Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway

“Ball!” droned the umpire.

Again, and,

“Two balls!” was the verdict.

“Pick out a good one!” called the captain from where he was dancing about at second. And the coaches shrieked and leaped in their efforts to further disturb the equanimity of the already badly rattled pitcher. Sullivan rubbed a hand in the dirt, wiped it on his trousers, and settled the ball in it carefully, striving to collect himself.

“Take your time, Jim!” called Conly cheerfully. “Plenty of time, old man!”

But there wasn’t, for at that moment from the center of town came the wild alarm of a clanging fire bell!

For an instant everyone stood as though turned to stone; everyone save the Mannig pitcher. Perhaps he didn’t hear. At all events he shot the ball across the plate, right over the very center of it, and the umpire called a strike. And, as though that had been the signal, all the Laurelville players began shouting at once. Down on second the captain was calling wildly for “Time.” The umpire was surrounded by half a dozen players each explaining breathlessly. So “Time” was announced. Fultz came racing in from center field.

“What’s time taken out for?” he cried.

“Fire!” shouted the Laurelville captain, looking excitedly about for his cap.

“What’s that got to do with the game?” demanded Fultz.

“Why, we’re most of us members of the company,” was the reply. “We’ll go on with the game after a bit. Come on, fellows! We’ll have to run for it!”

And led by their redoubtable captain the Laurelville Baseball Team streaked off the field in the direction of the town. And behind it hurried most of the spectators, for a fire promised far greater excitement than even a baseball game. The Mannig players trotted up with surprised expressions on their faces, demanding to know what the trouble was. Burns turned to the umpire.

“Mr. Umpire,” he said, “we’re ready to go on with the game.”

The umpire looked nonplused.

“Er – well, we’ll wait awhile and then, if the other team doesn’t show up, I’ll have to call the game.”

In five minutes the field was deserted save for the Mannig players and a handful of Mannig supporters. Everyone else was scurrying along the road leading to town. Dan, a quiet smile on his face, drew Nelson aside.

“Let’s get out of this,” he whispered. “It’s not going to be healthy around here after a bit. Let’s move on to the next town.”

Nelson looked perplexedly at Dan’s smiling countenance for a moment. Then, scenting mischief, he nodded and went in search of Tom and Bob. Without explaining, he announced that they were breaking camp, and in a twinkling the Four were following the crowd. On the way Dan told what he knew about it, and the others laughed until the tears streamed down their dusty faces – all save Bob. Bob smiled a bit, but he shook his head too.

“It’s kind of a low trick, Dan,” he said.

“But I didn’t do it,” protested Dan. “I merely told Fultz what I had heard. It wasn’t my fault if – ”

“But you expected him to do it!”

“What of it? Of course I expected him to; it was just the sort of a trick I’d expect these muckers to do!”

“That sounds well from you,” answered Bob dryly.

“Oh, get out! I didn’t tell him to do it; I didn’t even suggest it! Why, when that bell rang I was so surprised – !”

Bob had to laugh in spite of himself.

“Well, just at present what we’ve got to do is to get our things from the hotel before the irate citizens of this charming village discover that they’ve been hoaxed! And I move that we move faster!”

And they did. When they reached the hotel they found it deserted save for a sixteen-year-old boy, the proprietor’s son, who was evidently not staying there from inclination. They found him on the sidewalk, looking longingly toward where at the far end of the main street a confused rabble was pouring around a distant corner.

“Where’s the fire?” asked Dan.

“I don’t know exactly,” was the excited reply, “but it’s somewhere over by the railroad.”

“How far is that?” asked Dan.

“Pretty near a mile. And they say it’s a daisy! Maybe it’s Tompkins’s lumber yard!”

The Four heaved sighs of relief. Before Tompkins’s lumber yard was reached by the valiant fire fighters they hoped to be well on their road. Very quickly they rescued their packs, slung them on their shoulders, and, to use Tom’s expression, “hit the trail.” Once out of sight of the hotel they paused while Bob consulted his map.

“Cupples’ Harbor is three miles,” announced Bob. “That’s where we’d better make for.”

“All right,” responded Nelson, with a laugh. “Any place out of here!”

“How do we go?” Dan asked.

“Straight ahead and turn to the left about four blocks down,” was the reply. So straight ahead they went, and allowed no grass to grow under their feet. When they had almost reached their turning they heard a great noise behind, and paused to see what it was. Down the street trotted the two Mannig coaches filled with their exultant passengers. The Mannig war whoop aroused the echoes of the almost deserted town.

“The umpire’s called the game,” chuckled Dan.

When the first coach was abreast of them they were recognized and loudly cheered. They waved their hands in response while the occupants of the coaches showered unintelligible messages upon them. But as the second load went by, one remark met their ears which they understood. Fultz, beaming and red of face, leaned far out over the side, made a megaphone of his hands, and shouted:

“You fellows had better get out of here pretty quick!”

Dan winked merrily.

“Trust us!” he shouted back.

The fire bell which had been ringing incessantly for ten minutes stopped suddenly as the Four turned from the main street and smelled the salt air from the ocean. In ten minutes they were well out of Laurelville, and slackened their pace.

“What’ll happen?” asked Tom. “When they find out, I mean.”

“They’ll be so mad they won’t be able to see straight,” chuckled Dan. “And if they find any Mannig citizen roaming around, they’ll probably make life very interesting for him!”

“Do you suppose they’ll be able to prove that Mannig did it?” asked Bob.

“Sure to. They’ll find that the fellow who brought the alarm was a stranger, and guess at once.”

“Still, I don’t see how they are going to prove it!”

“Well, maybe they won’t,” allowed Dan. “But there’s one thing you can bet on, and that is, no matter whether Mannig gets the purse or not, there won’t be any more baseball games between the two towns for a while!”

“And a good thing too!” said Nelson. “That sort of baseball makes me tired!”

They reached Cupples’ Harbor at a little before six, very hungry, and somewhat tired. After supper Dan said:

“Say, do you fellows realize that it’s just a week since we left New York?”

“A week!” shouted Tom.

“Get out!” said Nelson. “It seems a month!”

“It surely does,” Bob agreed. “But we’ve had a pretty good time so far, haven’t we?”

“Dandy!” said Tom. Nelson laughed.

“We’re forgetting about being robbed, and going hungry, and all the rest of it!”

“That’s so,” answered Dan. “Gee! Weren’t we a disgusted lot the day we trailed into Millford? For two cents I’d have jumped a train and gone home!”

“Guess that was the way with all of us,” said Bob. “Only we didn’t have the two cents!”

The next morning when they tumbled out of their beds they found the rain dashing against the windows, and an old-fashioned sou’easter having things pretty much its own way. To continue their journey in the face of such a storm was out of the question, and so they got their soiled clothes together, and made arrangements to have them washed in the hotel, and dried in time for them to go on the next day.

There were few guests left, and the Four had the house almost to themselves that day. After breakfast they got into their rubber ponchos, and braved the tempest. The surf was fine, and they watched a long time from the shelter of an old hut on the point, about a mile from the hotel. They got pretty wet, but it was great fun; and the roaring fire in the hotel soon dried them off after they got back. The rest of the day passed quickly enough with books and cards, and they went early to bed.

The next morning the rain still fell, but the wind had died away, and after a consultation they decided to go on. Their clean clothes were brought up to them, and after they had put some of them on, Nelson said he felt respectable for the first time in three days. The walking was hard, but they did five miles by half-past eleven, and stopped at Seapoint for luncheon or dinner, whichever it might turn out to be. It happened to be dinner, and, as they were all frightfully hungry, they ate a good deal, and felt very little like continuing their journey afterwards. Tom was for spending the night where they were, but he was overruled, and at two o’clock they set out for Beach Neck, eight miles farther east. The rain, which had once or twice sobered down to a drizzle, now held up entirely, although the clouds still hung low and ominous. The road, however, constantly got worse, and it was slow going.

“I see where we get a late dinner to-night,” said Dan, at about three o’clock. “I’ll bet we haven’t gone two miles in the last hour!”

“Told you we’d ought to stay where we were,” said Tom.

“And I guess you were right, Tommy, my boy. Never say die, though!” And Dan hitched his pack into place, and trudged on. By four, they were still but little more than halfway to Beach Neck, and Bob got his map out.

“Well,” asked Nelson, “is there any sign of civilization around here?”

“Not very near,” answered Bob. “But, say, the railroad strikes the road near here somewhere – just beyond, I guess – and it’s lots nearer than the road we’re on.”

“Nearer what?”

“I mean it’s shorter that way to Beach Neck than it is by the road.”

“Gee! Then let’s take it!”

“Railroads are mighty hard walking, though,” said Tom.

“Can’t be much harder than this sloppy, sandy quagmire,” said Dan. “I move we hit the ties.”

So they did when, as presently happened, the railroad came into sight and ran along the highway in a neighborly fashion for a little way. It was hard walking, as Tom had predicted, especially at first. But after awhile they got into what Dan called “the swing of it,” and it wasn’t so bad. At least, as Bob pointed out, it was a deal drier. But Tom answered that he didn’t see that that counted for much, because his feet were sopping wet already.

Half an hour later, without any warning, the rain started in again in a fashion that almost took their breath away. It came down in torrents, so that they could see scarcely a yard ahead of them, and made such a racket, besides, that Bob called a halt.

“Look here,” he gasped, “we can’t see nor hear anything, and this track isn’t a healthful place for us; a train could come along and knock us into the next county without our getting so much as a hint of it.”

They were at the beginning of a little cut, where the track had been built through a wooded hill.

“Gee!” sputtered Tom, and stumbled down the embankment to the side of the track. The others followed. The raindrops lashed their rubber ponchos, drenched their heads, and trickled down their backs. Barry, with what remained of his tail tucked as far under him as it would go, sought shelter from the pelting drops at Dan’s feet.

“Let’s break for cover!” shouted Nelson.

They broke. Nelson led the way, stumbling along what at one time had been an embankment, on which a spur track had run a few hundred yards to a gravel quarry. The quarry had become almost obliterated with underbrush and trees, and it was under one of the largest of the latter that the Four finally drew up, panting. The hill rose abruptly behind them, but the sheets of rain were so dense that they could make out but little of their surroundings. The tree, a young maple with wide-spreading branches, kept the worst of the torrent off them for the moment.

“These ponchos are all very nice,” said Dan, “but they have their limitations. I’ll bet you’d get six gallons of water out of me if you wrung me. Can’t we find a better place than this? The roof’s leaking, and the merry little raindrops are playing tag down my back.”

“How far do you suppose we are from Beach Neck?” asked Nelson.

“At least a mile,” answered Bob. “You fellows stay here a minute, and I’ll look around and see if there isn’t a better shelter.”

He brought the poncho closer about his neck, and retied it.

“If I yell, you answer. I may get lost in this drizzle.”

Then he stepped out from under the tossing, dripping branches, and was lost to sight almost instantly. The others waited silently, their hands in their pockets for warmth. After awhile Bob shouted, and presently rejoined them.

“I’ve found an old shed or something over here. Come on.”

He led the way at a run, and they raced after him, gasping for breath as the solid curtains of rain dashed into their faces. Then they were under the lee of a building, Bob was wrenching open a door which hung from one leather hinge, and in a moment they were inside, blinking the water from their eyes. At first it was too dark in there to see much, but presently as they became accustomed to it they began to make out objects in the gray gloom.

The hut, for it was scarcely more, was about twenty feet long and twelve feet wide. There was one door, through which they had entered, and two windows, one still containing the remnants of a sash, and the other having been roughly boarded up. Along the back of the hut remnants of a double tier of wooden bunks remained. In the center of the floor, resting on four bricks, was a rusty stove. At one time there had been a pipe leading through the roof, as the round hole there indicated. But now the pipe was gone, and the hole leaked water like a spout. The place was littered with rubbish, old newspapers, tin cans, and bottles, a broken pick, and a worn-out pair of overalls. Bob lighted a match, and they explored, kicking their way through the débris.

“Not what you’d call a first-class hotel,” observed Dan.

“No,” said Tom. “And it’s evidently very much on the European plan.”

“Unless you can eat tin cans, Tommy,” answered Bob. “But it’s dry, anyhow, and that’s something. And seems to me we might manage a fire in that stove with some of this truck.”

“We’ll be smoked out.”

“We might leave the door open. Anyhow, let’s see.”

So they stuffed the old stove full of paper, added a few pieces of wood which they found, and touched it off. It was smoky, there was no doubt about that, but it looked cheerful, and after a minute or two even gave some warmth. The rain drove in through the door at times, and prevented the smoke from going out, but save that it occasioned an epidemic of coughing, the fire was quite a success.

“Let’s see if we can’t get some of that wood from the bunks,” suggested Nelson.

It was hard work until Dan thought of the broken pick. He showed that a pick may be used as an ax when occasion demands, and soon they had quite a respectable pile of firewood by the stove. Bob borrowed the implement, and tore off the boarding from the window, thus supplying more fuel, and creating a cross draught that cleared a good deal of the smoke out. By this time the stove was getting red hot, and they stood around it, having thrown aside their ponchos, and steamed and regained their good humor.

“Say, Nel,” asked Dan, “what does this remind you of?”

“Turkish bath,” answered Nelson.

“No, but do you remember the hut in the woods at Chicora last summer? This rain’s a dead ringer for that one, except that there isn’t any thunder and lightning.”

“Don’t suggest it,” warned Bob.

“Yes, and do you remember how scared you were at that skeleton?” laughed Nelson.

“You don’t say?” drawled Dan. “I guess I wasn’t the only one who was scared. If Bob hadn’t grabbed you as you went through the door, you’d have been running yet.”

“Pshaw!” said Nelson with a grin. “I wasn’t scared; I was just going for assistance.”

“I suppose there’s no supper for us to-night,” said Tom hopelessly.

“Supper? What do you want supper for?” asked Bob. “Didn’t you eat enough dinner to last you a week?”

“We’re a lot of idiots not to keep some chocolate or something of that sort in our pockets,” said Nelson. “You bet that when I get to a store I’m going to lay in a supply.”

“Wish I had some now,” wailed Tom.

“We might eat Barry,” suggested Bob.

“You might get killed too,” said Dan grimly. “This old rain will have to hold up after a while.”

“It’s holding us up just at present,” observed Nelson.

And apparently it was contented to continue doing that, for the open doorway turned from a misty-gray oblong to a black, and still the downpour continued. There wasn’t a watch among them, and so they had no way of telling time.

“Well,” said Bob, filling the stove up again, “we’ve got a dry place to sleep, and that’s something. I vote we go to bed as soon as we can sleep, and get an early start. Beach Neck can’t be far off, and we can make up for supper at the breakfast table.”

“Sounds good to me,” answered Dan. “But I’m not the least bit sleepy; only hungry.”

“Same here,” murmured Tom wistfully. He was sitting on the floor as near to the stove as he could get without scorching, and Barry was curled up in his lap. “If you and I had a dog biscuit, Barry, we could do a dandy trick with it, couldn’t we?”

But Barry only wagged his stump of tail drowsily.

“He’s the only philosophic one among us,” said Nelson. “He didn’t have a tenth as much dinner as we did, and look at him! Not a whimper!”

Whereupon Barry suddenly sat up, pricked his ears, and growled. Bob and Tom began to laugh, but Dan held up his hand.

“Wait a minute!” he whispered. “Barry hears something.”

The dog slipped stealthily from Tom’s lap and moved toward the door, sniffing and growling. They listened and watched. Then simultaneously Barry broke into fierce barking, and a face appeared in the dark frame of the doorway.

CHAPTER XVIII

TELLS OF AN ADVENTURE IN A HUT

Tom scrambled to his feet, Barry retreated, still barking and growling furiously, with the hair on his neck and along his back standing straight up, and the newcomer stumbled through the doorway, wiping his face, and peering nervously about in the half-light.

“Who’s here?” he muttered. “Mind your dog, can’t yer? Think I want to be bit?”

There was no answer. The boys were looking at each other with wide eyes. Then, quietly, Bob stole to the door and pulled it to. Dan seized Barry in his arms.

“A wet night,” observed Dan politely.

“Wet!” muttered the new arrival angrily. He was rubbing the water from his eyes, and striving to get a look at the other occupants of the hut. “I’m nigh drowned, I am! Wet, says you!”

“Come up to the fire,” continued Nelson, drawing back into the shadows as though to make room. Then Dan handed the dog to Tom and edged around the other side of the stove. Bob had left the door, and now, as the newcomer shuffled toward the stove, casting wary, suspicious glances into the shadows where the boys hovered, he crept around back of him. As noiselessly as he moved, however, the other heard, and started to turn. But he was too late. Bob made a diving tackle that pinioned the man’s arms to his sides, and together they crashed to the floor, Bob uppermost. In a twinkle Nelson and Dan were beside him, and the man underneath might well have cried “Down!” Barry, gurgling and yelping, struggled and fought in Tom’s arms, and the noise was deafening for a moment, the captive contributing not a little to the sum of it. Then,

“Hand me a couple of towels, Tom,” called Bob, and Tom, dropping Barry, fished the desired articles from his crowded pockets. They weren’t very generous towels, but they served their present purpose. The man was flopped, fighting hard, over on to his face, and his hands were tied securely behind him. Then Dan arose gingerly from his struggling legs, and the second towel was applied neatly at his ankles.

“Now another towel, Tommy, or – hold on! A pair of socks’ll do just as well,” said Bob.

Tom fished a pair from another pocket, and Bob jammed them into the man’s mouth, silencing at last the flood of unpleasant language. Meanwhile Nelson was kept busy fighting Barry off, for the terrier’s fighting blood was roused, and he was aching to take part in the proceedings. Then they rolled the captive over on to his back and stood up, panting.

“There, my friend,” said Bob, brushing his clothes. “That’ll hold you for a while, I guess. You’ve encountered us about once too often. It’s a pretty good idea to have a look at your host before you accept hospitality.”

The man, the same ugly-faced individual who had been “treed” by Barry in the hotel at Barrington, and subsequently brought to earth by Nelson on the stairs, moved not an eyelash, but if looks could have killed, it would have been all up with Bob.

“Now, what’ll we do with him?” asked Nelson, reaching for his tie, which had worked around under his left ear during the fracas.

“Search him first of all,” answered Bob.

The captive’s eyelids flickered. Dan whistled.

“By Jove!” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that!”

“Do you suppose he’s got anything left?” asked Nelson.

“I don’t know, but I propose to find out,” answered Bob. “Lend a hand, you fellows, and look carefully.”

“Bu-bu-bu-bet you he’s spent the money,” stammered Tom, whose duty at the moment was to refrain Barry from doing murder.

“Maybe,” said Bob. He moved over to the thief. “Now, my friend, you stole about sixty-nine dollars from us, and two watches.”

The head shook vehemently.

“Oh, yes, you did,” answered Bob. “Although if you hadn’t been fool enough to leave a message behind you we wouldn’t have known it was you, and you wouldn’t be in your present fix. It ought to be a lesson to you not to rush into print – or writing, either. You’re not the first man who’s got into trouble through writing a letter. Now then!”

They ripped open his ragged coat, and went through the pockets, but the only things to reward their search were a sandwich wrapped in a piece of newspaper, a piece of lead pipe, about four inches long, with a short length of rope run through it for a handle, some tobacco and a corncob pipe, a ragged red bandanna handkerchief, and a handsome new clasp knife.

“Shows where some of the money went,” commented Dan.

Then they searched his trousers. From a hip pocket came a half-filled, yellow glass bottle. Bob sniffed it, and threw it across the hut.

“Whisky, I guess,” he muttered. “Smells bad enough.”

At that moment Nelson gave a shout, and held up his gold watch.

“Bully!” cried Dan.

“Fine!” said Bob. “You don’t happen to find mine, do you?”

“Not yet,” answered Nelson, slipping his own watch into his pocket. “Wonder what he did with it.”

“Well, it isn’t here,” said Dan. “Let’s ask the scoundrel.”

Bob drew the gag out of the man’s mouth.

“Where’s the other watch?” he demanded.

“Where you won’t get it,” was the sullen answer.

“What did you do with it?”

There was a flood of blasphemy for reply.

“Oh, shut him up again,” said Dan in disgust. “If you’ll let me take those towels off so he can stand up, I’ll knock the tar out of him!”

Bob replaced the gag after a struggle, and the search went on. But there was no sign of any money save six coppers which Nelson fished out of a trousers pocket.

“Well, I’m glad you got your watch,” said Bob, as they stopped work for want of any further recesses to search.

“Wish I had my twenty-six dollars,” said Tom longingly.

“I suppose he blew it in somewhere,” said Dan.

“He’s only had five days to do it,” said Nelson thoughtfully. “It’s more likely he’s hidden it somewhere.”

“We might make a bargain with him,” said Bob.

“What sort of a bargain?”

“Tell him we’ll let him go if he’ll tell us where the money is.”

“I wouldn’t believe him,” answered Dan.

“And I don’t know that we’ve got any right to let him go,” said Nelson. “He’s a thief and ought to be in jail.”

“Well, we’ve got the right,” answered Bob. “We gave the police a fair chance to catch him, and I don’t believe they ever tried. And now we’ve caught him ourselves, without their help, and we’ve got a right to do what we want with him.”