The Young Wild-Fowlers

“What will the superintendent do with those boys for stealing your dinner?” asked Mr. Colson, after a little pause.

“Nothing much,” replied Forester, in a tone of disgust. “They will simply be court-martialed for stretching their passes, and that will be the last of it. They have broken no law, and consequently they can’t be touched for taking our dinner. If there is a sergeant or corporal among them—a shoulder-strap wouldn’t have anything to do with such a crowd—he will be hauled over the coals for conduct unbecoming a gentleman and an officer; but they can’t punish him beyond taking some of his credit marks away from him. But what were you going to say about that locomotive, Blake?”

“I propose, in the first place, that we hire a carriage apiece, and ride around the city and see how many of our boys we can get together; and if we can raise force enough to warrant it, we will charter a couple of cars and go down to Bordentown after our dinner.”

“And you will get it, too,” said Mr. Colson, who could not have taken more interest in the matter if he had been a boy himself. “I will help you all I can, and as I am well acquainted with the president of the Bordentown Branch, perhaps my influence will be of some use to you. I am glad I did not strip the hall. Something told me that I had better let it alone for a day or two.”

The boys lingered in the office long enough to make a little improvement in their personal appearance, which they accomplished by a liberal use of Mr. Colson’s blacking, and by picking the burrs off their coats. Then they hastened to the nearest livery stable to secure carriages and drivers, while Mr. Colson bent his steps toward the transfer-depot, where he found an engine but no passenger cars. There were flats in abundance, however, and the superintendent said the boys might have a couple of them for nothing if they would bring the dinner back with them. In that case he would charge them for the use of the engine only; but if the “pirates” beat them off and held fast to the dinner (both he and Mr. Colson seemed to think that there would surely be the biggest kind of a fight in Bordentown), he would make no deduction whatever.

The president was a dignified old gentleman, but he had not forgotten that he was a boy once, and he even said that he wished he could see his way clearly toward offering assistance to the rightful owners of the dinner; but when he saw the company of students which Blake and his two companions, with such help as their drivers had been able to render them, had brought together in an incredibly short space of time, he knew it wasn’t necessary. There were eighteen of them—all mischievous, fun-loving boys, who were ripe for a frolic of any kind, so long as they had the law on their side. They were all overwhelmed with amazement at the skill and secrecy with which Lester and his party had carried out their designs, and at the exceeding coolness and impudence they had exhibited in marching through the streets of Hamilton to the music of a band that had been engaged by somebody else, and for an altogether different purpose. A few of them were as angry as they would have been if the trick had been played upon the members of their own class; but the majority looked upon it as a huge joke, and laughed heartily over it to the intense disgust of Corporal Forester, who was sorely tempted to fight some of them. But they never hesitated a moment when Blake told them that he wanted their assistance. They went with him willingly, and if a fight had been forced upon them, they would have struggled as desperately for the possession of the dinner, as the first-class boys themselves. They had all heard the music of the band in the morning, but did not take the trouble to inquire the reason for it; consequently they knew nothing of the trick that had been played upon the graduating class until Blake and his committee waited upon them at their homes and told them of it. They fully concurred in Blake’s opinion—that although Lester Brigham was at the bottom of it, Enoch Williams was furnishing the brains.

Their train being in readiness, the students sprang aboard the cars, and Blake waved his hand to the engineer as the signal to go ahead. The latter had been told that haste was not only desirable but necessary, and he “opened wide out” almost at the start. The boys had never ridden on flat cars before, and they were not long in finding out that it was a most disagreeable mode of traveling. The road was rough, the cars swayed from side to side in the most alarming manner, and as there was nothing to which they could hold fast, they were in imminent danger of being thrown off; but they gave no heed to that. They clung to one another for mutual support, and shouted and sang at the top of their voices—all, except Blake and his committee, who were in no humor for nonsense. They couldn’t forget how much they had at stake.

The twenty-four miles that lay between Hamilton and Bordentown were accomplished in almost as many minutes, and when they reached a point from which they could take a survey of the principal street, they were not a little chagrined to see that there were a good many men wearing red shirts and firemen’s hats, strolling about in company with fellows in gray overcoats, and fatigue caps of the same color. This made it evident that Lester and his followers had been tendered a reception on their arrival at the village.

“We’ll give them another,” exclaimed Forester, “and it will be one they will remember as long as they live.”

“You will have to catch them first,” observed a tall student, who stood behind Blake, and who, like a good many of the others, had put himself in fighting trim by pulling off his overcoat. “Just see them run, will you!”

Blake and his committee were surprised as well as amused at the magical manner in which the gray-coats disappeared when the wearers caught sight of their train. They scattered in every direction, and the engineer, appreciating the situation, gave a loud blast on his whistle to taunt them with their cowardice. The firemen and the members of the band, believing that the newcomers were first-class boys who had accidentally missed the regular train, came out on the platform to meet them, the tall band-master and his big bearskin cap leading the way. The chairman of the committee was the only student in the party with whom he was acquainted, and him he greeted with great effusion.

“Vel, Meester Plake,” said he, in the pompous tone which a conceited and well-to-do German knows how to use better than anybody else, “I peen glad to see you. I did think you would be too late for the tinner.”

“Mr. Bambreen,” replied Blake, “you and your men have been imposed upon. Did your company give escort to the students who came in a little while ago?” he added, turning to one of the firemen.

“We did,” answered the latter. “We heard they were coming, and thought it would be polite to show them a little respect.”

“You were very kind, I am sure, but the trouble is, you showed respect to the wrong fellows. They are frauds, the whole of them. They have no right to that dinner. It’s ours, and we have come after it.”

“And won’t there be any dance to-night?” exclaimed the fireman. He didn’t quite understand what Blake said about the dinner, but he saw that he and his company had been duped in some way, and he was all ready to get mad about it.

“There will be no dance here,” answered the chairman, “but there will be one in Hamilton. We are going right back, and as this band belongs to us, we shall take it with us.”

“And did those soldiers invite us to the table, and tell us to go out and get our girls, knowing all the while that they had no right to do it?” demanded the fireman.

Blake and his friends were greatly amazed. They had never dreamed that the conspirators would have the hardihood to do anything like this. Blake began to tremble for their safety. The fireman was indignant, so were his companions, a dozen of whom had gathered around, and the band-master was angry clear to the top of his bearskin cap, which seemed to bristle all over with rage. He wanted to say something, and as he could not do the subject justice in English, he broke out into a volley of German ejaculations that could have been heard a block away. He addressed his remarks to his men, who replied in the same language, and Blake understood just enough of what they said to satisfy him that instead of forcing a fight upon the conspirators, as Forester had time and again urged him to do, it would be his duty to protect them from violence.

“Where are those cadets now?” he asked of the fireman.

“Over at the hotel, fixing up the dining-room,” was the reply. “Boys,” he added, turning to the red-shirted fellows who stood behind him, “let’s go over there and pitch the last one of them through the windows.”

With one accord the crowd, which by this time numbered full sixty men and boys, started through the depot and crossed the street in the direction of the hotel. A wink and a nod from Blake were enough to tell his companions what he desired them to do. By fast walking they gradually drew ahead of the crowd, and reaching the hotel first, they rushed into the doorway and purposely stuck fast there, blocking it up so effectually that the angry firemen and musicians behind them could not get in. Blake kept on to the door of the dining-room, and there he found Mr. Taylor and his assistants, who were just closing the windows, after making a vain effort to capture Enoch Williams and those of his party who were in the room when the whistle sounded. Fortunately the boys had been too quick to be caught. They were now safe out of harm’s way, and Blake was glad of it. So was Mr. Taylor, when he saw the flushed faces and angry scowls of the men, who finally succeeded in forcing their way into the room.

“I know who you three fellows are,” said Mr. Taylor, nodding to Blake and his committee. “You are the boys who ordered the dinner. You need not waste time in explaining the situation, for I understand it perfectly. I wondered why I did not see you among the students; but I thought it very likely that you had been breaking some of the rules and been kept in.”

“The members of the first class are never gated on occasions like this,” said Forester.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” replied Mr. Taylor. “The whole thing was done so openly and aboveboard, that any living man would have been fooled. I wonder if Colson was taken in.”

“Yes, he was,” answered Blake; and he thought Mr. Taylor looked as though he was glad to hear it. “Boys, some of you take our colors down from the wall, and the rest pitch in and help pack up the dinner. Forester, you and I will hunt up the landlord, and ask him what his bill is. Lester and his friends will find themselves short of pocket-money during the rest of the term, for the court-martial will compel them to pay roundly for all the trouble they have occasioned.”

“Then they’ll pay me a good sum, I tell you,” said Mr. Taylor. “They have put me to a heap of bother, and the dinner won’t look half as nice after a forty-eight mile ride over a rough railroad as it would if I could have taken it from my restaurant directly to the hall.”

Blake and Forester found that the landlord was inclined to be as angry as the firemen and musicians were. He didn’t like to have anybody make a fool of his house, he said, and he had a good notion to have ’em all took up.

“That young Endicott has been guilty of a misdemeanor!” he almost shouted. “He came here last night and engaged my dining-room for this evening, and now he has run away without paying his bill. That’s agin the law. The others were knowing to it, and for two cents I’d have the last one of ’em arrested.”

It was not without considerable difficulty that Blake succeeded in pacifying him; but with all his urging, he could not induce him to deduct one cent from the enormous bill he made out to be handed to the superintendent of the academy. He wanted full pay for the dining-room, just as much, in fact, as if it had been used all night, as he thought it was going to be, and nothing short of that would satisfy him. It was equally hard to quiet the musicians and some of the firemen, whose rage, when they discovered that the conspirators had slipped through their fingers like so many eels, was almost unbounded. Even the jolly, good-natured foreman, who had been home to tell his wife and daughter to get ready for a grand time during the evening, declared with some earnestness that he didn’t approve of the way he had been treated. His men would be laughed at and “guyed” for months to come, because they had turned out to do honor to those who were not entitled to receive it; and what should the young fellows in the company say to the girls they had engaged for the dance? It was a mean trick, that was the long and short of it; and if that bogus captain knew when he was well off, he would steer clear of Bordentown in future.

At the end of half an hour the dinner had been carefully repacked and placed aboard one of the flats, the boys and the band crowded upon the other, and the engineer “opened out” for a rapid homeward run, Blake and his committee riding in the cab. They were so delighted over their success that they could scarcely restrain themselves. They had gone to work without any threats or bluster, but they had saved their class from disgrace, the dinner would go off just as they had planned it, and their guests need not know what a time they had had with it.

“Look here, fellows,” said Blake, when the train was fairly under way, “I am going to suggest to the class that these eighteen friends of ours, who were so prompt to respond to our appeals for help, be invited to fall in and spend the evening with us at Clarendon Hall; what do you say?”

“I say it would be nothing more than right,” replied Forester. “It is true, we did not need their services, but we thought we were going to when we started, and the class will be so glad to get the dinner back, and they will agree to anything we may propose.”

“They’re in Hamilton by this time,” said White, glancing at his watch. “I’d like to have seen their faces when they first discovered that the band was not there to welcome them. Pipe up, Meester Bambreen,” he shouted across the tender to the band-master. “Give us something lively and triumphant—something appropriate to the occasion, you understand?”

The train was now within sight of the depot, and Colonel Mack and President Clark were watching it, as we have recorded. The band struck up “something appropriate,” the colors were given to the breeze, and in this way the good news which the committee was so impatient to communicate, was conveyed to their friends far in advance of them. They were rather surprised at the ovation they received when their train moved into the depot, but they could not linger to ask questions about it. Time was too precious for that.

“Can’t stop to do it now—story’s too long,” said Blake, in answer to Colonel Mack’s demand for an explanation. “But this much I can say to you: We’ve not a single instant to lose; but if we work fast and don’t get in one another’s way, we can make the dinner go off as if nothing had happened.”

As the omnibus and express wagon were driven off with the band, he drew Mack and Clark off on one side, and said, waving his hand toward the students, who were assisting Mr. Taylor in removing the dinner from the flat car:

“You see those fellows? There are eighteen of them, they went with us fully expecting to join us in a fight with Lester and his crowd, and I say that the class ought to do something to show them that their kindness is appreciated. Colonel, suppose you march them down to the depot and bring them up to the hall with the company.”

“I’ll do it,” said Mack, promptly. “It will be a big innovation, but I don’t see how the boys can object to it under the circumstances. Here, you fellows; fall in! Don’t stop to ask any questions, but fall in. Forward, march!”

The boys obeyed, lost in wonder, and Colonel Mack marched them at quick time toward the depot. They found the company gathered about the band-master, who was haranguing them in his broken English, emphasizing his remarks by flourishing his staff so furiously that it fairly whistled as it cut the air. He was telling how neatly Meester Plake had turned the tables on the conspirators, and trying to make the students understand how mad he was because he did not get a chance to take dot Veelliams by the collar for just one little minute. In the midst of it all, Mack marched in with his squad, who were greeted with cheers long and loud. The members of the company gathered about them, shaking their hands and patting their heads, and, when Captain Walker told them to fall in with the rest, there was not so much as a dissenting look seen.

The boys had by this time become aware that the events of the day were pretty well known in the city, but they were not prepared for the greeting that was extended to them all along their line of march from the depot to Clarendon Hall. It was almost as enthusiastic as the welcome Mack and his men received in Bridgeport after their battle with the mob at Hamilton Creek. They were loudly cheered, and now and then some one would run out into the street with a bouquet in his hand and make hurried inquiries for Blake, who had remained behind to assist Mr. Taylor; but he had plenty of friends who were willing to act as his representatives, and by the time they reached the reception room adjoining the hall, they were almost loaded down with flowers.

All the exciting incidents connected with this particular class dinner were over at last, and it only remains for us to say nothing happened during the evening to mar their enjoyment, and that when they took the early train for Bridgeport, the students felt that they had done themselves credit. Blake was the hero, as he deserved to be, and he and his committee, as well as the boys who had gone down to Bordentown with them, were “toasted,” the tall student who had been so prompt to put himself in fighting trim, responding in a speech that set the tables in a roar. Everybody wondered what had become of Lester and his party, and how they were going to get back to the academy; but still they did not feel alarmed for their safety, for if they exhibited the same skill in eluding the firemen that they did in getting away with the dinner, they were sure to come off scot free. And they did, every one of them, although a few had some very narrow escapes. They succeeded in boarding a freight train which stopped at a water-tank about two miles above Bordentown, and arrived at Hamilton in time to take the two o’clock train for Bridgeport. When the first-class boys got there, they were all in their rooms under arrest, but sleeping soundly after the fatigue and excitement of the day. Their exploit was a nine days’ wonder, and there were those who were sorry that they did not eat the dinner after they had put themselves to so much trouble to get it. Lester Brigham got into a quarrel with Wallace Ross the minute he entered his room. Ross accused him of treachery, and threatened to go before the court-martial and tell all he knew.

“Go ahead, if you think you can make anything by it,” said Lester, as he tumbled into bed. “But if you know when you are well off, you will keep a still tongue in your head. No one outside the crowd knows that you had anything to do with it, and they never will know it either, unless you choose to tell it. But I did hear that the train was behind time. If you don’t believe it, ask Enoch.”

The court-martial did just what Forester said it would do. The judge-advocate could not make the law cover the case, and all he could do was to prosecute the conspirators for stretching their passes—that is, for going to Hamilton and Bordentown when they ought not to have gone any farther than the village. Lester and Enoch received the heaviest sentences, losing all their credit marks and being gated for sixty days; but they did not seem to mind it very much, for were they not looked up to as the originator and manager of two of the most daring conspiracies that had ever been concocted within the walls of that academy? It had the effect of putting the students on the alert, and from that time forward it would have been impossible for anybody to interfere with a class dinner.

After the court-martial adjourned nothing happened to relieve the monotony of the academy routine. The first-class boys felt so very bitter against Lester and Enoch that they would not speak to them except when they were on duty and could not help it (they knew that they gave the former more credit than he deserved), but they were much too honorable to take revenge upon them, as they could have done had they been so disposed. On the contrary, Colonel Mack, for fear of being considered vindictive, more than once overlooked offenses which he ought to have reported, and the teachers knew it and took him sharply to task for his neglect. This won him the good will of all except the very meanest of Lester’s followers, who would have reported him in a moment if they had had the chance to do it.

That was a long term to some of the students, but the end came in due time, the encampment was over, the visitors had gone to their homes, and the much-dreaded examination was a thing of the past. The result was what everybody thought it would be, so far as two boys were concerned. When Colonel Mack took off his shoulder-straps Don Gordon put them on, and Bert was promoted to a captaincy. Enoch, Lester, and Jones did not get even a corporal’s chevrons, and although they could blame no one but themselves for it, they had a good deal to say about favoritism, and Lester hated Don Gordon more cordially than ever.

“I don’t suppose that he and Bert will speak to anybody now who is lower in the social scale than a Congressman,” said Lester, in a tone of contempt. “I wish I could think up some way to get those straps off their shoulders.”

“Well, you can’t,” replied Enoch. “Don is so far above you in rank that you can’t hurt him; but we can see to it that he and Bert don’t get any sport while they are down on the Chesapeake, and we will, too. We can do just as much damage as we please, and it will all be laid to the big-gunners, who don’t like Egan any better than I do. He informed on some of them, and got them into trouble with the detectives. I am well acquainted with two or three of those poachers, and I wouldn’t have them get down on me for any money.”

Don and Bert had looked forward to this vacation with many anticipations of pleasure. They had never seen salt water, and everything in Maryland would possess for them the same charm of novelty as the sights they saw in Maine and the sports they enjoyed while they were visiting there. In order that they might see all the pleasure there was in shooting canvas-backs, General Gordon, who was greatly pleased with the progress they had made during the term, had presented each of the boys with a breech-loading duck-gun, full choked, and warranted to kill at seventy-five yards. All the students who knew anything about guns, said they were beauties, and although Bert looked rather small for so heavy a weapon, his gymnastic training enabled him to handle it with all ease.

The examination over and the result announced, Egan, Hopkins, Curtis and all the other boys who had taken the finishing course, bade a long farewell to their alma mater. Never again would they enter its hallowed precincts as pupils. Their career as students was over, and they were about to go out into the world to begin the battle of life. There were few dry eyes among them when the parting time came, and there was not one of them who did not wish, with his whole soul, that he had worked harder to make his record such as he knew the superintendent would have desired it to be. The latter, although a strict disciplinarian, was a big-hearted man, who took the deepest interest in the welfare of all his pupils, and the words of advice he uttered as he shook their hands for the last time, were full of wisdom.

The first southward bound train that left Bridgeport took our five friends with it. Their destination was Hillsboro’, a little town in Garrett county, in the extreme western end of Maryland, next to West Virginia. It was here that Hopkins lived, in a country famed for its game, and for the number and fighting qualities of its trout. Curtis had an idea that trout did not amount to much outside of Maine; but after he had broken his fine lance-wood rod in a battle with a Blackwater fish, he was obliged to acknowledge his error.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad took them to Hillsboro’ without any mishap, and there they passed a portion of their vacation in the most agreeable manner. Mr. Hopkins was a fat, jolly old gentleman, a thorough-going fox-hunter in spite of his years, and when the boys had seen him ride to the hounds, and noted the ease with which he took all the fences and brush-heaps that came in his way, they ceased to wonder where their fat crony got his skill in horsemanship. He would have been glad to keep the visitors there forever, for he took a great liking to them; but their time was short, their friend Egan had a claim upon them, and after a few weeks of good, solid enjoyment, which they fully appreciated, coming as it did on the heels of a long siege of study and drill, they bade the old fox-hunter good-by, and set out for the Eastern Shore.