MORE THAN ONE MYSTERY
The two reckless youths who had tried out the iceboat and lost her that
morning did not appear at the academy during the forenoon session.
Indeed, Barrington Spink was not an attendant at the Riverdale school.
He was a recent comer to the town and the boys knew very little about
him, save in a general way. He was the son of a widowed lady who seemed
to have a superabundance of cash and who was very proud and haughty.
Mrs. Spink had bought a large house on the outskirts of Riverdale, had
furnished it gaudily, hired a host of servants, repainted and
refurbished everything about the place, including the iron dog on the
lawn, and had set up a carriage and pair as well as an automobile.
The Speedwells had often seen Barrington Spink around town before the
occasion when Billy had hauled him out of the icy river, but had never
spoken to him. Monroe Stevens belonged to one of the wealthiest families
in Riverdale and naturally Spink had gravitated toward “Money,” as the
other boys called Monroe.
After school was out and Dan and Billy were walking across the square
towards Appleyard’s to get the truck (they had not gone home at noon)
they came face to face with the newcomer to Riverdale.
He was with Wiley Moyle and Fisher Greene, both of the so-called
“aristocracy” of Riverdale, but good fellows both of them and Billy’s
particular friends.
“Say, Billy,” remarked Fisher, grinning, “Barry here has just been
telling us how you pulled him out of the river this morning. The chill
hasn’t got out of him yet, you see,” he added, with a meaning glance at
young Spink, who had nodded very distantly in return for the Speedwells’
hearty greeting.
“He was just asking us about you,” drawled Wiley Moyle, “and we told him
that Riverdale would have to go without lacteal fluid in its coffee if
it wasn’t for you and Dan.”
“And our cows,” replied Billy, seriously. “They have something to do
with the milk supply, I assure you.”
“And the barn pump—I know,” chuckled Wiley, grinning saucily.
“Oh—I—say,” stammered Spink, eyeing Billy rather askance. Dan and some
of the older boys were discussing an important topic some distance away.
“I didn’t suppose you fellows really made a chum of this—er—Speedwell
boy.”
“Huh?” grunted Wiley. Wiley’s folks were rich enough, but his father
made him earn most of his own spending money, and Wiley helped around
Jim Blizzard’s newspaper office on Saturdays and after school. “I knew
you were a chump, Barry; but this——”
“Oh, I’m obliged enough to him, I’m sure,” said Spink, airily. “He
certainly helped me out of the river.”
He had been fumbling in his pocket while he spoke and now brought out a
little flat packet of folded bills. Selecting one, he approached Billy
Speedwell, who, having first flushed at the fellow’s impudent tone, was
now grinning as broadly as Wiley and Fisher.
“Re’lly,” said young Spink, “you did that very bravely, Speedwell. Here
is a little—er—something to show my appreciation.”
Billy had accepted the dollar bill and at once fished up a handful of
silver from the depths of his trousers’ pocket.
“Hold on! hold on, Mr. Spink!” he exclaimed. “If you mean to pay me with
this for saving your life, there is no need of overpaying me. Here!
there’s ninety-five cents change—count it. And I’m not sure that I’m not
charging you too much as it is.”
Fisher and Wiley Moyle burst into a roar of laughter, and Barrington
Spink turned several different colors, as he realized that Billy had
made him look like a goose.
“Why—why——That fellow’s only a _milkman_,” sputtered Spink, as Billy
drifted over to the bigger crowd of boys to hear what was afoot.
“You give me a pain in my solar plexus—you gump!” snapped Fisher Greene.
“Why, Billy and Dan have got twenty thousand dollars or more in their
own right. Didn’t you ever hear of the treasure of Rocky Cove? Well,
those are the boys who got the emeralds—they, and the old Admiral and
Mr. Asa Craig. You want to take a tumble to yourself, Barry Spink!” and
he moved away from the new boy.
Barrington Spink’s eyes fairly bulged. “He—he’s kiddin’ me; isn’t he?”
he demanded of the grinning Wiley.
“Not so’s you’d notice it,” returned Moyle.
“Not twenty thousand dollars?”
“Thereabout.”
“And they run a milk route?”
“That’s Mr. Speedwell’s business. And fellows around Riverdale have to
work the same as their dads did when _they_ were boys. There are not
many drones in this town, let me tell you,” concluded Wiley.
He started over to the other boys, too, and left Spink alone. The new
boy was “in bad,” and he began to realize that fact. Perhaps he couldn’t
help being born a snob; having his standards set by a foolish and
worldly mother had made Barrington Spink an insufferable sort of fellow.
“The peasantry of this country doesn’t know its place,” Mrs. Spink often
observed. “That is why I so much prefer living in Yurrup.” That is the
way she pronounced it. If the truth were known (but it wasn’t—Mrs. Spink
saw to that) the lady’s father was once a laborer on a railroad; but the
mantle of Mr. Spink’s family greatness had fallen upon her.
“If it wasn’t for Mr. Spink’s peculiar will,” she often sighed, “I
should not venture to contaminate Barrington with the very common people
one is forced to meet in this country. But Mr. Spink had peculiar ideas.
He left Barrington’s guardians no choice. My poor boy must be educated
in American schools, doncher know!”
And Barry was getting a fine education! He had shifted from place to
place and from school to school, learning about as little as the law
allowed, and doing about as he pleased. Now he was so far behind other
boys of his age in his studies that he was ashamed to enter the
Riverdale Academy until the tutor his mother had engaged whipped Barry’s
jaded mind into some sort of alignment with those of the boys who would
be his schoolmates.
The boys surrounding Dan Speedwell were enthusiastic and all tried to
talk at once. A flock of crows on the edge of a cornfield could have
been no more noisy.
“Greatest little old idea ever was sprung!” shouted one.
“Takes the Speedwells to hatch up this ‘new thought’ stuff,” whooped Jim
Stetson. “What d’ye say, boys? Tell it!”
“Dan! Dan! He’s the man!
Dan, Dan Speedwell!”
The yell from the crowd made everybody in the snowy square turn to look;
but when they saw the crowd of boys from the academy the spectators
merely smiled. Boyish enthusiasm in Riverdale frequently “spilled over,”
and nobody but Josiah Somes, the constable, minded it—and _he_
considered it better to give the matter none of his official attention.
“Meeting to-night, fellows, in the Boat Club house—don’t forget!”
shouted one of the bigger boys. “We’ll give this iceboat scheme the once
over.”
“It’s a great idea,” declared Wiley Moyle, enthusiastically. “And they
tell me the river above Long Bridge is already solid as a brick
pavement.”
“It isn’t so solid below the bridge—or it wasn’t this morning,” chuckled
Billy Speedwell. “Mr. Spink can tell us all about _that_.”
But Barrington Spink was hurrying rapidly away.
“Why, if the Speedwells have all the money Wiley says they have, they’re
worth cultivating,” he muttered to himself—which is _one_ of the
mysteries that bothered Dan and Billy during the next few days. They
wondered much why Spink’s manner should so change toward them. The boy
hung about them and tried to make friends with “the milkmen” in every
possible way.
The other—and more important mystery—met Dan and Billy when they arrived
home that very afternoon. The strange boy that Billy had knocked down
the evening before, had disappeared.
“When we got up this morning, after you boys had gone,” explained their
father, “that fellow had skedaddled. What do you think of that? And
without a word!”
“Then Money Stevens may have seen him over by Island Number One!” cried
Billy.
“It looks so,” admitted Dan. “I didn’t think there could be two chaps
who couldn’t talk, in the neighborhood.”
“That’s not all, boys,” cried Carrie Speedwell. “Just see what little
’Dolph picked up.”
She presented a crumpled slip of paper for Dan and Billy to read.
“’Dolph found it right there beside the bed that strange boy slept on.
He must have dropped it. See how it reads, Dan?”
Dan read the line scrawled on the paper, aloud:
“Buried on the island. Dummy will show you the spot.”
There was no signature, nor address—just the brief line. What it could
refer to—what thing was buried, and on what island, was hard to
understand. Only, it was quite certain that the “Dummy” referred to was
the youthful stranger who could not talk English understandably.
“I am awful sorry he went away without his breakfast,” sighed Mrs.
Speedwell. “And he didn’t look half fed, at best. It is too bad.”
“He’ll have a fine time living over on Island Number One at this
season,” whispered Billy to Dan.
“Don’t let mother hear you,” replied the older boy, quickly. “She’d only
worry.”
“Better let ‘Dummy’ do the worrying,” chuckled Billy.
“Well! it’s mighty odd,” said Dan, shaking his head. “And I really would
like to know what’s buried on the island.”
“So would I,” said Billy. “Treasure—eh?”
“You’ve got treasure on the brain, boy,” grinned the older youth.
“You’re getting mercenary. Haven’t you got wealth enough? We’re
capitalists.”
“Yes—I know,” said Billy, nodding. “But I wonder if we’ve got money
enough to get us the fastest iceboat that’s going to be raced on the
Colasha this winter?”
“Ah! now you’ve said it,” agreed Dan. “But it isn’t going to be money
that will get us _that_ boat. We’ve got to learn something about iceboat
building as well as iceboat sailing.”
“Huh! that blamed little wisp, Barry Spink,” grunted Billy.
“What about him now?” asked Dan, laughing.
“As inconsequential as he is, he’s got the whole town ‘bug’ on
iceboating. He’ll be all swelled up like a toad.”
“We should worry!” returned Dan, with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
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