The Safety First Club and the Flood
Date: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Boys -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Floods -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Societies and clubs -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: The Safety First Club and the Flood

Author: William Theophilus Nichols

Illustrator: Frederic A. Anderson

Release date: February 15, 2021 [eBook #64566]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64566

Credits: Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University (http://digital.library.villanova.edu/))

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB AND THE FLOOD ***

HIS NEW COMRADE WAS RACING ACROSS THE FIELDS

THE
Safety First Club
and the Flood

BY
W. T. NICHOLS

Author of “The Safety First Club”

Illustrated by
F. A. Anderson

THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1917

COPYRIGHT
1917 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY

The Safety First Club and the Flood.

Introduction

The one school which never needs a truant officer is the School of Experience. Whether we like it or not, we have to go to this school, all of us; but whether we shall profit by its lessons or waste the instruction is wholly a matter of our own choice. In this story Sam Parker and his friends, some of whose experiences have been earlier set forth in the first volume of this series, “The Safety First Club,” take a new course, so to speak, with resultant profit to themselves. “The Safety First Club and the Flood” finds this group of boys, and especially its leader, Sam, worried, beset and tried by problems new to them, perplexing, baffling; not very grave problems, at first glance, but serious enough in the eyes of the boys and not unimportant in their consequences—a phase of life, in short, which has very direct concern to young or old.

Sam learns his lesson; his mates learn theirs. Incidentally, they undergo trials of the flesh and of the spirit, and are the better for both. They meet adventure which, it is hoped, will be found to the taste of the friends the chums have made and may make through this volume and those which are to follow it.

Contents

I. | The Club Confers | 9
II. | Varley Gets Acquainted | 24
III. | Uncomfortable Glory | 39
IV. | Sam’s Counsellor | 60
V. | Snow-Shoes | 73
VI. | A Little Lunch | 92
VII. | The Shark Lectures | 105
VIII. | Poke’s Mystery | 117
IX. | Sam Gets a Reminder | 133
X. | The Blow Descends | 148
XI. | The Great Mince Pie of Sugar Valley | 163
XII. | Exploring the Valley | 185
XIII. | The Shark Demonstrates | 202
XIV. | The Hunt | 220
XV. | The House of Refuge | 237
XVI. | Blind Trails | 256
XVII. | The Rising Flood | 272
XVIII. | Through the Long Night | 288
XIX. | What Befell Poke and Step | 309
XX. | The Prize Snatched from the Flood | 326
XXI. | Poke Out of Bondage | 346

Illustrations

| PAGE
His New Comrade was Racing Across the Fields | Frontispiece
“Grin and Bear It” | 70
“You Can’t Raise the Money” | 160
Another of His Precious Matches | 248
“We’ll Have to Drift Ashore Somewhere” | 320

The Safety First Club
and the Flood

CHAPTER I
THE CLUB CONFERS

It was not a cheerful afternoon. Overhead were heavy, gray clouds, and underfoot was snow, long fallen, crusted by alternate thawing and freezing, dingy with the queer winter dust, which comes from nobody knows exactly where. In the beaten track of the roadways was an icy surface, made still more slippery by a thin coating, at once grimy and greasy, offering easy traction for the sledges, piled high with wood, which now and then came crunching along the streets. But it was full of peril to the motor cars, a few of which were abroad, skidding wildly at corners in spite of chained tires and careful driving. Out in the fields the snow was perhaps a foot deep. Where paths had been shoveled the long mounds beside the walks rose almost to the waist of a man of average height. Altogether, it was a typical February scene in Plainville, a town well to the north, accustomed to hard winters and making the best of one of them, scarcely enjoying the experience but accepting it as inevitable.

Sam Parker, muffled to the chin, mittened and rubber-shod, appeared to be imitating the example set by the town. He trudged along, whistling bravely if not blithely; and quickened tune and pace a trifle when he came in sight of a little building in the lee of a big house. Turning in at the gate, he hurried up the path to the smaller building; rapped thrice upon the door—there was hint in the performance of hasty observance of a customary rite; and, without awaiting a response, opened the door and strode in.

It was a curious room he entered, low-ceiled, rough of wall and floor, furnished with the most miscellaneous collection imaginable of discarded chairs, tables and lounges from half a dozen homes. There were rugs which showed signs of long and hard wear; there were old pictures in frames still bearing the dust they had gathered in years of retirement in garrets and storerooms. Other pictures, unframed and evidently cut from newspapers and magazines, were tacked here and there on the walls. Nevertheless, in spite of the confusion and disorder the place had a certain attractiveness and an air of easy-going comfort, with a suggestion that here one might do as one pleased. A visitor, skilled in such matters, might have more than suspected that once upon a time this had been a stable, but now anybody who could read must quickly grasp its present uses; for boldly chalked on an old blackboard was inscribed in capital letters

“The Safety First Club.”

Sam pulled off his cap and overcoat, and tossed them into a corner. His overshoes followed them. Then, being relieved of his out-of-door toggery, he crossed to the stove, and stood beside it, rubbing his hands in the grateful warmth. A plump youth moved aside to give him a place by the fire; and a boy, tall and thin and quaintly sharp-angled of knee and elbow, hailed him from the depths of a dilapidated steamer-chair.

“Huh, Sam! Know anything?”

“Nothing new, Step,” Sam answered.

The boy in the low chair grunted dismally. “Ugh! Confound it, there never is—this time of year, anyway!”

Sam did not attempt to debate the point. For a moment he regarded Step thoughtfully—“Step,” it may be explained, was a contraction of “Stepladder,” a nickname bestowed by his mates upon Clarence Jones because of a degree of resemblance in his physical make-up to that useful article of household equipment. Then Sam’s glance went to the plump boy, Arthur Green in official records, but “Poke” to those honored with his intimate acquaintance. One could poke a finger almost anywhere into the well-rounded Arthur; hence the sobriquet.

“Poke” Green appeared to be meditating. His lips were pursed, and there was a line in his forehead. He loved his bit of philosophy, did Poke; but it took time for him to put his meditations into words.

Sam’s gaze traveled to a group about a table, on which were scattered magazines and a number of well-thumbed books. Two of the boys nodded. They were Herman Boyd and Harry Walker, more often called the “Trojan”; and they were good fellows and tried and true members of the Safety First Club. So, for that matter, was a bespectacled youngster, who from his place at the Trojan’s elbow was regarding Sam with a peculiar air of solemnity. Sam, meeting his eye, gave him greeting.

“Hullo, Shark! What are you trying to figure out now?”

“Nothing,” said the other curtly.

“Then you’re wasting time, you old wizard!” quoth Sam.

The Shark made no reply. Doubtless, it seemed to him that none was needed. So he merely continued to peer through his spectacles at the newcomer, with a characteristic intentness which was all his own.

Willy Reynolds, indeed, was often referred to as an “odd stick.” He had a mind of marked mathematical bent, and had proved himself so proficient in algebra, geometry and trigonometry as to puzzle and amaze his comrades, toiling along paths of learning which appeared to offer him only entertainment. So they dubbed him the “Shark,” because he always seemed hungry for mathematics.

The door opened, and in came a thick-set, sturdily built chap.

“Hi there, Orkney! Glad to see you!” Sam sang out. It might have been noted, too, that the others gave the latest arrival a welcome, each in his own way, even the Shark thawing temporarily. One acquainted with boys and their ways would have understood that there was some reason why they wished Orkney to feel himself among friends.

The thick-set lad answered each in turn, his face lighting as he spoke. It was clear that he appreciated his reception, as well he might. Time had been—and not very long before—when Tom Orkney and the Safety First Club had been at swords’ points, and when each had woefully misjudged the other. A chapter of accidents had served first to increase the bitterness on both sides, and then to remove it by revealing how thoroughly it was due to mistakes and misunderstandings. And in the end, helped on by sharing common adventures and dangers, had come reconciliation and respect. In proof of its new and genuine regard the club had admitted Tom to its jealously guarded circle of membership.

They were, it may be said, a good lot of boys; healthy youngsters in their teens—the Shark was the youngest and physically the weakest; well intentioned but not wise beyond their years; fond of fun and activity and no prophets of possible consequences of their escapades. But, as the title of their club indicated, they were learning their lesson in the school of experience. The wisdom of a policy of “Safety First” was impressed upon them, though as yet they were not too skilled in the application of the rule.

While Tom Orkney was settling himself by the table, Step Jones again raised his voice in lamentation.

“I tell you, fellows, this is the meanest, logiest, slowest, stupidest time of all the year. There’s nothing to do. The snow spoils the skating, and more than half the time the snow-shoeing and skiing are no good. Sleighing’s a bore, and coasting’s no use except for kids. And where does that leave you? Ugh!”

Nobody answered Step’s question. There was a long silence, broken by that youth himself.

“Worst winter I ever saw—yah!”

Sam Parker shook his head doubtfully. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Step. Seems to me this is a good deal like all the rest of ’em.”

“And if you want something to keep you busy, there’s always school,” put in the Trojan with a chuckle.

“School? Oh, thunder!” snapped Step with scorn.

Poke Green waved a hand, an oratorical hand; thereby signifying that he had reached a readiness to address the meeting.

“Listen, you fellows! You don’t know what you’re talking about, because you start in and say things first and think about ’em afterward. So you get ’em about half right and half wrong.”

“Go it, old Solomon!” Herman Boyd encouraged.

Poke needed no spur. “Here’s Step calling this the worst winter that ever was, which it isn’t. And here’s Sam trying to make out that it’s just like any other winter, which it isn’t, either. If this climate ever got as monotonous as all that, it’d go out of business. There have been better winters that I can remember, and there have been worse. The trouble with all of them is that there is too much of a muchness about them.”

Then the Shark spoke crisply: “Applying that to school, too?”

“I am,” said Poke solemnly. “This term’s the long pull—no holidays to break it—no Thanksgiving—not even Washington’s birthday.”

“They have it in lots of places,” the Trojan put in.

“Well, we don’t—and I’m talking about us. So right through to the Easter recess we have to pound away, and it gets tiresome, I tell you. And what’s true of school is true of the weather. Winter’d be all right if it ended along in January. Everybody’d feel braced up and ready for spring. But does it happen that way? No, sir! Winter keeps on doing business along into March or April—yes, or into May.”

“Our furnace was going last June,” Herman Boyd contributed.

Sam’s expression was thoughtful. “Well, Poke,” he said, “I follow your argument—if it is an argument. But what does it lead to?”

“To my conclusion,” quoth Poke with all possible gravity.

“What is it?”

Poke ran his glance over his club-mates; all were attentive.

“What is it?” he repeated. “Can’t you see for yourselves that it can be only one thing? The trouble with us is that we need variety!”

“But you said the weather was varied,” objected Sam.

“But it’s winter weather all the time, just as school’s school, no matter whether you’re reciting Greek or trigonometry. Then there’s another point. In summer people are coming and going, and making visits; in winter everybody’s shut up more or less. We don’t get enough human variety.”

Sam rubbed his chin. “Why—why, I don’t know but there’s something in your notion, after all,” he admitted.

“There’s a lot!” Poke insisted triumphantly.

It was not often that the Shark laughed; but he laughed now in a fashion which made his friends turn to him in surprise.

“Ha, ha! You chaps seem to forget that we have with us in this town one Paul Varley. If he isn’t a queer variety of human, I’ll square the circle for you—and that’s something nobody has done yet.”

“Oh, Varley!”

“What! That dude?”

“What have we got to do with him?”

“Say! Isn’t he the limit?”

The Shark listened calmly to these remarks of his friends.

“Well, I said he represented variety, and I stick to it,” quoth he drily.

Sam turned to Poke. “Do you mean that we ought to take in Varley?” he demanded a bit hotly.

There was a murmur of dissent. Membership in the Safety First Club was not lightly granted, and Paul Varley was not high in favor.

“I didn’t mean anything of the sort,” said the Shark. “But if anybody wants entertainment in this town this winter—why, there’s Varley to look at.”

“Yes; and listen to,” Herman Boyd chimed in.

“Huh! You talk as if you really knew him,” Step commented.

“I do—after a fashion. But Orkney knows him better.”

Tom Orkney shook his head. “Guess I’ll refer you to Sam; he knows him best of all.”

“Oh, Varley’s a——” Sam began impatiently, but quickly checked himself. “I dare say he’s a very good fellow,” he added after a little pause.

“Hang it, Sam, finish what you started to tell us!” cried Step.

Sam hesitated. Among the lessons he had been learning was that Safety First might be as advisable in speech as in action. Besides, he wished to be fair. It might not happen that any of the club would have a great deal to do with Varley, but he was well aware that a few careless words might prejudice all of them against the newcomer.

“Why—why, I’ve talked hardly half an hour with him altogether. He seemed to be good-natured.”

“Didn’t he ride his high horse for you?”

“Not much—very little,” said Sam. “Of course, he comes from a big city. And he’s been at big ‘prep’ schools. And he’s used to the rush, and crowds, and all that sort of thing. I don’t know, though, that he tried to rub it in—that we aren’t crowded here, I mean. And he did seem friendly—got to say that for him.”

“Up here for his health, isn’t he?” queried Step. “Gay life knocked him out, didn’t it?”

“He didn’t put it that way. He said he was rather run down, and so his folks shipped him up here to visit the Bateses—Mrs. Bates is his aunt, you know.”

“How long is he going to stay?”

“I don’t believe it’s settled.”

“Huh! He’s rigged out as if he were on a polar expedition.”

Sam’s lips twitched. “Well, he is outfitted pretty gorgeously.”

“I should say he was!”

“That’s nothing against him, though.”

Poke wagged his head sagely. “No; fine feathers don’t make fine birds, or spoil ’em either. When you take time and think about it——”

“You wait your turn, Poke,” Step objected. “Let Sam finish.”

“I’m through,” said Sam.

“Oh, I guess we’re all through with Varley before we really begin with him,” quoth Step. “We’ve got our crowd. I don’t see how he can make much difference to us. We’re all of us right here now, and——”

Herman Boyd, who had been looking out of the window, whistled sharply, sprang to his feet, peered through the pane, then retreated swiftly.

“Whew! Talk about angels or people!” he exclaimed. “Great Scott! but he must be coming here. I saw him turn in at the gate and——”

“Who turned in?”

“What are you driving at?”

“Who’s coming?”

They rained questions upon him; but Herman had no need to answer. Indeed, before he could do so, a hand was laid on the knob, and with no preliminary knock the door was swung. And there in the opening stood Paul Varley, quite at his ease and with a complacent smile on his face.

CHAPTER II
VARLEY GETS ACQUAINTED

There were seconds in which amazement held the members of the Safety First Club speechless and almost motionless.

This open invasion of the privacy of the club was something wholly outside their experience. A boy who didn’t belong might call there, of course, if he wished to see one of the members; but he would be expected to halt outside and hail the club with a shout, or, at the most, to knock at the door and pause outside. And he would be quite as anxious to observe this code as the members would be anxious that he should observe it. A fellow didn’t care to enter where he was not wanted, and if he had been wanted, he would have been elected to membership. That was the way the matter was reasoned out. The conclusion was accepted by everybody in interest. So for one of the town boys to walk up to the door, and throw it open, and look in at the assembled coterie, and do these things calmly and unconcernedly—well, none of the town boys would have thus conducted himself. But there was Paul Varley doing these things quite as a matter of course, thus proving himself not of the town and at the same time bringing embarrassment to the club.

Varley stepped into the room. “Hullo, everybody!” he said cheerily. “Thought I’d drop in for a minute—I’ve heard a lot about this joint of yours, you know.”

There was no response; surprise still held the members of the club.

Varley smiled genially. He was perhaps a year older than any of the Safety First boys, and a great deal more practised in some of the ways of the world. He ran his eye over the room, and spoke again:

“Pretty nifty—what! Snug as a bug in a rug, aren’t you?”

Oddly enough, it was the usually reticent Shark who first found tongue.

“We like it.” He threw an emphasis on the “we,” to which Varley might have taken exception, had he been disposed to be critical. But the caller was not looking for trouble.

“I should think you would,” he said smoothly. “Fixed it up yourselves, didn’t you? Thought so. More fun to do it.”

It did not seem to occur to the Shark that it was his business to make reply, and nobody else volunteered. Varley took off his cap. It was a handsome cap of fur. He unbuttoned his overcoat; it was fur-lined. In fact, from head to heels he was outfitted for very cold weather, as if his garments had been selected for wear in semi-Arctic regions. Plainly enough, somebody had told him wonderful tales of winter temperatures “up country.”

The evidences that Varley intended to make a stay of some length stirred Sam to his duties as unofficial head of the club. Somehow, the rôle of spokesman seemed to fall to him, in times of emergency, by a sort of common consent.

“Er—er—why, how do you do?” he stammered. “Won’t you take a seat?”

Varley shook his head. He was still smiling in his friendly fashion.

“Why, no; I’d rather look about a bit, if I might,” said he. “I’d heard so much, one way or another, about this den of yours, that I made up my mind I’d make a call. Thought, too, I’d find you all in about this time of day. Say, you’ve got a cracking good hang-out! Said you fixed it yourselves, didn’t you?”

Then up spoke the Shark, testily: “Nobody said that.”

“But it’s the fact, all the same,” Sam hastened to remark. “Yes; what’s here we did, or made, or whatever you choose to call it.”

“Smooth work, too,” said Varley quickly. “Garage once, wasn’t it?”

Inasmuch as the club-house was the property of Step’s father, Step felt called upon to make reply.

“No—stable.”

Varley turned to the tall youth. “Whatever it began with being, it’s all right now. And it’s a bully good scheme you fellows have. Great place to loaf, this is!”

Now this was said affably enough, and with no trace of the condescending note for which the boys were listening keenly. A chap—an older chap—from a big city might be disposed to be patronizing; and the Safety First Club did not care to be patronized. But no fault was to be found with Varley’s manner. Sam felt moved to explain the plan the crowd had followed.

“Oh, we got together what we could,” said he. “Each one contributed. Somebody brought an old sofa, and somebody else a table his folks weren’t using any more, and so it went on. And if anybody had a picture he liked, he hung or tacked it up. That’s the way it went, and—er—er—that’s about the whole story.”

Varley nodded, and crossed the room to examine an old engraving. From this he went to inspection of a very modern cartoon from a newspaper.

“Liberty hall—I get the idea,” quoth he. “And I like it. Gives variety. By the way, it’s like the plan they have in some of the big clubs. Members contribute odds and ends—curios—they pick up. It’ll make quite a museum after a while.”

“Or quite a junk shop!” interposed the Shark. He was staring hard at the visitor through his spectacles, and his expression was dubious, if not hostile. The other boys moved uneasily. They had begun to recover from the surprise of the visit, and to understand that Varley felt himself on a purely friendly errand. Therefore there should be allowance for his ignorance of the local code, and avoidance of controversy. The Shark’s speech embarrassed them, but not Varley. He laughed, lightly and good-naturedly.

“You’re on the mark, at that. Museums and junk shops are a lot alike; but that doesn’t prevent ’em from being interesting. Why, I went into a queer old shop one day, and there was an old machine, with all sorts of rings and pivots, and hung on ’em was a—a—well, it looked like an oblong sphere and——”

“What!” shouted the Shark.

Varley glanced at him questioningly. “I beg your pardon?” he said with a touch of formality.

The Shark drew a long breath. “An oblong sphere!” he repeated slowly. “Jee-whippiter!”

Again it was Sam’s duty to explain. “Don’t let the Shark bother you. He means well, but he’s a bug on mathematics—and cones, and circles, and cubes, and spheres, and—er—er—and all that sort of thing. But he’s harmless.”

Once more Varley’s laugh saved the situation. “I understand. And he’s right, at that. What I meant was, that the thing was egg-shaped—almost, but not quite. And that little difference in shape, the inventor figured, was just what would make it a perpetual motion machine, that would keep going forever, once you started it. Of course, it didn’t work. But I say!”—he was looking straight at the Shark—“I say! If you’re up in the ‘math’ I envy you. It’s my stumbling-block—gets me every time.”

“Umph!” said the Shark non-committally. In his experience the world was strangely crowded with beings woefully deficient in the mathematical sense. He was learning to make allowances for their shortcomings. The visitor, by frank confession of incapacity, won a degree of toleration, if not of approval.

“Yes; it gets me every time,” Varley went on. “I’ve had half a notion to see if I couldn’t go into the senior class at your high school, just to brush up on the mathematical review—maybe I shall yet. But first I want to get better acquainted with the town and the people. That’s why I dropped in on your crowd. And now that I’ve said ‘Howdy,’ I’ll move along.”

“Oh, don’t be in a hurry,” said Sam politely.

For the first time the blackboard, with its boldly chalked inscription, caught Varley’s eye.

“Hullo! What’s that? Safety First Club? Say, that’s a funny name for a lot of boys to pick out!”

“Well, it pleases us,” said Sam, a little curtly.

Varley’s ready smile was in evidence. “So I supposed, or you wouldn’t have chosen it. But it’s an odd name, all the same.”

Sam hesitated an instant. “It—well, maybe it is odd. But some things happened to impress us with the need of looking before we leaped. So we agreed on the name. Then other things happened to impress us some more, and we kept it.”

“I see,” said Varley; but then he repeated, “Safety First Club, Safety First?” as if he were still puzzled. “Somehow, that seems to bar a lot of fun.”

“Oh, we manage to get along.”

“Where do you draw the line between what’s safe and what isn’t?”

Again Sam hesitated. “Why—why, I guess there isn’t any general rule. You have to settle each case as it comes.”

“But what’s the rule for settling it?”

The Shark came to Sam’s assistance. “Law of chances,” he said curtly.

“Meaning——?”

“Can you get away with it? Can’t dodge all risks, can you? But when you have to take one, isn’t there a safer way than the first way you think of? Just stop and figure. It pays!”

Varley shook his head. “That’s all right for mathematical sharps,” he said laughingly; “but I’m not in that class. The tree would fall on me, or I’d drown, or the bull would toss me over the fence, long before I could cipher out what the chances were.”

“Pays, all the same, to try,” the Shark insisted.

Varley glanced a little inquiringly at Sam. As has been explained, he was older than the club’s members, and more versed in the ways of the world; and now he had an intuition that the boys, while satisfied with their club’s title, were not eager to discuss it with a comparative stranger. He looked at Sam, but Sam said nothing.

The visitor buttoned his overcoat. “Guess I’ll be running along,” he remarked. “Mighty glad to have had a look at your den.”

“We’re glad you like it,” said Sam, reminded of his manners.

Varley moved toward the door. He was quite aware that nobody had asked him to call again, and for the first time since his arrival began to feel a trifle of embarrassment.

“Fine place—bully!” he said. “I—er—er—I don’t suppose anybody is going my way?”

Now, there was something in the other’s manner which brought a sudden change in the plans of Sam Parker. Maybe his instinct of hospitality stirred; he might at least escort this unbidden guest whom he had failed to welcome warmly.

“Guess I’ll trot along, too.” He caught up his cap and overcoat, put them on, and slipped into his overshoes. “Ready, when you are,” he added.

Varley said, “Well, so long, you fellows!” and said it jauntily; but he was silent while he walked away from the club-house with Sam. The latter also seemed to be tongue-tied. Indeed, the pause threatened to become awkward for both of them, when Varley, with an effort, ended it.

“Great winters you have up here!” he said jerkily. “Must be no end of sport, when you get the hang of things. Can’t say I’ve quite done that yet.”

“You’ll get it quickly enough,” Sam assured him.

“Hope so,” said Varley. “I’d like——” he broke off abruptly. “Hear that? What’s happening up the street?”

Sam didn’t answer. Indeed, he had no need to do so. Like Varley, he had heard the sharp “honk, honk!” of an automobile horn rising above the jingle of sleigh-bells, and then a woman’s shriek of alarm, and the quick beat of hoofs on the icy roadway. A horse, drawing a light cutter, had taken fright at a passing motor car, had got out of control of the woman who held the reins, and was making a frantic bolt. Turning, the boys had a glimpse of a wiry bay, neck outstretched, ears back, red nostrils distended; of a sleigh swaying wildly; of a woman tugging vainly at the reins.

“Runaway!” gasped Varley. Then he did the instinctive thing, and the plucky thing. The horse was very near, and coming fast. Varley sprang into the street. Promptly as he acted, though, there was a second in which his eyes were on Sam; and in that instant he had a queer impression that his companion was about to do as he was doing. But Sam suddenly appeared to change his plan, for he wheeled, and ran down the street, approaching the track of the runaway, not directly but on a long diagonal.

There flashed on Varley an ugly doubt of Sam’s courage. Then for a little he forgot everything but the galloping horse, and the part he meant to play in stopping the maddened animal. He leaped over the piled up snow lining the sidewalk, and gave a great bound for the horse’s head. He was not reckoning risk, or chances—or conditions, for that matter. It had not occurred to him that just at this point the frozen road, with its thin, greasy coating was extraordinarily slippery and treacherous under foot. He hardly realized what was happening, when, as he was about to grasp the bridle, his feet shot from under him. The shoulder of the runaway struck him. Luckily, it was only a glancing blow, but it sent him reeling back, out of danger of contact with plunging hoofs or lunging sleigh. Down he went in a heap, sorely shaken and with the breath half driven from his body; and there he lay, recovering his wits and his wind, while he watched Sam, twenty yards away, score success where he had failed.

Sam sprang much as Varley had sprung; but he caught the reins close to the bit, and was not shaken off. Not that he was able to check the runaway’s career at once—as a matter of fact, he was dragged a considerable distance. He forced the horse, though, out of the beaten track and into the deeper snow, and little by little he reduced the speed. The animal struggled hard, but Sam kept his hold. Two or three men came running up; and in a moment more the horse was at a standstill, trembling like a leaf, but again under control; his driver had been assisted from the sleigh, and was thanking Sam so warmly for his timely help that the boy, blushing hotly, was glad to beat a retreat and return to Varley, who by this time had picked himself up, and was brushing the snow from his overcoat.

“Great Scott! but that was a star job of yours!” was his greeting.

“Oh, it was just luck,” Sam answered modestly.

“Luck?”

“Yes; luck to find better footing than you had.”

Varley gave a queer little groan. “Thunder! I didn’t think about that.”

“Well, right here’s one of the smoothest places you can find anywhere; you need spiked shoes to stand on it. Farther on, though, it is rougher—rough enough to give you half a show, anyway. I saw how it was and ran along a bit. If you’d thought to do that, you’d have been all right. You made just as good a try as I did.”

Varley glanced at the other keenly. “Look here! First off, you were starting straight out just as I did. Then you stopped, and changed your scheme. You had the real hunch. I was stood on my head, and you got away with things. And all the difference was, you took time to think.”

“I tried to,” said Sam quietly.

“It was a clever plan. But I say!” Varley paused an instant, his expression half admiring, half uncertain. “Come now! You talk about belonging to a Safety First Club, yet you pile in in a case like this——”

Sam interrupted him. “Our kind of Safety First doesn’t mean wrapping yourself up in cotton wool and stowing yourself away on a shelf. It doesn’t mean dodging all risks—you’ve got to take some. But it does mean finding the best way to take them, if they seem to be necessary, and cutting them out, if they’re not necessary. That’s all there is to it.”

Varley finished his task of brushing the snow from his coat. He straightened himself, and looked at Sam.

“Somehow or other, Parker, it strikes me there’s a lot to be said for that notion of yours,” he remarked with conviction.

CHAPTER III
UNCOMFORTABLE GLORY

Sam Parker was disposed to think little and say less of the incident of the runaway horse. He had come out of the affair with some credit and a slightly sprained wrist, but he made no mention of either at home or at the Safety First Club. At school a somewhat vague report was circulated that there had been a frightened horse and a very good “stop”; but none of the pupils happened to have been about at the time of Sam’s exploit, and the story went the rounds without bringing in his name. Sam was quite content with this; and as he did not see Paul Varley for several days, he regarded the episode as a closed chapter.

Meanwhile he was working hard at his books. He stood well in his classes, though he headed none of them; and he had an incentive for study.

Sam expected to spend the last year of his preparation for college at St. Mark’s, a famous school for boys. He was to go there in the autumn, after completing the third year of his course at the town high school; and inasmuch as his father’s consent to this arrangement had not been easily won, he prized it all the more highly. It had been granted, indeed, only after a series of adventures had satisfied Mr. Parker that his son was possessed of certain valuable qualities of self-reliance and discretion. Sam, reasonably, was greatly pleased with the outcome, and his satisfaction was increased by the fact that both Step and Poke were to be sent to St. Mark’s with him, while it was by no means impossible that one or two others of the club might join the colony. He looked forward eagerly to his year at the big school, but with a sensible understanding that good scholarship would be much to his advantage.

Sam lacked the mathematical talent of the Shark, just as he had no such peculiar knack as Step showed in Greek. The tall youth shone in translations from the tongue of Xenophon and Homer in a manner which was wholly inexplicable to his friends—as they frequently remarked with much feeling. In Latin Step was a mediocre performer; his French left much to be desired, but when it came to Greek—“Why, he eats it alive!” was Poke’s admiring declaration. Sam, being without such special genius, found none of his studies very easy—and, no doubt, profited the more in mental drill because he had to work for what he gained. His class rank was good, if not distinguished; and he stood well with the school principal and the other instructors, who saw that he was an influential fellow among his mates, including many who were not of the charmed circle of the club.

Trudging to school one morning—it was several days after the affair of the runaway—Sam fell in with Poke, who appeared to be in a curious mood. Ordinarily, Poke was a cheery soul, and good-natured, but this day gloom was upon him. He answered Sam’s hail with something very like a growl; and when they fell into step, he groaned unmistakably as response to the other’s remark that it “wasn’t such a bad morning.”

Sam looked at him wonderingly.

“What’s the row?” he asked.

Poke dug his hands deeper into his pockets, and sank his chin in his coat-collar.

“Oh, nothing!” He said it as dismally as if everything had gone wrong.

“Don’t you feel well?”

“Well enough—that isn’t it.”

“But what is, then?”

Poke hesitated; he seemed to be struggling between eagerness and reluctance.

“I—I—well, something’s going to happen.”

“What?” Sam demanded.

“Just wish I knew!” cried Poke fervently.

Sam took him by the shoulder, and shook him vigorously.

“Wake up, Poke! You’re dreaming.”

Oddly enough, Poke caught at the suggestion.

“It was a dream, all right, but it wasn’t a common dream. I tell you, it was a—er—er—it must have been a warning!”

“What sort of warning?”

Poke wagged his head heavily. “My! but I wish to-day was safely over!” he said ominously.

Sam laughed. It was a skeptical laugh, but it had a trace of uneasiness.

“Go on! You’re joking!”

Poke heaved a tremendous sigh. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t be talking about joking if you’d had that dream yourself!”

“What was it about?”

“Everything—all mixed up! Course I can’t remember it all—you never can. But we were in it—all the fellows in the club were. And the way it went—Geeminy! first thing I knew I was sitting up in bed and yelling like an Indian. And I couldn’t get to sleep again, and the thing has been hanging over me ever since. It won’t go away. That’s why I feel in my bones that something is going to happen, and why I wish this day were over. Why, Sam, that was the meanest dream, the scariest dream—the—the——”

Poke broke off; for round a corner came the Shark and Step Jones. And, of a sudden, it had occurred to the seer of visions that the Shark was the last person of his acquaintance who was likely to show sympathy for such a tale. But the newcomers had caught part of his speech.

“What you driving at, Poke?” Step inquired. “Talking about dreams, weren’t you? Go ahead!”

“Oh, it’s nothing of any importance,” said Poke hastily.

“Huh! Seemed to be important enough a minute ago,” Step remarked. “What was the yarn, Sam?”

Poke preferred to do his own explaining, if explanation there had to be.

“I was telling Sam a story—yes; a story about a dream I had last night. And—well, I was telling him, too, that it worried me. It wasn’t a common dream—not by a long shot! And—and if you’ve got to have the whole thing, it is worrying me a lot! There’s trouble brewing for somebody, a heap of trouble.”

Step regarded Poke with wide-opened eyes and sagging jaw, but the Shark’s lip curled scornfully.

“Nonsense!” he jeered.

“I tell you, it was a warning!” Poke insisted.

“Warning of what?”

“Why—why, I don’t know; that’s just the trouble.”

The Shark was regarding the prophet of evil very steadily. “Poke,” said he, “what did you eat last night before you went to bed?”

“Noth—that is, nothing to speak of.”

“Let’s hear about it, all the same.”

Poke wriggled, but the Shark’s eye held him. “Well, I was sort of hungry, so I went out to the pantry, and had a nibble.”

“At what?”

“Oh, anything I came across. But it was just a bite.”

“How many bites?”

“Oh, a few, I suppose. It was only a snack.”

“Crackers?”

“No.”

“Cake?”

Poke reddened. “’Twa’n’t cake—it was a piece of pie, if you’ve got to know. But I don’t see——”

The Shark gave a queer, barking laugh. “Ho, ho! Pie, eh? Mince pie, I’ll bet you!”

Poke tried to assume an air of offended dignity. “Well, it was mince, if that’s any comfort to you.”

“Ate a whole pie, didn’t you?”

“No, sir!” shouted Poke indignantly. “It had been cut.”

The Shark turned to the other boys. “Oh, come along!” said he. “Guess we’ve treed the ghost that sat on the foot-rail of Poke’s bed and made faces at him. We’ll be late at school if we don’t wake up.”

Sam and Step moved on with the Shark, Poke following dejectedly.

“All right—have it your own way!” he called after them. “You don’t have to believe anything’s going to happen, but you just wait and see! I tell you, this day is going to be a bad one for somebody!”

It cannot be said that either Sam or Step attached much more importance than did the Shark to Poke’s forebodings; and the morning’s work proceeded in a manner to remove all traces of uneasiness. Things went well for all the members of the club. None of them was tardy. Lessons appeared to be well learned, and teachers were in good humor. Even Poke himself shone in recitation, though he droned through his translations in mournful fashion, and declined to be consoled by approving words from the instructors.

At the opening of the Junior class’s English period the principal of the school entered the room, and after a whispered word or two with the teacher took the platform.

“I have an announcement to make,” he said. “I have chosen this time and place because it deals with something more or less directly connected with the work of this class in English. And to go straight to the point, the announcement deals with a very desirable prize, to be awarded in a competition open to all of you, and in which I hope many of you will take part.”

A rustle ran through the assembled class. Everybody was interested, with the exception of the despondent Poke, who merely slumped a little lower in his seat.

The principal cleared his throat, and went on. A friend of the school, who was engaged in local historical research, was ready to pay one hundred dollars to the pupil who should produce the best essay on the settlement and early days of the town. Industry in the collection of facts would be given quite as much consideration as the style and finish of the essays.

“In short,” the principal added, “the conditions will be such that all of you will find this a fair field of rivalry. It is not the intention to limit any contestant rigidly in the matter of space; though I must warn you that waste of words will count adversely. You can have room for all the facts you gather, but this means room for concise statement. The contest will close on the first of April, when the essays must be handed in; and the winner will be announced as soon thereafter as possible. A detailed statement of the conditions of the competition will be posted at once on the bulletin-board.”

Then the principal walked out of the room, and the class broke discipline for a little to discuss this great news in eager whispers. A hundred-dollar prize for a composition! That was the way most of them put the matter. And a hundred dollars seemed to be most inviting. Besides, there was hardly a boy or girl there who didn’t feel convinced that in some old aunt or uncle, or, better yet, grandfather or grandmother, was possible source of just the information that would win the competition. And style and finish were not to determine the result—there was a condition much to the general liking; this wasn’t to be a contest practically limited to the half dozen Juniors with a known knack for writing. Even the Shark wagged his head approvingly, though he had no notion of entering the lists, white paper used for composition instead of figuring being more or less wasted, to his way of thinking. Only Poke remained indifferent, and sunk in gloom.

The teacher, presently, called the class to order, and the recitation proceeded. At its close came recess, and the Juniors, flocking into the corridors and out to the school yard, fell to discussing the contest in all its bearings. Sam and his chums happened to be standing near the foot of the stairs when the principal came down from his office on the second floor, accompanied by a youth at whom the boys stared in surprise. For the youth was Paul Varley.

Paul stopped to speak to the boys, and the principal checked his pace, as if waiting for the visitor to have his little talk with the others.

“Maybe I’ll be with you fellows,” Varley said. “Some things I want to brush up on. I’ve been going over the business with Mr. Curtis”—he glanced at the principal—“and he thinks he can fix it for me.”

“But we’re Juniors, and you’ll be a Senior,” Sam remarked.

“No; more of an unclassified special student. I’ve had a pretty ‘spotty’ preparation, you know; and it struck me it would be a good thing to look after some of the weak spots while I’m here. So I made up my mind to—— I beg your pardon, madam!”

Varley, as it chanced, was the only one of the group who was facing the entrance. This fact accounted for his sudden change of tone.

A woman had come into the hall. She was a comfortable, middle-aged, plump person, whose hat was a trifle awry, and whose manner indicated much earnestness.

None of the others had seen her come in, and none suspected her presence till Varley spoke. Then everybody turned quickly.

“I’m looking for somebody,” said the woman briskly. “I guess he’s somewhere round this school. Only—only I ain’t quite as sure as I ought to be. And—and——” she hesitated, peering at the faces before her. Compared with the light out-of-doors, the hall was somewhat dim. “No, I don’t know whether he’s here or not,” she concluded.

“And his name——?” It was Varley who put the question; for Sam and his friends appeared to be tongue-tied, while the principal chanced to be in the background.

“Mercy me, but I don’t know! That’s the trouble—they didn’t seem to know, either, any of them—the men, I mean.”

“Ah!” said Varley courteously, but uncertainly.

The principal stepped forward. “I’m afraid we don’t understand, madam,” said he. “If you’ll kindly explain——”

The visitor laughed. “Dear me, but somehow I always do manage to get the cart before the horse! But the men, they said they thought—— Wait a minute, though!” She moved nearer Varley, and studied his face intently. “Wait a minute! I vow, but this one looks like the fellow. Yes; he’s the one.... No, he isn’t, either. He’s the boy that tried, and went rolling head over heels.”

Varley gave a sudden laugh. “I get it! You’re talking about the runaway. And you’re right—I was the fellow who took the tumble.”

“The runaway?” Two or three of the boys spoke in chorus, wonderingly. Sam Parker instinctively began to edge away. The movement caught the woman’s attention. A sharp glance at Sam, and her expression brightened.

“Here he is, sure enough!” she cried. “He didn’t tumble, and he held on like grim death till the colt stopped, and the men came running up to help. And then he slipped off before I could get my breath or my manners back enough to say ‘Thank you!’ But I’m going to say it now, and say it out loud!”

With that, she briskly pursued the retreating Sam, overhauled him, and cast an affectionate arm about his shoulders. Then, holding him prisoner, she addressed all within hearing.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard or haven’t heard about this, and I don’t care. I’m going to give my testimony. This boy”—she gave Sam a vigorous hug—“this boy did a brave thing. He took the chance of breaking his neck, when my colt was frightened by one of those pesky automobiles and made a bolt. This boy”—another hug—“stopped him, and saved me from being killed, or getting an awful spill. And I’ve come here to look him up, and thank him good and proper—so there!”

Now, to tell the truth, Sam at the moment looked anything but a hero; for he was wriggling and struggling vainly, and blushing furiously and unhappily. So public and so demonstrative a display of gratitude overwhelmed him.

“I—I—oh, ’twasn’t anything,” he stammered.

“I tell you, it was a whole lot to me!” declared the woman. “And I’ve been racking my brains how to show how I feel about it.” Again her arm tightened, and for a panic-stricken second Sam thought she was about to kiss him then and there, and in the presence of the crowd. He made a frantic effort for freedom, and his captress, who may have had some notion of boyish diffidence, released him, her eyes twinkling.

Sam would have given much for the privilege of instant flight; but luckily kept his wits and held his ground. To run away would be merely to add fuel to the fire of ridicule to which he believed his mates would subject him. So he tarried, and miserably attempted to smile, thereby deceiving nobody, and least of all the visitor.

With a degree of tact she turned to the principal.

“You’re Mr. Curtis, aren’t you? I thought that was your name. Mine’s Grant—Mrs. John Grant. I live over in Sugar Valley. I guess that’ll do for introductions, though you might as well tell me this boy’s name, if you please.”

“Samuel Parker,” said Mr. Curtis.

“I won’t forget it, or what its owner did for me. I’ve tried to thank him, but I ain’t sure that I’ve exactly tickled him in doing it.” She smiled whimsically, and Sam, in spite of himself, winced. “But what I hope he’ll understand, and all of you will understand, is that I’m his friend for life. I’d like to do something to show how I feel about it. And I will do something!” Suddenly she wheeled to face Sam. “Come now! All boys I ever heard of liked good things to eat. It may strike you as not amounting to much, but I’ll send you one of my mince pies——”

“Oh, but you mustn’t!” Sam protested. “It—it’ll be too much trouble.”

Mrs. Grant paid scant heed to the objection. “I guess you don’t know the kind of pie I mean. There’s pies and pies, young man. And you won’t forget the one I send you.”

Poor Sam feared that this was likely to prove a very mild statement. Forget? Would that he could forget the whole affair, or better yet, that his chums might forget this most embarrassing episode! But while he grinned feebly, and strove to contrive a fitting speech, Mrs. Grant came to his rescue by bidding everybody a cheery farewell and taking herself off, apparently well pleased with the results of her visit to the school.

“Well, I feel like old Columbus when he sighted America—he’d come a long way to find something, and he’d found it. And ’tis quite a drive in from Sugar Valley, but ’twas worth the trouble. I’ve found out things. So it’s a good day’s work for me—and, Master Parker, I’ll try to make it a good day for you, too. You’ll hear from me again and—no; you wait and see what’ll happen. So good-bye, everybody, good-bye!”

Out of the door and down the steps she went, smiling broadly, while behind her silence reigned for seconds. All eyes were on Sam, as he was most miserably aware. Other pupils had come up in time to hear her closing remarks, and there was quite a little crowd in the corridor, including some of the girls.

One of the latter ended the silence. She tittered nervously rather than mischievously. There was a ripple of laughter; then some of the boys set up a shout in the very presence of the principal.

Poor Sam would have blessed his stars had a trap-door opened beneath his feet and permitted him to drop out of sight. But the stout floor remained intact. The principal raised a warning hand, and shook his head at some of those who were giving way to mirth; but Sam did not wait for order to be restored. He turned, and blindly forcing a way through the press, retreated as best he might, but in most unheroic fashion. He had not been afraid of a runaway horse, but with all a boy’s diffidence he dreaded the sort of celebrity his exploit unexpectedly had brought him.

On the outskirts of the group Poke tugged at the Shark’s sleeve.

“There now! What did I tell you?” he demanded.

The Shark peered through his glasses at his friend. Poke was no longer gloomy. He was grinning with a queer effect of utter complacency.

“One time or another you’ve told me a lot of idiotic things,” growled the Shark. “Which particular one do you mean now?”

“That warning—warning of trouble for somebody.”

“Rats!”

Poke wagged his head. “Look here, Shark! I said it, and you heard me say it. I told you I was sure a heap of trouble was coming to somebody. Well, it came! Old Sam caught it. I wouldn’t have been in his shoes just now for—for—for I don’t know what. Neither would you. So the warning made good!”

The Shark rubbed his chin with an unusual manner of doubt. “Why—why—well, it was fierce for Sam. But I—I’d hate to admit——”

“Course you would!” Poke interrupted. “You’re prejudiced. You don’t believe in anything unless you can put it in figures.”

The taunt swept away the Shark’s indecision. “Warning—nothing!” he snapped. “Too much mince pie, that’s all!”

Poke’s grin was triumphant. “All right! Call it too much mince pie, if you want to. But wait till Sam gets that pie that’s promised him, and the crowd hears about it! Then I guess you’ll think I was right all through.”

“Huh!” grunted the Shark skeptically.

Poke laughed aloud. “Ho, ho, ho! I don’t beat you often, Shark, but when I do, I beat you all to pieces. Talk about mince pie, if you want to. I’ll talk about it, too, and when we get through, we’ll see who hits nearer the truth. Just you wait and see, and——”

But the Shark was moving away. For once, at least, he found it impossible to maintain argument against Poke, the unmathematical philosopher and seer of strange visions.

Sam’s good deed had brought him most embarrassing reward. Of this the Shark was quite as convinced as Poke could be, or Sam himself.

CHAPTER IV
SAM’S COUNSELLOR

Sam took the matter of Mrs. Grant’s gratitude and the promised pie much to heart. He was, as it happened, a sensitive fellow, and he was of the age at which dread of ridicule is perhaps keenest. So he readily imagined that the whole school was laughing at him and the picture he must have presented with Mrs. Grant’s stout arm about his shoulders; and made himself miserable by suspicion of amusement in every glance he caught and of personal application in every laugh he heard.

He had been reasonably satisfied with the manner in which he had stopped the runaway, and might not have objected to a certain amount of publicity, provided it could have come in the right way. If some man, who had been a witness of the affair, should have met him on the street, and clapped him on the shoulder, and growled “Clever job you did, youngster!” or “Good work, son!”—why, that would have been all right, and quite in accord with his idea of the proprieties. But to be hugged and patted, and promised a pie, with his club-mates and others looking on, to say nothing of the principal—truly, Sam felt that his was a hard and undeserved fate.

His behavior was somewhat like that of most stricken creatures; that is, he sought solitude. He shunned the club. From school he went straight home, and there, curled up in a corner of the library, read or studied industriously. Even to his father and mother he said little, and to neither did he confide a syllable of his unhappy experience. This sort of thing went on for two or three days, with the natural result that by much brooding upon his troubles he magnified them out of all proportion, and made himself so genuinely miserable that, at last, he was driven in desperation to seek diversion. He tried to find it at the club, and again his luck was bad.

Trojan Walker had the gift of mimicry, and Herman Boyd liked to devise little dramatic scenes. Sam walked in upon the assembled club, just in time to behold the Trojan, with a shawl wrapped about him to increase his resemblance to Mrs. Grant, presenting a lump of dough on a toy pie-plate to Herman, to the extreme delectation of the spectators. Step and Poke were roaring with laughter, and even the solemn Shark was chuckling.

“Heroic youth, accept this slight trifle as a testimonial of my deep and undying gratitude and affection,” the Trojan was reciting. “You risked your life to save me, and now you can risk it again. This is no common pie. It’s a—a—a——”

There the Trojan hesitated, stammered, paused. He had caught sight of Sam, standing in the doorway; and something in the other’s face warned him that he was on dangerous ground.

Oddly enough, it was the Shark who broke the silence, which for a moment held the group.

“Come in and shut the door, Sam,” he said curtly. “You’re making a draught.”

But Sam neither closed the door nor advanced into the room. Instead, he held his position, glancing from one to another of his chums. Poke laughed nervously; Step fell to rubbing his jaw with a quaint air of perplexity. The Trojan and Herman instinctively fell back a pace, as if expecting attack. Sam’s face was white, but his eyes were blazing.

There was another pause, which seemed very long to all the boys, watching the newcomer, and perceiving more or less clearly that he was having a hard fight to keep his self-control. Then, of a sudden, Sam turned on his heel, and strode out, slamming the door behind him, and leaving a party no longer in a mood for private theatricals.

The Trojan cast his shawl into a corner; Herman dropped weakly into a chair. Poke, staring at the door beyond which Sam had vanished, spoke for all of them.

“Gee—minee!” he quavered. “But who’d ’a’ thought he’d take it as hard as all that?”

Meanwhile Sam was hurrying along the street. When he came to his father’s place, he turned in at the big gate, but instead of going to the house marched to the barn. There in a combined harness room and workshop he came upon Lon Gates, coachman, chauffeur, gardener and general factotum of the Parker household, and also often counsellor and sometimes consoler of its youngest member.

A glance showed Lon that Sam was flying storm signals. Out of the corner of an eye he watched the boy, who had dropped upon a bench near the little stove. A full minute passed before either spoke.

“Well?” Lon drawled, finally.

Sam made no reply, but stared industriously at his shoes.

Lon went on with his work—he was repairing a harness. He fitted a new buckle in place of an old one; tested it; glanced again at his young friend.

“I dunno, Sam, but you’d feel better if you got it out of your system,” he remarked leisurely.

No response from the youth on the bench.

Lon continued his task for a time. Then he began to whistle. Sam stirred uneasily.

“What’s the matter? Out o’ tune, am I?” Lon inquired.

“Way out!” snapped the boy.

Then Lon laughed. “Ha, ha! Must ’a’ ketched it off you, son. What’s the trouble, anyhow?”

“Noth—nothing.”

“All right—tell me about it.”

Sam raised his head. “Oh, it’s nothing—nothing to talk about, that is.”

“Well,” said Lon meditatively, “it pays to experiment now and then. You never can tell ’bout some things. And there is sort of a relief, somehow, in usin’ the human voice—kinder safety-valve effect. And it looks to me as if you’d been bottlin’ up steam long enough.... T’other boys been rilin’ you, did you say?”

“Yes—but I didn’t say so.”

Lon waved a hand. “Well, now you’re started, go ahead. I’m listenin’.”

Sam hesitated. “It—it’s a long story.”

“What’s the odds? It’s a long time before we have to knock off for supper.”

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you everything.”

“Couldn’t, eh? That club o’ yourn in it?”

“Hang the club!” cried Sam hotly. “I’ll never go there again!”

Lon shook his head. “All right, maybe, only—only what do you fellers call yourselves? Beats all how I forget names!”

“It’s the Safety First Club.”

“Why, so it is! And ‘Safety First’—that’s your motto, ain’t it? Good ’un, at that! It’ll keep you out of lots of mix-ups by makin’ you stop to think twice before you do things or say things you’ll be sorry for.”

The red crept into Sam’s face. “Oh, well, Lon,” he said, “maybe I’ll go there again some time. But I wouldn’t now—you couldn’t hire me to. The way that crowd treated me——”

“Hold on! All the crowd?”

Sam reflected briefly. “Orkney wasn’t there,” he admitted. “But he’d have been as bad as the rest.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Lon advised. “That Orkney boy thinks a heap of you, Sam—all the more, likely’s not, ’cause you’re kinder an acquired taste with him. Mind how you two started to scrap, and how you misjudged each other, and how he ran away, and how you was mighty glad to have a hand in bringin’ him back? And——”

Sam stopped him. “Lon, that’s all true. But that’s another story. This one’s about me, and I—well, I’m the goat. And for that crowd to keep bringing up to me how that woman grabbed me, and told me she’d give me a mince pie—but say! I didn’t mean to tell you.”

“I know you didn’t,” said Lon calmly. “But now you might as well go ahead, and fill in the blanks in the yarn.”

Sam drew a long breath. It would be a relief to have a confidant, and he trusted Lon’s discretion.

“Well, I’ll tell you—tell you the whole thing,” he said, and plunged into the narrative, beginning with his dash for the head of Mrs. Grant’s runaway horse, and continuing through the scene at the school and the interrupted performance at the Safety First Club.

Lon listened with admirable gravity. He understood perfectly Sam’s frame of mind.

“Jesso, jesso!” he remarked sagely, when the tale was told. “Riled you all up, Sam, didn’t it? But I dunno’s there’s anything real fatal about it. The Grants are mighty nice folks—I know ’em. Fine place they’ve got over to Sugar Valley, too. And Mis’ Grant—she meant all right, only she didn’t realize, mebbe, that a boy’s more or less like a rabbit when it comes to public pettin’, and behaves accordin’. So, if you’d cut and run——”

“I couldn’t,” Sam explained hotly.

“Good thing you couldn’t. Same way when Mis’ Grant makes good with that mince pie——”

There Sam’s wrath exploded. He raged for a moment or two, Lon listening patiently.

“Well, it’ll be some mince pie,” he said at last, when the boy had paused for lack of breath. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be declinin’ it ahead o’ time and sight unseen. You can never tell, you know, how the thing may strike you when it happens. Maybe you’ll be hungry, and maybe you’ll feel like treatin’ that club of yours——”

“No—no, siree! I’m through with ’em!” Sam managed to gasp.

“Umph! Not flocking with ’em much, eh?”

“You bet not! Not after the way they ragged me!”

Lon meditated briefly. “Sam,” he said, “you’re an amazin’ human critter. Fust and last, you have got a power o’ human ways about you. And I reckon most every human with any spunk one time or another makes up his mind the whole world’s against him, and starts in to fight it. So he tries to kick the world ’round for a while, and likely’s not keeps it up until he notices that he’s stubbed his toe and the world ain’t takin’ any interest to speak of.”

“Huh!”

Lon chuckled softly. “Te he! Say! Wonder if I ever told you about old Brodman.”

There was a little pause. Then Sam said, “Guess not.” He spoke half curiously, half unwillingly.

“Well, old Brodman was a pretty decent citizen—all right in his way. But he was jest as human as you, Sam. So it happened once he got to figgerin’ that the town was down on him and treatin’ him mean. ‘I’ll get even with ’em,’ he says to himself; ‘I’ll have nothin’ to do with ’em.’ So off he goes, and flocks all by himself for a good, long spell. At last, though, it gets sorter tiresome, and back he trots, and runs smack into one of his old neighbors. ‘Hello!’ says the neighbor, casual like. ‘How do you do?’ says old Brodman, all dignified. The neighbor yawns and looks at the sky. ‘Kinder threatenin’ rain, ain’t it?’ says he. Old Brodman glares at him. ‘Look here!’ says he, ‘don’t you and all the rest of the town know I’ve been away? Hain’t ye missed me?’ ‘Wal, I wouldn’t exactly call it “missed,”’ says the neighbor. ‘You see, Brodman, ’most everybody thought you was in jail.’”

Sam sprang to his feet. He crossed the room to a window, through which he stared industriously.

“If you’d like to have the moral o’ that story,” Lon went on, “it’s that one human can’t buck all the rest. The odds are too big. What’s a ton to him ain’t a featherweight to the world. And applyin’ that moral to a case nearer home, I’d say you’d better make up your mind to go back to your crowd, and grin and bear it. And the more you grin, the less you’ll have to bear.”

“GRIN AND BEAR IT”

“I won’t do it.”

“Umph! Safety First! Ain’t that your motto?”

“It doesn’t apply here.”

“’Deed it does! Don’t let your notions get twisted.”

Sam continued to stare out of the window. “You’re asking too much, Lon. I can’t stand being a butt for a lot of fool jokes—I won’t stand it!”

“What’ll you do? Turn hermit?”

“Why—why, no.”

Lon resumed his work. There was a long pause before he spoke.

“Sam, you take my advice. You’ve been mopin’ around the place for two-three days. Get out and stretch your legs. Take a big tramp—a reg’lar hike. Wonderful what a lot of brain fog you can walk away from if you walk far enough.”

Sam shook his head. “No fun in that. It’s beginning to snow, too.”

“Well, go to-morrow, then. A fresh fall will make crackin’ good snow-shoein’.”

“No fun going alone.”

Lon grinned. “Son, I guess, after all, that story about old Brodman did sink in.”

“Huh! Don’t think it’s much of a story,” Sam growled, and moved toward the door.

“That depends,” Lon called after him. “A story’s like a crowbar—makes all the difference in the world whether you use it right or wrong.”

CHAPTER V
SNOW-SHOES

The morning dawned clear and still. Over night there had been a fall of several inches of snow, freshening the white of the winter landscape. Even the roadways were not dingy now, while the fields were broad and smooth and shining expanses. Sam heard the call of out-of-doors, but hesitated to obey it. The day was his, to do with as he pleased, for it was Saturday, and there was no school session. But, somehow, the call was of the sort that one ought not to hear alone, being, indeed, a comradely, sociable call of good fellowship.

To make the most of such a day one ought to be with one’s chums. Sam understood this perfectly—and stubbornly fought the understanding. Lon’s advice had not been wasted, though it had not persuaded Sam to seek the Safety First Club boys again.

After all, his problem was not so simple as it might appear to be. In addition to the resentment felt by a sensitive fellow, something was involved which, for want of a better term, might be called “club politics.” Sam had been the leader of the crowd and of the club. Often his had been the deciding opinion, when his mates had failed to agree. It can hardly be said that he had consciously sought the leadership, but it could not be denied that he enjoyed it. And he was a sufficiently shrewd judge of boy nature—which is a good deal like human nature in general—to realize that a leader who is laughed at is not likely to retain his prestige. Besides, he had failed to take the easy way out of his trouble at the beginning. If he could have laughed with the others, and made a joke of his embarrassment, the whole affair might now be an old story; but the others having rocked with laughter, while he stood miserably silent, it was still a story the club found intensely diverting.

Sam pressed his nose against the window-pane, and stared unhappily at the crisp, white snow. It was very inviting—but the idea of a lonely tramp did not appeal to him. And while he gazed disconsolately, Paul Varley came along the street, with a pair of snow-shoes under his arm.

Sam regarded him hungrily. To tell the truth, Varley filled the eye. His gay-colored knitted cap was set jauntily on his head; a mackinaw jacket of striking pattern was buttoned about him, and leggins and moccasins added to the general effect of his apparel.

Sam watched the city youth disappear up the street. Then, suddenly, he turned from the window. Inspiration had seized him.

Varley undoubtedly would put on his snow-shoes when he reached the outskirts of the town, and strike out over the hills. If he kept near the main road, it would be possible for a pursuer to use a short-cut, and overhaul him without much difficulty. Just at the time, too, Varley was almost the only fellow with whom Sam felt that he could foregather without sacrifice of pride, for in the matter of the runaway Varley’s part had been sufficiently inglorious. So Sam made haste. He got himself into cap and coat, and laid hold of his snow-shoes, and departed by way of back streets and paths which lessened distance. Where the houses were few and far between, and there were long stretches of snow unmarked by runner or footprint, he adjusted his snow-shoes with practiced care, and headed up a little valley, marked here and there by clumps of trees. Traveling briskly, he soon reached the end of the valley, and climbed a low hill to his left. At its top ran the road Varley was likely to follow. So shrewdly had Sam made his calculations that, when he gained the summit, he saw the other approaching and hardly a hundred yards away.

For a novice Varley was not doing badly. His speed, to be sure, was not great, and he floundered along a bit clumsily on his web-supports; but he took no tumbles while Sam waited for him to come up.

“Hullo, Parker!” he called out, as he drew near. “Where did you drop from?”

“Oh, I’m just taking a little breezer,” responded Sam carelessly. “Pretty good going, eh?”

Varley laughed. “I guess it’s good; I don’t know. This is a new game for me.”

Sam surveyed him from head to foot. “Well, you’re rigged for it, anyway.”

“Oh, I outfitted at one of the big sporting-goods stores before I left the city. Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t rather overdo it.”

“You’re all right,” said Sam shortly, if encouragingly. “Say! that’s a newfangled sandal you’ve got there.”

Varley glanced at the leather foot-piece attached to the snow-shoe and into which his foot fitted snugly.

“They told me it was the latest thing. Somehow, though, I’m not sure that it works as it ought to.”

Down went Sam on his knee. He made close inspection; pulled experimentally at one of the sandals; shook his head.

“Your left foot’s too far back—gives you no toe-hold. Want me to shift it?”

“Wish you would!” said Varley heartily. With interest he watched Sam set to work deftly, loosening the thongs which bound the sandal to the web and then readjusting them and knotting them firmly.

“There! Guess that’ll give the play you need,” said Sam, and stood up.

Varley nodded. “Feels better, anyway. And I say! Mind, do you, if I trot along with you?”

“Course not—come along!” Sam told him with real heartiness.

Varley ran his glance over the miles of country visible from the little elevation on which they stood. The morning air was wonderfully clear, and the snow glittered bravely in the wintry sunshine.

“Oh, but this is bully!” he exclaimed.

“’Tis pretty good,” Sam admitted. “Look! Notice that peak sticking up to the north—way off—right on the sky-line? That’s old Pequaket—one of the big hills, you know. It’s all of seventy miles off—you can’t see it, except when things are right. And the little mountain to the south—that’s Rainbow. ’Tisn’t much of a mountain, at that, but somehow it manages to make quite a show. And there’s a hotel at the base of it. Nice place, too. Began by being a summer house, but now one wing’s kept open for folks who come up for winter sports.”

Varley shaded his eyes with his hand. “How far away’s the little mountain—Rainbow, you called it, didn’t you?”

“Oh, eight or nine miles.”

Out went Varley’s arm. He pointed to a gap in a ridge to the right.

“That’s a queer jog off there. What is it? Railroad cut?”

“No; it’s the entrance to Sugar Valley.”

“Ah,” said Varley politely, but without especial interest.

Sam felt the blood rush to his face, but plunged ahead with the explanation he seemed to be bound to make. “The valley widens out a lot a little way in. And there are some fine sugar camps—that’s how the place gets its name.”

“Sugar camps?” Varley repeated doubtfully.

“Yes—for making maple sugar.”

“Oh, maple sugar? I get you. I’d like to see ’em make it.”

Sam could have hugged him. Plainly enough, Sugar Valley did not suggest Mrs. Grant and her manifestation of gratitude.

“You’ll have plenty of chances. The season comes when the snow goes. Now let’s get along! Care where we go?”

“Not a bit,” said Varley. “You lead.”

It was rather incautious permission. Sam, elated by discovery of a companion who appeared to have lost sight of the runaway and its consequences, cheered by fellowship, and with the magic of the bracing air and the sunshine to set his blood coursing swiftly, set out at a pace which soon left Varley floundering far in the rear. Observing this, Sam halted for the other to overtake him, and went on more sedately, pausing now and then to give Varley a helpful hint. The city boy was an apt pupil. He learned quickly, but it was clear that his strength was not great. Sam, who was an observant fellow, slackened pace still more.

With such a day, though, neither of the pair was likely to consider very seriously the distance covered. They went on and on, sometimes tramping over the unbroken snow beside the road, sometimes making detours across promising fields. Once or twice they invaded wooded tracts, but roots and branches proved too big a tax on Varley’s skill, and they promptly made for the open. They were in high spirits, the novice’s occasional tumbles seeming to be as entertaining to him as to his instructor.

At last, as they halted on the top of a small hill, a sound came to their ears, a far-off sound, not loud but distinct, and often repeated.

“What’s that?” Varley asked curiously.

“Guess!” said Sam.

The other listened intently. There’s no stillness more wonderful than that of a calm day when the snow lies deep on the ground, and the earth seems to be dozing comfortably under its white coverlet. Tap, tap, tap! came the distant sounds, breaking the silence with almost the regularity of the beat of a pendulum.

“I—I can’t imagine what makes those sounds, but they’re—well, they’re clear-cut—if you can call it that.”

“You’re guessing better than you knew,” quoth Sam. “Wood-chopper over in the woods yonder.”

“You mean a lumberman?”

“More likely some farm-hand getting out fire-wood.”

“I’ve never seen a tree cut down—a big tree, that is.”

Sam laughed. “Well, that chap probably isn’t leveling any forest monarch, but if you’d like to see him work, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Come ahead!”

Off they set again, Sam leading. They crossed a valley at the foot of the hill, mounted a gradual slope on the farther side, climbed an old stone wall, and found themselves in a wood lot, fairly free of undergrowth. The sounds of the axe were much louder now. Sam, pointing, gave a shout.

“See that treetop sway? We’ll be in time to see it come down!”

They hurried forward. That is, Sam hurried and made progress. Varley, also making haste, caught a snow-shoe on a hidden obstruction, and took a magnificent header into a drift. He was struggling up in a second, powdered with snow from head to foot, with snow up his sleeves and down his neck, but grinning cheerily in spite of his mishap.

Sam, glancing back, shouted again. Varley took a step forward. Then suddenly he cried out, sharply, warningly.

The tree was no longer swaying back and forth. Instead, the tall trunk was falling like a great beam swinging on a pivot at its base. Its limbs tore through the boughs of its smaller neighbors, but above the noise of cracking and breaking wood rose a voice, shrill with alarm.

It was all over with startling swiftness. Here was a case in which fractions of a second counted. The woodsman, stepping back when his final blow with the axe had been delivered, had heard Sam’s shout. For an instant his attention had been distracted; and in that fateful instant the course of the falling tree was diverted from its original direction. When the man became aware of his peril, the trunk was descending straight upon him. He tried to spring aside, but it was too late to escape. He was caught, hurled to the ground, and held there, with the tree trunk fairly across his body.

Varley had had just a glimpse of what was occurring. It was because of this that he had cried out, instinctively trying to give warning, though he hardly realized the full danger to the man, of whom he first caught sight just before the tree struck him.

Sam, who had not perceived how near they were to the chopper until Varley gave him a hint, needed but a glance to understand the sort of accident which had befallen. He dashed to the side of the prostrate workman, caught his arm, and tried to drag him from beneath the tree. The effort was in vain. The man groaned feebly, and opened his eyes.

Varley, quivering with excitement, came up, and tugged uselessly at the tree trunk.

“Can’t we lift this? Tell me what to do—anything! I can’t stir it—it must weigh tons!” he exclaimed.

Sam was doing his best to think fast and clearly. The chopper, a big, powerful fellow though he was, could do nothing to help himself. Even had he suffered no injury he was so pinned down that he was held as if he were trapped. But for the deep cushion of snow he must have been terribly crushed; and even this had not served to save him from hurts which the boy believed to be serious enough.

The man spoke faintly, brokenly: “Get—get somebody! Over on the road—there’ll be somebody drivin’ along.”

Sam bent over him. “Where’s the nearest house?”

“Too—too far. And only the women folks to home. Try the—the road!”

“Where are you hurt—worst?”

The man made a feeble attempt to raise his head. With an effort he suppressed a moan. Big drops of sweat were showing on his forehead.

“Ribs—two-three cracked or—or caved in. Hur—hurry, can’t ye?”

Varley caught Sam’s sleeve. “I’ll go! Best thing to do. I’m no good here, and you may be. All right?”

Sam nodded. He did not see what service he could render by remaining; yet he was unwilling to desert the sufferer, and Varley could do as much as he could in summoning passers-by to the rescue.

“Beat it, then!” he said crisply.

Varley set off at the best pace he could make; and while Sam was studying the problem of first aid under difficulties, his new comrade was racing across the fields. Breathless from his exertions, he reached the highway just as two youths on snow-shoes came into sight around a bend. Varley recognized them as Poke and Step. They were not the aids he would have chosen in such an emergency, but this was not a time for delay.

Step hailed him with amazement. “Hullo! What are you doing off here by your lonesome? Lost, are you?”

“Come—come along!” Varley panted. “Both—both of you! Man hurt—over in the woods!”

“But what are you——?”

Varley didn’t let Step finish the question.

“Hustle! It’s a—a bad job. Parker sent me——”

“What! Sam Parker hurt?”

Varley wrung his hands in impatience. “No, no! Tree fell on a fellow. Parker stayed with him, and sent me for help.”

Step looked vastly relieved. “Oh, that’s it, eh? And Sam’s all right? And he’s staying with the other chap? Well, he knows what to do, if anybody knows.”

So speaking, Step swung one of his long legs over the low wall, and followed it with the other.

“Poke and I are just out for a breather—great going, eh? But if you’re after hustle, I’m your man. So’s Poke. Come along!”

Varley turned, and headed for the woods, the others keeping close beside him.

“If you’ve got wind enough, tell us just what happened,” Step suggested.

Varley did his best to comply. It is to be feared, though, that his story was not very coherent. Indeed, he had given his companions little more than an outline of the story when they reached the timber.

Sam had not been idle. He had scraped away a good deal of the snow about the injured man, and having found a stout pole, was experimenting with it as a lever, though he had not succeeded in raising the tree trunk by an inch.

The victim of the accident was groaning faintly; but he pluckily gritted his teeth, when Step and Poke sprang to the lever, and hoisted with all their strength. Then Varley added his efforts. The tree rose very, very slowly.

“Try to hold her where she is!” Sam told his comrades.

Bending down, he caught the man by the shoulders, and with all possible care drew him from beneath the huge, imprisoning bar. The sufferer’s face was contorted with pain, but his grit didn’t fail him.

“Goo—good work, boys!” he gasped.

The three at the lever loosened their hold, and the tree settled back to its bed in the snow. Varley tore off his gay mackinaw. He was about to put it under the man’s head when Sam stopped him.

“Hold on! You’ve given me a hint. We ought to get him out of here and under shelter. And we need a stretcher.... Don’t roll up that jacket. Button it, though, and see that the sleeves are clear.”

Varley obeyed, wonderingly, while Sam stripped off his own overcoat.

“Get a couple of poles—good, straight ones!” he said curtly to Step and Poke.

The former had a big knife; the latter caught up the woodsman’s axe. In a moment each had cut a promising sapling and was lopping away the leafless branches.

Sam slipped an end of one of the poles inside Varley’s coat, and through the right sleeve. Then he repeated the operation with the other pole, this time, however, making use of the left sleeve. A moment more, and he had similarly disposed of his own overcoat at the other end of the poles, and was drawing the two garments close together. Thus he had an extemporized stretcher, with the coats as cover and the saplings as supports. It was not a handsome contrivance, but looked serviceable. The heavy outer jackets were of stout cloth, and the sleeves would prevent the poles from working loose.

And now came a difficult task—the placing of the sufferer on the stretcher. In this all the boys joined, doing their work as gently as they could. The woodsman did his best to help, but in spite of his pluck a deep groan burst from his lips, and his face was ashen when at last he lay upon the coats.

At a nod from Sam the boys laid hold of the poles, Sam himself and Step at the man’s head, and Poke and Varley at his feet.

“Easy, everybody!” was the leader’s caution, but it was hardly necessary. With all imaginable care the stretcher was raised, and the bearers began their slow march. Luckily, the hardest part of it was soon over. Once they were out of the woods and in the open fields progress was easier, especially for Varley, who was still far from master of his snow-shoes.

Sam had learned where the man lived, and directed their course toward the house, which was perhaps a quarter-mile from the scene of the accident. Before reaching it they came to the road, and had to solve a problem in scaling the wall with their burden. This they accomplished safely, though not without much trouble; but, as if in speedy reward, they then experienced an unexpected bit of good fortune.

A white horse came trotting along the beaten track, drawing a sleigh in which rode a gray old man, muffled in a huge fur coat. At sight of the party the old man pulled up.

“Dr. Emery!” cried Poke and Step joyfully.

The doctor sprang from the sleigh. He needed no explanation of what had happened. He made hasty examination of the woodsman; glanced at the extemporized stretcher; grunted.

“Huh! Good idea, that! Rough and ready, but it answers. And you’re bringing him in? Right!”

The injured man forced the wanest and faintest of smiles.

“Say, Doc!” he whispered. “Them—them boys—they—they’ve got gumption!”

The doctor nodded briskly, and began to climb into his sleigh.

“It’s only a little way to the house—’twouldn’t pay to try to load him in here. I’ll go ahead, and have things ready to take care of him. Get him to the door, and there I’ll take him off your hands.”

Step tightened his grip on the stretcher pole. He looked to Sam for orders.

“Give us the word, Sam,” he said. “You’re captain of this team.”

Sam felt his pulse quicken. Circumstances had done for him what he would have been puzzled to do for himself. Once more he and his chums of the club were on the good old terms of fellowship.

CHAPTER VI
A LITTLE LUNCH

“Well! I’m mighty glad that’s over. But now what are we going to do?”

It was Step who spoke thus, addressing Poke and Sam and Varley, as they stood grouped in the road before the house in which they had left the injured man. Nearly an hour had passed since they brought him home on the extemporized stretcher, and it had been a busy hour at that. Dr. Emery had not hesitated to press the boys into service. They had gone on errands to neighbors’ houses; they had assisted in the transfer of the victim of the accident from the stretcher to his bed; they had brought in a supply of fire-wood for the woman of the house; Poke had driven away in the doctor’s sleigh and returned with a nurse of much experience in caring for the sick of the countryside. At last, though, all that could be done had been done. The doctor had resumed his interrupted round; the nurse of experience had taken charge of the distracted household; the sufferer was resting as comfortably as one might hope to rest with fractured ribs and bruised body and limbs.

“Boys, you’ve behaved like trumps,” had been Dr. Emery’s parting words. “It has been a good morning’s work for all of you. Guess I’ll have to enroll you as my first-aid detachment.”

With that he clucked to his horse, and rode off, leaving the four in the road. There followed a long silence, which Step ended. The boys looked at each other. Step had uttered the thought of all of them. What were they to do next?

The strain and the excitement were over. Not one of them but felt the reaction. Varley gave a queer little laugh.

“Fellows, this sort of thing’s all new to me. I—well, it’s taken all the ginger out of me. I feel like a—a——”

“Like a rag?” Sam suggested.

Varley nodded. “That’s it! Like a rag, and a wet rag, to boot.”

Poke wagged his head solemnly. “I know! Been there myself. Sort of gets you here——” and he laid a hand on his stomach.

“That’s just it! It isn’t exactly as if you were hungry, but like it, somehow.”

Sam, the practical, pulled out his watch, and whistled softly.

“Whew! No wonder you chaps feel that way. It’s twenty minutes to twelve.”

“And dinner’s six or seven miles away!” gasped Poke.

“Nearer eight.”

This time Poke didn’t gasp; he groaned. “I see where somebody I know gets mighty unpopular at our house. Confound fussy folks, anyway!”

“Same thing at our place,” quoth Step and drew a long face. “If a fellow’s late for a meal they act as if they thought he ought to be in jail.”

“Well, it’s up to us to make tracks,” said Sam, then cast a half dubious glance at Varley; a hurried march back to town would be no joke for the novice on snow-shoes.

Varley noted the glance, and read it aright. “Wait a minute, fellows,” he said. “I’ll own up. I’m almost all in. No, I don’t mean I’m leg-weary exactly; it’s more wear and tear on nerves, I guess. If I could have a bite to eat and a chance to sit down by a fire for a while, I’d be all right.”

“Huh! I guess that’s what Jonah said when he found himself inside the whale!” jeered Step.

Sam spoke quickly. “Varley’s hit it! I feel the same way, only I didn’t know enough to say so. I don’t hanker for that tramp home, but what else is there to do?”

“Nothing,” agreed Poke gloomily. “We might as well start.”

But again Varley delayed them. “Hold on! Parker, you told me about a hotel at the foot of Rainbow Mountain, didn’t you? Unless I’m all wrong in my geography, we must have been traveling toward it, and it can’t be very far away.”

“Not more than a mile,” said Sam.

The other’s face brightened. “Then I’ve a scheme. Let’s go there and get something to eat.”

“Oh!” said Sam doubtfully.

Step shook his head, and Poke slapped a pocket, from which came no cheering jingling of coin.

“My treat, of course!” cried Varley hastily.

“I guess we’d better not—thank you, of course, though.”

That was Sam’s instinctive observation. Step shook his head harder than ever. Poke rubbed his chin uncertainly; at that moment he was conscious of a peculiarly vigorous appetite.

Varley seemed to know how to meet the objections of the others.

“Oh, come now!” said he persuasively. “You fellows have been doing things for me, and helping me out with these contraptions——” he glanced at his snow-shoes. “You’ve given me a lot of pointers. Give me a show to even up part of it. Parker tells me the hotel is open. We’ll go there and get a little lunch, and loaf around for a while, and start for town when we feel like it. It’s the one sensible thing to do. Why not?”

None of the others found it easy to explain why it was not the sensible thing. And Varley’s careless reference to the proposed refreshment as a “little lunch” certainly did seem to throw new light on the case and remove in some degree the sense of incurring undue obligation.

“Why—why—I don’t know—that is, I don’t see——” Poke began.

“’Twould be fun,” Step admitted.

“Certainly it will—come along!” Varley urged.

Sam hesitated. The case was of a sort to perplex an older and wiser head than his. On the one hand was reluctance to accept hospitality he might not be able to return; on the other was dread of appearing boorishly unresponsive. His pocket money chanced to be low; and he was quite sure Step and Poke were in the same plight. So it couldn’t very well be a “Dutch treat.” And pride revolted a bit—town pride, perhaps—at being at a disadvantage, compared with the city youth. But Sam was hungry. Poke was hungry, too, and so was Step.

Varley tugged at Sam’s sleeve. “Let’s trot along!” he urged. “Just a little lunch, you know. Make us feel like fighting cocks, it will. And I don’t mind telling you I need something like grub to take away that goneness.”

It was the repetition of the “little lunch” which turned the scales with Sam. Rather vaguely he pictured light refreshment—sandwiches, maybe, and a boiled egg or two—to be enjoyed picnic fashion.

“All right, I’m with you, Varley—and much obliged,” he said. “Do as much for you some day. And I’d be glad to have a look at the Rainbow Mountain House. They say it’s a very good hotel.”

“Well, we’ll find out how good it is!” cried Varley jubilantly. “Come ahead!”

It was a generous mile that lay between the boys and the hotel, but with the spur of hunger and the equally encouraging sense of mild adventure, they covered the distance briskly enough. On the road Varley was a humble follower of his companions, but when they entered the big lobby of the hostelry, he took command of the expedition.

The others hesitated briefly, glancing about them at the great fire blazing cheerily, at the many easy chairs, at the tables on which were ranged newspapers and magazines, at the deer heads on the wall, at the half dozen guests who were in evidence, some of them in the fur coats in which they had just returned from a long drive in sleighs. But Varley unconcernedly crossed to the desk, and addressed the clerk on duty.

“Lunch for four,” he said. “And we’d like it at once, if we can have it.”

The clerk pushed forward the big register, and offered Varley a pen.

“Certainly,” said he. “Luncheon is served in the main dining-room.”

Varley entered the names of the party in the book—he had to ask Step and Poke’s initials, but he wrote “Samuel Parker” without hesitation. Then he stepped back, smiling cheerily.

“We’ll freshen up a bit, and then go right in,” said he.

Both Sam and Step had been studying the lobby and the people, but Poke was staring, in a sort of fascination, at a tall vase at an end of the desk. It was slender and graceful of line, and was made of a prismatic glass, which caught the light and reflected it in many-hued brilliance.

“Golly! Look at the sparkle!” he exclaimed.

“That’s our mascot—our luck piece,” the clerk explained. “Odd thing, isn’t it? You’re quite right about the sparkle—regular rainbow effect, in fact. That’s why it fits the Rainbow Mountain House, you see.”

Poke wagged his head in his solemn fashion. “I do see it. And it is—er—er—it is mighty—er—er—appropriate.”

But Varley was tugging at his sleeve. “Oh, come along! A plate with a lot on it would look still more appropriate.”

Poke yielded to the pull. “There’s room for more than one good thing in the world at a time,” he remarked philosophically. “I’ll be glad enough to eat, but that—that sparkler—say, somehow it takes my fancy a lot.”

“Well, you can sit down after lunch and admire it,” Varley reminded him. “Just now your first duty to yourself is to play an engagement in the dining-room.”

The Rainbow Mountain House was a very comfortable, well-managed hotel, whose landlord had a theory that people liked good things to eat. His winter guests especially were likely to be blessed with vigorous appetites, and he took especial pains not to disappoint them. So, while the midday meal was known as luncheon, it was, in fact, a substantial repast, daintily served in the big, sunny dining-room. Sam’s first glimpse of the bill of fare made him glance swiftly, and suspiciously, at Varley. A little lunch, forsooth! Why, this was a dinner of half a dozen courses. But Varley met the glance blandly and with no recognition, apparently, of the fact that it was suspicious. He was entirely at his ease in presiding over the table to which the boys had been conducted; and what was more, he put his guests at their ease.

Truth to tell, the four had an excellent time. All of them had been at still larger and more pretentious hotels than the Rainbow Mountain House, but always in company with their elders; and this little party had the agreeable tang of novelty and independence. Varley kept the talk going briskly. He told a story or two of his misadventures at boarding-school. He added another of an odd experience while traveling in Europe, but gave no hint of regarding himself as a person of superior talents or attainments; for quite as cheerfully he related some of the amusing blunders into which he had been led by ignorance of the ways of the country. Then the other boys recalled tales to cap his, so that, altogether, it was a very merry group about the table.

Finally the meal was over, and Varley tipped the waitress with a practiced ease which vastly impressed the observant Poke. The four went out into the lobby, and found chairs near the great fire. They were filled with the comforting sense of ease and refreshment, and nobody was disposed to suggest an early start on the long tramp to town. It was much better fun to toast before the fire and watch the people come straggling in, some from snow-shoe expeditions, others from coasting. There was a pleasant murmur of talk, with a deal of rippling laughter and a subdued bustle, very restful and soothing to the well-fed listener.

Varley sauntered over to the desk. There he paid the bill. The other boys saw him draw a roll of notes from his pocket, pass one to the clerk, and stow away his change with barely a glance at the silver.

“Gee! but he’s well heeled!” Poke whispered to Sam, admiringly.

Sam nodded, but said nothing. It was clear that Varley was well supplied with spending money; but he was not moved to comment on the fact.

“Say! He knows how to do things up brown!” Poke insisted.

“Indeed he does!” Sam agreed heartily enough.

Poke stretched himself luxuriously. “This is one bully place! I like everything about it. Cracking good feed, wasn’t it? And that shiny vase over there—— Say, somehow I can’t keep my eyes off it!”

“It is pretty.”

“Pretty!” Poke’s tone was protesting. “That’s a mild way to put it. I could sit and look at it for an hour at a time.”

Sam made no reply. He was watching Varley, who was talking to the clerk, but who finally wheeled, and returned to his companions, smiling a trifle uncertainly.

“I hope you won’t think I’m too much of a quitter,” he said, “but I may as well own up. I don’t fancy that hike back. So I’ve made a deal with that fellow to send us home in a sleigh. We can start whenever we’re ready. And—and I hope you won’t mind.”

It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to make protest, but Step spoke first.

“Mind? Not I! I’m not too proud to ride—not by a long shot.”

“Good! Then we’ll consider that settled,” said Varley quickly.

Poke shot a glance at Sam. “What did I tell you about doing things up brown?” he queried with a chuckle.

Again Sam said nothing. As it happened, it did not occur to him that he needed to say anything.

CHAPTER VII
THE SHARK LECTURES

The Shark was out of humor. He sat in a corner of the club-room, glowering through his spectacles at his fellow members, and quite ignoring the chess-board on the table beside him.

Now, though the Shark had a brusque manner and was often curt in speech, he really was a fellow of even disposition, and seldom became involved in disputes. One reason for this, perhaps, was the circumstance, observed by the philosophical Poke and by him communicated to the rest of the club, that “it was surprising how many things didn’t make any difference to the Shark.” Athletic rivalries did not excite him; school competitions, except in his specialty of mathematics, ordinarily had no interest for him; unless forced to do so, he gave no heed to school politics. The other members of the club might be in a fine state of mind over any of a dozen questions without stirring the Shark perceptibly. So it was all the more curious that this day, when his friends appeared to be getting along in harmony, the Shark was having a fit of the sulks or the blues. He had been working over a chess problem—working and growling, it must be confessed—and having failed to reach its solution, had pushed back the board and was regarding the others darkly and with hostility.

The club was in full session. Everybody was there, with Sam Parker fully restored to his old position of influence. A fortnight had passed since the rescue of the injured woodsman and Varley’s little lunch, two incidents which had restored Sam’s relations with Step and Poke and made easy his return to the fellowship of the club. There it was understood that Parker didn’t like to be joked about runaway horses or mince pies, and these topics being placed under taboo, things were going much as they had gone in the days before Mrs. Grant’s horse chose to bolt and before Varley came upon the scene.

Sam enjoyed the renewed companionship. It had needed a brief denial of it to realize what it meant to him. So he had been as little disposed to take offense as the others had been to give it; and there had been hardly a ripple of bickering anywhere until the Shark, of a sudden, developed a case of nerves and a yearning for squabbles.

“You’re the most useless crowd!” he grumbled. “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you get a move on? You’re loafing on the job, every one of you!”

There was a long silence after this outburst, which took the others completely by surprise. Finally Sam spoke.

“Well, what do you want to have us do?”

“Oh, anything!”

“But what is there to do?” Step inquired.

“What is there to do?” the Shark echoed scornfully. He sprang from his chair and came forward. “Look here, all of you! You make me tired! Why, right in this room a while ago I heard Step going on about this being the meanest, slowest, stupidest part of the year.”

“So it is,” Step insisted.

“That’s what you said. There’s no skating, and the snow-shoeing and sleighing and coasting are not worth having—wasn’t that your argument?”

“I’m sticking to it still.”

“Bosh!”

Then Poke took a hand. “Tell you what it is, Shark,” said he. “Winter’s all right, in its way; but you can get too much of a good thing. It gets monotonous—leave it to you if it doesn’t.”

The Shark declined to commit himself. “This gang is getting lazy. All it seems to care for is to sit around and tell stories. You’re as good for nothing as a lot of woodchucks stowed away in a hole till spring comes.”

“Well, the woodchuck knows his business,” quoth Step.

“It’s mighty poor business, all the same, for a pack of human beings.”

Trojan Walker laughed softly. “Ha, ha! If you’d like my opinion, Shark, getting mad with the world because you can’t work out a chess problem is worse business still.”

The Shark whipped about to face him. “Can’t work it out, can’t I? Huh! Much you know about it! I’ll show you now—no I won’t, either; you wouldn’t understand.”

“And you would? And that’s what makes you so pleasant to all of us?”

“Who wants to be pleasant to a crowd that just sits around and talks about a city fellow who happens to have more money than he knows what to do with?”

“What! You mean Varley?”

“Course I do!”

There was another pause before anybody made answer to the charge. Two or three of the boys glanced inquiringly at Sam, as if they felt that here was a matter concerning which it behooved him to speak. So Sam it was who broke the silence.

“Shark, what ails you, anyway? Varley’s all right.”

“Huh! So’s his money and the big dinners it buys!”

“What’s that?”

“You heard well enough. You and Step and Poke haven’t been talking about anything for a week but that feed he gave you.”

Step’s long arm shot out. He shook a finger under the Shark’s nose.

“You mean we’re toadying to him because he treated us to lunch? Say that, straight out, and I’ll smash you!”

The Shark was a head shorter than the tall Step, but he was in no mood to shrink from controversy, vocal or physical. He bristled belligerently.

“You don’t dare do it! And you can’t put words in my mouth!”

“Take it back then!”

“I’ll take nothing back—that I’ve said.”

A little voice seemed to whisper in Sam’s ear that the Safety First Club was hardly living up to its name. He caught Step’s wrist, and drew the tall youth back. Then he addressed the still bristling Shark.

“I don’t like what you’ve said any better than Step likes it. But I don’t intend to let anybody get into a fight over it. It was a bully good dinner we had, and I’m not ashamed to say it was. You wouldn’t have me lie about it, would you?”

“N-no,” the Shark admitted.

“And you wouldn’t expect me to pretend I was ashamed of accepting Varley’s invitation?”

“Why—why, no.”

“And I haven’t hinted you were sore because you weren’t lucky enough to be there.”

The Shark reddened to the roots of his hair. “Anybody who says that——” he began hotly.

“I haven’t said it,” Sam interposed promptly. “Why haven’t I? Because I know, and every other fellow here knows, it isn’t true.”

“Oh!” said the Shark, with a queer little gasp, and a perceptible lessening of ferocity.

Sam pressed his advantage. “Be sensible, can’t you? I like Varley; so do most of the others. For some reason you don’t. That’s no excuse, though, for a general row. Varley isn’t thrusting himself in here or——”

“Huh! That’s just what he did do in the beginning.”

“Well, that was because he didn’t understand the custom about outsiders. But he was clever enough to guess visitors weren’t the usual thing. You’ll notice he hasn’t come here again.”

“Huh! Good reason!”

“What do you mean?”

“I told him not to,” said the Shark grimly.

Sam stared at the spectacled youth. “You—you said that—to his face?”

“Sure!” said the Shark doggedly. “When? Oh, three-four days ago. Where? On the street, where we’d met, and where he’d stopped me, and begun to hint about what a smooth joint we had here, and how he’d like to look in occasionally. Then I told him it was a closed club. Why shouldn’t I tell him? Fact, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Only with a fellow from out of town, a stranger——”

The Shark interrupted Sam. “Look here! I don’t pretend to fancy Varley overmuch, but there I was treating him just as I’d treat the best friend I have. I let him have the truth. It’ll save him a lot of embarrassment. Besides, he isn’t what you’d call a stranger any more. He’s staying in town right along, and he’s going to school—no use trying to put him off in a class by himself.”

Sam frowned, but Poke spoke sharply.

“Hang it, Shark, but you have messed things! And after that cracking good dinner he treated us to—geeminy, but I wish I knew how we could even up things for that!”

“All right—go ahead and even them all you please,” growled the Shark; then his tone changed. “See here, you fellows! You’ve got me started, and I’m going to free my mind. I don’t like the way you’re behaving. You’re quitting on the job, the bunch of you!”

“Bully boy, Shark! Go it!” jeered the Trojan.

“I will! Listen! There isn’t one of you that’s stirred a finger to win that history essay prize. You mope around, and wail about the weather and the snow and nothing to do, and don’t even dream of trying to land that hundred dollars. Can you deny that, Trojan? Or you, Sam? Or you, Poke? Or Herman, or Step or Tom Orkney?” He was shaking an accusing hand at each of them in turn. “All of you heard what the principal said. Now hear what I say: It’s a shame and disgrace to the club that you’re letting this chance go by default.”

“How about yourself?” Step demanded.

“I’m out of it. My line’s different. I can do things with figures, but not with words. Two or three of you fellows write decently. Why don’t you pull together—it’s allowable, under the rules—and gather in that hundred?”

Nobody took upon himself the responsibility of making reply.

The Shark glanced from one to another. His manner was still grim.

“That’s right—think it over!” said he. “Let it sink in. And don’t forget the rest of the class is watching the club. I’ve had a couple of nasty raps handed me about a gang that put on a lot of side, yet didn’t have sand enough to make good at anything requiring real work.”

“Who said that?” asked Sam.

“Never mind! It was said—said to me.”

“I’ve heard something of the sort,” said Tom Orkney quietly.

Two or three of the others stirred uneasily; it was to be inferred that they, too, had been reminded of the club’s inactivity.

The Shark picked up his cap.

“Well, I feel better,” quoth he. “I’ve got the thing off my chest. I’ve got to cut along now, but you fellows can mull over what I’ve told you. The lecture’s over; but it’s up to you to show whether or not it’s going to do any good.”

With that he walked out of the room, leaving a group whose members seemed to be of diverse opinions about his views. Step declared that it was hopeless to attempt to win the competition; Herman and the Trojan were uncertain; Orkney inclined to the idea that the attempt would be worth making.

Poke, his face puckered and his air a bit mysterious, drew Sam aside.

“Look here! The Shark has sure chucked the fat in the fire!” he whispered. “Say, we’ve got to do something!”

“Umph! I don’t believe the bunch of us can do much,” Sam objected.

“I’m not talking about the prize. It’s Varley I’m worrying about. Don’t you see, after the crack the Shark made to him, we’ve just got to wipe out the obligation for that dinner?”

“I wish we could! Only I don’t see how——”

Poke broke in, his manner more mysterious than ever. “Hold your horses, Sam! You watch me! No; I can’t lisp a word, but maybe—well, there’s a chance your little old uncle will be able to square accounts and put us all on Easy Street, Shark or no Shark. How? Can’t breathe a syllable about it—now. Just watch and wait—that’s all you’ll have to do, Sam!”

CHAPTER VIII
POKE’S MYSTERY

Ordinarily, Sam might have thought little of Poke’s mysterious hint, for Poke’s fancy was lively at times, but the bearing of that well-fed youth continued to suggest consciousness of a great secret. Now and then he winked craftily at Sam, or wagged his head portentously, or shook with glee at thoughts he was not ready to confide to his friends. Observing which things, Sam meditated and wondered, and gained no clew to the mystery.

Sam, though, had plenty of other interests to claim his attention. The Shark, after his outburst at the club, had resumed his manner of indifference. He neither repeated his criticisms of his mates nor displayed dislike for Varley, but went his own way in his old fashion. It was evident, however, that what he had said about the club and the prize essay had not fallen on wholly deaf ears. Herman Boyd and the Trojan came to Sam to inquire if he really believed there would be a chance to carry off the honor, and Tom Orkney put the same question still more earnestly.

“It does seem as if we ought to have a try at it,” he said. “The Shark was more than half right about the—the—well, about the ‘laying down’ business. And if you think there’s a show for any of us, it looks as if the club should get busy.”

“Some of the other crowds talking?” Sam queried shrewdly.

Orkney nodded. “I’d be likeliest to hear it—last fellow in the club, you know. So I’m told things that might not be said directly to the rest of you.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, that the club flocks by itself, and puts on airs, but never amounts to much when it comes to a pinch; that it never gathers in any prizes except the mathematical ones, and they’re just the Shark’s meat; that here’s a big prize we won’t get because no one in the crowd has the sand to make a fight for it.”

“Exactly!” said Sam. He was quite aware of the jealousies due to cliques in a school, and more than once had noted some very open fishing for an invitation to join the Safety First Club. Also, when the angling had resulted in failure, there had been, generally, an increase in the unfavorable comment about the club by critics who didn’t belong to it.

Orkney coughed a little dubiously. “Ahem, ahem! Of course, all that sort of thing is plain yapping, but, all the same, I’d like to see us getting into this game. If I could do anything to help—say, though, I’m no use when it comes to writing. But in digging for facts, I’ll be ready to hold up my end. And facts are what are going to count. And there’s nothing to prevent the crowd pulling together—the prize essay doesn’t have to be one person’s work. Why, two or three of the girls have teamed up, and make no bones about it. The principal told ’em it was allowable, especially since the person who is putting up the hundred dollars really wants to get data on the town’s settlement and early history, and regards this plan as merely a way of securing assistance he is glad to pay for.”

“Well, then, it’s my notion some of the girls will win,” declared Sam. “They’re better pluggers—more persistent—than the fellows. Besides, the composition will count for something—can’t help counting—and that’s where they’ll do better work.”

“Then you’re against our going in?”

Sam protested. “No; I’m not. Only I don’t think any of us would have a living chance. But if any of you fellows want to sail in, I’ll wish you all the good luck there is. Still, short of finding the lost diary of Dominie Pike——”

“What’s that?” Orkney interrupted. He was comparatively a newcomer, and still had many of the town’s traditions to learn.

“Dominie Pike was the first minister,” Sam explained. “He came with the very earliest of the settlers—some people say he himself was the very first. He kept a diary, and put in it everything of interest that happened to himself or his neighbors, and all their dealings with the Indians——”

“Indians?”

“Of course! There was quite a powerful tribe here. Dominie Pike was great friends with them, and there are lots of stories about that part of the town’s history—trouble prevented by the Dominie, you know. No doubt they’re all in the diary, but nobody knows what happened to the diary. Folks have found many references to it in old letters, showing that people knew about it, and had read it, or parts of it, anyway. Then it seemed to disappear. The Historical Society has hunted for it high and low, but never has got a trace of it.”

Orkney whistled softly. “My! But I wish we could come across it! It would just fill the bill.”

“It would,” said Sam drily, and left Orkney to meditate ways and means of accomplishing what so far the town had found to be impossible in the matter of tracing the lost diary of the old minister.

Their talk, however, had given Sam food for thought. It would be a fine thing for the club to score in the competition. But, also, it would be pleasing to find a way to square the account with Varley. Sam, casting about, hit upon a plan or two, which failed to work out satisfactorily. His mother listened willingly enough to hints that he would like to have a party, but showed an inclination to make it a general entertainment for the girls and boys of his acquaintance, which by no means met his approval. Sam’s notion of the proper thing was a small and strictly masculine gathering, at which Varley could be the guest of honor.

Of Varley, as it happened, he was seeing very little. Paul was regularly attending school, but he was formally enrolled as a Senior, and thus seemed to gravitate naturally into association with the boys of the last year. When he encountered Sam or any of the other members of the Safety First Club, he appeared to be quite at ease and untroubled by any thought of the breach he had unwittingly made in their rules; but Sam noticed—or thought he noticed—a disposition on Varley’s part not to seek his society, even if there was no effort to avoid it. He had no doubt that the Shark’s frankness had enlightened Varley about the club’s ban on uninvited guests; and his respect grew for a fellow who could “carry it off so well”—as he phrased it—a situation which Sam himself found most embarrassing.

Poke, meanwhile, was getting a deal of enjoyment out of his mysterious secret, which, at last, he seemed to have shared with his especial crony, Step; for the latter, of a sudden, became as excited as Poke himself. The pair had conferences and conferences, with much chuckling and whispering and rib-nudging. And then, one day, both came to Sam to make an amazing announcement.

Poke was in funds. Fortune had made him affluent. He proposed to bid his friends share his prosperity. Also he proposed to even the score with Paul Varley.

Sam was practical. Where had the money come from?

Poke explained gleefully. An elderly and well-to-do aunt had made him a present of twenty-five dollars. By certain miracles of good behavior he had won parental permission to spend the windfall as he pleased.

“Now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Poke went on. “I’m going to take the whole club and Varley out to the Rainbow Mountain House, and give ’em a bang-up good dinner. We’ll make it a hike out and back, with the feed in between. Great notion, eh?”

“Let’s see your cash!” said Sam bluntly.

Poke produced a roll of bills with a flourish. “There! Count ’em if you want to.”

Sam took advantage of the permission.

“Well, it’s twenty-five, all right,” he admitted, as he returned the bills.

“Sure it is! And twenty’ll pay for the dinners for the crowd. Oh, I’ve found out. I’ve been doing a lot of telephoning out to the hotel, and everything’s arranged for next Saturday.”

“Invited Varley yet?”

“No; I’m waiting to hear what you have to say.”

Sam took thought. “It—it’s a good deal for you to blow in, Poke.”

Poke waved a lordly hand. “Oh, easy come, easy go, Sam. Hang the expense!”

“You’ve been talking about this?”

“A lot—to Step. He thinks it’s a great idea.”

Sam was not surprised by this information; nor was he greatly impressed. “I was thinking of your folks.”

“They don’t mind. That part’s all right—honest!”

Still Sam hesitated; noting which, Poke went on, eagerly:

“Come now! You know how the thing is. We ought to do something for Varley and——”

“That’s so. Only all of us ought to chip in.”

“Nonsense! He did it alone, and I’m going to do it alone. But it’ll count for the whole club. And we ought to get square with him, hadn’t we?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then let’s do it!” cried Poke triumphantly. “I’ll ask Varley to-day. Better, hadn’t I?” he concluded, of a sudden, questioning.

There was a brief pause. Then said Sam, slowly and half-reluctantly: “Why—why—yes, I guess so.”

“Then it’s as good as done!” quoth Poke, and departed in search of the proposed guest of honor.

The youthful code is usually simple but exacting. “Pay your debts” stands close to the head of its list of rules. Instinctively Sam doubted the success of Poke’s undertaking—things had a way of happening unexpectedly to Poke. Still, he saw no sound reason for interfering with the plan to restore the balance between the Safety First Club and Paul Varley. He would have preferred himself to be the host, but as that might not be, he yielded the place to his plump friend.

Varley accepted the invitation. He would be delighted to go to Poke’s dinner, and he said so.

The attendance of all the club’s members was taken for granted; and all were promptly at the meeting-place on Saturday morning. The sun was shining, the air was fine and bracing, and the snow was in excellent condition. The party set out on the tramp in high spirits, taking a somewhat roundabout course to the hotel, but passing close to the house of the injured woodsman. There they halted briefly to make inquiry as to his condition, and were told that he was convalescing satisfactorily.

They brought noble appetites to the feast, and even the doubtful Sam was forced to admit to himself that Poke had arranged matters very well, indeed. A private dining-room was set aside for the youthful visitors; the quite ample bill of fare had been lengthened with especial attention to their tastes. Poke beamingly presided at the head of the table, with Varley at his right and Sam at his left. Poke, in fact, was having the time of his life, and when the others called upon him for a speech, he made one willingly enough.

“Tell you, fellows, I’m awfully glad all of you could come,” said he. “Seemed to me it would be a bully idea to—er—er”—he paused, of a sudden reminded that one may not eulogize one’s own hospitality—“er—er—that is, we ought to do something to—er—er—to break the monotony. Stupidest part of the year, you know. Anything for a little variety. Of course, I might have done other things, but it struck me the crowd would like a square meal——”

“Yes, we needed it!” the Trojan put in in a stage whisper.

Poke reddened. “Say, I didn’t mean that, and you know it! All of you get plenty to eat; so do I. Only we don’t have the chance to eat together; and I knew this was a cracking good place. So here we are! And I’d like to know if anybody has anything to say against it?”

“Not a word!” cried the Trojan.

“Go on, Poke!” Herman Boyd encouraged.

“Sure! Give the boy orator his head!” grinned Sam.

“You’ve got ’em going, Poke—don’t let up!” “Hit us again—we haven’t got any friends!” “My, but isn’t he the silver-tongued spell-binder!” There was a medley of shouts; Poke shook his fist in mock defiance.

“I haven’t much more to say, and I’ll make short work of it. You fellows are all right, though you might know a lot more than you do. Oh, I’m the same way—I admit it. But I know enough to stop when I’m through. So that’s why I’m going to say again that I’m glad you’re here, and sit down.”

There was lusty clapping of hands. Then Varley rose, his glass in his hand.

“I propose,” he said, “the very good health of Poke Green. Long may he wave!”

They drank the toast in sparkling spring water, and drank it with enthusiasm. Then there were other toasts to Varley, to Sam, to the rest of the party; all to the general satisfaction and the especial delight of Poke. He was beaming more broadly than ever when they filed out of the dining-room and into the big lobby. There was just a bit of a swagger in his walk, as he strolled up to the desk, and pulled out his pocketbook.

The clerk, catching the spirit of the occasion, made a little ceremony of making out the account and presenting Poke with the receipt. Also he expressed the hope that the dinner had been to the satisfaction of the guests.

“It was a corker!” quoth Poke, and thrust his change into a pocket. Then, perhaps suspecting that he had displayed unsophisticated warmth, he turned hastily. The tall vase of prismatic glass, which had held his admiration on his first visit to the hotel, caught his eye.

“Say, isn’t that a peach of a shiner!” he exclaimed to Step, who happened to be nearest him.

“Eh?” Step appeared to be in doubt of his meaning.

Poke, impatiently and with the awkwardness of embarrassment, under the clerk’s gaze, threw out a hand.

“Why, there——” he began, but broke off abruptly. The gesture had been more violent than he realized. His hand struck something smartly—and the something was the tall shaft of the vase.

“Whew!” he gasped, and made a desperate effort to avert the disaster. But he was too late.

The vase swayed. Then, seeming to slip through his hands, it fell from its standard, and striking the floor with a mighty crash was splintered into a score of pieces.

Step, with a howl of alarm, sprang back. The others came running up to see what had happened. Poke, though, stood like one rooted to the spot, staring blankly at the glittering fragments.

The clerk hurried from behind the desk. His expression was serious, but he spoke quietly, with no raising of his voice.

“It’s too bad. An accident, of course, but an unfortunate one.”

Poke found tongue. “I don’t see how I hit it. I was just trying to point to it, and bang! I was into it, and it was smashing on the floor! I never dreamed of—of—of making such a wreck.”

“I presume not,” said the clerk in his quiet fashion. Then with a change of tone he addressed a bell-boy: “Clear up this mess—at once.”

Instinctively Poke was fumbling in his pocket. “The damage—how much? If you’ll tell me, I’ll——”

“Oh, there is no hurry,” said the clerk. “I shall have to refer the whole matter to the proprietor, who is away for a few days.”

“Then I can’t settle it now?”

The corners of the man’s mouth twitched, but his speech was matter-of-fact.

“No; a case like this must be referred to the proprietor. I’m sure I don’t know what view he may take of it, or of the—ah—ah—the question of responsibility. We have your name and address, you understand; he can communicate with you if he desires to do so.”

“Oh!” said Poke weakly. He was half rejoiced by the delay, half frightened by the hint of written claim for damages. “Oh! Then there’s nothing to be done now?”

“Not a thing!” said the clerk crisply; and retired to his place behind the desk.

Poke turned unhappily to his friends, but none of them had comfort to offer in this sudden and unfortunate turn in affairs.

“I—I suppose we might as well start for home,” he said drearily. “I—I guess the sooner we’re out of here, the better.”

CHAPTER IX
SAM GETS A REMINDER

The disastrous sequel to Poke’s dinner party was the chief topic of talk among the Safety First Club, with Poke himself in a state of mind which can be more easily imagined than described. The breaking of the big vase was due to him. He had had not the slightest intention to break it, but this did not alter the bitter fact. He was responsible for the fall of the vase. Like the honest fellow he was, he accepted the responsibility—and wondered much how he was to meet it.

What had been the value of the vase? Not a member of the club could enlighten him. Varley, approached as one of wider knowledge, declined to venture an opinion.

“It may have cost a lot, or it may have been very cheap,” he said. “Unless you’re an expert, you can’t tell.”

“That’s the way with a lot of things in this world!” groaned Poke, and sought the Shark, as an expert in mathematics, at least.

The Shark gave him little comfort. He was more than ready to undertake a calculation of the possible value of the vase, based on the cost of a bit of cut-glass, owned by his mother, of the price of which he happened to be aware. But though he made most careful estimates of the height of the vase, he soon came to difficulties.

“Look here, Poke!” said he. “I can arrive at an approximation of the volume of the thing, but how does the price increase in comparison with the size? Arithmetical or geometrical progression? If it’s arithmetical, it’ll be bad enough; but if it’s geometrical—whew!”

Poke was aghast. “You—you mean it’d mount up to—to—hundreds of dollars?”

“Hundreds? Rats! Thousands!” snapped the Shark. “Just you wait till I get it in black and white—on estimates, of course. I can’t pretend to get exact results when I’ve no precise data to work on.”

But Poke didn’t wait. Instead, he fled; and seeking out his especial crony, Step, confided to him that he believed he was doomed to be a bond-slave for life.

“You see, I’ve got to work it off myself,” he explained. “When the folks said I could have the party, they made it a condition that there mustn’t be any rough pranks—any breaking things, you know. And I promised there shouldn’t be. And there wasn’t—everybody behaved like a gentleman—till I went smashing into that show-piece. I haven’t told ’em at the house—yet; I’ll never tell ’em if I can possibly help it.”

“Sure you won’t,” quoth the sympathetic Step. “No fellow likes to ’fess up when the joke’s on him.”

“The joke!” roared Poke. “Great Scott, but you’ve got a mighty queer notion of what’s funny! You’d like to see a house fall on a fellow.”

“Oh, come now! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” pleaded Step.

“You can’t hurt ’em worse than they’re already hurt,” groaned Poke, of a sudden dreary again.

He went away, so downcast and so unlike his normally cheerful self that Step was stricken with fear for him, tinged with remorse for his own lightsome treatment of the subject. And, being thus burdened in soul, he had an inspiration. He happened to know where some old catalogues of city department stores were gathering dust in an attic. These volumes, brought to light and consulted, offered hope. Step carried them to Poke.

“Look here!” he said. “Maybe ’twon’t be so fierce, after all. Here’s a whopping big vase—I guess it’s taller than the one at the hotel. And it’s priced at only $3.98. There’s a picture of it.”

Poke eagerly inspected the cut. Then his face fell.

“’Tisn’t the same shape,” he objected.

“Well, no—not exactly the same,” Step confessed. “There is a little difference.”

“A little difference! Just about as little as there is between your shape and mine!”

It was not an unhappy comparison. Poke was short and plump; Step was tall and slender. There was a like variance between the somewhat jug-like ornament depicted in the catalogue and the graceful vase which had stood on the desk of the Rainbow Mountain House.

“All right; have it your way if you want to,” Step agreed.

Again Poke studied the illustration. “What’s more, this one’s made out of different stuff. It doesn’t look like glass.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Poke shut the book with a bang of temper. “You didn’t say anything sensible.”

Then Step revolted at this ingratitude. “Look here, Poke, that’s carrying your grouch too far! Wasn’t I trying to help you?”

“Oh, I know you mean well,” Poke groaned.

“And wasn’t I doing you a favor? Don’t you want to be posted? Here’s a whopping big thing you can get for $3.98. That’s worth knowing if they try to come any funny business on you.”

Poke cheered a trifle. “Say, there’s something in that.”

“You bet there is! And when you come down to brass tacks, a vase is a vase.”

Poke did not deny the proposition. “Yes; that’s so. Still——”

“And you know where you’re at.”

“But that’s just what I don’t.”

“Of course you do!” Step said impatiently. “You’re getting a line on what vases cost—some vases, that is. And—er—er—‘Knowledge is power,’ you know,” he concluded with sudden solemnity.

“I suppose that’s so,” Poke admitted dubiously. “Only I don’t see——”

The fire of imagination blazed in Step—somehow it kindled readily when these two chums were in consultation.

“Crackee! But I’ve got an idea, Poke—best ever! Don’t you wait for the hotel folks to do something. Do something yourself, and do it first!”

“What can I do?” Poke asked helplessly.

“That’s easy. You owe ’em for a vase. Send ’em one.”

“What! One of the three-ninety-eight kind?”

“How much money have you got?” Step demanded bluntly.

“Oh, ten dollars or so—that is, by scraping everything together I can raise that much.”

“Then make it a ten-dollar one—best you can find for the money. Ship it to ’em with a nice note—you know the sort: you greatly regret the accident and you’re making haste to replace the property destroyed. They’ll read it, and they’ll see the new vase, and they’ll say, ‘Well, there’s a boy who means to do the right thing; we can’t be too hard on him. Guess we’d better call it quits.’ And there you are! What more could you ask?”

Poke was blinking like one dazzled by the prospect. “I—I—say, wonder if the thing would work?”

“How can you tell till you try?”

“That’s so. Only——”

“Hang it, ‘only’ never got anybody anywhere!” Step expostulated.

“Maybe not.”

“It surely never did,” Step insisted.

Poke evidently was half-persuaded. “It’s a great scheme—I’ll say that for it. So I guess I—I’ll——”

“You’ll do it right off?”

“No; I guess I’ll ask Sam’s advice.”

Step’s face fell. “Oh, if you haven’t any mind of your own——”

“I’ve mind enough to know Sam’s got more hard sense,” said Poke firmly. And to Sam he went, forthwith, laying before him Step’s plan and admitting his own liking for it.

Sam listened patiently, but shook his head when the tale was told.

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t be a case of the Safety First rule,” he said. “Your selection, Poke, might not please the hotel people. And, of course, we’re all at sea about the value. No; better wait till you hear from them.”

“But the suspense—it’s awful!”

“It won’t kill you. Besides, very likely—that is, there’s a chance—nothing’ll happen. Varley seems to think it may work out that way, and the Rainbow Mountain House will just charge the item to profit and loss, or breakage, or whatever they choose to call it.”

“That’d be too good luck to come true,” objected Poke, but he went away more or less comforted by the suggestion, nevertheless. Certainly, the hotel management was in no haste to send its bill. Step maliciously hinted that the delay meant merely a heavier charge in the end, but Poke’s spirits began to revive as day followed day, and there was no word from Rainbow Mountain.

His cheerfulness increased in spite of adverse weather conditions. With the lengthening days and the sun higher in the heavens, the snow should have been shrinking seasonably, but the sunny days were few, and between them came other days, in which the white flakes fell heavily. In the town great banks showed on the north side of buildings, while the mounds along the sidewalks grew grimy and icy with alternate melting and replenishing. From the country roundabout came stories of extraordinary depth of snow in the woods and in sheltered hollows. Old residents were shaking their heads and recalling tales of spring floods. A heavy rain and a sharp rise in temperature would mean streams over their banks and perhaps a deal of damage by floods swelled by the melting snow.

The boys were not worrying about such possibilities. They were eager for the coming of warmer weather.

“We’ve had enough of winter this trip,” the Trojan declared, and the others approved the sentiment. Even the Shark fell into line, although he insisted that this winter was doubtless very like other winters, and began to collect statistics to prove his contention. Presently he had some neat tabulations, with averages of snowfall and temperature carried out to four places of decimals, and was devoting a fair share of his leisure to efforts to secure an audience while he pointed out a number of popular errors the figures revealed.

So the days went by, and the weeks, tranquilly enough for the club. Sam was studying hard. Once or twice he “did” a lesson with Varley, being glad of the chance, indeed, to keep in touch with the older boy.

Varley made no reference to his unintentional breach of the rules of the Safety First Club, nor did he give a hint that the Shark had enlightened him about his blunder. Sam appreciated his reticence. Apology would have been awkward for both of them. Varley was taking care to keep away from the club, and ignoring the earlier incident seemed to be the easiest and best way to deal with the situation.

Without coming to intimacy, Sam and Paul got on very well together. Neither sought the other out frequently, but, as has been said, they studied in company now and then, and often strolled along together, when they met on the street. So it came about that Varley was a witness of Sam’s next meeting with the grateful Mrs. Grant, and played his part in bringing about the events which followed that encounter.

A sleigh turning from the beaten track and pulling up beside the deeply buried curb; a beckoning hand; a cheerful voice calling briskly—these were the circumstances under which Sam became aware that speech with him was desired, and recognized Mrs. Grant. Touching his cap, he stepped as near the sleigh as the banks of snow permitted. Much of the old chagrin because of the lady’s effusive and public thanks for his services had worn away; and since the reconciliation with his mates of the club there had been times when he regretted that he had not been more responsive.

Mrs. Grant, plainly, had been on a shopping tour; for the sleigh was piled high with packages. She beamed upon Sam, and stretching out a gloved hand, shook his very heartily.

“Now, this is what I call luck!” she exclaimed. “I was just wondering where I could find you, and then, quick as a wink, there you are! My, but it’s funny how things happen sometimes!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sam. “And—er—er—how do you do?”

Mrs. Grant chuckled. “Well, I guess I’m bearing up amazing well, all things considered. And I don’t see as you’re getting puny or peaked yourself.”

“No, ma’am.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Te he! Didn’t know but you were pining for that mince pie I promised you.”

Sam felt his cheeks burn. “I—I—oh, I didn’t mind,” he said confusedly.

“But I did,” said Mrs. Grant crisply. “Somehow I like to keep my promises, and I certainly did promise you that pie. When are you coming to get it?”

“Why—why——”

“I’ll be ready for you any time. Only the sooner, the better.”

“It—it’s very kind of you.” Sam said it courteously, if a trifle brokenly. At the moment his chief thought was to avoid betrayal of his feeling in the matter of all mince pies, a feeling which, of a sudden, had grown to loathing. But he had had his lesson of the unwisdom of permitting a pie to start a quarrel.

“Then I’ll look for you—come now, let’s see!” Mrs. Grant wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully. “To-day’s Tuesday—um—um! And to-morrow I’ve got to go over to the East Village. Then Thursday’s sewing circle day. But Friday—after your school’s out? You can manage to come over to the farm easy enough—why not?”

“Why—why——”

“Why, of course you can!” cried Mrs. Grant energetically. “But I say!” Her glance went to Varley, who had remained modestly in the background. “Sakes alive, but there’s the other boy! The one that tried and didn’t; but he meant just exactly as well as if he’d known how—you know what I’m talking about, and that’s the time this foolish horse bolted. Bring him with you, too.”

“I’ll be very glad to come,” said Varley promptly.

Mrs. Grant was eyeing him shrewdly. “Shouldn’t wonder if we could show him some things,” said she. “He looks sort of citified, and we’re country—real country—out to Sugar Valley. But that reminds me—it’s ’most sugaring time now. ’Twill be, soon’s we get a spell of warm weather to start the sap running; and it’s my notion when winter breaks, it’ll break quick. Come now! Never seen ’em sugar-off, has he?”

Varley saved Sam the trouble of making answer. “Indeed I haven’t, but I’d like to.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Grant, addressing him directly, “I don’t know as we can show you the sap running, and the kettles boiling by Friday, but we can show you all the works. We’ve got quite a lot of bush and——”

“I beg your pardon! Bush?”

Mrs. Grant laughed. “That’s just a name for it—our name. You’d call it a grove, I guess. And there’s an old house where we keep the kettles—why, it’s quite an outfit, when you see it all. And I reckon you’ll find it mighty entertaining.”

“I’m sure I shall.”

“Then that settles it—Friday it is!” she said with decision, and turned again to Sam. “I tell you what! We’ll make a regular party. Suppose you bring along half a dozen of your chums—more, if you want to. Goodness knows, our old house is big enough to take you all in! And let’s see! You can come out right after school, and we’ll have dinner—it’ll be waiting for you. And I’ll get that mince pie off my conscience. Then Mr. Grant can take you down to the island—it isn’t an island, really, but that’s what we call it—and let you see the apparatus for making maple syrup and sugar.” She turned swiftly back to Varley. “You said it’d be all new to you, didn’t you?”

“Every bit of it.”

“Then I can count on you, too?”

“It’s I that’ll do the counting! I wouldn’t miss the trip for worlds!” cried Varley enthusiastically.

His evident delight in the plan swept away any lingering doubts Sam may have felt. It wouldn’t be fair to spoil Varley’s pleasure because of his own rather vague reluctance.

“Yes, you may count on us, Mrs. Grant,” he said. “And as for more fellows—well, I know a crowd that’ll like to come, too. We’ll be there—on time—Friday.”

CHAPTER X
THE BLOW DESCENDS

Sam had taken for granted that there would be no parental objections to the expedition, and in this he found himself a true prophet.

Mr. Parker not only agreed to the plan, but also showed approval of it.

“A little outing will be good for you, Sam,” said he. “You’ve been attending pretty strictly to business lately, and it’s time for a break in the routine. By the way, your good conduct marks ought to be mounting up handsomely.”

Sam laughed. “Well, sir, I haven’t seemed to have many chances to get into trouble.”

“Haven’t looked for them very anxiously, have you?”

Sam’s eye met his father’s, and a trace of red showed in the boy’s cheek.

“Safety first, sir!” he said. “You know I’ve had that lesson taught me mighty thoroughly.”

Mr. Parker studied his son closely for a moment.

“So? Well, I’m glad to hear the instruction hasn’t been wasted.... But, tell me! Find life robbed of a little of its spice, eh?”

Sam paused for thought before he answered; the question was not one he could dispose of lightly, especially when it had been put by his father. There was a very good understanding between father and son, but it had not been arrived at without some grievous experiences for the youth. On that account he prized it the more, and desired to maintain it.

“Sometimes it does seem as if a fellow missed some fun, sir. I don’t know, though—mostly, afterward, I can figure out that everybody is better off because the thing wasn’t done—the thing that seemed to promise sport, I mean.”

“But there are other things that promise sport, and supply it, and harm nobody, aren’t there?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And you’re beginning to discriminate?”

Sam wriggled; he was by no means over-impressed with his own sagacity.

“Why—why, I try to discriminate—that’s the very secret of our Safety First idea, isn’t it? Of course, I make bulls—mistakes, I mean—a lot of them.”

“Then what?”

“I try not to repeat them,” said Sam simply. “I don’t know any better rule.”

“There is none,” said his father decidedly. “And, on the whole, you’ll find that if you follow the rule, it still leaves plenty of good, clean fun in life as well as a reasonable share of adventure. Not that I imagine you’ll run across much of the latter in Sugar Valley, though!”

“It isn’t very likely,” said Sam.

“Well, Lon can drive you over,” said his father. “The big sleigh will take you all in. I’ll guarantee it, though I won’t do as much for the sleighing. The snow has lasted unusually long, but the season is now so late that if it once begins to go, it will go very fast.”

“But there’s such a lot of it,” Sam objected.

“There is an uncommon amount—that’s true. I’ve seen late spring thaws, though, when the greater the depth of snow, the faster it seemed to vanish. Still, with the amount we now have, it would need fast work to clear the ground before Friday.”

“That’s my notion, too, sir,” said Sam, half regretfully. The truth was, he was in two minds about the expedition. Considering only his own preferences, he might have chosen to stay at home; but there was Varley to be taken into account, and Varley undoubtedly was very desirous of seeing Sugar Valley. The boys of the club, too, would like to go. All of them said so, at once and emphatically. So Sam held conference with Lon Gates, who readily promised to have the big sleigh ready; though he was far from an optimist when the subject of the weather was broached.

“Take it this time o’ year, Sam,” he explained, “and guessin’ on that’s like buyin’ a pig in a poke, only more so. You see, everything’s betwixt and between, same’s butter that ain’t quite made up its mind whether to come or not. And all the signs are mixed and confusin’. Why, jest t’other day I heard two of the oldest inhabitants squabblin’ over whether the groundhog really see his shadow Candlemas day; and ’sfar’s I can find out the most reliable goose-bones in town are actin’ every which way except alike. But if you insist on havin’ my forecast, personal-like, I’m votin’ for a change in weather. I’ve got a rheumaticky spot or two that’s been tunin’ up lately; and there was a mighty funny lookin’ sunset t’other night. Still, nobody can tell. And if you’ll be ready for me Friday, I’ll be ready for you.”

Sam, thus advised, tried to study the weather signs for himself. Thursday dawned mild and calm, with a thin haze in the air and a marked rise in temperature. The eaves were dripping briskly when he started for school, and when he came home for dinner, the snow layer seemed to have shrunk amazingly. Where foot travel was greatest the sidewalks showed black and bare; puddles formed in low places; the compacted and leveled track of the sleighs grew dingier than ever. Throughout the afternoon the same conditions held, until with the coming of darkness the temperature dropped a trifle, and a thin coating of ice formed on the little ponds of snow-water.

“Umph! What did I tell you? Weather breeder!” was Lon’s oracular speech, when Sam sought his opinion of the probabilities for the morrow. But even Lon declined to commit himself on the sort of weather which might be expected. So Sam went to bed little the wiser, and woke to find another day seemingly much like that which had gone before, still, warm and hazy, with the eaves dripping more merrily than ever, the puddles bigger and deeper, and the streets coated with a slush, peculiarly damp and chilling in its effect on shoe-leather.

Sam splashed to school, to find that news of his party had reached the principal, and had won an unexpected favor—excuses for all hands from attendance for the last period of the day. The boon, it appeared, had been secured by the Shark, who stood high in the esteem of the head of the school, himself a member of the mathematically inclined brotherhood. It was thus possible to make an earlier start than had been proposed for Sugar Valley. Lon, called up by telephone, was agreeable to the change.

“Sure I’ll be glad to get away,” he declared. “Quicker I go, less I’ll be wonderin’ if I ain’t a howlin’ idiot not to start on wheels instead o’ runners.”

“Then you think——”

Lon cut short the inquiry over the wire. “I think it’s the breakin’ up of a hard winter, son. And that’s all I’m capable o’ thinkin’ at once. Now, you’d better get busy—I’ve got to.”

Excused a little before noon, the boys hurried home for final preparations for their outing. Sam found Lon ready for him. He climbed into the sleigh, and off they went, stopping first to pick up Varley, and then the Shark. Next they added Tom Orkney, Herman Boyd and the Trojan to the party, which now lacked only Poke and Step.

“Try Step’s house first,” Sam suggested.

Lon nodded, and chirruped to his horses, which broke into a brisk trot, with much splashing of water from the puddles along the way. The sleighing certainly was going fast, but so great had been the accumulation of snow that it promised to last out the day, at least.

“Say, Lon, why didn’t you bring a boat?” the Trojan queried, as something very like a dash of spray shot over the side of the sleigh.

“Huh! Ark’d been nearer the bill, seein’ the kind o’ load I’m freightin’,” Lon responded promptly.

“I guess we’ll find the brooks high,” Herman Boyd put in.

“Bankful and brimmin’ over,” quoth Lon. “Maybe you fellows will have to get out and wade before we get back.”

“Well, we’ll risk it,” cried Herman cheerfully.

They turned a corner, and drew up before the Jones house. Nobody was in sight about the premises.

Sam raised a lusty hail. “Oh, you Step! Hi there! Hurry up!”

There was no response. Sam called again, still more loudly. The Trojan had the knack of putting his knuckles to his mouth and emitting a peculiarly shrill and penetrating whistle. He blew it now, quite without result. Then the crowd shouted in chorus.

The kitchen door opened. A woman looked out. She waved a hand toward the club-house, which, as has been explained, stood in a corner of the yard.

“What the mischief——” Sam began, but cut short his speech, and sprang to the ground. Orkney followed him. One or two of the others were about to imitate the example, but Sam waved them back.

“No; two of us are enough,” he said. “I can’t guess what’s happened, but something has. Orkney and I’ll find out. Come along, Tom!”

They hurried up the path to the club-house. The door was ajar. Sam, by this time puzzled and a bit alarmed, pushed it open, and looked in, Orkney peering over his shoulder.

Both Step and Poke were in the room. They were facing each other, though neither appeared to be looking at the other. Poke was slumped on a lounge in an attitude of utter dejection, but Step might have posed for a picture of absolute woe.

At that moment even a stranger would have understood how Clarence Jones came by his nickname; for beyond denial he strongly suggested a step-ladder, and a step-ladder folded hastily. As he had picked out the lowest chair in the room, his knees seemed to rise to a level with his ears, while his long arms dangled till his hands rested limply on the floor. His head sagged upon his breast. His lips were moving, and from them came mournful sounds.

“Brace up, Poke!... Oh, brace up, I say!... Pull yourself together!... It’s certainly awful, but br-brace up, I tell you!”

Never was there more doleful encouragement; but it served, at least, to give Sam some clew to the mystery. It was Poke who was in trouble. Convinced of this, at least, he stepped into the room, and laid a hand on Poke’s shoulder.

“Well, what’s the row?” he demanded. “Must be a big one to keep you two from hearing the racket we raised outside.”

Poke slowly raised his head. He stared at Sam, vaguely, blankly. It was Step who spoke.

“You—you brace up, Poke! And you—you go away, Sam!... But don’t you let it knock you out, Poke! Be a man!”

Sam turned to him. “If you’re going to do the talking, talk sense!” he said sharply.

Step waved his long arms tragically.

“Sam, the worst has happened! Poke’s got a letter!”

“Well, what of it?” Sam asked sharply.

“What of it! Why, when I came along just now he had it.”

“Of course he’d have it, if he’d got it. Don’t be an idiot!”

Step’s arms dropped rather more tragically than they had been raised.

“It—it’s spoiled everything for him. And I don’t wonder. But I was trying to cheer him up when you came blundering in.”

“Queer cheering!” growled Sam. “And much good you were doing him! Now cut this foolishness and come along, both of you. The crowd’s waiting outside with Lon, and it’s time we were starting.”

Poke broke his silence at that. “Oh, I can’t go!” he groaned. “I—I’d have no heart for it.”

“Shucks! It’ll do you all the more good.”

“Nothing can do him good,” croaked Step; then added, rather contradictorily, if with the best of intention: “Brace up, Poke! Pull yourself together! Nev—never say die!”

Sam glanced from one to the other. Step and Poke were close chums; the sorrows of one were generally shared by the other. He was satisfied that the present trouble was really serious, though, as it happened, it did not occur to him to hit upon a clew to the mystery by recalling Poke’s mishap with the big vase. To tell the truth, that incident had rather slipped his mind with the passage of time. Now, though, studying Poke, he observed a crumpled sheet of paper clutched in his hand.

Sam bent down. By the exertion of some force he took possession of the paper, Poke resisting feebly. Smoothing the sheet, he ran his eye down the typewritten page. And, as he read, he whistled shrilly.

The letter was from the Rainbow Mountain House. It was signed by the proprietor himself. Its tone was formal and businesslike.

The writer explained the delay by the time which had been found necessary to learn the cost of replacing the vase. This point had now been established.

“‘We find that a duplicate can be obtained, and invite your early attention to the matter,’” Sam read aloud. “‘The expense will be $175.’”

Orkney echoed Sam’s whistle. Poke groaned weakly. Step tore his hair.

“One hundred and seventy-five dollars!” Sam said very slowly. “‘We invite your early attention to the matter!’ Wow, but that—that’s a sockdologer!”

“He can’t pay it!” cried Orkney. “It’s too much. And if the thing was worth so much, it ought to have been kept where it would be safe.”

“That’s true,” Sam agreed.

Poke shook his head sadly. “I’ve got to pay—I said I would.”

“But you can’t raise the money. The whole club couldn’t raise it.”

“YOU CAN’T RAISE THE MONEY”

“It isn’t the club’s job—it’s mine.”

“Nonsense. All of us were at the dinner.”

“But all of you didn’t smash the vase. I did that myself.”

“And he hates to let his folks know,” Step explained in a stage whisper. “You see, things have been—er—er—they’ve been kind of piling up on him lately, and his folks—well, they’re getting prejudiced.”

“I see,” said Sam soberly. Then he paused, and took thought. “Look here, Poke!” he went on. “You, too, Step! I suppose that letter came to-day.”

“Yes, he found it when he came home from school,” Step declared.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be answered to-day. You fellows have got to come along with the rest of us.”

“Oh, I couldn’t!”

“Oh, we can’t!”

Poke and Step both cried out in protest. Sam’s face grew determined.

“You’ll guess again about that! This is a thing we’re all in, and the trip will give us a chance to talk it over. And getting out will do both of you a lot of good.”

“But, Sam, there’d be no fun for us,” Step argued. “We’d just be wet blankets on the crowd and——”

Now and then a leader has to assert his leadership. Sam had not been head of the Safety First Club without learning some of the secrets of mastery. He shot a meaning glance at Tom Orkney, who understood, and nodded approval.

“Tend to Step, Tom,” Sam said curtly. Then he himself caught Poke’s collar, dragged that youth to his feet, and propelled him toward the door. Close behind him came Orkney, hauling along the struggling Step and paying no attention to his vociferous objections. And so down the path moved the little procession, to the edification and amazement of Lon and Varley, and the other members of the club, thus recruited to its full strength for the expedition to Sugar Valley.

CHAPTER XI
THE GREAT MINCE PIE OF SUGAR VALLEY

Being a youth in full possession of his faculties and powers of observation, Paul Varley understood perfectly that there was something curious in the fashion in which Step and Poke were loaded into the big sleigh; but he was also shrewd enough to perceive that there was no intention to let him into the secret. The late comers had been hailed impatiently or derisively, but Varley noted that none of the questions as to the cause of their delay was pressed. A nudge from Sam or Orkney, or a sharp glance, or a muttered word seemed to check inquisitiveness immediately. Paul saw, and heeded, and guessed the truth, in part, at least. Whatever might be amiss, the other boys regarded it as something not to be revealed outside the circle of the club. Satisfied of this, he took care to help them along by making talk.

Varley had no difficulty in finding topics. The weather, the clouds, the rapidly melting snow, the swollen streams they crossed—about all these things he put many questions. The boys, in turn, appealed to Lon. What did he think of the prospects, anyway?

Lon squinted at the gray sky, and then at the sloppy road.

“Well, ’less something breaks, we’re goin’ to get there; and if harness and runners hold out, we’re goin’ to get home again,” he declared. “Dunno’s I’d call it exactly a pleasure trip, but I guess we’ll pull through somehow, as the molasses candy said to the sugar bowl. Maybe it’ll be sleighin’, and then again maybe it’ll be draggin’ through mud; but we’ve got a good, husky team o’ hosses, and if none of the bridges takes a notion to go floatin’ down stream, we’ll manage. And further deponent sayeth not.”

“But is it going to rain?” Sam persisted.

“Well, wind’s in the east. And if it stays there long enough, squirrels and pickerel will be classin’ alike in p’int o’ dampness.”

“But is it going to stay there?”

Lon clucked to his horses; then he glanced at the sky again.

“Huh! I reckon so—sooner or later there’ll be rain. How soon and how much? Huh! Bein’ able to answer jest sech questions is how old Noah went and got his reputation. And he didn’t leave me his recipe for guessin’ right. So I ain’t committin’ myself, sonny.”

Varley laughed with the others; then gave himself to a study of the weather conditions. It was not a cheering prospect that met his eye. All the winter brilliancy of the landscape had faded; the great blanket of snow covering the earth was now a very wet blanket in fact and in appearance; the leafless trees towered black and somber. Streams ran brim-full. Where there were rapids, they showed clear of ice, and along the smoother stretches, where the break-up had not yet come, the freshets poured along above the frozen layer as well as below it.

Varley began to appreciate what the “breaking up of a hard winter” meant. He wondered, indeed, that Sam and Lon should have undertaken a trip on such a day, and then, correctly enough, inferred that they were keeping the engagement to visit Sugar Valley, because there was no certainty that delay would bring better conditions. In spite of the slush and the puddles, the big sleigh was making very good time. Satisfied that Lon knew his business, Paul quietly studied his companions. Poke and Step were silent and subdued, but the others were chatting briskly enough. He suspected a bit of method in this, and jumped to a conclusion that was not far from the mark. Whatever was amiss with Step and Poke, the club was treating it as a secret, not to be discussed before even so sympathetic an outsider as he was himself. To tell the truth, Paul admired the new evidence of the strength of the bond which held this group of chums. As it happened, he had many friends but few intimates; and sometimes he had longed for just such close association as the Safety First Club provided.

For a time the road crossed ground with which Varley had some slight acquaintance, but then Lon turned sharply to the left and toward the narrow cleft in the hills which Sam once had pointed out to Paul as the entrance to Sugar Valley. On close inspection the pass was narrower even than it had appeared to be from a distance. On both sides the rocky banks rose so steeply as to suggest cliffs, while at their base flowed the Sugar River, a considerable stream, at least in spring time. It was spanned by two bridges, one a gaunt steel structure carrying railroad tracks, the other a covered highway bridge, of the old-fashioned wooden construction. Both these bridges were close to the mouth of the glen, and their piers seemed half to fill the space between the banks of the river. The water was swirling merrily about the masonry, against which from time to time little floes of ice dashed with a fine crash; a ragged fringe of fragments lined the banks; the air was full of spray of a peculiarly chilly and penetrating quality. The boys dug their chins into the collars of their overcoats as the sleigh dragged across the bridge.

“Whew! Talk about your cold storage plants!” cried the Trojan—and that was what all of them thought.

Then a twist in the road showed them that the valley broadened widely, with ranges of low hills on either hand. Near the river they saw a series of natural terraces, which a fanciful eye might have regarded as suggesting shallow benches of a great amphitheatre. The hills were wooded, and so was part of the lower ground, with dense swamp growth here and there. The road hugged the base of the hills to the left. Evidently it was much traveled, though there were few houses in sight. Lon offered explanation of this.

“Big farms along here, mostly. Been owned by the same families pretty nigh ever since Adam and Eve came to the jumpin’ off place. Don’t quite believe that, eh? Well, then, I’ll compromise, and make it since the white folks came into this deestrict. But above here a piece there’s quite a settlement. The Grants, though, belong down here in the old settler class. Old Nahum Grant, he was one of the fust white men to—— But, hullo! There’s the house now!”

The boys looked in the direction in which his whip pointed. They saw a comfortable farmhouse, big and roomy, and flanked by huge barns. Then they were turning in at the gate, and pulling up before the house, and the door was opening, and Mrs. Grant, more beaming than ever, was bustling out to greet them.

“My soul and body! but it does me good to see you all!” she exclaimed. “Take a mopey, draggly day like this, and I didn’t know whether you’d sorter back out about coming way out here. But you didn’t—and there’s quite a lot of you. My, my, but I’m tickled! There haven’t been so many young folks at the old place since I don’t know when!”

“Yes, ma’am, we’re all here,” Lon made answer. “That is, unless three-four fell out of the sleigh a mile or two back. With a load like this a feller really ought to stop and take account of stock ’bout once in so often.”

“Bless me, if ’tain’t Lon Gates!” cried Mrs. Grant delightedly. “I vow, but it’s a sight for sore eyes!”

“Same to you, ma’am, and three or four times over!” Lon responded gallantly. Then he surrendered the reins to a farm-hand, who came from the barn, and stepped to the porch, where Mrs. Grant was shaking hands with the boys, duly presented in turn by Sam.

Mr. Grant came out of the house to join in the welcome to the visitors. He was a thin, elderly man, with a wisp of gray whisker, a quiet manner, and an eye which had a humorous twinkle. Then he and his wife shepherded the party indoors.

Paul Varley glanced about him curiously. The low ceilings, the home-made rugs on the floor, the kerosene lamps, the many rocking chairs, the big horsehair covered lounge—these things quite matched his expectations, but there were other things which jarred them. The piano in a corner of the great living-room was a handsome instrument; the gilded coils of a very modern steam radiator suggested that the wide fireplace now served ornamental rather than useful purposes. There were thriving plants at the windows, and on the center table lay a number of magazines and illustrated weekly papers. Against one wall stood a tall clock, which drew Paul like a magnet. His father was somewhat of a collector, and the son had picked up some bits of information about ancient timepieces. This one, unless he were much mistaken, was very valuable.

“My great-grandfather made that,” Mr. Grant explained. “That is, he had it made.”

“To order?” Paul asked.

Mr. Grant chuckled softly. “It was very much that way. A friend of his, who went to England, brought back the works at his request. Then a traveling cabinet maker and jack-of-all-trades put the case together, according to his ideas. Oh, yes, the journeyman and journeying mechanic was an institution of those days; he’d make you a chest of drawers, or a table, or a clock case, or anything else. So great-grandfather picked his trees, and cut his lumber, and sawed his boards, and had the wood thoroughly seasoned when the jack-of-all-trades came around to build just such a clock as he wanted.”

Paul nodded. “It seems to have been mighty good work, sir.”

“That was a way they had,” said Mr. Grant. “They didn’t have so many things then that they could afford to put up with slipshod work.” Then he turned to the Shark, who had marched up to a framed map, hanging near the clock, and was peering at it through his spectacles.

“There’s an odd heirloom, young man. Know what it is?”

“Of course,” said the Shark crisply. “Relief map—I’ve seen the big one of the whole state in the capitol.”

“Right! But this just shows Sugar Valley.”

“So I see,” quoth the Shark quite as crisply as before, and continued his study. The map was like a carving, depressions being represented by gouges in the wood of which it was made, and tiny ridges showing the terraces before one came to the greater elevation of the bordering hills. The course of the river and its tributary brooks could be very clearly followed. The Shark ran a finger along one of the curving levels, an action which caught the attention of Mrs. Grant. Instantly she was beside him.

“Well, did you find any?” she demanded; her tone was hardly tart, but it was tinged with suspicion.

“Of course I did,” said the Shark. “I knew it’d have to be there.”

Thereupon Mrs. Grant promptly caught his hand and peered quite as closely at the tip of the exploring finger as the Shark had peered at the map.

“Nonsense! There isn’t a particle!” she cried indignantly.

“There is,” said the Shark bluntly. “Feeling is often more accurate than sight, and I felt it distinctly.”

Mrs. Grant gasped. “Goodness gracious, boy! Your mother must be one of those miracle housekeepers to bring you up to notice such things!”

“Eh?” The Shark, in turn, was bewildered, but luckily bethought him of his manners. “Excuse me, Mrs. Grant, but—but we can’t be talking about the same thing.”

“I’m talking about dust!”

“Oh!” There was relief in the Shark’s tone: also there was a little impatience. “Dust nothing! What do I care—er—er—I mean I was pretty sure there was a minor water-shed right there, but I had to feel to make certain. The light, you know, is not very strong; hence the chance of error of vision is increased, and——”

Mrs. Grant’s laugh cut him short. It, too, betrayed relief.

“Ha, ha, ha! And I thought, if there’d been any error of vision, it must ’a’ been mine, when I dusted yesterday! And I don’t make my brags about some things, but if anybody can find dirt——”

There she checked herself, and laughed again. “Mercy me, boys, hear me run on! But I’m like everybody else; I’ve got my prejudices, and if you get me started—— There, there! I’m starting, but I’m starting myself. And what you’re really thinking about, I’ll warrant, is dinner, for you’ll be hungry as bears—or boys—after your ride. I never could see much difference—between the bears and the boys. Not that I knew any bears real well, but I did get acquainted with a lot of boys, and they’d act sometimes a good deal the way folks say bears’ll take on, especially about meal time. But ‘error of vision’—and what was that other thing—‘minor water-shed,’ wasn’t it? Somehow, the boys I’ve known didn’t talk much about such things.”

“Oh, that’s just the Shark’s way, ma’am,” Sam hastened to explain. “You see he’s a crackerjack at mathematics, and it’s all he cares for. That’s why we call him the Shark—he gobbles up problems so! And when he saw that funny map, he couldn’t help figuring what it meant.”

“He figured one thing correctly, at any rate,” said Mr. Grant. “There is a water-shed there, for there’s a spring, and the overflow drains north.”

“Well, there’ll be time enough for surveying talk, or whatever you call it, after dinner,” his wife interposed decidedly. “Come on, everybody! The things are on the table.”

The boys streamed into the dining-room, and took the places their hostess pointed out. Varley was again unobtrusively observant. This room, like the other, was big and cheery, with plants at the windows. A huge sideboard, set on curiously slender legs, ran half the length of one of the walls. Above it was a shelf on which stood a fine old clock. The table was very long; long enough, indeed, to accommodate all the party, including Lon, who took his chair quite as a matter of course. The cloth was fine and snowy white; the china and glass good, though a bit miscellaneous in design. Varley was clever enough to understand that the Grants evidently were very comfortably well-to-do, and this was borne out by the hospitable profusion with which the board was spread. There was set before Mr. Grant a huge platter, piled high with chicken fried a wonderful brown. There were mashed potatoes, and beets, and onions, and other vegetables; there was a wholesale supply of apple sauce and cranberries, and half a dozen kinds of pickles. There were supplies of bread and butter for a small regiment, and tall pitchers of milk, with a steaming urn of coffee, over which Mrs. Grant presided. A ruddy and somewhat agitated maid hovered about her mistress, with whom she exchanged stage whispers frequently, followed by raids upon the pantry and replenishment of this or that dish. It was all very informal, very jolly, and, above all, very, very good. There were certain flaky biscuits, which captivated Paul, and of which he consumed more than he liked to keep count of; though nobody seemed to bother on that score. Twice his plate went back for more chicken, following, be it said, the example set by other plates. The ride had sharpened appetites, which were healthily developed, anyway; the blandishments of Mrs. Grant were hardly needed to persuade her guests to prove themselves mighty trenchermen.

In that hospitable warmth good fellowship reigned. Step threw off his burden of care because of Poke’s misfortune, while Poke himself roused to a somewhat subdued cheerfulness. There might be dark trouble ahead, but for the present he gave himself to the good things of the moment.

Sam was as merry as the others, but a shadow of apprehension fell upon his face when Mrs. Grant rose and slipped into the pantry, whence proceeded sounds of her whispered conference with her assistant. Sam, of a sudden, had warnings. He had almost forgotten that long-promised mince pie; now he recalled it, with remembrance of the anguish of mind it had caused him and wonder if it was to put him to further ordeals. Luckily, he had not long to wait in uncertainty. The pantry door swung. Appeared Mrs. Grant personally bearing the famous pie, the maid escorting her.

And what a pie it was!

Lon’s admiring exclamation was no more than deserved tribute. “Great Scott, Mis’ Grant, but you sure done it this time! I’ve been brung up with pies, and I thought I’d seen all kinds they was, but I never clapped eyes on an old he-one like that! Jupiter crickets!”

Now, in truth, it was a great pie, an enormous pie, a pie of dimensions, baked in the biggest dish any of the boys had ever seen so used; a dish deep and wide. And it was a pie crowned with a gently rising dome of crust, tinted with the rich brown which bespeaks perfect cooking. Mrs. Grant set it on the table; the maid came, bearing a pile of plates. Knife in hand, the hostess paused to address the company.

“Boys, I can’t make a speech, but I’m going to tell you something. It’s kind of a family tradition of the Grants—a mince pie is. Why, way back in the days of Dominie Pike——”

“Dominie Pike!” It was the usually silent Tom Orkney who spoke, and his voice had a queer trace of excitement.

Mrs. Grant turned to him. “Why, yes—the Grants claim descent from him. But what’s the matter?”

Tom went a fiery red under the gaze of the company. “I—I—oh, nothing’s the matter,” he stammered confusedly. “Only the name—it’s odd, you know, and—and——”

Mrs. Grant nodded briskly. “Does sound odd these times—‘Dominie Pike.’ And I guess he was an odd stick himself, for all he was a minister and mighty close to a great man. But you’re waiting to hear what he has to do with mince pies—the Grant kind. Well, I’ll tell you. Once he came back, nigh starved and poor as Job’s turkey after one of his trips in the woods with his Indian friends. Never heard about his chumming around with the old chiefs? Well, he did, and they thought a sight of him. But that ain’t the story I’m telling. You see, he’d been away a long time, and supplies at home were running mighty low. And his wife, she’d got most desperate. So what did she do, but take all the scraps and odds and ends she had—and they were about all she did have, I guess—and make ’em into a pie. And it turned out nearer a mince pie than any other kind. And just when it was done and cooling, and the children were licking their lips and rubbing their poor little tummies, home comes the Dominie out of the woods. And he sees that blessed pie, and he descends upon it like a wolf. And he eats it all, every crumb. And everybody’s so glad to see him alive nobody says anything to warn him that he’s putting away the family’s dinner—and supper, too, I reckon.

“And finally he pushes back the plate, and sits quiet for a minute. And then he looks at his wife, and his eye sort of twinkles. And he says in his way—and it was a good deal of a way he had, by all the stories—he says: ‘Wife, as you well know, I hold not with the pomps and vanities. But, for sustenance and nourishing qualities, yonder pastry appears to me to have possessed certain worthy qualities. So I do advise that in the event of good service by any of these children here present, they be reasonably rewarded with a pie like this one.’

“And that’s the story that has been handed down in the family; and that’s the reason we’ve set great store by our mince pies as rewards of merit. And so, when Master Sam Parker”—here she beamed on that youth—“when he did me a very good turn, I just naturally made up my mind to treat him by the Dominie Pike recipe. Sometimes I’ve wondered if he didn’t think a mince pie was a funny medal, but now he knows—and you friends of his know—why you’re facing this mince pie, and why I expect you to treat it the way the old Dominie treated his. If you leave a crumb of it, I shan’t like it one bit—so there!”

“Oh, you won’t be disappointed!” Sam cried hastily. “It—it’s a beautiful pie. And—and I like the story that goes with it,” he added after the briefest of pauses.

Mrs. Grant gave him a glance of understanding. “Well, now, I thought you might,” she said. “Boys are funny—you never can tell how things’ll strike ’em. And a pie—even a mince pie—might worry some of them, if it was a—a—well, a present, you know, and meant for sort of a good conduct badge, and so on. And if they didn’t take it right—why—why——”

Then Sam spoke with decision and emphasis. “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Grant,” he said. “This bully pie is going to be taken right!”

The lady’s broad-bladed knife drove through the crust of the great pie.

“Have those plates ready, Hannah!” she warned the maid. “And don’t forget the whipped cream—no, nor the maple fluff.” Again she glanced at her guest of honor. “Which will you have with the pie? Maybe, though, you’d like both.” With practiced hand she was removing a huge sector and placing it upon a plate. “Both, did you say? They go together very nicely.”

Two big glass bowls had been set beside the monster pie, one filled with cream beaten to a delightful fluffiness, the other with something very pleasing to the eye and suggesting to Varley a light caramel.

“I’ll try both,” said Sam valiantly.

“Good for you!” exclaimed his hostess. “That’s one comfort of having boys around, though. When you take extra trouble to please ’em, they’ll meet you half-way. They’ve got real appetites, and they know what to do with them. Now, I don’t believe Dominie Pike had whipped cream with his pie, but that was his misfortune and not his fault. And as for the maple fluff—well, we set great store by that in Sugar Valley, which wouldn’t have been called so if it wasn’t for its maple sugar.”

Paul Varley spoke a bit impetuously: “Oh, maple sugar? After dinner we may see how it’s made, mayn’t we?”

Mrs. Grant nodded briskly. “Indeed you shall! The sap isn’t really running yet, but we’ve got all the fixings.... Quick! More plates, Hannah!” She was serving the dessert with dextrous speed. “Don’t wait, boys!... And you’ll have both trimmings, won’t you?” She now was addressing Poke. “Excuse me if I can’t keep all your names straight, but you look as if you might have a sweet tooth.”

“Yes, ma’am, both, if you please,” said Poke heartily. For the moment, at least, he had quite forgotten his sorrows.

Mrs. Grant beamed upon him. “That’s what I like to hear! Give me good, lusty boys every time!... And it’ll be both for you, too, won’t it?” she asked, turning to Step.

The elongated youth quite matched Poke’s heartiness. “Yes, ma’am, both will do very nicely.”

Lon Gates chuckled. “Oh, he can stand it, all right. Some folks is built to stow it sideways, and some to stow it up and down.”

“And some take care of it both ways, eh?”

“Yes’m, that’s me,” quoth Lon, quite unabashed. “’Specially when it comes to Sugar Valley mince pies,” he added gallantly.

It was a deserved tribute. Every boy at the table was ready to vow that never had there been another mince pie to match the toothsome marvel of Sugar Valley cookery, composed and baked for the honor and delectation of Sam Parker and his friends.

CHAPTER XII
EXPLORING THE VALLEY

Probably everybody notices, from time to time, how things which would seem to be trifling in themselves bring about results which are anything but trifling. Paul Varley’s interest in sugar making was to prove a case in point.

If Varley had not been with the Safety First Club that day, it is altogether likely that the trip to the maple groves would have been omitted. The big dinner, with Sam’s wonderful mince pie as its climax, left the Grants’ guests very well pleased with the world in general but not at all disposed to exertion, especially as the weather showed no improvement. Back in the great living-room the party settled down in a semicircle before the open fireplace, where now a cheery little pile of birch was blazing.

“We’ll have it for company, anyway,” Mrs. Grant explained, as she touched a match to the kindling. “The steam keeps us warm enough—and some to spare—days like this, but I must say I like the sparkle and crackle. Kind of sociable like, ain’t it?”

“Yes’m—makes me think of a lively widow next door!” chuckled Lon.

“Hm-m! Don’t see as you’ve got any call, Lon Gates, to make jokes about widows,” said Mrs. Grant with spirit. “None of ’em’s got you yet.”

“Well, you never can tell, ma’am. I’m young yet.”

Mrs. Grant shook her head, half reprovingly. “I believe you are, Lon. Still, I remember when——”

“When I could eat a meal like these youngsters have just stowed away,” Lon put in. “Yes’m, yes’m; that’s so. But I’ll say this, ma’am: I didn’t get many such chances in my time to treat myself like an anacondy snake same as these youngsters have.”

“Nonsense! They’ve just nice, wholesome appetites.”

Lon chuckled again. “Well, maybe you’re right, at that. Fillin’ a growin’ boy is a good deal like pourin’ water into a sieve. But jest for the time bein’, I’d say, you’ve got this crowd full to the brim.”

The Shark rose rather jerkily, and walked up to the profile map. He regarded it with a fascination like that the ill-omened vase at the hotel had had for Poke. Mr. Grant joined him.

“My father made that,” said the farmer. “You see, it was this way: One winter he was laid up with a broken leg, and wanted to have something to keep him busy. He’d done some work on the big map at the state house—he was a surveyor, among other things, you understand—and it struck him he’d fix up this affair for our valley. It happened he’d run levels all over it, and had his records; so he had plenty to go by. And they do say this is amazing accurate. Why, when the government men came through here a few years back——”

“I know—they mapped all this region,” the Shark interrupted. “Computed elevations, set monuments, all that sort of thing.”

“Well, they found father had hit mighty close to the mark. And their monuments—that’s your word for ’em, eh?—you can find three-four of ’em scattered around. Mostly they’re on the hills, but down by the river they set one on a little rise. If ’twa’n’t for the snow you could find it easily.”

The Shark ran his eye over the map. “The valley’s really like a big bowl,” said he, meditatively. “And that’s a mighty narrow outlet—place we came through, where the bridges are—more like the neck of a bottle. I should think the ice would jam there. Then if there should be a flood—say, things would happen!”

“So they would. But the big dam up above’ll hold, I guess. You see, years ago there was a scheme to turn the whole valley into a reservoir, but it’d have taken more money than the folks could raise. So they went up-stream a few miles, and put in their dam there. But we ain’t had any floods in Sugar Valley, for all the mouth of it’s like the mouth of a bottle, as you were saying.”

“Exactly!” quoth the Shark, but kept his gaze upon the map. “And so there is a government marker down by the river—on a little rise? Wonder if it isn’t about there?”

Mr. Grant looked at the spot to which the Shark pointed. “You’ve hit it close, young man,” he declared.

A very slight, but very satisfied, smile lessened the severity of the Shark’s expression. “I felt pretty sure I had,” he remarked complacently.

Mrs. Grant turned from poking the fire and mounding the birch logs to her fancy.

“No; we don’t have floods often in Sugar Valley,” she observed, “though anybody might think we would. Somehow, the river takes care of the water. Of course, ’way back in Dominie Pike’s time, they did have some amazing freshets—he told about ’em in his diary, you know.”

Tom Orkney bent forward. “Then you’ve seen the diary, ma’am?” he inquired eagerly.

Mrs. Grant laughed. “Bless your heart, no! It disappeared years before I happened along.”

“Oh!” There was a disappointment in Tom’s tone, which didn’t escape Mrs. Grant’s attention.

“It is an awful pity!” she said. “The Dominie, I guess, put down ’most everything that happened, and if folks could find his book now, they could settle a lot of points they’re disputing. But seventy-five or eighty years ago people didn’t set such store by old things—they were too glad to get new ones, maybe—and so lots of stuff was lost that would bring high prices nowadays. Why, the diary just knocked about, as you might say—or part of it did. Mr. Grant’s grandfather always insisted that the Dominie filled three or four note-books, and that the one folks saw—that’s the one, by the way, all the stories told now are based on—why, he always argued that that was the last, or next to the last, of the set. ’Tis a fact it didn’t tell much about the very earliest days of the settlement—I’ve heard that point spoken of. But, anyway, it passed from hand to hand in the family, and was borrowed by neighbors, and got all thumbed and dog-eared, and worn and tattered; and, finally, it just dropped out of sight. Too bad, but that’s what happened.”

“Nobody copied it?” asked Tom.

“Why—why, yes and no. Nobody copied it all—nobody thought it worth the trouble in those days. I’ve seen in old letters lots of references to it and its stories, and once or twice I’ve come across short quotations from it. But there’s another mix-up—in trying to find out about it now, I mean. You see, along about 1800 there was a Grant who was a great practical joker, and sort of a bookish fellow, too; and, somehow, the combination set him to writing a burlesque diary. It was about people of his time, but he imitated the Dominie’s style, and he was a clever hand at it; and what with most of the family names around here being the same as in the Dominie’s day and the imitation being so good—well, after a while even folks who’d read both got sort of mixed as to what was in which. So now nobody really knows where truth ends and jokes begin in half the traditions of the town. What makes it worse is that the Grant diary disappeared, too. Very likely the man who wrote it destroyed it, when he got older, and took a more serious view of life.”

“Oh!” said Orkney again. There was still disappointment in his tone.

“We’ve looked high and low for both books, of course; but I guess they’re lost for good. This valley, you know, was where the Dominie settled. He gave it the name it’s had ever since—Sugar Valley. That was because he found the Indians here were making sugar. Mighty poor stuff it was, probably, and more than half dirt. But it was sweet, and real sugar was hard to get. Maybe that was one reason the Dominie stayed here, and built a cabin, and then a house, and finally a better house. Oh, it was quite a mansion, that last house of his was—a sort of show place, though I guess there weren’t many people to show it to. But it was made of sawed boards instead of logs, and there was a wonderful great chimney, and the fireplaces were as big as some rooms are nowadays. Yes, and one of the up-stairs rooms had a fireplace; and that, I guess, was a sort of eighth wonder of the world—this part of the world, anyway. But here I am, talking as if you couldn’t see the place for yourselves, if you want to.”

“Then it still stands?” Orkney asked.

“Indeed it does! Nobody has lived in it for years and years, but it’s still there—nearly a mile from here, and close to the river. Of course, it’s rickety, but it doesn’t tumble down, and I don’t see any signs that it’s likely to. Once or twice we’ve talked about restoring it, and fixing it up, but we’ve never got around to do it; though some folks say we ought to turn it into a sort of historical museum. But, as I say, we haven’t got to it. And as for exploring the old place—why, why—a miserable day like this——”

Mrs. Grant hesitated. As she chanced to be looking at Varley, it was he who made answer to her unfinished question.

“Oh, another time will do just as well. And it was the sugar making that we’d especially like to see, you know.”

“You’re interested in that, then?”

“Very interested; it’ll be all new to me. And—and”—Paul smiled engagingly—“and your maple fluff, Mrs. Grant, was awfully good. It made a fellow all the more anxious to find out about the flavoring.”

Mrs. Grant was pleased, and showed it. “So you liked it, then? Well, ’tis kind of tasty, though there’s really nothing to it but whipped white of egg, and just a mite of cream, and a dash of maple. But put it on mince pie——”

“Geeminy, but it’s cracking good!” Step interrupted.

“Why, I’d call it grand,” quoth Poke solemnly, and licked his lips reminiscently.

Then Mrs. Grant laughed. “Ha, ha, ha! I vow, but there’d be some satisfaction in cooking for a lot of folks like you boys! But if you want to see where the maple comes from—why, I don’t want to turn you out in the wet, but you ought to be looking around while the light’s as good as it’s likely to be this day. And so, if Mr. Grant is ready, and you’re ready to start—why, that’s just what I’d do if I were you.”

Now, probably there was nobody concerned—except Varley, of course—who wouldn’t have been willing to omit the expedition. But Paul was genuinely interested, and so evident was this fact that none of the others were willing to offer objection. Caps and overcoats and overshoes were brought out and donned, and with Mr. Grant in the lead the party streamed out of the house.

“Don’t stay too long!” Mrs. Grant called after them. “My, but it’s getting to be weepy weather! Well, I’ll have something warm and comforting waiting for you when you come back.”

“Weepy weather,” indeed, fitted the case. The air was milder than ever, and more charged with moisture. Eaves were dripping, and little streams trickled down the trunks of the trees; under foot the melting snow lay in a dwindling, soggy mass. What was more, a thin drizzle was falling, hardly to be called a rain, but curiously searching and penetrating in its dampness.

Mr. Grant glanced at the leaden sky, and shook his head.

“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say things were going to be worse before they’re better,” he remarked. “Way the wind’s been hanging in the east——”

“More southeast, ain’t it?” Lon inquired.

“In-between. Vane on the barn ain’t hardly wiggled all day. And it’s pointing right to where our big rains hail from. Funny we haven’t had it harder. Up-river they’ve been getting a reg’lar downpour, accordin’ to what they’re telephoning.”

“Umph!” said Lon. “Then you’ll be havin’ a sight o’ water for this river o’ yourn to take care of, won’t you?”

“Well, it’s done just that every spring,” said Mr. Grant.

“Mebbe. Only I’ve got kinder a notion from the feel o’ things that there’s a reg’lar weather buster brewin’.”

“My notion ain’t so far from yours,” Mr. Grant agreed. Then he turned to the boys. “We’ll take a look at what we call the ‘Island’—that’s where we make most of our sugar. Got some trees tapped already, though the season ain’t really begun yet. But it’ll be easier to show you than to tell you about it. So come along!”

They followed him, in Indian file, along a well-beaten path through the snow, a path that wound and twisted to avoid groves and patches of thicket. The floor of the valley seemed to be almost level, after the descent from the natural terrace on which the house stood; but, plainly enough, not much of the land was under cultivation. Except for the fact that their course was generally toward the river, the boys had little idea of their destination, and Sam, with the teachings of Safety First in mind, remarked to himself that here was a stretch of country in which a fellow might very easily lose his bearings. Not that he had any thought of danger. Even if anybody lost his way, temporarily, he could steer for the hills and so, sooner or later, come to higher ground and the road. So he trudged along, digging his chin deep in his upturned collar, and making the best of unpleasant conditions.

Sam noticed, presently, that one at least of his companions was showing signs of losing heart. Poke had started out near the head of the line, and, comforted by food and warmth, had appeared to be in excellent spirits. Very soon, however, the melancholy weather had its effect. Probably it reminded him of his gloomy prospects and the staggering bill for the big vase. At any rate, his steps lagged. One after another passed him, until he was the last straggler in the line. As it proved, he was far behind the rest of the party when they came to the “Island.”

As has been said, this was not an island, but a low knoll, covered by a fine growth of maples. On one side stood a small building, half house, half shed; and here was an equipment of great kettles for “boiling down” the collected sap. There was an orderly pile of new cans, in which the syrup would be shipped, and there were boxes awaiting the sugar, to which part of the yield of the grove would be reduced.

“I hear they’ve got a lot of newfangled modern improvements,” Mr. Grant remarked, “but we stick to the old ways. Of course, we ain’t big producers and shippers, but we manage ’most every season to do something of a trade. And now I’ll show you how we do it.”

With that he took Varley in hand. He displayed the little spouts which were placed in holes in the maple trunks, and along which the sap ran to pails. Then he showed big buckets, into which collectors emptied the contents of the pails, and which brought their gallons and gallons of the thin sap to the kettles, there to be reduced in volume and increased in density until the required standard for syrup was reached.

“This isn’t a big plant,” he explained, “but, after all, we’re pretty busy around here, when things get going. Fires have to be kept up, and sap has to be brought in; and of course it’s a short season, at the best, and so there has to be a hustle. When the sap starts running—why, we have to run, too.”

“Then it hasn’t started yet?” Varley asked.

“It’s starting—the warm spell sets it going. But ’tain’t a full flow yet. You can see we’ve got some trees tapped”—he pointed to a near-by part of the grove—“and if a freeze don’t come to check things, we’ll be in full swing a good deal quicker than I’d care to be. Somehow, I don’t like the looks of the weather, or the feel of it, for that matter.”

Varley was quite ready to agree with Mr. Grant on this score. The dismal day was growing more dismal still; the drizzle was heavier; the dense gray clouds seemed to hang lower. The other boys, to whom a sugar camp was an old story, were huddling in the lee of the house. Varley noticed that Poke, most sorrowful of face, was in low-toned talk with Step, who seemed rapidly to be becoming as melancholy as his chum. Then Sam joined the pair, and the whispered conversation went on, with no sign of rising spirits.

Varley was clever enough to make a shrewd guess at the situation. Doubtless, sooner or later, he would hear all about it, but just now the club was keeping its own counsel. So he remained near Mr. Grant until the latter was called into the house by his hired man, who seemed to be unable to find a big ladle, of which he announced himself in search.

Left alone, Paul took note that the Shark, who was peering at the lower ground about the “Island” and mumbling to himself in dissatisfied fashion, appeared to be on the point of starting on some small expedition of his own. Paul crossed to him.

“What’s up?” he inquired. “Looking for something?”

The Shark merely grunted.

“What is it?”

“The marker.”

“Eh?” Paul had not been especially impressed by the map or the talk about it.

“Can’t you hear?” snapped the Shark. “Marker, I said—marker the government surveyors left. Bet you I know where it is!”

“Oh! do you?” said Varley, a little vaguely.

The Shark snorted. “Huh! Sure I know—if the survey and the map match. Ought to be out there.” And he pointed into the mists toward the river.

“Oh, had it?”

“Of course it had! And I’m going to find it.”

“I’ll help you,” said Varley readily.

“Shucks! You don’t know how,” said the Shark bluntly.

Varley was good-natured. Moreover, the youthful mathematician appealed to his sense of humor.

“Well, maybe you can show me how.”

“That’s so,” the Shark admitted.

“Then I may come along?”

“If you’d like to,” quoth the Shark, half-grudgingly, and started off.

Varley followed him. Mr. Grant and his helper were still in the house, and the other boys were grouped about Poke. None of them, as it happened, observed the departure of the two.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SHARK DEMONSTRATES

Varley splashed after his leader. No other word would quite describe the sort of journey he made at the heels of the Shark; for as soon as they had descended from the slight rise of the “Island,” and come to the lower levels, they encountered many evidences of the rapid progress of the thaw. Probably even in summer there was more or less swampy ground hereabouts; but now water from the melting snow stood in shallow pools, through which the Shark marched unconcernedly. He was wearing big overshoes, with tops of waterproof cloth buckled tightly about the bottoms of his trousers, and appeared to give no more thought to the puddles underfoot than he gave to the rain.

Paul had a somewhat different equipment, inasmuch as he was shod in leather only, but leather prepared by some new process for rough wear and guaranteed to be water-tight. So far the new shoes—they laced well up his legs—had seemed to meet the guarantee, but he began to wonder if they would continue to do so. Certainly he was putting them to an extreme test, as, for that matter, he was testing the qualities of his heavy outer jacket. Indeed, he smiled more than once to himself as he thought how curiously unlike his city experience it was to be trudging along on such a day, and in such a place, and, it may be added, in such company. For the Shark surely was an odd stick. He hardly opened his lips as they tramped along, but Varley found him entertaining, for all that.

Thick clumps of undergrowth here and there prevented a march in a straight course, and also so narrowed the field of view that Paul had small notion of the direction they were taking. The Shark, however, went along quite as if he were on familiar ground. To be sure, he glanced about him frequently, but with an effect, almost, of picking up landmarks; and, presently, quickening his pace, headed straight into a hedge-like line of bushes, forced a passage through them, and gave a grunt of satisfaction.

“Ugh! Hit it about right. Not too far up—that’s the main thing.”

Paul overtook him, and halting, as he had halted, looked out upon the Sugar River. It was a sizable stream at all times, but now, swollen by melting snow, it was a river of imposing proportions. It was running almost bank full. There was a great deal of ice coming down-stream; the cakes, in some cases, were like small floes. The current was swift, and the cakes ground and grated together savagely. Moreover, the water was of a muddy color, which could have had nothing to do with its temperature, but which, for some reason Paul didn’t understand, made him shiver.

“Whew! I’d hate to have to take a dip in there,” said he.

The Shark nodded absently. He was giving a moment to studying the opposite bank.

“Of course—too cold.... Be too cold for two months yet,” he added.

Varley pushed the collar of his coat higher. If he were not mistaken, the rain was increasing. Funny how sight of that yellow, rushing river made everything seem more dismal than ever, he reflected.

Somewhere in the dim distance the Shark made out what he had been looking for.

“Um-m! That’ll be it—highest ground anywhere around. Now, if I can get a line——” He broke off the sentence, and, turning, stared in the direction in which, by Varley’s hazy reckoning, lay the Grant farmhouse.

“What are you up to?” Paul inquired.

“What do you s’pose?” countered the Shark testily. “Think I’m looking for birds’ nests?”

“Oh, no,” Varley answered humbly; just then he was not disposed to controversy. His tone was not lost upon the Shark, who said, quickly and almost apologetically:

“Oh, I say! ’Tisn’t as if you knew more—er—er—as if you were better posted, I mean. Ought to have thought of that! But I’m getting my bearings. And I am getting them, too.”

“Your bearings?” Paul repeated, doubtfully. “Then you’ve been here before.”

“Never in my life. Saw that map, though, didn’t I?”

“The map? But—but you didn’t commit it to memory, did you?”

“Only the most important part of it,” said the Shark simply. “Few of the elevations—that sort of thing. They were marked down plain as print.”

“I didn’t notice ’em,” Varley confessed.

The Shark’s lip curled. “Huh! What do you have eyes for?” Then he recalled that the other was in a sense a stranger and a guest. “I mean, it’s a mighty good scheme, when you see figures, to jot ’em down in memory. Then, if you’ve got nothing else to do, you can have fun thinking ’em over and setting yourself little problems with ’em. Now, this valley’d fool you. Lot less slope to the floor of it than you’d suppose. And the way the hills line up—say, though, didn’t notice that, either, did you?”

“I—I guess I didn’t.”

“It would have paid you. That government marker we’re looking for is right between the two highest hills—one on each side of the valley. That is, it is, if the map’s accurate. So far, everything’s working out all right. I schemed on hitting the river a little below the real point and working up, and I think I’ve done it. Now let’s get along. Ready?”

“After you,” said Varley.

“Good!” cried the Shark, and off he set, not keeping to the bank of the stream, but bearing away from it on a long diagonal.

Varley pursued him. By this time there could be no doubt that the rain was heavier. Underfoot, even where there were no puddles, the snow was a clammy mush of penetrating chill. Varley began to suspect the worth of that guarantee of his new shoes. Very gladly he would have turned back, had he been alone; but, being with the Shark, he followed his leader, who plodded on, giving no heed to rain or snow. Again they came to clumps of brush, and made detours about them. At intervals the Shark halted briefly, scanned his surroundings, grunted and went on. Varley felt sure they were getting far from the island, though he would have been put to it to make an estimate of the distance.

The Shark began to slacken pace. His halts for observation were more frequent and longer. Once or twice he even turned back briefly, working over ground they had crossed a moment before. Varley saw that a frown was on his face.

“Are we—are we ’most there?” he inquired solicitously.

“Huh! Ought to be.”

Varley cast a glance about him. “I don’t see anything of that—that marker, you called it, didn’t you?”

Very deliberately the Shark removed his spectacles, and pulled out a handkerchief. He cleared the lenses of moisture, set them before his eyes, peered—or tried to peer—at the hills. But the thickening rain hid them.

“Huh! Closing in, ain’t it?” he growled.

“It surely is!” Varley agreed.

“Then I’ll have to depend more on dead reckoning. Let’s see! Um—um! Allowing for the—— Look here!” The Shark whipped about to glare at his companion. “Look here! Don’t suppose that map’s inaccurate, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m going to know—and know mighty quick,” said the Shark grimly. “That marker ought to be within a hundred yards—no, within fifty—of where we are this minute. Maybe there’s snow over it. Still, it ought to show—way the stuff’s melting and going off, you know.”

Varley said “Yes,” because he did not know what else to say. He was about to add that it was raining a lot harder, when his comrade gave a shout, and, darting across the little open space in which they chanced to be, dropped on his knees beside an object just protruding from the remains of a snow bank. With frantic haste the Shark tore away the heavy snow, revealing a low stone post, bearing a cryptical, chiseled inscription, of which Varley could make nothing. But the Shark was raising a shout of jubilation.

“Bully for us! Bully for the map! It’s all right! We’re all right! Say, ain’t this cracking good sport, Varley?”

Paul tried to feign friendly enthusiasm, but he was too damp to be very successful.

“It—it’s wonderful. Why—why—why, you didn’t know anything about this place except what that map told you, and you came straight to—to where you wanted to come! I—I never heard anything like it!”

The Shark patted the stone with a demonstrative affection Varley hadn’t dreamed he was capable of displaying.

“Bully old rock! Sure you’d be here, where you belong! Oh, but I say! This is just the greatest sport outdoors!”

“But I don’t see—the marker wasn’t shown on the map—it was put in long after the map was made—I don’t understand——”

The Shark interrupted Varley’s broken speech.

“Of course! But naturally it would be put about here by the government men. If you’d taken a good look at the map, you’d have seen why. You’d get the line. Then Mr. Grant as good as pointed out the spot. After that it was just a case of getting the bearings in your head and keeping them there—easy as falling off a log, wasn’t it?”

“It seems to have been easy for you,” Paul confessed. “But—but now that this is done, what—er—er—what do you want to do next?”

“I don’t care—anything,” shrugged the Shark.

A dash of rain drove into Paul’s face, and gave a hardly needed hint of the desirability of shelter.

“It’s getting pretty damp,” he said. “We ought to go back, or find some cover till there’s a let up in the shower.”

“Oh, all right,” said the Shark carelessly. “Just as you please—’tis getting to be quite a rain, eh?”

“Yes, it is. And it’s going to be a good deal of a tramp.”

Thereupon the Shark squinted at the leaden sky.

“Umph! Doesn’t show signs of clearing, I must say. Still, the weather’s the weather, and what we know about it doesn’t make an exact science. Maybe there’ll be a lull. Meanwhile, I suppose we might as well make for the house.”

“You mean the Grants’ house or the sugar camp?”

“Neither. There’s another, nearer by.”

“Oh!” said Varley, and, in spite of him, the doubt in his tone was manifest.

“Case of map again,” quoth the Shark. “House indicated somewhere ’round here. Course, I didn’t pay the same attention to it that I would to something that really mattered. But if you’d like to hunt it up, I’m willing enough to hunt with you.”

“I’d very much like to!”

The Shark glanced about him. He furrowed his brow reflectively.

“Let’s see, now! Farther along it was. Yes, and off to the left, I should say—away from the river, that is. Um, um!... Hullo! What’s that?”

The “that” had been a sound, faint and far off, but easily to be known as the whistle of a locomotive. Varley said as much, and said it a bit testily; the rain was seemingly growing heavier every minute, and he was becoming impatient to seek shelter.

“Umph! I knew that, too—any chump’d know it,” growled the Shark. “But was it from a main line engine or one of the old machines on the branch?”

Paul stared at him. “What difference——” he began hotly; then changed his tone. “Say, you don’t mean to tell me you know all the engines by their whistles?”

“No; not all of ’em—my ear isn’t true enough,” the Shark confessed. “I know a fellow, though, who can spot every last one as far as he can hear it. He’s got absolute pitch.”

“Eh?”

“If he hears a sound he can tell you what’s the note—something like that, anyway. Bully thing to be able to do! Still, you don’t have to have the knack to get a lot out of music. I’m going in for music, by the way, when I have time.”

“Oh!” said Paul, dubiously. Somehow, the Shark never had suggested to him one of musical tastes. “So you’re going in for it? Oh, yes! And it’ll be—er—er—violin, or piano, or—or——”

“Shucks, no!” The Shark’s lip curled scornfully. “What’d I want to play anything for? And tunes? Bah! I can’t tell one from another. And what’s the use of bothering to learn to play one instrument, when you can have a whole band going for you by just starting up a phonograph? But they tell me there’s really some good stuff under it all—real mathematics, I mean, when you get into counterpoint, or whatever it is they call it. So I’m going to take it up when I have a little leisure.”

“Oh, I see—I get you,” said Paul. Then he was reminded by another dash of rain that this was hardly a time for gossip in the open. “Now, though, how about that house?”

“Well, we’ll look for it,” said the Shark; and set off in the direction in which he believed the building to be.

Paul followed him. He noticed that his guide went more slowly than before, and that he veered from left to right, and then from right to left, as if desiring to cover a wider strip of territory. The brush was not especially dense, but it was thick enough to limit the field of view, so that often it was impossible to see more than a few score yards ahead. Suddenly, however, the Shark pulled up.

“Huh! That’ll be the place, I guess,” he announced.

Paul made out dimly the line of a roof; but what with the rain, and the trees, he could do little more than make it out. It was not, in fact, until he and the Shark were close to the building that they obtained a fair view of it.

The house, evidently, was very old. So much could be guessed from the mossy roof and weatherbeaten walls. Midway of the ridge-pole rose a squat and very thick chimney. In front the house showed two stories, but in the rear the roof ran in a great sweep from the ridge-pole to within a couple of feet of the tops of the ground-floor windows. There was no porch, and, indeed, the house was most severely plain in all its outlines.

“Huh! Old timer,” the Shark observed. “And nobody home!”

Presumably it had been a good many years since anybody had been at home there. Still, the place was not utterly neglected in appearance. The stout shutters at the windows were closed, and the front door was boarded up; what was once the front yard had been kept clear of brush.

Varley surveyed the premises with a feeling of helplessness; they seemed to offer no more shelter than was given by the leafless boughs of the trees.

“No; nobody home!” he echoed.

The Shark grunted. “Ugh! Say, ’tis getting to rain!” One might suppose from his tone that this was a fresh discovery.

Varley nodded. As he did so, the motion sent a shower of drops flying from the visor of his cap.

The Shark gave a moment or two to consideration of the weather signs. Then he shook himself much in the manner of a dog emerging from a pond.

“Huh! Can’t say it looks like clearing. Still, you never can tell. So long’s we’re here, we might as well crawl in somewhere out of the wet, and wait a while.”

“Where’s a place to crawl in?”

The Shark stepped up to the door and gave a tug at the boards. They were tightly nailed.

“Huh! Nothing doing there,” he reported.

“Nothing doing,” Varley repeated dismally. His courage was good enough, but he was becoming acutely conscious of the physical drawbacks of the situation.

The Shark tried the nearest shutter. Its rusty catch proved obstinate, but at last gave way, and the shutter swung, revealing the small panes of the window. One or two were broken. Quite coolly the Shark smashed another, and cautiously thrust a hand through the opening.

“What! You’re going to break in?” Varley demanded.

“I sure am! If I can find the thing that fastens this window!” quoth the Shark. “No other way—that is, if we mean to get inside. We can pay for any damage we do afterward, but just now our business is to get somewhere out of the wet.”

A sharp increase in the downpour—and by this time it undeniably was a downpour—served to emphasize his words. Varley sprang to his assistance, and the Shark finding the nail which had served as a lock, their united efforts contrived to raise the lower sash. The Shark climbed and wriggled, and Varley boosted so energetically that at last the explorer shot through the opening and into the dimness of the room beyond. He was up in a minute and stretching out a hand to his ally, who lost no time in climbing after him.

“Whew! What faded-out air!” gasped the Shark.

“Yes; it’s all of that!” Varley agreed.

Indeed, the room was close and stuffy, as rooms long closed are likely to be. But it was a dry, if musty, closeness, a deal better than the wetness of out-of-doors. The Shark shook himself again.

“Gorry! Say, but this beats the other thing,” he declared. “Bet you that window hasn’t been open, though, in ten years; though the folks seem to have kept a lot of furniture here.”

Varley peered into the shadows. He could make out the shapes of a settle and a table, and something he took to be an ancient chest of drawers. Also he was quite sure there was a fireplace. Cold and black as it was, it drew him like a magnet. He started across the room, and now the Shark followed instead of led.

“Now look—I’ve the luck to have a box of matches along,” said he. “If we can find something to burn we——”

There he broke off, as Varley uttered a startled exclamation.

Beneath the feet of the explorers was an ominous creak. It turned swiftly to the grating sound of breaking wood. The floor sagged; the old boards parted. The boys, clawing vainly for support, shot down through the aperture into a cellar, which was like a pit for blackness.

CHAPTER XIV
THE HUNT

“I tell you, it’s the only way. Don’t you suppose I’ve figured and figured on what to do? Well, I have; and there’s just one answer. I can’t dodge it, and I won’t try. I’ve got to pay up, and I will pay up—somehow.”

Poke said it bravely enough and determinedly—all except the last word. The “somehow” came after a little pause, and dragged at that.

“But you can’t!” blurted the Trojan. “You’ve just told us you couldn’t raise the money.”

Poke had his back against the wall of the sugar camp; literally and figuratively he was like one making a last stand.

“But I’ve got to raise it—somehow.” Again there was the brief pause; again there was a catch in his voice. “I’m responsible; I smashed that vase. I didn’t mean to smash it, but that makes no difference.”

“Umph! I’m not so sure of that,” objected the Trojan.

“That’s what I say, too,” Step put in. “Seems as if there ought to be some way——”

“What! To wriggle out of it?” Poke demanded indignantly.

“Why—why—I—I wouldn’t exactly——”

“It’s what you meant, all the same.”

“No; ’tisn’t!” Step insisted.

“Well, then, what did you mean?”

“Why, I—well, it’s sort of hard to put into words, but——”

“Yes; I guess it is hard,” Poke interrupted.

Then Sam Parker stepped forward. He had not been taking a very active part in the discussion, but had been listening intently.

“Hold on, fellows!” said he. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I suppose we had to talk this thing out, but now we’ve done it. All hands know what’s happened to Poke and why he’s so down in the mouth. We’re sorry for him, every one of us, but there’s no use crying over spilt milk or broken vases; and so——”

“Hey! Who’s crying?” Poke protested.

“Oh, that’s just a figure of speech,” said Sam. “Forget it, Poke! Let’s get down to business, everybody. Now, I’m not so all-fired sure Poke really ought to pay all that money. The vase ought to have been in a safer place, if it was so valuable. And I think that’s Varley’s notion, too; and he’s sort of posted, as you might say, about a lot of things.”

“Oh, Varley!” exclaimed Poke, and glanced about him a little apprehensively.

“Varley’s out of the way,” Sam went on. “I guess he understood the club would want a chance to hold a council of war, for he could see that something had gone wrong, even if he didn’t know just what it was.”

“The Shark’s missing, too,” Herman Boyd remarked.

Sam nodded. “So he is. Probably they’ve strolled off together. That’s all right, though. The Shark will stand for anything the rest of us decide to do. It’s a job for all the club, of course, and——”

“How do you make that out?” Poke asked.

“Easily enough. You broke the vase—that’s true. But you wouldn’t have broken it, for you wouldn’t have been at the hotel or giving a dinner if it hadn’t been that you wanted to square the club’s account with Varley.”

“Now you’re talking sense, Sam!” cried the Trojan.

“I know I am. And it’s only sensible for us to treat this thing as hitting the whole club.... That’s all right, Poke! You can say it hit you first, but we feel it hit us afterward. So we ought to pull together, and we will. Now if we all chip in——”

“I can put in ten dollars,” said Tom Orkney promptly.

“Gee! Wish I could do as well!” cried Herman Boyd. “Maybe, though, I can scrape together five or six dollars. I’ve sort of run ahead of my allowance, or I’d promise more.”

“I’m in the same box with Herman,” the Trojan declared.

Step coughed uneasily. As the especial crony of Poke, he really should be taking a leading part in these measures of financial relief.

“Ahem, ahem! I—I—er—er—course you fellows know where I stand. And I’d give my eye-teeth to help Poke out of the scrape. But it just happens I’m awfully short of cash. But I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll subscribe as much as the next fellow, and I’ll put it in, if only I can borrow it somewhere.”

“All right,” said Sam hastily, and shook his head warningly at the Trojan who was beginning to grin.

Again Step cleared his throat. “Ahem! Poke’s folks don’t want to hear about this, you understand—that is, we don’t want ’em to hear about it. You see, what with one thing and another lately—well, things have been breaking mighty badly for Poke at the house—things that weren’t really his fault, if you’d look at ’em right, but that just kept piling up on him. And so—well, this isn’t any time for more bad news to arrive.”

“I should say not!” groaned Poke soulfully.

Sam had been doing some mental arithmetic. “Look here, everybody! With what I can chip in, and what the Shark’ll do, I feel sure we can raise sixty or seventy dollars. That ought to be enough for sort of a first payment.”

“But I ought to make the payment,” Poke insisted.

“You can’t,” Sam told him bluntly. “That’s why we’re going to help you. And we’ll gain a little time for you to look around and scheme out ways to get the rest of the money.”

In spite of this prospect of problems to come the face of Poke brightened a trifle. But it quickly clouded again.

“Oh, I say, you fellows!” Poke said sharply. “I’m ready to take help from any of you, or from all of you—as a loan, of course; I’ll pay you back—but Varley must be kept out of this! It—it isn’t his funeral.”

“Right-o!” Sam agreed.

“No; this is our party—he’s an outsider!” chimed in the Trojan.

The others nodded approval. Here was a matter purely for the Safety First Club.

“Then we’ll call so much settled,” quoth Sam. “But, talking about Varley, where is he?” He peered hard at the grove of maples, and turned again to his companions. “I haven’t a notion where he can be, or the Shark, either.”

“Oh, I guess they’ll turn up soon enough,” said Step. “Nowhere else for them to go, is there?”

“Not in this rain.”

“Rain!” The Trojan caught at the word. “Rain! Sam, you’ve said it! It’s coming down, good and plenty. And ain’t it funny we were all so busy with Poke’s affairs that we didn’t notice it?”

This was quite true. So absorbed had the club been that no heed had been paid by any of the boys to the steady increase in the rain.

Again Sam glanced about. “I don’t believe we ought to stay here any longer. It’s going to be a job to get back to town, and we ought to be making a start.”

As if in answer to a call, Mr. Grant came out of the camp.

“Whew! but this is getting to be a reg’lar wet spell,” he remarked. “And I don’t see any signs of a let-up. Too bad you boys should strike such a day to visit Sugar Valley!”

“We’re sorry, too, sir,” Sam assured him.

Mr. Grant looked the group over. “Let’s see! All here, are you?... No; must be two-three missing. What’s become of that little chap with the glasses and the other fellow who wanted to know all about sugar making?”

“They must have gone back, sir.”

“Umph! Don’t know but they did the sensible thing. I hadn’t realized how it was getting to rain.”

“We didn’t notice, either. And as for Varley and the Shark—that’s our nickname for the fellow with the glasses, you know—I suppose they must have started for the house?”

Sam made his statement more than half a question. Mr. Grant treated it as one.

“Yes, I guess they must have. They’d looked around here, and there ain’t much to see except the camp. Yes; I dare say they’re toasting their shins by the fire this minute. And I reckon we might as well follow ’em.”

Nobody was disposed to delay; nor, for that matter, was there any lingering on the way to the farmhouse. Heads bowed to the storm, collars turned high, hands buried in pockets, the party splashed across the fields with Mr. Grant in the lead.

Mrs. Grant was ready to receive them. She took absolute command the moment they entered the door.

“Get out of your wet things this instant, every one of you!” she ordered. “Hannah, you take the overcoats and hang ’em up by the kitchen stove. And you boys, you get over by the living-room fire. Mercy me! but you’re as sopping wet as our old cat was the day he fell into the cistern. And don’t be afraid to take off your shoes and dry ’em—wet feet’s the worst thing that can happen; and I’m not going to have your mothers think I let company manners help give you all colds. Yes, and don’t be bashful about pulling off your socks if the water got through to ’em. And Hannah, oh, Hannah! Run up-stairs and bring down some of Mr. Grant’s socks—bring enough to go ’round. They’ll be a mite roomy, maybe, but that won’t matter. And bring along all the slippers you happen to see.... Eh, eh? What’s that, now?” Sam had put a somewhat anxious inquiry when the lady paused an instant for breath. “The others, you say? Aren’t they here? No, they’re not. But which ones do you mean? Let’s see! Let me take tally.... Oh, I see now. You mean that queer little one I thought was looking for dust on the map, and the other boy—the nice, polite one—not that you aren’t all polite, of course!” she concluded hastily.

Sam’s face lengthened. “We missed them,” he explained, “but supposed, of course, they’d started back together.”

Mrs. Grant shook her head vigorously. “If they started, they didn’t get here. And that’s funny, too; for how could they miss the path? But don’t you worry! They’ll come straggling in pretty soon, I warrant you. And they couldn’t come to much harm anywhere in Sugar Valley. So just you sit down and make yourself comfortable while you wait for ’em.” And she gave Sam a friendly push toward the fire.

Sam drew his chair close to the hearth, where most of the other boys already had taken their places. Both the light and warmth from the blazing logs were cheering, and the spirits of the party were improving rapidly. Thanks to heavy outer jackets, and high overshoes, they had come through their experience better than anybody unused to rough weather outfits might have supposed to be possible; but it was comforting, nevertheless, to toast for a little before the fire. Then Mrs. Grant, who had her own theories as to the wants and tastes of boys, brought in a huge dish of doughnuts and another of crullers, while Hannah bore a great pitcher of lemonade.

“Just a snack, you know,” the hostess declared. “A bite or two to tide you over and take away that tired feeling.”

In view of the tremendous dinner, this luncheon might have been thought a little premature, but every member of the Safety First Club then present helped himself to a doughnut or cruller, and did this most willingly. Poke, in spite of his sorrows, especially distinguished himself; but even Sam was no laggard in performance. Still, his sense of responsibility for all of the party wasn’t dulled.

The rain was falling more heavily than ever—of this he could be sure from its beating on the windows. Mrs. Grant, too, was observant of the weather.

“Boys,” she declared, “you can’t drive back to town this afternoon in that open sleigh. Why, you’d be drowned out! I just won’t let you go. Be no trouble to take care of you over night. My, but this old house has room enough for as many more, and then a few extras.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I think we’d better go back,” said Sam.

“Fiddlesticks and fiddledeedee! ’Twon’t make a mite of bother to us to keep you over night. And I vow I just thought of it! I want you to stay and try Hannah’s waffles for breakfast—waffles with maple syrup, of course.”

At that Poke sighed, audibly and longingly. Step grinned, and the Trojan laughed outright. Sam, though, was serious.

“We really ought to be starting. If only those other fellows were here—— But how does it look, Lon? Any signs of clearing up?”

Lon, who had just returned from a weather observation from the porch, shook his head.

“No; closin’ in thicker’n ever. And rainin’ to beat the cars!”

“What did I tell you!” cried Mrs. Grant triumphantly. “Of course you’ll stay here all night. The traveling now would be awful.”

“Wal, ma’am, that depends on what you’re used to,” Lon remarked calmly. “Old Noah, now, he might say this was jest layin’ the dust nice and comfortable. Or a hornpout might call it pretty fair goin’. But for folks that ain’t had sich advantages of experience or nat’ral capacity—wal, I guess it’s safe to figger they would call the travelin’ jest about awful, as you was sayin’, ma’am.”

“But we ought to go back,” Sam insisted.

“Yes; I reckon we ought,” Lon agreed, but with no heartiness.

“Nonsense!” declared Mrs. Grant.

Sam went to a window, and peered out. He saw nothing to cheer him, and turned back, with an anxious frown on his face.

“What in the world can be keeping Varley and the Shark? And where can they have strayed?”

“Oh, they ought to be along presently,” Mrs. Grant comforted. “Two able-bodied, wide-awake boys won’t come to harm in Sugar Valley.”

“No, ma’am,” said Sam mechanically, but his expression of anxiety did not lessen. The afternoon was wearing away. In an hour or two more the light, not too strong now, would be fading; and the night promised to be as black as one’s hat. And, meanwhile, the Shark and Varley ought to be turning up!

“They won’t come to harm,” Mrs. Grant repeated emphatically. “But, all the same, they ought to be here. Just wait a minute, though.”

Out of the room she hurried, and, presently, there was the call of a telephone bell from the hall. Sam impatiently awaited the results. There was a considerable delay. Evidently Mrs. Grant was talking with more than one of her neighbors over the wire.

When she came back to the living-room, her expression bore a trace of perplexity.

“I do declare, but it’s amazing queer! Nobody, up the road or down, has seen anything, or heard anything, of those two boys. And I did suppose that they’d put in somewhere, to wait for a let-up in the rain. But everybody along here is on the line, and I’ve called ’em all, and nothing comes of it.”

Sam glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid something’s gone wrong,” he said. “Varley’s sort of a tenderfoot, and the Shark—well, he’s posted well enough, but he’s as likely as not to get to figuring on something, and then how can you tell what he’d do, or not do?”

Step spoke sharply. “Say, there’s the river! It must be high, and if either or both of them fell in——”

He had no need to finish the sentence. Mrs. Grant uttered an exclamation; the boys moved uneasily; even Lon seemed to be impressed by the suggestion.

“Great Scott, but we’d ought to thought o’ that sooner! Any boys is footless, sometimes, and if you’d tried to pair up a queer mated couple, you couldn’t ’a’ picked a more uncertain combination o’ performers than the Shark and that Varley lad’d make.”

“That—that’s so, Lon,” Sam agreed heavily.

Mrs. Grant took the floor again. “Don’t get flustered! I’ve got an idea. Wait, everybody, till I see how it can be worked.”

Once more she hurried into the hall, and again there were sounds to indicate that she was busy at the telephone. Ten minutes passed—and to Sam they seemed to be very dragging minutes—before she returned, and addressed him.

“Well, I’ve made a good beginning on the idea, all right. I’ve called up your folks in town, young man, and I’ve had a talk with your mother. She understood things—I knew she would, for I guess she’s a good, sensible woman, seeing the sort of son she’s got. And she saw at once what an awful trip back you’d have. And she said I could keep you over night, and she’d call up all the other mothers and let ’em know you were all right. And so that part of it’s fixed. Now we come to the next part. You’re so uneasy about those strayaways that you’d be hopping around like corn in a popper if you couldn’t go hunting ’em. And I guess I’d be hopping, too, if you weren’t trying to find ’em. For they ought to have shown up long ago. And with Mr. Grant to help, and the hired man—why, we ought to be able to know something mighty quick. So, if that’s your idea, too, and if you’re ready——”

“If!” Sam shouted, and sprang to his feet. “If? Why, ma’am, I’ve been aching to go for the last hour!”

“Well, I guess you ain’t lonesome in that,” said Mrs. Grant briskly.

The other boys, and Lon and Mr. Grant, for that matter, had risen almost as quickly as Sam himself.

Mrs. Grant looked the group over, and nodded approvingly.

“No; there ain’t a lagger in the lot,” she said with conviction. “And there’s just one thing I don’t like about it; and that is that Hannah and I can’t go along with you.”

CHAPTER XV
THE HOUSE OF REFUGE

Paul Varley was sorely shaken by his plunge into the depths of the ancient cellar. He struck its floor so heavily, indeed, that the breath seemed to be driven from his body.

For a little he lay, motionless and half stunned. Then, his brain clearing, and, be it said, his general sense of numbness giving place to a number of distinct aches and pangs, he groaned, raised himself on an elbow, sat up, and tried to peer about him.

The movements had accentuated the pains. Paul groaned again. Even at that moment, though, the greatest of his troubles was the gloom in which he found himself.

Except for the pale patch of light above his head, indicating the break in the flooring of the room he had first entered, everything was in darkness; not an even darkness, but patchy, lumpy, with weird suggestions of shadowy and grotesque shapes.

Experimentally Paul drew up a knee, and found that the joint was in working order. He stretched out his arms. One of them was lame and sore, but he appeared to have escaped broken bones. Encouraged slightly, he tested his other leg, closing the test with a vigorous kick. His foot encountered an obstacle, and a voice spoke in the darkness.

“Hi there! What do you think you’re doing?”

It was a startled voice, and a wrathful voice. The sound of it gave Paul an instant of dazed bewilderment. His wits were working, but he hadn’t recalled the circumstance that he was not alone in his misadventure.

“Oh!” he gasped. “Oh—oh, you’re there, then?”

“Naturally!” The Shark’s tone was no milder than before.

“And—and are you hurt?”

“Huh! What do you suppose?”

“But—but are you?”

“There are some statements,” said the Shark grimly, “which should not need to be made. That’s one of ’em.”

“I’m mighty sorry. I—I ought to have known.”

The contrition in Varley’s tone had its effect.

“Huh!” grunted the Shark, but less aggressively. “Huh! Certain causes are bound to produce certain results. I’m hurt—yes. I’m all banged up. But thank the stars! the worst didn’t happen. I haven’t broken ’em.”

“Your legs, you mean?”

“No; my glasses!” snapped the Shark. “I’m like a bat if anything happens to them.”

“I understand. But how about the rest of you—the legs and arms, I mean?”

There was a brief pause, as if the Shark might be taking account of stock, so to speak.

“Well, I’m lame in one foot or ankle—can’t be sure which,” he reported. “And I’m sore in one shoulder—must have landed on it. Otherwise, though, I guess I’m all right. I—ugh! Say, that hurt!”

By hearing rather than by sight Varley knew that the Shark was getting upon his feet. He followed the example; also he imitated the exclamation.

“Ouch! Whew! Say, I’ve got my troubles, too.”

There was a moment’s silence; then Varley spoke again:

“It’s queer—I don’t know what’s the matter, but I—I’m sort of dizzy, and—and choking, and—and——”

“It’s getting me, too,” the Shark agreed. “Hold on, though! I’ve got an idea.”

There was the faint click of the catch of a metal match-box. Then a tiny flame showed. By its feeble light Varley made out what were the vague shapes that had seemed like heavier shadows, piles of old barrels and boxes, the usual accumulation of odds and ends in a cellar. Then the sickly flame died down.

“Humph! That’s it, fast enough,” said the Shark. “Bad air—like the air in a well or a cave that’s been closed up. Match won’t burn in it. Guess we’d better get out.”

Varley was beginning to have difficulty in breathing.

“Great Scott, but I—I never was in such a place!” he panted. “So close—so stuffy—so sour—so—so——”

“Sure! Bet you there hasn’t been a window or door of this cellar opened in my time or yours. And not nearly enough air’d seep in to keep it sweet. And as for getting out—well, I guess we’d best go the way we came.”

With that he put his hands above his head, and groped for the edge of the broken flooring. Luckily, the ancient cellar was not deep. The Shark failed to get a grip, but Varley, who was taller, succeeded where he failed.

“Give me a leg up,” Paul directed, and the Shark obeyed. The effort was painful. Plucky fellow though he was, he couldn’t quite repress a groan. Varley uttered another, and another, as he raised himself; bettered his hold on the ragged ends of the boards; found them fragile as well as ragged; tore away fragments of the rotten wood; gained the stouter support of a beam, which appeared still to be sound; called upon the Shark for renewed and redoubled effort; exerted all his waning strength, and, at last, slowly and with difficulty, drew his body to the comparative safety of the floor.

Apparently most of the remaining boards were still sound enough to support his weight, though they creaked dismally, while he bent down and extended a helping hand to the Shark.

It was a fortunate thing for the young adventurers that the Shark was light. Varley, as it was, found his work cut out for him, especially as both he and his companion still felt the effects of the foul air of the cellar. By dint of their utmost joint endeavors the Shark finally half climbed, half was dragged, through the opening. Then he tried to struggle to his knees, but pitched forward and lay helpless and exhausted. Varley, in almost as grievous plight, laid hold upon his collar and began to drag him toward the window.

Experiences were crowding thick and fast upon the city youth, but he was rising to the emergency and proving the mettle that was in him. It was a hard task, desperately hard, to cover the few feet which lay between the gap in the floor and the wall. Varley gritted his teeth, and pulled and tugged at the Shark, and gained inch by inch. But when the window had been reached, he slumped upon the floor beside his comrade, and lay there, panting heavily.

Luckily the sash was still raised, and through the opening the fresh, damp air was pouring into the room. The Shark was the first to show its revivifying effects. He moved, lifted himself on an elbow. Varley, after a little, raised his head. The eyes of the two met.

The Shark nodded solemnly. “Much obliged. Good work. You’re all right. I won’t forget it.” His voice was faint, but there was more than a hint of his usual crisp speech.

With some difficulty Paul sat up. So did the Shark. There was a long pause, each regarding the other steadily. Suddenly Varley spoke:

“We’re lucky—to get out of that.” He jerked his head in the direction of the yawning hole in the floor.

“Sure!” responded the Shark. “You see how it was? Cellar’s been shut up tight, so the air goes bad. Read about such things. Knew something was happening to us, but it needed the way the match failed to burn to give me a hint of what it was.”

“I understand. But—but what next?”

Cautiously and with a manner of not being over-sure of himself, the Shark stood up. He peered out of the window, and shook his head.

“Worse than it was,” he made report. “Raining harder than ever. And say! I’m pretty wet.”

Varley, too, got upon his feet. A glance through the dingy panes sufficed. The Shark had not exaggerated the weather conditions outside.

“Well, what ought we to do?” Paul inquired. “Pile out into it?”

The Shark shook his head decidedly. “No; not just yet. I’m too nearly all in. Got to have a chance to pull myself together and get my second wind.”

Varley shivered. “This—this is a pretty tough place to stay.”

“We can help things a lot.”

“How?” Paul asked incredulously.

“There’s a fireplace yonder. We have matches. There’s a lot of dry stuff we can burn.”

“Yes, but——”

“There’s no ‘but’ about it. We’ve got a roof over our heads. We can have a fire. We will have one, and we’ll dry off, while we wait a while to see if the weather doesn’t change.”

“But the rest of the crowd? They’ll be wanting to start back to town.”

“They won’t start in an open sleigh in such a downpour.”

“But they won’t know where we are.”

“Huh! We don’t know just where they are this minute, either.”

Paul hesitated. “Why—why, if we could get word to ’em——”

Plainly, the Shark was rapidly becoming himself again, for he grunted scornfully. “Ugh! No telephone, no message. That’s all there is to it. May as well take things as they are and make the best of ’em.”

“Well, I suppose that’s so,” Paul admitted, ruefully. Making the best of a long deserted house did not appear to him to offer much of promise.

The Shark limped back to the break in the floor. He moved with caution, and came to no harm. Apparently the floor was in fair condition except at the spot where it had given way beneath their weight. The Shark offered an explanation:

“Umph! Must have been a patch of dry-rot, and we struck it. Happens that way sometimes—don’t know the reason. But they built for keeps, the old fellows did, and this old shack’ll stand nobody knows how much longer. Now let’s see what we can do for kindling.”

Bending down, he laid hold upon one of the fractured boards. The wood yielded to the pull, and he ripped off a piece a foot or more in length and two or three inches across. A second tug yielded a slightly smaller piece.

Varley was observing the proceedings wonderingly.

“You don’t mean to say, do you, that you can make a fire with that stuff?” he asked.

“I can start one,” quoth the Shark. “Got to get something else to keep her going.”

“Where can you get it?”

The Shark nodded at the hole in the floor. “Down there. Lot of junk lying around. Saw it while the match was flickering.”

Varley’s face lengthened. “What! You’d risk it in that cellar again?”

“I’d risk more than that for a fire. Need it in my business, and need it quick.”

“Well, you’re not going down there,” said Varley with decision.

The Shark peered at him. “Huh? I’m not? How you make that out?”

“Because I’m going down. Look here! Whoever goes ought not to stay there long. It’ll be a case of grabbing up stuff that’ll burn and passing it up to the other fellow. Now, I’ve got longer arms and legs than you have. I can reach farther. When it comes to getting out, I can get a grip on the floor, and you can lend a hand from above. The air below won’t be good, but it’ll be no worse than it was before. Maybe it’ll be a little better—perhaps some fresh air will leak down through the hole. But I can work the trick, and I can work it better than you could, because I’m better built for it.”

The Shark paused in the operation of splitting one of the pieces of board. He blinked at Varley for a moment.

“Hanged if I thought you had it in you!” he said frankly. “Oh, I don’t mean the courage—that’s common enough. I mean the gumption—the head-piece—the sense to figure it out. What you say’s all true; you’re better built for the job. So you may do it. And—well, you might as well go to it.”

Varley needed no urging. He lowered himself through the opening, and dropped to the floor of the cellar. The Shark struck another of his precious matches, and held it like a tiny torch to guide the forager. There was draft enough to make it flicker wildly, but the same air currents did Varley a good turn.

ANOTHER OF HIS PRECIOUS MATCHES

He told himself that there was a perceptible freshening of the atmosphere in the old cellar. The place certainly was still one in which he would not have cared to linger, but as he scrambled to a pile of rubbish, and caught up an armful, his breathing, though quickened, was not difficult. What he collected he could no more than guess, for the match flame hardly lightened the shadows. By feeling rather than by sight he knew that it was wood upon which he laid hands. Then the Shark had caught the load, and Varley was back for another, which followed the first through the opening. Then down shot the Shark’s arm, and a hand closed on Paul’s collar.

“That’s enough to begin with. You come up—while the coming’s good!”

The Shark’s tone was gruff, but, somehow, Varley knew there was approval in it. With right good will he obeyed the order; and with the other’s aid he was soon back in the room. His hands were bleeding from sliver wounds, and his clothes were torn, but his spirits were rising rapidly.

“Huh! Good work!” grunted the Shark. “Stuff’ll burn.”

Varley glanced at his plunder. It included barrel staves, broken for the most part; short lengths of board; a stick or two of split fire-wood; all coated with dust and cobwebs, which had accumulated in the course of many years.

“Sure it’ll burn,” he declared. “It ought to be as dry as tinder.”

The Shark knelt by the hearth and made a little pyramid of shavings, topped with bits of board. Then he struck another match; the shavings ignited; a yellow flame showed, and above it rose a curl of smoke.

Deftly the Shark brought forward more wood, and added it to the pile. The flames spread, and so, for that matter, did the smoke, which belched from the fireplace into the room.

“Got—got to wait for the chimney to warm,” gasped the Shark. “Always the way.... Whew! but that was a smotherer!”

A cloud of smoke had driven fairly in his face. Coughing, he retreated, until he could clear his lungs. Then he came back valorously and played stoker.

The fire began to burn more vigorously, and the flue to do its appointed part. There was less smoke, and more light in the room. Varley made his first deliberate inspection of their refuge.

The ceiling was very low; he could touch it by raising his hand. The walls were grimy and spotted. Big beams showed at the corners. The fireplace was a rough, but substantial, affair, smoke blackened. The pieces of furniture he had noticed on first entering were decrepit with age. The table lacked a leg; the settle sagged at one end; the chest of drawers was a ruin.

The Shark was taking off his overcoat, and unbuckling his high overshoes. From both shoes and coat steam was rising as they caught the heat from the fire.

Varley followed his companion’s example. As he removed his shoes, he whistled softly. The guaranteed waterproofing had not been up to the requirements of such a test as it had undergone.

The Shark sat down on the floor; so did Varley. Each clasped his hands about his knees, and stared at the fire. It was crackling merrily, but not loudly enough to drown the sounds of the rain dashing against the old house.

There was a long pause before either spoke. Then said Varley, ruminatively:

“I guess you were right—a fire does help things a lot. I shouldn’t have thought of it. Still, this is a new game for me, this knocking about in the wilds; and it’s an old story for you.”

“Not so very old,” corrected the Shark. “Had a taste of it while ago, up in the big woods. Time our crowd got caught in a blizzard we found an old shack, and took possession. And the first thing we did was to start a fire. And maybe we didn’t need it! Cold? It was! How cold? Huh! Some of the fellows were talking about thirty below. No thermometer along, though—pity! Man ought to travel equipped for taking notes. And a good, registered thermometer’d be a great comfort. So’d a barometer, eh?”

“Why—why, very likely.”

The Shark shook his head. “Trouble is, folks don’t realize the need of precision. They’ll make a guess at the temperature, and let it go at that. Bah!”

Varley, not knowing what response to make, said nothing.

The Shark resumed his staring at the fire. There was another pause, even longer than that which had gone before. Varley at last pulled out his watch, and uttered an exclamation of vexation.

“Thunder! The thing’s stopped—must have been caused by that fall. What time do you suppose it is?”

“Don’t know. Left my watch at home to-day,” said the Shark.

Varley sprang up—then groaned at the pangs he suffered as the result of his incautious haste of movement. He looked out of the window, his face lengthening.

“Cracky! but it’s getting mighty dark! And the rain’s fairly coming down in buckets. I can’t see any distance. But unless I’m amazingly mistaken—say, look here, will you?”

The Shark joined him.

“What’s that out there? Looks like a regular lake!” Paul cried.

The Shark made deliberate inspection. Close to the old house was now an expanse of water, probably not very deep, but certainly of considerable area.

“Back-water!” was the Shark’s verdict.

“Back-water?” Paul repeated doubtfully.

“From the river. It’s over its bank at some low spot, and the water has spread out. It fills up the low places, of course, and this house seems to stand on a little rise. Very likely we’re surrounded.”

“Cut off, you mean?”

“Not if we want to wade out.”

“Oh! Wade?” Varley did not look happy at the prospect.

The Shark studied the scene—so far as it could be made out in the dim light.

“Umph! Must be getting late,” he remarked coolly. “Don’t know that a wading job would be any wetter than a walk. Still, would either pay? We’re all right here. There’s more wood for the fire to be had down cellar.... Um, u-m-m! Maybe it’d be wisest to let well enough alone.”

“And stay here?”

“Sure! For a while, anyway, till the rain lessens, and that pond has a chance to drain off.”

“But will it drain off?”

The Shark shrugged his shoulders. “Nobody knows.”

Varley deliberated for a moment. “But how about the rest of the crowd? What’ll they be thinking?”

“Don’t know. I’m no mind reader.”

“But——”

“But what can we do about it?” the Shark broke in. “We can wade out of this and be like two drowned rats for wetness, or we can stay here.”

“All night?”

“If necessary. Nothing to hurt us, is there?”

“No,” said Paul reluctantly. “But I wish we—well, I wish we could get word to the others.”

The Shark grunted. Then he limped to the fireplace and gave the fire a poke with a stick. Flames shot higher, illuminating the room.

“This suits me better than what’s waiting for us outside,” he said, and dropped to his old place on the floor.

Paul joined him.

“Whew!” said the city youth, after a little. “Tell you, I never knew before what a comfort a fire could be!”

CHAPTER XVI
BLIND TRAILS

From closets and sheds and attics Mrs. Grant produced an amazing supply of rubber coats and boots, oilskins and sou’westers.

“Here, now, boys, fit yourselves out,” she directed. “Or, if you can’t fit yourselves, come the nearest you can. Most of these things Mr. Grant has used one time or another, but they’ll turn water more or less. And looks won’t count—there’ll be nobody to see you. And you’ll find the other boys, of course, and when you do, bring ’em right here. And then we’ll have a good, hot supper, and everybody’ll feel better.”

This was spoken bravely enough; but it was clear that Mrs. Grant was worried, if not greatly alarmed, by the absence of Varley and the Shark. Sam and his friends made haste to equip themselves. In two or three cases high overshoes were esteemed sufficient protection for the feet, but the other boys were glad to turn to boots. Every boy found something in the shape of a rain-coat; for the downpour out-of-doors made all possible covering desirable. Some of the garments were grotesquely large for the wearers, but nobody made a joke of this. In fact, the club was quite of opinion that real work lay before the searchers.

Sam noticed that while Mr. Grant sent a farm-hand to the barn with orders to harness a horse, the farmer himself proposed to accompany the party on foot. There was a little consultation on the porch.

“We ought to scatter, of course,” Mr. Grant declared. “Some can scout up the road, and some down. Others can strike across lots to the sugar camp and spread out from there. Then, if need be, I can send down to the foot of the valley for news. A rig’ll be ready to go.”

Nobody made answer for a moment. A trip to the foot of the valley would mean that there was reason to believe the Shark and Varley had fallen into the river and been carried down-stream.

“I—I hope that won’t be necessary,” Sam said at last, unsteadily.

“I don’t think it will be,” Mr. Grant encouraged. “I’ve been figuring on this business, and it seems to me the chances are that those youngsters strayed away from the camp, lost their bearings, and when the rain increased took to any shelter they could find. With the weather as thick as it is, it wouldn’t be hard for them to miss their way. Of course, if they kept their heads, they’d steer for higher ground, knowing that sooner or later they’d come to a road. But boys will be boys—and there’s the river, of course. We can’t forget that.”

Sam nodded. “We’re not forgetting it, sir. And as for keeping their heads—well, one of those fellows is a stranger to all this sort of thing, but the other’s as cool as they make ’em. That’s the part that sets me worrying most: the Shark’s not likely to go wool-gathering unless he gets interested in some of his calculations.”

“He’d have trouble in finding a slate to do his ciphering out yonder.”

“Oh, the Shark wouldn’t need slates or paper. His head’s good enough for him. But—but don’t you think we’d better start, sir?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Grant briskly.

It was left to Sam, as the recognized leader of the club, to allot the tasks. Poke and Step he told off to follow the road up the valley, with instructions to make inquiries at each house on the way. The Trojan and Herman Boyd were to scout down the road. Mr. Grant went with Lon, Orkney and Sam himself to the sugar camp.

The tramp across the fields gave plenty of evidences of the rapidity with which the thaw was progressing. The lowlands were fairly afloat, and the line of march led through pools, some of which were more than ankle deep.

Arriving at the camp, Sam shouted lustily, but there was no response. Again heads were put together for a consultation. It resulted in a scattering of the party through the maple grove, each of the searchers looking for tracks in the melting snow.

In this several difficulties were encountered. To begin with, Mr. Grant and his helpers had been busy about the place for some days, and near the building footprints were only too numerous. Then, too, the heavy rain made it hard to tell fresh tracks from old. It was Lon Gates who suggested an improvement in their method of search.

“This ain’t gettin’ us nowhere, folks. We’re like fellers in one o’ them mazes you read about, that’s jest a puzzle and bewilderment. Let’s get out of it, and skirmish round the edges o’ things. If the boys scooted off, they scooted somewhere; and we ought to be able to pick up the trail where it ain’t all tangled up with half a dozen others and I dunno how many more.”

Following this suggestion, they made a circuit of the “Island.” It revealed no less than four trails, any one of which might be the one they sought.

One led down the valley; two others toward the river; the fourth headed up-stream. With the drive of the rain sharp outlines had been obliterated.

Lon studied the impressions closely.

“I ain’t no Apache tracker, and I dunno’s it would help things much if I was; but if you want my guess, it’s that more’n one feller went this way.” He nodded at a trail leading toward the river.

Mr. Grant inclined to believe that the down-valley trail was more promising. The boys hesitated, frankly unable to form an intelligent opinion.

“Well, we can try both,” said the farmer. “I’ll take this chap”—he nodded at Orkney—“and you two can go the other road.”

Nobody else had a better plan to offer. Mr. Grant and Orkney plodded off down the valley, and Lon and Sam headed for the river.

For a little way the marks they followed were fairly plain. That is, it was quite evident that one or more persons had passed that way, though how long before was pure guesswork. Then, presently, they came to a low, swampy tract; and here among hummocks and pools and dense patches of bushes the trail lost itself.

“No use, Sam!” Lon growled, as he stumbled over a root, and barely escaped a fall. “If those two young idiots were steering for anything in partic’lar, it’d be the river. Come on! We’ll try for a short cut.”

With that he broke through the thicket, and Sam pressed after him. In a few minutes more they were on the bank of the stream, peering eagerly about them.

So heavy was the pouring rain that it was hardly possible to make out clearly the fringe of trees along the opposite side of the river. The swift current was racing along, its surface dotted with masses of ice and now and then a floating log.

“Umph! Gettin’ up, Sam, gettin’ up this brook is!” quoth Lon. “And somebody up-river’s losin’ his cord-wood. And I say now—jest look at that, will ye?”

Sam looked. He made out the object at which Lon was pointing, but at first was uncertain what it might be.

“Chicken coop,” Lon explained. “And that thing bobbin’ up and down yonder’s a packin’ case, or I miss my guess. Bet you they’re havin’ doin’s up above!”

Sam was doing his best to master every feature of the scene; but most of all he was seeking traces of his missing friends.

“I can’t see anything—anything of the boys,” he complained. “I don’t believe they came this way.”

Lon grinned wrily. “Don’t see why they should ’a’ wanted to, if they had the wits they was born with. And if we’ve got ours left, there ain’t no jest cause and impediment why we shouldn’t move on.”

“Which way?”

Lon considered briefly. “My notion is we might as well go back to the camp, and pick up another of the trails. There’s nothin’ to show that those fellows strayed here. But what in time made ’em drift away from the rest of the crowd, anyway?”

Sam couldn’t offer reasonable explanation. Lon grunted:

“Ugh! Been a boy myself, and had the benefit of your society, Sam, to keep my hand in, but hanged if I can make out why boys’ll do things that wouldn’t get a vote at an election in a lunatic asylum! But that ain’t gettin’ us nowhere or nohow. Let’s go back!”

They splashed through the puddles, plowed through the snow where it still lay deep, broke a way through the swampy thickets. Both, it may be, were in hopes of seeing Mr. Grant and Orkney at the camp, but nobody was in sight near the building.

Lon now turned attention to the trail leading up the valley.

“I dunno’s this is more promisin’, but I can’t say it’s any less. Maybe it’s fresher—must say, though, they all look a lot alike to me. And when you don’t know anything about a thing, why——”

“Hullo!” Sam broke in. “Here comes Orkney!”

Tom was hurrying along at the best pace he could make in his big, borrowed rubber boots. There was a look of anxiety on his face, but he spoke quietly when he joined Sam and Lon.

“Mr. Grant told me to look you up. No; I’ve no news—that is, we didn’t find anything. But when we got a look at the river, Mr. Grant decided he’d send his man down to the foot of the valley at once. So he made a short cut for the house, and I started to hunt you up. I’ll work with you.”

“Then——” Sam began unsteadily.

“Don’t jump to the conclusion that Mr. Grant thinks Varley and the Shark have been carried down-stream. Only the river is a lot higher than he expected to find it, and the current’s swifter. So he is going to send his man down to the bridges. But he thought it might be well for you to scout the other way. I’ll help. I suppose he’ll follow us later.”

“Umph! Can’t be much later if he means to ketch up with us before dark,” Lon observed.

There was point to the remark. The gloomy afternoon was shading into a twilight which gave promise of a pitchy night to follow. The rain still fell in undiminished volume. At any other time Sam might have laughed at the picture made by his companions. Lon’s “slicker” and Tom’s heavy mackintosh ran little streams in every wrinkle, while others dripped briskly from the brims of their head-gear.

“Come on!” Sam said impatiently.

This time they were on the right trail, though, of course, none of the three could know it. It was easily followed until it brought them to the point on the river bank where Varley and the Shark had halted for a time; but there they lost it. The drenched thickets hid footprints, and the growing darkness was a steadily increasing handicap.

Lon frowned in perplexity. “I swan, but I don’t like this!” he declared. “This river’s practically bank full and sloppin’ over. Look there!” He pointed to a little stream which was finding its way across a low spot on the shore. “This is goin’ to be jest one big frog pond before long, or I’ll eat my hat.”

“Let’s go a little farther, anyway!” Sam urged.

“With you there, Sam!” cried Lon readily enough.

“Of course—only thing to do,” said Orkney curtly.

They went on, following the bank. As a matter of fact, the footing there was better than it was at a greater distance from the stream; for here was one of the low-lying, swampy patches, which were actually lower than the dike-like ridge along the river. At the best, though, progress was slow. There were tangles of brush; there were gullies, now turned into channels for the water; there were spots where the snow had given place to a sticky and treacherous mire.

Now and then one or the other of the searchers shouted lustily. It can hardly be said that an answer was expected, but after each hail there was a halt, in which the three strained their ears. Perhaps this was because their eyes could pierce the gloom for but a little way.

How far this slow and difficult march continued it would have been hard for any of the little party to estimate. They might have covered a mile; it might not be a half-mile.

Lon, who was in the lead, suddenly pulled up.

“Boys,” he said, “I hate to give up, but is there any use holdin’ on longer? It’s gettin’ powerful dark; the rain’s wuss than ever; we dunno but Varley and the Shark are this minute toastin’ their toes by Mis’ Grant’s fire. Besides, we’ve got to have lanterns if we’re goin’ to poke around this way. ’Tain’t altogether a question now of findin’ somebody else; it’s gettin’ to be a question o’ keepin’ ourselves from gettin’ lost. What say, Sam?”

Sam hesitated, glancing at Orkney. What Lon had said was true enough. Still, he was extremely reluctant to abandon or even to interrupt the hunt. Orkney, too, appeared to be of this opinion, if Sam interpreted rightly the look on his face.

“Well, Lon,” Sam began doubtfully; “of course——”

There he broke off, abruptly; clapped a hand to his ear; bent forward, listening eagerly.

“What’s that sound? Catch it? Something mighty queer about it.”

Sam’s voice had been shaking with excitement. Orkney’s answer was not free of the same note:

“I hear it. I—I never heard anything else just like it. ’Tisn’t just like a rustle, or a rumble, or—or I don’t know what to call it. But I make it out fast enough!”

“Umph! So do I—now,” said Lon sharply.

The sound, by this time, was clearly to be distinguished from the steady and monotonous beat of the rain, and from the grating of ice floes in the river and the splash of waves on the bank. In a way it suggested the approach of a heavy train—and a train coming on at high speed.

Lon’s arm shot out. His hand closed on Sam’s arm.

“Come on!” he shouted to Orkney. “Hustle for all you’re wuth!”

The boys were close behind him as he crashed through the bushes, straight away from the river. They ran as for their lives, while the rumbling sound grew in volume. They splashed through a pool, the water of which came to their knees. They crossed a little ridge, waded another small pond, gained higher ground. Here were some trees of considerable size, and Lon paused an instant as if meditating taking shelter among them.

The rumbling now had grown to a roar, in which the other sounds of the storm were lost. And whatever was causing it was drawing very near the spot where the three stood. Lon peered hard up the valley, then turned toward the trees.

“May be a climbin’ job!” he sang out. “Look lively, both of you! What’s comin’ is goin’ to be a-plenty, and it’s ’most here.”

Sam, too, had been making swift observation, and his eye had caught something which had escaped Lon’s vision. A patch of light, faint, glimmering, half hidden by intervening branches—so much he made out. Then it was his turn to shout, “Come on—quick!” He broke into a run, and with Tom and Lon at his heels hurried toward the light, which, feeble though it might be, was like a friendly beacon.

The rumbling roar was thunderous as they burst into a clearing and made out the dim mass of a building, from which the light glimmered. Instinctively they dashed for the door. Lon tore desperately at the boards which barred it, but Tom and Sam turned to the window. From the lips of each burst an exclamation of amazement.

By the light of the fire on the hearth they made out two figures. They recognized the missing pair. Both Varley and the Shark appeared to have been dozing on the floor, and just to have been awakened by the ominous tumult without; for the one was starting to his feet, and the other, on hands and knees, was peering dazedly through his spectacles at the window.

But this was a time for swift action and not for pause for inquiries. Lon, abandoning the door, sprang to his companions. He caught Sam, and swung him to the ledge of the window, which still luckily was open; seized Tom and raised him to the same position of comparative safety. Then as the boys dropped to the floor of the room, he climbed with all speed after them. Sam, turning, laid hold on his arm, dragging him over the ledge, just as the thunder seemed to be rolling all about them, and just as a wave, palely crested with white foam, went swirling down the valley, crashing viciously on the foundations of the old house and rising to the top of the stout masonry.

CHAPTER XVII
THE RISING FLOOD

There was the briefest of exchanges of greetings between the friends thus unexpectedly reunited.

“What on earth are you two doing here?” Sam demanded. “Haven’t you any notion of the worry you’ve made for everybody?”

“Huh! Mind where you’re going!” the Shark cautioned. “Hole in the floor. We broke through. Rest of it’ll hold, I guess, but I wouldn’t stamp hard.”

Sam checked his advance in time. He glanced curiously at the fractured boards, at which the Shark pointed.

“Fell through, did you? Well, it looks as if you did. But I say! What did you crawl in here for, anyway?”

Before the Shark could answer, Lon spoke. He had remained at the window, and was studying as best he might the swift tide pouring down the valley.

“Boys, one o’ them dams up-river must ’a’ gone out! That was the first wave of the rush that ’most caught us. There’s a lot o’ water still comin’ along, but ’tain’t quite’s high as ’twas. And so, lookin’ at things by and large, I guess it was mighty lucky that we happened in jest as we did. If nothin’ more gives way up above, we ain’t likely to be any wuss off than we are now; and when things get kind o’ drained off, as you might say, we can toddle on. Meanwhile”—here he turned and glanced at the fire—“meanwhile, that heatin’ contraption looks amazin’ good to me.”

Varley threw on some more wood. Sam and Orkney, and then Lon, gingerly skirted the hole in the floor and took their places at the edge of the hearth. Lon stripped off his dripping rubber coat; Sam and Orkney followed the example. The Shark watched these proceedings with a certain grim approval, but suddenly his brow clouded.

“See here, you fellows! You were hunting for us, as if you thought we were lost?”

It was half question, half accusation. Sam answered curtly:

“We certainly thought you were.”

“Huh!” The Shark’s tone was scornful.

“If you had to wander off, why didn’t you go back to the Grants’ house?”

“Had something better to do.”

“Here?”

The Shark hesitated. “Why—why, not exactly here. We were looking for something. We found it. Then we happened to see this house. It was raining pitchforks, and we decided to come in out of the wet, and wait for a break. And being here, we made ourselves as comfortable as we could. You’d have done the same thing, wouldn’t you?”

“What did you suppose we’d think when you didn’t turn up?”

“You ought to have known we could take care of ourselves.”

Sam checked the hot retort that was on his lips. After all, “Safety First” was a sound rule in the case of words as well as acts. A quarrel would benefit nobody.

“Well, Shark,” he said quietly, “we feared you might have met an accident of some sort, and if you had, we wanted to help you.”

“Course you would!” cried the Shark, at once mollified. “And we did have an accident—little one, that is. Geeminy! if you’d seen us go kerflop through the floor! Patch of boards just rotted out, and we had the luck to strike it.”

Sam’s eyes ranged the room. “Old-timer, this house,” he remarked.

“It’s very old,” Varley put in. “We’ve tried to look it over, but it was too dark to see much. Still, we could make out that evidently nobody has lived here for years.”

Lon, too, had been making observations. “Boys,” he said, “if I ain’t way off the track, this is jest the plummest oldest house anywhere in these parts. It’ll be the old Dominie Pike place, or I’m a hornpout!”

“The Dominie Pike place?” Orkney echoed.

“Yep. His house Mis’ Grant was tellin’ us about—the last one he built.”

Orkney moved away from the fire. Very slowly he made a circuit of the room, inspecting it with manifest interest, so far as the uncertain light permitted.

Sam went to the window. The rain was still falling heavily; water surrounded the house, but the rapidity of the current appeared to have lessened. As well as he could determine, the top of the foundation was just above water.

Meanwhile Lon was adding to the fire. He caught the eye of Sam, as the latter turned back from the window, and winked meaningly.

“Nothin’ like makin’ yourself to hum,” he remarked, “and that there blaze does go to the right spot—no, to the right spots, by ginger! for those clothes o’ mine must ’a’ been leakin’ all over. My notion is, we’re mighty lucky to be right here this minute. Tell you a house comes in mighty handy when you need one. By the way, Varley”—he paused briefly—“by the way, I s’pose these boys told you how once this crowd was amazin’ glad to put up at old Calleck’s shack.”

“I’ve heard something about it,” said Paul, “but not the whole story.”

Lon was grinning reminiscently. “Like this case it was, some ways—other ways ’twa’n’t. Blizzard caught us that time, and now it’s a flood. Both times, though, we needed fire and a roof—generally do in these parts, ’less it may be for a month or so in summer. So old Calleck’s ruin seemed mighty good to us. This house’s a reg’lar palace ’longside of it. But what’d you expect? Old Calleck was a queer coot, that went away from other folks to build a place in the woods, while Dominie Pike cleared his place in the woods to kind o’ encourage other folks to come in and settle. And some folks do say this must be jest the spot where the Dominie and the Indian had their big run-in. But then likely’s not you’ve all heard that yarn.”

“We haven’t!”

“Tell us!”

“Fire ahead!”

Lon grinned again. No doubt he was well pleased to see his plan to draw the boys’ thoughts from their plight bearing results.

“Wal, way the story’s handed down’s about like this: The Dominie was an explorer, and he worked in here ahead of the settlers. But for all he knew the ways of the woods, he was plumb lost when he came to Sugar Valley. And one reason he’d missed his bearin’s was that for two-three days he’d been kinder bothered by a notion somebody was doggin’ his track. Funny part was, he couldn’t be sure—that is, he couldn’t get a squint at the critter he sensed was after him. And, bein’ the man he was, the Dominie didn’t let the huntin’ go all on one side. He turned to and hunted the hunter, which was what we’d call a sporty proposition, but helped to mix him up. Course, if he hadn’t been bothered, he could ’a’ found the road back; but bein’ a lot bothered, he was as good as lost, for the time bein’. And so one night he was bivouackin’ out in the open, right along here, I guess; and bunkin’ close to a big tree and keepin’ one eye open and maybe both ears listenin’—well, after a while, he was surer than ever that t’other party was mighty clost. Now, the Dominie wasn’t the citizen to make trouble walk its legs off comin’ to meet him. He started for the half-way point or better, with his old flintlock primed and ready to do business. There was a big moon, and when he came to a nat’ral meadow, he could see ’most as plain as day. And all of a sudden he did see something. An Injun was stealin’, stealthy like, out of the opposite edge of the woods. Just as the brave cleared the cover, though, something else shot like a growlin’ streak off the limb of a tree, and in a jiffy there was the pootiest Injun-panther fight you ever heard of.

“The Dominie’s gun jumped to his shoulder—that was what you’d call instinctive, I guess. Then he run forward. Way things were, he didn’t feel like wastin’ powder and ball—took time, remember, to charge up them old shootin’ irons. Then something mighty queer happened.

“The big cat was chain lightnin’, but that Injun wa’n’t so slow himself. He’d half ducked the panther’s spring, though he’d caught a clawin’ doin’ it; and the cat had overshot, as you might say, and was crouchin’ for a second spring when it sighted the Dominie. For about a second it was a three-cornered puzzle, with the Dominie with his gun at his shoulder, and the Injun trainin’ his artillery for action—yes, he had a gun, too—and the panther switchin’ its tail and makin’ up its mind whether it’d jump for the white man or the red. And the brave’s gun was a-swingin’ as if he wa’n’t quite clear whether he’d better pot the brute or the white man. Now seein’ these things, as the Dominie seen ’em, there’s some folks as ’d kept that Injun covered, anyhow, sayin’ as how the scrap was his to begin with. But that wa’n’t Dominie Pike’s way. Sot in his notions, the Dominie was; and one of them was that he’d rather shoot wild beasts than humans. So he put a ball through that panther’s head, and took his chances o’ the red brother collectin’ his scalp. Which he didn’t—as this house, which the Dominie built years afterward, shows.”

Lon paused, but there was a chorus of demands that he go on with the story. What did the Indian do? Why didn’t he attack the Dominie?

Lon chuckled softly, perhaps more at thought of his success in holding the attention of the boys away from their predicament than at the continuation of the anecdote.

“Wall, I wa’n’t there, so I can’t make no affidavits. But the yarn goes that when that Injun seen the panther drop, he laid down his gun like a gentleman and a good sport. And the Dominie laid down his—course, ’twa’n’t loaded, but the move showed a friendly, give and take spirit. And both of ’em took a step forward, and looked each other over in the moonlight. Then they took another look, and the Dominie said something. The Injun said something back. His lingo was new to the Dominie mostly, but some words he could make out. And, after a long while, each got kind of a line on the other. Each was lost—there’s a funny part of it.”

“But an Indian wouldn’t be lost in the woods,” Sam objected.

Lon shook his head. “Wrong there, Sam. This Injun was lost. Course, if he hadn’t been bothered, and if his grub held out, he’d have worked his way back; but, as ’twas, he was a stray from the country he knew. So he and the Dominie, once makin’ friends, could hit it out fine, both bein’ in the same box. And they did hit it out. Dominie Pike allers got along fust rate with the Injuns, anyhow. But it was while he was connivin’ with this special Injun that he got acquainted with Sugar Valley and decided to move in and settle permanent.”

Tom Orkney spoke in the incisive fashion he had. “That story in the Dominie’s diary, Lon?”

“Reckon so. Not that I ever saw the book, though—remember, don’t you, what Mis’ Grant told us about its gettin’ lost?”

“I remember,” said Tom.

Lon put another stick on the fire. “How’s the supply of fuel?” he inquired. “And where might the wood-pile happen to be?”

“I’ll show you,” cried Varley; and, eager to bear his full part, began to lower himself through the hole in the floor. There was the sound of a loud splashing, and in an instant Paul, drenched to the knees, was scrambling back.

“Cellar’s flooded!” he shouted excitedly. “Water’s almost up to the floor beams!”

“’Twould be, of course,” said Lon coolly.

“Yes, we should have thought of that,” Sam agreed. “Wait a minute, though, fellows.”

Again he went to the window, and peered out. The darkness was intense; the rain continued to fall heavily. It was largely guesswork, but his impression was that there had been a slight rise in the water about the house since his last observation.

Sam turned to his companions. He was quite aware of the need of keeping his head.

“Things are no better,” he retorted, “but we could hardly expect them to be.”

“Not with this rain poundin’ down,” Lon put in.

“Still, they’re not much worse,” Sam added.

“And we’re safe and snug, with a roof over us.”

The Shark grunted. “Huh! It’s a leaking roof. Look there!”

He pointed to a dark patch of moisture on one of the walls.

“Oh, that?” Lon tried to speak lightly. “Guess there may be a few of the old shingles loose.”

The Shark jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “If you look in the corner, you’ll find a small waterfall going. I’ve been hearing the splash for a quarter of an hour. I don’t care a rap, but I do like to have things stated accurately. The roof must be like a sieve!”

“Oh, well, what are the odds?” queried Sam, as cheerily as he could.

The Shark waved a hand. “I’m not kicking on the facts, but on the errors of statement—that’s all.”

“Well, state it to suit yourself,” said Sam; but the Shark did not accept the invitation.

There was a pause in the talk, and it was a long pause. The drip, drip of more than one little stream was audible, except when the noises from without rose above all other sounds. The fall of the rain was like a steady drone; the wind was beginning to rise, and now and then a squall whipped the branches of an overhanging tree against the house; at intervals could be heard the harsh grating of ice against ice, as the floes went drifting by. Twice or thrice floating masses struck the house blows that made the old structure tremble, and then ground along the side till the flood carried them clear.

Not a member of the party from Lon down to the Shark but was considering their situation and its dangers, each in his own way. For all the conclusion was the same: there was nothing for it but to remain where they were. If the flood rose no higher, they would not fare very badly. The house, ancient though it might be, plainly was still a strong structure, capable of withstanding much battering. Lon, who broke the silence, phrased the opinion of the group:

“When the old Dominie built, he built for keeps—no jerry work for him, I tell you! Big beams, heavy timbers—wood was the cheapest thing outdoors in his times. And wooden pegs to hold ’em together. Why, boys, I’ve seen folks tryin’ to tear down an old house like this one, and they pretty nigh had to use dynamite to unjoint the frame. Don’t believe that? Umph! They had to use a yoke of oxen, then, if that’ll suit you better.”

“Either story suits us well enough,” said Sam; and with that the talk languished.

Now and then one or another went to the window, peered out, came back, hovered over the fire. It was dying down now, and the stock of available fuel was running short. But already there were warnings that it would not be long before the fire would be put out in another way.

The water in the cellar had risen to the level of the floor of the room. From the gap where the Shark and Varley had broken through, a pool was spreading toward the walls. Through the door, too, a stream was trickling, a tiny stream at first, but steadily growing in volume.

There was no way to check the rising tide, and the boys silently watched the water approach the hearth. At last it reached the glowing coals. There was a faint, hissing sound. A little puff of steam rose, gleamed white for an instant, faded away. A black border of drenched ashes was slowly widening and nearing the heart of the fire.

Sam turned to the Shark. “There’s an upper story; there’ll be stairs, of course. Looked around any, have you?”

The Shark nodded. “We looked. Yes, there are stairs—we didn’t go up. Pretty dark it was.”

“It’ll be darker now, but we’ll have to try ’em,” said Sam quietly.

Again the Shark nodded. “Figured it would come to that. So I saved this.” He pulled from within his jacket a piece of pine board. “This was dry and I guess I’ve kept it so. Lot of pitch in it, too. Ought to make sort of a torch. Wait a minute!”

Bending forward, he thrust an end of the piece of wood into the flame still burning at the back of the hearth. There was a sputter, a spark or two flew. Then a jet of smoke shot out, and a yellow tongue curled about the end of the pine board.

Protecting the precious flame with his cupped hand, the Shark followed Sam through the doorway, and into the hall of the old house, wading through water ankle deep as they went. After them filed the others, Lon bringing up the rear.

CHAPTER XVIII
THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT

The hallway of the ancient structure was curiously small in contrast with the big room the boys had just left. It was, indeed, little more than a box of an entry, with a winding stair in one corner, a plan of construction made necessary, no doubt, by the huge chimney in the middle of the house. In making the most of limited space, however, the designer had produced a crowded effect, even when the hall was bare of fittings, as it now was.

With the draft created by the fire and the open window, the air in the room the boys had just left had freshened considerably; but the hall was full of a stale and musty odor. The torch burned feebly. Once it seemed to be on the point of being extinguished, but the Shark by careful nursing saved the flame.

Sam laid hand on the old-fashioned rail of the stairway.

“One at a time,” he said. “If there are any weak spots, we don’t want to tumble through them in a crowd. Safety First!”

“Sure thing—Varley and I got enough of the other scheme!” quoth the Shark. “Go ahead, Sam!”

A bit gingerly Sam began the ascent of the flight. The old boards creaked and groaned under his weight, but there was no indication of serious weakness in them or their supports.

The flickering light from the torch left the top of the stairs in deep shadow. The explorer inferred rather than was certain that the upper hall was merely a landing by which one could reach the rooms on either side. Still holding the rail, he called out to the others to follow, one by one.

Orkney gave Varley a push, and thus settled the order of precedence; for the Shark elected to be No. 3, keeping the light in the midst of the party. Then Lon shoved Orkney ahead, much as Tom had encouraged Paul, and made himself the rear-guard. The stairs groaned and creaked more dolefully than ever, but held firm.

Sam, meanwhile, had edged across the landing and into one of the rooms, the door of which stood open. It happened to be directly above the apartment they had first entered, and, so far as he could make out, corresponded with it in size, though it was still lower of ceiling. A gleam from the smoking pine stick showed that, like the room below, it had a fireplace.

While the air was a trifle better than on the lower floor, Sam lost no time in getting at a window; and when the sash stuck, he promptly smashed a couple of the small panes. Incidentally, he made note that the rain was falling steadily.

In this upper chamber the proofs of the leaks in the roof were numerous. Little streams were running down all four of the walls, against one of which, where probably the beams sagged, a pool a yard or more across had formed. Other parts of the floor, however, were still dry. Very few of the furnishings had been left in the room. The tall headboard of an old-fashioned bedstead leaned against a wall, and near the hearth was a heavy settle, too bulky, probably, to have made it worth while to go to the trouble of removing it. It furnished a seat for Lon and Orkney, while Varley and the Shark joined Sam in the inspection of their refuge. This completed, the three joined the two before the fireplace. The Shark stuck his brand in a crevice between two bricks; watched its none too vigorous flame for a moment; stepped forward and extinguished it.

“Guess we’ll economize on the illumination,” he said. “When this is gone, I don’t know where the next’ll come from. And who’s afraid of the dark, anyway?”

Nobody made reply to this query. There was a pause; then Sam asked, a little sharply, if the Shark were sure his supply of matches was protected from the dampness. In turn, the question led to a reckoning of the stock of all the party. Orkney had a metal pocket-case, well filled; Lon had a score of matches loose in a waistcoat pocket; Sam himself could contribute a dozen. In this respect, at least, they were prepared for emergencies. Sam heard somebody’s sigh of relief in the darkness, and sympathized with it.

Truth to tell, the adventurers were now in the midst of one of their most trying experiences. The gloom of the room; the inaction; the forced waiting—all these things tested grit. For the time being, they seemed to be safe enough, but nobody could tell what the conditions might be an hour hence. The flood continued to rise about the old house. Sam’s observations from the window were confirmed by Orkney, who felt his way down the stairs, but only to return with word that the water was encountered half-way down the flight.

Again Sam felt the responsibility which falls to a leader. He whispered a word in Lon’s ear; and Lon, good fellow that he was, did his best to cheer his companions. He racked his memory for tales of Dominie Pike and his exploits, and embroidered the traditions with his own inventions, perhaps, for quaint tales they were which he told of the pioneer days in Sugar Valley. Sam noted that Tom Orkney was especially interested. Varley, too, put an occasional question; but there was nothing to indicate that the Shark was at all attentive.

Sam, presently, crept to the Shark’s side. Lon was in the midst of a yarn, and was talking loudly; there was small danger that a whispered conversation would be overheard.

“Oh, Shark!” Sam spoke very softly.

“Eh? What?” The Shark’s response was in like tone.

“I’ve been wondering—say! ought to be some limit to this sort of thing—rise of the river, I mean. What’s your notion?”

“Pure conjecture!” Low as the reply was, it had a shade of testiness.

“I know—but what’s your conjecture? Your line, you know—figuring—all that.”

The Shark considered briefly. “Well, I’ll tell you, Sam. Something’s happened.”

“Don’t need to tell me that!” growled Sam.

“You don’t understand. I mean, something’s happened more than a common spring freshet. The rain and the melting snow filled the river, as I saw, and as you must have seen, too. But ordinarily the river takes care of the most of the water—the Grants spoke as if there’d been little trouble in other years. This time, though—well, you know how much snow there was, and how quickly it goes under a rain like this. And Mr. Grant said they’d been having the storm up-stream a good while before it hit us. One of the dams must have gone out—that’d account for the tidal wave—if you can call it that—which came rushing down the valley.”

“I see,” said Sam. “It’s reasonable.”

“Of course it is—I’m telling you,” said the Shark simply. “Listen now, though! If nothing else had happened, once the crest of the wave had passed, we’d have seen the water begin to go down. Why? Because the natural drainage would be taking care of it. Pour a pitcher of water into a set-bowl, when the plug isn’t in the outlet, and after a few seconds you’ll see the level lowering. Drop the plug in place, and the bowl stays full. And I tell you, Sam, Sugar Valley is a lot like a big bowl.”

“But——”

The Shark disregarded the interruption. “Hold on! Let me finish. There’s a plausible explanation of our fix. Our big bowl is plugged, and if it is, the plug is an ice jam. Remember how narrow the gorge is at the foot of the valley? Remember how the bridge piers clutter it up? Well, then! Plain as the nose on your face! River carries down a lot of big chunks. They pile up against the bridges and wedge together. Then along comes a lot of logs and floating riffraff to fill in the cracks. That’s how you get your dam that’ll turn the valley into a big pond. The water can’t run off, so it stays here and keeps rising and rising.”

“But how much longer can it keep on rising?”

“Can’t say. Lack data. As I recall that map, though, I don’t believe we’ve seen high water mark yet—not by a long shot!”

“But the dam—if there is one——?”

“Well, they mostly use dynamite to blow up ice jams. So I guess it’s a question of how soon somebody gets to this one with a cartridge.”

Sam groaned. The Shark put out a hand in the darkness and caught his arm.

“Nobody’s fault, this fix. Couldn’t get to high ground after that wave came along. Doubt if we could have made it before that—lot of low places in between. Nobody to blame. Sensible thing to stay here. That’s the whole story.”

“I hope so,” said Sam very soberly. He shook off the hand, and moved to the window. Dark as the night was, he could not escape conviction that the water was still climbing higher and higher.

Lon brought his story to a close, and there was silence in the room. It made all the more marked the noises without, the beat of the rain, the swirl of the flood against the house. There were other sounds, too, weird and mysterious, some faint and far off; others near at hand and still more disturbing. As for the house itself, it seemed to be straining like a ship in a storm, while it hardly needed a lively fancy to find in its shaking a hint of the trembling of a vessel’s hull under the pounding of big waves. Yet it was evident that the stout old building was withstanding the flood better than many a more modern and more lightly constructed house could have hoped to withstand it. Nevertheless, there was mighty complaint of beam and upright, which was not cheering to hear. Sam, listening and watchful, was a bit encouraged. The house might shake from roof to foundation, but it seemed to be coming to no harm. The huge chimney, doubtless, was like a brace to the entire structure.

Even if the house stood, though, there remained another question to be answered: How long would the flood continue to rise?

The Shark plainly feared that they were still far from the greatest peril from this source. Sam had to own that the fear might be justified. The suggestion of an ice jam and ice dam at the foot of the valley could not be verified, of course, but it was possible to gauge the steady rise of the water. Sam made the stairs a practical register. From time to time he ventured down them, and regularly found the invading flood a little higher than before.

The hours wore away slowly. At intervals some one or another of the refugees announced the time, striking a match ostensibly in order to glance at his watch, but taking remarkable care to save the tiny flame as long as possible. Everybody craved light. Lack of it was, in fact, the hardest part of the ordeal. Warmth, too, would have been welcome, but the night was not cold and the need of a fire was felt less acutely than the dispiriting effect of the dense darkness.

Talk was intermittent. Now and again somebody would rouse to interest in some aspect of their situation, and perhaps stir his neighbors to join in a discussion, and Lon told a dozen stories; but there were half-hours when nobody spoke. Sam, with his sense of responsibility strong upon him, studied his companions. The Shark caused him little concern. Silent meditation was quite in keeping with the habits of the mathematical youth, and Sam had no reason to doubt his nerve in case of grave emergency.

Varley was more puzzling. Unquestionably the city boy was under a greater strain than his comrades, because of the entire novelty of his surroundings. The others knew more or less about abandoned farmhouses, but such a place as the Dominie Pike homestead was wholly strange to Paul. Seemingly, he was of good courage, and his conduct won Sam’s approving respect.

Oddly enough, Tom Orkney presented another problem. Tom ordinarily was a reticent, self-contained fellow; but this night he took a leading share in the talk. He appeared to be intensely interested in everything he could learn about the old Dominie, and plied Lon with queries. Finally, he borrowed the Shark’s stump of pine wood, lighted it, and began a careful examination of the room. This finished, he restored the torch to its owner and guardian, who promptly extinguished the flame and stowed the precious remnant in an inside pocket of his jacket.

“Well, found out anything?” Sam asked, as Tom dropped beside him.

“I don’t know—I’m not certain,” Orkney answered slowly. “Somehow, though, I think I’ve got a line or two. I believe this room was the Dominie’s own—his study, maybe.”

“What! An up-stairs study?”

“Sounds unreasonable, I’ll admit, considering the plain living of the old days. But there’s a fireplace, and it looks as if there was a sort of closet on each side of the chimney, or hiding place—I don’t know exactly what to call it. What makes me think so? Well, I can’t be sure, but I suspect there’s wood fitted in among the bricks and made to look just like them. Anyway, that’s the feel of it!”

“The feel?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Try it yourself. Come along—I’ll show you,” said Orkney, and got upon his feet. Sam, too, rose.

Orkney made his way back to the chimney, Sam following. There, under Tom’s direction, he groped about the brickwork, without arriving at any clear conclusion.

“If I could see anything, it would be different,” he remarked. “But this thing—say, my fingers are numb, anyway! I can’t feel anything but clammy dampness. But what’s the idea you’re working on?”

“Oh, I don’t know—sort of a notion—a hunch, maybe.”

“What kind of a hunch?

“It—it’s pretty vague,” Orkney confessed.

Sam, not deeply impressed but willing enough that Orkney should find even such diversion, moved back to the window. From sounds which proceeded, presently, from the direction of the chimney he inferred that Tom had taken out his knife and was scratching away at the old mortar. After a little, however, he lost consciousness of this activity, and, indeed, of a good deal more; for he fell into an uneasy doze.

Subsequently on comparing notes, the boys had to admit, one and all, that in spite of their perils they caught some sleep in the course of the night. Probably all of them slept longer than they realized. Sam, at any rate, must have passed from doze to sound slumber; for when he was awakened by a tremendous crash there was a second or two in which he did not realize where he was or how he came to be there. The old house was still trembling violently from the concussion, as well as from a series of minor blows, as the object which had collided with it was carried along, grinding and pounding against the side of the building.

In the room there was something closely akin to panic for a moment. Varley shouted wildly for help. Lon was scrambling to the window. Sam heard Orkney cry out, and caught distinctly the Shark’s shrill whistle, and close-following comment:

“Whew! There’s bulk, with momentum, for you! Say, what was it?”

Sam found himself peering over Lon’s shoulder. Certainly there was a slight lessening of the darkness. He could make out dimly a black mass drifting by.

“Great Scott! but that must be one o’ them big barges from the brick yards!” Lon groaned. “Use ’em to freight the bricks down to the railroad, they do. But the yards are up above the big dam. If that’s one o’ their boats, it means that dam has gone out as well as the little fellow we’ve been figgerin’ on. Jeewhillikens! but this is a reg’lar granddaddy of a flood! Must be, for they haul the barges out winters, and the one that hit us must ’a’ been well up the bank. And look how the water’s riz, anyhow!”

Sam looked; that is, he gazed as at a dark curtain, and saw a pale glimmer just discernible at what he estimated to be but a few inches below the level of the upper floor. As he was continuing his observations, Orkney plucked at his sleeve.

“That jolt pretty nearly got to us, Sam. I’ve been scouting out in the hall. I couldn’t see much, but it looks as if the whole corner had been torn out of the room on the other side. And the house—what’s left of it, I mean, is askew. Floor of the hall’s tilted like a hillside.”

Sam made reconnaissance for himself, and found that Tom had by no means exaggerated the conditions. He returned to the room, to discover that Orkney was again scratching at the chimney. From the neighborhood of the window Lon spoke:

“Boys, I dunno but we’ll have to move along pooty soon—water sure is climbin’ and climbin’. So as I hate to take a jump in the dark, as you might say, I guess I’ll go scoutin’ for some road that leads higher, too. Jest you wait here, and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

In a moment more they could hear him in the hall; but several minutes passed before he called out to the Shark to bring him what was left of the torch. The Shark obeyed; and, presently, there was a creak of rusty hinges, and Lon called out cheerily:

“It’s all right! Attic stairs jest about where I cal’lated they ought to be. That’s enough of the light, son. Put it out and save the pieces till we need ’em again.”

Then back came Lon and his torch-bearer to join Sam and Varley and Orkney in the nerve-testing task of waiting for the steadily rising flood to drive them from their refuge.

How long they waited none of them knew. To Sam it seemed to be hours and hours before a chance movement of his was marked by the splash of his foot in water. Through the open door a tidy little stream was pouring into the room from the hall.

Now the old house was creaking and groaning, and without were all the noises of the storm, but not one of the party missed that splash or misunderstood its meaning.

“Heh! Time to go, ain’t it?” Lon tried to speak lightly, but his tone betrayed his excitement.

“Yes, it’s time,” Sam said; his voice, too, was shaking.

“All right! Light up, Shark,” Lon directed. “You and me’ll go ahead, seein’ as how we know the way. Rest o’ you keep clost to us.”

The Shark’s torch was but an inch or two of blackened, resinous pine, and its flame was no greater than that of a toy candle. Still, it enabled Sam to observe Orkney digging away at the bricks of the chimney with furious haste.

“Drop that, Tom, and come along,” he called.

Orkney gave no heed to the summons. Instead, he worked more desperately than ever.

“Give me time! I—I’m getting there!” he declared.

The Shark was moving toward the door. The faint beams of his torch quite failed to reach the spot where Orkney stood. Sam had no notion of what Tom might be about, but he had strongly developed opinions on the unwisdom of tarrying. He strode across the room, grasped Orkney’s shoulder. The other resisted briefly. In a vague way Sam conjectured that he was groping about the chimney. Also he remembered, afterward, that Orkney uttered a queer little exclamation, which seemed to betoken satisfaction, then ceased his resistance.

“Come on!” Sam urged, and Orkney came. Possibly Sam felt rather than saw that Tom was thrusting something into the protection of his closely buttoned coat; but what was of far greater immediate importance was the depth of the invading water, through which they had to wade. It was ankle-deep in the half-wrecked hall; it was over the lower step of the steep and narrow stair leading to the attic, up which Lon and Varley already had passed.

The Shark, standing at the foot of the flight and cherishing his feeble beacon, growled his opinion of those who delayed.

“What you fellows dillydallying for? Think I’m a government lighthouse that’s bound to keep going, anyway? This thing’s nothing but one coal, and it’s getting to me—ouch! I can’t keep on holding it till daylight!”

Sam and Orkney, thus exhorted, quickened their pace. But as they did so, Lon raised a shout, in which was a ring of jubilation:

“Hullo, everybody! Speakin’ o’ daylight, I can see something that’s mighty good for my sore eyes. What is it, eh? Well, it’s where there used to be roof, and where there ain’t any roof left now. But in place of it is jest the cheerfulest patch o’ mighty nigh washed out dawn that ever showed over to the east’ard. It’s mornin’, boys, or ’twill be in a few shakes of a lamb’s tail. Oh, well, see for yourselves then, if you ain’t willin’ to believe me.”

The Shark dropped his torch—it went out with a hiss in the pool at his feet—and raced up the stair. Orkney and Sam dashed after him.

What Lon had told them was true. An end of the roof was missing—carried away, perhaps, by the barge. And there the sky showed gray and dull, yet with the early dawn upon it.

No doubt the attic was even more cheerless, otherwise, than the room they had just quitted, but that patch of light made amends for everything. What if the drenching rain had poured through the break until the place were half-afloat? What if here the tumult of the storm and of the flood were louder and more menacing than ever? The darkness had been the direst of their troubles, and now it was about to be ended.

The missing segment of roof extended close to the floor at one end. Sam had no trouble in looking out. And he it was who made a discovery, at which he raised a cry as jubilant as Lon’s had been but a moment before.

Under the gray sky the flooded river spread like a black lake all about them. But close at hand, drifting directly toward the house, was that which he longed most to see.

“A boat! A boat!”

His call brought his companions to his side. Eagerly they gazed, and joined in a chorus of hails to the navigators. There were two of these. Each had been sitting huddled on a thwart; each roused to activity at sound of human voices, and, catching up a piece of board, fell to paddling wildly.

The Shark needed spectacles to improve his vision, yet it fell to his lot to be first to recognize the boatmen.

“Jupiter Crickets! Poke and Step!” he gasped; and in his tone was more bewilderment than delight.

CHAPTER XIX
WHAT BEFELL POKE AND STEP

It will be recalled that in the division of forces for the search Herman Boyd and the Trojan were detailed to follow the road down the valley, making inquiries at each house and seeking news of the missing Shark and Varley.

This duty they performed conscientiously, but wholly without result.

Nobody had seen or heard anything of the pair. From each house which was provided with a telephone the boys made report to Mrs. Grant and learned from her that seemingly the other hunters were having no better fortune. More than once they were advised to give up their task and accept shelter and refreshment; but they declined the invitations and resumed their march. What is more, they did not restrict themselves to inquiries of the residents, but now and then made a detour toward the river. It was to be observed, as they neared the foot of the valley, that the lowlands were flooded in many places. The boys agreed that their prospects of success were not bright, but neither was willing to turn back.

“We’ll keep on as far as the bridges, anyway,” the Trojan said. “Sam’d expect us to do that much.”

Herman nodded. “He’d keep on, if he were here.”

“Sure he would!”

“Yes, old Sam’s a sticker.”

“Then we’ll be stickers, too: we won’t fail him.”

This decided, they continued their tramp. And while they went splashing and sloshing along the road, which was by no means a poor imitation of a canal in places, Step and Poke, heading in the opposite direction, were having a very similar experience.

The tall youth and his plump chum were quite as much in earnest as were Herman and the Trojan, but temperamentally were not so well fitted to carry out a commander’s orders implicitly. Besides, under the depressing weather conditions, Poke could hardly avoid meditation upon the sorrows of his own lot. With rain driving in his face and snow water at times a quarter-way up the legs of his rubber boots, it is scarcely to be wondered that he tended to the pessimistic view. To tell the truth, Poke liked the comfortable things of life, and turned regretfully from the warm kitchens of the farmhouses at which he halted to ask the question, to which there was regularly the same answer. Nobody had seen a smallish boy in glasses and a larger boy who didn’t wear glasses.

Trudging on, doggedly and faithfully, Poke relapsed into a dull silence, which at last attracted the attention of Step. The latter was not unmindful of his friend’s mood; in fact, he tried to show his sympathy. Ordinarily, the two got on famously, but now Step contrived to strike a jarring note.

“Oh, buck up, Poke; buck up!” he urged. “Luck’ll have to turn. You ought to be able to see that.”

Now, this was meant in all kindness, but it did not fall pleasingly on Poke’s ear. Doubtless the fault was his own, not Step’s.

“Huh! Talk’s cheap!” he growled.

Step flushed wrathfully. “Oh, well, if you don’t want to see, you don’t have to, you chump!”

“Huh! Chump, am I? Well, if I had a periscope-pole neck like yours I could see a lot of funny things, too.”

This was personal insult, so intended and so received. Step pulled up short.

“Periscope neck, eh? Well, I’d rather have one like that than be a human flat-iron!”

Poke halted, too. He glared up at Step as savagely as Step was glaring down at him. Together they presented a quaint scene of wrath, standing there in slush to their ankles and with the rain running down their long coats in little streams. The humor of the situation escaped Poke, but he was quick witted enough to take advantage of the circumstance that Step had been first to pause. He cut short his own delay, and took as long a stride as his short legs permitted.

“That’s right—be a quitter!” he said over his shoulder. “Anything to get out of hunting for Varley and the Shark, of course!”

Step was beside him in an instant. “Quitter, eh?” he snarled. “We’ll see who’ll be first to lay down his playthings in this game!”

“Oh, then you haven’t really laid them down, eh?” said Poke with crafty sweetness. “Isn’t it too bad it looked so much like that?”

Step merely gritted his teeth in reply, and set a pace which put Poke into a dog-trot to keep abreast of him.

It was, of course, the most trivial of quarrels, but like some other trifles in life fated to have consequences out of all ratio to its real importance. It made both boys determined to go on with the hunt without much regard for reason. Also it brought it about that when in the growing darkness the flood came sweeping down the valley in a fine wave, Poke and Step were still marching along, each more intent upon wearing out the other than upon keeping keen watch for danger.

Luckily, the roar of the approaching water gave even these preoccupied youths some warning. Luckily, too, though the road they were then traveling was close to the river, they were near a tiny hillock on which stood a shed such as farmers sometimes build in remote fields to protect stock or tools. Poke and Step dashed for its shelter, and were well above the wave as it went raging down the valley. However, it left them on what was now an island, safe for the time being, but cut off from the shore by a hundred yards or more of deeply inundated swale.

Poke clutched Step, and Step clung to Poke, their bickering forgotten and peace restored. In a moment they were as thoroughly comradely as Herman and the Trojan, who three or four miles down the valley watched, or, more accurately, heard the sweep of the wave down the stream. Chance had put the Trojan and his companion, at the time on the hillside, well above the flood level. In the faint light they could make out little except that the stream, of a sudden, was over its banks; but while they were pausing, uncertain what to do, Mr. Grant’s hired man drove up. He could give them no information except that he had been instructed to carry on the inquiry for the Shark and Varley at the gorge at the mouth of the valley. They held a short consultation, agreeing that the man should go on as far as he could, the road at this point being well above high water mark, while the boys turned back. By keeping to the hillside they would be able to regain the Grant place, and on the way they could continue the search for traces of the missing pair.

For Poke and Step, however, no such solution of their problem was possible. They were effectually marooned. Neither felt tempted to venture to swim to the shore. They put their heads together, debated briefly, and agreed that there was nothing to do but to make the best of the situation.

The roof of the shed leaked abominably, but at one end they found a comparatively dry spot, and here, too, they made a discovery. Against the wall lay a boat, bottom up, evidently in storage for the winter. It was a home-made affair; a punt, broad, flat-bottomed, square-ended; built of heavy planks and generally so clumsy and weighty that they were unable to move it, though they put all their strength into the effort.

“No use!” groaned Step, and now it was Poke who took the rôle of comforter.

“Well, I don’t see any oars, so it doesn’t matter very much.... What’s that? Don’t want to stay here all night, you say? Well, I don’t want to, either; but I’m not going to worry about it. Maybe something will turn up.”

Step dismally pointed a number of very good reasons for doubting that anything could turn up to their advantage; but Poke declined to lose heart.

“I know, I know!” he said. “Luck’s against us just now—guess I’m a regular Jonah, anyway. But it’ll have to turn—say! I’m not sure but it has turned.”

“How?” Step demanded skeptically.

Poke waved a hand at the dark flood. “Suppose that had caught us. This is no picnic, you’re thinking? I tell you it’s a party compared with being out in that mess. Goodness knows, I’ve got troubles enough in life, but I’m not quite ready to be drowned yet!”

“Well, I’m not, either,” Step admitted. “Only—only I do wish it’d stay light a little longer.”

“With you there!” cried Poke earnestly.

The gloom, in fact, was for the chums—as for the larger party in the old house—the most insistent of the night’s discomforts. It was worse than the pelting rain, from which, indeed, they had found shelter of a sort; it was worse than the chill of the air which increased as the night advanced, for they could huddle together for warmth. It even seemed to offer more menacing perils than the steadily rising flood, whose approach to the summit of the hillock it concealed. How Step and Poke endured the dragging hours can better be imagined than described. They had their alarms—many of them. Mysterious sounds came from the bosom of the flood; an owl hooted sepulchrally; occasionally a squall swept by, whistling shrilly about the shed. There were long intervals, though, in which they heard only the monotonous beat of the rain and a sound very like a heavy murmur from the river; and at such times weariness took its toll, and both boys slept, fitfully, brokenly and restlessly.

Rather oddly, neither of them suspected the manner in which the waters were creeping toward their refuge. Neither had the mathematical bent of the Shark to work out a theory of a valley like a plugged bowl; and so, while they were perfectly aware of the discomforts of their situation and while they were full of anxiety as to the fate of their friends, the discovery, at last, that the still rising river was invading the shed came with surprise as well as consternation.

They turned again to the boat, and made desperate efforts to drag it out; but in this they were hampered and handicapped by the darkness. They did succeed in turning it on its side, but there it stuck, in spite of all their efforts.

Now came a new cause of alarm. Some shift in the current began to swerve drifting objects toward their island. A score or more of big logs, freed by the breaking of some boom up-stream, came like a fleet of rams to batter the walls of the rickety structure. By this time the water was more than knee deep on the highest part of the earth floor of the shed, and Poke and Step were perched in insecurity on a pile of old boxes in a corner. The only alleviating feature of their situation was a lessening of the darkness with the coming of the dull dawn; but it was still a faint twilight which was all about them when the end of the shed came.

Another lot of logs, traveling with even more momentum than the first flotilla, seemed to charge upon them. One tore a great hole in the shed wall; a second ripped away an end. Then a huge timber lodged against an upright of the framework, and with the full force of the flood behind it, turned like a beam of a great derrick, carrying away what was left of the roof, tearing out the wall as if it had been made of paper, and completing the ruin of the shed. The pile of boxes was tossed aside, and Poke and Step were pitched into the water.

The big log, though, served them a good turn as well as a bad one. Their asylum was gone, but the boat had been set afloat by the blow, and, what was still better, was floating right side up. Half full of water as it was, it was a very ark of safety to the boys, who climbed aboard just as the current seized it and carried it free of the wreckage.

For a moment or two the voyagers were content to sit still and regain breath. Then, pluckily, they set about improving the opportunity for escape which Fortune had thrown in their way.

There were no oars aboard, but Step tore a broken thwart from its fastenings. One piece of the board he gave to Poke and another he himself put over the side. Both boys fell to paddling frantically—but to small avail. The punt was heavy, clumsy, water-logged. The paddles were the poorest of excuses. It was all they could do to swing the blunt bow of the boat toward the dimly visible shore; and after ten minutes’ hard, but vain, endeavor the chums ceased their labors.

Their plight now was distressful, though possibly having less of peril than had threatened them on their temporary island. Their ark, if unmanageable, kept afloat, and was stout enough to be in no great danger from collision with other flotsam borne along by the current. They were in water half-way to their knees, but even if the boat filled, its wooden bulk promised sufficient buoyancy to support them.

“Sooner or later we’ll have to drift ashore—somewhere,” Poke remarked philosophically. “Kind of like the stone you chuck in the air—‘What goes up must come down,’ you know. And this isn’t the ocean—we’ll make land after a while.”

“WE’LL HAVE TO DRIFT ASHORE SOMEWHERE”

“Huh! Don’t make out any now!” croaked Step.

Poke made deliberate survey. The light was still dim; low lying, gray clouds seemed to merge in thin mists, through which only vaguely could the shore be discerned. The rain had decreased somewhat, but it was like a veil in hiding distant objects. There were, to be sure, other objects near at hand, which under happier conditions the voyagers must have found interesting. Keeping pace with the boat, and not fifty feet away, drifted an overturned wagon. Trailing this came a pagoda-like summer-house, at the head of a fleet of chicken coops, boxes and barrels. Farther still from the boat floated the roof of a barn. All about them the boys saw planks, logs, a section of wooden fence, limbs torn from trees, doors, odds and ends of furniture; anything, in fact, which the flood could bear along. A squirrel, perched on a log, chattered at them; a cat, crouched on a big packing-case, mewed piteously. Beyond the case they could see the body of a cow, still held by a halter to the shed in which she had been drowned, and which now was sweeping down the stream.

Except for the current there was more suggestion of lake than river; though the trees protruding above the water added a weird touch to the picture, which differed markedly from that of any lake either boy ever had seen. Even the philosophy of Poke was not proof against the effects of such evidences of destruction. He huddled himself lower, and his voice shook.

“I—I—say, this is pretty fierce, Step! Things must have been awful for the folks up above.”

“They’re awful enough for the folks here!” groaned Step.

Then there was a long pause. The light strengthened, but slowly, very slowly. Neither of the boys took pains to maintain a vigilant lookout; and so it happened that they were sighted from the old house before they were aware of the attic still protruding above the flood.

Roused to action by the shouts of Sam and his comrades, they caught up their extemporized paddles and fell to work as for dear life. Had the boat not been drifting almost directly toward the house, however, it is much to be doubted if they could have brought it alongside. As things were, they accomplished the feat, the side of the punt crunching against the roof just where Sam and his friends were gathered.

Then a curious complication arose. It was eloquent testimony to the slight confidence or liking either party had for its quarter; for as the boys in the house tried to scramble into the boat, Poke and Step leaped wildly for the break in the roof. In consequence, Poke and the Shark collided, and pitched together to the floor of the attic, while Step and Orkney, clinging to each other, reeled against Lon with such force as to drive him back from the opening.

Sam and Varley chanced to be a little to one side. This kept them free of the unintentional mêlée, but, at the same time, put them farther from the boat, which, helped, no doubt, by the impetus of Poke and Step’s leaps, edged away from the house.

It would be hard to say which was the quicker to grasp the danger of losing the boat. Both sprang forward; both tried to grasp the gunwale—and both failed by inches.

Then Varley did a thing which may have been rash, but the daring of which was not to be denied. Like a flash he whipped off his greatcoat; vaulted the wreck of wall; plunged into the flood; caught the side of the boat. Sam, no laggard in such an emergency, leaned out and seized Varley by the leg. In an instant his call for Lon brought help. The big punt was heavy; the current was beginning to lay hold upon it again. For a little it seemed to be impossible that Varley should be able to retain his grasp on the rail or that Lon and Sam should be able to haul in their human cable; then, inch by inch, they began to gain. The boat was dragged within reach. Orkney and the Shark, by this time clear of Step and Poke, held it fast, while Sam hauled Varley out of the water.

“Get aboard—quick—everybody!” Sam cried, and helped Varley to obey the order. Then he turned and caught Step’s shoulder.

“Pile in! Hustle Poke, too! It’s our only chance!”

Step resisted. “Wait a minute, Sam! There are no oars. You can’t do anything. You can’t——”

Sam half pitched the objector into the punt. Poke, taking the hint, followed, unassisted.

Lon ripped up a narrow floor-board.

“Here’s oars in the makin’,” he shouted. “All aboard—everybody that’s goin’!”

There was no need of further exhortation. In thirty seconds more the Safety First Club was afloat, and the boat was again beginning to drift away from the old house.

CHAPTER XX
THE PRIZE SNATCHED FROM THE FLOOD

Lon’s floor-board gave material for three rough-and-ready paddles, short, awkward to handle, yet more or less serviceable. Lon himself kept one, Orkney took another, and Varley laid claim to the third.

“I’ve got to keep my blood circulating,” he explained. “Thought I was pretty well dampened before that last go, but now—whew! Say, I’d like to be run through a clothes wringer just as I stand. Next best thing’ll be working at something.”

Sam also had stretched out a hand for the third paddle, but Lon ruled in favor of Paul.

“Varley, you can have anything I’ve got!” he said warmly. “That leap-for-life, floatin’ trapeze stunt you done was amazin’ good medicine for this crowd; for my notion is, the old river ain’t got done risin’, and it ain’t got to do much more comin’ up in the world to clean swamp that garret. Good, quick action o’ yourn, son, good quick action, I tell you!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Paul modestly. “It—well, it just seemed to be a good idea. I—I hated, somehow, to lose the boat; though maybe the flood won’t go much higher.”

“No; Lon’s right.” It was the Shark who spoke, with all his customary brusqueness. “Liable to be ten feet more of a rise. How do I know? How do you know anything? Figure it out, don’t you? Just what I did! If the mouth of the valley is dammed—must be, or the river would have behaved better—the water’ll keep on rising till it’s over the top of the dam. And from the levels as the map gave ’em, and the height of the bridge piers, as I recalled ’em——”

Sam caught him by the shoulder. “Look here, Shark! Do you mean you’d figured all that out, and then didn’t tell us?”

The Shark wriggled free. “Huh! What’d have been the good of telling? Just would have worried you fellows some more—wouldn’t have helped anything or anybody. You’re all right in your way, but you don’t seem to be able to get any comfort out of calculations that go into three or more figures. So if I’d said anything, you’d have wanted to know why I said it, and when I tried to explain, you wouldn’t have understood. But if you’re so set on having me say something now, I’ll tell you that we’d better make shore. Current’s taking us down-stream, and I won’t guarantee how long the ice dam will hold. Don’t want to go over it, or through it, do you? Well then!”

“Jumpin’ Jupiter, but that’s sense!” ejaculated Lon, and fell to paddling.

Orkney and Varley followed the example. Step and Poke found the pieces of the broken thwart and added their mite. The Shark stared ahead. Sam, for a moment, was without occupation, but then he pulled off his cap and began to bail out some of the water in the boat. With the increased number of passengers a leak or two had developed.

There is no craft more difficult to manage than a flat-bottomed, square-ended punt, deep in the water, and in the grasp of a strong current. Naturally enough, the attempt was made to steer for the nearer bank, the one on which was the Grant farmhouse. It resulted in a sort of diagonal drift, in which a dozen feet were made down-stream for every foot of approach to land. Sometimes the boat was fairly across the current, sometimes her nose pointed almost directly down the river. More than once collision with floating débris threw her off her course. In short, she might have been compared to a crippled and bulky-bodied beetle, struggling with broken legs to swim to the shore of a stream into which it had fallen. But as the beetle, by virtue of hard work, draws nearer the land, so the big punt edged away from the swifter current of mid-stream. Presently she was scraping through the boughs of a young grove, the trees of which were submerged to their tops. The Shark, playing lookout man, sang out his news:

“Hullo! There’s the Grants’ house! We’re just about abreast of it.”

The paddlers toiled harder than ever, but Sam paused a moment in his bailing. The light had strengthened; he had no trouble in making out the house and the big barns near by. As well as he could determine, the flood had not invaded the homestead, though it seemed to have reached the road in front of the place.

Lon and his crew tried to arrest the drift down-stream; observing which, the Shark spoke oracularly:

“Don’t try too hard to hold her on the mark! Keep her going, and see if we don’t strike an eddy pretty soon. My guess is we will.”

Step had little breath to spare, but he used some of it in speech.

“What’s that?” he gasped. “You ‘guess’? Thought math-mathematicians never guessed, but always were sure!”

Round whipped the Shark, bristling. “Mathematics nothing! This is just common sense. I’m counting on the chances of being right about an ice jam down below. If it’s damming up the water, you’ll find some of the surplus that can’t get through or over the obstruction forced back along the edges, while the freshet keeps on pouring more water down the middle. Seen how the water whirligigs in a bowl, haven’t you, when you turn on the faucet? Well, then?”

Step might have made answer, but Poke thumped him on the back.

“Cut it out!” the plump youth advised. “This is no debate; it’s a job!”

Step grunted, and fell to paddling again. The Shark shrugged his shoulders, and resumed his observation; thought it was his privilege, very speedily, to utter the words the most self-restrained of mortals can’t deny themselves sometimes:

“There! What did I tell you? We’ve hit an eddy!”

It was true, and true beyond question. The lateral motion of the boat was now up-stream rather than down; and there was no longer difficulty in keeping the house over her square bow. Moreover, in the slack water the pace of the heavy craft seemed to increase. And again the Shark gave tidings:

“Say, fellows, I can see folks! They’re waiting for us—right by the edge of the road just below the house. Mr. Grant’s there—and there’s another man—and hurrah! Herman and the Trojan! They’re both on deck, so all our crowd’s accounted for! And oh, I say! There’s Mrs. Grant hustling down from the house and waving a shawl or something like all possessed!”

With such good news ringing in the ears of the crew, the big boat appeared fairly to jump forward. There was a mighty splashing along both sides, but what the paddlers lacked in art they made up in energy. From the shore came cries of welcome and eager query, but everybody on the punt was too busy to make reply. Then there was more splashing, as the Trojan and Herman, with Mr. Grant close behind them, dashed into the water to meet the voyagers. They caught the gunwale of the boat and dragged the craft forward till she grounded. And then the Shark laid hold upon Mr. Grant.

“There is an ice jam, isn’t there?” he demanded. “Big one, too?”

“Biggest ever heard of in these parts! Both bridges knocked off their piers and all tangled up with the ice. That’s what raised hob when the dams up-river began to go out, and let down all the water. Railroad’s sent for its wrecking crew, and it’s coming with dynamite to blow open a channel, and——”

The Shark was discourteous enough not to wait for the completion of the sentence. He turned triumphantly to his comrades in general and to Step in particular.

“Hear that, did you? Josh me about guessing, would you? Huh! I’ll guess again, and the guess is that the fellow who has the last laugh gets the best one. Huh!”

With that the Shark stepped ashore, avoided the outstretched arms of Mrs. Grant, and fell prey to the Trojan, who splashed out of the river as joyously as he had splashed into it. The Trojan and Herman had had a night of terrible anxiety, but had escaped any adventures such as had befallen the rest of the club. Maybe there was a touch of envy in the demands upon the Shark for his story—which, by the way, the Shark did not relate. Indeed, there was for a little too much confusion for anybody to offer a coherent narrative; and then Mrs. Grant was urging the party up the slope to the porch, and into the house, where open fires burned cheerily, and where there was a wonderfully delicious odor of boiling coffee and cooking viands.

The big house seemed to have an unlimited store of dry garments. Mrs. Grant brought them by the armful into the living-room, and made proclamation:

“Listen to me, everybody! You men folks can have this room to yourselves while Hannah and I dish up the breakfast. It’ll be ready for you the minute you’re all in dry things; and I reckon you’ll find enough to go around. Don’t mind looks or fit, and don’t stop to primp. And here’s a lot of good rough towels—you’ll need a rub-down to take out the chill. Don’t you keep me waiting, and I won’t keep you waiting, either!”

She was turning to the door, but Sam stopped her. As head of the Safety First Club, he had learned some valuable lessons in thoughtfulness for others.

“Just a minute, please, Mrs. Grant!” he begged. “Our folks in town—do they know we’re all right, or have they heard anything about—about our being out all night?”

Mrs. Grant shook her head vigorously. “Not a syllable have they had, good or bad, welcome or worrying! The telephone broke down about eight o’clock last night, and I tell you, boys, I never was so glad of such an accident before. If any of your mothers had called me up—mercy, but I don’t know what I could have said or done! There, there! Let me count you again. Let’s see! Five, six, seven, eight—yes, you’re all here, thank the stars!”

Lon heaved a burlesque sigh. “Oh, my, my! And I ain’t even figgered in the census no more!”

Mrs. Grant laughed very cheerfully. “Oh, you’ll figure, Lon Gates, but I sort of put you in the ought-to-have-known-better class.”

Lon bowed deeply. “Thanky for the compliment, ma’am. I don’t get so many of ’em that I recognize ’em any easier than old man Plympton uster recognize his fust wife’s third cousins when they came fishin’ for an invitation to dinner, for old times’ sake, his fourth bein’ a mighty fine cook, if I say it as shouldn’t, she bein’ kin o’ mine.”

“Well, if that’s what you call a compliment, I guess you have got out of practice entertaining ’em,” chuckled Mrs. Grant. “But now get into dry clothes, every man Jack of you!” And out she bustled, closing the door behind her.

For ten minutes the living-room resembled nothing so much as the locker room of an athletic field. Crowding before the fire, the boys ripped off their wet garments, plied the big towels vigorously, and then, warm and glowing, slipped into the emergency costumes awaiting them. The results surely were picturesque, but nobody minded trifles like a shirt three sizes too big or trousers that came only a little below knees.

“Ready?” called Mrs. Grant from the dining-room.

Sam ran an eye over his company. Poke wagged his head solemnly.

“In all my life,” he said, “I never knew before what being really ready for a square meal was!”

“Yes, ready!” Sam reported; though, as he spoke, he saw that Tom Orkney, withdrawn a little from the others, was standing close to a window and inspecting something he held in his hand. Still, as Tom had made as full a toilette as anybody else, Sam saw no reason to delay on his account.

“Yes, ma’am, ready!” he repeated more loudly.

The door swung, and the boys trooped into the dining-room, Lon bearing them willing company. But while they feasted their eyes upon the well-spread table, their hostess was again making a count.

“Six, seven—sakes alive! but there ought to be eight of you, not saying anything of Lon Gates, who’s quite big enough to speak for himself. And there’s only seven.” Mrs. Grant was moving toward the door. “Now what in the world——” she was looking into the living-room. “Oh, there you are! Goodness gracious, child, I should think you’d be famished!”

Orkney thrust what he had been examining into an inner pocket of his coat. Then, blushing and embarrassed, he came forward.

“I—I must have been so interested in—in something I found, I——”

“Never mind it now, anyway! Sit right down, and let’s see if you won’t find breakfast interesting, too.”

Tom took his place at the table; the others already had taken their places. Hannah, coffee-pot in hand, approached, and began to fill the cups.

Every face brightened as the savory odor of the steaming coffee filled the room. Poke sighed, but it was a sigh of vast content.

“My, my, but this is bully! Only I wish——” there he broke off abruptly and a bit sheepishly.

“What are you wishing?” Mrs. Grant inquired solicitously.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, ma’am. I—I—it was just a fancy.”

“What kind of a fancy? Tell us, do!”

Poke reddened; he moved uneasily in his chair. “It—I guess it’s too foolish to talk about.”

“But sometimes I like to hear things that may not be so foolish, after all.”

The boy hesitated. Then, perceiving that the whole hungry party waited on an end of this interlude, he spoke, hastily and jerkily:

“It’s a crazy notion, I know.... Folks don’t do it at breakfast, I suppose. But—but I couldn’t help remembering that perfectly corking buster of a mince pie we had yesterday, and wishing I’d come to it with the razor appetite I’ve got this minute. It was just a notion, you know, and——”

There Mrs. Grant stopped him. “What did I tell you about foolish things that weren’t foolish?... Hannah! Bring it in—we’ll begin with it, instead of end with it.... And hurry, please do!”

Away sped the maid to the kitchen, and Mrs. Grant again addressed her guests:

“Some people poke fun at pie for breakfast, but over in Sugar Valley we have a better use for it—we eat it. And this morning I feel like eating it with special thankfulness for it and every other mercy and good thing in life. You boys are all alive—I’m going to hear all about how you happen to be alive, as soon as we’ve attended to having last night’s supper, and a go-to-bed snack, and this morning’s breakfast, all at once. The flood has swept the valley, and there has been a terrible lot of damage, but so far as we can hear, nobody has been drowned. And if we have to have new bridges down below—well, that’ll be a good thing, too; I’ve been mortal afraid of the old covered bridge lately—it was so rickety. So we’ll reckon up our mercies—— Right here, Hannah; I’ll cut it myself.”

A chorus of exclamations rose from the boys. The maid had reappeared, bearing a pie as big, as magnificent, as nobly tinted as the wonder of the day before.

“Jeeminy! the twin!” cried Step, admiringly.

“Right!” said Mrs. Grant briskly. “The story goes, old Dominie Pike wished mightily that he might have had two pies instead of one, so we always make up a double allowance. And now don’t wait for ceremony.” She was beginning to cut the pie with sure and deft wielding of her knife. “This time we’ll begin with the boy who thought of having pie for breakfast—yes, serve him first, Hannah.”

Hungrily Poke snatched up a fork. There was something frankly famished in the admiring gaze he fixed upon the contents of the plate put before him.

“Don’t wait!” Mrs. Grant counselled. “We’ll dispense with ceremony.”

Poke needed no urging. He was desperately hungry; and, moreover, as has been said, he was a mighty trencherman. Up rose the fork, well freighted. An instant’s silence; then one word:

“Ah-h!”

If ever vast satisfaction were packed into a syllable, it was in that brief exclamation. Their hostess beamed; the boys burst into laughter. Sam, before whom Hannah had placed the second plate, caught Mrs. Grant’s eye.

“I—I think I used to be prejudiced about—about——” he hesitated. “Somehow, though, I think you understand what I mean, ma’am. Maybe I didn’t appreciate—er—er—you know!”

“I know! But you’re not to bother your head about that for a second. I was young once myself, thank Heaven!”

“Well, I appreciate it now,” said Sam simply. “And I’m mighty glad I’ve learned how to appreciate it. This whole business—from first to last, with the flood thrown in—I—I guess I know more than I did,” he concluded with an effort.

“I’m surely glad all of you know about Sugar Valley and its legends,” Mrs. Grant put in quickly, to cover his confusion. “I’ve told you one story about Dominie Pike. There are a lot of other stories.”

Tom Orkney spoke from his end of the table.

“I wonder if some of them are not here, Mrs. Grant,” he said, and took from his pocket a little book, stained, frayed, dog-eared at the corners, lacking covers, and with some of the outer pages sadly mutilated.

From hand to hand it was passed to Mrs. Grant. The boys could see that the pages were filled with writing, small, closely lined, in ink which had faded with the passage of years.

Mrs. Grant glanced curiously at the little book. She turned the pages, her interest evidently increasing as she proceeded.

“Why—why, if this isn’t the real thing—the original diary of Dominie Pike—but how did you come by it?”

“I found it in an old house we stayed in till the flood drove us out.”

The lady nodded. “Yes, that would fit—it must have been the old Dominie’s house. But this book, now! You know, I told you I never saw the original, and never knew anybody who had seen it, but this—well, it certainly fits the description of the diary that’s been handed down. And the penmanship is just like the Dominie’s—there are some other specimens in old documents that have been preserved—bills, receipts, agreements, and so on. And as nearly as I can make out what it says—yes, it reads as if it was genuine. And I think it’s one of the first of the set the Dominie is known to have kept. But you found it, you say?”

“Yes,” said Tom. “It was in a niche, a sort of hiding-place in the chimney above the fireplace in an up-stairs room.”

“I know the room you mean. They say it was the Dominie’s study. He may have left the book there, or maybe his son or grandson did. But how in the world did you happen to hunt it out?”

Orkney hesitated. He was not a fellow of ready speech, and he was embarrassed by the attention he was attracting.

“I—well, I can’t explain exactly except that I had a—a hunch, you might call it—that, somehow, the Dominie Pike story might be more than a plain story. And when I heard about the lost diary—well, it happened I remembered it would be awfully good medicine for this crowd if we could find it. There’s a prize——”

“Oh!” said Poke sharply and suddenly.

“There’s a prize we’d like to win for—for a special reason——”

“Bully old Orkney!” cried Step.

Orkney raised a hand. “Better let me finish the best way I can—I’m not much of a chap at such things. Well, then, I couldn’t get the Dominie’s diary out of my head. So when we had nothing else to do in the old house, I kept nosing around. In that up-stairs room something made me suspect there might be a hiding-place in the masonry of the chimney. My grandfather’s house had a sort of safety-deposit box built into its chimney, and I got a hint from that. Of course, it was too dark to see much, but by feeling along and then digging with my knife—well, to make the story short, I found that book just as we had to beat it—go away, I mean. So I tucked the book where it would be safe, and when we were on shore, and there was a chance, I looked it over. And—and you think it’s the real thing, don’t you?” he added anxiously.

“Certainly!” cried Mrs. Grant. “I haven’t a doubt that it is.”

“And you won’t mind our taking it for a while?”

“Mind? Bless me, child, it’s yours for the finding, and welcome!”

But Orkney shook his head. “No; it belongs to you,” he said. “You’ll know what to do with it permanently. We shouldn’t. A week or two will be quite enough for our purposes.”

Mrs. Grant looked perplexed. “Well, maybe you understand what you’re about. I don’t, but that’s neither here nor there. And if it suits you, surely it suits me, too.”

“Thank you!” said Orkney very gravely.

“Yes, thank you!” echoed the Safety First Club with a fervent heartiness Mrs. Grant perceived but quite failed to comprehend.

CHAPTER XXI
POKE OUT OF BONDAGE

The result of the historical essay competition was a foregone conclusion. Under the conditions, by which facts counted for more than form of expression, the production of the Safety First Club, entered in Poke’s name, took the hundred dollar prize, with never a doubt in the minds of the judges. Tattered and torn as was the diary of Dominie Pike, it yet threw so much light upon debated questions of early town history, and added so much information to the local historians’ store of knowledge, that the award was made with very little delay.

Poke, it must be said, rebelled at the last, but the club promptly overruled his objections. Step argued long and vigorously with his chum.

“You’ve got to have money, and here is money. Don’t be an idiot! What do you want to do? Turn us down, and be sued or—or something? Want your folks to know all about the mess, eh? Ugh! Thought you didn’t. And here you’ve been growling about luck being against you, and when it’s for you, you’re all for jumping the fence to get away from it. Say, you make me tired!”

This was Step’s conclusion, and along with the rest of his argument served to shake Poke somewhat, and to send him to Sam, as a sort of court of appeal. But Sam quite agreed with Step.

“Look here, Poke,” he said. “I know how you feel; how you hate to take all of what you think ought to be divided among the gang. But it’s the thing for you to do. That dinner of yours was really a club affair. You gave it to even up a club account with Varley. So the whole club is concerned in getting you out of a scrape that resulted from the dinner. Every one of us feels that way about it—Orkney most of all. So trot along, and pay the bill, and be happy.”

Poke drew a long face. “Happy? With just a shift of load? I’ll be out of debt to the hotel man, and under debt to every one of you fellows.”

Sam laughed, and it wasn’t a feigned laugh, either. “Poke, you miss the combination! There isn’t one of us who hasn’t had his full share of help, one way or another, out of all we went through.”

“Umph! What did you get, for instance?” Poke demanded.

“I got a lot.”

“A mince pie! You’re fooling me—or trying to.”

“Yes, I got a mince pie,” said Sam calmly. “And I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t miss the pointers I’ve picked up in getting it. I know more about people, and er—er—about motives. And I can see what a fool I made of myself for a while. And I see, too, how what seem like little things at the start can lead to big things. Why, it’s like rolling a snowball that gets bigger and bigger as you push it along. It began with Varley breaking our rules, and walking into the club. Then came the runaway, with Varley mixed up in it, and Mrs. Grant’s coming after us, and my row with the club, and, finally, after Varley had treated us and you’d treated him in return and got in trouble doing it—why, it all had to happen to lead us to Sugar Valley. And you wouldn’t have missed your experience there, would you?”

“Course I wouldn’t!” cried Poke indignantly.

“Well, then! What more would you have? Tom Orkney’s as pleased as Punch to have found that old book, but it pleases him more to be able to give you a lift. No, Poke, there’s nothing for you to do but make a fair wind of it, and sail down to the Rainbow Mountain House, and settle up.”

“You honestly mean that?”

“Every word of it!” said Sam gravely.

So Poke, with the prize money supplemented by his own savings and the contributions of the club, drove out to the hotel, and paid his bill for breakage, and received a formal receipt, and drove back, a deal relieved in spirit, and full of projects to make money enough to repay his friends.

Paul Varley had not been invited to join in the contribution. He had, naturally enough, gained a pretty accurate idea of the story and Poke’s plight, but when he hinted at a wish to bear his share in the relief fund, Sam rather tactfully discouraged him. Paul understood: it was a club affair, and he was not of the club, though he was on the best of terms with its members. He had proof of their regard for him in a very friendly demonstration in his honor.

Rather unexpectedly, Paul was called back to the city. It was a summons by telegraph, and he had to obey it at once. He was surprised and gratified, therefore, when he reached the railroad station to find the Safety First Club gathered in full force on the platform.

Boys, on such occasions, do not make smooth and felicitous farewell speeches.

“Quitting us, eh? Sorry!” “Say, old sport, you’ll be running up to see us some time, of course.” “Paul, we’re going to miss you—you’re all right.” “What you got on for this summer? Don’t forget old Plainfield.”

That was the sort of thing they told him, and Paul made reply in kind. But he had a moment apart with Sam, when he spoke more freely.

“Parker, I’m older than your crowd, but, somehow, I’ve got a lot of good out of them. I’ve tried to keep up my end——”

“But you have kept it up,” Sam cut in. “Why, you’ve treated the lot of us over and over again, and——”

Varley interrupted him in turn. “I don’t mean that way,” he said hastily. “I mean in doing things, in taking the luck that came, in standing punishment with the crowd. I was what you might call soft, out of condition, at the start; and a lot of your game was new to me—the roughing it—the tramps over the snow—the flood—all that sort of thing. I didn’t want to show a yellow streak——”

“Yellow streak nothing! A chap that’d take the chance you took when you jumped for that boat is true blue all the way through!”

Varley cast a swift glance at the rest of the club; he saw that they were out of ear-shot, yet he lowered his voice:

“Parker, you heard me squeal when that crash came—when the big barge hit the old house? Of course you heard me! Now, honestly, that was just nerves, but I could have bitten out my tongue a minute after I’d yelled for help. But it wouldn’t have done any good. You’d heard me; the crowd had heard me. So I made up my mind that if the opportunity came to make good for that break, I’d seize it. So when you and I grabbed for the boat and missed it—why—why—well, we just had to stop that boat from drifting away. So I went after it. That’s the story in a nutshell.”

Sam, the undemonstrative, gripped Paul’s hand.

“It was the pluckiest and quickest witted job I ever saw,” he declared. “And that’s what every one of the fellows thinks, too.”

Had Varley had doubts of this, they must have been removed, as leaning from a car window, he waved farewell to the Safety First Club. For, of a sudden, the Shark, once his bitterest critic, stepped forward, pulled off his hat, and led in a cheer that gained in hearty volume from beginning to end.

“What’s the matter with Paul Varley? He’s all right!” chanted the Shark.

“Hurrah for Varley! Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, Varley!” chorused the club with a will.

The Stories in this Series are:

THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB
THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB AND THE FLOOD

Transcriber’s Notes:

Illustrations have been moved to paragraph breaks near where they are mentioned.

Punctuation has been made consistent.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The following change was made:

p. 153: myself changed to himself (commit himself on)

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAFETY FIRST CLUB AND THE FLOOD ***

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Table of Contents

- THE Safety First Club and the Flood
- Introduction
- Contents
- Illustrations
- CHAPTER I THE CLUB CONFERS
- CHAPTER II VARLEY GETS ACQUAINTED
- CHAPTER III UNCOMFORTABLE GLORY
- CHAPTER IV SAM’S COUNSELLOR
- CHAPTER V SNOW-SHOES
- CHAPTER VI A LITTLE LUNCH
- CHAPTER VII THE SHARK LECTURES
- CHAPTER VIII POKE’S MYSTERY
- CHAPTER IX SAM GETS A REMINDER
- CHAPTER X THE BLOW DESCENDS

- CHAPTER XI THE GREAT MINCE PIE OF SUGAR VALLEY

- CHAPTER XII EXPLORING THE VALLEY
- CHAPTER XIII THE SHARK DEMONSTRATES
- CHAPTER XIV THE HUNT
- CHAPTER XV THE HOUSE OF REFUGE
- CHAPTER XVI BLIND TRAILS
- CHAPTER XVII THE RISING FLOOD
- CHAPTER XVIII THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT
- CHAPTER XIX WHAT BEFELL POKE AND STEP

- CHAPTER XX THE PRIZE SNATCHED FROM THE FLOOD

- CHAPTER XXI POKE OUT OF BONDAGE
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE