SIGNS OF TROUBLE AHEAD
“Was it about Dock?” asked Carl, eagerly, while Tom could see that the color had left his face all of a sudden.
“Yes,” continued Mrs. Joslyn, “Dock seems to have fallen into the habit of staying out until midnight, with some of those young fellows who loaf on the corners and get into every kind of mischief they can think up.”
“That’s what we’ve been told was going on, ma’am,” said Tom.
“I could hear his father scolding him furiously, while his mother was crying, and trying to make peace. Dock was ugly, too, and for a time I thought his father was going to throw him out of the house. But in the end it quieted down.”
“That’s a new streak in Dock’s father, I should say,” remarked Tom. “Time was when he used to come home himself at all hours of the night, and in a condition that must have made his wife’s heart sick.”
“Yes, but you know he’s turned over a new leaf, and acts as if he meant to stick to the water wagon,” Mrs. Joslyn explained. “Somehow it’s made him just the other way, very severe with Dock. I guess he’s afraid now the boy will copy his bad example, and that’s peeving Mr. Phillips.”
“But he let Dock stay in the house, you say?” Carl continued. “Then I wonder why he didn’t show up for orders this morning. The other boy told my mother Dock was sick and couldn’t come.”
Mrs. Joslyn smiled.
“Yes, he says that,” she observed. “I went over to take back a dish I had borrowed, and he was lying on the lounge, smoking a cigarette. He said he was real sick, but between you and me, Carl, I’m of the opinion he’s just tired of his job, and means to throw it up. He’d rather loaf than work any day.”
Carl breathed more freely. It was of course none of his business what Dock did with himself, though he might think the other was a mean shirk to hang around idle when his people needed every dollar they could scrape up.
“Thank you for telling me this, Mrs. Joslyn,” he said as with his chum he prepared to take his departure; “it relieves my mind in several ways. And please don’t whisper my secret to any one. I still hope to be able to get that paper from Dock sooner or later, if he doesn’t come to terms with Amasa Culpepper.”
“I promise you faithfully Carl,” the little woman told him. “I guess I’m able to hold my tongue, even if they do say my sex never can. And Carl, you must let me know if anything happens to alter conditions, because I’m dreadfully interested. This is the first time in all my life I’ve been connected with a secret.”
“I certainly will let you know, Mrs. Joslyn,” Carl promised.
“And furthermore,” she continued, “if I happen to see Dock doing anything that looks queer or suspicious I’ll get word to you. He might happen to have his hiding-place somewhere around the back yard or the hen house, you know. He may have buried the paper in the garden. I’ll keep an eye on the neighbors while he’s home.”
Tom was chuckling at a great rate as he and Carl went down the street.
“It looks as if you’ve got Mrs. Joslyn a whole lot interested, Carl,” he told the other. “She’s just burning with curiosity to find out something. Every time Dock steps out to feed the chickens she’s going to drop whatever she may be doing, and focus her eyes on him, even if her pork chops burn to black leather.”
“I wonder what he’s meaning to do?” remarked Carl, in a speculative way.
“Oh! just as Mrs. Joslyn told us, Dock’s a lazy fellow,” Tom suggested; “and now that his father is working steadily he thinks it’s time for him to have a rest. Then we believe he’s expecting sooner or later to get a big lot of money from Mr. Culpepper, when they come to terms.”
“Yes,” added Carl. “And in the meantime perhaps he’s got Amasa to hand him over a few dollars a week, just to keep him quiet. That would supply his cigarettes, you know, and give him spending money.”
“Well, it’s a question how long his father will put up with it,” Tom mused. “One of these fine days we’ll likely hear that Dock has been kicked out, and taken to the road.”
“He’s going with that Tony Pollock crowd you know,” Carl hinted; “and some of them would put him up for a time. But I’m hoping we’ll find a chance to make him own up, and hand back the thing he stole. I’d like to see my mother look happy again.”
“Does Amasa still drop in to call now and then?” asked the other.
“Yes, but my mother insists that I sit up until he goes whenever he does. You’d have a fit laughing, Tom, to see the black looks he gives me. I pretend to be studying to beat the band, and in the end he has to take his hat and go. I’m allowed to sleep an hour later after those nights, you see, to make up. It’s getting to be a regular nuisance, and mother says she means to send him about his business; but somehow his hide is so thick he can’t take an ordinary hint. I think his middle name should have been Rhinoceros instead of Reuben.”
“What will she do when you’re away with the rest of us on that ten day hike over Big Bear Mountain?” asked Tom.
“Oh! she says she’ll have told Mr. Culpepper before then she doesn’t want him to call again,” explained Carl; “either that or else she’ll have to keep all the rest of the children up, and get them to romping like wild Indians. You know Amasa is nervous, and can’t stand noise.”
Tom laughed at the picture thus drawn of three boisterous youngsters employed in causing an ardent wooer to take his departure.
“It’s only a few days now before we can get started, you know, Carl. Nearly all the preparations have been made. Each scout will have his new uniform on, with a few extra clothes in his pack.”
“We won’t try to carry any tent, will we, Tom?”
“That’s been settled,” came the ready answer. “At the meeting when I was elected patrol leader we discussed this trip, and it took like wildfire. In the first place we haven’t a tent worth carrying; and then again it would make too heavy a load. All of us have been studying up on how to make brush shelters when in the woods, and even if it rains I think we’ll get on fairly well.”
“Each scout has a rubber poncho, which can be made mighty useful in a pinch, I should think,” said Carl. “Then besides our clothes and a blanket, we’ll have to carry a cooking outfit, as light as it can be made, and what grub we expect to eat up.”
“Oh! most of that we’ll rustle for on the way,” the patrol leader told him. “We’ll find farms scattered along our route, and it’ll be easy enough to buy eggs, milk, perhaps a home-cured ham, some chickens, and other things like bread and butter.”
“That’s a great scheme, Tom, and it makes my mouth fairly water just to talk about it. Sounds like an army foraging, only instead of taking things we’ll expect to pay cash for them. How many are going along on the hike?”
“I have yet to hear of any member of the Black Bear Patrol who dreams of backing out; and there are several others who’ve told me they hope to join us. The way it looks now only a bad case of sickness would be able to keep any scout from being in line on that wonderful morning when Lenox Troop marches out of town headed for Big Bear Mountain.”
“One good thing, we don’t have to pack any heavy guns along with us,” declared Carl.
“No, that’s absolutely forbidden,” the patrol leader declared; “we can take a fishing rod if we feel like it, because there’s a chance to pick up some trout or bass before we come back on the down-river boat ten days later.”
“I like that idea of making the return trip by water,” Carl continued. “It will be great after so much tramping and camping. Besides, some of the boys have never been fifteen miles up the river before, and so the trip is going to be a picnic for them.”
“Come over to-night and do your cramming for the exam with me,” suggested Tom.
“I’d like to the worst kind,” the other boy said with a grimace; “but this is the night Mr. Culpepper generally pops in, and you see I’m on guard. But I’m hoping mother will give him his walking papers pretty soon now.”
“You would have to put a bomb under his chair to convince Amasa that his space was more desired than his company,” laughed Tom, as he strode off toward his own comfortable home.
The days passed, and since school would be over for the year at the end of the week, in the bustle of examinations and all that they meant for each boy scout, the intended outing was over-shadowed for the time being.
When, however, several of the scouts got together of course the talk soon drifted toward the subject of the hike, and many were the wonderful projects advanced, each of which seemed to give promise of a glorious prospect ahead.
So Friday night finally came.
School had been dismissed with all the accustomed ceremonies that afternoon, and there were few of the boys who had not gone up to a higher grade, so that when the last meeting before their expected vacation trip was called to order by the president of the organization it was a care-free and happy assemblage that answered the roll-call.
Mr. Witherspoon, the scout master, was on hand, but he seldom interfered with the routine of the meeting. It was his opinion that boys got on much better if allowed to manage things as much as possible after their own ideas. If his advice was needed at any time he stood ready to give it; and meanwhile he meant to act more as a big brother to the troop than its leading officer.
Of course Mr. Witherspoon expected to start out on the hike with the boys. His only fear was that he might not be allowed to finish the outing in their company, since he was liable to be called away at any time on urgent business.
The usual routine of the meeting was gone through with, and then a general discussion took place in connection with the anticipated hike. They had laid out the plan of campaign as well as they could, considering that none of the boys had actually been over the entire route before.
“That makes it all the more interesting,” Tom had told them; “because we’ll be apt to meet with a few surprises on the way. None of us would like to have anything all cut and dried ahead of time, I’m sure.”
“It’s generally the unexpected that gives the most pleasure,” declared Josh Kingsley, who was known to have leanings toward being a great inventor some fine day, and always hoped to make an important discovery while he experimented in his workshop in the old red barn back of his home.
“Well,” remarked George Cooper, getting slowly to his feet, “there may be some things that drop in on you unexpected like that don’t seem to give you a whit of pleasure, and I can name one right now.”
“Oh come, George, you old growler, you’re just trying to throw cold water on our big scheme,” complained Felix Robbins, trying to pull the other down.
“I’ve seen him shaking his head lots of times all evening,” asserted Billy Button, “ and I just guessed George was aching to make us feel bad. He’s never so happy as when he’s making other folks miserable.”
George refused to take his seat. He even shrugged his shoulders as though he thought his comrades were hardly treating him fairly.
“Listen, fellows,” he said, solemnly and ponderously; “I don’t like to be the bird of ill omen that carries the bad news; but honest to goodness I’m afraid there’s a heap of trouble looming up on the horizon for us unless we change our plans for a hike over Big Bear Mountain.”
“What sort of trouble do you mean, George?” asked the patrol leader.
“Only this, Mr. President,” said George, “on the way here I learned that Tony Pollock, Wedge McGuffey, Asa Green and Dock Phillips had started off this very afternoon, meaning to spend a week or more tramping over Big Bear Mountain; and I guess they’ve got it in for our crowd.”