DICK PRESCOTT, KNIGHT ERRANT
That day of enforced tie-up was followed by three days of hard
hiking. The Gridley High School boys showed the fine effects
of their two vigorous, strenuous outings. Each had taken on weight
slightly, though there was no superfluous flesh on any of the
six. They were bronzed, comparatively lean-looking, trim and
hard. Their muscles were at the finest degree of excellence.
"We set out to get ourselves as hard as nails," remarked Dave,
as the boys bathed in a secluded bit of woodland through which
a creek flowed. It was, the morning of their fourth day of renewed
hiking. After the swim and breakfast that was to follow, there
were twenty miles of rural roads to be covered before the evening
camp was pitched.
"I guess we've won all we set out to get, haven't we?" inquired
Reade, squaring his broad shoulders with an air of pride. "I
feel equal to anything that a fellow of my size and years could
do."
"I think, without boasting, we may consider ourselves the six
most valuable candidates for Gridley High School football this
year," Prescott declared. "We ought to be the best men for the
team; we've worked hard to get ourselves in the pink of physical
condition."
"I wouldn't care to be any stronger than I am," laughed Danny
Grin. "If I were any stronger folks would be saying that I ought
to go to work."
"You will have to go to work within another year," Dick laughed,
"whatever that work may be. But you must work with your brain,
Danny boy, if you're to get any real place in life. Your muscles
are intended only as a sign that your body is going to be equal
to all the demands that your brain may make on that body."
"If my mental ability were equal to my physical strength I wouldn't
have to work at all," grinned Dalzell.
Splash! His dive carried him under the surface of the water.
Presently he came up, blowing, then swimming with strong strokes.
"Danny boy seems to have the same idea so many people have," laughed
Prescott. "They think that a man who does all his real work with
his brain isn't working at all, just because he doesn't get into
a perspiration and wilt his collar."
Splash! splash! Reade and Darrin were in the water racing upstream.
"I don't know when I've ever found so much happiness in a summer,"
asserted Greg, as he poised himself for a dive into the water.
"I wonder if Timmy Hinman ever had the nerve to stick to his father's
wagon long enough to get it back to Fenton," said Dave, as he
swam beside Reade.
"If he ever took that wagon home, I'll wager that he drove the
last few miles late at night, so that his 'society' friends wouldn't
have the shock of seeing him drive the peddling outfit that sustains
him," Reade replied.
"I'll never forget the younger Hinman's disgusted look when he
tried to drive the outfit from our camp, the other morning, with
his saddle mount tied behind and balking on the halter," grinned
Darry.
"I wonder why such fellows as Timothy Hinman were ever created,"
Tom went on. "Every time I think about the gentlemanly Timmy
I feel as though I wanted to kick something."
Only the day before, stopping at a postoffice on the route, as
had been arranged with Dr. Hewitt, Dick & Co. had received word
that the peddler was seriously ill with pneumonia, with all the
chances against his recovery.
"If the peddler should die," suggested Dave soberly, "do you believe
that Timmy Hinman will be able to face the thought of going to
work for a living?"
"It would be an awful fate," Tom declared grimly. "Timmy might
try to work, but I don't know whether he would be able to live
through the shock and shame of having to earn the money for paying
his own bills in life."
"There's that irrepressible Dick again!" called Greg five minutes
later.
"What's he up to now?" asked Tom, from further up the creek.
"He has had his rub-down, got his clothing on and is now at work
frying bacon and eggs."
"Then don't disturb him," begged Reade, "or he might fry short
of the quantity of food that is really going to be required."
Five minutes more, however, saw the last of the boys out of water
and rapidly getting themselves in shape to perform their own required
duties. There could be no idlers in the party when Dick & Co.
were away from home on a hike.
Yet, once breakfast had been disposed of, and the dishes washed,
there seemed something in the August air that made them all disinclined
to break camp and move on.
"I wish we could stay here all day, and move on to-morrow," murmured
Hazy, thus voicing the thought of some of the others.
"And then blame the tramps for loafing!" exclaimed Dick.
"Do we look as though we had loafed this summer?" challenged Dalzell.
"No; but one or two of you would have done a good deal of it if
you hadn't been afraid of the contempt of the others," smiled
Prescott.
"Honestly, now," demanded Hazy, "wouldn't you enjoy just staying
here and lounging today, Dick Prescott?"
"I would," Dick assented.
"There, now!"
"But that isn't what we left home to do, so we won't do it."
"Eh?" queried Hazy.
"Attention, Lazybones Squad!" called Prescott, springing up.
"Hazy, harness the horse and hitch him to the wagon. Tom, Dave
and Greg, take down the tent. I'll pack the bedding. Dan, load
the kitchen stuff on the wagon."
This occupied a few minutes.
"Now, all hands turn to and load on the floor planks, bedding
and the tent," called Dick.
This, too, was quickly accomplished, though all six were now perspiring.
"Greg, I believe it's your turn to drive first to-day," Prescott
announced. "Up with you! Forward---march!"
Dick led the way out of camp, at a brisk four-mile-an-hour stride.
The long hike was started, at last. After that there was no
grumbling, even during the hourly halt of ten minutes.
The noon halt found them with eleven and a half miles covered
out of the twenty. Five o'clock brought Dick & Co. to the outskirts
of Fenton, a town of some twenty-five hundred inhabitants.
"Whoa!" called Tom, reining up half a mile from the town. "There
are woods here, Dick. If we go any closer to Fenton, we'll either
have to keep on traveling to the other side of the town, or ask
the authorities for permission to camp on the common. Don't you
believe we had better stop here?"
"These are the woods that Dave and I had just picked out," Prescott
replied. "We were going to keep on traveling until we found out
who owns the woods. This isn't quite in the wilderness, Tom,
and we must begin again to seek permission to make our camp from
owners of property."
"If these are the woods," grunted Tom, "there can be no use in
going farther. You and Dave trot on ahead, and bring us back
word."
"All right," sang out the young leader, "but don't drive onto
the ground, or unpack, until we are back with word about the owner's
permission."
Three minutes of walking brought them to a farmhouse that looked
like the abode of prosperous people.
"Well, what is it?" demanded a stout man, with a good-humored
face, as he stepped out from a barn.
"We wish to know, sir," Dick explained, "if you can tell us who
owns the woods about a quarter of a mile back, at the right hand
side of the road?"
"I think I can," nodded the man. "Will you describe the woods
a little more particularly?"
As Prescott complied the farmer broke in:
"Those are my woods, all right. What do you want of them?"
Dick explained the desire of himself and his friends to camp there
for the night.
"Who are you boys?" asked the farmer, keenly eyeing Dick and Dave.
"Gridley High School boys, out on a vacation jaunt."
"You won't do any damage to my woods, will you?"
"Certainly not, sir," Dick promised.
"Then go right ahead and pitch your camp, young man. Enjoy
yourselves."
"We shall have to gather and use quite a bit of firewood, sir,"
Prescott continued.
"Well, there's considerable dead wood lying about there."
"May we pay you a proper price for the use of the firewood, sir?"
Prescott went on.
"If you try to," laughed the farmer, "I'll chase you out of the
woods. Make yourselves at home, boys. Have as good a time as
you can."
"Thank you, sir."
"And---have you had any fresh milk lately?"
"Not a lot of it, sir."
"Would you like some?"
"Why, if we may pay-----"
"You may pay me," promptly agreed the farmer, "by bringing the
pail back when you pass this way in the morning."
With that remark he went into another building, soon coming out
with an eight-quart pail filled with milk.
"This sort of stuff isn't much good, except when you haven't had
any for a long time," laughed the farmer. "Enjoy yourselves.
Say, you don't play football with the Gridley High School eleven,
do you?"
"All of us do," Dick admitted.
"Thought so," chuckled the farmer. "That's why I was interested
in you. I saw the Thanksgiving game at Gridley last year. Great
game nervy lot of boys, with all their sand about them. There
was one fellow in particular, I remember, who broke doctor's orders
and jumped into the game at the last minute. He saved the game
for Gridley, I heard. I'd like to shake hands with him."
"Then here's your chance, sir," laughed Dave, shoving Dick forward.
"Mr. Dick Prescott, Gridley High School."
"My name's Dobbins," smiled the farmer, extending his hand. "Glad
to meet you, Prescott. I thought it was you all the time. Mebbe
the young man with you is Darrin."
"Yes," laughed Dick, and there was more handshaking.
"I hope I'll see the rest of your friends when you pass in the
morning," said the farmer cordially.
"Hiram---supper!" called a shrill voice from The doorway.
"Coming, mother! Boys, it does one good to meet the right sort
of fellows once in a while. Enjoy the woods in your own way,
won't you?"
"That man is right. As he says, it does one good to meet the
right sort of fellow once in a while---and he's the right sort,"
declared Darry fervently, as the chums trudged back to their outfit.
Camp was pitched, and supper was soon under way. When it was
all over, and everything cleaned up, Dick looked about him at
his friends.
"I wonder if any of you fellows feel the way I do to-night?" he
asked. "We still have our white clothes, and Fenton is something
of a town. We've been in the woods for so long that I feel just
like dressing up in white and taking a stroll into town."
Tom, Dan and Dave voted in the affirmative. Greg and Hazy averred
that they had walked enough for one day. So the four boys donned
white, while the other two remained behind in flannel and khaki.
Dick and the three companions of his stroll when almost in Fenton,
were passing through a street of pretty little cottages when a
tiny figure, clad in white ran out of the darkness, bumping into
Dick's knees.
"Hello, little one!" cried Prescott, cheerily, picking up a wee
little girl of four and holding her at arm's length. "Hello,
you're crying. What's the matter? Lost mother?"
"No; lost papa," wailed the little one.
"Perhaps we can find him for you," offered Tom, readily.
"Mollie! Mollie, where are you?" came a woman's voice out of
the darkness.
"Is this your little girl, madam?" called Prescott. "We'll bring
her to you."
In another moment the woman, young and pretty, also dressed in
white, had reached the child and was holding her by the hand.
"Oh, you little runaway!" chided Dave, smilingly, as he bent over,
wagging a finger at the child.
"No; it's papa that runned away," gasped the little one, in a
frightened voice. "He ran away to a saloon."
"Oh, said Dave, straightening up and feeling embarrassed as he
caught the humiliated look in the young woman's face.
"Pa---runned away and made mama cry," the little one babbled on,
half sobbing. "I must go after him and bring him home."
"Be quiet, Mollie," commanded her mother.
"Papa comes, if he knows you want him," insisted the child. "I
tell him you want him---that you cry because he went to saloon."
For an instant the mother caught her breath. Then she began to
cry bitterly. Dick and his friends wished themselves almost anywhere
else.
"It's too bad when the children get old enough to realize it,"
said the woman, brokenly. Then, of a sudden, she eyed Dick and
his chums bravely.
"Boys," she said, "I hope the time will never come when you'll
feel that it's manly to go out with the crowd and spend the evening
in drinking."
"The way we feel about it now," spoke Dick, sympathetically, "we'd
rather be dead than facing any degradation of the sort."
They were only boys, and they were strangers to the woman. Moreover,
little Mollie was looking pleadingly towards Dick, as if loath
to let him go. In her misery the young wife poured out her story
to her sympathetic listeners. Her husband had been a fine young
fellow---was still young. His drinking had begun only three months
before.
"We have our own home, more than half paid for," added the woman,
pointing to a pretty little cottage. "Tom has always been a good
workman, never out of a job. But lately he has been spending
his wages for drink. Last month we didn't make our payment on
the house. Today he got his month's pay, and promised not to
drink any more. He was going to take us into town to-night for
a good time, and we were happy, weren't we, baby? Then two of
his saloon cronies passed the house. Tom went with them, but
said he would come right back for us. He hasn't come yet, and
he won't come now until midnight. The month's pay will be gone,
and that means that the home will be gone, after a little. Boys,
I shall never see you again, and it has seemed a help to me to
talk to you. Remember, don't ever-----"
"Madam," asked Dick, suddenly, in a husky tone, "do you mind telling
us your husband's name, and the name of the place where he has
gone?"
"His name is Tom Drake, and he has gone up to Miller's place,"
answered Mrs. Drake. "But why do you ask? What-----"
"Mrs. Drake," Dick continued, earnestly, "we don't want to be
meddlers, and we'll keep out of this, if you request it. But
the child has given me an inspiration that I could help you.
If you authorize me, I'll go to Miller's and see if I can't help
your husband to know that his happiness is right here, not in
a saloon."
"I---I fear that will be a big undertaking," quivered Mrs. Drake.
A big undertaking, indeed, it was bound to be!