A TREACHEROUS COACHMAN.
Let us now go back to Blake, the energetic chairman of the committee of
arrangements, to whose careful management the boys in the first class
had intrusted their affairs in Hamilton, and see where he was and what
he had been doing all this while. The last time we saw him he and two
companions, Forester and White, were standing in the lower hall at the
academy, listening to some very emphatic instructions from Clark, the
president of the class, after which they hurried out to take the early
train for the city. They were going to look at the hall which the
proprietor, Mr. Colson, had been requested to decorate in his best
style, for the banquet that was to be held there that night, and to
speak to Mr. Taylor about the dinner, for which he had been instructed
to provide two hundred covers. If the arrangements were satisfactory,
they were to ease President Clark’s mind by telegraphing the fact at
once; and if there were anything lacking, they were empowered to set it
right without loss of time. These three boys were the only members of
the class who had been to Hamilton thus far. Their companions had left
everything to their judgment, and of course they felt their
responsibility, and were anxious to make the dinner as grand as it was
expected to be.
There was a goodly number of students on the train, members of other
classes who were going to the city to spend the day with their parents,
and this proved to be a very fortunate thing for Blake. Had it not been
for the assistance which they willingly and eagerly rendered him, he and
his committee would have gone back to Bridgeport without the courage to
hold up their heads. They reached Hamilton without any mishap, and the
first person Blake encountered, as he jumped off the cars, was a negro
with a very shiny face, a roguish eye and a bald head, who came up
holding his hat in his hand.
“Which one of you young gentlemen is Mr. Blake, if you please, sah?” was
his greeting.
“I am,” replied the owner of that name.
“Well, sah, if you please, sah,” continued the negro, “I’se driving
coach for Mr. Taylor at the present opporchunity, sah, and he done sont
me down hyar this mawning to tol’ you as how he was tuk sick at the
residence of his paternal father out in the country las’ night, and that
he can’t possibly officiate with his official services on the happiness
of the present occasion of this evening; therefore, he requests, as a
peculiar and macadamize favor to himself, that you will come out to the
house of his paternal parents so that he can talk to you about the
dinner, you know, sah. He done sont me with the coach to brung you.”
The boys would have been greatly amused had it not been for the
discouraging information which the coachman strove to impart by his
grandiloquent verbiage. Mr. Taylor was ill, he could not “officiate” at
the dinner that evening, and he had sent the negro to bring them out to
his father’s house in the country, so that he could tell them what to do
in his absence.
“That’s the worst piece of news I have heard in a long time,” exclaimed
Blake. “Everything has gone well with us so far, and now the trouble
begins. There’s nobody who can manage that dinner like Mr. Taylor.”
“That, sah, is a question beyond dispute,” assented the negro.
“I suppose we had better go with him,” said White. “If Mr. Taylor can’t
give us the benefit of his services, we want to know how to get on
without him. How far is it, uncle?”
“Sam, sah,” corrected the coachman. “That’s my name. The distance of the
journey is immaterial—about fo’ miles. The horses are speedy, and will
take you out there while you are talking about it. This way, sah; right
this way. Hyar’s the carriage.”
The negro led the way through the depot to the sidewalk, where he had
left his vehicle, an elegant barouche, in charge of a footman as black
as himself. The boys got in without hesitation, the coachman and his
companion mounted to their places on the box, and the swift horses
whirled them away toward the country. The moment they were out of sight,
four boys came out of the baggage-room in which they had been concealed,
and one of them stepping up to the window of the telegraph office, wrote
a dispatch addressed to Julius Clark, Bridgeport Military Academy. It
ran as follows:
“Everything is just as it should be. There is no hitch anywhere. The
hall looks beautiful, and the dinner is lovely. I hope the fellows
will be satisfied with what we have done.”
Another boy, whose name was Baker, then came forward and affixed his
initials, G. E. B., to the dispatch, and the operator sent it off.
“There, sir,” observed Endicott, as he and his three friends turned away
from the window, “that telegram contains nothing but the truth. The hall
really is magnificent—you know that was what we said when we saw it last
night—and so is the dinner. Everything _is_ just as it should be, _for
us_, there has been nothing to interfere with our programme so far, and
I certainly hope the fellows—our fellows—will be satisfied with what we
have done. If, when Clark receives the dispatch, he chooses to think
that the letters G. E. B. stand for George E. Blake instead of Gilbert
E. Baker, he is welcome to do it. It won’t be our fault, will it?”
Meanwhile Blake and his unsuspecting committee were being carried
farther and farther into the country. When they began to think it was
about time that the “fo’ miles” were accomplished, the coachman informed
them, in response to their inquiries, that they were only about half way
to Mr. Taylor’s house—that miles in the country were about twice as long
as they were in the city, and with that explanation they were obliged to
be content. At length the carriage was driven into a piece of thick
woods, through which the road wound and twisted in the most bewildering
fashion. The coachman told them that he was taking a short-cut by which
he would save half an hour’s driving over the very worst road in
America; but on this point the boys were inclined to be skeptical.
“I should say that _this_ was the very worst road in the known world,”
exclaimed Forester, as he and Blake clung to opposite sides of the seat
to keep from being dashed against each other. “If Mr. Taylor doesn’t
give you a good overhauling for straining the springs of his carriage, I
shall always think he ought to. Perhaps you had better let us get out
and walk.”
“Oh no, sah,” protested the negro. “Mr. Taylor wouldn’t like for me to
drap you young gentlemen in the mud. We are most da’ now, but I tell you
befo’ han’ that I can’t take you close to the residence by this road.
I’ll have to drap you at the foot of the hill, and let you walk across
the pastur’.”
The boys said they wouldn’t mind that, but still they were somewhat
surprised when the carriage came to a stand in the deepest and darkest
part of the woods, and the coachman sprang down to open the door. On
their right was a thick brush fence, inclosing a piece of barren and
rocky pasture; and the coachman told them that when they reached the top
of the hill they would see Mr. Taylor’s house in the valley below them.
It wasn’t more than five minutes’ walk, he said, and he would wait there
until they came back.
It was the greatest wonder in the world that Blake and his companions
did not begin to suspect something by this time, but they didn’t. Their
minds were so fully occupied with Mr. Taylor’s illness, and with
thoughts of their dinner, which they knew would not pass off half as
smoothly without him as it would with him, that they could not think of
anything else. They thought it rather strange that Mr. Taylor’s man
should dump them in the woods when he had been ordered to bring them to
the house, and they told one another so as they toiled up the steep hill
in the pasture; but still they did not dream of treachery until they
reached the top and found that there was no house in sight. All they
could see before them was a deep and thickly-wooded ravine, with another
hill on the other side of it, as high and barren as the one on which
they stood.
“Now, then, what does this mean?” said Blake.
“And where is the carriage?” chimed in Forester.
Sure enough, where was it? Like the house of which they were in search,
it was nowhere to be seen. It had been driven noiselessly away while
their backs were turned. Even then the truth did not dawn upon them
until after they had compared notes.
“Now, what does _that_ mean?” exclaimed Blake. “That darkey never
brought us out here for nothing. There’s something back of it, but what
is it?”
“It hasn’t got anything to do with our dinner, has it?” inquired White.
His companions looked blankly at each other, but made no reply. They
hadn’t thought of that.
“I am almost sure it has a good deal to do with it,” continued White;
“and we mustn’t stand idling here while there may be bad work going on
in the city. You remember what Lester Brigham did last term, don’t you?”
The sound of that name seemed to put life into all the boys at once.
With one accord they started on a keen run down the hill, scrambled
through the fence at the imminent risk of ruining their fine uniforms,
and began following up the tracks made by the carriage when it was
driven away. For a time the trail was plain enough; but presently it ran
into another road that had been badly cut up by heavy log-wagons, and
there it was lost. They spent half an hour or more trying to find it,
knowing that it would lead them out of the woods by the shortest route,
and then gave it up in despair, and ran about in every direction looking
for the road that would lead them to the city; but that, too, seemed to
have disappeared as mysteriously as the carriage-tracks. Then they tried
to retrace their steps to the fence, so that they could take a new
start, but soon found that they couldn’t even do that. Sam had done his
work well, and Blake and his committee were as effectually lost as
Endicott could have wished them to be. They talked the matter over while
they were roaming about, and had finally arrived at the conclusion that
Lester Brigham and some of his particular friends had sprung a trap on
them; but what the object of it was, they could not determine. The idea
that he intended to run off with their dinner never once entered their
heads.
“Blake, have you done anything during the term to make him angry at
you?” asked Forester, who was first corporal of his company. “Have you,
White? Well, I haven’t either. I put him into an awkward squad once by
the superintendent’s orders, and gave him a pretty sharp drill in the
manual of arms to teach him to mind what he was about when he was on
dress parade; but I didn’t haze him.”
“No matter,” returned Blake. “He thought you did, and this is the
result. He means to cheat us out of our dinner; but if he succeeds, I’ll
give him a dressing-down the first time I meet him that will do his
heart good.”
The other boys made the mental resolution that they would do the same
thing; but before they could accomplish their object, it was necessary
that they should get out of the woods. At one time it looked as though
they might have to stay there for an indefinite period; but fortunately
they met a farmer who was on his way from the city. His wagon was empty,
and if he had had a team of horses the weary students would have hired
him to take them to Hamilton; but he was driving a yoke of oxen, which
he was obliged to pound continually in order to keep them moving, and
the boys wisely concluded that they could cover the distance that lay
between them and the city in much less time than the lazy cattle could.
The farmer told them which way to go to find the main road—of course,
they were walking straight away from it—and made them groan by telling
them that Hamilton was eight miles distant—good long miles, too.
It took them three-quarters of an hour to find the road, and then they
stopped to take a good look at themselves. Their uniforms were soiled,
their boots covered with mud, their hands and faces scratched with
briers, their overcoats stuck full of burrs, and taken altogether they
looked very unlike the spruce young soldiers who had passed that way a
few hours before.
“Never mind,” said Blake, as he struck out at his best pace for the
city. “We are going where there are plenty of barber-shops, and half an
hour’s work will set us right again.”
“But we shall look like black sheep in the flock when we go to the
dinner to-night,” said White. “That ebony rascal took our grip-sacks
away with him.”
So he had; and with them he had taken their epaulets, white belts and
gloves, and polished brass buckles, which they had expected to put on
before they went into the hall.
While on their way to the city, the students kept close watch of the
road behind them, hoping that some one would come along and give them a
lift; but the teams were all going in the wrong direction, and it was
not until they were within two miles of their journey’s end that they
succeeded in getting a ride. They went at once to Mr. Taylor’s
restaurant, and found it almost deserted. There were only two or three
waiters there, and it was with no little trepidation that Blake inquired
for the proprietor.
“He’s gone to Bordentown,” replied the cashier, briskly; and the boys
thought he looked a little surprised to see them in so dilapidated a
condition.
“Then he isn’t ill?” said Blake.
“Ill! No. He couldn’t afford to be just now, on account of the dinner,
you know. The understanding was that the festivities were to be held in
Clarendon Hall, and we didn’t know until the last moment that different
arrangements had been made. The change in the programme was rather
sudden, but our house was equal to it,” said the cashier, with some
pride in his tones. “We got the dinner to the transfer-depot in good
shape, and it has gone to Bordentown; but why the cadets should want to
go to that out-of-the-way place I can’t imagine. Do you fellows belong
to the graduating class? If you do, you are left.”
“Do you know of any one living in the city who employs a colored
coachman and footman?” inquired Blake, without replying to the cashier’s
question. He had all a school-boy’s horror of being laughed at, and he
dreaded the explosion of merriment, which he knew would follow if the
man should learn what had happened to him and his companions. Their
dinner had been spirited away, they saw that plainly enough, and it was
too serious a matter to be laughed over. It could never be settled short
of a fight.
“Oh, that reminds me of something,” exclaimed the cashier. “Mr.
Endicott’s black coachman, Sam, has just been in here, and left these
valises, which he requested me to hand to Mr. Blake if he should happen
around.”
Blake and his friends did not care a snap of their fingers for their
valises just then. The articles they contained would be of no use to
them that night, and so they asked permission to leave them in the
cashier’s charge for a few hours longer. Then they went out on the
sidewalk and held a short council of war as they moved along.
“Did anybody ever hear of anything so exasperating?” exclaimed Forester,
who was so angry that he could scarcely speak plainly. “Why didn’t you
ask him what sort of a looking fellow it was who came to him and told
him that the class had decided to eat their dinner in Bordentown?”
“I had two reasons,” answered Blake. “In the first place, I did not
think it necessary to ask him any questions. I know who it was.”
“So do I,” said White. “It was one of Brigham’s crowd—one of the fellows
who helped him steal Mr. Packard’s yacht last term.”
“And in the next place,” continued Blake, “I did not want to let him
into our secret. There is no need that we should tell it to some one who
will spread it all over town before we can have a chance to retrieve the
day.”
Blake’s companions looked at him in great surprise. They had given the
dinner up for lost, but it was plain that the chairman didn’t consider
that he and his class had been beaten yet.
“Do you mean to say that you are going to try to get it back?” demanded
Forester.
“I mean that Lester Brigham and his crowd shan’t eat that dinner, but
our fellows shall,” said Blake, quietly but firmly. “Don’t ask me what I
am going to do, because I can’t tell until I have seen Mr. Colson. We
are all acquainted with him, and we know that he can be trusted. Let’s
go and ask him to tell us what happened here this morning, and then we
shall know how to go to work to circumvent those pirates.”
The boys had no trouble in finding Mr. Colson. He was sitting in his
office at Clarendon Hall, and fortunately he was alone. He looked up in
great astonishment when he saw Blake’s face at the window.
“Hal-lo!” he cried. “What brought you back here?”
“It is a long story,” answered the chairman. “Will you let us come in
and talk to you for a few minutes?”
Mr. Colson at once got up and opened the door; and when Blake and his
two friends walked into the office, and he saw what a condition their
boots and uniforms were in, he knew that something had gone wrong with
them. He had had some slight suspicion before, and now a light dawned
upon him all at once, and he understood the matter as well as he did
after it was explained to him.
“Blake,” said he, as he locked the door and pulled down the
window-shutter, thus making sure of an uninterrupted interview, “you
have lost your dinner.”
“We are painfully aware of the fact, Mr. Colson,” replied the chairman,
with an attempt at pleasantry; “and we should be much obliged to you if
you would tell us how it happened.”
“All I know about it is this,” replied the gentleman, and the members of
the committee were greatly relieved to see that he showed not the
slightest disposition to laugh at them. “You will remember that your
secretary wrote to me, saying that the class was satisfied with what you
three did the last time you were down here, and that if you thought it
best to make any changes you would notify me by a committee, and not by
letter. Well, last night a couple of young fellows came to me and said
that they had been sent to say that the crowd wouldn’t want my hall
to-night—that for class reasons, which they were obliged to keep secret,
they had decided to eat the dinner in Bordentown. They told Taylor the
same thing about the dinner, and ordered him to pack it up and have it
at the transfer-depot by the time the lightning express came in.”
“The impudent scoundrels!” exclaimed White, while Forester brought his
clenched fist down into his open palm with a report like that of a
pistol.
“If they were not authorized to act for your class they were pretty
cheeky, that’s a fact,” assented Mr. Colson.
“They were authorized to act for nobody,” said Forester, hotly. “They’re
a lot of robbers. They bamboozled you and Mr. Taylor completely.”
“I know they did; but you can readily see that Taylor and I are in no
way to blame for that. We are not acquainted with more than a dozen boys
in your class, and although we thought it rather strange that you should
suddenly make up your minds to go to so lonely a place as Bordentown to
eat your dinner, we asked no questions, because we did not want it to
appear that we were trying to pry into school-boy secrets.”
“Excuse me a moment,” said Blake. “Was Endicott one of the boys who
waited on you and told you we should not want the hall?”
“Endicott! No. Is he mixed up in it?”
Blake replied that he was, and with another slight apology for the
interruption went on to tell how Sam had met them at the depot that
morning, carried them out into the country to consult with Mr. Taylor,
who was so ill that he could not appear at the hall that evening, and
left them in the woods, eight miles from the city. It was while they
were trying to find their way out that they got their boots muddy and
their coats covered with burrs.
As Mr. Colson listened, the muscles of his face gradually relaxed, and
when Blake wound up the story of his adventures, he threw back his head,
pounded his knees with his clenched hands and laughed so loudly and
heartily that the boys were obliged to laugh, too, angry as they were.
“No, I didn’t see Endicott,” said Mr. Colson, as soon as he could speak.
“If I had, I should have suspected something at once; for I know him,
and I happen to know, too, that he doesn’t graduate this year. He was
sharp enough to keep out of my sight, and to send two boys I never saw
before. Those same boys came around this morning and got the flags,
which I had fastened up over the musicians’ stand, and when that crowd
of ‘pirates,’ as you call them, came in on the lightning express, they
marched through the streets, with the band playing and colors flying——”
“Has the band gone to Bordentown, too?” cried Forester.
“Certainly. Everything was done up as slick as you please. Just before
they left the city, their advance guard, or whatever you call those
fellows who did the business for them, dropped about a bushel of notes
into the post-office, all addressed to your guests, no doubt, stating
that the time and place for holding the banquet had been changed.”
“Whoop!” yelled Forester, who being utterly unable to sit still and
listen to this cold-blooded description of the way in which his class
had been outwitted, jumped to his feet and stamped about the office,
shaking his fists in the air, and acting altogether as if he had
suddenly taken leave of his senses.
“Now the best thing you can do,” continued Mr. Colson, “is to telegraph
your boys to stay in Bridgeport. They will only make themselves a
laughing-stock if they come here.”
“I wouldn’t do that for any money,” exclaimed Blake, earnestly.
“What good will it do them to come here?” inquired Mr. Colson. “The
dinner is gone—there is no two ways about that.”
“That remains to be seen,” answered Blake. “They’ve got a pretty sharp
fellow at their head——”
“I should say so,” exclaimed Mr. Colson. “Who is he, anyhow? I am sorry
he stole your dinner, but I must say I admire the skill he showed in
doing it.”
“The idea originated with Lester Brigham, a Mississippi boy,” replied
Blake. “He is the same fellow who got up the scheme for running off with
Mr. Packard’s schooner last term. But Enoch Williams managed that
expedition, and I am of the opinion that he is furnishing the brains for
this one. Now let’s talk business. Do you suppose I could charter a
locomotive and two cars at the transfer-depot?”
“What do you want to do with them?”
“I am going after that dinner. There were a score or more of academy
boys visiting here in town when those pirates marched through the
streets with our band and our flags, and I don’t see why they didn’t do
something about it.”
“What in the world could they have done?” asked White. “They could not
have stopped them even if they had wanted to, and they had no excuse for
calling upon the officers of the law for help. Besides, how do you know
but that every one of the twenty boys who are visiting here are not in
sympathy with them? Endicott and two other boys that we know of have
gone to Bordentown with Lester and his crowd, and what reason have we to
think that they are the only Hamilton boys who are in the plot?”
Blake began to look sober now. These words opened his eyes to the fact
that he had set himself no easy task when he resolved to capture that
dinner. Still the attempt must be made—that much was settled—and if it
failed, what could the class say to the guests who had come so far, in
response to their invitation? This question made him so nervous and
excited that he could scarcely keep his seat.