| The door was pushed violently open | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| To Jack it all seemed like a horrible nightmare | [58] |
| They pressed against the barrier like cattle | [178] |
| The horsemen in green swept down the valley | [198] |
JACK STRAW IN MEXICO
CHAPTER I
JACK STRAW’S MISSION TO MEXICO
Five members of the “D” club had gathered in Jack Straw’s room on the top floor of Phillip’s Hall the last Saturday afternoon before the end of the Spring term. They had not assembled in official conclave, indeed they had not intended to assemble at all. They had merely gravitated there one by one in search of something to take their minds off the worst disappointment they had been compelled to face that year. The Drueryville-Seaton baseball game, the one that was to have settled the preparatory school championship of Vermont, had been scheduled for that Saturday afternoon, and, lo and behold, in spite of the importance of the day, Jupiter Pluvius or whoever it was that controlled the rain supply, had made the game impossible by deluging everything in sight since early morning. And there was no chance of postponing the contest either as school closed the following Friday. The championship would have to remain undecided. And this was just the year Drueryville stood a better chance than ever of adding the “prep” cup to her trophy case. It was enough to make anyone glum.
“They should have named this place Drearyville instead of Drueryville,” muttered Toad Fletcher, the stocky little catcher of the team, as he looked across the deserted campus at the dripping eves of Bradley Hall.
John Monroe Strawbridge, who was known to every boy in school as Jack Straw, shifted his position on the window seat so that he could take another look at the weather.
“It is pretty gloomy on a day like this,” he answered after searching the leaden sky for some signs of a break in the low hanging storm clouds.
Jack and Toad were too dejected in spirit for conversation and since Bunny Baily was deeply engrossed in a book of fiction and Dick Cory and Harvey Maston were working out an absorbing game of checkers silence reigned in the room for some time. In fact a stranger passing the door would never have suspected that five perfectly normal, healthy boys were within. But then the “D” club was composed of the honor boys of Drueryville Academy and for that reason if no other, they were bound to be more dignified at times. You see the “D” club was made up of the students who had won the privilege of wearing a white and blue initial, the insignia of the school, on their caps or jersey; and in order to earn that distinction a boy must needs work hard both in the class room and on the athletic field. When a youth successfully attained such laurels the crown was apt to weigh heavily.