THE ENEMY CHECKMATED
Bessie had eluded the furious Jake easily enough. Amazed by Dolly's
onslaught, he had been too surprised to move quickly in any case, and,
when he saw her trying to ruin his bicycle, he was diverted from Bessie
and, shouting furiously, ran toward her with the idea of saving his
wheel. So it was no trick at all for the two girls, light on their feet
and graceful in their movements, to avoid the shambling, ungainly,
overgrown boy, who, smarting from the pain of the scratches Dolly had
inflicted, ran after them blindly.
Moreover, they had not gone very far when a farmer's boy came along,
driving a surrey. He was laughing at the antics of Jake, and when he saw
the two girls, he stopped his horses.
"Say, is that big lout trying to catch you two?" he asked.
"He certainly is!" said Dolly. "Are you going to let him do it?"
"You bet your life I'm not!" said the boy, getting down from the surrey
quickly. "Just you watch those horses, and you'll see what I do to him.
We don't think much of fellers who hit girls in these parts."
Jake was coming along puffing and blowing, and when he saw the two girls
he gave a cry of triumph. But the farmer's boy checked that quickly, and
gave him something else to shout about.
"Here, you big bully, what are you trying to do?" he demanded, setting
himself squarely in Jake's path.
"Get outer my way!" stormed Jake. "That young one there smashed my
wheel, and the other one is wanted--she's wanted by the officers--she
stole a automobile and set my pop's barn on fire--"
"That's a likely story--I don't think!" sneered the farmer's boy. "Get
back now! Leave them alone, do you hear? If you try to touch them again,
I'll knock you into the middle of next week--"
But Jake was too enraged to be afraid, as in his sober senses he
certainly would have been. And rashly he made a quick leap forward, and
tried to get out of the way of the big young fellow who was between him
and the girls. There wasn't any fight; it would not be fair to dignify
what followed with such a name. Jake was knocked down by the first blow;
he tried to get up, and was promptly knocked down again. That brought
him to his senses.
"Had enough?" asked his conqueror, simply.
And Jake, lying in the dust at his feet, sobbing, and trying to pull
himself together, stammered out, "Yes!"
"All right! Get up, and go over there by the side of the road and sit
down. And if you know what's good for you, you'll stay there, too, or
else turn around and go where you came from. If you follow us you'll get
into trouble--more than you're in now, and that seems to be about all
you can handle, judging from the looks of you."
Then he turned away contemptuously, and went back to Dolly and Bessie,
who were watching him admiringly.
"Isn't he splendid--so brave and strong?" cried Dolly.
"It's a good thing for us he came along," said Bessie. "Jake is strong
enough to hurt us or do anything he likes to us, but I always knew that
he couldn't do anything against a boy his own size. I wish they hadn't
had to fight, but in a case like this it's all right, because it's the
only thing to do."
"Well, I like a boy who can fight when he has to," said Dolly, stoutly.
"I haven't any use for sissies, and I think that's all Jake really is,
for all his bluster."
"Well, I guess he won't bother you much more," said their champion, when
he returned to the surrey. "I'm only going as far as Tecumseh, but I'll
be glad to give you a ride that far if you want to go."
"We do indeed," said Bessie. "And we're ever so much obliged to you for
saving us from that fellow and for offering us the ride too. Do you know
when we can get a train at Tecumseh for Deer Crossing?"
"Right soon now," said the boy. "It's due most any minute but I'll get
you there in time. That's the train I'm going to meet--got to take some
summer boarders from the city out to pop's place. My name's Bill Burns.
My pop's got a farm over that way"--he pointed with his whip--"about two
miles."
Bessie and Dolly told him their names then, and he asked where they were
staying at Deer Crossing.
"Mercer Farm, huh?" he said, when they had told him. "I got a cousin
works over there--fellow by the name of Walter Stubbs. Do you know him?"
"Yes, indeed," said Bessie, with a smiling look at Dolly. "We saw him
this morning. Dolly thinks a lot of him."
"Oh, is that so?" said Bill Burns. He looked at Dolly, then bent over
and whispered to Bessie, "He's welcome to her." Then he spoke aloud
again. "I may be running over to see Walt one of these days. He and I
are pretty good friends--for cousins. Seems to me he told me somethin'
about an ice-cream festival over there at the Methodist Church. I might
run over to that."
"I wish you would," said Bessie, laughing. "All the girls are going, I'm
sure--all our Camp Fire Girls."
"What, more of you girls!" said Bill, seeming to be surprised.
"Yes, indeed. There are a whole lot over at the farm. They'll be glad to
see you, especially when we tell them how good you were to us, and how
you saved us from that nasty Jake Hoover."
"Oh, I just enjoyed beating him," said Burns. "Wish he'd put up more of
a fight, though. I'd have licked him just the same, but it would have
been more like a real fight. Well, I don't hear that train yet, and the
station's just around that next bend. Not much of a place--Tecumseh.
Hasn't any right to such a fine name, I think."
The prospect when they rounded the turn in the road bore out his slur on
the village of Tecumseh. It wasn't much of a place--scarcely more than
the village part of Hedgeville, as Bessie saw. The station was there,
and two or three stores and a post office. But Bessie and Dolly were
more interested in the man who was sitting gloomily, watch in hand, on
the station steps. It was Holmes, and his face, when he saw them, was a
picture.
"Well, how in the world did you get here?" he asked, angrily. "That was
a fine trick you played on me, running off, and leaving me to worry
about you! You might have been killed."
"I like your nerve!" exclaimed Dolly, before Bessie could answer,
surprised by the cool way in which Holmes tried to shift the blame to
their shoulders. "Look here, Mr. Holmes, we know all about you, and why
you took us on that ride. You wanted to get Bessie into the state where
she came from, so that Farmer Weeks could keep her there!"
A look of black anger swept across his face, handsome enough when he did
not let his real character stand revealed.
"Yes, there's no use trying to deceive us any more with your smooth
talk, Mr. Holmes," said Bessie. "I listened to what you said over the
telephone, and we heard you telling Jake Hoover how to catch us when we
went to take the trolley, too."
"Yes," countered Dolly. "If you had been as smart as you thought you
were, you could have caught us then--we were within a few feet of you
while you were talking to him."
"Well, I'm near enough to catch you now!" said Holmes, and he made a
grab for Bessie, and caught her just as she started to run away. He
began dragging her across the tracks and toward the state line, but Bill
Burns came out of the post office at that moment.
"Here, you let her alone!" he shouted, springing forward, and Holmes
dropped Bessie's arm to ward off the blow that Burns aimed at him.
"What are you butting in for?" he snarled, "Want to get yourself in
jail?"
"Never you mind what I want to do," said Burns. "Don't you try to touch
either of those girls again! If you do, you'll find that I can hit you
as hard as you ever was hit in your life. And if I ever get into jail,
you won't be the one to put me there, either--I'll bet money on that!"
There might have been more argument, but just then the whistle of the
approaching train sounded, and a moment later it had drawn into the
station, separating the two girls and Burns from Holmes very
effectually.
Bessie and Dolly sprang up the steps at once, and turned to wave
good-bye to Bill Burns, who had helped them so splendidly. He stood
below, grinning at them, and waving his hand, and as they began to move
out of range he called out cheerily to them: "Well, I'll be over to see
Walt pretty soon. Don't forget what I look like!"
"We certainly won't," Bessie answered.
Then they went inside, and sank gratefully and happily into the first
empty seat they saw. They were still hungry, but at least they were
safe now from the pursuit of Holmes and Jake Hoover, and they were so
grateful for that that they were entirely willing to let their hunger
be forgotten.
And they had not been seated more than a minute, when Bessie, at least,
had new cause for feeling happy, for a man's voice sounded in her ear,
and she looked up in surprise to see Charlie Jamieson, the lawyer,
bending over them.
"Well, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed.
They told him as quickly as they could, both girls joining in the story,
and his eyes grew grave as he listened.
"Well, I owe you an apology, Bessie," he said, when they had finished
their tale. "I certainly thought you were all off about Holmes, and I'm
still puzzled to account for his being mixed up in this. But there's no
doubt that he is, from what you tell me--none at all! He's a hard man
to have to fight, too. You did mighty well to get rid of him as well as
you did. You left him back there at Tecumseh, eh? Well, I'll just have a
look, in case he got on the train when you weren't looking."
He walked through the train, and in a few minutes he was back, looking
more serious than ever.
"That's just what he did," he said. "He's up there in the smoking car,
looking as if he'd lost his last friend this morning. He's a hard man to
shake off, and a bad man to have against you. That's always been his
reputation, and I guess you two will be ready to believe that after what
you've seen of him today. I'm going to sit down and do some thinking
now, before we get to Deer Crossing. It's a lucky thing I happened to
decide to run out this afternoon, and it was just accident. I found I
had a little time to myself, and I wired to Miss Mercer that I would
come out and spend the night and see how the Camp Fire Girls were
getting along."
"I thought maybe she'd sent word to you when Dolly and I weren't at the
farm for lunch," said Bessie. "I'm afraid she's worried about us."
"She probably is, and if she hadn't known I was coming anyhow she would
probably have sent for me. Well, you'd better rest up a bit now, Bessie.
We may not be through with Mr. Holmes yet."
"He wouldn't dare try to do anything to me now, when you're here, Mr.
Jamieson!"
"No, I don't believe he would. But that's not exactly what I meant,
He's through with us--for the day. But we're not through with him.
We may have a chance to get even and do something to him, just by way of
a change. I think he needs a lesson to show him that we're a match for
him, after all." Then he went off, explaining that he had to be alone
to think out a problem.
But they hadn't figured out what his plan might be when he returned to
them, chuckling mightily.
"I've got it, I believe," he said. "Holmes acted as if you had treated
him badly, didn't he, when you took his car? As if he was hurt by your
thinking that he didn't mean to do just what he said?"
"Yes," said Bessie.
"Then we'll pretend to believe it, Miss Mercer and I. You needn't, of
course. That wouldn't fool him for a minute. But he'll probably try to
make us think he's all right, and that's just what I want. Oh, we've got
him now, I think! I hope Miss Mercer will be at the station. I can't
explain my plan now, but you'll be in it, and then you'll see. I'm going
up to talk to him now."
So Bessie and Dolly, sadly puzzled, and unable to see what the lawyer
was driving at, saw the two men get off the train at Deer Crossing.
Jamieson rushed over to Miss Mercer and spoke to her for a minute, and
then Eleanor, laughing, held out her hand to Holmes, and turned to the
two girls with a smile.
"Why, how silly you were," she said, "to think that Mr. Holmes meant
to be anything but kind! You mustn't get such nonsensical ideas. Mr.
Holmes, just to prove that you don't bear any malice, you must let me
drive you out to the farm for dinner. No, I really won't let you refuse.
I insist. There's plenty of room in the car--the chauffeur will go back
in one of the farm wagons, and Charlie will drive."
Holmes glanced once at Bessie triumphantly but he was careful not to
betray himself.
"I'm afraid I oughtn't to impose on you, Miss Mercer," he said. "But
really, since you're so pressing--well, I shall be most happy to come."