CHAPTER IX

An Adventure

“Very well, Vera, if you won’t go with me, I will go alone,” Billy Webster announced. “It is not too far for you to go back by yourself.”

The two of them were riding slowly away from the Sunrise camp on the following day.

Vera looked distressed.

“It isn’t fair of you, Billy, to put me in this position. You know someone ought to be with you. Won’t you let me at least return and tell your mother what we intend doing,” Vera argued. But she continued riding even as she protested. She was just a little behind Billy and he now turned to look at her.

“Come on then, dear. You are not responsible, and whatever happens the blame is mine. But nothing is going to happen or I would not have you with me. So what is the use of worrying mother? What Peggy told me yesterday interests me and I mean to find out more about what those men are planning to do. No one thinks it extraordinary or tries to prevent Dan from going out to hunt any kind of wild beasts he is lucky enough to discover. But, because I happen to be interested in hunting out human beings, my family is always interfering. I haven’t the least intention of hunting them with a gun.”

Billy smiled half seriously and half humorously and then turned his face away.

But Vera Lageloff and the other people who knew him intimately always understood what this expression meant. Billy had made up his mind; and nothing short of physical force would compel him to stop doing what he had determined upon.

Moreover, Vera rarely opposed him. However unformed his purposes and ideals, however he might appear to other people only as an obstinate and ill-balanced boy, he was Vera’s knight. She, at least, believed in him.

She knew that all his thoughts and all his ideals for the future were bound up in his desire to make life easier for the people whom he did not believe were having a fair deal. Of course, Billy was a youthful and rather ignorant socialist, but for those reasons he was perhaps the more enthusiastic.

Certainly his own family did not understand him and knew but little of what was going on inside his mind; but this was not their fault so much as Billy’s. He was sensitive to ridicule, like many dreamers, and, moreover, he never felt that he had the strength for argument. It was easier for him to do the thing he wished and take the consequences, rather than argue and explain. It was enough if Vera and a few other friends realized that his laziness was in part physical delicacy, and that he only acted when he thought the result worth while.

In a way it was odd that Mr. and Mrs. Webster should have had so queer a son and not strange that they should not understand him. Billy was one of the persons whom no one ever fully understands and who never fully understands himself, because he was intended to travel by a different route than the most of us. There was a streak of genius in the O’Neill family. Polly O’Neill, now Mrs. Burton, was never like other people, besides possessing a great gift as an actress. Perhaps Billy was only odd without her genius, but the future alone could answer this question.

To Vera he now appeared a young Sir Galahad riding in front of her. The boy’s hat was off, his fair hair curling over his white forehead, he was pale and thin from his recent illness. But it was a fact that Billy usually had strength for the things he wished to do.

Naturally, Billy Webster had not developed his socialistic ideas alone. Unknown to his parents there had been a laborer on his father’s place, who had once been a school teacher in Russia and because of his views had been compelled to leave. He had been accustomed to come often to Vera’s father’s house, and when Billy was present to talk for hours on his revolutionary propaganda. Moreover, Billy also had a teacher at the High School who, although saner than the Russian, also wished to make the world over according to his own plan. Besides, as Billy was not strong enough to be outdoors so much as the rest of his family, he had spent many quiet hours in reading books on social questions.

“How do you expect to find your way to the place, Billy?” Vera asked, after five or ten minutes’ more of riding in silence.

Again the boy turned his head, laughing cheerfully.

“Sure I don’t know, but I pumped Peggy as much as I could this morning without actually having my plan found out. Besides, I am trusting somewhat to luck. I meant to get some information out of Marshall when he reached camp this morning, but he and Peg went off somewhere to talk. Queer, their being intimate friends all of a sudden, Vera, don’t you think? I agree with Bettina Graham, I never knew two people so unlike. And I don’t know whether I admire Marshall.”

Vera frowned. She cared for Peggy more perhaps than for any of the other Camp Fire girls and she also had been a little surprised at her recent behavior. Yet she answered sensibly:

“It isn’t important, you know, Billy, whether you like Ralph Marshall or not, so long as Peggy does. You know you have said a hundred times you did not think outsiders had a right to interfere with friendships. And Peggy’s pretty clever! If she likes Ralph there must be more to him than the rest of us can see. She don’t like many people.”

Billy nodded. “Yes, that is why I am puzzled. One does not expect nonsense from Peg. And Ralph is rather inclined toward it with most girls. Still you are right, Vera, and I feel a little snubbed—like the fellow always does who is told to practice what he preaches.”

“I didn’t mean to be disagreeable.”

Billy laughed back. “No, you never do and you never are. But, come, let’s cross the road here. We must manage to get lost in the right place—just as Ralph and Peggy did. But do you know, Vera, something already tells me that I am not going to be happy this afternoon? Fact is, I am abominably hungry and we can’t have been riding an hour.”

“Let’s stop, then, and rest for a little while,” the girl suggested. She had been afraid that her companion might grow overtired, as he had taken no long ride before. “You see, I had an idea that we might both develop an appetite, as lunch is so early, so I brought along lots of sandwiches.”

Billy uttered a boyish whoop of delight which had nothing visionary or unselfish in it.

“Trump!” he declared getting off his pony almost at once and then turning to help Vera.

They were in the pine woods, so it was easy enough to find an agreeable resting place under the trees.

In the most natural fashion, after Vera sat down, Billy stretched himself out resting his head in her lap. It was the same as if she had been Peggy, except that he honestly believed she cared for him more than his sister did.

Then he deliberately stuffed himself with sandwiches and talked, as Billy adored doing when he could find a sympathetic audience.

“I just want to find out what those fellows are in hiding for, Vera—not for any special reason,” he insisted. “You see, it gets a little dull, just lying around all day in the sun. I like scenery, but I like it as a background. I am afraid I want a little—a little more—”

“Excitement,” Vera finished the sentence.

Three-quarters of an hour later Billy Webster had discovered the secret camp.

He and Vera were riding quietly when they came to the circle of hills which Peggy had described. Stopping their ponies they heard the sound of low voices before seeing any one.

Dismounting, Billy asked Vera to wait until his return.

It seemed best that she should allow him to go on his adventure alone, and yet she watched his slender, boyish figure disappear, feeling wretchedly uneasy.

What absurd reason had Billy for wishing to take part in some trouble which assuredly was no affair of his? If anything happened to him, Vera knew that she would always blame herself.

But Billy was entirely unalarmed and, although he was supposed to be timid, he was not even nervous.

He walked straight ahead with his hands in his pockets and a friendly, curious expression in his big, clear eyes.

Billy could not fully explain the reasons for his interest. The excuses he had made of being bored, of wishing to help if the men were in trouble, or if possible to prevent trouble if it were brewing, these were merely somewhat impudent inventions of his. For, after all, what could he do in any case?

The fact of the matter was that Billy simply had been seized by an overwhelming desire to find out what was taking place, and was more inclined than he should have been to yield to his own wishes.

Just as they had been doing the afternoon before, the men were again sitting about a smouldering camp fire, smoking and talking.

Without being observed Billy walked quietly up to them.

The next instant one of the men swung round and cursed him.

Without the least show of fear or anger the boy waited until the fellow had tired himself out. Then, instead of running away, as they plainly wished him to do, he walked a few steps nearer the group.

“I am tired; would you mind my sitting here with you a while?” he asked in a matter-of-fact voice. He seemed so friendly and so totally unafraid that the men must have been favorably impressed. In any case, as no one answered at once, he dropped to the ground between two of the roughest of the group.

Billy had already observed that the men were not of the character Peggy and Ralph suspected them of being.

One of the men now laughed and, leaning over, thrust his evil smelling pipe at the delicate boy. And Billy, who had never smoked a single whiff of anything in his life, took the pipe gravely, put it to his lips drawing in the smoke with several hard puffs. It made him feel slightly ill, yet he never flinched. When he gave it back the man appeared more friendly.

A little later Billy asked two or three simple questions and some one answered him, afterwards they went on talking as if he were not there.

Certainly the boy had some quality which made certain types of people trust him.

Fifteen minutes passed. Resting in a hiding place they had chosen, Vera grew more and more uneasy. If nothing had happened to prevent, why had Billy not returned? If he were all right certainly it was selfish of him not to care for her anxiety and dullness.

But, then, Billy was selfish about little things and Vera recognized the fact. One had to accept this fault in him, feeling there were other characteristics which made one willing to endure it. In big matters the girl believed he had wonderful stores of unselfishness.

Half an hour afterwards Billy came strolling toward her as nonchalantly as he had gone away. Only his eyes were brighter and his expression less boyish.

“We must hurry to get back to camp before dark,” he said, without apologizing for the delay. “I’ll tell you what I found out while we are riding home; but, of course, I understand I have your promise, Vera, never to repeat anything I tell you—no matter what takes place.”

Vera nodded silently. She was accustomed to Billy’s confidences and did not take them all seriously, and this one did not appear as especially important.

“The men have been working on the railroad out here and have gone on a strike. The railroad has refused to come to terms, but they don’t seem to be planning to go away. They are not exactly in hiding, only they want to be left alone until they decide what they are going to do next.”