The New Boys at Oakdale
“We ought to get searchers, a whole lot of them, and bring them here,” said Ned. “That would be the right thing to do.”
“But if we could only find him ourselves without other aid,” argued Charley, “it would give us a better show with the people who’ll be ready enough to jump on us when they know the truth. We might find him, you know. He can’t be far away. Which way was he going the last you knew?”
“Toward the lake, I think, but he kept dodging about, so that there is no real certainty of it. Probably he hasn’t any objective point in his mind. He just ran in any direction that happened to be the easiest.”
“The ground slopes toward the lake,” reasoned Shultz. “He’ll keep on going that way.”
“There may be some logic in that, and there’s a bare chance that we may come upon him again. Let’s make as little noise as possible. We don’t want him to be warned or frightened by hearing us a long distance away.”
Down through the black woods they went, Shultz seeking to keep so close to Osgood that he could put out his hand any time and touch him. Presently through the trees they saw the moonlight silvering the placid water. Reaching the shore, they discovered they were close to Pine Point, which, projecting into the lake, cut it there to its narrowest width. On the opposite shore lay the railroad, over which Shultz had first thought of making his escape from Oakdale.
“It’s something like searching for a needle in a haystack,” said Ned hopelessly. “There’s not one chance in a hundred that we, unaided, can find Hooker in these woods.”
But Charley still clung to the tattered skirts of hope. “Let’s go out upon the point. From the end of it we can get a look at a long sweep of shore in both directions.”
“That will simply make us walk farther, and your ankle must be – ”
“Confound my ankle! Don’t you worry about that.”
“You shouldn’t be crippling around on it. It’s liable to lay you up for a long time, and every step you take makes it worse.”
“What do I care? What do I care how long I’m laid up? That’s nothing now. I’m going out on the point.”
He would not have gone had Ned refused, but Osgood decided to humor him.
At the outer extremity the point took a curve, so that on one side it sheltered Bear Cove, into which Silver Brook emptied. As they reached that curving outer shore, a small boat – a punt – issued from the cove, passed that hook-like nose of land and appeared in the moonlight which bathed the surface of the lake. The occupant of the punt, who was propelling it with a paddle, was Hooker!
“There he is!” shouted Charley.
He turned his face toward them, and they were so near that they almost fancied they could see the wild expression in his eyes. They called to him again and again, begging him to come back and seeking to give him every assurance of their friendly intentions. He did not answer; changing the course of the boat somewhat, he drove it with powerful strokes toward a small island which lay off the mouth of the cove.
“It’s no use,” muttered Osgood; “he’ll give up only when he’s caught, and then he’ll probably make a fight of it.”
“But how are we going to catch him?”
“I wish I knew. If we had another boat – ”
“I know where there’s a raft,” exclaimed Shultz. “We might follow him with that.”
“We never could overtake him on a raft.”
“But he’s going on to Bass Island. If he doesn’t see us coming, we might catch him there.”
Ned was extremely doubtful, but the insistence and eagerness of Charley finally led him to agree to look for the raft. Fully half an hour passed before they found it lying partly on the shore of the cove not far from the mouth of Silver Brook. It was a rather long, narrow affair, built of small logs fastened together by cross-pieces. When it was launched they tested its buoying capacity and found it would barely support them both. Nevertheless, with pieces of board for paddles, they pushed off upon it and made their way slowly toward the mouth of the cove. Both knelt as they wielded the board paddles, and their knees were soon wet with the water which occasionally washed across the almost submerged logs.
Although they could not see the punt on the shore of the island, they felt certain Hooker had landed there, and, hoping he would not discover their approach, they exerted their strength in the effort to reach the place as soon as possible.
The island was not more than thirty yards distant when they again saw the punt, headed this time for the farther shore of the lake. It seemed that Hooker must have been watching, and, with almost tantalizing cunning, he had waited until they were near before he put out from the opposite side of the island.
“Let’s not give up,” pleaded Shultz. “Let’s follow him.”
Although the pursuit seemed discouragingly hopeless, they were now nearly half-way across the narrow part of the lake, and Osgood did not insist on turning back.
The punt was slow enough, but it moved faster than the raft, even though the latter was propelled by two persons instead of one, and gradually it drew farther and farther away. With their eyes on Hooker, they watched him reach the shore, leap out, abandon the punt and run toward the railroad. Still watching, they saw him, later, making his way down the track toward Oakdale station.
As soon as the raft touched the low, flat shore, they left it to float whither it might and followed Roy.
“I’m glad he went toward town,” said Osgood, as they reached the railroad.
Shultz’s ankle seemed to have grown much worse while he was on the raft, and it was in great pain and with the utmost difficulty that he crippled along over the ties. At times he caught his breath with a hissing sound or groaned aloud as the swollen limb gave him an extra sharp twinge.
“It’s no use for me to follow Roy any farther,” he finally admitted. “I’ll be lucky if this old prop doesn’t give out completely before I get to the village.”
“If it does,” promised Ned, “I’ll get you there. Leave it to me. I’m ready to pack you on my back any time.”
Presently they approached the old lime quarries, which had been practically abandoned until Lemuel Hayden came to Oakdale, bought them, opened up new and unsuspected deposits, and revived the industry of lime burning. They could see the deserted workings, a tremendous black hole in the ground some thirty or forty rods away, when from beneath the shadowy bank of the graded roadbed, Hooker, who may have been resting there, sprang forth. Shultz saw his first movement, and shouted to Osgood:
“There he is, Ned! Catch him – you can catch him now!”
Ned did not need to be urged; he was off like a shot. Shultz followed, setting his teeth and trying to forget his injured ankle. Down the bank he leaped, mainly upon one foot, and on he ran, limping across the rough and stony field. He could see Osgood straining every nerve to overtake Hooker, who was running straight toward the old quarry.
“He’s got him! Ned’s got him!” panted Shultz. “The quarry will stop him! He can’t get away!”
But, as they drew near that mammoth hole in the ground, a different thought leaped into Osgood’s mind. Hooker seemed to be fleeing blindly and totally heedless of anything. What if, in his distraught state of mind, he should not realize the danger that lay in his path? What if he should not see the quarry until it was too late to stop?
Horrified, Ned shouted a warning; and at that shout Hooker, still running, turned his head to look back.
Shultz, seeing all this, gulped to keep his heart from choking him. Sick and weak with apprehension, he stopped, his arms outflung, his hands wide open, his fingers spread apart.
Over the brink and into the quarry plunged Hooker. As he fell, a wild and terrible scream rose from his lips. Shultz clapped his hands to his ears to shut out that dreadful cry.
“Oh! oh!” he groaned. “It’s all over now! That’s the end! He’s dead!”
CHAPTER XXVI – THE CONFESSION
Distracted, scarcely realizing what he did, with that terrible cry from Hooker’s lips still ringing in his ears, Charley Shultz turned from the old quarry and limped away as fast as he could go. In his mind he carried a dreadful picture of Roy Hooker, lying bleeding, battered and dead at the bottom of that great excavation, and for the time being Osgood was wholly forgotten.
On his hands and knees, Charley crawled up the railroad embankment. One of his hands happening to touch a stout, crooked stick, about a yard in length, he grasped and retained it instinctively. When the track was reached, the stick served him for a cane as he hobbled away.
“It’s awful – awful!” his dry, bloodless lips kept repeating. “And I’m to blame for it all! I’m the only one who is really to blame. I thought some of the rest should help shoulder the load, but I was wrong. It’s up to me; I can see that plainly enough at last. If I’d only seen it in the first place, perhaps – perhaps this terrible thing might not have happened.”
After a time he remembered Osgood, and halted, looking back toward the quarry.
“Why doesn’t he come? Why is he staying there? He can’t do anything now. Well, perhaps it’s best that I should go it alone. That’s what I ought to do. No one else should be seen with me. I must face this thing by myself. What will they do with me? I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that I can never, never forget, if I live to be a thousand years old.”
His teeth set, he crippled onward, his ankle, if possible, causing him greater distress than ever, though it seemed as a mere nothing compared with the anguish of his remorseful and repentant soul. Not once were the shooting pains sufficient to wring a whimper or a groan from him. His mind was made up at last; he had decided what he would do, and he was almost fierce in his eagerness to do it before he should weaken or falter.
The South Shore Road, approaching the railroad at one point, promised an easier course to follow, and he abandoned the ties. Vaguely he wondered what the hour could be, and looked for some sign of approaching dawn, as it seemed that the night must be far spent. To him that night had stretched itself to the length of a lifetime. Into it had been crowded experiences which had wrought in this boy a complete change of heart. In the moulding of his character such experiences must indeed have a powerful effect.
Beyond the river, as he drew near the dam at the lower end of the lake, he could see a few lights still shining palely in the windows of the village. Little had he imagined, when he first came to this small, despised country town, that here he was to face the first great crisis of his life. Here, it now seemed, he had met with disaster that meant his complete undoing.
The little railroad station on the southern side of the river was dark and deserted. Near it he halted again, tempted by the thought that somewhere around those black buildings he might hide until the first train should pull out in the morning – might hide there, and, sneaking aboard that train at the last moment, succeed, after all, in making his escape.
“But I won’t do it!” he suddenly snarled. “I attempted to run away like a coward, and this is what I’ve come to. I won’t try it again. I’ll face the music and pretend that I’ve got a little manhood left.”
Beneath the span of the bridge the water flowed swift and silent, save for a few faint whisperings and gurglings. Looking down at it, he drew away from the railing, fearful that he might be tempted to leap and end it all. Had he been met at the foot of Main Street by officers, waiting to place him under arrest, he would not have been surprised, and would have offered no resistance.
Once before upon this same night he had sneaked up Cross Street, and again he followed the same course. Something like a powerful magnet now seemed drawing him on, although as yet he but faintly realized that he was moving toward Hooker’s home as fast as he could.
The house was lighted in almost every room. In front of it he halted again, struggling weakly against that attracting force. In there was Roy’s mother – the mother of the boy he had destroyed – waiting distractedly for some tidings of her unfortunate son. How could he face her? How could he utterly crush her with the terrible truth?
As he faltered and wavered, he became aware that some one was coming up Cross Street. In the silence, even at that distance, he heard the sound of footsteps.
“Some of the searchers – Roy’s father, perhaps – returning to tell her that they have not found him. When they do find him – oh, when they do!”
Then he thought of another house, a modest little white cottage, farther up the street. It was to that cottage that he should go, after all. There he would find the one to whom his confession should be made. This decided on, he forced his stiff and swollen ankle to bear him a little farther, with the aid of the stick, which clumped upon the sidewalk as he hobbled. There was a light in one of the windows of the cottage, the window of Professor Richardson’s study. The professor was awake. He was there in his study, waiting for some news of Roy. Well, he should soon know it all.
Shultz rang the door-bell, and barely had he done so when he heard some one hastening to answer. Through the sidelights of the door came the gleam of a lamp. A key turned in the lock, the door was flung open, and the old professor, in dressing-gown and slippers, lamp in hand, stood before Charley Shultz.
“What is it?” he eagerly asked, his voice hoarse and husky. “You’ve come to tell me. They have found him?”
“I’ve come to tell you everything, professor,” was the answer. “May I come in? I’m ready to drop. I can’t stand a minute longer.”
“Come in, my boy – come in. Good gracious! you’re in rags. You’re lame! You’re hurt!”
Having closed the door, the professor sought to aid his visitor to hobble into the study, which opened off the hall. In that room Shultz dropped heavily upon a chair, the stick, released by his nerveless hands, falling with a thud upon the rug.
“My goodness!” breathed the old man, staring aghast at the boy. “You must have been through a terrible experience. You’re ghastly pale, and your face is scratched and cut. What has happened to you?”
“Oh, I don’t know how I can tell you! But I must, and I will. That’s why I came here. I should have told you long ago. You were right, professor – you were right when you said it was a cowardly thing for the one who was to blame to keep silent. I didn’t understand then, but now I do – now that it’s too late!”
“Too late!” breathed Professor Richardson, intensely moved. “Too late! Do you mean that Roy is – ”
“He’s dead,” said Shultz.
Groping for a chair, the old man grasped it and sank upon it.
“Dead!” he echoed, running his thin hands through the white locks upon his temples. “This is terrible news, indeed! I’ve been hoping they would find him and bring him back all right. It will be a dreadful blow to his poor parents. How do you know? Are you sure – are you sure he’s dead?”
“Yes, I’m sure. And I killed him!”
A few moments of absolute silence followed this declaration. Grasping the arm of the chair, the professor leaned slowly forward, his lips parted a bit, his eyes fastened upon the face of the boy. One hand was partly extended as he whispered:
“You – you killed him? What are you saying, Charley Shultz? Are you crazy?”
“No, no; but it’s a wonder I’m not. Listen, professor, and I’ll tell you the whole story. It started over a game of cards. He accused me of cheating. I struck him. I knocked him down. As he fell his head hit against a marble mantelpiece. That was what ailed him. No one else did a thing, professor; no one else is to blame. They wanted me to tell, but I refused. One fellow insisted that I should tell.”
“But why didn’t they tell, themselves?”
“Because they were afraid. Because they knew the disgrace and trouble it would bring on them all. Besides, I was the one who did it, and I was the one who should have owned up to it.”
“But you said – that Roy – was dead.”
“So he is. Listen, and I’ll tell you how I know. You shall have the whole story.”
Shultz told it all, holding nothing back save the names of the other participants in that game of poker. He made no effort to shield himself, no attempt to justify himself, and there was no need to question him; for his story, although given in short, broken sentences, was vivid and complete. When he told at last of Hooker’s blind plunge into the old quarry, the listener groaned aloud.
“That’s all, professor – that’s all,” Shultz concluded, in a manner that bespoke his boundless contrition and utter resignation to consequences. “You can see that it was I who killed him, and whatever my punishment may be, I deserve it.”
“It’s terrible!” said the old man solemnly. “It’s the most terrible thing that has ever come beneath my personal notice in all my life!”
In the hall the bell of a telephone began to ring, causing them both to start nervously. Immediately the man rose to his feet.
“It must be a call from the Hooker’s,” he said. “I’m on the same party line with them. Roy’s mother must be ringing up to ask me if I’ve heard anything. How can I answer? What can I tell that poor woman?”
Shultz, sick with pain of body and mind, could make no reply to this. Slowly, reluctantly, the professor left the study to answer the phone. Listening, Shultz could hear his words:
“Hello… Yes, this is Professor Richardson… What’s that? I don’t understand you… Is that you, Mr. Hooker?.. Yes, yes. What are you telling me? Roy – Roy is – ” His voice, husky and broken, became confused, and he seemed a bit incoherent. “Yes, yes,” he went on more plainly. “I think – I think I understand… Yes, I’ll come down. Right away.”
The receiver clicked upon the hook. Professor Richardson re-entered the study with a firm tread, stopped in front of the chair on which Charley Shultz still sat, and for a few silent moments gazed sternly at the cowering lad. Presently he said:
“The call was from Mr. Hooker. I’m going down there. You’ll wait here for me, while I get on my shoes and coat. Wait here. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” answered Charley faintly.
During the few minutes while the professor was absent Shultz sat there nervously clasping and unclasping the fingers of his cold hands. For a single moment, dreading what he might yet have to face upon this eventful night, he thought of stealing from the house and hurrying away. Only for a fleeting moment, however, did he harbor that thought.
“Never!” he whispered savagely. “Whatever I must face I’ll face. I’m done with being a coward!”
The professor reappeared, wearing his overcoat. “Come,” he said, and Shultz lifted himself to his feet. In the hall the man secured his hat. They left the house, and Shultz managed to descend the front steps with the aid of his stick. On the street the professor gave the boy an arm.
The door of the Hooker home was opened almost instantly at their summons.
“Come in,” cried Roy’s father; “come in, professor. Oh! you’ve some one with you.”
“Yes,” replied the principal of the academy, “I brought Charley with me for a most excellent reason, as you’ll soon learn. He has hurt his ankle and is very lame.”
In the sitting room Shultz staggered and nearly fell, for he suddenly found himself face to face with Ned Osgood.
“You?” he exclaimed in amazement. “You here? Then you’ve told them everything!”
Osgood seized him, swept him off his feet and practically bore him into another room.
“Look, Charley!” he cried, pointing at a person who sat in the depths of a big easy-chair, near which hovered Mrs. Hooker. “Here he is! He’s all right now, too. He’s all right, for he can talk and he remembers.”
The person on the easy-chair was Roy Hooker!
CHAPTER XXVII – LIKE A MIRACLE
Only for Osgood’s sustaining arm, Shultz would have collapsed completely. Ned helped him to a chair, where he sat staring in dumb amazement and doubt at Roy Hooker. It was a marvel of marvels, a miracle beyond his understanding.
“I’m dreaming,” he thought. “It can’t be true.”
But Roy was there. Roy was speaking. Shultz heard him say:
“You look to be in worse condition than I am, old fellow. You’re all broken up.”
Shultz was broken up indeed. Not a sound did he make, but he covered his face with his hands, and tears began trickling through his fingers. Then he felt some one touching him gently, reassuringly, and heard the husky voice of Professor Richardson, the man he had scorned and sneered at, saying gently, almost tenderly:
“There, there, my boy. It’s all right. You made a mistake, as we all do sometimes, but you’ve been punished more than enough. I am sure no one could wish you to receive further punishment.”
Then Hooker spoke again:
“Why, he wasn’t to blame any more than I was – not as much. I started it. I lost my head and called him nasty names and tried to hit him. I’m the one who is really to blame for everything.”
Somehow this made Charley’s tears flow the faster. He did not sob, he did not speak, but he sat there with a great feeling of gratitude in his heart and a yearning to say something to Roy Hooker which he knew he never could say.
“We were all to blame,” asserted Ned. “No one fellow should try to take it on himself; I’m dead certain other chaps in the bunch will agree to that.”
“It will be a lesson to you all,” said the old professor. “Mrs. Hooker, I congratulate you that your son is again in his normal mind and apparently not much the worse for his experience. It has been a trying time for us all, and we should be thankful indeed that it has turned out so well.”
Through his tear-wet eyelashes Shultz was looking at Roy.
“I – I don’t understand,” he whispered. “I saw him fall into the old quarry.”
“But you didn’t wait to see how far he fell,” said Ned. “I looked. Perhaps twenty feet below the brink over which he ran, I saw him lying on a wide projecting shelf of rock. He was stunned, and he lay perfectly still, without answering when I called to him. I knew I must get him out somehow, and in a minute or two I thought that I might find a rope in one of the tool houses of the new quarry. I ran around there as fast as I could, broke into one of those little shanties, found a rope and hurried back. Making one end of the rope fast, I lowered myself to the shelf on which Roy still lay. He was just coming to his senses, and when he saw me he spoke. Of course, he had no idea where he was or how he came to be there, for he could remember nothing that happened after his head struck the mantelpiece in my room.”
“And I can’t remember now,” put in Hooker. “It’s all a blank.”
“When he had recovered and seemed to be pretty strong,” Osgood continued, “I tied the rope about his body beneath his arms. Then I climbed back out of the quarry and succeeded in pulling him up, almost inch by inch. He could help me some by grasping the rough places in the face of the rock and by getting a few footholds now and then. As soon as he was safely out, we hoofed it for town.”
“It’s likely,” said Professor Richardson, “that Roy struck his head when he fell, and that shock restored his lost memory.”
“And I’ve got my boy again,” said Mrs. Hooker, embracing her son and kissing him. “That’s enough. I am satisfied and happy.”
“I don’t think anybody should kick up a big muss over this affair,” said Roy’s father. “Now when I was a boy, I got into some scrapes myself. I guess most men are too apt to forget the fool things they did when they were youngsters.”
“That is very true,” agreed the professor. “Maturity cuts us off from true sympathy with boyhood and youth, and we are almost certain to become too exacting and too harsh toward lads who invariably find experience the best teacher. I have tried not to forget this myself, but I presume I am like others, in a measure, at least.”
“Say,” broke in Mr. Hooker suddenly, “while we’re chinning here, we’ve forgotten something. We’ve forgotten there are parties of searchers out looking for Roy this minute. It was agreed that the Methodist bell should be rung when he was found. I think I’d better see about it that that bell rings.”
“Yes,” nodded Professor Richardson, “and we’ve forgotten something else as well. Charley has a sprained ankle, and I fear it is badly hurt, even though he managed to get around on it for a long time after it was injured. He should have the attention of a doctor as soon as possible.”
