ROCKLEDGE SCHOOL
The boys reached instinctively for their bags. Then they remembered that
they had none, and looked at each other with a sheepish grin on their
faces.
"Nothing doing in that line," mourned Fred. "I wonder if we'll find them
in the station."
They stepped off the platform into a crowd of their schoolmates, who had
come down to welcome them. There they were, shouting and laughing and
all talking at once--Billy Bassett, Jimmy Ailshine, "Sparrow" Bangs,
Howell Purdy and a host of others. They fairly mobbed the newcomers and
were for dragging them off at once to the trolley car that ran to the
school. But the boys explained that they first had to look after their
missing baggage and they all trooped into the station.
"Haven't we got a lot to tell you fellows!" exclaimed Mouser. "You just
wait till you hear it all!"
"Caught in a snowslide," volunteered Pee Wee.
"Held up by tramps," declared Fred.
"Robbed of all we had," added Bobby.
These tantalizing bits of information only served to whet the appetite
for more. Their friends crowded around them open-eyed, and questions
shot out at them like bullets from guns. The boys suddenly found
themselves exalted to the rank of heroes. But they bore their honors
meekly enough, although they were almost bursting with the feeling of
their importance.
They were delighted to find their missing bags and suit-cases waiting
for them. The conductor had known the station their tickets called for,
and had left the articles in the care of the Rockledge station agent.
There was a telegram too from Mr. Blake to Bobby. He had wired the money
to Roseville and Mr. Stone had seen to it that it was sent on to Bobby
at Rockledge. Mr. Blake's telegram was a lengthy one and full of
anxiety. In it he told Bobby to wire at once on his arrival at
Rockledge, which Bobby promptly did.
Mr. Stone had sent a separate telegram also on his own account. He
stated briefly that the robbers had not yet been caught, but that the
police were busily hunting for them and hoped to get them soon.
"Well," sighed Bobby, as he folded up the telegram, "I suppose all we
can do is to watch and wait."
"Wait for the watch you mean," laughed Mouser.
"Now don't start anything like that," grinned Fred. "You'll start Billy
Bassett going if you do, and I can see that he's got a lot of conundrums
all ready to fire off at us."
"Who's that talking about me?" laughed Billy, coming forward. "Let him
say it to my face."
"Ginger thought you'd be springing something on us," replied Pee Wee,
"and we were getting ready to duck."
Billy looked aggrieved.
"You fellows don't know a good riddle when you hear one," he remarked
scornfully.
"How do you know?" countered Mouser. "You never give us a chance to try.
Spring a real good one and see how quick we'll tumble."
Billy looked dubious but took a chance.
"Well, take this one, then," he said. "What is it that happens twice in
a moment, once in a minute, and not once in a thousand years."
The boys put on their thinking caps, but the problem was beyond them,
and Billy strutted around with a triumphant look upon his face.
"Don't seem to be any too much brains in this crowd," he said, in a
superior way.
"Give us time," pleaded Mouser.
"Maybe it's because it's so bad and not because it's so good that we
can't guess it," conjectured Fred.
"Take all the time you want," said Billy patronizingly, "but I guessed
it as soon as I heard it."
As they had no evidence to the contrary, they had to take Billy's word
for this.
They pondered it for several minutes, but no answer was forthcoming.
"Nobody home," taunted Billy. "You're a bunch of dead ones for fair."
"I'll give it up," said Mouser.
"Let's have it, Billy," surrendered Fred.
"I'll be the goat," said Bobby. "What's the answer?"
"The letter M," crowed Billy.
Disgust and discomfiture sat on the boys' faces.
"Rotten," groaned Pee Wee.
"The worst I ever heard," grunted Fred.
"Wish I had a gun," remarked Mouser.
"It's a mighty good one," defended Billy. "But what's the use in giving
you fellows something to chew over. It's like casting diamonds before
swine."
"You mean pearls," corrected Mouser.
"Well, I may be mistaken about the diamonds," Billy came back at them,
"but I'm dead sure about the swine."
The laugh that followed told Billy that he had made a hit, and he
swelled up like a pouter pigeon.
"I've got another good one," he volunteered, "a regular peach. Why is--"
But here the boys fell on Billy in a body and he was forced to hold his
"peach" in reserve for another time.
Bobby by this time had finished all he had to do in the station, and the
boys gathered up their recovered suit-cases and made a bee line for the
trolley. A car was coming, not a block away, and they piled aboard
almost before it had come to a stop with wild clatter and hubbub. But
the motorman and conductor were used to the uproar and the pranks of the
Rockledge boys, and what few other passengers there were smiled
indulgently.
Rockledge was a lively little town with good stores and pleasant
residence streets shaded by handsome oak trees. There were gas and
electric lights, a number of churches and all the usual appurtenances of
a bustling village that hoped some day to become a city. And not the
least of the things in which the townspeople took pride was Rockledge
School.
Dr. Raymond, the head of the school, had been fortunate in choosing its
location. He had been able to secure, at a remarkably low price, a
beautiful private estate, whose owner had died and whose family had
moved away. There were several buildings on the grounds and these he had
remodeled and adapted to the purposes of a school, and he had built up
an institution that was well and favorably known in all that section of
the State.
The school was select. By this is not meant that it was in the least
degree snobbish. Dr. Raymond hated anything of that kind, and the school
was run on a purely democratic basis, with every pupil on exactly the
same level, whether his parents happened to be rich or poor. But the
doctor was a great believer in the personal influence of teacher over
pupil, and this could not be exerted so well if the classes were large.
So the school was limited to fifty pupils, and this limit was never
exceeded. At this figure the school was always full, and there was
usually a waiting list from which any vacancy that might occur could be
quickly filled.
The doctor himself was a scholar of high standing, and he had surrounded
himself with an efficient staff of teachers. Discipline was firm without
being severe, and the boys were put largely on their honor to do the
right thing. There was a society called the "Sword and Star" to which
admission could be gained only on the ground of scholarship and good
behavior.
Bobby had won membership in this the year before and had also gained the
Medal of Honor which was allotted each year to that pupil who, in the
judgment both of his teachers and school-fellows, had stood out above
all others. Fred, who was more flighty and less inclined to study, and
whose "red-headed" disposition was always getting him into trouble, was
not yet a member of the society, but had faithfully promised himself
that he would win membership in the term just beginning.
A ride of only a few minutes brought them close to the school grounds
and the boys prepared to get off. Tommy Stone was to stay on the trolley
car, which ran as far as Belden School.
Tommy had kept himself rather in the background during the trip. He
happened to be the only Belden boy on the car, and, owing to the intense
rivalry between the two schools, a Belden boy was usually as popular
with the Rockledge boys as poison ivy at a picnic party. But just now
Tommy was traveling under the protection of Bobby and his party, and
this saved him from the horse play he would otherwise have had to
undergo.
"Good-bye, Tommy!" said Bobby, as he got ready to leave the car. "Tell
your father when you write to him how much obliged we are to him for all
he has done for us. I'm going to write him a letter myself about it
to-morrow."
"Oh, that's all right," said Tommy. "Your father would have done the
same for me if I'd been in the same fix as you fellows were."
"And tell the Belden boys that we're going to trim 'em good and plenty
when the baseball season begins," laughed Mouser.
"Don't be too sure of that," grinned Tommy in return. "But I'll tell
them and they'll be all ready for you."
The boys dropped off the car, and in a few minutes saw the school
buildings looming up before them.
"Scubbity-_yow_!" cried Fred, dropping his suitcase and executing a jig.
"The old place certainly looks good to me."
"Seemed a long way off a few hours ago when we didn't have a cent to our
names," remarked Mouser.
"Looked as if we'd have to walk the ties to get here," laughed Pee Wee.
"And think how many stone bruises you'd have got," suggested Bobby.
"'Barked shins,' you mean," corrected Mouser. "They're the latest thing
in Pee Wee's collection."
The fat boy grinned. He was too happy or perhaps too lazy to enter any
protest just then.
The school was beautifully located on a high bluff overlooking Monatook
Lake, a sheet of water, nearly oval in shape. It was about ten miles
long and five miles wide at its broadest part. There were several small
islands scattered over the lake, and, as may be imagined, these were
favorite resorts of the boys when they were permitted to visit them.
A strong fence guarded the edge of the bluff for the entire length of
the school grounds. A winding staircase led from the top of the bluff to
the boathouse and the lake level.
Just now Monatook was clothed in an icy mantle that shone like silver
under the light of the moon which had just risen. It was a scene of
wintry splendor that gladdened the heart to look upon.
There were four buildings on the grounds. In the main building, which
was made of brick and sandstone, the classrooms and dining-room were
located. The basement had two sections, one for the kitchen and the
other for the indoor gymnasium.
On the upper floor were ranged the dormitories. These were two in
number. There were beds for twenty boys in each one. Then there were
five separate sleeping rooms, each one designed for the use of two boys.
A little off from the main building, but connected with it by a portico,
was a roomy house in which the doctor and his family lived, together
with the members of the teaching staff.
Besides these there were a gate-keeper's cottage, where the servants
slept, and a minor building used for storage purposes.
The grounds were skillfully laid out, and with their well kept lawns and
shaded paths formed a very attractive campus. To supply the athletic
needs of the boys there was a football field, a baseball diamond, and
tennis and basketball courts.
So that the boys who had the luck to be sent by their parents to
Rockledge School were usually convinced before they had been there long
that their lines had fallen in pleasant places.
"Well, I suppose the first thing we'll have to do is to report to Dr.
Raymond," said Bobby.
"He'll know that the school can go on all right now that we're here,"
grinned Mouser.
"I suppose we'll have to let him know that we're on deck," admitted
Fred, "but let's get it over in a hurry and get some grub. I'm hungry
enough to eat nails."
"Couldn't we get something to eat first?" asked Pee Wee wistfully.
"You ate enough at Mrs. Wilson's to last for a week, I should think,"
said Bobby.
"I notice that you weren't very far behind," retorted Pee Wee.
They trooped into the doctor's office and found him busy with some
papers, which he laid aside at once, however, as he stood up to greet
them.
He was a tall, spare man, with a clean-cut face and kindly eyes that
usually had a humorous twinkle in them, although they could flash fire
if he caught any of the boys doing a mean or tricky thing. He smiled
cordially and shook hands with them all.
"You're a little later than you expected to be, aren't you?" he asked.
"I was looking for you on an earlier train."
"We've had a hard time getting here," smiled Bobby, and in a few words
he told of the stirring adventures through which the little party had
gone that day. The doctor listened intently, surprise, indignation and
sympathy in his eyes.
"It was an outrage!" he exclaimed, when Bobby had finished, "and I will
get in touch with Mr. Stone at once and lend him any aid I can in
catching the thieves. But I am very glad and thankful that it was only a
loss of money and property. Those rascals might have used personal
violence. I'll telephone to-morrow to a number of different towns,
giving a description of the tramps and urging the authorities to be on
the look-out for them. The sooner such fellows are put in jail the
better."
He made notes of as many points about the robbers as the boys could
remember, especially of the scar of one man and the limp of the other.
As to the third man, the boys were somewhat hazy. He was just "plain
tramp."
"And now," said the doctor, his eyes twinkling, "I suppose there's no
need of asking you boys whether you are hungry."
There was an eager assent on the part of the other boys and a heart-felt
groan from Pee Wee.
"Of course it is long after the usual supper hour," smiled the doctor,
"but go over to the dining-room, find the housekeeper and tell her I
want her to give you the very best meal she knows how to get up."
There was no need of a second injunction, and the boys wished the head
of the school good-night and were off to hunt up the housekeeper.
"Isn't the doctor a brick?" ejaculated Mouser. "I thought he'd keep us
there half an hour or more talking about the work for the coming term
and what he would expect of us."
"That'll come later," said Fred. "Just now he knew that we were hungry."
"That's what makes him such a bully sort," said Bobby. "He hasn't
forgotten that he was once a boy himself," he added, with a happy sigh.
And this, perhaps, was as high tribute as could be paid by one of his
pupils to the master of Rockledge School.