CHAPTER XI.

BACKED BY THE SCOUTS.

“We’ll stop here a bit, and try to catch his eye,” said Hugh.

“I was thinking myself that would be a good idea,” promptly agreed Billy, who had the greatest possible faith in the persuasive ability of the scout master. He felt absolutely certain that if only Hugh could get in touch with the badgered boy, Cale was sure to decide on breaking away from his master.

“Here comes Walter Osborne,” remarked Hugh.

He knew why the Hawk leader must have been loitering around that particular part of the Fair grounds. Walter undoubtedly was still worrying himself almost sick over his queer inability to place the boy who went by the name of Cale. In order to try and freshen his memory somewhat he had wandered over this way, in the hope that seeing the other’s face occasionally might help out.

As he now came up, Hugh looked at him inquiringly. There was such a depressed expression on Walter’s face that words were wholly unnecessary to explain the utter failure that had overwhelmed his plan of campaign.

“Nothing doing, Hugh,” he muttered in a tone of abject disgust. “Came near saying it once, but got side-tracked. I never had a thing give me half the bother that this does; but it isn’t my way to give up. I’ll hit it yet, see if I don’t.”

Hugh smiled as he went on to say:

“I’ll give you a little pointer, Walter, that may help out. We’re calling that chap Cale, but how do we know that’s his name? It’s true he told Billy here it was, but sometimes boys that take to bad ways feel it best to adopt a name that’s different from the one they used to sport. How about that, Walter?”

“I never thought of it before, Hugh!” exclaimed the other, his face lighting up; “and I tell you it’s a good idea. To-night I’m going to run over every kind of a boy’s name I ever heard, and try to see if any one fits.”

“Well, now that you’re here with us, Walter,” the scout master told him, “you’d better stay. We may need more help before we’re done.”

“Hello! what’s up, Hugh?” demanded the leader of the Hawks.

Hugh thereupon told him a few things in connection with the boy called Cale that was news to Walter. He showed the greatest interest in all he heard, and was only too willing to join forces with them.

“I must say I don’t like the looks of that medicine fakir any more than the rest of you do,” Walter announced. “I’d like to have a hand in getting that boy out of his clutches. Perhaps he’s got a good home somewhere, and has been tempted to run away. Right now some old mother may be crying her eyes out because she doesn’t know where Cale is. Yes, count me in, Hugh, no matter what happens.”

“It’s almost time for the Fair to close, for the sun’s setting,” Hugh remarked. “So, whatever we expect to do, we’ll have to get busy now. There, the boy has started off in the direction of their tent with that last bottle of stuff he made out to buy, so as to get the hesitating countrymen to hand up their dollars. This is our chance, I take it, fellows. Come on!”

They followed after the skulking boy. Hugh noticed that there was a certain hang-dog air about Cale that may have come from the utter collapse of his pride. He was evidently heartily ashamed of his occupation as a decoy for the fake doctor, and felt that others were eyeing him in scorn. Still, for some secret cause he seemed to lack the nerve to break his bonds and give the medicine fakir the slip.

When Hugh and the other scouts reached the tent with its little sign of “Old Doc Merritt” the boy had vanished, but as they had seen him pass inside, there was no question as to his whereabouts.

“Now, as long as he can keep a dozen people around him, and have the chance to sell another bottle of his stuff, the fakir is apt to stay by his stand,” said the scout master. “That ought to give us five or ten minutes to talk with Cale, and get him away.”

“It is time enough,” Billy added, “for I know he’ll be ready to throw himself on our hands once you get talking to him like a Dutch uncle, Hugh.”

“There he comes out again,” announced Walter.

Hugh immediately led the way up to the boy, who saw their approach with mingled emotions, if his changing color several times could be taken as any indication of his feelings.

He looked nervously around him. Hugh knew his first fear was that the fakir might happen upon them before anything was settled. Hope was battling with his old sense of helplessness.

Hugh never beat around the bush when there was need of haste. He walked straight up to the boy and held out his hand.

“Cale, we scouts have made up our minds that we’ve just got to take hold of your case and help you break away from that man,” said Hugh, in his positive way that usually carried conviction with it. “If only you’ll say the word we’ll stand back of you, and get you out of this scrape. You don’t want to keep doing this sort of business any longer, do you?”

“I hate it worse than poison,” said the boy, almost fiercely; “but seems as if I couldn’t break loose from Doc Merritt nohow. I’ve made up my mind to run away as many as twenty times, but it only takes one look from those terrible eyes of his to change everything.”

“But you’ll let us try to get you off, won’t you, Cale?”

The boy sighed.

“Oh! if you only could!” he said, plaintively. “I’m willing enough to go, but you fellows will have to do it all, because I’m as weak as a kitten when he catches my eye. I have to sneeze when he takes snuff, as they say.”

Hugh remembered that later on, and took advantage of his knowledge, as will be seen when the time comes.

“Would you be willing to start home to your folks if we bought you a railroad ticket?” asked the scout master, as he linked an arm with that of the other, and started leading him away, making sure that he went in an opposite direction to the stand of the fakir.

The boy trembled on hearing this, and Hugh knew that his guess must have hit the mark. There was a story back of it, which might mean a waiting mother, a wayward boy, a yielding to temptation, and finally his getting into the grip of the fakir, who, for certain reasons of his own, seemed determined that Cale should not leave his employ, though he treated him as meanly as any slave.

“Y-e-s, I would be dreadfully glad to go home again if I only had the chance,” he faltered, almost breaking down when he said that one magical word “home.” Then, sighing heavily again, he continued: “I don’t know whether they’d want me to come back again after the awful thing I did. He keeps telling me they’ve disowned me for good. But sometimes at night, when I get to thinking it over, I can’t bring myself to believe my _mother_ would do that, no matter how bad I was.”

“That’s right, Cale, you can bet your mother will stand back of you!” burst out Billy, whose heart was beating in sympathy for the wretched boy. “’Specially if she knows you’ve turned over a new leaf, and mean to walk straight after this. You tell her that the first thing, and it’s going to be all right, believe me!”

Cale smiled in a wan sort of way, as he nodded his head.

“I kind of guess pretty near all mothers are alike that way,” he said. “I’ve been a bad boy, and tried to break my mother’s heart with my doings; but, say, I’ve had a terrible lesson. I don’t pity myself one bit, because I deserved all I got, and heaps more. But if ever I do get another chance, I’ll show what there is in me or die a-trying.”

“That’s the stuff!” declared Billy, vehemently.

Walter could not keep from reaching out and gripping the other’s hand; for the time being he had even forgotten all about the mystery connected with Cale, in his sympathy for the other’s troubles.

“Well, it’s all over now, Cale,” he said, as warmly as he could. “If you let us engineer this thing, we’ll see you through. When Hugh here takes on a job he never draws back. Just you make up your mind that you’ve seen the last of that man, and it ends it all.”

“If he finds out that I’ve gone, he’ll chase after me like hot cakes,” said Cale uneasily, looking over his shoulder as he spoke, as though half fearing he might discover the black-eyed fakir hurrying along, bent on snatching him away from the custody of these new friends.

“All right, let him come,” said Billy, as he stooped and possessed himself of a likely looking stick that in case of emergency might be made to serve in the capacity of a cudgel.

Hugh just then gave utterance to a peculiar sound—at least it might have seemed strange in the ears of any one not connected with a scout troop.

“_How-ooo-ooo!_”

It was a very fair imitation of the howl of the gray wolf. It was instantly recognized by a couple of boys clad in khaki at the gates. Ralph Kenyon and Jack Durham looked around at hearing the call of the Wolf Patrol, to which both of them belonged. Seeing their chums, and that Hugh was beckoning to them, they waited for the others to come up.

Hugh had an object in this. He was not sure but what they were fated to have some trouble with the fakir before they could get the boy started on the train he would want to take in order to reach his home. In that event numbers would be apt to cut some figure in deterring Doc Merritt from trying to take Cale from them by force. Five were better than three, especially when the additional reinforcements were a pair of husky fellows like Jack and Ralph.

One thing Hugh had noticed, which was that the boy made no attempt to tell them what his name was, or where he lived. Of course, after he got his ticket they would be apt to learn this fact; which Walter might consider a clue toward lifting the veil of mystery that seemed to cling about the identity of the other.

After leaving the Fair grounds, they headed along the thoroughfare leading into the town of Oakvale. Hundreds were going that way, with all sorts of vehicles filling the road itself, from fine cars to humble wagons, and even bicycles.

The grounds in which the yearly Exhibition was held were some little distance from the station. Perhaps ten minutes’ walk would be necessary in order to take them there, for rapid progress was out of the question on account of the congestion of the highway.

Cale was plainly nervous. He walked between Hugh and Billy, who had hold of his arms, but every minute the boy was seen to half look behind him, as though in imagination he could hear the hateful voice of the fakir ordering him to stop this foolishness and come back to his duties.

On his part, Hugh was fully determined that now they had started in this thing they would fight it through to a finish. What was the use of putting a hand to the plow unless they went to the end of the furrow? If Doc Merritt tried force, they would meet him half way. Should he appeal to the law, Hugh was ready to have all the conditions of Cale’s servitude exposed, no matter at what cost, and the boy separated from his cruel oppressor, who exercised such a strange influence over him.

Now they had gone two-thirds of the distance, and having shaken off most of the crowd by taking a side street in the town, could see the station ahead of them.

It was at this moment that Ralph Kenyon, always on the alert as became one who in times past, when he followed the profession of an amateur trapper, had pitted his sagacity against the cunning of small fur-bearing animals, uttered an exclamation.

“There’s somebody chasing after us licketty-split in a buggy, Hugh!” he said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned out to be that medicine fakir, Old Doc Merritt!”