CHAPTER XIII. THE BLACK FOX.
Oscar thanked the principal warmly for his advice and for the interest he took in his affairs, and just then the little clock on the mantle chimed the hour of nine.
The boys, having promised to be at their respective homes by that time, bade Mr. Chamberlain good-night and hurried out, Sam taking possession of his cap as he passed through the hall.
"What do you think of the situation now?" inquired Oscar, when the gate had been closed behind them.
Sam stopped, and, by way of reply, seized his companion's hand, giving it a grip and a shake that would have made almost any other boy double up with pain.
"I never wanted to yell so badly in my life as I did when Mr. Chamberlain told us that that crazy man was just what he represented himself to be," said Sam. "I'll hold in until we have our next practice game of ball, or until you and I go down the river again, and then won't I make things ring? Say, Oscar, when you are knocking over that big game, right and left, you'll think of a fellow, won't you?"
"Indeed I will, Sam. How much I wish you could go with me, if I go!"
"Oh, you'll go—you need have no fears on that score!" exclaimed Sam, with great enthusiasm. "I should like to be hanging on to the sleeve of your jacket about the time you catch sight of your first antelope, but it isn't to be thought of. I must be in Harvard by a year from next fall, if I have brains enough to get there. Father has set his heart upon it, and, as he is the very best father any boy ever had, I wouldn't disappoint him for the world."
"Of course not," said Oscar. "Now, Sam, I want to ask you a question: What have you been doing?"
"Nothing—nothing whatever," said his companion promptly. "I have read somewhere, Oscar, that the way those fellows on the plains hunt the pronghorn is to——"
"That won't do, Sam," interrupted Oscar. "I want to talk about another matter. You have been hitting somebody with a ball-club!"
"No, I haven't—honor bright!" exclaimed Sam, with a great show of earnestness. "I never in my life hit anything with a ball-club except the ball and the home base. Why, man alive, I'd be afraid to do it!"
The boys had by this time reached Sam's home, which was but a few steps from Mr. Chamberlain's house.
As Sam was about to open the gate, Oscar shut it with a bang, and placed his back against it. After that, he put his books upon the top of the gate-post, and stood ready to resist any attempt his companion might make to pull him away from his position.
"Hallo, here!" cried Sam, with well-feigned astonishment. "What do you mean by that performance? Won't you let me go in?"
"No, sir, I won't—not unless you can pull me away from here, and I don't know whether you can do that or not!"
"I don't, either," replied Sam, backing off, and putting his hands in his pockets; "so I'll not try. But it is after nine o'clock, and I ought to be in bed and fast asleep. Some of the folks might come out here to look for me."
"I know they might, but they won't. Now, what have you been doing with that ball-club? I know you have been up to something, for your face got as red as a beet when Mr. Chamberlain spoke about it."
"I never saw so obstinate and persistent a fellow as you are when you once get your mind set on a thing," said Sam, leaning his elbow on the fence, and trying to look like a boy who was very badly persecuted. "I punched him with it, if you must know."
"There! I told you that you had been hitting somebody."
"But I say I didn't hit him!" protested Sam. "I only poked him in the ribs with the end of it."
"Him? Who?"
"Leon Parker."
"And got yourself into trouble by it, for Mr. Chamberlain kept you after school and gave you a good talking to."
"Well, I guess that was about the way of it," said Sam reflectively.
"What did you poke him in the ribs for?"
"Because he had too much to say about—well, he had too much to say."
"Look here, Sam," said Oscar, stepping up and laying his hand upon his companion's shoulder; "I am proud of your friendship, and I know it will continue as long as you and I live. I wouldn't say or do anything to hurt your feelings, and I wish you would be equally careful of mine. Now, don't get yourself into trouble for me any more."
"Oh, it wasn't the least trouble in the world," answered Sam, purposely ignoring Oscar's meaning; he thought his friend was becoming altogether too serious. "I poked him just as easy—and I never hurt him a bit, either."
Oscar was obliged to laugh in spite of himself.
"Well, promise me that you won't poke any more boys in the ribs with ball-clubs because they talk about me, for I know that was what Leon did," said he.
"I promise. I'll never do it again," assured Sam earnestly.
"And whatever you do, don't touch Leon Parker," continued Oscar. "I owe a great deal to his father, and I wouldn't have Leon hurt for anything. He hasn't injured me by his talking, and neither has anybody; for not one of those whose friendship I prize has turned against me."
"That's so," assented Sam. "Well, I suppose I must say good-night. Shall we take another trip down the river next Saturday?"
"I'll tell you what I'd like to do," replied Oscar. "I'd like to make an effort to recover the gun the professor lost when his boat upset. He said it was a borrowed piece, and a very valuable one, too."
"I am with you. We'll take the decoys along, and then if the ducks happen to come our way, we shall be all ready for them. Good-night! I think I was quite safe in saying that I wouldn't trouble Leon anymore," said Sam, as he opened the front door and entered the house, "for the lesson I gave him a few days ago will teach him that he had better keep his slanderous tongue still. A ball-club is a pretty hard thing to push against a fellow's ribs—that's a fact—and I'll not do it any more. I'll use my fist next time."
If Oscar had overheard this soliloquy, he would have been compelled to acknowledge that he had not gained much by the promise he had extorted from his friend Sam.
The young taxidermist walked homeward with a light heart. There was nothing now to prevent him from taking his mother into his confidence, which he proceeded to do as soon as he had entered the house.
Mrs. Preston listened attentively to his story, and when it was finished, she said, with something like a sigh:
"If that committee should decide to send you away from Eaton, I should be very lonely, for you are all I have now; but if you and Mr. Chamberlain think it is to your interest to accept this offer, I have nothing to say against it. I shall not throw a single obstacle in your way."
The boy was overjoyed to hear this. He had been afraid that his mother might not be quite so well pleased with his prospects as he was, and it would have been a sore disappointment if she had raised any objections to the plans he had determined upon.
Oscar did not settle down into a state of chronic inactivity, as many boys would have done who had a clear hundred dollars a month in prospect.
Money was needed at once to pay part of the principal and all the interest that was due Mr. Simpson, and Oscar went manfully to work to earn it in the only way that was open to him.
He spent four days of that week in the woods with Bugle, and every night a good-sized bunch of grouse, quails, and hares was shipped to Calkins & Son, who, on every second day, sent him a check for his money.
The young hunter had never known game to be so abundant as it was that year, and it was no more trouble for him to secure it than it would have been to sit in the house and do nothing.
He read and studied diligently every evening, and made regular visits to the post-office, hoping to find there the letter the professor had promised to write him; but it did not come.
When Friday afternoon arrived, Oscar walked down to Mr. Simpson's office and paid him one hundred dollars on the mortgage and thirty dollars for interest at six per cent.
He felt better after that, and told himself that the old sharper's chances for gaining possession of his mother's house and lot were by no means as good as they had been. As he was about to enter the gate, he found the farmer who supplied his mother with wood just driving out of the yard.
"Howdy, Oscar!" exclaimed the man, drawing up his team with a jerk. "Folks say you know all about varmints and things, and I'd like to have you tell me if a black fox is wuth more'n any other kind."
"I should say he was!" answered Oscar. "Have you got one?"
"Got him! No, I aint, and that there is just what's the matter of me and my hens. He won't leave one of 'em, that there feller won't, if you and Bugle don't come up to my house and shoot him. We aint got no dogs wuth their salt, and my boys can't somehow do nothing with him. They've tuk after him a time or two; but laws! they can't somehow get him to stick his foot into a trap nuther, 'cause he's smarter than chain-lightnin', that there fox is."
Oscar became interested at once. He was always on the lookout for such chances as this, for they gave him an opportunity to try his skill and Bugle's.
He knew there were many good hunters and dogs in the farmer's neighborhood, and an animal that could outwit them all must be cunning indeed.
And then he was a black fox! Oscar remembered hearing the professor say that he would be willing to give something handsome for one of that species.
"Have you ever seen him, Mr. Bacon?" he asked.
"Seen him every morning fur a hull week," was the reply, "and shot at him a time or two; but, laws! he's blacker'n that there nigh hoss of mine, that fox is, all except the tip end of his tail, and that's whiter'n snow."
"He must be a beauty!" exclaimed Oscar. "I wish I had him."
"Well, come up there and shoot him, you and Bugle, why don't you? Save the rest of my hens by knocking that there feller over, and I'll give you as good a dinner as you ever eat in a farmhouse."
"I'll try him on Monday, if nothing happens to keep me at home; but if he can get away from such hunters as I know your boys to be, no doubt he will get away from me, too. Do you know anything about his runways?"
"What's them?" asked Mr. Bacon.
"Why, a fox has regular courses which he always follows when he is started by a hound, and they are just as plain to him, and to a hunter who knows the country and understands the habits of the animal, as this road is to you. Those courses are called runways. You can't keep up with a fox when he is running before the dogs, and so you must get ahead of him and shoot him as he passes along one of these runways."
"Mebbe there's sunthin' in that there idee of your'n," said Mr. Bacon, after reflecting a moment. "I have always noticed that fox, when he crosses from one side of the holler to the other, takes to my medder and jumps the brook about thirty yards below that bridge in my lane. The dogs always start him on that sugar-loaf hill east of my house—I reckin he's got a den up there—and when he gets tired of foolin' around that hill, he crosses over to the west side of the holler, jumpin' the brook where I told you, and that's the end of the hunt, for them wuthless dogs of our'n can't never find that fox agin that day."
"I thank you for the information," replied Oscar. "You have given me a start, and I can find out the rest for myself."
"All right. Don't you forget to come up to my house and get sunthin' to eat."
Mr. Bacon cracked his whip and drove off, and Oscar went into the house. He put the string out of his window before he went to bed, and at an early hour Sam awoke him by upsetting the chair.
Everything was ready for the start, and as soon as Oscar had made a cup of coffee, and a hasty breakfast had been disposed of, the boys set out for the river.
As before, they took the wheelbarrow with them, and this time it contained, in addition to the decoys, sail, and oars, an iron drag, with four long curved teeth, which Oscar had ordered made at the blacksmith's.
This drag was made fast to a strong rope, forty feet in length, and was to be used in recovering the gun the professor had lost in the river just a week before.
The boys could not have wished for better luck than they had that day. They shot several ducks on their way down the river, and when they arrived off the head of Squaw Island, and had made up their minds where it was that the professor's boat had been capsized, Sam, who sat in the stern, threw the drag overboard, while Oscar pulled the skiff about in circles.
The water was only about twenty feet deep—the boys wished the weather was warmer, so that they could dive for the lost fowling-piece—and the bottom was composed of smooth, flat rocks, over which the sharp teeth of the drag passed almost as easily as they would have passed over a floor.
Of course they would catch hold of something occasionally, and stop the progress of the boat, and then Sam would overhaul the rope very carefully, only to find, when the drag came to the surface, that there was nothing on it.
At the third cast, however, his efforts were rewarded. The drag struck against some object that offered but a very feeble resistance as Sam tugged at the rope. He hauled in slowly and cautiously, and in a few seconds brought to light the missing gun, suspended by its trigger-guard from one of the teeth of the drag.
Sam greeted it with a series of frightful yells, flourishing it in triumph over his head, then rubbed it briskly with an oiled rag, which he drew from his game-bag, all the while making running comments upon the general appearance of the weapon, and finally he passed it over to his companion.
"Isn't it a beauty?" cried Oscar, holding it off at arm's length and giving it a good looking over. "If it shoots as well as it looks, it is certainly a valuable gun. We have saved somebody a hundred and fifty dollars."
"Yes, and more," remarked Sam. "It was made by Joe Manton, the fashionable gun-maker of England—you can see his name on the barrels—and never cost a cent less than three hundred."
When Oscar had admired the gun to his heart's content, he picked up the oars again, and pulled toward the island.
There were still a powder-flask and shot-pouch somewhere on the bottom of the river (the professor had told Oscar that with the gun he had lost all the equipments), but these articles could be replaced for so little money, and the chances of picking them up with the drag were so few and far between, that the boys did not think it worth while to waste time in looking for them. They had recovered the gun, and the owner would certainly be satisfied with that.