DREAD.
Much to his disappointment, Billy Piper was not permitted to see Roy
Hooker. At the door Roy’s mother, who was plainly in a deeply distressed
and anxious state of mind, told him that the doctor had given orders
that Roy was not to be disturbed and had administered a mild opiate to
quiet the unfortunate lad, who had grown fearfully excited when
questioned concerning the cause of his injury.
“It’s a dreadful thing, Billy Piper,—a dreadful thing!” she exclaimed.
“I don’t know why any one should hurt my poor boy like that. Some one
must have done it. It was a wicked thing—a wicked, wicked thing! What if
he never recovers? What if he is always wrong in his head? He doesn’t
seem to remember anything, and maybe he never will.”
“It can’t be as bad as that, Mrs. Hooker,” said Billy, in an effort to
cheer her up. “We—I talked with the doctor a short time ago, and he
seems to think Roy will come round all right very soon. Don’t you think
he fell, or something, and hurt himself that way?”
“How could he fall and hurt his face and the back of his head at the
same time? I’m sure some one struck him, and it was a wicked blow. But
we’ll find out who it was; such things always come out in time. You know
all the boys, Billy Piper. Do you know anything about it? Have you heard
anything?”
“Of course not, Mrs. Hooker,” answered Piper, feeling cheap and mean and
miserable. “Do you think I wouldn’t tell you if I knew anything?”
“Not unless—— Oh, but of course you weren’t concerned in it. But perhaps
you can find out, Billy. Roy says you’re a real wonder at finding out
anything you want to know, and we all remember how you and Roy caught
one of those bank robbers. Roy gave you all the credit. He said that you
tracked the man, and that you even knew all about Fred Sage’s brother
being alive before any one else was aware of it. Now, if you can do
things like that, why can’t you find out who hurt my boy? The scoundrel
who did it should be punished. Won’t you try to find out the truth and
tell us about it?” Entreating him thus, she placed her hand on his
shoulder, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he refrained from
shrinking beneath her touch.
“I’ll do all I can,” he promised in a low tone. “I’m awful sorry this
happened, Mrs. Hooker, but, believe me, I can’t really think any one
hurt Roy maliciously and with deliberate design. It must have been an
accident.”
“If it was that, wouldn’t the person who did it come forward and own
up?”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps he’s frightened. Roy has a temper, you know, and
maybe he got into a fight with some one who struck him in self-defense.”
“Any boy who would do such a thing, and then keep still about it with
his victim in a dangerous condition, is a bad, bad fellow. There are
some very bad boys in Oakdale, Billy, and you must know it. Roy has said
more than once that you’re a regular detective. Here is something for
you to detect—something worth while.”
“I’ve been a chump,” acknowledged Piper, with an unmistakable intonation
of self-scorn. “I’ve played that detective game for my own amusement,
and made lots of trouble by it. I’m done with it now, Mrs. Hooker, for
it’s sneaky, cheap, underhand business. Any one who wants to become a
detective may do so for all of me—I never shall.”
“Then you won’t try to find out? You won’t help us any?”
“I’ve promised already to do all I can, and I shall keep my promise,
Mrs. Hooker. But I’m sure you’re unnecessarily worried. Roy will be all
right to-morrow. Of course he will tell you everything.”
He departed with his head hanging and his feet dragging, a spiritless,
downcast chap.
“Another lie,” he muttered. “What will she think of me when she knows?
And she’ll find out. She was right, things like this always come out.
Well, I see where some fellows in this town will have something to live
down, and I’m one of them.”
Springer and Cooper received his report with disappointment.
“You made a fuf-fizzle of it,” said Phil. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Nothing except tell a lie. I led Roy’s mother to believe that I didn’t
know a thing about it.”
“You couldn’t do anything else,” said Cooper.
“I could have told the truth, couldn’t I?”
“That would have been peaching; that would have been blowing on us all.
You couldn’t do that.”
“If you fellows have got the notion that we’re going to hide and escape
through lying and deception, you’d better give it up. We’ll have to
shoulder our part of the blame, sooner or later.”
“That’s fine!” sighed Chipper dolefully. “My father hasn’t used the
strap on me for some time, but I’m going to pad my trousers in
preparation for the coming walloping.”
“I’d like to pup-punch old Shultz!” rasped Springer. “He’s the one
that’s to bub-blame for it all.”
“No,” contradicted Piper promptly, “we can’t duck behind any such
excuse. If we hadn’t been there it never would have happened, for it
takes more than two or three to make up a decent game of poker. We were
all doing something on the sly—something that we didn’t wish respectable
people to know about, and something we mortally dread to have them find
out about.”
“Dread it!” groaned Chipper. “I should say I do!”
“It wasn’t a cuc-crime,” spluttered Springer, in an attempt at
justification.
“I don’t know about that,” snapped Billy. “Gambling is illegal, and so
it was a crime.”
“Oh, but we wasn’t gug-gambling; we were just playing for fun.”
“And we’re getting a lot of fun out of it, aren’t we? Perhaps you enjoy
it!”
At this point Phil’s anger blazed and he raged at Billy, calling him
chicken-hearted. Piper refused to listen; shrugging his shoulders, he
walked hastily away, heedless of the calls of the two lads, who begged
him to come back.
The church bells were sounding the second call and people in their
Sunday clothes were passing on their way to services when Piper rang at
Mrs. Chester’s door. The maid appeared, and, answering his inquiry,
informed him that Ned Osgood had already departed for church.
“He goes every Sunday reg’ler,” she said, with a touch of pride. “The
misses calls him ‘a most exempl’ry young man.’ Maybe you’ll see him at
the church if you go, too.”
“Thank you,” said Billy, descending the steps.
As soon as possible, he struck off across lots, to avoid the
church-goers. “A most exempl’ry young man!” he muttered, with a short
laugh. “He’s got her fooled. She doesn’t know what’s been going on in
his rooms every Saturday night. I wonder if she’s heard about Roy? Don’t
s’pose she’d have an idea anything happened to him in her house if she
has heard.”
He next thought of finding Shultz, but, from lack of courage or an
aversion for facing the fellow, could not bring himself to look for the
prime cause of all the trouble.
Returning home, he found the house deserted, his folks being away to
church, and his manner of wandering restlessly about through the empty
rooms made him think of the old simile about the caged tiger. It was
practically impossible for him to keep still. He wanted to do something,
and his tortured conscience bade him do the right thing; but what that
was, he could not for the life of him decide. Gradually his restlessness
wore away, but still dread, like a bird of evil omen, seemed to hover
near.
His parents returned, and, as usually happened when he remained away
from church, which, it must be confessed, was often, he was sharply
scolded by his father. Mr. Piper was much given to scolding, but only
when especially aroused did he attempt to exert genuine parental
authority over his son. In fact, Billy, like far too many boys of the
present day, was permitted to do practically as he pleased as long as he
did not worry his folks by getting into “scrapes.”
The day wore slowly away without further information concerning Hooker
until near night, when it was learned that some one had made inquiries
about him over the phone, and that his mother had said his condition
seemed unchanged.
At dusk Piper met Chipper Cooper at the end of the upper bridge. They
looked at each other inquiringly, and, after some moments of silence,
Chipper said:
“Well?”
“Well?” returned Billy with precisely the same inflection.
“I’m pretty near sick,” declared Cooper. “I hear Roy is no better. It’s
bad, Pipe—bad.”
“Rotten,” agreed Billy, leaning against the railing.
Cooper leaned at his side, and their tongues seemed chained. Beneath the
bridge the water gurgled and whispered. In the gathering shadows a robin
called plaintively from a treetop some distance away. The village
appeared almost as deserted and lonely as the hamlet of Goldsmith’s
immortal poem. A heavy weight, like lead, seemed to weigh upon the souls
of the two unhappy boys.
After a time Cooper heaved a sigh.
“It’s bad,” he repeated—“bad!”
“Rotten,” said Piper again.