"Deed, cross mah heart, Mistah Butch," grinned old Hinky-Dink, seeing, as
a motion picture director would express it, "Wrath registered on the
countenance" of Butch Brewster, "Ah done tole dat young Hicks dat a bird
what cain't sing an' will sing mus' be made not to sing! Ah done info'med
him dat yo'-all was layin' fo' him, cause he done bus' up yo' sleep!"
A jay bird, a flashing bit of vivid blue, shot from a tall pine, jeering
shrilly at Butch; out on the lake, a trout leaped above the water for an
infinitesimal second, its shining scales gleaming in the sunshine. From the
cook-tent, where old Hinky-Dink grumbled at the frying pan, the appetizing
odor of frying fish assailed the football captain, softening his wrath.
High above the shanties, on a tall flagpole made from a straight young
pine, floated a big gold and green banner, its bright colors gleaming in
the sunshine; it bore the words:
CAMP BANNISTER
TRAINING CAMP
THE FOOTBALL SQUAD
BANNISTER COLLEGE
Head Coach Corridan, smashing the precedent that had made former Gold and
Green squads have their training camp at Bannister College, had brought
the Varsity and second-string stars to this camp on the shore of Lake
Conowingo, in the Pennsylvania mountains. For two weeks, one of which had
passed, they were to train at Camp Bannister, until college officially
opened; swimming, hunting, cross-country runs, and a healthful outdoor
existence would give the athletes superb condition, and daily scrimmages on
the level field back of the bluff rounded out an eleven that promised to be
the strongest in Bannister history.
As big, good-natured Butch Brewster stood in the bunkhouse doorway, his
wrath at the pestiferous Hicks forgotten, in his rapture at the glorious
dawn, he saw something that showed why his dreams had been of the wild
West! The expression of indignation, however, yielded to one of humorous
affection, as he gazed toward the shore.
"I can't be angry with Hicks!" breathed Butch, beholding a spectacle more
impressive than dawn. "So, the irrepressible wretch has Coach Corridan's
revolvers, used in starting our training sprints, and a lot of blank
cartridges! He is giving an imitation of a Western bad man. No wonder
I dreamed of Indians, cowboys, and hold-ups; I'll have revenge on the
heartless villain, routing me out at five!"
He saw a massive rock, rising thirty feet in air, its sheer walls scaled
only by a rope-ladder the collegians had rigged up on one side. Atop of
"Lookout There!" as the campers humorously designated the rock, roosted
a youth who possessed the colossal structure of a splinter, and whose
cherubic countenance was decorated with a Cheshire cat grin. Quite unaware
that his riotous efforts had brought out the wrathful Butch Brewster,
the youthful narrator of Chuckwalla Bill's stormy career continued his
excessively noisy séance.
His costume was strictly in character with his song. He wore a sombrero,
picked up on his Exposition trip the past vacation, a lurid red
outing-shirt, and he had wrapped a blanket around each locomotive limb to
imitate a cowboy's chaps. Two revolvers suspended from a loosened belt, à
la wild West, and as Butch stared, the embryo Western bad man twanged a
banjo noisily, and roared the concluding stanza of his desperado hero's
history:
"Said Chuckwalla Bill, 'Oh, boys, plant me
With my boots on—on the wide prair-eee'—
Where the coyotes howl, they planted Bill—
An' so far as I know, he's sleepin' there still!"