CHAPTER VII
A BADLY FRIGHTENED BOY
“I told ’em so. I told ’em something would happen. I warned those boys they’d get into trouble if they didn’t quit gettin’ so gay. Hal isn’t a gay one, but he can easy be a victim of a trick of one o’ those careless, dare-devil kids.”
Mr. Frankland and Mr. Porter both heard Pepper mutter thus to himself as they followed the doctor toward the waterfall whence the scream of a human voice seemed to come, but they paid little attention to his words, for they knew his peculiarities and attached little importance to his grumbling. Nevertheless, Pepper believed all he said, and more. Only a few days earlier he had observed some of the boys engaged in tying the long grass across the path that led from the stables to the west timberland on Lakefarm. Then he lectured them, promising that they would come to no happy end.
“You boys will be the death of somebody one o’ these fine days, and then you’ll begin to do some thinkin’,” he declared, as he strode along, breaking with a strong kick each of the “trips” that the mischievous youngsters had prepared. “And you, Frank Bowler, are well nicknamed ‘Bad.’ If you don’t end on the gallows, I’m dreamin’.”
Frank seemed to be the leader in this escapade. He would have liked to have made a smart reply to this direful prophecy, but for once in his life he thought twice.
This was only one of many occasions of which the old Englishman took advantage to hand out his advice. He was really a good-hearted and well-intending fellow, and no doubt did some of the boys considerable good. But there were a few of the latter who couldn’t “go the old geezer,” and Frank Bowler was one of them.
Why it was, he could never tell; but Mr. Humphrey had a “feeling in his bones” that one of the mischief makers of the school was connected with the disappearance of Hal Kenyon. And this was what he meant when he muttered the words overheard by Mr. Frankland and Mr. Porter. Although he was the one who called particular attention to the strange sound that seemed to issue from the waterfall, he did not regard it as seriously as did the others. He was thinking more of certain boys back at the school than of the mystery close at hand. True, his wonder was aroused at the sound issuing from the cataract, but his reason would not permit him to connect that with the disappearance of Hal. He was wishing that he were now back at Lakefarm closeted with “some of those bad boys and sweating the truth out o’ them.”
“I’d get it out o’ them, I’d get it out o’ them,” he told himself over and over again after the first thrill of awe at the shrill sound from the waterfall. “Whether there’s anything serious happened to Hal or not, I believe some o’ those boys know something about it. Wait till to-morrow morning, and I’ll find out.”
Pepper nodded his head and shook his fist determinedly as he spoke. He was talking vehemently now, articulating his words without reserve, for they had approached so near the noisy falls that he could not hear himself speak.
But he was interrupted by another scream from the cataract. This was no louder than the last preceding, but it was more thrilling, for they were closer. Every member of the searching party would have declared that only a human throat could send forth such a sound.