CHAPTER IV.

THE FAKIR AND HIS DUPE.

Hugh Hardin elevated his eyebrows at hearing Billy say this.

“I don’t take very much stock in anything of that sort, Billy,” he went on to remark, “though of course I know that one strong mind can gain more or less control over a weaker one, so as to make the other obey his will. But hypnotism is going further than that.”

“Well,” returned Billy, “you just wander around that way with me as if we wanted to look the freaks over, or listen to the patter of the fakirs who’re selling patent medicine and such things to the crowd, as well as telling them funny stories to keep them in good humor.”

“I’ll take you up on that in a minute,” said the scout master, “when Alec Sands comes along, for I see him heading this way right now. I can leave the camp in his charge, you know, while we walk around for a change.”

“But Hugh, be careful not to stare at that man too hard,” urged Billy. “Gee! but he has got the most piercing black eyes you ever saw in your life. They seem to go right through you, and cause a shiver as if somebody had doused a bucket of ice-water all over you.”

Hugh laughed at the vivid description given, and then said:

“If there is such a thing as being hypnotized, Billy, you’re in a fair way to find yourself obeying the superior will of that owner of the piercing black eyes, and keeping poor Cale company. How did you happen to run across the boy?”

“Oh! I couldn’t help noticing how he seemed to be under the thumb of that man,” Billy explained. “You see, he’s useful to the fakir as a stool pigeon. When sales get slack it’s the business of the boy to hold up a dollar bill, and ask for a bottle of the wonderful remedy, and say it cured his grandmother of every ailment under the sun. Then he goes away, and gets rid of the bottle, to bob up again later on, watching for his cue to break in again with a purchase.”

“That’s the game, is it, as old as the hills; and yet I suppose the rubes never catch on to it,” remarked Hugh. “I’m surprised at the management of this Fair allowing such frauds to exhibit here, and sell their stuff.”

“Oh! they’re mad about it already, but you see they went and made contracts so they have to stick it out; but the like will never happen at Oakvale again, I’m telling you.”

“But tell me about the boy Cale,” urged Hugh.

“Why, I guess he was attracted by my khaki suit, for we got to chatting over on one side of the moving crowd. He told me his name was Cale, but nothing more than that. He acted so queer that I began to take notice, because, you see, I like to study human nature.”

“Yes, we all know that, Billy; but go on, please.”

“He would look in the direction of that man on the soap box every minute or so while I was explaining some of the things scouts enjoy, for he had asked me to tell him about that. Every time he would give a start, and draw a long breath. I saw something ailed him, and after a while I asked him plainly what made him go around to fairs and harvest homes with a fakir like that? He turned as white as anything, and looked at me as if it was on the tip of his tongue to say that he’d gone and hitched up with the man, and couldn’t break away. Then it happened, Hugh.”

“You mean he felt the influence of those black eyes, and suddenly left you without an explanation?” demanded the scout master.

“All he muttered as he moved away was something that sounded to me like this: ‘Wisht I could tell you, but I just _can’t_; he won’t let me; I have to do what he wants me to. If you could only break——’ and that was all I caught, for he had gone.”

Hugh rubbed his chin reflectively.

“There may be more about this than appears on the surface,” he told Billy, much to the gratification of that worthy. “Perhaps it may pay us to take an interest in this Cale. There are lots of ways in which other fellows can be helped, and if he’s held tight in the clutches of a bad man, the sooner we get some people interested in him the better.”

“Bully for you, Hugh; I’m tickled to have you say that. But here’s Alec, so now suppose you browse around a little with me while he stands guard at the camp.”

The leader of the Otters was only too pleased to be given this temporary responsibility, and so the others sauntered off.

They did not head directly toward the amusement zone, for that might excite the suspicion of the fakir, did he happen to see them making for his stand. By degrees, however, the two scouts approached the spot, apparently interested in the pratter of the spell-binders in front of the several tents containing freaks and curiosities.

Although the races were going on, and crowds had gathered to witness the horses run, there was so large a throng present at the opening of the Fair that clusters of people were to be met at every turn. Such an outpouring had never before been known on the first day, thanks to the sagacious advertising of the affair.

“Now you can see the fakir, Hugh, if you just look over to the left,” remarked Billy, after a bit.

At the time they were apparently interested in another fraud who was amusing his audience with side-splitting stories, and reaping a harvest of quarters in return for a fountain pen that may have been worth as much as a dime.

Billy himself kept from facing that way, and he also warned the other not to appear to look too hard.

“See him, don’t you, Hugh?” he asked. “What do you think of the animal?”

“Oh! he’s a slick article, I’ve no doubt, with a glib tongue, and a way of convincing people they must have the stuff he has to dispose of. I can hear him talking, and as you say he’s no ordinary fakir. At this distance I don’t feel any effect of those magnetic black eyes you talked so much about. Where’s the boy?”

“Look a little further to the right and you’ll see Cale,” pursued Billy, who had himself discovered these things with a hasty survey. “He’s leaning against that post, and kicking his toe into the earth while waiting for his cue to push in and buy another bottle of the magic compound that cures all ills.”

“Yes, I see him now, and he certainly does look pretty dejected,” said Hugh. “There’s a sort of slinking air about him too, as if he might be ashamed of what he’s compelled to do, but can’t help himself.”

“That’s what I was saying, Hugh,” declared Billy, eagerly. “He’s sort of weak by nature, and has made some terrible mistake in the past that cuts him to the heart. He might be all right if only we could get him away from that slick fakir who’s using him as his tool.”

“Well, we’ll think it over, Billy,” said the scout master.

“You mean nothing could be done right away, Hugh?”

“There’s no need to hurry,” he was told. “They mean to stay here until the Fair closes Saturday night, because their best harvest will come later on, when people from further out in the country get here. By to-morrow we may have settled on some sort of plan how to offer the poor fellow a helping hand.”

Billy, who always wanted to rush things, gave a big sigh.

“Of course, it’s all right if you say so, Hugh,” he remarked, resignedly, “and I’m willing to wait until to-morrow, or even Friday, to act; but I hope it isn’t put off any longer than that, for something might happen to make him clear out. One of the poor deluded sillies who bought a bottle of medicine might take too much and die; and then the authorities would arrest him for it.”

At the solicitation of Billy, the scout master walked off by himself, presently joining the group around the glib-tongued bogus “doctor,” and listening to what he was saying. He even saw the stool pigeon push through the gathering to demand a bottle of the wonderful cure-all that had so lengthened the days of his respected grandfather that they were unwilling to keep house without its magical presence.

Hugh studied the boy when he had the chance. He realized that Billy had about hit the mark when he described him as one who appeared to have a rather weak nature, easily controlled by a stronger will. Cale’s manner was anything but pleasing; still Hugh did not believe the boy was really vicious or depraved.

“Yes, he ought to be helped to break his associations with that clever scamp,” was what the scout master was deciding in his mind as he watched the ancient game of confidence being played upon the curious throng, with a subsequent purchase by several who had been hesitating, and only waiting for someone else to break the ice, so they could hand up their dollar without being too prominent.

He even managed to follow the boy as he hurried off, and saw how he circled around, dodging through the crowds and finally bringing up at a tent into which he ducked. When he came out immediately afterwards he no longer carried the paper wrapped bottle of medicine. Hugh did not need to see the sign “Old Doctor Merritt” fastened to the dingy canvas to understand that this was the temporary sleeping quarters of the fakir, and also of his helper, who deposited all his pretended purchases back in stock.

Hugh went back to the scouts’ camp, thinking what a shame it was that, for the sake of the small amount of money paid over by these mountebanks and fakirs, the management of the County Fair had sold them the privilege of fleecing the confiding visitors who came from distances, under the belief that Oakvale would protect her guests against all such cheating games as these.

“It’ll never happen again, if the scouts can put our people wise to such a debasing side show sort of business,” Hugh told the others, when they were talking things over at the camp during a temporary lull in the rush of visitors.

“We’ve been able to do a few things that count in the long run,” said Alec. “If future fairs can be conducted without so much of this rowdy sort of selling concessions to fake shows and fakirs with claptrap humbugs to stick the gullible public with, it would be a feather in our caps, I’m telling you, boys.”

Here then was one thing they could concentrate their efforts on that gave promise of paying for the investment of capital and labor. The idea pleased the boys the more it was discussed; and Hugh asked those who were present to push it wherever they had a chance. This was to be in their homes or on the street, until the management of the Fair must feel it their duty to make a statement to the effect that this was the very last occasion when any of these objectionable elements would be admitted to the grounds, or even allowed outside.

Hugh, Arthur and Lige Corbley chanced to be standing there in front of the camp talking with another batch of curious visitors, who wanted to be shown everything connected with scout life under canvas, when there was a sudden loud outcry.

“A runaway!” shouted Lige, as he pushed his way out of the circle of people, for he was a fellow quick to act.

They were just in time to see a vehicle coming dashing along, drawn by a very much excited pair of horses that must have taken fright at some unusually noisy motorcar. Even as the boys looked one of the two men in the rig sprang out, taking his chances. The other was vainly endeavoring to saw the two frantic animals into subjection by pulling at the lines.

He might have succeeded in this, but unfortunately one of the reins broke. Lige was on hand, however, and, clutching hold of the bits close to the mouth of the near horse, he managed to detain the struggling pair until others could come to his assistance.

It was quite exciting while it lasted, and Hugh felt glad that Big Lige had been the one to stop the runaway. The latter shrugged his shoulders when Hugh tried to compliment him, and said it “didn’t amount to a row of beans, in fact was almost too easy!”

“There’s a crowd coming this way, and as sure as you live they’re carrying the man who made that fool jump out of the vehicle!” exclaimed Dale Evans, who had arrived at the camp just in time to see this thrilling runaway.

“Unless I’m mistaken, Arthur,” said Hugh, turning on the other with a smile, “there comes your first patient!”