Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days; Or, The Handicap of a Millionaire's Son Part 48

"Too bad!" observed Russell Glen, as he and others watched the handsome brick and stone building crumbling into ruins. "And we counted on having such sport there next term."

"Well, it's insured, isn't it?" asked d.i.c.k. "We can collect the money, and build a better one."

"Insured!" suddenly cried Dutton. "There, I meant to attend to that, but it slipped my mind!"

"What did?" asked Allen Rutledge.

"The insurance. It expired the day before yesterday."

"And do you mean to say you forgot to get it renewed?"

"I forgot all about it."

"And haven't we a cent of insurance on it?" asked Paul Drew.

"Not a penny. It's all my fault. I meant to get new policies, but I put it off and now----"

"Now it's too late," said Rutledge. "You're a fine treasurer, you are."

Amazement and chagrin made Dutton incapable of replying. The cadets looked on sorrowfully, as they saw their society house being destroyed, knowing that it would be no easy matter to get the money for a new one.

Suddenly there was an explosion from within, and a shower of stones from one of the walls flew into the air.

"Look out!" cried d.i.c.k.

He and the others leaped back in time, but Toots, who was in the front rank of spectators, having helped to carry out many valued relics, did not seem to hear. A moment later a fragment of stone struck him on the head, and he fell down.

"Toots is hurt!" cried d.i.c.k, running up to the odd janitor, whom all the cadets liked because of his pleasant ways.

"Carry him to the hospital, boys," said the major. "I'll have the surgeon attend to him. Maybe he isn't hurt much."

But from the blood on the head of poor Toots, it would seem that the wound was not a small one.

Sorrowfully d.i.c.k and his chums carried the unconscious man. There was little use remaining at the fire now, for it was almost out, having consumed everything save the walls.

"He isn't badly hurt," announced the surgeon cheerfully, when he had examined Toots. "Only a cut on the head. He'll be all right in a few days."

Suddenly the injured man, who had been placed on a couch in the hospital, sat up. He felt of the bandage on his head. Then he looked around wildly.

"Did we beat the red imps off?" he asked. "Why is it I don't hear the firing? Have they retreated? Am I badly hurt? Let me get at 'em again!

I'm a good shot! I can pick 'em off!"

He started from his couch, but the surgeon gently pressed him back.

"What's the matter, Toots?" he asked. "Where do you think you are?"

"Toots? Who's Toots? I'm Corporal Bill Handlee, and I must get back to my post. I'm a sharpshooter, and the Indians are attacking us."

The surgeon looked at the injured man in amazement. He thought Toots was delirious. But to d.i.c.k the thrilling words meant much. He pressed forward. In his hand he held the battered marksman's medal which Major Webster had returned to him.

"Is this yours, Corporal Handlee?" he asked.

"Yes; where did you get it?" asked Toots. "But why don't some of you speak? Have we beaten off the red imps?"

"Yes," said d.i.c.k gently, understanding the whole story now. "They were beaten back some years ago, Toots. Oh, I've found you at last! Won't your father be glad!"

"My father?" and Toots, or, as we must call him now, Corporal Handlee, looked dazed. "My father knows where I am."

"He doesn't, but he soon will," said d.i.c.k joyfully, and by degrees, he told the story of how he had agreed to help Captain Handlee locate his missing son, and how, by a strange trick of fate, he had been found.

And that Toots was this missing son there was no doubt. His memory, a blank for many years, because of a bullet wound on the head, received in a fight with the Indians out west, had been restored to him. The surgeon explained it by saying that the blow from the stone, which exploded from the heat, had undone the injury caused by the bullet, by relieving the pressure of a certain bone on the brain. Such cases are rare, but not altogether unknown, he added, and persons who had forgotten for many years who they were suddenly recalled the past.

Of course Toots, or, Corporal Handlee, as we must now call him, could not tell where he had been all the years that he was missing. The last he remembered was taking part in an Indian fight, and being wounded.

When he recovered consciousness from the blow of the hot stone, he thought he was still at Fort Lamarie. He had forgotten all the intervening time, including several years spent at Kentfield.

It was surmised that he must have wandered away after the Indian fight, recovered, though with his memory gone, taken another name, and then drifted about, until he secured a place at the military academy. That, the officers recalled, was five years ago.

The corporal had not recognized his own photograph, though something in his hazy memory made him think he knew the man the picture represented.

His own medal as a marksman he had supposed belong to another.

"I must send Captain Handlee a telegram at once," said d.i.c.k, when the excitement had calmed down. "It will be great news for him."

Leaving Corporal Handlee in charge of the surgeon, the old soldier being quite weak, and hardly able to understand all that had happened, d.i.c.k started for the telegraph office, which was not far from the school. He sent the message to the old captain, and, in getting out his money to pay for it, he put his hand in the pocket into which he had thrust the telegram the housekeeper had given him.

"Guess I'd better read it," he murmured. "The fire and finding Corporal Handlee made me forget all about it."

It was from his father, and was very short, but the news it contained made d.i.c.k throw his cap up into the air, and yell out in pure delight.

"Wow!" he cried. "Wow! Wow! Wow!"

The operator came running from his little office.

"Got bad news?" he asked.

"Bad?" repeated d.i.c.k "No, it's the best in the world! My dad's coming home!"

"Seems to me you're making quite a fuss about it."

"So would you if you knew what else he said," spoke d.i.c.k, as he rushed from the building.

He found most of his chums grouped around the ruins of the society house. They were talking about the fire.

"It's all my fault," Dutton was saying. "I guess I'll resign as treasurer."

"I guess we won't have any society, if we can't have a meeting place,"

observed Hale, sorrowfully.

"Say, Dutton, have you a fountain pen?" asked d.i.c.k, as he came up beside his former enemy.