionless and in the shadow, might sometimes see, far down in the clear
water, vague objects that looked like shadows cast by sticks. He might
gaze for many minutes and see no sign of life or motion to them. Then,
perchance, one of these same grey shadows might disappear in the
twinkling of an eye; the observer would see the surface of the water
break in a tiny whirl; the momentary flash of a silvery side, spotted
with red, appear--and the trout would vanish back into the deep water
once more.

Let the traveller try as he might, he seldom got one of these fish.
They were too wary; "educated," the farmers called them. They certainly
knew enough not to bite.

Tim Reardon occasionally came back to Benton with two or three of the
trout tucked inside his blouse; but he wouldn't tell how he got 'em--not
even to Jack Harvey, to whom he was loyal in all else. Most folks came
back empty-handed.

To be sure, there was one part of the brook where the least experienced
fisherman might cast a line and draw out a fish. But that was just the
very part of all the brook where nobody was allowed. It was the pool
belonging to Farmer Ellison.

A little more than a mile up the brook from the bridge the water came
tumbling down a series of short, abrupt cascades, into a pool, formed by
a small dam thrown across the brook between banks that were quite steep.
This pool broadened out in its widest part to a width of several rods,
bordered by thick alders, swampy land in places, and in part by a grove
of beech trees.

Come upon this pool at twilight and you would see the trout playing
there as though they had just been let out of school. Try to catch
one--and if Farmer Ellison wasn't down upon you in a hurry, it was
because he was napping.

You might have bought Farmer Ellison's pet cow, but not a chance to fish
in this pool. Indeed, he seldom fished it himself, but he prized the
trout like precious jewels. John and James Ellison, Farmer Ellison's
sons, and Benjamin, their cousin, fished the pool once in a great
while--and got soundly trounced if caught. It was Farmer Ellison's
hobby, this pool and its fish. He gloated over them like a miser. He
watched them leap, and counted them when they did, as a miser would
money.

The dam held the trout in the pool downstream, and the cascades--or the
upper cascade--held them from escaping upstream. There were three
smaller cascades which a lusty trout could ascend by a fine series of
rushes and leapings. The upper water-fall was too steep to be scaled.
When the water in the brook was high there was an outlet in the dam for
it to pass through, to which a gate opened, and protected at all times
by heavy wire netting.

Farmer Ellison's house was situated on a hill overlooking this part of
the brook, less than a half mile away.

Some way up the brook, if one followed a path through mowing-fields from
Farmer Ellison's, and crossed a little foot-bridge over the brook, he
would come eventually upon a house, weather-beaten and unpainted, small
and showing every sign of neglect. The grass grew long in the dooryard.
A few hens scratched the weeds in what once might have been flower-beds.
The roof was sagging, and the chimney threatened to topple in the first
high wind.

The sun was shining in at the windows of this house, at the close of an
afternoon, a few days following the adventure of Henry Burns and Harvey
in the mill. It revealed a girl, little, sturdy and of well-knit
figure, though in whose childish face there was an underlying trace of
shrewdness unusual in one so young; like a little wild creature, or a
kitten that has found itself more often chased than petted.

The girl was busily engaged, over a kitchen fire, stirring some sort of
porridge in a dish. Clearly, hers were spirits not easily depressed by
her surroundings, for she whistled at her task,--as good as any boy
could have whistled,--and now and again, from sheer excess of animation,
she whisked away from the stove and danced about the old kitchen, all
alone by herself.

"Isn't that oatmeal most ready, Bess?" came a querulous voice presently,
from an adjoining room. "What makes you so long?"

"Coming, gran', right away now," replied the child. "The coffee's hot,
too. Don't it smell go-o-od? But there's only one--"

"What?" queried the voice.

"Nothing," said the child.

She took a single piece of bread from a box, toasted it for a moment,
put it on a plate, poured a cup of coffee, dished out a mess of the
porridge, and carried it all into the next room. There, an elderly
woman, muttering and scolding to herself as she lay on a couch, received
it.

"Too bad the rheumatics bother so, gran'," said the child, consolingly.
"If they last to-morrow, I'm going to tell old Witham and make him send
you something good to eat."

"No, you won't," exclaimed the woman sharply. "Much he cares! Says he
pays me too much now for cooking; and he says I've got money tucked away
here. Wish I had."

"So do I," said the child. "I'd buy the biggest doll you ever saw."

"Fudge!" cried the old woman. "Why, you've outgrown 'em long ago."

"I know it," said the child, solemnly. "But I'd just like to have a big
one, once."

"And so you should, if we had our rights," cried Grannie Thornton,
lifting herself up on an elbow, with a jerk that brought forth an
exclamation of pain. "If he didn't own everything. If he didn't get it
all--what we used to own."

"Old Ellison?" suggested the child.

"Yes, Jim Ellison." Grannie Thornton sat up and shook a lean fist toward
the window that opened off toward the hill. "Oh, he bought it all right.
He paid for it, I suppose. But it's ours, by rights. We owned it all
once, from Ten Mile Wood to the bridge. But it's gone now."

"I don't see why we don't own it now, if that's so," said the child.

"Well, it's law doin's," muttered the woman. "Get your own supper, and
don't bother me."

"I don't understand," said the child, as she went back to the kitchen.

She might have understood better if Grannie Thornton had explained the
real reason: that the Thorntons had gone wild and run through their farm
property; mortgaged it and sold it out; and that Ellison, a shrewd
buyer, had got it when it was to be had cheapest. But she asked one more
question.

"Gran'" she said, peeping in at the door, "will we ever get it again,
s'pose?"

"Mercy sakes, how do I know!" came the answer. "It's ours now, by
rights. Will you ever stop talking?"

The child looked wonderingly out across the fields; seated herself by
the window, and still gazed as she drank her coffee and ate her scanty
supper. She was sitting there when night shut down and hid the hill and
the brook from sight.

The sun, himself an early riser, was up not anywhere near so early next
morning as was Bess Thornton. There was light in the east, but the sun
had not begun to roll above the hill-tops when the child stole quietly
out of bed, slipped into her few garments, and hurried barefoot, from
the room where she and Grannie Thornton slept. The old woman was still
slumbering heavily.

"I'll not ask that old Witham for anything for gran," she said. "I'll
get her something,--and something she'll like, too. It all belongs to
us, anyway, gran' said."

The girl gently slid the bolt of the kitchen door, stepped outside and
closed the door after her. Then she made her way out through the
neglected garden to an old apple-tree, against which there leaned a long
slender alder pole, with a line and hook attached. Throwing this over
her shoulder, she started down through the fields in the direction of
the brook.

On the way, a few grasshoppers, roused from their early naps in the
grass by the girl's bare feet, jumped this side and that. But, with the
coolness of the hour, they seemed to have some of old Grannie Thornton's
rheumatism in their joints, for they tumbled and sprawled clumsily. The
girl quickly captured several of them, tying them up in a fold of her
handkerchief.

Presently she came near the borders of the pool, dear to the heart of
Farmer Ellison. But the edge of the pool on the side where she walked
was boggy. Gazing sharply for some moments up at the big house on the
hill, the girl darted down to the edge of the brook close by the dam,
then suddenly skimmed across it to the other side.

A little way above the dam, on that side, there were clumps of bushes,
among which one might steal softly to the water's edge, on good, firm
footing. The girl did this, seated herself on a little knoll behind a
screen of shrubs, baited the hook with a fat grasshopper and cast it
into the pool.

"Grasshopper Green, go catch me a trout," she whispered; "and don't you
dare come back without a big--"

Splash! There was a quick, sharp whirl in the still water; a tautening
of the line, a hard jerk of the rod, and the girl was drawing in a plump
fellow that was fighting gamely and wrathfully for his freedom. The fish
darted to and fro for a moment, lashed the water into a miniature
upheaval, and then swung in to where a small but strong little hand
clutched him.

"Oh, you beauty!" she exclaimed, gazing triumphantly and admiringly at
his brilliant spots. "Didn't you know better than to try to eat poor old
Grasshopper Green? See what you get for it. Gran'll eat you now."

She took the trout from the hook, dropped it among the shrubs, took
another "grasshopper green" from her handkerchief, and cast again. A
second and a third trout rewarded her efforts.

But Bess Thornton, the grasshoppers and the trout were not the only ones
stirring abroad early this pleasant morning. A person not all intent
upon fishing, nor absorbed in the excitement of it, might have seen, had
he looked in the direction of the house on the hill, Farmer Ellison,
himself, appear in the doorway and gaze out over his fields and stream.

Had one been nearer, he might have seen a look of grim satisfaction,
that was almost a smile, steal over the man's face as he saw the grass,
grown thick and heavy; grains coming in well filled; garden patches
showing thrift; cattle feeding in pasture lands, and the brook winding
prettily down through green fields and woodland.

But the expression upon Farmer Ellison's face changed, as he gazed; his
brow wrinkled into a frown. His eyes flashed angrily.

What was that, moving to and fro amid the alder clumps by the border of
the trout pool? There was no breeze stirring the alders; but one single
alder stick--was not it waving back and forth most mysteriously?

Farmer Ellison gave an exclamation of anger. He knew these early morning
poachers. This would not be the first he had chased before sunrise,
taking a fish from the forbidden waters. He stepped back into the entry,
seized a stout cane, and started forth down through the fields, bending
low and screening himself as he progressed by whatsoever trees and
bushes were along the way.

That someone was there, whipping the stream, there could be no doubt.
Yet, someone--whoever it was--must be short, or else, perchance,
crouched low in the undergrowth; for Farmer Ellison could get no glimpse
of the fisherman.

Crack! A dead branch snapped under Farmer Ellison's heavy boot.

Bess Thornton, gleeful,--joyous over the conquest of her third trout,
looked quickly behind her, startled by the snapping of the branch only a
few rods away. What she saw made her gasp. She almost cried out with the
sudden fright. But she acted promptly.

Giving the pole a sharp thrust, she shoved it in under the bank, beneath
the water. The trout! The precious trout! Ah, she could not leave them.
Hastily she snatched them up, and thrust all three inside her gingham
waist, dropping them in with a wrench at the neck-band.

"Ugh! how they squirm," she cried, softly.

Then, creeping to the water's edge, she dived in--neatly as any trout
could have done it--and disappeared. One who did not know Bess Thornton
might well have been alarmed now, for the child seemed to be lost. The
surface of the brook where she had gone down remained unruffled. Then,
clear across on the other side, one watching sharply might have seen a
child's head appear out of the pool, at the edge of a clump of
bull-rushes; might have seen her emerge half out of water, and hide
herself from view of anyone on the opposite shore.

She had swum the entire width of the pool under water.

From her hiding-place she saw Farmer Ellison rush suddenly from cover
upon the very place where she had sat, fishing. She saw him run,
furiously, hither and thither, beating the underbrush with his cane,
shaking the stick wrathfully. His face showed the keenest disappointment
and chagrin.

Up and down the shore of the pool he travelled, searching every clump
that might afford shelter.

"Well," he exclaimed finally, "I must be going wrong, somehow. First
it's the mill I hear, when it isn't grinding, and now I see somebody
fishing when there isn't anybody. I'll go and take some of them burdock
bitters. Guess my liver must be out of order."

Farmer Ellison, shaking his head dubiously, and casting a backward
glance now and then, strode up the hill, looking puzzled and wrathful.

When he was a safe distance out of the way, a little figure, dripping
wet, scrambled in across the bog on the other side, and stole up
through the fields to the old tumble-down house.

"What's that you're cooking, child?" called out a voice, some time
later, as the girl stood by the kitchen stove.

"M-m-m-m gran', it's something awful good. Do you smell 'em?" replied
the child, gazing proudly into the fry-pan, wherein the three fat trout
sizzled. "Well, I caught 'em, myself."

"I do declare!" exclaimed Grannie Thornton. "I didn't know the trout
would bite now anywhere but in Jim Ellison's pool."

The girl made no reply.

"You like 'em, don't you, gran'?" she said, gleefully, some moments
later, as she stood watching the old woman eat her breakfast with a
relish. Grannie Thornton had eaten one trout, and was beginning on the
half of another.

"They're tasty, Bess," she replied. "Where did you catch 'em? I thought
the fishing in the brook wasn't any use nowadays."

The girl stood for a moment, hesitating. Then she thought of the old
woman's words of the night before.

"I caught 'em in the pool, gran'," she said.

The iron fork with which Grannie Thornton was conveying a piece of the
trout to her mouth dropped from her hand. The last piece she had eaten
seemed to choke her. Then she tottered to her feet with a wrench that
made her groan.

"You got 'em from the pool!" she screamed. "From the pool, do you say?
Don't yer know that's stealing? Didn't I bring you up better'n that?
What do you mean by going and being so bad, just 'cause I'm crippled and
can't look after yer? Would you grow up to be a thief, child?"

The old woman's strength failed her, and she fell back on the couch. The
girl stood for a moment, silent, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"But you said 'twas all ours, anyway, gran'," she sobbed. "Will I have
to go to prison, do you think?"

"Nonsense!" cried Grannie Thornton. "But if Ellison found it out--"

Bess Thornton was darting out of the doorway.

"He'll find it out now," she said, bitterly. "I'll tell him. I don't
care what happens to me."

Benjamin Ellison, James Ellison's nephew, a heavy-set, large-boned,
clumsily-built youth, lounged lazily in the dooryard of the Ellison
homestead as the girl neared the gate, a quarter of an hour later.

"Hello, Tomboy," he said, barring her entrance, with arms outstretched.
"Don't know as I'll let you in this way. Let's see you jump the fence.
Say, what's the matter with you? Ho! ho! Why, you look like that cat I
dropped in the brook yesterday. You've got a ducking, somehow. Your
clothes aren't all dry yet. Who--?"

The youth's bantering was most unexpectedly interrupted. He himself
didn't know exactly how it happened. He only knew that the girl had
darted suddenly forward, that he had been neatly tripped, and that he
found himself lying on his back in a clump of burdocks.

"Here, you beggar!" he cried, spitefully, scrambling to his feet and
making after her. "You'll get another ducking for that."

But the girl, as though knowing human nature, instinctively ran close
beside another youth, of about the same size as Benjamin, who had just
appeared from the house, caught him by an arm and said, "Don't let him
hurt me, will you, John? I tripped him up. Oh, but you ought to have
seen him!"

Her errand was forgotten for an instant and she laughed a merry laugh.

The boy thus appealed to, a youth of about his cousin's size, but of a
less heavy mould, stood between her and the other.

"You go on, Bennie," he said, laughing. "Let her alone. Oh ho, that's
rich! Put poor old Bennie on his back, did you, Bess? What do you want?"

The girl's mirth vanished, and her face flushed.

"I want to see your father," she said, slowly.

"All right, go in the door there," responded John Ellison. "He's all
alone in the dining-room."

Farmer Ellison, finishing his third cup of coffee, and leaning back in
his chair, looked up in surprise, as the girl stepped noiselessly across
the threshold and confronted him.

"Well! Well!" he exclaimed, eying her somewhat sharply. "Why didn't you
knock at the door? Forgotten how? What do you want?"

The girl waited for a moment before replying, shuffling her bare feet
and tugging at her damp dress. Then she seemed to gather her courage.
She looked resolutely at Farmer Ellison.

"I want a licking, I guess," she said.

Farmer Ellison's face relaxed into a grim smile.

"A licking," he repeated. "Well, I reckon you deserve it, all right, if
not for one thing, then for something else."

"I guess I do," said Bess Thornton.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" queried Farmer Ellison,
looking puzzled. "Can't old Mother Thornton give it to you?"

"No," replied the girl. "She's sick. And besides, she didn't know what I
was going to do. I did it all myself, early this morning."

Farmer Ellison looked up quickly. An expression of suspicion stole over
his face. He looked at the girl's bedraggled dress.

"What have you been up to?" he asked, sternly.

"I've been stealing," replied the girl. "'Twas--'twas--"

Farmer Ellison sprang up from his seat.

"'Twas you, then, down by the shore?" he cried. "Confound it! I knew I
didn't need them burdock bitters all the time I was takin' 'em. Stealing
my trout, eh? Don't tell me you caught any?"

"Only three."

The girl half whispered the reply.

Farmer Ellison seized the girl by an arm and shook her roughly.

"Bring them back!" he cried. "Where are they?"

"I can't," stammered the girl; "they're cooked."

He shook her again.

"You ate my trout!" he cried. "Pity they didn't choke you. Didn't you
feel like choking--eating stolen trout, eh?"

"Gran' did," said the girl, ruefully. "But 'twas a bone, sir. She didn't
know they were stolen till I told her."

The sound of Farmer Ellison's wrathful voice had rung through the house,
and at this moment a woman entered the room. At the sight of her, Bess
Thornton suddenly darted away from the man's grasp, ran to Mrs. Ellison,
hid her face in her dress and sobbed.

"I didn't think 'twas so bad," she said. "I--I won't do it again--ever."

Mrs. Ellison, whose face expressed a tenderness in contrast to the
hardness of her husband's, stroked the girl's hair softly, seated
herself in a rocking chair, and drew the girl close to her.

"What made you take the fish?" she inquired softly.

"Well, gran' said we ought to have the whole place by rights--"

Mrs. Ellison directed an inquiring glance at her husband.

"She's been complaining that way ever since I bought it," he said.

"And gran' was sick and I thought she'd like some of the trout,"
continued the girl. "She's got rheumatics and can't work this week, you
know."

"But wouldn't it have been better to ask?" queried Mrs. Ellison, kindly.
"Didn't you feel kind of as though it was wrong, eating something you
had no right to take?"

"I didn't," answered the girl, promptly. "I didn't eat any. I was going
to, though, till gran' said what she did--"

"Then you haven't had anything to eat to-day?" asked Mrs. Ellison,
feeling a sudden moisture in her own eyes.

"No," said the girl.

"And what makes your dress so wet? Did you fall in?"

"No-o-o," exclaimed the girl. "I swam the pool. And I did it all the way
under water. I didn't think I could, and I almost died holding my breath
so long. But I did it."

There was a touch of pride in her tone.

"James," said Mrs. Ellison. "Leave her to me. I'll say all that's
needed, I don't think she'll do it again."

"Indeed I won't--truly," said Bess Thornton.

Farmer Ellison walked to the door, with half a twinkle in his eye.
"Clear across the pool under water," he muttered to himself. "Sure
enough, I didn't need them burdock bitters."

A few minutes later, Bess Thornton, seated at the breakfast table in the
Ellison home, was eating the best meal she had had in many a day. A
motherly-looking woman, setting out a few extra dainties for her, wiped
her eyes now and again with a corner of her apron.

"She'd have been about her age," she whispered to herself once softly,
and bent and gave the girl a kiss.

When Bess Thornton left the house, she carried a basket on one arm that
made Grannie Thornton stare in amazement when she looked within.

"No, no," she said, all of a tremble, as the girl drew forth some of the
delicacies, and offered them to her. "Not a bit of it for me. I'll not
touch it. You can. And see here, don't go up on the hill again, do you
hear? Keep away from the Ellisons'."

She had such a strange, excited, almost frightened way with her that the
child urged her no further, but put the basket away, put of her sight.

"Mrs. Ellison asked me to come again," she said to herself, sighing. "I
don't see why gran' should care."




CHAPTER V

SOME CAUSES OF TROUBLE


It was early of a Saturday afternoon, warm and sultry. Everything in the
neighbourhood of the Half Way House seemed inclined to drowsiness. Even
the stream flowing by at a little distance moved as though its waters
were lazy. The birds and the cattle kept their respective places
silently, in the treetops and beneath the shade. Only the flies, buzzing
about the ears of Colonel Witham's dog that lay stretched in the
dooryard, were active.

They buzzed about the fat, florid face of the colonel, presently, as he
emerged upon the porch, lighted his after-dinner pipe and seated himself
in a big wooden arm-chair. But the annoyance did not prevent him from
dozing as he smoked, and, finally, from dropping off soundly to sleep.

He enjoyed these after-dinner naps, and the place was conducive to them.
The long stretch of highway leading up from Benton had scarcely a
country wagon-wheel turning on it, to stir the dust to motion. In the
distance, the mill droned like a big beehive. Near at hand only the fish
moved in the stream--the fish and a few rowboats that swung gently at
their ropes at the end of a board-walk that led from the hotel to the
water's edge.

The colonel slumbered on. But, far down the road, there arose,
presently, a cloud of dust, amid which there shone and glittered flashes
of steel. Then a line of bicyclists came into view, five youths, with
backs bent and heads down, making fast time.

On they came with a rush and whirr, the boy in front pointing in toward
the Half Way House. The line of glistening, flying wheels aimed itself
fair at Colonel Witham's dog, who roused himself and stood, growling
hoarsely, with ears set back and tail between his legs.

Then the screeching of five shrill whistles smote upon the summer
stillness, the wheels came to an abrupt stop, and the five riders
dismounted at a flying leap at the very edge of Colonel Witham's porch.
The colonel, startled from sweet repose by the combined noise of
whistles, buzzing of machines, shouts of the five riders and the yelping
of his frightened dog, awoke with a gasp and a momentary shudder of
alarm. He was enlightened, if not pacified, by a row of grinning faces.

"Why, hello, Colonel Witham," came a chorus of voices. "Looks like old
times to see you again. Thought we'd stop off and rest a minute."

Colonel Witham, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and mopping the
perspiration from his brow with an enormous red handkerchief, glared at
them with no friendly eyes.

"Oh, you did, hey!" he roared. "Well, why didn't you bring a dynamite
bomb and touch that off when you arrived? Lucky for you that dog didn't
go for you. He'll take a piece out of some of you one of these days."
(Colonel Witham did not observe that the dog, at this moment, tail
between legs, was flattening himself out like a flounder, trying to
squeeze himself underneath the board walk.) "What do you want here,
anyway?"

"Some bottled soda, Colonel," said the youngest boy, in a tone that
would seem to indicate that the colonel was their best friend. "Bottled
soda for the crowd. My treat."

"Bottled monkey-shines and tomfoolery!" muttered Colonel Witham, arising
slowly from his chair. "I wish it would choke that young Joe Warren.
Never saw him when he wasn't up to something."

But he went inside with them and served their order; scowling upon them
as they drank.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Making a fifty mile run, Colonel," replied one of the boys, whose
features indicated that he was an elder brother of the boy who had
previously spoken. "Tom and Bob--you remember them--are setting the pace
on their tandem for Arthur and Joe and me. Whew, but we came up
a-flying. Well, good day, we're off. You may see Tim Reardon by and by.
We left him down the road with a busted tire."

They were away, with a shout and a whirl of dust.

"Hm!" growled the colonel. "I'll set the dog on Tim Reardon if he comes
up the way they did. Here, Cæsar, come here!"

The colonel gave a sharp whistle.

But Cæsar, a yellow mongrel of questionable breeds, did not appear. A
keen vision might have seen this canine terror to evildoers poke a
shrinking muzzle a little way from beneath the board walk, emit a
frightened whine and disappear.

Colonel Witham dozed again, and again slumber overtook him. He did not
stir when Grannie Thornton, recovered from her attack of rheumatism,
appeared at a window and shook a table-cloth therefrom; nor when Bess
Thornton, dancing out of the doorway, whisked past his chair and seated
herself at the edge of the piazza.

The girl's keen blue eyes perceiving, presently, an object in the
distance looking like a queer combination of boy and bicycle, she ran
out from the dooryard as it approached. Tim Reardon, an undersized,
sharp-eyed youngster, rather poorly dressed and barefoot, wheeling his
machine laboriously along, was somewhat of a mournful-looking figure.
The girl held up a warning hand as he approached.

"Hello," said the boy. "What's the matter?"

The girl pointed at the sleeping colonel.

"Said he'd set the dog on you if you came around the way the others
did," replied Bess Thornton. "They woke him up. My! wasn't he mad?
Here," she added, handing a small box to the boy, "George Warren left
this for you. Said they wanted to make time. That's why they didn't stop
for you."

"Thanks," said the boy. "Thought I'd got to walk clear back to Benton.
But I was going to have a swim first. Guess I'll have it, anyway. It's
hot, walking through this dust."

"I'll tell you where to go," said the girl. "Do you know what's fun? See
that tree way up along shore there, the one that hangs out over the
water? Well, I climb that till it bends down, and then I get to swinging
and jump."

Tim Reardon gave her an incredulous glance, with one eye half closed.

"Oh, I don't care whether you believe it or not," said the girl. "But
I'll show you some time. Can't now. Got to wash dishes. Don't wake him
up, or you'll catch it."

She disappeared through the doorway, and Tim Reardon, leaving his wheel
leaning against a corner of the house, went up along shore. In another
half hour he returned, took from his pocket the box the girl had given
to him, got therefrom an awl, a bottle of cement and some thin strips of
rubber, and began mending the punctured tire of the bicycle. The tire
was already somewhat of a patched affair, bearing evidences of former
punctures and mendings.

"It's Jack's old wheel," he remarked by way of explanation to Bess
Thornton, who had reappeared and was interestedly watching the
operation. "He's going to give me one of his new tires," he added, "the
first puncture he gets."

"Why don't you put a tack in the road?" asked the girl promptly.

Tim Reardon grinned. "Not for Jack," he said.

"Say," asked the girl, "what's Witham mad with those boys about? Why
did he send 'em out of the hotel the other night?"

"Oh, that's a long story," replied Tim Reardon; "I can't tell you all
about it. Witham used to keep the hotel down to Southport, and he was
always against the boys, and now and then somebody played a joke on him.
Then, when his hotel burned, he thought the boys were to blame; but Jack
Harvey found the man that set the fire, and so made the colonel look
foolish in court."

But at this moment a yawn that sounded like a subdued roar indicated
that Colonel Witham was rousing from his nap. He stretched himself,
opened his eyes blankly, and perceived the boy and girl.

"Well," he exclaimed, "you're here, eh? Wonder you didn't come in like a
wild Indian, too. What's the matter?"

"Got a puncture," said Little Tim.

The colonel, having had the refreshment of his sleep, was in a better
humour. He was a little interested in the bicycle.

"Queer what new-fangled ideas they get," he said. "That's not much like
what I used to ride."

Little Tim looked up, surprised.

"Why, did you use to ride a wheel?" he asked.

"Did I!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, reviving old recollections, with a
touch of pride in his voice. "Well, now I reckon you wouldn't believe I
used to be the crack velocipede rider in the town I came from, eh?"

Little Tim, regarding the colonel's swelling waist-band and fat, puffy
cheeks, betrayed his skepticism in looks rather than in speech. Colonel
Witham continued.

"Yes, sir," said he, "there weren't any of them could beat me in those
days. Why, I've got four medals now somewhere around, that I won at
county fairs in races. 'Twasn't any of these wire whirligigs, either,
that we used to ride. Old bone-shakers, they were; wooden wheels and a
solid wrought iron backbone. You had to have the strength to make that
run. Guess some of these spindle-legged city chaps wouldn't make much of
a go at that. I've got the old machine out in the shed there, somewhere.
Like to see it?"

"I know where it is," said Bess Thornton. "I can ride it."

"You ride it!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, staring at her in amazement.
"What?"

"Yes," replied the girl; "but only down hill, though. It's too hard to
push on the level. I'll go and get it."

"Well, I vum!" exclaimed Colonel Witham, as the girl started for the
shed. "That girl beats me."

"Look out, I'm coming," called a childish voice, presently.

The door of the shed was pushed open, and Bess Thornton, standing on a
stool, could be seen climbing into the saddle of what resembled closely
a pair of wagon wheels connected by a curving bar of iron. She steadied
herself for a moment, holding to the side of the doorway; then pushed
herself away from it, came down the plank incline, and thence on to the
path leading from the elevation on which the shed stood, at full speed.
Her legs, too short for her feet to touch the pedals as they made a
complete revolution, stuck out at an angle; but she guided the wheel and
rode past Tim Reardon and the colonel, triumphantly. When the wheel
stopped, she let it fall and landed on her feet, laughing.

"Here it is, Colonel Witham," said she, rolling it back to where he
stood. "Let's see you ride it."

Colonel Witham, grasping one of the handle-bars, eyed the velocipede
almost longingly.

"No," he said. "I'm too old and stout now. Guess my riding days are
over. But I used to make it go once, I tell you."

"Go ahead, get on. You can ride it," urged Tim Reardon. "It won't
break."

"Oh no, it will hold me, all right," said Colonel Witham. "We didn't
have any busted tires in our day. Good iron rim there that'll last for
ever."

"Just try it a little way," said Bess Thornton.

"I never saw anybody ride that had won medals," said Tim Reardon.

Colonel Witham's pride was rapidly getting the better of his discretion.

"Oh, I can ride it," he said, "only it's--it's kind of hot to try it.
Makes me feel sort of like a boy, though, to get hold of the thing."

The colonel lifted a fat leg over the backbone and put a ponderous foot
on one pedal, while the drops of perspiration began to stand out on his
forehead.

"Get out of the way," he shouted. "I'll just show you how it
goes--hanged if I don't."

The colonel had actually gotten under way.

Little Tim Reardon doubled up with mirth, and rolled over on the grass.

"Looks just like the elephant at the circus," he cried.

"Sh-h-h, he'll hear you," whispered Bess Thornton.

Colonel Witham was certainly doing himself proud. A new thrill of life
went through him. He thought of those races and the medals. It was an
unfortunate recollection, for it instilled new ambitions within him. He
had ridden up the road a few rods, had made a wide turn and started
back; and now, as he neared the hotel once more, his evil genius
inspired him to show the two how nicely he could make a shorter turn.

He did it a little too quickly; the wheel lurched, and Colonel Witham
felt he was falling. He twisted in the saddle, gave another sharp yank
upon the handle-bars--and lost control of the wheel. A most unfortunate
moment for such a mishap; for now, as the wheel righted, it swerved to
one side and, with increased speed, ran upon the board walk that led
down to the boat-landing.

The walk descended at quite a decided incline to the water's edge. It
was raised on posts above the level of the ground, so that a fall from
it would mean serious injury. There was naught for the luckless colonel
to do but sit, helpless, in the saddle and let the wheel take its
course.

Helpless, but not silent. Beholding the fate that was inevitable, the
colonel gave utterance to a wild roar of despair, which, together with
the rumbling of the wheels above his head, drove forth his dog from his
hiding-place. Cæsar, espying this new and extraordinary object rattling
down the board walk, and mindful of the agonizing shrieks of his master,
himself pursued the flying wheel, yelping and barking and adding his
voice to that of Colonel Witham.

There was no escape. The heavy wheel, bearing its ponderous weight of
misery, and pursued to the very edge of the float by the dog, plunged
off into the water with a mighty splash. Colonel Witham, clinging in
desperation to the handle bars, sank with the wheel in some seven feet
of water. Then, amid a whirl and bubbling of the water like a boiling
spring, the colonel's head appeared once more above the surface. Choking
and sputtering, he cried for help.

"Help! help!" he roared. "I'm drowning. I can't swim."

"No, but you'll float," bawled Little Tim, who was darting into the shed
for a rope.

Indeed, as the colonel soon discovered, now that he was once more at the
surface, it seemed really impossible for him to sink. He turned on his
back and floated like a whale.

And at this moment, most opportunely, there appeared up the road the
line of bicyclists returning.

They were down at the shore shortly--Tom Harris, Bob White, George,
Arthur and Joe Warren--just as Little Tim emerged from the shed, with an
armful of rope.

"Here, you catch hold," he said, "while I make fast to the colonel." The
next moment, he was overboard, swimming alongside Colonel Witham.

"Look out he don't grab you and drown you both," called George Warren.

Little Tim was too much of a fish in the water to be caught that way.
The most available part of Colonel Witham to make fast to, as he floated
at length, was his nearest foot. Tim Reardon threw a loop about that
foot, then the other; and the boys ashore hauled lustily.

The colonel, more than ever resembling a whale--but a live one, inasmuch
as he continued to bellow helplessly--came slowly in, and stranded on
the shore. They drew him well in with a final tug.

"Here, quit that," he gurgled. "Want to drag me down the road?" The
colonel struggled to his feet, his face purple with anger.

"Now get out of here, all of you!" he roared. "There's always trouble
when you're around. Tim Reardon, you keep away from here, do you
understand?"

"Yes sir," replied Tim Reardon, wringing his own wet clothes; and then
added, with a twinkle in his eyes, "but ain't you going to show us those
medals, Colonel Witham?"

It was lucky for Tim Reardon that he was fleet of foot. The colonel made
a rush at him, but Tim was off down the road, leaping into the saddle
of his mended wheel, followed by the others.

"Don't you want us to raise the velocipede, so you can ride some more?"
called young Joe Warren, as he mounted his own wheel.

The colonel's only answer was a wrathful shake of his fist.

"Colonel Witham," said Grannie Thornton, as her employer entered the
hotel, a few minutes later, "here's a note for you, from Mr. Ellison.
Guess he wants to see you about something."

"Hm!" exclaimed the colonel, opening the note, and dampening it much in
doing so, "Jim Ellison, eh? More of his queer business doings, I reckon.
He's a smart one, he is," he added musingly, as he waddled away to his
bed-room to change his dripping garments; then, spying his own face in
the mirror: 'What's the matter with you, Daniel Witham? Aren't you
smart, too? In all these dealings, isn't there something to be made?'

Colonel Witham, rearraying his figure in a dry suit of clothing, was to
be seen, a little later, on the road to the mill, walking slowly, and
thinking deeply as he went along. He was so engrossed in his reflections
that he failed to notice the approach of a carriage until it was close
upon him. He looked up in surprise as a pleasant, gentle voice accosted
him.

"Good afternoon, Colonel Witham," it said.

The speaker was a middle-aged, sweet faced woman--the same that had
appeased the wrath of her husband against Bess Thornton. She leaned out
of the carriage now and greeted Colonel Witham with cordiality.

"Oh, how-dye-do," replied Colonel Witham abruptly, and returning her
smile with a frown. He passed along without further notice of her
greeting, and she started up the horse she had reined in, and drove
away.

Only once did Colonel Witham turn his head and gaze back at the
disappearing carriage. Then he glowered angrily.

"I don't want your smiles and fine words," he muttered. "You were too
good for me once. Just keep your fine words to yourself. I don't want
'em now."

Colonel Witham, in no agreeable mood, went on and entered at the office
door of the mill. A tall, sharp-faced man, seated on a stool at a high
desk, looked up at his entrance. One might see at a glance that here was
a man who looked upon the world with a calculating eye. No fat and
genial miller was James Ellison. No grist that came from his mill was
likely to be ground finer than a business scheme put before him. He eyed
Colonel Witham sharply.

"Aha, Colonel," he exclaimed, in a slightly sneering tone, "bright and
cheery as ever, I see. I thought I'd like to have you drop in and
scatter a little sunshine. Sit down. Have a pipe?"

Colonel Witham, accepting the proffered clay and and the essentials for
loading it, sat back in a chair, and puffed away solemnly, without
deigning to answer the other's bantering.

James Ellison continued figuring at his desk.

"Well," said Colonel Witham after some ten minutes had passed, "Suppose
you didn't get me down here just to smoke. What d'ye want?"

"Oh, I'm coming to that right away," replied Ellison, still writing.
"You know what I want, I guess." He turned abruptly in his seat, and his
keen face shaded with anger. He pointed a long lean finger in the
direction of the town of Benton. "You know 'em, Dan Witham," he said,
"as well as I do. Though you didn't get skinned as I did. You didn't go
down to town, as I did twenty odd years ago, with eight thousand
dollars, and come back cleaned out. You didn't invest in mines and
things they said were good as gold, and have 'em turn out rubbish. You
didn't lose a fortune and have to start all over again. But you know em,
eh?"

Colonel Witham nodded assent, and added mentally, "Yes, and I know you,
too. Benton don't have the only sharp folks."

"And now," added James Ellison, "when I've got some of it back by hard
work, you know how I keep it from them, and from others, too. Well,
here's some more of the papers. The mill and a good part of the farm and
some more land 'round here go to you this time. All right, eh? You get
your pay on commission. Here's the deeds conveying it all to you--for
valuable consideration--valuable consideration, see?"

The miller gave a prodigious wink at his visitor, and laughed.

"You don't mind being thought pretty comfortably fixed, eh--all these
properties put in your name? Don't do you any harm, and people around
here think you're mighty smart. Your deeds from me are all recorded, eh?
People look at the record, and what do they see? All this stuff in your
name. Well, what do I get out of that? You know. There are some claims
they don't bother me with, because they think I'm not so rich as I am.
There's property out of their reach, if anything goes wrong with some
business I'm in.

"Why? Well, we know why, all right, you and I. Here's the deeds of the
same property which you give back to me. Only I don't have them put on
record. I keep them hidden--up my sleeve--clear up my sleeve, don't I?"

"You keep 'em hidden all right, I guess," responded Colonel Witham; and
made a mental observation that he'd like to know where the miller really
did hide them.

"So here they are," continued the miller. "It's a little more of the
same game. The property's all yours--and it isn't. You'll oblige, of
course, for the same consideration?"

Colonel Witham nodded assent, and the business was closed.

And, some time later, as Colonel Witham plodded up the road again, he
uttered audibly the wish he had formed when he had sat in the miller's
office.

"I'd like to know where he keeps those deeds hidden," he said,
apparently addressing his remark to a clump of weeds that grew by the
roadside. The weeds withholding whatever information they may have had
on the question, Colonel Witham snipped their heads off with a vicious
sweep of his stick, and went on. "I don't know as it would do me any
good to know," he continued, "but I'd just like to know, all the same."

And James Ellison, his visitor departed, wandered about for some time
through the rooms of his mill. One might have thought, from the sly and
confidential way in which he drew an eye-lid down now and again, as he
passed here and there, that the wink was directed at the mill itself,
and that the crazy old structure was really in its owner's confidence;
that perhaps the mill knew where the miller hid his papers.

At all events, James Ellison, sitting down to his supper table that
evening, was in a genial mood.

"Lizzie," he said, smiling across the table at his wife, "I saw an old
beau of yours to-day--Dan Witham. He didn't send any love to you,
though."

"No," responded Mrs. Ellison, and added, somewhat seriously, "and he has
no love for you, either. I hope you don't have much business dealing
with him."

"Ho, he's all right, is Dan Witham," returned her husband. "He's gruff,
but he's not such a bad sort. Those old times are all forgotten now."

"I'm not so certain of that, James," said Mrs. Ellison.




CHAPTER VI

CAPTURING AN INDIAN


Tim Reardon, a barefoot, sunburned urchin, who might be perhaps twelve
years old, judging from his diminutive figure, and anywhere from that to
fifteen, by the shrewdness of his face, stood, with arms akimbo, gazing
in rapturous admiration at a bill-board. It was a gorgeous and thrilling
sight that met his eyes. Lines in huge coloured letters, extending
across the top of the board, proclaimed the subject of the display:

         Bagley & Blondin's Gigantic Circus
          Two Colossal Aggregations in One
        Stupendous--Startling--Scintillating
                Moral--Scientific
    Applauded by all the Crowned Heads of Europe.

The pictorial nightmare that bore evidence to the veracity of these
assertions was indeed wonderful and convincing. A trapeze performer,
describing a series of turns in the air that would clearly take him
from one end of the long bill-board to the other, was in manifest
peril, should he miss the swinging trapeze at the finish of his
flight, of landing within the wide open jaws of an enormous
hippopotamus--designated in the picture as, "The Behemoth of Holy Writ."
An alligator, sitting upright, and bearing the legend that he was one of
the "Sacred Crocodiles of the Nile, to which the Indian Mothers Throw
Their Babes," was leering with a hopeful smile at the proximity of a
be-spangled lady equestrian, balanced on the tip of one toe upon the
back of a galloping horse.

The jungle element was generously supplied by troops of trumpeting
elephants, tigers with tails lashing, bloated serpents dangling
ominously from the overhanging tree branches, while bands of lean and
angular monkeys jabbered and chattered throughout all the picture.

Little Tim heaved a sigh.

"Gee!" he exclaimed. "I'd like to see that Royal Bengal tiger that ate
up three of his keepers alive."

Little Tim, fired with the very thought, and emulative of an athlete in
distorted attitude and gaudy fleshings, proceeded to turn himself upside
down and walk upon his hands, waving his bare feet fraternally at the
pictured gymnasts. He found himself suddenly caught by the ankles,
however, and slung roughly across someone's shoulder.

"Hello, Tim," said his captor, good naturedly, "going to join the
circus?"

Little Tim grinned, sheepishly.

"Guess not, Jack," he replied. "Say, wouldn't you like to see that tiger
eat up a keeper?"

Jack Harvey laughed, setting Tim on his feet again.

"I'll bet that tiger isn't as great a man-eater as old Witham," he said.
"They put that in to make people think he's awful fierce, so they'll go
to the show. You going?"

Tim Reardon, thrusting his hands into his pockets and closing his
fingers on a single five cent piece, three wire nails and a broken
bladed jack-knife, looked expressively at Harvey.

"I dunno," he replied. "P'raps so."

Jack Harvey took the hint.

"Come along with us," he said. "Where's the rest of the crew?"

"They're going--got the money," said Tim.

Harvey looked surprised. His crew, so called because the three other
members of it besides Tim Reardon had sailed with him on his sloop in
Samoset bay, were generally hard up.

"All right," said Harvey, "you can go with Henry Burns and George Warren
and me. Come on. Let's go down town and see the parade."

The blare of trumpets and the clashing of brass was shaking the very
walls of the city of Benton. A steam calliope, shrieking a tune
mechanically above the music of the band and the roar of carts, was
frightening farmers' horses to the point of frenzy. Handsome, sleek
horses, stepping proudly, were bearing their gaily dressed riders in
cavalcade. And the rumble of the heavy, gilded carts gave an undertone
to the sound. Bagley & Blondin's great moral and scientific show was
making its street parade, prior to the performance.

Tim Reardon stood between Henry Burns and Jack Harvey on a street
corner, with George Warren close by. Tim Reardon's eyes seemed likely to
pop clean out of his head.

"There he is! There he is, Jack!" he exclaimed all at once, fairly
gasping with excitement.

"Who is?" asked Harvey.

"The man-eating tiger," cried Tim. "It says so on the cage."

Harvey chuckled. "I'd like to throw you in there, Tim," he said. "He'd
be scared to death of you. Here's the real thing coming, though. Say,
what do you think of that?"

The float that approached was certainly calculated to fire the brain of
youth. On the platform, open to view from all sides, there was set up in
the centre the trunk of a small tree, to which was securely bound, by
hand and foot, the figure of a huntsman, clad in garb of skins, buckskin
leggings and moccasins. A powder horn was slung picturesquely from one
shoulder, and a great hunting-knife--alas useless to him now--stuck
conspicuously in his belt.

Around this hapless captive there moved the figures of three savages,
their faces streaked with various hues of paint, their war-bonnets of
eagles' feathers flaunting, and wonderful to behold. Each bore in his
right hand a gleaming tomahawk, which now and then was raised menacingly
toward the unfortunate huntsman. Again one would put his hand to his
lips, and a shrill war-whoop would rival the screaming of the steam
calliope.

Close by, a wigwam, of painted skins thrown over a light frame-work of
poles, added to the picture. At the entrance to this there stood now a
man in ordinary dress, who thus addressed the crowd through a megaphone:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this historical representation which you now see
before you is a scene from real life. It represents the perils of the
plainsman in the midst of bands of cruel savages. It shows a captive
bound to the stake and about to be put to torture. (Increased activity
on the part of the Indians, and a suggestive squirming on the part of
the prisoner.)

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this daring scout was one of General Miles's most
trusted and heroic followers. (Name not mentioned.) He was captured by
these three chiefs, Leaping Panther, Crazy Bear and Red Bull--a kinsman
of the famous Sitting Bull--after one of the most desperate struggles
ever known, and after twice disarming his adversaries and nearly killing
them all. (Revengeful gestures on the part of the three toward the
captive.)

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the continuation of this thrilling adventure, the
rescue of this famous scout and the capture of Leaping Panther, Crazy
Bear and Red Bull, will be enacted under canvas at the great Bagley &
Blondin moral and scientific show this afternoon and evening."

"Hi! yi!" yelled Little Tim, "Real Injuns, Jack. Look at the big one,
with the red streak across his chin."

Tim's shrill voice rang out above the noise of the procession. Perhaps
it may have penetrated, even, to the group upon the float; for, at that
moment, the great chief, Red Bull--kinsman to the sitting
variety--turned and shook his tomahawk in the direction of the group of
boys. Little Tim squealed in an ecstasy of pleasurable alarm.

"Look out; he'll get you, Tim," said George Warren.

"Gee!" exclaimed Little Tim. "Bet I wouldn't like to be tied to that
tree, though."

"Why not?" asked Jack Harvey, grinning at Tim's serious expression.

"Because, how'd I know they wouldn't forget some time and go ahead and
really scalp me? Oh, they might do it, all right. You needn't laugh. I
wouldn't like to be mas-sick-ered the way they were at that Fort
some-thing-or-other in the Last of the Mohigginses."

"Ho, you mean the 'Last of the Mohicans,'--the book I told you about,
eh?" said Henry Burns--"all about Uncas and the rest."

"That's it," cried Little Tim. "Wouldn't I like to be Un-cuss, though,
and scalp Red Bull."

"Fine!" laughed Henry Burns. "Come on, we'll go up to the circus
grounds."

To Little Tim the afternoon was one glorious dream; a dream through
which there pranced horses in bright trappings, ridden by be-spangled
men and women; chariots rumbled in mad races; bicyclists shot down
fearful inclines; and the whole proceedings made glad to the heart of
the youngster by the roaring of wild beasts.

The impending torture of Gen. Miles's scout was happily averted by the
timely arrival of a band of mounted soldiers, whose cracking rifles laid
in the dust the painted warriors--barely in time to save Little Tim,
also, from utter collapse. He emerged from the tent, some hours later,
wild eyed; so freighted down with red lemonade and peanuts that if
dropped overboard he must surely have sunk without a struggle.

Evening came, and with it the night performance. Night found Little Tim
again on the grounds. True, he had no money for a ticket, but it was a
delight to wander about the grounds; to climb upon the great carts and
be chased off by angry circus men. The gaudy canvases, stretched here
and there, reminded him of what he had seen inside; and he eyed them
affectionately.

Once there was a thrill of excitement for him, when the Indian warriors,
their evening act over, hurried past him in a group and disappeared
within the opening of a small tent, on the outskirts of the grounds.

Time passed, and it had struck nine o'clock a half hour ago. The show
would be over in half an hour more. Young Joe Warren, who had seen the
main circus in the afternoon and who was strolling in and about the
side-shows, suddenly found himself accosted by Tim Reardon, who gasped
out a greeting as though the words choked him.

"Hello, Tim," replied Joe, eying him with astonishment. "Say, what's the
matter? Any of the snakes got loose? You look as though they were after
you."

Tim was breathless, sure enough, as though he were being pursued. His
very eyes seemed to have grown larger, and he was hardly able to stand
still long enough to reply.

"Come on, Joe," he whispered. "I'll show you something. Better'n snakes,
a big sight. Easy now, don't talk. Follow me."

Young Joe Warren, a boy slightly taller than Tim and perhaps a year
older, ready at all times for a lark, followed his barefoot guide, but
on the look-out, half suspecting it was one of Tim's tricks. They
threaded their way through a maze of carts and circus paraphernalia, out
to the edge of the grounds; past a line of small tents, used as the
encampment of the performers, to a grove of maple trees skirting the
field.

"I say, Tim, what's up, anyway?" inquired Joe Warren presently. "You
needn't think you can fool me--"

"Sh-h-h," warned Tim, turning and raising a hand to silence his
companion. "Here he is."

He took a few steps forward, grasped Joe Warren's arm, brought him to a
stand-still and pointed toward a figure that reclined upon a blanket
spread beneath a tree.

"Well, what of it--what is it?" asked Joe Warren, "I don't see anything
but somebody asleep."

Tim Reardon again gestured for silence and induced his companion to
approach nearer. Whereupon he pointed gleefully at the face of the
sleeper. Young Joe, bending down softly, beheld the painted features of
the great chief, Red Bull.

"Hmph!" he exclaimed. "It's only one of the Injuns. Saw 'em at the show
this afternoon."

Little Tim, in reply, seized Young Joe mysteriously by an arm, drew him
away a few paces and whispered something, excitedly.

Young Joe gave a subdued roar.

"Cracky!" he cried, doubling up. "Tim, you're the craziest youngster.
What put it into your head? We couldn't do it."

"No, you and I couldn't," answered Tim; "but the whole of us could--Jack
Harvey and Henry Burns, and the rest of the fellers. Gee! Joe, just
think of it. A real live Injun--a live one-'twould be just like the Last
of the Mohigginses."

"What would we do with him if we got him?" asked Joe.

"Nothin'," replied Little Tim--"Oh, yes, we could,--take him off up
stream to the camp and--dance 'round him, like they do in the show."

"Come on," said Joe Warren. "Let's find Jack and Henry Burns and
George. They won't do it, though."

If one could have seen Henry Burns's eyes twinkle, when they had found
the three a few moments later, however, they would have thought
differently.

"Tim, you're all right," he said. "But how could we get him away from
here?"

"Why, get the wagon," said Young Joe. "Come on, George, will you? I'll
go down to the house for it, if you'll join. 'Twon't take more'n half an
hour. You find Tom and Bob; they're 'round somewhere. Then wait here
till I come back."

Young Joe, reading a half consent in his elder brother's hesitation,
darted away. George Warren was not keen for it, however.

"Tim, you and Joe are a couple of young idiots," he exclaimed. "We're
not going to do any such fool thing as that. We couldn't do it, in the
first place."

"Yes we can," argued Little Tim. "He ain't got his tomahawk nor any
scalping knife. And he ain't very much bigger than Jack."

Harvey drew himself up and felt of his muscle.

"Tom and Bob could lick him, without the rest of us," continued Little
Tim.

Tom and Bob, who had been added to the group, likewise flexed their
biceps and thought how strong they were.

"I ain't afraid," said Harvey.

"Nor I," said Tom and Bob, respectively.

Thus they argued. A half hour went by, and the band inside the tent was
making loud music as a youth darted up to them, out of breath with
running.

"Come on," cried Young Joe, softly. "I've got the wagon over back in the
grove, and some ropes, and some cloth. Come and take a look."

To look was to yield. The sleeping, snoring figure of the great chief,
Red Bull, gave no signs of suspicious dreams when, some moments later, a
band of boys approached noiselessly the place where he lay. The moment
could not have been timed more opportunely for success. The circus was
about breaking up for the night, and the great tent was buzzing and
resounding with noise.

A half dozen figures suddenly sprang forward upon the slumbering
chieftain. The arms of the dread Red Bull, seized respectively by Jack
Harvey and Tom Harris, were quickly bound behind him. A light rope,
wound securely about his ankles by George Warren, and made fast in
sailor fashion, rendered him further helpless; while, at the same time,
a long strip of cloth, procured by Young Joe for the purpose, and
swathed about his head, stifled his roars of rage and fright. Red Bull,
the great Indian chief, the terror of the plains, was most assuredly a
captive--an astounded and helpless Indian, if ever there was one.

Borne on the sturdy shoulders of his pale-face captors, Red Bull, bound
and swathed, uttering smothered ejaculations through the cloth, was
conveyed to the waiting wagon and driven away.

A little less than an hour from this time there arrived at the shore of
Mill Stream a strange party, the strangest beyond all doubt that had
come down to these shores since the days when the forefathers of circus
chiefs had skimmed its waters in their birch canoes, carrying their
captives not to pretended but to real torture.

Two canoes, brought down from an old shed, were launched now and floated
close to shore. Into one of these was carried the helpless and enraged
Red Bull, where he was propped up against a thwart. In front of him, on
guard, squatted Little Tim. Jack Harvey and Henry Burns took their
places, respectively, at stern and bow, equipped with paddles. The
second canoe was hastily filled with the four others. They made a heavy
load for each canoe, and brought them down low in the water.

"Easy now," cautioned Tom Harris, as the party started forth. "We're
well down to the gunwales. No monkeying, or we'll upset."

They proceeded carefully and silently up stream, with the moon coming up
over the still water to light them on their way.

A mile and a half up the stream, they paused where a shabby structure of
rough boards, eked out with odds and ends of shingle stuff, with a rusty
funnel protruding from the roof, showed a little back from shore, on a
cleared spot amid some trees.

"Here's the camp," cried Harvey; and they grounded the canoes within its
shadow.

The chief, Red Bull, clearly not resigned to his fate, but squirming
helplessly, was conveyed up the bank and set down against a convenient
stump. The canoes were drawn on shore, and the party gathered about him.

"What are we going to do with him, anyway, now we've got him?" inquired
George Warren.

"Oh, he's got to be tried by a war council," said Henry Burns; "and all
of us are scouts, and we've got to tell how many pale-faces he's
scalped, and then he's got to be sentenced to be put to torture and
scalped and--and all that sort of thing. And then we'll dance around him
and--and then by and by--well, I suppose we'll have to let him go. I
don't know just how, but we'll arrange that. But we've got to have a
fire first, to make it a real war council."

They had one going shortly, down near the shore, and casting a weird
glare upon the scene.

After a preliminary dance about their captive, in which they lent colour
to the picture by brandishing war-clubs and improvised tomahawks, they
sat in solemn council on the chief.

"Fellow scouts," said Henry Burns, addressing his assembled followers,
"this is the great Indian chief, Magua, the dog of the Wyandots--"

"Whoopee!" yelled Little Tim, "that's him. He killed Un-cuss, didn't he,
Henry?"

"The brave scout has spoken well," replied Henry Burns. "This is the
cruel dog of the Wyandots; slayer of the brave Uncas; shot at by
Hawkeye, the friend of the Delawares--"

"I thought you said he killed him--in the book," cried Little Tim.

"Shut up, Tim," said Joe Warren.

"He's alive again," declared Henry Burns, solemnly. "He was only
wounded.

"Here is the cruel Huron," continued Henry Burns, "delivered into our
hands by that daring scout who knows no fear."

Little Tim grinned joyously at this praise from his leader.

"What shall we do with our captive?" solemnly inquired Henry Burns.
"Shall we show mercy to the slayer of the brave Uncas? Shall we be women
and let him go, to roam the forests and ravage the homes of our
settlers, or shall he be put to death?"

"He must die," growled Scout Harvey. "The daring leader has spoken well.
Is it not so, men?"

The doom of Red Bull, otherwise Magua, the dog of the Wyandots, was
declared.

The death of the captive followed swiftly--in pantomime--the brave
scouts, under the leadership of Henry Burns, performing a series of
dances about the helpless one, accomplishing his end with imaginary
tomahawk blows.

"Now he must be scalped," said Henry Burns. "What say you, men, shall we
cast the lot to see who takes the scalp of Magua, the great chief of the
Hurons?"

It was done. The short stick was drawn by Little Tim--to his
inexpressible joy.

"Take the scalping-knife, brave scout," said Henry Burns, handing him a
huge wooden affair, whittled out for the purpose. "The scalp of Magua
the chief shall hang at the cabin of Swift Foot, the scout who captured
him."

Swift Foot advanced to perform the last act in the drama. It was a weird
and dreadful moment. The fire-light cast its flickering glow upon the
doomed chief, his captors and the executioner. The form of Magua was
seen to quiver, as though life was indeed not all extinct.

Swift Foot performed his grim office with a flourish. The wooden
scalping-knife descended upon the gorgeous head-piece of the victim,
which the scout grasped with his other hand and pulled as he drew the
knife.

But at this moment the form beneath the knife wriggled in the hands of
the executioner; lurched to one side, and the head-piece fell away, so
true to life that an involuntary shudder went through the group, as
though the act had really been accomplished. The flaunting head-piece of
eagle feathers fell indeed away, clutched in the hand of Little Tim.
And, at the same instant, by some loosening of the cloth, that, too,
dropped down, freeing the jaws of the Indian chief.

To their amazement, the fire-light shone now not on the straight black
hair of an Indian, but upon a towsled top-knot of unmistakable red.
While from the parted lips of the figure there issued a sound that was
not of the child of the forest.

"Tim Reardon, yer little divvle," cried the victim, glaring at the
astounded youth with unfeigned rage, "it's yerself I'll be takin the
hair off--yer little scallerwag--an the hide of yer, too. Sure an ye'll
be doin some lively dancin' around when I git me two hands on yer.
Scoutin' is it ye'll be doin? I'll scout ye and the likes of all er ye.
Lemme go, I tell yer,--"

The scalping knife dropped from the palsied hand of Swift Foot, the
scout. He stood, glaring wildly at the outraged captive.

"Danny O'Reilly!" he exclaimed, gasping for breath. "Oh, gimminy
crickets!"

"Yes, an it's Danny O'Reilly that'll be scalpin' ye all over from head
to foot to-morrow," cried the captive, wriggling in his bonds. "Lemme
out er this, I tell yez. Sure an I've got a hand out now, and in a
minnit I'll be showin' the likes of ye what it is to take an honest man
away from his job with the circus."

True enough, in some way, by his wriggling, Danny O'Reilly was rapidly
emerging, not only from his disguise as an Indian chief, but from his
bonds as well. Panic seized upon the brave scouts--a panic born of dread
of what might be in store in days to come. There was a rush to the
canoes; a hasty scrambling aboard; a frenzied launching of the craft,
and an ignominious flight from the place of execution.

Five minutes later, one walking the highway leading up from Benton might
have beheld a strange figure, striding in to the city, breathing words
of wrath upon the night air; a figure clad in Indian finery, but
bearing the likeness beneath his war-paint of Daniel O'Reilly, a
stalwart labourer of Benton, for the time being a valuable accession to
the Bagley & Blondin great moral and scientific show.




CHAPTER VII

A LONG RACE BEGUN


The circus remained two days longer in Benton, but there were certain
youths who kept away from it. A solemn oath of secrecy bound them as to
the reason why. Only Tim Reardon and Joe Warren couldn't resist the
temptation of stealing in among the wagons and watching for the
appearance of Danny O'Reilly in all the glory of his paint and feathers;
and, when they beheld a crowd of farmers gaze upon him admiringly as he
passed in for the Wild West performance, they nearly choked to death
with laughter, and couldn't have run if he had espied them.

"Guess we won't get licked, after all," whispered Little Tim. "Not if we
keep dark, we won't. Danny's going on with the show up the state. He
told Jimmy Nolan, his cousin, and Jimmy told me. 'You'd never guessed he
wasn't an Injun,' says Jimmy to me, 'unless I'd told yer. Don't you ever
let on,' he says--and I like to died--hello, who's that coming?"

Looking in the direction pointed out by Tim Reardon, Young Joe beheld an
old wagon, drawn by a lean horse, the seat of the wagon nearly bent
down to the axles on one side by the weight of the occupant.

"Well, if it isn't Colonel Witham!" exclaimed Young Joe. "Didn't suppose
he'd pay to go to a circus."

It seemed, however, that Colonel Witham had no immediate intention of
entering the main tent, for he proceeded to walk along the line of
smaller pavilions, where the side-shows proclaimed their many and
monstrous attractions. The canvas of one of these presently attracted
the colonel's attention, for he paused in front of it and stood studying
it contemplatively.

Little Tim and Young Joe, stealing around in the rear of Colonel Witham,
beheld the object of his curiosity. There was a full length portrait on
the canvas, painted in brilliant colours, of a woman standing before an
urn from which vague vapours were arising. She held in one hand a wand,
with which she seemed in the act of conjuring forth a shadowy figure
from within the vapours. A little black satanic imp peered coyly over
her right shoulder. The inscription beneath her portrait read:

                 Lorelei, the Sorceress.
    Your Future Foretold--All Mysteries Explained--Your
    Fate Read by the Stars--Hidden Things Revealed--Lost
                   Property Recovered.

Something about the gaudy and pretentious sign seemed to fascinate
Colonel Witham. He walked past it once, reading it out of the corner of
one eye; but he went only a little way beyond, then turned and stopped
and surveyed it once more. He edged up to the canvas, sidled into the
entrance and disappeared.

"Cracky!" cried Young Joe. "Isn't that rich? The colonel's going to have
his fortune told. Wow! wow! Suppose he's fallen in love?"

"Not much," said Little Tim. "He wants to know where he's lost a dollar,
probably. Hello, Allan, come over here."

Little Tim, in high glee, bawled out a greeting to a comrade, Allan
Harding, and conveyed the great news. The three stood awaiting the
colonel's reappearance.

If they could have seen within the tent, they might have beheld Colonel
Witham, seated at a table upon which a light was thrown, its object
being not so much to illuminate the occupant of the seat as to obscure
his vision. It served to render more shadowy a vague figure that
occupied a little booth across which a gauze curtain hung, and from
which a voice now issued:

"I see a dusty road, with fields running back from it," droned the
voice, with mysterious monotony, while the person behind the veil
scrutinized keenly the figure and dress of her visitor. "I see a great
house a little way back from the road, with--with what seems to be a
porch in front."

"Yes, yes," said Colonel Witham, beginning to be impressed, ignoring the
fact that his person indicated his occupation and that the description
would answer almost every farmhouse along the road from Benton.

"I see a figure sitting on the porch, and it resembles--yes, it is
yourself. You are thinking. There is something that you want to know.
You do not seem to be in love--"

Colonel Witham snorted--and the hint to the sorceress was sufficient.

"The stars are very clear on that point," continued the voice. "Your
mind is bent on more serious things. You have a business matter that
troubles you."

"Wonderful!" ejaculated Colonel Witham, under his breath. "What else do
you see?" he inquired, eagerly.

"Let me read the stars," continued the voice. "I see what looks like
another man."

"Yes, yes," said Witham, forgetting in his eagerness that he had come
in, half skeptical, and meant to reveal nothing on his own part. "Is he
hiding anything?"

"Wait--not so fast," replied the voice. Then, after a pause, "No, he is
not hiding anything."

Colonel Witham's jaw dropped.

"But," continued the sorceress, "there is something strange about him.
Wait, until I ask the spirits. They will tell something. Yes, he has
something already hidden. It is secreted. He has hidden something away.
Let me see, are they papers? They look like papers, but it is vague--"

"And where are they hidden?" cried Colonel Witham, rising from his seat
eagerly.

"The spirits will not say," answered the voice. "They seem to be angry
at something. Ah, they say they must have more money."

"But I paid at the door," protested Colonel Witham.

"Yes, but they are angry," said the voice. "They are angry at me for
taking so little for all I impart. They will have two dollars more,
or--yes, they are already disappearing--quick, or you will be too late."

Colonel Witham groaned in anguish; slowly produced a shabby wallet, took
therefrom two greasy dollar bills and passed them across the table to an
outstretched hand.

"Ah, they are coming back," said the voice. "Another moment and it would
have been too late. Now the stars are coming out clearer also. What is
it they tell? Ah, they say--listen--they say the man has concealed
papers that are wanted by you--concealed them _in his place of
business_."

"Yes, yes, but where?" cried Colonel Witham. "In the safe, or around the
machinery--where-abouts?"

"Listen," said the voice. "The spirits seem angry again--"

"Let 'em be angry!" bellowed Colonel Witham. "They'll not get another
cent, confound 'em!"

"Softly, softly," said the voice soothingly, "The spirits are greatly
agitated by loud words. And the stars are growing dim once more. The
spirits want no more money. They will tell you all; that is, all you
need to know. Listen: They say you will find the papers. But you must be
patient. They are hidden in a building where there are wheels turning
rapidly. And the spirits say the noise hurts their ears. They say,
though, that you must wait a little while, and then you will go into the
building and find them. That is all now. You will certainly get them.
The spirits are gone. They will not come back again to-day."

The voice became silent; and Colonel Witham sat sheepishly in his chair.
Then he arose and walked slowly to the doorway. Had he been fooled? He
did not know. It was certainly strange: how the voice had described his
hotel--a big house with a porch--and he looking out--and the other
man--the man that had hidden the papers. No, there was something
remarkable about it all. He would surely get them. Colonel Witham
emerged from the tent.

A chorus of three young voices greeted him:

"Hello, Colonel Witham, been having your fortune told? Tell us what the
witch said, will you, colonel?"

The colonel, gazing at the grinning faces of Tim and Joe Warren and
Allan Harding, flushed purple and raised his cane, wrathfully.

"You little ras--" he began, but bethought himself and halted. "Ho, ho,"
he said, looking half ashamed. "That was only a joke. Just took a
notion to see how funny it was. Here boy, give these lads some peanuts."
The colonel produced a dime from his trousers pocket.

"Say, Tim," said Joe Warren some moments later, "I guess the colonel is
in love, after all. Ten cents' worth of peanuts! My, he's got it bad.
Let's go tell Henry Burns."

A day or two following, toward the end of a pleasant afternoon, Tim
Reardon and his friend, Allan Harding, sat by the shore of Mill stream
watching a small fleet of canoes engaged in active manoeuvring. It was
at a point on the stream opposite the scene of the execution of the
great Indian chief, where the small cabin stood. Back from this a few
rods was an old barn, of which the boys of Benton rented a small section
for the storage of canoes and paddles.

There were four canoes now upon the stream, each containing two
occupants. The eight canoeists were stripped for the work, showing a
gorgeous, if somewhat worn, array of sleeveless jerseys. The boys were
bronzed and healthy looking. Back and forth they darted across the
stream from shore to shore; or again, tried short spurts up and down
stream.

"What are they going to do, Tim?" inquired his companion.

"Don't you know?" queried Tim, by way of reply. "Say, it's going to be
the dandiest race ever. Start to-morrow morning right after breakfast
from in front of the cabin, and go straight up stream all day long. Only
when Jack blows the horn at noon everybody's got to stop and go ashore
and eat something. Then they start again when Jack blows for 'em to. And
paddle like everything all the afternoon till six o'clock. Then stop
again when Jack blows, and leave every canoe just where it is.

"Then they get together and pitch tents and camp all night, and race
back next day. And everybody has got to come up to where the first canoe
is before they turn back. Henry Burns, he got it up. I'll bet he and
Jack win the race, too."

"What'll you bet?" demanded Allan Harding, who had been eying the
canoeists sharply.

"Thousand dollars," replied Tim, promptly, shoving his grimy hands into
pockets that contained several marbles, a broken-bladed knife and other
valuables.

"Well," replied Allan Harding, cautiously, "mebbe you're right, but I
guess those fellows in the green canoe stand a good chance. Look how
strong they are. Say, who are they, anyway?"

"Hm! Jack Harvey's stronger'n any of them," asserted Jim loyally, eying
his stalwart friend, as a canoe passed containing Harvey and Henry
Burns. "Those other chaps are Jim and John Ellison. They live up on the
farm above here. That's what makes 'em strong. But you know Jack. Didn't
he make us stand around, aboard the _Surprise_?"

"Well, who's going to win, Tim?" called Tom Harris, as he skilfully
turned the canoe paddled by himself and Bob White, to avoid collision
with one which held George and Arthur Warren.

"'Spose you think you are," answered Tim, "because you and Bob know how
to paddle best. Look out for Jack, though."

Tom Harris laughed. "You'd bet on Jack if he had a broken arm," he said.

"Count us last, I guess," said George Warren, good-naturedly. "We're
pretty new at it. Going in for the fun of it. Hello, who's this coming?"

"Look out, Jim, it's Benny," exclaimed the elder of the Ellison
brothers.

"I don't care. I won't stand any nonsense from him," replied his
brother, a handsome young fellow, athletic, but slightly smaller than
the other.

Just what he meant by this remark was best explained when Benjamin
Ellison, strolling lazily down to the shore, paused in the process of
devouring a huge piece of molasses cake and said, in a sneering tone:

"My, Johnnie, don't you and Jim look fine though, with city chaps?
What'll Uncle Jim say when I tell him--"

He didn't get much further, for a canoe shot in to shore, and from the
bow of it sprang John Ellison. He seized his cousin by the shoulder.

"You will tell tales, will you?" he cried.

"Let me alone," replied the other, striving to shake off John Ellison's
grasp, but failing. Then he added, as the other canoes came in to shore
and the boys stepped out of them. "Can't you take a joke?"

"No, not when you've done the same kind of a thing before," exclaimed
John Ellison. "Come on, fellows, in with him."

Ready for any kind of a rough joke, several of the canoeists laid hands
on the unfortunate Benjamin.

"Most too many against one," remarked Henry Burns, quietly. "Better let
him go."

"No, he's got to be ducked," insisted John Ellison, whose anger was
aroused.

"Well, only a little one," assented Harvey, grinning good-naturedly. So
they held the luckless youth heels over head and plunged his head
beneath the surface up to his coat-collar. He was sputtering wrathfully
as they lifted him out again.

"Going to tell on us?" cried John Ellison.

Benjamin Ellison glared at his cousin, doubtfully.

"Once more," said John Ellison; and they put the victim's head under
again.

He wasn't hurt and his clothes were still dry; but he was whining, and
he begged for mercy after the second ducking.

"I won't tell," he said.

"Honest?"

"Honest Injun!"

They let him go, and he departed hastily up through the field.

"Tell, will he?" queried Harvey, as Benjamin departed.

"Guess not," replied John Ellison. "He's got enough. He'd like to,
though. He don't like you city fellows any better than father does. He
hasn't got anything against you, either. He's too lazy to paddle. Come
on, Jim, let's follow him up. Well be on hand to-morrow, if there's no
trouble."

The brothers took up their canoe and left the party.

"They're all right, those Ellison chaps," said Harvey; "all except
Benny. He's no good. Come on, fellows, let's lock up, and no walking in
to town, remember. Running's good for the wind. Coming along, Tim?"

"No, I'm going to sleep in the cabin," replied Tim Reardon, "and see the
start in the morning."

"Guess I will, too," said Allan Harding. So the two remained, while the
troop of canoeists set off soon after, on the run back to Benton.

The following morning, the first of a double holiday, came in bright and
clear. Little Tim and his companion were early astir, and cooking a mess
of oatmeal from the cabin's scanty stores over a cracked sheet iron
stove.

"There they come," cried Tim presently, as the sounds of fresh, boyish
voices came from outside. "Hooray! I wish 'twas a yacht race, though.
Wouldn't I go along?"

By nine o'clock the four canoes were fully equipped, drawn up in line
off the cabin, and the canoeists, paddles in hand, arms bared, and
sweaters tied around the thwarts, were ready to start. Jim and John
Ellison were there, a sturdy pair of farm lads; Jack Harvey, apparently
much over-matching his mate in physique, but with something in the
slighter figure of Henry Burns that indicated resource and staying
powers; Tom and Bob, old and hardened canoeists; and George and Arthur
Warren, clean-cut and athletic.

"Ready for the horn!" called Harvey, holding his paddle in his right
hand and a long, tin horn in the other.

"All ready!" sang out the canoeists.

Harvey put the horn to his lips and blew a loud, full blast. The paddles
struck the water with a vigour, and the race was begun.

The three canoes shot ahead of Harvey's at the start, owing to the
slight delay caused him in dropping the horn.

"Let them lead, Jack," said Henry Burns, quietly. "It's a two days'
race. Take it easy."

"That's so," said Harvey, half pausing in a stroke in which he had
started to exert his strength to the utmost. "Lucky I've got you. You
always keep cool. How do you manage to do it?"

Henry Burns smiled, but made no reply. Instead, he pointed ahead to
where the Ellison brothers, putting their strength into their work, were
showing several rods of clear water between them and the two nearest
canoes, which were going along side by side.

"They've got the race won in the first five minutes," said Henry Burns.
"See Tom and Bob take it easy till they get limbered up."

The two thus indicated were, indeed, setting an example worthy to be
followed. They had started off at an easy, regular stroke, one which
they could keep up for hours and increase when they should see fit. They
were paying no attention to the leading canoe, but were exchanging a
word or two with the Warrens, who were striving to imitate their course
and pace.

The first mile and a half that intervened between the starting point and
the Ellison dam was quickly covered. The Ellison boys, still leading,
were out on shore and carrying their canoe up the bank when the others
were still some rods away. It was a steep pitch of the shore, and Tom
and Bob, when they came to it, took it leisurely, saving their wind. The
others followed, in like fashion. Harvey and Henry Burns were the last
to make the portage.

Once around the dam, on higher level, the canoes were launched again,
and the race continued.

A little way up the shore from the dam, Tom and Bob and the Warren boys,
some distance ahead of the rear canoe, saw an odd little figure swinging
and swaying in the top of a birch tree overhanging the water. The
Ellison boys had passed her unnoticed. Her bit of skirt fluttering, and
her hair waving, showed that the occupant of this novel swing was a
girl.

All at once, to their horror, she seemed to slip and fall. Down she came
from her perch, struck the water with a splash and sank beneath the
surface.

Tom and Bob, driving their paddles into the water with desperate energy,
darted on ahead of the Warren boys, who bent to the paddles and shot
after them. The two canoes fairly flew through the water, while the four
occupants gazed anxiously ahead over the surface for signs of the girl's
reappearance.

To their amazement, a laughing voice hailed them most unexpectedly, from
shore. They looked toward the bank, where, just emerging, dripping wet,
the girl was waving a hand to them.

"How was that for a dive?" she called, pushing her wet hair back from
her eyes, and looking at them roguishly.

"Bully!" exclaimed George Warren, wiping the drops of perspiration from
his forehead. "We thought you had fallen. My, but it gave me a scare."

The girl's eyes danced with merriment. Then espying the other canoe
coming up, she called, "Hello, you back again? Look out Ellison don't
catch you."

"It's Bess Thornton," said Henry Burns, and the two boys called out a
greeting to her.

"Say, do you know Tim Reardon?" she asked abruptly.

"Why, yes," answered Henry Burns. "Should say we did."

"Well," said Bess Thornton, "tell him you saw me dive from the tree,
will you? He didn't think I dared, when I told him." Then she added,
laughing, "Don't get rained on again. But if you do, remember the mill."
And she danced away, wringing the water from the hem of her short
skirt.

"Confound her!" exclaimed Harvey. "Look at the start Jim and John have
got. Come on, Henry."

They pushed on again, Tom and Bob soon taking the lead of the three rear
canoes, with a strong steady stroke that meant business. The first canoe
was by this time a quarter of a mile ahead.




CHAPTER VIII

CONQUERING THE RAPIDS


This part of the stream, for some two miles above the Ellison dam, was
deep, still water, lying between quite steep banks, and there was little
perceptible current. So that now, the water being unruffled by any wind,
the four canoes shot ahead at good speed, retaining generally their
relative positions.

Tom and Bob gradually quickened their stroke, hoping to make some slight
but sure gain on the leaders; but the Ellison brothers were evidently of
a mind to hold their lead as long as possible, and continued to do so.
This, however, was at the cost of some extra exertion, which might tell
in the long run.

In the course of half an hour, after leaving the dam, the current began
to flow faster against them; now and then it came down over shoals of
quite an incline, so that they made better headway by getting out their
setting-poles and using them, instead of the paddles.

Then, at a point a mile farther up stream, they came to rapids of some
considerable extent, flowing quite swiftly and boiling here and there
around sunken rocks. The Ellison brothers had avoided this place, and
were to be seen now, on the right bank of the shore, carrying their
canoe with difficulty.

The shore here was broken up by the out-cropping of ledges, amid the
breaks of which a canoe must be carried with great care, as a false step
would mean a bad fall and perhaps the smashing of the canoe. The only
other alternative, besides the water, was to make a long detour through
the off-lying fields, with loss of time.

Tom and Bob guided their craft swiftly in to land and proceeded to drag
it ashore, as the Ellison boys had done. The Warren brothers followed,
and Jack Harvey was turning his canoe in the same direction when a word
from his companion caused him to cease paddling.

"Jack," said Henry Burns, "I think we could make the rapids. What do you
say? If we win out, we may be in time to call the Ellison fellows back."

It was a rule of the race that, if a canoe succeeded in ascending any
difficult place in the stream, the successful pair was entitled to call
back any of the other canoes that were still carrying around the place,
and make them do likewise. If, however, any of the canoeists had made
the carry completely, and had launched their craft above, they could not
be called back.

The Ellison brothers were about half way up the carry at this time.

"I don't think we could do it, Henry," answered Harvey, to the other's
suggestion. "We could get part of the way up, all right, but the last
few rods are too steep."

He pointed, as he spoke, to the upper incline of the rapids, which was,
indeed, much sharper than the first of the ascent, bending over from the
higher level of the stream abruptly, like a sheet of rounded, polished
ebony; flowing smoothly but with great swiftness; then broken here and
there below with rocks, sharp and jagged, and foaming threateningly as
it whirled past them.

"I think we can do it, Jack," insisted Henry Burns, quietly. "I remember
the place. The water was a little higher when we came through in the
rain; but we ran these rapids, and don't you remember, half way down
that steepest part, we thought we were going to hit a sunken ledge--just
to the right of the middle of the slope?"

"Why, yes, seems to me I do," replied Harvey, gazing ahead. "But I
didn't care much what we hit that evening, I was so wet and tired."

"Well, look now," continued Henry Burns. "You can see the water whirling
at that very spot. The ledge doesn't show above water, but it's there.
What's the matter with working up to that, hanging on it till we get
rested, and then make one quick push up over the top?"

"Oh, well," said Harvey, "I'm game. You seem to guess things right.
We'll try it, anyway."

They pushed on into the first of the rapids, while the Ellison brothers,
turning and espying what they were attempting, redoubled their efforts
to make the carry. Tom and Bob cast a glance back, and also continued
along the carry; but George and Arthur Warren, having seen Henry Burns's
schemes work successfully before, turned and came out to the rapids.
There they waited, ready to make the attempt should they see it prove
successful, or to be in a position to put hurriedly for shore should it
prove a failure.

"Better come on. You're wasting time," called Tom Harris once, as he set
his end of their canoe down on a shelf of ledge. But Henry Burns made no
reply, while Harvey only waved his paddle defiantly.

For several rods, Harvey and Henry Burns made fair progress, working
quick and sharp, plying their paddles with rapid thrusts. Little clumps
of white froth floated fast by them, indicating the swift running of the
water, and its disturbance. Then the stronger current caught them, and
they barely forged ahead. By the appearance of the water, looking down
upon it as they struggled, they seemed to be flying; but it was the
water, and not they, that was moving rapidly. They hung close by the
little points of projecting ledge for moments at a time, making no
headway. They redoubled their efforts, drove their paddles through the
water with desperate energy, and gained the first mark they had set.

Slowly the bow of the canoe crept up to a spot where the keen eyes of
Henry Burns had noted the sunken ledge, at a point only a rod from the
upper incline. This ledge did not show above water, but the boiling of
the stream and an almost imperceptible sloping of the surface on either
hand showed that it was there.

Henry Burns leaned over the side of the canoe and gazed anxiously.
Should the water there prove deeper than he had hoped, they would not
ground, and must be carried back, their strength exhausted. But he had
not been mistaken.

In a moment the water suddenly shallowed. A hard thrust with the
paddles, and the canoe grated gently.

"Easy, Jack," cried Henry Burns. "She's hit. Get out the pole."

Harvey seized the setting-pole from the bottom of the canoe, dropping
his paddle in its place. He thrust it quick and with all his strength
into the swift-running water. At a depth of about three feet it caught
the rocky bottom and held. Harvey braced with the pole and shoved the
bow of the canoe, which had touched on the part of the ledge that was
close to the surface, a little farther ahead.

"Great!" shouted Henry Burns. "Take it easy now. She'll stay if the pole
don't slip."

Harvey relaxed his exertions, holding the pole at an angle sufficient to
keep the canoe where it was, with only slight pressure. Henry Burns,
dropping his own paddle and likewise taking up his setting-pole, got a
grip in the rocks and aided his companion. They could rest now, with the
swift water rushing past them on either bow, and recover their wind and
strength for the final struggle.

Their plan was, when they should have rested, to let the canoe drop back
about a foot, enough to clear the sunken ledge; then, before the current
should catch them, to shove out into it quickly, turn the bow of the
canoe to meet the rush of the rapids, and push over with the poles, by
main strength. They could do it, if, as Henry Burns expressed it, the
canoe "did not get away from them."

The five minutes they waited seemed like hours. Away up along the carry,
they could see the Ellison brothers, lifting their canoe across the
broken bits of shore; Tom and Bob some way behind these, hurrying as
fast as they dared over the treacherous footing. But now, as they
gathered their strength, and gently shoved their canoe back, a cry from
Tom, who had noted their move, arrested the progress of the Ellison
boys. They paused for a moment and, with Tom and Bob, watched the
outcome, eagerly.

Alas! it was sharp and bitter for Henry Burns. The canoe hung for a
moment, as they arrested its drifting with strong thrusts of the poles.
Then it shot ahead, as they pushed its nose diagonally out into the
sharp slope of the rapids. Henry Burns thrust his pole down hard, as
they cleared the sunken ledge, to swing the bow straight into the
current. But the bottom proved treacherous.

It was all over so quickly that neither he nor Harvey knew hardly how it
had happened. He only knew that the pole did not catch, but instead,
struck the slippery face of a smooth bit of the rocky channel, slipped,
gave way, and that he barely recovered his balance to avoid going
overboard.

The next moment, the canoe had swung around, receiving the full force of
the current broadside. A moment more, they were running with it and
being borne down to where George and Arthur Warren greeted them with
cries--not all sympathetic--of "hard luck."

They had hardly got their canoe under control and turned it into an
eddy, and had realized the unhappy turn of affairs, when a shout of
derision and triumph came down to them from the Ellisons. They had made
the carry successfully and were launching their canoe in the smooth
water above.

The Warren boys lost no time in paddling for shore. Tom and Bob, seeing
the discomfiture of their rivals, quickly picked up their canoe and
proceeded along the carry. Harvey looked inquiringly at Henry Burns, who
turned, smiling and unruffled.

"Well?" said Harvey, "got enough?"

"No," replied Henry Burns, and added deliberately, with a twinkle in his
eyes, "we might as well do it, now we've started. We've got two days to
get up over there in, you know."

"Good for you!" exclaimed Harvey. "Come on, if you're ready. We've got
time yet before Tom and Bob make the carry."

They bent to the paddles and got once more to the sunken ledge, panting
and perspiring, for they had worked hard and the current seemed,
therefore, even swifter now than before. There, holding their canoe in
place, they waited a little longer than on the first attempt, to rest
and study the current.

"Let's try the right hand from the ledge this time," said Henry Burns.
"Those whirls mean shallow places. Perhaps the bottom isn't so
slippery."

He pointed at some almost imperceptible breaks in the ebony surface of
the slope, and Harvey agreed.

"I can shove this canoe up over there as sure as you're alive," said
Harvey, gazing proudly at a pair of muscular arms that were certainly
eloquent of strength; "that is, if you can keep her head straight. Don't
try to do much of the poling. Just try to hold what I gain each time,
till I can get a fresh hold. What do you say--rested enough?"

"Aye, aye, captain," replied Henry Burns, coolly. "Up we go."

Again the canoe dropped back a little from the ledge, and again they
caught and held it and shoved out into the current--this time on the
right, instead of the left side.

Their comrades ashore watched anxiously. They saw the canoe strike the
swift running of the water and hang for a moment, as if irresolute,
uncertain whether it would turn its bow upstream or be swerved
broadside. The moment it hung there seemed minutes in duration. They saw
Henry Burns, lithe and agile, but cool and self-possessed, strike his
pole into the slope of the water where he had seen a shallow spot. And
the pole held.

The watchers ashore saw the canoe slowly turn and face the swift
current, lying upon its polished slope as though upon a sheet of glass.
They saw Harvey in the stern set his pole and shove mightily, his
muscles knotted and his face drawn and grim with determination. They saw
the canoe slowly gain against the current.

[Illustration: "THE WATCHERS ASHORE SAW THE CANOE SLOWLY TURN AND FACE
THE SWIFT CURRENT."]

At the edge of the slope it stood still for what seemed an age. They saw
the two in bow and stern struggle desperately again and again to wrest
their craft from the clutch of the current. Then, almost with a leap,
freed from the fierce resistance of the rapids, the canoe slid over the
brink of the incline, into the deeper part of the stream above.

A moment later, they saw the poles dropped and the paddles snatched up.
The canoe shot swiftly ahead, propelled by triumphant arms. The rapids
were conquered. Henry Burns and Harvey had won their hard fight.

In vain had Tom and Bob, hurrying recklessly, bumping their canoe along
the rough shore, essayed to complete the carry before it would be too
late. To their chagrin and dismay, the sound of a horn blown three times
with a vigour announced to them the triumph of their comrades. Sadly
they shouldered their canoe, which they had set down at the first blast
of the horn, and turned their faces back along the trail, toward the
foot of the rapids.

Likewise, the Warren boys, accepting the inevitable, turned back and
prepared to attempt the difficult feat which they had seen accomplished.
At all events, they were, by reason of their position in the rear of Tom
and Bob, in possession of that much advantage over the more skilled
canoeists.

"Whew! but that was a tough one," exclaimed Harvey, dipping his paddle
leisurely, and recovering his breath. "Say, look at poor old Tom and
Bob--the champion canoeists. Bet they feel sore."

Henry Burns turned, looked back and smiled. Then, gazing up stream
again, he said, "Yes, but look there."

At a bend of the stream, fully a half mile ahead, the first canoe was
gliding easily along.

Harvey groaned. "And they'd be back there, too," he exclaimed, "if we
hadn't made that slip. Never mind, there's another day coming."

It seemed a long, long time, and they, themselves, had reached a point
fully a half mile above the rapids, before they espied first one canoe
and then another achieving the incline. They could not discern which was
in the lead, but it proved later to be the canoe handled by Tom and Bob,
the Warrens having made two failures before succeeding, giving time to
the others to come up and pass them. They were about abreast now, coming
along slowly.

It was smooth paddling now, along the shores of green meadows and
pasture land, until noon arrived. Then, at the signal of four blasts of
the horn, by Harvey, answered in turn by all the others above and below,
the canoes were drawn out on shore and luncheon was eaten. They built no
fires, but ate what they had brought, cold. With an hour to rest in,
the leaders strolled back to where Harvey and Henry Burns were, and
chaffed them good-naturedly on their failure to make them take the
rapids, and over their own strong lead. To which, Harvey and Henry
Burns, being good sportsmen, replied good-humouredly, assuring the
Ellisons they should beat them on "the next hard place."

The other canoeists remained where they were, and ate their luncheons
together.




CHAPTER IX

AN EXCITING FINISH


When, at about two o'clock that afternoon, the sound of the horn, blown
four times by Jack Harvey, announced that the race was resumed, there
was a do-or-die expression on the faces of Tom Harris and Bob White.
Harvey and Henry Burns were a good half mile ahead of them; the Ellisons
fully a mile.

Not that this was disheartening to athletic lads in good training, who
had learned in many a contest of skill and strength to accept a result
fairly won, even though they were beaten. On the contrary, here was a
contest worth the winning, now that the odds were against them. Their
first pique, over the clever move of Henry Burns that had set them back
in the race, having subsided, they were ready to give him credit for
carrying it out.

But they were still bound to win. So that soon, settling down to a
strong, vigorous stroke, which had often carried them over miles of
rough water in Samoset Bay, they gradually drew ahead of George and
Arthur Warren. They seemed tireless. Their muscles, trained and
hardened, worked like well oiled machinery. In vain the Warren brothers
strove to keep up the pace. They were forced finally to fall back. That
quick, powerful thrust of the paddles, as Tom and Bob struck the water
with perfect precision, sent the light canoe spurting ahead in a way
that could not be equalled by less trained rivals.

Henry Burns and Jack Harvey, toiling manfully, seemed to feel that they,
too, were being out-paddled; for ever and again one of them would glance
back over his shoulder; after which he would strike the water with a
sharper thrust, and the canoe would respond to the fresh endeavour.

"They'll gain some," said Henry Burns once, calmly. "We can't help that.
They've had too many years of it, not to be able to set a stronger pace.
But they can't catch us in one afternoon. If they do, we're beaten.
We'll hold some of our advantage, eh, Jack?"

"You bet we will!" exclaimed Harvey, jabbing the water savagely. "I'm
going to make a gain, myself, if only for a spurt."

So saying, he called to his companion to "give it to 'em lively," and
they set a pace for the next fifteen minutes that did, indeed, exceed
the speed at which Tom and Bob were travelling. But spurts such as that
would not win a two days' race. Gradually they fell back into their
normal swing, and Tom and Bob crept up on them once more.

The Ellisons, too, were feeling the strain of the long test of skill and
endurance. Now, as the afternoon hours went by, their stroke fell off
slower and slower. Heavier built somewhat than Tom and Bob, their
muscles, hardened and more sluggish with harder work, did not respond to
the call. Harvey and Henry Burns were gaining on them; and Tom and Bob
were gaining on both.

On went the four canoes; up rapids or around them, as proved necessary
according to the depth of the water. Harvey and Henry Burns, seeing they
were gaining on the leaders, would take no more chances on questionable
rapids, but carried around those that the Ellisons did. Tom and Bob and
the Warrens also took the readiest way around each difficulty.

Had the race a few more hours to run for that afternoon, it is certain
Tom and Bob must have overtaken and passed their rivals. But now the
time for the end of the first day's contest was at hand, and presently
Harvey, after a glance at his watch, lifted the horn to his lips. Four
blasts sounded far up and down the still waters, and four answering
blasts came from each canoe. The first day's race was done. The canoes
headed for shore. It was six o'clock, and the Ellisons were still in the
lead.

But the margin was not now so great. Between them and the nearest canoe
there was not over a quarter of a mile of winding stream. Harvey and
Henry Burns had done well. But Tom and Bob had accomplished even more.
Scarcely more than an eighth of a mile intervened between their craft
and the canoe of Harvey and Henry Burns. The Warrens had paddled
gamely, also, but were fully three quarters of a mile behind the
leaders.

Leaving their canoes drawn up on shore, at precisely the spot where each
had been at the sound of the horn, the boys met together now and shook
hands all around. It was clean, honest sport, and no mean jealousy.

"But look out for to-morrow," said Tom Harris, good-naturedly shaking a
fist at Jim Ellison.

They brought forth now from each canoe a light frame-work of three
bamboo poles, standards and cross-piece, and a thin, unbleached cotton
"A" tent, and quickly pitched the four tents on a level piece of ground,
in a semi-circle. The tents were flimsy affairs, light to carry, and
would not do in rainy weather; but they had picked their day, and it was
clear and no danger of a wetting.

Then, for there had been a careful division of weight, each canoe
furnished some necessary article for getting the supper: a pail for
boiling coffee from one, fry-pan from another, and so on; with bacon for
frying, and bread and potatoes. They soon had a fire going in the open
space in front of the four tents, with a log rolled close to it, and the
coffee-pail hung on a crotched stick, set aslant the log and braced in
the ground. The bacon sizzled later in the pan, set on some glowing
coals. The potatoes were buried in the hot ashes, under the blaze, just
out of reach of burning.

The canoeists stretched themselves on the ground around the fire,
hungry and healthfully wearied. Twilight was upon them when all was
ready, and they had removed the feast away from the warmth of the fire,
piling on more wood and making it blaze up brightly for its cheer.

Then they fell to with amazing appetites; and the amount of crisp bacon
and hot potatoes and bread they made way with would have appalled the
proprietor of the Half Way House, or any other hotel keeper, if he had
had to supply it. Then, when they had startled the cattle in near-by
pastures with a few songs, heartily if not so musically bawled, they
were ready to turn in for the night, almost with the glowing of the
first stars. It was surprising how soon they were off to sleep, each
rolled in his single blanket, slumbering soundly on the bare turf.

"Well?" remarked Henry Burns inquiringly, next morning, sitting up and
looking at his companion, who had scarcely got his eyes open. Harvey
gave a yawn, stretched and roused up. "I feel fine," he answered. "Lame
any?" "Not a bit," replied Henry Burns.

Stepping outside the tent, he found, to his surprise, Tom and Bob
already up and their tent and blankets snugly packed and stowed.

"Have a plunge?" asked Bob.

"Yes," said Henry Burns. "Come on, Jack?"

The four went down to the shore, leaving the others still finishing
their morning naps. One quick plunge and they were out again, ready for
breakfast. It was plain they were ready for the day's race. So said Jim
and John Ellison, when they were out, some minutes later. But Henry
Burns gave a sly wink at Harvey, as his sharp eye observed the motions
of the brothers when they came to strike their tent. Nor did he fail to
note the quickness with which Jim Ellison dropped his right arm, when he
had raised it once over his head.

"Just a bit lame," said Henry Burns, softly. "We'll give it to 'em hard
at the start, before they get limbered up."

Breakfast eaten, and the camp equipments stowed, they all proceeded now
to the spot where the Ellisons' canoe was drawn ashore. There they set
up a pole cut for the purpose. It marked the turning point of the race.
At the signal, the Ellisons could start down stream from there; and each
canoe must go up stream to that point before it could begin its home
run.

It was a race now, as Henry Burns expressed it, for glory and for
dinner. They had eaten their stock of food and would stop for nothing
more till they reached camp. They had covered some fifteen miles of
water, up stream against rapids and the current, in the preceding day's
paddling; but they could make it down stream in about half the time.

They were soon afloat now, for Harvey was impatient to be off, and he
was by consent the one to give the signal. The Ellison brothers would
gladly have delayed, but Harvey, at a word from Henry Burns, was firm.

They took their places, struck the water together at the sound of the
horn, and the second day's race was begun.

Confident as were the occupants of the second and third canoes, it was a
bit disconcerting, at the outset, to see the leaders go swiftly past
them on the way down stream, while they had still to go on against the
current up to the turning point. Moreover, the leading canoe quickly
caught a patch of swift running water, which the Ellisons had carried
around the day before, but could run now, by merely guiding their canoe.
So, at the start, they made an encouraging gain, and turned once, at the
foot of some rapids, to wave back defiance at their opponents.

Skill and training were bound to tell, however. In the miles that were
reeled off rapidly now, the second and third canoes gained on the
leaders in the calm, still, sluggish places. There was more spring and
snap to their muscles. Their canoes moved faster through the water.

Eight miles down stream, they were overhauling the foremost canoe
rapidly, the canoes of Tom and Bob and Henry Burns and Harvey being
nearly abreast, and the four straining every nerve and muscle. The
Warrens had fallen at least a half mile behind them.

Luck had been with the Ellisons, surely; for running rapids in shallow
water is most uncertain work. Tom and Bob, old canoeists, knew well the
appearance of water that denotes a sunken rock, and by sheer skill and
watchfulness turned their canoe aside ever and again with a quick sweep
of the paddles, to avoid a treacherous place, where the water whirled
ominously. Henry Burns and Harvey had lately come down the stream, and
knew by that experience how easy it was to get hung up when it was least
expected.

Yet, with all experience, now and again a canoe would grate and perhaps
hang for a moment in some rapid; and once, when the canoe of Tom and Bob
would have shot ahead of Harvey's, they went hard aground, and lost
precious minutes.

When they were within a mile of the rapids where Henry Burns had won
honours on the preceding day, however, Tom and Bob had shown the proof
of their superior training and skill; they were leading Harvey and Henry
Burns and were close upon the leaders.

"Cheer up, Jack," said Henry Burns, coolly, to his comrade; "they ought
to win, but we've given them a good race, anyway. Something may happen
yet."

And something did happen--but not to the canoe steered by Tom Harris.

The three foremost canoes were now upon the brink of the worst rapids,
and each youth was bracing himself for the run. They saw the Ellisons
shoot quickly over the brink, go swiftly down the smooth incline into
the rougher water. All at once, the canoe seemed to be checked abruptly
and hang for a moment. Then it slid on again. But the damage had been
done. A sharp point of ledge had penetrated the canvas, and the canoe
was leaking.

Down went the two next canoes, one after the other; deftly handled;
sheering a little this way and that, as the watchful eyes detected the
signs of danger; riding gallantly through the frothing, fretting rapids
into clear water beyond. Their pace was not abated much as they got into
their swing again, and, one by one, they passed the Ellisons. The
latter's canoe, encumbered by water that leaked slightly but steadily
through the rent in the canvas, dragged somewhat and had to be bailed
before they had gone a half mile further.

That afternoon, a boy, barefoot and hatless, stood by the shore at a
point a little way above the Ellison dam, anxiously watching up stream
as far as he could see. That he was intensely excited was evident by the
way he fidgeted about; and once he climbed a birch tree that overhung
the water and gazed away from that perch.

"Hello, Tim," said a voice close by him, suddenly. "What are you looking
for?"

"Oh, hello, Bess," responded Tim Reardon, turning about in surprise.
"How you startled me! I'm watching for the canoes--don't you know about
it? Cracky, but don't I hope Jack'll win."

"Why don't you go out on the logs?" queried the girl. "You can see up
stream farther from there. Come on."

Without waiting for a reply, Bess Thornton darted out across a
treacherous pathway of light cedar and spruce logs that lay, confined
by a log-boom, waiting to be sawed into shingle stuff; for the old mill
occasionally did that work, also, as well as grinding corn. Many of the
logs were not of sufficient size to support even the girl's light
weight, but sank beneath her, wetting her bare feet. She sprang lightly
from one to another, pausing now and then to rest and balance herself on
some larger log that sustained her. Little Tim, equally at home about
the water, followed.

The boom confining this lot of logs was made of larger and longer logs,
chained together at the ends, and extending in a long irregular line
from a point up the shore down toward the dam, to a point just above the
landing place for the canoes. Tim Reardon and Bess Thornton ran along
this boom as far as it extended up stream.

Presently Little Tim gave a yell and nearly pitched head-first into the
stream.

"They're coming! they're coming!" he cried. "Who's ahead? Can you see?"

The next moment he gave an exclamation of dismay. Two canoes shot around
a bend of the stream, one not far behind the other--but the second
canoe, to Little Tim's disappointment, that guided by Jack Harvey. Tom
and Bob had a fair lead, and, by the way they were putting life into
their strokes, seemed likely to maintain it.

"Ow wow," bawled Little Tim. "Come on, Jack! Come on, Henry! You can
beat 'em yet. Give it to 'em!"

Bess Thornton, catching the enthusiasm and spirit of her companion, and
espying who the occupants of the second canoe were, added her cries of
encouragement to those of Little Tim.

But the leaders came on steadily and surely, heading in slightly toward
the point on shore where they would disembark to make the carry about
the dam.

Away up the stream, two more canoes could be seen, about abreast, the
four boys plying their paddles with all the strength in them.

So the leading canoe passed the boy and girl, Little Tim yelling himself
hoarse, with encouragement to Harvey and Henry Burns to come on. Surely
if there had been any impelling power in noise, Tim's cries would have
turned the scale in favour of his friends.

The leading canoe touched shore, and Tom and Bob sprang lightly out;
snatched up their craft and were off up the bank, to make the carry.
Henry Burns and Harvey headed in to do likewise. But now Bess Thornton,
catching Tim suddenly by an arm, started back down the boom, saying to
him, "Come on quick." He, surprised, wondering what she meant, followed.

The girl ran swiftly along the line of logs to a point a little way
above the dam. There the line of the boom swung inshore in a sweep to
the left. To the right of them, as they stood, was the deep, black
water, flowing powerfully in the middle of the stream, and with a strong
current, toward an opening in the dam. This was the long flume, a steep,
long incline, down which the water of the stream raced with great
velocity. It was built to carry rafts of logs through from time to
time--a chute, planked in on either side, with the entrance formed by
the cutting down of the top of the dam there a few feet. There was no
great depth of water in the flume--no one seemed to know just how much.
It depended on the height of water in the stream.

Now the girl, waving to Harvey and Henry Burns, cried shrilly for them
to watch. Surprised, they ceased their paddling for a moment and looked
over to where she stood.

To their amazement and Little Tim's horror, the girl, barefoot and
bare-armed, and clad in a light calico frock, gave a laugh and dived
into the stream. A moment more, she reappeared a few feet from the boom,
and was unmistakably heading for the swift water beyond running down to
the flume.

"Come back!" cried Little Tim. "You'll get drowned there. You're going
into the flume."

The girl turned on her side as she swam, calling out:

"Tell 'em to come on. They'll beat the others. I've been through once
before."

Again she turned, while Little Tim stood with knees shaking. Henry Burns
and Harvey, seeing the girl's apparent peril, uttered each an
exclamation of alarm, and headed out once more into the stream.

But they were helpless. A moment more, and they saw the girl caught by
the swift rush of the water. Waving an arm just as she went over the
edge of the incline, she straightened out and lay at full length, so as
to keep as nearly as she could at the surface. She disappeared, and they
waited what seemed an age, but was scarcely more than two minutes. Then,
all at once, there came up to their ears, from far below, the clear,
yodelling cry of Bess Thornton. She had gone safely through.

It was a serious moment for Tim Reardon. There wasn't a better swimmer
of his size in all Benton. Only a few of the larger lads dared to dive
with him from the very top of Pulpit Rock, a high point on the bank of
the stream, some miles below. Now he was stumped by a girl no bigger
than himself, and he felt his knees wabbling in uncertain fashion at the
thought of attempting the flume. And there was his big friend, Harvey,
and Henry Burns, waiting out on the water, uncertain as to what they
should do. He might aid them to win the race. Or he might hang back, be
beaten, himself, by a girl, and Harvey and Henry Burns would lose.

Little Tim gazed for one moment out into midstream, to where the water,
black and gleaming, rushed smoothly and swiftly into the opening of the
sluice-way. Then he got his voice under control as best he could, waved
toward the canoe and shouted:

"Come on, Jack. I'll show yer. It's e-e-asy."

Little Tim shut his eyes, swallowed a lump in his throat, dived from the
boom and made a long swim under water. When he reappeared, he was near
the swift current, a little way below where the canoe lay.

"Come on, fellers," he cried again--and the next moment Henry Burns and
Harvey saw him disappear over the edge of the dam. It seemed as though
there had been hardly time for him to be borne down to the foot of the
descent before they heard his voice, calling triumphantly back to them.

Henry Burns turned and gave one quick, inquiring glance at his
companion. In return, Harvey gave a whistle that denoted his surprise at
the odd turn of affairs, and said shortly, "Got to do it now. We can go
through if they can. Hang that girl! Get a good brace now. Gimminy, look
at that water run!"

They were on the very brink, as he spoke; and, even as he muttered the
last exclamation, the canoe dipped to the incline of the chute and went
darting down its smooth surface. They hardly saw the sides of the flume
as they shot by. Almost instantly, it seemed, they were in the tumbling,
boiling waters at the foot of it, Henry Burns crouching low in the bow,
so as not to be pitched overboard; Harvey bracing for one moment with
his paddle and striking the water furiously the next, to keep it on its
course.

The canoe shipped water, and they feared it would be swamped; but they
kept on. Then, as they swept past a jutting of ledge that bordered the
lower shore, two figures standing together waved to them and cried out
joyously:

"Paddle hard! Go it, Jack! Give it to her, Henry! You're way ahead.
They're not half 'round the bank yet. Hooray!"

Spurred by the cries, the two canoeists plied their paddles with renewed
zeal. So on they emerged into smooth water. Away up the bank, Tom and
Bob, dismayed, saw their rivals take the lead in the long race--a lead
that could not be overcome.

Sitting up proudly, Henry Burns and Harvey raced past the familiar
shores, saw the old camp come into view, shot across the finishing line,
and the race was won. Standing on the bank, they watched the others come
trailing in: Tom and Bob not far behind; the Warren boys third, and the
Ellisons last.

"Yes," said Tom Harris, good-naturedly, as they sat outside the camp a
little later, "but you had to get a girl to show you how to beat us."

"How'd you know you could go through there, anyway?" he added, turning
to the girl who, with Little Tim had come down the shore to see the
finish.

"Did it to get away from gran' once," replied Bess Thornton, her eyes
twinkling. "My, but wasn't she scared. It's easy, though, isn't it,
Tim?"

"Easy! It's nothin'," said Little Tim.




CHAPTER X

HENRY BURNS MAKES A GIFT


It was evening, and the streets of Benton's shopping section were
lighted; the illumination of windows serving to display the attractions
arranged therein to best advantage. The night was warm and pleasant, and
the passers-by moved leisurely, enjoying the sights, or pausing now and
then to gaze in, as some object caught their eye.

Three boys, sauntering along one of the principal thoroughfares, stopped
abruptly as one of their number called them to a halt and pointed on
ahead. The object to which he pointed was a fourth youth, who was
standing, with hands in his pockets, intently absorbed in the display in
one of the shop windows.

"Sh-h-h!" whispered young Joe Warren to his companions, his brother
George and Bob White, "look at Henry Burns. My, but that's rich. We've
got one on him, all right. Hold on, let's come up on him easy."

The boys drew a little nearer to Henry Burns, grinning broadly. Henry
Burns, all unmindful of such concerted observation, continued to gaze in
at the brilliantly lighted window.

The contents of the window-case were, indeed, such as one would hardly
have supposed to be of interest to a youth of his age. The shop was one
of Benton's largest dry-goods establishments, and the particular window
was devoted wholly to an assortment of women's and misses' dresses.
Several more or less life-like figures, arrayed in garments of the
season, occupied prominent positions in the display.

Directly in line with Henry Burns's vision was one of these: the figure
of a girl, dressed in a neat summer sailor suit, the yellow curls of the
head surmounted with a dashing sailor hat; its waxen cheeks tinted a
most decided pink; its blue, staring eyes apparently returning the gaze
of Henry Burns, unabashed at his admiration.

There was no mistaking Henry Burns's desire to form a closer
acquaintance with the wax figure, for presently he approached closer to
the window and stood studying it with undisguised interest.

"Seems to like the looks of her, don't he?" chuckled Young Joe, nudging
Bob White and doubling up with laughter. "Wish Jack Harvey was here now
to see him. Come on, let's wake him up."

Approaching softly, the three neared the unsuspecting admirer of the
yellow-haired, waxen miss.

Still lost in contemplation of her, Henry Burns was suddenly greeted by
a series of yells and hoots of derision that would have done credit to a
wild west performance. Then roars of laughter followed, as he turned and
faced them.

It was not in the nature of Henry Burns to be startled or easily
disconcerted, however, and, although taken by surprise, he turned slowly
and faced the three.

"Hello," he said coolly.

"Hello, Henry," snickered Young Joe. "Say, what's her name?"

"Yes, who is she?" echoed the other two; whereupon all three went off
again into mingled roars of laughter and yells of delight.

"Dunno," responded Henry Burns. "I'll go in and ask, though, if you
want."

"Isn't she sweet?" said Bob White. "How long have you known her?"

"Oh, not so long as you've known Kitty Clark," replied Henry Burns.

"Ow! wow!" squealed Young Joe; an exclamation which began in great
satisfaction and terminated in a howl, as he felt the force of a punch
from Bob's vigorous right arm.

It wasn't so easy getting the best of Henry Burns, in spite of his
disadvantage.

"Seen Jack?" he inquired.

"No--yes, there he comes now," answered George Warren, pointing back in
the direction whence they had come.

Henry Burns left them abruptly, and they went along, calling back at him
mockingly. But he paid little heed. Anyone familiar with the youth would
have known that he had something particular in mind; and in such case,
Henry Burns was not to be turned aside by bantering.

Some five minutes later, Henry Burns and Harvey stood looking in at the
very same shop window, whither Henry Burns had conducted his companion.

"Say--er--Jack, what do you think of that?" inquired Henry Burns,
pointing in at the wax figure.

Harvey looked at his companion and grinned.

"Think of what!" he exclaimed. "The curls?"

"No, hang the curls!" said Henry Burns. "The dress."

Harvey stared at him, open-mouthed.

"Oh, yes," he said at length, as though endeavouring to grasp the
meaning of so extraordinary an inquiry; "looks like Bob White's sister.
What of it?"

"Oh, nothing," replied Henry Burns, "only you and I are going to buy
it."

Harvey's grin expanded.

"Sure," he responded. "You'd look nice in it, Henry. Only you need the
curls, too--"

"And give it to Bess Thornton," continued Henry Burns, unmindful of his
comrade's remark.

Harvey whistled.

"Well, I'll be skinned if I don't think you're in earnest!" he
exclaimed.

"I am," said Henry Burns. "It's eight dollars and eighty-seven
cents--marked down--they always are, ain't they? Half of that's four
dollars and something or other apiece. Come in with me?"

"Not much!" cried Harvey, turning red at the very thought of it. "I'll
pay half, though, if you'll get somebody to buy it. It's worth more than
that to me, to win that race. Well, if you don't beat all thinking up
queer things. What put it into your head?"

"Why, she spoiled hers, showing us how to come through that sluice,
didn't she?" said Henry Burns.

"Guess not," replied Harvey. "Spoiled long before that, I reckon.
They're poor enough. Get somebody to buy the dress, and I'll pay for
half, all right."

"I'm going to buy it now," said Henry Burns, coolly; "that is, if you've
got any money. I've got five dollars."

Harvey produced his pocket-book and the necessary bills.

"Gee!" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't do it for a hundred dollars. Go on;
I'll watch you through the window."

In no wise daunted, Henry Burns, whose critical study of the model and
the garment through the window had satisfied him that the figure was of
Bess Thornton's size, boldly entered the store, calmly made the
purchase, ignored the inquiry of the clerk if he was thinking of getting
married, and returned with it to his companion.

"Say," exclaimed Harvey, "I don't wonder you learned to sail the
_Viking_ quick as you did. You've got the nerve."

"Now we've got to take it up there," said Henry Burns.

Harvey stopped short.

"Take that dress and give it to a girl?" he asked.

"No, we won't give it to her," replied his comrade. "She might not like
to have us--and I wouldn't know what to say, would you?"

"Would I!" exclaimed Harvey.

"We'll just leave it and cut and run," explained Henry Burns. "Then she
won't know who sent it, and she'll have to keep it. See?"

"It's most nine o'clock," remarked Harvey.

"I'm going," said Henry Burns.

"Oh, well, I'll stand by," said Harvey. "Let's be off, then. It's a good
two miles and a half, nearer three."

Shortly after, one might have seen the two comrades trudging along the
road leading out of Benton, in the direction of Ellison's mill.

They walked briskly, and in a little less than three quarters of an hour
a light from a window on a hill-top warned them that they were
approaching the farmhouse of Farmer Ellison. They turned in from the
road that ran along the bank of the stream, and made their way through
his field on the hillside, in the direction of the brook.

"Does Ellison keep any dog?" asked Harvey, once.

"I don't know, any more than you do," replied his companion. "Never saw
any. We'll keep well down near the brook, though, so they can't see us
from the house."

They passed through some clumps of small cedars and thin birches,
stumbling now and then over cradle-knolls and pitching into little
depressions. It was a clear night and starlit, but the shadows in the
half darkness were confusing. A lamp gleamed in the kitchen window,
above them, and they could see someone moving past the window from time
to time.

"Ellison hasn't gone to bed," remarked Harvey.

"Well, what of it?" replied Henry Burns. "Not scared of him, are you?"

"No," answered Harvey. "But he's touchy about this brook. Ever since he
caught Willie Dodd setting a net there one night he's been crazy for
fear he'd lose some of these trout."

"I know what's the matter with you," said Henry Burns. "It's this dress.
You wouldn't have anyone catch us with it for a million dollars."

"You bet I wouldn't," answered Harvey.

Harvey's nerves, usually the steadiest, were not proof against even a
slight alarm; for when, a few moments later, his companion touched him
lightly on an arm and motioned for him to be still, he waited, keyed up
to a high point of excitement and ready for a dash across the fields.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"Sh-h!" replied Henry Burns, clutching his bundle tight under one arm,
and peering through the scattered alders, into which they had
penetrated. "I heard a step."

They waited, anxiously.

It was Harvey's turn, however, to enjoy a laugh at the expense of his
comrade, as the steps that the quick ear of Henry Burns had heard were
continued, this time with an unmistakable crackling of undergrowth.

"There's your prowler, Henry," he said, laughing softly and slapping his
friend between the shoulders. "She's got two horns, but I guess she
won't hook, unless she sees through that box and gets a sight of that
dress."

A look of relief overspread Henry Burns's face, as a Jersey cow stalked
slowly through the brush and stood gazing inquiringly at the two boys.
But, observing her for a moment, it did not escape Henry Burns that the
animal suddenly gave a spring and turned and faced the other way, as
though some noise behind had surprised her.

Henry Burns clutched his comrade and pointed back past the cow. Harvey's
eyes followed where he pointed.

The figure of a man was plainly to be seen, stealing along in the
shadows of the clumps of bushes.

They paused not another instant, but dashed forward, heedless now of the
noise they made, thrusting branches aside and leaping from one knoll to
another where the soil was boggy. At the same moment Farmer Ellison,
brandishing a club, emerged into plain view and darted after them,
crying out as he ran.

"Stop there!" he shouted. "I'll shoot yer if yer don't stop. I'll have
no nets set in this stream. Just let me lay this club on your backs."

They only fled the faster.

"He won't shoot," gasped Henry Burns. "Make for the foot of the dam.
We'll cross the brook."

As for Harvey, threats of a fire of infantry wouldn't have stopped him.
He followed his slighter companion, who led the way, despite the
incumbrance of the box he carried.

Through pasture and swamp the chase continued. The boys were fleeter of
foot, but Farmer Ellison knew the ground. And once he skirted a boggy
piece of land and nearly headed them off. They turned toward the brook,
gained its shore and sped along to the foot of the dam. There the water,
diminished by the obstruction, flowed from a little basin out on to
shallower bottom, from which here and there a rock protruded.

Springing from one to another of these, slipping and splashing to their
knees, aided here and there by a bit of half decayed log or drift-wood,
they got across and scrambled up the opposite bank just as Farmer
Ellison, out of breath, appeared on the nearer shore.

"You poachers!" he cried, "Ye've got away this time. But look out for
the next. Remember, it's a shotgun full of rock salt and sore legs for
yer if yer come again."

He seated himself by the foot of the dam, nursing a bruised shin, and
watched them disappear through the fields.

"Scared 'em some, anyway, I reckon," he remarked. And was most assuredly
correct in that. The two boys had not stopped in their flight, and were
a mile above the crossing before Farmer Ellison turned himself homeward.

Safe from pursuit at last, Henry Burns threw himself down at the foot of
a tree and laughed till he nearly choked for want of breath.

"How we did scoot," he said. "Did you see old Ellison slip once and go
into the bog?"

"I didn't see anything," replied Harvey, "but a pair of legs in front of
me, cutting it through the mud and brush. How's the dress?"

"Oh, it's all right," said Henry Burns. "Come out if you've got your
wind. We'll leave it and get home."

They were at a point above Grannie Thornton's cottage, and they
proceeded now cautiously, making a circuit to bring them to the brook
some way above the house, pausing now and then to look and to listen.
But no one disturbed them. Farmer Ellison had had enough of the chase
and had gone home to nurse his shin.

They came down to the old house. It was dark, and all was still. Harvey
waited on watch near the gate, while Henry Burns stole up to the door
and laid the box down carefully against the front door. Then they sped
away.

"Go back the way we came?" inquired Henry Burns, slyly.

"Not much," said Harvey. "Straight out to the main road. No more swamps
for me."

They went out that way, then; took the main road, passed down by the old
inn and the mill, and swung into a rapid stride for home. It was half
past eleven o'clock when they turned into their beds.

Two days following this adventure, toward the latter part of the
afternoon, Henry Burns was walking up the same road by the stream, in
the direction of the camp, where he was to meet Tom Harris for a spin in
the canoe. He had heard no footsteps near, and was therefore not a
little surprised when a hand touched his arm and a laugh that was
familiar sounded close by his side.

He turned quickly, and there was Bess Thornton.

"Hullo," she said, "I hoped I'd see somebody on the road. I'll walk
along with you."

Henry Burns said "all right" in a tone that was not over-cordial; for,
though not easily abashed, he was, to tell the truth, just a bit shy
with girls, and wondered what Tom Harris would say if he saw him coming
up the road with Bess.

Perhaps the girl's quick intuitiveness perceived this, for a mischievous
light danced in her black eyes as she said, "I thought perhaps you'd
like to have company. You would, wouldn't you?"

"Yes--oh, yes," responded Henry Burns. "Going home from school?"

"Yes," she answered. "But I didn't want to go this morning, a bit. Gran'
made me, though."

"What's the matter?" asked Henry Burns.

"Well," said the girl, "I had to wear this new dress, you see. And when
you wear a new dress they always say things, don't you know? Danny Davis
hollered 'stuck up' once, but I punched him."

"Good for you," said Henry Burns, laughing. "I'd like to have seen
you--that a new dress?"

"Course it is," she answered, with a touch of half-offended pride.
"Can't you see it is?"

Henry Burns made a quick survey of the trim little figure, clad in the
dress that had cost him and Harvey the hard scramble of the recent
night. It was surprising what a difference the pretty suit made in the
appearance of the girl. He made a mental note of the fact that it seemed
just the right size for her, and that she certainly looked very nice in
it. Its dark red set off the black of her glossy hair, and she wore a
neat straw hat that went well with the dress. At least, it looked all
right to Henry Burns.

"You don't look stuck up," he ventured. "You look first rate."

He felt the colour come into his cheeks as he said it. It was the first
time in his life that he had ever complimented a girl. They were passing
a dingy little store, with its windows filled with farming tools, odds
and ends of household stuff and some fishing tackle, and he thought it a
good chance to get away.

"Got an errand in here," he said. "Good-bye."

Some ten minutes later he emerged, looked sharply up the road and
pursued his journey. He had gone scarcely a rod or two, however, when
the girl's voice brought him to a halt, much taken aback. She was seated
by the stream, close to the water.

"I thought you'd be along," she said. "I've been watching the pickerel.
There's one sunning himself close to the top of water now, just by the
lily pads. See me hit him."

She picked up a stone as she spoke, and threw it with surprising ease
and accuracy. It struck the water about six inches from the dark object
to which she had pointed. Henry Burns's chagrin at this second meeting
was lost in admiration.

"Good shot!" he exclaimed. "How'd you know 'twas a pickerel?"

"Oh I catch 'em," she answered. "And once in a while I show one to Benny
Ellison so he can shoot it. I don't like him much, though. He's mean
and--fat."

Henry Burns chuckled.

"He can't help that," he said.

"No, but he's always stuffing himself with candy and things," said the
girl. "And he won't ever give you any. I like people that give away
things once in a while, don't you?"

Henry Burns came the nearest to blushing that he ever had, as he
answered that he guessed he did. There was something in the girl's voice
and manner and in her beaming countenance, telling of her happiness in
the possession of her new finery--though she had feared the ordeal of
wearing it to school, perhaps because of the contrast it made to her
usual garment--that he felt a queer feeling in his throat. But relief
was at hand for him in his embarrassment, for the path that led down to
the camp was in sight, and he bade her good-bye.

He struck off along the path, through the bushes and thin growth of
woods; but had gone only a little way when the sound of voices, one
sharp and angry, made him pause. He retraced his steps, hurrying as he
recognized the voice of Bess Thornton, the tone of which indicated
grief.

He emerged into the road in time to see the girl scramble out of a clump
of brakes and burdock plants by the roadside, the tears standing in her
eyes as she picked the burs from the latter out of the new dress. Just
in front of her, noting her distress with satisfaction, stood Benny
Ellison.

"That's what you get for being so proud," he said bluntly. "You needn't
get so mad, though. I was only in fun."

The girl's eyes blazed, angrily; but it was not the Bess Thornton of
every day that now faced the youth. Some of her fearlessness and dash
seemed to have departed, with the taking off of the old dress.

"Let me past," she said, stepping forward; but the boy blocked her way.

"Let me look at the new dress," he demanded. "Where'd you get so much?"

He caught her by an arm, as she attempted to brush past him. Greatly to
his surprise, however, he felt his hand cast off and, at the same time,
he was nearly upset by a vigorous push. The youth who had done this,
apparently not the least excited, stood facing him as he recovered
himself.

"Let the girl alone," said Henry Burns. "Let her go past."

One could hardly have noted a trace of anger in his voice, but there
was a warning in his eye that Benny Ellison might have heeded. The
latter, however, was no longer in a mood to stop at any warning. His
flabby face reddened and his fist clenched.

"You'll not stop me!" he cried, taking a step toward the girl. "I'll
push both of you in there, if you don't get out."

"Just try it," said Henry Burns, quietly.

Benny Ellison, larger and heavier than the youth who thus dared him,
hesitated only a moment. Then he rushed at Henry Burns and they
clinched. The struggle seemed over before it had hardly begun, however,
for the next moment Benny Ellison found himself lying on his back in the
road, with Henry Burns firmly holding him there.

"Let me up!" he cried, squirming and kicking. "You don't dare let me
up."

By way of answer, Henry Burns relinquished his hold and allowed his
antagonist to regain his feet. Again Benny Ellison, wild with anger,
made a rush for Henry Burns, aiming a blow at him as he came on. Dodging
it, and without deigning to attempt to return it, Henry Burns closed
with him once more, and they reeled together to and fro for a moment.

If Benny Ellison had but known it, he had met with one whom Tom Harris
and Bob White, who prided themselves on their athletics, and even
stalwart Jack Harvey, had often found to be their match in wrestling.
Slight in build, but with well-knit muscles, Henry Burns was
surprisingly strong. And, above all, he never lost his head.

The contest this time was a moment more prolonged; but again Benny
Ellison felt his feet going from under him, and again he went down--but
this time harder--to the ground. He lay for a moment, with the breath
knocked out of him.

"Want another?" inquired Henry Burns, calmly. He had not even offered to
strike a blow.

Benny Ellison, picking himself up slowly from the dust, hesitated a
moment; then backed away.

"I'll have it out with you again some time," he muttered. "I'll get
square with you for this."

Henry Burns's eyes twinkled.

"Why not now?" he asked.

Benny Ellison made no reply, but went on up the road.

Bess Thornton's face, radiant with delight as Henry Burns turned to her,
suddenly clouded.

"Guess I'll have to look out now," she said. "He'll give it to me, if he
catches me."

Henry Burns's face wore an expression of mingled perplexity and
embarrassment. Then, as one resolved to see the thing through, he
replied, "Come on, I'll get you home all right."




CHAPTER XI

COL. WITHAM GETS THE MILL


It was the evening before the glorious Fourth of July, and Tim Reardon
was dragging an iron cannon along the street, by a small rope. It was a
curious, clumsy piece of iron-mongery, about a foot and a half long,
with a heavily moulded barrel mounted on a block of wood that ran on
four wheels; a product of the local machine shop, designed for the
purpose of being indestructible rather than for show.

Tim Reardon, smudgy-faced, but wearing an expression of deep
satisfaction, paused for a moment before a gate where stood a boy
somewhat younger than himself, who eyed the cannon admiringly.

"Hello, Willie," said Tim. "Comin' out, ain't yer?"

The boy shook his head, disconsolately.

"What's the matter?"

"Can't," said the boy. "Father won't let me."

Tim looked at him pityingly.

"Won't let you come out the night before the Fourth!" he exclaimed.
"Gee! I'd like to see anybody stop me. What's he 'fraid of?"

"He isn't afraid," replied the boy. "He's mad because they make so much
noise he can't sleep. He says they haven't any right to fire off guns
and things on the Fourth."

"Hm!" sniffed Tim. "Henry Burns says you have, and I guess he knows.
He's read all about it. He says there was a man named Adams who was a
president once, and he said everybody ought to make all the noise they
could; get out and fire guns, and blow horns, and beat on pans and yell
like everything, and build bonfires and fire off firecrackers."

"Did he?" said the boy. "And did he say anything about getting out the
night before?"

"Well, I dunno about that," answered Tim Reardon; "but of course the
patrioticker you are, why, the sooner you begin. It's the Fourth of July
the minute the clock strikes twelve--and, cracky, won't we make a racket
then? Henry Burns, he's got a cannon; and so's Jack Harvey and Tom
Harris and Bob White, and the Warren fellers they've got three, and a
lot of other fellers have got 'em. Just you wait till the clock strikes,
and there'll be some fun."

"I wish I could come out," said the boy, earnestly.

"Too bad you can't. You miss all the fun," said Little Tim. "I'll bet
George Washington was out the first of any of 'em on the Fourth of July,
when he was a boy."

Tim's knowledge of history was not quite so ample as his patriotic
ardour.

"Why don't you come, anyway?" he ventured. "Just tie a string around
your big toe, and hang the string out the window, and I'll come around
and wake you up. I'm going to wake George Baker that way. I don't go to
bed at all the night before the Fourth."

The boy shook his head.

"No, I guess not," he replied. "But say," he added quickly, "come around
in front of the house and make all the racket you can, will you? I'd
like to hear it, if I can't get out."

"You bet we will," responded Tim, heartily. "Sammy Willis, his father
won't let him come out, and we're going 'round there; and Joe Turner,
his father won't let him come out, and we're going there, too. There's
where we go to, most."

Tim did not explain whether this was from patriotic motives or
otherwise. But the small boy looked pleased.

"Be sure and come around," he said.

"Oh, you'll hear from us, all right," replied Tim.

It was quite evident that something would be heard when, some hours
later, about a quarter of an hour before midnight, a group of boys had
gathered in the square in front of Willie Perkins's house. There was an
array of small cannon ranged about that would have sent joy to the heart
of a youthful Knox or Steuben. The boys were engaged in the act of
loading these with blasting powder, purchased at a reduced price from
the rock blasters in the valley below.

"Here you, don't put in so much powder, young fellow," cautioned Harvey
to a smaller youth, who was about to pour a handful into a chunky
firearm. "Don't you know that it's little powder and lots of wadding
that makes her speak? I'll show you."

Harvey measured out a small handful of the coarse, black grains, poured
them down the barrel, stuffed in some newspaper and rammed it home with
a hickory stick. Then he stuffed in a handful of grass and some more
newspaper, hammering on the ram-rod with a brick, regardless of any
danger of premature explosion. The coarse powder was not "lively,"
however, and had always stood such handling. The process was continued
until the cannon was stuffed to the muzzle. Then a few grains were
dropped over the touch-hole, a long strip of paper laid over this,
weighted down with a small pebble, and was ready for lighting.

"There," said Harvey, relinquishing the ram-rod to the youth, "that'll
speak. If you fill 'em full of powder they don't make half the noise."

Simultaneously, Henry Burns, the Warren boys, Tom Harris, Bob White and
a dozen other lads had been loading and priming their respective pieces;
and presently they stood awaiting the striking of the town clocks.

Willie Perkins's father, who had been hard at work all the evening with
a congenial party in his office, at a game of euchre, was just getting
his first nap, having congratulated himself on retiring, that, if the
neighbourhood's rest was disturbed, his son at least would not
contribute toward it. Willie Perkins, having extended a cordial
invitation to the boys to come around and visit his esteemed parent,
was himself fast asleep.

Clang! The first town clock to take cognizance of the arrival of the
glorious Fourth struck a lusty note, that rang out loudly on the clear
night air. But there was no response from the eager gunners. It was not
yet Fourth of July. It would have gone hard with the boy that had fired.

Clang and clang again. The twelfth call was still ringing in the iron
throat of the old bell, high in its steeple, when Harvey shouted, "Now
give it to her!"

There was a hasty scratching of matches. The strips of paper began to
burn; slowly at first, while the boys scattered; then quickly,
sputtering as the flame caught the first few grains of powder.

A moment later, it seemed to Willie Perkins's father as though he had
been lifted completely out of his bed by some violent concussion, while
a roar like the blast of battle shook the house. The glorious Fourth had
begun in Benton.

Springing to his feet, Mr. Perkins uttered a denunciation of the day
that would have made the signers of the Declaration of Independence turn
in their graves, while he rushed to the window. Throwing it open, he
peered out into the square. There was not a boy in sight. Retreat had
already begun, ignominiously, from the field.

"If they come around again--" muttered Mr. Perkins. He did not finish
the sentence, but went along a hallway and looked into his son's room.
"Are you there, William?" he inquired sternly.

"Yes; can I get up now? Must be most morning."

"Get up!" replied the elder Perkins. "Just let me catch you getting up
before daylight! If I had my way, there wouldn't be any firing guns or
firecrackers on Fourth of July. It's barbarism--not patriotism.

"Willie," he added, "do you know any of those boys out there to-night?"

"How can I tell, if you won't let me go out?" whined Willie.

"I'd like to know who put it into people's heads to fire off guns on the
Fourth," exclaimed Mr. Perkins. "He must have been a rowdy."

Willie Perkins made a mental note that he would look up President Adams
next morning, for his father's benefit.

Mr. Perkins returned to his bed-room and closed his eyes once more. His
was not a sweet and peaceful sleep, however. Benton was awakening to the
Fourth in divers localities, and sounds from afar, of fish-horns and
giant crackers, of bells and barking dogs, came in, in tumultuous
confusion.

"Confound the Fourth of July!" muttered Mr. Perkins. "I didn't disturb
people this way when I was a boy."

But perhaps Mr. Perkins forgot.

There came by, shortly, a party of intensely patriotic youth from the
mill settlement under the hill. Their particular brand of patriotism
manifested itself in beating with small bars of iron on a large
circular saw, suspended on a stick thrust through the hole in its centre
and bor

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