“Of course—” he sank back in his chair, “you boys can’t be held for it, but the contract is binding. Four thousand dollars in sixty days, five thousand more in three years—that’s the way it reads. And, as it stands Professor George is stuck for it. He signed you know. He’s got a little house and a few investments. I figure it will about clean him out. Tough, I’d say!”
“Why! I—it can’t happen!” Johnny exploded. “Big Bill tricked us!”
“Guess that’s right,” C.K. agreed. “Too bad! But a contract is a contract.”
“Four thousand dollars!” Doug groaned when Johnny told him of it. “And to think good old Professor George will have to suffer for our blunder! Of course he wouldn’t suspect Big Bill. Professor George is so honest and kind himself, he’d never suspect a trick. Johnny, we’ve just got to do something.”
“Sure we have,” Johnny agreed. “But just think! Four thousand in sixty days!”
“Four thousand. Sixty days,” Doug repeated after him. This was followed by a vast silence.
CHAPTER XIII
SECRET OF THE PINES
Next day, in keeping with his promise to Goggles, Johnny found himself seated beneath the broad-spreading boughs of a pine tree. All about him were other pines. He was not in a forest, but a grove—a twenty acre grove of pines. Old Colonel Pinchot had planted them there a half century ago. Now they were known simply as The Pines. The heart of The Pines was a marvelous place to think, and Johnny was thinking hard. When he went into anything he went in heart and soul, did Johnny. He had gone in for the Hillcrest baseball team for all he was worth.
“And now,” he sighed, “looks as if it were all off just because—well, because somebody wants what he wants and appears to have the power to take it. Four thousand dollars!” He gave vent to a low grunt. “How’s a fellow to raise that much in times like these, for a baseball team,—and in sixty days! It can’t—”
He broke short off to listen. A curious sound, for such a place, had struck his ear. It seemed to be the low rattle and chuck-chuck of a two wheel cart.