Chapter 2. Dodge And Bayliss Hear Something

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_ CHAPTER II. DODGE AND BAYLISS HEAR SOMETHING

"If we start to-morrow we must hustle all day long to-day," declared Dave Darrin.

"That's true," agreed Greg Holmes, as the two boys stood on a side street not far from Main Street in Gridley.

"I wish the rest of the fellows would hurry along," Dave went on impatiently.

"At all events, I wish Dick would hurry up, as he has charge of the arrangements," Greg made answer. "Oh, my! But I'm getting anxious to see the fish nibble."

"I thought you didn't care especially about fishing," Dave murmured, regarding his friend.

"Probably, as far as mere fishing goes, I don't care so very much," young Holmes assented. "But when fishing means weeks of outdoor life, free from the noise and dust of the town---then I'm simply wild about fishing as an excuse for getting away. Probably at the end of our fun we'll all be so sick of fish, from having had to eat so much of it, that any one of us will run away and hide when we suspect that the home folks are planning to send us on errands to a fish store. It would be all the same to me if we were going clamming, or hunting, or on any other kind of expedition, as long as it brought us to life under canvas and sleeping in the very place where pure, fresh air is made. Here comes Dick now!"

Young Prescott came swiftly up to his friends.

"Well, I think I've gotten about everything fixed," Dick announced.

"Tell us all the plans," urged Greg eagerly.

"What's the matter with waiting until all the other fellows show up?" Prescott inquired. "That will save me from having to go twice over the same ground. While we're waiting I'll tell you Tom Reade's latest one."

"A funny trick?" queried Greg.

"Needless question!" rebuked Dave Darrin. "Tell us about the latest one, Dick."

Thereupon the leader of Dick & Co. told of Tom's scheme for making people think one of their windows broken.

"Did it sound real?" Dave demanded.

"Did it?" inquired Dick. "It fooled me. I thought surely that our rear store window had been smashed to pieces. The sound is as natural as any joker could wish. But I haven't told you the other half of the story."

Thereupon Dick told about the pitcher of water dumped so unerringly on Tom, and of Reade's flight with the crowd pursuing him.

"I'd like to have been near enough to hear just what Tom said when the water struck him," laughed Darrin.

"Did the people running after him catch him?" asked Greg.

"I don't believe so," Dick Prescott smiled. "When Tom gets under way in earnest, his middle name, as you may have observed, is Double Speed---and then a bit more."

"Who's talking about me?" gruffly demanded Reade, coming up behind the group. "Dick, you old rascal! That was a mean trick you played upon me when you hurled that water down on me last night! But say, didn't it sound just like a three dollar pane of glass going to pieces?"

"It certainly did," laughed Prescott. "And by the way, Tom, did the water, when it struck, make you think at all about what you've read of Niagara Falls?"

"Hang you!" grumbled Tom, shaking a fist. "Why did you pour the wet stuff on me like that?"

"Because I was fooled myself," Dick promptly rejoined. "I thought some rascal was plotting mischief to the store. I wanted to mark that rascal with a suit of wet clothes, then run down in the street and collar him with his wet clothes on as a marker. But Dad called me back, and so I missed you. I heard the crowd after you, however. Did you get caught, Tom?"

Reade's answer was something of a growl.

"What happened between you and the crowd?" pressed Darrin, scenting some news from Reade's mysterious, half-sulky manner.

"Never you mind," Tom growled.

"Don't tell us," Dick urged. "We can guess a few things, anyway. You've a bruised spot over your left cheek bone that looks like the mark of a punch on the face."

"Go ahead and tell us what happened, Tom," urged Greg.

Reade only scowled.

"Anyway, you must have avenged yourself," Dick smiled. "Just look at the way the knuckles of your right hand are skinned. You certainly hit someone hard."

Tom flushed quickly as he glanced at the knuckles in question, then thrust his right hand into his pocket with an air of indifference.

"Be a good fellow and tell us the finish of the adventure," begged Darrin.

"Certainly," grinned Reade. "The end of my adventure was-----"

"Yes, yes!" pressed Greg, as Tom hesitated.

"The end of the adventure came," Tom continued maliciously, "when I turned out the gas in my little room and hopped into bed. I slept like a top, thank you."

"Now, now, now!" Dick warned him. "Thomas, you're hiding something from us!"

"If I am, it's my own business, and I've a right to hide it," retorted Tom, smiling once more, though still uncommunicative.

At this moment Hazelton and Dan Dalzell, otherwise known as Danny Grin, came up. They, too, had to hear all about the bottle-breaking trick.

"How did you ever come to think of a thing like that, Tom?" asked Harry Hazelton.

"I thought of it before I tried it out at Dick's," Reade rejoined, and explained how he had helped Timmy Finbrink out of a scrape.

"What did you say the fellow's name is, Tom?" Dick asked.

"His name is Timmy Finbrink," Reade rejoined, "and he looks the part. Just one glance at Timmy, and you know that he's all that the name implies."

Then followed, for the benefit of the two latest arrivals, the story of Tom's attempt in the rear of the Prescott bookstore.

Harry and Dalzell duly admired the bruise on Tom's face.

"Now, be a gentleman, Tom," urged Harry mischievously, "and let us have a good, satisfying look at your skinned knuckles."

"Umph!" grunted Reade.

"Or, at least," pursued Harry relentlessly, "tell us just what it was into which you ran to get such a mark on your face."

"Umph!" retorted Reade once more. "Danny, in the name of mercy, take that grin of yours around the corner and lose it!"

"I'll try," promised Dan, "provided you'll tell us who caught you last night, and why he punched your face."

But Tom, knowing that he had them all wild with curiosity, refused to reveal the secret.

"Now, let's get back to the big fishing trip," begged Greg Holmes. "Dick, what's the plan?"

"We start to-morrow," Prescott rejoined.

"Humph!" grunted Holmes. "We knew that all along. What we want are the particulars in detail."

"In the next place, then," Dick replied, "we shall devote a good deal of our time, while away, to the pleasurable excitement of fishing."

"Perhaps you won't be able to get away," Greg retorted, "if you go on stringing us in that fashion. I warn you that we're becoming impatient."

"That's right," nodded Dave Darrin. "Get down to actual particulars, Dick."

"Well, then," Prescott resumed, "we meet at the same old grocery store in the morning. There we stock up with food."

"Are we going to hire a horse and wagon for transporting our tent, cots, bedding and food?" Dan asked.

"No," Dick replied. "I've been thinking that over, and the funds won't stand it. So I've rented a push cart for two dollars. We can keep it as long as we need it. The tent, folding cots, blankets, pillows and kitchen utensils will go on the cart."

"Do we have to push that cart?" demanded Danny Grin, looking displeased.

"We do, if we want the cart to go along with us," Dick admitted.

Danny Grin groaned dismally as he remarked:

"That one detail of the arrangements just about spoils all the pleasure of the trip, then."

"No, it won't," Dick reported promptly. "I've looked into that. The wheels are well greased---the axles, I mean. I've loaded the cart with more weight than we shall put on it, and it pushes along very easily. If we come to a bad stretch of road, then two fellows can manage the cart at a time. The scheme saves us a lot of expense, fellows."

"Will all the food go on the cart, tool" asked Dave.

"Each one of us can carry some of the food," Dick replied.

Then his eye, roving from face to face, took in the fact that his chums were not impressed with the proposed method of transportation.

"Cheer up, fellows," he begged. "You'll find that it will be pretty easy, after all."

"I'd rather believe you, Dick, than have it proved to me," was Tom Reade's dejected answer. "I thought we were going away for pleasure and rest, but I suppose we can work our way if we have to."

None of these high school boys are strangers to our readers. Everyone remembers the first really public appearance of Dick & Co., as set forth in the first volume of the "_Grammar School Boys Series_." Then we met them again in the first volume of the "_High School Boys Series_," entitled, "_The High School Freshmen_." That stormy first year of high school life was one that Dick & Co. could never forget. In the second volume, "_The High School Pitcher_," we found Dick & Co. actively engaged in athletics, though in their sophomore year they did not attempt to make the eleven, but waited until the spring to try for the baseball nine. In the third volume, "_The High School Left End_," Dick & Co. were shown in their struggles to make the eleven, against some clever candidates, and also in the face of bitter opposition from a certain clique of high school boys who considered themselves to be of better social standing than Dick and his chosen comrades.

In the "_High School Boys' Vacation Series_" our readers have followed Dick & Co. through their summer pleasures and sports. In the first volume of this present series, "_The High School Boys' Canoe Club_," the adventures are described that fell to the lot of Prescott, Darrin, Reade and the others in the summer following their freshman high school year. In the second volume, "_The High School Boys In Summer Camp_," our readers found an absorbing narrative of the startling doings of Dick & Co. in the summer following their sophomore year. And now, in this present volume, we at last come upon our young friends at the beginning of their vacation season after the completion of their junior year, with its football victories. Now they are budding seniors, ready to enter the final, graduating class of Gridley High School in the coming autumn.

As Dick looked into the faces of his chums he laughed.

"So you don't like the push-cart idea, eh?" he demanded. "All right; if you fellows would rather loaf than eat-----"

"We can hire a horse, and still have money enough left to eat," protested Tom. "See here, Dick, although fishing is great fun while it lasts, we shan't be out all summer on a fishing trip. We don't need such a lot of money for, say, only a two or three weeks' trip."

"Yes; I think two or three weeks will see us in from our fishing trip," Prescott admitted. "But if we do come back early, fellows, then we shall need some other kind of a trip for August, won't we?"

"Say, that's right!" cried Dave Darrin, his eyes glistening. "Fellows, we are troubled with wooden heads. While we've been thinking of nothing but a fishing trip in July, Dick has actually had the brains to figure out that we might like to go away on some other kind of outing in August."

"Such an idea did occur to me," replied Dick.

"What's the scheme for August, Dick?" demanded Greg eagerly.

"Out with it!" insisted Hazelton.

Dick shook his head.

"Now, don't be mean," insisted Danny Grin. "Dick, you owe it to us, almost, to let us get a little look at the machinery that's moving in the back of your head."

"I haven't an August plan---at least, not one that is clear enough for me to submit it and put it to vote before you," Dick went on. "Fellows, let's set about this present fishing trip, for this month, and then, while we're away, talk up the proper scheme for August. Whatever we do in the way of fun, next month, will be sure to be better planned if we wait a little before talking it over."

"All right, then," agreed Tom Reade with a sigh. "But I warn you, Dick, and all you fellows, that if Prescott is too stingy with news about his August plan, I shall put forth one of my own."

"What's your August plan, Tom?" demanded Greg.

"I'm not going to tell you---yet," Reade rejoined, shaking his head mysteriously.

"There are a lot of things that you're not telling us," Dave reminded him. "Just for one little thing, you're not telling us what happened to you last night after you let a lot of strange men chase you out of Dick's street."

"They didn't chase me off the street!" declared Tom indignantly.

"Then what did happen?" quizzed Danny Grin.

"They all tried to beat me in a foot race," Tom declared, "and I put it all over them!"

"Yet someone must have passed you, or got in front of you," teased Greg. "Look at the bruise on your face, and your knuckles."

"Oh, that happened when-----" began Tom, then paused abruptly.

"Yes, yes," pressed Danny Grin. "Tell us about it."

"All right," agreed Tom, "I will. You see, when I got home and into bed, I had a sort of nightmare. Just suppose, for instance, that the mark on my face is where the nightmare kicked me and that I skinned my knuckles against the bedstead when I tried to jump over the bed to return the nightmare's kick."

"Tom Reade," called Dave sternly, "hold up your right hand!"

"Look out, Darry! You're not going to ask Tom to swear to the truth of a yarn like that, are you?" asked Dick anxiously.

"You may let your hand down again, young man," decided Dave, and Tom, as his hand reached his side, heaved a sigh expressive of great relief.

"Now, have you fellows got your tackle all ready?" Dick went on. "Remember the different things in the way of tackle that each of us was to bring."

The others assured their leader that the matter of tackle had been attended to.

"Then your bedding and your clothing are the only other matters to be considered," Dick went on, "as we're to travel light."

"As we don't take a horse along," suggested Tom, "then I take it that we are not going to carry any planking for a tent floor."

"We can't very well do that," Dick answered him. "Fellows, the real thing for us to do, on this trip, is to learn how to move fast and light. We must learn how to do without many things and yet have just as good a time."

"I think that's good sense," murmured Dave. "At the same time, I'll admit, at first blush, that I don't care particularly for the motion of the push cart. That means a lot of extra work for us, if we change camping sites often."

"Then let's put it to a vote whether to hire a horse and wagon, and give up the idea of an August trip," proposed Dick.

"No need whatever of taking any vote," broke in Tom. "All of us want that August trip, too, and we know that we haven't purses as big as a bank's vault."

And that opinion prevailed, without dissent.

"Greg's house ought to be the best place to keep the push cart over night," Dick continued. "I'll have the cart there at four this afternoon. Suppose you fellows meet us there, with your bedding and clothing for the trip?"

This also was agreed upon.

While the boys stood there chatting not one of them suspected how eagerly they were being watched by two pairs of eyes.

On the same side of the street, only a door below them, was an unrented cottage. One of the windows of this cottage, upstairs, was open, though closed blinds concealed the fact. Between these blinds peered two young men.

That cottage was the property of Mr. Dodge, vice-president of one of Gridley's banks.

Readers of "_The High School Left End_" have good reason to remember the banker's son, Bert Dodge. He and his friend, Bayliss, also the scion of a wealthy family, had been members of the notorious "sorehead" group in the last year's football squad at Gridley High School.

As our readers well remember, Dodge and Bayliss had carried their opposition to Dick & Co. to such dishonorable extent that they had been given the "silence" by the boys and girls attending the Gridley High School.

Dodge and Bayliss had thereupon left home to attend a private school, and they had gone away from Gridley with bitter hatred of Dick & Co. rankling in their hearts.

Just at this present moment Dodge and Bayliss were back in the home town. Deeply and properly humiliated by the contempt with which they were regarded in Gridley, these two "soreheads" had concealed from all but members of their families the fact that they were in town.

Bert had secured from his father the keys of the cottage. Two cots had been placed in a front room. Late the night before Dodge had brought food supplies to the cottage. Here the two youngsters were to remain secretly for a few days until Bayliss received from his family, then abroad, the money needed for his summer outing. What the elder Dodge did not know or even suspect, was that his son and Bayliss had returned with some half-formed plans of paying back old scores against Dick & Co.

"I knew this cottage was the place for us," Bert whispered. "As I told you, Bayliss, this corner is a favorite meeting place for Prescott and his fellow muckers."

"From what I hear, they're going to leave town for a few weeks," replied Bayliss.

"Yes; going out into the wilds on some sort of fishing jaunt."

"I wish we knew their plans better than we do," murmured Bayliss.

"Don't believe they know 'em themselves any too well," sneered Bert Dodge. "However, we don't need to know where they're going. We can follow 'em, can't we?"

"Yes; and get jolly well thumped for our pains, maybe," retorted Bayliss dryly.

"Well, if you're afraid, we'll let 'em depart in peace," mocked Bert.

"Who's afraid?" demanded Bayliss irritably.

"I hope you're not," retorted Bert Dodge.

"If you're not afraid---if you're as thoroughly game as I am---then we'll have some satisfaction out of those fellows."

"Lead me to it!" ordered Bayliss hotly.

"I will, to-morrow morning," promised Bert Dodge. "If you stick to me, we'll make those muckers sorry they ever knew us!"

"We must be under way by nine o'clock," the listeners heard Dick say. "We go west, over Main Street. We must start promptly, for we have sixteen miles to go to our first camp at the second lake in the Cheney Forest."

"Do you hear that?" whispered Bert. "The idiots have given us their full route! We can leave at four in the morning, and won't have to follow 'em at all. We can be there ahead of time, and have all the lines laid."

"Somehow," sounded Dave Darrin's voice, "I have a hunch, fellows, that we're going to have the finest time we ever had in our lives."

"We would have," sighed Tom Reade, "if it weren't for that push cart."

"At four o'clock this afternoon, then, and be prompt," called Dick, preparing to leave the others.

"Wait a moment," urged Dave.

"What's the matter?" inquired Dick, halting.

"Tom's just on the point of telling us what really happened to him last night," smiled Darry.

"Humph!" grunted Reade, walking briskly away.

"I can tell what's going to happen to 'em all on some other nights," whispered Bert Dodge in his friend's ear.

"To get square with those muckers, who drove us out of Gridley High School and out of town is my only excuse for living at present," sniffed Bayliss. _

Read next: Chapter 3. Dick & Co. Driven Up A Tree

Read previous: Chapter 1. Tom Reade Has A "Brand-New One"

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