HEN DUTCHER IS MODEST
For an instant Dave hesitated, reluctant to leave a comrade injured.
"Get after him!" ordered young Prescott, rising somewhat slowly. "Don't
let the fellow get out of sight."
At that direct command Dave Darrin darted around the corner, going fast
down the side street. A moment later Dick hove into sight, though some
distance to the rear of his now more agile chum.
As he ran Darrin felt like rubbing his eyes. By the aid of the street
lamps he could see fairly well down to the next corner. The fugitive
hadn't had time to cover all that distance in the few moments that he
had been out of view.
"Dave!" called Dick, though his voice at first wasn't very loud. Darrin
didn't hear, though a moment later he halted, glancing about him and
back at his chum. Prescott was beckoning.
"He has darted in somewhere on this block," muttered Dick, as his chum
reached him.
"Yes," Dave agreed; "but where?"
"That's too much for us to guess."
"What are we going to do about it?"
"I don't know," Dick confessed disappointedly. "I hate to see Mr. Fits
slip away from us like this, though."
"Well, he has done it, anyway," Dave declared. "I'm afraid there isn't
much that we can do now."
"We can go down to the next corner, and back on the other side," Dick
Prescott proposed. "Look back frequently, Dave, and, if you see Mr. Fits
dart out of any house or doorway, then yell to me, and we'll both turn
and race after the fellow."
"A nice sprinter you'll make, after that knock down blow on the chest,"
remarked Darrin dryly.
"Oh, I'm getting a little more wind back every minute," Dick declared
cheerily. "I could run, now, if I had to, and in two minutes from now
I'll be able to do a whole lot better. Come along. You do the turning to
look backward, and I'll use my eyes in front of us."
In this fashion they explored the entire block on both sides. Their
slow, thorough search at last brought them back to Main Street, much
puzzled and not a little discouraged.
"What now?" inquired Dave.
"We've done all we can," Dick replied, "except find a policeman and tell
him that we've seen Fits back in town."
"It's strange that he should come back to Gridley," murmured Darrin.
"You'd think that the fellow would be anxious to give the town a wide
berth."
"Undoubtedly he has his reasons. But--Dave, there's a policeman. Let's
hurry and tell him."
In another moment the two Grammar School boys were engaged in reciting
what had happened to a uniformed member of the night police force of
Gridley.
"There's no time to be lost," declared the policeman. "For a matter as
important as this I'll leave my beat and notify the station house."
"Can we give you any further help?" Dick asked.
"Not a bit, my lad, thank you, unless you see Fitsey again."
As soon as the policeman had gone, Darrin asked rather seriously:
"Dick, are you sure that it really was Fits, and no mistake?"
"Of course I am. Why?"
"Oh, nothing, only it seems so strange to me that the fellow should
really venture back into the one town where the police are really
anxious to land him."
"It was Mr. Fits that I saw," Prescott insisted. "Besides, no one else
would want to knock me down."
"That's so," Dave admitted. "Well, I hope that the police find the
rascal."
"It's a lot more likely that we, or some of our fellows, will do the
finding," laughed Prescott. "We've done all the finding so far."
At this moment a hand smote Dick heavily between the shoulders, while
Tom Reade's laughing voice demanded:
"Fellows, how does home cooking seem again? Isn't it great?"
Harry Hazelton was with Tom.
"We've almost forgotten how good the home cooking is," Dick answered.
"We've just had something else to think about."
Then the story of the latest meeting with Mr. Fits was told.
"Jupiter!" breathed Tom excitedly. "Say, I wish we could run that fellow
down. I'm just aching to pay him back for the night of ghost scare that
he gave us out in the forest!"
"I'd like well enough to see him caught," Dick agreed. "But I can't say
that I want to do it myself."
"Why not?" challenged Tom.
"Well, he's a powerful big brute, and I doubt if we four could handle
Mr. Fits."
"Huh!" retorted Tom. "I'd like to try it, anyway. And, if we had the
chance, and missed, four of us could make noise enough to bring a few
men to our aid."
"That part would be all right," Dick agreed. "If we see the rascal again
it will be our best move to capture him by yelling for a few men to come
up to where we are."
"Hullo, you!" was the greeting of Toby Ross, as that schoolboy stopped
and looked at the returned campers. "Have a good time?"
"Fine!" answered four voices at once.
"But," Toby continued, "I never thought there was that much stuff in Hen
Dutcher."
"What stuff? What kind of stuff!" demanded Tom.
"Why, Hen is back in Gridley," Toby answered, "and, from the tales he
has been telling, he was the whole life and safety of your crowd out in
the forest."
"Come to think of it," Tom replied soberly, "I believe he was."
"Then Hen's yarns are true?" asked Toby.
"They must be," Dick responded. "Who ever knew Hen to tell an untruth?"
"Say, stop your fooling, won't you?" begged Toby. "What did Hen actually
do out in the forest."
"Why, he ate at least his share," asserted Tom.
"And got his share of sleep," Darrin added.
"He also did his full share of housework," Hazelton supplied, with a
grin.
"We're glad he had such a good time," Dick went on politely.
"But did he really do any of the hero stunts that he's telling about?"
Toby persisted.
"Not knowing what he's telling about, I really can't say," Prescott
answered.
"What is Hen claiming to have done, anyway?" Darrin inquired.
"Oh, Hen says--but come along and hear him for yourselves," Toby
finished. "Hen is just a little way down the street, holding forth to a
lot of fellows."
"Come along, then," nodded Tom. "Perhaps we can slip in behind Hen
without his seeing us, and then we'll know all that he did while we were
snowbound."
Toby piloted them. A block and a half down Main Street a group of some
twenty Grammar School boys stood, gathered closely around a central
object. When Dick and his chums slipped up to the outer edge of the
crowd they discovered that central object to be Hen Dutcher, whose back
was turned to them.
Though Hen didn't know who was now near him, several of the other boys
did, and they passed the wink.
"Hen, tell us again just how it was that you cowed Mr. Fits when he
first showed up at the cabin," urged one of the juvenile bystanders.
"Huh! There wasn't much to cow," retorted Hen airily. "Dick Prescott and
his chums were pretty well scared, I can tell you. But there was an air
rifle standing in the corner, and I knew I could get it if I needed it.
So, when Fits ordered Dick Prescott to get him some supper, and Dick was
just going to do it, I stepped up, as cool as anything, and I said: 'No,
sir; Dick Prescott won't get you any supper in this camp. You'll get out
of here, mister,' says I, 'and you'll be quick about it, too.' Well,
when Fits looked into my eyes and saw that he couldn't scare me any, he
began to whine, and says: 'All right, sir; I won't insist about any
supper, but I must sleep here to-night. I'd freeze to death out in the
big snowstorm.' 'You won't sleep here, any more than you'll eat here,'
says I to Fits. 'But you can sleep out in the cook shack behind this
cabin, if you want to.' Fits, he tried to beg off, but when he found he
couldn't, he just marched out of the cabin like a man and went to the
cook shack."
"Was Fits the one who set fire to the cook shack?" asked another boy in
the crowd.
"I--er--I'm not going to tell you anything about that," retorted Hen,
trying to conceal his embarrassment under an air of mystery.
"But say, Hen," put in another boy, across the crowd, after winking at
Dick, "I really don't see how you could help being scared when you heard
those ghost noises the first time."
"Huh! Me? Scared?" responded Dutcher indignantly. "No, sir! Being scared
isn't in my line. But the other fellows were tremendously scared. I told
'em, again and again, that the noises were wholly human, and that we
hadn't any call to be afraid of any man who used his voice, instead of
his hands, against us."
"Was Dick Prescott much scared?" asked one of the auditors, with a
quick side glance at Dick.
"Was he?" repeated Hen. "Huh! But, after all, Tom Reade was the biggest
boo----"
Here Reade could control himself no longer. His deep chuckle broke on
the night air, causing Hen Dutcher to turn with a start.
"Go on, Hen!" Tom encouraged him. "Go on and tell all about it. I'll
admit that I was scared. So were all the rest of our crowd. I guess,
Hen, you really were the only brave one in the cabin when the blood
curdling noises broke loose on us and spoiled our night's sleep."
"Well, I wasn't scared, was I?" challenged Dutcher.
Hen's eye roved until it rested on Dick's face.
"I don't know whether you were, or not," Prescott replied soberly. "I
had too much of my own alarm on hand to notice just how you were
acting."
"Well, I wasn't scared," Hen asserted vehemently. "And I'd like to see
any one dare to say that I was."
"How did you come to get invited with Dick's crowd, anyway?" asked Hoof
Sadby.
"I wasn't--just exactly--invited," hesitated Hen Dutcher. "But I was
going through the forest when the big snowstorm came up, and----"
"And you made Prescott's crowd invite you into the cabin?" pressed Spoff
Henderson.
"Ye-es," claimed Hen reluctantly.
"What have you got to say about all this yarn, Dick Prescott?" called
Wrecker Lane.
"Why, from all we've heard," Dick answered dryly, "I don't see any need
of adding anything to Hen's story of events. He seems capable of telling
all about it himself."
"And Hen really was brave when Mr. Fits was around?"
"He says so, doesn't he?" inquired Dick.
Several laughs answered this question, and Hen began to fidget.
"I wonder what has become of Fits, anyway?" suggested Ned Allen.
"We saw him here in Gridley, not ten minutes ago," broke in Dave Darrin.
"We notified the police, too."
"Is that right?" demanded a dozen boys at once.
"Yes," nodded Dick.
"And Fits knocked Dick down," said Harry Hazelton, "but," continued he,
"maybe it was that Dutcher boy that he was really looking for."
Hen's face became very pallid and his jaw dropped. He didn't look the
hero that he had been claiming to be a minute before. Most of the boys
in the crowd began to laugh.
"I've a good mind to tell the crowd that Hen really came out to the
forest to help Fred Ripley's crew against us," whispered Harry in
Prescott's ear.
"Don't you do it," Dick warned him sternly. "We don't have to blab. Give
Hen Dutcher a little time and he'll let it all out himself, without
meaning to do it."
"Sa-ay, weren't--weren't you stringing me about--Mr. Fits?" Hen
questioned.
"Say, you fellows--hustle!" breathed Greg excitedly, as he joined the
crowd. "There's Mr. Fits over at the corner opposite. There--he's
turning and running down Abbott Street!"
Like a shot the crowd of boys wheeled and was off in chase. But Hen
didn't go with them. Toby Ross, who brought up the rear, saw young
Dutcher turn and speed homeward as fast as his legs would carry him.