[Illustration]
CHENEY was very much frightened, but he cried sullenly, “You let me go!”
Allan did let him up from the ground, but still held fast to him. “So
you _are_ the thief, Cheney? And you want more, do you?” Allan’s voice
trembled. “Cheney, I’m going to hand you over to the police. You deserve
it. You robbed me, and now you were trying to do it again.” “No, I
wasn’t,” whimpered Cheney. “Let me go, Allan! Don’t have me arrested.
Please, Allan!”
Then Cheney suddenly gave a violent twist of his body, hoping to catch
Allan unawares, and escape. But Allan’s fingers never loosened their
hold.
“It’s no use, Cheney,” Allan said, speaking as quietly as his excitement
would permit. “It wouldn’t do you any good to get away, anyhow. I know
who it is, and you would be arrested before morning.”
Cheney began to cry. “Don’t, Allan.”
“But you are a thief, Cheney.”
“No, I ain’t, Allan; I did take them, but I just put them back.”
“Put them back?”
“Yes, Allan, they’re up there all right.”
“Do you mean that you _have_ brought them back?”
“Sure,” Cheney answered fervently.
“Well, let us see,” said Allan. “You go up first;” and he made Cheney go
ahead of him up the stairs in the dark—for he had absently blown out his
light when he went into the house. Allan struck a match at the top step.
“See! there they are!” and Cheney pointed to the three plates lying on a
chair, the first object Cheney had encountered in the dark.
Allan picked up the plates, holding the match in his other hand. The
match burned out, and he struck another, and lighted his “white lamp.”
Then he looked at the plates, one by one, to see that they were not
injured. Convinced that they were not harmed, he turned to Cheney, who
stood falteringly and uneasily watching him.
“Well, you can go, Cheney, for all I care.”
Cheney immediately began to recover his self-possession.
“Oh, I was only foolin’, Allan. I was goin’ to bring them back.”
“You _did_ bring them back,” said Allan. “That saved you. I guess I can
get Detective Dobbs to let you go.”
“Detective Dobbs,” stammered Cheney; “you’re bluffing.”
“Well, Dobbs isn’t,” said Allan. “He suspected you from the first. He
spoke to you about the plates, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Cheney admitted, “but I didn’t think he knew anything. He only
said some pictures were stolen, and if I saw anybody with them I better
tell him to get them back in a hurry.”
“Look here, Cheney,” demanded Allan, stepping close to the other, “what
did you take them for?” Cheney was staring at the floor. Then he lifted
his head. “Oh, I told you,” he said. “Just for fun.”
“No, you didn’t, Cheney.”
But Cheney would confess nothing further; and when it occurred to Allan
that asking Cheney why he took the plates was tempting him to confess
that he had thought to shield his father, he decided to say nothing
further about the matter to Cheney. The plates were there again—that was
pleasanter to think of than proving any one to be a thief.
“Let it go,” was all that Allan finally said to Cheney.
“You’re not going to say anything about it, are you?” asked Cheney.
“No.”
And then Cheney shuffled down the steps, and was gone.
Allan intended to take his newly developed plates out of the washing-box
and place them in the rack. He scarcely took time to glance at them. The
important thing at that moment seemed to be that the fire negatives were
safe after all.
When he ran into the house, Allan held the three plates aloft and cried
out to his mother and Edith, “Guess!”
“Something good you caught to-day?” asked Edith.
Mrs. Hartel saw something different in Allan’s face. “The fire
negatives!” she said,—“you found them!”
“They _are_ the fire negatives,” Allan said exultantly, “but I didn’t
find them exactly,—the thief brought them back.”
“The thief—brought them back!” exclaimed Edith.
Allan nodded. “And they’re not scratched. Isn’t it lucky?”
“Who was it?” asked Mrs. Hartel.
“Cheney.”
Mrs. Hartel shook her head regretfully. “I’m very sorry it was Cheney.”
Allan related the incident of the meeting, the struggle, and the
confession.
“I think you acted rightly,” said Mrs. Hartel. “It will be as well to
say nothing more about it.”
“Do you really think,” asked Edith, “that he took the plates on his
father’s account—because he was afraid the pictures might prove
something against his father?”
“I don’t know,” said Allan. “He wouldn’t confess—and I didn’t much care
to make him. Anyway, I’m quite sure his father had nothing to do with
the fire. Mr. Dobbs doesn’t think it was set afire, and the factory
people don’t either.”
“I’m glad,” said Edith. “It seems dreadful to think of—any one
deliberately setting fire to a building.”
Dr. Hartel did not reach home until late that night, but Allan waited up
for him. He wanted to tell the news himself.
The next morning he hurried over to Owen’s and to Detective Dobbs’s
house. Dobbs only remarked, “I thought so.” The detective seemed to take
it for granted that Cheney would go unpunished. “But he should be
thrashed for it,” he said, and added: “How about Sporty’s picture?”
“I think it is going to be good,” Allan replied. “I’ll fetch you a proof
to-day.” He could see that Dobbs was more interested in Sporty’s picture
than in anything else, though he seemed to enjoy all of the proofs of
the pictures made in New York which Allan had to show him that
afternoon.
Meanwhile, Allan had gone to the factory superintendent and delivered
the plates to him. The superintendent was delighted.
“I don’t know whether they are going to be of any use to us,” he said,
“but I hated to lose them that way, and they may be very important.
Matling!” called the superintendent to a man at a desk in the corner of
the factory office, “make out a check to young Hartel for fifty dollars,
and take it in to Mr. Ames.”
Allan gave his full name; the check was signed by a white-haired man in
the adjoining room, who came out from the inner office as the cashier
was handing the check to Allan.
“So you are the boy who photographed the fire,” said the white-haired
man.
“I guess he would like to do it often,” laughed the superintendent.
“Probably—if it paid as well. But it is no more than the plates are
worth to us just now. I want to see them.” And the white-haired man
examined the plates with great interest. “They don’t look much like the
prints, do they? I tell you,” he said, turning again to Allan, “you must
let us call on you sometime when we want a piece of photographic work
done. We probably shan’t have a lawsuit in mind again, but there are
things we need from time to time, and you could make use of a little
money now and then, I suppose—photography costs something, doesn’t it?”
Allan said that he should be glad to try his hand at anything that he
was able to do. “You see, I’m only a beginner,” he said. He liked the
white-haired man, who had a pleasant look in his eyes and whose smile
was very friendly.
When Allan left the factory the feeling of good fortune, of having
succeeded after threatened failure, of new opportunities for his
photographic enthusiasm, not to mention the feeling of the check in his
pocket and the new privileges it promised, gave him a cheerful
expression of countenance which doubtless appeared to Owen when he met
him on his way back to the house.
“What luck?” asked Owen, cheerily.
“Good luck,” answered Allan. “Everything is all settled. They paid me
for the plates, and the old gentleman—the president of the company I
guess he is—thinks there are other things I might do for them.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Owen.
“And, Owen,” Allan went on, “I shan’t have a bit of fun out of this
money until you have divided it with me.”
[Illustration:
“‘Well,’ interposed Owen, ‘I tell you what we might do.’”
]
“No, no!” exclaimed Owen, sincerely, “I don’t think I should have any of
that. I only helped you; it was your camera.”
“But, Owen,” insisted Allan, “you did a good deal more than help me; you
really did most of the work. Anyway, I couldn’t enjoy the money unless
you shared it. It wouldn’t seem fair.”
“But I couldn’t feel comfortable, either, if I took it.”
“Why not, Owen? You could use it getting some new stuff, and—”
“Well,” interposed Owen. “I tell you what we might do. Ever since I saw
those rooms in your coach-house, I have been thinking that it would be a
fine idea for us to have them for a club—a camera club, if your father
would let us have them. Now, if you really think you couldn’t be happy
with all that money, why not take some of it and spend it fixing up the
rooms and getting things for a club?”
“Splendid!” cried Allan. “It wouldn’t seem so good as giving to you,
Owen; but it would be great to have a club, and we could all have the
use of better materials than we could afford to have on our own
account.”
“Besides,” continued Owen, “McConnell was with us, and he would feel
badly if he wasn’t counted in. He told me to-day his brother was going
to give him money for a camera next Saturday, and it would be right to
count him in as a—what do you call it?—charter member of the club. After
that the others who came in would have to pay an initiation fee.”
“Yes,” Allan assented, “we must have McConnell.”
“Do you think your father would let us use the coach-house?”
“I’m sure he would,” Allan declared. “There are three rooms there he
never uses, and—hello! there’s McConnell now.”
McConnell was on his wheel, and was riding with his hands in his
pockets—a trick to which he was addicted. When he saw the boys he made
so sudden a movement to extricate his hands and grasp the handle bars
for a quick stop, that he had a narrow escape from a tumble in the
gutter.
“McConnell,” said Owen, “if you think you can do that again, I’ll go and
get my camera.”
“I hope you didn’t worry,” said McConnell, coolly. “I can stop and
dismount with my hands in my pockets and not spill the machine either.”
“You ought to have joined the circus,” Allan said. “Or Buffalo Bill,”
added Owen.
“Oh, say!” exclaimed McConnell, “did you hear that Buffalo Bill was
going to be at Fitchville next month?”
“The Camera Club will have to go over,” said Owen.
“The Camera Club?” queried McConnell.
“Yes, McConnell; you didn’t know, did you, that you are a member of the
Camera Club?”
“Am I? Without a camera?”
“Well, you’ll have one before the club gets ready to be a club.”
“I will have one soon,” said McConnell. “I hope next week. But what do
you mean by the club?”
“We have been talking it over,” Allan said, “and Owen thinks we might
have a club in our coach-house rooms. I got my money from the factory
people to-day.”
“You did?” exclaimed McConnell; “without the plates?”
“But I got the plates again;” and Allan explained the situation to
McConnell, how they had decided to use half the money in fitting up the
rooms, and that Owen, McConnell, and Allan were to be charter members of
the club.
McConnell did not conceal his delight over this news.
“Then I must have a camera!” he cried. “And are you going to get a new
camera, Allan?”
“Yes, I think I’ll get a cartridge Kodak.”
“Then why not sell me your Wizard?”
“I want to sell it, and if you’d like it—”
“I would like it,” said McConnell. “I know what it can do.”
Allan mused a moment. “But I haven’t thought anything about what I
should sell it for. It’s second-hand now.”
“Oh, it isn’t _very_ second-hand,” McConnell said.
“It is a fifteen-dollar camera,” said Allan. “Would ten dollars be too
much?”
“I think that would be very fair,” said Owen.
“So do I,” added McConnell, “and that’s just what Bill has promised me.”
“Then we are all fixed!” laughed Owen. “Suppose the club goes and has a
meeting?”
“I’ll agree to that,” said Allan, “if you fellows will go with me to
Wincher’s while I get my cartridge camera. I can’t wait.”
“That’s all right,” said Owen, “we’ll have the first meeting of the club
at Wincher’s; and besides, we want to see what he has that we can use
for the club, don’t we?”
“Surely,” Allan assented, “and the club will be on hand to say what it
wants.”
McConnell was immensely happy, and turned a handspring before getting on
his wheel.
Allan knew that Wincher had a “four by five” cartridge Kodak in stock,
and he went straight to the point as soon as he arrived at the store.
Wincher put out the camera on the case, and Allan lifted it with
affectionate eagerness. They opened the folding front, and Wincher
reached for a film cartridge and showed Allan how it was placed in
position by removing the sliding back of the box. It was all very pretty
and ingenious and simple, and the boys were delighted. To make Allan’s
satisfaction complete Wincher gave a cartridge with the camera for the
twenty-five dollars.
“And now,” said Allan, “the club can do as it likes with the other
twenty-five.”
“Don’t you think,” said Owen, “that we had better speak to your father
first, and then make our plans?”
“If you like,” Allan said; “but I know it will be all right. And then we
might look around the rooms and decide what we need.”
Dr. Hartel was much pleased with the plans for a club. He promised the
boys several chairs, a box-scales, and other furnishings, which he had
in mind, and gave them some advice as to rules which they must adopt as
to the use and care of the dark-room. It was agreed that the rules
should be written and posted in the rooms.
“You see,” said the Doctor, “when your new members come in there would
be confusion if you did not have working rules and regulations.”
The boys had not thought much about the other members. “I wish there
never would be any more,” said McConnell, “but just us.”
“But your new members will bring more funds and you can improve your
outfit. However,” added the Doctor, “you must limit your membership.”
“Do you mean, The Hazenfield Camera Club Limited?” asked Allan.
“No,” laughed the Doctor, “that Limited means something different. I
mean that you must decide now to have a certain number of members at the
most—say, twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five!” exclaimed Allan. “Where could we put them?”
“Oh, they wouldn’t all be there at the same time. But you boys must plan
all these things for yourselves. Find out how the best camera clubs are
managed, and follow their example. Make yourselves at home in the
coach-house, and call on me when you need help.”
The boys did immediately proceed to make themselves at home in the club
rooms, which they surveyed with a pride greater than they ever had
experienced before. The rooms, small as they were, seemed spacious and
important, and gave the boys a grown-up and authoritative feeling.
“Do you want your camera now?” asked Allan, handing the Wizard to
McConnell.
“But I haven’t the money yet,” faltered McConnell.
“What of that? I don’t need it. Whenever you are ready.”
McConnell murmured a “Thank you, Allan,” and gave the Wizard a friendly
hug.
“And now,” said Owen, “before we go any further, I nominate for
President of the club, Mr. Allan Hartel.”
“Hold on, Owen!” interposed Allan, “you are the oldest, you must be
President.”
Owen ignored this interruption. “All those in favor will please say,
Aye!” and Owen and McConnell roared a tremendous “Aye!”
“It’s carried unanimously!” exclaimed Owen.
“But, Owen—”
“And I move further,” went on Owen, “that Mr. Percy McConnell be
Secretary. All in favor will please say, Aye!” and Allan now joined with
Owen in a resounding affirmative vote. McConnell looked overpowered.
“Then you must be Treasurer, Owen,” declared Allan.
“Then elect me unanimously,” said Owen, “or there will be trouble!”
“All in favor—” Allan began.
“Aye!” shouted McConnell, Allan following after.
“All unanimously elected!” said Owen. “That’s good. Now we _are_ a
club!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------