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The High School Boys in Summer Camp, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 16. Ten Minutes Of Real Daring |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. TEN MINUTES OF REAL DARING Still keeping his eyes turned on the fugitive, Dick took three quick, backward steps. "Halt!" ordered Tag. "I was going to stop, anyway," smiled Dick. "Now, put your hands up!" "Why?" "Because I'm boss here!" remarked Tag. "I didn't know that you were boss of anything," Dick replied, still smiling. "I'm telling you," declared Mosher. "Want me to make good?" "I wish you'd make something of yourself, instead," rejoined Prescott in a voice of intense earnestness. "Get your hands up!" ordered Tag, with a decided increase in emphasis. "That's a silly demand on your part," Dick retorted calmly. "Why should you want my hands up? I'm not armed, and am in no position to attack you. Are you such a coward, Mosher, that you're afraid of an unarmed fellow that you could thrash even if you were unarmed? I can't bring myself to believe that of you. "You've a mighty fine opinion of me, haven't you?" jeered Tag. "I'd like to have a fine opinion of you," Prescott declared. "Oh! And what must I do to win that fine opinion?" demanded Tag mockingly. "If you want to know, I'll tell you," Dick continued. "Just put down that gun and step away from it." "And then you'll pounce on it and hold me up!" jeered Tag. "Fine!" "You get away from your weapon," Prescott urged, "and I'll give you my word of honor not to touch it without your leave." "Your word of honor?" asked Tag, driven to wonder despite himself. "What good would your word of honor be?" "It would be as good as anything I'm capable of," Prescott responded. "Tag, didn't you ever have any respect for a man's word of honor? Didn't you ever respect your own?" "I got that game played on me at school, once," leered Mosher. "As soon as I swallowed the bait the other fellow kicked me in the shins and ran off and left me there. Now, Prescott, I don't want any more nonsense. Put up your hands!" "I've already declined," Dick smiled calmly. "To that refusal I'll add my thanks." "Put up your hands, or I'll keep the gun turned on you and pull a trigger or two." "Then the gun isn't loaded," chuckled Dick. "Oh, isn't it?" "No, for you're not bad enough, Tag, to shoot down an unarmed person who isn't your enemy." "You'll tell the officers you saw me here, won't you?" "Certainly." "Then you're my enemy," young Mosher argued, with thorough conviction. "So you'll put up your hands, and take further orders, as long as I give 'em, or you'll be found taking a long nap on the grass here!" "That's another wrong guess you've made, Tag." Laughing softly, Dick dropped to a seat on the grass. "You're a mighty sassy fellow," scowled young Mosher. "I'm very disobliging sometimes," Prescott admitted. "For instance, Tag, I won't believe that you're half as bad as you try to paint yourself." "Bad?" snorted young Mosher, with something of sullen pride in his voice. "I'm about as mean as they make them. You know what they say I did to that farmer?" "Well, did you?" challenged Prescott. "I'm not saying," came the gruff answer. "For one thing, it wouldn't do me a bit of good to deny it. When a fellow has a bad name everywhere any judge and jury will hang him. Now, I happen to object to being hanged, or even to being locked up for perhaps twenty or thirty years. Queer in me, isn't it?" "What you ought to do," pursued Dick, "and what you will do, if you are brave and manly, is to drop that gun, face about, and march yourself back to jail." "And be locked up some more?" quivered Tag in excitement. "If you're guilty of assaulting Mr. Leigh, you should be also brave and manly enough to walk back to jail, ready to pay the price of your act like a man. If you're not guilty, then you should be man enough to face the world and prove your innocence like a real man. Don't be a cowardly sneak, Tag!" "A coward?" blurted the other angrily. "You ought to know better'n that. And the officers know better, too; I may be only a boy, but the officers are out in packs, hunting for me. I know, for I've seen two pairs of those fellows go by on the road to-day." "Are you going to be a man, Tag, or just a sneaking coward?" asked Dick, as he rose. "Sit down!" commanded Tag sharply. "If you really want to talk with me, and will say 'please,' I'll sit down," Dick smiled back coolly at the angry boy. "But if you're just simply ordering me to sit down, then I won't do anything of the sort. Do you want to talk with me?" "Sit down!" "You didn't say 'please.'" "I'm not going to say it." "Then good-bye for a little while." Though the muzzles of the sawed-off shotgun stared wickedly at him, Dick Prescott turned on his heel, walking off. "Are you going, now, to tip the officers off that you've seen me?" called Tag. "Yes." Behind Dick, as he kept on his way back toward camp there came a snort of anger. Prescott was not quite as cool as he appeared to be. He knew there was at least a chance that savage Tag Mosher would send the contents of one or both barrels of the gun into his back. Dick, however, had mastered the first secret of bravery, which is to conceal one's fear. Again snorting, young Mosher cocked both hammers of the shotgun, Dick heard the clicks, but still walked on. "I hate to do it!" called Tag warningly. "Oh, you won't do it," Dick answered in a tone of calm self-assurance. Young Prescott kept on for another hundred yards. No sound came from behind him. Unless young Mosher were creeping upon him, Prescott knew that he was now out of range of the shotgun. Impelled by curiosity, Dick wheeled about Tag Mosher was nowhere in sight. "Either that fellow isn't half as bad as he pretends to be, or else not half as desperate as he likes to think himself," Dick chuckled. Then, remembering, in a flash, the herbs that he had come to get, the Gridley High School boy deliberately walked back to the spot where he had left this strange vagrant of the forest. But Tag was no longer there---not in sight, at any rate. Bending over, Prescott collected a goodly bunch of the herbs. Then, after glancing at his watch, he started back to camp. It was late when he returned. Dave was back from his swim, the table was set, and all was in readiness to sit down. "Too late to use the herbs to-day, I guess," said Tom, as Dick laid them down. "You were gone a long time, old fellow." "I had quite a way to go," Dick replied quietly. Then he cut a number of grass stalks, trimming them to different lengths. "Fellows, I want you to draw lots. I don't feel any too much like a walk to Five Corners after dinner, but if I get the short straw I'll go." "No; you'd better not try it," warned Darrin. "Your hip might begin to give you trouble before you get back. If someone has to go, let the other five draw." But Dick insisted that the draw should decide it all. "What's the matter?" asked Tom Reade shrewdly. "Have you found traces of Tag Mosher?" "I've seen him," Dick replied, "and talked with him. Come to think of it, I believe two fellows had better go. The two who are to go will be those who draw the shortest straws. All ready?" Dick covered one end of the grass stalks, so that no one could be sure as to which lot he drew. The lots fell to Reade and Darrin. "Now, tell us about the meeting," begged Hazelton. "Let's sit down and begin to eat," Prescott proposed. "As we eat I will describe the meeting." Plates passed rapidly until all were served. Then Dick told his chums the story of the meeting with Tag Mosher. _ |
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