The High School Boys' Training Hike Part 28

In an hour the flashes of lightning had become less frequent.

The wind had abated slightly, but there was no cessation of the downpour.

"I pity anyone who has to travel the highway in this storm," muttered Dave. "This isn't weather for human beings."

"Yet every bird of the air has to weather it," observed Hazelton.

"Yes," muttered Tom, "and a good many of the birds of the air will be killed in this storm, too."

Night came down early. The wind and rain had sent the temperature down until it seemed to the high school boys more like an October night. The warmth and light in the tent were highly gratifying to all.

"As long as the tent holds I can't think of a blessed thing we have to go outside for," sighed Reade contentedly.

"We don't have to," laughed d.i.c.k. "Fellows, we're away off in the wilderness, but we're as happy as we could be in a palace.

How about supper?"

That idea was approved instantly.

"We'll have two suppers to-night," proposed Tom. "That will be the visible proof and expression of the highest happiness that can be reached on a night like this."

Even by ten o'clock that night there was no abatement in the volume of rain falling. The wind still howled.

"Are we going to turn in, soon?" inquired Dave.

"My vote," announced Tom indolently, "is for another supper, and turn in at perhaps two o'clock in the morning."

"I second the motion---as far as another supper goes," chimed in Danny Grin.

"It wants to be a supper of piping hot stuff, too," declared Greg.

"It's warm here in the tent, but the surrounding world is chill and drear. Nothing but hot food will serve us."

Preparations for the meal were quickly under way.

"I hope everyone within the reach of this storm is as comfortable as we are," murmured Hazelton.

"Why, we're so happy, we could entertain company with a relish,"

laughed Reade.

"Say, what was that?" demanded Greg.

From outside came a faint sound as of someone stealthily groping about outside in the storm.

"Bring a lantern, quickly!" called d.i.c.k, going toward the tent door.

As Greg played the rays of light against the darkness outside, d.i.c.k suddenly sprang forth into the dark. Then he returned, bearing in his arms the pitiful little figure of old Reuben Hinman, the peddler.

"Look at his head!" gasped Reade, in horror, as Prescott entered with the burden.

From a gash over the peddler's left temple blood was flowing, leaving its dark trail over the peddler's light brown coat.

d.i.c.k carried the stricken old man straight to his own cot, laying him there gently.

"Who can have done this deed?" gasped Greg, throbbing with sympathy for the poor old man.

Outside other approaching steps sounded. Dave and Tom, s.n.a.t.c.hing up sticks of firewood, sprang forward.

CHAPTER XVI

HOME, HOSPITAL AND ALMSHOUSE

Greg flashed the lantern on four hulking, bedraggled ragged men.

"h.e.l.lo! It's the same kids!" cried a hoa.r.s.e voice out in the storm. "They'll be glad to see us."

"You keep out of here!" ordered Reade, thrusting his stick at the face of the first tramp---the boss tramp---who tried to enter.

"No!" countermanded d.i.c.k Prescott. "Let even the hoboes come in. Let anyone come in on a night like this."

"Now, that's decent of you," admitted the boss tramp, as he sloshed heavily in, followed by three companions. Two of these tramps had been with the "boss" on another well remembered occasion.

The third was a stranger to d.i.c.k & Co.

"My, but you've got a real house in here a true port in a storm,"

observed the boss tramp, as he halted to stare about him. "Friends, this is the best thing we've seen today."

"It is," agreed the other tramps solemnly.

The glance of the newcomers did not rest upon the face of Reuben Hinman, for Prescott had gently spread a blanket so that it effectually concealed the little old peddler.

"What have you men been doing?" asked d.i.c.k, straightening up and eyeing them coldly, steadily.

"Drowning in the woods," replied the boss, "for we knew we couldn't find a house or barn within two miles, and the road is like a river you need a boat for travel to-night. When the storm came we men made a brush lean-to and kept as dry as we could under it. But it got worse and worse. But at last we caught sight of your light s.h.i.+ning through the trees. So we headed for it.

We hoped you'd have a stove with a fire in it, and you have---so we're all right, and much obliged."

"Keep back there a bit," ordered d.i.c.k, so firmly that the tramps obeyed. "Dave, help me to lift this cot over within a few feet of the stove. Be as gentle as you can."

Four tramps looked on in solemn curiosity as they saw Darrin and Prescott lift a cot on which lay something completely covered by a blanket.

Then d.i.c.k turned down the blanket, revealing the bruised, bleeding head of Reuben Hinman.

"What do you men know about this?" Prescott demanded, eyeing them compellingly.

But the tramps' look was one of such astonished innocence that Prescott began to wonder whether he had wrongly suspected these knights of the highway.

"Why did you do---this?" Prescott sternly insisted.

"We---we didn't do it!" exclaimed the boss tramp fervently. "We didn't even know that this old party was anywhere out in the storm.