CHAPTER XVI

WHO WAS GUILTY?

For the first third of the distance, the ice was as smooth as quicksilver, with never a lump or hummock to mar the surface. The sleds flew down the frozen surface, gaining a velocity that took the boys' breath away and almost frightened them.

Then suddenly there was a jar, a chorus of shouts, and they were thrown headlong over the fronts of their sleds, landing in a confused heap of limbs and bodies, while the sleds relieved of their burdens swirled around aimlessly for a time and finally came to a stop.

A yell of consternation and alarm came from the mass, as the boys tried to struggle to their feet.

Those who had been left at the top of the hill, hearing the yells and knowing that some accident had happened, came slipping and scrambling down to the scene of the disaster.

They helped the half stunned victims to their feet, and for a time there was a wild hullabaloo of questions and answers as they tried to solve the mystery.

Fortunately none of them was badly hurt, though at the rate they were going it might very easily have turned out to be a tragedy.

Most of the boys had rubbed pieces of skin off their arms and legs, and Fred had a cut in his scalp from which the blood was flowing.

"What did it?" shouted Howell.

"I don't know," replied Bobby hesitatingly. His head was going round like a top.

"M-must have hit a tree trunk or something like that," stammered Sparrow.

"That isn't it," replied Howell, looking around him. "There isn't anything of that kind in sight as far as I can see. Just wait a minute till I get Sam Thompson's flashlight."

Luckily Sam had it with him and promptly handed it over.

Howell flashed it about him and gave a shout.

"It's ashes!" he cried. "The whole hill's littered with 'em."

"Ashes?" came a chorus of surprised questions.

"That's what it is," declared Howell emphatically. "There are heaps and heaps of 'em. I'll bet they reach clear down to the bottom of the hill."

He went down further and confirmed what he had said. He had no trouble in walking, for he could not have slipped if he had wanted to. The whole lower surface of the hill was strewn with ashes that spoiled the coasting for that night utterly, and promised to ruin it for many days to come.

A wave of wrath and fierce indignation swept over the boys as they heard Howell's report.

"Who could have done it?" was the question that came to the lips of all.

"Could it have been the town council?" suggested Skeets. "They might have done it to keep the horses from slipping."

"They never did anything like that before," objected Sparrow.

"And if they were the ones, they would have made a clean job of it and gone right up to the top of the hill," said Mouser. "But you fellows will notice that it was perfectly clear for a long part of the way down."

"Mouser is right," declared Bobby. "Somebody did this just to spoil our fun."

"And they wanted us to be fooled and get started down so that we'd get a tumble when we came to the ashes," added Fred. "That's why they left it smooth at the top."

"Some of us might have been killed," groaned Skeets, gingerly soothing an injured knee.

"And it's only a bit of luck that we weren't," growled Fred.

"My shins are barked for fair," moaned Pee Wee, "and that's no joke this time either."

"Whoever did it was a low-down skunk," burst out Howell angrily.

"He might have been a murderer," added Skeets.

"I'd like to have my hands on him for a minute," declared Fred.

"Well, our fun is over for this night anyway," said Bobby sadly.

"And for a whole lot of other nights," put in Pee Wee. "Those ashes will get ground in and there's no sweeping 'em off."

"We'll have to wait for another snow storm before we can do any more coasting," wailed Sparrow.

It was a sorely disgruntled band of boys who gathered up their sleds and limped slowly to the top of the hill. One of the sleds was smashed and all had been more or less scratched and bruised.

Once at the top, they squatted down on their sleds and held a council of war.

"Now, fellows," said Bobby, "we've got to get to the bottom of this thing somehow. The ashes didn't come there of themselves. Somebody put them there, and whoever it was knew that we were out for a grand coasting bee to-night. So it must have been some fellow in the school."

"I hate to think that there's any fellow at Rockledge who could do such a dirty trick," remarked Howell. "If we can find out who it was we ought to tell Doctor Raymond about it and have the fellow sent away from school."

"No," objected Bobby. "This is our affair and we oughtn't to bring the teachers into it at all."

"The question is who could have done it," put in Skeets.

"Whoever did it is mean enough to steal sheep," growled Fred.

"Or take the pennies from a dead man's eyes," added Mouser.

"I can figure out just three fellows in the school who could do a thing like that," said Howell.

"Bill Bronson."

"Jack Jinks."

"Tom Hicksley."

The answers came from as many different lips, and the readiness with which they were accepted was not at all flattering to the boys who bore the names.

"It may have been one of those three or all three together," said Bobby, coming nearer to the mark than he knew.

"That reminds me," cried Fred suddenly. "Tom Hicksley was practicing on the flying rings when we were talking this thing over in the gymnasium this morning."

"That's so," chimed in Mouser. "And I remember now that he seemed to stop all of a sudden and slip away. I didn't think anything about it then, but I remember it plainly now."

"He owes some of us a grudge for what happened on the train," remarked Pee Wee.

"And he said then he'd get even with us," observed Fred.

"There's one thing we fellows have forgotten," said Skeets. "Whoever did this would want to be hiding around and see what happened. We ought to hunt them out and pay them up."

This seemed likely enough and the boys looked eagerly about them.

"Doesn't seem to be any place up here where they could hide without our seeing them," remarked Mouser.

"No, but there's a lot of bushes at the side of the road half way down the hill," put in Sparrow. "Let's go down there."

They went down in a body. There was no one there, but as they got to the other side of the bushes they could faintly make out three figures retreating in the distance.

They were too far away to be recognized and they had too long a start to make it worth while pursuing them, but from their general size and build the boys had little doubt as to who they were.

"What did I tell you?" cried Fred. "I knew that they were the only ones who could do a thing like that."

"It seems that the whole bunch of them are in it," remarked Mouser.

"I'll bet that Hicksley went straight to them and cooked this up when he left the gym this morning," conjectured Sparrow.

"That makes something else we owe those fellows," growled Skeets.

"We owed them enough without that," said Howell. "The big bullies have tried to pester the life out of us ever since we've been at Rockledge."

"Our turn will come," replied Bobby with conviction. "But now, fellows, we might as well hustle back to the dormitory. There's no use of staying here any longer."

They made their way back to the school with very different feelings from those they had when they left it.

"A holiday spoiled," grumbled Mouser.

"And there's only two more holidays this month," observed Sparrow.

"Two!" exclaimed Bobby. "There's only one more and that's Washington's Birthday."

"How about St. Valentine's Day?" objected Sparrow. "That's only two days from now."

"Oh, that's only a fake holiday," replied Fred. "Lessons will go on just the same."

"I don't care whether it's a fake holiday or a real one," answered Sparrow. "I'm going to get a lot of fun out of it just the same."