CHAPTER X
ROCKLEDGE SCHOOL
The boys reached instinctively for their bags. Then they remembered thatthey had none, and looked at each other with a sheepish grin on theirfaces.
"Nothing doing in that line," mourned Fred. "I wonder if we'll find themin the station."
They stepped off the platform into a crowd of their schoolmates, who hadcome down to welcome them. There they were, shouting and laughing andall talking at once--Billy Bassett, Jimmy Ailshine, "Sparrow" Bangs,Howell Purdy and a host of others. They fairly mobbed the newcomers andwere for dragging them off at once to the trolley car that ran to theschool. But the boys explained that they first had to look after theirmissing baggage and they all trooped into the station.
"Haven't we got a lot to tell you fellows!" exclaimed Mouser. "You justwait till you hear it all!"
"Caught in a snowslide," volunteered Pee Wee.
"Held up by tramps," declared Fred.
"Robbed of all we had," added Bobby.
These tantalizing bits of information only served to whet the appetitefor more. Their friends crowded around them open-eyed, and questionsshot out at them like bullets from guns. The boys suddenly foundthemselves exalted to the rank of heroes. But they bore their honorsmeekly enough, although they were almost bursting with the feeling oftheir importance.
They were delighted to find their missing bags and suit-cases waitingfor them. The conductor had known the station their tickets called for,and had left the articles in the care of the Rockledge station agent.
There was a telegram too from Mr. Blake to Bobby. He had wired the moneyto Roseville and Mr. Stone had seen to it that it was sent on to Bobbyat Rockledge. Mr. Blake's telegram was a lengthy one and full ofanxiety. In it he told Bobby to wire at once on his arrival atRockledge, which Bobby promptly did.
Mr. Stone had sent a separate telegram also on his own account. Hestated briefly that the robbers had not yet been caught, but that thepolice were busily hunting for them and hoped to get them soon.
"Well," sighed Bobby, as he folded up the telegram, "I suppose all wecan do is to watch and wait."
"Wait for the watch you mean," laughed Mouser.
"Now don't start anything like that," grinned Fred. "You'll start BillyBassett going if you do, and I can see that he's got a lot of conundrumsall ready to fire off at us."
"Who's that talking about me?" laughed Billy, coming forward. "Let himsay it to my face."
"Ginger thought you'd be springing something on us," replied Pee Wee,"and we were getting ready to duck."
Billy looked aggrieved.
"You fellows don't know a good riddle when you hear one," he remarkedscornfully.
"How do you know?" countered Mouser. "You never give us a chance to try.Spring a real good one and see how quick we'll tumble."
Billy looked dubious but took a chance.
"Well, take this one, then," he said. "What is it that happens twice ina moment, once in a minute, and not once in a thousand years."
The boys put on their thinking caps, but the problem was beyond them,and Billy strutted around with a triumphant look upon his face.
"Don't seem to be any too much brains in this crowd," he said, in asuperior way.
"Give us time," pleaded Mouser.
"Maybe it's because it's so bad and not because it's so good that wecan't guess it," conjectured Fred.
"Take all the time you want," said Billy patronizingly, "but I guessedit as soon as I heard it."
As they had no evidence to the contrary, they had to take Billy's wordfor this.
They pondered it for several minutes, but no answer was forthcoming.
"Nobody home," taunted Billy. "You're a bunch of dead ones for fair."
"I'll give it up," said Mouser.
"Let's have it, Billy," surrendered Fred.
"I'll be the goat," said Bobby. "What's the answer?"
"The letter M," crowed Billy.
Disgust and discomfiture sat on the boys' faces.
"Rotten," groaned Pee Wee.
"The worst I ever heard," grunted Fred.
"Wish I had a gun," remarked Mouser.
"It's a mighty good one," defended Billy. "But what's the use in givingyou fellows something to chew over. It's like casting diamonds beforeswine."
"You mean pearls," corrected Mouser.
"Well, I may be mistaken about the diamonds," Billy came back at them,"but I'm dead sure about the swine."
The laugh that followed told Billy that he had made a hit, and heswelled up like a pouter pigeon.
"I've got another good one," he volunteered, "a regular peach. Why is--"
But here the boys fell on Billy in a body and he was forced to hold his"peach" in reserve for another time.
Bobby by this time had finished all he had to do in the station, and theboys gathered up their recovered suit-cases and made a bee line for thetrolley. A car was coming, not a block away, and they piled aboardalmost before it had come to a stop with wild clatter and hubbub. Butthe motorman and conductor were used to the uproar and the pranks of theRockledge boys, and what few other passengers there were smiledindulgently.
Rockledge was a lively little town with good stores and pleasantresidence streets shaded by handsome oak trees. There were gas andelectric lights, a number of churches and all the usual appurtenances ofa bustling village that hoped some day to become a city. And not theleast of the things in which the townspeople took pride was RockledgeSchool.
Dr. Raymond, the head of the school, had been fortunate in choosing itslocation. He had been able to secure, at a remarkably low price, abeautiful private estate, whose owner had died and whose family hadmoved away. There were several buildings on the grounds and these he hadremodeled and adapted to the purposes of a school, and he had built upan institution that was well and favorably known in all that section ofthe State.
The school was select. By this is not meant that it was in the leastdegree snobbish. Dr. Raymond hated anything of that kind, and the schoolwas run on a purely democratic basis, with every pupil on exactly thesame level, whether his parents happened to be rich or poor. But thedoctor was a great believer in the personal influence of teacher overpupil, and this could not be exerted so well if the classes were large.So the school was limited to fifty pupils, and this limit was neverexceeded. At this figure the school was always full, and there wasusually a waiting list from which any vacancy that might occur could bequickly filled.
The doctor himself was a scholar of high standing, and he had surroundedhimself with an efficient staff of teachers. Discipline was firm withoutbeing severe, and the boys were put largely on their honor to do theright thing. There was a society called the "Sword and Star" to whichadmission could be gained only on the ground of scholarship and goodbehavior.
Bobby had won membership in this the year before and had also gained theMedal of Honor which was allotted each year to that pupil who, in thejudgment both of his teachers and school-fellows, had stood out aboveall others. Fred, who was more flighty and less inclined to study, andwhose "red-headed" disposition was always getting him into trouble, wasnot yet a member of the society, but had faithfully promised himselfthat he would win membership in the term just beginning.
A ride of only a few minutes brought them close to the school groundsand the boys prepared to get off. Tommy Stone was to stay on the trolleycar, which ran as far as Belden School.
Tommy had kept himself rather in the background during the trip. Hehappened to be the only Belden boy on the car, and, owing to the intenserivalry between the two schools, a Belden boy was usually as popularwith the Rockledge boys as poison ivy at a picnic party. But just nowTommy was traveling under the protection of Bobby and his party, andthis saved him from the horse play he would otherwise have had toundergo.
"Good-bye, Tommy!" said Bobby, as he got ready to leave the car. "Tellyour father when you write to him how much obliged we are to him for allhe ha
s done for us. I'm going to write him a letter myself about itto-morrow."
"Oh, that's all right," said Tommy. "Your father would have done thesame for me if I'd been in the same fix as you fellows were."
"And tell the Belden boys that we're going to trim 'em good and plentywhen the baseball season begins," laughed Mouser.
"Don't be too sure of that," grinned Tommy in return. "But I'll tellthem and they'll be all ready for you."
The boys dropped off the car, and in a few minutes saw the schoolbuildings looming up before them.
"Scubbity-_yow_!" cried Fred, dropping his suitcase and executing a jig."The old place certainly looks good to me."
"Seemed a long way off a few hours ago when we didn't have a cent to ournames," remarked Mouser.
"Looked as if we'd have to walk the ties to get here," laughed Pee Wee.
"And think how many stone bruises you'd have got," suggested Bobby.
"'Barked shins,' you mean," corrected Mouser. "They're the latest thingin Pee Wee's collection."
The fat boy grinned. He was too happy or perhaps too lazy to enter anyprotest just then.
The school was beautifully located on a high bluff overlooking MonatookLake, a sheet of water, nearly oval in shape. It was about ten mileslong and five miles wide at its broadest part. There were several smallislands scattered over the lake, and, as may be imagined, these werefavorite resorts of the boys when they were permitted to visit them.
A strong fence guarded the edge of the bluff for the entire length ofthe school grounds. A winding staircase led from the top of the bluff tothe boathouse and the lake level.
Just now Monatook was clothed in an icy mantle that shone like silverunder the light of the moon which had just risen. It was a scene ofwintry splendor that gladdened the heart to look upon.
There were four buildings on the grounds. In the main building, whichwas made of brick and sandstone, the classrooms and dining-room werelocated. The basement had two sections, one for the kitchen and theother for the indoor gymnasium.
On the upper floor were ranged the dormitories. These were two innumber. There were beds for twenty boys in each one. Then there werefive separate sleeping rooms, each one designed for the use of two boys.
A little off from the main building, but connected with it by a portico,was a roomy house in which the doctor and his family lived, togetherwith the members of the teaching staff.
Besides these there were a gate-keeper's cottage, where the servantsslept, and a minor building used for storage purposes.
The grounds were skillfully laid out, and with their well kept lawns andshaded paths formed a very attractive campus. To supply the athleticneeds of the boys there was a football field, a baseball diamond, andtennis and basketball courts.
So that the boys who had the luck to be sent by their parents toRockledge School were usually convinced before they had been there longthat their lines had fallen in pleasant places.
"Well, I suppose the first thing we'll have to do is to report to Dr.Raymond," said Bobby.
"He'll know that the school can go on all right now that we're here,"grinned Mouser.
"I suppose we'll have to let him know that we're on deck," admittedFred, "but let's get it over in a hurry and get some grub. I'm hungryenough to eat nails."
"Couldn't we get something to eat first?" asked Pee Wee wistfully.
"You ate enough at Mrs. Wilson's to last for a week, I should think,"said Bobby.
"I notice that you weren't very far behind," retorted Pee Wee.
They trooped into the doctor's office and found him busy with somepapers, which he laid aside at once, however, as he stood up to greetthem.
He was a tall, spare man, with a clean-cut face and kindly eyes thatusually had a humorous twinkle in them, although they could flash fireif he caught any of the boys doing a mean or tricky thing. He smiledcordially and shook hands with them all.
"You're a little later than you expected to be, aren't you?" he asked."I was looking for you on an earlier train."
"We've had a hard time getting here," smiled Bobby, and in a few wordshe told of the stirring adventures through which the little party hadgone that day. The doctor listened intently, surprise, indignation andsympathy in his eyes.
"It was an outrage!" he exclaimed, when Bobby had finished, "and I willget in touch with Mr. Stone at once and lend him any aid I can incatching the thieves. But I am very glad and thankful that it was only aloss of money and property. Those rascals might have used personalviolence. I'll telephone to-morrow to a number of different towns,giving a description of the tramps and urging the authorities to be onthe look-out for them. The sooner such fellows are put in jail thebetter."
He made notes of as many points about the robbers as the boys couldremember, especially of the scar of one man and the limp of the other.As to the third man, the boys were somewhat hazy. He was just "plaintramp."
"And now," said the doctor, his eyes twinkling, "I suppose there's noneed of asking you boys whether you are hungry."
There was an eager assent on the part of the other boys and a heart-feltgroan from Pee Wee.
"Of course it is long after the usual supper hour," smiled the doctor,"but go over to the dining-room, find the housekeeper and tell her Iwant her to give you the very best meal she knows how to get up."
There was no need of a second injunction, and the boys wished the headof the school good-night and were off to hunt up the housekeeper.
"Isn't the doctor a brick?" ejaculated Mouser. "I thought he'd keep usthere half an hour or more talking about the work for the coming termand what he would expect of us."
"That'll come later," said Fred. "Just now he knew that we were hungry."
"That's what makes him such a bully sort," said Bobby. "He hasn'tforgotten that he was once a boy himself," he added, with a happy sigh.
And this, perhaps, was as high tribute as could be paid by one of hispupils to the master of Rockledge School.