The High School Boys' Training Hike Part 38

"I hope he didn't get much of your money before it happened,"

murmured Prescott, as be and Drake, followed by Dave, Tom and Dan, got clear of the crowd and down into a quieter part of the road.

"He got less than a dollar of my wages," replied Drake. "I'm sorry he has that much, but he'll never get any more. Say, Prescott, but you are a fighter! I can imagine how 'sore' Miller will be, to-morrow, over having been whipped by such a stripling as you are."

"I've one great advantage over Miller," d.i.c.k rejoined. "I've never tasted alcohol, and Miller has saturated himself with it for years."

"I used to have an idea that liquor was strengthening," murmured Tom Drake. "I know quite a good many men who take it to keep up their strength."

"They're fools, then," d.i.c.k retorted tersely. "You could see, in Miller to-night, what alcohol does toward making one strong.

That man is still powerful, but I'm satisfied that he was once a great deal stronger. Miller's muscles have grown flabby since he began to drink. His speed is less than it must have been formerly.

Even his nerve---his grit---has been impaired by the stuff he has been drinking. Did you notice how early in the fight his wind left him? The man has very little of his former strength, and the blame belongs to the liquor he has used."

"Here's my gate," said Tom Drake, at last, as they halted before the little cottage. "Come in. I've got to tell my wife about you. I wonder where my two girls are?"

d.i.c.k and his friends tried to get out of going into the yard, but their new friend would not have it that way, so silently they followed Drake up the path. Then, through a front window, Tom Drake saw his girls.

His wife sat at a table, her head resting on her arms. On the floor sat the toddler, Mollie, still in her white dress. She had two broken dolls, pretending to play with them, but the woebegone look in her little face showed that her thoughts were elsewhere.

Tom Drake choked as he looked in at the window. Then, throwing up his head resolutely, he lifted the latch, entering the room with firm tread.

"I'm a bit late, girls, but come on up in the village!" he invited.

"Here, Hattie, you take charge of this little roll," he added, thrusting his money into his wife's hand.

Not more than three minutes later the three Drakes issued from the house, Mollie enjoying a "ride" on her father's shoulder.

"Why, where are the boys?" he demanded. "I left them here."

"Gone, like all good angels, when their work is done," smiled his wife.

"It's all right, anyway, girls," Tom Drake answered cheerily.

"We're pretty sure to find 'em up in the village, where we're going."

In the first place that the Drakes entered they came upon d.i.c.k and his three friends. The Gridley boys, after dodging a crowd that wanted to lionize young Prescott, had taken refuge, unseen, in the back of an otherwise deserted ice cream saloon.

"There they are!" cried Mollie, running the length of the shop, as fast as her chubby little legs could take her. She ran straight to d.i.c.k who bent over to give her a gentle hug.

"I don't know what to say to you young men," cried Mrs. Drake, halting beside the boys, her voice breaking a little, her eyes moist.

"Then, if you'll permit me to offer a suggestion," d.i.c.k smiled back, as he rose, "it seems to me that conversation might spoil several good things. Won't you all sit down and be our guests in a little ice cream feast that we have started?"

It was almost an hour before the little party broke up. A few interested citizens, however, found the hiding place of the Gridley High School boys and insisted on coming in to shake hands with the boys.

"Take your family and slip out through the back door," d.i.c.k whispered to Tom Drake.

"I don't know that I'll ever see you again," murmured Drake huskily, "so I want to say-----"

"Don't say anything," d.i.c.k smiled back. "You're all right, from now on. And we've all learned something to-night. We'll let it rest there. Good-bye, and the best of good luck for you and yours."

So the Drakes escaped from what would have been an embarra.s.sing scene. Nor were d.i.c.k and his friends long in getting away from the too-enthusiastic citizens.

"It's late enough for us to go back to camp and turn in, isn't it?" suggested Tom Reade.

"I was thinking of that myself," d.i.c.k admitted.

"You must be tired, anyway," Dave hinted. "You whipped Miller all right, but he was a tiring brute, and I'll wager that you're both sore and exhausted."

"I'll plead guilty to a little bit of both," d.i.c.k Prescott a.s.sented, laughing at the recollection of Miller at the time when that brute's second eye was closed.

Yet it was more than half an hour after their return to camp when slumber finally began to a.s.sert its claim upon the Gridley boys.

For Greg and Harry, as soon as they had heard a few words as to the evening's adventure, insisted upon hearing all of it before they would let d.i.c.k turn in.

"I'll bet they're sore in Miller's place tonight," chuckled Greg, just before be extinguished the second lantern.

Certainly anger did reign in Miller's place for the rest of that evening.

Miller had been brought to consciousness, after considerable effort.

He was even able to be up and about his place, but his swollen features looked like a caricature of a face.

"The schoolboy that was able to do that to you, Miller, must have been eight feet high and as wide as a gate," remarked one of the red-nosed patrons of the place.

"Shut up!" was Miller's gracious response.

There were other drinking places in Fenton, and to these the news of the big fellow's drubbing quickly spread.

Indeed, the fight seemed to be the one topic of the talk of Fenton that evening.

As it happened, it wasn't very long before word was brought to Miller that d.i.c.k and his friends were camping down on Andy Hartshorn's place.

"It's queer that Hartshorn will let such young toughs stop on his land!" growled Miller.

"They ought to be chased out of town---that's what!" growled a patron of the place.

More of this talk was heard, until finally someone demanded thickly:

"Well, why can't we chase 'em out of town?"

At first, the idea met with instant favor among the dozen or more worthless men gathered in Miller's saloon. The plan grew in favor until one man, slighter than the rest, observed:

"Say! Stop and think of one thing. We know what one of the boys did to Miller, and there are six of those boys down at the camp!"

That rather cast a damper over the enthusiasm until one blear-eyed man of fifty observed, knowingly:

"Well, we don't need to go alone. There are other men in Fenton who think the way we do. We can go down to the woods in force, and pretend that what we want to do comes as a rebuke administered by the citizens of Fenton."

"Hurrah!" cheered one man who seemed in danger of falling asleep.

"Miller, let us use your telephone," urged the former speaker.