THE BOY WITH THE OAKUM TASTE
"Hustle, Dan! We've found him!" rang Dave Darrin's voice, echoing
through the rock-bound spaces.
"Greg, old fellow, you've had us worried," gasped Dick Prescott, sinking
to the stone floor beside his friend.
Greg lay on the floor, tightly bound hand and foot, a gag of oakum stuck
in his mouth and securely held there by cloth tightly strapped in place.
"Get your knife open, Dave, while I hold the light," ordered Dick.
"We've got to have Greg free at once. See how white and sick he looks."
Slash! Dave cut away the gag first of all, picking out all he could of
the gag.
"Ugh!" sputtered young Holmes, spitting out shreds of oakum. "You bet
I'm sick!"
"How do you feel?" Dick asked anxiously, as Dave rolled Greg over and
began to cut away the cords at the lad's wrists.
"Sick!" muttered Greg. "Sick of the very taste of that oakum stuff. Did
you ever eat any oakum?"
"Can't say that I did," laughed Dick merrily, now that he knew at last
that his chum was safe.
"You haven't missed much," growled Greg.
"There, your hands are free," announced practical Dave. "How long have
you been here, Holmesy?"
"Since Saturday afternoon."
"Had anything to eat?" Dick wanted to know.
"No; and I'll have to get the taste of that vile oakum out of my mouth
before I can endure the taste of food," uttered Greg dismally.
Darrin had made the last slash at Greg's foot-lashings.
"Now, get up, old fellow!"
Both helped young Holmes to his feet, but he would have fallen had not
Dick caught him.
"Circulation's all stopped," muttered Greg disgustedly. "No wonder! The
scoundrels must have tied me as tight as they knew how. Ugh! That fierce
oakum taste!"
"Say, you'll be the hero of the town when you get home, Greg,"
proclaimed Dan Dalzell, who had groped his way to the spot.
"Hero? With that oakum taste in my mouth?" sputtered young Holmes.
"Bosh! I'd sooner have a good gargle than be two heroes!"
While Dick supported the rescued boy, Dave Darrin was rubbing Greg's
legs roughly up and down to promote better circulation.
"Now, take a few steps," advised Dave. "See how you can go."
Supported by Dick's arm, Greg did fairly well in the way of walking. Of
course every step that he took helped restore the circulation.
"Wow! There's going to be an exciting time in Gridley," grinned Dan
Dalzell.
"What day is it now?" inquired Greg.
"Monday--afternoon," Prescott answered.
"My folks must be stirred up."
"They're crazy," Dan supplied very impressively.
"How far is this place from Gridley?"
"Six miles. Don't you know where you are, Greg!"
"Haven't an idea in the world."
"How did you get here? What happened?"
"Wait a little while," begged Greg. "I've just got to spit all the oakum
taste out of my mouth before I want to do much talking."
By this time they were at the tunnel that led outside.
"Hullo, Tom!" called Dick through the tunnel.
"Hullo yourself, and see how you like it!" came from outside.
"Tom," cried Dick joyously, "we've found Greg! We're bringing him with
us."
"Can't he bring himself?" demanded Reade. Then, in a suddenly scared
voice:
"Is he--dead?"
"Dead sore on oakum as a food," laughed Dan, grinning broadly.
Dick, holding the light, was piloting Greg through the tunnel. In a few
moments all were outside. Tom and Harry danced a jig for sheer joy.
"Greg, aren't you thirsty?" demanded Dick, as young Holmes stood
blinking in the bright sunlight.
"I shall be, as soon as I get the oakum washed out of my mouth,"
grimaced Greg. "Whew! What a vile taste that sort of stuff has!"
"Folks in the good old town won't believe us when we get back," muttered
Darrin.
"Yes, they will; they'll have to," insisted Dan, producing some articles
from one of his pockets. "Here are some of the cords you cut from Greg's
wrists and ankles, and here's some of the oakum."
"Throw that oakum stuff away, or else hide it. Please do," begged young
Holmes, making a wry face.
"Come on. There's no time to be lost," advised Dick. "We've got a long
way to go, and Greg needs the exercise. Besides, he's thirsty and
hungry--or ought to be."
Within five minutes the Grammar School boys came across a spring. There
Greg knelt and took in several mouthfuls, one after another, for the
purpose of rinsing his mouth of that nauseating oakum taste. Then, at
last, he swallowed water freely.
"My, but it's good to be out in the world again," breathed Greg happily.
"But how did you fellows find me?"
"The whole town turned out to search," Dick explained. "There was no
school to-day. And we came across clues that led us here. That's enough,
from our side. Now, tell us how you came to be in such a fix."
At this point the Grammar School boys came out on the highway.
"Better each put a few stones in your pockets, fellows," advised Dick
Prescott, stooping. "If we should meet any one we don't want to meet,
stones might not prove such bad ammunition. Now, Greg, start in and tell
us what happened."
"You know that big clump of bushes near the landing at Payson's?" asked
young Holmes.
"Yes."
"Well, Saturday afternoon I landed, tied the canoe and then, with a
gunny sack on my arm, started toward the orchard. Just as I was going by
the bushes I heard a little noise. Before I could turn I was thrown
flat. Then a man was on top of me, holding my nose ground into the
dirt."
"Dexter? Driggs?" questioned Prescott.
"I couldn't see who it was. Next thing my own gunny sack was forced over
my head. I could feel, now, that there were two men working over me.
Then my hands were yanked behind me and tied. Next my feet. I forgot to
say that when I was thrown I was hurled in among the bushes. Well, after
I had been bound a dark cloth of some kind was passed around the sack
over my eyes."
"Didn't you holler?" asked Dan, his mouth wide open.
"Yes. While the cloth was being tied tight I thought it was time to
start in to yell. At the first sound a pair of hands gripped me around
the throat. Whee! I thought I was being hanged, certainly! I must have
been black in the face when that scoundrel let up on choking me. Well, I
took the choking as a hint that I wasn't expected to make any noise.
After that I was thrown on my back, but I couldn't see anything. One
man, who had rather soft hands----"
"Dexter," guessed Dick.
"Most likely. Well, he sat with one hand across my throat, and I didn't
think it was my time to yell, so I lay quiet. After a while I heard a
wagon coming along. Then I was lifted into the wagon and a lot of old
sacking was thrown over the whole length of my body. I guess it was the
same sacking that you found me lying on in the cave. Then the wagon
started and I had a long ride. At last we branched off into what I guess
was a sort of bridle path. Not so very long after the wagon stopped and
I was lifted down to my feet. I walked a little way, guided by one of
the men, and then they lifted me up and carried me. Then I felt them
poking me through that tunnel. After that I saw some kind of a light,
dimly, through the cloths over my head, and then I was thrown down where
you found me. The light was out then, and the cloths were taken off my
head. Then that sickening gag was jammed into my mouth."
"Didn't you offer any kick?" inquired Dan.
"Where was the use?" sighed Greg. "I knew that men who had gone to all
that trouble to bother me wouldn't waste any time listening to what I
might have to say."
"Then you don't know," inquired Dick, "if Dexter and Driggs were the
men?"
"They didn't speak once, from the time they grabbed me up to the time
when they left me in the cave," Greg answered. "Hours after that I must
have fallen asleep. I woke up to hear their voices a little way off.
They were talking in whispers. I couldn't hear all that was said, but
I'm certain in my own mind that the two were Dexter and Driggs."
"Did you make out anything that they were talking about?" pressed Dick.
"Here and there I caught some of it. I heard one man scolding the other
about throwing bricks and shying a stone; and so that must have been
what happened to you, Dick, and to you, Dave. I'm pretty sure it was
Dexter who was doing the scolding. Later I heard him say it was foolish,
and this carrying me off was much more to the purpose--that a thing like
my being carried away would do a heap more to 'scare that woman' and
make her understand that she had some one she couldn't afford to fool
with. Next the other man broke in and said that lugging me away was
foolish, and only a cause of trouble. But the other man broke in, with a
laugh, and said he'd make 'that woman' pay handsomely to have me set
free. He said she had always been a tender-hearted woman, and would
spend plenty of money to save the life of a boy who had helped her. Then
the two men, I judged from the sounds, left the cave. Any way, I haven't
heard any sound of them since then. I----"
Here Greg stopped suddenly, clutching at a tree that he was passing.
"Fellows, I feel about all in," he remarked brokenly. "I'm awfully
dizzy, too."
"You're played out, starved and all used up--that's what ails you,"
exclaimed Dick sympathetically. "We'll halt here and give you a chance
to rest."
In five minutes Greg declared himself fit to go on again. Dave and Dick
walked on either side of him, half supporting him.
"There's a house ahead, and a telephone wire running into it," said
young Prescott. "We'll try to get that far, and then we'll telephone
into Gridley."
That much of the trip was made, with a couple of short halts for rest.
Dick went up to the front door of the farmhouse and knocked loudly. It
was the farmer himself who came to the door.
"We've found the boy that all the searching parties were out looking
for," Dick announced. "May we use your telephone to send the word into
Gridley?"
"You sure can," rejoined the farmer. "Come this way." Then, with a side
glance at young Holmes, "I guess you're him."
"Yes," nodded Greg.
"And you hain't had a bite to eat for a day or two?"
"No."
"Mother," called the farmer, leading the way into the living room,
"here's that missing youngster that there's been all the fuss over. He's
hungry. You know what treatment that calls for."
Dick, in the meantime, had espied the telephone and was engaged in
ringing up. He called for the police station and sent the news to the
chief.
"And say that I'm hitching up a team and am going to bring you all in,"
added the farmer. So Prescott added that item of information.
"Hark! Hear that?" broke in Dick a minute later, while nearly all the
others were talking at once. Despite the distance there came to their
ears the sound of Gridley's fire alarm whistle, sounding the recall for
all searching parties.
"Now, goodness knows I'd like to offer you a lot more to eat, young
man," said the farmer's gray-haired wife, patting Greg's head. "But,
after fasting so long you don't want to eat too much at first. What
you've had ought to be enough until you've had your drive and are at
home with your own folks."
"I feel fine, ma'am," responded young Holmes gratefully. "I don't know
how to thank you. And I'm glad you stopped my eating too much for my own
good. I'll be all right now, when I get home."
The farmer drove up to the door and called out. All of Greg's friends
wanted to help him outdoors, but he insisted that he could walk all by
himself. Into the farm wagon piled the Grammar School boys, after having
thanked the woman of the house most heartily.
"This is a lot better'n walking, after all," murmured Greg gratefully.
Even with his late start the boys were ahead of the searchers under
Captain Hall, who had heard the signal and were now returning.
"Turn down one of the side streets, will you, please?" begged Greg, as
the party neared the outskirts of Gridley. "I don't feel exactly like
meeting a whole crowd."
For, even at a distance, it could be seen that Gridley was swarming with
thousands of people who had not joined the searching parties.
Thus Greg was delivered at his own home, and the other members of Dick &
Co. were up on Main Street before the news had spread of young Holmes's
return.
All sensational events are dead as soon as they have been discussed for
a few hours. The police authorities visited Greg at his home and
questioned him, then reluctantly decided that there was not enough
evidence for issuing a warrant for Abner Dexter and his man Driggs. But
the news came over, from Driggs's own town, that the fellow had been
dropped from the police force there.
On Tuesday morning school went on as usual, and in the afternoon the
boys of the Central Grammar went at their football practice as though
nothing had happened.
Before the practice game Dick called a meeting in the field, at which he
and Dave Darrin were authorized to challenge the North and South Grammar
Schools to a series of games.
Within the next three days both schools had been heard from, and there
seemed every prospect of keen rivalry between the boys of the three
schools.
Many days went along ere Dick & Co. heard again from Dexter or the
latter's henchman. Yet events were shaping that were destined to mark
important pages in the history of Gridley.
Except for football, in fact, things were now so quiet that Dick
Prescott had not an inkling of the startling events that were ahead of
him.