THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.
Practice that night was a failure; no one seemed to enter into it with
heart or enthusiasm. The ball was batted and thrown around listlessly,
and Nelson’s efforts to wake the fellows up bore no fruit. And so, after
a time, seeing that this sort of work would do the boys no good, the
captain put an end to it.
“It’s plain we haven’t our minds on the business in hand, fellows,” he
said, “so we’ll quit it for to-night. I fancy we’re all thinking too
much about what happened to Hooker.”
They straggled back to the gymnasium, which stood just outside the
grounds, and took their showers and rub-downs and dressed. There was not
much talk now, and very little joshing or laughter. Cooper perpetrated a
pun, but no one seemed to notice it. Even beneath the hissing,
spattering cold showers there was not much of the usual whooping and
shouting; they dove into the icy spray, gasped, jumped out, grabbed
their towels, scrubbed and dressed. Then, one by one, or in little
groups, they departed.
Charley Shultz followed Ned Osgood from the gym and overtook him
outside.
“There goes that cub, Piper, along with Phil Springer,” he said
anxiously. “Cooper’s ahead of them. They’re all going the same way.
Let’s hustle up and overtake them.”
Ned restrained him. “Let them go, Charley. It won’t do any good to chase
them, and it may look suspicious to others.”
“Did you get a chance to say anything to Phil and Chipper?”
“Sure. Couldn’t talk to them much, but I told them what Piper was up to,
and urged them to hold him in check.”
“What did they say?”
“They’re worried. They said they’d do their best.”
“He’ll bring them round,” snarled Shultz. “I never saw such a vicious,
determined little imp. I figured him out to be a wishy-washy, spineless
creature, but, on my word, he’s the most obstinate, pig-headed fellow I
ever ran up against. He’s got it in for me; he’s bound to queer me.”
“He’ll queer us both if he sticks to his plan,” said Ned, in a
discouraged way. “It’s going to hit me about as hard as it will you, old
fellow. I had to get out of Hadden Hall because I was caught with a
bunch playing poker in my room in one of the dormitories. My mother
insisted that I should attend a smaller and quieter school where there
would be less temptation, and that’s how I happened to come here.”
“There’s a bond of sympathy between us,” declared the other boy, with a
grin. “I was expelled from Berkley for fighting, and before that I got
into trouble in the public school of my own town. Like you, it’s my
mother who wants me to have an education. The old man was for putting me
to work with my coat off after the Berkley affair.”
They had paused near the academy gate.
“Going home?” asked Ned.
“Home?” exclaimed Charley, misunderstanding him. “If I’ve got to get out
of this town I’ll strike out for myself; I’ll keep away from home.”
“I mean are you going, now, to your boarding place?”
“Oh! I guess not yet. I’ll walk up with you. I want to talk this thing
over a little more.”
To avoid passing through the center of the village, they crossed the
yard to a field behind it, which brought them to Middle Street. As they
went along, Shultz was saying:
“My people aren’t such swells as yours, Ned, though the old man is
making some money. They’re German, but I was born in this country. It’s
only lately that my father has been scraping together some dollars. All
his life he’s had to pinch, and now he hangs on to the mazuma with a
deathlike grip. It about breaks his heart when he has to send me my
monthly allowance, and one reason why he put me here into this little
school was because he thought it would be less expensive. Your people
are different. You always have money. They might have sent you to any
big school if you’d insisted on it.”
“I explained my mother’s reason for wishing me to come here. After that
exposure at Hadden Hall, it seemed best that I should put in a year at
some obscure school before entering an institution of importance. You
see, considering our standing and family, she felt fearfully cut up over
what happened at Hadden. If there’s a repetition of it here, it will
make her hair turn gray. I may not betray my feelings to the extent that
you do, but I’ll confess that this miserable mix-up has got me going. If
you hadn’t struck that blow——”
“Oh, now you can’t blame me; you’d done the same under those
circumstances. What I’d like to know is where that extra ace came from.
You don’t suppose that sneak, Piper, slipped it into the pack, do you?”
Osgood shook his head. “I examined the cards after you fellows left. You
know I stated at the time that I had two packs with the backs alike.
Investigation showed me that the ace of spades was missing from the pack
that was not in use. It got into the other pack, somehow, and that’s
what makes me blame myself. You understand, Charley, that it was really
through my own carelessness that this whole thing came about.”
“It was rotten hard luck.”
“Yes, it was hard luck.”
Neither of them seemed to fancy for a moment that the element of Fate
entered, even remotely, into the case, and perhaps they could be excused
in this, for “hard luck” is ever the cry of the erring who face exposure
through seemingly chance twists of circumstances. Even hardened
malefactors, which these boys were not, rarely understand how closely
the threads of human destiny are woven, making it almost impossible
completely and effectually to hide the slightest flaw in the web.
Although Osgood invited him in when Mrs. Chester’s house was reached,
Shultz declined; he was troubled by a vague aversion for the room of his
friend, in which an event bordering on tragedy had taken place. They
lingered outside near an old elm that was just beginning to show the
least touch of tender green amid its branches, and continued seeking to
ease their minds by talk.
“Under any circumstances,” said Shultz, “this business seems to put the
kibosh on our little plan. It’s upset everything.”
Osgood nodded. “Just when we had things pretty well fixed,” he sighed.
“We were standing in right with the majority of the baseball team, and
Nelson’s act at Wyndham would have helped us along.”
“Sure. I’ll guarantee you would have been captain of the Oakdale Academy
nine before long. If Wyndham had won that game after Nelson benched us,
it would have settled everything our way. You’re mighty clever, old man.
You worked the fellows who could be worked, and did it just right. They
didn’t realize for a moment what we were up to. Still, we had them
sounded so that we knew which way every one would jump if a split came.”
“It was your idea; I’d never thought of it myself. Even after seeing how
loosely athletics are run here, being only a short time in the school, I
wouldn’t have fancied it possible to depose Nelson had you not suggested
it.”
For ten minutes or more they continued to talk without securing the
least relief from the oppression and anxiety that was on them.
The face of Shultz, as he trudged toward the home of Caleb Carter, where
he boarded, was clouded and gloomy. After supper he waited until the
shadows had lengthened into twilight, and then set forth into the
village. In their talk, neither he nor Osgood had spoken much of the
probable result of Roy Hooker’s injury, but Charley was inwardly
consumed by a desire for some report on the unfortunate boy’s condition.
In town he lingered around the post-office and the stores where the
villagers occasionally gathered to gossip, hoping to learn what he
desired without making inquiries. He joined some boys near the drinking
fountain in the square, but took little part in their characteristic
chatter.
“You’re glum to-night, Shultzie,” said Hunk Rollins. “Got a grouch on?”
“Oh, no,” was the answer. “I’ve had bad news from home. Father’s sick,
and I may have to give up school. It wouldn’t surprise me to get a
telegram to-morrow.”
“Oh, gee!” cried Chub Tuttle. “Don’t think you’ll have to go for good,
do you? With Hooker hurt and you gone, the nine will be mighty weak.”
“Has any one heard anything from Hooker to-night?” Shultz desperately
forced himself to inquire.
“Only that he seems to be about the same,” answered Harry Hopper. “He
hasn’t talked much yet. We’re all waiting to find out what he will have
to say when he does talk. The old Prof seemed to think it was going to
bump somebody. We’ve been trying to figure out who it will be. Fred Sage
is Roy’s closest friend, but he wasn’t out of the house Saturday night,
so he don’t know anything about it.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Shultz, “if the whole thing turned out
to be sort of a tempest in a teapot. It doesn’t seem at all likely that
anybody knows the facts and is keeping still. I’ll wager Hooker took a
tumble and hurt himself on his way home.”
“But the question is, where had he been?” said Tuttle, munching a
peanut. “He must have been out with somebody at that hour, but nobody
has come forward to say he was with him. That’s what makes it look
suspicious.”
“Well, I’m going home,” announced Shultz, who had no relish to discuss
the matter. “Perhaps we’ll hear something new in the morning.”
In his small back room at Caleb Carter’s he tried to divert his mind a
while by reading, but gave it up at last and decided to go to bed. He
was half undressed when, chancing to turn toward the window, which
looked out upon the roof of the ell, he staggered as if struck a blow,
his mouth open, his eyes bulging, both hands outflung.
The light of his lamp, shining through the window, fell upon the pallid
face of Roy Hooker, who was gazing fixedly at him!