DICK’S PROMISE
Dick could hardly believe his own ears when he heard Asa make this
terrible confession. He gripped the other boy by the shoulder almost
fiercely.
“Look here, Asa Gardner, do you mean to tell me that it was you who
took those things in the night--Dan’s watch, the aluminum frying-pan,
and last of all the gold watch which your best friend Mr. Holwell
thinks so much of?”
Asa groaned, and drooped pitifully in his grasp.
“I don’t know for sure, Dick, but I’m awfully afraid I did,” he said,
huskily.
“That’s a queer way to put it,” Dick told him, sternly. “Anybody ought
to know if he were guilty of doing such a mean thing as that. You’ll
have to explain yourself, Asa. Do you remember taking those things?”
“No, no, that’s the strangest part of it, you see, Dick,” pleaded the
boy. “But they disappeared, and I was in the camp both nights.”
Dick began to breathe a little easier.
“But that isn’t any proof at all, Asa, that I can see,” he hurriedly
remarked. “How could you take them, and not know it, tell me?”
“I wish I could, Dick, but then nobody else here would be low enough to
steal except me, and so I’ve figured it out that I must have done it in
my sleep, just because the old habit was so strong. While I was awake
I could fight it off, but you see once I lost my senses my grip was
broken, and I must have done it. Oh, I must!”
“Well, that’s a funny thing to tell me, I must say,” Dick replied. “You
haven’t the least remembrance of doing it, yet you’re ready to take all
the blame on your shoulders because once on a time you had a weakness
that way. Brace up, Asa; you never took Mr. Holwell’s watch, I tell
you.”
It was wonderful to see how new hope seemed to come immediately into
the heart of the erring boy. The look of misery began to die out of his
face, and through the tears gathering in his eyes Dick could see a new
sparkle--that of hope.
“Oh! it’s kind of you to say that to me, Dick!” he exclaimed between
his sobs, for he was completely aroused and could not control himself,
though he tried hard to do so. “Tell me who did take the watch, then,
that Mr. Holwell, the finest man on this whole earth, thought so much
of?”
Dick laughed breezily, more to cheer the poor fellow up than because he
considered it a joke.
“I wish I could tell you, Asa,” he said, quickly. “But so far it’s a
mystery that has yet to be solved. But I’m dead sure you hadn’t a thing
to do with the robbery, if that’s what you mean.”
“There was one favor I meant to ask you, Dick, if you thought I hadn’t
better leave the camp,” continued Asa, presently, when he could master
his emotion.
“All right, let’s hear it,” he was told encouragingly.
“To-night, and every night after this I want you to let me sleep next
to you in your tent. Yes, and Dick, if only you’d fix it with a cord
of some kind so that I couldn’t move about without your knowing it
I’d feel easier. Then if another robbery was committed I’d begin to
understand that I couldn’t be doing these terrible things in my sleep.”
“I’ll think it over, Asa,” the other told him. “Though I’m sure nothing
like that is going to be needed to prove your innocence. Besides, since
we’ve heard of Nat and the other fellows meeting with some sort of
strange man in the woods, Mr. Holwell, Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Rowland
begin to believe the secret of the robberies will be solved when we run
across the wild man.”
Asa winked hard to clear his eyes from the tears.
“You’ve made me feel a whole lot easier, I tell you, Dick,” he said,
and he persisted in squeezing the other’s unwilling hand with boyish
fervor. “I hope and pray that it may come out that way. I’m trying as
hard as I can to keep my promise to my mother, and she knows that it
would nearly kill me if I found that I was going back to those old ways
in my sleep.”
“Cheer up, Asa, and don’t let any of the other fellows see you looking
as if you had lost your last friend. Mr. Holwell believes in you, and
so does Harry Bartlett, and so do I. You’re going to be all right and
as good as the next one. Sure! you can sleep alongside of me if you
feel like it. But about that cord you mentioned, I hardly think it’ll
be necessary.”
Asa wandered off until such time as he could recover from his emotion
and Dick continued his examination of the boat’s bottom. After all, he
was glad the other had spoken as he had, because somehow it seemed to
clear the air.
“And,” he told himself, humorously, “I’m beginning to get a hunch that
before a great while we’ll find some way of explaining this mystery. If
that was a wild man Nat and the others saw, surely he must be a lunatic
who’s escaped from some asylum. We may be the means of capturing him,
and restoring him to his quarters. He’ll be frozen to death if he has
to stay on Bass Island all winter.”
The idea pleased Dick exceedingly, and when he once more joined the
others by the fire some of the boys wondered what could have happened
to make him appear so cheerful again.
He took the first favorable opportunity that arose to get Mr. Holwell
aside. Asa had not yet returned to the camp, though they could see him
sitting on the end of a fallen tree that jutted out over the water,
possibly a hundred yards further along the shore of the island.
“I had a pretty bad scare a short time ago, sir,” was what Dick started
to say, which caused the gentleman to start, and look at him strangely.
“Have you been seeing things too, Dick?” he asked. “Would the wild man
become so bold as to approach our camp in broad daylight?”
“No, but I’ve been _hearing_ things that gave me a bad turn at first,
though it came around all right pretty soon,” and with that Dick
repeated what Asa had said to him near the boat landing when they were
alone.
Mr. Holwell was of course stunned at first, but as Dick went on with
his story his eyes grew moist, and he shook his head as though he felt
exceedingly sorry for the boy whose past haunted him so persistently.
“Poor Asa,” he said, later on, when he had heard all, “it must be
terrible to feel as he does, and be compelled to fight so desperately
to keep from doing things that other boys have no fear they will be
tempted to do. I give him all credit for his gallant fight, and if he
wins, as I firmly believe will be the case, I shall be proud of him.
You must continue to help him in every way you can, my boy.”
“I certainly will, sir,” declared Dick, with a strong remembrance of
the moist eyes Asa had turned on him when he made that humiliating
confession that after all had proved to be only a dreadful suspicion,
and not a reality.
That was a busy afternoon, all things considered. Some of those who had
been out fishing in the morning decided they had had enough angling
for one day. Besides, they knew very well that others were desirous of
testing their skill against the game qualities of the black bass of
Lake Russabaga.
So it came about that Dick Horner had a chance to be a member of
the quartette that left camp with dark designs against the finny
inhabitants of the inland sea. They carried a goodly number of live
bait in a pail constructed for that purpose, and also some artificial
minnows, as well as trolling spoons to fall back on in case the other
supplies were exhausted.
Mr. Holwell had entered into the work with almost as much enthusiasm as
any of the boys.
“To-morrow being Sunday,” he explained as he worked, “we will do just
as little manual labor as possible. My flock in town will have a supply
in the pulpit, for they have given me a little holiday. And if you boys
care to hear it I expect to give you a sermon I wrote for some lads of
my acquaintance many years ago, though it touches on truths that are
just as pertinent to-day as when it was first delivered.”
Dan had not gone off with any of the others, but at the same time he
failed to mingle with those in the camp. They could hear him pottering
away close by, now hammering, and again coming back for bits of stout
twine or rope. Nobody but Mr. Bartlett knew what Dan was about.
All this naturally aroused something akin to curiosity among the boys,
and as the afternoon wore on many guesses were indulged in as to what
Dan Fenwick could be doing. Finally, one of his companions, more daring
than the rest, sauntered over his way to ask him pointblank what it was
he kept working on so industriously. Andy Hale, for it was he who had
approached Dan, presently came hurrying back, with a half grin on his
face, at the same time laboring under partly repressed excitement.
“Hey! would you believe it?” he announced as he arrived near the fire.
“Dan up and told me he was building a cage to trap that wild man Nat
saw in the woods.”