CHAPTER III
MORE THAN ONE MYSTERY
The two reckless youths who had tried out the iceboat and lost her thatmorning 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 abouthim, save in a general way. He was the son of a widowed lady who seemedto have a superabundance of cash and who was very proud and haughty.
Mrs. Spink had bought a large house on the outskirts of Riverdale, hadfurnished it gaudily, hired a host of servants, repainted andrefurbished everything about the place, including the iron dog on thelawn, and had set up a carriage and pair as well as an automobile.
The Speedwells had often seen Barrington Spink around town before theoccasion when Billy had hauled him out of the icy river, but had neverspoken to him. Monroe Stevens belonged to one of the wealthiest familiesin Riverdale and naturally Spink had gravitated toward “Money,” as theother boys called Monroe.
After school was out and Dan and Billy were walking across the squaretowards 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’sparticular friends.
“Say, Billy,” remarked Fisher, grinning, “Barry here has just beentelling us how you pulled him out of the river this morning. The chillhasn’t got out of him yet, you see,” he added, with a meaning glance atyoung 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 himthat Riverdale would have to go without lacteal fluid in its coffee ifit wasn’t for you and Dan.”
“And our cows,” replied Billy, seriously. “They have something to dowith 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 someof the older boys were discussing an important topic some distance away.“I didn’t suppose you fellows really made a chum of this—er—Speedwellboy.”
“Huh?” grunted Wiley. Wiley’s folks were rich enough, but his fathermade him earn most of his own spending money, and Wiley helped aroundJim Blizzard’s newspaper office on Saturdays and after school. “I knewyou were a chump, Barry; but this——”
“Oh, I’m obliged enough to him, I’m sure,” said Spink, airily. “Hecertainly helped me out of the river.”
He had been fumbling in his pocket while he spoke and now brought out alittle flat packet of folded bills. Selecting one, he approached BillySpeedwell, who, having first flushed at the fellow’s impudent tone, wasnow grinning as broadly as Wiley and Fisher.
“Re’lly,” said young Spink, “you did that very bravely, Speedwell. Hereis a little—er—something to show my appreciation.”
Billy had accepted the dollar bill and at once fished up a handful ofsilver from the depths of his trousers’ pocket.
“Hold on! hold on, Mr. Spink!” he exclaimed. “If you mean to pay me withthis 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 notcharging you too much as it is.”
Fisher and Wiley Moyle burst into a roar of laughter, and BarringtonSpink turned several different colors, as he realized that Billy hadmade him look like a goose.
“Why—why——That fellow’s only a _milkman_,” sputtered Spink, as Billydrifted 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 theirown 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 andMr. Asa Craig. You want to take a tumble to yourself, Barry Spink!” andhe 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 towork the same as their dads did when _they_ were boys. There are notmany drones in this town, let me tell you,” concluded Wiley.
He started over to the other boys, too, and left Spink alone. The newboy was “in bad,” and he began to realize that fact. Perhaps he couldn’thelp being born a snob; having his standards set by a foolish andworldly mother had made Barrington Spink an insufferable sort of fellow.
“The peasantry of this country doesn’t know its place,” Mrs. Spink oftenobserved. “That is why I so much prefer living in Yurrup.” That is theway she pronounced it. If the truth were known (but it wasn’t—Mrs. Spinksaw to that) the lady’s father was once a laborer on a railroad; but themantle of Mr. Spink’s family greatness had fallen upon her.
“If it wasn’t for Mr. Spink’s peculiar will,” she often sighed, “Ishould not venture to contaminate Barrington with the very common peopleone 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 educatedin American schools, doncher know!”
And Barry was getting a fine education! He had shifted from place toplace and from school to school, learning about as little as the lawallowed, and doing about as he pleased. Now he was so far behind otherboys of his age in his studies that he was ashamed to enter theRiverdale Academy until the tutor his mother had engaged whipped Barry’sjaded mind into some sort of alignment with those of the boys who wouldbe his schoolmates.
The boys surrounding Dan Speedwell were enthusiastic and all tried totalk at once. A flock of crows on the edge of a cornfield could havebeen no more noisy.
“Greatest little old idea ever was sprung!” shouted one.
“Takes the Speedwells to hatch up this ‘new thought’ stuff,” whooped JimStetson. “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 spectatorsmerely 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 onceover.”
“It’s a great idea,” declared Wiley Moyle, enthusiastically. “And theytell me the river above Long Bridge is already solid as a brickpavement.”
“It isn’t so solid below the bridge—or it wasn’t this morning,” chuckledBilly 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’reworth cultivating,” he muttered to himself—which is _one_ of themysteries that bothered Dan and Billy during the next few days. Theywondered much why Spink’s manner should so change toward them. The boyhung about them and tried to make friends with “the milkmen” in everypossible way.
The other—and more important mystery—met Dan and Billy when they arrivedhome that very afternoon. The strange boy that Billy had knocked downthe evening before, had disappeared.
“When we got up this morning, after you boys had gone,” explained theirfather, “that fellow had skedaddled. What do you think of that? Andwithout a word!”
“Then Money Stevens may have seen him over by Island Number One!” criedBilly.
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“It looks so,” admitted Dan. “I didn’t think there could be two chapswho 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 couldrefer to—what thing was buried, and on what island, was hard tounderstand. Only, it was quite certain that the “Dummy” referred to wasthe 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 thisseason,” whispered Billy to Dan.
“Don’t let mother hear you,” replied the older boy, quickly. “She’d onlyworry.”
“Better let ‘Dummy’ do the worrying,” chuckled Billy.
“Well! it’s mighty odd,” said Dan, shaking his head. “And I really wouldlike 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’recapitalists.”
“Yes—I know,” said Billy, nodding. “But I wonder if we’ve got moneyenough to get us the fastest iceboat that’s going to be raced on theColasha this winter?”
“Ah! now you’ve said it,” agreed Dan. “But it isn’t going to be moneythat will get us _that_ boat. We’ve got to learn something about iceboatbuilding 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’ oniceboating. 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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