An Adventure
“Very well, Vera, if you won’t go with me, I will go alone,” Billy
Webster announced. “It is not too far for you to go back by yourself.”
The two of them were riding slowly away from the Sunrise camp on the
following day.
Vera looked distressed.
“It isn’t fair of you, Billy, to put me in this position. You know
someone ought to be with you. Won’t you let me at least return and tell
your mother what we intend doing,” Vera argued. But she continued riding
even as she protested. She was just a little behind Billy and he now
turned to look at her.
“Come on then, dear. You are not responsible, and whatever happens the
blame is mine. But nothing is going to happen or I would not have you
with me. So what is the use of worrying mother? What Peggy told me
yesterday interests me and I mean to find out more about what those men
are planning to do. No one thinks it extraordinary or tries to prevent
Dan from going out to hunt any kind of wild beasts he is lucky enough to
discover. But, because I happen to be interested in hunting out human
beings, my family is always interfering. I haven’t the least intention of
hunting them with a gun.”
Billy smiled half seriously and half humorously and then turned his face
away.
But Vera Lageloff and the other people who knew him intimately always
understood what this expression meant. Billy had made up his mind; and
nothing short of physical force would compel him to stop doing what he
had determined upon.
Moreover, Vera rarely opposed him. However unformed his purposes and
ideals, however he might appear to other people only as an obstinate and
ill-balanced boy, he was Vera’s knight. She, at least, believed in him.
She knew that all his thoughts and all his ideals for the future were
bound up in his desire to make life easier for the people whom he did not
believe were having a fair deal. Of course, Billy was a youthful and
rather ignorant socialist, but for those reasons he was perhaps the more
enthusiastic.
Certainly his own family did not understand him and knew but little of
what was going on inside his mind; but this was not their fault so much
as Billy’s. He was sensitive to ridicule, like many dreamers, and,
moreover, he never felt that he had the strength for argument. It was
easier for him to do the thing he wished and take the consequences,
rather than argue and explain. It was enough if Vera and a few other
friends realized that his laziness was in part physical delicacy, and
that he only acted when he thought the result worth while.
In a way it was odd that Mr. and Mrs. Webster should have had so queer a
son and not strange that they should not understand him. Billy was one of
the persons whom no one ever fully understands and who never fully
understands himself, because he was intended to travel by a different
route than the most of us. There was a streak of genius in the O’Neill
family. Polly O’Neill, now Mrs. Burton, was never like other people,
besides possessing a great gift as an actress. Perhaps Billy was only odd
without her genius, but the future alone could answer this question.
To Vera he now appeared a young Sir Galahad riding in front of her. The
boy’s hat was off, his fair hair curling over his white forehead, he was
pale and thin from his recent illness. But it was a fact that Billy
usually had strength for the things he wished to do.
Naturally, Billy Webster had not developed his socialistic ideas alone.
Unknown to his parents there had been a laborer on his father’s place,
who had once been a school teacher in Russia and because of his views had
been compelled to leave. He had been accustomed to come often to Vera’s
father’s house, and when Billy was present to talk for hours on his
revolutionary propaganda. Moreover, Billy also had a teacher at the High
School who, although saner than the Russian, also wished to make the
world over according to his own plan. Besides, as Billy was not strong
enough to be outdoors so much as the rest of his family, he had spent
many quiet hours in reading books on social questions.
“How do you expect to find your way to the place, Billy?” Vera asked,
after five or ten minutes’ more of riding in silence.
Again the boy turned his head, laughing cheerfully.
“Sure I don’t know, but I pumped Peggy as much as I could this morning
without actually having my plan found out. Besides, I am trusting
somewhat to luck. I meant to get some information out of Marshall when he
reached camp this morning, but he and Peg went off somewhere to talk.
Queer, their being intimate friends all of a sudden, Vera, don’t you
think? I agree with Bettina Graham, I never knew two people so unlike.
And I don’t know whether I admire Marshall.”
Vera frowned. She cared for Peggy more perhaps than for any of the other
Camp Fire girls and she also had been a little surprised at her recent
behavior. Yet she answered sensibly:
“It isn’t important, you know, Billy, whether you like Ralph Marshall or
not, so long as Peggy does. You know you have said a hundred times you
did not think outsiders had a right to interfere with friendships. And
Peggy’s pretty clever! If she likes Ralph there must be more to him than
the rest of us can see. She don’t like many people.”
Billy nodded. “Yes, that is why I am puzzled. One does not expect
nonsense from Peg. And Ralph is rather inclined toward it with most
girls. Still you are right, Vera, and I feel a little snubbed—like the
fellow always does who is told to practice what he preaches.”
“I didn’t mean to be disagreeable.”
Billy laughed back. “No, you never do and you never are. But, come, let’s
cross the road here. We must manage to get lost in the right place—just
as Ralph and Peggy did. But do you know, Vera, something already tells me
that I am not going to be happy this afternoon? Fact is, I am abominably
hungry and we can’t have been riding an hour.”
“Let’s stop, then, and rest for a little while,” the girl suggested. She
had been afraid that her companion might grow overtired, as he had taken
no long ride before. “You see, I had an idea that we might both develop
an appetite, as lunch is so early, so I brought along lots of
sandwiches.”
Billy uttered a boyish whoop of delight which had nothing visionary or
unselfish in it.
“Trump!” he declared getting off his pony almost at once and then turning
to help Vera.
They were in the pine woods, so it was easy enough to find an agreeable
resting place under the trees.
In the most natural fashion, after Vera sat down, Billy stretched himself
out resting his head in her lap. It was the same as if she had been
Peggy, except that he honestly believed she cared for him more than his
sister did.
Then he deliberately stuffed himself with sandwiches and talked, as Billy
adored doing when he could find a sympathetic audience.
“I just want to find out what those fellows are in hiding for, Vera—not
for any special reason,” he insisted. “You see, it gets a little dull,
just lying around all day in the sun. I like scenery, but I like it as a
background. I am afraid I want a little—a little more—”
“Excitement,” Vera finished the sentence.
Three-quarters of an hour later Billy Webster had discovered the secret
camp.
He and Vera were riding quietly when they came to the circle of hills
which Peggy had described. Stopping their ponies they heard the sound of
low voices before seeing any one.
Dismounting, Billy asked Vera to wait until his return.
It seemed best that she should allow him to go on his adventure alone,
and yet she watched his slender, boyish figure disappear, feeling
wretchedly uneasy.
What absurd reason had Billy for wishing to take part in some trouble
which assuredly was no affair of his? If anything happened to him, Vera
knew that she would always blame herself.
But Billy was entirely unalarmed and, although he was supposed to be
timid, he was not even nervous.
He walked straight ahead with his hands in his pockets and a friendly,
curious expression in his big, clear eyes.
Billy could not fully explain the reasons for his interest. The excuses
he had made of being bored, of wishing to help if the men were in
trouble, or if possible to prevent trouble if it were brewing, these were
merely somewhat impudent inventions of his. For, after all, what could he
do in any case?
The fact of the matter was that Billy simply had been seized by an
overwhelming desire to find out what was taking place, and was more
inclined than he should have been to yield to his own wishes.
Just as they had been doing the afternoon before, the men were again
sitting about a smouldering camp fire, smoking and talking.
Without being observed Billy walked quietly up to them.
The next instant one of the men swung round and cursed him.
Without the least show of fear or anger the boy waited until the fellow
had tired himself out. Then, instead of running away, as they plainly
wished him to do, he walked a few steps nearer the group.
“I am tired; would you mind my sitting here with you a while?” he asked
in a matter-of-fact voice. He seemed so friendly and so totally unafraid
that the men must have been favorably impressed. In any case, as no one
answered at once, he dropped to the ground between two of the roughest of
the group.
Billy had already observed that the men were not of the character Peggy
and Ralph suspected them of being.
One of the men now laughed and, leaning over, thrust his evil smelling
pipe at the delicate boy. And Billy, who had never smoked a single whiff
of anything in his life, took the pipe gravely, put it to his lips
drawing in the smoke with several hard puffs. It made him feel slightly
ill, yet he never flinched. When he gave it back the man appeared more
friendly.
A little later Billy asked two or three simple questions and some one
answered him, afterwards they went on talking as if he were not there.
Certainly the boy had some quality which made certain types of people
trust him.
Fifteen minutes passed. Resting in a hiding place they had chosen, Vera
grew more and more uneasy. If nothing had happened to prevent, why had
Billy not returned? If he were all right certainly it was selfish of him
not to care for her anxiety and dullness.
But, then, Billy was selfish about little things and Vera recognized the
fact. One had to accept this fault in him, feeling there were other
characteristics which made one willing to endure it. In big matters the
girl believed he had wonderful stores of unselfishness.
Half an hour afterwards Billy came strolling toward her as nonchalantly
as he had gone away. Only his eyes were brighter and his expression less
boyish.
“We must hurry to get back to camp before dark,” he said, without
apologizing for the delay. “I’ll tell you what I found out while we are
riding home; but, of course, I understand I have your promise, Vera,
never to repeat anything I tell you—no matter what takes place.”
Vera nodded silently. She was accustomed to Billy’s confidences and did
not take them all seriously, and this one did not appear as especially
important.
“The men have been working on the railroad out here and have gone on a
strike. The railroad has refused to come to terms, but they don’t seem to
be planning to go away. They are not exactly in hiding, only they want to
be left alone until they decide what they are going to do next.”