"Disgrace you and ruin you!" cried Roger, in amazement.
"That is what it looks like," answered Dave. "I can account for their
actions in no other way."
"Tell us just what is going on," urged Phil. "You know you can trust us
to keep it a secret."
"I will tell you everything," answered Dave. "But first let us skate up
a little faster, so that the others won't catch a word of what is said."
And with that he struck out more rapidly than ever, and his two chums
did likewise.
To those who have read the former volumes of this series, Dave Porter
will need no introduction. For the benefit of others let me state that
my hero had had a varied career, starting when he was but a child of a
few years. At that time he had been found wandering along the railroad
tracks near the town of Crumville. As nobody claimed him, he was placed
in a local poorhouse and later bound out to a broken-down college
professor, Caspar Potts, who had taken up farming for his health.
Professor Potts was in the grasp of a miserly money-lender of Crumville
named Aaron Poole, who had a son Nat, who could not get along at all
with Dave. Mr. Poole was about to foreclose a mortgage on the
professor's place and sell him out when something occurred that was the
means of changing the whole course of the professor's own life and that
of the youth who lived with him.
On the outskirts of Crumville lived Mr. Oliver Wadsworth, a wealthy
manufacturer, with his wife and daughter Jessie. One day the gasoline
tank of an automobile took fire and little Jessie was in danger of being
burned to death. Dave rushed to her assistance and beat out the flames,
and thus saved her. For this Mr. Wadsworth was very grateful. He made
some inquiries concerning Caspar Potts and Dave, and learning that
Professor Potts had been one of his former college instructors, he made
the old gentleman come and live with him.
"Dave shall go to boarding school and get a good education," said Mr.
Wadsworth. And how Dave went has been told in detail in the first volume
of this series, entitled "Dave Porter at Oak Hall." With Dave went Ben
Basswood, his one boy friend in Crumville.
At Oak Hall, a fine seat of learning, located on the Leming River, in
one of our eastern states, Dave made a number of warm friends, including
Phil Lawrence, the son of a rich shipowner; Roger Morr, whose father was
a United States senator; Maurice Hamilton, usually called Shadow, who
was noted for his sleep-walking and the stories he loved to tell; Sam
Day, known throughout the school as Lazy, why nobody could tell, since
Sam at times was unusually active, and a score of others, some of whom
have already been introduced. He also made, in those days, one enemy,
Gus Plum. But Gus had since reformed, and was now as good a friend as
any of the rest.
What troubled Dave most of all in those days was the question of his
identity. How he started to find out who he was has been related in my
second volume, called "Dave Porter in the South Seas." There he did not
meet his father, as he had hoped, but he did meet his uncle, Dunston
Porter, and learned much concerning his father, David Breslow Porter,
and also his sister Laura, then traveling in Europe.
When Dave came back to Oak Hall, as related in "Dave Porter's Return to
School," he met many of his friends and succeeded in making himself more
popular than ever. But some lads were jealous of our hero's success, and
two of them, Nick Jasniff and Link Merwell, did what they could to get
Dave into trouble, being aided in part by Nat Poole, the son of the
miserly money-lender, who had followed Dave to the school. The plots
against Dave were exposed, and in sheer fright Nick Jasniff ran away and
went to Europe.
Dave had been expecting right along to meet his father and his sister,
and when they did not return to this country, and did not send word, he
grew anxious, and started out to find them, as related in detail in
"Dave Porter in the Far North." It was in Norway that Dave first saw his
parent, a meeting as strange as it was affecting.
After his trip to the Land of the Midnight Sun, our hero returned once
again to school, as related in "Dave Porter and His Classmates." Jasniff
had not returned, but Link Merwell was still at hand, and likewise the
lordly Nat Poole, and they did what they could to make our hero's life
miserable. In the end Merwell did something that was particularly
despicable and this caused Dave to take the law into his own hands and
he gave the bully the thrashing that he well deserved. Merwell wanted to
retaliate in some manner, but in the midst of his plotting, word of his
wrongdoings reached the head of the school and he was ordered to pack up
and leave, which he did in great rage.
While Dave was off hunting for his father and his sister, Laura Porter
had been visiting her friend, Belle Endicott, at Mr. Endicott's ranch in
the far west. Belle was anxious to meet her girl chum's newly-found
brother, and this led to a visit to the ranch, as told of in "Dave
Porter at Star Ranch." Here Dave again met Link Merwell, and proved that
the latter had been aiding some horse-thieves in their wicked work. Mr.
Merwell had to settle a heavy bill because of his son's actions, and
then, for a short space of time, Link disappeared.
With the coming of fall, Dave and his chums returned to Oak Hall, as
related in the volume preceding this, called "Dave Porter and His
Rivals." As his chief enemies had left the school, he did not anticipate
much trouble, yet trouble came in a manner somewhat out of the ordinary.
Nat Poole joined a group of students who had come to Oak Hall from
another school, and the crowd did what it could to get Dave and his
friends off the football eleven. Then, when Dave had once more fought
his way to the front, came word that Nick Jasniff and Link Merwell were
again "after his scalp," as Roger expressed it. Jasniff and Merwell were
then attending a rival institution of learning known as Rockville
Military Academy.
"Be careful, or they'll play you some dirty trick, Dave," said Phil,
warningly.
"I've got my eyes open," replied Dave.
In a rather unusual manner Dave had become acquainted with a man named
Hooker Montgomery, a fake doctor, who traveled around the country
selling medicines that he made himself. This man asked Dave to call on
him, and when the youth did so he was suddenly seized from behind, made
a prisoner, and carried off in a sleigh and then in an automobile. At
first he did not know what to make of it, but at last learned that he
was being held, for some purpose, by Merwell, Jasniff, Montgomery, and
the fourth man, a mere tool. He watched his chance, and, at length,
escaped, much to his enemies' chagrin.
"Have them all arrested," was the advice of Dave's chums, but this was
not easy, since all of the evil-doers had disappeared. Then, one day,
while on a sleigh-ride to a distant town, the boys fell in with Hooker
Montgomery. The fake doctor was practically "down and out," as he
himself expressed it, and said he would do anything for Dave, provided
he was not prosecuted.
"It was all a plot gotten up by those two, Jasniff and Merwell," said
Hooker Montgomery. "They promised me some money if I would help them,
but I never got a cent." Then he said that Jasniff and Merwell were in
town.
"We'll locate them," said Dave, but this was not accomplished until
later, when the pair of rascals were encountered at a railroad office.
Our hero and his chums tried to stop Jasniff and Merwell, but the
rascals rushed through a crowd and got aboard a train; and that was the
last seen of them for the time being. The boys might have gone after the
pair, but they had an important hockey game to play, and when they
administered a stinging defeat to Oak Hall's ancient rival, Rockville
Academy, Dave, for the time being, forgot that he had an enemy in the
world.
"Two weeks more of the grind, boys!" cried Dave, on the following
Monday. "And then home for the holidays."
"Right you are," answered Phil. "But, oh, those two weeks!"
On Wednesday one of Dave's chums celebrated his birthday, and among the
presents received was a very fine double-barreled shotgun. This lad
immediately wanted to go hunting; and the result was that the boys
applied to Doctor Clay for permission to go to Squirrel Island, up the
river, on a hunting expedition, the following Saturday. There was just
sufficient snow on the ground to make rabbit and squirrel tracking good,
and the boys were told that they might remain away all day. Six of them
had guns and two had revolvers, and they carried in addition a
good-sized hamper of provisions for lunch.
"Now, boys, be careful and don't shoot yourselves or anybody else," said
Doctor Clay, with a smile, when Dave, Roger, and Phil left the school
building. "Don't fire at anything until you are certain of what it is.
Every hunting season somebody is killed through the sheer carelessness
of somebody else."
"We'll be careful," answered Dave.
"Do you think you'll get any game?" And the doctor continued to smile.
"I hope to bring you at least a brace of rabbits or squirrels, Doctor."
"Well, I wish you luck. And don't stay too late," returned the head of
the school, and then with a pleasant nod he dismissed them.
Dave, Roger, and Phil were the first at the place of meeting, but they
were quickly joined by all the others except Ben.
"I'll tell you what, Phil," said the senator's son, when he had a chance
to talk to Phil alone. "Something is wrong with Dave. He isn't himself
at all. Can't you see it?"
"Of course I can, Roger," was the reply of the shipowner's son. "If I
get a chance to speak to him about it, I am going to do so. But I've got
to be careful--I don't want to hurt his feelings."
"When you do speak, give me the sign, so I can hear what he has to say,
too," went on Roger, and to this Phil agreed. Then came the start up the
river, and a little later Phil broached the subject, and Dave made the
dismaying announcement that Jasniff and Merwell were doing their best to
bring disgrace to himself and his family and ruin them.