Morgan Scott - Boys of Oakdale Academy

Barker’s cold, irritating laugh sounded at Winton’s shoulder. “He’s afraid! He hasn’t even got sand enough to take part in a practice game.”

“You’re a – ”

Rod Grant cut himself short with the third word trembling on his lips. Involuntarily he had started up and was coming down over the seats.

“Say it – say it if you dare!” cried Barker, springing past Winton. “I wish you would.”

The young Texan faltered on the lowest seat. “Never mind,” he said slowly. “I judge maybe I’d better keep my tongue between my teeth.”

“You’re right, you had,” Barker flung back, his aggressiveness and insolence increasing, if possible, with the hesitation of the other. “What are you here for, anyhow? If you haven’t got sand enough even to practice, why do you come out here and sit around watching the rest of us? You’d better get off the field before some one runs you off.”

Grant stepped down to the ground. “I sure hope nobody will try it,” he muttered.

By this time Winton had Barker by the shoulder.

“Why are you butting in here?” he exclaimed warmly. “If you would let him alone, perhaps I’d get him to – ”

“Don’t you believe yourself, Mr. Winton. You couldn’t get him to do anything but talk and blow. I’ve been up against this same chap once before to-day, and he knows what I think of him. He’s a white-livered coward, that’s what’s the matter with him.”

Again it seemed that the boy from Texas would be taunted beyond endurance, and for a moment he crouched slightly, as if on the verge of springing at his insulter.

“Come on,” invited Barker. “You know how many bones there are in the human hand, even if you are afraid to examine a skeleton at short range. Come on, and I’ll let you feel the bones in my fists.”

These loud words had brought the boys flocking to the spot. Not a few of them believed for a moment or two, at least, that the impending fight between Barker and Grant must take place then and there, and, boylike, they welcomed it as a test of the stranger’s courage. Imagine their disappointment when Rod Grant dropped his half lifted hands by his sides and turned away.

“I’ll get off the field,” he muttered huskily. “I’m going, and I hope Mr. Barker will let me alone in future. He’d sure better.”

They watched him depart in the direction of the gate.

“That proves what he is,” said Berlin.

“By jinks, I guess yeou’re right,” acknowledged Sile Crane. “He is a coward.”

“Fellows,” said Ben Stone, “I may be wrong, but I don’t believe he refused to fight because he was afraid.”

“Perhaps not,” said Winton, shrugging his shoulders; “but I’d like to know why he refused to practice. Come on, boys, we’ll put some one in Rollins’ place and go ahead.”

It was quite dark when Stone, having shed his football togs, left the gymnasium and strode down the street toward the cottage of the Widow Jones, where he roomed. As he was passing through the front yard gate some one called to him, and he saw a figure hurrying toward him. It was Grant, who came up and stopped with his hand on the fence.

“Stone,” said the Texan, “I heard what you said as I was leaving the field to-night, and I want to thank you. It’s mighty agreeable to know that one fellow, at least, was inclined to stand up for me.”

“Look here, Grant,” said Ben, “I wish you’d tell me why you swallowed Barker’s insults. There must have been a reason.”

“There was; but I can’t tell you – not now, anyhow.”

“Why didn’t you fight him?”

“I – I didn’t want to,” faltered Rod.

“You weren’t afraid, were you?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Yes,” answered Grant in a low tone, “I was afraid.”

“I didn’t think that,” muttered Ben in disappointment.

“I can’t explain it now,” Grant hastened to say. “Sometime I will – perhaps. I won’t forget that you stood up for me. I can hear some of the fellows coming. Good night.” He turned sharply, and a moment later his figure melted into the darkness down the street.

Puzzled and wondering, Stone reached the door of the cottage and stopped there, listening involuntarily to the voices of several fellows he could see approaching. They were nearly opposite the house when he heard Chipper Cooper laugh loudly and say something about frightening the Texan into fits.

“If we can make it work it will be better than a circus,” said the voice of Fred Sage. “Are you sure you can get the old thing, Sleuth?”

“I’ve a skeleton key that will admit us,” replied Billy Piper.

“Oh, a skeleton key!” chuckled Chipper Cooper, as they passed on. “That’s the kind of a key for this job. Eh, Barker?”

Barker was with them. He said something, but Stone could not understand his words.

With his hand on the doorknob, Ben stood there speculating. “They’re putting up some sort of a job on Grant,” he murmured. “I wonder what they mean to do?”

Priscilla Kent, spinster, sharp-visaged, old and eccentric, sat knitting by lamplight before the open Franklin stove at which she warmed her slippered toes. In its hanging cage an old green parrot slept fitfully, occasionally waking to roll a red eye at its mistress or to mutter fretfully like one disturbed by unpleasant dreams. Behind her back a small monkey had silently enlarged a rent in the haircloth covering of an old spring couch and was industriously extracting and curiously inspecting the packing with which the couch was stuffed. The hands of the old-fashioned clock upon the mantel pointed to eight thirty-five.

“Goodness!” said Miss Priscilla, after peering at the clock. “It’s goin’ on to nine, and Rod ain’t back yet. He said he was just goin’ down to the village to mail a letter. I’m afeared he’s gittin’ into the habit of keepin’ late hours. He takes his natteral reckless disposition from his father’s side, but I do hope the terrible misfortune that befell Oscar will be a lesson to him and teach him to shun bad company and curb his violent temper. If he don’t come purty soon I shall get real worried.”

Now Miss Priscilla, living as she did on the outskirts of the village in a small house reached only by a footpath from the main highway, might have worried indeed had she known that the darkness and the bushes bordering that path hid a trio of armed and desperate-looking savages who were lying in ambush. The faintest sort of a moon or even a few stars might have shed light sufficient to show that the ambuscaders were attired in fringed khaki garments and moccasins, and wore upon their heads bonnets adorned with feathers plucked from the tails of more than one unfortunate rooster. Even such a dim light would also have revealed that the papier-mache masks which hid their faces added in a degree to their make-up as Indians, while the red paint which stained the edges of their wooden tomahawks and scalping knives was certainly sufficient to produce a shudder. In the parade of “horribles,” on last Independence Day, these warriors had appeared for the amusement of the admiring populace of Oakdale, and now their carefully preserved disguises were again being put to use.

Even though they lurked in concealment so near the exposed and defenseless home of Miss Priscilla, the savages had no murderous designs upon the spinster. They were, however, as their guarded conversation indicated, lying in wait for some one whom they expected soon to return along that footpath, and protracted lingering in ambush upon a nipping November night was proving far from pleasant, as their chattering teeth and occasional fretful remarks plainly indicated.

“Ugh!” grunted one, whose voice sounded amazingly like that of Phil Springer. “I wonder why the hated pup-paleface does not appear?”