CHAPTER XIX

The Arrest

Three days later Billy Webster was arrested.

Ralph Marshall was spending the afternoon at Sunrise camp when the officers arrived. With them came the man with whom he had once held a conversation concerning Billy—evidently the man who had thrown suspicion upon him.

It was about three o’clock and by chance the entire Camp Fire party was at home.

Billy, in his favorite fashion, was lying out in the sunshine on an Indian blanket, while his mother sat on one side of him, sewing, and Vera Lageloff on the other, reading to them both. They had built themselves a second camp fire in order to be a little apart from the rest of the group and not disturb any one by their reading.

For Mrs. Burton was half reclining in a big chair outside her tent, looking over a collection of manuscripts of new plays which had recently been sent to her by her husband. One of them he had chosen to appear in the next season, but he wished her opinion before finally deciding upon it.

As usual, Peggy Webster was close beside her aunt, but, in order not to interrupt, Peggy was engaged in weaving an Indian basket of sweet smelling prairie grasses. Ellen Deal was not far away but, although she held a book in her hand, she was not reading.

The day before, she had returned from her voluntary work of caring for the two invalids. But she did not yet seem to feel entirely at home in her former surroundings and, although she had endeavored to conceal the fact, Mrs. Burton and Peggy had both observed it.

The other girls were engaged in various occupations and Dan was having a nap.

Fortunately Ralph Marshall and Sally Ashton had walked a few yards along the path which led into Sunrise camp. They were first to observe the police and the man who accompanied them, before any member of the camp fire realized their errand.

Ralph had an immediate premonition of their intention, although he failed to appreciate its full seriousness.

The man whom he had seen before spoke first.

“We’ve come to arrest the kid,” he announced. “No wonder you were interested to hear all I had to say about him. I was green. I didn’t get on to the fact that you knew him. But, then, I was a long way from guessing he was mixed up with this bunch of railroad strikers.”

Apparently the man did not intend being impertinent, but was merely stating the case as he recognized it.

Nevertheless Ralph felt both angry and impotent.

“How do you know ‘the kid,’ as you call him, had anything to do with the strikers,” he inquired. “And if he did, what is that to you?”

The man shook his head.

“Nothing, maybe, except that we want to find out just how deep he was in the trouble. There were some rails torn up out of the track last night a few miles from here and a freight train went over. Lucky it was a freight, but the engineer was pretty badly hurt. We’ve got a straight tip that two or three of the strikers did the work. And we have been hearing that this boy, who is staying out here in a camp with a lot of relations and girls, has been loafing around with these same men, getting news for them and watching what was going on in places they couldn’t show themselves.”

“Nonsense,” Ralph returned. He was thinking quickly.

“Will you give me the chance to go and tell the boy’s people what you have come for?” he asked. “You see his mother is with him now and there is no telling what effect your appearance on such an errand will have on her.”

The older of the two police officers nodded, with an expression of relief. Evidently he had no taste for the task ahead of him.

This afternoon Sunrise camp looked like an idyl. The tents stood in white outline against the dark background of pine trees. In the central space before the tents a big camp fire was burning and seated about it were three or four girls in their Camp Fire costumes.

The two other groups were not for away.

Ralph went directly to Mrs. Burton. He was sorry that Peggy Webster was so near that she would be obliged to overhear him, but he dared not delay.

Under the circumstances it was well that he had given a detailed account to Mrs. Burton of his discovery of Billy and exactly what he had overheard him saying.

Billy was not aware of this fact because his aunt had never mentioned it to him. Ralph had not had any conversation with him since their return to camp together a few evenings before.

Since then, so far as any one knew, Billy had not been away for an hour.

So, in a measure Mrs. Burton was prepared for the disagreeable news Ralph brought her. In any case she was usually at her best in real difficulties; it was the smaller ones that found her unprepared.

Now she turned at once to Peggy.

“Come, dear, we must explain to your mother,” she remarked quietly, “don’t be frightened. Billy has done nothing wrong, though he may be compelled to prove the fact.”

Sally had dropped behind before Ralph delivered his message, but he accompanied the two women across the few yards of ground that separated them from Mrs. Webster.

It was curious, but none of them thought of Billy’s being particularly frightened, and yet he was a delicate, high-strung boy, not yet sixteen.

Billy was not frightened. As soon as he understood what his aunt was saying to his mother, he got up and came over to her.

“Don’t be worried, dearest,” he whispered patting her shoulder softly. “I haven’t done anything wrong—I give you my word of honor—not even anything wrong as you and father look at it. Of course, you’ll think I have been pretty headstrong and foolish and have gotten myself into a scrape. But I didn’t see it that way. I thought I could persuade the men to keep out of trouble. Well, I didn’t succeed, but I did not know I had not until now. The men promised me to be sensible.”

He put his arm around her and then turned—not to his aunt or his sister, but to Vera.

“You’ll make mother understand the way I felt, won’t you? I didn’t confide in you because I didn’t want to get you into my difficulty.”

Then he saw the two police officers approaching, with the railroad detective.

Billy smiled at them, although his face was pretty white.

“You are making a mistake in this. I had a perfect right to give the strikers all the information I ever gave them. As for any trouble you have had along the road I knew nothing about it until this minute. And I doubt if you can prove the strikers were mixed up in it anyway. Still I know there is no use in my talking to you. I’ll have to tell my story to persons higher in authority. I’ll be ready to go along with you in a few moments.”

And in ten minutes Billy had gone with them, carrying a little bag packed with a few of his belongings.

He looked very slender and young as he walked away beside the heavy, older men. But his head was up and his shoulders squared.

If he had a lump in his throat and his body shook with nervousness, he never confessed the fact.

Instead, just before he was out of sight, he turned and waved his hand gallantly to the group of his Camp Fire friends.

Mrs. Webster had gone to her tent. But the girls and Mrs. Burton received his farewell in tears. Ralph Marshall felt that he would like to have relieved himself of his own emotion by using language which was not permitted at Sunrise camp.

Before he was to return to his hotel, however, in order to attend to some business for Mrs. Burton, in connection with Billy’s arrest, Peggy Webster came to him.

“I just wanted to thank you,” she said quietly.

But she held out her hand and, as Ralph took it, he felt the clasp had its old, warm friendliness.