AN INTERRUPTED INITIATION
"He's full of grit this time," whispered Phil to Dave.
"Oh, Plum isn't the boy he used to be, I am certain of that," was the
low answer.
Before long the students reached a point on the river front where there
was a heavy clump of bushes. In a hollow between the bushes a fire had
been built, and on the bushes had been hung some horse blankets, to keep
off the wind.
As the members of the Gee Eyes reached the hollow they saw two boys
wrapped up in overcoats stealing away into the woods close by.
"Hello, who are those chaps?" cried Roger.
"One of them looked like Nat Poole to me," answered Dave.
"Wonder what they are doing here?"
"Came to see what was going on, I suppose."
"I don't like fellows like Nat Poole to be hanging around," remarked
Buster Beggs.
The fire had been burning low, but now it was stirred up and more dry
branches were piled on top, creating a roaring blaze. By the flickering
glare the masked figures looked decidedly fantastic.
Up to that moment the club members had been undecided what to do with
Gus Plum. Some were in favor of taking off his shoes and socks and
letting him down into the river through a hole in the ice, wetting him
up to his knees. Others wanted him to crawl on his hands and knees to
another spot on the river, quarter of a mile away. Still others wanted
to make a snow house and shut him inside for awhile, letting him breathe
through a piece of gaspipe which had been brought along. Others wanted
him to make a ten minutes' speech on "What Mackerels Have Done for
Astronomy," or some subject equally "deep."
"Let us have the speech, at least first," suggested Dave.
"All right, give us the subject," answered Phil, after a consultation
with the other officers.
"All right, I will," answered Dave, after a moment's thought. "Better
take the bag off his head first."
This was quickly removed, and Gus Plum was made to stand up on a rock
close to the fire.
"Wretch, listen!" came from one of the masked figures. "It is decreed
that thou must speak for ten minutes by the second-splitting watch on a
subject that shall be given to thee. Shouldst thou fail, it will be a
whacking with staves for thine. Dost thou agree?"
"Speak on what?"
"Here is the subject," said Dave, in a disguised voice that was thin and
piping: "If a Pail Lets Out Water When it Leaks, Why Doesn't a Boat Do
the Same Thing?" And a snicker went round at this question.
"Thou hast heard the subject. Art prepared to discourse?" asked one of
the Gee Eyes.
"Sure thing," answered Gus Plum, after a moment of thought. He struck an
attitude. "My subject is a most profound one, first broached by Cicero
to Henry Clay, during the first trip of the beloved pair to Coney
Island."
"Hurrah! Hooroo!" came from one of the club members.
"Cicero had been speaking to just such a crowd of convicts as I am now
addressing--thieves, murderers, and those who had failed to shovel the
snow from their sidewalks during the months of July and August,"
continued Gus Plum.
"Convicts is good," murmured Roger.
"The boat running to Coney Island had slowed up to a walk, which caused
Cicero to grow impatient, as he wanted a ride on the shoot-the-chutes.
Henry Clay, along with Napoleon and a Roman sausage-maker named
Hannibal, were in the bow of the craft trying to solve the fifteen
puzzle by the aid of a compass and a book on etiquette. Suddenly a
great commotion arose to a height of a mile or more. The boat sank to
the bottom of the sea, turned over three times, and came to the surface
again. A shriek arose from one of the ladies, Cleopatra's waiting-maid:
'I have lost my knitting overboard.' 'Man the pumps!' cried Cicero, and
then tied his sandals around his neck for a life-preserver. Henry Clay
drew a Henry Clay from his pocket and began to smoke vigorously.
Hannibal said he would turn cannibal if the boat went down again.
Cleopatra said she would die happy if only they would start up the
phonograph, and Homer did so, with that beautiful ode entitled, 'Why Eat
Turkey When Corned Beef Is So Cheap?'"
"Where's the pail that leaked?" came from the crowd.
"Stick to the subject."
"Is the boat leaking yet?"
"Be not afraid," answered Gus Plum, solemnly. "By the chronometer I have
still seven minutes before the boat and pail sink out of sight forever.
However, the pail was there, sitting, like a hen, on the larboard mast,
filled with gooseberries, which Pocahontas had picked at dawn, in
company with General Grant and King Henry the Sixty-second. Looking at
this pail, John Paul Jones slapped his sailor thigh and asked, 'Why is a
gooseberry?' a question which has come resounding down the ages---- Oh,
thunder! Do you want to blow me to pieces!"
Crack! bang! crack! boom! came four loud reports, and the fire was
scattered in all directions. _Bang!_ came another report, and Dave
received some burning fagots in the face. Gus Plum was hurled from the
rock upon which he had been standing. _Boom!_ came a report louder than
any of the rest, and what was left of the camp-fire flew up in the air
as if a volcano were under it.
[Illustration: What was left of the camp-fire flew up in the air. _Page
120._]
All of the club members were dumbfounded, for nobody had expected
anything of this sort. Half a dozen of the boys had gone down and in a
twinkling the robes Roger and Ben wore were in flames. The fire lay in
all directions, and now came two smaller reports and Dave saw a
fair-sized fire-cracker fly apart.
"Somebody put fire-crackers under the fire," he cried. "Big ones and
little ones." And then, seeing Ben in flames, he rushed to the
assistance of his chum.
It was no easy matter to put out the fire, and before Ben was out of
danger Dave got a blister on one hand. In the meantime Gus Plum had
leaped towards Roger.
"Roll over!" he cried, and tripped the senator's son up. Then he began
to beat the flames out with his hands and with the bag that had been
over his head. Roger had gotten some hot ashes in his face, and he
was confused and half blinded thereby.
The excitement lasted nearly five minutes, and when it was over the boys
stood there with their hoods and robes off, gazing at each other
nervously.
"Who did this?" demanded Phil.
"That was too much of a good thing," said Shadow. "Why, some of us might
have been burned to death."
"Kind of rough initiation," remarked Gus Plum, dryly. "But I didn't
catch it as much as Roger and Ben."
"That wasn't down on the programme," returned Dave. "At least, it wasn't
so far as I am concerned."
"I didn't know of it!" cried Buster Beggs.
"Nor I!" "Nor I!" came from one after another of the other members of
the Gee Eyes.
"Who started the fire?" asked Phil.
"I did," answered Sam Day. "I just got some wood together and lit it,
that's all."
"Was there anything on the ground?"
"Not a thing, so far as I noticed."
"Here is part of a big cannon cracker," said Dave, holding up the still
burning paper. "That was big enough to blow off a fellow's hand or
foot."
"Say, don't you remember those fellows we saw running away!" exclaimed
Roger.
"To be sure!" was the quick answer. "Nat Poole was one."
"Who was the other?"
"He looked like Link Merwell to me," said Buster Beggs.
"Then we've got an account to settle with Poole and Merwell," said
Roger. "Just look at how my hands and my neck are blistered!"
"And my hand," said Ben. "Oh, how it smarts! I'll have to put some oil
and flour on it."
"Let us declare Plum's initiation finished," said Phil. "Then we can
hunt up those fellows who played this dirty trick on us."
Phil's suggestion was at once adopted, and the club members scattered
through the woods, to look for those who had hidden themselves. In a
very few minutes Sam Day set up a shout:
"Here is one of them!"
"And here is the other!" called out Gus Plum and Ben, simultaneously.
"You let go of me, Sam Day!" came in the voice of Nat Poole. "I didn't
do anything! Let me go!"
"You come along with me, Nat Poole," answered Sam, sternly. "Just look
how that hand is burnt!" And in his anger Sam gave the other boy a smart
box on the ear.
"Oh! Don't, please don't."
"You'll yell worse than that when we are through with you," answered
Sam.
"You bet he will," said Buster Beggs. "I got a hot cinder in my right
eye."
"Don't, please don't!" shrieked Nat Poole. He was a coward at heart, and
the attitude of those around filled him with sudden terror. "I didn't do
it, I tell you."
"Then who did?" demanded Dave.
"Oh, I--I can't tell you. I--I----"
"Yes, you can tell," said Shadow, and gave Poole's ear a twist. The
story-teller of the school had gotten some hot ashes in his mouth, which
had put him in anything but a gentle humor.
"It was Link Merwell. He put the crackers under the fire and let the
fuses stick up," said Poole.
"You're a fine sort to blab!" sneered Merwell. "Since you're willing to
tell so much, I'll tell something too. He bought the fire-crackers."
"Is that true, Poole?" questioned Roger.
"Ye--yes, but I--I didn't know----"
"He knew what I was going to do with them," broke in Link Merwell. "It
was only a joke."
"So is that a joke, Merwell," answered Roger, and hauling off he boxed
the tall youth's right ear. "If you want to make anything out of it, do
so. Look at my hands and neck. You went too far."
Merwell's face blazed and he looked as if he wished to annihilate the
senator's son.
"Humph! I suppose you think you can do as you please, with your own
crowd around you," he muttered. "You don't know how to take a joke."
"I can take a joke as well as anybody, but not such a perilous trick as
that."
"It's on a par with the joke of the fellow who put gunpowder in a poor
Irishman's pipe," broke in Shadow. "It put the Irishman's eyes out. I
don't see any fun in that."
"I think we ought to give them both a good licking!" cried a boy named
Jason, and without more ado he took his wooden sword and gave Poole a
whack across the back. Then he turned and whacked Merwell.
It was a signal for a general use of the wooden swords and stuffed
clubs, and in a moment the two unlucky students were surrounded, and
blows fell thick and fast. Poole yelled like a wild Indian, but Merwell
set his teeth and said nothing, only striking back with his fists when
he got the chance. Dave took no part in the onslaught, nor did Ben and
Phil. As soon as he saw a chance Nat Poole ran for his life. Link
Merwell stood his ground a little longer, then he too retreated, shaking
his fist at the members of the Gee Eyes.
"Just wait!" he fairly hissed. "I'll get square for this, if it takes me
a lifetime!"