THE EXPLOSION
On the following afternoon Snap was walking down to the river front,
on an errand for his father, when he caught sight of Ham Spink and
Carl Dudder, under a lumber shed. The pair were conversing in an
earnest fashion, but ceased their conversation as Snap came closer.
Snap knew that Ham and Carl were in far from a friendly humor. Through
one boy he had learned how Carl had been treated by his father, and
through another how Andrew Felps had discovered that Ham had been his
aggressor. There had been a lively interview when Mr. Felps and Mr.
Spink had met, and in the end the latter had said he would stand for
all damage done. Then he had gone home and laid down the law good and
hard to Ham.
"To punish you I will cut off your spending money," said Mr. Spink,
and thus Ham and Carl found themselves in the same trouble so far as
cash was concerned. It galled them exceedingly, and, as was their
habit, they laid the blame entirely on others.
As Snap passed the shed both Ham and Carl scowled at him. Then, after
he had gone a dozen steps, Ham called out:
"Come back here. I want to talk to you."
"Did you address me?" demanded Snap, wheeling around.
"I did. Come here, I want to talk to you."
Snap did not budge.
"If you want to talk to me you can come where I am," he said.
"Oh, you needn't get so mighty high and loftly!" sneered Ham Spink.
"I am not your servant."
"Nice stories you and your crowd have been telling about me and Carl,"
went on Ham, coming closer.
"Trying to get us into trouble," put in Carl. "It's a jolly shame and
you ought to be thrashed for it."
"See here, Dudder, and you too, Spink," answered Charley firmly, "I
want no quarrel with you. Ever since our outing last summer you have
been like bears with sore heads. If your camping out was a failure it
wasn't our fault. When you hadn't any game we let you have some of
ours, and we did a great deal more for you than you deserved. Now--"
"Oh, don't preach!" cried Ham.
"What do you want of me?"
"I want to give you fair warning that neither I nor Carl will stand
for the way you are acting. Either you keep your distance, or it will
be the worse for you."
"I am not afraid of you."
"Well, you had better be."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Snap. He fancied there might be
some hidden meaning to Ham Spink's words.
"Oh, you'll find out one of these days," came from Carl,
significantly.
"If you try any of your underhanded tricks you'll get the worst of
it--just as you did up to the camp," answered Snap, and went on his
way.
"Oh, I wish I could mash him!" muttered Ham Spink, between his set
teeth.
"Yes, and mash the whole crowd of 'em," added Dodder. "I hate the very
sight of 'em!"
"Do you know that they are talking about camping out again?"
"What, this winter?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"That I don't know."
"I'd like to spoil the trip for them."
"So would I. Maybe we can do it too, if we watch our chances."
The two talked the matter over for some time and when they separated
it was with the fixed determination to play some underhanded trick and
do "the Dodge crowd," as they called our friends much harm.
All of the boys who attended the local school had been waiting
impatiently to learn when the present session would come to an end.
Now it was announced that school would close the following Friday
afternoon and remain shut up for three weeks and a half.
"Hurrah! that will give us just time enough for a dandy outing!" cried
Whopper.
"You'll have to kill a bear a day to make up the number you said you'd
bring down," answered, Giant.
"Pooh! I never kill bears singly," sniffed Whopper. "I always kill them
in pairs or by the half dozen."
"We've got to make sure that we can go first," said Shep. "Remember
the school averages."
They did remember, and all were very anxious concerning the
examinations to come off before the term closed. They studied hard,
and came out with an average of eight-eight to ninety-four per cent.
"Good!" said Snap. "Our folks can't find fault with such records." And
nobody did find fault. On the contrary, the boys received not a little
praise, and permission to go on the winter outing was readily granted.
"Let us start next Monday," said Giant, who was impatient to get away.
"I doubt if we can get ready so quickly," answered Shep. "There is a
good deal to do, you know."
"Then make it Tuesday," pleaded Giant.
"The ice on the river is perfect, so it will be the easiest thing in
the world to skate to the lake and drag our sleds after us."
It had already been decided that they should go into camp at Firefly
Lake, where they had left their summer shelter only a few months
before. Firefly Lake was a beautiful sheet of water, or ice, located a
mile from Lake Cameron, and about eleven miles from Fairview. To get
to this spot they had to go to Lake Cameron first and then along a
narrow watercourse which united the two sheets of water.
The news quickly spread through the town that the Gun Club was going
away on another outing, and many envied our friends their coming
pleasures. Ham Spink and Carl Rudder looked sour over the prospects.
"Where are they going?" asked Carl.
"To Firefly Lake, to their old camp."
After this announcement both boys looked at each other suggestively.
"It will be moonlight to-night, and we can easily skate twenty or
twenty-five miles," suggested Ham.
"So we can, Ham. Let us do it, and--_fix things_."
"We will," said Ham firmly.
As soon as it was settled that our friends were to go away before
Christmas, and remain away over the holidays, they received from their
parents several gifts in advance. All obtained snowshoes--picked out
for them by their old hunter friend, Jed Sanborn--and they also
procured an extra gun, an extra sled, and some warm camp blankets.
They still possessed their old camp outfit and so it was an easy
matter to gather the things together and get everything ready for the
start. The outfit was packed upon two good-sized sleds and well
fastened.
"I suppose we ought to have skated up to the camp and inspected
things," observed Snap. "But I have been too busy to do so."
"Oh, I reckon everything is as we left it," answered Whopper.
"The camp was all right two weeks ago," said Jed Sanborn, who chanced
to be present. "Of course you'll have to fix up some kind of a chimney
in the cabin, for you can't keep your fire outdoors in this weather."
"It's as much fun to fix up the cabin as it is to camp out," said
Shep, and the others agreed with him.
On Monday afternoon the boys got their things together and stored them
in an old boathouse on the river front. They had looked to their
skates and each pair had been sharpened and put in first class
condition.
"We may use our skates as much as the snowshoes," said Whopper.
With everything stored in the old boathouse the door was carefully
locked by Shep, who put the key in his pocket. The old boathouse had
two windows, but each of these was nailed shut.
"I don't believe anybody will get in there," observed the doctor's
son.
"Oh, I don't think there are any thieves around," answered Whopper.
The evening was devoted to final preparations, and it was after ten
o'clock before any of the boys thought of retiring. Snap was over to
Shep's house, and the doctor's son saw his friend to the front door.
"Now remember, seven o'clock sharp," said Shep. "We want to get away
as early as possible, so we'll have plenty of time to fix up the cabin
when we get there."
"Oh, I'll be up early enough," said Snap, with a smile. "Fact of it
is, I am so worked up I don't expect to do much sleeping."
After a few words more the boys separated, and Snap started to walk
home. He had almost reached his gate when something prompted him to
halt. He looked down the roadway in the direction of the old
boathouse.
"I have half a mind to go down and see if everything is O. K.," he
murmured to himself.
Then he thought it would be foolish, and started to enter the house.
But he was undecided, and at last hurried down the roadway in the
direction of the river.
He was still some distance from the old boathouse when he discovered
two persons running across an open field which lined the roadway. He
could not make out anything excepting that they were either men or big
boys.
"That's queer," he reasoned, and then started forward again.
Snap was still two hundred feet from the old boathouse when a most
extraordinary thing happened. There was a rumble as of thunder,
followed by a fierce flash of fire, and then the end of the boathouse
arose in the air and came down with a crash, completely wrecking what
was left of the building!