The Safety First Club fights fire

Of the club there responded to Sam’s call Poke and Step, the Shark, Tom Orkney and Herman Boyd. The Trojan was not at home. On the whole, Sam did not regret the fact that Walker was not to be with them that afternoon: certain matters of common concern could be talked over more freely in his absence.

Poke’s marks of combat were not to be hidden. The bruised flesh beneath his eye was beginning to show a prismatic variety of coloring, in spite of the application of several remedies in favor among the youth of the town; but Sam did not fail to observe that the other boys were careful to maintain an air of noticing nothing out of the common in Poke’s appearance. It was significant testimony to the serious view they took of the whole affair. Even a black eye was not matter for jest. Presently, no doubt, Poke would tell the story; but until he chose to speak, his silence would be respected. Boys, as a rule, are not credited with a high degree of consideration, but at times can display a restraint which many of their elders would find it hard to equal.

On the march Sam managed to have a few confidential words with each of his companions, acquainting them with the Trojan’s promise to take no hasty step. He was gratified to find in each case strong approval of this decision, and just as strong desire to do anything possible to uphold the good name of the club and all its members.

“You tell us what’s the program, Sam, and we’ll stand by you”—that was the way Orkney put it, and the speech fairly represented the spirit of all the party.

A seven-mile tramp, of a fine day, is really play for healthy schoolboys. The club thought nothing of it. Sam felt his spirits rising, and began to be glad that he had accepted Lon’s counsel. He could even join heartily in a discussion of short cuts, and finally carry the decision in favor of the one he approved, which followed a woods road, and then a mere path. The country about the lake was thinly settled, with many wooded tracts, a few swampy patches, and a number of low ridges, from the top of the last of which Step was the first to catch sight of the shining blue of the water. The marchers streamed down the slope, and out upon a little promontory, pleasantly shaded by big trees and with a great rock almost at its tip.

There was a chorus of exclamations. “Bully place!” “Say, we’ve hit the real beauty spot!” “What a camp site this would be, eh?” “How’d happen we never came here before? Looks like a crackerjack of a pond!”

Sam advanced to the water’s edge, and glanced up and down the lake. A sound of hammering from the opposite shore helped him to discover the new pavilion, taking shape in a grove nearly half a mile away; he could make out the lines of the framework and the half-hidden smaller buildings, flanking it and already completed.

“Guess we missed the road,” he said. “Ought to have taken that last turn to the right instead of the one to the left.”

“What’s the difference?” Step demanded. “I’ll bet we’ve found the prettiest place on the shore.”

Poke had been exploring the outcropping ledge.

“Look here, you fellows!” he shouted. “Say, this is the finest old council rock you ever set eyes on!”

The others joined him. On its side toward the water the mass of stone was hollowed out in a sort of half bowl or natural amphitheatre on a small scale. There was room for a score of boys, and the irregularities in the surface of the rock offered bench-like seats. Poke settled himself with an air of triumph in spite of his battered appearance.

“Sit down, everybody!” he suggested. “Let’s be comfortable, and talk it over.”

Orkney glanced at Poke’s discolored countenance.

“If the time to talk has come, you’d better begin,” he said pointedly. “I’d like to know just how you came by that shiner.”

“Guess, can’t you?” Poke queried.

“Yes, but I want the facts.”

There was a murmur of agreement. “Go to it!” Step urged.

“Well, I met a fellow and he said something——” Poke began.

“Who was he, and what did he say?” Herman Boyd interposed.

Poke hesitated, then reached decision. “He—it was ‘Scrub’ Payne. He got to roughing me about—well, about things—our putting on side but not hanging together in a pinch—rot like that, you know!”

“Just what did he say?” Sam asked sharply.

Poke straightened his shoulders. “Well—if you must have it—he said that the Trojan tried to lie out of taking a book into examination, and that he might have got away with it, if Sam hadn’t thrown him down. Then I called him a liar, of course. And—and that’s about all.”

There was a very brief silence. Tom Orkney ended it.

“Scrub Payne, eh?” He repeated the name softly, lingeringly. “Scrub Payne? Twice your height, almost—’bout weigh in in my class, Poke—yes, yes. And spreading that story, was he?”

Sam raised a hand. “Listen, Tom! Listen, all you fellows! We might as well understand that that’s the yarn the whole school has had. And hammering up three or four who talk out loud won’t disprove it.... Wait a minute, Step! Let me finish. I’ve got a score or two to settle, but this isn’t the time to do it. It’s perfectly clear Ed Zorn is at the bottom of the trouble—he’s the only one who heard what was said in the hall. He’s been busy, making mischief. Some day I’ll try to attend to him, but there’s somebody else to think of first, and that’s the Trojan. What’s to be done about him, and for him? He’s agreed not to make a bolt without letting us know, but it seems to me it’s up to us to fix things so he’ll be willing to stay.”

“Say, that’s going to be a contract!” Step exclaimed.

The others nodded agreement.

“It’s the Latin that’s the facer—outside of his feelings,” said Herman Boyd gravely. “He’ll be flunked, if he can’t go to recitations, especially with a zero mark for the test to pull down his term stand.”

The Shark was scowling behind his spectacles. “Let’s do some figuring,” he suggested. “How were his marks up to this mix-up?”

“Oh, fair—along in the eighties,” said Herman.

“What do you mean by ‘along’?”

“Call it eighty-five or eighty-six.”

“How much does a test count?”

“About the same as a week’s recitations,” said Herman, but Step offered “Ten days” almost simultaneously.

The Shark’s scowl increased. “There you go! Can’t you fellows be precise about anything? Which is it?”

The club tried to agree on the point, but failed.

“Anyway, the zero will pull him below seventy,” Herman declared. Seventy being the passing mark, the faces of two or three of the club lengthened.

“Then if he has to stay away from recitations, he’ll have no chance to increase his mark,” groaned Step.

“And what sort of a show will he have in the final examination?” Poke put in.

“No show at all!” said the Shark promptly. “Umph! No need to take to figuring on that.”

“Hold on, fellows!” said Sam. “I don’t get light on the term-stand part of it, but on the other—the final, I mean—well, there’s a way.”

“What way?” two or three demanded together.

“We can work with him afternoons—tutor him—keep him up with the class.”

“Good scheme, Sam!” shouted Step.

“Fine! I’m for it!” added Herman.

“Same here!” said Poke. “I’m no prodigy in Cicero, but I’m good and willing.”

There was evident revival of spirit in the clan.

“I’ll try to class with Poke,” Tom Orkney contributed gravely, but hopefully.

But the Shark was shaking his head dubiously. “Let’s get this thing straight. We can tutor the Trojan—that is, you chaps can—I don’t go much on this language foolishness myself. But if you do, will he be allowed to take the final?”

“Why shouldn’t they let him?” Step asked hotly.

“I’m after facts, not reasons one way or the other. What’s the fact?”

“But they’ll just have to!”

“What’s the fact?” the Shark repeated inexorably.

“I don’t know,” Sam confessed, as the others glanced at him inquiringly.

“Then you’d better find out,” said the Shark simply.

“How?”

“From headquarters. Ask the principal.”

“Oh!” said Sam. His tone was not blithe.

“You’ve struck the right track, Shark!” Poke declared.

“No; I’m putting Sam on it,” the Shark corrected.

There are obligations in leadership as well as privileges. Sam accepted the task set him by his followers.

“The Shark has the idea,” he said. “We ought to know what is what, and I guess it’s up to me to do the asking. I’ll attend to it. But there’s another thing—we ought to agree—have an understanding among ourselves—about what we’ll do—with the crowd at school, you know. We’re going to have our fur rubbed the wrong way. There’ll be a lot of ugly talk. There has been some, as you know, but there’ll be more. We’re going to be a pretty unpopular bunch for a while—and how are we going to take it?”

“Head on!” cried Step. “Give ’em as good as they send!”

“That’s the talk!” vowed Herman Boyd.

Then Orkney intervened. “Easy there, fellows! Let’s have Sam’s notion.”

Now, Sam had done a deal of thinking about the case in all its aspects, and had tried to put to practical use some of the lessons he had learned in the school of experience.

“Well, as I see it,” he began, “there’s only one way to settle this thing, and settle it right.”

“By punching a lot of heads!” Step urged.

“Not a bit of it! Oh, I don’t mean that we mustn’t ’tend to some accounts——”

“Right! I know of one I’ll look after,” said Orkney grimly.

“I’ve made a note of one, myself,” said Sam in quite the same manner. “But it’ll have to wait, and so will yours, Tom. Something else comes first, and that’s disproving the charge that the Trojan lied about the book, and that I gave him away.... Don’t interrupt! Let me finish. The Trojan is innocent, and if he is innocent, there must be some way to prove it. I didn’t intentionally say a word to hurt him, and if we clear his record, mine’ll be cleared, too. Somebody—not the Trojan—took that book into the examination, and left it in the desk where it was found. When we can show who did that, we’re far on the right road. They say murder will out, and if that’s so, I guess crookedness will out, too. It’s what we’ve got to bank on, while we work as hard as we can to discover the truth and the whole truth. And, meanwhile, we won’t be helping anybody by fighting and making the scandal worse than it is. Our job will be to keep our heads, and have our eyes and ears open, and tutor the Trojan.”

“If the principal will agree to let him take the final and to do the square thing about term marks,” Poke supplemented.

“I’ll see the principal.”

There was a little pause. Poke rose from his ledge, and descended the slope of the council rock.

“If we don’t mean to keep Lon waiting, we’d better adjourn the meeting,” he remarked. “But your notion may be all right, Sam—you’ve traces of brains now and then. Only, your way isn’t exactly quick action. It’s going to call for time, maybe a long time. And meanwhile we won’t be really enjoying life.”

Sam rose, too. “Yes, we’re due to start, if we’re to catch Lon,” he said. “But if any of you fellows can offer a better scheme——”

“We can’t!” said Orkney crisply.

“Then you’re ready to try my way, even if it may seem slow?”

“Yes,” said the club, in chorus. “We’ll try it.”