The Boy Scouts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition

“Please don’t give me the grand laugh, Rob, when I tell you I saw something moving under that bed there – a pair of shoes!”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE THIEF UNDER THE BED

“Hey, what’s that, Tubby?”

It was Hiram who whispered this in a rather hoarse and strained voice. He had managed to just barely overhear what the fat scout was telling Rob, and could hardly believe his ears.

Rob instantly held up a warning finger. His face looked serious for, while after all it might prove that Tubby’s imagination was playing tricks with him, there were circumstances that gave the matter a suspicious look.

Some one had certainly been in their rooms turning things upside-down, as though searching for articles of value, or with the intention of creating as much havoc and confusion as possible.

Besides this, had they not already concluded that this person must have been disturbed in his vandal work? They believed he had fled, but after all it was possible that, hearing them at the door, he had made the utmost haste to conceal himself in the first hiding place available, which was under one of the beds.

Rob had to think quickly.

The man must be a desperate rascal or he would never have taken the chances he did in entering their apartments bent on such work. Consequently he would, of course, be armed, and if given half a chance, might make things exceedingly disagreeable for the four scouts.

What should be done?

Hiram was already pointing toward the house telephone, as though suggesting the use of it to bring help from below. Rob shook his head to indicate that the plan did not seem to appeal to him when there might be a better one to adopt.

They were four in number, and pretty husky fellows in the bargain, who in times past had accomplished quite a few feats worth mentioning. It would be too bad if a squad of scouts of their caliber and experience could not manage in some way to smother a single concealed thief.

Of course, by this time, Andy had come to realize that there was something very exciting and mysterious going on. He wanted to burst out with a plain question, and ask Rob what it was all about; but reading the signification of that upraised finger, and the frown on the scout leader’s face, he simply put out a hand and rested it on Rob’s sleeve while a pleading expression gripped his face.

Taking pity on Andy, and believing that they must all work together if they expected to accomplish anything, Rob bent over and whispered in his ear.

“Somebody’s hiding under the bed, Tubby says. Now laugh out loud as though we were having a joke; that is to keep him quiet a while longer.”

Fortunately Andy Bowles was quick-witted enough to grasp the peculiar situation. He understood just why Rob wanted him to make it appear as though things were moving along as usual, and that no suspicion had been aroused.

So Andy laughed. If there was a queer, husky touch to the sounds he emitted to order surely Andy could hardly be blamed, for he must have been quivering all over just then from hysterical excitement.

Rob drew the heads of Tubby and Andy down close to his mouth. They knew he meant to issue instructions, and hence eagerly strained their hearing so that not a single syllable might be lost. Meanwhile Hiram was standing near by, and busily engaged in taking off his khaki coat which, being quite new, he evidently did not mean to have mussed in any rough and tumble work.

At another time Rob would have smiled to see Hiram carefully folding his coat and then softly depositing it on the bed that was held under suspicion; but it did not cause a ripple of amusement to cross his serious face now.

“You and Tubby pass around to the other side of the bed, and try to act as if you were cutting up,” Rob whispered. “Keep your eyes on me, and when I give the word lay hold of his legs and yank him out. Tubby, we depend on you to keep him from getting to his feet; squash him if necessary. Get that, both of you?”

Both heads eagerly nodded an affirmative reply. The plan was so extremely simple that there did not seem to be any possibility of confusion.

Tubby’s face was not quite so rosy as usual, perhaps, but no one could say he looked frightened in the least. He immediately started some “horse-play” with Andy, laughing as he pushed the other around the foot of the bed so that they could presently bring up on the other side.

Taking advantage of the very first opportunity, Tubby, even while continuing to pretend to wrestle with Andy, pointed a finger downward. Knowing what this was meant for, Andy ducked his head in order to also get a glimpse of the object the fat boy considered so suspicious.

Meanwhile Rob and Hiram were holding themselves in readiness to jump around to any point where they could make their presence count. The former was keeping an anxious eye on Tubby and Andy. When he saw the latter make that quick movement, Rob knew what it meant, and understood that considerable would depend on how Andy came to decide.

So Rob fairly held his breath awaiting the verdict. If after all Tubby had allowed his imagination to get the better of him, and had mistaken some simple object for a pair of shoes under the bed, Andy’s keen eyes would quickly detect the illusion, and they might expect to hear him give a roar of amusement.

Nothing of the kind happened, it turned out. Instead of this, when Andy once more straightened up he nodded his head toward Rob in a way that could have only one meaning – he was ready to risk his reputation for veracity along with Tubby in admitting that the facts looked suspicious.

That settled the matter with Rob. They must combine to make a sudden assault on the concealed thief and try to overpower him before he could place himself in a condition to do them harm.

Like a wise general, the scout leader took one last look around in order to see that his forces were all in their respective positions before he gave the signal that would precipitate action.

Andy, impatient to get busy, made a significant gesture, opening and shutting both hands rapidly, while a faint grin could be seen on his face. This was intended to convey the intelligence that he was eager to lay hold on the lower extremities of the sneak thief cowering under the bed, and start to drag him out from his place of concealment.

There was no need of any further delay, and so Rob made a quick movement with his hand, at the same time exclaiming:

“Now’s your time; get him!”

Before the last word had been uttered Andy was bending down and hurling himself part-way under the bed. He immediately began to back out, tugging with all his strength at something upon which he had pounced.

Tubby also took hold and united his power with that of the other scout. They made short work of it, once that combination got started. Out from under the bed they dragged a struggling figure that was scratching, clawing and trying in every possible way to swing around so that he would not be taken at such a terrible disadvantage.

By that time Rob and Hiram had managed to arrive, the latter scrambling directly across the bed in his hurry to get into action.

There was a lively little scene for a brief interval, with all of them trying to keep those kicking legs and violently driven arms pinned down.

A few blows were given in the struggle, and not all on one side, since Andy had a thrust in the eye that made the tears come, and Tubby received a kick which forced a grunt from his lungs.

Whoever the fellow might be he evidently was convinced that his condition was desperate, judging from the wild way he fought, to break away, with the intention of bolting from the room.

In the midst of the mêlée Tubby settled the affair in a unique way all his own, and which none of the others could have imitated even though they sought to do so.

He simply allowed himself to sit down squarely on the squirming figure with which they had been battling so fiercely. When that heavyweight settled down, it was like a stone wagon dropping into a hole in the road. They heard a gasp from the unfortunate wretch underneath, whose struggles immediately began to lose much of their former vigor.

It happened that at the time the thief was lying on his stomach, so that Tubby perched on his back, which might have been broken had the fellow been less sturdily built.

After that there was really nothing more for the others to do; Tubby was equal to the task of keeping his victim pinned there in spite of anything the wretched fellow might try to do.

It was then they heard him wheezing as though short of breath, and saw his hand moving as if in abject appeal.

“I give up! I’m all in! Please don’t kill me, Rob and Andy! Won’t you let Tubby get up off my back; he’s smashing my ribs, I tell you!”

Rob, Andy and Hiram stared at each other as though they hardly knew whether they could be awake or dreaming. Why, the squirming wretch whom they found hidden under the bed, and who had undoubtedly been searching their effects with robbery in view, had actually mentioned the name of Rob and that of Andy. Yes, he had even begged that Tubby be restrained before he utterly crushed his back and sides!

It gave them one of the greatest surprises in all their experience; for how a common hotel sneak thief should know who they were, and address them so familiarly, was past their comprehension.

Tubby, too, looked astounded, though he made no move to get up in response to the pitiful wheeze of the wretch he was pinning to the floor. Perhaps it filtered through the slow-moving brain of the fat scout that this might be only one of those clever tricks known to sharpers, and entered into simply to gain some advantage.

Rob knew differently. There seemed to be something about that whine on the part of the prisoner that was familiar, though on the spur of the moment Rob could not have told where he had last heard it.

Accustomed to prompt action, the scout leader motioned to Andy and Hiram to hold themselves in readiness to seize upon the fellow’s arms, and in this manner keep him from taking advantage of his newly acquired freedom when Tubby arose.

“Now you can get up, Tubby!” said Rob.

Tubby thereupon gave one of his satisfied grunts and commenced to roll off his human cushion for, as a rule, when he wished to gain his feet, like the elephant he resembled in many ways, the fat boy had to get upon his knees first of all, and then make a further effort.

“Turn him over, Andy, Hiram; and if he tries any funny business he’ll wish he hadn’t, that’s all!” Rob told the others, who immediately started to obey.

“Oh, believe me, I’ve had enough as it is, Rob! I hope you won’t be too hard on me this time! I was wild to get back home, and that’s the truth,” the fellow was crying as Andy and Hiram turned him on his back.

The former bent down to stare into the thief’s face. Rob fairly held his breath, awaiting the explosion something told him was due. Nor was he mistaken, for Andy drew back, uttering exclamations of wonder.

“Why, who d’ye believe it is,” he burst out, “but that sneak of a Jared Applegate who had to skip out of Hampton when things got too hot for him, and who you last ran across when you were down in Mexico? Rob, he’s up to his old tricks of trying to steal what belongs to others. Say, this is one of the biggest surprises that ever came our way. Old Hiram Applegate’s bad boy, and a common hotel thief!”

CHAPTER XIX

AN ENEMY OF THE PAST

They all recognized Jared now, although he had grown considerably since last Rob had seen him, and was a husky looking fellow, easily capable of doing a man’s work.

In other days he had been a thorn in the flesh of the newly organized troop of scouts in Hampton, doing every mean thing his wits could devise in order to annoy them. Then, later on, when some of the boys had visited the Panama Canal, in process of being dug at the time, they ran across this same young reprobate, and found him associated with a number of desperate foreigners who were trying to blow up the locks of the canal in order to effect the ruination of the whole grand project to unite the two oceans across the isthmus.

Still later, Rob had run across Jared down in Mexico, where he was having a hard time of it, having joined forces with some of the rival warring elements that at the time were smashing things right and left. Whatever became of Jared, Rob had never learned, nor had he bothered himself very much over the disappearance of the unscrupulous young rascal.

And now, to find him trying to steal things from their baggage, was enough to make them believe the world was a pretty small affair after all. Of the hundreds of thousands of people in San Francisco it was certainly queer that Jared, their old-time enemy, should be the one to attempt this thing.

“What’s this checkered jumper he’s wearing mean?” remarked Andy, when he could find his breath, which had really been taken away by the astonishing discovery.

“Looks like Jared might be doing some honest work at last,” added Hiram. “Else he’s just put it on to make people believe he belongs here in the hotel.”

“No, no, that isn’t so, Hiram!” hastily cried the wretched Jared. “I’m really a sort of porter here, you see. I fetch trunks up to guests’ rooms, and all that. Mebbe you didn’t know it, but I brought that steamer trunk of yours here when you were out. That’s how I got my first knowledge some of my old schoolmates had come on to the Fair, because I read the name of Robert Blake on the same, and Hampton, L. I., ditto.”

“Oh!” said Andy, “and you felt so warmly drawn to your old schoolmates, Jared, didn’t you, that you just couldn’t resist sneaking up here when they were out, and rooting all through their baggage in hopes of picking up a windfall?”

The wretched Jared groaned in a way that told how badly he felt, not because he repented for anything he had done, as Rob well knew, but on account of having had the ill-fortune to be caught in the act. That was what pinched the most, though it was not to be expected he would admit as much; for Jared had always been one of those tricky, whining, cowardly fellows who make big promises when in trouble, but forget all about them as soon as the wind blows fair.

“I’m just sick to get back home again, and that’s the truth, I give you my word it is, Rob!” he said, trying to appear very dejected and humble, because he knew from past experiences that this was the best way to work upon the sympathies of these good-hearted former school companions.

“And ready to rob us so as to get the money to take you there, you mean, don’t you, Jared?” Rob demanded.

“Oh, it was wicked, I realize that now, but everything has been against me out here,” whined the one who lay on his back on the floor. “I get to thinking of the folks at home on Long Island and it seems I would go crazy I want to get back there so bad again. If I ever do, I’m meanin’ to be a different feller than in the past. I’ve had my lesson, Rob; I’ve been kicked around like a dog till I came to hate nearly everybody that lived. But if I could only have one more chance I’d try awful hard to make good, sure I would. Oh, I hope you’ll believe me, Rob Blake!”

Now Rob, through so many dealings with this treacherous fellow in the past, had lost all faith in his possessing the least trait of decency in his composition. In most bad boys with whom Rob had ever had anything to do he could discover some sign of decency, even though it required considerable searching to find it; but upon Jared he had come to look as worthless.

All these promises Rob believed were only made with one idea in view, and this a wild desire to escape the punishment he so richly deserved.

Caught hiding under the bed after their effects had been searched and thrown recklessly around, Jared must certainly be treated as a common thief if arrested, and the management of the hotel would take great satisfaction in prosecuting him if only to discourage other employees from copying his example.

“Let him sit up, boys!” the scout leader told the two who had been pinning both of Jared’s arms to the floor.

They did as Rob requested, but from the way in which Andy and Hiram seemed to watch the culprit, meanwhile holding themselves in complete readiness to hurl their weight upon him at the first show of aggressive action on his part, it was evident that they attached small importance to his claim of repentance.

Rob hardly knew what to do. They had no reason to think well of this scamp who, in the past, never lost an opportunity to do them an ill turn, whether in the home town on the shore of Long Island, down at Panama, or upon the wide plains of Mexico. In Rob’s mind there was no shadow of belief with regard to that promise of reformation, or the gnawing desire to return home.

Still, so far as they knew, nothing had been stolen, so that there was no real reason why they should sink so low as to want to revenge themselves on Jared.

He certainly presented a most pitiable object as he sat there and turned his anxious eyes from one face to another of the four boys with whom he had gone to school for years, and who now held his fate in their hands.

“If I got anything, Rob, I meant to make it up to you later on when I could earn the money,” he was saying again, mistaking that serious look on Rob’s face and fearful that he meant to turn him over to the police. “I’m ready to go back to the farm and work it with the old man. This thing of knockin’ about the world ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, and I’m dead tired of going hungry half the time. Let me off, Rob, won’t you, please? It’d nigh ’bout kill the old woman if she learned I’d been caught tryin’ to steal from my schoolmates.”

Like all cowards, Jared, when he found himself face to face with the consequences of his folly, was ready to play the part of the prodigal son, and bring in his parents as a reason why he should escape punishment. Rob and the other scouts knew his mother and father, and while they had no reason to respect Farmer Applegate, still the fact that Jared was his son and must have almost broken the hearts of his people at home, was bound to influence Rob.

“Get up, Jared!” said the scout leader, shortly.

Andy gave a grunt of displeasure. He could guess what Rob was about to do, and felt like expressing his disgust, though it was seldom any of the boys ventured to differ with Rob, such confidence did they have in his long-headed policies.

Hiram simply contented himself with shrugging his shoulders. If Rob considered it best that they let the contemptible sneak thief off, after catching him in the very act as it were, well, it must be all right. Scouts were taught that when a foe was on his back and begging for mercy they must not be too hard-hearted. Jared was deceiving them, Hiram felt sure of that, but after all why should they bother with punishing him any further?

“Are you meanin’ to let me go, Rob?” quavered the fellow, as he managed to get upon his feet, with the four scouts clustered around him.

“Yes, because we haven’t lost anything through you as far as we can find out,” the scout leader told him, at which Jared’s face lost some of its strained look, and Andy thought he caught some of the old-time crafty gleam in his shifting eyes.

“I give you my word for it, Rob, I never took a single living thing,” he hastened to say.

“Well, we’ll make sure of that by taking a look through your pockets!” declared Rob, sternly. “You don’t seem to like that, do you? But make up your mind that if you start to show the first sign of resistance we’ll not only pile on you, but hand you over to the police afterward without listening to any more promises. Andy, you tap his pockets, and see what he’s got.”

Andy did not hesitate an instant; indeed, to see the way he started in one might believe this was an avocation with the scout, and that he had been employed a long time at police headquarters searching the pockets of prisoners before they were thrust into cells.

A number of things were brought to light, which did not possess any particular interest for the scouts. When, however, from an inside pocket Andy drew a roll of bills, fastened with a rubber band, Tubby was heard to give a “whee!” and Hiram nudged Rob in the side as if to say: “See how he yarned when he vowed he wanted to get back on the farm, but didn’t have the railroad fare East!”

Andy deliberately proceeded to count the contents of the roll, while the wretched owner followed his every move, as though he feared that by some hocus-pocus or sleight of hand process, with which he himself was possibly familiar, some of the money might take wings and fly away.

“Just ninety-seven dollars here, Rob!” announced Andy.

“Yes, that’s right,” declared Jared, cringing before Rob’s look, “and I earned every cent of that roll by honest days’ labor, every cent of it. I thought I needed just a little more to see me through all the way East. I was told it’d take about – say a hundred and ten clear. But I c’n wait now till I get my next wages. I was a silly fool to think to rob my old pals of the days in Hampton.”

“You never said truer words than those, Jared,” Rob told him, plainly, but with a feeling that nothing the other declared would be believed under oath, for truth and Jared Applegate had never been friends.

“But, Rob, I hope now you ain’t a-goin’ to keep any of my cash roll, or hand it over to the manager of the hotel. I’ve been working here quite some time now, and they treat me white so I’d hate to get bounced when I’m so near makin’ up the amount I need. It’s all clean money, Rob, you believe me, don’t you? Look at my hands and see how calloused they are? That’s a pretty good sign, I take it, that I ain’t been layin’ around, or playin’ cards like I used to.”

He had certainly been doing some sort of hard labor, though Rob was rather inclined to believe Jared must have been working in the mines with pick and shovel, and had only come to the city when driven out of the camp because of some crooked doings.

“You shouldn’t judge everybody by your own standard, Jared,” he told the other. “None of us could be hired to take a single cent of yours, no matter how you got the money, which is no affair of ours. Give it back to him, Andy; and I guess you’ve searched enough to satisfy us he is carrying away nothing that belongs to us.”

Jared clutched the money as might a miser, and hastened to stow it away again.

“And you mean me to go, don’t you, Rob? I take it you’re too high-minded to want to have revenge on a poor devil who’s down in the world, even if he has done you dirt in the past. Say I c’n skip out, won’t you, Rob? I’m a changed boy, I tell you; and you’ll never be sorry you acted white with me!”

“Open the door, Tubby,” said Rob, and the fat scout did so, though with apparent reluctance, for Tubby did not have the slightest faith in Jared’s wonderful reformation, and thought he ought to be punished in some way.

“Now go, and I only hope we never set eyes on you again, Jared Applegate. Only for the fact that you’ve already brought enough trouble on the heads of your folks at home I’d be in favor of handing you over to the police to deal with. Hurry up and leave before I change my mind.”

Jared did not linger a second longer than he could help. He gave each of the three scouts a look, and although he tried to appear grateful, they could see that there was the same old crafty gleam in his eyes as though deep down in his heart there existed not a trace of the desire to reform of which his lips had boasted. Passing through the open door, he vanished from their sight.

CHAPTER XX

LOTS OF EXCITEMENT

After all that excitement, Tubby could not immediately tear himself away from his chums.

“Why, seems as if all the sleep had been chased out of my eyes!” he declared, as he once more composedly sat down; and of course a general discussion took place in connection with their past experiences with Jared Applegate.

In the end they had to fairly pry Tubby away from that chair, and put him out of the door, in a friendly scuffle; he protesting to the last that as he had no expectation of getting a wink of sleep that night, there was no need of hurrying.

“Why, it’s half-past eleven right now,” Andy told him. “We’ll be a nice lot of blinking owls to-morrow unless we hit the hay in a hurry. You come back when you promised, and join the bunch. Good-night, Tubby!”