Bobby Blake on the School Nine; Or, The Champions of the Monatook Lake League

by Frank A. Warner

  CHAPTER XVII

  ON THE TRAIL

  The school chums sat up late in the dormitory that night, nursing theirbruises, and by the time they had got through applying arnica and otherlotions, the place smelled like a hospital.

  How they could bring the trick home to those who had played it was aproblem that was too much for them at the present. They felt sure thatthe bullies would deny it if taxed with it, and there was no way ofactually proving it, no matter how sure they might feel in their ownminds.

  The matter could of course have been carried to the authorities of theschool, and there is no doubt that they would have looked upon it verygravely because of the serious accident that might have resulted fromit. But their code of schoolboy ethics was to keep the teachers out ofsuch things and fight it out among themselves. They felt reasonably surethat sometime or other they would get even, and they bided their time.

  It was a very lame and sore lot of boys who dragged themselves out ofbed when the rising hell rang on the following morning.

  "Scubbity-_yow_!" exclaimed Fred. "I feel as though I'd been in arailroad smash-up."

  "I'm one big ache all over," groaned Pee Wee.

  "One _big_ ache is right," grinned Mouser. "You couldn't be a little oneif you tried."

  "My joints creak like a wooden doll's, every time I go to move,"complained Sparrow.

  "I bet I'll go to pieces on the stairs and have to be shoveled up inbits," prophesied Skeets.

  "We'll each keep a part to remember you by," laughed Bobby. "Quit yourgroaning, you fellows, and let's go down to the table. You'll feelbetter when you get filled up."

  The filling up process was carried out with neatness and despatch, andwhen it was over the boys were inclined to look on life in a morecheerful way.

  "We can't do anything this morning on account of lessons," remarkedBobby. "But as soon as they're over this afternoon, let's make a breakfor that hill and see what we can find out."

  "And see how Hicksley and his pals act in the classrooms," suggestedSkeets. "That may give us a tip to go by."

  "I don't count much on that," said Mouser. "They'll be on their guardand won't want to give themselves away."

  To a certain extent this proved true. There was no attempt on the partof the bullies to gloat over the victims of their trick. But the boyssurprised furtive grins and winks that passed between the three whenthey thought no one was looking, and this confirmed their suspicionsthat now were almost certainties.

  "They did it all right," pronounced Fred. "I'm sure of it from the way Isaw them grinning at each other. But they'll laugh on the other side oftheir mouths before long."

  As soon as the boys were free from their duties, they went with allspeed to the scene of their misadventure. And again they lamented, whenthey saw by daylight how thoroughly the hill was spoiled for coasting.

  "There must be bushels and bushels of ashes!" exclaimed Mouser, as hiseyes roamed over the lower half of the hill.

  "It beats me how they managed to get it all here," observed Skeets.

  "It must have been brought a long way," commented Sparrow. "There's noplace round here they could have got them from."

  "They couldn't have carried all that stuff themselves," said Bobbythoughtfully.

  "It would have been an awful job," added Howell, "and those fellowsdon't like work well enough for that."

  "They might have hired a man with a horse and wagon," suggested Skeets.

  "If that's so, there must be some tracks in the snow," returned Bobby."Scatter out, fellows, and see if you can find any marks of hoofs orwheels."

  They followed his directions, and in a moment there was a cry fromSparrow.

  "Here're the marks of wheels," he called. "But I don't see any horsetracks."

  There, indeed, were the clearly defined print of wheels leading in aroundabout way toward the town. As they looked a little more closelythey could see too where a man's feet had broken at places through thecrust of snow.

  "It must have been a hand cart," said Bobby, "and you can see that itheld ashes from the bits that lie along its tracks. That's what theybrought it in and you can bet on it."

  "There aren't many hand carts in town," observed Fred reflectively. "Howmany do you fellows remember seeing?"

  "The laundryman has one," replied Howell, "and the paper man hasanother. Those are the only ones I know of, except that shaky thing ofDago Joe's."

  "He's the fellow!" cried Fred excitedly. "None of the others would lendtheir carts for anything like that."

  "Let's follow up the tracks and see where they lead to," suggestedSparrow.

  This was detective work to their liking and even Pee Wee made noobjections to the tramp over the snow.

  Their satisfaction was increased when they found that the tracks ledstraight to the roundhouse. Here there were great piles of ashes thathad been dropped from the fire boxes of the locomotives when they werebeing shifted or put up for the night. It was quite clear that here wasthe place where the hand cart had been filled.

  But their elation received a sudden check when they prepared to tracethe wheel prints to the shabby shack in town where Joe lived with hisnumerous brood. For now they were in the outskirts of the town, wherewagons were coming and going all the time, and the tracks they had beenfollowing were lost in a multitude of others.

  They looked at each other a little sheepishly.

  "Stung!" muttered Fred.

  "Bum detectives we are," grinned Sparrow.

  "We're up a tree now for sure," declared Sparrow.

  "All this walk for nothing," growled Pee Wee.

  "We do seem to be stumped," admitted Bobby. "What do you say to going toJoe and asking him right up and down whether he did it or not?"

  "Swell chance we'd have of getting anything out of him," commentedMouser.

  "He'd lie about it sure," declared Sparrow.

  "I suppose likely he would," agreed Bobby. "But we might be able to tellsomething by the way he acts. It won't do any harm to try anyhow."

  They found Dago Joe pottering about some work in the small yard in frontof his shack. But Joe had seen them coming and his uneasy conscience hadtaken alarm. If he had had time, he would have slipped inside the houseand had his wife or one of the children deny that he was at home. But itwas too late for that, and he took refuge in the assumed ignorance thathad served him many times before.

  He greeted them with a genial smile that showed his mouthful of whiteteeth which was the only personal attraction he possessed.

  "Goota day," he said blandly.

  "How are you, Joe?" said Bobby, as spokesman for the party. "Been prettybusy?"

  Joe's mouth drooped.

  "Not do nottin much," he answered. "Beesness bad, ver' bad."

  "Carry any loads of ashes lately?" Bobby went on.

  Joe looked puzzled. Then a light came into his face.

  "Hash?" he said delightedly. "Me likea hash. Tasta good. Bambino like ittoo."

  "Not hash, but ashes," returned Bobby, joining in the laugh of the restof the boys. "You know, ashes--what falls out of the stove, wood ashes,coal ashes."

  Joe's face resembled that of a graven image.

  "No unnerstan," he said, shrugging his shoulders with an air ofperplexity.

  In the face of his determination, the boys saw that it was of no use toprolong the conversation.

  "You're a good actor, Joe," said Bobby, half vexed, half amused, as theboys turned to go.

  Joe showed his teeth again in an engaging smile that embraced all theparty and waved them a cordial good-bye.

  "How sweetly the old rascal smiles at us!" grinned Mouser.

  "Laughs at us, you mean," snorted Fred. "He's tickled to death inside tothink of the way he's got the best of us."

  "I bet if we asked him if he'd like to have us give him five dollars,he'd understand, all right," laughed Sparrow.

  "He couldn't grab the money too quick," agreed Skeets.
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  "Well, we haven't wasted our afternoon anyway," Bobby summed up. "We'vefound out how the ashes were taken there, and we feel dead certain inour own minds that Joe did it. We know, of course, that he didn't do itof his own accord. Somebody hired him to do it. Now if we could onlyfind some one who saw Hicksley and Joe talking together, it would helpsome."

  "But that wouldn't prove anything," objected Sparrow. "They might betalking about the weather."

  "Or about hash," interjected Pee Wee.

  "Hash seems to stick in your crop," grinned Skeets.

  "I wish some of it were sticking there right now," answered Pee Wee,"especially if it were like the hash that Meena makes."

  "By the way, fellows," chimed in Fred, "it must be close to supper timethis very minute. Let's beat it."

  They started off on a run.

  "The one that gets there last is a Chinaman," Skeets flung back over hisshoulder.

  Pee Wee was the Chinaman.