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THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL
OR
FRANK JORDAN'S TRIUMPH
BY FRANK V. WEBSTER
AUTHOR OF "TOM THE TELEPHONE BOY",
"COMRADES OF THE SADDLE", "THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS", ETC.
CONTENTS
I FRANK JORDAN'S HOME
II THE TINKER BOY
III THE DIAMOND BRACELET
IV GILL MACE
V THE RUINED HOUSE
VI AN ASTONISHING CLUE
VII THE CONFIDENCE MAN
VIII NIPPED IN THE BUD
IX A BOY GUARDIAN
X AN OBSTINATE REBEL
XI TURNING THE TABLES
XII A STRANGE HAPPENING
XIII SOME MYSTERY
XIV THE ROW ON THE CAMPUS
XV DARK HOURS
XVI THE FOOT RACE
XVII THE TRAMP AGAIN
XVIII A DOLEFUL "UNCLE"
XIX A CLEAR CASE
XX FRANK A PRISONER
XXI A QUEER EXPERIENCE
XXII A STARTLING MESSAGE
XXIII UNDER ARREST
XXIV CLEANING UP
XXV CONCLUSION
CHAPTER I
FRANK JORDAN'S HOME
"Where did you get that stickpin, Frank?"
"Bought it at Mace's jewelry store."
"You are getting extravagant."
"I hardly think so, aunt, and I don't believe you would think so, either,
if you knew all the circumstances."
"Circumstances do not alter cases when a boy is a spendthrift."
"I won't argue with you, aunt. You have your ideas and I have mine. Of
course, I bought the stickpin, but it was with money I had earned."
The aunt sniffed in a vague way. The boy left the house, looking irritated
and unhappy.
Frank Jordan lived in the little town of Tipton with his aunt, Miss Tabitha
Brown. His father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South,
seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as
his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly,
fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not enjoyed life
very greatly.
There were two thoughts that filled Frank's mind most of the time. The
first was that he would give about all he had to leave his aunt's house.
The other was a wish that his father would write to him soon, telling him,
as he had promised to do, that he had decided that his son could leave
Tipton and go to boarding-school.
What with the constant nagging of his sour-visaged relative, the worry over
his sick father, and the suspense as to his own future movements, Frank did
not have a very happy time of it. He felt a good deal like a boy shut up in
a prison. His aunt used her authority severely. She kept him away from
company, and allowed none of his friends to visit the house. From morning
until night she pestered him and nagged at him, "all for his own good," she
said, until life at the Jordan home, roomy and comfortable as it was,
became a burden to the lad.
"It's too bad!" burst forth Frank as he crossed the garden, climbed a
fence, and made toward the river through a little woods that was a favorite
haunt of his. Reaching a fallen tree he drew from its side a splendid
fishing-pole with all the attachments that a lover of the rod and line
might envy. His eye grew brighter as he glanced fondly along the supple
staff with its neat joints of metal, but he continued his complaint: "When
she isn't scolding, she is lecturing me. I suppose if she ever hears of my
fishing outfit here, she'll be at me for a week about my awful
extravagance. Oh, dear!"
Frank had a good deal over which to grumble. His aunt certainly was a
"tyro." She was making his life very gloomy with her stern, unloving ways.
Frank had promised his parents, when they went away, that he would be
obedient in all respects to his aunt. He was a boy of his word, and he felt
that he had done exceedingly well so far, hard as the task had been. His
aunt was very unreasonable in some things, however, and he had been at the
point of rebellion several times.
"You'd think I was some kind of a beggar, to hear her talk," he grumbled to
himself. "Father sends plenty of pocket money, but the way Aunt Tib doles
it out to me makes a fellow sick. As to the stickpin--heigh ho! I won't
think about it at all. I've lots to be thankful for. I only care that
father gets well and strong again. As to myself, he's sure to decide soon
what school I will be sent away to. That means no Aunt Tib. I shall be
happy. Hello! What's wrong now?"
From the direction of the river there had come two boyish screams in quick
and alarming succession. Frank recognized a signal of pain and distress. He
started on a run and reached the edge of the stream in a few moments. He
leaned beyond a bush where the bank shelved down a little distance along
the shore. His eyes lit upon quite an animated scene.
A strange-looking, boxed-in wagon, with an old white horse attached, stood
stationary about forty rods distant. Just this side of it was a ragged,
trampish-looking man. He had just picked up a piece of flat rock, and as he
hurled it Frank discovered that he had aimed at a tree directly across the
narrow stream, but had missed it.
"Why, there's a boy in that tree," said Frank. "That big bully must have
hit him before I came, and that was the boy's cry I heard. The
good-for-nothing loafer!"
Frank rounded the brush in an impetuous and indignant way. He was about to
challenge the man, when the latter shouted something at the boy across the
stream, and Frank stopped to listen.
"Are you going to come down out of that tree?" the man demanded in a
bellowing tone.
There was no reply, and the man repeated the challenge. The boy addressed
continued silent. Frank could see him crouching in a crotch, his face pale
and distressed.
"See here," roared his persecutor, getting furious and shaking his fist at
his victim, "I'm after you, Ned Foreman, and I'm going to get you! Why, you
vagabond, you--you ungrateful young runaway! Here I'm your only solitary
living relative in the whole world, and you sit up in that tree with a big
stone ready to smash me if I come near you."
"Yes, and I will--I will, for a fact!" cried the lad, roused up. "You try
it, and see. Relative? You're no kin of mine, Tim Brady. I'd be ashamed to
own you."
"I hain't?" howled the man. "Who married your step-sister? Who gave you a
home when you was a helpless kid, I'd like to know?"
"Huh, a healthy home!" retorted the boy. "It wasn't your home; it was my
sister's, and you robbed her of it and squandered the money, and broke her
heart, and she died, and you ought to be hung for it!" and the speaker
choked down a sob. "Now you come across me and try to rob me."
"Say," roared Tim Brady, gritting his teeth and looking dreadfully cruel
and hateful, "if I hang twice over I'll get you. Better give me some of
your money."
"It isn't mine to give."
"Better give me some of it, all the same," continued the man, "or I'll take
the whole of it. I'm desperate, Ned Foreman. I'm in a fix where I've got to
get away from these diggings, and I've got to have money to go. Are you
going to be reasonable and come down out of that tree?"
"No, I ain't."
"Then I'm coming after you. See that?" and the man held up a heavy stick
and brandished it. Then he sat down on a rock and started to remove his
shoes, with the idea of wading across the stream.
Frank felt that it was time for him to do something. He was not a bit
afraid of a coward, but he realized that he and the boy in the tree
together were no match for the big, vicious fellow just beyond him. The boy
in the tree looked honest and decent; the man after him looked just what he
was--a tramp and perhaps worse. Frank thought of hurrying toward the
village for help. Then a sudden idea came to his mind, and he acted upon
it.
The man who was preparing to go after the boy who would not come to him,
sat directly under a big bush. Right over his head among the branches Frank
noticed a double hornets' nest. He knew all about hornets and their ways,
as did he of all the interesting things in the woods. Frank drew his
fishing-pole around and upward, until its willowy end rested against the
straw-like strands by which the hornets' nest was attached to the limb.
Very gently he got a hold on the connecting strands of the double nest and
detached it from the limb. Then he lowered it, carefully poising it with a
swaying motion over the head of the stooping figure of the man.
"Now!" said Frank breathlessly.
Already the disturbed hornets were coming out of the cells in the nest,
angrily fluttering about to learn what the matter was. Frank gave the
fishing-pole a swing. He slammed its end and the hornets' nest right down
on the head of the tramp.
Instantly a swarming myriad of the little insects made the air black about
the man. The fellow gave a spring and a yell of pain. Then, his hands
wildly beating the air, he darted down the river shore like a shot.