"BE PREPARED"
"Paul!"
Jack's groping hand gripped the arm of his chum as he gave vent to this whisper.
"Yes," came the low reply close at hand, showing that Paul was awake, and alert.
"Did you hear it?" asked Jack, eagerly.
Bobolink was breathing heavily on his blankets, and it seemed as though he must have been the first one to get to sleep, after all his complaining about the hardness of his bed.
"Yes. Some one shook the door," answered the patrol leader, still whispering.
"That was what I thought. Shall I wake Bobolink and William?" asked Jack.
"Let me do it. If one of them gave a shout it would tell that we had a guard in here."
Paul, while saying this, started to crawl to where Number Three was enjoying a nap. He shook him gently, and when that failed to arouse Bobolink, the motion was increased.
"Hey! what are you——" but further sound
was instantly cut off by Paul's clapping his hand over Bobolink's mouth.
"Keep still! They're at the door right now!" he breathed into the ear of the struggling one.
That seemed to tell Bobolink what it all meant. No doubt his first impression had been that the enemy had stolen a march on them, and meant to make them prisoners in their own quarters.
He ceased to squirm, and encouraged by this Paul by degrees removed his muffling hand, so that Bobolink could breathe freely again.
The sounds had commenced once more. William was also sitting up by now, and fairly quivering with eagerness, as he fondled the extra large club he had selected for his individual use.
Voices, too, reached their ears, as though the unknown parties without, finding themselves balked by the fact that the door was locked, were conferring as to how they might gain entrance.
"Maybe they've gone and made a duplicate key," suggested William, as he and the other three scouts put their heads close together.
No one thought it at all out of the question. They had run up against these energetic plotters so often in the past, that they were well acquainted with their ways; and nothing surprised them in connection with Ted Slavin's crowd.
"Perhaps we'd better move closer to the door,
so as to be ready in case they do push in," Paul said, leading the way.
Creeping across the floor of the gymnasium, they hovered close to the entrance. All of them gripped their novel weapons of offense and defense with a grim determination to give a good account of themselves when the chance arrived.
As for William, he was fairly shivering with impatience. Several times he swished his club through the air, as though eager to test its qualities on an unlucky intruder; so that Paul had finally to warn him against such indiscreet action.
The voices without came more plainly now. Evidently the plotters were disputing as to their best course under the circumstances, some being for one thing, and the balance for another.
"Oh! rats!" came a voice that Paul easily recognized as belonging to Ted Slavin himself; "Who's afraid? Go get the old gravestone, boys, and we'll ram her through the door like soup. It's only a weak door anyhow."
"Yes," came in Ward's cautious tones, "but that would be destroying church property, and we could be punished for it. Better try and open a window, fellows. Bud here knows where there's a weak catch, don't you, Bud?"
"Huh! I unscrewed the catch myself," came in still another voice; "that's how it's weak. But we can get in that way easy, boys. If you say the
word, Ted, I'll creep in and open the door in the back, where old Peter chases his ashes out in Winter time."
"You're the candy-boy, Bud. Do it right away. And we'll be awaitin' there at the ash door, ready to push in when you open up. Get a move on you, now."
When Ted spoke in that strain he meant business, and few among his cronies ever dared hesitate. He ruled his camp followers through sheer force of brutal instincts; and many a head had ached in consequence of that bony fist coming in contact with it, when a dispute had to be settled.
Paul gave a tug at the sleeve of Jack, who, recognizing the signal, passed it on to William; and in turn he notified the remaining member of the quartette.
Thus they were presently all in motion, making a careful detour around the pile of camping material that occupied the middle of the floor. Some boys seem to be gifted with the remarkable faculty of seeing in the dark, that a cat enjoys. Jack was of the opinion that his chum must surely be favored in this way, judging from his success in moving about through that darkness without tumbling over obstacles.
The furnace room was off the gymnasium. Gaining the door Paul passed through, and presently came to a number of metal receptacles in
which old Peter stored the ashes until such time as he thought fit to get a wagon around to take the refuse away.
Most of them were still full and running over, for Peter had kept putting off his last cleaning up, owing to an attack of rheumatism.
"Every fellow pick out his can and hide behind it," whispered Paul.
When he understood that this had been done he himself slipped back to the connecting door, intending to watch for the coming of Bud.
Presently sounds proceeded from a window near by, one of the small ones that in the daytime gave light to the gymnasium. Looking intently in that quarter, Paul was soon able to make out a moving object; for he had the sky with its stars and young moon as a background.
Then came a series of grunts, announcing that Bud was pushing his way in through the little opening, after having gently forced the catch of the swinging window.
Paul could hear the sound of his heels striking on the boards of the gymnasium floor. And just as he had anticipated, the intruder was supplied with matches, for he immediately struck a light, in order to look around, and get his bearings.
Paul thought it time to beat a silent retreat in the direction of the ashcan he had selected as his cover. When settling down he managed to give
the signal that the other three would recognize as denoting caution, and that they must remain on the alert every second of the time.
Now Bud was coming. Paul could hear him stumbling along, grumbling when he banged into the open door, simply because his sense of observation had not been so highly developed as had that of the young scout leader.
But by striking another match Bud managed to locate the cause of his trouble. He was glimpsed by Paul, spying around the edge of his screen, and seemed to be rubbing his forehead vigorously, as though he might have raised a lump there in his contact with the door.
Some one pounded from without.
"Hi! there, Bud, what's keeping you?" demanded Ted, gruffly, unable to control his impatience.
"All right, I'm here. But you'll have to wait a little, fellers," said Bud, who had struck a third match in order to size up the situation around the neighborhood of the exit.
It was rather strange that in looking about him he failed to discover some sign of the presence of those four forms cowering behind as many tall ashcans; but perhaps this was because they managed to keep well out of sight.
"What's the matter in there? Why don't you
open up?" called Ted, again rapping his knuckles on the wooden barrier.
"Hold on! There's a lot of cans heaped up with ashes in the way. I'll have to move a bunch of 'em first, before I kin open the door," declared Bud; and to himself he muttered: "and I just don't like the looks of this hole any too much, tell yuh that, now. Reckon theys a hull heap of rats ahangin' around here. Ugh! what a fool I was to come in here anyhow. Gee! listen, would you?"
A sudden squealing sounded somewhere close to the feet of Bud. It was exactly like the angry cry of a fighting rat. But Paul understood instantly that Bobolink must be the cause of all this racket; for he had known his friend on numerous occasions to make good use of his gift as an amateur ventriloquist.
Bud was in a terrible state of mind. Being very much afraid of rats he would have fled from the spot could he have known which way to go. Twice he tried to strike a match, but each attempt proved a failure, on account of his extreme nervousness. And now he had no more matches with him, so that it was impossible to see the connecting door, through which his retreat must be conducted.
Ted was growing more and more angry out
side. He used his knuckles on the door again, to emphasize his demand.
"Open up here, you lazybones! What ails you?" he roared, discretion giving way to rage at the delay, when his fingers were fairly itching to lay hold of those tents, and the balance of the camp stuff belonging to the boys he detested so much.
"Oh! I'm trying to do it, Ted;" answered his tool within, "but you see the place is alive with great big rats. They're all around me in here, and wanting to take a nip out of my legs. Oh! get out of that, hang you! One got me then! I bet he took a piece out of me as big as a baseball. They'll eat me alive! Help! Help!"
But Bud was mistaken. It was Bobolink who had pinched him on the sly. Still, since the other did not know this, his terror was just as much in evidence.
"Hurry up there, unless you want us to break the old door in!" called Ted.
"Ah! go roll your hoop!" called out a voice just like the sharp twanging tones belonging to Bud.
"What's that you say?" shouted the astonished and enraged Ted, who believed his slave was rising up in rebellion.
"Go chase yourself! I'm openin' as fast as I kin, an' if you talk till you're blind I aint agoin'
to hurry any faster!" Bobolink made Bud appear to say.
"Aint, hey? Just wait till I get hold of you, Bud Jones; if I don't make you eat them words, my name is mud!" exclaimed the furious leader, outside.
"Oh! I never said a word, Ted, sure I didn't!" cried Bud, still wrestling with the ashcans in the darkness, and kicking right and left at imaginary rats which he believed were advancing in a drove to snap at his shins.
"Oh! yes, tell that to the ducks, will you? Every feller here heard what you said, too. I'm goin' to make you eat it just as soon as I get hold of you!" declared the furious leader, still bruising his knuckles in useless attacks on the boards of the door.
Bud Jones was in the most terrible predicament of his whole life. Beset by innumerable fierce foes as he believed within, there was that big bully outside, only waiting for a chance to give him a thrashing he would never forget. And the mysterious voice that sounded exactly like his own, startled him; for, not being a friend of Bobolink's he probably never heard him give those strange imitations when making his voice appear to come from some other person.
"I've got hold of the last can, Ted!" he wailed, presently, after much tugging and another
series of wild kicks into space; though he sometimes bruised his toe by striking it against one of the ash receptacles near by; "and I'm going to open up now; but please don't touch me. I never said a word against you, Ted; it must have been the rats, I guess!"
Bobolink could hardly keep from bursting into a shout at this, for he knew that poor Bud must be very near a complete breakdown through fright.
"Here it goes, fellers. Now I'm startin' to tackle the door, if the varmints will give me half a chance," the intruder called out once more.
He could be heard working away with all his energy at the heavy bar that secured the door, now and then giving a dismal little squeal, as in imagination he felt the sharp teeth of a rodent nipping him again cruelly.
"Oh! there it goes, Ted!" he cried suddenly, as the bar fell on his feet.
The door swung open, knocking poor Bud over; for there was an immediate rush of many eager figures. So Ted Slavin led his backers into the furnace room of the church, where Paul lay secreted behind an ashcan, flanked by three of his trusty and loyal scouts.