PUTTING ONE OVER
There was a shout of amazement from the boys in which could be detected
an element of unbelief and derision. But there was also a note of awe
that was balm to Billy’s soul. Any one who was so familiar with the
supernatural was not to be regarded lightly. Billy felt that he had
scored a decided hit and swelled out his chest importantly.
“When did you hear them walk?” asked Skeets, looking about him a little
apprehensively.
“You’re just kidding,” declared Shiner, stoutly. “I don’t believe a word
of it.”
“I think that Billy’s getting us on a string,” affirmed Fred, although
his eager eyes showed that he was none too sure of it.
Billy waited for the storm of protest and comment to subside.
“I mean just what I said,” he affirmed. “Cross my heart and hope to die
if I don’t.”
This solemn affirmation helped to quell the doubters, especially as
there was nothing to arouse suspicion in Billy’s sober face.
“Well then, tell us all about it,” urged Mouser, who was anxious to
obtain confirmation of his own belief.
“It was in our town when old General Bixby was buried,” explained Billy,
amid a silence in which one could have heard a pin drop. “There was a
big turnout and the band played awful solemn music.”
He paused for a moment.
“Yes, go on, go on,” urged Skeets excitedly. “Was it then that you heard
the ghosts walk?”
“Yes,” replied Billy. “It was then that I heard the Dead March.”
There was a moment of stupefaction, as the idea filtered into the minds
of Billy’s dupes. Bobby grasped it first.
“Run, Billy run!” he counseled. “They’ll kill you for that!”
But Billy had already edged his way to the rim of the group and by the
time they lunged for him was safely out of reach. Then he danced a jig
and went through various gestures expressive of his pity and contempt
for the victims who had let themselves so readily be taken in.
“It’s too easy,” he shouted. “It really isn’t sportsmanlike to take
advantage of such innocent boobs. It’s like taking candy from a baby.”
“It’s no use,” declared Bobby. “Billy is a hopeless case.”
“He sure is,” agreed Mouser, whose faith in ghosts had received a severe
bump. “I was watching his face too, but he was so sober that I fell for
it and fell good and hard. The only satisfaction is that the rest of you
fell for it too.”
Just then Dr. Raymond, the head of the school approached, and the boys
subsided. The doctor smiled pleasantly at the group and singled out
Bobby.
“I’d like to have you come to my office in a few minutes, Blake,” he
said, “and you also Martin and Bangs. I have something to say to you.”
“Very well, sir,” the boys assented.
The doctor passed on, and the boys looked at each other. Usually an
invitation to the doctor’s office portended something unpleasant, and
was not looked forward to with any degree of enthusiasm.
“Now you’re going to catch it,” chaffed Skeets.
“What have you roughnecks been up to now?” demanded Shiner with mock
severity.
“Perhaps he’s going to scold you for falling for my jokes,” Billy rubbed
it in.
But the three who had been summoned only smiled. There had been times
after midnight spreads and other escapades, when such an invitation
would have made them decidedly uneasy. But just at the moment their
consciences were clear, and it was without misgiving that a few minutes
later they knocked at the doctor’s door and were told to come in.
The doctor was seated at his desk, but rose as they entered and motioned
them to seats. He was a tall, rather spare man of middle age, with keen
eyes and the face of a scholar, in which could be seen also the
experience of a man of affairs. There was an air of natural dignity
about him that warned any one that he would be an unsafe man to trifle
with. But although he was a strict disciplinarian and the boys stood in
wholesome awe of him, he was yet tolerant and broadminded and absolutely
just. Any boy that was summoned before him for an alleged offense could
be certain of being heard in his own defense, and of getting a “square
deal;” and wherever possible, justice would be tempered with mercy.
He had built up a reputation for Rockledge School that was spread far
and wide. His instructors were well chosen, the manners and morals of
the boys were carefully looked after, and parents had no hesitation in
confiding their boys to his keeping. The institution was fortunate in
its location, standing on the shores of Monatook Lake, a beautiful body
of water, which afforded facilities for bathing, boating and fishing in
Summer and for skating and other ice sports in Winter. In addition to
these natural advantages, the school had a well-equipped gymnasium and
excellently laid out fields for football, baseball and other sports. For
training both the mind and the body, Rockledge School left little to be
desired; and this was so well understood in that part of the country
that there was usually a waiting list of applicants for admission to the
strictly limited number of pupils.
“I have sent for you boys,” the doctor said, after they had seated
themselves, “to thank you on behalf of myself and the school for the
gallant thing you did to-day in saving those boys from drowning in the
lake. It took a lot of pluck and hard work, and I’m proud of you.”
The boys looked embarrassed.
“How is Lee Cartier getting along, Dr. Raymond?” asked Bobby eagerly,
glad to change the subject. “Mr. Carrier told me that he wasn’t well
enough for us to see him.”
The doctor’s face took on a worried look.
“It’s a little early to tell yet,” be replied. “Dr. Evans, who has just
gone, told me that the drenching he had received and the exposure
afterward while you were getting back to shore had been a severe shock
to his system. He comes from the South, you know, and hasn’t been up
here long enough to get hardened to our climate. There is a possibility
that he may be in for a serious illness. Still, we’ll hope for the best.
I won’t keep you any longer,” he said, rising as a signal of dismissal,
“but I want once more to say to you that you have done honor to
yourselves and the school.”
The boys bowed themselves out and closed the door behind them.
“The doctor’s a brick, isn’t he?” remarked Fred, as they went down the
hall.
“You bet he is,” agreed Sparrow. “He’s the real goods.”
“He’s all wool and a yard wide,” was Bobby’s tribute to the head of
Rockledge School.
A week passed swiftly by and then another, and by that time Winter had
come in earnest. There had as yet been no snow, but the weather had
become intensely cold and the lake was beginning to freeze over. At
first, the ice looked like a gigantic spider’s web shooting out in
shimmering threads until the entire surface was covered with a crystal
coating. Then the ice began to thicken at the shores, and it was evident
that with the continuance of the cold weather it would soon be possible
to skate from one end of the lake to the other.
Skates were gotten out and polished and sharpened. Some of the boys
busied themselves with making ice sails, which they could hold in their
hands and which would carry them like the wind along the glassy surface
without the expenditure of any effort of their own, save what was
required to hold the sails. This contrivance had a special appeal to Pee
Wee, who was a profound believer in any device that would save labor. He
was far too lazy however to make one for himself and had written home
asking his folks to buy and send him one. To the other boys’ suggestion
that it be especially reinforced or made of sheet iron, he turned a deaf
and scornful ear.
But before the ice was quite hard enough to be trusted, the snow took a
hand. Up to then there had been nothing but a few flurries that did
scarcely more than whiten the ground. But one afternoon, as the boys
came out of their last recitations, they saw that the skies were
lowering and that a steady snowstorm was in progress.
Ordinarily this would have been welcomed, but just now the boys had
their minds set on skating, so that the sight of the whirling flakes was
something of a disappointment.
“There goes our skating up the flue,” commented Shiner, as he looked on
the ground on which there was already an inch of snow. “The lake will be
no good, if it’s all covered with snow.”
“And by the time the snow’s ready to melt, the ice will melt too,”
mourned Sparrow.
“And I just got a notice from the express company this morning that my
ice sail was there,” complained Pee Wee.
“Oh, stop your grouching, you poor fish,” said Bobby. “In the first
place the snow may not amount to anything. In the second place, if it
does, we can get busy and sweep off enough of the ice on the lake to
skate on. And in the third place, what we may miss in skating we can
make up in coasting.”
“‘The fellow worth while is the one that can smile
When everything’s going dead wrong,’”
chanted Skeets. “I guess that means Bobby,” he added, giving the latter
a nudge in the ribs.
“Well, what have we got to growl about anyway?” said Fred, falling into
his chum’s mood. “Here we are well and strong and able to put away three
square meals a day”—here Pee Wee pricked up his ears. “Now if we were
shut up in a room like Lee Cartier, we might have something to kick
about.”
“Poor Lee!” remarked Bobby regretfully. “He’s certainly had a rough
deal. He’s lucky of course that he didn’t get pneumonia. But it’s no
joke to be kept in his room so long. I’m going over to see him for a
while as soon as supper is over.”
Which he did, accompanied by Fred and Sparrow, who had expressed a
desire to go along.