Chapter 8

Pretty had managed to find such a stick in the small stores of Lakerim. He bought it with Sawed-Off's money, and he practised his exercises with it so vigorously and so secretly that when he next appeared upon the campus and carried it, the Senior who had attacked him before, let him go by without any hindrance. He was fairly stupefied at the impudence of this Lakerimmer whom he thought he had thrashed so soundly. He did not know that the main characteristic of the Lakerimmer is this: he does not know when he is whipped, or, if he does know it, he will not stay whipped.

But once he had recovered his senses, the haughty Senior did not lose much time in making another onslaught on Pretty.

When some of his friends were pouring cold water on this Senior's bruised head a few minutes later, he poured cold water on their scheme to attempt to carry out what he had failed in, for he said:

"Don't you ever go up against that Lakerim fellow; his cane works like a Gatling gun."

So Pretty was permitted to carry his cane; and though he swaggered a little, perhaps, no further attempt was made by the Seniors to take the stick away from him. They had to content themselves with trying to throw water on him from upper windows; but their aim was bad.

XX

Pretty had not been home long on his Christmas vacation before he called at the home of the beautiful girl Enid, who had helped him win so many tennis games, and who was the best of all the best girls he devoted himself to, either in Kingston, Lakerim, or any other of the towns he blessed with his smiling presence.

Enid and Pretty, being great lovers of fresh air, took many a long walk on the country roads about Lakerim.

One day, when the air was as exhilarating and as electric as the bubbles in a glass of ice-cream soda, they took a much longer stroll than usual.

Then they made a sudden decision to turn homeward; for, rounding a sharp bend in the road, they saw coming toward them three burly tramps.

At the sight of these Three Graces both Pretty and Enid stopped short in some little uneasiness. The tramps also stopped short, and seemed to engage in a conversation about the two young people ahead of them on the road.

Pretty, on account of the extreme neatness of his costume, often got credit for being a much richer lad than he was. And Enid also was as careful and as successful in her costumery as Pretty. So the three tramps probably thought they had before them two children of wealth, who would be amply provided with pocket-money. But if they had only known how little the two really had in their possession, the adventure you are about to hear would never have happened.

But while Pretty was flicking the dirt at the end of his toe with his walking-stick, and wondering if he really cared to go any farther, the tramps moved toward him quickly.

Enid, being a girl, was frightened, and did not try to conceal it, but said:

"Oh, Pretty, let's go home at once!"

Pretty, being a boy, thought he must make a display of courage, even if he didn't feel it; so, while his heart clattered away in his breast, and he could hardly find breath to speak, he said with some show of composure:

"Yes, Enid; I think we have walked far enough for to-day."

Then they whirled about and started for home at a good gait. They had not gone far when Enid, glancing back over her shoulder, noticed that the tramps were coming up at a still more rapid walk.

One of them, indeed, called out in a suspiciously friendly tone:

"Hey, young feller, hold up a minute and tell us what time it is, will ye?"

Enid gasped:

"Let's run, Pretty; come on."

But Pretty answered with much dignity:

"Run? What for?" And he turned and called back to the tramp: "I don't know what time it is."

Then the tramps insisted again that Pretty wait for them to come up. But when he continued to walk without answering them, they began to hurl oaths and rocks, and to run toward him. Now Pretty thought that discretion was the better half of valor, and he seized Enid's wrist and started off on a run, an act in which she was willing enough to follow his lead. But he had to explain, just to preserve his dignity:

"They're three to one, you know."

But while Enid understood well enough the necessity for speed, she had no breath to expend expressing her appreciation of Pretty's delicate position. She was too frightened to run even as well as she knew how, and she was going at a gait that was neither very fast nor very economical of muscle and breath. Pretty, however, ran scientifically: on the balls of his feet, with his head erect, his chest out, and his lips tightly locked.

But before long he was doing all the work for two, and laboring like a ship that drags its anchor in a storm. They came to a hill now, and here Enid leaned her whole weight upon him. He barely managed, with the most tremendous determination and exertion, to get her to the top of this long incline. As they labored up he decided in his own mind, and told her, that she must leave him and run on for help.

Just one tenth of a second his terrified mind had been occupied with the thought that he might run on alone and leave her. The tempting idea of self-preservation had whispered to him that if he stayed behind, it would only result in disaster to two, while if he ran on alone, at least one would be saved.

But this cowardly selfishness he put away after the tenth of a second of thought, and now he was insisting, even against Enid's gasping objection, that she must run on alone and leave him to take care of the footpads. He did not know how he was going to do this, but he felt that upon him devolved the duty of being the zealous rear-guard to cover the retreat of a vanquished army.

Enid, however, was stubborn, and proposed to stay and fight with him, even drawing out a very sharp and very dangerous hat-pin to emphasize her courage. But Pretty, while he blessed her for her bravery and her full-heartedness, still commanded her to run on and bring help, promising her that he would keep out of harm's way till help could come. With this assurance, the poor girl staggered on, gaining strength from the necessity of speed to save her beloved Pretty.

At the brow of the hill Pretty found himself alone, and turned and looked at the on-coming trio with defiant sternness. After a moment, which gave him some much-needed rest and a chance to gain new breath, he realized that one half a battle is with the warrior that is wise enough to make the first onslaught. So, after a tremor of very natural hesitation, the boy dashed full at the three hulkish tramps.

XXI

The overgrown brutes were so much taken aback at the change of front on the part of the young fellow whom they had hoped to run down like a scared rabbit, that they stopped short in sheer surprise.

But this was only for a moment. Then the leader of the three rushed forward, with a large club. He carried it high in the air in the same indiscreet manner in which Pretty had once attacked the Senior.

Just before the tramp and the boy came to close quarters Pretty made a diving sidelong dodge, and as the tramp's club whisked idly through the air past him, he dealt the fellow a furious blow across the left shin. Now, as any one who was ever struck there knows, a man's shin is as tender as a bear's nose; and the surprised tramp was soon dancing about in the air, hugging his bruised leg and yowling like a wildcat. But Pretty had run on past, leaving him to his misery.

Now he came up to the other two, who moved in single file toward him. The first man Pretty received right upon the point of his cane, driving the hard metal ferrule straight at the man's solar plexus. The combination of the man's rush and Pretty's powerful thrust was enough to lay the wretch upon the ground, writhing and almost unconscious.

For the last thug Pretty had prepared a beautiful back-handed slash across the face; but the villain, seeing what was in store for him, dropped down, and rushed at the boy low enough to evade the stick. Pretty, however, had a check for this move also, and a quick step to one side saved him from the man's clutch.

Now he recovered himself quickly enough to deliver a vicious whack straight at the back of the man's head--a blow that would have settled the tramp's mind for some time to come, but the fellow was running so fast that Pretty missed his aim, and his stout weapon only dealt a stinging blow upon the man's left shoulder.

The thug ran on far enough to gain a good vantage-ground, and then, whirling, came at Pretty again. Now his uplifted hand held an ugly knife.

The look of this was not pleasant to Pretty's eyes; but the excitement of the situation was much increased when a glance out of the side of his eye showed him that the first thug had regained enough nerve to come limping forward in the endeavor to throttle him.

The men were not coming at him in such a way that he could use the "point-and-butt thrust" that he had learned for such occasions, so he decided instantly to repeat upon the first thug the shin-shattering blow that had been so successful before.

As the man came on, then, Pretty gave a terrific backward slash that caught the tramp's uninjured shin. It was a beauteous shot, and sent the fellow to his hunkers, actually boohooing with agony.

And now, with another fine long sweep, this time upward, Pretty sent a smashing blow at the third tramp's upraised arm. The force of the stroke was alone strong enough to send the knife flying; but, by the addition of a bit of good luck, Pretty caught the wretch on his crazy bone, and set him to such a caterwauling as cats sing of midnights on a back-yard fence.

Leaving the battered Three Graces to their different dances, Pretty picked up the knife he had knocked from the hand of the third, and sauntered homeward, adjusting his somewhat ruffled collar and tie as he went, with magnificent self-possession.

On his way he met the party of rescuers sent to him by Enid, who had managed to reach town in rapid time. Pretty calmly sent them back to pick up the three tramps he had left; and these gentlemen were stowed away in the Lakerim jail, where they cracked rock and thought of their cracked bones till long after Pretty's Christmas vacation was over.

As for Enid, I will leave you to guess whether or no she thought Pretty the greatest hero of his age,--or any age,--and whether or no she gossiped his bravery all around Lakerim long after the Dozen were away again in Kingston.

XXII

The night before the Lakerim contingent went back to the Kingston Academy, another grand reception was given in their honor at the club-house; and the Dozen made more speeches and assumed an air of greater magnificence than ever.

But, nevertheless, they were just a trifle sorry that they had to leave their old happy hunting-ground. But there was some consolation in the thought that the life at the Academy would not be one glittering revel of studies and classes. For the Dozen believed, as it believed nothing else, that all play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.

The general average of the Dozen in the matter of studies was satisfactory enough; for, while Sleepy was always at the bottom of his classes, and probably the laziest and stupidest of all the students at Kingston, History was certainly at the head of his classes, and probably the most brilliant of all the students at Kingston.

With these two at the opposite poles, the rest of the Dozen worked more or less hard and faithfully, and kept a very decent pace.

But the average attainment of the Dozen in the field of athletics was far more than satisfactory.

It was brilliant.

For, while there was one man (History) who was not quite the all-round athlete of the universe, and was not good at anything more muscular than chess and golf, the eleven others had each his specialty and his numerous interests.

They believed, athletically, in knowing everything about something, and something about everything.

* * * * *

The winter went blustering along, piling up snows and melting them again, only to pile up more again. And the wind raved in very uncertain humors. But, snow or thaw, the Dozen was never at a loss to know what to do.

Finally January was gone, and February, that sawed-off month, was dawdling along its way toward that great occasion which gives it its chief excuse for being on the calendar--Washington's Birthday.

From time immemorial it had been the custom at Kingston to celebrate the natal anniversary of the Father of his Country with all sorts of disgraceful rioting and un-Washingtonian cavorting. The Lakerim Twelve were not the ones to throw the weight of their influence against any traditions that might add dignity to the excitements of school-book life.

Of the part they took in raising the flag on the tower of the chapel, and in defending that flag, and in tearing down a dummy raised in their colors by the Crows in the public square of the village--of this and many other delightfully improper pranks there is no room to tell here; and you must rest content with hearing of the important athletic affair--the affair which more truly and fittingly celebrated the anniversary of the birth of this great man, who was himself one of the finest specimens of manhood and one of the best athletes our country has ever known.

The athletic association from a neighboring school, known as the Brownsville School for Boys, had sent the Kingstonians an offer to bring along a team of cross-country runners to scour the regions around Kingston in competition with any team Kingston would put forth.

The challenge was cordially accepted at once, and the Brownsville people sent over John Orton, the best of their cross-country runners, to look over a course two days in advance, and decide upon the path along which he should lead his team. It was agreed that the course should be between six and eight miles long. The runners should start from the Kingston gymnasium, and report successively at the Macomb farm-house, which was some distance out of Kingston, and was cut off by numerous ditches and gullies; then at the railway junction two miles out of Kingston; then at a certain little red school-house, and then at the finish in front of the campus. It was agreed that the two teams should start in different directions and touch at these points in the reverse order. Each captain was allowed to choose his own course, and take such short cuts as he would, the three points being especially chosen with a view to keeping the men off the road and giving them plenty of fence-jumping, ditch-taking, and obstacle-leaping of all sorts.

The race was to have been run off in the afternoon; but the train was late, and the Brownsvillers did not arrive until just before supper. It was decided, after a solemn conference, that the race should be run in spite of the delay, and as soon as the supper had had a ghost of a chance to digest. The rising of a full and resplendent moon was a promise that the runners should not be entirely in the dark.

Tug and the Brownsville chief, Orton, had made careful surveys of the course they were to run over. It was as new to Tug as to the Brownsville man. Each of the two had planned his own short cuts, and even if they had been running over the course in the same direction they would have separated almost immediately. But when the signal-shot that sent them off in different directions rang out, they were standing back to back, and did not know anything of each other's whereabouts until they met again, face to face, at the end of the course.

The teams consisted of five men each. The only Lakerim men on the Kingston team were Tug, the chief, who had been a great runner of 440-yard races, and Sawed-Off, who had won the half-mile event on various field-days. The other three were Stage, Bloss, and MacManus. All of them were stocky runners and inured to hardship.

They had come out of the gymnasium in their bathrobes; and when the signal to start was given, the spectators in their warm overcoats felt chills scampering up and down their ribs as they noticed that all the men of both teams, when they had thrown off their bath-robes, stood clad only in running-shoes, short gymnasium-trunks, and jerseys.

But their heat was to come from within, and once they were started, cold was the least of their trials.

The two teams broke away from each other at the gymnasium, and bolted at a wide angle straight across the campus. They all took the first fence in perfect form, as if they were thoroughbred hunters racing after a fox.

Quiz and one or two other of the bicycle enthusiasts attempted to follow one or the other of the two packs; but they avoided the road so completely that the bicyclists soon lost them from sight, and returned to watch the finish.

The method of awarding the victory was this: the different runners were to be checked off as they passed the different stages of the course, and crossed off as they came across the finish-line. Each man was thus given the number of his place in the finish, and the total of the numbers earned by each team decided the match, the team having the smaller number winning. Thus the first man in added the number 1 to the total score of his side, while the last man in added 10 to his.

Tug had explained to his runners, before they started out, that team-work was what would count--that he wished his men to keep together, and that they were to take their orders all from him.

After the first enthusiasm of a good brisk start to get steam and interest up, Tug slowed his pace down to such a gait as he thought could be comfortably maintained through the course.

The Brownsville leader, Orton, however, being a brilliant cross-country runner himself, set his men too fierce a pace, and soon had upon his hands a pack of breathless stragglers.

Tug vigorously silenced any attempt at conversation among his men, and advised them to save their breath for a time soon to come when they would need it badly.

His path led into a heavy woods, very gloomy under the dim moonlight; and he had many an occasion to yell with pain and surprise as a low branch stung him across the head. But all he permitted himself to exclaim was a warning cry to the others:

"Low bridge!"

The grove was so blind (save for the little clearing at Roden's Knoll, which Tug and Sawed-Off recognized with a groan of pride) that the men's shins were barked and their ankles turned at almost every other step, it seemed. But Tug would not permit any of them the luxury of complaint.

In time they were out of the wood and into the open. But here it seemed that their troubles only increased; for, where the main difficulty in the forest was to avoid obstacles, the chief trouble in the plain was to conquer them. There were many barbed-wire fences to crawl through, the points clutching the bare skin and tearing it painfully at various spots. The huge Sawed-Off suffered most from these barbs, but he only gasped:

"I'm punctured."

There were long, steep hills to scramble up and to jolt down. There were little gullies to leap over, and brooks to cross on watery stepping-stones that frequently betrayed the feet into icy water.

After vaulting gaily over one rail fence, and scooting jauntily along across a wide pasture, the Kingstonians were surprised to hear the sound of other footsteps than theirs, and they turned and found a large and enthusiastic bull endeavoring to join their select circle.

Perhaps this bovine gentleman was, after all, their very best friend, for nowhere along the whole course did they attain such a burst of speed as then. Indeed, none of the five could remember a time in his life when he made such a spurt.

They reached and scaled a stone wall, however, in time to shake off the company of this inhospitable host. In the next field there were two or three skittish colts, which they scared into all manner of hysterical behavior as they sped across.

Down a country lane they turned for a short distance; and a farmer and his wife, returning home from a church sociable, on seeing these five white figures flit past in a minimum of clothing, thereafter always vowed that they had seen ghosts.

As the runners trailed past a farm-house with never a light to show upon its front, there was a ferocious hullabaloo, something between the angry snorting of a buffalo and the puffing of a railroad engine going up a steep grade. It was the wolfish welcome of three canine brigands, the bloodthirsty watch-dogs that surrounded and guarded this lonely and poverty-stricken little farm-house from the approach of any one evil- or well-intentioned.

Those dogs must have been very sorry they spoke; for when they came rushing forward cordially to take a few souvenir bites out of the Lakerim team, Tug and the others stopped short and turned toward them.

"Load!" cried Tug.

And every mother's son of the five picked up three or four large rocks from the road.

"Aim!" cried Tug.

And every father's son of the five drew back a strong and willing arm.

"Fire!" cried Tug.

And every grandfather's and grandmother's grandson of the five let fly with a will the rocks his hands had found upon the road.

Those dogs must have felt that they were caught out in the heaviest hail-storm of their whole experience. Their blustering mood disappeared in an instant, and they turned for home, yelping like frightened puppies; nor did they forget, like Bo-peep's sheep, to take their tails with them, neatly tucked between their legs.

Past as the cross-country dogs ran in one direction, the cross-country humans ran in the opposite.

Now that they were on a good pike road, some of them were disposed to sprint, particularly the fleet-footed Stage, who could far outrun Tug or any of the team.

But Tug thought that wisdom lay in keeping his team well in hand, and he did not approve of running on in advance any more than he approved of straggling. Thus the enthusiastic Stage, rejoicing in his airy heels, suddenly found himself deserted, Tug having seen fit to leave the road for a short cut across the fields; and Stage had to run back fifty yards or more and spend most of his surplus energy in catching up with the team.

It was a merry chase Tug led his weary crew: through one rough ravine where the hillside flowed out from under their feet and followed them down, and where they must climb the other side on slippery earth, grasping at a rock here and a root there; then through one little strip of forest that offered him an advantageous-short cut. Here again he silenced the protests of his men at the thick underbrush and the frequent brambles they encountered. Just at the edge of this little grove Tug put on an extra burst of speed, and was running like the wind. The others, following to the best of their ability, saw him about to pass between two harmless posts.

Suddenly they also saw him throw up his hands and fall over backward. When they reached him they saw that he had run into a barbed-wire fence in the dark.

XXIII

They were doubly dismayed now, because they not only had lost their leader, but were themselves lost in some part of the country where they knew neither the landmarks nor the points of the compass. They helped Tug cautiously to his feet, and, for lack of a better medicine, rubbed snow upon the ugly slashes in his breast and legs.

"This ends the race, as far as we are concerned," moaned Bloss.

But Tug had recovered enough from his dizziness to shake his head and mane lion-like, and cry:

"Not much! Come on, boys!"

And before the restraining hand of Sawed-Off could stop him, Tug had somehow wormed himself through the barbed-wire fence and was off across the open; and they were sore put to it to catch up with him again.