COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN
COLE
OF
SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN
BY
ARTHUR PRESTON HANKINS
AUTHOR OF
“THE JUBILEE GIRL” AND “THE HERITAGE OF THE HILLS”
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1923
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
TO MY FRIEND
MAYNARD SHIPLEY
TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR THE
SCIENTIFIC MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE SLUG 1
II SPAWN OF THE DEVIL 10
III THE GIRL AT THE CRESCENT 18
IV THE GYPO QUEEN 26
V THE GYPO CAMP 35
VI THE WRECK OF THE GOOD SHIP “ARGO” 46
VII JOSHUA WALKS WITH HIS FATHER 56
VIII NUMBER 5635 65
IX TRUTH AND HONOR 75
X PARDONED 83
XI AN OFFER OF PARTNERSHIP 90
XII WHIMPERMETER 97
XIII THE PARTNERSHIP DISSOLVED 103
XIV MAN AND THE SLUG 112
XV OUT WEST 118
XVI THE ROAD TO G-STRING 127
XVII AMBITIONS 135
XVIII NEW PROSPECTS 147
XIX A TRIO OF SHOCKS 156
XX “A LITTLE SLEEP” 164
XXI THE SURRENDER 173
XXII HERCULES AND HIS FIREBRAND 181
XXIII “WHEN THE MOMENT COMES!” 191
XXIV WATER AT RAGTOWN 201
XXV ON THE ROCKY ROAD TO RAGTOWN 214
XXVI THE MORON 224
XXVII “NUTTIN’ BUT THE TRUT’” 233
XXVIII “YOU’LL COME BACK TO SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN” 242
XXIX WINTER IN THE SAN ANTONES 252
XXX SLIM WOLFGANG PLANS 259
XXXI BULLETS FROM SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN 269
XXXII THE NIGHT OF JUNE FIFTEENTH 278
XXXIII HORSEMEN IN THE NIGHT 288
XXXIV WHEN THE MOMENT CAME 296
COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN
COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER I
THE SLUG
FOUR boys, ranging from eleven to fifteen years of age, squatted close
to earth in a wet, weed-rank city lot. It was spring, and the new
warmth of the season’s birth was in the air. The lot was a vacant one,
and perhaps would remain so for many years to come, because it was low,
and the spring rains had made of it a veritable swamp.
One boy was master of ceremonies, and the eager eyes of his companions
were fixed on a chip of wood that he held in his hand, four inches
above the ground. The chip was perhaps five inches square, and over it
crawled a slug, a slimy, repulsive, helpless creature of the earth.
_Limax Campestris_ was the slug’s rather important-sounding name, but
of this the boys knew nothing.
“Aw, bet ye an agut he can’t get down!” volunteered one boy.
“Which one o’ yere agates?” asked the one who held the chip.
“My ole moony one,” was the reply. “Bet ye my moony agut against yer
black-’n’-white one!”
“Aw, his black-an’-white one’s half glass,” put in a would-be
spoilsport.
To show that he accepted the wager, the black-haired boy who had
imprisoned the slug on the chip reached his right hand into his
trousers pocket and laid a white-and-black-striped agate marble on the
ground beside him. The tow-headed gambler who had offered the wager
laid beside the black-and-white marble a milky-colored one, which was
soft and showed tiny half-moons, the result of countless collisions
with other “taws.”
“Anybody else?” invited the boy who held the chip and its crawling
inhabitant.
Several bets were offered, ranging from so many “chinies” or “commies”
or “glassies” to collections of jack-stones and other treasures dear to
the heart of a boy, all of which the master of ceremonies accepted to
the extent of his pockets’ contents. All eyes were again fixed on the
slowly moving gastropod.
“Now, lissen, Cole,” said one. “Ye’re bettin’ he c’n git down offen
that chip ’thout jumpin’, eh? Is that it?”
“Yes,” replied the dark-haired boy.
“Er fallin’?” questioned another.
“Er fallin’ either,” was the reply.
“Aw, they’s a ketch in it somewheres, fellas,” was the warning of the
third youthful sportsman. “He’ll let the chip down er somethin’.”
“They ain’t any such thing,” retorted the boy called Cole. “I’m
bettin’just like what I said. This here slug’ll let ’imself down on
the ground an’ go on about his business ’thout me helpin’ ’im, er him
jumpin’ er fallin’ er anything like that. An’ I’ll keep the chip four
inches above the ground all the time, just like I got her now. Now you
watch what I’m tellin’ you! Watch ’im!”
“Aw, ye’re crazy!” derided the tow-headed boy. “Ye’re crazy, Cole!”
The boy called Cole made no reply to this, but kept his fine gray eyes
on his captive.
A studious observer would have noted this boy’s remarkable face. His
hair was coal-black and of heavy growth. In sharp contrast, his large
eyes were a deep gray, almost blue, and the lashes that covered them
were long and black as soot. The face was decidedly ascetic, the nose
thin and almost Grecian. One noticed the mouth. It was youthful still,
but even now there were settling about it faint traceries that bespoke
determination. His was the face, almost, of a youth of twenty. But he
had barely turned fourteen.
Joshua Cole was the boy’s name. His schoolmates called him Cole, not
because of his precocious gravity, but after the manner of boys of the
age of twelve or thereabout as they begin to assume the ways of men.
When they called him Josh they were in a frivolous mood and set on
teasing him. But teasing Joshua Cole was fruitless. He merely smiled
and looked steadily at his would-be tormentors out of his tolerant,
grave gray eyes--eyes at the same time so serious and so whimsical as
to baffle them to silence. A strange boy was Joshua Cole, always deep
in some original, boyish experiment, as in the present instance, but
universally liked by his associates.
“We gotta be gettin’ to school,” Towhead announced, after the four had
watched the circular progress of the slug in silence for a time.
“Gee whiz! There goes the second bell now!”
“C’m’on, Cole! Ole Madmallet won’t do a thing to us!”
“Wait a minute,” said Joshua Cole softly. “He’s gone pretty near round
the chip now. When he gets clean back to where he started from, you
fellas might’s well say good-by to yer ole marbles.”
“But I ain’t gonta be tardy!” expostulated Towhead, and grabbed up the
moony agate.
“All right. Go ahead. You’re a hot sport, you are!”
“Ne’mind, Cole. Wait’ll Ole Hothatchet grabs you by the neck!”
So saying, Towhead ran off toward the near-by brick schoolhouse, where
already the scholars were filing in to the time of the principal’s
tapping with a ruler on a window sill.
Two more of the boys grabbed up their marbles and strapped books, and
followed Towhead, oblivious to the fate of the imprisoned slug.
But one doggedly remained with the experimenter. And this one, too,
was a black-haired boy, Joshua’s younger brother Lester. Lester Cole
had made his bet that the slug could not reach the ground after Joshua
had lifted him from his earthly home on the chip; and the Coles were
famous as stickers. He set his lips and watched the slug intently. But
presently he said:
“Aw, le’s be gettin’ to school, Josh! Old Madmallet’ll raise the devil.
We c’n watch an ole slug any ole time.”
“No, we can’t. Don’t know when we’ll find another slug,” replied his
brother. “It’s gettin’ so hot we won’t see many more of ’em pretty
soon. They can’t stand hot weather; it kills ’em. But you take yer ole
marbles and go. I don’t care about any ole bet. I’m gonta stay an’
watch this ole slug, myself. Can’t tell when I’ll get another chance.”
“I won’t go ’less you do, Josh,” said Lester. “You can’t bluff me out
on any ole bet. D’ye think I’m scared o’ Ole Madhouse? Not on yer life!”
“Look! Look!” Joshua almost shouted. “Now watch ’im, Les! Looky--he’s
been all ’round the chip, reachin’ out his feelers and crawlin’ over
the edge, ain’t he? And now he knows he can’t get off the chip just by
crawlin’ er anything like that. Now watch what he’ll do!”
Lester glanced nervously at the brick schoolhouse, into which the tail
end of the cue of scholars was now marching. Then an excited cry from
his brother caused him to turn his eyes on the slug once more.
And, lo and behold, the brainless crawling thing had begun to prove
that Nature had endowed it with powers unknown to ordinary, unobservant
man. It had crawled almost entirely over the edge of the chip, and was
holding by the tip end of its tail.
“He’s gonta fall!” cried Lester, forgetting austere old Silvanus
Madmallet, the teacher.
“No, he ain’t! You watch, Les! Now! Look at ’im!”
And lo and behold again, a thin stream of slime came from a gland at
the rear end of the pitiful creature, and it descended slowly, head
down, reeling out its rope of mucus as it went.
Lester Cole watched in boyish awe as the poor earthling drew nearer and
nearer to the ground, the string of mucus ever lengthening above it.
“I wouldn’t think it ud hold ’im,” he marveled.
And then the slug reached the earth and began slowly assuming a
horizontal position.
“Lift ’im up again, Josh,” suggested Lester.
“No,” said Joshua, dropping the chip. “That wouldn’t be fair. You lose,
kid!”--and he scraped into his hand an assortment of “glassies” and
“chinies.” “C’m’on--we gotta be gettin’ there!”
Side by side the brothers ran toward the schoolhouse.
“You oughtn’t to’ve stayed, Les,” puffed Joshua.
“An’ how ’bout you?” Lester retorted.
“It’s different with me,” stated Joshua.
“Like the dickens it is! What d’ye mean?”
“I gotta kinda look at things like that. You don’t care nothin’ about
’em, much. But don’t you let Ole Sorehammer get you. You been tardy a
lot here lately. He’ll feel like bustin’ you wide open. But I’ll stick
with you. Don’t let him bluff ye, kid.”
“How’d ye know that thing could do that, Josh?” asked Lester.
“’Cause I’ve made ’em do it before now,” Joshua told him.
“You’re a devil of a kid--always doin’ somethin’ like that.”
“I like to,” was all that Joshua said in explanation.
Silvanus Madmallet, called variously by the boys “Ole Hothatchet,”
“Ole Sorehammer,” or “Ole Madhouse,” was a tall, long-beaked, austere
pedagogue, who fairly exuded scholastic dignity. He was of the old
school--not so old in that day, either--who dispensed learning under
the well-known maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
He was seated at his desk when Joshua and Lester Cole hurried on tiptoe
into the cloak room, deposited their caps on hooks, and, grinning
guiltily at each other, walked into the classroom and tried to appear
unconcerned. Their classmates giggled and looked in Pharisaic triumph
at one another as the two culprits found their desks and screwed
themselves into the seats behind them. “Behold these publicans,” said
their eyes, “for they are tardy, and we were not!”
Old Silvanus Madmallet maintained a severe and portentous silence until
the brothers were established in their seats, casting sheepish glances
at each other, not daring to face the despot on the platform or the
hypocritically condemnatory eyes of their classmates. Then suddenly Old
Madmallet spoke.
“Joshua and Lester Cole, why are you tardy?”
Neither brother volunteered an explanation.
“This has been occurring altogether too frequently of late,” went on
the stern voice of old Silvanus. “Speak out, Joshua!”
Joshua parted his lips.
“Stand up, sir!” came from the rostrum.
Grinning in embarrassment, the older brother took his stand.
“It was my fault, Mr. Madmallet,” he confessed. “Lester, he wasn’t to
blame. I kep’ him.”
“Oh, _you_ kept him!” The principal’s tones were sarcastic. “And did
you find it hard to do?”
“No, sir. That is--yes, sir. He--he didn’t want to stay.”
“That’s a falsehood, Joshua Cole,” said Madmallet in calm, assured
tones. “This is not the first time you have tried to shield your
brother. He has been tardy repeatedly. Your brotherly love may perhaps
be commendatory, but this time it will not prevent your brother from
being punished.”
Silvanus Madmallet seemed to derive great pleasure from talking, in
a measure, over his charges’ heads. He loved to roll big words over
his tongue. Pedantic in the extreme was old Silvanus Madmallet, else
he would have risen long ago to some form of public service above the
teaching of adolescent girls and boys.
“Lester, stand up!”
Lester squirmed out of his seat and stood erect.
“Go into the hall.”
With slow steps and a white face, the younger brother took up his
melancholy march to the torture room.
“Joshua, sit down!”
But Joshua Cole remained standing. “Looky here, Mr. Madmallet,” he
said, his lips twitching and the jaw muscles shuttling under the taut
skin of his cheeks, “don’t you whip my brother. It was me that made him
late for school. You whip me, if ye gotta whip somebody.”
The room was silence itself. There came only the faint shuffle of
Lester’s feet as he walked to his doom. Gray crags grew over the fiery
eyes of old Silvanus Madmallet, and the eyes glared at Joshua Cole.
“Sit down!” he thundered.
“I know what you’re tryin’ to do!” cried Joshua. “You know it’ll hurt
me more if you whip my brother than ’twould if you was to whip me.
You’ve done that before. I’m onto you. And I won’t stand it!”
His voice had risen with every sentence, and on the last it broke.
Joshua Cole was near to tears. He was at once angry and frightened at
his own audacity. But he had long been at war with his teacher and knew
the injustice of the man.
“I won’t stand it!” he cried hotly again. “You just take it out on me
by whippin’ Lester. And--and I just won’t stand it, that’s all!”
“Sit down!” thundered from the platform a second time.
Lester’s lagging steps had brought him to the hall door. Reluctantly he
laid a hand on the knob.
“Go into the hall, I told you, Lester!” said the teacher, glancing
toward him briefly.
Lester opened the door, all hope gone, and closed it behind him.
“Now, Joshua Cole, are you going to obey me? Once more--sit down!”
“I won’t set down!” said Joshua, pale as death, but in his blue-gray
eyes that light of unshakable resolve which was later to prove the
determining factor in his career.
Just what might be gained by his refusal to sit down Joshua did not
know. He was not reasoning at all; he was merely in revolt against a
long-standing tyranny. And, boylike, he had resorted to unreasoning
obstinacy to show his attitude.
For a silent moment Silvanus Madmallet glared at him, his own face
white and rigid. Then he arose briskly, went to the closet, and
returned with a leather strap.
“I will attend to you later, young man,” he said with cold calmness,
and passed through the door by which Lester Cole had entered the hall.
As the door closed behind him a low buzzing arose in the classroom.
But it ceased abruptly as the scholars saw Joshua Cole trotting toward
that door, his small fists doubled. And as he passed the big stove,
which had not yet been taken down because of an occasional cold spring
morning, he grasped up the iron poker that leaned so invitingly in a
corner of the coal-box.