



Produced by David E. Brown and The Online Distributed
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[Illustration: PAT MURPHY’S TRAP]




  The
  Village Champion

  By
  W. O. STODDARD

  _Author of “Boys of Bunker Academy,” “On the Old
  Frontier,” “The Sword Maker’s Son,” etc._

  [Illustration]

  PHILADELPHIA
  GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
  PUBLISHERS




  Copyright, 1903, by
  GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
  _Published, September, 1903_




Contents


       I. BARNABY LEARNS HIS NAME                   7

      II. AN UNEXPECTED DUCKING                    17

     III. MEETING OLD ASSOCIATES                   31

      IV. THREE CONFERENCES AND THEIR RESULTS      43

       V. ZEB’S OPINION OF APPLE SPROUTS           56

      VI. BARNABY CALLS ON THE DOCTOR              65

     VII. HUNTING THE COWS                         78

    VIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING                    98

      IX. ZEB’S FAME PRECEDES HIM                 114

       X. THE PUZZLED PROFESSOR                   124

      XI. WILLING HANDS                           134

     XII. NEWLY FOUND FRIENDS                     146

    XIII. THE HAUNTED HOUSE                       160

     XIV. A SHARPER OUTWITTED                     172

      XV. THE MYSTERY OF THE DUN HEIFER           187

     XVI. A MESS OF FISH                          199

    XVII. SKANIGO LAKE                            206

   XVIII. MAJOR MONTAGUE’S PLANS THWARTED         218

     XIX. A NOCTURNAL ESCAPADE                    231

      XX. THE BOXING MATCH                        242

     XXI. GEORGE BRAYTON’S DRIVE                  254

    XXII. GHOSTS IN THE ACADEMY BELFRY            265

   XXIII. THE BELL MYSTERY REMAINS UNSOLVED       281

    XXIV. MAJOR MONTAGUE HAS A VISITOR            288

     XXV. MR. ASHBEL NORTON                       301

    XXVI. A FEW SURPRISING DISCLOSURES            313

   XXVII. THE FISHING PARTY                       327

  XXVIII. TWO IMPORTANT TELEGRAMS                 342

    XXIX. THE BLACK VALISE IS OPENED              350

     XXX. THE ACADEMY “GHOST” DISCOVERED          359

    XXXI. GOOD NEWS FOR BAR                       369

   XXXII. HOME AGAIN                              379




Illustrations


  Pat Murphy’s Trap                                       _Frontispiece_

  Zeb’s Fight with the Rodney Boys                      _Facing Page_ 94

  “How did Zeb Fuller get that heifer into the Academy?”    “    “   196

  “He’d ha’ found it out, if it hadn’t been for me”         “    “   282

  “Because he forgot to ask me”                             “    “   348




The Village Champion




CHAPTER I

BARNABY LEARNS HIS NAME


It was towards the end of a very hot summer, and all the human
population of that crowded square of the great city had spent the first
half of the night in the streets. Either that, or in leaning halfway
out of their windows to get a breath of fresh air.

Now that sunrise was again so near at hand, however, and the breeze
from the sea had done so much to make the world more comfortable to
live in, the closely-built “hotels” and tenement houses were all asleep.

The former were mostly of the sort that sell lager beer and other
things in the basement, and the latter were just the kind of places in
which men and women ought not to live.

Up in the third-story front room of one of those hotels, however, a boy
of about seventeen--a well-built, dark-eyed, curly-headed, handsome
boy--sat on a wooden-seated chair, wide-awake, and seemed to be
studying the condition of somebody who lay on the bed near him.

There was a curiously-set expression of determination on the bright,
young face, very much as if he had made up his mind to do something,
and did not mean to be very long in going about it.

Such a ludicrously disreputable looking mess of a man was the large
figure that now began to kick about so clumsily among the bedclothes!

He had not taken off his clothes on lying down, and every one might
have wondered what need he had of extra blankets in such weather.

But now a grizzled head and a bloated face rose slowly from the
pillow--one of those faces which defy any guess of within twenty years
of their actual age.

“Jack--Jack Chills!”

“That isn’t my name, but here I am,” responded the boy in the chair.

“No more it is. Alas, for all my sins!” exclaimed the man, “but you
cannot deceive your old uncle, my boy. I know what you’re up to. You
mean to take advantage of my temporary indisposition and abandon me!”

“That’s it,” said the boy, curtly. “It’ll be two or three days before
you get sober enough to follow me, and I’m off.”

“I deserve it, I do,” was the mournful whine of the man on the bed. “I
ought never to have brought you to this.”

“I’ve seen you before,” said the boy, “when you were sick and sorry.
You brought me, years and years ago, but I’m older now and I don’t mean
to stay any longer.”

“What will Monsieur Prosper say when he knows it? He expects great
things of you now the troupe’s broken up.”

“Glad it’s gone to pieces,” half savagely remarked the youngster. “I
don’t want any more of that. What’s more, I won’t pick pockets or cheat
at cards, or that sort of thing, for old Prosper or you either.”

“Oh! alas!” came from the bed, but whether in repentance or
disappointment it would be hard to say.

“Now,” said the boy, in a tone of quiet determination, “I’ve been Jack
Chills long enough; tell me what my real name is.”

“My dear nephew----”

“If you’re really my uncle, you must know, and if you won’t tell, I’ll
empty the ice water all over you.”

“And kill me?”

“No; it won’t kill you, but it’s awful cold,” said the boy, as he
advanced towards the bed with a large pitcher in his hand. “Come, now,
I must be off before sunrise. Don’t tell me any whopper now. Out with
it.”

“Oh!” burst in half-frightened accents from the helpless red-face; but
then a very different look began to creep across it.

“Barnaby Vernon, my boy.”

“Is that my name?”

“It was your father’s before you, and you’re coming out just like him.
I reckon it’s that that fetches me now. Bar Vernon, if you make me one
promise, I’ll be fair with you.”

“Now that I know my own name, I’ll promise anything,” excitedly
exclaimed Barnaby.

“Well, then--quick now, listen, before I change my mind--you see that
little black valise?”

“Seen it a thousand times,” said Bar.

“That’s yours, but you must promise not to open it for a year and a
day. I’ll be either dead or a thousand miles from here then.”

“Most likely dead,” growled Bar, who evidently bore small affection to
his big relative. “But I’ll promise. Will it tell me anything?”

“Everything; but, Barnaby, not for a year and a day! You always kept
your word, just like your father.”

“I’ll keep it,” said Bar, firmly, “and now, good-bye, Major Montague,
if that’s your name--only it isn’t. I can’t say I forgive you exactly,
but we’ll part friends. No more acrobat and juggling and tight-rope and
wonderful performances for me.”

“But what’ll you do? ’Twon’t be long before you’ll be hunting me up
again.”

“Guess not,” said Bar. “My clothes are pretty good, and I’ve collected
my last six months’ wages out of the money you gave me when you came
in last night. There’s a receipt for it, and there’s the rest of the
money. You’ll find it all right.”

“Wages? Receipt? Jack Chills!” almost screamed Major Montague.

“Exactly,” said Bar. “I’ve stopped working for nothing and being
knocked down for it; good-bye, old fellow.”

So saying, Barnaby Vernon, for he somehow felt safe about so calling
himself, picked up a very well-filled leather traveling bag with one
hand and the mysterious little valise with the other, and started for
the door.

“Jack Chills! Barnaby! Come back with that money! I’ll have you
arrested! I’ll strangle you!”

“Stop that noise,” replied Bar, “or I’ll douse you all over.”

“Barnaby!”

“There, then if I must!”

Barnaby had put down the valise and caught up the pitcher, and the
voice of the man on the bed died away in a wretched sort of shivering
whine as the chilly flood came swashing down upon him.

“How he does hate water,” muttered Bar, as he again seized his
new-found property, and glided out into the passageway. Neither voice
nor pursuing feet came after him, for Major Montague was struggling
frantically, like a man with the hydrophobia, to divest himself of his
saturated habiliments, and his rum-destroyed strength was by no means
equal to the task.

“That’s what rum’ll do if it gets a fair hold of a man,” said Barnaby
to himself, on the stairs. “He must have been a gentleman once, and
look at him now! None of it for me. I don’t like that kind of an
ending, if you please.”

He stepped into the bar-room office on the first floor, for he had
no intention of “sneaking,” but not a soul was there, and in another
moment he was in the deserted, gloomy, sordid-looking street.

“Plenty of time,” he said to himself. “I’m going to start fair. I must
go to my hotel from the ferry, in the regular coach with the passengers
from the Philadelphia morning train.”

Barnaby Vernon had taken his lesson of life in a hard school, thus
far, and he had done an amount of thinking for himself which does not
often fall to the share of boys of his age. He knew very well that no
questions would be asked of a “regular passenger” who looked well, and
who brought his baggage with him.

Two hours later, he came out from breakfast at a respectable, but not
too expensive hotel, on the other side of the city, as quiet and
self-possessed a young fellow as the sharp-eyed clerk had ever seen in
his life.

“Looks as if he knew his own business, and meant to mind it,” was the
sufficient commentary of the latter.

If any of the sharpers who lie in wait for the young and unwary set his
eyes on Barnaby that morning, he speedily took them off again, for his
instincts must have told him plainly, “Not a cent to be made out of
that fellow.”

Under Barnaby’s external composure, however, there was more than a
little of inner fermentation.

“All right, so far,” he said to himself. “The old rascal will take it
for granted that I’ve left the city. Once his penitent fit is over,
he’ll be sure to go for me again. I ain’t half sure but what I’d better
go to Europe or California, only a hundred dollars isn’t quite enough
for that. What’ll I do?”

He was not so unwise as to spend his time around the hotel, however,
and he carried his mental puzzle with him on two or three short trips
on the Sound steamers and up the Hudson.

“I’ve a name of my own,” he said to himself, as he returned to his
hotel from the last of these, “and I’ve got rid forever of that
horrible old time, but what shall I do with my ‘New Time’? I must
settle that before my funds run out. They’d last longer in the country.”

No doubt of that, but what was he to do in the country?

There had been work enough cut out for him in town, of a kind that
he knew how to go about, and very remarkable had been the discussion
thereof by the bedside of “Major Montague,” some three or four hours
after Barnaby’s escapade.

“Might set the police after him, on account of that money,” said a
tall, thin, foreign-looking man, in a tone of deep dejection.

“The police, Prosper?” exclaimed the major. “I guess not. The less you
say to them the better. They understand your kind of French.”

“He’d make a better hand than any of us, in time,” groaned Prosper.

“He’s cut his stick, though, as far as we are concerned,” added a
third, a dapper little fellow, who stood by Prosper’s chair. “I’m glad
he’s gone before he learned too much.”

“He knows enough now,” said the major, “but I don’t believe he’ll do us
any harm. He isn’t any common kind of boy, and we never could have kept
him in hand. I tell you, he’ll be bossing a crowd of his own before a
great while.”

“But I mean to have the use of him for a while first,” said Prosper,
“if I can only lay my hands on him!”

“Better not try,” said the major.

“He may come back of his own accord,” said the third man.

“You hold your breath till he does,” kindly remarked the major.

It was a doleful sort of conference; and the high opinion of Barnaby
Vernon’s, _alias_ Jack Chills’s, capacity in their peculiar line which
that trio entertained was expressed in language decidedly too powerful
to be reported.




CHAPTER II

AN UNEXPECTED DUCKING


Just about the time that Barnaby Vernon sat down to his first breakfast
at his hotel, old Gershom Todderley, the fat and crusty miller of
Ogleport, stood, with his hands in his pockets, halfway between the dam
and the sawmill, jerking wheezy, angry sentences at the head of his
Irish foreman.

“Mister Murphy, I say. Those rascally boys again. They’ve put up
another spring-board. Twenty times I’ve forbidden ’em to bathe in my
pond. Saw it off, sir. Close up. They’ll be here again this afternoon.
So’ll I, sir. Saw it off. We’ll see, sir.”

And the wheezy miller put on all the dignity that he knew how, as he
turned away towards his own breakfast, although the only reply from the
dusty-looking Mr. Murphy was a subdued and doubtful:

“’Dade, an’ I’ll do that same, the day, sir.”

The moment his employer was fairly out of ear-shot, however, a droll
expression crept across the merry face of the Irishman.

“’Dade, an’ I’m glad the owld curmudgeon didn’t know I put it there
mesilf. Sure, an’ the lake’s betther for ’em, but it’s a mile away,
and the pond’s clane and handy. It’ll spile the fun for the byes, but
ordhers is ordhers. Anyhow, I’ll have some fun of me own wid ’em.
They’ll niver suspect owld Pat of layin’ a thrap for ’em.”

It evidently went to the heart of the miller’s foreman to spoil fun of
any kind, but he went straightway to the grist-mill for a hand-saw, and
then, after a sharp look around, to be sure that he was not observed,
he made a deep cross-cut on the under side of the long pine plank which
he had so carefully set for the convenience of the young bathers of
Ogleport.

The cut was close in, towards the frame of the old flume by which the
plank was supported, and, while no one would have noted or suspected
it, the thin bit of pine remaining on the surface was not a great deal
more than was required to sustain the weight and apparent “spring” of
the plank itself.

“There,” said Pat, as he put away his saw, “I hope the first feller
that puts his fut on that same’ll be a good swimmer. It’s twinty fate
o’ wather he’ll drop in, not an inch the less.”

But Pat’s scrutiny of the “surrounding country,” keen as it was, had
not been as complete as he imagined.

On the opposite shore of the deep and capacious mill-pond, where the
bulrushes had grown so thickly up to the edge, and the willows had
matted the sweeping boughs so very densely, every blackbird had left
his perch some ten minutes earlier.

The birds had been better posted than Pat Murphy, and knew very well
why they had winged it away so suddenly and unanimously, but Pat had
failed to take the hint. Little he was thinking of those chattering
loafers, the blackbirds, but every one of them had his own beady little
eye on the stealthy movements of Zeb Fuller.

Not so very young or so small, either, was Zeb, only somewhat short and
“stocky” in build, and the slight cast in one of his twinkling gray
optics did not at all interfere with the perfection with which he
squinted through the willows at what was going on at the spring-board.

“Going to saw it off, is he?” muttered Zeb. “Well, Pat Murphy never’d
ha’ done that unless the old man made him. No, he’s just a-sawin’ under
it. If that ain’t mean! Well, no, not exactly mean, but if Pat reckons
he’ll catch any of our crowd in that trap, he’s a sold Irishman, that’s
all. Soon as he clears out, I’ll cut around and give the boys the word.
There won’t one on ’em set foot on that there plank--you see if they
do.”

Zebedee Fuller was the last boy in the village to interfere with
anything like a practical joke, and his warning to “the boys” did not
go beyond his own particular set.

Still, the way in which the mill and the pond were watched, that day,
was a lesson for the detective service.

The hour at which old Gersh Todderley started out in his antiquated
buggy, and the hour of his return, as well as every “in and out” of Pat
Murphy himself, were carefully noted by one youngster or another, nor
did the discontented blackbirds have a fair show at their willow-tree
perches during all those weary hours of patient waiting.

At last, as the sun sank lower and lower in the west, the accustomed
time arrived for such of the village boys as declined the long, hot
walk to the lake, to trouble the smooth waters of the mill-pond and the
unsympathizing soul of Gershom Todderley.

Pat Murphy was somehow more than usually busy at the grist-mill; the
saw of the sawmill had been quiet for weeks.

There was really no reason why the boys should not have had a good time
with their spring-board and the cool, cleansing, refreshing water--no
reason at all but the dog-in-the-manger spirit of old Gersh Todderley.

But the accustomed squad of young “dolphins” forbade to come, for some
cause or other, and Pat Murphy came to the north window of the mill,
for the hundredth time, all in vain.

“Faix,” he said to himself, “it’s a pity to take so much throuble as
all that for nothing. Sorra one on ’em’s showed himself near the pond
the day.”

Even as he spoke, however, though he had turned back to his endless
clatter and dust, and saw it not, the seeming solitude of the pond was
being invaded.

Down the stream, from the bushes that concealed its winding course
through the valley above, there drifted a clumsy, scow-built punt, the
pride of Zeb Fuller’s heart, and in it with him were three of his most
trusted friends, for, only three minutes before, Zeb had been advised
by a trusty scout of a very important and promising occurrence.

Not only had the miller returned, but he had been met at his very gate
by the Rev. Solomon Dryer, D. D., Principal of Ogleport Academy, and
the two men were actually approaching the mill together.

“Old Sol hasn’t anything to do with us in vacation, boys,” said Zeb, to
his friends, “and I move we strip and go right in. We can keep out in
the middle, you know, and they can’t get at us. The other boys can keep
hid behind the willows and see the fun.”

The road from the miller’s house gave a good view of the pond at
several points; and before he and his dignified companion had made
half the distance, they saw such goings on upon the water as led even
the fat and wheezy man of lumber and flour to double his perspiring
pace and his wrath at the same time.

“Those boys, Doctor! See them? In the boat! That’s defiance. On my
own pond. Defiance, sir. What are we coming to? What’s your authority
worth, or mine? Glad I had the spring-board cut off. We must see about
this, sir.”

“Indeed, my dear sir,” calmly and frigidly responded the head of the
village institution, “I fully sympathize with you, but I think my
presence will be sufficient. I have long been accustomed to repress
these rebellious ebullitions. I will go with you with pleasure.”

“Right, sir; knew you would. Stop ’em. Make my pond a bathing-tub
before my very eyes, sir.”

And now, while the lyers-in-wait behind the willows were half-bursting
with envy of their more fortunate fellow-conspirators in the boat, the
doctor and the miller puffed their consequential way to the open space
on the old flume frame, between the dam and the sawmill.

What a view that spot commanded of the peaceful mill-pond and of the
audacious iniquity of those boys!

Nearer and nearer drifted the boat, while the white-skinned rebels
plunged from its rocking sides and disported themselves boisterously
and undisguisedly in all directions, as if ignorant of the approach of
any authority higher than their own desire for a good swim.

It was to the last degree tantalizing and irritating, but, just as
Gershom Todderley found breath to sing out, “You young rascals!” his
eyes fell upon the mocking and obnoxious length of the spring-board,
and he exclaimed:

“Doctor, do you see that! I’ll discharge him! He hasn’t cut it off.
That Irishman!”

“Isn’t that what the boys denominate a spring-board?” asked the doctor.

“That’s it, sir. I told Pat Murphy to cut it off this very morning.
They walk out to the end of that, sir, and tilter up and down, and then
jump into the water.”

“Is there no danger of its breaking and drowning them?” asked the
doctor.

“Drown ’em! Drown so many pickerel,” exclaimed the miller. “No, sir.
Hold up a ton, sir. Why, it’s clear white pine. Stole it from me, most
likely. Walk out on it. Try it yourself, Doctor.”

“I? Oh, no, indeed,” responded the doctor. “That would never do. I
weigh very little, to be sure, but I could not think of such a thing.”

As the learned gentleman drew his thin and wizened form back to its
most dignified uprightness, however, a riotous yell and splash from Zeb
and his friends stirred the blood of the miller to the very bounds of
endurance.

“Come on, boys,” shouted Zeb; “let’s have a jump from the board, and
show ’em what we can do.”

The face of the miller grew red, and he actually drew a long breath as
he strode forward.

He knew too well the strength of a two-inch pine plank to have any
misgivings, and, just as a wild shout rang out from the window of the
grist-mill, and Pat Murphy sprang insanely through it to the great heap
of sour “bran” beneath, Gershom Todderley gave the treacherous wood the
full benefit of his overfed weight.

Even then the tough pine held its own for a step or two.

“You young rascals.”

Crack!

A wild spreading out of fat arms, a wheezy shriek of fear, a tremendous
splash in the calm, deep water, and Gershom Todderley had received the
full benefit of Pat Murphy’s trap.

“The boat, boys!” shouted Zeb.

“Quick, now, or the old porpoise will drown himself. Pity we didn’t
bring a harpoon along.”

Four naked boys were in the boat in less than no time, and while
the Rev. Solomon Dryer stood on the flume, helplessly opening and
shutting his mouth, without uttering a sound, Zeb and his heroes pulled
vigorously to the rescue. They would have been there in plenty of time,
too, but Pat Murphy, forgetting, in his conscience-stricken excitement,
that he could not swim a stroke, had made no pause at the brink, but
had gone in, heels over head, to fish for his employer.

There was double work cut out for Zeb and his friends, and the willows
on the opposite shore were alive with a chorus which never came from
the throats of blackbirds.

The miller may have been a selfish man, but he was neither a coward
nor a fool, and when, on coming to the surface for the second time, he
found an oar-blade poked into his well-covered ribs, he had quite sense
enough to cling to it and be pulled to the side of the boat.

“That’ll do,” said Zeb. “You’ll tip us over if you try to climb in.
You’re safe enough, now, and we’ll pull you ashore. I’m going for poor
Pat Murphy.”

Pat was by no means so easy to manage, but in a couple of minutes more
the boys had him upon the other side of the boat, making a very good
counterpoise for the miller.

“Now, Dr. Dryer,” exclaimed Zeb, “we’re only waiting for you. You
needn’t stop to strip. Neither Pat nor old Todderley did. Come right
in. Water’s nice and cool.”

“Young man,” solemnly remarked the doctor, “your levity is most
reprehensible. I hope for an opportunity of inspiring you with a
greater degree of reverence.”

“Boys,” said Zeb, “we’ll let Pat and old Todderley go. They’ve had a
good ducking. But we must drown the doctor. It’s our last chance.”

Whether or not the man of learning had any fears of their carrying
out the proposition, it was received with such a yell of what he
deemed irreclaimable ferocity, that he immediately turned his stately
steppings away from the unhallowed margin of the mill-pond, and the
boys were left to finish their work of rescue alone.

It was easy enough to pull the boat into shallow water, where Pat and
the miller could find footing and wade ashore, but Zeb Fuller had got a
new idea in his head.

The miller had been obstinately silent ever since his bald head rose
above the water, and now Zeb turned upon him reproachfully, with:

“I saw you, Mr. Todderley, or I’d never have believed it. Who’d have
thought such a thing of you, a deacon in the church! And old Sol Dryer,
too! Setting such a trap as that to drown poor boys, just for swimming
in your pond. What do you think the village will say to it? What’ll
the church say! You’re a poor, miserable sinner, but you haven’t the
heart to drown boys, like so many puppies. You fell into your own trap,
Gershom Todderley, and we’ve returned good for evil by saving your
life. Go home and dry yourself.”

“Hark to him! Listen to him, the now!” exclaimed Pat, in open
admiration. “Ownly eighteen! Ownly two winters in a debatin’ society,
and he can lie like that. What a lawyer he’ll make one of these days!”

And the fat old miller stood dripping on the grassy margin for a moment
before he could gather his wits or breath for anything, but then he
said:

“Pat Murphy, set the boys a new board. A good strong one. Must have
been an awful knot in that other.”

“Is it another trap?” sternly inquired Zeb Fuller.

“Zeb, my boy,” returned the miller, “I don’t exactly understand it, but
I am thankful I wasn’t drowned. I think I’ll go to meeting to-night.
You need it, too, Zeb. You and the boys may swim all over the pond, all
day, summer or winter.”

“Thank you, Gershom,” replied the incorrigible Zeb, “and if you meet
old Sol Dryer, tell him to go to meeting, too. He’s had a very narrow
escape from drowning.”

“The young pirate!” exclaimed Pat. “Indade, Mr. Todderley, it’s home
ye’d betther be goin’, an’ I’d loike a dhry rag or two on me own silf.”

The miller turned very soberly away, the worst puzzled man in Ogleport
that day, but Zeb was right when he turned to his companions, and said:

“Boys, I reckon it won’t hurt him. He didn’t know it was Pat’s work,
and we must keep the secret.”

Not a bit of hurt had come to the miller externally, and more than a
little good internally, but there were altogether too many boys in that
“secret” for it to keep any length of time.




CHAPTER III

MEETING OLD ASSOCIATES


It was nearly a week after the beginning of Bar Vernon’s “new time,”
and he had never enjoyed anything so thoroughly in all his life, that
he returned to his hotel from one of his pleasure trips.

By this time he had struck up a sort of an acquaintance with the clerk,
although that gentleman confessed to himself that he had never before
fallen in with a boy of that age who behaved so very well and talked so
very little.

“Mr. Vernon,” he said to our hero, that afternoon, “there’s been a
gentleman in to see you twice while you were gone--a Major Montague.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Bar.

“Why so? He seems a well got-up, rather fine-looking man.”

“Can’t help that,” said Bar.

“Claimed to be a relative of yours, and seemed quite anxious to see
you.”

“So he is, I suppose,” replied our hero, “but he’s a disreputable old
fellow, for all that, and I’m sure my father would not wish me to have
anything to do with him. Drinks like a fish.”

“Must say he looks a little on that order,” remarked the clerk. “So
we’re not to put him on your track?”

“Not if you can help it,” said Bar, carelessly. “The family doesn’t
recognize him at all, and I don’t want to.”

Bar was perfectly sure, in his own mind, that he was telling the exact
truth, but it was the first mention he had made of father or family,
and, while it made his heart and fingers tingle very curiously and
pleasantly, it did not by any means diminish the respect with which he
was regarded, for the keen-eyed official was the last man in the world
to be taken in by such a face as that of Major Montague.

He had read him through and through at a glance, and had wondered what
he could have to do with a quiet, self-respecting young gentleman like
Barnaby Vernon.

Bar strolled away into the reading-room, muttering to himself:

“So he has hunted me up. Saw my name on the hotel register, most
likely. Now, I’ll have to get away from this. He’d be sure to make
trouble for me. Then he belongs to that horrid old time, and I don’t
want anything to do with it. Somehow, I feel as if something were about
to happen to me, and I don’t exactly know what to do with myself. Guess
I’ll go on an exploring tour, but I’ll fix it so none of that set’ll
know me if I come across ’em.”

No doubt there had been something of theatrical experience in Barnaby’s
“old time,” for he seemed to know precisely what to do.

He walked out of the hotel in a very decent suit, of which the coat and
waistcoat were dark, and the trousers light-gray, but before he had
gone a block, he had bought and put on a loose linen duster.

Then at a hat-store he purchased a high black silk “stove-pipe,” to
replace the straw he had been wearing.

At another shop he bought a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Then a neat
mustache appeared on his upper-lip, a college society pin on his
neck-tie, a little cane in his hand, and thus attired he could have
passed muster anywhere as a young collegian of the first water, and
even old “Prosper” himself might have passed him without a suspicion of
his identity.

He turned aside after that, from the busier thoroughfares, for he felt
the need of a little thinking, and quickly found himself sauntering in
front of a gray-stone building, facing an open square thickly dotted
with trees.

“I know,” he said to himself, “that’s the old University. I wish I knew
all the things they teach there. Never was at school in my life, but
I’ve picked up a good deal, for all that.”

Bar was only half right.

He had been in a terrible school, indeed, and had grown to be a
remarkable sort of fellow, simply by refusing to learn the evil part of
the lessons his “professors” had tried to teach him.

Still, he was greatly in need of the other kind of “lessons,” and he
felt it bitterly, as he stood and looked up at the gray stone building.

His attention was suddenly diverted by a loud exclamation not many
paces from him, and he turned in time to see a shabbily dressed
fellow pick up from the sidewalk what seemed to be a very heavy and
well-filled pocketbook.

“Some old trick,” Bar was saying to himself, when the stranger turned
to him with the pocketbook in his hand, remarking, furtively:

“Big find that, sir. Just see how full it is. No end of bank notes, and
all big ones. There’ll be a whopping reward offered for it.”

“You’re in luck, I should say, then,” drawled Bar, in his character of
collegian. “Of course you’ll advertise it?”

“Yes, sir, ought to be advertised,” rattled the stranger; “but I can’t
stay to do it. I’m off for Boston to-night. Couldn’t stay on any
account. Tell you what I’ll do. You look like a gentleman. Feel sure
you’ll see that the right man gets it. Square and honest. You take it
and divide the reward. Won’t be less’n a hundred, sure’s you live.”

“Not less than that, certainly,” drawled Bar. “Let me look at it?”

“No right to open it, I s’pose,” said the stranger quickly, as Bar
poised the pocketbook in his open hand.

“No,” said Bar. “Private papers, perhaps. No business of ours, you
know. All right, you give me your Boston address and I’ll send you your
half soon as I get it.”

So saying, Bar slipped the prize into his inside coat-pocket with a
movement so nearly instantaneous that there was no chance for any
interference, but the stranger’s countenance fell in spite of himself
as he stammered:

“Well, no, sir, that won’t do, exactly. I’m going on North from Boston.
Tell ye what I’ll do. You give me fifty dollars down. It’s good
security for that. You may get five hundred, for all I know. You keep
it all and it’ll only cost you fifty. You didn’t find it, you know. It
was all my luck.”

“Don’t think I’ve got so much as that about me,” said Bar, with a quick
glance up the street.

“Forty, then. Only be quick about it, or I shall lose my train.”

“Haven’t got forty,” drawled Bar.

“Thirty, then, and that’s awful low,” pleaded the stranger, anxiously.

“Thirty dollars is a good deal of money to risk,” considered Bar.

“Twenty-five, then. Say twenty, or give me back the pocketbook.”

“Why,” said Bar, beaming benignly on the stranger, through his new
spectacles, “it isn’t your pocketbook. I’ve been considering the
matter, and I’ve decided to turn the property over to the police
authorities. There’s a policeman now, just turned the corner.”

A great oath burst from the lips of the stranger, which were white
with rage and disappointment, but Bar had buttoned his coat over the
pocketbook and was standing in an attitude which looked very much as if
he had learned it from a boxing-master.

There was no joke about the approach of the policeman, however, and one
look at his blue coat and brass buttons seemed quite enough for the
stranger. At all events, he swore another ugly oath, shook his fist
savagely at Bar, and darted briskly away across the square.

“Anything the matter, sir?” asked the policeman, as he stepped quickly
up to our hero.

“Can’t say,” drawled Bar, “but I’m half inclined to think that
gentleman had improper designs. I do not like his appearance and have
declined to transact any business with him.”

“That’s right, sir. Well known--bad character. Strangers can’t be too
much on their guard,” responded the representative of the law, as a
broad grin spread across his face.

When he had walked on a few steps, however, he growled to himself:

“Wonder what game it was? Anyhow, that prig in spectacles isn’t the
sort that’ll be swallowed whole. Sometimes those green-looking,
respectable chaps knows more’n we think they do, and where on earth
they can pick it up beats me.”

As for Bar Vernon, he turned once more towards the great thoroughfare,
only remarking:

“That fellow don’t come up to Major Montague. Now, what’ll I do with
the pocketbook? It’s a right good one, and I must see what it’s stuffed
with.”

It was not difficult to find an out-of-the-way corner, and Bar quickly
satisfied himself that his prize contained little more than a few
coarse counterfeits, a lot of fanciful advertising cards, in the shape
of bank-notes, and enough wrapping-paper to fill out the pile and
make it look “rich.” The book itself was of the best Russia leather,
however, and well calculated to catch the eye of such a “greenhorn” as
he had been mistaken for.

On, now slowly, now hurried by the afternoon up-town tide of
foot-passengers, strolled Barnaby, until, right in front of one of the
busiest retail commercial establishments, he saw a sudden flurry in the
crowd, and a rapid coming together as if one spot on the sidewalk had
acquired an overpowering attraction.

“Another game?” asked Bar of himself, but he pushed his way vigorously
through the throng, nevertheless, as determined as anybody to learn the
meaning of it all.

It was by no means the easiest thing in the world, for there was really
a good deal of excitement.

“Awful fit!” exclaimed one.

“Fell right flat and began to kick without a word.”

“Lucky for him that Dr. Manning happened on hand so quickly.”

“Best doctor in the city.”

A shower of remarks reached Bar’s ears from all sides, but he could not
divest himself of a feeling which made him extremely watchful, and he
almost instinctively kept one hand upon his very worthless prize, as if
it contained a fortune.

He was “two or three deep” back in the crowd from the central point
where the sufferer was supposed to be lying, and around him were men of
every sort, seeming pretty closely wedged in.

Sharp as was the watch which Bar was keeping, he very nearly missed
seeing the deft and dexterous passage from hand to hand of a wallet
which seemed the very counterpart and image of the one in his own
pocket, but it disappeared in the capacious outer garment of a tall,
thin, foreign-looking gentleman at his side.

The thought flashed through Bar’s brain with a rapidity compared to
which lightning is a stage-coach, and his fingers moved with only less
quickness and with marvelous skill.

“The weight must be about the same,” thought Bar, “and he’ll never
know the difference. It’s splendid fun to have got in on old Prosper
himself. The Major must be inside there somewhere. No, there go both of
them, making off as fast as they can.”

Just then a clear and somewhat scornful voice arose above the rest,
exclaiming:

“Get up, you wretched fraud. There’s nothing at all the matter with
you. Don’t give him a cent, gentlemen, if that’s what he’s after. He’s
no more in a fit than you and I are.”

“Hurrah for the doctor!” shouted a somewhat youthful bystander, but the
physician, a tall, fine-looking, benevolent-faced gentleman, forced his
way to the edge of the sidewalk, sprang into a carriage which seemed
to be waiting for him, and drove away, with the disgusted air of a
professional man whose sympathies had been imposed upon.

He had not been deceived, however, except for the first few moments, by
even the admirable acting of the halfway genteel scamp, who now picked
himself up so sheepishly and sneaked around the corner amid the jeers
of the wayfarers, just in time to evade the fingers of the police.

“It was a regular put-up job,” exclaimed Bar, as he walked away.
“Anyhow, it won’t be difficult for me to find out who this thing
belongs to. Maybe it’s the doctor himself, only I can’t see how he
should have such a thing about him and push right into a crowd with it.”

Bar had not seen the doctor’s carriage pull up as it did, with the
first intimation that a human being might be in need of his skill,
nor could he know how completely such an affair, in the first place,
and his chagrin at being “sold,” in the second, had driven out of the
worthy doctor’s mind for the moment all other considerations.

For all that, however, Dr. Manning’s carriage was in front of police
headquarters in less than an hour from that time.




CHAPTER IV

THREE CONFERENCES AND THEIR RESULTS


There were three very important conferences held that evening.

The first was by Barnaby Vernon with himself.

As he walked down-town, towards his hotel, off came the mustache, the
glasses, the pin, one after another, and then even the duster was
removed and thrown over his arm.

He had left his straw hat “to be called for,” and now he went into the
store and put it on again, ordering the tall silk hat to be delivered
at the hotel.

There was, therefore, on his return, no perceptible difference in his
exterior, and he had no fears whatever that Major Montague would make
his appearance very soon.

After supper, however, he retired to his own room, for a good solid
“think” over the events of the day.

“No,” he said at last, “there’s no sort of question about the honesty
of it, bad as it would have looked if anybody had seen me do it. Still
it was a terribly dangerous experiment, and I’ll never try anything of
the sort again, even to keep a man from being robbed. I might just have
collared old Prosper, and shouted ‘Police!’ Then it never would have
been found on him, and I’d have made a fool of myself. But what’ll I
say to the owner? I won’t own to any connection with that gang. We’ll
see about it when the time comes. Maybe he’ll be glad enough to get his
money back without asking any questions. Now for a look at it, and to
find out to whom it belongs.”

The door of the room was safely locked and bolted, and Bar sat down
with a strange kind of a trouble all over him, and drew from his bosom
the treasure of which he had so singularly obtained possession.

It must have been made at the same shop as the one left in his hands by
the “pocketbook-dropper” that morning, and Bar could not help wondering
whether that baffled swindler would soon succeed again in rigging up so
very taking a bait.

“He’ll end his days in the penitentiary,” muttered Bar, “and so’ll all
the rest of ’em. I’d rather not go that way, if you please. Hullo!
what’s this?”

Thousand-dollar bills, ten of them. Others of smaller denominations,
comparatively, but all large. Checks and drafts for ten times as much
more.

Business memoranda and receipts, which, even to Bar’s inexperienced
eye, were evidently of great importance, and there could be no manner
of doubt that the whole belonged to Dr. Randall Manning, the great
physician.

“Glad he’s so rich,” muttered Bar. “And to think of such a man going
in to help a poor fellow that fell in a fit on the sidewalk! How mad he
must have been when he found he had been cheated! Yes, and what did he
say or think when he found all this among the missing. I see. That gang
played for him on purpose, and they played it wonderfully well. Hope
they’ll be happy over their winnings. Why, I shall hardly dare go to
sleep to-night with all this in my room. Only nobody’d dream of trying
to rob a boy like me. Not worth robbing, and that’s a comfort just
now. I’ll go to the doctor’s the first thing in the morning. Why not
to-night? It’s early yet. No, he won’t be at home this evening. He’ll
be hunting all over the city to see if he can get on the track of his
property.”

Barnaby was only half right, and his better course would have been to
go at once, for although the worthy doctor did employ his evening till
a late hour, too, in the manner the quick-witted boy had imagined, he
was just then at home and would have been glad enough to welcome such a
visitor as Bar would have been.

Moreover, Bar himself might have had some chance for a good night’s
sleep, instead of lying wide awake, as he did, hugging his precious
wallet.

Perhaps, however, that night’s wakefulness, as the guardian of another
man’s property, with all the thoughts it brought to the mind of the
lonely and friendless boy, may have been of special service, and Bar’s
decision may have been for the best, after all.

At all events, when morning came, Bar had fully made up his mind as to
the course he meant to take, and it was scarcely the same he would
have chosen if he had acted on the spur of the moment.

The second “conference” that evening began at the same time with Bar’s,
but it did not last all night.

It was held in the elegantly furnished library of Dr. Manning, and the
parties to it were an elderly-looking, intellectual-seeming gentleman,
and the doctor himself.

The former was no less a man than Dr. Manning’s legal counsel, who had
called for a very different piece of business from the one before him
now.

He had evidently been listening to his client’s account of his
misfortune, and his face expressed almost as much indignation as
sympathy.

“You see, Judge,” urged the doctor, “I felt that I ought to take it
while I could get it. He was to go on board the steamer at six o’clock,
and it seemed like my last chance. He means to be honest, you know,
but he’s so speculative and uncertain. He signed over the checks and
drafts, and paid me the money, just as if he had never intended to do
anything else.”

“You could have had him arrested,” snapped the judge.

“Arrested, Judge Danvers? The very thing I did not want to do. Besides,
how could I, when he turned upon me so frankly and said, ‘There’s your
money just as I collected it, every cent,’ and paid it squarely into my
hands.”

“No telling what he has that belongs to other men. You were not his
only victim.”

“Never thought of that,” said the doctor. “Anyhow, I received my money.”

“And lost it on your way home,” growled the judge.

“I hope not,” replied the doctor. “I’ve already sent advertisements to
all the newspapers. The finder could not use the checks and drafts,
even if he were dishonest, and my wallet was marked inside with my
address in full.”

“Finder!” petulantly exclaimed the judge. “Why, Doctor, you’ve had
your pocket picked. Do you suppose your reward--a thousand dollars
I think you said--will make a pickpocket send back your greenbacks?
Of course, you can stop payment of the other things, if you’re quick
enough. I’ll take care of that myself, but how are we ever to get at
the money, I’d like to know? It’s a pretty kettle of fish. You say you
took a carriage and rode all the way home?”

“Yes,” replied the doctor, almost meekly, “it was after bank hours or
I’d have deposited the whole thing at once. So I took a carriage and
hurried home, meaning to lock it up in my own safe here, over night,
and deposit it in the bank in the morning.”

“But didn’t you stop, anywhere?”

“No--yes--well, I did get out for just a minute in front of Stewart’s,
to look at a fellow they said had tumbled in a fit on the sidewalk. He
was a complete fraud. No fit at all.”

“I see,” exclaimed the judge. “If I could only get hold of that
make-believe epileptic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mean? Why, there was a crowd, of course, all around you, behind you,
close to you, as you leaned over your patient. The light-fingered
gentry had it all their own way.”

“Why, Judge, I saw half a dozen men I knew, and a more
respectable-looking crowd you never saw. There were even ladies in it,
just come out of Stewart’s.”

“Exactly,” said the judge, “and I must see the police this very night
again, and so must you. Send for a carriage, Doctor; we’ve no time to
lose.”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor, as he rose from his chair, “but I’ve
three or four patients I must look to on the way. Mustn’t neglect them,
you know, for any mere matter of money.”

“Patients!” exclaimed the dry, hard man of law, but he gazed very
admiringly on the true-hearted and high-principled physician for all
that. “Yes, I’ll help you ’tend cases all night. No other medicine
man shall have the killing of me. To think of them under such
circumstances!”

And so, a few minutes later, the doctor and the judge rode away
together on their joint errand of healing, mercy, and pickpocket
detection.

The third conference had taken place even earlier in the evening.

Such experienced hands as Prosper, Major Montague, and their
colleagues, were not likely to come together at once, after such a
remarkable exploit as they had performed, and they found their way to
their appointed rendezvous by circuitous routes, and one by one.

Moreover, even Prosper, mindful of the suspicious jealousy of his
associates, did not dare to disturb the outer covering of his prey
until the rest arrived, although his clawlike fingers worked around it,
as it lay in his pocket, with a perfect ague-shake of mingled greed and
curiosity.

The hour agreed upon was not likely to be overstaid on such an occasion
as that, and Prosper was in no danger of being long compelled to bear
his temptation alone.

First came the little, dapper, sharp-visaged person who had made so
good an imitation of a fit, then Major Montague, and, closely following
him were two very well dressed, respectable-looking gentlemen, who had
been conspicuous as active members of the “crowd” in front of Stewart’s.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Prosper, “we are all here and it may be there’s
no time to lose. We’ve made a magnificent haul, or I’m mistaken. There
it is.”

And so saying he threw down upon the table before them the elegantly
finished Russia leather wallet, which Barnaby Vernon had received from
the “dropper” a few hours earlier, plump and full as when Bar had
refused to “divide the reward” for it.

The eyes of the whole party glistened with expectation, and more than
one of them drew a long breath and reached out an involuntary hand. It
was by no means easy for such men to look upon a pocketbook like that
and not lay a finger on it.

“Open it, Monsieur Prosper,” said Major Montague, dignifiedly. “Let all
witness the opening and feel sure of the exact justice of our mutual
dealings.”

A hum of approbation ran around the little circle as Prosper’s unsteady
fingers drew the strap and disclosed the precious contents to their
admiring gaze.

“What’s that?” almost instantly thereafter shouted Major Montague.
“Prosper, you old villain, do you think you can play any such game on
us?”

The chorus of wrath, indignation, bitterness, profanity that followed
upon the major’s “opening” would have defied a dozen stenographers,
and poor old Prosper bent tremblingly and helplessly before the storm,
vainly protesting the truth that the wallet had not left his pocket
until he laid it before them on the table.

No such assertion could be of any manner of service. Were they all
fools? Had Dr. Manning rigged himself for the drop game? What had he
done with the money?

And then came darker hints and threats, until Prosper, almost beside
himself with rage, fear, and perplexity, actually stuck his head out of
the open window and yelled:

“Police! police!” at the top of his voice.

The room behind him was empty in a moment, but Bar Vernon’s afternoon
work had resulted in forever disbanding what had threatened, from the
skill and ability of its well-trained membership, to be one of the most
dangerous gangs of rogues that ever infested the metropolis.

Prosper knew that he would thenceforth be a marked man, even among the
thieving fraternity itself, and could hope for no more confederates.

The major had lost faith in humanity, and knew, besides, that all
humanity had lost faith in him, for it was more than intimated that he
was suspected of collusion with Prosper.

The little dapper “fits” imitator declared that he had lost all
ambition, and should at once return to his legitimate business of
three-card monte.

As for the other two, they contented themselves for weeks with a vain
attempt to dog the movements of their late associates, and learn what
had become of the doctor’s money.

The only man who made any profit out of the operation was the landlord
of the “hotel,” who found the wallet lying on the table after Prosper’s
half-frenzied exit, and sold it to a countryman for three dollars,
applying that sum to the rent of the room.

Perhaps the bitterest moment undergone by any of them all, however,
came to the share of Prosper himself, the next morning, when he read
in the papers an offer of a thousand dollars’ reward for the return of
that very wallet.

Then, indeed, he bowed his head in utter desolation, for the truth
became only too clear to a mind so well trained as his own.

“Changed in the crowd!” he exclaimed.

“Got into the wrong hands. Somebody else will get the reward or keep
the wallet!”

It was too much for human endurance, and for at least an hour the
defeated pickpocket had serious thoughts of giving up everything and
going to work for an honest living.

It looked a good deal as if even the evil one had turned against him,
which is very much what every evil man is apt to make up his mind to,
sooner or later.




CHAPTER V

ZEB’S OPINION OF APPLE SPROUTS


“Zebedee, my son,” remarked old Deacon Fuller to that young gentleman,
when he returned from driving the cows to pasture, the evening after
the affair at the spring-board--“Zebedee, what is this I hear of your
violent threats against the Rev. Dr. Dryer?”

The deacon was standing in the kitchen doorway, deliberately stripping
the leaves from a handful of strong, well-grown apple-tree “suckers,”
which he had recently gathered in the orchard back of the house.

For a moment Zeb stood in silence, eying the ominous-looking sprouts
with a squint in which a very grave expression was beginning to make
its appearance, and his father continued:

“Dr. Dryer has been here, himself, and he tells me you employed the
most disrespectful and threatening language.”

“No, father,” said Zeb, stoutly, “no disrespect at all. I only wanted
to drown him.”

“Drown him! Zebedee! Drown Dr. Dryer? Are you crazy?”

“Not a bit, father; it might be bad for him--just a little--but think
what a splendid thing it would be for the Academy. We’ll never get rid
of him any other way.”

Deacon Fuller was a parent of the genuine old Puritanic stock, and his
weather-beaten face could put on all the iron sternness of his race and
breeding, but behind every visage of that kind there is a strangely
mellow something, and he was Zeb’s father. Not a muscle quivered, but
his only reply for a moment was:

“Zebedee!”

“Father,” said Zeb, “did old Sol tell you the whole story? If he didn’t
I think I’d better.”

“That would be just,” remarked the deacon, and Zeb was in the middle of
it before he had time to reconsider his opinion.

The story was not likely to lose much in Zeb’s telling of it, and
before it was half finished the deacon began to feel as if there was
no other duty in the world so difficult to live up to as a wholesome
degree of parental severity.

It was a critical moment, indeed, and Deacon Fuller felt as if a
powerful reinforcement had arrived when, just then, the front gate
swung open and the pursy form of Gershom Todderley, the miller, came
heavily up the path to the side of the house where Zeb and his sire
were standing.

Brief, indeed, and somewhat embarrassed, were the mutual greetings,
but Deacon Fuller’s face was fast recovering its original rigidity, in
spite of the pictures in his mind’s eye of old Gershom going off the
broken spring-board.

Zeb never yielded an inch of ground, and fairly astounded his father by
holding out his hand with:

“You don’t seem to be hurt a bit. I thought a good swim wouldn’t do you
any harm. I take one every day.”

“Zeb,” exclaimed the miller, “I mean to learn to swim. Deacon Fuller,
he’s an odd boy. Saved my life this afternoon. Made a fool of myself.
Came over to thank you, soon as I could.”

“Made a fool of yourself? Came to thank me? Why, neighbor Todderley,
what do you mean? Some of Zeb’s performances, I suppose. I was just
going to have a settlement with him. Dr. Dryer was here an hour ago.”

“Old fool,” exclaimed the miller, with some energy. “Wish he’d tried
the board first. Lighter man than I am. Might not have broke with him.
Hope it might. Stood there like a post. Never tried to help me. Zeb and
the boys fished me out. Came to thank you and him.”

“Oh,” said the deacon, with a greatly relieved sigh, “that’s it, is
it? I thought it must all be some of Zeb’s mischief. Come in, brother
Todderley, come in.”

“No, thank ye,” replied the miller. “Got an errand up street. Hope I’ll
see you at meeting. Solemn thing to be drowned. Good-day.”

And the miller turned on his heel, but Zeb’s father once more bent his
inquiring gaze upon his hopeful son.

“Zebedee, that’s all very well, but what’s this about Dr. Dryer?”

“Gersh Todderley’s right about him too,” said Zeb. “I’ve the greatest
respect for his opinions, now’s he’s in his right mind. Glad he means
to learn to swim. I wouldn’t mind teaching him myself. They say fat men
float the easiest kind.”

“Zebedee, I hardly know what course I ought to take.”

The boy’s face was again putting on a grave and serious look.

“Father,” he said, pointing at the apple-tree sprouts, “what are those
things for?”

“I think you ought to know by this time, my son.”

“Well, yes,” said Zeb, quietly, “I had some pretty good lessons years
ago. May be it was just as well, too. But, father, how old am I now?”

“Eighteen, Zeb. Why do you ask such a question?”

“Eighteen!” slowly repeated Zeb. “Can’t you think of anything better
than apple-tree suckers for a boy of eighteen?”

“Zebedee!” exclaimed the astonished deacon.

“I just thought I’d ask the question,” said Zeb, with a twinkle in his
gray eyes which may not have been altogether fun. “Sprouts get to be
trees, sometimes.”

“And bear apples, and save men’s lives--yes, and teach lessons to their
own fathers,” exclaimed the deacon, as he threw the whole handful of
rods over the nearest fence. “I was mistaken, Zeb. Go in and see your
mother. I’m going to meeting. And--Zeb--I don’t want any tree in my
orchard to bear worthless apples.”

Zeb went on into the house and his father out at the gate. It may be
that both of them strongly suspected how completely every word had been
drunk in by the listening, loving ears of good old Mrs. Fuller.

They owed a good deal to her, those two, father as well as son, and she
had never looked with much favor on the apple-tree sprouts. Not, at
least, since Zebedee reached his first very mischievous “’teens.”

There was little danger that the orchard would ever again be drawn upon
for Zeb’s benefit.

The occurrences of the day, however, had been by no means private
property.

Not only the crew of Zeb’s boat, but the half-score of lyers-in-wait
behind the willows had vigorously distributed varying versions of the
affair, and the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer had aided them more than a
little.

The latter, indeed, had found “company” awaiting him on his return
home, and he had delivered the history of the dangers from which he had
escaped to a half roomful of sympathizing auditors.

“Drown you!” exclaimed his better-half, through her firmly clinched
false teeth--that is, if a man’s third wife can fairly be considered
so large a fraction of him as that--“drown you, my dear? Did the young
ruffians go so far as that?”

At this point, however, the solemn-visaged matron was interrupted by a
merry, ringing peal of laughter.

“Euphemia Dryer!”

“Effie, my own daughter! To think of your discerning, in such a matter,
any sufficient occasion for levity!”

Neither the doctor’s third wife nor the doctor himself seemed capable
of expressing their astonishment, but the laughter was cut short with:

“Oh, papa, I didn’t mean anything naughty, but I was thinking how funny
it must have seemed to see old Mr. Todderley plump into the pond in
that way. And how he and Pat Murphy must have looked when they were
pulled out. It’s too funny for anything!”

Alas, for poor Effie, her rosy face and her mirth were both ordered out
of the parlor, for Mrs. Dryer discerned that the latter had spread with
dreadful rapidity among her guests.

Even then, however, Effie had no sooner disappeared than Mrs. Dryer
kindly apologized for her.

“Young and giddy,” she said, “and so thoughtless, just like her poor
mother, the doctor’s second, you know. She frequently loses control of
her risible faculties.”

“Poor thing!” remarked one of the ladies. “But what a very sweet face
she has, and such a dear, pleasant way of laughing! You must find her
quite a treasure.”

“Yes, indeed,” said another. “Girls will be girls. Mine are all so fond
of Effie.”

The doctor seemed to find it difficult to reproduce the subject of
Zeb Fuller’s enormity, but that was nothing to the effort it cost his
wife to smile and look sweet while her visitors were praising her
stepdaughter.

It is to be feared that Effie’s tea-time was a troubled one, but there
were reasons why she was in no danger of unendurable severity just
then, if she was as yet “under age” and capable of seeing the funny
side of things.

After tea, the doctor had a brief call to make at Deacon Fuller’s, from
which he returned with a serene assurance that the young assailant
of his dignity was not to escape without just and ample retribution,
for he had seen, with his own eyes, the stern and exemplary father
proceeding to the orchard for the necessary appliances.

“That will do,” muttered the doctor, as he turned his steps once more
homeward, “only I think hickory would be better in a case of this
magnitude.”

What would have been his feelings if he had witnessed the ignominious
after-fate of even the “sprouts” he deemed so inadequate to the
occasion?

But, then, Zeb Fuller was just as well satisfied.




CHAPTER VI

BARNABY CALLS ON THE DOCTOR


Bar Vernon was particularly anxious not to miss the doctor that next
morning, if only because the precious wallet was becoming such a
dreadful burden to carry.

“I wouldn’t sleep with that thing another night,” he said to himself,
“not for the whole hotel,”--forgetting how very little slumbering he
had really managed to do.

His anxiety, however, led him into a very judicious piece of
extravagance. He could not think of either losing time or exposing
himself to any perils by the way; and so he called the first
good-looking “hack” carriage he saw empty after leaving the hotel, and
was whirled up in front of Dr. Manning’s elegant “brown-stone front,”
on one of the most fashionable up-town streets, in something like
proper style.

For all that, however, the dignified servant who answered Bar’s pull
at the door-bell looked down a little loftily on so very young and
healthy-looking a “patient.”

“Dr. Manning does not wish to see any one this morning----”

“Never mind that,” interrupted Bar. “He is waiting for me. Just give
him my name.”

“Card, sir?”

“No card,” said Bar. “Just tell him my name is Wallet, that’s all.”

The thoroughly mystified porter politely showed Bar into the doctor’s
reception-room and stalked away to the library with his message.

“Wallet? Wallet?” muttered the doctor, when he received it. “I don’t
know any such man. Did he say what was the matter with him?”

“Said as how you were waitin’ for him, sir.”

“Waiting for him? Wallet? Ah, yes, I see. How I wish Judge Danvers were
here! John, go over for the judge at once. Tell him I want to see him
immediately. Show Mr. Wallet in.”

“In here, sir?”

“Yes, right away. Say to the judge it’s very important.”

Dr. Manning, on advice of his counsel, had kept his loss of the night
before, a secret from everybody but his wife, and the dignified porter
had not the slightest idea of the tremendous meaning which might be
lurking under the very simple name of the “cheeky” visitor.

Whatever may have been the sort of human being which the doctor had
pictured to himself as likely to come on such an errand, he was
manifestly astonished when our hero was ushered into the library.

“John” would have given something to have “fussed around” and learned a
little more, but his master peremptorily hurried him off.

He had asked Bar to be seated, almost mechanically, but, as the door
closed on John, he turned to him again with,

“Mr. Wallet?”

“There I am,” said Bar, “all of me you care for, lying on the table.”

There it was, sure enough, in all the glory of its Russia leather, and
the good doctor drew a long sigh of relief as he picked it up.

“Where could I have lost it?” he said to himself, aloud. “The judge is
clearly wrong about it. May I ask where you found it, Mr.----”

“Vernon,” said Bar. “The visitor you were waiting for was named Wallet.
I’m only Barnaby Vernon. Please count your money, Doctor, and see that
all the papers are there.”

“Of course,” exclaimed the good doctor, “I’ve no doubt of that, my
young friend; there is that in your face which assures me.”

“No, Doctor,” said Bar, “that pocketbook kept me awake all night, for
fear you might miss something when you opened it. Please count it over;
I shan’t be easy till you do.”

The boy’s face assumed a wonderfully earnest expression as he spoke,
and the doctor looked at his fresh, yet strongly-marked young face most
benevolently, as he replied:

“I think the judge would say you are right. No man should let money go
out of his hand without a receipt, he says.”

“That’s what I’m waiting for,” said Bar.

“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the doctor, as he drew the strap and began
to turn over the contents of the wallet; “a receipt and something else.”

Bar was silent, but Dr. Manning had now recovered his hitherto somewhat
disturbed equilibrium, and he was now examining his recovered treasure
as carefully as if he were noting the symptoms of a difficult “case,”
and that is saying a good deal.

“All there,” he said, at last. “Every paper. Every cent. Not a thing
missing.”

“Please make me out a receipt in full, then,” said Barnaby.

“Receipt!” exclaimed the doctor, as he took up a pen and a scrap of
paper. “Certainly. One of those thousand dollar bills is yours, too.
There it is. But I wish you would tell me now where you found it.”

“No, thank you,” said Bar. “I don’t wish any reward. Find it? Oh, no,
Doctor, I stole it for you.”

“Stole it?”

Just then there came a violent ring at the door-bell, and Dr. Manning
exclaimed:

“That’s the judge, now. I’m ever so glad he’s come.”

In a moment more the keen, penetrating eyes of the old lawyer were
busily reading, with practiced skill, every line and shade on the face
of Barnaby Vernon.

“The money and papers are all right,” remarked the doctor, “but our
young friend refuses to take any reward or to tell me how he came by
the wallet. He says he stole it.”

“Stole it!” almost shouted the judge. “Stole it from the man who found
it, I suppose?”

“That’s it,” said Bar. “One man found it in Dr. Manning’s pocket. He
gave it away to another man, at once, and he to another, and he to
another way back in the crowd. I stole it from that man--or rather, for
I was honest about it, I traded him another wallet for it.”

“You’re a deep one,” exclaimed the judge. “I think I’d better have you
arrested.”

“Go ahead,” said Bar, quietly.

“Arrest him!” exclaimed the doctor. “What for, I’d like to know?”

“For bringing back your pocketbook,” said Bar.

“Well, well, young man,” said the lawyer, half apologetically, “I don’t
mean that, exactly. But it’s all very strange. Don’t you think you
deserve any reward?”

“Certainly,” said Bar; “it’s cost me a deal of trouble and worry,
besides my carriage-hire this morning.”

“Why won’t you take it, then?” asked the puzzled doctor.

“I was going to ask something better than an arrest,” said Bar.

“Come, come,” said the judge, “I’ll take that all back. I never was so
interested in anything in all my life. What is it you want?”

“Nothing,” said Bar, “except a little advice, and so I brought my fee
with me.”

“Advice!” exclaimed the doctor. “Why, you look about the stoutest,
healthiest fellow of your age I’ve seen in a month.”

“So I am,” said Bar, “but I want advice, nevertheless. You see, I’ve
heard that you doctors are the only men living that can keep a secret,
and I can’t get the advice I want without telling mine. So as soon as
the judge is gone I’ll tell it.”

“That’s a little the coolest!” growled the old lawyer. “Why, young man,
doctors are no more professional secret-keepers than we are.”

“But the doctor owes me a fee, a big one, and you don’t,” said Bar.

“Never mind,” said the doctor, “we’ll take the judge in as counsel.
I’ll pay his fee if he asks for one.”

“The boy’s fee enough,” exclaimed the judge. “Never saw anything like
him. Don’t let him send me away, Doctor. Look here, young man, it may
be you want a lawyer more’n you do a doctor.”

“Very likely,” said Bar, “and I s’pose a fellow’s own counsel is bound
to side with him? Have you time now, or shall I call again?”

“Call again?” shouted the judge. “Do you want me to burst? Out with it,
now? How did you come by that wallet?”

Barnaby’s mind had been at work all night on what he meant to say that
morning, and it never occurred to him as strange that those two elderly
men should get so excited with curiosity as they now clearly were.
He had struggled so long with the important question “what should he
do with himself,” that he felt he must ask somebody, and surely two
such men as these ought to be able to tell him. His next words were,
therefore:

“Well, then, if you’ll keep my secret for me, I’ll begin at the
beginning--it isn’t long.”

Not long. Only the outline story of such a life as he remembered, with
Major Montague and old Prosper, in every part of the country, and in
all sorts of curious and often doubtful undertakings.

Then his own growing conviction that he had been born for something
better, his final rebellion and his setting out for himself.

“But that black valise!” exclaimed the judge. “What did you find in
that? You say you remember some sort of home and family when you were
very young. Did you find anything about it?”

“I haven’t opened it yet,” said Bar. “You know, I said to you, I
promised Major Montague I wouldn’t open it for a year and a day. I must
keep my word, even if he was ever so drunk when I gave it to him. If
he’d been sober I’d never have known anything about it.”

“Keep your word! What do you think of that, Doctor?”

“Think?” exclaimed the doctor, brushing his benevolent old eyes with
his hand.

“You see, too,” continued Bar, “it was that gang found your wallet in
your pocket, and I stole it from Prosper in the crowd.”

A few words more explained Bar’s operations more fully, but he
absolutely refused to have anything to do with the “prosecution” the
judge began to talk of.

“He’s right,” said the doctor. “He’d have to give testimony that would
harm him wrongfully----”

“I see,” began the judge; “but----”

Bar interrupted him with:

“And now, gentlemen, the whole of it is just this. I’ve got a new name,
I want a new life, and you must advise me how to get into it. That’ll
be worth more to me than any one thousand dollars’ reward.”

“But to think of such a boy seeing it in that light,” exclaimed the
judge.

“Judge,” said the Doctor, “you seem to be all at sea. This looks like a
case for me to treat. In a year from now he can open his valise, for I
think he must keep his promise to his rascally uncle, and then we can’t
guess what he may learn. Meantime he must go to school.”

“School!” exclaimed Bar. “How am I to manage that? My money’s
half-gone already. I must find a way of earning some more.”

“I’ll take care of that,” began the judge, with sudden energy; but the
doctor interposed:

“It’s all right, Judge. My boy goes back to Ogleport Academy in a
couple of weeks or so, and our young friend must go with him. He must
let me pay at least a year’s schooling on account of the thousand
dollars’ reward. He’s saved me ten thousand, to say the least. A good
deal more, I’m afraid. It’ll be just the place for him, and his old
scoundrel of an uncle will never think of hunting for him there.”

“That’s it,” shouted the judge; “only you must count me in, somewhere.
My young friend, maybe my turn’ll come when that valise is opened. It
may be chock full of law business, for all you know. Hullo, the boy’s
crying!”

It was a fact, though it did not long continue so. Poor Bar’s
anxieties and excitements, with the task of detailing his sufferings
and adventures, crowned as all had been by such a wonderful result,
had been too much for him. With all his hardly acquired keenness and
self-possession, Bar Vernon was only a boy, after all, and he was
altogether unused to such treatment as he was now receiving. Besides,
the idea of going to school, of all things, and in the country, and in
decent company, such as he longed for--it was too much indeed, and Bar
had covered his face with his hands.

“That’s all right,” said the doctor; “but now, Judge, I must see all
this stuff safely deposited in bank, this time; I shan’t be easy till
I’ve done that.”

“And I won’t leave you till you do,” said the Judge. “But how about
Barnaby?”

“The carriage I came in is still at the door,” said Bar, looking up;
“you might ride down in that and leave me at the hotel.”

“The very thing,” said the doctor. “And then I can call for you on my
way back, and bring you right up here. No more hotel for you, my boy.”

Bar felt very much like going on with his cry, but the two old
gentlemen were in a hurry, and in a few moments more the dignified
porter almost broke his neck looking after the carriage as it carried
off that trio. It was barely an hour later that the clerk of the hotel,
after bowing most respectfully to the great physician, was electrified
by his inquiring for Mr. Vernon.

“Didn’t know he was sick.”

“Sick? No, indeed,” replied the doctor. “He’s coming up to visit with
my boy for awhile. Send up for him, please.”

“Youngster’s all right, after all,” muttered the clerk to himself, “but
that villainous looking Major Montague was here for him again this
morning. Anyhow, he’s in good hands now. Wonder who his father is?”

That was just the puzzle that was troubling the mind of our hero, and
the doctor, and even the busy old judge himself, all the rest of that
long, hot August day, and the little black valise never said or hinted
a single word to relieve them.




CHAPTER VII

HUNTING THE COWS


A very pretty village was Ogleport, stuck away off there in that
fertile valley among the hills. Mountains these latter grew into within
a few miles, with ravines and rocky gorges instead of valleys, and
beyond them was the great, mysterious, rugged wilderness, with its tall
peaks and its forests full of wild animals.

Excellent people were those of Ogleport, with no small opinion of their
village and themselves, and their “Academy” was their especial pride.

There it stood, in the middle of the great, tree-bordered “village
green,” while on either hand of it were the “meeting houses” of the
half-dozen denominations among which the people of Ogleport and the
surrounding country were divided.

A large, steeple-crowned structure of wood, painted white, with
the staring windows of its two lofty stories unshaded by any such
nonsensical things as blinds, the Academy had evidently been planned by
the same architect who had designed the church building, and it was as
sober and ugly-looking as any of them.

Back of the row of meeting houses and the Academy were long, shadowy
rows of ample sheds, for the accommodation of the teams and wagons of
the country people on Sundays, and back of that again was the badly
kept and tangled-looking “graveyard.”

Those sheds were great places for the conclaves of the “boys” of
Ogleport, but their larks rarely carried them, even in broad daylight,
beyond or through or over the shattered picket fence of the graveyard.

Not that they were particularly superstitious, but then, as a general
thing, they deemed it just as well to “go around,” and it was, indeed,
a queer place to get into alone after sundown.

If, however, the boys had any reverence for the bit of land where the
village buried its dead, they had none whatever for the big, white
building where they were themselves compelled to bury so much of the
valuable time they might otherwise have usefully employed in fishing,
hunting, and other matters of equal importance.

The benches of the several rooms, not excepting those of the “chapel”
or lecture-room in the rear, or the great hall in the second story, the
frames of the doors, the pine wainscoting, the desks, every reachable
piece of wood about the whole concern was notched and scarred by the
sharp and busy knives of the boys of Ogleport.

More than one busy man, there and elsewhere, if he ever came back again
on a visit, could trace his deeply-cut initials, three times painted
over, among the innumerable scars of that institution of learning.

Zeb Fuller’s generation had done at least their share of this
particular kind of improvement, and the oldest inhabitants of the
village freely declared their opinion that there had never been such a
lot of unreclaimed young savages since the Indians cleared out.

Perhaps they were right, and then again perhaps they had forgotten
something, but the boys did not trouble their minds much about it,
either way.

Still, it was a great comfort to the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer to meet
with so liberal an amount of human sympathy, especially as it had
helped him that summer to carry into effect his design of securing an
additional assistant.

There had always been Mrs. Ross with two or three ambitious young
ladies to help her in the male department, and a long and variegated
line of “young men preparing for college,” who had acted for the time
being as “tutors” under Dr. Dryer, but never before had the Academy
trustees ventured on the outlay required for a full-grown, thoroughly
educated, competent man to do the doctor’s heavy work for him.

Perhaps a certain feeling of jealousy on the doctor’s part; a dread of
having any second person so near his own throne of authority, had had
something to do with it; but now there had appeared a new element of
danger which he found himself compelled to meet.

Some mischievous friend and patron of the Academy, mindful, perhaps, of
how much he had done towards whittling down the old building, had made
it a present of a very complete set of chemical and other instructive
apparatus, and what Dr. Dryer himself would do with such new-fangled
trash was a good deal more than he could tell.

And so--and so--there had been no end of solemn talk about it, but the
new assistant had been hired, and was to begin his labors with the fall
term, soon to begin.

An additional feather in the cap of Dr. Dryer had been the fact that an
unusually large number of “boarders” was expected. That is, boys from a
distance, who were to find homes among the villagers and drink in daily
wisdom at the Academy.

Some were to come from even the great city, where the men all know so
much and the boys were all so ignorant and so wicked, but wore such
good clothes and paid their bills so promptly.

Zeb and his crowd were by no means unaware of all these things, and one
of the curious results of the spring-board business was that it set Zeb
to thinking.

“If he sets his face against me and won’t let me come in,” said Zeb, to
himself, “I’ll miss all the new experiments. Besides, I really want
to study some. There is a good deal in books. I wonder if we couldn’t
coax the new man to put us into a course of Scott’s Novels and history?
Wonder if he’ll be got up on the same plan as old Sol? Pity him if he
is, that’s all. Tell you what, I must manage to get straight with the
doctor.”

So saying, Zeb wandered off--for it was the very morning after the
miller’s dip in the pond--down to the mill-dam.

When he got there, he found Pat Murphy just finishing up a piece of
work into which he had put all his heart for an hour.

“New spring-board, eh?” said Zeb. “Now go and get your saw.”

“And what for should I do that same?” asked Pat.

“To set your drowning trap,” replied Zeb, calmly. “I want to see how
you do it. You cut it three-quarters through, don’t you?”

“Now, Zeb, ye spalpeen, get out wid yer nonsense,” growled Pat, with a
very uneasy expression on his dusty face. “The boord’s all right. Jist
shtrip an’ thry it wanst.”

“No, thank you,” said Zeb. “Did you really mean to murder old Gershom?
And now you’re going to try it again. I’d never thought that of you,
Pat.”

“Go ’long wid yez!” laughed the Irishman. “Yer at the bottom of all the
mischief there is. I hope there’ll be young gintlemin from the city,
the now, that’ll tache ye manners. It’s waitin’ for thim, I am.”

“Drown ’em, shall you?” said Zeb. “But what’ll Gershom say to that?
I’ll have to be down here in my boat all the while.”

“I owe ye one, Zeb Fuller!” exclaimed Pat, with a sudden and very warm
burst of grateful recollection. “Ave yer iver in a schrape and want a
frind, just come to owld Pat Murphy, that’s all. It was mesilf didn’t
want to shpile the fun of yez. That’s all.”

“If we hadn’t been on hand it would have been spoiled pretty badly,”
moralized Zeb. “I’m going for a pull in the boat now, myself. Give my
love to Gershom when he comes, and tell him he’s a nice boy.”

A queer duck was Zeb Fuller, but, by the time he had floated vaguely up
and down the pond two or three times, he had very fairly matured his
plans for operating upon Dr. Dryer and preventing the doors of the
Academy from being closed against him.

That day was an unusually busy one for Ogleport, in vacation-time, for
every gossip in the village had notes to compare with every other, but
Zeb Fuller was among the invisible all day, and he retired to rest at
an hour which gave his father renewed hopes of the bright future which
lay before his heir.

No pains were taken, however, to ascertain whether Zeb’s pillow was
constantly occupied through the night-watches, and all the deacon was
absolutely sure of was, that he had some difficulty in stirring him up
in the morning.

“How’s this, Zeb?” asked his father, as Zeb came sleepily poking down
the stairs. “I’m sure you went to bed early enough.”

“That’s it,” said Zeb. “The longer I sleep the better I seem to know
how. If I keep on learning, I may be able to sleep a week, some of
these long nights.”

“Get away with the cows, then. You won’t get any breakfast, now, till
you come back. Hullo, there’s Dr. Dryer at the gate. What’s up now?”

Quite enough, one would think, and it was a very natural instinct which
led the doctor to that particular house with his story.

Not a hoof had his red-headed errand-boy found in his lot back of his
barn, that morning. Gate wide open. Cows gone, nobody knew whither.

“Something sure to happen in this place every time I oversleep myself,”
exclaimed Zeb. “Do you think they’re stolen, Doctor, or did that little
scamp of yours leave your gate open and let ’em run away?”

“Run away? Hope that’s all,” said the deacon.

“Have you looked for them?”

“Everywhere,” replied the doctor, who had been narrowly eying Zebedee.

The latter did not flinch a hair’s breadth, however, although he now
seemed wide awake enough.

“Father,” said he, suddenly, “I see what the doctor’s after. I’ll
just put our cows in the pasture--not half an hour’s work. Then you
have the bay saddled, and I’ll ride off after his critters. Get a lot
of the boys to help me. We’ll find ’em for you, Doctor. You threatened
to drown me, day before yesterday, and I’m glad to have a chance of
returning good for evil.”

He was off like a shot, and even his grim-visaged father more than
half smiled, as he remarked: “Best you can do, Doctor. I’ll have the
bay colt ready for him when he gets back. Not another boy in the whole
valley’d be so sure to make a find of it.”

Dr. Dryer looked more solemn than ever, and shook his head ominously,
for the thought which had brought him to Deacon Fuller’s had hardly
been permitted a fair expression.

Halfway down the path to the barn, Zeb was met by still another
interested party, who rose lazily from the ground at his approach,
cocked one dilapidated ear at him, and mutely inquired:

“Well, and what’s to be done now?”

“All right, Bob,” said Zeb, “but it’s too soon to wag your tail yet.
We must take all day to it. If we should find ’em right off, it’d look
bad. We’ll tend our own cows first.”

Bob stopped the tail-wagging, though there could have been very little
effort required to wag such a stump as that, and trotted off after his
master with a thoroughly canine faith that there was fun to come of
some kind.

A large, mastiff-built brindled dog was Bob, for whom all the other
village dogs had an unbounded respect, if not esteem. He was one of
those dogs that no sane human being ever tries to steal.

Zeb’s usual morning “chores” were finished up in rapid style, even for
him, and by that time, too, he had succeeded in getting messages to
half a dozen of his most trusted friends.

It looked very much, even to the watching eyes of Dr. Dryer, as if the
“hunt” were to be made in earnest, and Effie stood behind him and Mrs.
Dryer at the window, thinking what a grand time of it the boys would
have, and half wishing she could join them.

“It’s the least he can do,” remarked Mrs. Dryer. “I do hope nothing has
happened to that dun heifer. Those cows never ran away of their own
accord.”

If they had only been near enough to Deacon Fuller’s front gate a few
minutes later, they could have heard as well as seen.

“You see, boys,” said Zeb, “you’re all to hunt for ’em, but I’m going
on horseback, and of course I’ll find ’em.”

“We might, some of us.”

“No, you mightn’t,” responded Zeb. “Bill Jones, you and Hy Allen scout
out towards the lake. Take your hooks and lines in your pockets and be
gone all day. If you catch any fish, you can give ’em away to somebody.”

“Not if we don’t get back till after dark,” said Hy Allen.

“That’s so,” said Zeb. “Now, the rest of you might try the East hill.
I’m going on the North road, over into Rodney.”

“We might go for woodchucks,” suggested one of the smaller boys.

“We might,” said another, “but then the old sweet tree in the Parker’s
orchard’s about ripe.”

“That’s it,” said Bill Jones, “and I saw him going through the village
this very morning. Both his dogs with him.”

“All right,” replied Zeb. “Bob and I and the bay colt don’t mean to
come back till we bring Sol Dryer’s cows along with us.”

“Hurrah for Zeb Fuller!” shouted Hy Allen, and, with a yell of general
approbation and acquiescence in the plans of their chief, for such he
seemed to be, that squad of “the worst boys in Ogleport,” as Dr. Dryer
would have called them, separated, each to his own especial usefulness.

In five minutes more, Zeb was in the saddle, and he and Bob were off to
seek their fortune.

Just a little after noon of that eventful day it might fairly have been
said that the plans of Zeb Fuller had fairly begun to ripen.

Bill Jones and Hy Allen were busily at work under a tree by the lake
shore, building a fire to aid them in the preparation of their lunch.
The borrowed boat they had pulled up on the beach had a very fine show
of fish in it, but not a sign of a cow, and the pair of them seemed
just as well contented.

Miles away, on the eastern hillside, another detachment of Zeb’s
faithful army were admiring the furry coats of no less than three
woodchucks which they and their attendant curs had dug out and
captured, while not a boy among them all could have got his hands into
his pockets or put his hat on his head until he should have eaten more
half-ripe sweet apples than any one boy could have the slightest hope
of holding.

Long miles away, again to the northward, the bay colt, without one
flake of perspiration upon his glossy sides to indicate that he had
been driven around the country very extensively, was pulled up in
the middle of an open, unfenced bit of woodland, while his rider sat
looking wistfully in all directions.

“Not a hoof or a horn!” exclaimed Zeb. “I’d no notion they’d wander
out of this. Gone on North, anyhow. Come, Bob, we’ll come up with ’em
before long.”

Not quite so soon as he thought, however, for one mile, two miles, and
then a third, vanished under the now quickened pace of the bay colt,
and the merry face of his rider was growing longer and longer, before
a bark from Bob and a shout from his master greeted the discovery of
cattle ahead.

And there they were, surely enough, the dun heifer and the two older
cows, but not by any means feeding leisurely at the wayside, as they
should have been.

On the contrary, they were being driven steadily along northward, in
the charge of three ragged, disreputable-looking, vagabond boys, two
of them of about Zeb’s size and one younger, and a big, mangy-looking
yellow dog.

“Hullo!” shouted Zeb, as he galloped up and passed them, reining in the
bay colt across the road. “What are you doing with them cows?”

“Drivin’ ’em to the paound,” exclaimed one of the larger boys, with a
malicious grin. “That’s wot we dew with stray critters over here in
Rodney.”

“Over here in Rodney!” exclaimed Zeb. “Why, those cows belong to
Ogleport. Stolen last night out of the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer’s own
yard. I’ll have you all arrested and sent to jail. Pound! I’ll pound
ye. Give ’em up, right off.”

There was a little spasm of uncertainty on the faces of the vagabonds,
but the “pound reward” for stray cattle in Rodney was a dollar a head,
and they could not bear the thought of surrendering wealth like that to
a boy of Zeb’s size from a rival township.

They said as much in a moment more, and that in such a dogged and
threatening manner, and with such a profusion of unsavory epithets,
that Zeb Fuller’s valor got the better of his discretion.

He was no cavalryman.

All his fighting had hitherto been done on foot.

So he wisely cantered a few rods up the road, sprang from the saddle,
hitched the bay, shouted to Bob, and started back for the duty that so
plainly lay before him, cudgel in hand.

It was one against three, to be sure, for Bob recognized at once his
mission to that yellow dog, but Zeb had special reasons of his own for
not flinching.

Perhaps it was even less a sense of duty to the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer
than of unexpressed remorse.

If those three vagabonds looked for an easy victory, however, they were
sorely mistaken.

The dun heifer had been “hard to drive” all along, and she headed her
mates in a vigorous break backward at the first rush of Zeb and his
faithful ally.

It was all in vain that the smaller of the three “impounders” rushed
so wildly after them, and that lessened the odds against Zeb.

They were hard fighters, though, those two vagabonds of Rodney, and
Deacon Fuller’s hopeful heir had all his work cut out for him.

He was no scientific boxer, nor was either of his opponents, but Bob
was more of an expert, and by the time Zeb began to really find himself
in difficulty so did that unlucky yellow dog.

The worst of it was, however, that Bob deemed it his duty to make a
clean finish of his particular job instead of coming to the help of his
master.

Alas, for Zeb!

His cudgel was wrenched from his panting grasp, at last, though not
till he had used it to excellent effect, and while he grappled with one
of his foes the other was free to belabor him to his heart’s content.
The result might have been bad for Dr. Dryer’s cows, but, just then,
there came a sound of heavy wheels on the road above, and over the
nearest “rise” of ground the daily stage-coach that plied up and down
the valley came lumbering down to the field of battle.

[Illustration: ZEB’S FIGHT WITH THE RODNEY BOYS]

So intent were the combatants, however, that the driver was compelled
to pull in his horses to keep from going over them in spite of his
angrily shouted warnings.

For a wonder, the stage contained but three passengers, two old ladies
and a fine-looking, tall, athletic young man.

The latter, however, had his head out of the window instantly, with:

“What’s the matter, driver?”

“Boys fightin’ in the road, sir.”

“Fighting? I declare!”

And the stranger was out on level ground immediately.

Even the vagabonds loosened their hold in consideration of the new
arrival, and his sternly uttered reproofs and expostulations were
replied to with a sullen:

“None of yer bisness. He’s a-takin’ away aour paound caows, an’ we’re
a-lickin’ of him, that’s all.”

“Not much, they ain’t,” said Zeb, sturdily. “Bob, come here. There now,
I’m ready again.”

“Ready for what, my young friend?” asked the stranger, for he could
not but see the difference between Zeb and the other two, for all his
bloody nose and disordered apparel. “You don’t mean to fight any more?”

“Don’t I?” exclaimed Zeb. “I mean to drive home Dr. Dryer’s cows if I
fight all day.”

“Dr. Dryer’s cows? Dr. Dryer, of the Ogleport Academy?” asked the
stranger.

“Yes, Solomon,” said Zeb. “That’s the man. Those are his cows down
the road there. Got away last night. I came after ’em and found these
Rodney rascals driving ’em to the pound. Of course they can’t have ’em.”

“Of course not!” exclaimed the stranger. “You’re perfectly right, my
young friend. If that’s your horse yonder, just mount him and we’ll see
if there’ll be any more trouble.”

The three vagabonds, for the smaller one had now come running up, took
a good look at the stranger, another at the pugnacious attitude of Zeb,
another at Bob, who was evidently getting dangerously impatient.

They looked with one accord at what was left of their big, yellow dog,
now limping and yelping up the road, and then, with many a threat and
whine and morsel of smothered abuse, they slowly sneaked away after
their dog.

Zeb was on the bay colt’s back quickly enough, and the dun heifer
and her friends moved cheerfully on before him in the direction of
Ogleport.




CHAPTER VIII

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING


If Bar Vernon’s companion in the carriage during his ride up-town
that morning had been Judge Danvers, instead of Dr. Manning, he
would doubtless have been subjected to a sort of conversational
“cross-examination.”

Indeed, he had half expected something of the sort, but the worthy
doctor having fairly got rid of his pecuniary load and the troubles
connected with it, had mentally gone back to his patients and was not a
whit more talkative than his inborn politeness demanded of him.

Indeed, on arriving at the house, the doctor only waited to introduce
Bar to Mrs. Manning, after a very brief talk with that lady in an
inner room, and tell her to “send for Val,” and then he was off to the
reception of his long-delayed “callers” and the performance of his
daily routine of healing duty.

Bar’s previous experiences had led him into all sorts of places, good
and bad, but never before had he seen the interior of a home like
that, so full of all the appliances which modern invention and the
refinements of human art have provided for wealth and culture.

It was a sort of new world to him, and he found its unaccustomed
atmosphere more than a little oppressive at first.

Even Mrs. Manning, with her gentle face, her beautiful gray hair and
her kindly, easy, perfectly well-bred manners, seemed to him so like a
being from another sphere, that her presence made him uneasy.

She understood him better than he imagined, however, and although she
had plenty of questions in her mind, she considerately postponed them
for a more convenient season.

“It’s very wonderful,” thought Bar. “To think of that pocketbook
business bringing about all this! But I wonder who Val is?”

It was some little time before his curiosity was gratified, and then
Mrs. Manning left him alone in the library, for a few minutes, to
wonder at the multitude of elegant books, the folios of maps and
engravings, and the rarely beautiful pictures. When she returned
she was accompanied by a young gentleman of about Bar’s age, though
scarcely so strongly built, whom she introduced as:

“My son Valentine, Mr. Vernon. I shall have to put you in his care for
the rest of the day. I hope, and so does Dr. Manning, that you will be
very good friends.”

Valentine Manning was not only lighter built than Barnaby Vernon, he
was a good deal lighter in the color of his hair, and the complexion of
his face. His eyes were gray instead of the brownish-black of Bar’s,
and he was in every respect a good deal more of a “boy,” at least to
all outward appearances. He had never had the severe experiences which
had so steadied and sobered his new acquaintance.

There was little danger that Bar would long feel as much shyness in his
presence as in that of his mother, though he was a little awkward at
first.

“Mother says you’re to visit with me,” said the doctor’s son, after
they found themselves alone, “and that then you’re going out to
Ogleport to school.”

“Yes,” said Bar, reservedly.

“Ever been at the Academy before?” asked his new friend. “I never heard
of you. What’s your first name?”

“Barnaby. Bar Vernon.”

“Bar? That’s a good handle. Mine’s Val. You can’t expect a fellow to be
saying mister all the time. Did you say you’d been to Ogleport?”

“No,” said Bar, with an effort. “I was never at school in all my life.”

“Whew!” whistled Val. “What an ignoramus you must be! Did you ever
study algebra?”

“Never.”

“Nor geometry?”

“I saw the word in a newspaper, once,” said Bar, “but I don’t know what
it means.”

“Then won’t you have a high old time with Dr. Dryer, that’s all,”
exclaimed Val. “Can’t you read?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bar, eager to come up in something; “I can read and
write, and all that. Let me show you.”

Bar took up a pen, but, before he had written a half dozen lines, Val
stopped him with:

“There, now, that’ll do. You can beat me all hollow with a pen. Pity
you don’t know French, or something.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Bar, “I can talk French, and German, too, and a little
Spanish. It’s easy enough to pick up such things. What I don’t know is
what you learn at school.”

“Well,” replied Val, “I wish I could pick up as much as that. Anyhow, I
s’pose there’s lots of things I can teach you. Did you ever go fishing?”

“Never had a chance.”

“Nor hunting, nor skating?”

“Never,” said Bar, “but I can shoot. I had to learn that.”

“I’d like to know where you’ve lived all your life,” remarked Val.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some day,” said Bar, seriously, “but I’d rather
not just now.”

Val Manning was a gentleman, boy as he was; and he  to his ears
as he replied:

“There, now, beg your pardon. Mother told me I mustn’t ask you any
questions. Come on into the billiard-room and I’ll teach you how to
play. Father never wants me to go to a public billiard-hall, you know,
so he has a tip-top table here at home. Plays himself sometimes, when
the sick people give him a chance. Come on.”

Bar followed his young host into the neat and cozy apartment in the
third story to which he led the way, and he felt a species of awe come
over him as he passed one evidence after another of what plenty of
money can do for the home of such a man as Dr. Manning.

Val picked up a cue and Bar listened in silence to the very clear and
practical sort of lecture that followed on the rudiments of the game.

“Suppose we play one now,” said Bar, “and you can tell me more as we go
along.”

Val assented, with hearty good-will, and he really showed a good deal
of dexterity, for a boy of his age, in the noble art of knocking the
ivory balls about.

He made a very good “run” before he missed, and then drew back with:

“There, Barnaby, the balls are in an awful bad position. I couldn’t
make that carrom myself. Not many men could, but you’ll never learn if
you don’t try. This is the shot. See?”

Bar had been leisurely chalking his cue. Some things Val had said had
unintentionally nettled him, and he had hardly been as frank as he
should have been.

Now, however, he stepped quietly forward, made the impossible shot with
an ease and quickness which altogether electrified Val, and followed it
up with a dozen others of almost equal difficulty, ending by running
the two red balls into a corner and scoring a clean fifty before he
made a miss-cue and lost control of them.

Val had stood watching him in silence to the end, but when Bar turned
to him with:

“Your turn again now!” he exclaimed.

“My turn? I should say so. Well, I’ll play the game out, but billiards
isn’t one of the things that I have to teach you. You can give me
lessons all the while.”

So it looked, indeed, but poor Bar had paid dearly enough for that
useless bit of an accomplishment, and he would gladly have traded
it with Val for a few of the things the latter probably valued very
lightly.

After the billiards, Val suggested a visit to the gymnasium, not a
great many blocks away, but there he was even more astonished than he
had been in the billiard-room.

“If you only knew a little algebra and geometry!” he exclaimed,
enthusiastically, “you’d be a treasure to the Academy. Won’t we have
fun!”

“How’s that?” asked Bar.

“Why, of course you don’t know,” said Val. “Wait till we get there,
though. I just want some of those country fellows to try on their games
again. I was almost alone last term, and they were too much for me. Got
awfully thrashed twice, and I’m just dying to try ’em on again. Been
training for it all vacation. But you’re worth three of me.”

“I’ll back you,” shouted Bar. “But then,” he added, “I thought we were
going to the Academy to study?”

“So we are,” said Val, “and I wouldn’t disappoint my mother for
anything, nor my father, either, but you can’t study all the while, and
there’s any quantity of fun in the country.”

They were coming down the stairs from the gymnasium into the street,
while they were talking, and just then, as they reached the sidewalk,
Bar grasped his friend’s arm with:

“Val--Val--let’s hurry. There’s a man I don’t want to have see me.”

Val moved quickly enough, but he should not have looked at the
same time, for he thereby attracted the attention of a large,
showily-dressed man, seemingly some sort of a gentleman whose eyes they
might otherwise have avoided.

“Aha! my young fellow! Have I found you? What have you done with my
valise? Come right along with me, now. I’ve been hunting you for a
week. Come along, Mr. Jack Chills.”

Bar’s cheeks had turned a trifle pale at first, but they were blazing
red now. It seemed to him as if all his “new time” were suddenly in
peril, and he determined not to lose it without an effort.

“You are mistaken in the man,” he firmly replied. “My name is not
Chills, but Vernon--Barnaby Vernon. If you annoy me I shall call the
police at once. Take away your hand, sir.”

“Police, indeed? Do you mean to say I’m not your guardian, Major
Montague? And do you mean to say you’re not my nephew, and that you
did not run away with my valise and all my valuable papers? Come right
along. I shan’t give you up, now I’ve got you.”

“Police!” shouted Bar, stoutly, and:

“Police! police!” echoed Val, with a boyish resolve to stand by his
friend.

It was not a quarter of the city in which the police are most
plentiful, or it may be Major Montague would have hesitated, anxious
as he was, for reasons of his own, to amend the errors of his fit of
maudlin penitence, but, just for that once, the shout of the two boys
fell on the right pair of ears, and the Major was actually brought
face to face with a “very intelligent-looking cop,” as Val afterwards
described him.

“Who are you?” was his first and somewhat rough question, addressed to
the two boys.

“Who am I?” exclaimed Val, proudly. “I’m Valentine Manning, son of Dr.
Randall Manning, and this is Mr. Barnaby Vernon, who is visiting with
me.”

“And this,” added Bar, pointing at Major Montague, “is a very
well-known bad character. I believe he is a professional pickpocket;
but I couldn’t make a charge against him, except for assault on me now.”

“I don’t know if I’d better take you in charge,” began the policeman;
but just then the proprietor of the gymnasium came down the stairs.

“Anything the matter, Mr. Manning?” he said to Val. “I thought you and
your friend were up in the room. Policeman, what is that fellow up to?”

“Some game or other, I don’t quite understand what. My man,” he added
to the Major, “you’ve missed it this time. I’ll remember you, though.
Move on, now, and don’t let me see you loafing on my beat. Move!”

Major Montague’s face was purple with wrath, but he saw very clearly
that it was not his day. How on earth Bar should so soon have found
friends, and strange ones, and become a recognized member of “society,”
instead of a homeless and wandering vagabond, was a puzzle that
surpassed his utmost guessing.

There was no doubt about it, however, for there stood the gymnasium
proprietor, one of the best known men in the city, and there was the
policeman.

Dreadfully positive and practical looked the latter, to be sure; and
the Major had no choice but to give the matter up for a bad job and
“move on.”

He determined, however, to get at the bottom of the mystery some day,
cost what it might.

Bar thanked the policeman very pleasantly, as he and Val turned away,
but he felt as if there would be a load of fear on his heart until
he could get off somewhere, away beyond the danger of any more such
meetings.

Not but that he felt sure of protection from any real harm, but he
wanted his deliverance from his “old time” to be absolute and complete,
and it could hardly be so with Major Montague in the immediate
neighborhood.

“I don’t want to ask any questions, Bar,” said Val, “but does my father
know anything about that fellow?”

“You’ve a right to ask that,” said Bar. “Yes, he does, and so does
Judge Danvers. I meant every word I said to him or about him. He’s a
miserable fellow, and I don’t mean he shall bother me at all. Let’s go
somewhere and get a lunch. I’ll stand treat.”

“No, you can’t,” exclaimed Val. “You’re my guest, you know. Come on. I
know where we can get a tip-top one.”

Of course he did, for he took Bar at once to a fashionable up-town
restaurant of the very first class.

The way to it was in the opposite direction from the one Major Montague
had taken, and Bar experienced a feeling of relief at finding himself
at one of the little marble-topped tables, with so many well-appearing
ladies and gentlemen around him. A moment later, however, Val asked him:

“What’s the matter, Bar, my boy? You look pale.”

“Nothing,” replied Bar; “only do you see that tall, French-looking
party, three tables away down the aisle, there on the right?”

“I see him,” said Val. “You can never tell anything by the looks of
those foreigners. I took one for a gambler a while ago, and he turned
out to be a Count somebody. Maybe that’s a Count. Do you know him?”

“Wait and see if he stays to finish his dinner,” said Bar. “I don’t
want him to speak to me.”

The stranger, if his exterior had been reärranged to suit, might have
resembled a gentleman by the name of Prosper, but, just then and there,
he was managing a very different character, for his former plans, as we
have seen, had been badly broken up, and he was for the present, not
only alone in the world, but anxious to remain so.

His position was “sidewise” to that of the two friends, and there was
no one between them.

Suddenly it seemed to him as if a voice close to his ear exclaimed:

“Russia leather, eh?”

He cast a quick and startled glance around him, but failed to discover
the source of the remark.

“It’s a bad fit,” said the voice again, but this time the stranger
merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing else in it,” was the next remark of his mysterious neighbor. A
moment more and he heard:

“Then he made nothing by it?”

“No, the doctor got it back.”

“Do such fellows come here?”

One after another the words, in varying tones and seemingly close
beside him, added their harrowing suggestions, and the cold sweat was
beginning to stand out on the forehead of the unfortunate “foreigner.”

He would not have looked around him for the world, but he stealthily
reached out to the hat-rack for his hat and cane, and was swiftly
gliding out of the front door, when a watchful waiter intercepted him
with the polite suggestion that he had better pay for his dinner first.

He was glad enough to do that, nor did he once look back from the
“pay-desk.” It was not likely he would soon again venture into that
precise restaurant.

“Bar, my boy,” said Val, “who was it talking with that chap?”

“Anything more, sir?” suddenly inquired the voice of the waiter, who
had attended them, just behind Val’s chair. “You mustn’t make a pig of
yourself.”

Val wheeled angrily, to find that not a soul was standing near him.

“Bar!” he exclaimed, turning back, “did you hear that? Did he mean me?”

“Oh, hush, and take a pill.”

It was the waiter’s voice again, closer than before, and Val sprang to
his feet indignantly.

“Don’t step on me! Here I am, down here. Take your foot off. Oh, what a
mouth!”

Val had lifted his feet quickly enough, but involuntarily, but now he
gazed earnestly in the motionless face of his new friend.

“Bar Vernon, are you a ventriloquist!”

“Of course he is,” exclaimed the voice on the floor. “Don’t you see how
long his ears are? Take your foot off. There, now I can die in peace.
Good-bye!”

A long, choking sort of gurgle followed, but Val’s face was all one
radiance of triumphant fun.

“Bar, is that so? Hurrah for that! Won’t we have larks up in Ogleport,
and everywhere else? Let’s go home now. You’re just the sort of chum
I’d have asked for. Why, we’ll have some fun at the house this very
evening. Come on.”




CHAPTER IX

ZEB’S FAME PRECEDES HIM


The stage-driver was getting somewhat impatient, although the delay had
not been a long one, but the stranger turned for one more word with
Zeb Fuller before he climbed back to his seat in front of the two old
ladies.

“Are you a son of Dr. Dryer?”

“Son?” exclaimed Zeb, as he held in the bay colt. “Oh, no. Solomon’s a
good boy, and I’ve done what I could to bring him up right, but he’s no
son of mine.”

“Bring him up!” exclaimed the stranger.

“Yes,” said Zeb, “I’ve had him under my care for several years now, at
the Academy, but there’s some things he won’t learn. The boys get away
from him, and so do the cows. I wish I had some one to help me with
him.”

A ringing laugh responded to Zeb’s last remark, and:

“Well, I’ll try, then. I’m Mr. George Brayton, and I’m on my way to
join Dr. Dryer. I’ll tell him how hard a fight you had for his cows.”

Zeb’s face lengthened a little, but he answered, quickly:

“And don’t forget Bob. Solomon doesn’t understand dogs much better than
he does boys.”

“Likely as not,” exclaimed Brayton to himself, as he sprang into the
stage. “Go on, driver. Now, there’s a boy worth somebody’s while to
understand. Hullo! you didn’t tell me your name, after all.”

And, as the stage rolled on, Brayton heard something that sounded very
much like:

“Rev. Zebedee Fuller, D. D., LL. D., etc.,” for Zeb remained behind at
his duty.

The latter had no more difficulty in it. The cows had been milked, all
three of them, and Zeb was glad of it, but they were in a worried and
disconsolate frame of mind, and glad enough to find their peaceful
heads turned homeward.

Bob had suffered very little in his combat with the yellow dog, and
was now evidently conscious that he and his master had gained a very
substantial kind of victory. You could see the sense of triumph
expressing itself in the rigid erectness of his remaining ear, and in
the unyielding pride of his stump of a tail. A very intelligent sort of
dog was Bob.

As for Zeb, that young gentleman had hardly come off so well as his
canine ally, for the vagabonds had been hard hitters, and every bone of
his body bore witness to that fact.

His face, too, was even less of a beauty than usual, and the cast in
his left eye was by no means robbed of its effect by the deep tinge of
blue which was beginning to show under the right.

Zeb had chaffed bravely enough with Mr. Brayton, but his mind was by no
means easy, after all.

“Put my foot in it, as usual,” he said aloud to himself; “but how was
I to guess that he was old Sol’s new man? Seems a good one, too. Not
exactly the sort they generally make teachers of. Most generally they
make ’em out of the chips after they’ve used up all the good timber on
men. Now, he looks like a man. Well, if he is, he won’t tell on me in
any bad way. Why, there was a speck of fight in his eyes, too, and I
know he’d ha’ liked to see Bob walk into that yellow dog. Reckon that
might have done even old Sol some good.”

Zeb was in no way impatient to reach the end of his journey. In fact,
the nearer he came to Ogleport the better contented he seemed to be
that the cattle should take his own gait.

Still, those few miles could not last forever, and before sunset Zeb
found himself in such a position as he had never occupied before.
He was still on the back of the bay colt, and Dr. Dryer’s cows were
plodding along before him down the main street of the village, but
it seemed as if he had never before realized how many boys Ogleport
contained.

They were all there, and determined to emphasize their appreciation of
their hero by a species of triumphal procession.

The news of Zeb’s exploit had preceded him, growing as it traveled, and
the smaller the size of the Ogleport boy might be, the more vividly his
imagination had supplied him with crowds of the ferocious vagabonds
of Rodney, on horseback and on foot, and miscellaneously armed and
arrayed, with Zebedee Fuller careering among them on his father’s bay
colt, and valorously rescuing from their rapacious grasp the erring
kine of the Rev. Dr. Dryer.

It had seemed at first like an impossible romance, a vision of the
Middle Ages, or a leaf torn from a dime novel, but behold the reality
was here, and no boy could disbelieve his own eyes.

There were the cows, safe and sound. There was the bay colt, and on
his back rode home in glory the hero of the hand-to-hand conflict, his
face yet liberally smeared with unwiped gore from his nose, now badly
puffed, while every square inch of his summer clothing bore tokens that
he had measured his length in the dust and mud of Rodney.

It was a grand thing for the boys of Ogleport. Every soul of them rose
from one to five pegs in his own estimation, and took on more exalted
views of the course in life which he must necessarily pursue that he
might equal, some coming day, the laurels of the victorious Zeb.

Not the least appreciative of all these worshipers was the level-headed
youth who delivered to Bob a bone of unusual size and meatiness.

That was the way Zeb came to miss his faithful follower, for Bob was
a conscientious dog, and that bone had to be entombed at once in the
deacon’s backyard.

Zeb’s spirits were rising rapidly, but, just before he reached the wide
open gate of Dr. Dryer’s cow-lot, the voice of his father smote upon
his ear with:

“Zebedee, my son, have you been fighting?”

“Not exactly, father,” replied Zeb; “the other fellows did the
fighting. Bob and I went for the cows.”

“What will your mother say?” exclaimed the deacon, for it really
required an unusual amount of hypocrisy to be hard on Zeb just then,
and the deacon was no hypocrite.

“Say! Why, father, you don’t suppose she’ll take the side of those
Rodney boys, do you?”

Whatever answer the deacon might have made was interrupted by the
appearance of the Rev. Dr. Dryer, attended by the females of his family
and by Mr. George Brayton himself.

“That’s the boy, Doctor,” said the latter. “You’d have had to get your
cows out of the Rodney pound if it hadn’t been for him.”

“I only wish some person would afford me trustworthy information as to
the manner of their escape from my own inclosure,” replied the doctor,
solemnly.

“Are you sure you fastened the gate last night?” asked Zeb.

“I am positive that all things were in order when I retired,” was the
response.

“Then there’s only one way they could have got out,” said Zeb.

“What’s that?” asked the deacon.

“Flying,” said Zeb; “and, not being used to it they flew further than
they meant to.”

Effie Dryer came to the relief of her puzzled elders with a burst of
girlish merriment, in which George Brayton, though more reservedly, was
willing enough to join her; but her father’s countenance was full of
stern reproof of both her and Zeb.

“You are too much disposed to trifle, my young friend,” he said to the
latter. “You have done me a very excellent service, for which I thank
both you and your worthy father. I regret exceedingly the apparent
necessity of a resort to violence. You have evidently suffered severe
contusions.”

“But, Doctor!” exclaimed Zeb, “you ought to have seen those two Rodney
chaps. My face isn’t a sign to their’n. And then their dog! Bob had him
down for close on to five minutes. You’d have enjoyed it as well as I
did if you’d only been there. Ask Mr. Brayton. He missed the best of
it, though.”

“I must say,” said the gentleman appealed to, “that Zeb had evidently
done his whole duty by his opponents, and his dog had left nothing to
ask for on his part. Zeb, hadn’t you better go home and wash your face?”

“Yes, Zeb,” exclaimed his father, “and tell your mother about it and
take care of the bay colt.”

Zeb was glad enough to get away, for he was becoming conscious that
Effie Dryer’s merry eyes had discovered something absurd and laughable
in his appearance, and he was by no means “hardened” enough to stand
that.

He was quite well satisfied, moreover, to avoid any further discussion
of the manner in which the cows had “escaped” the night before, for a
more utterly wingless set of quadrupeds were never accused of flying.

As for his mother, good soul, Zeb had small fears of any trouble
there, as soon as she should be sure that he had suffered no real
injury.

Good Mrs. Fuller, the meekest soul in Ogleport, had come of sound
“revolutionary” stock, and the deacon himself would have been more
surprised than Zeb was at the real character of the “scolding” she gave
him.

“You couldn’t help it, Zeb?”

“Not without giving up the cows.”

“Sure there was no other way but to fight those boys? I wouldn’t have
had to.”

“You’d have had to let ’em drive the cows to the pound, then.”

“You thought you were doing your duty, then, Zeb?”

“Yes, mother,” said Zeb, firmly. “It was my fault that the cows got
away, and so it was my duty to bring ’em back again.”

“Oh, Zeb! More of your mischief? I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry you
had to fight.”

“Mother!”

“But, Zeb, my boy, I’m not at all sorry you tried to do your duty, and
that you didn’t flinch.”

Zeb half believed his mother to be an angel at any time, but she had
never before seemed nearer one than just then.

It was pretty certain her words would return to him some other time,
when a question should arise between duty and “flinching.”

Just then, however, after a good bit of work at the wash-basin, Zeb
went out to look after the wants of the bay colt, with a glow at his
heart and a sort of feeling that he wouldn’t mind having his other eye
blackened.

“I’m getting awful stiff, though,” he said to himself, “and I don’t
believe I could make much of a wrestle till I get the marks of that
club off my arms and legs.”

On his way to the pasture afterwards, Zeb learned from Bill Jones and
Hy Allen the results of their day’s fishing, and the other boys assured
him they had kept for him a liberal share of the spoils of the old
“sweet tree.”

At Dr. Dryer’s house, that evening was an unusually lively one, for
the doctor and his wife, and even Effie herself, were “on their good
behavior” in one sense over the newcomer.




CHAPTER X

THE PUZZLED PROFESSOR


On the return of the boys to the house of Dr. Manning, Val’s hospitable
young mind had been somewhat disturbed as to how he should amuse his
new friend during the remaining hours of the afternoon.

“To-morrow,” he said, “I’ll get father to lend us the carriage, and
we’ll have a grand drive, and next day we’ll do something else. Maybe
we’ll go fishing. There’s plenty of fun evenings, but what’ll we do
now?”

“One thing I’d like to do,” said Bar.

“What’s that?”

“Why, I never saw so many books and things in all my life as there are
in your library. Do you suppose your father’d object to my taking a
closer look at them?”

“The library?” exclaimed Val. “Why, that isn’t much. Father’d be glad
enough if I’d put in more time there than I do. Then he’s got a whole
lot of things in his laboratory. Fun there, now!”

“I should say so,” said Bar. “I know something about that. We had to
work up a whole lot of experiments once.”

“We?” said Val, inquiringly.

“Yes,” said Bar. “I and some other fellows. Only we just learned enough
to play our tricks, that’s all.”

“That’s more’n I know, except to spoil my clothes with acids and
things,” said Val. “Anyhow, if you can amuse yourself in the library
I’m glad of it. Go ahead.”

It seemed to Bar Vernon that afternoon, as he wandered vaguely from
one treasure of printing to another, as if he were soaking in learning
from those elegantly bound volumes. The very leather on their backs had
something wise and instructive in the smell of it.

So it seemed, indeed; nor was Bar’s notion so far wrong as it might
be thought. A man is always a good deal influenced by his companions,
especially if he takes a personal interest in them.

The companionship of books is only less powerful than that of
human beings, just as their “study” is. As for the reverse of
the proposition, if anybody doubts that human beings--boys,
especially--“make an impression” on books, just let him lend them his
own favorite volumes, and he will be speedily convinced.

Dr. Manning was by no means displeased that evening when he heard from
Val a faithful account of the day’s doings.

Val had nothing to conceal, and he would never have dreamed of doing
so, if he had, for he was his father’s own son in straightforward
simplicity.

The dinner-hour was six o’clock, and after that there were visitors,
and the doctor’s back-parlor, opening into the library, looked
remarkably cheerful.

It was a warm evening, and the whole suite of rooms was thrown into one
by opening the folding-doors, but the front part was only half-lighted.

Bar felt more than a little shy at first, but a strong feeling of
gratitude was rapidly growing upon him.

What would he not do to keep such friends as these?

Very kind they were, too; and so were their visitors, all except the
big, burly, pretentious-seeming personage, who was planting himself
on the piano-stool in such a lordly way, just as Val whispered to his
father:

“Mayn’t Bar play a trick on Professor Sturm?”

“Trick? No, my son, nothing rude. How could you ask?”

“Not rude, father, only funny. Bar’s a ventriloquist.”

“Oh!” said the doctor, “I see; Bar, you must be careful.”

Now it happened that “Professor Sturm” had already stirred up Bar’s
sense of “personal resistance,” by his previous superciliousness to
both him and Val, and he was quite ready to act upon the doctor’s
halfway consent.

The professor had evidently proposed to himself that he would electrify
the little company by what he would do with that piano, and he now made
a dignified and self-confident dash at the keyboard, after the usual
manner of experts.

This would have been succeeded promptly by another artistic effort if
it had not been followed instantly by a smothered and mournful howl
from the depths of the piano.

The professor’s hands, on which more than one huge ring was glittering,
came down with a convulsive start, and the discord produced was
acknowledged by a repeated and more bitter cry of pain.

“Vas is dese tings?” exclaimed the man of music, springing to his feet.
“Dere is somepody in de biano!”

“Of course there is,” replied a voice from the heart of the mysterious
instrument, while the amazed doctor and his guests came crowding up
with one accord.

“Doctor,” asked Professor Sturm, “dit you hear dat biano? I shall blay
him some more. You see.”

The professor was a man of pluck, but no sooner did his fingers again
begin to wander over the chords than a tumult began behind the rosewood
in front of him.

Now it was one cat, then three or four. Then a distressed dog. And then
a human voice appealed to the professor.

“Please, don’t. You hurt us dreadfully.”

“De defil’s in de biano!” exclaimed the professor.

“No,” replied the voice, “not the devil. Only a lot of notes broke
loose. If you’d only tie us up again.”

“Die ’em up!” said the professor. “Doctor, dit you hear ’em?”

“Yes, I heard them,” said the doctor. “Did you have any loose notes
with you when you came?”

“Loose note, Doctor! Vat is de loose note?” cried Professor Sturm, with
a fast-reddening face.

“In your pocket. Here we are,” replied a curious little voice from the
professor’s own loose sack-coat. “We love you very much.”

“You lofe me! Who are you?”

“Oh! let us out, please. It’s dark in here. No air. If you don’t, I’ll
tell them all what I’ve found.”

The poor professor was evidently becoming sadly perplexed when
kind-hearted Mrs. Manning decided that the boys had pushed their fun
quite far enough.

“Not any more, Barnaby,” she said, pleasantly. “Professor, you
mustn’t be angry with the boys. But don’t you think he’s a very good
ventriloquist for one so young?”

“Oh! dat’s it,” exclaimed the professor, glad enough of an escape from
his difficulties. “Den I serve him right if I make him sit down at de
biano. Maybe he make some cat and dog music, eh?”

The burly professor suited the action to the word, and almost before
Bar knew it, he found himself seated at the piano. He would never
have ventured there of his own accord, but it occurred to him that
the very least he could do was to amuse his new friends by any little
accomplishments he might happen to possess, and the piano, therefore,
immediately asked him:

“What are you there for?”

Many a stray hour of Barnaby’s “old time” had been spent in pounding
away at one rickety piano or other, and he really had some natural
genius for music, so that his reply in the shape of “amateur
performance” was by no means discreditable to him.

Mrs. Manning was looking at her husband in a good deal of amazement,
when the music was interrupted again by what Val called “trouble in the
piano.”

This time the instrument complained that that kind of playing made him
very sick, and begged Bar to “fetch on his orchestra.”

In response to this, there followed a very fair medley of imitations of
half a dozen different instruments, winding up with a duet between a
cat and an accordion, gleefully accompanied by the piano.

“There,” said the latter, “now, if you only get away, I’d like to have
the professor for a while. Don’t you wish you could play as well as he
can?”

“Indeed I do,” remarked Bar, politely, as he rose from the piano-stool.
“I suppose, Professor, I ought to beg your pardon.”

“Oh! no--no, my young frent,” exclaimed the enthusiastic German. “You
haf de great genius. Nefer in all de vorlt was dere a biano filled with
cats and togs before. I shall ask you to come mit me some tay. It is
all fery goot fun.”

So the lady guests declared, but Mrs. Manning determined to have
another serious talk with her husband about the very remarkable
companion he had selected for Valentine’s next year at school.

A little later and Judge Danvers himself was announced.

The doctor and the lawyer had a long conference of their own in the
study, and then Barnaby was sent for.

The judge had a number of questions to ask, especially concerning Bar’s
meeting that day with Major Montague, and at the end of it, as if
entirely satisfied with the young adventurer’s account of himself, he
remarked to Dr. Manning:

“You are right, Doctor. He and Val had better be off as soon as
possible. Send them down to the seashore for a few days, and then let
them start for Ogleport. It won’t hurt them to get there a little
before school begins. Have you secured a boarding-place?”

“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “Old Mrs. Wood will be glad enough of
another boarder in her big old barn of a house. I only wish she could
cram it full, if they were all of the right sort.”

“Yes,” replied the judge; “but, from what you have told me of
Barnaby’s performance this evening, I fear there are curious times in
store for Mrs. Wood, if not for all Ogleport.”

“Indeed, sir!” exclaimed Bar, “I pledge you my word----”

“There, now,” interrupted the judge; “don’t say that. I’m a dried-up
old lawyer myself, but I am not so cruel or so foolish as to expect all
the boys to be sixty years old. You won’t do anything bad or mean, I
feel sure of that, and you mustn’t lead Val into scrapes; but if you
did promise not to have any fun you couldn’t keep it. I don’t want you
to try.”

And so Bar’s two “guardians” decided, much to his delight, that he was
to be delivered from any further risks of meeting his “uncle” or old
Prosper.




CHAPTER XI

WILLING HANDS


An unusually fine-looking man was George Brayton, only his full beard
and mustache, and his length and strength of limb, made him seem at
least three years older than he really was.

Perhaps Effie Dryer would have been less afraid of him if she had known
that he was but twenty-three, hardly more than four years older than
herself.

It was not so easy as the reverend doctor could have wished, however,
for him to look dignifiedly down upon a man who overtopped him by a
head and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds of clear bone and
muscle.

An evil-disposed person might have added:

“And who had forgotten more before he left college than the Academy
principal had ever known in all his born days.”

That was a thing, however, which Dr. Dryer could hardly have imagined
of any human being, even while he half-scornfully admitted his new
assistant’s greater familiarity with the chemical apparatus and “all
that new-fangled trash.”

Brayton had given a decidedly vivid account of Zeb’s valorous behavior
on the road, but he had failed to repeat that young worthy’s exact
statement of the relations between himself and “old Sol.”

Effie knew very well that he was keeping back something, but he was
altogether too new an acquaintance to ask any questions of, and she was
compelled to smother her curiosity in a general “wonder” what it could
be that made Mr. Brayton’s face look so very much as if he were trying
not to laugh.

As for Mrs. Dryer, that lady smiled all the evening on the handsome
newcomer, and every time she smiled it seemed to cost her more of an
effort. In fact, before the evening was over, George Brayton had one
thoroughly rooted enemy in Ogleport, and, when the doctor and his wife
found themselves once more alone, the first thing that smote upon his
ears was:

“Board with us? That fellow, with all his airs and graces? He board in
our house? No, indeed! Let him go to old Mrs. Wood’s, or to anybody
that’ll take him. My advice to you is that you get rid of that kind of
an assistant as soon as ever you can.”

“Why, Dorothy Jane, my dear----”

“Don’t talk to me, Mr. Dryer. Haven’t I your true interests at heart?
Don’t you s’pose I can see what’s coming? It’ll be just like a young
minister in a church. Everybody’ll go mad about him. All the girls’ll
be setting their caps for him. All the old women’ll be inviting him to
tea, so’s to give their daughters a chance. The young men’ll hate him,
that’s a comfort. Such a fellow won’t have any control over the boys,
neither. Why, he actually laughed twenty times this very evening.”

A very hearty and wholesome laugh, indeed, had been that of George
Brayton--not at all the sort to bring upon him the enmity of the young
men, but they were a part of the community which Mrs. Dr. Dryer had
never very thoroughly understood, and it might be she was as much
mistaken about them now as she had been in her younger days, if that
sort of woman ever really has any.

The next morning dawned peacefully enough upon the sleepy-looking homes
of Ogleport, but there was a general sense of insecurity pervading the
entire community. Perhaps, if anybody had succeeded in expressing the
common feeling, it would have been a “Wonder where Zeb Fuller won’t
turn up next?”

Old Mr. Parker came down from the East hill in the middle of the
forenoon, full of a wrathfully determined investigation of the raid on
his orchard during the day before.

He listened with half incredulous amazement to the account the miller
gave him of Zeb’s rescue of Dr. Dryer’s cows, and thus responded:

“Brother Todderley, if that’s true I begin to have my doubts. I don’t
see how any apple tree in these parts could well be robbed if Zeb
Fuller wasn’t there. It doesn’t seem to stand to reason, somehow.”

“Squire Parker,” replied the miller, “there’s worse boys in these parts
than Deacon Fuller’s son. He saved my life the other day, and I believe
he’s got the making of a great man in him.”

“There he is, now!” exclaimed Parker, pointing to a group of boys
gathered at the mill-dam. “I’d like to know what mischief’s on foot
this time.”

“You won’t learn by asking,” said the miller, but his friend exclaimed:

“Anyhow, I’m going to take a look at that crowd of boys.”

As they approached, Zeb arose from the log on which he had been sitting
and greeted them ceremoniously.

“Good-morning, Mr. Todderley. Glad to see you, Mr. Parker; I was
thinking of coming to see you.”

“To see me?”

“Yes,” said Zeb; “I was going to ask if you had any sweet apples to
sell.”

“You young rascal, what do you know about my apples?”

“Your apples?” cried Zeb, with a surprised air. “Why, has anything
happened to them? That was one thing I meant to speak about if I came
to see you. I noticed the other day that you are careless about them.
I’m afraid you’ve left ’em out over night, hanging on the trees. Have
any of ’em run away?”

“Run away!”

“That’s it. I was afraid it would be so,” moralized Zeb. “Just like
old Sol Dryer’s cows. There’s nothing sure in this world, Mr. Parker.
Nothing but death and taxes.”

“Brother Todderley!” exclaimed the angry old farmer, “I believe he
knows all about it. I’ll go right and see his father, at once. I don’t
believe a word of that cow business--not a word of it.”

“Look at his eye, Brother Parker,” argued the miller, as he hurried to
keep pace with his longer-legged friend. “Look at his eye. Didn’t get
that fighting with your apples. No use, Parker. Look at his eye.”

“Eye! Eye!” exclaimed Parker. “What do I care about his eye? What I
want to know is, what went with my apples?”

That was a question the fat miller could not undertake to answer, and
he had hardly breath left for any other by the time they reached the
mill.

Before noon half of Ogleport was disputing with the other half whether
Zeb Fuller could have been in old Parker’s orchard and up in Rodney at
the same time, for there was more than a little common sympathy with
the idea that no out-and-out mischief was probable in Zeb’s absence.

He had indeed been present in the flesh at but one point at a time, but
the general impression was hardly so far wrong as it might have been.

“Boys,” Zeb had remarked to his faithful followers, “we did splendidly
yesterday, all of us, but there’s troublesome times ahead. I understand
that that city fellow’s coming back to the Academy next term, and
there’ll be twice as many boarders as ever before.”

“Can’t we fix ’em just as we’ve always done?” asked Hy Allen.

“Either one of us can lick Val Manning,” said Bill Jones.

Several more of the larger boys added their confident self-assurance
that the boys of Ogleport were likely to be equal to any emergency
which could possibly arise, but Zeb shook his head wisely as he
remarked:

“That’s all very well, so long as we only had old Sol to handle, but
this new man’s a very different sort of a fellow.”

“I ain’t afraid of him,” said Hy Allen.

“Nor I.”

“Nor I.”

“Nor I,” responded half a dozen voices, but Zeb Fuller again shook his
head.

“That ain’t it, boys; the new man’s all right, and we must kind o’
stand by him, but there’ll be great times at the Academy this fall and
winter, and we must be ready for ’em.”

It was all very mysterious and oracular, nor could Zeb himself have
fully explained his prophetic meaning, but he related to his friends
how George Brayton had rescued him from the three vagabonds of Rodney,
and not a boy of them but dimly comprehended the possibility of
something new and stirring, if old Sol was to be reïnforced by a man of
that sort.

“I think, boys,” said Zeb, at last, “it’s our first duty to explore the
Academy. Not one of us has been inside of it for two months.”

There was no gainsaying a piece of generalship like that, and the
conclave broke up immediately, only to find its way, in squads of
various sizes, to the long double line of sheds at the back of the
village green.

Under cover of these, it was easy enough to reach, unseen, a point
directly in the rear of the barn-like white edifice which the wisdom of
successive generations had consecrated to learning.

But it was not the outside of the Academy building which Zeb and his
friends had come to explore.

Neither did they perplex themselves by fruitless attempts at any of the
well-locked doors.

A board of proper length was promptly placed below one of the
first-floor windows in the rear, not more than ten feet from the
ground, and Hy Allen was clinging to the window-sill in a twinkling.

“Fastened on the inside,” he exclaimed, after a fruitless effort.

“Come down, then,” said Zeb. “We must try another.”

And so they did, but with a result that was but faintly expressed by
Zeb Fuller’s final declaration:

“Something wrong, boys. Old Sol’s been plotting against us again. It
won’t do for us to go around in front. Not in broad daylight. But we
must look out for our rights. Next thing we shall have a rebellion
among the teachers after the school begins.”

The symptoms threatened something of the kind, doubtless, but just
then one of the smaller boys, who had been acting as a sort of scout
or sentinel, came up with the intelligence that a large wagon was
being hauled across the green, towards the Academy, and that it was
accompanied by the principal himself, with two or three of the trustees
and a stranger, on foot.

“Hurrah!” shouted Zeb. “That’s the new apparatus. Boys, we’re in the
right place at the right time. It would never do to let that stuff be
stowed away without our help. We’d never know where half of it went to.”

No wonder the boys of Ogleport had such blind faith in Zeb Fuller’s
leadership.

When the wagon was pulled up in front of the steps leading to the door
of the “lecture room,” in the rear “addition” to the main building of
the Academy, Dr. Dryer could hardly repress an exclamation of surprise
at the amount and energy of the “popular aid” which awaited the
unloading of that cargo of scientific goods.

Not that anything very remarkable showed itself through the numerous
pine-boxes, but Mr. George Brayton, in the simplicity of his heart,
deemed it a most encouraging sign that so many of his future pupils
should take so deep an interest in such a matter.

At all events, the strong and willing hands of Zeb Fuller and the rest
made the transfer of those boxes to the lecture-room floor a very brief
and easy piece of work.

“Now, Mr. Brayton,” said Zeb, “you’ll want to show what’s in them. I’ll
go for a hatchet and chisel, and we’ll have ’em open.”

“Bring a saw, too,” said Brayton, but Dr. Dryer wagged his reverend
head somewhat suspiciously. Never before had the boys of Ogleport taken
so deep an interest in the affairs of the village institution.

That was a great day for Zeb and his friends, nevertheless. They could
hardly be persuaded to go home to dinner.

The worst of it all, if Dr. Dryer had only known it, was the frequency
with which the keen eyes of his pupils detected him in turning over
to his assistant the various questions propounded by the excited
“trustees” as to the use of this, that, and the other contrivance of
glass or brass.




CHAPTER XII

NEWLY FOUND FRIENDS


When Barnaby Vernon, at the close of his first day at Dr. Manning’s,
found himself alone in the really luxurious room assigned him for the
night, it would have been too much to expect that he should at once go
to bed and to sleep.

The events of the day, no less than his unaccustomed surroundings,
combined to stir such a fever in his young blood as was not likely to
cool down very soon.

“Major Montague isn’t the man to give it up in that way,” he said to
himself, aloud. “He always seemed to take special care of that valise.
No doubt he wants it back again. Now, too, he may get it into his head
that there’s money to be made, somehow, out of my new friends. Reckon
I can trust Judge Danvers to take care of that. Anyhow, I’m so glad to
get away. Hope it isn’t too much of a change in Val’s plans. He doesn’t
seem to mind it, I should say. Must be a good deal of fun in catching
fish.”

Then, after a moment’s silence, he continued:

“What a room this is! Splendid thing to be rich and feel that all your
money belongs to you. Not any swindling tricks for me, money or no
money. Besides, the money that comes that way don’t stay. Haven’t I
seen the major and the rest flush of it, a hundred times? Then it was
sure to go and they were hard up again. They’ll bring up, one of these
days, where the dogs can’t get at them. Wonder what that big book is on
the table? Ha--that’s a queer Bible. Saw one before on a steamboat. Saw
another in a hotel. Best hotel I ever stopped at. Curious sort of book.
It’s what they preach about. Guess I’ll look into it one of these days.
Let me see, wasn’t there something like that book away back there,
years ago? So there was. Then my father couldn’t have been of Major
Montague’s kind. Wonder if my folks were Bible folks. Dr. Manning’s
are. Is that what makes ’em rich? There’s a good many things I don’t
know, and that’s one of ’em.”

A good many things, indeed, and Bar had got into the right sort of
hands to learn some of them.

Hours later, when at last sleep came to him, a dream came with it, and
it seemed to him as if he were a very little boy indeed, and a very
sweet-faced lady, whose way of smiling made him think of Mrs. Manning,
held him on her knee while a tall, dark, pale-looking gentleman read to
her from just such a big book as that on the table in his chamber.

Dreams are very curious things, as everybody knows, only it’s the
fashion to laugh at them, and so, perhaps, Barnaby ought to have
laughed at his when he awoke.

He didn’t, however, do any such thing, but he would have liked to know
somebody well enough to tell it, and there was no such person, for him,
in the wide world.

Bar was right, however, about Major Montague.

The preparations for the trip of the two boys to the seashore were such
as could easily be made in half an hour, and they were off together on
the early train, well supplied with all sorts of fishing-tackle, and
brimful of high spirits and expectation.

Even Bar, however, had scarcely guessed how closely his movements had
been followed the day before.

Scarcely had he been gone two hours, and while the doctor was busy
with his morning list of “callers,” among the latter came a gentleman
whom the good physician thought he would have recognized, from Bar’s
description, even if he had not introduced himself as Major Montague.

Any one more profusely polite and so tremendously dignified at the same
time, had not entered that reception-room in many a day.

“You have a young gentleman, a relative, I may say a ward, of mine
visiting with you,” remarked the major, unchilled by the manner of his
reception. “I’ve done myself the honor to call and see you about him.
Glad he’s in such good hands, but----”

“Oh! you mean Mr. Vernon?” bluntly interrupted the doctor. “He left the
city this morning.”

“Left the city!” exclaimed the major. “May I a-a-ask where he’s gone?”

“Not of me, you can’t,” snapped the doctor. “If you want to make any
inquiries I must refer you to Mr. Vernon’s counsel, Judge Danvers. I’ve
nothing more to say. Excuse me, sir. I have patients to attend to. My
time’s not my own. Good-morning. John, show the gentleman out.”

John was just the very man for that kind of duty, and Major Montague
went down the front steps with the abiding assurance that he had never
been turned out of any other house so politely and ceremoniously in all
his life. He ought to have been a good judge of that sort of thing too.

Meantime, Bar and Val found themselves dashing away across country at
the best speed of the Eastern express train, and they would have been
more or less than boys if they had not set themselves at once to work
on a general investigation of the character of their fellow-passengers.

Val might scarcely have been accurate or thorough, but there was
something closely approaching professional skill in Bar’s observations.

A little in front of them, across the passage, a double seat had
been taken possession of, for the car was not crowded, by a somewhat
feeble-looking but very nice, middle-aged lady and one of the
brightest, prettiest girls, of fifteen years or thereabouts, that
either of the boys had ever seen.

That was all as it should be, but at the very first stopping-place, the
car was entered by a flashily-dressed young man, of middle height, who
took a brief survey of the passengers, from the door, and then walked
deliberately forward and set himself down in the vacant seat by the
side of the lady.

There was nothing in the established usages of railway traveling which
should have made a positive crime of this, but there was something in
the way the newcomer gazed at the fresh-faced girl opposite him which
brought the blood to the face of Val Manning.

“The impudent scamp!” he muttered to Bar. “Why couldn’t he have found
another seat?”

“Keep still a bit,” said Bar. “I know what he’s up to, or I’m greatly
mistaken.”

If the ladies themselves were disturbed by the presence of the
stranger, they were not disposed to make any public exhibition of their
disgust.

It is true that the elder seemed to become more interested than before
in the scenery through which the train was passing, and the younger
took a sudden plunge into a book which had been lying neglected on her
lap.

“That’s just what he wants,” said Bar to Val. “Anything to keep their
eyes off him. There, that’s it. He’s a good deal clumsier than old
Prosper.”

It happened that, a few seats further on, a party of four gentlemen
were sitting together in animated conversation, and the outer one of
the two who were facing Bar and Val was a man of unusual size, though
not of a particularly intellectual appearance.

He had not been paying any attention, that Val had noticed, to the
operations of the flashy stranger, but now he suddenly exclaimed, or so
it seemed:

“Keep your hand out of her pocket.”

At the same moment he sprang to his feet as if in great astonishment,
and so did the unwelcome companion of the two ladies.

“What do you mean, sir?” shouted the latter, with a face that was white
and red by turns, but then he added, or seemed to add, “I’ll pick all
the pockets in this car if I choose.”

“You will, will you?” exclaimed the big man, in a voice whose lion-like
depth of “roar” contrasted strangely with the tones of his previous
remark. “I didn’t say you had picked any pockets, but I don’t mean you
shall, either.”

“I didn’t say that,” began the flashy man, but his next words were,
“and I’ve dropped hers on the floor.”

With that he put on such a look of abject terror as no human face can
possibly counterfeit, and sprang away from his place, crying out:

“It must be the devil!”

“Very likely,” responded the big man, as he started in pursuit, but
there were other hands extended, and the frightened runaway was brought
to an immediate stand.

Meantime, the ladies, scarcely less astonished than the pickpocket, had
been making a hurried search.

“I have indeed lost my pocketbook, Sibyl,” said the elder.

“And there it is, mother, on the floor, just where he said he had
dropped it,” exclaimed Sibyl, but at that very moment Bar Vernon was
picking it up.

“Thank you, sir,” said Sibyl, as she took it in her hand, but Bar
replied:

“You’d better open it at once and see if anything is missing.”

“Why so?” asked Sibyl.

“Oh! miss,” exclaimed Val, “do just as he says. It was his work
detecting that man. He’s a wonderful fellow.”

The elder lady looked in Val’s handsome, earnest young face, with a
very motherly smile, as she said:

“Let me see, Sibyl. I’ve no doubt the boys are right. It won’t do any
harm.”

The pocketbook was opened, but it was nearly empty.

“Exactly,” remarked Bar. “Now he must be searched.”

“You seem to know a good deal for a fellow of your age,” very loudly
and roughly exclaimed one of the bystanders. “We’d better look to your
case. Who are you, anyway?”

“You here, too, Mr. Bonnet?” was Bar’s quick rejoinder. “Gentlemen,
here’s another man that mustn’t get out of the car till the money’s
been found.”

“Mr. Bonnet” made a sudden movement, but he found himself in the strong
grasp of the big man.

There was no manner of use in struggling, but the latter asked our hero:

“You know these fellows, it seems; are you a detective?”

“What do you think about it?” asked Bar. “I never saw either of them
before, but I know that man for a professional pickpocket, and this one
for his bonnet--his bully.”

“One of ’em’s got that money, then!” exclaimed the big man. “Come, my
fine fellow, shell over. I knew the railroad company had set detectives
on the express trains, but I’d never have taken them boys for ’em.”

“Me?” exclaimed Val, indignantly; “I’m a son of Dr. Randall Manning, of
New York, and this is my friend, Mr. Barnaby Vernon.”

“It’s all right,” said the big man. “Go by any name you please. Only
it’s a great credit to the company, and I wonder they didn’t think of
it before.”

At the word “detective,” the two pickpockets seemed to give the
matter up, and in a minute more the ladies had counted their returned
“valuables,” and declared them all right.

“Now, Mr. Vernon,” said the big man to Bar, “what are we to do with
these men?”

“Put them in charge of the conductor,” said Bar. “I’ve got another
errand on hand.”

It happened, however, that when the conductor, who speedily arrived,
was appealed to, he at once produced from another car, a “sure enough”
official detective, and the big man winked at Bar, and said:

“Of course. You know just what to do. Bill,” he added to one of his
friends, “look at that. Those two fellows would swear neither of ’em
ever saw the other before, and yet we’ve seen, with our own eyes, how
one of ’em catches the birds, and the other’s right on hand to cage
’em. It’s just splendid, and it’s a great credit to the company. I
wonder they never thought of it before. By-the-way, who was it shouted
at that pickpocket first?”

That was a hard question to answer.

The two ladies, not being by any means so “sharp” as the big man
deemed himself, felt sure that the boys looked more than a little
annoyed by the peculiar impression they seemed to have created, and the
elder turned and beckoned to Val.

“Did you say,” she asked, as he came across and bent forward towards
her, “that you are a son of Dr. Manning?”

“Yes, madam,” said Val.

“He was my father’s family physician at one time. My name is Brayton.
Ask your friend to come over here. I must thank him for saving me my
money.”

Bar came readily enough, but he was a little inclined to stand upon his
dignity until he found that Mrs. Brayton was quite disposed to accept
Val’s account of “himself and friend.”

Then, indeed, the boys were both quite contented to sit down with
their new acquaintances, and Mrs. Brayton was not many minutes in
ascertaining not only their present errand but their after destination.
Not that she learned either from Bar, but Val was very much of a boy,
and ready to be communicative with a “former patient of his father.”

“Going to school at Ogleport Academy?” exclaimed Sibyl. “Why, mother,
how strange! That is where George has gone.”

“Your brother?” said Bar. “Then we shall make his acquaintance, of
course. Is he older than you?”

“Oh, yes, a good deal,” laughed Sibyl. “He has gone there as assistant
principal, and I hope he will make you mind him as well as I have to,
when he’s at home.”

“Is he such a severe fellow?” asked Val. “I shall look out for him.”

“You’d better,” said Sibyl, but her mother added:

“I feel pretty sure he will do his duty, but he’s not a man anybody
need be afraid of.”

With so much of a foundation to go on, the boys made fine headway with
their remaining conversation, nor were they at all disappointed when
the train at last reached their own destination, to find that Mrs.
Brayton and Sibyl were also “at home.”

To be sure, Bar and Val had still a stage ride of some miles to the
little village on the coast where they were to do their fishing,
but they promised to run over and call on their new friends before
returning to the city.

“On the whole, Bar,” said Val, “and thanks to you, this has been about
the tallest bit of railway riding I ever did in my life.”




CHAPTER XIII

THE HAUNTED HOUSE


Dr. Dryer and his trustees did not care to remain for any great length
of time after the opening of what, in their eyes, were little better
than scientific toys and curiosities, so that before the close of the
day George Brayton and the boys were left in sole possession.

“You’re not going to leave all these things out here on the tables over
night?” said Zeb Fuller, inquiringly.

“We won’t have time to put them away in proper order,” said Brayton.
“We must have some new cupboards made expressly for them.”

“But they might get injured,” said Zeb.

“Is there any danger of that?” asked Brayton. “Who’d want to hurt them?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” replied Zeb, “only it seems a risk.”

“Are any of the smaller boys mischievous?” asked Brayton. “If they
are, I’ll tell you how to fix it. Just let it be understood that this
lot of apparatus is the special property of the older boys of Ogleport,
and that you mean to take care of it. None of it’ll run away. It can’t
even fly as well as Dr. Dryer’s cows.”

Zeb blushed to his ears, but Hy Allen responded:

“Tell you what, Mr. Brayton, that’s just the thing. We’ll whale the
skin off any boy that meddles with our appyrattus. Boys, let’s take a
good look at the windows before we go.”

“There ain’t a boy in Ogleport that’d touch one of them things,”
exclaimed Bill Jones. “Zeb and Hy and me can answer for that, but----”

Bill hesitated, and Brayton said:

“Are there any hard cases among the boarders, then? We can have our
cupboards finished by the time they get here, but they might break ’em
open. Then where’d all our experiments go to?”

“Don’t know about that,” said Zeb. “We can’t tell who’s coming and who
ain’t, just yet, but we’ll keep an eye on ’em when they come.”

“That’s right,” replied Brayton. “If you fellows’ll go in with me we
can have a grand time of it, this fall and winter. You see, I’m a good
deal of a stranger yet, and I shall have to ask your advice about a
good many things.”

“We’ll be on hand!” exclaimed Hy Allen. “If you want to know anything
about Ogleport, you just ask Zeb Fuller. It’s just the same as if you’d
asked the whole crowd.”

“You see,” explained Zeb, “we village boys all pull together, and
sometimes the rest don’t know enough to agree with us. That’s where
they get into trouble, you know, and old Sol--the Rev. Dr. Dryer, I
mean--he used to side with them generally.”

“And then he got into trouble, eh?” laughed Brayton. “Well, now I think
our goods are safe enough for to-night. We’ll get better acquainted
with them and with each other one of these days.”

Brayton was preparing to close and lock the door behind them all, as
he spoke, and in a moment more he was striding away across the green
towards the house of Dr. Dryer.

Zeb Fuller stood at the foot of the steps, looking after Brayton till
he was out of hearing, and then he turned to his friends with:

“Boys, that’s the kind of teacher I like. Not the slightest sign of
insubordination.”

“He’s a trump!” exclaimed Hy.

To this declaration, which expressed more clearly than Zeb had done the
popular verdict, there was an audible hum of assent, and Bill Jones
added:

“Safe! Why, Zeb Fuller, them gimcracks in there are as safe as if they
were in a church. Nobody will dream of touching them unless ’twas us.”

“I’ve my doubts,” said Zeb, profoundly. “No village is safe where
there’s such a raft of ministers and deacons and doctors and trustees
and such. We must do our duty, boys. Oh, but wouldn’t I like to try a
chemical experiment on old Sol!”

The conclave broke up amid a storm of suggestions, but Zeb was probably
thinking of something which could be done with a retort.

As for Mr. George Brayton, that vigorous young gentleman had remarked
to himself, as he walked away:

“They’re rather above the average, take the whole lot, through, and
that Zeb Fuller is no ordinary boy. Now that I have him the rest will
follow like a flock of sheep. I must do what I can to make a man of
Zeb, but I hope I’m not such a fool as to try to cork him up. He’d
burst the whole Academy. No wonder Dr. Dryer’s afraid of him.”

Brayton did not look as if he were likely to be very much afraid of
anything in particular, and he had just won the only complete victory
that had ever been gained over the boys of Ogleport.

Even then, however, he would not have been astonished if he had
overheard Zeb’s last remarks to Hy and Bill.

“You see, boys, that’s Brayton’s end of the Academy. Now, we must go
to work on old Sol and the main building. There’s plenty of room for
improvement there.”

Very likely, but scarcely of the kind contemplated by Zebedee Fuller.

Thenceforward, for several days, the tide of human events rolled onward
peacefully enough for the people of Ogleport.

George Brayton learned, without a tremor of dissatisfaction, the
adverse decision of Mrs. Dr. Dryer. She had never smiled so sweetly
or exhibited her false teeth to such entire perfection as when she
recommended him to Mrs. Wood’s.

If Effie herself would have been better pleased with the idea of such
excellent company in the house, she at least said nothing about it. Her
only remark on the subject was:

“But, Mr. Brayton, somebody ought to warn you. Are you afraid of
ghosts?”

“Not much. Why?”

“Why, the Wood’s mansion is said to be haunted. The ghosts never come
in pleasant weather, but the first frost brings them back again.”

“Spend their summers at the watering-places, do they?” said Brayton.
“Very fashionable ghosts, I should say, these!”

“Very, only they have sometimes scared away boarders for Mrs. Wood.”

“Tell you what I’ll do if they trouble me,” said Brayton.

“What is it?” asked Effie.

“I’ll set Zeb Fuller and his boys after them.”

“That would do,” laughed Effie, merrily. “I do believe if Zeb Fuller
met a ghost he’d insist on shaking hands.”

“He’s very much that kind of a boy,” said Brayton. “I’ve engaged him
and Hy Allen and half-a-dozen more of the same class to assist me in
keeping the Academy in order this fall and winter.”

Effie opened her eyes, but she comprehended the strategy of the new
teacher, and that was more than Mrs. Dryer or her husband could have
done.

The afternoon that Brayton moved his goods and chattels to the widow’s
house, Mrs. Dryer remarked to the doctor:

“You’ll have double responsibility this winter. I see clearly how it’ll
be. Mr. Brayton lacks dignity. He’ll have no control, whatever. Those
boys’ll ride right over him. I heard him speak to that Fuller boy
to-day, and he actually touched his hat to him, just as if he’d been a
trustee.”

Dr. Dryer groaned, but he searched his mind in vain for a recollection
of the occasion when George Brayton had exhibited that amount of
reverence for the principal of the Academy.

“I shall undoubtedly be compelled to exercise especial vigilance,”
he calmly replied, “but I consider myself competent to confront the
emergency.”

Splendid words they were, and the longest that occurred to him at
the moment, but his better-half, that is, his “third,” was hardly
comforted, even while she admired.

There were other houses in Ogleport which would gladly have opened
their doors to such a boarder as George Brayton, but he was wise for
so young a man, and most of them contained only too many of the things
classed as “comforts of a home”--even sons and grown-up daughters.

So he took Mrs. Dryer’s advice and decided to sojourn with the Widow
Wood.

Fat and active and fussy was the widow, bearing her three-score
years lightly enough, though with a dim idea that she was the oldest
inhabitant of Ogleport, and, by good rights, the most important person
in the village.

Old Judge Wood had been a great man in his day, at least in his own
estimation.

He had meant to found a fortune and a family, but had somehow failed to
do either.

He had, however, built the biggest and costliest house in all that
region of country, and then had died before he had put the second coat
of paint on it.

He left his widow so nearly just enough to squeeze along on, that she
had never seen her way clearly to that second coat of paint, or indeed,
to any other sort of finishing up, and the great roomy mansion had held
up its bare, square nakedness of weather-beaten pine, on the gentle
<DW72> towards the little river, for a quarter of a century.

Even the trees refused to keep very close company with such a curious
embodiment of ancient respectability, and all the winds of heaven, as
well as all the hot summer suns, had the fairest kind of a chance at it.

Still, the Wood mansion was by all odds the best boarding house in
Ogleport, for its lady-owner was a notable housekeeper, and had a
special pride in the character of her guests.

“Haunted!” said George Brayton to himself, when he had finished
unpacking his books in the big, second-floor front room, of which the
widow made him temporary lord. “Haunted! It looks very much like it.
But I don’t wonder the ghosts keep out of it in summer. There’s a
perfect glare of light in it, from one end to the other. She doesn’t
seem to suspect what the blinds were made for.”

Zeb Fuller had struck a new idea that day. He had happened along in
front of the Widow Wood’s, as Zeb was very apt to happen along, just
when Brayton was making his transfer, and he had promptly offered his
services.

“Yes, Zeb, thank you,” replied Brayton. “Just carry up those dumb-bells
to my room.”

The pointing finger left no doubt as to what was meant, but Zeb
incautiously remarked:

“I never saw that kind of a hammer before. What’s it for?”

The explanation that followed, with incidental references to Indian
clubs, boxing-gloves, lifting machines and baseball, was a sort of a
new revelation to the Ogleport champion, and Brayton had unconsciously
completed the conquest he had so well begun at the lecture-room.

“Who ever heard before,” thought Zeb, “of a teacher who knew more than
any of the boys?”

It was the first time any such phenomena had been seen in Ogleport.

“Fact,” he said to himself; “I’m beginning to be afraid we ain’t able
to teach him anything. Seems so very ready and willing to learn, too.
Very different from old Sol.”

He was walking down the street, half an hour later, when he was hailed
by Hy Allen.

“Zeb, did y’hear ’bout Puff Evans’s boat?”

“No, what of it?”

“Sold on execution, to-morrow, down in front of Runner’s tavern. Don’t
I wish I could buy it!”

“Awful hard on Puff,” said Zeb. “He made it himself, and it’s the best
boat on the lake.”

“Won’t fetch much,” said Hy. “Sorry for Puff. It’s just a game of some
of them lawyers.”

“Anyhow, we’d better be there,” said Zeb. “Maybe we can bid it up a
little for Puff. How’ll he ever go a-fishing without it? Then, if Puff
can’t fish, he’ll die.”

“Reckon that’s so,” said Hy. “P’r’aps they’d ha’ levied on him, on’y
the boat’s worth more’n he is.”

“Sell for more in Ogleport,” remarked Zeb. “Puff’s the best fisherman
on the lake, but I wouldn’t care to own him. Now, Hy, I’ve got
something more to tell you ’bout the new teacher. I’ve taken that young
man right in hand.”

“Hope he’ll turn out better than old Sol,” said Hy.

“Hiram,” said Zeb, “I’m afraid Solomon’s a failure. I give him up, but
I’ve great hopes of George Brayton.”

Hy was quite ready to listen, for every day was bringing the fall
term nearer, and school matters were assuming a place of first-class
importance in the minds of the boys of Ogleport.




CHAPTER XIV

A SHARPER OUTWITTED


Bar and Val had a splendid time at the seashore. Never before had the
former passed a week of such thoroughgoing enjoyment.

It was grand fun to catch fish; the very sailing and rowing were a kind
of new life; every crab and clam they laid their hands on was a sort of
new wonder. Still, if Bar had tried to analyze his feelings he would
have found that, after all, the secret of his happiness was the fact
that his “new time” was daily becoming more and more of a clear and
clean and beautiful reality.

Val Manning was capital company, and they made more than one trip to
the quiet and pleasant little home of Mrs. Brayton and Sibyl. The
widow, for such she was, seemed always glad to see them, and Sibyl was
sure to have something more to tell them about “George,” who seemed,
indeed, to be a sort of human idol in the mind of his very pretty
sister.

That sort of thing, nice as it was, had an end at last, and Bar
experienced a halfway gloomy sensation at finding himself once more on
his way to the great city.

Their stay there was to be brief, as previously decided, but Bar had
one more good, long talk with the judge and the doctor.

“I wish,” said the former, “that you could open your valise now, but
that’s impossible. I wouldn’t have you break your word for anything.
I’ll tell you, however, one thing I wish you’d do. Every time you
recall, or think you do, anything that happened away back, before you
began to live with Major Montague, I wish you would write it down.”

“Has he been to see you while I was gone?” asked Bar.

“I think he was in my office once while I was out,” replied the judge;
“but he must have seen something or somebody there he didn’t like, for
he hasn’t turned up since.”

“He’s not a man to give up anything,” said Bar; “but he can hardly find
me as far away as Ogleport.”

“Hardly,” said the doctor; “and now, Barnaby, we both hope you will
give a good account of yourself at the Academy. You will have to study
pretty hard at first.”

“I suppose so,” said Bar. “Val knows a great many things that I have
never heard of.”

“Keep your courage up, though,” said Judge Danvers. “I mean to make a
lawyer of you one of these days. You’re just built for one.”

Kind friends they were, and Bar felt a curious glow at his heart twenty
times before he and Val got away, as he found how well and thoughtfully
his various wants had been foreseen and provided for.

“He’ll spend the whole of that thousand dollars,” said Bar to himself,
“before he gets through with me. Well, I’ll pay him, somehow, some day.
Meantime I’ll be a right good friend to Val. He’s a tip-top sort of a
fellow, too.”

As for Val, that young gentleman could hardly find words to tell his
mother all his satisfaction with his wonderful new chum.

“He knows everything but books, mother,” he said, “and you couldn’t get
him to do a mean thing. I’m ever so glad he’s going with me.”

Then there came a leave-taking, which made Bar sick with the thought
of what a wonderful thing it is to have a live father and mother. Then
there followed an all-night ride, by rail, then a morning change of
cars, and then a stage that took the two schoolboys to Ogleport from a
direction opposite to that by which George Brayton had reached the same
destination.

The “stage” was a long-bodied, flat-topped, four seated vehicle, that,
in that warm weather, was left open to the dust and surrounding scenery
on all sides. The boys had the back seat, wide enough for three, and
immediately in front of them was a pair of decently well-dressed,
middle-aged men, who got in at one of the villages through which they
passed.

Neither of these gentry seemed to need more than a glance at Bar and
Val to fix their identity as “Academy boys,” and they talked away
unreservedly.

“No,” said one, the sharper and harder-faced of the two, “I ain’t goin’
straight through. Got to stop at Ogleport and make sure of Puff Evans’s
boat.”

“What do you want of a boat?” asked his companion.

“Why, you know I bought in the Peters’s place, up at the Rodney end of
the lake, and I’m going to move in this week. There’s a good boat-house
but no boat. Ain’t any good one around, that I know of, except Puff’s,
so I laid for that.”

“I know, but then he wouldn’t sell it for any money. Made it himself,
and it’s worth fifty or sixty.”

“Guess likely, but it won’t cost me that. You see, Puff goes on sprees
every few months, and he’s awful kerless about his tavern bills. So
I found one up in Rodney, bought it for most nothing, sued and got
judgment on it, and levied on the boat.”

“What’s the judgment?”

“Costs and all, fifteen dollars. Cost me about five, and I’m willing to
go five more. That’ll make the boat net me ten dollars.”

“Cheap enough. But s’pose Puff pays up?”

“Nobody’ll trust him with that much money. Besides, I can get another
squeeze on him, if he should. I’m bound to have that boat. The stage’ll
get in just about half an hour before the time. It’ll be down at
Runner’s tavern and I can catch a ride home, or go up on the night
stage.”

It all sounded very businesslike and matter-of-course, but Bar looked
at Val with his finger on his lip. Pretty much the same idea was
passing through both their busy heads.

They had not intended to do any eaves-dropping, but they could scarcely
have helped overhearing what they had, and, when their luggage was
discharged at the Widow Wood’s, they astonished that good old lady by
clearing out, within two minutes, on the plea of an important errand in
the village.

Runner’s tavern was away down at the northern end of the main
street, and was a curiously dilapidated kind of a country hostelry.
It had been, however, time out of mind, the place appointed for the
performance of petty “constables’ sales,” and on this day, at noon,
quite a little crowd had assembled in front of it, less with any idea
of “bidding” than with a mild curiosity to see what would become of
Puff Evans’s boat.

Puff himself had been on hand half the morning, and had, with wonderful
self-control for him, kept rigidly away from the door of the tavern
bar-room.

Tall, lank, red-headed, weak-faced, with a strong tendency to wear his
hands in his pockets and to blow out his irresolute cheeks in the style
which had gained him his nickname, but for all that Puff Evans had not
a single personal enemy in either Ogleport or Rodney.

Indeed, he received an abundance of sympathy over the admitted hardness
of his case, especially from the boys.

Thus far, however, Puff had been utterly unable to crystallize that
sympathy into anything that resembled coin or bank-notes, and he was
now standing with his shoeless feet wide apart, mournfully gazing at
the “notice of sale” which his moderate learning did not enable him to
read.

Zeb Fuller was on hand as a matter of course, and well backed up, too,
so far as numbers went, but Zeb’s pocket was only a very little better
off, in that emergency, than Puff’s own, though with fewer holes in it.

“This is mighty hard on Puff, isn’t it, Gershom?” said Zeb to the fat
old miller, as the latter waddled dignifiedly past the crowd.

“What is it, Zeb? Come here,” replied the miller. “Do you want to buy?”

“Only to keep Puff Evans from drowning himself,” said Zeb. “It’s only
fifteen dollars, and the boat’s worth four times that much. I’ve got
three.”

“I’ll lend you the other twelve!” exclaimed Gershom Todderley, pulling
out his wallet, “and you and I can own the boat together till you can
pay me. We can let Puff use it, can’t we?”

“The very thing!” exclaimed Zeb. “You’re an honor to Ogleport, Brother
Todderley.”

Gershom looked at the incorrigible youngster with a very dignified sort
of wheeze, but Zeb went back to the crowd feeling like a Rothschild.

In a moment more the customary and monotonous, “How much’m I offered,”
was responded to by a bid of five dollars from the Rodney attorney, who
had “come for that boat.”

“Five, goin’ at five--five--do I hear any more?”

“Ten,” responded Zeb.

The Rodney man started and looked hard at Zeb.

“No bids from boys,” he began, but the auctioneer promptly responded:

“If Zeb Fuller’s a boy, whar’d General Jackson git his army. Ten,
ten--going at ten--do I hear any more?”

“Eleven!”

“Twelve!” shouted Zeb, and then he added, “Won’t do, Skinner, my boy;
I’d never forgive myself if I let you go a boating and get drowned.”

“Thirteen!” exclaimed Skinner.

“Fourteen!” from Zeb.

“Fourteen, goin’ at fourteen----”

“Fourteen and a ’alf!” from Skinner.

“Fifteen!” said Zeb, quickly, but with a shivery sort of feeling that
he had got to the end of his rope.

The Rodney attorney was inclined to dally a little, and the auctioneer
came very near knocking down the prize to Zeb before that fatal “’alf”
was added that carried him out of his depth.

If he had only had time to call for a collection of quarters from among
the boys, or to make another pull on old Gershom Todderley.

Nobody else looked as if they intended to dispute the matter, and
lawyer Skinner began to think he would get his boat cheap enough, when
a clear, strong, though somewhat boyish voice, capped the last bid
with: “Sixteen!”

And all eyes were turned towards the newcomer, while Skinner growled:

“More boys? Come, now, this won’t do, Mr. What’s-your-name?”

“My name’s Cash,” quietly responded Bar Vernon, as the auctioneer went
on with:

“Sixteen, sixteen! do I hear any more?”

“Seventeen!” said Skinner, raspishly.

“Twenty,” responded Bar; “let’s make it interesting.”

“Twenty-one,” shouted the now exasperated Skinner.

“Twenty-two!” said Bar, and even Zeb Fuller gave a shout of exultation
and remarked:

“Skinner, my son, you’ve got to give full value for that ark if you get
it. You ain’t so much in danger of drowning as you was.”

But the Rodney lawyer had no idea of any such wickedness as paying full
value for that or any other thing, and the auctioneer hammered away in
vain.

“Come,” said Zeb, encouragingly--“come, Skinner, my dear fellow, if
a man’s drowned he’ll never be hung. It’s your best chance. Try him
again. Say three, now.”

But Skinner was getting sulky over his defeat, and, before he could
quite make up his mind to raise the bid, the hammer fell.

“What name?” said the auctioneer.

“Cash,” said Barnaby, and the “best boat on the lake” was all his own.

That is, he and Val Manning owned it between them, for they had decided
to “go halves” on the purchase-money.

As for Lawyer Skinner, that gentleman somewhat rapidly withdrew himself
from the gaze of the crowd of boys and the tantalizing remarks of Zeb
Fuller.

“Well, Mr. Cash,” said Zeb to our hero, “you’ve got the boat, but who’s
to pay Puff Evans’s funeral expenses, I’d like to know?”

“Which one is he?” asked Bar.

“The gentleman yonder that reminds you of Daniel Webster,” said Zeb,
pointing at the half-stunned and altogether bewildered builder of the
boat. “I’ve some business to attend to over at the mill, but I’ll call
for the coroner on my way back.”

So saying he was off, without waiting for Bar’s reply, for his
disappointment with reference to that boat had been the severest blow
Zeb had received for many a day. Besides, he was really anxious to
return the miller’s money with as little delay as might be.

“Puff,” said Bar, as he walked up to that worthy, “where’s the boat?”

“Down t’ the lake. Right by my house,” replied Puff, vacantly. “She’s a
beauty, but all the money I had in the world was ten dollars. Skinner’s
as mean as pusley, but I don’t know as I blame you. Going to bring her
over to town and put her in Todderley’s pond?”

“Not so bad as that,” said Bar. “Do you suppose you know enough to take
good care of her?”

“Why,” said Puff, “I built her myself, and she’s just the neatest
little thing. Mast and sail, too. Runs as if she was greased.”

“Well,” said Bar, “what’ll you charge me to keep her for me? You to
use her all the time, same as if you owned her, and I to have her once
in awhile to go fishing in.”

“Charge?” exclaimed Puff, opening his eyes. “Charge? You git eout.”

“Well, then,” said Bar, “you go back home and look sharp after that
boat. One of these days I’ll come over and take a look at her.”

“I say, mister!” exclaimed Puff, as the advantages of Bar’s proposition
slowly dawned on him, “won’t ye come in and take suthin’?”

“Not a drop,” said Bar; “nor you won’t, either. That’s the way you lost
your boat.”

“Fact, mister,” said Puff, “but I tell ye what. I’d like to have a
sheer in that boat. Won’t ye let me?”

“Of course,” said Bar, “if you’ll keep dark about it. If lawyer Skinner
knew it he’d be after it again.”

“Say ten dollars’ wuth, then,” said Puff. “’Pears like I couldn’t ketch
no fish in another man’s boat.”

“All right,” said Bar. “Call it ten dollars’ worth, if that’ll do you
any good.”

“Wall, then,” said Puff, drawing himself up straighter than he had
done before during that day, “there’s the money, cash down.”

“Oh, never mind that,” said Bar; “pay when you get ready.”

“No, ye don’t,” said Puff. “Take that, or I shan’t feel honest. There’s
somethin’ comin’ to me from the sale over’n above the jedgment. I
shan’t go home empty. I ain’t sure but what it’s a pooty good job for
me, anyhow, and old Skinner’s beat, too; I’m right down glad o’ that.”

Bar consented to take the money, and he and Val returned to Mrs.
Wood’s, congratulating themselves on the splendid beginning they had
made for their fun at Ogleport.

“We can fish pretty much all the time till school opens,” said Val,
“and then there’s evenings and Saturdays after that.”

“We won’t want to fish all our spare time,” said Bar. “There must be
piles and piles of things to make fun out of around such a place as
this is.”

“So there are,” said Val, “but we mustn’t be careless of our money.
I’m glad we’ve beaten that rascally lawyer as cheaply as we have. I
mean to write my father all about it.”

“He’d have done it himself, I know,” said Bar.

There could be small doubt of that.




CHAPTER XV

THE MYSTERY OF THE DUN HEIFER


“Brother Todderley,” said Zeb to the miller, “we’re defeated in our
benevolent intentions. Puff’s boat went for twenty-two dollars.”

“Who got it?” asked the miller.

“A bloated young aristocrat from the city,” said Zeb. “I suspect him of
being one of the new boarders. The Academy’s going to ruin, Gershom.
There’s your twelve dollars, with my sincere thanks.”

“Sorry, Zeb, very sorry,” remarked the miller; but another voice broke
in with:

“Who’d ha’ thought that of him? Thryin’ to rob a poor chap like <DW30>
Evans! It’s worrus than wantin’ to dhrown old Docther Dhryer.”

“Patrick Murphy,” replied Zeb, “what do you know about war? Hullo,
there goes poor Puff on his way home. I haven’t the heart even to try
and comfort him. Tell you what I’ll do, Brother Todderley, I’ll give my
share towards buying him the timber to build another boat.”

“You’re a good boy, Zeb,” responded the miller. “I’ll do my share, and
he can have anything he wants out of my lumber. Do you hear that, Pat?”

“Troth an’ I do, sor,” replied Pat. “Wull it be the crukked shticks
I’ll give him?”

“Crooked sticks!” exclaimed the miller.

“Sure an’ he’s one of ’em,” said Pat. “He niver’d worruk well with
straight ones.”

“Never mind, Pat,” replied Zeb, “it’s a solemn thing for Puff. Just
look at him. I never saw him walk so fast before.”

“Indade,” said Pat, “it’s ginerally walkin’ behind he’s been iver since
I’ve known him.”

Plenty of sympathy poor Puff was getting, though he knew it not, but
it would all have been too late to save his boat for him if it had not
been for Bar and Val.

These latter had put in their time, before dinner, in a very vigorous
process of taking possession of their room, which was all a schoolboy
could or should have asked for, though hardly as luxurious in its
aspect or appliances as the one Val Manning had been accustomed to at
home.

As for Bar Vernon, he had seen all sorts of accommodations in his day,
and was disposed to take a rose- view of every item belonging to
his present quarters.

By dinner-time the boys were in a high state of preparation for it,
so far as appetite went, but they were hardly expecting the sort of
company that awaited them on their entering the dining-room.

“Mr. Manning! Mr. Vernon! My name is Brayton. Glad to see you both. My
mother and sister have written me about you.”

It was a bit of a surprise to find that their teacher was also to be
their fellow-boarder, but neither Val nor Bar was the kind of boy to
repel so very frank and kindly a greeting.

In fact, before the meal was over, Brayton had even heard the story of
the boat, as well as Bar’s repeated lamentations over his deficiencies.

“Come up into my room,” he said, with reference to the latter. “I can
hardly advise you what to do till we’ve had some further talk.”

Up they went, and they saw quite enough, at once, to give them a good
opinion of their new friend.

Bar picked up a book which was lying on the table.

“French,” said Brayton. “One of George Sands’s novels. One of these
days you’ll get ready to take hold of such things.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Val, “he’s picked up French. He talked German, too, for
an hour at a time, with an old fellow we met at the seashore.”

“Indeed,” exclaimed Brayton. “Do you know anything of Greek or Latin,
Mr. Vernon?”

“No, not a word; but I understand Spanish, and can talk it a little.”

“English, French, German, Spanish, at seventeen! That’ll do. I’m not
afraid of the rest. Your trouble won’t be in languages, but you’ve
plenty of work cut out for you. I’ll take you in hand, at once, myself.
Three hours’ study a day, my young friend, from now till school opens.”

“There goes the fishing, Bar,” exclaimed Val, mournfully.

“No, it don’t,” said Brayton. “To-morrow morning, Bar, you are to
take your Latin grammar with you and go to the lake. I’ll hear you
recite when you get home. Next day, Greek. Next, something else. Read
right ahead, whether you understand it or not. We’ll see about that
afterwards.”

It seemed a curious way to begin with a new scholar, but it was the
only method Brayton could think of for finding out precisely where Bar
was, intellectually, and what he had better try to do with him. Such an
odd fish of a scholar he had never before come in contact with.

That afternoon the boys went over to the Academy with their new friend,
and became as well posted as Zeb Fuller himself in the quantities and
qualities of the various apparatus, old as well as new. Val took Bar,
while Brayton was busy in the lecture-room, and showed him over the
whole building.

“Have you cut your name anywhere?” asked Bar.

“No,” said Val, “but every boy is expected to before he goes away. If
he does it too soon they expel him.”

“I see,” laughed Bar. “Is that the bell-rope?”

They were near the great front door of the main hall as he spoke, and
Val answered:

“Yes, but I wonder what it’s down for. If Zeb Fuller knew it there’d be
music before twelve o’clock to-night.”

“Who’s Zeb Fuller?”

“The boy that chaffed you about Puff Evans,” said Val. “He’s one of the
crowd that was too much for me last term. He’s a queer duck, but we
must give him a lesson before long.”

“Or he’ll give us one,” said Bar. “Well, we’ll see about that.”

Val Manning was more than half right about that bell-rope. Zeb Fuller
did know that it was “down,” and there was “music” before twelve
o’clock that night.

“Hiram Allen,” Zeb said to his next friend, as they came back from
driving the cows to pasture, “this is a sad piece of business about
Puff Evans and his boat. I think the Academy bell ought to be tolled.”

“Maybe he won’t drown himself, after all,” said Hy.

“Perhaps. Indeed, I fear not,” replied Zeb; “but he ought to, and
so we must do our duty, not only by him but by the bell. It must be
tolled, Hiram.”

“If we can get in.”

“I ascertained the condition of one of the front windows the day the
new apparatus came,” said Zeb.

That was quite enough, under the circumstances. The people of Ogleport
retired to slumber as usual that night, only to be awakened a little
after eleven by a most unusual, irregular, spasmodic chaos of sound
from the one bell in the village which they had last dreamed of hearing
from.

Bar and Val were both awakened by it, and dressed themselves with a
truly boyish instinct that there was some kind of fun abroad.

“What can it be?” asked Bar.

“Zeb Fuller, of course,” said Val; “only there isn’t the least chance
in the world of his being caught at it. We must get out on the green
and see what we can see.”

They were joined on the stairs by George Brayton, but he at once
understood their entire innocence in the matter of the bell.

A hideous, intermittent clamor was that which was now pouring down from
the old belfry, and various half-dressed figures were beginning to
flit through the moonlight that was pouring over the wide and shadowy
green.

One of these figures, full of extraordinary wisdom, made its way
straight to the front gate of Deacon Fuller’s residence.

Hardly had a hand been laid upon the gate-latch, however, before the
door of the house swung open and the agile form of Zebedee Fuller,
busily tugging at his half-donned trousers, stood on the threshold,
with his father close behind him.

“Ah!” exclaimed Zeb. “The Rev. Dr. Dryer? Isn’t there something the
matter with the Academy bell, doctor?”

“Matter?” repeated the astonished principal. “Are you really here? I
freely confess that the occurrence exceeds the moderate capacity of my
comprehension. Just listen to that bell!”

“Something the matter with it, beyond a doubt,” said Zeb. “It don’t
toll as if it was meant for a funeral. If it is, I should say that
funeral had been drinking too much.”

Dr. Dryer could not wait for any more of Zeb Fuller’s moralizing, but
pulled his cotton night-cap closer over his ears as he hurried away
towards the Academy.

Others, less thoughtful than himself of the probable source of all
Ogleport mischief, had directed their steps and energies to what seemed
the sure capture of the untimely bell-ringer, whoever he might be.

There came in the puzzle.

Not a door was open, front or rear. Every window was closed. There was
not a sign of human entrance about the entire exterior of the Academy
building.

George Brayton had the key of the rear entrance, but even while some
of the rest had gone for lights, the doctor arrived, and with him the
means of throwing open the great front doors.

Then, indeed, a flood of splendid moonlight was poured in upon the
mystery--only moonshine leaves every mystery as badly off as it finds
it.

There, in the middle of the main hall, from which on either side the
schoolrooms opened, a few paces only from the front doorway, stood Dr.
Dryer’s favorite dun heifer, with the bell-rope firmly webbed around
her horns and a peck-measure of green apples on the floor within what
would have been easy reach but for the hindrance of that rope.

Small blame to the heifer if she smelled those apples and strove to
reach them, and even less to the rope and the bell if among them they
waked up all Ogleport as a consequence.

Loud and long laughed the hitherto indignant representatives of the
Board of Trustees. Clear and ringing was the laugh of George Brayton.
Only less decided was that of Val Manning, but Bar Vernon was as mute
as Dr. Dryer himself, and did but move around and look and search
and study, for he had unconsciously undertaken the problem which was
shortly to baffle entirely the mental acumen of his elders.

“How did that heifer get into the Academy?”

There was not a dissenting voice, when some one suggested:

“Zebedee Fuller!”

But Dr. Dryer had already ascertained that the evil genius of Ogleport
had been at home and in bed, and, granting as an axiom his agency
in the matter, the question clouded down upon them with a yet more
Egyptian darkness.

[Illustration: “HOW DID ZEB FULLER GET THAT HEIFER INTO THE ACADEMY?”]


“How did Zeb Fuller get that heifer into the Academy?”

The doctor had released his tantalized property quickly enough, and
there were boys at hand to volunteer her escort to her own “lot,” but
he himself remained to grapple with the mystery.

“Only one safety just now,” remarked Brayton. “We must take away the
rope altogether till school begins. I’ll go up and do it at once.”

“And I’ll go with you,” said Bar.

Val’s services were also offered, but Dr. Dryer remarked that “two
would be as large a number as the occasion demanded,” and Val was
compelled to remain below.

The steeple was not a very lofty affair, but there was some climbing
to be done, nevertheless, and both Bar and Brayton paused for breath
on a sort of “deck,” twenty feet at least above the ridge of the main
building, and as many more below the bell.

“What’s this wheel for?” asked Bar, as he closely scrutinized a bit of
machinery firmly set on the deck. “It seems not to be used.”

“Looks like an old tolling gear,” said Brayton. “There’s another
pulley-wheel to match it, up there by the bell, I fancy. They’ve
changed the gearing now, and don’t use this any more. That’s a pokerish
sort of place to climb into by moonlight, and those cleats are frail
things to step on.”

“I’m lighter than you are,” said Bar, and, without another word, up he
went.

“That’s no ordinary boy,” said Brayton to himself, and in another
minute or so the rope, disengaged from the bell-gearing, came rattling
down upon the deck beside him, and could be slipped through to the
lower floors and removed beyond the reach of mysterious heifers and
evil-disposed boys.

Bar followed the rope quickly, and George Brayton’s keen eyes noted
with what an easy, confident, unhesitating movement the boy glided down
the frail and quivering framework.

The Academy bell-tower had been standing a long time, and, although it
was stanch enough, it could hardly be called immovable.

The greatest trial of that night to the Rev. Dr. Dryer was the fact
that Zebedee Fuller had been in bed, and that so he had no decent
excuse for any attempt to question him concerning the misdeeds of the
dun heifer.




CHAPTER XVI

A MESS OF FISH


The next morning, at breakfast, Mrs. Wood’s boarders found a capital
mess of fresh perch and pickerel on the table, and she remarked to them:

“You are eating Mr. Vernon’s fish.”

“How’s that?” asked Val.

“Why,” said Mrs. Wood, “Puff Evans came to the door with them, ready
cleaned, by the time we were up, and left them with his respects to Mr.
Vernon. He said, too, that the boat was all right and ready for use.”

“And so you cooked them for me,” said Bar. “Well, thank you for that,
and I must say it looks well on Puff’s part. Shall we bring home
whatever fish we catch?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Wood, “and Puff may bring as many pickerel as he
pleases. They’re always welcome.”

They were, indeed, that morning, for it seemed as if the previous
night’s disturbance had distributed unusually keen appetites all around
the table.

Bar and Val were quite ready to take advantage of Puff’s hint about the
boat, and George Brayton frankly declared his regret at not being able
to go with them.

“Only, Mr. Vernon,” he added, “you must not let your fishing prevent
you from doing something with your grammar.”

“I won’t,” said Bar, and then even Mrs. Wood became interested in so
very unusual a method of attempting the intricacies of the Latin tongue.

At that very hour, however, a brace of active-looking youths were
slowly descending the hillside from the cow pastures, and one said to
another:

“Hiram Allen, that was very remarkable conduct on the part of Solomon’s
dun heifer.”

“Very,” replied Hy; “but, Zeb, don’t you suppose they suspect us?”

“Of course they do,” said Zeb; “but I’ve the dun heifer’s word of honor
that she won’t tell how she got into the Academy.”

“No, she won’t tell,” said Hy, thoughtfully, “but it would be a rough
thing on you and me if we got found out.”

“Solomon took care of that with his customary wisdom,” said Zeb; “he
came right over to our house and made himself sure that I had been in
my peaceful couch all the time.”

“We’d better keep it, even from the boys, unless it’s Bill Jones,” said
Hy.

“Of course,” replied Zeb, “the dun heifer, though a brute, is far more
trustworthy than any human being.”

Every breakfast-table in Ogleport was busy with the bell mystery that
morning, and the unanimity with which all minds seemed in search of a
clue which would guide them in the direction of Deacon Fuller’s house
was a high testimonial to the well-earned fame of the deacon’s heir.

It was only, however, at the coffee-urn of the Academy principal that
anything like gloom interfered with the pervading cheerfulness of tone
which the common difficulty seemed to be met.

Euphemia would have been as smiling as a June sunrise about it, and
even the doctor would speedily have recovered from his temporary
depression, but Mrs. Dryer failed to discern any ray of comfort.

“It’s a piece of outrageous and unparalleled defiance,” she assured
her husband and stepdaughter, for the three-and-thirtieth time.
“Your influence and authority in this community will be permanently
compromised unless you succeed in probing this matter to the very
bottom and bringing the lawless perpetrators to condign justice. Why,
Dr. Dryer, that unfortunate heifer might have pulled down the bell.”

“I am compelled to admit the possibility of such a termination of her
efforts to liberate herself,” moodily responded the doctor, unmindful
of Effie’s suggestion:

“Or to get at the apples.”

“The entire operation,” he continued, “is enveloped in impenetrable
mystery. I am anxious to ascertain if Mr. Brayton has evolved any
probable solution. He afterwards ascended to the belfry to remove the
rope from its attachments.”

“Brayton!” scornfully exclaimed Mrs. Dryer. “If you don’t learn
anything till you get it from him! Why, I’m expecting every day to hear
that the boys have begun to call him George.”

“Dorothy Jane----”

“It’s no use, Doctor; you won’t have a cow or a bell or an Academy, or
anything else, before the end of this term, if you don’t manage somehow
to accomplish something.”

There was no denying that the exigency was one that called for special
exertion, but Effie Dryer had seen George Brayton prying around the
Academy building very early that morning, and she would have given more
than her stepmother seemed disposed to for a statement of his views
concerning the heifer and the bell. It had already been ascertained
that the peck measure was the doctor’s own, but no one had succeeded in
identifying what remained of the green apples.

Meantime, on his way back from his errand of gratitude that morning,
Puff Evans had been hailed by Pat Murphy from the door of the
grist-mill.

“The top o’ the mornin’ to yez. It’s sorry I am to hear the bad news
about yer boat.”

“My boat?” responded Puff.

“Yis,” said Pat, “and the master towld me to offer yez the pick of his
lumber yon, ave ye was minded to build another.”

“And what for?” asked Puff. “Isn’t the boat a good one?”

“Sure enough,” said Pat; “she’s only too good for a Rodney lawyer. I
hope she’ll upset wid him the day he puts his foot in her.”

By this time Puff began to comprehend the state of his neighbor’s mind
on the boat question, and he at once proceeded to an explanation which
made the kind-hearted Irishman break out into all sorts of encomiums
upon the “young jintleman from the city.”

“It’s all right,” said Puff.

“Thrue for you,” said Pat, “an’ it’s mesilf would like to do the
good turn for him. He’ll have frinds to the fore in Ogleport, or I’m
mishtaken.”

“’Deed he will,” said Puff, very emphatically, for him, “and I’ll teach
him all there is to learn about boatin’ and fishin’ in these parts.”

“It’s yersilf knows it all thin,” said Pat, and he went back to his
grist with a muttered:

“Wondher ave Zeb Fuller and the b’yes know about that same.”




CHAPTER XVII

SKANIGO LAKE


A little more than a mile from the outermost homes of Ogleport, in a
direct line, lay Skanigo Lake.

A beautiful sparkling sheet of water was Skanigo, and it always mixed
itself up, somehow, with Puff Evans’s ideas of Paradise; but the Rev.
Dr. Solomon Dryer could never forget his great attempt, one December
“examination day,” to obtain a physical description of it from Zebedee
Fuller.

Not, however, because his questions were not fully and accurately
answered, somewhat as follows:

“Of what shape is Skanigo Lake, Master Fuller?”

“Round, sir.”

“Round?”

“Yes, sir; ’round among the hills, ’way up, as far as it can go.”

“Ah, yes. You do not altogether comprehend my interrogatory. But what
profundity does it attain? How deep is it?”

“Varies very much, sir.”

“Exactly. An admirable response. But when is it deepest?”

“In July, sir.”

“July?”

“Yes, sir. No depth at all in winter. Bottom freezes hard and gets on
top, sir.”

“We will put you in natural philosophy, next term, Master Fuller. But
what are the longitudinal and lateral extent--the width and length, I
mean, of Skanigo?”

“Has none, sir.”

“No length or width?”

“No, sir. Puff Evans told me he’d caught everything there was in that
lake. All his fault, sir.”

The Baptist and Presbyterian ministers came to Dr. Dryer’s assistance
at that point, for they were both good fishermen, and Zebedee escaped
from the remaining geography of Skanigo.

In that brief ten minutes, however, he had won the lasting good-will
of Euphemia Dryer and the settled enmity of her stepmother.

On the morning after the bell and heifer mystery, no sooner was
breakfast over than Bar and Val gathered together their fishing-gear,
and were off to make acquaintance with Skanigo for themselves.

The walk was nothing at all, nor was it difficult to find the way to
the curiously constructed dwelling of Puff Evans. The land thereabout
was the supposed heritage of a non-resident family of “minor heirs,”
and Puff had settled himself in a little cove with no more trouble of
mind about his lack of title than a wild Indian or a Western “squatter.”

He did no manner of harm. In fact, he had actually “improved” a few
acres, managing to have, as Zeb Fuller said: “The kindest-hearted,
best-natured crops in the world; the only potatoes ever heard of that
did their own hoeing.”

Between his scanty but “good-natured” acres and the liberal bosom of
Skanigo, however, Puff succeeded in providing for the natural wants of
himself, his very congenial wife, and a swarm of little Puffs, whose
only need of clothing, as remarked by Zebedee, was to conceal their
fins and scales.

“Pity Puff drinks,” said Zeb to Gershom Todderley one day. “Sometime
he’ll make a mistake and bring in those young ones of his, all cleaned,
on a string with his other fish. And there won’t one of ’em suspect but
what it’s all right. Good pan-fish they’d make, too.”

Bar and Val found Puff down by the waterside, proudly contemplating the
very neat proportions and finish of his favorite property.

“It’d ha’ just broke my heart to ha’ lost that there boat,” he said,
after exchanging a very enthusiastic greeting with his young visitors.
“And now I’d a liked to ha’ gone off with ye, but I’ve made up my mind
on somethin’ else for to-day, an’ I don’t see how I kin change it.”

“Don’t change it on our account,” said Bar. “Just tell us where to go,
and we’ll take care of ourselves.”

It would have taken the boys a good month to have followed all the
directions that Puff gave them, for he hardly stopped talking until
they were out of ear-shot. Even then he stood knee-deep in the water by
the shore, gazing fondly after the graceful little vessel, as if he
half deemed it a breach of faith that he was not on board of her.

“Which way’d we better go, Val?” asked Bar.

“Right up the lake, not far out,” said Val. “Then we can drop anchor
and fish for perch while you walk into your Latin.”

“All right,” said Bar.

And all right it was, for the rowing was good fun of itself, and it
seemed as if there were new things worth looking at to be seen with
every fresh pull at the oars.

“This’ll do,” said Val, at last. “Puff’s put rope enough on this
grapnel to anchor anywhere in the lake. He’s fond of deep-water
fishing. Pulls up right big ones, sometimes--bass, pickerel, and now
and then a lake trout. He says the fish are changing. Somebody put
thousands and thousands of young ones in a few years ago.”

“Rope? I should say he had,” remarked Bar. “Did I tell you Mr. Brayton
took the bell-rope over to the Doctor’s house?”

“Did he?” said Val. “Wonder if he’s any idea who did all that, or how
it was done.”

“I have now,” said Bar. “That heifer came in through one of the
basement doors.”

“Of course,” said Val; “but they were all barred on the inside.”

“And opened from the inside to let her in. Then it was easy to close
’em all up behind her, fix her horns in the bell-rope and get away.”

“But how did they get in or out?”

“I’ll show you that, too, when we set our own trap for the bell,” said
Bar. “I found out when Mr. Brayton and I were going up into the belfry.
The rest of them haven’t guessed it, unless Mr. Brayton himself has. If
he did, he forgot to tell me.”

“Our trap?” asked Val. “Are we going to set one?”

“Why, Val,” said Bar, “didn’t you hear all they had to say yesterday,
about our house being haunted?”

“Yes, and Mrs. Wood didn’t seem to more’n half like it.”

“Well, we can’t help that, you know, but I move we send all the ghosts
over into the belfry.”

“Can you do it?” asked Val, with a look of admiring faith at his
wonderful companion.

“Yes,” said Bar. “We must take home with us that extra length of
anchor-rope. It’s small and strong. Just the thing. Then we must get
some bits of wood and a yard or two of canvas, and we can do it.”

“Puff Evans has a regular workshop down by his house,” said Val. “He’s
a kind of a genius in his way, if he only knew what work meant.”

“Let’s fish, then,” exclaimed Bar, “and I’ll study hard. We shan’t have
an hour to spare.”

It was a curious piece of business, that Latin grammar, lying flat on
the seat in front of Bar Vernon, as he sat in the stern of the boat,
with his quick eyes glancing from that to the float of his fish-line.

Nevertheless, the pages were turned pretty fast, from time to time,
and every now and then a perch or a sunfish would come flopping in
over the side of the boat and be promptly transferred to Puff Evans’s
well-contrived “fish-car,” just aft of the centre-board. Val, too,
sitting at the prow, was getting very fair luck, only that he would
lose some of his best bites in watching Bar and wondering what might
be the nature of the trap that he was planning for the benefit of the
ghosts and the Academy bell.

“Do you understand what you’re reading?” he asked, at length.

“Of course not,” replied Bar. “It’s all I can do to remember it. Mr.
Brayton doesn’t expect me to understand it at one reading. He told me
so.”

“I don’t suppose he expects you to remember it, either,” said Val.
“It’s a good deal more than I could do.”

“Don’t know about that,” replied Bar. “Once I understand a thing I’m
sure to forget it. Never can repeat it in the same words again.”

It was not very clear to Val’s comprehension, even then, but Bar worked
and fished away till there came a long interval during which neither of
them had so much as a nibble.

“Sun’s getting too high,” said Val. “That’s what Puff told us. No use
to fish any more; we’ve a tip-top string, anyhow.”

“Let’s pull back, then,” said Bar. “I’ve got in all the Latin I can
hold, for once. Perhaps we can get Puff to help us.”

“If he only knows it isn’t real work,” said Val. “Tell him it’s play
and he’ll work his head off.”

The trouble with Puff Evans must have been that he had grown up to be
the father of a family without in any manner ceasing to be a boy. There
are a good many grown-up people in the same condition, and some of them
were not very remarkable boys, either.

On their arrival at the landing, the two friends found Puff waiting for
them. He had discerned the return of his treasure at a greater distance
than any other man could have made her out, and now he expressed
his entire approval of the morning’s catch, except that he mildly
deprecated the absence of anything like big fish.

“P’r’aps they’ll bite better for you when they come to know you,” he
said encouragingly. “They’re a little strange to your way of fishing
yet. Are ye goin’ right back to th’ village?”

“No,” said Bar; “we’ve some fun on hand we want to talk to you about.”

Puff was all ears in a moment, and the result of Bar’s explanation was
that the boys were taken over to the workshop at once, while Mrs. Evans
began with intense zeal to broil some fresh fish for their noonday meal.

It speedily came out that Puff had indeed a sound reason for denying
himself that day’s sport on the water. The experience of the previous
day and the suggestions of Pat Murphy that morning had borne quick
fruit in the shape of a commencement on another boat.

“I’ve named the old one _Mary_,” he said, “arter my wife, and I reckon
you may name this one.”

“When it’s built,” said Bar. “But it’s a wonder you never thought of it
before. You can make money at it.”

“P’r’aps,” said Puff, drily, “but I’d no idea I’d inj’ye it so much
as I hev. Might ha’ known it, too. I was jest as happy a-buildin’ the
_Mary_. When a man finds a piece of real work in which he can be just
happy, that’s the kind of thing God meant him for most likely, and he’d
better go ahead and do it, if he can do it honestly.”

But Bar and Val were too full of their own ideas to linger very long in
looking at Puff’s boat, and Bar found his ideas caught up and put into
shape with a readiness of perception and a swiftness of execution which
altogether surprised him.

“You’ll make a perfect job of it,” said Bar. “What do you think it will
be worth?”

“Worth?” inquired Puff.

“Yes,” said Bar. “What are we to pay you for it?”

“Why,” replied Puff, with a darkening brow, “didn’t you tell me it was
a big joke on Ogleport?”

“Yes,” began Bar.

“And ain’t I to hev any sheer o’ the fun?” asked Puff. “Besides, I’m
on hand for anything you two fellers are up to. I owe ye all the good
turns in the world. Jest don’t you say anythin’ more about pay, or
you’ll spile it all.”

“We won’t, then,” said Bar, for it was easy to see that Puff was
beginning to feel hurt; and at that moment Mrs. Evans appeared at the
door of the shop to tell them dinner was ready.

So were the boys, for fishing and rowing on Skanigo were fine things
for young appetites, and before that meal was over, it became clear
that some more fish would have to be caught if they meant to carry
anything like a respectable string home with them. They did that,
however, and they carried something else more than halfway.




CHAPTER XVIII

MAJOR MONTAGUE’S PLANS THWARTED


At very nearly the hour when Bar Vernon and Val Manning set out for
that day’s fishing on Skanigo, a big, well-dressed man was standing in
the front door of an “east side” hotel in the great city, absorbed,
apparently, in some deep and gloomy train of thought.

“Not a trace of him,” he muttered. “Oh, what a fool I was to let him
go! He never seemed half so valuable before. And then, those papers!
Blessings brighten as they take their flight. Gone, completely gone,
after keeping my hold on him and them so long. That’s what comes of
getting too drunk. A fit of pity is sure to follow. Always so with
me. Now, as far as I can see, my best hold is on these swells that
have taken him in tow. No use trying to bully men like them. They’d
only laugh at me. Only show is to sell out to ’em. They’d work it out
better’n I could, anyway, seeing I’m debarred so many privileges; but
they shan’t do it without letting me in for my share. I feel safe about
Bar. He’ll never open that thing till the time comes. Queer fellow
’bout some things. Anyhow, I must make my trade before then. I’ll go
right down to old Danvers’s office this very morning and set the wires
a-working. Make hay while the sun shines.”

A very important decision was that of Major Montague, and it might have
had an immediate effect upon the tenor of Bar Vernon’s “new time,” if
he had been permitted to carry it into effect.

Alas for the Major and his plans, however, that sunny morning!

On an opposite corner of the street, at that very moment, a tall,
foreign-looking gentleman was leaning over and talking low to a short,
broad, keen-eyed man, as he pointed in the direction of the Major.

“That’s the chap. You might as well spot him now. May not have another
chance. Of course it wouldn’t do to have him convicted. He’d squeal too
loud. But he must be put out of the way for a while.”

“Free board at a public institution for six months,” returned the short
man. “Will that do, Prosper?”

“That or thereabouts,” replied Prosper; “but he mustn’t see me. Go on.”

And Prosper drew back and disappeared around the corner; but, in
another minute, a hand was laid lightly on Major Montague’s arm, and an
oddly deferential voice said to him:

“My dear Major, you’re wanted.”

Pale indeed grew the rosy face of the Major, for he seemed to need no
second look to establish the identity of the new arrival.

“Will you come up to my room with me and let me get my things?” he
asked, huskily.

“Not just now, thank you,” replied the short man, “but I’ll send for
them and have them brought down to your new hotel for you.”

Paler still grew the Major’s face, but, although half as large again as
the short, broad man, he walked silently and unresistingly away with
him.

Why?

Oh, nothing. Only that other man, though none of the best, so far as
he himself was concerned, had walked up to Major Montague in the
character of _the law_, and the hand so lightly laid upon the Major’s
arm had been that of _power_, and all such men as he wilt like dying
plants when they are brought into contact with those two things.

Honesty greets the law as a brother, and charity shakes hands with
power. Major Montague’s hand was shaking, indeed, but not in that
way. Before Bar Vernon sat down to his broiled perch at Puff Evans’s
table, his far-away uncle had been provided with quarters in a “new
hotel” that was very old and musty, but from which he would make no
calls on Judge Danvers until the Law should say to Power that “bail”
had been found, or that other reasons required a further change of
boarding-place for the Major.

A strange “hotel” was that, with such strong doors and locks, and such
carefully guarded windows. Perfectly “burglar-proof,” one would be
inclined to think, and yet more burglars and other thieves got into it
in the course of a year than into all the other hotels in the great
city put together. Only some of them had too little difficulty in
getting in and too much in getting out.

Neither Bar Vernon nor any of his friends knew what had become of Major
Montague, and perhaps none of them would have cared to ask, unless
reminded of him in some way.

Bar himself was too crammed full of the thoughts and things of his “new
time” to dwell much just now upon the old or its individual characters.

When he and Val reached home that evening they found that Mrs. Wood had
kindly kept a good supper and a mild scolding ready for them, and that
George Brayton was also waiting till they should get through with both
and come up-stairs.

They made a fair report of their operations on the lake, but did
not seem to think the assistant principal of the Academy would be
interested in their new mechanical contrivances. At all events, they
did not say a word to him about the “trap.”

He on his part listened to all that they had to tell with a degree of
kindly sympathy which would have won for him the unmeasured contempt of
Mrs. Dryer; but the main point of his curiosity, after all, was as to
how much Latin had been captured in the intervals between the “bites.”

Here, however, Brayton was destined to be altogether surprised.

“Shall I hear you recite?” he said to Bar. “I can ask you questions as
we go along.”

Bar handed him the grammar, open at the title page, saying:

“That’s where I began,” and immediately launched out into a repetition
of every word on it.

Brayton listened with an amused and curious air, and turned the leaf as
Bar reached the “date of publication” at the bottom.

Next came the preface, and then the introduction, and Bar waded rapidly
but almost unerringly through them.

“That’ll do,” said Brayton. “Have you gone any farther?”

“Yes,” said Bar.

“How far?”

“About half a mile, I should say,” replied Bar, with the first sign of
a smile he had given. “You told me to begin at the beginning.”

“And I should say you had,” said Brayton. “It will take you long
enough to digest all that. To-morrow you may take up your Greek, and
I’ll try to make up my own mind how on earth I’d better go to work with
yours. You’ve a good one. The only question is what to do with it.”

“That’s just what I’d like to know,” said Bar. “I’ve done a good many
things with it already, but most of them don’t suit me very well.”

“We’ll talk about it hereafter,” said Brayton, thoughtfully. “You and
Mr. Manning may go now. I think you have done a good day’s work.”

So they had, but George Brayton had no notion of what the best part
of it--the hardest, at all events--consisted. Neither had it yet been
completed, and the boys retired to their own room to give the matter
due consideration.

A large, pleasant room it was, at the rear of the house, and one of its
windows opened upon the sloping roof of the one-story back-building
which old Judge Wood, in his pride, had deemed necessary to complete
the proportions of his mansion.

“He must have foreseen our necessities,” remarked Bar. “You know, Val,
it won’t do for anybody to see us go out or come in. Now there isn’t a
tree anywhere else within four rods of the house, but that old maple
yonder leans clean over the back roof.”

“Easy enough to get into that and slide down,” said Val. “I guess other
boys that have boarded with Mrs. Wood must have done it many a time. I
never had this room before.”

“We’ll start about ten o’clock,” said Bar. “It’s going to be a pretty
dark night. Stars, but no moon till very late. That’s just what we
want.”

“Moonshine enough last night,” said Val.

“Well,” replied Bar, “wasn’t it about midnight? That’ll be just when we
want it. Now we must do some studying, or I must, and then we’ll go to
bed for awhile.”

Val hardly knew what to make of a fellow who could pick up a Latin
grammar and go to work so doggedly under such circumstances.

He could not have done it, to save his life, but he managed to get
fairly interested in “Ivanhoe” while Bar was studying.

Neither of the city boys had given a moment’s thought that day, as to
the notions formed of them by the young gentlemen of the village,
important as they were likely to find that very thing.

They might, indeed, have been surprised if they had known how very
thoroughly they had been discussed, or how largely their arrival
entered into the current plans and calculations of Zebedee Fuller and
his friends.

“Now, Zeb,” said Hy Allen, as they sat on the log by the mill-dam after
taking their accustomed swim, “we all know Val Manning well enough, and
he wasn’t so very hard to manage.”

“Young aristocrat,” growled Zeb. “Thinks he’s a mile and a half above
us Ogleport boys. And this new chap that’s come along with him, he’s
ten times worse than Val. They’re boarding at Ma’am Wood’s, you know,
and so’s Brayton. He’ll take ’em right in charge, and they’ll get in on
everything ahead of us. Tell you what, boys, those fellows have got to
have a setting down. Here they’ve bought the best boat on all Skanigo
first day they got here.”

Perhaps, if the truth were told, Zeb’s jealousy was very much less on
account of the boat, or good clothes, or even “citified ways,” after
all, than because the objects of his dislikes were domiciled with
George Brayton.

Somehow or other, Zeb had acquired a feeling of “ownership” for the
new teacher, and was very much disposed to resent what looked like an
invasion of his vested rights.

“There’s only two of ’em,” vaguely suggested Bill Jones.

“Don’t know how many are coming,” replied Zeb. “I move we take proper
measures for the subjugation of these two before the rest get here.”

“I’m in for that!” exclaimed Hy Allen, whose somewhat pugnacious cast
of features indicated very faithfully the character of their owner.

Hy was half a head taller than Zeb Fuller, and decidedly his superior,
physically, only such a thing as a quarrel, or even a test of strength
with his “chieftain” had probably never occurred to him.

The subject of the “new boys” had been coming up again and again all
day, and had gone far towards neutralizing the happiness which the bell
and heifer mystery might otherwise have supplied.

It was now, however, becoming threadbare and distasteful, for the time,
and the council at the mill-dam slowly broke up and dispersed, even Zeb
Fuller’s nearest friends finding some other errand, so that he was all
alone when he met the Rev. Dr. Dryer as he walked up the street towards
his father’s house.

“Looks as if the indelicate conduct of the dun heifer weighed on his
spirits,” soliloquized Zeb. “No, I’ll not give Solomon an excuse for
saying I avoid him. Good-evening, Dr. Dryer.”

Zeb’s face had nearly recovered from the effects of his combat with the
Rodney vagabonds, but it was not at any time specially adapted to the
look of dignified benevolence he now tried to make it assume.

Dr. Dryer, at sight of Zeb Fuller, had been taken possession of by one
idea, however, and he failed to appreciate the effort.

“Zebedee,” he exclaimed, with deep solemnity of manner, “how did that
cow get into the Academy?”

“Not a single long word,” thought Zeb, “and that’s bad for Solomon.”
He, however, answered promptly:

“Dr. Dryer, that matter troubles me. There’s something supernatural
about it.”

“Supernatural?”

“Ghostly!” said Zeb. “This village is going to the bad.”

“Zebedee!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Are you so lost as that? Do you
believe in ghosts?”

“Firmly,” responded Zeb. “Ogleport is getting full of them. I don’t
know what we shall do when Mrs. Wood’s lot get back again for the
winter.”

“I must see your father about this,” said the Doctor, with an ominous
wag of his head.

“Do, please,” replied Zeb; “I don’t know what’s to become of Mr.
Brayton, who seems a deserving young man, or those poor boys from the
city.”

The Doctor gazed very hard at Zeb through his spectacles, and half
wished that he had his wife with him; but the youth said something
about his own cows to the effect that he hoped the ghosts would let
them alone, and marched steadily away up the street.

“Remarkable!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Superstition assailing the
uneducated intellect of even this favored generation. This must be
looked to. I wonder what Mrs. Dryer will say now?”

He wondered less an hour or so later, when he consulted his beloved
Dorothy Jane in the presence of Euphemia.

“Father,” said Zeb to the deacon, when he came back from the cow
pasture, “if old Sol comes to consult you about supernatural noises and
appearances at the Academy, I wish you would humor him a little.”

“Zebedee, what’s up now?”

“Hard to tell,” said Zeb. “Old Sol seems unable to comprehend how that
bell managed to rope in his dun heifer.”

“I don’t wonder,” replied the deacon, with a very sharp look at his
heir; but he and Mrs. Fuller had been talking the matter over, and had
decided not to press Zeb too closely about it.

“I’m doing all I can for this village,” said Zeb to himself, that
night, “but I fear an increase of activity will shortly be demanded.”




CHAPTER XIX

A NOCTURNAL ESCAPADE


The village of Ogleport was satisfactorily quiet, and as dark as the
occasion called for, when Bar Vernon and Val Manning, with their shoes
fastened to their waistbands, crept noiselessly out on the back roof.

There was not the least difficulty in getting into the branches of the
maple, or from them to the ground below.

Then the shoes were hurriedly put on, and the two boys were off through
the garden, down to the river bank, and from thence it was easy enough
to gain one of the lower crossroads without being seen.

Half a mile of brisk walking in the direction of the lake brought them
to the clump of bushes where they had hidden the joint product of their
own skill and that of Puff Evans.

A curious thing it was.

A sort of “van” or wing about three feet square, made of a wooden
frame with cotton cloth stretched across it, and one side of the frame
swung easily in a pair of “journal holes” bored in another and stronger
frame.

Below the wing, at right angles to the outside frame, a sort of arm
reached down about two inches.

“I don’t see how you’ll make it work,” said Val, “but I suppose you do.”

“Show you when we get there,” said Bar. “Now we must make for the
sheds.”

By the time the two boys reached the rear of the Academy there was not
a soul stirring in all Ogleport.

Even Dr. Dryer felt safe about the bell, now that the rope had been
removed, and he had looked to the doors and windows for himself, that
afternoon.

“Are you a good climber, Val?” asked Bar.

“Not very.”

“Then I’ll let you in through that side-door in the basement,” said
Bar. “You keep the machine.”

“But how’ll you get in?”

“Lightning-rod,” replied Bar. “It goes up close by one of the second
story windows, and that has no fastening.”

“Is it strong enough?”

“Plenty. That’s the way the village boys got in. One of ’em left the
mark of his heel deep in the grass at the bottom. Must have slipped and
come down hard.”

“You’re a detective!” said Val.

It would have done the heart of Zeb Fuller good, if it had not
revolutionized his views concerning “those two boarders,” if he had
seen the practiced skill and agility with which Bar Vernon went up that
lightning-rod.

“It’s equal to his billiards,” thought Val.

Yes, and it had been learned very much in the same way, during some of
the queer episodes of his “old time.”

The window was opened and Bar disappeared, shutting it carefully and
silently behind him, while Val hurried around to the basement door.

That, too, was speedily unbarred, and Val and his machine admitted.

“What are you barring it behind us for?” asked Val.

“Don’t want any accidents,” Bar began, and then he added, “Hush, we’re
not inside here a minute too soon.”

Indeed they were not, for one of the Academy trustees, unable to be
easy in his mind over the events of the previous night, had come out
for a scouting expedition of his own.

Slowly, with heavy and circumspect tread, the good citizen was
making his rounds of the old edifice, and now he carefully tried the
fastenings of that lower door and peered anxiously in through the
curtainless windows.

Very still kept the two adventurers, and both felt an unusually active
pumping at their hearts, until they were sure that every door and
window within his reach had been examined by the careful trustee, and
that he had taken his satisfied departure.

“Now, Val,” said Bar, “we’re safe enough. Come on.”

Up they went, first into the main hall, then into the second story,
then up the creaking and short-turning flight of steps which led to the
lower deck of the steeple bell-tower.

“This west window,” said Bar, “towards the roof, is just the thing for
our windmill. The wind has a clean sweep across the deck, for there
isn’t a bit of sash all around.”

“There used to be, in winter,” said Val, “but I s’pose they think this
deck is roof enough.”

“So it is,” said Bar, as he worked steadily and rapidly away, “but
nobody can see this west window from the ground, unless they get over
into the graveyard back of the sheds.”

“I don’t understand it quite yet,” said Val. “Even if the wind works
it, how’ll it ring the bell?”

“Why,” replied Bar, “up there, on one side of the bell, is an old
pulley-wheel. I’ll have to oil it before it will run well. Now, I’ll
hitch the end of this rope to the bell-hammer, and pass it over that
wheel. It’ll come down at the east side, close to the timbers, where
nobody can see it with a telescope. Then I’ll pass it under this wheel
here and hitch it to the lower arm of our van. Then, if there comes a
good wind, that bell’s bound to toll every time the van is blown in.”

“It would take a west wind for it,” said Val.

“Perhaps, to work it regularly,” replied Bar, “but ’most any wind may
do some good. Now, I’ve a pokerish job before me.”

It looked like it, indeed!

Val Manning was brave enough, but he would hardly have liked to
undertake that climb in the dark. Not every boy would have cared for it
in broad daylight.

Up went Bar, however, as surely and as rapidly as if he had served an
apprenticeship at sea, and Val waited for him in almost breathless
expectation till he saw him once more emerge into the moonlight, which
was now beginning to stream through the bell-tower.

“It’ll work,” said Bar, “but I came pretty near losing my hold once.
That would have been a bad piece of business.”

“Killed you!” exclaimed Val.

“Maybe not,” said Bar. “I fell as far as that once, but I came down on
my feet. Made me lame for a month.”

Val made up his mind that he would know more about his chum’s
adventures some day, but just now there was too much work on hand for
any further talking.

Bar’s mechanical genius had not been altogether neglected, although he
did not know anything of “book” mathematics, and in half an hour more
he was able to show Val how that van would be sure to make a good pull
on the rope if the wind would only do its share of the work.

“Glad there’s none blowing now,” said Val.

“There will be, before long,” said Bar; “there was a halo round the
moon last night. Now we must manage to get back to bed again without
being seen. Nobody’ll suspect new boys like us, anyhow.”

“But won’t they be after poor Zeb Fuller!” exclaimed Val.

“I must get acquainted with that fellow,” replied Bar.

“He’ll take care of that,” said Val. “They’re going to play ball on the
green to-morrow, and we can take a look at him then. Only we’re sure to
get into some kind of a muss.”

“The sooner the better, then,” said Bar. “We can’t settle matters with
a crowd like his a day too soon.”

“We’d better go home around by the river, anyhow,” said Val.

The process of getting out of the building was a good deal like that of
getting in, for Bar would not listen to Val’s proposition to slide down
the lightning-rod.

“Not,” he said, “till you’ve had some sort of practice first. It isn’t
so safe and easy as it looks, and you mustn’t run any unnecessary risk.”

“But you do,” said Val.

“No, it isn’t any kind of risk for me,” replied Bar, “so long as the
rod’s strong enough to hold me.”

Once more on solid ground, outside the building, Bar insisted on the
greatest watchfulness and caution in working their way around and
back to the bank of the little river. There, at least, they fancied
themselves safe, and were pushing along from one lot to another, for
the fences were no sort of obstacle, although they were built close
down to the water.

As they sprang over into one inclosure, however, they were greeted by
a hoarse, deep, threatening growl, which brought them to an immediate
stand, and there before them, in the moonlight, they discerned the
forms of a well-grown boy and a dog who was only too “well-grown.”

“It’s Zeb Fuller and his Bob,” exclaimed Val. “We’re in his father’s
lot. Zebedee,” he added, “what are you doing out here at this time of
night?”

“Set some night-lines for eels,” said Zebedee, “and my mind was
troubled about them. But what are you out for? Don’t you see what an
awful example you’re setting Bob and me?”

“We?” said Val. “Oh, we are taking a look at the village.”

“Yes,” said Zeb. “I must go and talk with Solomon about it to-morrow.
Have you tried your new boat yet, Mr. Cash?”

“Vernon,” said Val. “Bar Vernon. He’s to be my chum this winter.”

“Had a good time in her to-day,” said Bar. “Good boat.”

“Yes,” replied Zebedee, “and it was Puff Evans’s bad luck that the cow
tolled the bell for last night.”

“Oh,” said Bar, “don’t you and the cow worry about Puff Evans. He’s
satisfied. If you don’t believe it you can ask him.”

“I’ll ask him,” said Zeb, with more surliness than usually belonged to
his nature, but he did not like the looks of things at all. Just then,
however, the line he was pulling in gave unmistakable tokens of having
something on it, and the next moment he had not only one eel, but two
of them, and large ones, wriggling on the bank.

“That makes six for to-night,” he remarked, as Bob furtively tried one
of the slimy prizes with his paw. “Fond of eels, Cash?”

“Very,” said Bar; “I owned an eel-mill once. Show you how to make one,
sometime. Come on, Val. That’s a very dissipated-looking dog.”

While they were talking, Bar and Val had quietly walked along till
they were halfway across the lot, and Bob had apparently recognized
them as “boys,” for whom, as such, all fences and the like were
constitutionally free, for he had not repeated his note of warning.

Even Zeb Fuller was for once a little taken aback.

He had his own reasons for not wishing to make a disturbance at that
place and time, but he gazed half-angrily after the two friends as they
vaulted over into the next inclosure.

“Dissipated? Bob, was there ever impudence like that? These fellows’ll
get more instructions than old Sol can give them before they’re many
days older. Robert, my boy, did you hear what they said about you?”

Bob was pawing the eels with a very discontented sort of whine, and did
not take up the insult with any spirit.

“They said you had a dissipated look, Robert. Well, so you have, and I
mustn’t keep you out so late o’ nights any more. But won’t I get even
with that pair before I’m done with ’em!”

Zeb Fuller had very plainly had his own way too much in Ogleport,
and his rustic narrowness had got him into a very bad state of mind.
In fact, he and his friends had too much accustomed themselves, in
a thoroughly Saxonish way, to regard the entire race of Academy
“boarders” as a very undesirable lot of “foreigners,” if not, also,
as a kind of “invaders,” to whom small mercy belonged on the part of
himself and the other “natives.”




CHAPTER XX

THE BOXING MATCH


The rest of that night was reasonably calm, and Bar and Val slept
soundly, without any fear of trouble in the belfry, nor did they fail
to promptly answer the bell for breakfast.

After that, a trip to the lake, a look at Puff Evans and his workshop,
and a few hours of fishing, followed, as a matter of course, only Bar
Vernon discovered that he was not going to go through the Greek grammar
“across lots,” as he had begun to do with the Latin.

They found Puff rapidly becoming absorbed and enthusiastic about his
new boat.

“I’ll hev to go over to old Todderley’s after some more lumber
to-morrow,” he said; “but ’pears like I can’t bear to leave it for a
moment.”

“Isn’t there some danger that old Skinner might get wind of it and try
to take it away from you?” suggested Bar.

The boat-builder blew out his flabby cheeks with a most mournful puff,
and the saw he was using dropped from his hand.

“Then, what on ’arth _is_ the use?” he exclaimed, as if all the beauty
and glory had suddenly been knocked out of his life.

“I was thinking of that last night,” said Bar. “I’ll write out a bill
of sale for the boat, when I get home. Call it mine till it’s sold.
I’ll swap you the _Mary_ for it, now, if you want.”

“Ain’t that there a leetle crooked?” slowly responded Puff.

“Yes, a little,” said Bar. “He means to steal the boat and we mean to
hide it, that’s all. Send him to me if he troubles you and I’ll fix
him. You needn’t be afraid, though. He won’t dream of coming.”

“I don’t mind doing that,” said Puff. “Reckon I kin go to work agin
now. Hope you’ll have a right good day’s fishin’.”

So they did, so far as it went, but the boys had made up their minds to
be on the green in time to take a look at the game of baseball as well
as at the boys who came to play it.

On their return home they found that George Brayton had gone for an
afternoon drive, and that Mrs. Wood was inclined to scold a little at
their being so late for their dinner.

“Never mind her, Bar,” said Val, when she was out of hearing.

“I don’t,” said Bar; “but I’ll kill some of her ghosts for her if she
isn’t good to me.”

“It’s clearing up a little,” replied Val. “The ghosts may be heard from
sooner than people think.”

By the time the boys came out again the usually deserted green began to
put on a somewhat lively appearance.

The two friends had hardly supposed Ogleport could turn out so many
“young men” of all ages, from twenty years down, and Val declared
that several of the older ones were “boarders,” like themselves,
while others had come in from the surrounding farms and were there by
accident.

Bar noticed, however, that the one “pervading spirit,” busiest and most
controlling, but without being either talkative or meddlesome, was that
odd chap, Zeb Fuller.

“Has something on his mind to-day, or I’m mistaken,” he remarked to
Val. “I never saw just such another. Was he the fellow that thrashed
you last term?”

“Yes,” said Val; “he once and that big fellow there another time.
That’s Hy Allen, and he’s a sort of bully of the Academy.”

“Then, Val, my boy,” said Bar, “I’m afraid those two have made up their
minds to try it again.”

“Had we better keep away?”

“By no manner of means,” said Bar; “only you must promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me give ’em their first lesson, if they’re bound to have one.
You’re enough for either of them, now, I think, but I want to take the
conceit out of them in a way of my own.”

“Well,” said Val, “all right; only I don’t mean to be counted out.”

“Wait and see,” said Bar.

Nearer and nearer the two friends were strolling, as they had a perfect
right, to the spot where the preliminaries of the game were being
arranged, when they were suddenly greeted with these words from Hy
Allen:

“Hullo! you fellows, are you going to play?”

“Not this time,” said Bar, quietly; “we prefer to look on.”

“You prefer to look on?” very mockingly responded Zeb Fuller himself,
for there was a good deal in Bar Vernon’s manner that he had made up
his mind not to like. “If you’re above playing ball with us, what are
you here for?”

“Oh,” said Bar, “you may play. We don’t want the green for anything
to-day. Go on with your game.”

There were enough boys among the bystanders who were glad to hear Zeb
Fuller answered in his own peculiar way, and the laugh that followed
was not a feeble one.

“We may play, may we?” began Zeb, but just then a peculiarly mocking
and jeering laugh sounded in his very ears, and he wheeled around with:

“Hy Allen!”

But Hiram was also seeking for the source of a very similar insult, and
it seemed to Bill Jones as if some one behind him asked him for his
head.

“Play football, you know,” added the insulting stranger.

“Look here, boys,” said Zeb, “this looks like a conspiracy.”

“It’s a ghost,” seemed to come from the open mouth of Hiram.

“Don’t be a fool, Hy,” said Zeb; “all the ghosts are at Mrs. Wood’s.
Have you seen any?” he asked, turning again to the chums.

“Saw one last night,” said Val, “down by the river, catching eels.”

“Look here, you fellows,” again began Hy Allen, when the derisive laugh
once more interrupted him. It was not a loud one, but it was extremely
tantalizing, and the Academy “bully” looked angrily but vainly around
for the source of it.

“Why don’t you go on with your game?” asked Bar. “Didn’t you hear me
say you might? Even if you don’t know how, you’re old enough to learn.”

Exasperatingly polite was Bar. Zeb Fuller himself, at his very best,
could not have been more so, and again there was a laugh at Zeb’s
expense from among the outsiders. Zeb was altogether too popular with
his own set, and they had carried things with too high a hand not to
have stirred up jealousies against them. As for Hy Allen, there were
a dozen of boys, at least, on that green who had felt the weight of
his hand at one time or another. It was evident to all the onlookers,
as far as appearances went, that neither Bar nor Val had the shadow
of a chance in any physical encounter with Hy, and not much more
with Zeb Fuller or Bill Jones, but all the more for that there was a
strong feeling of admiration for the cool self-possession of the two
strangers. Even their somewhat fashionable, citified dress was halfway
forgiven them.

“Game!” exclaimed Hy Allen, as angry as if he had received some genuine
injury. “This is our green. I’ll teach you a game, one you won’t forget
right away.”

“Give ’em a chance, Hy,” exclaimed Zeb Fuller. “You two, Val Manning
and Cash--Bar whatever your name is--go home now and keep your clothes
clean. Tell him what a licking you got last time, Val.”

“He has,” said Bar, “and he liked it so well, I thought I’d come over
and get one like it.”

Again the mocking laugh chuckled in Hy Allen’s ears.

Bar Vernon was scarcely six paces distant now, with that polite,
deferential smile of his, and as Hiram turned again to get a look at
his tormentor, Zeb Fuller’s long bottled-up temper got the better, or
the worse, of him, and made a sudden rush, as if to grapple with Bar.

“Hold him, Val!” shouted Bar, and Val was almost as much surprised as
Zeb himself to find that young genius whirled backward into his arms,
so that he had only to pin him and hurl him flat upon the grass.

Hy Allen had followed his friend almost instantly, and so had Bill
Jones, and the “rush” of the former might have had danger in it, he
was so big and strong, but he seemed to catch his foot in something,
as Bar dodged under his arm, and the next thing he knew, as he lay
prone on the grass, Bill Jones came tumbling over him with a very
unpleasant-looking nose.

The first impulse of the other boys of Zeb Fuller’s set had been to
“follow their leader,” but not one of them had the remotest conception
of such a thing as the art of boxing, and four or five of them, one
after another, went down like so many nine-pins.

It really seemed as if Bar Vernon had hardly made an effort, until, as
Hy Allen struggled to his feet, there was a sudden bound forward, a
cracking “spat” as if something hard hit something else pretty hard,
and the redoubtable Hiram was down again.

Poor Zeb, too, had just such another experience with his own
antagonist, and it is greatly to be feared that Val Manning made things
about even for that “last term’s licking.”

“You’ll all be perfectly safe,” remarked Bar, “if you’ll only lie still
when you’re down.”

“What’s this? What does all this mean?” suddenly exclaimed an excited
voice behind him, and Bar turned to find himself in no less a presence
than that of the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer.

“What does this mean, sir?” again demanded the Doctor, and Zebedee
Fuller remarked to himself:

“Not a single long word! That looks very bad.”

But Bar Vernon calmly and politely touched his hat, saying:

“Lessons in boxing, Dr. Dryer. Are they contrary to the rules of the
Academy?”

“He’s a trump, anyway!” said Zeb to himself. “I couldn’t have beat
that.”

“Boxing lessons?” said the Doctor, incredulously. “What are those boys
doing on the grass?”

“Get up, boys,” shouted Bar.

Several were already so doing, but Hy Allen was the last to resume his
perpendicular, for his blow and fall had been of an unusually heavy
kind.

Never in all his life, however, had Zeb Fuller learned so much in so
short a time, and never did he “come to the front” so very ably.

“None of us knew anything about boxing, Dr. Dryer,” he said, very
gravely. “If I’d have had such a lesson a few weeks ago, I’d never
have had so hard a time with those Rodney fellows that stole your cows.
I hope sincerely you won’t think of forbidding it.”

Poor Bill Jones was wiping his bloody nose at the moment, and the
Doctor exclaimed:

“Do you not observe that cruel and disgusting spectacle? You, sir;
what’s your name?”

“Vernon, sir. Barnaby Vernon,” responded our hero. “I’m very sorry I
had no gloves on, sir.”

“Vernon? Ah, indeed. I see now. Mr. Manning, is that you? I am
astonished beyond measure! And this is the young gentleman, your
father’s ward, concerning whom he sent me a written communication. I
will see you both again about this business. In the meantime let us
have no more boxing lessons. I felt almost sure you were all fighting.”

“Fighting! Indeed!” exclaimed Zebedee Fuller. “Why, Doctor, do you
suppose all Ogleport would assail, with one accord, two innocent and
unoffending strangers?”

“Zebedee,” replied the Doctor, “I should be rather inclined to the
opinion that the two unoffending strangers had been administering
wholesome admonition to a part, at least, of the population of
Ogleport.”

With that, the Doctor turned upon his heel and strode away, but
Zebedee walked up to Bar Vernon and held out his hand, remarking:

“Solomon is right, for once. If ever a man like him can acquire wisdom,
I should be ashamed of myself to exhibit a lower order of intelligence.
I have no longer the least disposition to give you a thrashing.”

“Nor I either,” said Bill Jones.

Hy Allen was a little slower, but in a moment more he came in with:

“Zeb, ask him how he does it. I own up. It beats me.”

As for the other boys, none of them had suffered more than a sharp
and sudden upset, with a “contusion” or so, as a surgeon would have
described it, and they were quite willing to join their comrades in
calling it a drawn battle.

“That is,” explained Zeb Fuller, “our side’s drawn out. And now I hope
we’ll be able to make it all right with old Sol. Mr. Vernon, it would
delight me exceedingly if you would persuade Solomon to let you give
him a boxing lesson and allow me to be personally present as spectator.”




CHAPTER XXI

GEORGE BRAYTON’S DRIVE


George Brayton had been guilty of the most natural thing in the world
that afternoon. He had spent the whole morning among his books,
retorts, air-pumps, and other matters, over at the Academy building,
and he desired something else for a change.

That was his first visit to Ogleport, but, although well aware that
there was plenty of fine scenery in the neighborhood, he had thus far
made no further acquaintance with it than he had gained from the stage,
as he was pulled through the clouds of dust on the north road the day
of his arrival.

The young “assistant” had therefore deliberately planned a sort of tour
of investigation behind a fast horse, and he meant to have a good many
more of the sort. In fact, he had entered into a commercial treaty with
the one livery stable of Ogleport, down at Runner’s Tavern, to supply
him from time to time with all the fast horses that he might need.

So far, so good, but how can a young man enjoy fine scenery with no
companion but a horse?

Not very well, indeed, and, besides all that, there was nothing selfish
about George Brayton, and he had instantly determined to share his
first drive with merry Effie Dryer.

He forgot, truly, to ask Effie’s stepmother for her permission, and had
impudently driven up to the Doctor’s house after dinner, and proposed
to wait until Miss Euphemia should complete any necessary preliminaries.

And Euphemia?

Dear little soul! She never once thought of refusing, nor did she waste
any great amount of time over her simple toilet, but was ready with a
promptness which went to George’s very heart, as anything so rare as
that is quite likely to.

And Mrs. Dryer sat with Brayton in the parlor, during those few
minutes, and smiled on him in a way that showed to perfection the
artwork of her dentist, but which did not disclose an atom of the gall
and wormwood with which her heart had been stirred up when she saw him
hitch his horse in front of the gate.

It is barely possible that Effie knew more about it than Brayton, or
why should she have manoeuvred with such graceful swiftness and such
entire success to get into the parlor first?

By the time Mrs. Dryer came, also, Effie had accepted the invitation
to drive and “gone for her things,” although, as the former smilingly
explained to George, “the Dorcas Society was to meet that afternoon,
and Euphemia would be very much missed.”

And he had calmly replied,

“I should think likely she might. I never saw a young lady who seemed
to be more of a general favorite. She’s a kind of sunbeam.”

“How poetical you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Dryer. “I see you have one of
Mr. Runner’s horses. A bad sort of a man, they say.”

“Good judge of horses, though,” replied George. “It’s a pity so many
good men don’t seem to know what a horse is.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Dryer, “but there’s always seemed to me to be
a great deal of wickedness about horses.”

“There she comes,” was Brayton’s next remark, and it referred to the
rustle of Effie’s dress on the stairs, not to any preposterous action
on the part of Runner’s fast mare at the gate.

Now it happened that George Brayton had been a lover of horses from his
youth up, and many a pleasant hour and mile he had passed behind his
four-footed favorites, but his memory failed to bring him up the ghost
of a more enjoyable drive than he took that afternoon.

Such a guide was Effie Dryer!

She knew just where to go, and her “driver” turned into highways and
byways, most submissively, at her slightest bidding.

What surprised George most of all, however, was to find how very much
of womanly common sense and genuine intelligence lay hidden beneath
Effie’s unfailing flow of high spirits.

Her smile did not in the least degree resemble the ready “lip service”
of her stepmother, and it could give place in a moment to a very
serious and earnest sort of meaning, and George Brayton caught himself,
before long, suggesting subjects of talk and turning over one idea
after another, for no better reason than simply to watch the shadows
chase the sunshine on Euphemia Dryer’s face.

A very dangerous sort of amusement for a young man to indulge in. At
all events, when the drive had lasted longer than the sober-minded Mrs.
Dryer would have at all approved--the very thought of it had soured the
Dorcas Society for her all that afternoon--George Brayton delivered
Effie at her father’s door, took back the fast mare to Runner’s stable,
and then walked up the main street of Ogleport with an idea that it was
in every way a pleasanter sort of village than he had hitherto imagined.

He reached the green just as the boys--an unusually large crowd of
them--were winding up a tremendous game of baseball.

“Been a tough one, I should say,” remarked George to himself. “Looks
as if every fourth boy had tried to catch the ball in his mouth and got
it on his nose. I begin to wonder how Zeb Fuller would look without a
black eye. Bar and Val, though, seem to have escaped. I must put Bar
through his Greek to-night. He can’t have fished to-day quite long
enough to learn the grammar by heart. He’s a remarkable boy.”

If Brayton had been within hearing just after the Rev. Dr. Solomon
Dryer left the green that afternoon, his admiration might have been
transferred to Zebedee Fuller himself, for that cautious youth had
followed up his magnanimous surrender by saying:

“Look here, boys. We’ve had our boxing lesson, but it won’t do now
not to do up our baseball. Old Sol mustn’t be allowed a peg to hang
his hat on. Our young friends from the prize-ring will comprehend the
situation.”

“If you mean Val and me,” said Bar, laughing, “we’re ready.”

But that game of ball!

Never had Ogleport witnessed anything so curiously bewildering since
the Indian braves finished their own last “match game” and carried
their clubs away with them.

The ball was here, there, everywhere. Ins and outs found themselves
mysteriously mixed up. No fellow could tell who it was that started him
wrong.

There was really no redeeming feature to the whole matter, except Bar
Vernon’s marvelous pitching and batting.

“Hiram Allen!” exclaimed Zeb to his lieutenant, “that fellow is a
treasure to the Academy. We can play the Rodney nine now, and beat them
all to flinders. How does your poor old nose feel, my boy?”

“Beat ’em? Yes,” replied Hy; “but see where he’s sent the ball. My nose
feels like a mashed potato. Zeb, we must get him to teach us how, and
then we can whale all Rodney.”

“And all Rodney stands in moral need of chastisement,” responded Zeb.
“I must consult the deacons about it, first one I meet. Are you sure
which side you are on, Hiram?”

“Not exactly,” growled Hiram, “but Bar Vernon’s on the winning side,
whichever it is.”

“That’s it,” said Zeb. “I don’t propose to have any more personal
collisions with Mr. Vernon. He is a very excellent young man.”

But the game of ball, with all its manifold perplexities, was played
out at last, and Zebedee was expressing his satisfaction at the result
to Bar and Val, when his left eye caught a glimpse of George Brayton
coming up the street, and he remarked as much.

“Then,” said Bar, “I must go home and have my Greek lesson.”

“Greek?” exclaimed Zeb. “Is not that one of the ancient tongues?”

“Why, yes, I suppose so,” said Bar. “I looked into it for the first
time to-day.”

“Give me your hand,” said Zeb, enthusiastically. “I’m proud to meet a
man of your age who can say that. But do you really mean to study it
this time?”

“Of course. That’s what I came here for--Greek and the rest of it.”

“Then so will I,” said Zeb. “I have striven for years to stir up old
Sol and myself on the Greek question, but have failed.”

A mournful failure it had been, although Zeb had not been a bad scholar
in some other branches. He had studied, in fact, as most boys do under
teachers like Dr. Dryer, very much as it had pleased him.

As a general thing it does not please them to do much hard work in
Greek, and so they end by knowing even less about it than do their
“instructors,” to put it very strongly.

Bar and Val were off now to join Brayton, and in a few minutes more
the latter had begun to forget his pleasant “drive” in his curiosity
over the results of Bar’s first attempt at the grand old language.

It was little more than very successful “memorizing,” of course, but
Brayton saw that a good deal could be done with a memory like that, and
he was especially delighted at having so promising a pupil.

He was not yet so experienced or so enthusiastic a teacher as to have
rejoiced over the acquisition of a “dull boy.”

No teacher is a thoroughly good one till he reaches that point.

When he gets to it, however, he is safe to enjoy himself for the
remainder of his life, for the supply of dull boys is as sure as frost
in November.

“Pretty tough game of ball you boys had to-day,” said Brayton, after
the lesson was over.

“Good game,” said Val. “Bar plays like a professional.”

“Is that the way so many of them got battered?” asked Brayton.

“No, sir,” said Val; “they got that in the boxing lesson.”

“Boxing lesson?” exclaimed Brayton. “Why didn’t you use gloves?”

“They were in too much of a hurry for that,” replied Bar. “In fact, Dr.
Dryer seemed to disapprove of it. He came out and stopped us before it
was finished.”

“Hum! Yes. I think I see how it was,” said Brayton. “You’d better wear
gloves next time, Bar. You’ve knocked quite a piece of skin off your
left hand.”

“That?” said Bar. “Oh, Hy Allen ran his head against it. He has a very
hard head.”

Brayton took Bar’s injured hand and deliberately felt of his arm,
muttering to himself:

“Hard as iron. How came he ever to get into such training as that at
his age? Something very unusual,” and then he added aloud: “I think
I’ll get you to help me keep the peace this term. Hy Allen won’t want
to try that again very soon, and I think the rest will agree with him.”

If Brayton had but known it, Zeb Fuller and his friends were “agreeing”
to that very thing at that moment, as they gathered in council around
the log at the mill-dam. Their coming determination was expressed in
the words of Bill Jones.

“Tell ye what, fellers, we shan’t feel sure about them city chaps till
we’ve had ’em down here for a swim. We didn’t let ’em come last term,
you know.”

“That’s true,” replied Zeb Fuller. “It’s our duty to see they keep
themselves clean. Oh, if I could but persuade Solomon to soak in the
pond for a while at the bottom of it!”




CHAPTER XXII

GHOSTS IN THE ACADEMY BELFRY


There was one man who had never been able to get Bar Vernon fairly out
of his head since the first day he saw him, and that man was old Judge
Danvers.

Not but that the busy lawyer had plenty of other things to occupy him,
but there was something in Bar and his mysterious “old time” which was
well calculated to excite the curiosity of one whose whole life had
been spent in solving “riddles” of one kind or another.

“That black valise,” he said to himself. “I admire Bar’s honesty about
it, and of course he must keep his word, but I’m under no such bond. I
think I must manage to get hold of that Major Montague. He’ll be a hard
one to find, if he chooses to keep out of the way. Sorry Dr. Manning
didn’t temporize with him a little. I doubt if he will come near my
office again. There’s something about the premises that doesn’t suit
his fancy.”

Major Montague had reasons of his own for not fancying anything which
reminded him of the law, but just now, as we have seen, he would have
been meeting the wishes of Judge Danvers a good deal more than halfway
if it had not been for insurmountable difficulties.

The old lawyer was in quite a “brown study” over what might or might
not be the best way to find the Major, when his office-boy brought him
in a card, and with it a note of introduction.

“Ashbel Norton!” said the Judge, as he glanced at the card and
then opened the note. “Ah, an Englishman. Brown Brothers, bankers.
Introduction enough for any man. Show the gentleman in.”

A very English-looking person, indeed, with light hair and whiskers,
and it seemed to the judge that he very much resembled somebody he
knew, though he could not say whom.

The usual formalities of such a call were rapidly completed, for, as
the banker’s introduction had stated, the stranger required the old
lawyer’s professional advice and services.

“Very curious case, indeed,” he said, as he laid a bundle of papers on
the table. “Involves family secrets--very unpleasant things, you know.
Not the affair I’d intrust to any ordinary man, I assure you. There’s
really a good deal at stake, my dear sir.”

The Judge dryly professed his readiness to pay attention, although he
could not, somehow, prevent his thoughts even then from wandering to
Bar Vernon and Major Montague.

Whether or not the stranger was favorably impressed with the manner of
his “counsel,” he promptly began to open his budget, accompanying the
action with such verbal explanations as seemed to be required.

It was a strange story, though Judge Danvers had heard others somewhat
resembling it, and before long he found himself taking a deeper and
deeper interest, and Mr. Norton expressed himself surprised, in their
subsequent conversation, at finding how thoroughly the lawyer had made
himself acquainted with the outlines of his case.

“The first thing to be done,” remarked the Judge, “is to set the
detectives on the track of all these items of information. They are
very slender as yet. Mere hints. That will take time.”

“Of course,” replied Mr. Norton, “I expect that. Am ready to spend as
much time, and money, too, as may be necessary. I am quite at your
service.”

“Then take a trip of a week to Niagara, or any other place where you
can enjoy yourself, and by the time you return I will be ready to
report what I have discovered.”

“Can I not aid you in your proposed search?”

“After that,” replied the Judge. “Is not this your first visit to
America?”

“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Norton.

“Then try to make the most of it,” said Judge Danvers. “There’s no
telling where you may have to travel before we get through.”

Mr. Ashbel Norton was apparently a gentleman accustomed to having his
own way, but he was old enough to know there was little to be gained
in a dispute with a lawyer, and so, after answering a legion of what
seemed to him unimportant questions, he bowed himself out, promising to
return at the end of the week.

“Very curious affair,” growled Judge Danvers, after his new client had
departed. “Now I’ve two family mysteries on my hands--one from England,
and one from I don’t know where. Well, I’ll set the wires a-working on
this one, but, for all that, I won’t neglect the other. I must find
that rascal, Montague, and then I must write to Barnaby. No, not that,
I must go to see him; but I’d like to find the Major first.”

A busy head was that of the old lawyer that afternoon and evening, what
with one case and another; but not one whit more active than had been
the brains of the two youngsters, away up there in Ogleport.

At the supper table Brayton remarked to Mrs. Wood:

“The sun went down in a great pile of clouds. Looks very much as if a
storm were brewing.”

“’Bout time for one,” replied the landlady. “I kind o’ feel it in my
bones. Not that I’m at all superstitious, only maybe it’s rheumatism.”

“Superstitious?” remarked Val, maliciously. “Mr. Brayton, do you
believe in ghosts?”

Brayton had heard all that there was to hear about the village legends,
and he was just “boy” enough to answer:

“Can’t say, Val; but I never saw one.”

“Or heard one?” asked Bar.

“No, nor heard one,” said Brayton; “but I believe I should like to.”

“Ghosts!” exclaimed Mrs. Wood. “I s’pose it was ghosts that tied poor
Dr. Dryer’s dun heifer to the bell rope.”

“Exactly,” said Brayton. “That’s the kind I imagine there are more of
than any other. All very good ghosts till they are found out.”

“They haven’t found out that one,” said Val.

“Not yet they haven’t,” snapped Mrs. Wood; “but I believe his right
name is Zebedee Fuller.”

“Nothing very ghostly about Zeb,” said Bar.

“Nor the heifer,” added Val.

Just then there came a pretty good gust of wind through the open window
of the dining-room, and the two young conspirators could scarcely avoid
a sly glance into each other’s eyes.

It was a very quick flash of a glance, but George Brayton caught it.

He could not guess at its meaning just then, but he stored it away in
his memory for future reference, for it meant, as plainly as anything
could, “Fun a-coming. Wait and see.”

So he determined to do that very thing, and went on with his supper.

The night promised to be a dark and stormy one by the time the boys had
a chance to look out on it. All the more so because the weather seemed
disposed to take its own time in getting ready.

The two friends retired to their own room, and Bar astonished Val by
actually going to work on his books.

“You’re a queer fellow,” said Val. “Why, I’m all ears.”

“So am I,” said Bar, “but I mean to improve my time, for all that. This
wind’ll do our work for us without any help of ours. Seems as if it was
getting more and more westerly all the while.”

Nevertheless, it required all the resolution Bar could muster to do
anything worth while with his Greek, and Val vainly endeavored to find
anything interesting in one of Kingsley’s best novels.

So long a time went by, in fact, that even Bar began to have half a
fear that his machinery had got “stuck” in some way.

So it had, for there had been more than a little rust on those old
wheels, and, in spite of the oil, the “wing” had to work back and forth
a good while before it had rubbed them into anything like easy running
order.

Then the wind, too, at first, had come only in fitful and insufficient
gusts, and not from the right direction, and so the good people of
Ogleport, early sleepers and early risers, had a fine opportunity to
stow themselves away in bed before the “ghosts” got fairly loose in the
belfry.

Not all of them were sufficiently easy in their minds to go to sleep
at once, however, and Mrs. Dryer had just remarked to the Doctor, as a
sort of clincher to a good many other things she had been saying:

“Fond of fast horses, too, Dr. Dryer; that’s the kind of man you’ve
got. The Academy’s all going to destruction. Riding ’round the country
in buggies. Effie, too, what do you say to that? Boys fighting on the
green and calling it boxing lessons. Threatening to drown you in the
mill-pond. Tying your cow’s horns to the bell-rope. Buying boats on the
lake----”

“Dorothy Jane,” began the principal, but he was suddenly interrupted
by a deep, mournful, booming sound from the Academy belfry, and an
exclamation from his wife.

“Mercy on us, Doctor, what’s that?”

“Dorothy Jane,” replied the Doctor, as he slowly arose in bed, “can it
be within the compass of mundane possibilities that that outrageous
cow----”

“The cow? Poor thing!” returned his “third,” disdainfully. “Ain’t you
ashamed, Dr. Dryer! Do you suppose she’d be out on such a night as
this? Listen to the rain on the window. There it is again!”

“Dorothy Jane!” exclaimed the Doctor, as he sprang to his feet and
began to dress himself, “this proceeding should arouse all Ogleport!”

“That bell!” mourned Mrs. Dryer.

“Yes, indeed!” replied the Doctor. “It’s a terrible affliction.”

George Brayton also heard the first sound made by the bell, and it
somehow put him in mind of his two young friends, although he well
knew they were at that very moment in their room.

He was sure of it, if from nothing else, by the unnecessary amount of
racket Bar Vernon was making in getting on his boots.

Fiercer and higher rose the strength of that reckless wind from the
west, and louder and more prolonged, though terribly irregular were the
clamorous peals from the Academy belfry, till not a sleeper remained in
all Ogleport, except the stone-deaf grandmother of Zeb Fuller’s friend,
William Jones.

The worst puzzled pair of ears in all the village, however, were those
of Zebedee himself.

Not only on account of the bell, but because Deacon Fuller had deemed
that tolling a direct summons to the bedroom of his son, and it had
required all his fatherly faith in Zeb’s truthfulness to convince him
that the mischief, whatever it might be, would never be traced across
his own threshold.

That was very bad--so bad that Zeb enjoyed the rare luxury of looking
upon himself in the character of injured innocence, but the very worst
of it was that here was something going on in his own Ogleport of
which he knew no more than did “old Sol” himself.

“This must be looked to, father!” he solemnly declared. “It can hardly
be the dun heifer can so soon again have forgotten herself. There’s
been nothing going on that I know of, that the old bell need wake
up and toll about at this time o’ night. We’d better go and make an
investigation.”

There were plenty more of the same way of thinking, and now they were
gathering at the Academy door, some with umbrellas and some without,
and not a few of them had brought along their lanterns.

And now the door was opened by the Rev. Dr. Dryer in person, as on the
previous occasion, and the whole crowd, variously half-clad, were glad
enough to get in out of the rain.

There was the mystery, however, right before them.

No rope, no cow, and the old bell banging ceaselessly away, up there in
the steeple.

“She’s working tip-top,” whispered a cautious voice in Bar Vernon’s
ear. “You said as how the fun’d come the first windy night, and I
footed it over arter my sheer. It’s most as good as boat-buildin’.”

“All right, Puff; only keep still,” returned Bar. “Let’s see what
they’ll do about it.”

There were other volunteers to go up with George Brayton that night,
however, and although Zebedee Fuller crept along behind one of the
trustees, he did not seem disposed to make himself at all conspicuous.

He had noted the presence of Bar and Val, but had promptly dismissed
them from his calculations with the silent question:

“What do city fellows know about bells?”

Not much, perhaps, but the dripping investigators soon began to suspect
that they themselves knew even less, for they failed to detect any sign
of rope on the second floor.

“Now, my friends!” exclaimed the principal, triumphantly, “whoever the
perpetrators may be, we are reasonably assured of their capture. They
have lingered too long in the steeple!”

“Looks like it,” muttered Zeb; “nobody ever engineered a dun heifer
up those crooked stairs. It was a tough enough job to get her into the
lower hall.”

But not on the stairs, nor even to the adventurous eyes which shortly
afterwards peered out upon the “deck” above, did there appear any sign
of boy or man or apple-hunting cow.

Such a gale as was sweeping through the sashless frame of the
bell-tower and across the vacant level of the deck at that moment!

It laid the wing of Bar Vernon’s subtle invention so very flat that the
tolling ceased and even the uplifted lanterns failed to discover it.

The combined light of the latter, moreover, convinced the keen eyes of
George Brayton that no human form was lurking among the cross-pieces of
the bell-frame in its nook overhead.

“Not a living soul, there or here,” solemnly exclaimed one of the
trustees.

“No rope,” added another.

“It’s an awful mystery,” exclaimed a third.

“Ghosts from Mrs. Wood’s,” suggested a sepulchral voice behind them,
and although they all knew it came from the lips of Zebedee Fuller,
there was a very general disposition to regard their search as
completed.

“He’s got away, whoever he was,” remarked George Brayton, “but the
question is, how?”

Did the bell mean to laugh at them?

They were halfway down the stairway just then, and the tolling burst
forth in a sudden fit of half frantic violence that almost made one of
the trustees lose his footing.

That was quite enough for George Brayton, however, and he quietly said
to the rest:

“I’m going back. Please tell Mr. Vernon I wish he would come up here.”

“Now you’re in for it,” said Val, as he heard the message delivered.

“No, Val,” said Bar, “it’s all right. If I don’t go up they’ll find it
out. I must shut it off for this time.”

“Shall I come along?”

“Better not. One’s enough.”

One would indeed have been enough, and Zeb Fuller made two. That would
have been altogether too much, if there had not somehow dimly dawned on
Zebedee’s mind the idea that it was his duty to keep George Brayton’s
attention as much as possible.

Bar found the two sitting together at the top of the stairs waiting for
him, but he stepped lightly past them and out upon the deck.

It was the work of an instant, as he seemed to peer out upon the roof
through that western window. The end of the rope was detached from the
lower “arm” of the van and there was no danger of any more noise just
then.

“Vernon,” said Brayton, “do you think you could climb up there such a
night as this without danger?”

“Certainly,” said Bar.

“Will you?”

Bar’s reply, to the intense admiration of Zeb Fuller, who would
scarcely have undertaken it himself, except as out-and-out “mischief,”
was to climb rapidly and lightly up, till he reached the rafters beside
the bell.

“Nobody here, Mr. Brayton,” he shouted. “Nobody’d want to sit here and
toll, anyhow!”

“Come down, then. I thought as much,” replied Brayton.

Bar was down with the rapidity of a young monkey, for he now knew every
inch of the way.

“Have you examined the roof?” he asked of Brayton.

“No,” was the reply; “it’s too wet and slippery for any one to venture
on to-night, and it’s too dark for us to see all over it. I’m afraid
we’ll have to give it up.”

They waited for sometime, nevertheless, visited at brief intervals by
other watchers from below, but no renewal of the mysterious sounds
disturbed them.

In fact, the wind was dying away now, having lasted a good while for a
summer gust, and when at last Brayton led the way down-stairs, Zeb went
next, and Bar had a precious moment in which he was able to step back
and once more slip the end of the tolling-rope over the arm of the van.

“It won’t do any harm, right away,” he thought, “and there’s no telling
when I may have another chance to get up here.”

Once or twice, in the remaining course of that eventful night, faint
efforts at a clangor moaned across the green through the still falling
rain, but there was not enough of them to draw the villagers again from
their houses.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE BELL MYSTERY REMAINS UNSOLVED


To say that the usual amount of sleeping was done in Ogleport that
night would be to trifle with truth but, for all that, everybody was
astir bright and early the next morning.

Why not, when there would be so remarkable an opportunity for everybody
to ask everybody else:

“What do you think about it?”

Even Zeb Fuller’s name was less frequently on the lips of men than on
the former occasion, for this was something apparently beyond him.

And yet Zeb’s “chores” had been done at railway speed that morning, and
there was that in his eyes which might have been very suggestive to a
man that knew him well.

Hardly had Bar and Val finished their breakfast before word was brought
them by Mrs. Wood that the Fuller boy was asking for them. “And you’d
better look out for him or he’ll get you into all sorts of difficulty.”

Zebedee’s errand was a very peaceful and proper one, however, for he
merely proposed to join them in their day on the lake, if they were
going, and to show them some things he reckoned they had not yet seen.

It is possible that George Brayton would have willingly kept Bar and
Val within reach that day, but they were off with Zeb before he had a
chance to offer any objection. Very quiet was Zeb, till the three were
well out of the village, and then he turned suddenly upon Bar, with:

“He’d ha’ found it out, after all, if it hadn’t been for me.”

“Why,” said Bar, somewhat taken by surprise, “did you find it out?”

“Can’t say I did,” said Zeb, as if ashamed of such a confession, “but I
knew that rope along the timber and under that wheel had something to
do with it. So I kept between him and that as much as I could.”

[Illustration: “HE’D HA’ FOUND IT OUT, IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR ME”]

“You’re a trump, Zeb,” shouted Bar. “I wondered myself how it was he
failed to see that, dark as it was, when they had so many lanterns. But
there they were, all of them looking up and couldn’t see it.”

“Brayton’s was the only good pair of eyes among ’em,” said Zeb, “and he
was looking up, too, most of the time. But will it toll again?”

“How should I know?” asked Bar.

“Look here,” exclaimed Zeb; “there isn’t another chap in or about
Ogleport that can do that belfry climbing. Brayton understands that as
well as I do.”

“I’m afraid he does,” said Val, thoughtfully. “If there should be a
wind this afternoon, now?”

“Oh! that’s it, is it?” exclaimed Zeb. “Why didn’t I think of that
before? I give it up. You fellows beat me. To think that I should never
have thought of the wind!”

There was little more to be done except to explain the exact
particulars, and when Bar had done that, Zeb stopped in front of him
and removed from his head the broad-brimmed and somewhat battered
“straw,” saying,

“Barnaby Vernon, you can take my hat. I think I must emigrate.”

“Emigrate?” said Val Manning.

“Yes,” replied Zeb, dolefully; “there isn’t room for him and me in the
same village. And yet I must remain and see how he and Solomon will
work together. Old Sol has his eye on you, my boy, but you needn’t be
afraid of George Brayton. I’ve great confidence in George.”

But the boys were not the only part of the village population that
continued to be exercised about the bell business.

Dr. Dryer instituted what he called “an exhaustive analysis of the
mysterious phenomenon” at an early hour in the forenoon, but he never
put his head above the “deck,” and he acquired no additional wisdom.

Brayton had deemed his own search of the previous night sufficient for
the present, and he had, besides, some private matters of his own to
attend to that day.

His morning mail had brought him news of some of these, and had sent
him to Mrs. Wood with a request that she would prepare a room for his
mother and sister, who were coming to pay him a visit.

There was no reason, thought his landlady, why he should get so very
much flushed in the face about it; but George Brayton did not care the
rest of that day whether the Academy had one bell or ten.

Mrs. Dryer did, however, and she talked “bell” till her pretty
stepdaughter could stand it no longer, but put on her bonnet for a very
aimless flight among her neighbors.

There, too, it was the bell, the bell, till poor Effie reached a state
of mind which led her to say to George Brayton, when she met him
crossing the green:

“Please don’t speak to me. I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

“About what?” asked the very much astonished young man.

“That dreadful bell!” exclaimed Effie.

“Oh! I’d forgotten there was one,” replied Brayton. “You see, I’ve good
news this morning. My mother and sister are coming to see me----”

“How very pleasant!” interrupted Effie; “and they know nothing about
the bell--there, my hat. Oh, dear me! there it goes again!”

There it went, sure enough, Effie’s very pretty hat, with George
Brayton after it halfway across the green, and at that moment and with
the breath of that one sudden gust, the obnoxious character in the
steeple had uttered a grating and sonorous warning that there was life
and mischief in him yet.

Just that one malicious effort did the village monster make, but that
was enough, and in five minutes more there were a hundred pairs of eyes
straining up at the steeple on all sides, and Dr. Dryer, accompanied by
his faithful “third,” was striding across the green with the key in his
hand.

Even in that moment of concentrated thought and feeling, however, Mrs.
Dryer’s vision swept in all the surrounding circumstances, and she
exclaimed, in the tone of an injured angel:

“I told you so. There’s Effie with George Brayton out there on the
green, and she’s bare-headed, too. It’s awful! There, he’s had her hat
in his hand. Doctor, what do you say to such doings? Are you a post?”

“A humble pillar, I hope, Dorothy Jane,” replied the Doctor, but there
was no time for anything more.

“Are you not going to help them?” asked Effie of Brayton.

“No, indeed. Why should I?” he asked. “There’s enough of ’em now. Too
many, in fact. Besides, if they find out what’s the matter, they’ll be
sure to let the rest of us know.”

It looked very much as if the young man was right, but the curious
part of it was, after all, that not one of that crowd, nor all of them
together, did more than rummage the Academy after hidden human beings.

They were all equally sure that there was no one up in the belfry, and
so that part of the building was left to keep its own secrets and those
of Mrs. Wood’s ghosts.

Meantime, George Brayton and Effie had the pleasantest kind of a walk
and talk, and Mrs. Dryer was enabled to bottle-up an immense amount of
wrath against her next meeting with her stepdaughter.

In fact, when that much-disturbed lady came out of the Academy, after
the fruitless raid of the villagers, she was unable to so much as even
smile in the bewildered faces of her neighbors, thereby sending them
all away with a deeper sense than ever of the gloomy depth of the cloud
which seemed to be settling over Ogleport and its Academy.




CHAPTER XXIV

MAJOR MONTAGUE HAS A VISITOR


On the morning after the visit of Mr. Ashbel Norton, old Judge Danvers
was opening his mail. He had spent a good part of the previous
evening with Dr. Manning, and the remainder with a pair of the best
“detectives” in the city. There was evidently something heavy weighing
upon his mind, for he tore open his letters, one by one, and seemed to
glance over them almost mechanically.

That is, he did so until, as he looked listlessly into one of them, he
gave a sudden start and almost sprang to his feet.

That was a good deal for such a man, but his next movement was to ring
his table-bell, and send out in all haste for a carriage, exclaiming:

“I’ll go to see him at once!”

Half an hour later, Major Montague had company of the most respectable
sort in the reception-room of his compulsory boarding-house.

The great iron-barred doors of the sombre building had opened almost
obsequiously, to admit Judge Danvers, and the Major himself had been
surprised at so prompt a response to his venturesome letter. Perhaps
he failed to see that nothing could better have suited the Judge, if
he cared to find him at all, than to find him under just those very
circumstances.

“You can get me out of this, easily enough,” he said, after a brief
conversation.

“Of course,” calmly responded the lawyer, “but I don’t see very clearly
why I should meddle with it. I’m on the other side, you know.”

“What other side?” asked the Major.

“Why, Mr. Vernon’s,” replied the Judge. “So long as you’re locked up
here I’m sure you won’t bother him.”

“Very true,” said the Major with a leer that was meant to be very
knowing; “but as long as I’m here I’ll keep my mouth shut as to some
things he’d like very much to know.”

“A year will settle that now,” replied the Judge, “if I don’t find it
out sooner. Meantime, he’s doing very well.”

“He might lose a good deal in a year,” suggested the Major. “I’m
really Bar’s friend, and I wouldn’t like to see him do that.”

“Then tell me what you know!”

“Not till I’m out of this,” exclaimed the Major, with great energy,
“and not till I see those papers. There’s things that nobody else can
explain.”

“Well,” replied the Judge, thoughtfully, “I think I’ll go to work about
you. Take two or three days, you know. And even then I’ll fix it so
you’ll walk right back here again if you break your word.”

Major Montague must have felt even surer about the lawyer’s power in
the premises than he did himself, so abjectly and earnestly did he
labor to assure the Judge of the honesty of his intentions.

A few days in prison will sometimes have a wonderfully quieting and
sobering effect, and the Major was just the sort of man to yield to
such an agency.

Judge Danvers left the prison feeling as if he had somehow stumbled
upon a very promising piece of work, but he had a good deal more before
him that day, and he meant to be out of the city on the evening train.

As for Major Montague, after the lawyer’s departure and his return
to his own very narrow quarters, he sunk upon his cot bed with a
remarkably sulky expression of countenance.

“I haven’t told him anything,” he muttered; “but he’s bound to know.
I reckon I can always keep some kind of a hold on Barnaby, but there
ain’t any ready money to be made out of the Judge. Never mind; I’ll see
my way to something before I get through with ’em all. See if I don’t.”

Bar Vernon’s affairs were in good hands, beyond a doubt, and no man
of Major Montague’s calibre was likely to “get up much earlier in the
morning” than Bar’s self-appointed counsel.

Nevertheless, Bar had a good deal of a surprise in store for him.

The days had now followed one another until the regular time for
“opening the Academy” was close at hand, and nearly all things were in
readiness.

“Bar,” said Brayton, that night, after another tug at the Greek, “you
and I can fix the rope on the bell to-morrow evening, can’t we, without
calling in anybody else?”

“Val and I can do it in ten minutes without troubling you at all,”
replied Bar. “If you’ll give us the key in the morning we’ll attend to
it right after breakfast.”

There was nothing dull about George Brayton, but he seemed to fall into
Bar’s proposition as easily as Gershom Todderley had fallen into the
mill-pond.

He must have had a good deal on his mind, indeed.

“Anyhow,” said Val, as they were getting ready for bed, “we must take
Zeb Fuller along. It’s only fair after what he did the other night.”

“All right,” said Bar. “School begins next day after, and we must have
Zeb pull with us or we’ll lose half the fun of the term.”

There was no difficulty in the morning in securing Zeb’s company.

The only trouble was in avoiding the additional presence of half the
boys in the village.

The first consequence was that Zebedee had a good look at Bar Vernon’s
invention, for which he had been aching, and the second was, that the
rope was rigged over the big wheel for ordinary “ringing” purposes,
without any special disturbance of the extraordinary “tolling gear.”

The latter had to be unhitched, indeed, but was left all ready for use
at any time when a high west wind should conspire with other favoring
circumstances.

“I can hardly understand, even now,” remarked Zeb, as they were coming
out of the Academy, “how it was that Brayton failed to discover that
thing at the time, or else to hunt it out afterwards. Depend upon it,
boys, there’s something the matter with George.”

He scarcely had the words out of his mouth before their path was
crossed by the very hasty feet of Effie Dryer, though where she could
be going was not so clear as Zeb thought it ought to be even to him.

One brief glance and a nod was all the notice she gave them, but in
so doing she turned her face full upon them for a moment, and Zeb
immediately turned to his friends with:

“Do you see that, boys? Euphemia’s been crying. That stepmother of
hers! Or can it be old Sol himself has been cutting up? It’s a very
distressing case.”

“Why so?” asked Bar.

“Why?” said Zeb. “Well, because that young woman has no proper
knowledge of the art of crying. The only thing she understands well is
laughing. I declare, if old Sol and his wife are going to put that kind
of work upon Euphemia!”

And Zebedee looked as if it might indeed turn out badly for Solomon in
such a case.

The rest of the day was so full of preparations for “school-opening”
that there was really no chance for anything else, and the Ogleport
boys were pretty generally on their good behavior.

Even Puff Evans was left to hammer away at his new boat, all day,
without the sign of a temptation to leave it and go fishing.

In the afternoon, however, when the stage from the north came lumbering
in, Bar Vernon and Val Manning had better been at home.

George Brayton was, and he had no one to help him in with his mother
and Sibyl. He seemed perfectly well satisfied about it, however, and
spent all the rest of the time with them till the supper bell rang.

Then, indeed, for the first time in his life, Bar Vernon found out what
a genuinely bashful boy he could be.

Of course he was glad to see Sibyl and her mother. So was Val Manning.
But then Val seemed so altogether at ease and unconcerned about it, and
did not once blush or stammer, while poor Bar did both.

In fact, he felt altogether unsafe about his neck-tie, his
shirt-collar, and the way his hair was brushed. He’d have given half
his money on hand for a good look in his glass up-stairs.

He was very sure, nevertheless, that there was not a prettier girl in
all the world than Sibyl Brayton.

He and Val did their best to amuse the newcomers during the evening,
and it was very good of Effie Dryer to come in and help them, only
Sibyl deemed her brother unnecessarily long in seeing the Doctor’s
daughter home, at the end of it all.

“The worst of it is,” said Bar to Val, when they were in their own
room, “we are to have lots of ladies and other visitors at the chapel
to-morrow.”

“Yes,” replied Val, “but it doesn’t amount to anything. They never ask
a fellow anything they aren’t sure he knows. It’s just for all the
world like an examination-day.”

“But that’s awful, ain’t it?” asked Bar.

“Yes,” replied Val, “it’s an awful fraud, unless one of the teachers
has a grudge against you. Then it’s a fraud, too, only there’s good fun
in it, ’specially if they’re at work on Zeb Fuller.”

The next day was destined to be an interesting one for Bar Vernon,
however, for other reasons than the arrival of Sibyl Brayton and her
mother.

The increasing numbers of the people of all sorts, scholars included,
compelled a transfer of the “exercises” to the “great hall” on the
second floor of the Academy building.

Bar rather liked that at first, but the stage from the South arrived
before the bell had done ringing, and the next thing he knew there was
an addition to the “distinguished guests,” as Mrs. Dryer would have
described the highly respectable people on the “platform,” that not
only deeply impressed “old Sol” himself, but sent all the blood in
Bar’s body to his head.

How he and the rest got through with the “opening” business he could
scarcely have told, but he knew there was something unusual coming for
him or Val, when he saw Judge Danvers waiting for them.

“Very promising young gentlemen, your ward and the son of Dr. Manning,”
he heard Dr. Dryer say, as they were edging their way through the
crowd. “My assistant, Mr. Brayton, has them under his especial charge.”

They were very near now; but somebody else was nearer, and had caught
the meaning of the principal’s last remark.

“Judge,” said Zebedee Fuller, gravely, as he held out his hand, “I’m
proud to meet you, but are you responsible for sending Bar Vernon to
Ogleport?”

For once in his life Judge Danvers found himself “on the
witness-stand,” and all he could say on the spur of the moment was:

“Perhaps so. Why?”

“Because it’s a very restricted sphere of usefulness for such a man.”

And Zebedee marched solemnly on as if unconscious that the eyes of
Doctor and Mrs. Dryer, as well as half the Board of Trustees, were
following him with anything but a charitable look.

“That,” said Effie to Sibyl, “is the genius of Ogleport.”

Twenty minutes later, Judge Danvers and Bar were alone in the room of
the latter at Mrs. Wood’s.

The Judge did not seem disposed to explain very fully the cause of his
coming, but shortly came to it in this form:

“You brought that black valise with you?”

“Of course I did!” said Bar.

“Hardly safe here. It ought to be under lock and key.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Bar, “but I’ve no place to put it.”

“Will you trust it to me?”

“Certainly, and very glad to do so,” replied Bar. “It’s only a trouble
to me. I can’t even open it, and sometimes I lie awake at nights,
wondering what there may be in it.”

“I’ve been almost up to that point myself,” said the Judge. “I want to
say one thing more. I will keep your promise for you as to opening it,
unless I can get you formally released from it. How is that?”

“I’ve nothing to say,” replied Bar. “I never did break my word, and I
never mean to. That’s all I care for.”

“You’re pretty safe then,” said the Judge. “But tell me, who is this
Mr. Brayton?”

Bar gave him all the information in his power, but Judge Danver’s face
seemed to grow more and more cloudily thoughtful all the while.

“Nice people, all of them, no doubt,” he said, at last; “but they may
or may not be good friends of yours. I won’t say any more just now,
only this: If you get a telegram from me to come to the city, tell
nobody but Val where you are going, or why, and just come right along.
Have you money enough?”

“Plenty!” said Bar.

“Then I must be off. Take care of yourself, my boy, and give my
compliments to that Zebedee Fuller. There’s the making of a man in him.”

Judge Danvers probably meant “The making of a lawyer,” for that was his
highest ideal of man--and perhaps he was not far wrong, considering
the kind of lawyer he had made of himself. And so Bar was left to
apologize as best he might to all inquirers for the sudden appearance
and disappearance of his “distinguished counsel.”




CHAPTER XXV

MR. ASHBEL NORTON


The evening after the “opening exercises” at the Academy, and after the
sudden appearance in Ogleport of the great city lawyer, and his equally
sudden departure, George Brayton was sitting for awhile with his mother
and sister in their own room.

“And so your friend is to be here to-morrow?” he asked of Mrs. Brayton.

“We do not know yet if we can call him our friend,” replied she, “but
I wrote him we were coming here, and he replied that this would be
as convenient as any other place. Now he writes that he will arrive
to-morrow.”

“It seems so like a romance,” began Sibyl, “I can hardly believe it to
be real, but----”

“Real or not real,” said George, “the legacy will pay off our
mortgages and make us very comfortable. So I shan’t have to drudge out
my life at Ogleport with Dr. Dryer. Then if the rest should come!”

“I feel almost sure it won’t,” exclaimed Sibyl. “Seems to me it really
belongs to some one else, and I hope he may get it.”

“Money is a very useful thing, Sibyl,” said Mrs. Brayton, with a smile.
“When you are older you may not think so lightly of it.”

“And yet, mother,” said George, “Sibyl is right. Besides, we are very
much in the dark till we have heard the whole of the story.”

Nevertheless, little as they might know, they continued to discuss it
until a much later hour than those commonly kept by the boarders at
Mrs. Wood’s.

Bar and Val, in their own room, were at the same time busily engaged in
a discussion of the several events of the day, including Judge Danvers
and Sibyl Brayton.

Bar, indeed, was more than usually frank with his friend, and Val was
beginning to take a deeper interest than ever in his remarkable chum.

“Depend upon it, Bar,” he said, “old Judge Danvers didn’t travel all
the way up here for nothing. I shall expect that telegram, now, every
day till it comes.”

“So shall I,” replied Bar.

Nevertheless, they were destined to go on “expecting” for more days
than were at all comfortable for the uneasy heads of such a pair of
boys, though Bar Vernon seemed to “bear up” under the trial of his
patience a good deal better than did Val.

The next day, of course, was crammed full of “school,” and Bar Vernon’s
first surprise came in the shape of a discovery that it would not be
half so hard as he had feared for him to keep up with the several
“classes” in which he found himself.

He would, as Brayton showed him, have to do a good deal of “back
study,” going over a great deal of ground that was all an old story
to the rest; but then, with such a memory as his and with plucky hard
work, he would soon make it all up. Especially as in several important
branches, he would hardly have to study at all, as yet, and could give
his whole time to the things in which he was “behind.”

That was a hard day’s duty for George Brayton, but he stuck to it
manfully, although well aware that his mother and sister and their
very important visitor were impatiently waiting for him most of the
afternoon.

He managed to elude Dr. Dryer at the close, however, and the boys
themselves were hardly out of the building more promptly than was the
new “assistant,” a circumstance which by no means eluded the keen eyes
of Effie Dryer’s stepmother.

“A mere eye-servant,” she assured the Doctor. “That young man seems to
consider himself entirely independent of your control. To think of his
going away in that manner, without your permission!”

Dreadful, no doubt, but then Mrs. Dryer would have given half her
teeth, much as they cost, if she had known who was waiting for him, and
what it was he hurried home to talk about.

“My son, Mr. George Brayton--Mr. Ashbel Norton, George.”

The two men stood for a moment looking at each other, and then the
Englishman remarked:

“Happy to meet you, Mr. Brayton. I’ve already said nearly all I have to
say, but we can go over it again, if you wish.”

“I should like it, indeed,” said George; “and it seems to concern us
both, if I understand it.”

And then followed an hour of very earnest talk ending with Brayton’s
saying:

“You seem to have done all that the circumstances required. If he is
not found, it will not be your fault. Of course, you were careful in
your selection of counsel?”

“Yes, indeed,” replied Norton. “My bankers recommended me to a Judge
Danvers, who seems to stand very high----”

“Danvers?” exclaimed George. “Why, he was here yesterday.”

“Here? Judge Danvers? Now, do you know that seems very odd indeed! How
very singular! And to think I missed him so narrowly. But, then, I
suppose such a man has a good deal of business on his hands besides our
own. I’m going on to meet him in a day or two. Indeed, he told me to be
gone a week, but I find I can’t stand it. No fun at all, you know, with
so much at stake.”

“I should say not,” replied George, but he found himself looking
straight into the eyes of his pretty sister.

Could it be that her quick and somewhat romantic young brain had caught
a glimpse of the same thought which was slowly dawning upon his own?

Whether or not, neither of them said a word about it then to each
other, or even after Mr. Ashbel Norton had retired to his own room;
and the stage carried him away next morning with no other apparent
result of his visit to Ogleport than a conviction that Sibyl Brayton
was the very prettiest girl that he had ever seen in America, and a
determination that he would return at once to the city and “see what
that old fox of a lawyer was up to.”

The day of his departure was a Friday, and when the Academy doors were
closed they were not to be opened again till Monday, for Dr. Dryer had
not yet perfected his usual plans for robbing the boys of the morning
half of their weekly holiday. That would be sure to come, in due time,
but as yet the entire day was free.

Bar and Val had been getting up a plan of their own, and it carried
them, at their very best pace, out to Puff Evans’s the moment that
school was out.

A long, fast, hot walk to be sure, but they found Puff delighted to see
them and to show them what really marvelous progress he had made upon
his new boat.

“You was right about Skinner,” he said to Bar. “The old weasel had a
feller down here, snookin’ ’round and askin’ questions. I jist showed
him everything and told him he could go over and see you, if he wanted
to buy any one of the boats. He didn’t come, did he?”

“No, and he won’t,” said Bar; “but we must have the _Mary_ all ready
to-morrow. You’ve never painted her name on her. How long would it
take?”

“Do it in no time,” said Puff. “Be all dry in the mornin’.”

“Then she’ll have to be called the _Sibyl_, for to-morrow,” said Bar,
with more color than usual in his face. “Paint it as nicely as you can.
When I sell her back to you, you can name her over again if you choose.”

“All right,” replied Puff. “That’s a good enough name for a boat,
anyhow. I’ve seen right big boats and nice ones, too, with the meanest
kind of names.”

Val Manning chuckled in Bar’s very face, as Puff declared his not very
complimentary assent, but Bar seemed to have nothing to say, and they
went home to supper.

“Now, Mrs. Brayton,” said Bar, just before they left the table, “there
isn’t a bit of danger, and I’m so glad you’ve consented. I’m sorry you
can’t go; but Mr. Brayton himself can take care of Miss Sibyl. Then
there’s one thing more I have to ask of her.”

“What’s that?” said Sibyl.

“Why, I’m only a boy, you know, and I wouldn’t dare to go over and
ask Dr. Dryer’s daughter to come, too. She’d be company for you, and
if you’d only do me the favor to ask her for me, I’d be ever so much
obliged.”

Bar could hardly understand why Mrs. Brayton’s eyebrows should contract
so suddenly as they did, or why George Brayton should so promptly come
to his support, with:

“That’ll be just the thing, Sibyl. She’s tried to be polite to you and
mother, and I’m sure she’d enjoy it.”

If Mrs. Brayton had meant to put in any objection it was too late now,
for Sibyl was even demonstrative in her readiness to secure the company
of Effie Dryer.

“She’s the merriest, sweetest, nicest girl,” exclaimed Sibyl. “She’s
years older than I am, but she makes me feel perfectly at home with
her. Of course I may, mamma?”

“Certainly, my dear,” was Mrs. Brayton’s half doubtful reply, but there
must have been a vein of mischief in Val Manning for he instantly
proposed to accompany Sibyl in her call at the principal’s house.

It was curious that both Bar Vernon and George Brayton should feel at
the same moment, as if they would like to see Val Manning tumble into
the mill-pond with his clothes on!

His goodness was its own reward, however, for he had the happiness,
shortly afterwards, of being smiled on by Mrs. Dryer and preached to by
her husband for a round hour, while Sibyl and Effie were having a good
long talk all by themselves.

When the latter came at last to Val’s rescue, however, it suddenly
became very difficult for Mrs. Dryer to look sweet, for Effie’s first
words were, “So kind of Mrs. Brayton, is it not, papa?”

“Doubtless, my daughter, but in what manner has she exhibited her
benevolence of disposition?”

“Why hasn’t Mr. Manning told you? She has sent Sibyl over to invite me
to a ride in the boat to-morrow. Mr. Brayton will go with us and there
won’t be any danger. I haven’t been out on the lake for ever so long.”

“I’m so glad you’re going,” said Val, promptly. “Puff Evans is making
another boat. I’m so sorry it isn’t done, Mrs. Dryer, as then we should
have room for you and the Doctor as well. We think our boat is a great
beauty.”

“Indeed she is,” added Effie. “If it’s a pleasant day we can sail as
well as row.”

To do Dr. Dryer justice, the thought of making any objection never
entered his head, though that was what got him into trouble after Val
and Sibyl were gone.

As for Euphemia herself, that merry but unthoughtful maiden saw so
clearly the signs of a coming storm in the now wintry smile of her
stepmother, that she actually put on her hat and walked across the
green with Sibyl Brayton and Val.

The latter had done his part to admiration, and was therefore content
to delegate to George Brayton the duty of seeing Effie safely home
again.

A long way home, considering the size of the green. At least, that was
what Mrs. Brayton made up her mind to before she heard her son close
the door of his room on his return.

Whatever may have been Mrs. Brayton’s thoughts, however, she wisely
kept them to herself.

So did Zebedee Fuller, although he remarked aloud, as he returned to
his father’s house that evening:

“Yes, I fully approve of that. Euphemia is a fine young woman, and
George is displaying good sense. I wonder how it will strike old Sol? I
hope he won’t like it. I’ve seen Dorothy Jane look sideways at George.
There’s every reason to hope she hates him. Wouldn’t that be a pill,
now? And they’d have to take it, for the property’s all Euphemia’s, and
she’ll be of age in less’n two years. I could scarcely have planned it
better myself.”

And Zebedee chuckled an exceedingly great and satisfied chuckle.

He had been over to see Bar Vernon about having a grand good time
on the lake, next day, and had been sharply disappointed at the
disturbance of his plans. Bar had finally persuaded him, however, that
there was plenty of room on the lake, and that he and the other fellows
might just as well get such boats as they could and have their fishing.

“And I suppose, Bar,” said Zebedee, “you and Val and the rest will know
enough not to interfere with us. If there’s anything in the wide world
that unsettles my intellect, it’s a young lady.”

“You shan’t be afflicted,” laughed Bar. “You may have the whole lake
except the very patch of water we are fishing in.”




CHAPTER XXVI

A FEW SURPRISING DISCLOSURES


When Judge Danvers returned to the city he at once set himself to the
completion of his plans for the liberation of Major Montague.

This was all the easier, because the very man who had caused that
gentleman’s arrest had done so without any intention of actually
bringing him to any “trial and conviction.”

Such a net as they had cast around the Major was readily untangled by
the skilful fingers of the great lawyer, even while he transferred the
whole of it to his own control.

As to the moderate sum of money it cost him, he never once thought of
that.

The immediate consequences were twofold.

The first, that Major Montague found himself that Saturday morning,
sitting in front of the Judge’s table in the inner room of his _suite_
of “offices,” to all appearances, at least, a free man again.

The second, that the moment the doors of the prison closed behind him
and he found his movements once more untrammeled, Major Montague began
to feel a strong return of his habitual “bumptiousness,” not to say
insolence, of disposition.

“I’m out now,” he said to himself, “and old Danvers’ll never dream of
sending me back again. Besides, I don’t half believe he can. Anyhow,
I mean to make some kind of terms for myself before I tell him all I
know. It’s the best card I’ve got and he must pay for it before he
plays it.”

Another idea, and one against the evil of which Judge Danvers ought
to have carefully guarded him, had been that he would go and poison
himself with “just about five fingers of old rye,” before he went to
the lawyer’s office.

Not that such a man could find anything like intoxication in a single
drink of whiskey, however liberal, but that it supplied him with the
very kind of wooden-headed obstinacy which he thought he needed, and
which fools of his kind--all fools who drink whiskey--mistake for
courage.

“I can face him down now,” he muttered, as he reached the door, “only I
wish I’d put in just one more real good snifter.”

Another, most likely, would have been followed by “just one more,” for
his prison fare had left him very “dry.”

There he was now, however, with the hard penetrating eyes of Judge
Danvers looking him through and through as he asked him:

“Did you ever see that black valise before?”

“It’s the one Jack Chills stole from me the day he ran away,” said the
Major, with a toss of his head.

“No nonsense, please,” calmly responded the lawyer. “Now, you’ve
promised to tell me the history of it and what is in it. Perhaps the
shortest way will be to open it at once.”

“That’s my property, Judge,” said the Major, in a voice which was
getting louder and firmer. “It’s mine, and I’ll open it when and where
I please. I’ll thank you to hand it right over to me.”

“Hand it over to you?” exclaimed the lawyer.

“Yes, or pay me my own price for it. I want ten thousand down, and good
security----”

“Pay you--you miserable jail-bird!” almost fiercely interrupted the
angry lawyer. “I’ll pay you----”

Under other circumstances, the manifest indignation of so dangerous
a man as Judge Danvers would probably have cowed the Major at once,
but the alcoholic poison he had absorbed had done its usual work. He
was--or seemed to be--perfectly sober, but the idea uppermost in his
mind at the moment, was that he could assert his ownership of that
valise, and that he had the physical strength to “clean out” not only
the lawyer, but his whole office full of clerks.

He sprang to his feet, therefore, and was reaching out his long,
powerful arm towards the black leather prize, when the door of the
office swung open, just as Judge Danvers struck sharply upon his
sonorous little table-bell.

“Mr. Norton!” exclaimed the Judge, whose usually placid face was fairly
purple with indignation.

“Norton!” echoed Major Montague, as he drew back his hand and turned to
face the newcomer.

“Davis!” shouted the Judge to the clerk who now put his head inside
the door, “call an officer and ask him to wait outside.”

“One here now, sir,” responded the clerk.

“All right,” said the Judge. “Sit down, Montague. Mr. Norton, I am glad
to see you, but I’m very much occupied at this moment. Please excuse me
till I’m done with this person.”

“Ah! yes, of course; I beg your pardon, really,” returned the
Englishman. “But, Judge Danvers, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to take a
look at your friend there. Did I hear you call him Montague?”

There was a strong expression of disgust on the lawyer’s face when
Norton began, but it was now rapidly changing to one of intense
curiosity if not of expectation.

That of Major Montague, however, had undergone an even more complete
and rapid transformation.

He had even made a motion towards the door, without so much as grasping
for the valise, but the assured presence of the “officer” in the outer
room came crushingly upon him, and he sank back on his chair in a state
of mind that was plainly too much for even the strength of the “old
rye.”

Mr. Ashbel Norton walked slowly and steadily forward, looking straight
in the face of the Major, and it instantly occurred to Judge Danvers
that there was a decided resemblance to be traced between them,
although the Englishman was somewhat the more slender and younger
looking of the two.

The only remark the Judge made was, however, “Major Montague--Mr.
Ashbel Norton,” as if he were formally introducing two gentlemen.

“Montague!” again repeated the latter. “Now, that’s very good indeed!
Bob, you old sinner, have I found you at last? What have you done with
Lydia’s child? Where are the papers? Montague, indeed! Judge Danvers,
I’m more sorry and ashamed than I can tell you; but I am compelled to
make you acquainted with my elder brother, Mr. Robert Norton, formerly
a gentleman and a Major in the British army. What he is now you may
perhaps know as well as I do.”

The most cowardly of all wild beasts, from a wolf down to a rat, will
show fight when he is cornered, and the “Major” was, probably, never a
physical poltroon.

Well was it, therefore, that Ashbel Norton had been an “Eton boy” and
was a master of the art of self-defence. Well too, probably, that
his graceless brother had no better weapon than his huge fist at his
command.

Ashbel warded off very skilfully the half-dozen furious blows which
were rained upon him, but without once “striking back,” and by that
time there was a heavier hand than that of Judge Danvers could have
been, upon the shoulder of the Major, and the “thud” of an officer’s
“locust” was beginning to sound on his head and arms.

It was a hopeless sort of business, and the sudden gust of
uncontrollable rage died away into a fit of utter dejection.

“Yes, Ash,” he exclaimed, as he was again forced down upon a chair,
“you’ve found me. I should have made it all right myself, in a little
while. I was making arrangements for that very thing.”

“Make it right, Robert?” exclaimed Ashbel Norton. “You make it right?
I won’t speak of the money you’ve wasted or the family you have
disgraced. I won’t say anything of the way you ruined yourself and
tried to ruin others! Make it right? Can you make it right with Lydia,
for all she has suffered, or with your own wife?”

“Ashbel,” huskily replied the now drooping and trembling Major, “don’t
speak of my wife. I saw her death in the papers, years ago.”

“And she died of a broken heart,” interrupted Ashbel.

“But Lydia,” continued the Major, “I can do something for her. I’ve
kept every paper and----”

“Robert,” exclaimed Ashbel, “Lydia, too, is dead, and that, also, is on
your own conscience.”

“Lydia dead? That, too, on me?” half vacantly responded the Major.
Whatever may have been on his “conscience,” just then, if indeed he
still kept any such thing about him, his mind was grasping at a very
different idea, for his next question was:

“And did she leave a will?”

“Indeed she did,” replied Ashbel, half angrily. “You’ve no chance
there. Judge Danvers has a copy of it in his safe.”

The Major stole a quick glance at the table where the valise had been,
but it had disappeared. That too, was now “in the safe.”

“And so Lydia’s dead,” slowly soliloquized the Major, as he bent his
eyes upon the floor. “And she’s made a will. That was a turn of things
that never occurred to me.”

“Nothing ever did seem to occur to you, except your own brutal
selfishness,” remarked Mr. Ashbel Norton, but the Major turned now to
Judge Danvers, with:

“I’m ready to hear anything you’ve got to say about that valise, Judge.”

“Say?” exclaimed Ashbel Norton. “I’m the only man who has anything to
say about that, Judge Danvers. You will understand that he has nothing
more to do with any of those effects.”

“They are in my charge,” quietly remarked the Judge, “not only as your
own legal representative, but also as counsel for the claimant in the
case, by whom they were deposited with me.”

“You have found him, then?” almost shouted Mr. Ashbel Norton.

“Perhaps,” replied the Judge. “At all events it will be necessary to
protect ourselves against any escape of Mr. Robert Norton. He must be
kept under lock and key till we need him again.”

“Judge,” exclaimed the Major, “didn’t you give me your promise?”

“And didn’t I keep it,” asked Judge Danvers. “And didn’t you break
your own, as soon as you thought you had a chance? Take him in charge,
Mr. Officer. I’ll come right along and attend to his commitment. Mr.
Norton, I must really ask you to excuse me until Monday at ten o’clock.
I have other persons to consult in this matter. I hope you feel assured
that your interests are safe in my hands.”

The Englishman seemed in a sort of brown study for a moment, but then
he held out his hand, saying heartily:

“I don’t quite understand it, indeed, but you seem to have done
wonders, already. The presence here of my unfortunate brother, so
completely in your power, proves that. So does the fact that you
seem to have obtained possession of the papers in so short a time.
I’d no idea the American detective police was up to that sort of
thing. Indeed, my dear sir, I trust the whole matter entirely to your
discretion.”

“And I shall see you on Monday morning at ten?” said the Judge.

“Without fail,” replied Norton, “only I can’t see how I’ll take care of
myself during the meantime.”

“You can manage that, I guess,” said the old lawyer, as he grasped his
hat and hurried away.

His first care was to see that “Major Montague” was properly secured
where he could be had when wanted, and he might well be pardoned any
lack of anxiety as to where and how Mr. Ashbel Norton should worry away
his time over Sunday.

The Major’s affair was a very easy and simple one, thanks to his hot
temper and folly, but, as soon as that was attended to, Judge Danvers
had an errand to the house of Dr. Manning.

His conference with the good physician was by no means a brief one, and
Val’s kind-faced mother was called in for her share of it, but when it
was concluded, Dr. Manning said:

“It’s really very wonderful, all of it. I’m very glad such an
opportunity has come to me. Of course, you can depend on me for any
amount of money it may cost to secure justice. How much do you require
now?”

“Money!” exclaimed the Judge. “Not a cent. Why, this is my affair. Do
you take me for a pauper?”

“Hardly that,” said the Doctor, with a benevolent smile. “You are
richer than I am, for all I know, but I can’t consent to let you work
for nothing or pay my law bills.”

“Your bills!” exclaimed the Judge. “Do you think a man has no soul
because he’s a lawyer? I know that’s the prevailing impression, but
it’s wrong in my case.”

“I believe that fully,” replied Dr. Manning; “but I want you to
understand that I have at least as deep an interest in this matter as
you have.”

“Well, then,” replied the Judge, “if I lose anything in it, I’ll call
on you for your check for half. Is that fair?”

“Perfectly,” said Dr. Manning. “When shall you send for him?”

“First thing Monday,” said the Judge. “I arranged that with him when I
was there. We’ll have this matter settled, or nearly so, before we’re a
week older.”

That was all very well for them who seemed to understand it, but what
of the two impatient boys up there in Ogleport?

What, too, of Mr. Ashbel Norton, fretting and fuming at his hotel, or
in aimless drives around the city?

What, more than all, of Major Montague, _alias_ “Major Robert Norton,
formerly of the British army,” as he drooped and muttered behind the
bars of his solitary prison cell?

“I never dreamed of this,” he said, as if reproaching somebody. “It
came awfully near it sometimes, that’s a fact; but I always thought I
could fend it off somehow. I always did, too, till that young rascal
caught me in a bad way, and run off with that valise. And so poor
Lydia’s dead, and she’s left a will! Don’t I wish I knew just what was
in that will!”

Very likely he did, but, just as likely it would not have done him any
especial amount of good if he had been familiar with every word of it.

He was only one of the vast crowd of human beings who “make their own
bed” and then have to lie on it.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE FISHING PARTY


That Saturday morning dawned fair enough in Ogleport.

To be sure, there were a few clouds lurking along the far away
outlines of the hills, but they did not seem to amount to anything in
particular; not even enough to justify Mrs. Dryer in bringing such a
very cloudy face to the breakfast-table.

She had said all she had to say, and that was no very small thing, to
the Doctor, before they went to sleep the night before and as soon as
they waked up that morning, but she had somehow failed in getting a
fair chance at Euphemia.

In fact, for once in her life, to say the very least, Effie Dryer’s
face was not altogether sunny. The usually smiling mouth had settled
into lines that betokened a mind made up and a temper not to be trifled
with.

It is barely possible that her father’s third wife had sense enough
to understand the meaning of Effie’s face, and so, although there were
clouds enough at that end of the breakfast-table, they followed the
good example of those on the hills and waited a better opportunity
before breaking into anything like a storm.

As for George Brayton, he had decided that the trip to the lake should
not be a “walk,” and Runner’s best pair of horses, in front of what he
was pleased to call a “baroosh,” were on hand in due time to transport
the sailing-party, lunch and all.

Mrs. Wood had taken especial pains in the preparation of the lunch,
and even Zeb Fuller would have been compelled to admit that there was
nothing “ghostly” about it.

There was a funny sort of smile on Mrs. Dryer’s face when that span of
horses was pulled up in front of the Doctor’s residence, but she had no
other use for it than to keep it in its proper place, above her teeth,
till Effie had taken her seat beside George Brayton and the “baroosh”
disappeared beyond the trees of the village green.

Then, indeed, her learned husband was glad enough to plead several
engagements with the Academy trustees and hurry away to keep them.

Prompt as had been the departure of Bar and Val and their friends,
Zebedee Fuller and his faithful cronies had the start of them and were
already tempting the perch and pickerel, when the “baroosh” came to a
standstill in front of the somewhat heterogeneous home of Puff Evans.

“It’s all right,” said Puff to Bar. “She’s ready, name and all. There’s
heaps of bait under the seat and it’s a right down good day for
fishin’. Only there may be squalls.”

“Squalls?”

The word lingered in Bar Vernon’s ear for a moment, but just then Effie
Dryer exclaimed:

“There she is. The prettiest boat on all Skanigo!”

“Why, so she is,” replied Sibyl, “a very pretty boat, indeed. What’s
her name, Mr. Vernon?”

“Name?” repeated Bar, as the color began to climb up across his face.

“There it is,” exclaimed Effie, “painted on the stern. Can’t you read?
S-i-b-b-l-e, Sibble. Why, what a queer name. Did Puff name her?”

“I should say he had,” exclaimed George Brayton, as he burst into a
roar of laughter. “Don’t you see, Sibyl? She’s named after you. Only a
few letters out of the way, that’s all.”

Poor Bar!

Puff was attending to something else just then, and Val Manning stood
just where he could poke his elbow into Bar’s ribs without being
noticed.

As for Sibyl Brayton, she did not seem to see where the fun came in,
but stepped right forward into the boat, like a brave and good girl as
she was. Even Effie Dryer followed her with a face that was all one
twinkle, but that did not let a single laugh get loose.

There was need of at least one term at the Academy for Puff Evans,
that was clear, and Bar was glad enough to busy himself with the
fishing-tackle.

His intended compliment had become a thing to be hidden from Zebedee
Fuller, lest it should be carved on half the loose boards of Ogleport.

There were only five of them, and the trim little craft did not seem to
care a fig for a lighter load, as she danced away on the blue waves of
Skanigo.

George Brayton himself was a very good hand with a boat and he handled
the graceful little _Sibyl_ in a way that made her passengers forget
how very badly her name had been spelled for her.

Miles and miles away, up the lake, sped the gay-hearted cruisers, right
past the spot where Zeb Fuller and his friends were steadily pulling in
their victims, until they reached a land-locked sort of bay which Puff
had indicated as a “sure thing for good fishin’!”

Here, indeed, the sail came down and the anchor was thrown over, and
Effie Dryer altogether forgot her stepmother in the unwonted excitement
of watching for nibbles.

The nibbles came, too, plenty of them, and Val Manning earned a new
title to his chum’s devotion by the forbearance with which he allowed
Bar not only to bait Sibyl Brayton’s hook, but to take off and consign
to the “fish-car” for her every finny fellow who was reckless enough to
bite hard and stay on in spite of her unskilful management of her line.

Effie Dryer had been on the lake many a time before, and had a very
good opinion of her own skill, but she was somehow contented to allow
George Brayton to follow the example Bar Vernon set him.

Fishing is sure to become tiresome in due time, however, even if the
biting is liberal, and before noon all hands were ready to see the sail
hoisted again.

Then there was a “voyage of discovery” up and down the rugged line of
the lake shore, to find a suitable place for their picnic.

Plenty of them there were, but it would not do to throw away the fun of
choosing, and at last they pitched upon a spot, at the head of a deep
cove, shadowed by great rocks and tall overhanging trees.

The _Sibyl_ was hauled ashore; the girls were helped out; a blazing
fire was kindled; coffee was made; the contents of Mrs. Wood’s ample
basket were brought to light; and then it was shortly discovered that
the best thing in the world to secure a good appetite was to take a few
hours of sailing and fishing on Skanigo.

It was at the end of the lunch that Val Manning once more covered his
unselfish head with glory, for he volunteered to look out for the boat
and the “things” while George Brayton and Bar Vernon took the young
ladies for a stroll among the rocks and trees, and up and down the
shore.

Splendid fun that was, but Bar Vernon was yet a good deal of a “boy,”
for one of the first things he said to his companion was:

“You mustn’t think I didn’t know how to spell your name. That was all
Puff Evans’s fault.”

“Then you really did name your boat after me?” asked Sibyl.

“Of course I did,” said Bar. “You are the only Sibyl I ever knew.”

“It was very kind of you,” she answered, gently; “and I think she is a
beautiful little boat.”

There was not a prouder fellow on or about Skanigo Lake at that moment,
than Mr. Barnaby Vernon.

That sort of thing could not last forever, though it might be ever so
pleasant, and Val Manning’s self-imposed watch at the shore was shortly
terminated.

It was not quite so warm or sunny just now, and if Puff Evans had been
within speaking distance, it is very likely he would have spoken a word
of warning, but the party in the boat had not the least idea in the
world that any danger to them could be lurking among the clouds and
hills.

Perhaps there was not, indeed, for their only real danger was in their
own ignorance and sense of security.

“Boys,” Zeb Fuller had remarked a few minutes before, “there’s a squall
coming. We’d better pull up the lake. City folks are all fools, you
know, and there’s no telling what may happen to ’em.”

Good for Zeb, only he came very near being too late, in spite of his
wise forethought.

The _Sibyl_, with her precious freight, had danced away lively enough
from the launching-place, but had scarcely made a mile before the wind
seemed almost to die out, so Val Manning suggested to Bar that they had
better take a turn at the oars.

“No,” replied Bar, “there’s more a-coming. Don’t you see that
dark-looking ripple out there?”

“Where?” asked Effie Dryer.

“There,” said Bar, pointing with his finger, “and--”

“Here it comes!” exclaimed Brayton.

Come it did, indeed!

There was no time to bring the boat around to it--no time for the
slightest precaution--no time for anything but a wild cry of fear
from the two girls--and then all five of them were floundering in the
mocking waters of Skanigo, while their beauty of a boat lay capsized
and useless beside them.

Half a mile from shore, and no life-preservers!

It was a good thing that the male members of that party could all swim
well.

“Look out for Miss Dryer,” shouted Bar to George Brayton; “I’ll keep
Sibyl up. Val, try to right the boat.”

George Brayton had felt a great pain at his heart the moment before,
but Bar’s words seemed to take it right away.

“Can you keep her up?” he anxiously inquired.

“Yes, George,” said Sibyl herself, “and he’s brought me an oar. You
take care of Effie.”

That was quite enough for one man to do, though Effie met the emergency
very courageously; but she could not swim a stroke, and the water was
becoming a trifle rough.

Val Manning had, at first, come very near being entangled with the
boat, and even now he could hardly understand how it was that his
friends had come to the surface and “paired off” so very nicely.

It may be because they had been sitting together and so have gone
overboard in company.

At all events, he saw that the most important duty of all had fallen on
his own shoulders, and he set about it like a hero.

“Cut the halyards,” shouted Bar, “and let the sail come down. You’ll
never right her without that.”

Val obeyed, for the heavy, water-soaked sail had toppled clean over
upon him the first time he tipped up the boat, knocking him under the
water.

Relieved of this impediment, it was not so very difficult to get the
boat once more on an “even keel,” or to swim around and pick up the
floating oars, but whatever of her cargo which could not float or swim
was already at the bottom of the Skanigo.

“Her gunwale is only an inch or so above the surface,” exclaimed Val.
“I don’t see how we are ever to bail her.”

There was a terrible whiteness on George Brayton’s face just then, and
Effie Dryer must have seen it, for she said to him in a low voice, “I
understand. You must leave me and swim ashore. You must save yourself.”

“Never!” he hoarsely replied, but it was a dark moment in the life of
George Brayton.

Just then, however, Bar Vernon caught hold of a piece of wood that
floated past him.

“Here’s the rudder, Sibyl,” he exclaimed. “Now put that and the oar
under your chin. Are you brave enough to float on that? It’ll keep your
head above water while I go and help Val.”

“I’ll do anything,” she answered. “Don’t be afraid about me.”

A rare girl was Sibyl Brayton, and in a moment more Bar came swimming
to the side of George Brayton with another oar and one of the movable
boat-seats.

“There,” he said, “that’ll help you keep her up. Val and I will bail
out the boat.”

Nothing but their hats, indeed, to start with, though the water was
not so rough now. Still the waves would splash over in, and their work
seemed almost hopeless. One inch. Then another!

If their strength and that of George Brayton and the girls would only
hold out!

“Bar,” exclaimed Val, “try and get over the stern without upsetting
her.”

“You try it,” said Bar; “you’re lighter than I am.”

It was a perilous experiment, for it endangered all they had thus far
gained, but in a minute or so more Val Manning was in the boat and
bailing for dear life.

Bar turned, every now and then, for a look at his other friends.

Sibyl’s face was pale, but she was steadily obeying his injunction “not
to try to keep too much of her above water.”

George Brayton was doing all a man could do, but it was evident that he
was fast becoming fatigued, while Effie Dryer seemed almost afraid to
look at him.

“If I can only get in and help Val,” groaned Bar.

But just then, sweeter than the sweetest music Bar had ever heard in
his life, a chorus of wild yells from boyish throats came to his ears
across the water, and around the nearest point of land he saw the
great, clumsy, scow-built punt which Zeb Fuller and his friends had
borrowed for their day’s fishing coming on at as great a resemblance to
speed as her crew of excited boys could give her.

“Overboard, all of them!” had been Zeb’s exclamation, as the scene
of the disaster opened upon him. “Pull, boys, pull! No time now for
remarks.”

Pull they did like good fellows, only it seemed to them very much as if
the heavy old scow were anchored.

“Courage!” shouted Bar to Sibyl; “there’s help coming.”

“Courage, Effie,” murmured George Brayton.

“And you, too,” she said, in reply. “Oh, you must keep up! For my sake!”

“For yours? Then, indeed, I will.”

They needed whatever encouragement and strength they could get all
around before the punt arrived, but then Zeb Fuller and Hy Allen
seemed to make nothing at all of pulling in the girls, one after the
other. In fact, Brayton was compelled to say:

“Gently, now, boys,” more than once, by way of moderating their
somewhat headlong strength and eagerness.

Bar had been on hand to help, but now he swam back to the _Sibyl_ and
clambered in.

That unlucky craft was beginning to be a little less water-logged, and
Zeb Fuller tossed over a big, rusty tin basin, with the aid of which
the work went on tenfold more rapidly.

“Saved, thank God!” exclaimed George Brayton, as he sank, dripping and
exhausted, on a seat of the punt, opposite to Effie and his sister.

Neither of them said a word aloud, but there was no doubt they were
saying the same thing in their hearts.

“Those two brave boys, too,” said Effie, a moment later. “I scarcely
know how we are to thank them.”

“And Zeb and his friends,” began George Brayton, but that young worthy
interrupted him with:

“No thanks, please, Mr. Brayton. It’s an every-day matter with us. We
get our pocket money by it. If the man’s drowned we charge only a dime,
but if we get him ashore alive, it’s twenty-five cents. We’ve done lots
of harm that way.”

“Harm?” exclaimed Sibyl.

“Yes, indeed,” said Zeb, gravely, “but then it’s so hard to decide, on
the spur of the moment, whether we ought to let a man drown or not. I
fear we are influenced too much by the odd fifteen cents.”

Worn out as he was by his long struggle in the water, Brayton was
forced to laugh at Zeb’s way of avoiding unwelcome gratitude, and Effie
Dryer’s face half lost the expression of deep, sweet thoughtfulness
it had worn ever since she came out of the water. As for Sibyl, she
was intently watching Bar and Val at their work, which was now nearly
completed.

In a few moments the _Sibyl_ was once more in sailing trim and the
picnic party could abandon the slow safety of the punt and start for
home.




CHAPTER XXVIII

TWO IMPORTANT TELEGRAMS


The results of that boating excursion were nothing short of “nuts and
honey” to Mrs. Dr. Dryer. Never in all her life had she been blessed
with so magnificent an opportunity to say: “I told you so!”

She said it, too, very abundantly, and what puzzled her, as well as
took away half the sweetness of her triumph, was the fact that her
unsubmissive stepdaughter did not seem to be in the slightest degree
cast down about it.

In fact, no sooner had Effie put on dry clothing than she seemed to
look back upon her day of danger and disaster as one whose happiness
had been absolutely without a cloud.

She praised the drive, the sail, the lunch, the boys; she even
expressed a decided liking for a compulsory bath in Skanigo. And then
she put on an obstinate fit of silence and refused to say another word
about it.

The rest of the population of Ogleport required further time and more
accurate information.

Their first vague impressions had been to the effect that Zebedee
Fuller had swum, five separate times, half the width of Skanigo, each
time bringing back with him a half-drowned man or woman, and that then
he had gone again and towed home the boat.

There were manifest flaws in that narrative, however, and little by
little the truth was presented and accepted; but even then Zeb remained
a hero, as usual.

Somewhat different was the state of Mrs. Brayton’s mind after hearing
Sibyl’s account of her adventure, and who shall blame her if, right at
the supper-table and before they had a chance to sit down, the good
motherly, excited lady half-weeping gave to Bar Vernon and Val Manning
a dozen grateful kisses?

Hysterical?

Say it for yourself, then!

The boys hardly thought they had deserved so much, but when a mother
has come so very near losing her only daughter, she has a right to
express her feelings in any way she chooses.

Perhaps, if Sibyl had been consulted, she might have remarked that
Val came in for an even share with Bar, when the latter was clearly
entitled to a majority.

The thought of rectifying the matter did not enter her head, doubtless,
but she felt all the more kindly disposed towards her handsome and
somewhat mysterious young preserver.

The next day was Sunday, and the only telegraph office of Ogleport was
not open, except for an hour or so in the morning, like the post-office.

The churches were, however, and they were all full, especially the
one in which Mrs. Wood had her pew, and many were the curious glances
directed at her array of remarkable “boarders.”

Even the members of the Dorcas Society were compelled to admit that
Mrs. Brayton and her daughter were “nice,” while it was well for her
son and his two young pupils that their vanity was spared the golden
opinions heaped upon their manly heads.

Very early on Monday, however, there were two telegrams brought by the
“messenger” to the house of Mrs. Wood. One was for George Brayton. He,
however, had no knowledge of the other.

It found him very busy over a letter that he had taken from that
morning’s mail, and which was signed “Ashbel Norton.”

The letter and the telegram were both read to his mother and sister,
and the former said:

“Well, George, this is as good a place as any. We will wait here till
you return.”

It was likely Mrs. Dryer would have another opportunity to say: “I told
you so.”

The first thing that George Brayton had to say to the principal, when
he met him in the Academy chapel, was to announce that he had been
summoned out of town and might be gone for several days.

“I do not see how I shall be able to spare you at present,” remarked
the Doctor, coldly, and Zeb Fuller would have noted the disuse of long
words.

“It is imperative,” said Brayton. “I cannot help myself.”

“But what will the trustees say to such a dereliction?” asked the
Doctor.

“I don’t know that I care much,” was the somewhat nettled reply; “but
as they are fair and right-minded men, they will doubtless approve my
going.”

Here was something for Mrs. Dryer; but the Doctor was not the man to
face so decided an answer, and he turned the subject with:

“But where is your young friend, Mr. Vernon? Manning is over yonder, in
his proper place.”

“Vernon?” said Brayton. “Isn’t he here? That’s strange. Well, he’ll
turn up. I’m exceedingly sorry, Dr. Dryer, but this is a matter which
may involve a large sum of money. I must take the next stage.”

There was really no help for it, but it might have interested George
Brayton if he had known that Bar, with a “traveling bag,” which he had
ready packed for days, had waited, his telegram in his pocket, just
below Runner’s tavern that morning, and had taken the early stage from
the North without losing time in making arrangements with Dr. Dryer.

The driver of the coach had no unnecessary scruples. To him it was only
one more passenger, whether he picked him up at the proper place or
not, and Bar was miles away from Ogleport by the time his absence was
known to any one but the faithful Val.

The latter, indeed, was in every bit as excited a state of mind as when
he was bailing out the boat the previous Saturday, and he kept as cool
and steady an exterior now as then, like the “trump” that he was.

Now it happened that when George Brayton walked away from the Academy,
he caught sight of a female form some distance ahead of him, walking
steadily away down the street.

“Ah!” he said to himself, “Mrs. Dryer.”

Precisely. No other.

And yet the young man made no manner of effort to overtake her, but
turned his footsteps, instead, directly across the green, towards the
home she had left behind her.

It was a safe sort of calculation to make, for Euphemia was there--and
no one else besides.

Considering how nearly they had come to being drowned together on
Saturday, it was in every way natural and polite that George Brayton
should wish to make her a farewell call before hurrying away out of
town on Monday.

Still, it is likely the doctor’s wife would have given something to
have been present at that interview.

It might have been interesting even to good Mrs. Brayton herself.

It certainly was to George and Effie, and the former went on to Mrs.
Wood’s afterwards, with a stronger feeling than ever that he cared very
little indeed whether school kept or not. Alas, for Effie Dryer’s peace!

No human eyes had noticed George Brayton’s entry of her father’s front
door, but a very human pair had seen him go away. After that, it only
needed that the cup should be filled with the news the Doctor himself
brought home at the noon “recess.”

“Euphemia!” almost frantically exclaimed Mrs. Dryer, “he is going. Do
you mean to say that you are going with him?”

“Not now,” calmly responded Effie, but with an extra flush on her face.

“Not now? What do you mean? Why not now?” demanded her stepmother.

“Because he forgot to ask me,” said Effie, demurely.

[Illustration: “BECAUSE HE FORGOT TO ASK ME”]

“Do you mean you would if he did?”

“If he ever does, I shall tell him, but I’ve no intention of telling
you, now or then,” said Effie, firmly.

“Dorothy Jane,” said the Doctor, with a narrow escape from being very
sensible, for once, “it occurs to me that Euphemia only displays a
suitable degree of feminine reserve and delicacy.”

“Feminine fiddlesticks,” replied his third. “This is what comes of
chemical apparatuses, and buggy-riding, and walks, and talks, and
upsets in the lake. I hope he’ll never come back, I do. Are his mother
and sister going with him?”

“I believe not,” said Effie. “There’s the stage, now; you can look out
of the window and see for yourself.”

Mrs. Dryer acted instantly on Effie’s suggestion, but the latter
stepped as quickly to the front door, and it was not in defiance of
“Dorothy Jane” that the white signal waved so gay a farewell from the
window of the departing stage-coach. And Dr. Dryer went back to his
duties that afternoon, with a dim idea that the schoolroom was a sort
of refuge, after all, in spite of Zebedee Fuller.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE BLACK VALISE IS OPENED


When Mr. Ashbel Norton called on Judge Danvers, according to
appointment, that Monday morning, he found the old lawyer alone in his
private office, with a small, black leather valise lying on the table
before him.

“Good-morning, Mr. Norton,” he said to his visitor. “Do you recognize
this at all?”

“Perfectly well,” replied Norton. “I have seen it a hundred times.”

“When and where?”

“In the hands of my brother-in-law, at his house, years ago. I could
scarcely say how often. He kept many of his papers in it, often matters
of value. It was a handy thing to carry to and from his banking-house,
or to put away and lock up anywhere.”

“It is part of the property, then, of which you came in search?”

“Assuredly. I should certainly claim it if it were not already in your
own custody.”

“I shall then proceed to take the responsibility of opening it,” said
the Judge, as he touched his little bell; “but I must have witnesses.”

In a moment more, two law-clerks were called in as “lookers-on,” while
another sat at a desk and wrote out an inventory of the various papers
and matters in the valise, as the Judge called them off.

“No money,” he said, at last.

“Of course not,” replied Mr. Norton; “we could trust Robert for that.
Nor anything he could handily turn into money. That is the will, beyond
doubt, and it has evidently been opened and read.”

“No harm for us to read it over again, then,” said the Judge. “I’ll
excuse you now, gentlemen.”

The moment they were alone, the Judge proceeded with a perusal of the
ancient-looking document, while Ashbel Norton listened.

“It is marvelous!” exclaimed the latter, at the close, “how nearly
my poor sister seems to have recalled every word of it. It was made
originally with her sanction and approval, and she has obeyed it as far
as was possible, under the circumstances. It will now greatly aid us in
carrying into effect the terms of her own.”

“The property seems to have been large,” remarked the Judge.

“Quite so,” said Norton, “and almost all of it in available
shape--stocks, bonds and the like. Very little real estate. My sister
had been well provided for, so that she was never cramped, you know, or
anything of that sort. Still, the whole thing was a dreadful blow to
her.”

“I should say it would have been,” remarked the Judge. “But did you
never, until now, have any idea in what direction your brother had
gone?”

“To be sure we did,” replied Norton, “and that was the worst of it. We
heard from him, or thought we did, on the Continent, in the Colonies,
in India, everywhere. We spent a mint of money in searches. This last
hint, you know, came from himself. He thought, perhaps, he might get
something out of us.”

“And now what shall we do with him?” asked the Judge.

“The very thing that puzzles me!” exclaimed Norton. “There’ll be
nobody to dispute the will, now it’s found. Indeed there could hardly
be any dispute about it. But we don’t want any row made or public
notoriety. We’ve suffered enough. All I want of him is to tell us when
my nephew died, if he’s dead, or where he is if he’s alive.”

“We will easily make him do that,” replied the Judge, “and then he’s
done enough in this country to have him put out of the way for years,
if we wanted to, but I’ve no malice against him.”

“Nor I, indeed,” said Norton. “Even my poor sister forgave him, and
she’d suffered more than any one else, unless it may be his own wife,
poor thing!”

Things looked pretty black for Major Montague, or Major Robert Norton,
it must be confessed, for the longer the lawyer talked with his English
client the clearer it became that there remained little enough of
power, either for good or evil, in the wretched man who had done so
much of the latter.

There he sat in his cell that day, nevertheless, scheming and
calculating and plotting for all the world as if he really had what he
called “a hold” upon old Judge Danvers. If he expected to be sent for
at once, however, he was very much mistaken.

Indeed, just as the Judge was about to start for home that night, a
sharp, alert, wiry-looking little gentleman stepped into his office.

“Glad to see you, Mr. District Attorney,” said the lawyer. “What can I
do for you?”

“I see you have put that fellow Montague in quod again. Want him for
anything?”

“Witness, perhaps, for a few days. Why?”

“Oh! that’s all right. I won’t interfere till you’re through with him.
Want him myself after that. Been looking for him this long time, only I
didn’t know he was the man till to-day.”

“Bad case?”

“Rather, I should say. Forgery, swindling, pocket-picking, all sorts. I
hardly know what’s on the list. Pretty much everything. Spoil him for a
witness.”

“Hold on a bit, then,” said the Judge; “I’ll turn him right over to
you.”

“All right,” replied the District Attorney. “I’m always glad to oblige
a man like you. He’s a bad one. Good-day.”

“Mr. Ashbel Norton need have no fears about his family name,” muttered
the Judge; “but how about all the Montagues? Their name’s going to the
penitentiary by a large majority.”

There seemed no help for it, and it was not any fault of Judge Danvers,
either.

That evening he had another long talk with Dr. Manning, which was ended
with:

“Of course, he’ll come right here. Send him down to my office with as
little delay as possible. I must have a talk with him before anybody
else knows that I’ve found him.”

Perhaps, after all, there was small need of so many precautions, but
the old lawyer could hardly have done his work in any other way if he
had tried.

As for Bar Vernon, it had seemed to him that morning as if there never
could have been so slow a stage-coach anywhere else in all the world,
and he caught himself glancing enviously at the telegraph wires. He had
secured a perch beside the driver on the box, and at last he asked him:

“What’s the matter with your horses to-day? They seem to go like
snails.”

“Snails, is it?” angrily exclaimed the driver. “S’pose you ask ’em? I
reckon I know how fast hosses ort to be druv.”

“Hullo, you off nag,” suddenly inquired Bar, as the driver had
suggested, “is that the best you can do?”

“Best I can do,” returned the off horse, with a toss of his head.

“Golly!” exclaimed the driver.

“What’s the matter?” again demanded Bar.

“Low feed,” replied the animal, or at least so it seemed to the driver,
and again he exclaimed:

“Golly!” and added a long whistle of utter astonishment.

“What do they give you?” asked Bar.

“Shingle nails and lager beer,” dolefully returned the now clearly
harassed animal. “Don’t bother me!”

“Think of it!” exclaimed Bar. “No wonder he can’t travel fast on such
feed as that. I can see ’em sticking through him, now. Poor fellow.”

“Poor fellow, yourself,” stammered the driver. “Look a-here, young man,
who be you?”

“Who am I?” replied Bar. “Why, I’m half horse, myself, on my aunt’s
side, and her right hand side at that. You don’t think they’d tell me
any lies, do you?”

“They did, though,” replied the driver, who had edged away as far as
the seat would let him.

Men of his class are not likely to be lacking in “cuteness,” however,
and it was not long before the truth began to dawn on him.

“Sold,” he said, musingly. “Jeff Rogers sold by a runaway schoolboy.
Sold on hoss talk, too. Who’d ha’ thought of sech a thing? But then,
how well he does it! Beats the perfessionals all holler.”

At all events, it helped a good deal to while away the time till Bar
was able to exchange the slow-moving coach for the swiftness and
comfort of the railway express train which was to carry him on towards
the city.

Little did Bar imagine what was or might be waiting for him on his
arrival, although he “imagined” at the liveliest kind of rate.

Trust a boy for that sort of thing.

Even the lightning express train, at last, began to seem as if it must
have been kept for awhile on some kind of “low feed.”

Nothing short of a trip by telegraph would have really answered the
requirements of Bar’s very natural impatience.

Small blame to him, therefore, if he mystified a whole car-load of
passengers by the questions he asked and the answers he obtained from
poor fellows who were stealing rides under the floor and out upon the
roof of the car.

He couldn’t help it, you know.




CHAPTER XXX

THE ACADEMY “GHOST” DISCOVERED


If Bar himself had passed that day in a state of ill-suppressed
excitement, he had left a very volcanic state of things behind him.

Before matters at the Academy had a fair chance to settle into their
customary routine, the news had passed swiftly from desk to desk
and bench to bench, whispered, penciled, chalked, everything but
telegraphed or shouted, that “Bar Vernon’s run away,” and this was
speedily followed by, “Mr. Brayton’s gone after him.”

By the time the scholars were let out for the noon “recess,” the same
messages, in various shapes and forms, had made the swift circle of
Ogleport, and more than one boy found himself confronted, at corners
of the green, by a more or less matronly inquisitor, anxious to “know
about it all.”

It was surprising, too, very much so, what clear and circumstantial
statements of the facts those boys were prepared to give, but if any
one among them faltered in his tale, that one was not named Zebedee
Fuller.

The amount of “faith” afloat in Ogleport was quite likely to be all
called for whenever the different inquirers at Zeb’s mouth should come
to compare notes.

“Val,” he dolefully exclaimed, as he encountered that young gentleman,
“you’ve got to help me out of this.”

“Out of what?” said Val.

“Why, Bar hasn’t run away and George isn’t after him, but what am I to
say about it?”

“Keep it up,” said Val.

“Keep what up?”

“Why, Bar is off!”

“Bar off? You don’t mean to say he’s cut it for good?” was Zebedee’s
almost breathless response.

“Can’t say about that,” said Val. “All I know is that he went away this
morning, and may be gone some days, if not longer. There’s a secret in
it.”

“Is there?” said Zeb. “That’s a great comfort. You won’t tell old Sol,
will you?”

“Tell him what?”

“Why, the secret.”

“Oh, I don’t know it myself, and I ain’t half sure that Bar does. He’s
gone after it.”

“And George, too, he must have a secret,” groaned Zeb. “I think I must
tell Dorothy Jane to keep a sharp eye on Euphemia. Val Manning, it’ll
be a bad thing for Ogleport to lose Bar Vernon just now.”

“Hang Ogleport!” exclaimed Val. “Think of me!”

“Yes,” said Zeb, with a look of deep sympathy out of his left eye,
“your case is a hard one. Val, don’t you think the wind is rising a
little?”

“Seems so,” said Val.

“And a bit westerly?”

“More and more west.”

“Val, the Academy ought to have a chance to express its grief over the
loss of Bar Vernon. You and I had better go and carry the sad news to
the old bell.”

Val felt as if that sort of thing would give his mind just the relief
he needed, and by the time the bell had finished its midday work of
recalling the boys to their studies, its last duty for the day, the
“van” in the western gap of the steeple had been securely hitched to
the tolling gear, and two agile forms were creeping down-stairs as
lightly and silently as cats.

“The wind will be higher towards night,” said Zeb to his friend, “but
there’s no telling when the bell may begin to express his feelings.”

Nevertheless, they both returned to their desks and duties with a truly
wonderful degree of firmness, sticking bravely to their books in spite
of more than one ominous wave of grating sound which came creeping down
upon them from the bell-tower.

There was that upon Dr. Dryer’s mind that day, which so absorbed
it that no ordinary interruption would have sufficed to secure his
attention.

Indeed, never in all their experience of him had his pupils been so
puzzled to get at the meaning of his “explanations,” while he once
so far wandered from an exact use of terms as to address Hy Allen as
“Euphemia.”

Hiram was afterwards compelled to thrash half a dozen small boys and
one large one before he could deliver himself from the consequences of
that slip of the tongue.

Hiram would rather have died than have submitted to being called
Euphemia Allen, or even “Effie,” much as he doubtless admired the
Doctor’s pretty daughter.

School was out at last, however, and Zebedee Fuller led the way to the
mill-dam for the accustomed swim.

He found Gershom Todderley and Patrick Murphy strolling about outside
the mill, in a way which plainly indicated their readiness to listen to
any kind of news from “up-town.”

Nor were they by any means disappointed either as to quantity or
quality, for Zeb relieved Val Manning of all necessity for answering
questions.

“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Pat. “Hear that, now! Begorra, that’s the
bill bruk loose again!”

“Ah, yes, the bell!” sighed Zeb. “Somebody has told the old fellow
about George Brayton and Bar Vernon.”

“That’s what it’s towled for?” asked Pat.

“Yes, Patrick,” said Zeb. “Do you s’pose it told itself?”

“That’s what it’s doin’ the noo,” exclaimed Pat. “It’s ownly a praste
can do anythin’ right for that same bill.”

“That’s my opinion,” said Zeb, solemnly. “Those ghosts from Mrs. Wood’s
are at it in broad daylight. What are we coming to?”

If the wind had been a steady one there is really no telling what the
result might have been, but the lulls were so frequent and so prolonged
that the intervals of silence became more difficult to comprehend than
even the sudden outbreaks of half-tipsy tolling.

“Come, Val,” said Zeb, as he and the boys cut short their watery fun
and began to dress themselves. “It’s time we were on hand at the
Academy. They’re pretty sure to get at it this time, and I’m almost
sorry we set it a-going.”

Stronger and stronger blew the western blast, as the boys marched up
the street and across the green, and wilder and more protracted were
the bell’s expressions of its sorrow for the loss of Bar Vernon.

“Quite a crowd of mourners, I declare,” remarked Zeb, as he pointed to
the assemblage on the Academy steps and scattered over the green before
it. “The bell has done well.”

A few minutes later, however, there was indeed a commotion.

There were more than a few of the female population of Ogleport whose
curiosity had brought them out upon the green, just when they should
have been at home getting supper ready; but now, out from the Academy
door, followed in dubious silence by her husband, strode the triumphant
spouse of Dr. Dryer.

“There!” she exclaimed, as she pitched Bar Vernon’s invention down upon
the grass, “it was that thing did it. All it needed was a woman to find
it out. That’s your ghost. Now, Dr. Dryer, I’d like you to find out who
put it up there. Zebedee Fuller, come here!”

Zeb promptly responded, with Val at his side, and there were auditors
in almost uncomfortable abundance.

“There, sir,” demanded Mrs. Dryer, pointing to the wreck of the van,
“did you ever see that before?”

“That?” responded Zeb. “Everybody knows what that is, I hope.”

“What is it, then?” exclaimed the Doctor, incautiously, and Zeb’s face
was all aghast with amazement at such a display of ignorance in such a
man, as he respectfully replied:

“That, Dr. Dryer, is a philosophical apparatus for measuring the
strength of the wind.”

“Zebedee!” exclaimed Mrs. Dryer.

“Strength of the wind?” said her husband.

“Yes, Doctor,” continued Zeb; “the harder the wind should blow the
louder the bell would toll. I have no doubt of it. Still, I should
prefer to have Mr. Brayton explain it to you, as my own information is
limited.”

“Brayton?” cried the triumphant lady. “I told you so. Don’t you
remember? He was up there every time. Of course it was Brayton. He and
that Vernon boy knew all about it. No wonder they ran away together. I
told you so! Come, Dr. Dryer, we had better go home.”

“Hot water for George when he gets back, I’m afraid, if not for
Barnaby,” muttered Zeb; “but the bell don’t seem to feel as bad as it
did. Come on, Val.”

The two were walking rapidly away across the green when they were again
halted by a softer voice than that of Mrs. Dryer.

“Zeb Fuller, what did you mean by laying that to Mr. Brayton?”

“I didn’t do anything of the kind,” replied Zeb; “it was Dorothy.”

“But you let her think so.”

“I?” exclaimed Zeb. “I never touched her. Euphemia, George is as
innocent of that bell business as you or I.”

Effie burst out into a merry peal of laughter over Zeb’s response and
the manner of it, but there were other curious questioners drawing
near, and she hurried away.

Away from that spot, indeed, but her father’s house did not come to
Effie’s mind just then, as the pleasantest place of refuge in the
world, and, instead of seeking that shelter, she turned her footsteps
towards Mrs. Wood’s for a bit of a chat with Sibyl.

A very excellent choice, but why should Effie Dryer have blushed so
deeply, when Sibyl’s mother met her in the hall and put her soft arms
around her and gave her such a sweet and motherly kiss?

So very different was that kiss from any that Effie had received from
her father’s third wife.




CHAPTER XXXI

GOOD NEWS FOR BAR


When George Brayton arrived in the great city that Tuesday morning, he
went directly to the hotel designated by Ashbel Norton’s telegram, and
neither one of them had the slightest suspicion that an earlier train
had brought a more important passenger.

The Englishman had a good deal to tell Brayton, of course, but it was
nothing compared to Dr. Manning’s talk with Bar Vernon, at an earlier
hour, before he sent him down to the office of Judge Danvers.

Poor Bar!

If his brain had been busy during his journey, it was all in a whirl
now, and the only real help he got was when good, sweet-faced Mrs.
Manning put her arm around him and said, as if she could not help it:

“Oh, if they had but found you before your mother died!”

That was just what Bar needed, for it brought the tears to his eyes,
and there is nothing else in all the world so good as a few tears at
the right time and place.

By the time Bar reached the law-office, therefore, he was as
clear-headed and ready-witted as the Judge himself could have asked
for, and the latter confessed his surprise at the way his young friend
comprehended every point of the story, and at the really important
things he was able to bring to light from his “old time” memory.

“There will be no difficulty whatever,” exclaimed the Judge. “Indeed, I
do not imagine Mr. Norton, or those he represents, will attempt to make
any. I never saw a case more entirely clear of doubt.”

“It’s all like a dream,” said Bar, “but I suppose it’s true.”

“True enough,” said the Judge. “Now go and get a lunch, for you must be
tired enough, with all these papers. By the time you get back, I think,
the rest will be here.”

Barnaby was glad enough to get a bit of sunlight and a breath of fresh
air, not to speak of coffee and oysters, although the latter were by
no means unwelcome.

When he returned to the law-office, however, he passed through the
outer rooms, to Judge Danvers’s own private door, with a heart which
beat more and more briskly at every step.

He put his hand upon the latch, but the door seemed almost to swing
open of itself, and then, as he entered, a tall figure sprang from an
opposite chair and a well-known voice exclaimed:

“Bar Vernon! You here?”

“Mr. Brayton? You?” returned the no less astonished Barnaby; but still
another gentleman was on his feet, and the voice of Judge Danvers broke
in with:

“Mr. Ashbel Norton, let me make you acquainted with your nephew,
Barnaby Vernon; Bar, my boy, this is your uncle, your mother’s brother,
of whom I told you.”

Barnaby and Mr. Norton were now standing, their hands tightly grasped,
gazing in each other’s faces, and the latter said, in a steady,
deliberate voice:

“Judge Danvers, there isn’t the shadow of a doubt. He’s the very image
of his father. Every member of the Norton family will swear to him on
sight. He hardly needs the papers.”

“But he has them!” exclaimed the Judge. “It was from his own hands that
I received them, when he engaged me as his counsel. Your brother Robert
has also repeatedly acknowledged him as his nephew, Barnaby Vernon.”

“Please don’t speak of him again, Judge,” said Mr. Norton, sadly. “We
shall not trouble him for his declaration in this matter. You are my
nephew’s counsel. May I ask who has acted as his guardian?”

“Dr. Randall Manning, one of our most distinguished and wealthy
physicians. He sent him to an academy at Ogleport, in this State, and
Barnaby came from there this morning by telegraph.”

“I wish I had,” remarked Bar, “instead of by that slow old stage-coach
and that railway train.”

“Fact!” exclaimed the Judge. “I believe I’m getting excited. Anyhow,
Mr. Norton, your nephew is in excellent hands, and I may say we are all
deeply interested in his fortune.”

“Please include me in that list,” interposed George Brayton. “I owe
Bar about as much as one man can owe another.”

“How is that?” asked Norton.

“How?” said George. “Why, he saved my sister’s life last Saturday, and,
I think likely, all the rest of our party, by his coolness and courage
and good conduct. I’ll tell you all about it some day. All I want to
say now, Mr. Norton, is that not only you find your nephew in good
company, but he’s a relative any man may be proud to find.”

Whatever of pecuniary loss or disappointment Bar Vernon’s “discovery”
was likely to bring to either of those two men, they seemed to be
equally glad to find him, only Mr. Norton exclaimed:

“Poor Lydia! If she could only have lived till now!”

And then he added:

“Judge, I really don’t care to see Robert again, and yet I can’t bear
to do anything against him. He is my brother, after all.”

“Make yourself easy on that score,” said the Judge. “The District
Attorney called upon me last night, with reference to a man named
Montague, and I think we need say no more on that head.”

“And yet,” remarked Brayton, “it was somehow on his account that my own
family are brought into this arrangement of the Vernon property, is it
not?”

“Only as a sort of reparation,” returned Norton. “Robert’s wife, whose
life he destroyed by his wickedness, was your mother’s sister, and
Barnaby’s mother, my sister Lydia, was tenderly attached to her. The
legacy you have in her will was her own to give, and was to have been
doubled if this will of Bar’s father came to light, so that property
could be reached. My own legacy is in the same shape. If, however, we
had found the Vernon will, and Barnaby had died before his mother, all
the property would have been hers, and your share and mine would have
been vastly increased. I’m glad enough, however, that he is alive to
claim it, for I have abundance already, and enough of the Vernon estate
comes to me by my sister’s will as it is.”

“And to me and mine, too, I should say,” exclaimed Brayton. “We
haven’t a ray of legal claim to it, otherwise than by will.”

“Then it seems,” suddenly remarked Bar, “that I am an Englishman, after
all.”

“Scarcely that,” said Mr. Norton, with a smile. “Your mother was an
Englishwoman, but your father was a New Yorker, and you were born
within three miles of where you are now sitting. You have to come over
and pay your English relatives a visit, however, as well as to take
possession of your property.”

“That can be done for him,” said Judge Danvers. “For my own part, I
should strongly oppose removing him from school at present. I wish, Mr.
Norton, you’d have a talk with Dr. Manning about that.”

“Both he and yourself have a perfect right to be consulted,” said the
Englishman, heartily. “We owe you a great deal of consideration in this
matter; Mr. Brayton, do I understand that young Vernon is actually
under your care at Ogleport?”

“Exactly,” said George, “and boarding in the same house. He has Dr.
Manning’s own son for a room-mate.”

“Dr. Manning’s own son!” exclaimed Norton. “Well, Judge Danvers, do
you know, this is all very remarkable? very gratifying? Considering the
habits and character of my poor brother, you know we were almost afraid
to find my nephew. Expected, of course, he’d be unfit for civilized
society, and all that sort of thing. It’s a very happy disappointment,
I assure you.”

“I should think it would be,” said the Judge, with enthusiasm, “and
it’ll get better and better, the more you know him. Why, sir, I meant
to make a lawyer of him.”

“Perhaps you’ll have a chance, yet,” replied Norton; “but he may prefer
something else when he grows up and has seen a little of the world.”

“The world, indeed!” remarked Judge Danvers. “I’m not half sure but
he’s seen as much of the world as an average Englishman already.”

Inasmuch as the important question of Bar Vernon’s recognition by his
relatives could now be safely regarded as settled, and his personal
presence was hardly required for the transaction of mere “law business”
between Judge Danvers and “the representative of the Vernon estate,”
Bar and George Brayton shortly left the lawyer’s office for a walk and
talk on their own account.

“And so,” said Brayton, “you and I are not even cousins, after all.”

“Queer kind of cousins,” said Bar, with a laugh, “but I am half sorry
for it. I wish I could call your mother my aunt, you see. I wonder if
I’ve any aunts over in England? I must ask Norton about that. How do
you like him?”

“Very much,” said Brayton. “But do you mean to go to England with him?”

“Not by a good deal!” exclaimed Bar Vernon, with great energy. “Do you
suppose I’d go over there, as ignorant as I now am, and let them all
find it out? No, sir! I’ll study ten times harder than ever, till I
feel I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s right,” said Brayton. “So you’d better go back to Ogleport with
me and I’ll look out for your improvement.”

“But will you go on teaching school, now you’re so rich?”

“I shan’t be so very rich,” said Brayton, “and it’ll be months before
I get hold of any of it. Besides, I’m under contract at the Academy,
unless they let me off. By the way, when we get back, I want you to
keep this whole matter a profound secret.”

“I will indeed,” replied Bar.




CHAPTER XXXII

HOME AGAIN


Mr. Ashbel Norton and Mr. George Brayton spent the evening of that
day at Dr. Manning’s, and the former had an excellent opportunity for
getting better acquainted with his new-found nephew and the friends he
had made.

The upshot of it all may be summed up, however, in the words of Judge
Danvers:

“Well, Mr. Brayton,” he said, “since you also are disposed to put your
affairs in my hands, there is nothing for it but for me to prepare to
go to England with Mr. Norton, on his return. Meantime, you had better
take Barnaby back to his Greek and Latin and mathematics.”

“We’ve been discussing that very thing,” said Brayton, “and that is
about our conclusion. For my own part, I do not feel justified in
remaining away from my duties an hour longer than is necessary.”

“I put the various law papers required in course of preparation,
to-day,” said the Judge, “and they will be ready for you to sign, so
that you can leave the city to-morrow night. As for Bar, he is a minor
yet, and all his business can be taken care of for him.”

“I will answer for his family in England,” remarked Ashbel Norton.
“We are all entirely satisfied that things should take the shape you
indicate. Only there is no need of haste, for, now I am over here, I’d
like amazingly to see more of the country.”

“You’ve all our splendid autumn weather before you for that,” replied
Dr. Manning. “There’s no better time in all the year. I only wish I
could leave my practice and go with you.”

And so it was arranged, but Bar Vernon took the Judge aside before the
evening was over, and said:

“But, Judge Danvers, how about Major Montague in all this? I’ve no
malice against him, in spite of all he has done. He seemed always to
have a sort of liking for me.”

“Or for the money he meant to make out of you, some day,” replied the
Judge. “When he stole you away, he thought he would be sure of a reward
for sending you back again.”

“Why didn’t he, then?” asked Bar.

“Well, so far as I can understand it,” said the Judge, “too many of his
own misdeeds were coming to light about that time, and he was compelled
to remain in hiding till things had blown over a little. Of course he
kept you with him and took some kind of care of you. It was all pure
selfishness. He seems to be a very bad man.”

“But ought I not to see him?”

“Not now, I think. There is no danger but that we shall be able to find
him any time we wish to. We will talk about it one of these days. All
I want you to do now is to make a man of yourself as fast as you can.
You’ve begun well, from all I can hear. Keep it up.”

“I’ll try,” said Bar. “I think I’ve seen what some things lead to
clearly enough.”

“I should say you had,” was the lawyer’s very emphatic rejoinder.

But, while matters were going ahead so very swimmingly in the great
city, there were almost equally busy times in Ogleport.

Val Manning found himself invited, that day, to a private conference
with Dr. Dryer. Not for any misdeeds of his own, as he was very
carefully assured, but to ascertain what he might know as to the sudden
disappearance of his room-mate.

“He did not tell me a word,” said Val, “except that a telegram from his
counsel called him back to the city. He could not say when he would
return.”

“His counsel? He’s very young to have counsel. Do you mean Judge
Danvers?”

“I suppose so,” said Val.

Bar Vernon was growing rapidly to the stature of a very large boy,
in the mind of the Academy principal, but he had unwisely, though,
perhaps, necessarily, admitted his ruling half to that conference, and
Mrs. Dryer broke in with:

“All an excuse, Dr. Dryer. I’m astonished that you allow yourself to be
hoodwinked in that way.”

“Dorothy Jane!”

“Don’t speak to me!” she exclaimed. “Who was it found out all about the
bell business? It’s your duty to write at once to Dr. Manning.”

“Yes,” said Val, quietly. “I should be glad to have you do that.”

But Mrs. Dryer had a good deal more to say, and she said it without
missing a word, in spite of the Doctor’s frequent attempts to interject
ideas of his own.

At last, however, Val was released, to find Zebedee Fuller waiting
for him at the gate, while Dr. Dryer was retained a close prisoner in
his study until he had actually written that letter to Bar Vernon’s
“Guardian.”

“I don’t see what more we can do about it,” said Zeb, as he and Val
walked off towards the Academy, for it was at the noon recess. “The
bell business has gone all to pieces.”

“I’m half sorry for that,” said Val. “It looks as if it would all have
to come out one of these days.”

“It certainly will,” replied Zeb, “unless we can set the Ogleport
people to thinking about something else. Even then it’ll be hard to
make Dorothy let up on George. At all events, we mustn’t allow him to
suffer.”

“He won’t,” said Val. “She can’t do him a bit of hurt.”

“Still,” said Zeb, “I do wish we had Bar Vernon with us. The man that
invented that bell business must be up to other things.”

“Indeed he is,” said Val; “but don’t you be afraid. He’ll turn up here
again some fine morning.”

“Sure of that?” exclaimed Zeb. “Then there’s hope for the future of
Ogleport yet. There comes old Sol.”

That was a dismal day for the principal, however, and his several male
and female subordinates had the “teaching” pretty much in their own
hands, such as they were.

“Effie,” said Sibyl Brayton to her friend, as they met on the green, a
little before the close of school, “can you keep a secret?”

“Perfectly,” said Effie. “Is it anything comical?”

“It isn’t comical at all,” said Sibyl. “We’ve just had a telegram from
my brother George. He and Bar Vernon will be here to-morrow.”

“He’s caught him?” said Effie, hastily.

“Why, Effie!” exclaimed Sibyl, “Bar didn’t go after George.”

“But didn’t George--I mean Mr. Brayton,” said the blushing Effie, “go
after Bar?”

“No,” said Sibyl, “and it’s all a puzzle to me. I don’t understand a
bit of it.”

No more did Euphemia, but there were sharp eyes prepared to watch for
the early stage from the South next day. They were duly rewarded, too,
and George Brayton had plenty of time to tell his mother and sister the
news, so that the latter could carry it over to Dr. Dryer’s for Effie’s
benefit as soon as she had a good chance that afternoon.

As for George Brayton and Bar, they at once got rid of the dust of
travel, and scarcely were the several rooms of the Academy filled,
after the noon recess, before Val Manning’s “chum” dropped quietly down
into his accustomed seat beside him, while, at the same moment, the
assistant-principal resumed the discharge of his own duties, for all
the world as if he had not been gone ten minutes.

Dr. Dryer was in another room at the moment, and when he returned he
started as if he had seen a ghost.

“Mr. Brayton?”

“Good-morning, Doctor. Back again, safe and sound, you see. Hope my
absence has not occasioned any inconvenience.”

“The departure of even subordinate members of the faculty of this
institution,” solemnly responded the principal, “can hardly fail to
occasion approximate disturbances of its organization.”

“It’s all right,” muttered Zeb Fuller to himself, in his corner; “only
he’ll choke himself with a big word yet, and then what’ll become of
Dorothy?”

As for Brayton, he simply said:

“I’m sorry for that, of course, but it couldn’t be helped. Mr. Vernon
returned with me.”

“With you?”

“Yes, with me. Had a very pleasant journey together. I met him in the
city.”

“Mr. Brayton, may I see you after school? This matter seems to need
looking into.”

“Certainly,” said George, as he prepared to go on with his classes, but
Zebedee’s face fell.

“Short words, all of ’em,” he soliloquized. “Must have learned them of
Dorothy.”

At another time George Brayton might have showed signs of rebellion,
but he saw nothing very dreadful in the idea of going over to Dr.
Dryer’s house after school. It may, indeed, have been the very thing he
would have asked for.

Bar Vernon attended rigidly to his duties that afternoon, but there was
nothing to prevent him from using slate and pencil, and, before school
was out, Val Manning had a very fair outline of all Bar had to tell him.

Then, indeed, the latter suddenly discovered what a lion he had become.

As Zeb announced to “the boys,” not only had Bar returned safe and
well, but “he has also distinguished himself by bringing back Mr.
George Brayton with him. I could have done but little more myself.”

At that very moment, however, the proposed “looking into” George
Brayton’s absence was beginning at the house of Dr. Dryer, and never
before had the principal tried to look so large, or felt so really
insecure about his actual size.

“Mr. Brayton,” he began, “may I ask where your journey conveyed you?”

“City and back,” said George, curtly. “Business errand, that’s all.”

“May I also venture to inquire as to the object of your journey?” asked
the principal, with increasing dignity, while his wife smiled upon
him her completest approbation, and Effie’s blue eyes expanded with
surprise and indignation.

“Certainly not,” quietly responded Brayton, without the quiver of a
nerve.

“You refuse a satisfactory response to my interrogation?” exclaimed the
Doctor.

“Why,” said George, “if it isn’t satisfactory it ought to be. The
business I went on was my own, not yours. I don’t see why you should
take any special interest in it.”

“None of his business?” exclaimed Mrs. Dryer, aghast. “Is that the way
you understand your duty to your superior? Perhaps you will say that
this, too, is none of his business?”

With that the angry lady plucked from behind the sheltering folds of
her dress the remains of Bar Vernon’s tolling machine, and cast it
widespread upon the carpet.

“What’s that?” asked Brayton, with a mild look of curiosity.

“That, sir,” said the Doctor, severely, “is the part of our
philosophical apparatus which you have basely deflected from its proper
uses for the alarm and disturbance of this peaceful community.”

“Dr. Dryer,” said Brayton, as he struggled to suppress a laugh, “has
Ogleport gone crazy since last Monday morning, or are you the only
sufferer?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Please tell me, Doctor, where did you find that thing, and what is it?”

“Find it?” exclaimed Mrs. Dryer. “I found it myself up in the steeple,
where it was tolling the bell.”

“Tolling the bell!”

“Yes, sir, that and the wind, just as you meant it should. Do you
suppose the Ogleport Academy supplies philosophical apparatus for
tolling bells with?”

George Brayton’s face had been getting redder and redder, and
Euphemia’s handkerchief was not at her eyes, by any means, but he
managed to stammer out:

“Have you asked Zeb Fuller about it?”

There was a sort of magic in the mention of that name, at least, to
anybody in Ogleport, and it suddenly occurred to Mrs. Dryer that it
was, indeed, from Zeb that her suspicions--information she had deemed
it--had been derived, and at the same moment the Doctor himself began
to wrestle with a new idea.

“Dorothy Jane,” he remarked, “I begin to fear that----”

But Effie had restrained her mirth as long as was in any way possible,
and George Brayton permitted himself to catch the infection of it very
freely.

“Dr. Dryer,” he said, as soon as he could speak plainly again, “this
must, indeed, be looked into; but we had better take our time at it.
Other hands than Zeb’s have been at work on that affair. Mrs. Dryer
deserves great credit for detecting it. I will come over again after
tea, and she must tell me all about it. Just now I can’t stay any
longer.”

The Doctor and his wife sat and looked each other in the face in mute
astonishment as the young man rose and walked to the parlor-door.

They did not even breathe a word to Effie as she merrily followed him,
and so they did not hear a syllable of what passed between those two in
the outer hallway.

Nobody else did, but it seemed to interest them very much.

Indeed, as Brayton was compelled to whisper a part of it, he was also
forced to lean his face very close to Euphemia’s in a way which would
surely have caused Zebedee Fuller to say, had he been at hand:

“Dorothy would hardly approve of that, but I do.”

Alas, for Dorothy Jane!

For once in their wedded life the Doctor himself was now able to turn
upon her with:

“I told you so. Now, if he lets it out we shall have all Ogleport
laughing at us.”

And that was just what Mrs. Dryer dreaded of all things in the world,
for the Dorcas Society was to meet at her house the very next day.

One consequence, however, was that when George Brayton “came over after
tea,” he found that an important errand had called away his venerable
superior, and that Mrs. Dryer was confined to her own room by a
headache or something, leaving poor Euphemia to do the honors of the
house all alone.

So she did them.

“Barnaby,” said Mrs. Brayton to our hero, that evening, “George tells
me you agree with him that the less we say about this English matter
the better.”

“For the present, yes,” said Bar, “but such things always leak out
after a while. I’d rather keep quiet as long as I can.”

“And are you not a sort of a cousin of ours now?” asked Sibyl.

“I wish you’d let it be so,” said Bar, “for I have no American cousins,
that I know of.”

“Perhaps they may turn up one of these days,” said Mrs. Brayton.
“Anyhow, the Vernon estate, your father’s and mother’s, has done enough
for us, and I’ll be glad enough to play aunt for you. Indeed, I’ll be
as much of a mother to you as I can.”

“Cousins are better than sisters,” said Sibyl. “Don’t you think so,
Bar?”

“Perhaps,” replied Bar. “I never had either, and so I don’t know.”

“You shall call me either one then, just as you please,” exclaimed
Sibyl; “but I can’t give you my mother.”

“She is to be my aunt, then!” said Bar. “Well, that’ll do splendidly.”

When Bar and Val reached their room at last that night, there was
nothing for it but to go over the whole ground.

“It’s grand,” was Val’s enthusiastic commentary. “You’re a regular hero
of romance. But I’m ever so glad you’re not to leave Ogleport this
year. Won’t we have good times! You’ll have loads of pocket-money, of
course, and I always get plenty. Oh, won’t we have fun, that’s all!”

There did indeed seem to be a very fair prospect of it, and Bar
Vernon’s “old time” seemed to be drifting further and further away from
him, while the present and the future, the “new time” concerning which
he had hoped so much, and for which he had struck out so boldly, grew
brighter and more real to him every hour.

George Brayton must have required a good deal of advice that evening,
but his mother reproved him very gently indeed for his prolonged call
at the Doctor’s.

It may, or may not be, that George deemed it his duty to report as to
the absence of the Doctor and his wife, but it’s just as likely he did
not.

Zebedee Fuller and his dog Bob were out by the side of the little river
that night, for another raid on the eels; but, although their usual
good fortune attended them, the brow of the young village-leader was
clouded.

“He’s back again, Bob,” remarked Zebedee, as a larger eel than common
tangled himself up with the line on the grass. “That young man I told
you of is back again, and he’s brought back George with him. Now,
George’ll have enough to do looking out for Dorothy while he courts
Euphemia, but what are Gershom Todderley and you and I to do with Bar
Vernon? We can’t afford to let him be idle. No, Bob, he must improve
his time. Oh! how I wish Dorothy Jane had all those eels in her lap,
or, say, in her pocket, and was reaching down for her spectacles just
now. There are many comforts we can’t have in this world, Bob, and
that’s one of ’em. But between me and you and old Sol, we’ll find work
for Barnaby Vernon this term, sure!”


THE END




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standarized.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Village Champion, by W. O. Stoddard

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