THE CAMPAIGN TO COAX PARENTS
In another moment the fleeing one had darted around the corner.
Five members of Dick & Co., angry all the way through, were the first to
reach that corner.
"There he goes, down the alley-way to the livery stable!" roared Dave
Darrin. "After him, fellows!"
But by the time that the five reached the stable yard the fugitive was
out of sight. Men hurried up, and a quick search was made of the
neighborhood. It was soon certain, however, that the fellow had made
good use of his time and had gotten away. Two policemen who were among
the latest arrivals on the scene gave it as their opinion that further
chase would be worse than useless.
So Dick's chums turned back, to see how their leader had fared.
Dr. Bentley was leaning over the boy, who, white and lifeless, lay at
the edge of the sidewalk.
"Take him to the drug store, doctor," urged one of the women.
"He'll revive quicker in the open air, madam," answered the physician.
"Is young Prescott very badly hurt?"
"I can't tell yet," said Dr. Bentley. "There doesn't seem to be any
fracture of the bone at the point where he was struck. And the back of
his head seems to be sound and whole. I think Master Dick is simply
stunned."
Dr. Bentley stepped over to his auto, took out a drug case and selected
a vial from it.
"Get me a glass of water, someone, and promptly," he directed.
The water was quickly brought. After pouring a few drops from the vial
into it, the medical man supported Dick's head and poured some of the
stuff into his mouth.
After a short time Dick opened his eyes.
"Wh-what kicked me?" he asked slowly.
"The fist of that gentleman with soap-made fits," replied the physician
dryly. "Take a few deep breaths, Prescott. Now, a little more from the
glass. Breathe hard again. There, do you feel as though you'd like to
get on your feet?"
"Certainly," Dick replied.
Dr. Bentley helped him to his feet, supporting him and urging him to try
to walk a little. At about this time Dave and the others returned at a
trot.
"Dick, I guess you saved some of us from losing more in the way of
valuables," smiled the medical man grimly. "For one, I'm ashamed of
myself. A man who has been practising medicine more than twenty years
should know too much to be taken in by sham fits on the part of a thief
who plays his trick in order to rob a crowd of Christmas shoppers."
"You think he meant to rob us, then, doctor?" pressed a woman in the
crowd.
"That fellow certainly did mean to do it," replied Dr. Bentley with
emphasis. "It's an old trick in a crowd--this sort of sham sickness."
"And he got all my Christmas money--every cent of it--and carried it off
with him!" wailed one woman, who looked as though she could not afford
to lose much money.
"He snatched my locket with the diamond in it!" vengefully exclaimed
another woman, exhibiting the broken ends of a neck chain.
"My purse is gone. I had forty-two dollars in it."
"I didn't get off very lightly, ladies," replied Dr. Bentley. "My scarf
pin wasn't so extremely valuable, but I feel badly about the watch, and
I shall feel worse when I realize its loss more fully. That was my
father's watch, and I valued it above money."
"The police ought to catch that scoundrel," declared one of the women
losers.
"Of course they ought," cried another. "If they don't catch the thief
what good are the police, anyway?"
"I don't care much about their finding him, unless they also find my
forty-two dollars on him," mournfully proclaimed another of the losers.
"I am sorry for you, ladies. I don't deserve any sympathy, or very
little, for myself. Well, as the scoundrel has gotten away, and as young
Prescott is growing stronger, I shall go on my way to other patients who
need me."
Dick was still rather dizzy and weak, but Dave's right arm supported
him.
"Does your head ache?" inquired Greg.
"Guess," advised Dick dryly.
As the two policemen had given up looking for the fugitive, and had gone
back to their posts, the crowd was melting. It was nearly noon, and most
people on the streets were moving homeward.
"Guess you won't have a large appetite for the coming meal," observed
Tom Reade to Dick. "Whew! What a crack that sounded like when the
scoundrel struck you! It must have jarred away some of your appetite."
"I can't tell about that until I try to eat," Dick answered.
"No matter whether you eat much or not, but you want to be sure to ask
your mother for two cups of strong coffee with your dinner," advised
Darrin, with all the readiness of the amateur physician.
"I guess I'll go home, fellows," announced Dick, as the noon whistles
blew. "I advise the rest of you to hustle, too. Remember what you've got
to spring on your fathers when you get home. We want to have the whole
thing settled when we meet this afternoon. Try to put it through, all of
you, won't you?"
"I'm going to see you as far as your door, Dick, old fellow," Dave
insisted.
"Oh, I'll be feeling fine in another hour," Dick protested. "It just
knocked my senses for a minute or two."
Shortly after one o'clock the chums gathered again on Main Street. Dick
now looked as keen as ever, and his eyes were shining.
"It's all settled for me," he announced. "I can go camping."
"So can I," Dave reported with satisfaction.
"Dad almost as good as said I could go," Tom declared. "He'll agree to
it by to-night."
"How about you, Dan?" queried Dick.
"I can go--_not_," groaned Dalzell.
"I hope to go," announced Greg. "All I could get out of my father was
that he was in a rush, but that he'd talk it over with me to-morrow and
let me know what he had to say."
Hazelton admitted that he was in the same plight, as to a delayed
decision, but he did not speak as though he were very hopeful of being
permitted to go.
"It'll just be a shame if we can't all go," Dave declared seriously. "It
won't be a quarter as much fun unless we have the whole crowd."
"Say, watch that slim, well-dressed fellow with the brown derby,"
whispered Hazelton. "See him coming along behind the two women. I'm sure
I saw him, earlier this morning, talking with the same fit-thrower that
bumped Dick."
"Humph! So did I," muttered Dick. "I remember. This slim fellow was with
a short, thick-set man with a black moustache."
"Right!" nodded Harry.
"They must all be members of the same gang of thieves, then," flashed
Dick. "I've read in the newspapers that the thieves who work the
Christmas trade generally go in gangs. By crackey! Did you see that?"
"Yes!" muttered Tom Reade excitedly.
"What?" questioned Greg.
"Why," explained Dick, "Mr. Slim put his hand in a woman's skirt pocket.
He slipped a wallet from her pocket to his."
"That's what he did," nodded Tom.
"Come along," urged Dick. "We'll see if we can come across a policeman
before Mr. Slim gets all the money in the town."
Falling in by twos the Grammar School boys, full of excitement, trailed
after the slim, neatly dressed thief.
Two blocks lower down the boys ran across Policeman Whalen, who, in
citizen's clothes, had been turned out to watch for thieves.
In an undertone Dick called attention to the slim fellow, who was still
moving along in the moving crowds of shopping women. Whalen cautiously
took up the trail, while Dick & Co. fell back somewhat.
Two minutes later Whalen made a sudden leap forward, seizing the
suspected young man by the coat collar.
"Stand by, till I shake ye down!" roared the policeman, thrashing the
thief about until the slim one's teeth chattered. A small morocco purse
fell to the sidewalk.
"Why, that's mine!" cried a woman.
"I know it, ma'am. I saw this spalpeen take it from your pocket," nodded
Policeman Whalen. "Come along with me, lad! And ye come, too, ma'am, and
claim your pocketbook."
"Oh, I'm so glad you saw him do it," quivered the young woman, her face
white from the shock caused by the thought of losing her Christmas
money.
"I wouldn't have seen him do it," admitted Whalen honestly, "only Dick
Prescott called my attention to the spalpeen."
The prisoner, who realized that he could not twist himself away from the
strong clutch of the policeman, scowled at Dick as the young woman
thanked him.
A crowd formed in an instant, but Whalen broke up the excitement by
starting promptly along with his captive.
Dick & Co. turned and followed a little way. The crowd that kept in the
wake of the policeman was soon a dense one.
"You'll be sorry for this, youngster!" growled a low, angry voice just
behind Dick.
Like a flash Prescott wheeled. It was not plain, however, who, in all
that throng, had spoken to him. But Dick's roving gaze soon made out,
several yards away, a man in brown, wearing a gray overcoat. The fellow
was marching along with the throng as though he, too, were an idle
spectator.
"That's the fit-thrower's other friend," flashed through Dick's mind.
"He must have been the fellow who spoke behind me just now, too."
"Oh, let's not go any further," proposed Tom Reade. "We've seen folks
arrested before this."
"Come along," said Dick shortly, not caring to explain his reasons just
at this moment.
So the chums kept on in the wake of the crowd. A block further on a
uniformed policeman stepped forward to have a look at Whalen's prisoner.
"Moll-buzzer," explained Policeman Whalen briefly to his brother of the
force. A "moll-buzzer" is a thief who robs women in crowds.
The uniformed policeman fell back and the crowd moved forward, but Dick
seized the second policeman's coat sleeve.
"There's another of the gang," whispered Dick, pointing to the
black-moustached man in the gray overcoat.
"Are you sure?" demanded officer number two.
"Positive," whispered Dick. "At least, we saw them talking together
early this morning."
At this moment the man in the gray overcoat turned. He saw Dick and the
policeman talking in low tones. Without waiting an instant the man in
the gray overcoat darted forward, trying to break through the crowd.
"Grab him!" shouted the policeman.
Three or four men moved closer to obey.
"Look out!" yelled some one frantically. "He's got a pistol."
The citizen helpers drew away quickly at that information, but the delay
had been enough to enable the policeman to close in on his man. With his
locust stick the officer struck down the pistol hand and snatched away
the weapon. An instant later two prisoners were marching toward the
police station, the second one having been taken only on suspicion.
"Bully for you, Dick Prescott!" cried Grocer Smith, laying a heavy but
approving hand across Dick's shoulders.
"Oh, we all recognized the pair," Prescott answered modestly. "They were
together this morning, and the fit-thrower was with them."
"You boys will be sorry for making unfounded charges of this sort,"
called back the black-moustached prisoner angrily. "Wait and see if
you're not."
"Cut out the gloom, man!" ordered the uniformed policeman, giving his
captive a twist that hurt. "Don't be trying to frighten small boys."
At the station house the crowd hung about outside.
"Going inside, Dick!" asked Dave eagerly.
"No one has asked us to. I guess we'd better wait out here unless we're
invited inside."
The young woman, whose pocketbook had been taken, went inside. She
identified her property and made a charge against the pick-pocket. Both
prisoners again heard the name of Dick Prescott mentioned.
The crowd melted after a little. Later the two prisoners were taken
before Justice Lee. Mr. Slim was sent away for six months on the charge
of pocket picking. The thick set captive in the gray overcoat, because
he could not give a good account of himself, was sentenced to ninety
days in the workhouse for vagrancy. Police and court were determined to
do all in their power to protect the Christmas shoppers.
* * * * *
"Now, as to our camping plans," Dick resumed, a little later in the
afternoon. "You fellows who aren't yet sure that you can get leave to
go, will have to keep right on the trail until that permission is given.
You can say that some of us are going, and that may help you some at
home."
"It may help the rest," suggested Dan Dalzell mournfully, "but nothing
will do me any good. I'm dished. No camping out in winter is going to
come my way."
"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure," urged Dick. "But, at least, you can be
sure you won't go if you don't try some more coaxing."
"Say, you come and do the coaxing yourself to-night, when dad is home,"
begged Dan.
"I will, if you think it will do any good, Danny," Prescott agreed.
"At any rate, your little speech can't put the matter any further back
than it stands right now," Dalzell declared. "And, oh, dear! I do want
so badly to go with you fellows! I never wanted anything as much
before."
"Say, we'll all go together, early this evening," proposed Dick, his
eyes now snapping. "We'll call in a body at the house of each fellow who
hasn't yet secured leave to go on the winter camping party. We will all
present the case. Perhaps we can put it through for the whole six. If we
can't all go there won't be nearly as much fun."
Very soon, indeed, after supper, Dick & Co. were all assembled once
more.
"You won't need to go to my house," Tom explained triumphantly. "My
father says I can go and he has brought mother around to agree to it."
"Whose house shall we go to first, then?" asked Dick.
"Come to mine," begged Dan woefully.
So to the Dalzell home they went. The boys pleaded their case both with
Mr. and Mrs. Dalzell. Neither parent, however, would do more than say
that "they would see."
At Greg Holmes's house victory was quickly won, and Greg was happy. Next
Dick & Co. went in force to Harry Hazelton's home, where the coaxing was
renewed.
"I want to sleep over this scheme, Harry," said Mr. Hazelton finally,
"and I think your mother does, too. We don't want to see you miss any
good times that you really ought to have, so I think, if the rest are
going, we shall probably decide to let you go, too. But I won't say
'yes' to-night. I'll wait and see how the idea strikes me to-morrow."
"Oh, I guess you're fixed, all right, Harry," grunted Dan when the
Grammar School boys had filed out of the Hazelton house. "But--oh, poor
me!"
"And now, see here, fellows, we want to get around into the stores
before we lose any more time," suggested Dick. "We don't want to forget
that each fellow is to spend half his money in buying the best present
he can get for his mother."
"Do you think it will pay--in my case?" asked Dan dolefully.
"Shame on you, Danny boy!" growled Dave Darrin, giving Dalzell a sturdy
shaking.
"Was there ever a time that it didn't pay a fellow to remember his
mother whenever he had a chance?" demanded Dick. "If my mother had said
'no' and had stuck to it, I'd be mighty glad over being able to get her
a solid Christmas present just the same."
Within another hour the presents had been bought, the crowd sticking
together and giving collective advice for the benefit of each
individual.
Then Dick went home. Instead of passing through the store, where both
his parents were, he took out his key and made for the door that
admitted to the living rooms above. Over the knob was tacked a piece of
paper. Dick took it off and carried it upstairs with him, where, in the
light of the parlor, he read this message, in scrawling print:
"Wait and see if you ain't sorry!"
"This must be from the fit-thrower!" thought young Prescott, with an
inward jump.
He was soon to know.