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.