COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN

COLE
OF
SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN

BY
ARTHUR PRESTON HANKINS
AUTHOR OF
“THE JUBILEE GIRL” AND “THE HERITAGE OF THE HILLS”

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1923

Copyright, 1923,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY

TO MY FRIEND
Maynard Shipley
TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR THE
SCIENTIFIC MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK

CONTENTS

COLE OF SPYGLASS MOUNTAIN

COLE OF SPYGLASS
MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER I
THE SLUG

FOUR boys, ranging from eleven to fifteen years of age, squatted close to earth in a wet, weed-rank city lot. It was spring, and the new warmth of the season’s birth was in the air. The lot was a vacant one, and perhaps would remain so for many years to come, because it was low, and the spring rains had made of it a veritable swamp.

One boy was master of ceremonies, and the eager eyes of his companions were fixed on a chip of wood that he held in his hand, four inches above the ground. The chip was perhaps five inches square, and over it crawled a slug, a slimy, repulsive, helpless creature of the earth. Limax Campestris was the slug’s rather important-sounding name, but of this the boys knew nothing.

“Aw, bet ye an agut he can’t get down!” volunteered one boy.

“Which one o’ yere agates?” asked the one who held the chip.

“My ole moony one,” was the reply. “Bet ye my moony agut against yer black-’n’-white one!”

“Aw, his black-an’-white one’s half glass,” put in a would-be spoilsport.

To show that he accepted the wager, the black-haired boy who had imprisoned the slug on the chip reached his right hand into his trousers pocket and laid a white-and-black-striped agate marble on the ground beside him. The tow-headed gambler who had offered the wager laid beside the black-and-white marble a milky-colored one, which was soft and showed tiny half-moons, the result of countless collisions with other “taws.”

“Anybody else?” invited the boy who held the chip and its crawling inhabitant.

Several bets were offered, ranging from so many “chinies” or “commies” or “glassies” to collections of jack-stones and other treasures dear to the heart of a boy, all of which the master of ceremonies accepted to the extent of his pockets’ contents. All eyes were again fixed on the slowly moving gastropod.

“Now, lissen, Cole,” said one. “Ye’re bettin’ he c’n git down offen that chip ’thout jumpin’, eh? Is that it?”

“Yes,” replied the dark-haired boy.

“Er fallin’?” questioned another.

“Er fallin’ either,” was the reply.

“Aw, they’s a ketch in it somewheres, fellas,” was the warning of the third youthful sportsman. “He’ll let the chip down er somethin’.”

“They ain’t any such thing,” retorted the boy called Cole. “I’m bettin’just like what I said. This here slug’ll let ’imself down on the ground an’ go on about his business ’thout me helpin’ ’im, er him jumpin’ er fallin’ er anything like that. An’ I’ll keep the chip four inches above the ground all the time, just like I got her now. Now you watch what I’m tellin’ you! Watch ’im!”

“Aw, ye’re crazy!” derided the tow-headed boy. “Ye’re crazy, Cole!”

The boy called Cole made no reply to this, but kept his fine gray eyes on his captive.

A studious observer would have noted this boy’s remarkable face. His hair was coal-black and of heavy growth. In sharp contrast, his large eyes were a deep gray, almost blue, and the lashes that covered them were long and black as soot. The face was decidedly ascetic, the nose thin and almost Grecian. One noticed the mouth. It was youthful still, but even now there were settling about it faint traceries that bespoke determination. His was the face, almost, of a youth of twenty. But he had barely turned fourteen.

Joshua Cole was the boy’s name. His schoolmates called him Cole, not because of his precocious gravity, but after the manner of boys of the age of twelve or thereabout as they begin to assume the ways of men. When they called him Josh they were in a frivolous mood and set on teasing him. But teasing Joshua Cole was fruitless. He merely smiled and looked steadily at his would-be tormentors out of his tolerant, grave gray eyes—eyes at the same time so serious and so whimsical as to baffle them to silence. A strange boy was Joshua Cole, always deep in some original, boyish experiment, as in the present instance, but universally liked by his associates.

“We gotta be gettin’ to school,” Towhead announced, after the four had watched the circular progress of the slug in silence for a time.

“Gee whiz! There goes the second bell now!”

“C’m’on, Cole! Ole Madmallet won’t do a thing to us!”

“Wait a minute,” said Joshua Cole softly. “He’s gone pretty near round the chip now. When he gets clean back to where he started from, you fellas might’s well say good-by to yer ole marbles.”

“But I ain’t gonta be tardy!” expostulated Towhead, and grabbed up the moony agate.

“All right. Go ahead. You’re a hot sport, you are!”

“Ne’mind, Cole. Wait’ll Ole Hothatchet grabs you by the neck!”

So saying, Towhead ran off toward the near-by brick schoolhouse, where already the scholars were filing in to the time of the principal’s tapping with a ruler on a window sill.

Two more of the boys grabbed up their marbles and strapped books, and followed Towhead, oblivious to the fate of the imprisoned slug.

But one doggedly remained with the experimenter. And this one, too, was a black-haired boy, Joshua’s younger brother Lester. Lester Cole had made his bet that the slug could not reach the ground after Joshua had lifted him from his earthly home on the chip; and the Coles were famous as stickers. He set his lips and watched the slug intently. But presently he said:

“Aw, le’s be gettin’ to school, Josh! Old Madmallet’ll raise the devil. We c’n watch an ole slug any ole time.”

“No, we can’t. Don’t know when we’ll find another slug,” replied his brother. “It’s gettin’ so hot we won’t see many more of ’em pretty soon. They can’t stand hot weather; it kills ’em. But you take yer ole marbles and go. I don’t care about any ole bet. I’m gonta stay an’ watch this ole slug, myself. Can’t tell when I’ll get another chance.”

“I won’t go ’less you do, Josh,” said Lester. “You can’t bluff me out on any ole bet. D’ye think I’m scared o’ Ole Madhouse? Not on yer life!”

“Look! Look!” Joshua almost shouted. “Now watch ’im, Les! Looky—he’s been all ’round the chip, reachin’ out his feelers and crawlin’ over the edge, ain’t he? And now he knows he can’t get off the chip just by crawlin’ er anything like that. Now watch what he’ll do!”

Lester glanced nervously at the brick schoolhouse, into which the tail end of the cue of scholars was now marching. Then an excited cry from his brother caused him to turn his eyes on the slug once more.

And, lo and behold, the brainless crawling thing had begun to prove that Nature had endowed it with powers unknown to ordinary, unobservant man. It had crawled almost entirely over the edge of the chip, and was holding by the tip end of its tail.

“He’s gonta fall!” cried Lester, forgetting austere old Silvanus Madmallet, the teacher.

“No, he ain’t! You watch, Les! Now! Look at ’im!”

And lo and behold again, a thin stream of slime came from a gland at the rear end of the pitiful creature, and it descended slowly, head down, reeling out its rope of mucus as it went.

Lester Cole watched in boyish awe as the poor earthling drew nearer and nearer to the ground, the string of mucus ever lengthening above it.

“I wouldn’t think it ud hold ’im,” he marveled.

And then the slug reached the earth and began slowly assuming a horizontal position.

“Lift ’im up again, Josh,” suggested Lester.

“No,” said Joshua, dropping the chip. “That wouldn’t be fair. You lose, kid!”—and he scraped into his hand an assortment of “glassies” and “chinies.” “C’m’on—we gotta be gettin’ there!”

Side by side the brothers ran toward the schoolhouse.

“You oughtn’t to’ve stayed, Les,” puffed Joshua.

“An’ how ’bout you?” Lester retorted.

“It’s different with me,” stated Joshua.

“Like the dickens it is! What d’ye mean?”

“I gotta kinda look at things like that. You don’t care nothin’ about ’em, much. But don’t you let Ole Sorehammer get you. You been tardy a lot here lately. He’ll feel like bustin’ you wide open. But I’ll stick with you. Don’t let him bluff ye, kid.”

“How’d ye know that thing could do that, Josh?” asked Lester.

“’Cause I’ve made ’em do it before now,” Joshua told him.

“You’re a devil of a kid—always doin’ somethin’ like that.”

“I like to,” was all that Joshua said in explanation.

Silvanus Madmallet, called variously by the boys “Ole Hothatchet,” “Ole Sorehammer,” or “Ole Madhouse,” was a tall, long-beaked, austere pedagogue, who fairly exuded scholastic dignity. He was of the old school—not so old in that day, either—who dispensed learning under the well-known maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

He was seated at his desk when Joshua and Lester Cole hurried on tiptoe into the cloak room, deposited their caps on hooks, and, grinning guiltily at each other, walked into the classroom and tried to appear unconcerned. Their classmates giggled and looked in Pharisaic triumph at one another as the two culprits found their desks and screwed themselves into the seats behind them. “Behold these publicans,” said their eyes, “for they are tardy, and we were not!”

Old Silvanus Madmallet maintained a severe and portentous silence until the brothers were established in their seats, casting sheepish glances at each other, not daring to face the despot on the platform or the hypocritically condemnatory eyes of their classmates. Then suddenly Old Madmallet spoke.

“Joshua and Lester Cole, why are you tardy?”

Neither brother volunteered an explanation.

“This has been occurring altogether too frequently of late,” went on the stern voice of old Silvanus. “Speak out, Joshua!”

Joshua parted his lips.

“Stand up, sir!” came from the rostrum.

Grinning in embarrassment, the older brother took his stand.

“It was my fault, Mr. Madmallet,” he confessed. “Lester, he wasn’t to blame. I kep’ him.”

“Oh, you kept him!” The principal’s tones were sarcastic. “And did you find it hard to do?”

“No, sir. That is—yes, sir. He—he didn’t want to stay.”

“That’s a falsehood, Joshua Cole,” said Madmallet in calm, assured tones. “This is not the first time you have tried to shield your brother. He has been tardy repeatedly. Your brotherly love may perhaps be commendatory, but this time it will not prevent your brother from being punished.”

Silvanus Madmallet seemed to derive great pleasure from talking, in a measure, over his charges’ heads. He loved to roll big words over his tongue. Pedantic in the extreme was old Silvanus Madmallet, else he would have risen long ago to some form of public service above the teaching of adolescent girls and boys.

“Lester, stand up!”

Lester squirmed out of his seat and stood erect.

“Go into the hall.”

With slow steps and a white face, the younger brother took up his melancholy march to the torture room.

“Joshua, sit down!”

But Joshua Cole remained standing. “Looky here, Mr. Madmallet,” he said, his lips twitching and the jaw muscles shuttling under the taut skin of his cheeks, “don’t you whip my brother. It was me that made him late for school. You whip me, if ye gotta whip somebody.”

The room was silence itself. There came only the faint shuffle of Lester’s feet as he walked to his doom. Gray crags grew over the fiery eyes of old Silvanus Madmallet, and the eyes glared at Joshua Cole.

“Sit down!” he thundered.

“I know what you’re tryin’ to do!” cried Joshua. “You know it’ll hurt me more if you whip my brother than ’twould if you was to whip me. You’ve done that before. I’m onto you. And I won’t stand it!”

His voice had risen with every sentence, and on the last it broke. Joshua Cole was near to tears. He was at once angry and frightened at his own audacity. But he had long been at war with his teacher and knew the injustice of the man.

“I won’t stand it!” he cried hotly again. “You just take it out on me by whippin’ Lester. And—and I just won’t stand it, that’s all!”

“Sit down!” thundered from the platform a second time.

Lester’s lagging steps had brought him to the hall door. Reluctantly he laid a hand on the knob.

“Go into the hall, I told you, Lester!” said the teacher, glancing toward him briefly.

Lester opened the door, all hope gone, and closed it behind him.

“Now, Joshua Cole, are you going to obey me? Once more—sit down!”

“I won’t set down!” said Joshua, pale as death, but in his blue-gray eyes that light of unshakable resolve which was later to prove the determining factor in his career.

Just what might be gained by his refusal to sit down Joshua did not know. He was not reasoning at all; he was merely in revolt against a long-standing tyranny. And, boylike, he had resorted to unreasoning obstinacy to show his attitude.

For a silent moment Silvanus Madmallet glared at him, his own face white and rigid. Then he arose briskly, went to the closet, and returned with a leather strap.

“I will attend to you later, young man,” he said with cold calmness, and passed through the door by which Lester Cole had entered the hall.

As the door closed behind him a low buzzing arose in the classroom. But it ceased abruptly as the scholars saw Joshua Cole trotting toward that door, his small fists doubled. And as he passed the big stove, which had not yet been taken down because of an occasional cold spring morning, he grasped up the iron poker that leaned so invitingly in a corner of the coal-box.

CHAPTER II
SPAWN OF THE DEVIL

SILVANUS MADMALLET had long considered Joshua Cole a child of the evil one. While the boy seemed intelligent enough, he was in the main behind in his school work. His brother, aged eleven, was in the same class, with Joshua fourteen. He was all sufficient as to “readin’ and writin’,” but when it came to the third grim specter in that detestable trio, “’rithmetic,” Joshua simply was the dumbest of the dumb. Geography and history seemed to hold his attention to a mild degree, but he detested grammar and all its works. Madmallet’s futile endeavor to pound arithmetic into young Joshua’s head was perhaps the opening gun in the feud that existed between them. Why, what could anybody ever expect to amount to if he did not have a sound understanding of arithmetic? Once a week the class had composition; and, though Joshua’s efforts were always above the average and showed good sentence construction and thought, they brought no praise from Madmallet. What matter if the boy wrote well if he could not parse and diagram a sentence, and knew no rules of grammar?

One day Madmallet had unraveled a part of the mystery that shrouded the boy’s shortcomings. Slipping up behind young Joshua, he had surprised him in holding behind his large geography a smaller book, upon which his attention was riveted. Madmallet had snatched away the forbidden fruit, and his craggy brows had come down as he glared at the unfamiliar title. Joshua had been reading Proctor’s Other Worlds Than Ours!

Madmallet had no sympathy for Science. He was a firm believer that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and he carried his convictions to extremes. He sent the book home to Joshua’s father, who cared for neither Science nor its enemies, but believed that a pupil should not antagonize his teachers, and promptly punished Joshua by holding him with his head submerged in a tub of water until the boy was all but drowned.

One thing had led to another until Madmallet nursed a personal antipathy for young Joshua. Many times he had punished him, but the boy had proved so obstinate that never a cry could his persecutor wring from his twitching lips. Then Madmallet had learned of Joshua’s rare brotherly love for Lester, who was himself a prodigious sinner and committed more crimes against the canons of the school than did Joshua. So, unable to bend the older brother to his will, he tortured Lester, well knowing in his cunning and cruel old heart that he thus punished Joshua more thoroughly than he could with cane or strap.

And so had the feud progressed until that morning when Joshua turned upon his tormentor and followed him into the hall, the blacksmith-made poker gripped in his trembling hands.

“Take off your coat,” Madmallet was saying, when the door opened softly behind him and Joshua came through.

“Keep yer coat on, Les,” ordered Joshua in shaky tones. Then he turned his grave gray-blue eyes on the teacher, and laid the poker over his right shoulder. “Du-don’t you hit my brother with that strap,” he said; and, though his tones showed nervousness, even fear, they contained a quality that gave Madmallet pause.

His face grew fiery red and his cheeks puffed out.

“You threaten me with that poker, you young scoundrel!” he bellowed. “Me! You threaten me!”

“Ye heard what I said!”—the tones grew stronger. “You hit my brother with that strap an’ I’ll bust your head with this poker.”

Silvanus Madmallet stood in a statuesque position and gazed in horrified amazement at the boy. Could this thing be? Had he heard aright? Would even the most incorrigible pupil in his room dare to go as far as this?

He clinched his teeth, drew back the strap, and took one step toward the cowering Lester. Then the iron poker left the shoulder of young Joshua, and the boy’s elbows traveled farther back to gain impetus for a deadly blow. Madmallet paled, dropped the uplifted arm, and stepped safely out of reach. In that moment Joshua knew that he faced an utter coward, and his soul cried out in triumph.

“Don’t hit ’im, I tell ye!” he said gloatingly. He knew that this repetition was unnecessary, but he had to crow over his victory and could think of nothing else to say.

Madmallet took one more step toward safety, then leveled a long, bony finger.

“You, Joshua Cole, are expelled,” he said. “Go home and tell your parents.”

“I don’t care,” retorted Joshua. “You c’n expel me if ye want to, but you ain’t gonta hit my brother with that strap.”

“Go home! Get your hat and your books and go!”

“Not unless Les goes with me. You ain’t gonta send me home, and keep Les here to beat ’im up soon’s I’m gone.”

“You’re the devil’s spawn!” raged Madmallet. “You’ll die on the gallows!—you’re a born criminal!—I’m expelling you for the good of the school!—to save the rest of my pupils from your evil influence! I hope your father—kills you. Will you go?”

But Joshua stood firm. Then Madmallet threw up his hands and rolled his eyes toward heaven. He seemed to derive inspiration from the process, for he turned to Lester, and, cheeks vibrating with anger, ordered him:

“Go home—you, too! You’re suspended for a week. I’ll write a letter to your father about this unbelievable insolence. Go—both of you! Out of my sight!”

And with this he hurried toward the door, keeping a wide space between his precious self and the poker-bearer, and dodged into the classroom.

“N-now ye’ve done it!” blubbered Lester, casting a reproachful look at his champion.

“Shut up!” ordered his brother. “Go get our caps. We’ll let the confounded ole books go. Le’s hurry up an’ get outa this.”

“Father’ll drown us,” wailed Lester, but he obeyed his brother and came back presently from the cloak room, both caps in hand.

Joshua crowded his on his head, laid the poker against the stair rail, and descended almost noiselessly ahead of Lester. Downstairs and out in the bright spring sunshine he still took the lead, while Lester, sobbing brokenly, trudged along behind him. They left the school ground and made toward the vacant lot where the rank weeds grew.

“Wh-where ye goin’, Josh?” sniffled the younger one.

“What’s the diff where we go? We dassent go home. I’m gonta see if I c’n find that slug again. I’ll show ye somethin’ else he c’n do that ye never dreamed of.”

“I don’t wanta see no ole slug, Joshua! What’re we gonta do? You—you jest ruined everythin’! Father’ll drown us, I tell ye! An’ all on your account!”

“Won’t drown me,” replied Joshua doggedly. “Me, I’m through with that drowndin’ business. Father’ll never stick my head in a tub o’ water again.”

“But what’ll you do to keep ’im from doin’ it? Oh, I tell ye he’ll—”

“Shut up! You gi’me a pain, Les! I’m goin’ out West—that’s why he won’t drown me. You’re goin’ with me.”

“I ain’t! I won’t!”

“Then stay here and get drowned,” said Joshua heartlessly.

They had by this time entered the swampy vacant lot where, such a short time before, Joshua had paraded to the betterment of his pockets’ contents the marvelous endowment of Limax Campestris. Joshua’s eyes were dry, but his face was pallid, for he knew only too well the gravity of the situation. But he sought for and found the selfsame slug, crawling over a broad leaf and feasting thereon. And at once his gray-blue eyes lighted up, and thoughts of his troubles vanished.

“Say, Les,” he said, “you stay here while I go home and sneak Father’s razor. I’ll be right back—honest, I will.”

“What d’ye want of a razor?” asked the brother petulantly.

“Ne’mind. I’ll tell Mother I forgot a book and hadta come home f’r it. But she won’t see me, maybe. I’ll sneak in the back door, an’ Zida’ll never tell on me. Mother was goin’ ridin’ this mornin’, anyway.”

“But what’re we gonta do, Josh?” wailed Lester again, as Joshua started away.

“Aw, ferget that, can’t ye! We’re goin’ West, I tell ye! You leave everything to me, Les.”

“You got me into this, an’—”

But Joshua was running and paid no further heed; and Lester threw himself upon the damp ground and gave his misery full swing.

Zida Hunt, the Coles’ negro cook and maid of all work, was a friend of the erring Joshua. As the boy entered the kitchen of the big brick house which the Coles called home she turned toward him and lifted high her hands. Zida was given to emotionalism on the slightest provocation.

“Lord, chile, what yo’-all doin’ home dis time o’ day?”

“I forgot one o’ my books, Zida, an’ Ole Madhouse sent me home to get it,” lied the boy. “Where’s Mother?”

“She done gone out ridin’ in de kerrige,” Zida told him.

“Well, don’t say nothin’, will ye, Zida? About me bein’ sent home, you know. They ain’t any use to, now, is there?”

“Suttingly not, chile. Go on up to yo’ room an’ git yo’ book. Ah ain’t gonta say nothin’ about hit.”

“Thanks, Zida”—and Joshua hurried through the dining room to the front hall, where he leaped upstairs three steps at a time.

Here he was safe, so he made at once for his father’s room, searched the dresser drawers, found the cased razor, and went downstairs once more. He left the house by the front door so that Zida might not see that he carried no book. He hurried along Grant Avenue to the corner, then followed a side street to the vacant lot where his heartsick brother awaited him.

“Where’s that ole slug now?” was Joshua’s beginning. “I got the ole razor, all right, all right.”

Lester sat up and continued to sniffle, uninterested in the razor and the slug and any combination that might be arranged between them.

The feasting slug had not moved from the broad leaf, and Joshua sat down on the ground beside it and removed the razor from its case.

“Gee, it’s sharp!” he announced. “Le’me spit on yer arm an’ shave the hair offen it, kid.”

“No, I don’t want ye to,” said Lester. “I don’t know how you c’n be that way, when you know as well as I do what’s gonta be done to us.”

“What way?”

“Thinkin’ about things like ye’re always doin’—that’s how! Ye better be thinkin’ about what’s gonta happen to us when the folks gets Ole Sorehammer’s letter.”

“They ain’t gonta get any letter from Ole Sorehammer, kid. Don’t you worry about that. C’m’on now an’ watch this ole slug do somethin’ funny. What ye got to bet that he can’t walk the tight rope along the edge o’ this razor ’thout cuttin’ ’imself?”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to bet, and I don’t care what he c’n do! Why won’t our folks get Madmallet’s letter, Josh?”

“’Cause I won’t let ’em, that’s why. Don’t ye know who Madmallet’ll send home with that letter?”

“O’ course—ole Slinky Dawson, teacher’s pet.”

“Course it’ll be Slinky Dawson. An’ that’s just why I’m hangin’ out here in this ole lot. Won’t ole Slinky hafta cross this lot on the way to our house? An’ we’ll be hidin’ here, an’ when he comes along we’ll scare the stuffin’ outa him. I’ll tell ’im that if he takes that letter to our folks I’ll knock the waddin’ outa him. Say, he’ll be scared to death, Les. You leave that little mamma’s boy to your Uncle Josh—I’ll fix his ole clock! C’m’on, now—bet ye anythin’ ye wanta bet this here ole slug c’n walk from one end to the other o’ this ole razor blade an’ not cut ’imself a little bit. C’m’on, Les—be a sport! What’s the use actin’ like you are—that don’t get you nothin’!”

Lester rubbed the tears from his eyes with a dirty wrist and, encouraged by the positive tone in his brother’s promises, allowed his curiosity to arise over the possibilities of a razor-walking slug. He went close to Joshua and squatted beside him, but, remembering his loss of a short time before, refused to bet against another sure-thing nature game.

And in wonder he watched his brother take up the slug and place the open razor, edge up, on the ground. Then Joshua put the slug on the handle of the razor and prodded it along until it crawled to the keen edge. Here it tried to go sidewise and reach the ground, but with a small stick Joshua kept it to the course. And along the keen edge the slow creature made its way, adding to the thrills of its brief terrestrial day.

“Gosh, Joshua! Ain’t it cuttin’ ’im?”

“Don’t see any blood, do you?”

“Uh-uh!”

“Ye wouldn’t either, I guess. Ain’t no blood in ’em, I’m thinkin’. But he ain’t drippin’ anything, is he? He’s got insides, ain’t he? There’d be somethin’ to drip if he was gettin’ cut, wouldn’t they?”

“Uh-huh. But ain’t it hurtin’ ’im at all, Josh?”

“Course not, rummy! There he goes off on the ground. Now watch while I turn ’im over, kid. You won’t see a ole cut or anything.”

And when Joshua’s gently prodding stick had laid the long-suffering mollusk on its back its belly showed none the worse for the experience.

“Josh, how’d he stay on?”

“I can’t tell ye that. But I’ll know some day. Then come ’round and ast me.”

“And why’n’t it cut ’im?”

“Can’t tell that either—but sometime I will.”

“How ye gonta ever tell, Josh?”

“I don’t know. There’s a lotta things I gotta find out, kid. There’s books an’ things that’ll tell ye all about things like that. I’m gonta get the names of ’em sometime. Now what’ll we do till ole Slinky Dawson comes along with Madmallet’s letter to the folks?”

CHAPTER III
THE GIRL AT THE CRESCENT

AN even greater ogre to the Cole boys than Silvanus Madmallet was their father, John Cole, traveling salesman for a wholesale hardware firm. Their mother, who had been Blanche Florence before her marriage, came of an old and respected family that had come over with Lord Calvert when Maryland was settled. She had married Cole against the family’s wish, and had been paying dearly ever since.

For John Cole was a self-centered brute, a hard master, a spendthrift. The boys did not know—though the mother did—that Cole fancied fast horses and fast women. He was a heavy drinker, but never a sot, for he carried his liquor well. In fact, but for the gloomy, suppressed rage in which it kept him almost constantly, few would have known that he was a steady drinking man.

While he tolerated his son Lester as a necessary nuisance, it seemed at times that he all but hated his older boy. He could not understand Joshua, with his constant, fearless, gray-blue eyes, and the boy’s gravity jarred upon him. And, as in the case of Madmallet, the fact that he could not break the lad’s spirit with the brutal punishment that he inflicted piqued his pride and made him merciless.

He labored under the delusion that Joshua was a “bad boy.” Silvanus Madmallet had told him so, for one thing. Joshua did not progress in the studies prescribed for him, and persisted in reading books which no child should be allowed to read. John Cole did not understand these books himself; they aroused no interest in his unimaginative mind. They were heretic, and while John Cole himself was anything but a firm believer in the Word of God, it was proper that his sons should be. He had taken from Joshua Steele’s Chemistry, Darwin’s Origin of Man and his Descent of Man, and Huxley’s Man’s Place In Nature. He himself had tried to read these books to find out, if possible, what it was all about. And it had proved not possible for him to find out what it was all about. When questioned closely, after Joshua’s head had been submerged in a bathtub full of water until he fell gasping on the floor when released, the boy confessed that he understood but little of what he was reading, but that it interested him nevertheless.

Thrusting his sons’ heads under water until they were all but drowned was John Cole’s own diabolical invention as a form of punishment, and though Lester escaped the terrible ordeal except for what were considered serious offenses, it was meted out to Joshua upon the slightest provocation. For Joshua was “bad,” and it was suspected that what sinfulness was Lester’s was the result of the influence exerted over him by his older brother. The boys’ mother was helpless to prevent these outrages, for he was unshaken by her tears; and threatening to leave her husband only brought forth the lofty invitation: “Go any time you feel like it, Blanche.” And she knew that John Cole meant it. He cared nothing for her. He had squandered her fortune, and continued to live with her, perhaps, only in the vague hope that some wealthy relative of hers might die and leave her more money, which would be easy loot for him again. Despite his constant drinking and his shady affairs with women, Cole was well thought of by his employers. For he was a different man when dealing with them and when calling upon the trade, and, above all, he was a marvelous “money-getter.” But the mother and her boys thanked heaven more than once that his business activities necessarily kept him away from home the greater portion of the time.

No small wonder, then, that Joshua and Lester, as they lazed in the vacant lot and awaited the coming of Slinky Dawson with the note to their parents, planned to stop that note midway in its journey. Slinky Dawson’s route home carried him directly past the Cole house, and the boys had every reason to believe that he would bear the note that day at noon. Their father was away selling goods, but that fact offered no consolation. Joshua had been expelled and Lester suspended for a week, and there was no possibility of their keeping the dread news from their father when he returned.

Lester continued his whining as the hours dragged on, but Joshua lay on his back on the moist earth, to the vast delight of the Cold-and-Croup Demon, and looked up at the blue spring sky. Joshua was forever looking up at the sky when not engaged in disturbing the daily routine of slugs or tumblebugs or spiders.

“Josh, what are we gonta do?” came the oft-repeated wail from Lester.

“Goin’ West,” said Joshua, linking his fingers behind his head and continuing his gazing into the heavens.

“Aw, ye’re jest talkin’!” accused the younger brother. “How c’n ye go West? Where’s yer money to go with? Ye’re always sayin’ ye’re goin’ West, but I notice ye’ve never done it.”

“A fella could go on the tramp,” said Joshua. “Folks’ll give a fella somethin’ to eat when they see he’s hungry an’ honest. I’ve talked to tramps—kids no older’n me. They have a swell time, Les. Then maybe I c’n get some money down at the ole skatin’ rink. You leave it to me.”

“What’ll we do when we get West, Josh?”

“Well—now—they’s lots o’ things a fella c’n do,” answered Joshua. “There’s kids no older’n us that are cowboys. I’ve read lots an’ lots o’ stories about ’em.”

Which proved that young Joshua, though consecrated to science, had not altogether put away boyish things.

“We’ll go down to the rink to-night and see what’s doin’,” he continued. “I c’n pick up a dime or a quarter, maybe, and we c’n get somethin’ to eat before we start. Then when we get away from the city, eatin’ll be easy.”

“Josh, you know you won’t go. You been talkin’ about it for years and years.”

“I will too go!” protested Joshua. “You just watch and see, boy! I’m goin’ this time. No more drownin’ for me—I got enough o’ that ole duckin’ business, myself.”

To tell the truth, though Joshua now told himself that he would take this long-threatened step, he was worried in his heart of hearts. But, boylike, he bolstered up his courage and dreamed of the adventure, while all the time something at the back of his mind laughed at him and told him that he was talking folly. One thing certain, though, he would not go home and face his father, that father knowing that he had been expelled from school. He felt that he could not stand one more submersion in that terrible water, with his pulse throbbing at his temples and the horrible pangs of strangulation clutching at his throat and contracting his heart, and everything growing black. No, no more of that! He might not go West, but he never would return home with that awaiting him.

The hours dragged on, and when the warm sun was high in the heavens the entrance of the brick schoolhouse vomited a stream of yelling, shoving, elbowing young humanity that at once disintegrated and spread in all directions. Then it was that Joshua and Lester left their places and hid behind a high-board fence close by. Here they watched friends and acquaintances pass hurriedly till at length came Slinky Dawson, walking with importance.

His importance soon forsook him, for presently upon him pounced two young highwaymen demanding the cause of his importance. Joshua stood in his path, fists on hips, and Lester threatened him on his right.

“What ye got, Dawson?” demanded Joshua.

Slinky Dawson’s freckled face grew paler than it was ordinarily, for Slinky was an unhealthy, boot-licking, soft-spoken bigot, one of those beings doomed for life to be the scorn of less gentle but more red-blooded males.

“I haven’t anything, Joshua,” he replied, a look of fear and guilt in his milk-blue eyes. Slinky Dawson never would have said, “I ain’t got anything,” and he invariably called his schoolmates by their first names. Which proved that he was no man.

“You’re a liar,” Joshua told him smoothly. “Dare ye to take it up!”

Slinky squirmed and his thin lips fluttered. Slinky never took up anything.

“Aw, gi’me that note to our folks, kid,” said Joshua, stepping closer, disgust written on his face. “Don’t monkey with me, boy, er I’ll bust ye wide open! You know me. Gi’me Ole Madmallet’s letter before I smash yeh!”

“I—I— Honest, Joshua—”

Joshua drew back a threatening fist, then slowly brought it forward until it was rubbing Slinky’s nose. “Gonta gi’me it, boy?”

“Ye-yes, sir!” And Slinky reached trembling fingers into his blouse and produced an unsealed envelope. “Honest, Joshua, I couldn’t help it. Mr. Madmallet—”

“Dry up!”

Joshua had snatched the envelope from Slinky’s hand, and as he read aloud the superscription on the back his sarcastic tones were an attempt to imitate Madmallet’s:

“‘Mrs. John H. Cole, Three fifty-five Grant Avenue. Kindness of Albert Dawson.’

“Well, you ain’t gonta be so kind, after all, Mr. Albert Dawson,” jeered the leader of the outlaws. “And now lissen to me, kid: If you don’t go back this afternoon an’ tell Ole Sorehatchet that you give this note to our mother, me’n’ Les’ll lay fer you an’ knock the stuffin’ outa you. Don’t you ferget it, kid! Now go on home an’ keep yer face closed.”

“But—”

“Gwan, I’m tellin’ ye!”

And Slinky Dawson, glad that the ordeal was over but with a sinking heart for the consequences of his remissness, faded away.

Joshua read the contents of the envelope, a brief statement of what had occurred, then tore the paper to shreds.

“Now, c’m’on, kid,” said he. “Le’s get down to the Crescent an’ see what’s doin’.”

Most boys who possess such a studious turn of mind as did Joshua are of the Slinky Dawson type. Slinky was inefficient in everything except his studies. He could not play ball; any boy in school could outrun him; any boy could whip him. Joshua, on the other hand, was one of the foremost athletes in Hathaway’s Boyland. But, then, it was not dreamed that Joshua was a student. Had he not failed repeatedly in arithmetic and grammar? Then how could he be a studious boy? That he was the best pitcher on the Third-room Nine was an established fact. That he could run and jump and wrestle went undisputed. And that no one in the city—man, woman, girl or boy—could equal him on roller-skates was supposed to be the height of his accomplishments.

For more than a year he had visited the Crescent Skating Rink in the heart of the city whenever opportunity offered. There during the past winter he had come in contact with an operatic star, who, seeing his grace and expertness, and herself being an enthusiastic novice at the sport, had asked him to teach her. It seemed that roller-skating had become a fad with a certain opera company that was playing in Hathaway, and the boy’s marvelous performances had aroused the interest of all of them, after the first lady of the troupe had smiled upon him. One thing led to another, and, though the troupe had long since left the city, Joshua’s services were still in demand by novices who wished to learn to skate. Being only a boy, and in school a greater part of the time at that, the owners of the rink had not offered him a position as instructor. But they encouraged him and allowed him to take tips from those who asked for his help.

To the Crescent Rink the boys now betook themselves, and the ticket-taker passed them in free, for Lester had often accompanied his brother. Lester sat in the spectators’ gallery brooding over his trouble, while Joshua put on a pair of skates and glided out on the floor, the envy of the awkward skaters already assembled. Before long Joshua had a pupil, and after half an hour he had a tip of twenty-five cents. Then his charge left the rink, and he sought new fields.

He glided gracefully about the floor, on the alert for some one who wished to be taught, and as he made the second round his eyes alighted upon a girl with reddish-golden hair, who, unaided by an escort, was putting on her skates. Joshua executed a long curve and swept up beside her.

“Le’me help you,” he offered, and bent on one knee before her.

He heard a girlish giggle of bashfulness and looked up into reddish-brown eyes that matched the hair.

And then, for love strikes quick and sure to the heart of a red-blooded boy, Joshua Cole knew that his eyes beheld the most glorious creature in all the world, and something came up in his throat and nearly choked him. It was as sudden and unexpected as a blow between the eyes.

CHAPTER IV
THE GYPO QUEEN

JOSHUA’S fingers fumbled with the straps of the roller-skates, and his ears felt hot. Girls had meant little to him. There had been a couple or more mild affairs, but the flame had died down within a day or two. This was different. In the winking of an eyelash Joshua Cole was head over heels in love. And how it hurt!

At last there remained no further excuse for him to keep on bended knee before her. The skates were adjusted; he must needs stand up and face those deadly eyes again. Like unto an Oriental topaz was their color, and her hair was bronze and hung down her back in a long, thick rope. He struggled to his feet at last, and, miserable beyond measure, lifted his eyes. He found that the long, reddish lashes were hiding hers and that the pink of May blossoms was in her cheeks. They were brown, too, those cheeks, and the pink blended with the brown to form a color combination utterly bewildering. He thought that the skin of Pocahontas must have looked like that—just why he could not have said.

“Ye’re all fixed now, I guess,” he mumbled in crackling tones. “C’n you skate?”

“A little,” she replied, without lifting her glance to his. “I’m just learning.”

And now Joshua Cole did the boldest thing in his life when he asked:

“Du-d’ye want me to teach you?”

A moment’s hesitation, then, with a laugh: “Uh-huh—I don’t care.”

Awkwardly he helped her up on her skates and took her hands. And then they glided out onto the floor. Round and round he guided her, searching desperately for words. Their silence was long and embarrassing, but at last the girl broke it.

“You can skate fine, can’t you? I wish I could, but I’ve not been trying long.”

“I’m pretty good at it, I guess,” he said not proudly. “I never saw you here before. I come lots. Almost every afternoon when school’s out.”

“I’ve not been here often,” she helped on the conversation. “And I don’t go to school.”

“Don’t they make you?”

“No. My mother teaches me. We’re here and there. I live in a camp down by the railroad tracks.”

“A camp? What kind of a camp?”

“I guess you wouldn’t know if I was to tell you,” she laughed. She laughed almost every time she spoke, thought Joshua; and, while it was a merry little trill, it bore as well a note of nervousness. She seemed to find conversation as much of an effort as Joshua was finding it.

“Tell me anyway,” he begged.

“It’s a gypo camp.”

“That’s a funny word. What’s gypo mean?”

“Oh, it would take too long to tell.”

“No ’twouldn’t. Go on! Won’tcha?”

“Well, a gypo camp is— Oh, I can’t tell you here! There’s so much to tell.”

“Le’s quit skatin’ and set down a while.”

“I don’t care.”

He guided her to a bench, and they sat down three feet apart.

“Go on tell me, now,” he pleaded.

“Well, it’s railroad work—building railroads, you know. A gypo man’s a little contractor—you know what I mean—not a little man, but a little contractor that don’t amount to much. He’s got a little outfit and he takes sub-contracts from the big fellows. My father’s a gypo man, and they call the camp of a man like him a gypo camp. I’m a gypo queen.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,” she amplified, “a gypo queen is a gypo man’s daughter. That’s easy. Sometimes they call a gypo man a shanty man, and then his camp is a shanty camp and his daughter is a shanty queen. It’s all the same. It’s hobo lingo.”

“What d’ye do down there?”

“Well, I work some—a little. And my mother teaches me. She’s well educated. You see, there isn’t much chance for me to go to regular school, as we hardly ever stay in one place longer than three months. Then sometimes my mother lets me come up here to skate. Sometimes I drive horses on a slip, too. Do you know what that is?”

Joshua shook his head.

“Well, it’s just a dirt scraper. When you load it they call it sticking pigs. It’s lots of fun. And sometimes it’ll flip up and jerk out o’ your hands, and you lose your load and all. I can drive pretty well. We’re almost through on the job we’re on now, and then Pa says we’re going West. We’ve been on the double-track job, you know—working just out o’ town.”

“I’m on my way West, too,” Joshua informed her importantly.

“Don’t you go to school?”

“Did till to-day. Then they fired me.”

“Expelled you! What for?”

Joshua began the story of Madmallet’s tyranny and his own disgrace, and the Oriental-topaz eyes glowed warmly as she listened to every word. It was thrilling to have her watching him so, and Joshua may be excused if he made himself appear something of a bold, bad outlaw.

“Would you ’a’ smashed him?” she wanted to know.

“You bet yer neck I would,” said Joshua. “Can’t come nothin’ like that on me. I wonder if I—if I—now— Could I get a job, d’ye s’pose, and go West with your father’s gypo thing? Me and Les?”

“Is Les your brother’s name?”

“Lester. Us kids call ’im Les. My name’s Joshua. I don’t like that name, do you? Nobody wants an ole Bible name like that, do they?”

“Uh-uh—I don’t mind it,” she told him.

Then a silence fell between them. It grew more tense as time went on, with the eyes of both abased. Then said she of the bronze-gold hair:

“You haven’t asked me my name, have you?”

Helpful little flirt! Long before Joshua would have asked it had he dared.

“I will now,” he said. “What is it?”

“It’s Madge.”

“Madge what?”

“You didn’t tell me your last name. You tell first.”

“Cole, then.”

“And mine’s Mundy. And you’ll think my father has a funny nickname. The hobos call a nickname a monaker. Pa’s is Bloodmop.”

“That’s a corker!” Joshua enthused. “Why they call ’im that?”

“Well, he’s got a very heavy head of fiery-red hair. The stiffs say it looks like a mop that’s been used to clean up blood after a murder. They’re awfully funny, some of them. My hair’s a little red, too. Ma’s is black, and they say that’s how comes mine to be like it is, with Pa’s so red and Ma’s so black. Your hair’s black, isn’t it? And your eyes are almost blue. That’s kinda funny, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh—it’s awfully funny,” Joshua agreed. “Where’d you learn so many funny words?”

“In camp.”

“But you didn’t say whether your father’d take me and Les out West with ’im.”

“What could you do?”

“We could do anything,” he told her with assurance. “We’d oughta be able to drive a team if you can.”

“But I just do it for fun. And you’d have to do it all day long. I guess you’re both too young”—she looked at him speculatively—“to work all day on a job like that. But one of you might be water boy. That’s about all there is for a kid to do in a construction camp that’s workin’ in dirt. If we were rockmen, you might get a job as powder monkey, and carry powder to the dynos and drills to the blacksmith shop to be sharpened. You didn’t say how old you are.”

“I’m pretty near fifteen,” said Joshua. (He lacked nine months of being fifteen.) “How old are you?”

“Eleven, but I’m large for my age. How old’s your brother?”

“Who, Les? Why, le’s see. I guess he’s about thirteen. I ferget. Say, I’ll go get him. And don’t you think there’d be a chance for us?”

“I could speak to Pa about it. It’s lots o’ fun—traveling with a construction outfit. You take all the stock with you, you know—the horses and mules. I mean you ride on the same train with them. We always go in a converted boxcar, and—”

“What’s that? Where’d the boxcar get converted—at a revival meetin’?”

“Aw, you’re just trying to be funny! A converted boxcar is one made over so that people can live in it. There’s a place for a stove, and bunks with curtains along each side. And next to it a flatcar is hooked on, and that’s your wood-yard—or if you burn coal, it’s your coal-yard. Just like a back yard at home, you know. And while the freight train is traveling you go over the tops of the cars and feed and water the mules and horses every day. It’s just like a farm on wheels. I’ve walked over the top of a freight train lots of times—when it was going pretty fast, too. And once when we moved from Ohio to a new job in Louisiana we had chickens on the flatcar, and a cow that gave milk in one of the boxcars. Pa milked her every day—morning and night. Don’t you think you’d like to travel that way?”

“I guess I would! Will yeh ask yer father about what I told you—Les an’ me goin’ along? We’ll work like the dickens—honest!”

“Uh-huh—sure I will. I don’t mind.”

“Then I’ll go get Les and tell ’im”—and Joshua stooped to remove his skates.

But a search of the spectators’ seats revealed no Lester humped up with his misery.

Joshua grew apprehensive. Had his brother taken this opportunity to sneak home and face punishment? In his heart he felt that this was what had happened. He hurried back to Madge.

“He—he’s gone,” he announced, in sepulchral tones. “And I—I guess I’ll have to be goin’, too. I gotta see what he’s done. I’m afraid he’s got scared out and gone home and spoiled it all. When’ll I see ye again, Ma-Madge?”

“Why, I’ll be here to-morrow, I guess.”

“About this time?”