Part 8

“Oh, he knows that,” said Twink; but he spoke to the Indian as he was moving away, and Walking Dog shook hands with both boys, stiffly and silently, then walked majestically away.

Twink now left them for a moment and spoke to another Indian, a much handsomer and more gorgeous Indian, though one not less solemn than Walking Dog. They came back together.

“This is Big Wolf,” said Twink. “You can take him, too.”

“Ugh!” said Big Wolf, and he sat down near by, looking straight before him.

“Don’t they like to do this?” asked McConnell. He couldn’t get it out of his head that Big Wolf was likely to rebel at any moment and scalp them both.

“Oh, they are not so bad as they look,” said Twink, smiling for the first time. “They are quite sociable when you come to know them.”

“Is Big Wolf a chief?” asked Allan.

“Or just—just a plain Indian?” added McConnell. It seemed incredible to both boys that Big Wolf could be less than a very important personage.

Twink waved his hand. “Big Wolf heap big chief!”

“Ugh!” said Big Wolf.

“See—he admits it himself,” said Twink.

The boys did not dare to smile. It would have seemed very inappropriate with Big Wolf sitting there so solemnly.

When the pictures had been taken the Indian arose and left them, giving a quick nod to Allan as he went by.

“Now,” said Twink, “if you hurry I think I can get up a group for you. Come over here.”

The boys followed their guide across the field to where several of the Indian tents were grouped. On their way over Twink said, “There’s Buffalo Bill.”

Colonel Cody was seated near a screen of canvas at a point where he could watch the arena through a hole that had been cut for the purpose. The boys had no time to look closely at the famous plainsman, for Twink was hurrying them over to the tents. Twink spoke to several of the Indians, and presently, before one of the tents, a line of Indians was formed, a squaw and baby at one end of the line. These Indians had shields and other weapons, and stood bolt upright in all their gay colors, and waited without sign or sound while Allan and McConnell each made two shots with their cameras.

“If you come back here after the show,” said Twink, “you can see them striking these tents. Meanwhile, make yourselves at home. Here is the famous old Deadwood Stage-coach. Would you like to ride in it to-day?”

“Oh, yes!” answered McConnell.

“Well, when the coach draws up at the grand stand you boys just climb down and get in. I will speak to them about it.”

“Will anybody take us down?” asked Allan, a little uncertain about the programme.

“No. You just get down yourself. The men in the coach will be watching for you.”

They stood looking at the battered old stage-coach after Twink had left them, and a man with a coat on his arm told them that one day, in England, when the show was over there, a king and four princes had ridden on it, Buffalo Bill himself driving.

This nearly took McConnell’s breath away.

“Do you know where the king sat?” asked McConnell.

“I dunno,” said the man. “I guess up beside Buffalo Bill.”

“Where the princes sat ought to be good enough for us,” laughed Allan. “Come,” he added, “let us go back to the show,” and they hurried around to the grand stand in time to see the Mexican throwing the lasso.

“I don’t believe we thanked Mr. Twink,” said Allan.

“Won’t we see him again?” asked McConnell.

“That’s so. We can see him before we leave. I feel as if he had been very good to us.” “Indeed he has.”

“We never could have seen so much and got those Indians without him.”

“Do you suppose he would care for a picture of Big Wolf?”

“I don’t think he would.”

“We might ask him.”

“I almost think we had better not bother him again.”

“Except to thank him, you mean?”

“Except to thank him, yes.”

Presently, the man with the wonderful voice, who made the announcements, told how the great Deadwood stage-coach would be attacked by the Indians, and how it would be rescued by a company of cowboys under the leadership of Buffalo Bill.

The coach itself, drawn by four horses, now came rolling around the arena.

“Are you going?” asked McConnell, his eyes twitching with excitement.

“Of course,” replied Allan; but he could not have concealed his nervousness.

As the coach drew nearer the grand stand the boys rose and clambered down the steps to the main entrance; and, when the coach stopped, they walked falteringly forward, expecting the man at the bars to ask them what they wanted anyway.

But the man at the bars, on a signal from the coach, made way for them, and the old coach door opened. They now saw that there were two men on the front inside seat, and, with several thousand people watching them, the boys climbed in and sat down on the back seat, the door closed, and the coach started forward with a jolt.

The whip cracked and soon came the louder crack of a rifle, then a clatter of shots, and the two men in the coach, each with a rifle, began blazing away through the window at the yelling band of Indians in pursuit. It was all so real, the Indians looked so ferocious, the smoke and flame from the rifles was so thrilling and threatening, that Allan and McConnell found themselves shrinking in expectation of actual bullets.

In the midst of the hubbub Allan saw through the window, almost at his elbow, the now distorted face of Big Wolf, screaming a most frightful note, and apparently on the point at last of getting even with his photographic tormentors.

Then came a new and louder clatter, with fresh yells. The cowboys had come, and, after a wild fusillade, the Indians fled, the smoke cleared away, and the old coach lumbered back to the grand stand, with Allan and McConnell staring, half-dazed, at the two men on the front seat.

“How did you like it?” asked one of the men, as he swung open the door.

“It was great!” cried Allan.

McConnell could hardly find his voice. “I guess it was like being in a battle!” he said, as he climbed out.

“Just like it,” laughed one of the men, “only that you haven’t got any lead in you!”

“Did you see Big Wolf?” asked Allan, as they walked, rather weak in the knees, back to their seats.

“Yes,” answered McConnell, “and I thought I saw Walking Dog, but I wasn’t sure. I suppose he was there. Wasn’t the noise awful!—and the smoke! I can see now why they can’t photograph well in a battle—unless they use that new smokeless powder I was reading about.”

There was more of the show, but nothing seemed so thrilling as that ride. In the midst of the last performance McConnell leaned forward excitedly to say, “Suppose some of them forgot and put in real cartridges!”

When the Congress of Rough Riders had drawn up in line and Buffalo Bill had swung his big hat in a final salute, the boys once more hurried around to the Indian tents, and found the Indians all very busy in preparation for departure, and the wigwams gradually disappearing.

Mr. Twink was nowhere to be seen, and nobody seemed to know where he was. It seemed for a time as if they would have to give him up.

“Oh, there’s Big Wolf!” exclaimed McConnell. “I suppose he would know where he was.”

“I’ve a mind to ask him,” said Allan. In a moment he did gather courage to hurry over to where Big Wolf was standing, solemnly and deliberately folding a red blanket.

“Do you know where Mr. Twink is?” asked Allan, in a loud voice, as people always do when they talk to a foreigner or one whom they fear will not understand them.

Big Wolf turned and mutely pointed toward a distant group of men. Yes, Mr. Twink was there. “Thank you,” said Allan. Big Wolf went on folding the blanket.

When they got over to where Mr. Twink was, Allan caught his attention, and both boys stammered their thanks to him.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Twink. “Glad to have given you a hand. Come and see us again sometime. Good-by!”

And they left him.

“It seems to me,” said McConnell, as they walked home in the early evening, “it seems to me that wonderfully interesting things happen to you when you have a camera!”

“I was just thinking the same thing myself,” said Allan, swinging his black box. “I don’t suppose we ever should have thought of going ‘behind the scenes’ as we did to-day if we hadn’t these cameras with us.”

“And we couldn’t have talked to the Indians,” McConnell added in a tone of profound satisfaction.

“Well, I don’t suppose we should have had any excuse.”

“Yes,” said McConnell, “the camera is an excuse, isn’t it?”

XIII.

A TOUCH-DOWN.

McCONNELL’S remark now began to seem entirely true; for even commonplace scenes and commonplace happenings became more interesting than they ever before had seemed, now that they were associated with picture-making.

Dr. Hartel said that this was because the boys began to think about things in a new light, of which they never before had thought about at all. “It would be much the same,” he said, “if you had taken up botany, or mineralogy, or the microscope. I remember that life and history and governments suddenly began to have an entirely new interest for me when I began collecting coins and postage-stamps. Before that it didn’t seem to make much difference about the Italian States or the precise date of the Restoration, or who was restored. Then at once it began to seem of positively exciting importance. My stamps and coins began telling me when and whom. It is the same with your new hobby. When a man climbs on a hobby, unless he rides it too hard and loses his balance, he gets a wider view of something.” “So I mustn’t ride too hard,” said Allan.

“No, you must remember that the academy opens next week.”

A week after the high school opened, McConnell told Allan that Mr. Thornton had remarked one afternoon, “Now, McConnell, I’m afraid you are thinking about your camera.”

“I guess the next time I get him at one of our meetings,” laughed McConnell, “I’ll say to him, ‘Now, Mr. Thornton, I’m afraid you are thinking about the high school.’”

At the Camera Club they had begun to talk about an exhibition, and a committee was appointed to talk the matter over. It would be a good idea, several of the members thought, to have a display of the summer work. Many of the members had travelled to the mountains and seashore during July and August, and an exhibition could be made to have great variety in theme. Moreover, the club excursions had produced a large batch of pictures, and the members had not yet seen much of one another’s work.

“We might want to do some swapping,” said Owen.

“I wonder if we could get Dobbs to exhibit,” said Allan, amused at the thought. “I’m sure he would have something different from anybody else.”

“I fancy Dobbs is having a hard time,” said Owen. “He told me yesterday that he had taken six pictures of—what’s his boy’s name?”

“Sporty.”

“Yes, Sporty,—I hope that isn’t his real name,—and that not one of them came out good. He seemed disappointed.”

Allan had a proof in his pocket of the picture he had made of his sister Ellen up a tree. “The light was very queer,” he complained.

“What do you think of these geese?” asked Owen, pulling a proof from his pocket.

“Evidently they felt offended,” said Allan. “They seem to be turning their backs on you.”

“I think they were a little miffed,” admitted Owen. “Geese are mighty independent, anyway. Here’s another lot I caught over by the old Dutch farmhouse, that wouldn’t notice me at all.”

McConnell joined them with a proof of one of his numerous attempts at Artie. This time Artie had his crossbow.

“I like that sunlight effect,” said Allan.

The three boys were just entering the club rooms when Big McConnell hailed them. “Hello, Captain Kodak! What’s the conspiracy now?”

“Have you seen the rooms?” asked Allan.

“No, I haven’t, but I want to. I think you fellows have neglected me. I want to see what is going on the same as any one else.”

“You’re welcome,” remarked Owen.

“This is the dark-room,” said Allan, indicating the dim recesses beyond the partition.

“I see,” said Big McConnell. “Then this other is the light room, hey? And, oh, yes, this is the medium room over here—just half and half.”

“Stop your fooling, Billy,” remarked Little McConnell.

“And here I am dying to be photographed,” complained Billy, “and nobody has taken me yet. It’s a shame.”

“We’ll all take you,” offered Allan, “and make a composite.”

“No, you don’t,” said Billy. “I want to look pleasant, I don’t want to look cross. You must photograph the angel side of me. I want you to take me, not to give me away,” and Big McConnell roared at his own joke.

“Sit there by the window,” ordered Allan.

“Yes, mister,” said Big McConnell, meekly. “See that my hair is pretty and my tie straight.”

Allan placed his camera on the table opposite, adjusting a box and a book to bring the camera into position. “Now, look pleasant,” said Little McConnell.

Billy broke into a broad grin. “Is this pleasant enough?” he asked.

“Too pleasant,” said Allan. “Look serious, please.”

“I can’t,” cried Billy, “it’s too funny. Take me as I am, or send me home to my mother.”

“Well, keep still, anyway,” pleaded Allan.

“Oh, I’ll keep still—but can’t you snap it?”

“Not indoors,” said Allan. “I must give it two seconds.”

“Must you?” grinned Billy, “dear me! Two seconds! That’s like a duel, isn’t it? Don’t they have two seconds at a duel?”

“Steady, now!” demanded Allan.

“Oh, I’m a very steady young man,” protested Billy.

“There—you’re taken!” said Allan.

“What, already! Why, it didn’t hurt a bit. I’d never know anything had happened to me!”

“I’m going to put out a sign,” Allan said; “‘Painless Photography.’”

“Good idea,” Big McConnell said. “‘Pictures Taken Without Pain.’ Everybody would come. There would be a crush. ‘Line forms on this side. Walk up, ladies, and gentlemen, and kids! You’ll never know what hit you.’ There’s millions in it!”

And Big McConnell went away with a parting warning that he wasn’t one of those folks who are willing to wait very long for their proofs. “And if I don’t look handsome,” he said, “I’ll sit again—or stand, until I’m suited.”

Allan had planned several schemes for October, but the first thing that happened in October was entirely unexpected. Mr. Merring, one of the men on the _Daily Tablet_, who knew Dr. Hartel and his family, was writing an article on foot-ball for one of the magazines—he had been a great half-back himself in his day; and he asked Allan if he would run up to New Haven with him on a Saturday to make some shots at the Yale team in practice.

“I suppose I ought to have a camera myself,” said Merring, “but I’ve never had the time, somehow, to get at it. But you and I could work together down there.”

Allan agreed to go; it was another illustration of McConnell’s remark about the interesting things that happen to you when you have a camera. Merring and Allan got to New Haven at noon, and they had luncheon with two of the upper-class men, who made such a fuss over Merring that Allan concluded that Merring had been quite an important man in the university athletics.

Allan was somewhat dismayed to hear that the team would not get out to practice until nearly four o’clock.

He mentioned to Merring that the light would begin to wane after three, and that with the high-pressure speed necessary to catch the rapid movements, he was afraid they could not expect good results.

“Maybe I can hurry them,” said Merring; but Allan fancied that Merring did not regard the point as very important, and that he forgot the thing altogether. At all events, it was three o’clock when they started out to the field, and fully half-past three when the practice teams came out.

Allan had a full roll ready, and prepared to make the most of the situation. He and Merring took up a position opposite the middle line, and under Merring’s direction he took the first line-up and several of the early plays; but Merring soon found this difficult work, as perhaps he was too much interested in the plays to care about the pictorial details. For whatever reason, he finally said to Allan, “You go ahead on your own account. Perhaps you can run in closer if I’m not with you.”

Merring said that he had spoken to the Captain and the trainer, and that Allan had the privilege of the field with the camera. Allan soon found out, however, that all of the players were not familiar with his rights in the matter, for at an exciting moment just before a kick-off a big fellow in the line—the biggest fellow in the line, Allan thought—shouted:— “Chase that kid with the kodak, or we’ll kill him.”

“Don’t worry about me!” shouted Allan. “I’ll get out of your way.”

The big fellow paused a moment until the Captain called, “Let him alone, Barney. He’s going to immortalize you in a magazine!”

Nevertheless, when a half-back came suddenly around the end with the ball a moment later, and the whole crowd, as it seemed, after him, Allan found but one thing to do. This was to swing promptly, and leap at the top of his speed for the side line.

It was a close shave. Allan felt as if he had dodged a cyclone.

Fortunately he had some knowledge of the game, “and knew which way to run,” as he told Merring afterward.

“Oh, you are a great success!” Merring said, with a laugh. “Your dodging is the feature of the day.”

However, Allan found it to be impossible, with his limited experience, to get close-quarter pictures. He knew it worried the players to see him too close, and he felt that with the weakening light he could not use the highest speed of his camera shutter. Close quarters meant a blur. Distance meant small figures. Yet this was the best that could be done.

To make best use of the light, too, he shot rapidly,—and this had its natural results when he came to develop his films.

“I wish,” said Merring, toward the close of the practice, “that you would catch this next play—it’s a new trick the Captain is going to try; I know he has planned it, and if I shout ‘Now!’ you let her go as quickly as you can.”

The elevens lined up again, and Allan crept as close as seemed safe.

“Fourteen—seven—twenty-one,” came the voice from the tangle of legs. Allan did not hear the rest, for Merring was shouting:—

“Now!”

There was a frightful tangle of the elevens as Allan pressed the trigger, and, while his eyes still rested on the finder, there was an incredibly quick scattering of players, and five of the men, with big Barney in the midst of them, swung across his line of escape.

“Look out!” roared a voice.

Allan dropped, face down, over his camera, as he would have done over a ball.

He was prepared for the awful feet of Barney. A sound like low thunder was in his ears, he felt rather than saw a figure leap over him as he crowded close over the box; and the line had passed.

Then Merring was at his shoulder.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I had to drop or lose the camera.”

“Good play!” cried Merring. “It was a kind of touch-down!”

“And I got the picture, I think.”

“Good again. Scott! Savin has made a touch-down, too!”

It was as Allan had expected; his foot-ball pictures were “undertimed,” and most of those at close range were much defaced by movement of the image. But Merring was pleased, and got a number of satisfactory plates out of the batch. Allan was inclined to prize these highly whenever he thought of that thundering line.

XIV.

THE SAILING OF THE _ARABELLA_.

FOR over a week Allan was so busy over school matters that he had no time to do more than develop his foot-ball negatives; but those gay October days seemed like the best of all outing days. “I want to take that cat-boat cruise just as soon as I can,” Allan said to McConnell.

“Then you had better begin signing your crew,” said McConnell.

“What berth would you like?” Allan asked.

“Well, I don’t suppose you would make me first mate. I’d be satisfied with second mate. I know Owen will want to be first mate.”

“I wish we three could go,” mused Allan.

“Would you take the _Snorter_ or the _Arabella_?”

“The _Arabella_, of course. She’s quicker, and I really think she’s safer. Would your mother object to your going?”

“Not with you,” promptly replied McConnell. “She thinks _you’re_ pretty safe.”

“Does she? I must try to deserve that. Anyway, I try not to take any risks when I’m off with a cat-boat. To tell you the truth, I shan’t be willing to take the _Arabella_ unless I can have a fellow as big as Owen along. After all, a boat like the _Arabella_ is safer in every way than one of these little boats.”

The _Arabella_ was only twenty feet long, but she was large among the little fleet in which she moored at Kantry’s dock.

“My idea,” pursued Allan, “is to start Friday afternoon and make up the river as far as we can before dark, then camp inshore.”

“To camp over night?” exclaimed McConnell. “That’s good. I haven’t camped since last summer, and that didn’t count. We were right near some houses. Then what would you do next day?”

“Next day I think we might boat a good deal, make pictures, fish some if we wanted to, and get home by dark. As the tide is setting up in the afternoon now, I suppose it would be best to get down into our latitude by the middle of the day, so that if the wind weakened we should have a better chance of getting in.”

“And we’ll carry lots of grub,” suggested McConnell.

“We shall each chip in supplies—but we are arranging the whole plan without Owen. We had better wait until we see him.”

Owen came down to the club that evening. “That’s a good plan,” he said, when Allan found him and had set forth his programme. “But I don’t think you can get the _Arabella_.”

“Why?”

“Because some one told me yesterday that Kantry had sold her.”

“Now, that’s too bad!” said Allan, despondently. “It doesn’t seem as if any other boat could be so good as the _Arabella_.”

“Why not take the _Evangeline_?”

Allan shook his head. “There wouldn’t be room for us three and our cameras in that. And we never could sleep in it.”

“No,” Owen admitted; “we couldn’t sleep in it.”

“But you will go?” asked Allan.

“Yes, count on me,” said Owen.

The next morning Allan went down to Kantry’s before going over to the Academy, and that afternoon he met Owen with the news—

“Who do you think bought the _Arabella_?”

“Couldn’t guess.”

“Detective Dobbs! And I went to see him and he says we’re welcome.”

“To take the boat for the cruise?”

“Yes.”

“That’s luck.”

Early on Friday morning the boys were down at the river stowing provisions and cooking utensils on the _Arabella_. Indeed, they had been down the afternoon before getting the craft into shape. They wanted to be able to lift sail and start up the river the minute they were free from school on Friday afternoon.

“You would think we were going away for a month,” laughed Owen.

“Well,” said Allan, “there are a good many preparations we have to make just because we are going for such a short time. We want to enjoy every bit of it when we do go.”

And it certainly was with this determination that the boys made sail on Friday afternoon.

“It’s good we are not old salts,” remarked Owen, as the sail filled, and the _Arabella_ slid into the open river, “as the whole crew would mutiny over our starting on Friday.”