by Morgan Scott
CHAPTER XXII
A SURPRISING CONFESSION.
After a time Osgood and Nelson became separated from the rest of thesearchers. They had come to a little opening where the moonlight shoneupon a small pile of cord-wood that had been cut and left there duringthe past winter, and here they stopped and faced each other.
"It's worse than useless, this searching without lights of any sort savewhat the moon affords," said Jack. "There are thousands of places wereone could hide from searchers if he chose. It would be better to gothrough the woods calling to Hooker and assuring him we are friends."
"I doubt," returned Ned, "if we'd find him then."
"What do you suppose has become of him?"
"You can answer that question fully as well as I."
"Well, then," said Jack suddenly, "what do you suppose was the cause ofall this trouble, anyhow? How was Hooker hurt?"
Osgood's answer was a shrug. Motioning toward two short stumps whichstood nearby, he suggested that they should sit down.
"I want to talk to you, Nelson," he said, when they were seated. "I'vegot to talk to some one, and I'd rather it would be you than any oneelse. We've never been what might be called real friendly, have we?"
Surprised and wondering at his companion's words and singular manner,Nelson replied:
"I don't know that we've been exactly chummy, but----"
"Tell the truth," interrupted Osgood, reaching out and putting his handon the other boy's knee. "We haven't been even friendly, although youseemed willing enough to be, and I've put up a bluff that I was. All thesame, you didn't trust me. You knew I was bluffing."
"I--I don't think--that I--actually knew it," stammered Nelson, still moreastonished.
Osgood threw back his head and smiled. The moonlight, full on his ratherhandsome, aristocratic face, showed that smile to be touched withbitterness, even with self-scorn.
"I'm a bluffer, Nelson--a thoroughbred bluffer," he declared. "Intuitiontold you as much. All along I knew you were one fellow in Oakdale that Ihad not fully blinded. Piper, with all his natural shrewdness--and we'lladmit that he's naturally shrewd--was deceived in me."
"What are you talking about, Osgood?" exclaimed Jack. "Why are youtelling me this stuff, anyhow?"
"I don't know just why, but I'm telling it to relieve my mind. Perhapsit will relieve me in a measure, anyhow. I had no thought in the worldof talking to you this way when we paused here a few moments ago, butsuddenly an irresistible impulse came upon me. Something seemed to say,'You may as well tell him, for he sees through you, anyhow.' Do youknow, Nelson, I've hated you. Yes, that's the word. I hated you becauseI couldn't deceive you, and that's why I longed to do something to hurtyou."
"You what? Of course I know I benched you in that Wyndham game, but Ihad----"
"You should have benched me before," exclaimed Osgood. "You should havefired me from the nine."
"Fired you? Why, you were one of our best players. You really knew morebaseball than any one else on the team. You were valuable."
"Even if I could play better baseball than Hans Wagner himself, I was abad man to have on the team, for I was trying to create insubordination,distrust and a disbelief in your ability as captain."
"I--I knew Shultz was ready to kick against my authority at anyprovocation," said Nelson, bewildered; "but you always seemed so decentand----"
"Shultz!" exploded Osgood. "Why, he was simply carrying out my scheme. Ilet him think it was mainly his idea, but all the time it was mine. Ifooled him, just the same as I did the others. When I perceived that youdid not trust me, and when I became convinced that you thought mesomething of a fraud, I was bitterly determined to down you. I set aboutingratiating myself into the good will and esteem of certain fellows onthe team--certain fellows I felt confident I could sway to my will. Nevermind who they are, Nelson, for they weren't wise to the depth of mygame. Still, I knew I was getting them, one by one, just where I wantedthem. I knew that in time, when I should be ready to make a split on thenine, I could swing them to my side and carry the majority of theplayers with me. That was my object, Nelson. I intended to make troubleon the team, break it up under your leadership, and then suggestreorganization, with the purpose of being chosen captain in your place."
Nelson leaped to his feet. "Why, you miserable scoundrel!" he criedfuriously. "So that's what you were up to! I did smell a rat. I didthink you were up to something underhanded. So that was it, eh? You're ascrapper; you can box, they say. Take off your coat!"
Osgood made no move to rise. "We're not going to fight," he assertedcalmly. "Did you think I was telling you this in order to provoke afight?"
"I can't understand why under heaven you told me, anyhow."
"Simply because I was determined to relieve myself of some of the loadI've been carrying. Simply because in the last few hours I've come tosee the full meaning of my dirty scheming. Oh, I don't suppose youbelieve me, but that's the reason--anyhow, it's a part of the reason. AndI'm done with it all, no matter what may happen to me to-morrow."
His breast heaving, his hands clenched, Nelson continued to standglaring down at the calm, abject fellow before him. And there wassomething so genuinely abject in Osgood's appearance that gradually Jackfelt his rage oozing away and leaving him.
"Sit down," invited Ned once more. "I'm not half through. As long asI've begun on this thing, and said so much, I'm going to tell you more,although it's likely you'll hold me henceforth in the most completecontempt. You spoke of Shultz a moment ago. Do you know he's not thesort of fellow with whom I can have any real natural bond of sympathy?"
"I've always wondered at your chumminess with him," said Nelson slowly,reseating himself. "He's so different. You're a gentleman, while he'splainly of the most plebeian and common stock."
"He's no more plebeian and common than I am," declared Osgood instantly.
"But his family--he comes of a most ordinary family."
"So do I."
"You? Why, you have some high-grade ancestors behind you on yourmother's side, at least."
"I wondered if you believed that, Nelson. If you did, it's plain you didnot see through me completely, as I fancied."
"What? Do you mean to say that----"
"My father and mother were just poor, illiterate people, neither of whomcould trace their pedigree back three generations. To tell you the plaintruth, I don't know anything whatever about my ancestors on eitherside."
"But the family portraits you have, and the crest you use upon yourstationery?"
"Pure bluff, nothing else. I picked those portraits up as I chanced tofind them and fancied they would serve my purpose. Any one who wishescan get a stationer to put a crest on his writing-paper. My fatherstarted out in life as a tin peddler; my mother came from an orphanasylum. They settled on a little farm, and by hard work were able intime to buy more land. On that land some years ago oil was struck. Itmade them rich, and in a wonderfully short time my father drank himselfto death."
Pity was now supplanting anger in Nelson's heart.
"But why--why did you put up such a bluff, Osgood?"
Again Ned shrugged. "Simply because I'm a sort of cad and bounder, Isuppose. I've always felt grieved and hurt because I had no familybehind me. It must be true that, although she came from an orphanasylum, my mother has good blood in her. Naturally, she had a littleeducation, too, while my father could scarcely write his own name.Mother wished me to have an education and become a gentleman; on theother hand, my father had really no true conception of what the wordgentleman meant. After he died mother sent me to school. I've attendedfour different schools. Two of them were in the middle West, and at boththe truth regarding my parents was somehow learned. Although I hadmoney, I met certain chaps who, as I could very well see, looked down onme. They came from good families, and even when they pretended to behail-fellow-well-met with me, I could feel the hidden contempt in theirhearts. It made me sore, Nelson. I hated those fellows.
"I wrote my mother about it; I told he
r about it when I saw her. It'strue that her health is not very good, and she has gone to SouthernCalifornia. Why didn't she take me with her and put me into a school outthere? If you could see her, you might understand. Her shoulders arebowed from work, and her hands are gnarled and knuckled. She knew thatshe would betray the truth to any one who might meet her. I knew it,too, and right there, when she proposed that we should be separated bythe full width of the continent in order that I might attend some farschool where there would be little danger of the truth coming out--rightthere I showed the real cad in my make-up. I accepted the propositionand went to Hadden Hall."
"But you didn't stay at Hadden."
"No. Shultz thinks I was compelled to leave that school for quite adifferent reason than the real one. One day a fellow showed up there tovisit a friend--a fellow who knew me. I had been putting up the samebluff I've put up in Oakdale. I had far better rooms than I've been ableto obtain here, and I was supposed to be a remote descendant of Britisharistocracy. The fellow who knew me punctured that fabrication. I wasexposed, and I got out. Then I chose a little school, where it seemed tome there would be no chance of any one recognizing me. That's whatbrought me to Oakdale."