CHAPTER XIX

THE RESULT

Just who would have won in that battle between Fred Martin and Sparrow Bangs remains one of the unsolved mysteries of Rockledge School.

It was never finished. The quartette of boys had made one mistake. They should have taken a fifth youngster into their confidence and set him on watch.

Mr. Leith, the head master under Dr. Raymond, always took a constitutional around the grounds after the midday meal. Not often did he cross the campus, for he was not a man given to spying upon his young charges.

But this day the campus seemed to be deserted. It was a cold day, and most of the boys had remained indoors to take advantage of the hour of study before afternoon lessons.

He came down the railing that defended the cliff's edge, and he heard, as he approached the notorious "bloody corner," boyish voices.

"That's it, Sparrow! Hit him again!" shrieked one voice.

"Let him hit me--I'll give him as good as he sends!" spoke up another voice.

There was the instant sound of blows interchanged. The teacher could not doubt what was going on.

"Boys! boys! how dare you fight?" he demanded, and strode toward the hedge of hemlock trees, his coattails flapping behind him.

The fight had not continued long. Both boys had removed their coats and vests and caps. They were hard at it indeed when Mr. Leith's voice smote upon their ears.

"Cheese it!" gasped Shiner. "Leith's onto us!"

With the fear of being apprehended in all their minds, the four boys sprang for the underbrush, on the other side of the corner. They knew which way the teacher was coming.

The two belligerents had picked up their discarded clothing, but as they got under cover Fred gasped:

"Scubbity-_yow_! I've dropped my cap."

"Keep on!" exclaimed Bobby. "I'll get it."

He was so earnest to shield his chum from the result of his wrong doing, that he forgot his own danger. If Fred's cap were found, Mr. Leith would know it, and Fred would be called upon to explain.

Bobby darted back while the other boys scudded through the bushes. He saw the cap on the ground just inside the open space. He sprawled all over it, grabbed it up, and then was stricken motionless and dumb by the voice of the master who stepped into view:

"Robert! What does this mean?"

Bobby shook all over, but he stuffed the cap into the breast of his jacket.

"Robert, stand up!" commanded the teacher.

Bobby did so. He looked timidly across at the gentleman. Certainly Mr. Leith was a very stern looking man!

"Come here, Robert," said Mr. Leith.

Bobby crossed the sandlot at a slow crawl. Mr. Leith cleared his throat, removing his eyeglasses to wipe them. On the instant, as the boy reached the fence, he flung Fred's cap through the rails and out over the edge of the cliff. It disappeared like a shot.

"What was that, sir?" demanded Mr. Leith, putting on the eyeglasses and looking at Bobby again.

The boy hesitated. The gentleman repeated:

"What was it? I saw you throw something away."

"It--it was a cap," said Bobby.

"A cap? Not your own cap?" exclaimed the teacher, in surprise. "You have your own cap on."

"No, sir. Not my own cap," admitted Bobby.

"Whose cap was it, then?"

Bobby was silent. He looked up at Mr. Leith pleadingly. That gentleman knew well enough what was in the boy's mind. He, too, understood boys pretty well, but he did not believe in handling them just as the old Doctor did.

"Do you hear me, young man?" he asked, harshly.

"Yes, sir."

"Why do you not answer me?"

Bobby wanted to cry out and plead with him. Mr. Leith had no _right_ to ask such a question! That is the way the boy looked at it. The teacher was tempting him to do the meanest thing in a boy's catalog of sins.

He was asking Bobby to _snitch_!

"I--I can't tell you, sir," stammered the boy.

"You mean you are determined not to tell me?" repeated Mr. Leith.

Bobby was silent, but still looked straight into his face. No frown could make Bobby Blake drop his eyes in shame.

"Two boys were fighting here just now," said the teacher, slowly and sternly. "Isn't that so?"

"Yes, sir," said Bobby, quietly.

"Barrymore Gray was not here?" asked the other, sharply.

"Oh, no, sir. Barry knew nothing about it, sir," cried Bobby.

"Ah! Indeed? Then this fight was a strictly private affair?"

Bobby looked miserable, but said nothing.

"How many boys were here?"

Bobby wagged his head negatively. "I--I can't tell you, sir."

"Nor the names of the boys who fought?"

"No, sir."

"You know who they are?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"And you refuse to tell me?"

"I--I can't tell!" gasped Bobby, both hands clutched tightly upon the breast of his jacket. It seemed to him as though the teacher must see the pounding of his heart.

"Robert," said Mr. Leith, "I do not like such actions as this. I will not allow a boy to refuse me answers to perfectly proper questions. Go to your class-room. You must not go to the gymnasium, nor out of doors at all, until I bid you. When you are not in classes, remain in your dormitory.

"I am disappointed in you, Robert. You have shown yourself to be a studious boy heretofore and not a ruffian."

"Oh, sir--"

"Silence! You may not have been one of the boys fighting; but you were aiding and abetting a ruffianly encounter between two of your schoolmates. It cannot be overlooked.

"I had hopes of you, Robert. We all had. Dr. Raymond himself had commended your course since you came to Rockledge. But no boy who wishes to stand in the honor class can break the rules of the school and then refuse to stand the full punishment for his act."

"Oh, Mr. Leith!" cried Bobby, brokenly. "I am not trying to get out of anything. Truly I'm not! Punish me all you want to, sir, but _don't_ ask me to tell on the other boys. I can't do that."

"We shall see, Robert," said the teacher, grimly. "Return to your class-room."

Now began a very terrible time for Bobby Blake--or so it seemed to the heartsick boy. He held a secret that he could not speak of, and his refusal to reveal it broke down his chances of gaining that Honor Medal on which he had set his hopes.

Of course, it never entered his mind for a moment that he _could_ tell--even though the other boys did not realize what he had been through with Mr. Leith, and what his punishment was.

Fred and Sparrow, made friends by the emergency, with Jimmy Ailshine, waited for Bobby in a secure hiding place known to all four; but Bobby did not come. When they got back to the classroom at half past one, Bobby was there ahead of them.

His face was very red; he may have been crying, but Fred could not tell. The latter slipped a brief note to him:

"Did he catch you?"

Bobby nodded, but did not write back. Fred, after a while, slipped over another written question:

"Where's my cap?"

This time Bobby replied: "At the foot of the cliff. He doesn't know any of you. Keep still."

"Good old sport, Bobby," quoth Fred to Sparrow, when recitations were over and they filed out. "Scubbity-_yow_! that was a soaker you gave me on the jaw. It's sore yet."

"I believe I'm going to have a black eye," revealed Sparrow, with pride.

They went off together, inseparable friends for the time being. Bobby remained behind, taking his books into the big study.

Mr. Leith did not speak to him again. In fact, nobody came near him before supper. When the boys came in, giggling and talking, just as unable as usual to settle down quietly to the meal until an adult eye was turned threateningly upon them, Bobby entered, too, but with such a lump in his throat that he felt that he could scarcely swallow a mouthful.

Nobody noticed his condition but Pee Wee, and he only to seize upon the pudding that Bobby could not touch. "You act as if you had the mumps and couldn't swallow," whispered the fat boy. "But what you can't eat I'll get rid of for you, Bobby."

Three wistful days passed. Bobby remained indoors, and the boys knew that he was being punished. Only three knew what for, and they did not know how much.

"Good old scout, Bobby!" said Shiner, clapping him on the shoulder. "Wild horses wouldn't get anything out of you, eh!"

Fred began to eye his chum askance. Thoughtless as the red-haired one usually was, he began to worry.

Then Mr. Leith called Bobby to him again.

"Will you tell me who was fighting down there at the corner?" he asked.

"Please--please do not ask me, sir!" begged the boy.

"Ahem! you are still stubborn, are you!"

"Ye--yes, sir," said Bobby, not knowing what else to say.

"Very well. I shall keep you indoors no longer. I see that gentle means will not cure _your_ trouble. At the last, I should have been tempted to keep the matter to myself and give you a chance for the medal. But I see leniency is wasted upon you.

"You may have your freedom, Robert. Nothing you can do now will wipe out the fact that you have deliberately refused to answer my questions. That is all."

_And Bobby Blake forgot the Doctor's office door was unlocked!_

He accepted the punishment of Mr. Leith as final. He knew he had lost all chance of winning the Medal of Honor. Young as he was, it seemed to him as though his punishment was almost too great for him to bear!