The Boy Scouts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition Part 20

rooms, and all that. Mebbe you didn't know it, but I brought that steamer trunk of yours here when you were out. That's how I got my first knowledge some of my old schoolmates had come on to the Fair, because I read the name of Robert Blake on the same, and Hampton, L. I., ditto."

"Oh!" said Andy, "and you felt so warmly drawn to your old schoolmates, Jared, didn't you, that you just couldn't resist sneaking up here when they were out, and rooting all through their baggage in hopes of picking up a windfall?"

The wretched Jared groaned in a way that told how badly he felt, not because he repented for anything he had done, as Rob well knew, but on account of having had the ill-fortune to be caught in the act. That was what pinched the most, though it was not to be expected he would admit as much; for Jared had always been one of those tricky, whining, cowardly fellows who make big promises when in trouble, but forget all about them as soon as the wind blows fair.

"I'm just sick to get back home again, and that's the truth, I give you my word it is, Rob!" he said, trying to appear very dejected and humble, because he knew from past experiences that this was the best way to work upon the sympathies of these good-hearted former school companions.

"And ready to rob us so as to get the money to take you there, you mean, don't you, Jared?" Rob demanded.

"Oh, it was wicked, I realize that now, but everything has been against me out here," whined the one who lay on his back on the floor. "I get to thinking of the folks at home on Long Island and it seems I would go crazy I want to get back there so bad again. If I ever do, I'm meanin' to be a different feller than in the past. I've had my lesson, Rob; I've been kicked around like a dog till I came to hate nearly everybody that lived. But if I could only have one more chance I'd try awful hard to make good, sure I would. Oh, I hope you'll believe me, Rob Blake!"

Now Rob, through so many dealings with this treacherous fellow in the past, had lost all faith in his possessing the least trait of decency in his composition. In most bad boys with whom Rob had ever had anything to do he could discover some sign of decency, even though it required considerable searching to find it; but upon Jared he had come to look as worthless.

All these promises Rob believed were only made with one idea in view, and this a wild desire to escape the punishment he so richly deserved.

Caught hiding under the bed after their effects had been searched and thrown recklessly around, Jared must certainly be treated as a common thief if arrested, and the management of the hotel would take great satisfaction in prosecuting him if only to discourage other employees from copying his example.

"Let him sit up, boys!" the scout leader told the two who had been pinning both of Jared's arms to the floor.

They did as Rob requested, but from the way in which Andy and Hiram seemed to watch the culprit, meanwhile holding themselves in complete readiness to hurl their weight upon him at the first show of aggressive action on his part, it was evident that they attached small importance to his claim of repentance.

Rob hardly knew what to do. They had no reason to think well of this scamp who, in the past, never lost an opportunity to do them an ill turn, whether in the home town on the sh.o.r.e of Long Island, down at Panama, or upon the wide plains of Mexico. In Rob's mind there was no shadow of belief with regard to that promise of reformation, or the gnawing desire to return home.

Still, so far as they knew, nothing had been stolen, so that there was no real reason why they should sink so low as to want to revenge themselves on Jared.

He certainly presented a most pitiable object as he sat there and turned his anxious eyes from one face to another of the four boys with whom he had gone to school for years, and who now held his fate in their hands.

"If I got anything, Rob, I meant to make it up to you later on when I could earn the money," he was saying again, mistaking that serious look on Rob's face and fearful that he meant to turn him over to the police.

"I'm ready to go back to the farm and work it with the old man. This thing of knockin' about the world ain't all it's cracked up to be, and I'm dead tired of going hungry half the time. Let me off, Rob, won't you, please? It'd nigh 'bout kill the old woman if she learned I'd been caught tryin' to steal from my schoolmates."

Like all cowards, Jared, when he found himself face to face with the consequences of his folly, was ready to play the part of the prodigal son, and bring in his parents as a reason why he should escape punishment. Rob and the other scouts knew his mother and father, and while they had no reason to respect Farmer Applegate, still the fact that Jared was his son and must have almost broken the hearts of his people at home, was bound to influence Rob.

"Get up, Jared!" said the scout leader, shortly.

Andy gave a grunt of displeasure. He could guess what Rob was about to do, and felt like expressing his disgust, though it was seldom any of the boys ventured to differ with Rob, such confidence did they have in his long-headed policies.

Hiram simply contented himself with shrugging his shoulders. If Rob considered it best that they let the contemptible sneak thief off, after catching him in the very act as it were, well, it must be all right.

Scouts were taught that when a foe was on his back and begging for mercy they must not be too hard-hearted. Jared was deceiving them, Hiram felt sure of that, but after all why should they bother with punis.h.i.+ng him any further?

"Are you meanin' to let me go, Rob?" quavered the fellow, as he managed to get upon his feet, with the four scouts cl.u.s.tered around him.

"Yes, because we haven't lost anything through you as far as we can find out," the scout leader told him, at which Jared's face lost some of its strained look, and Andy thought he caught some of the old-time crafty gleam in his s.h.i.+fting eyes.

"I give you my word for it, Rob, I never took a single living thing," he hastened to say.

"Well, we'll make sure of that by taking a look through your pockets!"

declared Rob, sternly. "You don't seem to like that, do you? But make up your mind that if you start to show the first sign of resistance we'll not only pile on you, but hand you over to the police afterward without listening to any more promises. Andy, you tap his pockets, and see what he's got."

Andy did not hesitate an instant; indeed, to see the way he started in one might believe this was an avocation with the scout, and that he had been employed a long time at police headquarters searching the pockets of prisoners before they were thrust into cells.

A number of things were brought to light, which did not possess any particular interest for the scouts. When, however, from an inside pocket Andy drew a roll of bills, fastened with a rubber band, Tubby was heard to give a "whee!" and Hiram nudged Rob in the side as if to say: "See how he yarned when he vowed he wanted to get back on the farm, but didn't have the railroad fare East!"

Andy deliberately proceeded to count the contents of the roll, while the wretched owner followed his every move, as though he feared that by some hocus-pocus or sleight of hand process, with which he himself was possibly familiar, some of the money might take wings and fly away.

"Just ninety-seven dollars here, Rob!" announced Andy.

"Yes, that's right," declared Jared, cringing before Rob's look, "and I earned every cent of that roll by honest days' labor, every cent of it. I thought I needed just a little more to see me through all the way East. I was told it'd take about-say a hundred and ten clear. But I c'n wait now till I get my next wages. I was a silly fool to think to rob my old pals of the days in Hampton."

"You never said truer words than those, Jared," Rob told him, plainly, but with a feeling that nothing the other declared would be believed under oath, for truth and Jared Applegate had never been friends.

"But, Rob, I hope now you ain't a-goin' to keep any of my cash roll, or hand it over to the manager of the hotel. I've been working here quite some time now, and they treat me white so I'd hate to get bounced when I'm so near makin' up the amount I need. It's all clean money, Rob, you believe me, don't you? Look at my hands and see how calloused they are?

That's a pretty good sign, I take it, that I ain't been layin' around, or playin' cards like I used to."

He had certainly been doing some sort of hard labor, though Rob was rather inclined to believe Jared must have been working in the mines with pick and shovel, and had only come to the city when driven out of the camp because of some crooked doings.

"You shouldn't judge everybody by your own standard, Jared," he told the other. "None of us could be hired to take a single cent of yours, no matter how you got the money, which is no affair of ours. Give it back to him, Andy; and I guess you've searched enough to satisfy us he is carrying away nothing that belongs to us."

Jared clutched the money as might a miser, and hastened to stow it away again.

"And you mean me to go, don't you, Rob? I take it you're too high-minded to want to have revenge on a poor devil who's down in the world, even if he has done you dirt in the past. Say I c'n skip out, won't you, Rob? I'm a changed boy, I tell you; and you'll never be sorry you acted white with me!"

"Open the door, Tubby," said Rob, and the fat scout did so, though with apparent reluctance, for Tubby did not have the slightest faith in Jared's wonderful reformation, and thought he ought to be punished in some way.

"Now go, and I only hope we never set eyes on you again, Jared Applegate.

Only for the fact that you've already brought enough trouble on the heads of your folks at home I'd be in favor of handing you over to the police to deal with. Hurry up and leave before I change my mind."

Jared did not linger a second longer than he could help. He gave each of the three scouts a look, and although he tried to appear grateful, they could see that there was the same old crafty gleam in his eyes as though deep down in his heart there existed not a trace of the desire to reform of which his lips had boasted. Pa.s.sing through the open door, he vanished from their sight.

CHAPTER XX.

LOTS OF EXCITEMENT.

After all that excitement, Tubby could not immediately tear himself away from his chums.

"Why, seems as if all the sleep had been chased out of my eyes!" he declared, as he once more composedly sat down; and of course a general discussion took place in connection with their past experiences with Jared Applegate.

In the end they had to fairly pry Tubby away from that chair, and put him out of the door, in a friendly scuffle; he protesting to the last that as he had no expectation of getting a wink of sleep that night, there was no need of hurrying.

"Why, it's half-past eleven right now," Andy told him. "We'll be a nice lot of blinking owls to-morrow unless we hit the hay in a hurry. You come back when you promised, and join the bunch. Good-night, Tubby!"

With that the door was closed, and of course the unwilling Tubby found there was no use trying to change the program; so he headed for the elevator, smothering a tremendous yawn by the way.

He made his appearance promptly on time when morning came, and they started for the Exposition grounds in a squad, all of them filled with lively antic.i.p.ations of another great day of sight-seeing.

Of course the most anxious one of the company was Hiram. His business had not as yet come to a focus, and he was not at all certain how it might turn out. The others did not wish to hurry him unduly, for they knew Hiram to be very set in his ways; but at the same time they gave him plain hints that he would be unwise to wait too long.