The New Boys at Oakdale
His breast heaving, his hands clenched, Nelson continued to stand glaring down at the calm, abject fellow before him. And there was something so genuinely abject in Osgood’s appearance that gradually Jack felt his rage oozing away and leaving him.
“Sit down,” invited Ned once more. “I’m not half through. As long as I’ve begun on this thing, and said so much, I’m going to tell you more, although it’s likely you’ll hold me henceforth in the most complete contempt. You spoke of Shultz a moment ago. Do you know he’s not the sort of fellow with whom I can have any real natural bond of sympathy?”
“I’ve always wondered at your chumminess with him,” said Nelson slowly, reseating himself. “He’s so different. You’re a gentleman, while he’s plainly of the most plebeian and common stock.”
“He’s no more plebeian and common than I am,” declared Osgood instantly.
“But his family – he comes of a most ordinary family.”
“So do I.”
“You? Why, you have some high-grade ancestors behind you on your mother’s side, at least.”
“I wondered if you believed that, Nelson. If you did, it’s plain you did not see through me completely, as I fancied.”
“What? Do you mean to say that – ”
“My father and mother were just poor, illiterate people, neither of whom could trace their pedigree back three generations. To tell you the plain truth, I don’t know anything whatever about my ancestors on either side.”
“But the family portraits you have, and the crest you use upon your stationery?”
“Pure bluff, nothing else. I picked those portraits up as I chanced to find them and fancied they would serve my purpose. Any one who wishes can get a stationer to put a crest on his writing-paper. My father started out in life as a tin peddler; my mother came from an orphan asylum. They settled on a little farm, and by hard work were able in time to buy more land. On that land some years ago oil was struck. It made them rich, and in a wonderfully short time my father drank himself to death.”
Pity was now supplanting anger in Nelson’s heart.
“But why – why did you put up such a bluff, Osgood?”
Again Ned shrugged. “Simply because I’m a sort of cad and bounder, I suppose. I’ve always felt grieved and hurt because I had no family behind me. It must be true that, although she came from an orphan asylum, my mother has good blood in her. Naturally, she had a little education, too, while my father could scarcely write his own name. Mother wished me to have an education and become a gentleman; on the other hand, my father had really no true conception of what the word gentleman meant. After he died mother sent me to school. I’ve attended four different schools. Two of them were in the middle West, and at both the truth regarding my parents was somehow learned. Although I had money, I met certain chaps who, as I could very well see, looked down on me. They came from good families, and even when they pretended to be hail-fellow-well-met with me, I could feel the hidden contempt in their hearts. It made me sore, Nelson. I hated those fellows.
“I wrote my mother about it; I told her about it when I saw her. It’s true that her health is not very good, and she has gone to Southern California. Why didn’t she take me with her and put me into a school out there? If you could see her, you might understand. Her shoulders are bowed from work, and her hands are gnarled and knuckled. She knew that she would betray the truth to any one who might meet her. I knew it, too, and right there, when she proposed that we should be separated by the full width of the continent in order that I might attend some far school where there would be little danger of the truth coming out – right there I showed the real cad in my make-up. I accepted the proposition and went to Hadden Hall.”
“But you didn’t stay at Hadden.”
“No. Shultz thinks I was compelled to leave that school for quite a different reason than the real one. One day a fellow showed up there to visit a friend – a fellow who knew me. I had been putting up the same bluff I’ve put up in Oakdale. I had far better rooms than I’ve been able to obtain here, and I was supposed to be a remote descendant of British aristocracy. The fellow who knew me punctured that fabrication. I was exposed, and I got out. Then I chose a little school, where it seemed to me there would be no chance of any one recognizing me. That’s what brought me to Oakdale.”
CHAPTER XXIII – ANOTHER SURPRISE
At a loss for words, Nelson was silent. He was still unable to comprehend Osgood’s motive for this confession. Perhaps Osgood himself did not know what had led him to make it, beyond the fact that he had suddenly been overcome by an intense desire to unburden himself in a measure.
The silence became awkward, and Jack stirred restlessly. His elbows on his knees, the other boy was staring broodingly at the ground. Roused by Nelson’s movement, he lifted his head slowly.
“Well,” he said, almost whimsically, “you see now what a cheap, common skate I am.”
“A fellow who blunders and owns up to it, partly atones for his mistake, anyhow,” returned Nelson. “We’re none of us perfect, old chap. We’re all human, and we have our little failings.”
“It’s very decent of you to talk that way, Nelson. I didn’t expect it. I had no reason to expect it. You’ve every right to be thoroughly disgusted with me, and I’m disgusted with myself.”
“I can’t see that you’ve actually harmed anybody yet.”
“That’s because you don’t know everything. I haven’t told you all.”
“Great smoke!” exclaimed Jack, “Is there more to tell?”
“Some time, before long, when everything comes out, you’ll be compelled to think even less of me than you do now.”
“Look here,” said Nelson suddenly, “do you know anything about the cause of this Hooker trouble? You must be referring to that; it can’t be anything else.”
“Whatever I know you will learn in time,” was the evasive answer.
“You aren’t responsible for his condition?”
“I didn’t strike the blow.”
“You do know about it! Why haven’t you told before?”
“There may be various reasons. As one, you should see that it meant exposure for me; it meant looking into my past record and bringing to life the fact that I’m a faker.”
“Now that you’ve told that much about yourself, I can’t see any good reason why you should not tell it all. Seems to me it’s your duty.”
Osgood seemed to meditate again. “There are others concerned,” he said presently, “and I have a duty to them as well as to myself. What I’ve told of my own affairs doesn’t concern them, and I will claim that I’ve never yet played the squealer on any other chap.”
“But the truth will have to come out.”
“I haven’t a doubt about that. Let it come. But when it does, let it come from the right source.”
“I suspected that you must know something about it.”
“Oh, yes, you’ve suspected me all along, Nelson. In possession of the facts I’ve given you, it will be a simple matter for you to show me up in Oakdale.”
“If you imagine I’m going to run right away and tattle what you’ve practically told me in confidence, you’ve got me sized up wrong.”
“I was not aware that I told it to you in confidence. I do not remember that I exacted from you a promise of secrecy.”
“Perhaps that was because you thought I’d tell anyhow.”
“I didn’t think much about it. I didn’t stop to think. When the impulse seized me, I simply went ahead and told.”
“Perhaps you’ll be sorry you did.”
“Perhaps so, but it’s done now.”
Jack rose once more and placed a hand on his companion’s shoulder.
“Osgood,” he said, “I refuse to believe that a fellow with a conscience like yours can be thoroughly bad. Your natural impulses are right. You didn’t bind me to secrecy, but I’ll pledge you now that I’m not going to give you away.”
“I don’t suppose it will make any great difference whether you do or not,” returned Ned unemotionally; “but I thank you for your good will. Hadn’t we better look up the rest of the bunch? By this time they’re probably wondering what has become of us.”
As he was starting to rise, Jack gripped his shoulder, hissing:
“Keep still! What’s that? Some one is coming this way!”
From a distance came the sounds of a body moving through the underbrush. Slowly the sounds drew nearer, ceasing at intervals, as if the person, if a person it was, paused now and then to rest or listen.
“Who do you suppose it is?” whispered Nelson. “It doesn’t seem to me it can be one of the fellows coming back this way.”
Osgood shook his head as he rose noiselessly to his feet. Looking at each other, the same thought filled their minds.
Perhaps it was Roy Hooker!
Not far from them, yet wholly concealed by the thickets and the shadows, the moving object halted and remained silent for a long time. Gradually this silence wore upon their patience, and presently Nelson made signs indicating that he meant to investigate with all possible caution. Osgood nodded, and, side by side, they crept forward, stepping softly and peering anxiously into the gloom.
Beneath Nelson’s foot a dead branch snapped with a report like a toy pistol. Almost instantly there was a movement in the thicket, a rushing sound, a crashing as of a person in flight.
“Confound it!” exclaimed Jack. “Come on, Osgood, let’s run the thing down.”
Through the bushes and the shadows, they dashed in pursuit. Osgood, following the other boy too closely, was lashed in the face by whipping branches, which stung and blinded him. At the first opportunity he turned aside and chose a course he believed to be parallel with that Nelson was pursuing. All at once he perceived they were no longer guided by sounds made by the one they were after, and he stopped short to listen. The other boy ran on much farther before he also stopped.
Again the woods, bathed in the white light of the moon, seemed hushed and silent.
“Oh, Osgood! Where are you?”
It was Jack calling.
Ned had opened his lips to answer when something touched his ankle – touched it and gripped it. Looking down, he was amazed to see that it was a human hand thrust out from beneath a thick, low cluster of bushes, and for the moment the discovery robbed him of the power to make a sound.
The low bushes stirred. A head was pushed forth into a patch of moonlight, and to Ned’s ears came a tremulous, choking whisper, full of fear and pleading:
“Don’t answer, Osgood – for the love of goodness, don’t answer!”
Ned was looking down into the distraught, fear-stricken face of Charley Shultz!
CHAPTER XXIV – SHULTZ SEES A LIGHT
Amazed beyond expression, Osgood continued to gaze downward at the haggard, woe-begone face of Shultz. Presently, recovering a bit, he asked:
“What in the world are you doing here, Charley?”
“Hush! Keep still!” pleaded the boy beneath the bushes. “He’ll hear you! There he is, calling again! Don’t answer! Don’t answer!”
“Why, it’s only Nelson,” said Ned, squatting beside the bushes. “We were chasing you. We thought you might be Hooker.”
“Hooker – oh!”
There was inexpressible terror and anguish in those two words, which seemed almost to choke the boy who uttered them.
Nelson was approaching, continuing to call Osgood’s name.
“Hide! hide!” urged Shultz. “Don’t leave me! Oh, don’t leave me now! Let him go! Get into these bushes and he won’t see you!” Grasping Ned’s coat, the pleading fellow sought to draw him into the shelter of the low bushes.
“Why don’t you want him to see you?”
“I’ll tell you – I’ll tell you when he’s gone. Quick! get in here!”
Wondering at the agitation of the fellow who had always seemed utterly incapable of such emotion, Osgood humored him by creeping into the thick mass of shrubbery. Thus concealed, he saw the dark figure of Nelson passing at a little distance, and all the while Shultz clung to him with hands that quivered and shook and seemed silently to beg him not to respond to the calls of the searching lad.
After a time Nelson could be heard no more. Then Ned crept forth, followed by Charley, who remained sitting on the ground with one leg outstretched.
“What’s the meaning of this tomfoolery?” demanded Osgood, a bit sharply. “How in the name of the seven wonders did you come to be here, anyhow? You weren’t with the bunch that started out to find Hooker.”
Again, at the sound of that name, Shultz shrank and cowered as if struck a blow.
“Don’t speak of him – don’t!” he sobbed. “It’s an awful thing! Oh, if you only knew what I’ve suffered to-night!”
“Why, you’re all to pieces, old man. You’re completely broken up.”
“I’m a wreck. I’m done for. It’s a wonder I’m not crazy. I have been half-crazy. Why shouldn’t I be, chased and hunted like a wild beast? It’s enough to drive any one insane.”
“Chased and hunted? What do you mean?”
“Oh, I know the whole town is after me. I barely got away from two of them who caught me flinging pebbles at your windows to wake you up.”
Osgood stiffened a bit. “You – did – what?”
“When I found out what had happened, when I knew the worst, I cut across lots to Mrs. Chester’s to wake you and tell you that I was going to run away. I was so excited I threw the pebbles against the wrong window, and when I went back to the street for more the men saw me and chased me. I doubled on them and threw them off the track.”
“Those men must have been Turner and Crabtree. They thought they were chasing Roy Hooker.”
“Hooker!” palpitated Shultz. “Hooker? He’s dead! His ghost came to my window! It was perched on the ridgepole of the ell. I was just going to bed when I saw it. I’ll never forget the terrible look in those eyes!”
Squatting on the ground beside the trembling fellow, Osgood grasped him firmly by the arm.
“What is this stuff you’re telling me, Shultz?” he demanded. “You saw Hooker looking in at your window?”
“I tell you it was his ghost. I’ve never believed in such things, but I do now, for I’ve seen one. I saw it again, too, here in these very woods. It spoke to me. I heard it speak. Then I ran and ran, until I fell into a gully and thought I’d broken my leg. It was my ankle. It’s sprained and swollen, but I’ve been hobbling on it just the same. Oh, Osgood, isn’t there any way for me to escape? If I hadn’t hurt my ankle, I’d be miles on the road to Barville before this. I didn’t mean to kill him. You know I didn’t mean that, don’t you? If they bring me to trial, you’ll tell them you know that much, won’t you, Ned?”
Osgood was moved almost to tears by this pathetic pleading.
“Now listen to me, Shultz,” he commanded. “You’ve deceived yourself. Hooker isn’t dead, unless he’s died since he got out of bed to-night, escaped observation and left his home. If you really saw something that looked like Hooker on the roof of Caleb Carter’s ell, it was Roy himself. If you met something in these woods that looked like Hooker, it was Hooker. He’s wandering about somewhere in a deranged condition, and he’s the one the people are searching for, not you.”
Overwrought by the terror of his experience, it was no simple matter for Charley Shultz to comprehend the meaning of his companion’s words.
“Hooker – not dead?” he muttered wildly. “Why, I – I was sure of it. How do you know, Ned? You may be mistaken.”
Compelling Shultz to listen, Osgood finally succeeded in convincing him. “Let us hope with all our hearts,” he concluded, “that they find Roy and get him safely home, and that he recovers. Let us hope, regardless of what it may mean to us, that, restored to his right mind, he’ll soon be able to tell everything.”
“Oh, I don’t care if he does now,” asserted Shultz. “If we’d only told in the first place, it would have been better. Piper was right; I should have owned up like a man. That was the thing for me to do. I refused to see it then, but what I’ve been through since has opened my eyes.”
“It seems to me,” said Ned gently, “that we’ve both had our eyes opened. Come, old fellow, let me help you to your feet. You’ve got to get back to the village somehow, if I have to pack you on my back.”
“I can hobble. If you’ll give me an arm, I’ll manage to cripple along. But I’m afraid to go back to Oakdale.”
“It’s the only thing you can do. There’s no other way, old man. We’ve both of us got to face the worst, whatever it may be.”
Shultz, indeed very lame, hung heavily on Osgood’s arm, gritting his teeth and groaning at times with the pain his injured ankle gave him. In this manner they moved along slowly enough, keeping to the westward of Turkey Hill and making for the Barville road, as this was now the shortest and most direct course back to the village.
At intervals, as they went along, Shultz persisted in talking of the terrible experiences he had passed through that night, repeating over and over that he was intensely thankful because in all probability Roy Hooker was still living.
“If he had died without telling a word, I’d never had a minute’s peace in the world,” he asserted. “I’d always felt like a murderer. I hope they find him all right. I don’t care if he does tell.”
“I didn’t urge you to confess, did I, Shultz?”
“No, no, but I should have done it. I was afraid, that was the trouble. I was a coward. I didn’t think it was fear at the time, but it was, just the same. I tried to make myself believe I was keeping still on your account. Well, really, I did think about what it would mean to you, Ned. You’re different from me. You’re a gentleman, and I’m just a plain rotter, I guess.”
“Oh, I don’t know as there’s so much difference between us, after all.”
“Yes, there is. You’ve got some family behind you, and you’re naturally proud of it. I’ve never had any particular reason to be proud of my people. Why, my father is a saloonkeeper. I never told you that, did I? I didn’t tell you, for I thought you might be disgusted and turn against me if you knew. I’ve always growled about my old man, because he didn’t give me a lot of spending money. The reason why he didn’t was because I raised merry blazes when I had money. He used to let me have enough – too much. When I blew it right and left, like an idiot, and kept getting into scrapes, he cut my allowance down. You see the kind of a fellow you’ve been friendly with, Osgood, old man. You can see he’s a rotter – just a plain rotter. Oh, you’ll help me back to town. You’ll do the right thing, because you’re the right sort. But, now that you know what I am, we never could be friends any more, even if this Hooker business hadn’t come up.”
Osgood had permitted him to talk on in this fashion, although again and again Shultz’s words made Ned cringe inwardly. At this point the listener interrupted.
“You’re wrong, old man, if you believe anything you’ve said will make me think any the less of you. On the contrary, it will have precisely the opposite effect. You’ve told me all this about yourself, but there are a lot of things about myself that I’ve never told you. This is hardly the time for it, but you shall know, and then you’ll understand that we’re practically on a common level. I’m no better than you are.”
“You say that because you are better – because you’re a natural gentleman, with blood and breeding. I don’t think I ever before understood what makes a true gentleman. Oh, I’ve got my eyes open to heaps of things to-night.”
“It’s not impossible for a man to be a gentleman, even if he doesn’t know who his own father and mother were,” returned Osgood. “Breeding is all right, but there’s a lot of rot in this talk about blood and ancestry.”
“You never seemed specially proud of the fact that you had such fine ancestors behind you. I guess you’re true American in your ideas, Osgood. For all of your family, you’ve always sort of pooh-poohed ancestry; and you with a perfect right to use a crest!”
Shultz was startled by the short, contemptuous laugh that burst from his companion’s lips.
“The world is full of faking and fraud,” said Ned. “It seems that half the people in it, at least, are trying to make other people believe they’re something which they are not. Does the ankle hurt bad, old chap?”
“Like blazes,” answered Charley through his teeth.
“Let me see if I can’t get you on to my back and carry you.”
“Not on your life! I’m going to walk back to town on that pin if I never step on it again. I’ll just take it as part of the punishment I deserve.”
They came presently to the path which the boys had taken on their way to the island in the swamp, and at last they issued from the woods and reached the Barville road. Rounding the base at Turkey Hill, they saw the village lying before them in the valley, and to the right, over the tops of trees, they beheld the shimmering waters of Lake Woodrim. The sweet and peaceful scene seemed to hold no hint of the exciting events of that remarkable night.
Some distance down the road Shultz perceived a few dark, moving objects, and suddenly he halted in alarm.
“Some one coming, Ned!” he palpitated. “Look! you can see them. It’s a party of searchers after Hooker! I can’t face them! They’ll ask questions. Come on, let’s cut across into the pines yonder.”
Not far away to the right was a growth of pine timber, which reached to the very shore of Lake Woodrim. Releasing Osgood’s arm, Shultz made suddenly for the side of the road, scrambled over a low stone wall and started at a hobbling run toward the pines.
Osgood followed, quickly overtaking him. They were running side by side, Shultz’s breath whistling through his teeth with a sound like hissing steam, when up before them from a little hollow, as if rising out of the very ground itself, came a human being, head bare, and all in white to its waist. One look he gave them, and then like a frightened deer he went bounding straight for the woods.
“Merciful wonders!” burst from Osgood. “It’s Roy Hooker!”
CHAPTER XXV – INTO THE OLD QUARRY
For a double reason they did not call to Hooker; not only was it unlikely that he would heed them, but the men on the Barville road would doubtless hear their cries. So Osgood, who had been gauging his speed by that of the crippled Shultz, immediately shot forward, leaving Charley limping behind, but doing his utmost.
Realizing how difficult it would be to run down the deranged lad in the dark depths of the heavy pines, Ned strained every nerve to reach him before he could plunge into the woods. To his dismay, he quickly perceived that this would be impossible, Hooker being very fleet of foot. At the last moment Osgood ventured to call, suppressing his voice in a measure, and hoping against hope that the unreasoning fugitive might give heed.
“Roy – Roy Hooker!” he cried. “We’re friends. We won’t hurt you. Stop, Roy – stop! Wait for us!”
Had Hooker been stone deaf, the words would have had no more effect. Not a particle did he relax in his flight, and Ned was some rods away when Roy was swallowed by the black shadows of the timbers.
Into the woods Osgood dashed, still hoping that through some chance he might overtake the fleeing lad. There was not much undergrowth amid the pines, yet for a time the persistent pursuer was guided by the sounds of the other boy, who turned and twisted and zigzagged here and there in a most baffling way.
“We’re friends, Roy – we’re friends!” Osgood called again and again. “Don’t be afraid of us! Wait a minute!”
It was useless. The guiding sounds grew fainter, and at last, unable to hear them, Osgood stopped to listen. Then he realized that behind him Shultz was calling, begging not to be abandoned.
“We were so close, so close!” muttered Ned, in deep disappointment. “If we’d only got a little nearer before he started, I could have run him down.”
He answered Shultz, and presently Charley came hobbling and panting through the darkness.
“Did you catch him?” was his first question.
“No, he got away; but he’s somewhere in these woods, and, knowing that much, we may be able to find him yet. If we could only take him safely back to Oakdale, it might seem to square up a little for what we’ve done.”
“I was afraid you’d leave me,” Shultz almost whimpered. “I was afraid to be left alone again. Don’t do it, Ned – please don’t. If you hear him or see him, don’t run away from me.”
Only yesterday Osgood could never have dreamed it possible for anything so completely to break the nerve of his companion. There was little left of the old stubborn, defiant, bulldozing Shultz; in his abject terror of being left alone, he was more like a timid child.
