CHAPTER IX.
MOMENTS OF APPREHENSION.
As Grant drew near they saw he was regarding them with a half tauntingexpression on his bronzed face. In return they stared at himwonderingly, seeking to detect in his manner some symptoms of craziness.
“Dud-dinged if he don’t look all right,” muttered Phil Springer.
“I guess he’s got over it,” said Sile Crane.
Followed by Stone, the boy from Texas vaulted the back yard fence andcame straight toward them.
“Well, how are the noble warriors and the desperate cattle rustlersthis morning?” was his mocking inquiry. “You sure appear a trifleupset, gents. King Philip has a pale and languid look; Tecumpseh seemssome disturbed, and I declare, Osceola is nervous. Girty, the renegade,has backed off, ready to take to his heels. I miss the familiar face ofthe chief of the cattle rustlers. Is it possible he has found himselfindisposed this morning, which has compelled him to remain in bed? Takeyou all together, you’re a sure enough meaching-looking bunch.
“Survey them, Stone. Would you ever imagine these brave bucks possessedthe hardihood to lay in wait, in superior numbers, under cover ofdarkness, and jump on a lone and unsuspecting person? Can you pick outamong them the bloodthirsty redskins who would cruelly tie a captive tothe stake and attempt to burn him alive? There they are—Cooper, Craneand Springer;—and there’s their disreputable accomplice, Rollins,otherwise known as Girty, the renegade. These others are the cattlerustlers, who rescued the unfortunate wretch from the Indians and borehim to their mountain rendezvous, where they threw him into a room withthe bleaching bones of poor old Tanglefoot Bill. Is it any wonder theydrove the victim of such cruel treatment clean batty? Is it any wonderthat he chanted a doleful dirge, and rubbed powdered chalk on his face,and chewed soap until he could froth at the mouth? Such behavior on hispart certainly indicated that he had gone plumb loony.”
He concluded with a burst of laughter that grated harshly on the earsof the deluded jokers, who were slowly beginning to understand thatthey had been fooled completely—that the joke was on them. Therealization of this brought flushes of shame mounting to their faces.
“Well, I’ll be switched!” gasped Crane. “He’s a-givin’ us the laugh.”
Chipper Cooper pretended to look around on the ground. “Can anybodyfind a hole small enough for me to crawl into?” he muttered. “I want toget out of sight—quick.”
“I don’t blame you any,” chuckled Rod Grant. “Take my advice and seekseclusion and shelter in the swamps of the Narragansetts. You were abum redskin, anyhow. You gents had a heap of fun, didn’t you? But youalways want to remember that the fellow who laughs last laughs best.It’s my turn now, and I’m enjoying it a plenty. You ought to seeyourselves. You’re the cheapest looking aggregation of hazers I everbeheld. Some of you appear sick enough to have a doctor.”
This was true; without exception, they all wore a silly, shamedexpression.
The sudden sounding of the last bell came as welcome relief, and theylost no time about hustling indoors, followed more leisurely by Grantand Stone, the former continuing to cast jibes after them.
During the morning session the boys were given time to think the wholematter over, and with the coming of a calm realization that they hadbeen not only checkmated but completely hoist on their own petard,their chagrin was intensified. Occasionally one of them would steal asly glance toward Rod Grant, but whoever did so was almost certain tomeet the chaffing, derisive gaze of the boy from Texas. Some madesecret vows of vengeance, while others were more inclined to “own thecorn” and acknowledge themselves outwitted. What they now dreaded morethan anything else was the stinging tongue and pitiless badinage of thenew boy.
At intermission they held a secret conclave, at which a few betrayedtheir continued rawness in the face of advice from others to swallowthe medicine, bitter though it was, and make the best of it.
“I tell yeou, fellers,” said Sile Crane, “after due consideration, I’msorter inclined to own right up before Grant that he come it over usmighty slick. We started aout to have haydoo-gins of fun with him, butbefore we got through he made us look like a cage of monkeys, andthat’s all there is to it. I snum, I think ’twas pretty clever of him.”
“Bah!” growled Hunk Rollins. “If you want to lay down and let him useyou for a foot-mat, go ahead. I don’t feel that way, and I don’tpropose to do it. He’s been shown up as a case of bluff. He hasn’t gotthe nerve to fight, nor even to play football. Are we going to let thatsort of a feller crow over us?”
“I’ve got an idee,” said Crane slowly, “that Rod Grant ain’t lackin’ innerve. No feller could ’a’ stood what he did last night, bein’ chuckedinto a dark room with a real skeleton that had been rubbed over withphosphorus, and then fooled the bunch of us by makin’ b’lieve he wascrazy, unless he had pretty good nerve. He’s refused to play football,and mebbe he won’t fight; but I cal’late the chap that keeps treadin’on the tail of his co’t is goin’ to run up against a s’prise party someday. Bimeby he’ll wake up and break loose, and when he does there’ll besome doings.”
Returning to the academy after dinner, Chipper Cooper found a number ofthe boys still talking about Grant.
“Say,” cried Cooper, “you can’t guess who called me up over the longdistance ten minutes ago.”
“Barker,” said Nelson instantly.
“You win.”
“Bub-Barker!” sneered Phil Springer. “What did he want?”
“Wanted to know what we’d heard about Grant. Said he naturally feltsomewhat anxious.”
“You bate he felt that way!” exclaimed Crane scornfully. “What’d youtell him?”
“I told him all about it—told him what a lot of lobsters we were.”
“What made yeou do that?” cried Crane. “Why didn’t yeou tell him they’dhad to put Grant in a strait-jacket, or somethin’ like that?”
“Didn’t think of it quick enough, Sile; but I told him the fellers weremighty disgusted because he sneaked out.”
“What’d he say to that?”
“Oh, he denied that he had sneaked. Said he’d had a standing invitationfrom Merwin, who had been urging him for a long time to come over, andthat was why he went. All the same, I could tell by the sound of hisvoice that he was greatly relieved.”
“Of course he was,” nodded Nelson. “We all know he skipped out and leftus to face the music. Now that there’s nothing more to worry about,he’ll come back with his head up.”
“Nothing to worry about!” sighed Billy Piper. “Wait till the prof findsout what happened to his skeleton. My deduction is——”
“He’ll _bone_ the whole school to tell who did it,” sighed Cooper. “Ifanybody squeals, we’ll find ourselves in a mess.”
“If anybody sus-squeals!” muttered Springer. “What’s going to preventGrant from giving the whole thing away?”
“He’ll do it,” said Rollins. “That’s the way he’ll get even with us.”
“Get even!” said Roy Hooker. “Seems to me he’s more than even as itstands.”
With the beginning of the afternoon session they perceived something inProf. Richardson’s manner which increased their apprehensions.Nevertheless, not until he had heard the physiology class and was onthe point of dismissing it did the principal speak out. Standing besidehis desk, he removed his spectacles and held them balanced upon histhumb, while his eyes surveyed the scholars before him, several of whomfound it difficult to hide their nervousness.
“It’s an unfortunate thing,” began the master calmly, “that some youngmen in this school seem to hold very crude and unsatisfactory ideasregarding honor and decency. You know very well that I have alwaysfavored clean sport and decent fun—I have even encouraged it. YesterdayI informed the members of this class that I had secured a humanskeleton, which those who wished to do so might examine at an extrasession after school closed to-day. This skeleton had been placed inthe l
aboratory. I have but recently discovered that the laboratory hasbeen entered by some one and the skeleton has been broken. It wasstrung upon wires, and may be restored. This, however, in no waypalliates the offense, which was no more nor less than a shameful actof vandalism. It is quite likely that more than one person wasconcerned in this despicable business. I’m not going to question youindividually, but I warn you now that I shall deal severely with theculprits when I learn who they are, unless they at once own up to thedeed. The lad who comes to me first with an honest confession will betreated with more or less leniency. It may be that some one who was notconcerned in the matter—who is in no way responsible—knows somethingabout it. If so, I hope he will speak up at once and tell the truth.This is his opportunity. Let him speak.”
It seemed that the master’s gaze came to a rest upon Rodney Grant as heconcluded, and more than one lad in that class felt his heart standstill, believing it almost certain that Rod would grasp thisopportunity to complete the work of retaliation. For several momentsthe silence was intense. The prominent “Adam’s apple” in Sile Crane’sneck bobbed convulsively as he swallowed. White around the mouth, ChubTuttle slowly rolled his eyes in Grant’s direction. Rod was lookingstraight at the professor, but he sat unmoved and calm, like an imageof stone.
“Very well,” said the master at length; “you have had your opportunity,and no one has chosen to speak out. Perhaps some one will decide to doso after further consideration. At any rate, I shall leave no stoneunturned in my efforts to learn the identity of the rascals. The classis dismissed.”
School over for the day, Ben Stone found an opportunity to questionGrant. “What would you have done,” he asked, “if the professor hadsingled you out and put it to you point-blank?”
“I should have declined to answer.”
“Then he certainly would have believed you concerned in the breaking ofthe skeleton.”
“I was.”
“But you were not to blame. If you had told the truth the other fellowswould have had to suffer, while you must have been exonerated.”
“Had he cornered me,” said Grant, “I should have requested that thesame questions be put to every other fellow in school.”
“What if they had lied? They might have denied knowing anything aboutit.”
“In that case,” said Grant, “I should have told the story of the hazingand refused to give the names of the fellows who took part in it.”
“Do you think they would have followed the same course—all of them, orany one of them—had the situation been reversed?”
“I don’t know,” answered Grant; “but I hope so.”
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