The High School Boys' Fishing Trip

E-text prepared by Jim Ludwig
The High School Boys Fishing Trip or Dick & Co. in the Wilderness
By H. Irving Hancock
CHAPTERS I. Tom Reade has a Brand-New One II. Dodge and Bayless Hear Something III. Dick & Co. Driven Up a Tree IV. Stalling the Red Smattach V. Bert Dodge Hears the Battle Cry VI. Paid in Full—-To Date VII. The Box That Set Them Guessing VIII. The Man With the Haunting Face IX. The Start of a Bad Night X. Powder Mills, or Just What! XI. In a Fever To Find Out XII. Dick Makes a Find XIII. Perhaps Ten Thousand Years Old XIV. More Mystery in the Air XV. The Scream That Started a Race XVI. The Camp Invaded and Captured XVII. Dick Makes Fish Talk XVIII. A Kettle of Hot Water for Someone XIX. Bert Dodge Hears Frightful News XX. A Frenzied Ride to Safety XXI. Real News and Punk Heroes XXII. Tom Tells the Big Secret XXIII. Four of Us are Pin-Heads! XXIV. Conclusion
Hello, Timmy!
'Lo, Reade.
Warm night, observed Tom Reade, as he paused not far from the street corner to wipe his perspiring face and neck with his handkerchief.
Middling warm, admitted Timmy Finbrink.
Yet the heat couldn't have made him extremely uncomfortable, for Tom Reade, amiable and budding senior in the Gridley High School, smiled good naturedly as he stood surveying as much as he could make out of the face of Timmy Finbrink in that dark stretch of the street.
Timmy was merely a prospective freshman, having been graduated a few days before from the North Grammar School in Gridley.
Tom, himself, had been graduated, three years before, from the fine old Central Grammar, whence, in his estimation, all the regular boys came. As a North Grammar boy, Timmy was to be regarded only with easygoing indifference. Yet a tale of woe quickly made Tom Reade his young fellow citizen's instant ally.
Aren't you out pretty late, Timmy, for a boy who isn't even a regular high school freshman as yet? inquired Reade, with another smile. It's almost nine-thirty, you know.