It was the day when Max was to be voted into the Fussers Club. He
sat waiting in the anteroom, feeling keenly the air of expectation,
a thrilling sense of important things impending. He wondered if some
disturbance was going on in the assembly room of the club; speculated
vaguely upon what part in the fortunes of the organization he might be
called to play. Whatever it might be, he would not shirk.
In a corner two young men were evidently though noiselessly quarreling.
Presently Walter Buckman and Billy Bennett came from the club room and
joined the others, when the altercation became more violent. Short
disjointed remarks floated out to the listeners “--a chance,” from Billy;
and “--any such example,” from Walter.
“What are they talking about?” Max asked one standing near him, noting
that with each moment the number in the room increased.
“That is the investigating committee.”
“Do they often disagree so?”
“No. And today there’s only one candidate; there must be something
doing.” The speaker moved quickly away.
Max noticed this, and Walter’s increasing vehemence; and instantly a
premonition of disaster swept him like a cold, wet blast.
[Illustration: A premonition of disaster swept him]
“I tell you I won’t stand for any thieves being voted into the Fussers,”
Walter shouted, heedless of a sibilant “Hush!” from one of the others.
“I’ll stake my honor he’s all right,” Billy Bennett shouted back, and Max
silently blessed him for those words.
Max understood--saw it all as plain as the sum of two and two. This
was the way Walter Buckman had taken to “get even.” He had urged Reed
Hathaway to present Max’s name, had “talked up” the candidate right and
left, and had even told Billy, who had repeated it to Max, that the
proposed member would lend more style and more genius to the club than
any ten previous members.
Now Max knew these honeyed praises were only for the purpose of
attracting attention, for filling the room with the curious, so that
Walter’s bomb would have an audience.
Max decided to hurry the explosion. He stepped forward and faced the
committee in the corner. “I understand that my name is the only one
under consideration, and that the investigating committee is embarrassed
concerning it. I withdraw my name as a candidate for the Fussers Club.”
He bowed and was turning away when Walter Buckman strode into the middle
of the room with an air of importance, exclaiming:
“No, sir! You don’t walk off with that air of injured innocence. Right
here and now I brand you as a thief, Max Ball!”
Max would have replied but a great hubbub rose. He had won friends among
pupils and teachers; and those who best knew Walter were sure there was
some malevolence back of this attack, and they stood for fair play.
Walter’s father, however, was a wealthy business man of large power in
the city and this had weight with the truculent ones, making a following
for the son as well as the father.
But Billy Bennett cared nothing at all for Buckman, senior or junior,
when fair play was at stake; nor even for the much admired magnate, Mr.
Smith, May Nell’s father. “I protest,” he cried. “This accusation is
unworthy a student. No matter how incriminating circumstances may appear,
there is always a chance that they may not be true. Walter Buckman, I
want you to retract that statement.” All knew Billy was recalling his own
bitter experience of the year before when Jim Barney trapped him into
appearing as a thief.
“I retract nothing!” Walter shouted vindictively. “I say that last winter
he robbed our ice box; and I dare him to deny it.”
Pale as ever he would be in his coffin, Max stepped to the center of the
room, looked about him, and said in a low, steady voice, “Gentlemen, it
is true. I only hope that if such a great temptation--such a great need
should come to any one here he will have more strength than I had to
resist it.”
He bowed comprehensively, and before any of them could recover from
amazement, was gone.
It took minutes for even quick-witted Billy to comprehend what had really
happened; and still more time to think what to do next. He voiced the
opinion of all the more thoughtful ones there when he said, “Fellows, I
believe we’ve made the mistake of our lives.”
“We?” Sis Jones called out. “It’s only Buckman here. He’s the spot-light
kicker. We had a chance to help a good man to success, and Buckman’s
kicked him out of the procession.”
“So? You stand for approving thieves, I suppose,” Walter sneered.
“Whatever he’s done must have been because of some terrible reason,”
Billy averred. “Looking into his face when he said those last words, one
must believe in him.”
“Well, you may. I don’t. I know about him; and those who stand for that
fellow may cut my acquaintance after this.” Walter strode off, with a
large number obsequiously accompanying him.
“Well, wouldn’t that totter you?” Billy turned to “Sis.”
“We must kick in for Max good and plenty,” “Sis” flashed. “He’s good meat
clear through to the bone.”
A little longer they talked, trying to think out some way to save Max
from his enemy.
“Do you suppose he was ever really hungry--desperately so?” “Sis” asked
with awe.
“Gee! I’ve been hungry enough between sunrise and sunset to eat an ice
box whole.”
“So have I. Suppose a fellow had no father and no money, and
had--gone--two days, say, unfed?”
Billy nodded violently. Words could not express such a contingency.
“I’m going right out to see Mrs. Schmitz. She and Mumps and I together
surely can cook up some scheme to put Max to the good again. We’ll enlist
Bess and May Nell and you and Redtop--Oh, I know, I’ll get Cousin Hec to
give some sort of swell function for Max, show off his music; invite all
the bang-ups, and Walter Buckman and his crowd, too--”
“Bully! Walter’s too much of a snob to slight the Prices or Hec’s gang;
and if Walter goes he’ll have to swallow Max whole and shut off his gab.”
Billy started away to see Sydney. He was detained by unexpected duties
however, and it was an hour after the explosion at school before he
arrived to find his friends in the greatest excitement.
“He iss gone!” Mrs. Schmitz burst out with no other greeting, as Billy
appeared at the open door. “Mine poor boy! The world kicks him down
already.”
“And it’s my fault,” Sydney added gloomily.
“How’s that?” Billy asked, mystified.
“Read you this.” Mrs. Schmitz thrust a letter into his hand. “A messenger
brings it but this minute.”
With clumsy fingers Billy unfolded the sheet and read:
DEAR MRS. SCHMITZ, MY SECOND MOTHER:
The boys found me out and exposed me. I could not deny the
charge, and explanations would have been useless.
I must go away and begin all over again where no one knows me.
But don’t worry about me. Wherever I am I shall not shame you.
If I can’t earn food I shall not steal, but starve as quietly
as I may. Yet I have a feeling that somewhere I shall make
good; I owe that to you.
I shall love you and Sydney always. This is good-by to you both.
MAX.
Billy stared at the others over the paper, and for a moment the room was
quite still.
Mrs. Schmitz was in a brown study. Poor Sydney’s head was bowed, his face
dark with self-accusation. The clock ticked noisily, and a proud rooster
across the street, adding his voice to that of a laying hen, cackled with
the vigor of a dozen cocks, Billy thought. From a spring-fed, marshy lot
beyond, a bullfrog croaked suddenly. These sounds, usually unheeded, now
thrust themselves upon Billy’s attention with insistence and annoyance.
“This will throw out the class play,” he said abruptly.
“That’s no great matter. You can alter it.”
Billy recognized Sydney’s impatience. “It _is_ matter. I’ve built the
whole play with Max in view for the leading character; and you to play
up to him. His violin, too--why, there’s no one in the world but him to
fit in right and do the part.”
“Write another play then,” Sydney exclaimed irritably.
Billy, not knowing the cause of Sydney’s impatience, turned in despair
to Mrs. Schmitz. “Write a three-act play and coach it, in less than two
months--and keep my place in class. And I’m expected with the play to win
out for the Fifth Avenue High on the literary contest. Mumps! It beats
the school! Don’t you see? If we don’t find Max we lose to one of the
five other Highs; don’t you see?”
Billy probably did not know it, but he came as near having tears in his
voice as a deep-voiced young man with some pride can come and not really
sob.
This added to Mrs. Schmitz’s own zeal. She had been thinking to some
purpose. “We shall find him! Soon! He shall play--save your drama!” She
started up.
“I’m the one. It’s up to me to do the trick. I wish I could see how.”
Sydney clenched his hands harder, and his perplexed scowl grew deeper.
“I’ll tell you--I’ll advertise.”
Then Sydney astonished them by making the longest speech they had ever
heard from him. “This job of finding Max is mine. If I hadn’t been yellow
clean through I’d have been there in the anteroom when Walter Buckman
played his mean trick; been there to hit back, to come out with Max, to
make him come home with me. Five minutes with you, Mrs. Schmitz, would
have put him steady again. He’s no coward, but he feels things a lot--his
skin’s thinner than my thick hide, and--”
“Stop! You shall not call mine Seedney names.”
He nodded grimly and continued. “But I was jealous of him, that’s what.
Jealous from that first night when you put him in the best room, Mrs.
Schmitz. Even after you talked it out of me the day you gave me my new
room, and I thought I had the little deev killed and buried for good,
he came to life like a cat on one of her nine laps. I hated Max because
everything he did was fine. He could please everybody, play, do things
right the first time--Oh, it’s no use talking about that any more. I’ve
got to do the fair thing now--find him, find him!”
“We’ll do it. We’ll advertise,” Mrs. Schmitz declared again.
“There’s danger he won’t read the papers. Wouldn’t a detective be better?”
“Gee! That’ll be the trick!” Billy approved; “but it will take a lot of
money.”
“I’ll find that money!” Mrs. Schmitz offered quickly.
“I’ll pay it back if it takes me years to earn it. And I’ll never
go inside the Fifth Avenue High again till Max goes with me.” Sydney
straightened with a decision new to Billy. It seemed as if he had in a
moment taken up a great burden that he would carry to success or die in
the attempt.
Mrs. Schmitz stood beside him and patted his arm. “Seedney, that leetle
yeller fellow iss good and dead now already. He never again squeaks. Now
I will go mit you to find--”
He faced her with determination. “No, Mrs. Schmitz, I must do this
alone--if I can. Let me take my own way for three days. If the
detective--if I learn nothing then I will ask you--”
“Me, too, Mumps!” Billy flung in.
“Yes, both of you. Max had no money to speak of; I happened to see his
purse when he paid his fare this morning; there was only a little small
change. He can’t go far on that.”
“No. And while you’re hunting him I’ll talk things over with mother and
sister, the quartette and the bunch; and when Max returns we’ll all camp
on his trail, so that no matter what the Buckman crowd does, Max will
feel he has a jolly good gang behind him.”
“Goot! That’s right, Billy. The friends that beliefs in you before you
prove out are worth having. After you are successful you don’t need ’em.
Comes so many then they are in the way.”
Sydney left them and went down town, going first to Mr. Streeter, and
laying the whole case before him, not sparing himself.
His faith was warranted, for Mr. Streeter had not befriended many boys in
trouble without coming well in touch with the machinery of the law. He
knew the best detective, and went with Sydney to find him. This man had
more than once successfully run down a boy for this kind friend of boys.
Sydney told his story and answered many questions; and when the search
had been thus launched, he wandered about, not knowing just what to do
next. At a busy corner he was recalled from a brown study by a familiar
greeting, “_Kla-how-ya!_” A Chinook salutation.
“_Kla-how-ya!_” he returned, stopping beside a group of Indian women,
two squaws and a child, squatted against a store front with their wares
exposed for sale, baskets, mats, and beadwork. He knew them well; had met
them several times at the Reservation. Often he and Max stopped to chat
with them, and the older squaw had taken a great fancy to Max.
“Come Tu-la-lip tonight?”
“No; I can’t go tonight.”
“Heap big wau-wau and shantie.” She meant that the Indians were to have
a story-telling and sing. Twice Max and Sydney had gone to Tu-la-lip
Reservation, for Max was deeply interested in the Indians, some of
them old friends of Sydney’s. He had sung for them; and Max played
his violin--“tin-tin,” they called it, their name for any musical
instrument--and they liked it immensely.
Sydney declined the old squaw a little carelessly. “Some other time.”
“Ow go already.” This was her word for “younger brother,” and meant Max.
Sydney sprang toward her, excited. “When? What boat?”
She told him. It was the four o’clock boat. The next was at six-thirty;
and Sydney had ample time to catch it. The Indians rose slowly, rolled up
their goods, and plodded gravely toward the dock; the Government obliged
them to be at the Reservation every night.
But Sydney ran ahead of them, his brain in a whirl. What could have
decided Max to go there, of all places in the world? The fare, to be
sure, was only a quarter, but that sum would take him to any one of
a score of small ports on the Sound. At the Reservation there was
positively nothing in the way of work for Max. Over and over during the
half-hour’s travel Sydney pondered the matter, arriving at no conclusion.
When the boat touched the landing he was off before the hawser was
thrown, skimming the narrow strip of water in a leap, even while the
angry captain shouted a command to wait.
He ran up the patch to the agent’s house, but his anxious query brought
no information; Max had not been seen there.
Baffled, Sydney turned, pointing to the old squaw of the street shop in
the City of Green Hills. “She told him he came on the early boat,” he
panted.
The agent questioned the squaw in her own language; but before he had
spoken many words a little boy standing by broke in, jabbering fast, and
pointing across a wooded peninsula where the Sound waters dip into the
forested hills in a narrow inlet.
“This chap says your friend came here but hurried across the Point to
the mill. A lumber ship is loading there,” the agent translated.
Sydney waited for no more but set out at a run. That was what Max
intended--to ship to some distant port! That would certainly hide him
well, and give him a living on his way. Sydney thought of sensitive,
gifted Max handling “tackle,” and “bossed” around by some profane mate;
treated like a machine rather than like a human being--no, worse;
machines are property and get consideration. It is only human life that
is wasted with unconcern, it is so plenty.
Running faster and faster, Sydney emerged from the woods to see the ship
steaming slowly into the bay. For a minute his legs trembled under him
and he almost fell. Too late! Max was surely there, lost to them forever!
Suddenly Sydney knew how thoroughly he had uprooted his jealousy, how
deeply Max had become fixed in his heart, a part of his life, his joy and
inspiration.
Another quick thought buoyed Sydney--no one would be likely to find a
berth on a ship so near to sailing as this had been.
He watched her a moment and turned back toward the mill, stumbling along
out of breath, and arriving to learn that one resembling Max had tried
and failed to ship, and had set off southward.
Southward! The Pritchard Mills, one of them the largest shingle mill in
the world! Ships were always loading there; of course that was where Max
would turn next. The millman said one ship was due to sail with the tide
that night if she could get a crew. The captain had been unable to sail
sooner for lack of men.
Max would surely be taken! Sydney must hurry. He asked for a horse and
was laughed at. Horses there in those dense forests were “scarce as hen’s
teeth.”
There was nothing for it but to walk--nine miles. Sydney knew the road
skirting the shore for he had traveled it when on a “hike” with his
troop; but in daylight and with a guide was a different matter; now it
was nearing dark--it must be half past seven. Yet he must try it; yes,
try, and succeed! He must, must arrive before the ship sailed.
He started off slowly, for he had run the two miles from the Reservation
with no thought of saving himself; now he must husband his strength if he
would endure, arrive. It was too bad that he could not begin with speed
for the first three miles were open and clear; the dark road was farther
on.
Yet he restrained himself sternly, and in spite of the light fog he saw
settling beneath the early stars. There were many short cut-offs where a
dim path led over some sharp pitch that the road circled at sea level.
Sydney took these as long as he could see, noting that many cow paths
led off at various angles, and were in some cases more distinct than the
right one.
After a time he broke into his best pace, choosing his path as carefully
as possible. He judged he had traveled about five miles when he came to a
tongue of heavily wooded land making far out into the Sound.
The trail was good and he had little difficulty in keeping it. Once or
twice he found himself a few steps off, but was quickly warned by the
difficult going. Yet so long the tramp seemed to him that he feared he
had lost the way, and was beginning to despair, when he heard the welcome
lap-lap of the waves, and was soon on the wagon road again, with the
distant lights of Pritchard Mills beckoning cheerily in long, brilliant
spikes through the thin fog, and several ships a-light riding at anchor
in the harbor.
Heartened, Sydney ran on at fine speed over the smooth springy road,
arriving at the wharfinger’s office, spent and breathless, but in good
spirits. No ship was leaving.
Sydney described Max.
“Oh, yes. That chap blew in half an hour ago; but he’s done up. He’ll not
leave port very soon, if ever.”
Chilled with apprehension, Sydney, following the man’s directions, set
out once more to find Max.