Lessons were resumed and no more was said concerning the charge against Jack or any of the boys having the same initials, Sawyer and Sharpe being ready to turn out their desks for the doctor’s satisfaction but not being required to do so.
Jack’s friends did not believe in his guilt, even without his saying that the book was not his and they all regarded the affair as a very clumsy one.
“Whoever it was ought to know that Jack was not in Cæsar,” said Harry. “If he had put in a translation of something Jack was doing at this time there would have been more reason.”
“And nobody sends an anonymous letter who has any spunk,” muttered Billy Manners. “The doctor would have done right to have paid no attention to it but he is a good old fellow and wants to do right by all.”
“I’d like to know what Jack is going to do about it,” thought Dick. “He won’t let it rest. I have an idea who did this for it was just his clumsy way of working that betrays him but I won’t say anything.”
When the forenoon recess arrived, the boys generally went out upon the campus but Jack went straight to the cellar where the negro coachman and general caretaker was at work cleaning up.
“What do you do with the papers and stuff you sweep up of a morning, Bucephalus?” asked Jack.
“Ah gather them in a receptickle fo’ de puppose, sah, and den Ah communicate dem to de fiah, sah,” answered the man.
“Have you done so as yet?”
“Ah have not yet consigned the rubbish to the fiah, sah. Dere it is in dem baskets yondah. You done lose something, sah?”
“No, I want to find something,” replied Jack.
He went over to the waste paper baskets standing on the floor in one corner and began to turn out their contents.
“The fellow may have torn out the fly leaf before,” he thought, “but it looks like a fresh tear. If so, and he did not keep the leaf or throw it away somewhere it will probably be here.”
Turning out the bits of torn paper, old exercises and other things, Jack looked carefully at every scrap in search of the missing fly leaf.
“It’s only a fool who would put his name in a translation, to betray him at any time,” he mused, “but there are just such fools in the world.”
There were many bits of paper which were obviously not the one he wanted and he passed them over rapidly and threw them aside.
He came upon more than one crumpled bit and picked them up but upon smoothing them out found that they were not the thing he wanted.
At length he saw a tight ball of crumpled paper which he was about to pass over as being nothing and then took up and unrolled carefully.
Smoothing it out he saw that it was a piece of book paper and was written on.
When it was nicely smoothed out and laid upon the inside of the book found in his desk and now produced from his pocket, he read the following inscription written in a scrawly hand:
“This book is the property of Peter Herring, Hilltop. Don’t steal.”
The torn edges fitted perfectly and the letters remaining on the inner edge of the leaf were followed regularly by those on the other side.
“That accuses Peter Herring all right,” said Jack. “This is his book and if he did not put it in my desk who would? At any rate, it will be safe enough to make the accusation.”
Putting the book back in his pocket, the torn leaf being now in its place, Jack went up stairs and out upon the grounds.
There were some of his chums at a little distance and Herring and Merritt were just going around the corner of the building toward the barn, being evidently engaged in earnest conversation.
Jack waited a minute and then followed them into the barn.
“Maybe it didn’t work all right,” Herring was saying, “but folks’ll suspect him just the same.”
“It wouldn’t have went all right if I hadn’t seen your name in it,” snapped Merritt, “and made you tear it out before you slipped it in his desk last night.”
“That’s all right, he didn’t see it and I did tear it out.”
“Burn it up?”
“I guess so. Anyhow, no one won’t find it and if they do so long as it ain’t in the book—what the mischief!”
Herring suddenly found a book placed in front of his nose and, turning his head quickly, saw Jack Sheldon standing behind him.
“They will know that it belongs to this particular book now, won’t they, when the edges match so perfectly, Herring?” asked Jack. “You were very clumsy in putting a Cæsar in my desk when I am not studying it and more so in having your name in it.”
Herring turned crimson and tried to snatch the book out of Jack’s hand.
“You can have it now, for I no longer have any use for it,” said the boy, slapping Herring’s face with the book, “and now I am going to give you the thrashing you have so long deserved.”
“You are, eh?” snarled Herring, backing away.
“Yes. It is the only thing you understand.”
“You see fair play, Ern,” blustered the bully.
Jack only smiled and then without further notice attacked his enemy and administered what he had promised, a sound thrashing.
In a very few minutes he forced Herring to cry for a respite and to acknowledge that he was beaten.
“I could make you apologize before the doctor and the whole school,” said Jack, as he heard the bell ring to call the boys back to their duties, “but there is no shaming a fellow who is without shame and the way I have taken is much more efficacious and you will remember it.”
Then Jack left the barn and went back to the building, meeting Percival and Billy Manners at the door.
“Where have you been, Jack?” asked Dick.
“Wrestling with a passage from Cæsar,” said Jack, with a laugh.
“Did you get the best of it?”
“I think I did.”
“Yes, but you are not studying Cæsar. What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you later if you don’t guess,” and Jack passed on and into the room and took his accustomed seat.
Merritt came in rather late and some of the boys noticed that he looked excited over something.
It was nearly ten minutes before Herring took his seat and then it was seen that his face was wet and evidently lately washed and that there was a discoloration around his nose and another under one of his eyes.
“Hello! I guess he has been wrestling with something, too,” thought Percival. “I wonder if it had anything to do with Cæsar?”
“You are very late, Herring,” said the doctor. “What is the reason?”
“Fell down and bruised my face,” muttered Herring. “Had to wash up before I came in. My nose bled.”
“See that it does not occur again,” said Dr. Wise, using the customary phrase which had become a habit with him.
“It will if he fools with Jack Sheldon,” chuckled Percival. “I’ll bet anything that he was the one who put the Cæsar in Jack’s desk and got paid up for it.”
Neither Percival nor any of the other boys had a chance to speak to Jack about the matter until dinner when a knot of them interviewed him at the door of the dining hall.
“Were you the cause of Herring’s being late to class after recess, Jack?” asked Percival.
“Did you find out anything?” put in Harry. “I had a bet that it was Pete who tried to undermine you in his generally clumsy fashion.”
“The affair is settled, boys,” said Jack, quietly. “We need not think any more about it.”
And that was all he would say, for all their coaxing.
After school was over that day Percival came to Jack and said:
“We are going off into the woods, some of us, to explore things generally. Won’t you come along, Jack?”
“Of course he will,” put in Billy Manners, who came along at that moment with Harry and Arthur. “He will want to make some more discoveries to add to those he has already made. The place is new to us where we are going and, consequently, will be new to him.”
“We are going into a part of the woods beyond here that is new to us, and you will enjoy it as well as the rest,” said Percival.
“I shall be glad to go with you, Dick,” said Jack. “Are you going to take your lunch, Billy? Shall we be away as long as that?”
The other boys now noticed that Billy carried a black box under his arm, but until Jack had spoken of it they had not observed it.
“That is not a lunch box,” laughed Billy, “but you have eyes all the same. No one else noticed it.”
“What is it, anyhow?” asked Kenneth Blaisdell, one of the new boys at the Academy. “Box for botanic specimens?”
“No, it is not and I am not going to satisfy your curiosity by telling you what it is just now,” chuckled Billy. “Come on, Dick, we have a large enough party now.”
There were Percival, Jack, Harry, Arthur, Billy Manners, Blaisdell and Jasper Sawyer, the boy whose initials were the same as Jack’s, seven in all, and each of the party well liked by all the rest.
They set off without delay, and passing through the woods back of the Academy, and avoiding the ravine down which Jack had fallen, kept on down the hill on the side away from the station at the foot, and then up another and through a very rough, extremely wild section, where travel at times was most difficult.
“There is not much wonder that we have not been here before,” laughed Billy Manners, as he sat on a rock and puffed for breath after they had gone some distance through the thicket, and stopped in an opening where the travel was better.
“Yes, we should have brought axes with us,” said Percival. “I had no idea the country through here was so rough.”
“Well, the doctor said it was and so did some of the fellows,” said Arthur; “so we cannot say anything.”
“Did they tell you about this gully?” asked Jack, who had gone ahead a few paces, and paused in front of a deep gully stretching right across their path, and presenting an obstacle which there seemed to be no way of getting over.
The gully was quite wide in front of them, and to the left extended into the woods as far as they could see, while on the right it presently ended at a great mass of ledge rock, which towered well above their heads, and was crowned with trees, some of them very big, while at different points, as far as the bottom, there were trees of various sizes growing from crevices in the rock.
“H’m! I guess they did not know about this,” muttered Percival. “This gully can be bridged all right, and it will be a nice job for us; just the sort I like, but in the meantime, how are we going to get over and go on with our exploring?”
“You ought to know that,” laughed Billy Manners. “You are an engineer, you know. A little thing like that ought not to bother you.”
“Well, it does all the same,” said Percival with some impatience, as Billy took the black box from under his arm. “What are you going to do now, you funny fellow?”
“Take a picture of that ledge,” said Billy, looking around for a flat rock or a stump upon which to place his box.
“Wait a minute till we get back,” said Blaisdell, who had joined Jack at the gully. “It looks to me as if there was a cave down there. There is some sort of an opening at the bottom of the ledge, seems to me.”
“Yes, so there is. I never noticed it before. How are you going to get a picture, Billy? That is no camera you have. Where is your lens?”
“Haven’t any! I can take a picture without a lens, only it will require more time to make the exposure.”
“Take a photograph without a lens?” said Percival in a tone of doubt, mixed with scorn. “You must be crazy!”
Several of the boys thought the same as Dick, and laughed heartily at what they considered one of Billy’s harum scarum schemes.
“Go ahead and laugh, boys,” said the good-natured fellow, as he placed his small square box on top of a flat rock he had found, and pointed it toward the ledge at the foot of which Blaisdell had discovered his supposed cave entrance. “I know something that you fellows do not, and I am going to get a picture. The light is fine, for it just sifts nicely through the trees, and the sun is quite high enough yet.”
“Yes, but Billy, if you have no lens nor shutter, how are you going to take a photograph?” asked Blaisdell. “That doesn’t look like anything but a square box.”
“That is all it is, but it is a camera just the same. Did you never hear tell of a pinhole camera, my boy?”
“No, I did not. What is it?”
“I have a plate in this box, and it is set at what they call a universal focus. That is, I can take a picture of something not too close, and one at a distance. The box is lined with black paper, and in front there is a very small hole, now covered by a flap of the same stuff. This hole will admit the light fast enough, and yet not too fast, and as my plate is sensitized, I can get a picture even if I have no lens. Did you ever see a ’camera obscura,’ as they call them?”
“Oh, you mean one of those things that take a panoramic view of the beach and everything in sight? People get shown up sometimes when they don’t know it.”
“Yes, that’s the thing. You don’t get a real photograph there, but you see everything shown up on a table, as the thing at the top revolves. Well, I will get a picture with my pinhole camera even if I have no lens. Why, they used to sell these things, maybe they do yet.”
“Why, yes, seems to me I have seen something about them in the advertisements.”
“No doubt,” and Billy, having seen that his out-of-the-way camera was perfectly level, carefully removed the black flap from the tiny hole in the front of the box and said:
“That’s all right. You fellows cannot get in front of it, and so there will be no harm done. It will take some time to get a picture, but I will have it all the same. The light is fine and I can afford to wait.”
“There’s a cave down there all right, Dick,” said Jack. “Don’t you think so?”
“Yes, it looks like a cave,” said Percival. “How would you like to go down and explore it?”
“All right, if we can manage it. Got a light? We can make torches I suppose. There is plenty of pine wood about. Anyhow, I have my pocket flash with me.”
“You fellows can go down there if you like,” laughed Arthur, “but none of it for me.”
“Or for me either,” said Harry.
“Come on, Dick,” said Jack. “Here is a good place to get down, I think.”
The two boys supplied themselves with stout sticks with which to aid them in getting down, and then began to make the descent, the other boys sitting or standing around.
Step by step, from rock to rock, and from one tree root to another the two chums made their way down into the gully and toward the hole in the face of the ledge, which they could at length see was of considerable depth, and high enough for them to pass through without stooping.
They finally reached the bottom, and then were not far from the hole into which they made their way, finding that it extended for some distance at an incline part of the way, and then on a level, as it seemed.
“There are lots of these holes in the Hudson valley,” said Jack, “and sometimes they are interesting, while at other times they are nothing but holes, don’t go very far, and have nothing in them after all.”
“You don’t expect stalactites or anything of that sort, do you, Jack?” asked Dick.
“No, for this is not a limestone region, like that in Kentucky or in Virginia, where there are some of the famous caves. However, it will be worth our while to go down here, I think, or I would not have undertaken it. We do not need to go very far. This place may be known, although the people in the woods hereabout don’t take much stock in such things, as they say and think tourists and summer boarders who want to explore them just a lot of crazy fools.”
“It’s an easy thing to call a man a fool because he can understand or like things that you don’t,” laughed Dick.
The boys at length got so far into the hole in the rocks that they had to make use of Jack’s pocket electric torch, and they proceeded, still on a down grade, and finding the way a bit rough in spots, but at last finding it better traveling and more level.
They had turned somewhat, and looking back, could not see the entrance where they had come in, nor the gully beyond, nor any light, Percival saying with a bit of a shudder:
“H’m! it is a bit creepy in here, isn’t it, Jack?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” laughed Jack. “I think other people have been here before us, Dick. I can see black spots on the rock overhead, as if smoke from torches had made them. Then the rock under our feet is worn somewhat. Some one has been in here before, although not recently.”
“H’m! you notice everything, as Ken Blaisdell said just now,” laughed Percival. “Does anything escape your notice?”
“Well, Dick, I have had to keep my eyes about me pretty much all of my life in order to make my way, and I suppose it has got to be a habit, but am I any more observant than most boys? They say that little children notice everything, certainly a good deal more than their parents like, sometimes. Perhaps I have not gotten over my childish habits.”
“Oh, I don’t believe you were one of those young nuisances that call attention to everything, the grandmother’s wig, the maiden aunt’s false teeth and the like,” chuckled Percival. “Yes, I think you are particularly observant and—hello! what’s that?” as a dull sound broke upon their ears.
“It might be thunder,” said Jack. “It sounds somewhere behind us. That’s all right. This place begins to look interesting, Dick. Suppose we go on.”
The floor of the cave was quite level here, and the place wider and higher than before, so that it was really much more a cave than a mere hole in the ground, and the boys pushed on, having plenty of light from Jack’s torch, and being in no danger of stumbling or falling.
They pushed on for a few hundred feet, and then came upon a narrow passage where they at first thought the cave ended.
Jack flashed his light ahead of him, and saw that there was evidently a chamber beyond the passage, and in a few moments they came out in it, and, to the amazement of both, saw a rude table and a bench, and on the floor some old clothes, a black mask or two, some burglars’ tools and a coarse sack.
“Hello! here’s a discovery, Jack,” cried Percival. “I shouldn’t wonder if this was some more of the plunder taken by the man with the white mustache and his accomplices.”
“It certainly looks like it,” said Jack, examining the sack and finding nothing in it; “but it strikes me that I can see a light ahead of us. Suppose we go on.”
“All right,” agreed Dick, and Jack led the way forward.
Pushing on, Jack made his way, followed by Dick, through a narrow passage and out into an open space where they could see the sky and a lot of trees and bushes above them with a rough path leading to the ground above.
“Well, we have found the way out, as well as the way in,” said Jack, “and we might as well go out this way as to return the way we came.”
“But can we find the boys?”
“Certainly. You have a pocket compass?”
“No, I have not.”
“Well, I have one or had, and anyhow, I don’t think we need it. It is daylight, and we know the direction we want to go. We should not have any trouble in finding our way back.”
“How are you going to do it when there is no road that we know of?” asked Percival, as Jack began making his way toward the top of the unnatural bowl in which they found themselves.
“I’ll show you, Dick,” Jack replied, pushing on, now using the stick to assist him and now getting along without it.
They reached the top at last, and then Jack began examining the trees about him, and presently said, pointing off into the woods:
“That is the south, and the boys are in that direction.”
“How do you know it is the south?” asked Percival.
“Because the trees are more worn on this side, from frost and exposure. Look on the other side and you will see a difference.”
“Yes, I see it. The other side is smooth, while this is rough and of a different color. And that is the north side, is it? I have noticed trees looking like that, but did not think of settling direction by it.”
“Yes, you can, and you will never go wrong. Come on, I think we can find the boys all right,” and with a look at the sun, which could be seen above the treetops, Jack started off, Percival following.
Jack knew from the position of the sun and from the exposed side of the trees which way to go, and he pushed on in a straight line without deviating a foot to either side toward where he judged he would find the boys, keeping an eye for ledge rock and listening for any sounds which would tell him that he was nearing the other end of the cave.
In the meantime, unknown to the two chums, the boys remaining at the gully were having a bit of excitement of their own, and were seriously alarmed about the two in the cave.
The sound that Dick and Jack had heard in the cave was not thunder, as Jack had suggested, but something entirely different.
When the boys had been in the cave a short time, there came a sudden rustling on a part of the ledge Billy had aimed his camera at, and all of a sudden a great boulder fell into the gully.
“Hello!” exclaimed Arthur. “That’s bad. Who would have thought of it? Jack and Dick are shut in there!”
A considerable mass of earth had been carried down with the boulder, and now the entrance to the cave was completely filled by the rubbish.
“I am afraid they are shut in, Art,” said Blaisdell seriously.
“Who would have thought of that?” cried Harry, going forward and looking into the gully. “Certainly Jack did not, or he would not have gone in there.”
Blaisdell and three or four others stepped to the brink of the gully, and looked down, as the dust began to settle.
“It’s closed up all right,” said Billy Manners, covering the aperture of his pinhole camera.
“Do you mean the mouth of the cave or your picture box?” asked Blaisdell. “You are a funny fellow, Billy.”
“Both,” said Billy tersely.
“I guess it is as far as the cave goes,” remarked Jasper Sawyer. “Now the question is how are we going to get the boys out?”
“H’m! we’ve got to take away that stuff, I suppose,” said Harry. “It won’t be so hard getting down there, but there’s a lot of stuff to get rid of. Come on, boys, get down there and set to work.”
“My! but there’s a lot of this stuff!” exclaimed Sawyer, getting to work. “I wonder if we can get rid of it before the boys get back? Do you suppose they heard the noise and knew what it was?”
“How would they know?” asked Arthur, throwing aside a lot of stones and earth. “The place is probably pretty big, or they would have been back by this time.”
There were four or five boys at work, but as Harry had remarked, there was a lot of the earth and stones to remove, and they were more or less in each other’s way.
“We might call to them,” suggested Jasper Sawyer at length. “If they are not too far off they will hear us.”
“That’s all right,” agreed Blaisdell, and he and the rest of the boys shouted at the top of their voices.
There was no reply, and, indeed, Jack and Dick did not hear them, being at some distance from the mouth of the cave at this moment.
The boys presently shouted again, but still there was no response, and Harry said in great disgust:
“We are only wasting our breath. They can’t hear through all this rubbish, and they may be a good way off. I should not wonder if the cave was a big one. There are some such in the mountains along the Hudson valley, especially in these counties. Nobody bothers with them very much, but they’re here all the same.”
The boys kept hard at work removing the debris that had fallen into the entrance of the cave, but some of this consisted of great rocks, which were impossible to get rid of with the means at their disposal, and Harry presently growled, as he wiped his perspiring forehead with one hand while he leaned against the ledge with the other:
“We’ll have to blow this stuff up. If it were only earth and gravel we could do something, but there are rocks as big as a house in the hole, and we can never get rid of them.”
Several of these boulders had been uncovered by throwing aside the earth, so that Harry’s statement was seen not to be an exaggerated one, and Arthur replied:
“We have nothing to blow it up with. Would prying do any good, do you think? We have no bars, but we can get plenty of stout poles from the trees, and they will help us.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. It is clear enough that we cannot do much with the shovels alone.”
“Hark!” cried young Sawyer, who was too little to do a great amount of the kind of work the boys were doing at the moment, but who seemed to be on the alert; “don’t you hear something?”
“Keep still, boys,” said Billy Manners. “Sawyer has heard something. There is not much of him, but it is all good stuff.”
“Keep still!” said the smaller boy impatiently, and there was silence.
In a few moments there was an unmistakable shout heard, distant, it was true, but still a well-defined shout.
“That’s Percival!” cried young Sawyer.
“Hello!” shouted Harry. “Keep her up, boys! Give a good shout all of us. Now then!”
All of the boys shouted at the same time, and then kept quiet to hear the answering shout.
“All right, we are coming!” they heard Jack shout in a clear, shrill tone, which had great carrying power.
“Where are they?” asked Billy. “That does not sound from the cave. Hello! Are you in the cave, you fellows?”
“No, we found a way out,” came the answer in a few moments.
“Bully!” shouted Billy. “That lets you out, boys. We don’t need to dig any more.”
The boys in the gully scrambled out of it in great glee, and then set up a shout which was soon answered at a less distance than before, and shortly after that they heard Jack’s voice from somewhere above them saying:
“Hello, you fellows! We are up here. How are we going to get down?”
The boys all looked up and saw Jack Sheldon and Dick Percival standing on top of the ledge, at the foot of which was the entrance of the cave.
“How did you get there?” asked Blaisdell. “We were trying to dig you out, but we are glad we don’t have to.”
“Dig us out?” asked Percival in astonishment.
“Yes. When the boulder fell it sent down a lot of stones and earth, and completely blocked the entrance of the cave.”
“Then it was fortunate we found the other entrance,” said Jack.
“Another one?”
“Yes, in the woods over yonder, a wild place, wilder than this. We’ll tell you all about it when we get down.”
Jack and Percival now quickly joined their companions, who were eager to learn of their experiences in the cave.
The boys were greatly interested in hearing of what Jack and Dick had discovered in the cave, and speculated about the presence of the burglars’ tools, some of them wondering if the bank robbers made the cave their headquarters, and why the tools had not been taken away before.
“Well, if the place is closed I shall have a picture of it at any rate,” declared Billy.
“Which cannot amount to much,” laughed Harry, “seeing that your camera has neither shutter nor lens.”
“Never you mind,” said Billy. “That camera of mine is going to surprise you boys.”
As it was now getting well along in the afternoon, and as the way back was a difficult one, Percival and Jack decided that they would better return without making any further explorations.
“We have found out a lot that we did not know, anyhow,” said Percival, “and we can come here again.”
“Certainly I never knew about that cave,” remarked Arthur, “although I have been here two years.”
“That is not so much to be wondered at,” declared Harry. “The place is hard to get at and out of the way, and I don’t believe you could get many of the boys to come here even if you told them there was a cave to be seen. I don’t think I would care to come again.”
“I would,” said Sawyer, “but it is not an easy job all the same.”
“Bother the thing!” sputtered Billy Manners. “It is nothing but a hiding place for burglars and thieves. Pity you did not find some more of the stolen property, Jack.”
“It has probably been taken out. They could afford to leave their tools behind, but they would take everything else.”
The boys talked about the place as they made their way back to the Academy, which they reached shortly before supper, and all agreed that it was rather too great an undertaking to visit the cave again, all being tired and glad to rest after their tramp.
“I want to see how my picture turned out, Jack,” said Billy Manners after supper when it was quite dark. “Then I want to get the laugh on those fellows that said my makeshift was no good. I know it is.”
“All right, Billy,” laughed Jack. “I can fix you up a dark room in the cottage. I have developers and all that, though I suppose you have also.”
“Yes, I have everything. Have you a camera, Jack? You never said anything about it.”
“Well, I have not had much occasion to say anything or to use it, but I have one. Come ahead, get your plate and we will develop it.”
On the way to the cottage they met Dick Percival, who was greatly interested when he heard what they were going to do and said:
“I’d like to see you develop that plate, for, to tell the truth, I don’t have much faith in these photographic freaks. Do you think there will be anything on the plate, Jack?”
“Yes,” said Jack shortly.
“All right, then. If you have faith in it I have nothing to say.”
Reaching the room in the cottage, Jack locked the door to keep out all possible intruders, got out his ruby lamp and developers, and set to work.
Billy had faith in his pinhole camera, because it was his. Jack was certain that he would get a picture, because he knew about such things, and Dick was interested because Jack was, and therefore the three watched the process of developing with considerable interest.
Jack had running water and all the facilities for doing good work, and it was also apparent that he had done a good deal of it.
“By Jove! you are a wonder, Jack,” laughed Percival. “I am all the time finding out new things that you can do. If we were not with you so much we would not know how much you can do. You never tell about it.”
“What is the use?” said Jack quietly. “If I can accomplish anything it is bound to be found out some time.”
“Of course, but most fellows would tell you ahead that they were going to do so and so and make a lot of talk about it. You just go ahead and do it without making any fuss.”
“Why, no, of course not, but it is so different from the ordinary fellow’s way of doing things.”
The boys watched the picture appear on Billy’s plate, and the funny fellow said with a grin of great satisfaction:
“There is something there all right, Jack. It is good and sharp, too, if I know anything. Why, you can see each individual leaf and the rocks stand out fine.”
“Yes, I think the boys are going to be surprised,” declared Jack, as he watched the developing, and removed the plate from the bath just at the right time and put it in another tray.
After fixing the image and washing the plate well with several waters, having everything convenient to his hand, he examined the plate carefully by the white light, which could do it no harm, and suddenly said in a tone of the greatest astonishment:
“My word, Billy, we are going to surprise somebody and no mistake. You don’t know everything that is on this plate.”
“Well, what is it?” Billy and Percival both asked, being greatly excited by Jack’s impressive tone.
“I’ll show you shortly. I am going to make an enlargement of this so that you will have no trouble in seeing just what I see.”
“Yes, but Jack, can’t you show us?” asked Percival with some impatience. “Must you make a secret of it?”
“For a little while, Dick,” laughed Jack; “but you won’t say anything when I show you the enlargement. You will be perfectly satisfied at having waited a little.”
“All right,” muttered both boys.
Jack had all the appliances for making an enlargement, and he could do it as well by night as in daylight, having flash powders which would give an instant’s light or be continued for as long as he chose, together with plates, paper and everything convenient.
The boys watched him at work and were greatly interested, now and then catching the sound of the Hilltop boys singing outside, but generally paying little attention to anything except what was going on just around them.
In the course of something more than an hour Jack had completed his work and showed a much larger print of Billy’s pinhole photograph than was possible from the original plate, and also a print from the latter.
“Now look at these two, first the little one and then the big,” he said, “and tell me what is the difference.”
“You’ve got an eight by ten, and mine is less than a four by five,” answered Billy. “The figures are naturally four times as large. By Jinks! you have a handsome picture, Jack.”
“Yes, but tell me what you see on one that you don’t see on the other. You should see it on both, of course, but it stands out stronger in the enlargement, as it naturally would.”
Percival looked at the larger picture and said:
“Hello! there is a man looking out from among the rocks on the ledge. Did you know he was there, Billy?”
“No, I did not. He must have kept pretty still, for that was a long time exposure. He is not as strong as the objects around him, however. How is that, Jack? H’m! I know. He came in after I had started to take the scene.”
“That’s it, and he kept still because he wanted to hear what you boys were talking about, and did not wish to be discovered himself. Do you see him on the smaller print, Billy?”
“Yes, now, but I did not at first. Golly! but you have eyes, Jack! You saw this on the plate?”
“Yes, and that is why I wished to get the enlargement. Do you recognize the man, boys?”
“I never saw him,” said Percival, “but if that is not the man with the white mustache and the black eyebrows I am very much mistaken. My! but how he glares!”
“It is the man with the white mustache,” said Jack. “I have reason to recognize him. That is the bank robber. He is glaring, as you say, Dick. There was something on his mind. What do you suppose it was?”
“I am sure I don’t know. Do you suppose he was afraid we might find his hiding place. By Jove! we found the burglars’ tools, Jack, and now you have found the burglar himself on Billy’s plate.”
“Yes, and you said there would not be anything on it,” laughed the good-natured fellow.
“Why, no, Billy, I did not altogether say——”
“No, you didn’t say it, but you intimated it just the same. Well, my pinhole camera has turned out all right, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, and I must say that I am surprised.”
“The rock fell down shortly after we had gone inside the cave, Billy?” asked Jack.
“Yes. None of us had any suspicion that such a thing would happen, and we were very anxious about you. I don’t see now why it should have happened. We have not had any rains to loosen things.”
“I will tell you how it happened,” said Jack earnestly. “Your man here, with his fierce eyes, like those of a hunted wild beast, was plotting our death when he shoved down that boulder, for it was he who shoved it down I am certain. He probably did not know of the other exit and imagined that we would be imprisoned with no way of getting out.”
“He looks as if he wished you and everybody else dead,” said Billy. “He has a face to make you have bad dreams. Well, we have proved two things to-day.”
“That your pinhole camera is all right,” said Percival, “and that this mysterious man with the white mustache is still in the neighborhood. H’m! I should think he would avoid it.”
“I hoped he might,” said Jack musingly. “It is clear enough from this print that he did not mean any good to you and me, Dick.”
“Yes, and as Billy says, his face is one to haunt you. Well, if he is hanging around these woods we don’t care to make any more exploring trips until we are sure he is out of them. What are you going to do with the big print, Jack?”
“Keep it if the man makes any more trouble,” said Jack shortly. “It will be of use to detectives in identifying him.”
“I suppose I had better not show my print?” said Billy questioningly. “You would rather I would not? I don’t know what you are to this fellow, Jack, and I don’t want to know. You say he is not your father, and that is enough for me.”
“No, he is not,” said Jack, “and just now I don’t care to say any more about it. Show your plate if you want to convince the boys that your odd sort of camera can do something. They may not notice the man on it. They will probably simply notice the trees and rocks, which are very sharp and distinct.”
“All right,” said Billy. “I would like to show it to those wiseacres just to convince them that the thing was all right, and to get the laugh on them.”
“Revenge is sweet,” laughed Percival.
“Of course it is,” said Billy, “but I guess we fellows had better get to bed or the doctor will be giving us fits. Is there time to show this picture to the fellows?”
“I should think so,” replied Jack. “I will keep the enlargement in case I need it, and I would rather you did not say anything about it to the boys.”
“Of course not!” said Billy promptly.
Billy and Percival now took their leave and Jack put away his developing outfit, locked the enlargement in his bureau drawer and turned on the lights and threw aside the curtains, so that any one in any of the other cottages or in the Academy could see him.
“Still in the neighborhood,” he muttered, as he sat by the window and looked out on the calm Autumn night. “I wish he would leave it. I am not safe as long as he remains. At any rate, I shall do my duty as I have always done it, no matter what happens.”
An hour later Jack went to bed, and no one who saw him at that time would have imagined that anything was on his mind, his face was so calm and tranquil.
The mysterious stranger with the white mustache and dark hair who had caused so much speculation among the Hilltop boys had not been seen since the second attempt to rob the Riverton bank and none of those most interested knew where he was.
His confederate, badly wounded at the time, was in jail and likely to remain there for some time, but of his principal nothing was known.
He had made his escape and had probably left the region for good and all, being satisfied that a third attempt to get at the money of the bank would be fatal.
The Hilltop boys were anxious to know what relation he bore to Jack Sheldon, who, it will be remembered, had been visibly agitated when he was first mentioned but as the boy did not seem inclined to enlighten them they did not ask him any more questions.
Herring avoided Jack after the stirring scene in the barn but neglected no opportunity to speak ill or slightingly of the boy to his cronies and to Jack’s friends when he dared.
There were not many of these occasions, however, for the first time that he spoke slurringly of Jack to Billy Manners, that fun-loving young gentleman said hotly:
“Look here, Herring, I’ll pickle you if I hear you talk that way of Jack Sheldon again. A word to the wise is sufficient.”
Billy was not as big nor as strong as Jack but there was a determination in his look which Herring did not care to see there nor to provoke and he laughed carelessly and retorted:
“Oh, well, you don’t need to get mad about it. I was only joking about it.”
“I don’t see anything funny in any such jokes,” returned Billy, “and I would advise you to take them to a market where they are better appreciated than they are here.”
“Ah, you think Sheldon is a lot,” sneered Herring, “but he isn’t any better than any one else.”
“Maybe not. It depends who the any one else is,” laughed Billy.
From the words that the bully dropped to his associates, however, it was clear that he meant mischief to Jack and would pay off his supposed debts as soon as opportunity offered and there was the least chance of detection.
There were examinations coming on and Jack was getting ready for them, devoting all of his spare time to studying so that he would be able to pass with the greatest credit to himself and his instructors.
The next number of the Hilltop Gazette would give the results of the examination but there was other matter to be prepared for it, the standings being the last matter to go in.
On the afternoon before the examinations were to begin Jack borrowed Percival’s runabout and set out for Riverton with the copy for the school paper and something he had written for the weekly News, furnishing something now every week.
It was rather late when he started, as he had been busy up to the last moment and when he left the office after seeing Mr. Brooke and looking over the matter already set up it was growing dark, the sun being already behind the hills.
He would be back in time for supper, however, and as he had his lights in good order he had no fear of being out after dark.
He had left the town and was about to put on speed so as to carry him easily up a hill just ahead of him when he saw a man suddenly come around a turn just ahead of him.
He slacked up in an instant and then heard a sharp whistle behind him and at the next moment heard rapid footsteps, the man in front suddenly running toward him.
Before he was aware some one had sprung over the back of the car and had thrown a pair of strong arms around him.
Then the man in front ran up, jumped in and took the steering wheel, quickly backing the car and turning into a narrow lane a few rods behind.
Jack, meanwhile, had been blindfolded and gagged by the man who had seized him from behind and had no idea where he was going.
He was held tight as well and could not move, his captor being evidently a very powerful man.
“I’d like to know what this means, so close to town,” he thought. “If it were two or three miles out I should not wonder and yet I have never been molested as long as I have been driving the car, or was I when I carried fruit and returned with money in my pocket.”
By this time it was dark but if it had not been it would have made little difference to Jack with a heavy bandage over his eyes which shut out all light.
They were running on the level, as he knew by the motion but at length they began to ascend a considerable rise, the speed being increased and the car being higher in front.
The boy was utterly in the dark as to the identity of his captors or their intentions and could not hazard a guess on either point.
If robbery were intended why had they not searched him at the start and if they only wanted the car why had they taken him along with them instead of getting rid of him at once?
All these things set him to thinking and he had plenty of time for it as the car seemed to have no intention of stopping but kept right on, now up, now down, but all the time at a rapid gait.
It must have been fully an hour from the time he had been seized when the car began to slow down and then stopped but where he was Jack could not, of course, have any idea.
“I wonder if this is a hazing joke of some of the fellows?” he asked himself. “Billy Manners would be up to just such a trick. Perhaps we are at the Academy now and they are ready to have a great laugh at my expense. I don’t see what else it could be.”
There was no sound to be heard, however, as there would be if they were near the Academy and Jack was as much puzzled as ever when he was lifted out of the car and taken somewhere, where he could not tell.
He was placed upon a bench but whether it were out of doors or in he had no notion.
He knew no more when the bandage was taken off his eyes and the gag removed, for all was as dark as pitch, the car either having been taken away or the lights put out, for he could see nothing.
“You set quiet,” some one said to him. “We ain’t going to hurt you but you’re goin’ to stay with us for a spell.”
“Who are you and where am I and what are you going to do?” Jack asked, being unable to see any one.
“Never mind askin’ questions,” returned the other. “We ain’t goin’ to hurt you, that’s all, an’ you needn’t be afraid o’ nothing.”
“Yes, but why have I been brought here and where am I anyhow?”
There was no answer and Jack suddenly became aware that he was alone.
He had not been bound and now he arose, felt in his pockets and presently produced matches, not having carried his pocket flashlight with him.
He struck a match and looked around him, finding that he was in a roughly finished room like a shop or a workman’s shack, with two barred windows on one side and a closed door opposite, there being a straight ladder reaching to some place above, probably the sleeping quarters of the men who worked here.
This much he saw before the match burned out, seeing no one and hearing not a sound.
He tried the door and found it locked, the shutters of the windows being fastened on the outside for he could not open them.
“It is clear enough that I am a prisoner here,” he mused, “but for what purpose?”
There seemed to be no answer to the question and he gave up trying to find one but sat down and waited for somebody to return.
Jack had been sitting in the dark for several minutes when he heard a sound from the loft overhead.
Some one was stirring, there was a yawn, then a step on the floor and then some one said impatiently:
“Hello, down there! Can’t you show a light? Where are you all, anyway, and what time is it?”
The boy started for he knew that voice and had hoped that he would never again hear it.
It was that of the man with the white mustache and the dark hair and eyebrows whom he had met in the woods near the foot of the hill leading from the Academy.
He said nothing and then he heard steps moving about in the loft and the man spoke again.
“I’ll fall down there before I know it. There’s a hole somewhere, but where is it? Hello, there! can’t you show a light? Isn’t there anyone about? Where have you all gone?”
Then he heard a footstep on the ladder and knew that the man was coming down, grumbling as before.
“What’s that man doing here?” he thought. “I had hoped I would never see him again. If he is not careful he will be taken and spend more of his time in prison.”
Then a thought occurred to him and he said quietly:
“Wait a moment and I will give you a light.”
There was a startled exclamation and then the man asked:
“Who is that? Is that you, John Sheldon?”
“Yes, it is I.”
“What are you doing here? Have you come to hunt me down?”
“No, I am a prisoner but I don’t know who brought me here. I have not come to hunt you down. I did not know that you were anywhere about and I don’t know where I am myself.”
Then the boy lighted a match and looked around him, seeing an old rusty tin candlestick with the butt of a candle in it on a shelf under one of the windows.
He lighted this and the man came forward, looked fixedly in his face and said:
“You say you are a prisoner here? How did that happen?”
“I was run away with by two men who jumped into the runabout I was driving when I stopped but I don’t know who they are nor why they did it. Why do you remain in this neighborhood? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be so near the place where——”
“You had a runabout? Yours?”
“No, a friend’s. I was down at Riverton on business and was just going back to the Academy.”
“Where is it? Is it a fast one?”
“Yes, but——”
“You are right about the danger of remaining here but we are not as near the place as you think. This place must be miles away and nowhere near the river. It is safe enough but if I had a good car and a fair start I could——”
There was a step outside and then the turning of a key in a lock and the door was opened.
Two men were outside, both rough looking fellows whom Jack had not seen before and one of them now said:
“Waitin’ for your supper? Hungry, are you? Well, we’ll fix up something in a jiffy and then you can go to bed as soon as you like. Hello! there wasn’t two of you, was there?”
“What are you keeping the boy here for?” asked the man with Jack.
“I donno, some business of keeping him away from school till arter examinations, I guess, but I don’t see why that should worry him. I never was anxious to go to school myself and if anybody had said I shouldn’t it wouldn’t have bothered me none,” with a hoarse laugh.
“Keep me away from school till after examination?” thought Jack. “Oh, I see! This is a plot of some of the Hilltop boys, Herring and his set, no doubt. No one else would do it.”
“Where have Byke and Tyke gone?” asked the man.
“To take back a car. We don’t want it.”
“Ha! I might have wanted it myself,” muttered the other. “Why didn’t they let me know?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Friend of theirs, hey? Well, they’ll come back after a bit. Folks don’t like to have other fellows’ autos with ’em. It ain’t allus safe.”
“No, but I could have taken it back as well as they could and I wanted to go that way besides.”
“Well, we come to get supper for the boy and to see that he didn’t get away. If you want to go it ain’t nothin’ to us as I know.”
One of the men now unfastened one of the windows while the other went outside where there was a rusty little cook stove and began to make a fire.
Then the other got some bacon and a half dozen potatoes from a locker under the shelf, produced a greasy frying-pan from a dusty corner and went outside to get the supper.
“I would have taken the car and got away,” muttered the strange man. “This is far enough away but it might not be safe for all that and the sooner I get away the better.”
“The car will be missed and advertised,” replied Jack, “and you would be taken. Where were you going?”
“Out West somewhere. It is not safe around here nowadays.”
“If you had lived a decent life it would have been safe for you anywhere, George Williamson,” said Jack.
“Sh! not a word! they don’t know me and I don’t want them to,” cautioned the man, looking anxiously about him. “What you say may be true but it’s too late now. Don’t you feel sorry for your father, Jack?”
“You are not my father and I wish that neither my mother nor I had ever seen you. You made her life miserable, wasted the money my father had left her, ill-treated and abused her and then showed yourself what you were, a burglar and thief! Is it any wonder that my mother should want to take her first husband’s name again when we moved as far away as we could from the scene of your evil deeds?”
“Maybe not,” said the other carelessly. “Have you any money, Jack? I would like to have some to get me to the nearest seaport town.”
“You said you were going west.”
“Well, to some good and far away town, then. That will do.”
“I have very little money with me but I could get it if I thought you would go away never to see my mother again. There is little use in asking you to promise for you have promised before.”
“I saw you this time only by accident, Jack,” replied the man. “Never mind. I will go so far away this time that you will never see me. So you would help me, would you?” with an odd smile.
“Only to keep you away from my mother,” Jack answered. “You never did me any good and I have no reason to like you. If I helped you it would be for my mother’s sake alone.”
“And you are a prisoner here, so that you will not be able to pass the examinations?” asked the other carelessly.
“Yes, so it seems, but I do not mean to be kept here.”
“You can get away now, Jack, if you wish it,” said the other in a low tone. “I’ll do that much for you for all that you don’t do things for me on my own account. Do you wish to leave here?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then I will help you get away, will go with you till everything is safe. Maybe I did not treat your mother right, Jack. Never mind that now. I can help you and I will. Come, there is no time like the present.”
The two stepped to the door when one of the rough fellows said, putting himself in the way:
“Here, Mister, you can go if you like but not the boy. We’ve got orders to keep him here.”
“And I have a notion to take him away with me and if you oppose me it will be the worst for you.”
The man attempted to argue the point and was promptly knocked down.