“I shall take pains to see your father this very evening, and tell him the whole thing,” said Hugh. “He ought to be proud of what you’ve done, and I mean to let him understand that every fellow in Oakvale Troop is pulling for you, Andy. I know just as well as I’m standing here that nothing can ever make you go back to the old life again, now that you’ve had a taste of what it means to have people respect you. Make your mind easy on that score.”
“Hugh, you’re the best friend I ever had,” said Andy, now actually breaking down and crying like a baby, for the boy had gone through a terrible experience, calculated to shatter his nerves badly. “I never would have held out if it hadn’t been that I knew you believed in me. Now nothing on earth is going to make me go back on my word. I’d die sooner than deceive a friend like you.”
Hugh finally got him quieted down, so that when he had washed his face and his inflamed eyes, Andy was in condition to step out again, and wander off. Now that the experience was a thing of the past, he would feel all the better for having been tried and found not wanting.
Arthur was engaged in attending to a child that had been hurt in some trivial way, but whose fond mother was greatly concerned. So Hugh, stepping out once more, glanced around to ascertain if he could see any signs of the long-absent Billy.
One of the first things he set eyes on was the well-known figure of the stout chum hastening toward him, making signs as though he had something of importance to communicate.
Apparently Billy had known nothing of what had happened. He must have been over in the section of the grounds laid off for amusements; and as there were frequent outbursts of shouting on the part of groups of fun-loving boys, he had not been attracted by the excitement attending the discovery of the robbery and the accusation of Andy Wallis.
“I want you to come with me, Hugh,” panted Billy as he joined the other; “the show will close up for to-day in half an hour more, and there’s something going on over here we ought to take a hand in.”
“I’ll go along with you, Billy,” Hugh told him. “First of all, tell me, did you get a chance to speak with the boy?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t say much, because the crowd’s big and sales whopping, so it kept Cale busy. Then the man looked like he could eat me alive, every time he saw me. He must guess we’re on his trail, and mean to get the boy away from his evil influence. Why, he even shook his head at me once, and scowled just like a pirate. He shows his white teeth when he does that, and it makes you shiver, you just can’t help it, Hugh!”
“You told Cale the scouts wanted to help him, did you, Billy?”
“Yes, that’s about the size of it, Hugh.”
“How did he seem to take it?”
“I thought at first he seemed pleased; but then that old frown came back on his face again, and he shook his head. ‘I’d like to, ever so much, tell your friends,’ he went on to say, Hugh, and in such a wistful tone, too, it’d have made you feel sorry for him like it did me, if you heard him, ‘but it just can’t be. He’s got me tied down fast, hand and foot. I don’t dare call my soul my own. When I want to turn and run I feel something grip me that makes me go back to him. I hate him like I would a spider or a snake, but I ain’t my own boss, and I can’t ever hope to run away from him!’ Hugh, I told you how it was; that man has control over his mind.”
“We’ll soon find that out,” said the scout master.
“Yes, for there’s Cale now, leaning against that post again; and see how black and hopeless his face looks, Hugh! I certainly want to do something to help him give that man the slip!”
“We’ll stop here a bit, and try to catch his eye,” said Hugh.
“I was thinking myself that would be a good idea,” promptly agreed Billy, who had the greatest possible faith in the persuasive ability of the scout master. He felt absolutely certain that if only Hugh could get in touch with the badgered boy, Cale was sure to decide on breaking away from his master.
“Here comes Walter Osborne,” remarked Hugh.
He knew why the Hawk leader must have been loitering around that particular part of the Fair grounds. Walter undoubtedly was still worrying himself almost sick over his queer inability to place the boy who went by the name of Cale. In order to try and freshen his memory somewhat he had wandered over this way, in the hope that seeing the other’s face occasionally might help out.
As he now came up, Hugh looked at him inquiringly. There was such a depressed expression on Walter’s face that words were wholly unnecessary to explain the utter failure that had overwhelmed his plan of campaign.
“Nothing doing, Hugh,” he muttered in a tone of abject disgust. “Came near saying it once, but got side-tracked. I never had a thing give me half the bother that this does; but it isn’t my way to give up. I’ll hit it yet, see if I don’t.”
Hugh smiled as he went on to say:
“I’ll give you a little pointer, Walter, that may help out. We’re calling that chap Cale, but how do we know that’s his name? It’s true he told Billy here it was, but sometimes boys that take to bad ways feel it best to adopt a name that’s different from the one they used to sport. How about that, Walter?”
“I never thought of it before, Hugh!” exclaimed the other, his face lighting up; “and I tell you it’s a good idea. To-night I’m going to run over every kind of a boy’s name I ever heard, and try to see if any one fits.”
“Well, now that you’re here with us, Walter,” the scout master told him, “you’d better stay. We may need more help before we’re done.”
“Hello! what’s up, Hugh?” demanded the leader of the Hawks.
Hugh thereupon told him a few things in connection with the boy called Cale that was news to Walter. He showed the greatest interest in all he heard, and was only too willing to join forces with them.
“I must say I don’t like the looks of that medicine fakir any more than the rest of you do,” Walter announced. “I’d like to have a hand in getting that boy out of his clutches. Perhaps he’s got a good home somewhere, and has been tempted to run away. Right now some old mother may be crying her eyes out because she doesn’t know where Cale is. Yes, count me in, Hugh, no matter what happens.”
“It’s almost time for the Fair to close, for the sun’s setting,” Hugh remarked. “So, whatever we expect to do, we’ll have to get busy now. There, the boy has started off in the direction of their tent with that last bottle of stuff he made out to buy, so as to get the hesitating countrymen to hand up their dollars. This is our chance, I take it, fellows. Come on!”
They followed after the skulking boy. Hugh noticed that there was a certain hang-dog air about Cale that may have come from the utter collapse of his pride. He was evidently heartily ashamed of his occupation as a decoy for the fake doctor, and felt that others were eyeing him in scorn. Still, for some secret cause he seemed to lack the nerve to break his bonds and give the medicine fakir the slip.
When Hugh and the other scouts reached the tent with its little sign of “Old Doc Merritt” the boy had vanished, but as they had seen him pass inside, there was no question as to his whereabouts.
“Now, as long as he can keep a dozen people around him, and have the chance to sell another bottle of his stuff, the fakir is apt to stay by his stand,” said the scout master. “That ought to give us five or ten minutes to talk with Cale, and get him away.”
“It is time enough,” Billy added, “for I know he’ll be ready to throw himself on our hands once you get talking to him like a Dutch uncle, Hugh.”
“There he comes out again,” announced Walter.
Hugh immediately led the way up to the boy, who saw their approach with mingled emotions, if his changing color several times could be taken as any indication of his feelings.
He looked nervously around him. Hugh knew his first fear was that the fakir might happen upon them before anything was settled. Hope was battling with his old sense of helplessness.
Hugh never beat around the bush when there was need of haste. He walked straight up to the boy and held out his hand.
“Cale, we scouts have made up our minds that we’ve just got to take hold of your case and help you break away from that man,” said Hugh, in his positive way that usually carried conviction with it. “If only you’ll say the word we’ll stand back of you, and get you out of this scrape. You don’t want to keep doing this sort of business any longer, do you?”
“I hate it worse than poison,” said the boy, almost fiercely; “but seems as if I couldn’t break loose from Doc Merritt nohow. I’ve made up my mind to run away as many as twenty times, but it only takes one look from those terrible eyes of his to change everything.”
“But you’ll let us try to get you off, won’t you, Cale?”
The boy sighed.
“Oh! if you only could!” he said, plaintively. “I’m willing enough to go, but you fellows will have to do it all, because I’m as weak as a kitten when he catches my eye. I have to sneeze when he takes snuff, as they say.”
Hugh remembered that later on, and took advantage of his knowledge, as will be seen when the time comes.
“Would you be willing to start home to your folks if we bought you a railroad ticket?” asked the scout master, as he linked an arm with that of the other, and started leading him away, making sure that he went in an opposite direction to the stand of the fakir.
The boy trembled on hearing this, and Hugh knew that his guess must have hit the mark. There was a story back of it, which might mean a waiting mother, a wayward boy, a yielding to temptation, and finally his getting into the grip of the fakir, who, for certain reasons of his own, seemed determined that Cale should not leave his employ, though he treated him as meanly as any slave.
“Y-e-s, I would be dreadfully glad to go home again if I only had the chance,” he faltered, almost breaking down when he said that one magical word “home.” Then, sighing heavily again, he continued: “I don’t know whether they’d want me to come back again after the awful thing I did. He keeps telling me they’ve disowned me for good. But sometimes at night, when I get to thinking it over, I can’t bring myself to believe my mother would do that, no matter how bad I was.”
“That’s right, Cale, you can bet your mother will stand back of you!” burst out Billy, whose heart was beating in sympathy for the wretched boy. “’Specially if she knows you’ve turned over a new leaf, and mean to walk straight after this. You tell her that the first thing, and it’s going to be all right, believe me!”
Cale smiled in a wan sort of way, as he nodded his head.
“I kind of guess pretty near all mothers are alike that way,” he said. “I’ve been a bad boy, and tried to break my mother’s heart with my doings; but, say, I’ve had a terrible lesson. I don’t pity myself one bit, because I deserved all I got, and heaps more. But if ever I do get another chance, I’ll show what there is in me or die a-trying.”
“That’s the stuff!” declared Billy, vehemently.
Walter could not keep from reaching out and gripping the other’s hand; for the time being he had even forgotten all about the mystery connected with Cale, in his sympathy for the other’s troubles.
“Well, it’s all over now, Cale,” he said, as warmly as he could. “If you let us engineer this thing, we’ll see you through. When Hugh here takes on a job he never draws back. Just you make up your mind that you’ve seen the last of that man, and it ends it all.”
“If he finds out that I’ve gone, he’ll chase after me like hot cakes,” said Cale uneasily, looking over his shoulder as he spoke, as though half fearing he might discover the black-eyed fakir hurrying along, bent on snatching him away from the custody of these new friends.
“All right, let him come,” said Billy, as he stooped and possessed himself of a likely looking stick that in case of emergency might be made to serve in the capacity of a cudgel.
Hugh just then gave utterance to a peculiar sound—at least it might have seemed strange in the ears of any one not connected with a scout troop.
“How-ooo-ooo!”
It was a very fair imitation of the howl of the gray wolf. It was instantly recognized by a couple of boys clad in khaki at the gates. Ralph Kenyon and Jack Durham looked around at hearing the call of the Wolf Patrol, to which both of them belonged. Seeing their chums, and that Hugh was beckoning to them, they waited for the others to come up.
Hugh had an object in this. He was not sure but what they were fated to have some trouble with the fakir before they could get the boy started on the train he would want to take in order to reach his home. In that event numbers would be apt to cut some figure in deterring Doc Merritt from trying to take Cale from them by force. Five were better than three, especially when the additional reinforcements were a pair of husky fellows like Jack and Ralph.
One thing Hugh had noticed, which was that the boy made no attempt to tell them what his name was, or where he lived. Of course, after he got his ticket they would be apt to learn this fact; which Walter might consider a clue toward lifting the veil of mystery that seemed to cling about the identity of the other.
After leaving the Fair grounds, they headed along the thoroughfare leading into the town of Oakvale. Hundreds were going that way, with all sorts of vehicles filling the road itself, from fine cars to humble wagons, and even bicycles.
The grounds in which the yearly Exhibition was held were some little distance from the station. Perhaps ten minutes’ walk would be necessary in order to take them there, for rapid progress was out of the question on account of the congestion of the highway.
Cale was plainly nervous. He walked between Hugh and Billy, who had hold of his arms, but every minute the boy was seen to half look behind him, as though in imagination he could hear the hateful voice of the fakir ordering him to stop this foolishness and come back to his duties.
On his part, Hugh was fully determined that now they had started in this thing they would fight it through to a finish. What was the use of putting a hand to the plow unless they went to the end of the furrow? If Doc Merritt tried force, they would meet him half way. Should he appeal to the law, Hugh was ready to have all the conditions of Cale’s servitude exposed, no matter at what cost, and the boy separated from his cruel oppressor, who exercised such a strange influence over him.
Now they had gone two-thirds of the distance, and having shaken off most of the crowd by taking a side street in the town, could see the station ahead of them.
It was at this moment that Ralph Kenyon, always on the alert as became one who in times past, when he followed the profession of an amateur trapper, had pitted his sagacity against the cunning of small fur-bearing animals, uttered an exclamation.
“There’s somebody chasing after us licketty-split in a buggy, Hugh!” he said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned out to be that medicine fakir, Old Doc Merritt!”
“I knew it!”
Hugh could feel the figure of the boy partly collapse as he muttered these disconsolate words. He only tightened his clasp on Cale’s arm.
“Don’t worry a bit about it,” he said, in the other’s ear. “We’re not going to let him put a hand on you. Just try your level best to keep from looking at him; and leave the rest to us. We’ll see you through, and let him try to take you away if he dares!”
“Well, I’d like to see him try it, that’s all!” blustered Billy, swinging that nice club of his with a “swish” that sounded encouraging to him.
This sort of talk began to buoy up the spirits of Cale.
“I’ll try and hold out, fellows!” he told them. “You don’t know that man. He can make you do just what he wants. It’s simply fierce what a way he has of changing your mind for you!”
“Huh! I’d like to see him get me to change mine, that’s all!” Billy chuckled.
“Well, here he comes, and now we’ll see some fun!” declared Jack Durham, as the rapid beating of horse’s hoofs reached their ears, accompanied by a man’s angry voice.
“Stop right where you are, I tell you, boy! I want you to go back with me in this buggy! You are under contract with me, understand!”
“We might as well stop and have it out with him,” remarked Hugh.
“Yes, since we couldn’t expect to run away from a horse,” added Walter.
So they stepped to one side of the road, and as the vehicle arrived the man in the buggy stopped his sweating horse by drawing sharply on the lines.
“Here, what do you boys mean trying to kidnap my assistant?” he shouted, shaking the whip he held in a menacing manner.
Hugh stepped in front of Cale, one of his objects being to keep the boy from meeting those angry and glittering eyes of the fakir.
“I’d advise you to keep that whip to yourself, sir,” he said, meaningly. “If you have any idea of trying to use it on us you had better think twice. With the first stroke I promise that you’ll find it snatched from your hand, and used on your back without mercy.”
“Yes,” added Billy Worth, “because we’re scouts, don’t think we can’t protect ourselves if set on. The rules don’t keep us from defending ourselves from assault.”
Perhaps the man did not quite like the determined manner of those five boys in khaki; at any rate he stopped switching the whip in that menacing manner, though at the same time continuing to scowl blackly at Hugh.
“What does this mean?” he demanded. “Don’t you boys know you’re liable to arrest for trying to entice my assistant to break his contract with me in the middle of my harvest season? I’ll have the law on you, and lock you all up!”
Billy Worth laughed aloud.
“You sure make us shiver with fright, Mister Merritt, if that’s your real name,” he told the other. “Hugh, tell him to go to thunder, and that we’re not one mite afraid of his bluster. Cale’s going with us if we have to pick him up and carry him.”
Perhaps Billy had a double reason for talking in this way. He may have intended to warn the fakir that they would resist him to the utmost; but more than that it was of importance that the boy should feel they were determined to keep him from obeying the will of his employer.
“Cale!” said the man, sharply, using a peculiar tone which doubtless was inclined to affect the boy more than his natural voice.
Hugh continued to stand between.
“Don’t look at him, Cale!” he said, forcefully.
“Come right here and get in with me, I tell you!” continued the man, sternly.
Cale made a mechanical move.
“I’ve got to go!” he muttered, helplessly, whereat Billy linked his arm more tightly in his, while Walter did the same on the other side, with Ralph and Jack pushing to the front alongside Hugh.
“Not much you will,” said Billy, derisively. “Think we’ve gone to all this trouble with you to give up so easy? You’re going to stick it out with us, Cale, hear me talking? We won’t let you go worth a cent!”
“Start off toward the station with him, fellows,” said Hugh, grimly. “We’ll stand guard on this side of you. Keep fast hold of Cale all the while. Once we get there I’ll call up Chief Wallis, and get him over to settle this thing. He’s a good friend of ours, you know.”
The man in the buggy seemed hardly to know what to do next when they started along the street heading for the railroad station, now in plain sight. He must have guessed that his grip on poor Cale was broken through the persistence of these five scouts, and yet, being a most stubborn sort of man, he evidently did not mean to give up until he had exhausted every means for attaining his purposes.
He started up his horse so as to keep even with them. He began to appeal to the boy to stand by him. He used every device which in the past had acted so favorably in forcing Cale to obey his will; but the conditions, with those five guardians striding alongside the weak boy, were changed now.
Billy, not wishing Cale to hear much that the fakir said, kept up more or less of a racket. He whistled shrilly, laughed, and even started to sing snatches of some rollicking school song, such as scouts were accustomed to rolling out in concert when seated about their campfire of nights, after their bountiful suppers.
In this manner they drew nearer the station. Hugh would often look back at that last hundred yards of the journey with amusement. Billy was really making himself ridiculous in his endeavor to drown the voice of Doc Merritt, so that it might not have its intended effect on the boy whom they had taken in charge.
There were a good many people waiting for the trains, because one would draw in from either direction presently. Hugh had already learned that Cale wanted to go west from Oakvale; and this meant there was no great hurry, since that train was not due to arrive for twenty minutes after the one for the east came along.
One thing still bothered Hugh. It concerned the future actions of Doc Merritt. If the medicine fakir, for some reason or other, wanted to keep hold of Cale, he might think it worth his while to go aboard the same train as the boy for the purpose of getting hold of him when the scouts would no longer stand as a bulwark between his victim and himself.
Just how that was to be avoided was a puzzling question. Hugh was inclined to turn to Chief Wallis as a means for detaining the fakir. If they could prevent him from taking that train, by trumping up some sort of charge that would detain him in Oakvale an hour or so, all might yet be well.
“By that time the boy ought to be far on the way home,” Hugh told himself as he thought it all over. “At any rate, he will be beyond the reach of this man’s evil influence. Yes, that seems to be the best thing to do. I’ll try and get the Chief over as soon as the train for the east pulls out again.”
He said that because even then he heard a whistle down the track indicating the approach of the train from the west.
When they reached the station, the man jumped from his vehicle, and gave the rig in charge of a boy to look after. He persisted in following them as they threaded their way through the crowds that surged this way and that—for scores of people had come from up and down the road to attend the Fair, and were taking the last opportunity to get back home at a reasonable hour.
The man was still trying to get in touch with Cale, though the scouts had formed a complete circle around the boy, and he dared not use violence. Hugh began to suspect the fakir had in mind just such an idea as he himself had been considering; that is, he meant to board the same train that bore Cale off.
This scheme must have struck Walter about that time, which would account for his saying to the scout master:
“Hugh, he’s a sure-enough sticker, that man is, and he won’t see Cale go off on that train without making another try to get him, mark my words.”
“We’ll have to set up a game on him, then,” remarked Billy. “It would never do to let him be in the same car as Cale. The boy would give in as quick as anything. Hugh, how can we do it?”
“I’ve got a scheme in mind,” Hugh told him; “just wait until this train pulls out, and there’s a little more room. Then I’ll start things moving. We’ll put a peg in his game. He’ll have to anchor in Oakvale to-night, even if we get him locked up on a charge of assault.”
“Oh! I see what you mean now,” declared Billy. “We are to rattle him the best we know how till he gets peeved enough to lay that whip on one of us. Then you’ll have him arrested, and held at the station house till after the train goes. Say, that’s a great dodge, Hugh! When it comes to thinking up things, you’re in a class by yourself. Some day you’ll be one of our ambassadors abroad, I honestly believe.”
The coming of the train prevented any further exchange of opinions among the five scouts. They continued to keep Cale shut in, preventing the man from fixing that terrible gaze of his on the boy’s eye. Several times the look which the fakir gave them told that he was angry enough to almost start to using the whip which somehow he still kept in his hand; but thinking better of it he wisely refrained from active measures.
It might be the sight of Billy’s swinging stick that deterred him. Then again he may have determined to bide his time and put into operation a little scheme that had occurred to him along the very lines Hugh had considered.
These boys were in their home town, while he was a stranger there, and known as a fakir at that. He could not count on any sympathy in case of an open rupture at the station. There was even a strong possibility that he might be roughly handled in the bargain by the gathered throng.
The ringing of the engine bell as the train came into the station announced to the hurrying crowd that it was time to get aboard.
“I wish this was my train,” Hugh heard the boy say, as though he had begun to fear the long delay, with that man hovering so close, bent, too, on once more regaining control over his will.
“Never mind, it will come along inside of twenty minutes,” said the scout master. “In the meantime we’ll try to fix him so he can’t bother you. Just keep a stiff upper lip, Cale, and everything is going to come out right.”
“Oh, I hope so, I hope so!” the anxious boy was saying to himself, as he clasped and unclasped his hands.
“Better step inside here, fellows, and let those passengers go by,” suggested Jack Durham at this juncture.
A number of travelers had left the cars, and were making their way as best they could through the crowd, heading in the direction of the station building further along the platform.
The confusion was at its height, with the engine letting off surplus steam with a hissing sound that prevented conversation to a great extent. Hugh, still guarding the rescued Cale, turned to glance at the newcomers. He supposed, of course, that for the most part they would be relatives of the town people, coming to have a look at the County Fair before it closed its gates on Saturday afternoon.
A voice at his elbow startled Hugh; it was Walter crying out excitedly.
“Oh! that must be Uncle Reuben and Aunt Ruth! Why, I’d almost forgotten they were coming on this train. Hold on here! Hugh, stop him, can’t you; he’s trying to break away from us! Here, Cale, what ails you?”
As he turned at hearing this outburst from Walter, Hugh saw something that surprised him very much. Cale was no longer standing there with bowed head, trying to keep his eyes away from the burning gaze of the fakir. He was staring in the direction of the oncoming passengers who had just left the standing train, staring as though he could hardly believe his eyes.
Even as Hugh looked he saw Cale suddenly push Walter and Billy aside as though nothing could hold him back. Straight toward the couple in advance he ran, then stood still in front of them, and uttered a loud cry.
Hugh saw the middle-aged gentleman and stout lady pause. The packages she was holding fell with a crash to the platform; her two arms were outstretched eagerly; and as the scouts stared as though in a dream they saw the boy folded in his mother’s convulsive clasp, while she rained kisses on his face, and the man, too, looked radiant with new-found joy.
Walter leaned up against the scout master weakly.
“Hugh, oh, Hugh, what do you say to that? Just to think, it was my own cousin Spencer, after all, and I didn’t know it. Yes, and I believe his middle name is Caleb, too. Well! well! well! if this isn’t the greatest thing I ever ran up against. There, the boy’s pointing at Old Doc Merritt now, and see how the fakir is trying to sneak away, will you? He knows his cake is all dough, doesn’t he, Hugh?”
“I think your uncle and aunt have recognized him, Walter,” Hugh remarked. “From the way they are acting, and exchanging remarks, I wouldn’t be much surprised if we found that Doc Merritt had a purpose in trying to pull your cousin down to his own low level.”
In the end it actually proved to be so. Aunt Ruth had recognized a man who once upon a time, many years before, had been anxious to have her marry him, and upon being turned down for Reuben, had taken it hard, even to uttering threats. Chancing to meet the boy, he soon found that he could influence him to do his bidding; and in this way, in the end, he had caused him to run away, under the belief that he had done something so terrible that his folks could never forgive him for it.
Hugh and Walter saw the boy beckoning to them, and hastened to join the party, as did the other scouts as well, all of them being greatly elated over the way things were turning out.
“I owe it all to these fine fellows,” the boy was saying to his mother, as he gripped Hugh and Billy by the hand; then he was more than astonished to see Walter kiss his aunt, shake hands with his uncle, telling them at the same time who he was.
Cale did not look like the same boy. No longer was that dejected, hunted expression upon his face. Instead, his countenance fairly glowed with happiness, for like magic all those black clouds had been swept aside, and the sun was beating down on him. Not only was he freed forever from those hateful bonds of servitude that had kept him glued to the fortunes of the fakir, but he had been reconciled to those parents whom he had come to fear were lost to him forever.
It was a jolly party that started to walk to Walter’s house. Spencer, as they must now learn to call the boy known as Cale, clung to Hugh and his cousin. There were many explanations to be made, but by degrees all would be told. Meanwhile that mother and father were contented to know that while their boy had been lost, he was found again; all else mattered little to them.
Hugh was more than satisfied with the splendid way in which things had turned out. When he, Billy, Ralph and Jack started home, after seeing the rest of the party to the Osborne house, he expressed himself in no uncertain tones along these lines:
“Why, if we’d had the arrangement of things in our own hands, boys, I don’t see how we could have made any improvement on that wind-up at the station. There were the repentant boy, the forgiving mother and father, and the baffled plotter, all mixed up in a bunch. It was a glorious end to our little helping-hand business.”
“And, Hugh,” said Billy, “I really believe that boy will make good after the bitter experience he’s passed through.”
“I’m sure of it,” declared the scout master. “It’s been a terrible lesson to him, and yet, in the end, may have been the greatest thing that could have happened. Bad as he’s been treated, he might have gone to a worse end if this thing hadn’t come to him. Now he will strive to show that forgiving mother what’s in him.”
“I feel like shaking hands with myself just to know I’ve had anything at all to do with cheating that hound of a fakir out of his prey,” said Jack Durham.
“You’re just taking the words out of my mouth when you say that, Jack!” announced Ralph Kenyon, who had been intensely interested in trying to understand just what it was all about; for up to the time he joined the group at the gates of the Fair grounds, Ralph had known nothing at all about the plans of Hugh and Billy to save Cale.
“One thing sure,” said Billy, “we’ll miss the soft, oily voice of Old Doc Merritt on the grounds to-morrow. He’ll never have the nerve to stay around Oakvale after what he saw at the station this evening. A late train to-night will take him away, you mark my words if it isn’t so.”
Sure enough, there was no medicine sold at the Fair on the next day, or Saturday, either; and those disappointed purchasers who may have come back to demand the return of their dollars because the Wonderful New Life Remedy had failed to do what the fakir claimed for it, had their trouble for their pains, and, as Billy said, “their pains also for their trouble.”
All the same that was not the last some of the boys saw of the exposed fakir, as it turned out.
Doc Merritt must have easily guessed who was chiefly to blame for his latest troubles. When the scouts were taking his wretched dupe in hand, and leading him away from the controlling influence of the hypnotist, the man understood just whom he had to thank.
He was of a morose, revengeful disposition, and after brooding over the situation through that night determined that before he quitted the lucrative stand he had at the Fair he would attempt to have some sort of revenge.
Hugh, it will be remembered, had not fancied his looks from the start. He sized the man up as not only a humbug but the possessor of a mean disposition as well. Still he hardly imagined the bogus doctor would go to the end he did in order to even the score, and leave town feeling that he had paid the scouts back for having taken his valuable assistant away from him.
A pleasant surprise awaited Hugh that same Thursday evening after supper. He was called up on the ’phone by the head of the School Board, who informed him that at a late meeting of the said committee it had been resolved to give all the members of the Oakvale Troop of Boy Scouts the entire day off on Friday.
This was done as a small measure of appreciation for the splendid work the lads were accomplishing during Fair week.
He desired that Hugh Hardin should get in communication with all the members of the troop that evening, and notify them that they would be at liberty from school duties for the balance of the week.
Of course this gave the scout master considerable pleasure. It was not only the fact that he and his mates were to have a holiday, but it showed how their work was being appreciated by the community at large, as represented by the efficient School Board.
So Hugh had kept the wire busy for some little time, with the result that every fellow who wore the honored khaki in Oakvale went to bed that night weary enough after a strenuous day, but with a generous glow around the region of his boyish heart.
Appreciation is a big thing, and spurs even a boy on to do his level best. That School Board knew what it was doing in commending the scouts for their work. Praise judiciously bestowed seldom does any harm, but on the contrary rekindles the fire of determination to excel.
The gates of the Fair would not open until ten o’clock, but before that time many of the hard-working scouts were abroad, skirmishing for strangers in town, or in sundry other ways trying to earn the right to turn in their badges early in the day.
Hugh himself had something to do at home, and did not get started for the grounds until near the time for the opening of the gates to the general public.
In fact, Ralph Kenyon and Jack Durham looked in at the Hardin place on their way, and were just in time to join the young scout master.
Chattering like magpies, at first they struck out along a side road that would make a shortcut to the grounds, situated some little distance outside the town limits.
This particular road was not much used by the general public. It ran through a stretch of woods that at certain times in the year were apt to be exceedingly damp. Still, as the scouts well knew, it would cut down the tramp, and this meant considerable to fellows who expected to be on their feet the balance of that summery day.
Somehow about the time they struck this patch of timber the conversation seemed to flag, and no one said anything for several minutes, though they kept pushing ahead all the same.
In the distance they could hear the Oakvale Brass Band practicing at their stand in the Fair grounds. There was to be some sort of unusual review on this day, and extra music would be required.
“There’s one thing sure,” remarked Jack Durham, with a twinkle in his eye, “our band isn’t in the same class with one I read about the other day.”
“How’s that, Jack?” questioned Ralph; “tell us about it, won’t you?”
“Why, it seems that the advance agent of a show had struck a certain town, and when trying to make arrangements for a parade that would attract attention he chanced to say to the leading citizen:
“‘I understand, sir, that your town boasts a fine brass band?’
“‘Well, stranger,’ said the citizen, shaking his head solemnly; ‘we got a brass band all right, but we don’t boast none of the same—we just endures it!’”
Ralph was about to burst into a hearty laugh when the scout master uttered a warning hiss.
“Listen, there’s some one talking ahead there around that bend, and I thought I caught a familiar voice that sounded like our Billy Worth.”
At that the other two strained their ears to listen, not that the first thought of anything out of the way had up to that moment given them the first sensation of a thrill.
But no sooner did they hear what Billy was saying than they turned to exchange surprised glances. Plainly Billy was giving some one a straight-out defiance. The first suspicion the trio of scouts had was that some of their old enemies of the town, the good-for-nothing type of boys, had crossed Billy’s path, and considered the meeting in the lonely stretch of woods a splendid chance to pay back old scores.
They quickly realized their mistake, however, when they heard what Billy was saying so boldly.
“I didn’t mean to go around boasting about having a share in that little game, but since you ask me if I had a hand in getting Cale away from your clutches I’m free to say I did! So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mister Doc Merritt.”
“Whew! that’s the racket, is it?” muttered Jack Durham, beginning to roll back his coat cuffs as though he scented trouble, and might not be averse to taking a hand in the same, for in times past Jack had been something of a fighter.
“Come on, let’s hurry around there before he tries to hurt our Billy,” suggested Ralph; and as this suited Hugh to a fraction, they immediately quickened their pace to a run, and hurried to the bend in the road.
Loud and angry voices could now be heard and that of the baffled fakir rang out above the tantalizing words Billy was hurling at him.
“I’ve got a good notion to take it out of your hide, no matter what the consequences are. You boys were the cause of all my trouble. Before you got your finger in the pie things were going as smoothly as I could wish, but you had to get up a pack of lies, and coax my assistant away from me.”
“Well, you were exerting an evil influence over Cale,” snapped Billy. “He just happened to be a good subject for your silly old hypnotism. I’d like to see you try to make me do your will. You’d have a sweet time of it, Mister Fakir, and that’s right. Now, I’m going ahead to the Fair, and I’d trouble you to get out of my way.”
“Just hold on till I’m through with you, boy,” the man was heard to say. “You need taking down off your high horse. For three cents I’d give you the licking you need.”