THE NO-BREAKFAST PLAN
"Let's get the tent down, fellows," Dick called. "Greg is loading
the bedding on to the wagon now."
"Haven't, you forgotten something?" Danny Grin asked.
"What?" challenged Dick smilingly.
"Well, a little thing like breakfast, for instance?"
"We don't get that until after we've had our swim," Prescott rejoined
cheerily.
"I suppose that's all right," observed Tom, his jaw dropping.
"Still, in that case, Mr. Trainer, why didn't you camp nearer
to a stream?"
"The nearest stream fit for swimming is two miles from here,"
Dick replied. "At least, that's what I judge from the map."
"There's the creek the bull-heads came from," suggested Hazelton
hopefully. "That's close at hand."
"I know it is," Dick replied, "but I've had a look at it. That
creek is both shallow and muddy. No sort of place for swimming."
One thing these Gridley High School boys had learned in the football
squad, and that was discipline. So, though there were some gloomy
looks, all remembered that Dick had been chosen trainer during
the hike, and that his word, in training matters, was to be their
law. So the tent came down, in pretty nearly record time, and
was loaded on the wagon. The horse was harnessed, also without
breakfast, and the party started down the road with Harry Hazelton
holding the reins.
"I hope it's a short two miles," growled Reade to Darrin.
"Humph! A fine Indian you'd make, Tom!" jibed Dave. "An Indian
is trained in being hungry. It's a part of the work that he has
to undergo before he is allowed to be one of the men of the tribe."
"That's just the trouble with me," Tom admitted. "I've never
been trained to be an Indian, and I am inclined to think that
it requires training, and a lot of it."
Outwardly Tom didn't "grump" any, but he made a resolve that,
hereafter, his voice would be strong for halting right on the
bank of a swimming place.
"Can't we hit up the pace a bit?" asked Tom.
"Yes," nodded Dick. "All who want to travel fast can hike right
ahead. Just keep on the main road."
Tom, Greg and Dan immediately forged ahead, taking long, rapid
steps.
"But don't go in the water until we come up," Dick called after
them. "Remember, the morning is hot, and you'll be too overheated
to go in at once."
"Eh?" muttered Tom, with a sidelong look at his two fast-time
companions. "Humph!"
Then they fell back with the wagon again.
"There doesn't seem to be any way to beat the clock to breakfast,"
observed Dan, after he had walked several rods down the road.
"I've talked with old soldiers," Dick went on, "who have told
me all sorts of tales of war time, about the commissary train
not catching up with the fighting line for four days at a stretch.
Yet here you fellows feel almost ill if you have to put off breakfast
half an hour. What kind of men would you boys make if it came
to the stern part of life?"
"If going without breakfast is part of the making of a man," said
Danny Grin solemnly, "then I'd rather be a child some more."
"You always will be a child," Dave observed dryly. "Birthdays
won't make any great difference in your real age, Danny boy."
"After that kind of a roast," grinned Reade, "I believe I'll take
a reef in a few of the bitter things I was about to say."
Dick laughed pleasantly. Somehow, with the walk, all soon began
to feel better. That first fainting, yearning desire for food
was beginning to pass.
"Do you know what the greatest trouble is with the American people?"
asked Dick, after they had covered a mile.
"I don't," Tom admitted. "Do you, Dick?"
"I've been forming an idea," Prescott went on. "Our fault, if
I can gather it rightly from what I've been reading, is that we
Americans are inclined to be too babyish."
"Tell that to the countries we've been at war with in the past,"
jeered Tom Reade.
"Oh, I guess it's a different breed of Americans that we send
to the front in war time," Prescott continued. "But, take you
fellows; some of you have been almost kicking because breakfast
is put off a bit. Most Americans are like that. Yet, it isn't
because we have such healthy stomachs, either, for foreigners
know us as a race of dyspeptics. Take a bit of cold weather in
winter---really cold, biting weather and just notice how Americans
kick and worry about it. Take any time when we have a succession
of rainy days, and notice how Americans growl over the continued
wet. Whatever happens that is in the least disagreeable, see
what a row we Americans raise about it."
"I imagine it's a nervous vent for the race," advanced Dave Darrin.
"But why must Americans have a nervous vent?" Dick inquired.
"In other words, what business have we with diseased nerves!
Don't you imagine that all our kicking, many times every day of
our lives, makes the need of nervous vent more and more pronounced?"
"Oh, I don't know about that," argued Tom. "I hate to hear any
fellow talk disparagingly about his own country or its people.
It doesn't sound just right. In war time, or during any great
national disaster or calamity, the Americans who do things always
seem to rise to the occasion. We're a truly great people, all
right. But I don't make that claim because I consider myself
ever likely to be one of the great ones."
"Why are we a great people?" pursued Prescott.
"We are the richest nation in the world," argued Reade. "That
must show that we are people capable of making great successes."
"Is our greatness due to ourselves, or to the fact that the United
States embraces the greatest natural resources in the world?"
demanded Dick Prescott.
"It's partly due to the people, and partly due to the resources
of the country," Dave contended.
Dick kept them arguing. Harry Hazelton, as driver, remained silent,
but the others argued against Dick, trying to overthrow all his
disparaging utterances against the American people.
Finally Reade grew warm, indeed.
"Cut it out, Dick---do!" he urged. "This doesn't really sound
like you. I hate to hear a fellow go on running down his own
countrymen. I tell you, it isn't patriotic."
"But just stop to consider this point," Prescott urged, and started
on a new, cynical line of argument.
"I still contend that we're the greatest people on earth," Reade
insisted almost angrily. "We ought to be, anyway, for Americans
don't come of any one line of stock. We're descended from
pioneers---the pick and cream of all the peoples of Europe."
But Dick kept up his line of discussion until they came to the
river for which he had headed them. They followed the winding
stream into the woods where the trees partially hid them from
the observation of passers-by on the road, From this point they
could easily keep a watch on the wagon while in the water.
"Now, let's sit down and cool off for five minutes," proposed
Dick, as he filled the feed bag for the horse. "After that we'll
be ready for a swim."
"But, with regard to what you were saying about frayed American
nerves, poor stomachs and all-around babyishness-----" Tom began
all over again.
"Stop it!" laughed Dick. "We don't need that line of talk any
longer."
"Then why did you start it?" asked Dave.
"We've covered the two miles that you all thought such a hardship,"
chuckled Prescott.
"Then you-----" began Reade, opening his eyes wider as a dawning
light came into them. "Come on, Dave! Catch him! The water's
handy!"
But Dick, with a light laugh, bounded away, shinned up a tree,
and, sitting in a crotch, swung his feet toward the faces of
Tom, Dave and Harry as they tried to get him and drag him down.
"You've got a strategic position, just now," growled Reade. "But
just you wait until we catch you down on the ground again!"
"You fellows must feel pretty well sold," Greg taunted them.
"I kept out of the row, for I saw, at the outset, that Dick was
going to start something for the sole purpose of keeping us arguing
until we forgot all about our breakfasts."
"That's just like Dick Prescott!" uttered Tom ruefully. "We never
get to know him so well that he can't start us all on a new tack
and have more fun with us."
"Well, you forgot your supposed starvation, didn't you?" chuckled
Dick from his tree.
Two or three minutes later he swung down from the tree to the
ground, rapidly removing his clothing and donning swimming trunks.
He was not molested; the other five were too busy preparing for
the bath.
"The water's great to-day!" shouted Dick, rising and "blowing"
after a shallow dive from a tree trunk at the shore.
In a moment they were all in the water.
"Come on! Follow your leader!" shouted Tom Reade, striking out
lustily upstream.
"Come back and give us a handicap!" roared Dave. "How do you
expect us to catch you when you get the lead over us with your
long legs and arms?"
But Tom dived under water, swimming there. The others followed
suit, each remaining under as long as possible, for, in this "stunt,"
there was no way of knowing when the leader came up. Tom remained
under less than fifteen seconds. Then, showing his head, and
with rapid overhand strokes he made for the nearer bank, slipping
ashore and hiding behind some bushes.
It was Hazy who had to come up first after Tom.
"Whew! Tom must have met someone he knows on the bottom," called
Harry, as Greg's head rose above the surface.
Dave came up next, then Dick, and then Dan.
"Tom ought to be a fish!" uttered Darrin admiringly. "I stayed
under water as long as I could."
Yet after going a few yards further up stream Dick Prescott turned,
gazing anxiously down stream.
"Fellows," he suggested, "something must have happened to old Tom."
"Or else he's playing a joke on us," hinted Danny Grin, suspiciously.
"It's some joke to remain under water four times as long as the
average swimmer can do it," retorted Prescott.
"But Tom may not be under water," spoke up Greg.
"He didn't have time to get anywhere else," Dave declared.
"It may be a joke, but I don't want to take any chances," Dick
said earnestly. "Let's go down stream. Spread out, and every
now and then bob under and take as near a look at the bottom as
you can."
"It doesn't look right," Dave admitted as they all started back.
Several times they went under water, the best swimmers among them
getting close to bottom. So they continued on down the stream
for some distance.
"Now, all together. Go under water all at the same time," ordered
Dick.
Below the surface of the river they went. One after another their
heads presently appeared above the surface once more.
"Have you fellows lost anything?" quizzed Reade, suddenly appearing
on the bank.
"That's what I call a mean trick on us!" cried Dave, flushing
slightly.
"You fellows were in for a swim, weren't you?" Reade drawled.
"You have been having it."
With that he took to the water himself. There was something so
jovial and harmless about Reade that, despite their recent anxiety
concerning him, they made no effort to duck him.
"The water is fine this morning," called Tom presently, as they
all swam about.
"Then why didn't you stay in?" demanded Darry rather cuttingly.
"Say, I'm beginning to feel glad that I waited breakfast for the
swim," Reade announced.
"Stick to the truth!" mocked Dick.
"But I really am beginning to feel that a little exercise is the
best course before breakfast," Tom declared.
"The next thing we hear," scoffed Hazy, "you'll be telling us
that you really don't want any breakfast."
"I'll tell you fellows what I'll do," Tom called. "I'll agree
to put off eating until noon if you'll all stick to the idea."
But that suggestion did not prove popular.
"I mean it," Reade insisted. "I hardly care, now, whether I eat
any breakfast or not."
"What's that noise below? Come on!" called Prescott, landing
and running along the bank. Tom was close behind him, the others
following.
In their search for Tom they had gotten farther away from the
wagon than they realized. During their brief absence from the
spot two tramps had come upon the camp wagon and the piles of
discarded clothing. It was plain that the wagon contained all
that was needed for several meals---and the tramps were hungry.
Yet the only safe way to enjoy that food would be to partake of
it at a safe distance from the rightful owners.
For that reason, after a few whispered words, the tramps hastily
gathered up all the clothing of the high school swimmers, dumping
it in the wagon. Then they mounted to the seat.
Just as Dick Prescott and his chums broke from cover they beheld
the tramps in the act of driving from the woods out on the road.
Once in the road the tramps urged the horse to a gallop. It was
out of the question for the boys, clad as they were in only swimming
trunks to pursue the thieves.
"I---I---take back all I said about not wanting any breakfast!"
gasped Tom Reade, turning to his dismayed chums.