HERVEY WILLETTS

HIS ADVENTURES

HERVEY, TREMBLING IN EVERY NERVE, FACED THE APPROACHING TRAIN.

HERVEY WILLETTS

BY

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of

THE TOM SLADE BOOKS

THE ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS

THE PEE-WEE HARRIS BOOKS

THE WESTY MARTIN BOOKS

ILLUSTRATED BY

HOWARD L. HASTINGS

Published with the approval of

THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Here he is with his hat and his ruffled up hair.

Reckless, happy-go-lucky and new;

And because he is crazy and won’t take a dare.

They liked him—and I like him too.

He’s wild and all that and as blind as a bat,

And he drives them distracted it’s true;

But one look at that hat and I say for all that,

I like him, that’s all, I just do.

He’s never at rest and he may be a pest,

And the gods cannot say what he’ll do;

He can’t take a test, yet above all the rest,

I like him—and you’ll like him too.

HERVEY WILLETTS

CHAPTER I
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

If Hervey Willetts were lacking many qualities which a scout ought to have (and it is to be feared he was), he certainly had one quality truly scoutish; he had nerve. It was not the sort of nerve commonly recommended to scouts, but it was one kind.

And indeed Hervey had all kinds. He was always brave, he was often reckless, he was sometimes blithely heroic. But he was always wrong. His bizarre courage never paid him any interest because, somehow or other, it was always mixed up with disobedience. Thoughtful boys saw this and were sorry for him. More, they had a sneaking admiration for him.

Once, in the wee hours of the night, Hervey saved a boy from drowning. He should have had the gold medal for that; but you see he had no right to be out swimming in the middle of the night. And there you are.

All his spectacular deeds went to waste so far as scout advancement was concerned. The deed was always clouded by the escapade. And sometimes, as you shall see, there was an escapade containing none of the ingredients of heroism. Hervey’s heroic deeds were always byproducts.

He did not fit into Temple Camp at all. Why he had ever chosen it as the theatre for his stunts of glory was a puzzle. Many scouts, captivated by his effrontery, said kindly that Temple Camp did not fit into him. Assuredly there was misfit somewhere.

To give you an example of his nerve (and it is the episode on which this whole story hinges) he went back to Temple Camp the season following his summary expulsion therefrom. To appreciate the magnitude of his effrontery you must know something of the circumstance of his dismissal.

During that summer which had ended so ingloriously for him, he had pursued a course as free as life on the ocean wave. He was always in hot water. He would come strolling in late for meals, his outlandish little rimless hat at a rakish angle, swinging a stick or doing stunts with it for his own amusement as he ambled past the group assembled for camp-fire, or the after dinner stragglers lolling on the pavilion porch.

They seldom asked him where he had been. They knew he was on friendly terms with every farmer in the neighborhood, a crony at every rural wayside garage, the volunteer comrade of wandering pedlers, of gypsies, and even of tramps who made camp in secluded hollows and regaled him with dubious reminiscences. There was something about Hervey....

Yes, that was the worst of it; there was something about him. Tom Slade was under the spell, and if Tom Slade liked you, you could go a long way along the trail of disobedience. It was not that Hervey was popular, in the sense that Roy Blakeley was popular. He did not grace the camp with his presence enough to be popular.

But was it not an amazing thing that he was so much liked even though he was so seldom among the big camp family? He had no friends, yet everybody was his friend. If ever a boy was a host unto himself, as they say, Hervey Willetts was that boy. Certainly he was never lonesome.

You know him; he was slender and good looking, with a kind of dancing deviltry in his eyes. When they reprimanded him he looked at them as if he just did not understand. He was hopeless. There was an unconscious effrontery about him. The woods belonged to him. You could not scold him any more than you could scold a squirrel.

He certainly was not without feeling for he held in deep affection his little rimless hat cut full of holes and decorated with every sort of campaign and advertising button which had ever come his way. These little celluloid trinkets did not proclaim Hervey’s principles. One of them said Keep to the Right, a thing which Hervey never did. Another (I know not its origin, nor did he) said Be good and you’ll be happy.

Well, at all events, he was happy.

CHAPTER II
THE SENTENCE

Even the powers that be at Temple Camp were considerate of Hervey. They did not dismiss him as they might have done after any one of his unruly escapades. They bided their time, and as the season approached its end they became the more lenient. There was something ominous about their leniency; a kind of grimness about the way Mr. Benson greeted our hero upon his return after an all night absence. “Well, my boy, did you have a good time?” he asked with portentous cordiality.

Hervey was too guileless to read the handwriting on the wall. Another boy, conscious of his own delinquencies, would have recognized this sudden immunity from reprimand as too good to be true. But Hervey accepted it as in the natural order of things. He had never resented reprimands; he had ignored and forgotten them. He bore nobody any malice, not even the trustees. He went upon his way rejoicing. If he had any thought about the management at all, it was probably that it had at last come round to his own way of thinking. But probably he had no thought about these things at all.

Then came the end of the season with its boat races and swimming matches and distribution of awards. Against the background of these honors and festivities, Hervey seemed a lonely figure. But he was not lonely. It was his fate to arouse much sympathy which he neither deserved nor desired. There was really nothing pathetic about his being an outsider at camp. It was the camp that was the outsider, not Hervey.

Yet there was a certain pity expressed for him when little Harold Titus, the tenderfoot office boy from Administration Shack, came running down to the diving board where Hervey had condescended to grace a loitering group with his presence. These idle, bantering groups bespoke the closing of the season; they were significant of diminishing numbers and the end of pleasurable routine.

“You’re wanted in the office, Hervey Willetts,” Harold panted. “You got to go up there right away.” Perhaps the breathless little tenderfoot felt a certain pride of triumph that he had been able to locate Hervey at all; it was a sort of scout stunt. Significant glances passed between the loiterers as Hervey departed.

He ambled in that way he had made familiar to all toward the somewhat pretentious rustic bungalow where the business of Temple Camp was conducted. He seemed never to proceed with any purpose; there was something delightfully casual about him. He was a natural born explorer. A secreted, chirping cricket could detain him, and on this occasion he paused and accommodatingly laid his trusty stick against the ground so that an aimless caterpillar might ascend it.

The small tenderfoot glanced back, aghast at Hervey’s leisurely progress toward his doom. “You better hurry up, it’s serious,” he called. And, imbued with a sense of his responsibility, he waited while our hero shot the caterpillar up into the foliage by a dextrous snap of his stick.

His ambling progress bringing him to Administration Shack, Hervey conceived the novel idea of ascending the steps on one leg. The tenderfoot messenger was appalled by the delay and by Hervey’s thus casually pulling a stunt at the very portal of the holy sanctum.

There being several steps, Hervey found his bizarre ascent difficult, but his resolution increased with repeated failures. He often made use of a couplet which had detained him many times and interfered with the camp schedule:

Start a stunt and then get stuck,

Twenty days you’ll have bad luck.

He was so engrossed with this present acrobatic enterprise (to the unspeakable dismay of the little boy who had summoned him) that he did not at first perceive Councilor Wainwright standing in the doorway smiling down upon him. Indeed he was not aware of the councilor until, triumphant, he hopped breathless into the official’s very arms. The tenderfoot was appalled.

“Well, you succeeded, Hervey?” Mr. Wainwright commented pleasantly. “Suppose we step inside. I see you never give up.”

“When I start to do a thing, I do it,” said Hervey.

“Only sometimes you start to do the wrong things,” the councilor commented sociably. “Well, Hervey,” he added, dropping into a chair and inviting the boy to do the same, “here we are at the end of the season. How many rules do you suppose you’ve broken, Hervey?”

“I don’t like a lot of those rules,” said Hervey.

“No, I know you don’t,” laughed Mr. Wainwright, “but you see this isn’t your camp. If you want to have rules of your own you ought to have a camp of your own.”

“That’s true, too,” said Hervey.

“You see, Hervey, the trouble is you don’t seem to fit. You’re not bad; I never heard of you doing anything very bad. But you don’t seem to work in harness. You’re pretty hard to handle.”

“You don’t have to handle me, because I’m not around so much,” said Hervey.

“Well, now, my boy,” Mr. Wainwright pursued in a way of coming to the point, “of course, this kind of thing can’t go on. There have been a dozen occasions this season when you might have been—when you ought to have been summarily expelled. That this wasn’t done speaks well for your disposition. It’s surprising how well you are liked by those who seldom see you. I suppose it’s what you might call the triumph of personality.”

Here was a glowing truth. And because it was true, because he really did have a certain elusive charm, Hervey seemed baffled at this declaration of his own quaint attractiveness. He did not know what a hard job poor Mr. Wainwright was having trying to pronounce sentence.

“A fellow wanted to hike to Westboro with me yesterday,” said Hervey, “but I told him he’d better ask the keepers; I wouldn’t get any fellow in trouble—nix on that.”

“But you got yourself in trouble.”

“That’s different,” said Hervey.

CHAPTER III
THE LAST STUNT

“Well, Hervey,” said Mr. Wainwright, “being one of the keepers, as you call us⸺”

“I’ve got nothing against you,” said Hervey.

“Thank you. Now, Hervey, we’ve been talking over your case for some time and it was lately decided that since the end of the season was close at hand there was no need of putting on you the stigma of dismissal. Tom Slade was responsible for that decision; he seems to like you.”

“He knows I wouldn’t take a dare from anybody,” said Hervey; “I don’t care what it is.”

“Hmph; well, he seems to like you. So you’re going home Saturday just like all the other boys. You will have finished the season. No disgrace. I don’t know whether you have any regrets or not. You have been a great trial to the management. We who have the camp in charge feel that we can’t again take the responsibility which your presence here entails. If you were with a troop and scoutmaster perhaps it would be different; perhaps you would have made a better showing under such influence. But you are a born free lance, if you know what that is, and this camp is no place for free lances, however picturesque they may be.”

“I have a lot of fun by myself,” said Hervey. “I stood on my hands on a merry-go-round horse in a carnival in Crowndale. I bet you couldn’t do that.”

Councilor Wainwright looked at him with an expression of humorous despair. “No, I don’t suppose I could,” he said.

“Isn’t that a scout stunt?” Hervey demanded.

“Why no, it isn’t, Hervey. Not when you follow a traveling carnival all the way to Crowndale and stay away for two days and identify yourself with wandering acrobats and such. Of course, there’s no use talking about those things now. But if you’re asking me, that isn’t a scout stunt at all.”

“Gee williger!” Hervey ejaculated in comment on the unreasonableness of all councilors and camp regulations.

“That’s just it, you don’t understand,” said Mr. Wainwright. “Scouting doesn’t consist merely in doing things that are hard to do. If that were so, I suppose every lawless gangster could call himself a scout.”

“I know a gangster that’s a pretty nice fellow,” said Hervey. “He did me a good turn; that’s scouting, isn’t it?”

The camp councilor looked serious. “Well, you’d better keep away from gangsters, my boy.”

“You say a good turn isn’t scouting?”

“We won’t talk about that now, because you and I don’t see things the same way. The point is—and this is why I sent for you—you must never again at any time return to Temple Camp. You are leaving as the season closes and you are not openly disgraced. But you must tell your father⸺”

“It’s my stepfather,” said Hervey.

Mr. Wainwright paused just a second. “Well, your stepfather then,” he said. “You must tell him that your leaving camp this season has all the effects of a dismissal. Councilor Borden wanted to write to your father—your stepfather—and tell him just how it is. But for your sake we have overruled him in that. You may tell your stepfather in your own way⸺”

“Standing on my head, hey?” said Hervey.

“Standing on your head if you wish. The point is that you must tell him that you are forbidden to return to Temple Camp. And of course, you will have to tell him why. No application from you will be considered another season. Now do you understand that, Hervey?”

It was characteristic of Hervey that he never talked seriously; he seemed never impressed; it was impossible to reach him. It was not that he was deliberately flippant to his superiors. He was just utterly carefree and heedless. He talked to the camp officials exactly the same as he talked to other boys. And he did not talk overmuch to any one. “Bet you can’t do this,” was a phrase identified with him. “Do you dare me to jump off?” he would say if he happened to find himself one of a group assembled on the balcony above the porch of the “eats” shack. He could not just talk.

And now, in his disgrace (or what would have been disgrace to another boy) he only said, “Sure, what you say goes.”

“You understand then, Hervey? And you’ll explain to your—stepfather?”

“Leave it to me,” said Hervey.

Well, they left it to him. And thereby hangs a tale. This breaking the news was about the hardest job that Mr. Wainwright had ever done. If Hervey, the stunt specialist, had only known what a stunt it was, and how the other “keepers” had been disinclined to perform it, his sympathy, even affection, might have gone out to Mr. Wainwright on professional grounds. Even Tom Slade, afraid of nothing, found his presence necessary across the lake while Hervey was being “let down.”

At all events if any sympathy was in order, it was for the young councilor, not Hervey. The wandering minstrel ambled forth after the encounter and, pausing before the large bulletin board, took occasion to alter one of the announcements which invited all scouts to attend camp-fire that evening and listen to a certain prominent scout official “who has seen many camps and brings with him several interesting books which he will use in narrating how he caught weasels and collected oriental bugs in the Mongolian jungle.”

When Hervey got through with this it read, “Who has seen many vamps and brings with him several interesting crooks which he will use in narrating how he caught measels and collected oriental rugs in the Mongolian bungle.” The misspelling of measles did not trouble him.

Having thus revised the announcement he went upon his way kicking his trusty stick before him and trying to lift it with his foot so that he could catch it in his hand.

He felt that the morning had not been spent in vain.

CHAPTER IV
THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN

Hervey did not wait to hear the visiting traveler and naturalist. He took the noon train from Catskill and at Albany caught a train east which took him to Farrelton, the small New England city where he lived.

He did not waste the precious hours en route. Evading an all-seeing conductor, he sought the forbidden platform of the car and made acquaintance with a trainman who reluctantly permitted him to remain outside. He asked the trainman to “sneak” him into the locomotive and when told that this was impossible, he suggested overcoming the difficulty by matching pennies to determine whether the rule might not be broken. The trainman was immovable, but he relaxed enough to permit himself to hobnob with this restless young free lance on the flying platform.

“I bet you can’t walk through the car without touching the seats while the train is going around a turn,” Hervey challenged. “Bet you three cigar coupons.”

The trainman declining to essay this stunt, Hervey attempted it himself while the train was sweeping around a curve which skirted the foot of one of the beautiful Berkshire mountains. He succeeded so well that about midway of the car he went sprawling into the lap of a bespectacled young man who seemed greatly ruffled by this sudden avalanche.

Hervey rolled around into the seat beside the stranger and said, “That’s mighty hard to do, do you know it? Keep your eye out for another hill with a curve around it and I’ll do it, you see. Leave it to me.”

“You came very near not leaving anything to me,” said the young man, picking up his spectacles and gathering the grip and bundles that Hervey’s precipitate arrival had scattered on the floor.

“I went kerflop, hey?”

“You certainly did,” said the young man.

Since Hervey was in the seat he remained there a few minutes. “Oh, bambino, you’re a lucky guy!” he said, noticing the pasters on the stranger’s suitcase. “That’s where I’m going all right.” This was true only in the sense that Hervey intended to go everywhere. He had never planned to favor Montana at the expense of other states.

“I hope you won’t arrive there so roughly,” said the young man.

The word roughly caught Hervey and he glanced sideways at the young man rather more interestedly than he usually did at chance acquaintances. For indeed all people were pretty much the same to Hervey. What he saw was a young fellow of perhaps twenty who gave the impression of being so correct in his deportment that his sudden discomforture made him look ridiculous. He was so utterly out of the spirit of Hervey’s prank! Fate had certainly brought together an all-assorted pair. He was an oldish young fellow, a perfect gentleman assuredly; too nearly perfect for his age.

“Did you lasso any ponies out there?” Hervey demanded briskly, as if these exploits were Montana’s single claim to importance.

“I don’t think I even saw any,” said the young man.

“Didn’t even see any? They’ve got train robbers.”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly deny that.”

“Were you running away from home?” Hervey asked, in his rapid fire fashion.

“I was attending a musical convention,” said the young fellow.

“Oh, music. Can you play the harmonica?”

“I never tried.”

“Bet your life I’m going to Montana; yop, soon as I get the price. And believe me, I know where I’m going to get it.”

“You seem to be sure of everything,” said the stranger.

“I’m going to collop it,” said Hervey.

“That might be interesting if I knew what it meant,” his companion observed.

“You don’t know what collop means?”

“I must confess I don’t.”

“Good night!” ejaculated Hervey. “You know what bandits are, don’t you?”

“You mean to be a bandit?”

“Jiminetty, they’re not so bad. Look at Robin Hood; don’t they write poems and operas about him and everything? You’re supposed to know all about music, gee williger!”

This deft reasoning which seemed in a way to place music lovers in the category with outlaws did reach the young fellow’s limited sense of humor and he smiled. “Well, you’re certainly a queer youngster,” said he.

Pity the boy of twenty who calls another boy a youngster!

“How much do I have to have to go to Montana?” Hervey demanded.

“Well, you have to have considerable.”

“A hundred bucks?”

“At least.”

“That’s me, all right,” said Hervey.

It was characteristic of him that his resolution to go to Montana had originated at the moment of his noticing the stranger’s suitcase. It was also characteristic of him to say that he knew how he was to obtain the money to go there, when in fact he had no such knowledge. Yet it was not exactly an untruth since he had many singular plans for earning money. Did not he intend to join a circus?

Moreover, it was characteristic of him that he did not linger in the seat. Soon the train entered another curve and that was his cue to depart almost as unceremoniously as he had arrived, leaving the strange young fellow staring after him rather curiously.

Hervey’s second attempt was no more successful than his first. He would not check his staggering progress by using his hands because of a rhymed couplet which was part of his creed:

Try a stunt and make a rule,

Break it and you’re one big fool.

Again he went sprawling, this time upon the lap of a kindly old gentleman, who smiled upon him and made a place for him on the seat.

“Maybe you think that’s easy,” said Hervey.

CHAPTER V
CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE

When Hervey told the councilor at Temple Camp that he had a stepfather, he told something less than the whole story. He had both a stepfather and a stepmother. His father had died when he was very young and his mother had married a man named Walton who had been not only a good guardian but a very patient guardian to Hervey. Then, when he was old enough to feel a bereavement more keenly his mother had died, and after several years his stepfather had taken a second wife who had always been an affectionate stepmother to the twice orphaned boy.

So here was the odd situation of a boy living in the home of his childhood in the care of two people who were in no way related to him. It was characteristic of Hervey to get into odd situations and predicaments, and perhaps this position which he occupied in his own home in a fashion symbolized the position which he occupied in scouting and among boys generally. It was a position hard to duplicate, just as all of his stunts and resultant predicaments would have been hard to duplicate. He stood alone, or hung by his feet alone, or stood on his head. He was different, and everything about him was different. Of course, he did not regard having two step-parents as a stunt. But, you see, even in this he went a little further than most boys. He could handle two step-parents as easily as one, and he went upon his way rejoicing.

No sentimental pity for Hervey is justified by this step-parent condition in his colorful career. The worst that can be said of Mr. and Mrs. Walton is that they did not understand him. But then no one understood him. He, on his part, accepted them as he accepted everything. He had nothing against them; he had nothing against anybody. Scout rules, wandering pedlers, railroad conductors, scoutmasters, school principals, tramps, carnival actors, step-parents, were all the same to Hervey. He leaned a little toward carnival actors.

I have sometimes wondered whether he ever had any wistful thoughts of his own mother so lately gone from him. And what his story might have been if she had been spared. If he was capable of deep sentiment we shall have to find that in this narrative. He was certainly blithesome and content at this point of taking up the trail of his aimless and adventurous progress. Like the miller of Dee in the nursery rhyme, “he cared for nobody, no not he.” But he was incapable of malice. Perhaps that was the keynote of his nature. And it was not a bad keynote.

It was to this home, a pretty little house in Farrelton in the Berkshires, that Hervey returned after his summer at Temple Camp. And he overlooked the trifling matter of reporting that he had been dismissed and forbidden ever to return to those scenes of his roving freedom.

Hervey was akin to those boys who point a suggestive finger in the direction an automobile is going in the hope of getting a lift. But his method was far better than that of most boys. It had an original quality all his own which motorists found it hard to resist.

He would saunter diagonally across the road with a nonchalant air of preoccupation the while tossing a ball into the air. This he would dextrously cause to drop into the car which he had designs on. His preoccupied manner of crossing usually had the effect of slowing up the car. The truant ball gave him the opportunity to request its return. For the rest he depended on his personality to get a ride. He figured that if he could bring a passing auto to a halt the rest would be easy, as it usually proved to be.

As he emerged from the railroad station on the day of his return, he espied a Ford touring car starting off. He had not his trusty rubber ball with him so he was forced to make the usual direct request. Perhaps his rather cumbersome suitcase won him favor from the somewhat hard looking young man who drove the car.

This young man did not look like the sort who think too seriously about good turns. He was poorly dressed and wore a cap at that villainous angle affected only by young men of the strong-arm persuasion. He had also (what seemed to harmonize with his cap) a livid scar on his cheek, and he sat in that sophisticated sideways posture at the wheel which suggested the taxi chauffeur.

“You going up Main Street?” Hervey queried, as he took his seat beside the stranger. “I’m going as far as Hart Street.”

“I got yer,” said the young man accommodatingly. “Yer one er dem boy scouts?”

“Scout in looks only,” said Hervey laconically, alluding to his khaki attire.

“Youse guys is a lot of false alarms,” said the driver. “What can yez do?”

“Give me a dare,” said Hervey.

“Sure, I’ll give yer a dare.”

“Just give me one and I’ll show you,” said Hervey.

His rather bizarre challenge caused the stranger, whose remarks had been altogether casual, to glance sideways at him rather curiously.

“You just give me a dare, that’s all,” said Hervey complacently.

It seemed as if the young man’s mood of banter had changed to one of inquiring interest. His criticism had been surly, but not serious; now suddenly, he flattered Hervey by a kind of lowering inspection.

“Sure, I’ll give yer one,” said he; “only yer mother don’t leave yer out nights.”

“Oh, don’t she,” Hervey sneered. “You just give me a dare—you just give me one. I refused to take dares from people that wouldn’t even ride in a Ford, I did.”

Still the young fellow scrutinized him. “Yare?” he queried cynically.

“Sure I did; I called a bluff from a cowboy and I chucked his dare in his face.”

“Get out.”

“You just give me one and see,” said Hervey.

“Well, if yer mother will leave yer out,” said the young man, “you meet me in the parking space in back of the post office at ten o’clock to-night and I’ll give yer a dare all right; I’ll give yer a good one. I’ll show yer you’re a flat tire.”

“You call me a flat tire?”

“Sure, you’re a blowout—all noise and no action.”

This was too much for Hervey. He forgot that this was the evening of his welcome home. He forgot that he had ever been to Temple Camp or that this tough young stranger meant nothing to him. He never approached toward acquaintanceship by the usual slow process. And his sense of discrimination was conspicuous by its absence.

“I’ll be there all right, you leave it to me,” he said.

“Ten bells,” said the tough young fellow.

“You leave it to me,” said Hervey.

CHAPTER VI
THE INSPIRED DARE

That was Hervey Willetts all over, to make a ridiculous appointment with a stranger before he had so much as greeted his step-parents. And for such a purpose! Truly, he was hopeless.

The house in which he lived and in which he had been born was a plain house, immaculately white, with well kept grounds about it. It was a typical New England place; old-fashioned, a model of order inside and out, eloquent of simplicity and unostentatious prosperity.

Mr. Walton owned a large stationery store on the main street and his quiet, uneventful life was spent between this peak-roofed, white and green homestead and his attractive store which was a medley of books, post cards, pennants, Indian souvenirs and stationery. Mrs. Walton was not above waiting on customers in her husband’s store, especially in the season when Farrelton was overrun with “summer folks.”

On this momentous evening, the returning prodigal found his step-parents at home and he received an affectionate greeting. The occasion would have been favorable for telling about the ultimatum he had received at camp, but he did not do it. Next summer seemed such a long time off! Why worry about next summer when he had an appointment to “throw down” a dare that very night?

“Well, Hervey,” said Mr. Walton, “we’re glad you had a good summer. You didn’t write often, but I always told Mum that no news is good news. And here you are safe and sound.

“And as brown as a mulatto,” said Mrs. Walton, drawing him to her and caressing him affectionately.

“Now for school, hey?” said Mr. Walton pleasantly. “Next summer, or maybe the summer after that, Mum and I are going to have a jaunt, maybe. Will you let us go, Herve?”

“Sure thing, go as far as you like with me,” said Hervey.

Mrs. Walton laughed, and drawing him close again, caressed him fondly. “Well, that’s a long way off,” said she. “Maybe you’ll be entering Harvard by then; we’re such slow pokes, dad and I. We’ll probably end by not going at all. Europe seems so terribly far.”

“Europe is nothing,” said Hervey. “I’m going to Montana.”

“Well, first you’re going to school,” laughed Mr. Walton.

“Pity the poor school,” said Hervey.

“Oh, not as bad as that,” his stepfather commented pleasantly. “I kind of think you’re going to be different this fall. Not get into any scrapes, huh? Study hard, stay in the Scouts, and not give your mother any worries. What do you say?”

“You know me, Al,” said Hervey, which reply was not altogether explicit or satisfactory. But it moved Mrs. Walton to embrace him again.

“And you’re going to stay in the Scouts, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Of course he is,” said Mr. Walton. “They weren’t all as lucky as you, Hervey, to be up at a fine camp all summer. I saw Bert Alston yesterday. He was asking when you were coming back. I told him we wouldn’t know till we saw you.”

“That’s me,” said Hervey. “I’ve got nothing against the Scouts.”

“Well then, I hope you’ll stay more among them,” said Mr. Walton. “They’re a good sort.”

“They don’t stay among me very much,” said Hervey. “What’s fair for one is fair for the other.”

Mr. and Mrs. Walton glanced at each other laughing.

“Well, of course the scouts didn’t join you; you joined them,” said Mr. Walton. “You put the cart before the horse, so to speak.”

“Oh bimbo, there’s one horse up there I’d like to ride,” said Hervey. “That’s what I want to do, ride a horse.”

During the evening, he strolled out to “see if any fellers were around,” as he said, and at ten o’clock he wandered into the public parking field behind the post office. He did not more than half expect to find his chance acquaintance there, but he was not going to be a quitter in this sacred matter of not taking dares. In these matters, at least, he was a model of honor and punctiliousness.

There were but a few cars parked in the dark field. Entrance to this convenient, though poorly patronized place was from Main Street and motorists were required to make their exit through a lane which led out between buildings into Piper Street. Here, almost directly opposite the exit, was the Farrelton Fire House.

Hervey found his outlandish friend sitting on a fence which bordered the lane. The stranger looked atrocious enough in the darkness and even Hervey, who took everything as it came, was momentarily conscious of the utter absurdity of this tryst. He would go to any length to confound one who “gave him a dare.” But he had never before gone to so much trouble to hear the dare pronounced. And at such a time!

“Well, am I a flat tire?” he asked.

“Wait till I see how you roll,” said the challenger.

“I wouldn’t take a dare that I’d do something mean for anybody,” said Hervey, “or like if you wanted me to do an errand or something like that —I wouldn’t call that a dare. It’s got to be a stunt.”

“Yer startin’ ter hedge?”

“No, I’m not starting to hedge, only it’s got to be a stunt. Suppose you dared me to go and buy you a pack of cigarettes. Nothing doing, I’m not so easy as that.”

“Suppose I dared yer to bust a winder.”

“Maybe that would be different,” said Hervey.

“Suppose I dared yer ter—ter—tie a tin can on one uv them cars.”

“Maybe that would be all right,” said Hervey.

“Yer ain’t such a bad kid. Suppose—no, gee, yer only a kid.”

“Go on, what is it?” Hervey urged.

“I dare yer ter—ter get a bottle and bust it up and throw it down in front of one uv them cars—dat big Packard over dare.”

“No, sir, what’s the use of cutting somebody’s tire? Anybody could do that. You call that a stunt?”

“Yer scared a gettin’ caught.”

“I’m not ascared of getting caught, but what’s the good cutting somebody’s tire? Gee, he might be a nice feller, how do I know?”

“I dare yer ter go down ter New Street and—leave us see—I dare yer ter go dare and ring de fire alarm box. Dare’s a hot one for yer. All dem fire guys gits is a good run for nartin’. Give ’em somethin’ ter keep ’em from fallin’ asleep. Dare’s a pippin’ fer yer—take it or leave it. Put up or shut up. Baby, dare’s a knockout!”

Hervey did not know whether this was a “pippin’” or not. It certainly appealed to him as a knockout. To him it seemed to contain none of the ingredients of meanness. He had a system of moral reasoning quite his own. He would not damage any one’s tire. Breaking a window did not seem so bad. Sending in a false fire-alarm was certainly an inspiration. Nobody’s property would be damaged. There would just be a big rumpus over nothing. He had to confess that it was the kind of a thing to be “dared” to do. It was harmless, yet a thing that most boys would not risk. It seemed a pretty good dare; a sudden inspiration of the stranger’s.

“You mean where the new houses are?” Hervey asked.

The tough young fellow stood pat upon his inspiration and did not deign to discuss details. “Dare’s a hot tamale fer yer,” was all he said.

“There’s fire boxes nearer than that,” said Hervey, flirting with the idea.

“Yed hedgin’? Give ’em a good run. Dat’s some sizzlin’ tamale!”

It did seem a sizzling tamale.

“Come ahead,” said Hervey.

“Nah, wot’ll I come ahead fer?” said the stranger. His attitude seemed to be that the genius of this enterprise, the originator of the stunt and propounder of the inspired dare, should not go to any trouble in the matter. “If yer pull it, I’ll be wise to it all right,” he said. “Won’t I hear de fire whistle? I’ll be here when de big noise starts; I’ll be hip to it, don’t never worry ’bout me.”

That was very true. The striking effect of Hervey’s stunt would be visible and audible throughout the length and breadth of that small town.

“I told you I wouldn’t take a dare from anybody, didn’t I?” he said.

“It’s up ter you,” said the genius of the big dare.

CHAPTER VII
GONE

The funny part of the whole business is this; that if Hervey had hunted up Bert Alston that night, he might have gone trailing in the woods north of Bridgeboro. He might have hunted for Skinny Grover who had been appointed to hide and baffle his pursuers. And if he had trailed Skinny Grover he would have been the one to find him. There is not the slightest doubt of it. And it would have been a stunt. A sizzling tamale, even. But you see no one dared him to do that.

As it was, he hastened up Main Street to Van Doran’s Lane and through this till it petered out in the fields down by the river. Beyond these fields was New Street, a straggling tentacle of road which reached away from town in a sweeping curve, skirted the river for half a mile or so, then ended abruptly.

It was toward the dead end of this detached street that Hervey was taking a short-cut. The neighborhood looked remote enough beyond the area of intervening meadows. First he could see only the broken line of lights which identified the houses. Then, as he approached nearer these houses emerged slowly out of the darkness.

There was no sign or sound of life about as he entered the street crossing the grounds between two cottages. Then a dog barked. It was only a perfunctory bark and Hervey made his way up the street till he came to a sturdy post surmounted by a fire-alarm box. It marked the end of the postman’s route along this lonely street and was decorated with a dozen or more unsightly mail boxes belonging to the residents living beyond this point.

Glancing cautiously about as he advanced, Hervey crept up and opened the little metal door of the fire box. The lights in a nearby house went out. He heard the slamming of a door. He paused, listening intently. Somewhere in the darkness nearby was a creaking sound. Nothing but some rusty clothesline pulley probably, but it made him hesitate. Suddenly, he gave the little metal handle a turn, then ran pell-mell down into the fields. He had done it.

Yet nothing happened. He ran and ran. Then suddenly, he paused in his steps as the deafening peal of the fire whistle smote his ears. It shook the night with its ghoulish siren call. Its uncanny variations filled the darkness with horror. And just because of the turning of a little handle! It moaned and cried and seemed to be calling to the dead to rise. Four slow, variated, suffering wails. Then a pause. Then three long screams of anguish. Then silence. Forty-three. New Street district.

The sound of the clamorous siren affected Hervey strangely, as if a flood light had been thrown upon him. He stood in the dark field, unable to budge. Then he got hold of himself and ran desperately. As he glanced hurriedly back, he saw lights reappearing in the houses where sleep had reigned. Then he heard in the distance the piercing gong of the speeding engines. He could see the luminous headlights advancing along the sweeping curve of that runaway street. For just a moment they shimmered up the frog pool along the distant road and, looking back, Hervey saw clearly the familiar little spot with the willow tree overhanging it. Then he heard voices, thin and spent in the distance.

He did not pause nor turn again, but ran with all his might and main till he reached Main Street where he found it strangely difficult to walk with a leisurely air of unconcern. A man whom he passed turned and glanced at him and he was seized with a momentary terror. He passed some boys running to the fire. He liked fires, real fires, and in different circumstances it would have been his delight to join them. He would have been able to sneak inside the fire lines and have an advantage over other boys.

Even Hervey, who had no sense of values, was vaguely conscious now of the lack of proportion in this whole affair. To do so much at the idle behest of a dubious chance acquaintance! And to what end? To prove what—and why? There was no rhyme nor reason in the thing. Hervey was of course, incapable of formulating these thoughts. The nearest he got was just to feel silly. He was not naturally mischievous, much less vicious. But he could not take a dare. Alas for all the fine spirit and energy that went to waste!

And here was the anti-climax of the whole crazy business. His challenger was not waiting for him in the parking space. There was no triumph, no “Well, what do you say now?” There was no gloating over the humbled dare giver. He had gone away. Evidently he had no sporting interest in the matter at all. Hervey had thought to give the genius of the “hot tamale” a chance to purge his soul of shame by letting him treat to ice cream sodas. But our hero was not permitted flauntingly to enjoy his triumph. Therein lay the only “kick” in the enterprise. It was reduced now to the level of a mischievous prank. No achievement, no victory, no public recognition. No recognition even from a young tough who meant just nothing at all in Hervey’s young life.

Well, there you have Hervey Willetts.

CHAPTER VIII
SAFETY IN SILENCE

But there was a triumph, though it was not Hervey’s. The daredevil had not even the doubtful glory suggested by that name. He was just a dupe. The next afternoon the Farrelton Call bore the following glaring headline on its usually modest front page:

DARING ROBBERY AT FIRE HOUSE

THIEVES BREAK INTO SAFE AND TAKE CARNIVAL

FUND AMOUNTING TO FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS

False Fire-alarm Thought to Have Been Used

by Robbers. No Clew to Miscreants.

“Shortly after ten o’clock last night,” the article ran, “the Farrelton Fire House was entered by one or more burglars who forced the little, old-fashioned safe and stole a sum slightly less than four hundred dollars. Most of this money constituted the fund belonging partly to the exempt firemen’s organization and partly to the active service men, and was intended to be used to finance the Firemen’s Carnival to be held in Stebbin’s Field. No one was in the fire-house when the robbery occurred.

“A few minutes after ten last night, an alarm was sent in from the fire-box in the outlying section of town where New Street was lately extended. It was a false alarm and there is no clew which affords any hope of identifying the sender.

“It is thought by the police that the alarm may have been sent by a confederate of the burglars in order to empty the fire-house of its occupants at a particular time. If this was the case, it would argue that the crime was executed by men familiar with facts about the fire-house.

“Charlie Winthrop, driver of the engine, is on vacation and his place is being filled by one of the other men, Fred Corway. Corway, who was injured in the McElroy fire last year, usually remains in the fire-house when an alarm is received.

“But last night, there being still another man absent because of illness, Corway went out with the others. It is believed that the robbery was planned by some one who knew that the fire company was short-handed. The robbers may have sent in the alarm in the hope of completely emptying the building, or at the worst of having but one crippled occupant to deal with.

“The police are following up several rather unpromising clews which they refuse to divulge. Chief Bordman persists in the belief that the job was done by local talent and points to the fact that very little money is kept in fire-houses and also that the projected carnival is not known about outside of Farrelton.

“When seen this morning, County Detective Burr said, ‘It looks to me like a home town affair. Burglars don’t ransack fire headquarters, because there usually isn’t anything worth stealing in such places. They must have known about this money. And they probably had some hopes of clearing out the place for a while with a false alarm. It looks to me as if they had inside knowledge. They probably knew the safe was an out-of-date affair, too. They had to work quick. And the quicker we work clearing a lot of young loafers away from the neighborhood of the fire-houses and other hang-out spots in this town, the better it will be.’”

The same issue of the newspaper carried an editorial hurling blame this way and that. The police should watch the lunch wagons which were infested with young loungers. The fire-fighting contingent was “disgracefully inadequate.” The remote end of New Street had never been policed. And so on, and so on. Presumably the Farrelton Call was the only thing properly conducted.

Hervey read this article with mounting interest—and agitation. His blithesome, devil-may-care nature was for the first time surprised into something like soberness, not to say apprehension. Spectacular stunts and dares were all very well—except for the upkeep.

But the robbery, to which he seemed an accessory, did not entirely obliterate another shock with which the gods had visited him. He had intended to ask permission to dive from the top of the dizzy ladder which would be held by sloping wires above a perilously small tank of water at the carnival, and failing to obtain permission he had intended to do it without permission. But now he could not do it. He had knocked down the spectacular ladder on which he had intended to climb up; for there probably would not be any carnival. Farrelton had always been too tame for Hervey and now he had, it seemed, killed the most promising diversion which the brief pre-school season offered.

Of course, he had no intention of telling the authorities about his encounter with the young fellow of the Ford car. He could not give them a clew without incriminating himself. He made sure of this by certain questions casually propounded to his stepfather that evening at supper.

“Well, I hope they catch the whole crew of them,” said Mr. Walton. “They’re potential murderers. If they had found the lame fireman there they would have killed him if necessary. That kind stops at nothing.”

“Mr. Tonelson who was here about the apples this afternoon thinks there was only one man,” said Mrs. Walton. “And he thinks he was an amateur.”

“There were two of them anyway,” said her husband. “There was the one who sent in the alarm.”

Hervey, eating his dessert, was all ears. “Ringing an alarm box isn’t—jiminies, a fellow that does that isn’t a criminal, is he?” he ventured.

“He is if he’s working with a burglar,” said Mr. Walton. “He’s an accessory. You know what that is, don’t you?”

“Like something you put on an automobile?” Hervey said.

Mr. and Mrs. Walton laughed heartily. “He’s a confederate,” said Mr. Walton.

“Well, I certainly hope they’re caught and sent to jail,” said Mrs. Walton, whose gentle voice and manner seemed to belie any unkind thought, even toward robbers. “To think the carnival was to raise money for the Children’s Home! It almost seems as if they had stolen the money from little waifs and crippled children. Why, there are two little blind tots in the Home.”

Hervey did not like the sound of that; it made him feel uncomfortable, contemptible.

“They might better have turned over the four hundred dollars to the Home,” said her practical husband.

“Oh, they didn’t know,” said Mrs. Walton. “But it’s unspeakable.”

“You never loiter around with any of that crowd down at Huyler’s or the lunch wagon, do you, Herve?” Mr. Walton asked suddenly.

“Such a question!” his wife exclaimed in surprised reproof.

“Well, I’m glad he doesn’t.”

“Of course, he doesn’t,” said Mrs. Walton.

“Anyway,” said Hervey, feeling very uncomfortable, and fearful lest he say too much, “I don’t see how a fel—a man that sends a false alarm is a—like a murderer. How do they know the burglar had anything to do with that?”

“Yes, how do they know that?” queried Mrs. Walton as a sort of affectionate compliment to Hervey’s reasoning.

“Well,” said Mr. Walton, “they put two and two together. I guess they know their business. I didn’t say a man who sends in a false alarm is a murderer—necessarily. Considered by itself it’s just malicious mischief. I suppose it’s a misdemeanor, if you want to be technical about it,” he added.

“I bet you couldn’t go to jail for it,” Hervey ventured cautiously.

“I bet you could,” said Mr. Walton.

Of course, Hervey knew that what he had done was reprehensible. He had not thought of it in that light, for that was just Hervey, but in the light of the robbery, he thought about it a good deal. He had put out this feeler to his stepfather in order to get Mr. Walton’s reaction.

He was not afraid that he would be implicated in the robbery, though he felt mean to think that he had been an innocent participant in an affair which his mother had branded as contemptible and unspeakable. Mrs. Walton did not ordinarily use those terms. It seemed to Hervey that she had called him contemptible and unspeakable. And he knew he was not that.

He had thought that if he could ascertain with certainty that his “stunt” was quite innocent, he might tell the authorities or Mr. Walton about his encounter with the young tough. But if he had been guilty of malicious mischief (appalling phrase) and could go to jail for it, why then he had better hold his peace. Here again fate baffled him for he would have relished an opportunity to track a real robber. But, he reassured himself, he was not concealing facts about the robbery. He was just concealing the little episode of his stunt.

If you call it a stunt....

CHAPTER IX
STRANDED

Before the meal was over Mr. Walton swept aside the whole subject and in pleasant contrast to those sorry matters observed cheerily, “I hope you’re going to stick with the Scouts, Herve. They represent about the best we’ve got in boys in this town. That Burroughs chap was in the store to-day wanting a jack-knife and he was asking when you were coming back. You didn’t get in touch with the troop yet, hey?”

“They spend too much time making plans,” Hervey said.

“Well, they have a lot of fun when they carry their plans out, don’t they?”

“Sure, playing games.”

“What’s the matter with games?”

“Jiminies, they never want to do what I do.”

“Then why don’t you do what they do? What a half a million boys want to do is better than what one boy wants to do, isn’t it? It seems to me they do some pretty big things. I notice they get their names in the papers.”

This remark about getting one’s name in the papers was not altogether pleasant to Hervey. He was somewhat in fear of that very thing. “Sure, that’s all they do,” he said. “Didn’t I beat them all running to East Farrelton? And I didn’t get anything out of it. Nix on that outfit.”

“I think that was a shame,” said Mrs. Walton.

“Sure, it was no fair,” said Hervey.

“Your scoutmaster told me you cut across Allen’s farm,” Mr. Walton observed, smiling. “And that’s private land you know, Herve.”

“He’s a sap,” said Hervey. “I got there the quickest way and beat them all, and then I get a comeback. You’re supposed to be resourceful and then when you’re resourceful and crawl under barbed-wire fences and all that and beat them by twenty-one minutes, they give you a call-down instead of a reward. Old man Allen never made any kick.”

“Probably he didn’t know about it,” said Mr. Walton.

“Well then, it didn’t hurt him,” said Hervey.

Mr. Walton whistled softly and looked ruefully into space.

“I haven’t much sympathy for men who use barbed-wire,” said Mrs. Walton in her gentle way. “Whenever I think of barbed-wire it reminds me of the war.”

“Sure, and they’re always shouting about cruelty to animals and all that bunk,” said Hervey. “A lot of cows get cut on barbed-wire fences. I know a cow that cut his throat that way. Nix on the Scouts.”

“Is there anything in the Scouts’ book favoring barbed-wire fences?” Mr. Walton asked. “Anyway, we’re not talking about barbed-wire, we’re talking about scouting.”