[Illustration: HE LANDED HIMSELF THROUGH THE AIR WITH A LONG GRACEFUL
LEAP. —Page 31.]
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BOYS _of_ OAKDALE
ACADEMY
BY
MORGAN SCOTT
AUTHOR OF “BEN STONE AT OAKDALE,” ETC.
_With Four Original Illustrations_
_By MARTIN LEWIS_
NEW YORK
HURST AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
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Copyright, 1911,
BY
HURST & COMPANY
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Boy of Mystery 5
II. Playing the Part 13
III. Rod's Wonderful Jump 26
IV. The Fellow Who Refused 39
V. Ambushed 50
VI. The Result of a Practical Joke 61
VII. The One Who Laughed Last 70
VIII. The White Feather 80
IX. Moments of Apprehension 88
X. Who Told? 99
XI. In Doubt 110
XII. Cold Weather in Texas 118
XIII. A Bond of Sympathy 129
XIV. A Narrow Escape 136
XV. When a Grant Fights 150
XVI. Independent Rod 162
XVII. The First Snow 170
XVIII. Rabbit Hunting 179
XIX. An Encounter in the Woods 192
XX. A Sunday Morning Caller 200
XXI. What Sleuth Piper Saw 208
XXII. The Fate of Silver Tongue 218
XXIII. Following the Trail 229
XXIV. The Proof 239
XXV. Settlement Day Draws Near 248
XXVI. Grant’s Defiance 254
XXVII. Spotty Refuses to Talk 264
XXVIII. Aroused at Last 274
XXIX. The Incriminating Letter 283
XXX. The Reason Why 291
XXXI. Something Worth Doing 300
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BOYS OF OAKDALE ACADEMY.
CHAPTER I.
A BOY OF MYSTERY.
“He’s a fake,” declared Chipper Cooper positively, backing up against
the steam radiator to warm himself on the other side. “I’ll bet a
hundred dollars he never was west of Scranton, Pennsylvania.”
“A hundred dollars,” drawled Sile Crane, grinning. “Why don’t yeou bate
something while you’re abaout it? Nobody’d bother to take a measly
little wager like that. Now I’ve kinder got an idee that the new feller
really comes from Texas, jest as he says he does. I guess he ain’t no
fake.”
“Oh, is that so!” retorted Cooper, a bit warmly. “Well, I’ll talk
business to you, Mr. Crane; I’ll really bet you fifty cents Rodney
Grant never saw the State of Texas in his life. Now put up or shut up.”
“I don’t want to bate on it,” said Sile; “but I guess I’ve got a right
to my opinion, and I cal’late Rod Grant ain’t no fake Westerner.”
“I knew you didn’t have the sand to back your opinion,” chuckled
Chipper. “It’s my idea that Grant is a fake and you’re no bettor.”
“Awful bad pun, Chipper,” said Chub Tuttle, a roly-poly, round-faced
chap who was munching peanuts. “I think you’re right, though; I don’t
believe he’s a Texan. Why, he hasn’t a bit of brogue.”
“Bub-brogue!” stuttered Phil Springer, who had a slight impediment in
his speech. “Texans don’t have a brogue; they have a dialect—they talk
in the vernacular, you know.”
“Talk in the ver—what?” cried Cooper. “Where did you get that word,
Phil? I don’t know what it means, but I do know Rod Grant talks through
his hat sometimes. When he tells about living on a ranch and herding
cattle and breaking bronchos and chasing rustlers and catching horse
thieves, he gives me a cramp. He certainly can reel off some whoppers.”
At this point up spoke Billy Piper, commonly known as “Sleuth” on
account of his ambitions to emulate the great detectives of fiction.
“Of late,” said Billy, “I’ve been shadowing this mysterious personage
who came into our midst unannounced and unacclaimed and who has been
the cause of extensive speculation and comment. My deduction is that
the before-mentioned mysterious personage is a big case of bluff, and I
must add that, like my astute comrade, Cooper, I gravely doubt if he
has ever seen the wild and woolly West. His tales of cowboy life are
extremely preposterous. All cowboys are bow-legged from excessive
riding in the saddle; the legs of Rod Grant—I should say the
before-mentioned mysterious personage—are as straight as my own.
Westerners wear their hair long; Grant—the before-mentioned mysterious
personage—has his hair cut like any civilized human being. Likewise and
also, he does not talk as a true Westerner should. Why, nobody has ever
heard him say ‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’ or any of those characteristic
words all Westerners scatter promiscuously through their conversation.
Therefore—mark me, comrades—I brand him as a double-dyed impostor.”
“Speaking about Grant, I presume?” said Fred Sage, joining the group by
the radiator. “I think you’re right, Sleuth. Why, I told him only last
night that no one around here believed him the real thing, because he
didn’t look like it, act like it or talk like it. What do you suppose
he said? He claimed he had to keep on guard all the time to prevent
himself from using cowboy lingo—said he was sort of ashamed of it and
trying to get out of the habit.”
Berlin Barker, a tall, cold-eyed chap who had been listening without
comment to this conversation, now ventured to put in a word.
“Fellows like this Grant are more or less amusing,” he observed. “I’m
also inclined to think him a fraud, and I have good reasons. Didn’t
Captain Eliot try to get him out for football practice the very day he
showed up here at Oakdale Academy? He looks stout and husky, and Roger
thought he might work in as a substitute; but, after watching practice
one night, he wouldn’t even step onto the field. It’s my opinion the
game seemed too rough and rude for this wild and woolly cow-puncher. If
anybody should ask me, I’d say that he has all the symptoms of a chap
with a yellow streak in him. I don’t believe he has an ounce of sand in
his makeup.”
“Somebody ought to be able to find out if he really does come from the
West,” said Tuttle. “Why don’t we ask his aunt?”
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard,” chuckled Cooper. “Nobody else wants to
ask her. People around here know enough to keep away from Priscilla
Kent.”
“Oh, she’s cracked,” stated Piper. “She’s lived here in Oakdale for the
last twenty years, and nobody has ever been able to find out much of
anything about her. Take a woman who lives alone with only a pet parrot
and a monkey for companions, and never associates with the neighbors,
and talks like an asylum for the simple-minded, and you have a
proposition too baffling for solution even by my trained and highly
developed mind. My deduction is——”
“Here comes Roger!” exclaimed Fred Sage. “Let’s ask him what he thinks
about the fellow.”
It was the hour of the noon intermission at Oakdale Academy, and, the
season being early November, with the atmosphere biting cold, Roger
Eliot stepped forward to warm his hands at the radiator, near which
hovered the group who were discussing the new boy. Roger was a tall,
well-built, somewhat grave-looking chap, whose sober face, however, was
occasionally illumined by a rare smile. The son of Urian Eliot, one of
the wealthiest and most influential men of the town, Roger, being a
natural athlete, was the recognized leader among the academy boys.
“Hello, fellows,” was his pleasant greeting. “Talking football?”
“No,” answered Hayden; “we were discussing that fellow Rodney Grant. We
were trying to size him up, and it seems to be practically the
universal opinion that he’s a fraud. We doubt if he has ever been west
of the Mississippi. What do you think about it?”
“Well,” confessed Roger slowly, “I’ll own up that I don’t know what to,
think. Still, I don’t see any reason why he should lie about himself.”
“Some fellers had rather lie than eat,” observed Sile Crane.
“Why shouldn’t he lie about himself?” questioned Cooper. “He’s told
some wallopers about everything else. I never heard a fellow who could
bust the truth into smithereens the way he can.”
“Oh,” said Eliot, “I know what you mean. When he first struck Oakdale
he didn’t have much of anything to say, and you fellows kept at him,
asking questions, until I fancy he grew weary and took a notion to
sling off a few big yarns for his own amusement.”
“Putting aside the question as to whether he came from the West or
not,” said Barker, “I’ve decided that he’s a quitter—in short, a
coward.”
“What makes you think so?” asked Roger.
“Why shouldn’t I think so? Didn’t you try to get him out for football
practice? and didn’t he refuse after watching us work one night? It was
too husky business for the gentleman who had punched cows and hunted
cattle thieves. Why, even Hunk Rollins doesn’t take any stock in that
chap, Eliot, and yesterday Hunk backed him down completely. Rollins had
a chip on his shoulder and was looking for trouble. He picked out Grant
and loaded him with jibes and insults. The cow-puncher swallowed them
all. Any one with a particle of grit would have climbed all over Hunk.”
“Perhaps you may be right, boys,” admitted Roger; “but don’t forget
that you made a blunder in sizing up Ben Stone when he came here. It is
possible you’re just as far wrong about Rodney Grant. He——”
“’Sh!” hissed Piper suddenly, as the door swung open and another boy
entered the room. “Here he comes now!”
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