CHET PLAYS THE HERO
The boys stopped at the gate of Three Towers Hall, not knowing just what
to do next. All they knew was that Miss Race had been held up and robbed
only a few hundred feet from the gate and that the robber had
disappeared in the bushes at the left-hand side of the road.
"We'll have to spread out," Teddy said in an excited voice. "Probably
the fellow doesn't expect to be followed, because he thinks there are
only women and girls around Three Towers and he's probably around near
here somewhere counting over his loot.
"There are five of us," he went on quickly, noticing that two more boys
had come up from the lake on a run. "And if we go in the woods one at a
time and circle about we ought to find the thief."
"Don't you think we'd better get Miss Race?" asked Chet eagerly. "She'd
be able to show us just where the fellow disappeared, and everything."
"But it will take too long," Ferd was objecting, when Miss Race
herself, with two or three of the other teachers and Miss Walters, came
hurrying toward them.
"What are you going to do, boys?" asked Miss Walters, looking worried.
The boys explained quickly, and Teddy, turning eagerly to Miss Race,
asked her to go with them as far as the woods and point out the place
where the thief had disappeared.
Miss Race was still white from her fright. But she was angry, too, for
the pocketbook she had lost contained a good deal of money.
"Yes, I'll go," she said, then added, turning quickly to her principal:
"That is, if you don't mind, Miss Walters."
Miss Walters still looked troubled, but she shook her head slowly.
"I think it will be all right," she said, adding as the boys started
eagerly off: "Only be careful, boys, and don't get hurt. The man may be
desperate if he finds himself cornered."
The girls started to follow the boys, but Miss Walters checked them.
"You can't help," she said when they looked at her reproachfully. "And
since I'm responsible for you, you will stay right here."
Meanwhile, the boys and Miss Race were running down the road. Yes, even
Miss Race, who was never _very_ dignified, was running.
Suddenly they came to a trampled place in the road, showing that some
struggle had taken place there.
"It was right here," said Miss Race, her eyes black with excitement.
"And he ran across the road and disappeared in that thick mass of
bushes. Then he covered me with his gun and told me to 'beat it while
the beating was good.'"
"The rat!" cried Chet indignantly. "Come on, fellows! I want to get my
hands on that rascal."
Eagerly the boys started for the woods, but Teddy turned back suddenly
and called to Miss Race.
"You'd better go back now," he said, and Miss Race's eyes twinkled at
his grown-up tone. "There isn't anything more you can do, and if there
are any bullets flying around we don't want you to get them. Please," he
added impatiently, as she did not move.
"No, I'm going to stay right here," she answered him firmly, and when
Miss Race spoke in that tone everybody knew that she meant what she
said. "Go along, but don't take too many risks. Remember the man is
armed."
So Teddy disappeared after his comrades and Miss Race waited nervously
in the road, expecting she hardly knew what.
It seemed a long time that she stood there, dreading any moment to hear
a shot, blaming herself for sending the boys on such a hunt.
"I'd rather lose a hundred pocketbooks," she scolded herself, "than have
a finger of one of those boys hurt. I wish I hadn't said anything about
it."
As for the boys, they were beginning to despair of ever finding the
thief and were calling themselves all sorts of names for ever thinking
they would, when suddenly Chet walked out of the woods and almost upon
him.
It was so sudden that the boy almost yelled in his surprise, but all he
really did was clap his hand over his mouth and stare. For he had come
so softly that the man had not even heard him.
He was crouched over something that Chet could not see--probably the
stolen pocketbook. His revolver lay beside him on the ground, close to
his right hand.
With his heart in his mouth--for after all, with all his courage, he was
only a boy and the robber was a man, and armed at that--Chet crept
forward, fearful each second of stepping on a twig and giving his
presence away.
Nearer and nearer he crept, hardly daring to breathe, until he was right
behind the thief and the revolver was almost under his feet.
Then with a motion as quick as a cat's, he stooped and caught tip the
revolver. The next moment he stepped quickly back and covered the thief
with it.
"Hands up!" he cried. "Quick there, before I shoot!"
So sudden, so noiseless, had been his action that the thief was taken
completely by surprise. With an exclamation he reached his hand out for
his revolver, then, not finding it, stumbled to his feet.
"Hands up!" cried Chet sharply. "Quick, now. This blamed thing might go
off."
The man's hands went up, but he still kept his back to Chet, his little
furtive eyes glancing about for a means of escape.
"Turn around," Chet commanded, then as the man did not move he clicked
the trigger meaningly. "Say, I think you want to taste the lead in this
thing," he added, and there was something in his tone, boyish though it
was, that made the man turn quickly.
Chet uttered a gasp of recognition.
"So it _is_ you," he said. "I thought it was all the time, but I
couldn't be sure till I'd seen the color of your eyes. So you're really
the 'Codfish.' Please to meet you, old man."
"Say, cut that out," snarled the "Codfish," making as though to spring
upon Chet, but the latter waved his pistol and the man evidently changed
his mind, for he stood where he was, hands above his head, eyes glaring.
"And so there's the pocketbook and the nice fat roll of money you just
stole from the Three Towers teacher," Chet went on, his glance shifting
from the man to the pocketbook with the money stuffed hastily in it
where the man had left it on the ground. "You thought it was easy,
didn't you? Well, you didn't know you had me to reckon with." Chet was
boy enough to want to strut a little. Never before had he had a chance
to play the real hero. He probably never would have again, so he wanted
to make the most of this.
"You little puppy!" the man spat out at him. "You think you can get the
best of me, don't you? Let me tell you, no kid can do that."
He made a sudden lunge forward, and Chet, taken by surprise, stepped
backward, caught his foot in a root and stumbled a little.
He recovered himself in a minute, but in that little space of time the
"Codfish" had gone, disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up.
Then Chet went mad. To have had the thief and then to lose him! He
started off wildly into the woods, but his foot struck against
something, and, looking down, he saw the pocketbook with the money still
in it.
He picked it up, feeling that he had partly played the hero anyway, for
if he had not caught the thief, he had at least recovered the money.
Then he started off on his hunt again, and this time almost stepped
into the arms of Ferd and Teddy.
"Say, what's the row?" the former yelled at him. "We heard the talking,
and thought we'd have a look--say, stop pointing that thing at me, will
you?"
"Then get out of my way," yelled Chet, his mind on only one thing. He
must catch the "Codfish." "I'm after the thief, I tell you! Get out of
my way!"
"Say, has he gone crazy?" asked Teddy. Then his eyes fell on the
pocketbook that Chet was still holding tight in his hands.
"He got the money! Say, Ferd, he got the money! Chet you're some hero.
Where's the thief?"
By this time Chet knew he had no chance of catching the "Codfish," who,
now that he was discovered, was probably running into hiding as fast as
he could, so he turned back with the boys and began excitedly to tell
them what had happened.
"And you really had him and you let him go again!" cried Ferd in
disgust. "Well, you poor old fish!"
"I got the money, anyway, didn't I?" Chet defended himself, adding in a
superior tone: "It's more than any of you did, I guess."
"You're some boy, Chet," Teddy repeated heartily. "Come on and let's
tell the good news to Miss Race. Make believe she won't be glad to see
her wealth again."
"Where are the other fellows?" Chet asked, as they started back.
"Oh, they'll be along soon," said Ferd indifferently. "When they can't
find old 'Codfish' they'll come wandering back again."
"I wonder if Miss Race has waited," said Teddy, adding as he came near
the roadway: "Yes, there she is, looking pretty white and scared, too."
As they clumped through the heavy bushes Ferd looked at Chet gloomily.
"Say, make believe I don't envy you, you lucky dog," he said slangily.
"Gosh, all the girls will be wanting to skate with you and everything
now."
"Sure! Well be left out in the cold," added Teddy mournfully.