Barbour Ralph Henry
Four Afoot: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Highway

CHAPTER XVII
IN WHICH A FIRE ALARM AIDS MANNIG, AND THE FOUR LEAVE HURRIEDLY

Things looked bad, indeed, for the visiting team. The watchers on the grand stand were on their feet, shouting continuously. Not a few were joining the throng on the turf, scurrying to places along the base lines. Sullivan was plainly rattled, and his first delivery went so wild that Conly, try as he might, could not reach it. In raced the runner from third, and, close behind him, the second man. But although the first reached home safely the other met with misfortune, and was nailed a yard from the plate. But that was only one out, there was still a man on third, and the score was five to four. And, another factor in Laurelville’s favor, her captain and best batsman was facing Sullivan with a cool, smiling face. One run would tie the score; two would give the home team the lead. What wonder, then, that Laurelville went wild with delight, and utterly forsook the grand stand?

Conly and Sullivan met midway between plate and pitcher’s box, and conferred in whispers to an accompaniment of derisive jeers from the supporters of the Green-and-White. Then the pitcher returned to his place, twirled his arms, and shot the ball forward.

Bang!

The Laurelville captain had caught it for a nice bunt toward first base, a slow-rolling, erratic bunt that sent pitcher and first baseman scurrying for it. And in from third raced the runner. But Simpson found the ball speedily, scooped it up, and with the same movement sent it in to catcher. The runner from third saw defeat before him and drew up. Then he turned back, and in a twinkling catcher and third baseman were running him down between them. He turned and twisted while the ball flew back and forth above his head until, at last, almost hemmed in, he made a desperate lunge toward third, sent Burns staggering aside out of his path, and reached his refuge in safety. Burns angrily picked up the ball which had been jostled from his hand, while the Laurelville supporters cheered and shouted. For, although there had been, contrary to their captain’s expectations, no tally, the captain himself was sitting calmly on the bag at second. Then once more Fortune turned her back on the wearers of the Blue. Sullivan struck the next man with the ball, and after he had been rubbed and condoled with by half the Laurelville team, he went limping and grinning to first and filled the bases again!

Once more Conly strove to calm the erratic Sullivan, and once more the crowd hooted as catcher and pitcher whispered together. Then Sullivan went back and faced the next batsman. Up shot his arms, and forward sped the sphere.

“Ball!” droned the umpire.

Again, and,

“Two balls!” was the verdict.

“Pick out a good one!” called the captain from where he was dancing about at second. And the coaches shrieked and leaped in their efforts to further disturb the equanimity of the already badly rattled pitcher. Sullivan rubbed a hand in the dirt, wiped it on his trousers, and settled the ball in it carefully, striving to collect himself.

“Take your time, Jim!” called Conly cheerfully. “Plenty of time, old man!”

But there wasn’t, for at that moment from the center of town came the wild alarm of a clanging fire bell!

For an instant everyone stood as though turned to stone; everyone save the Mannig pitcher. Perhaps he didn’t hear. At all events he shot the ball across the plate, right over the very center of it, and the umpire called a strike. And, as though that had been the signal, all the Laurelville players began shouting at once. Down on second the captain was calling wildly for “Time.” The umpire was surrounded by half a dozen players each explaining breathlessly. So “Time” was announced. Fultz came racing in from center field.

“What’s time taken out for?” he cried.

“Fire!” shouted the Laurelville captain, looking excitedly about for his cap.

“What’s that got to do with the game?” demanded Fultz.

“Why, we’re most of us members of the company,” was the reply. “We’ll go on with the game after a bit. Come on, fellows! We’ll have to run for it!”

And led by their redoubtable captain the Laurelville Baseball Team streaked off the field in the direction of the town. And behind it hurried most of the spectators, for a fire promised far greater excitement than even a baseball game. The Mannig players trotted up with surprised expressions on their faces, demanding to know what the trouble was. Burns turned to the umpire.

“Mr. Umpire,” he said, “we’re ready to go on with the game.”

The umpire looked nonplused.

“Er – well, we’ll wait awhile and then, if the other team doesn’t show up, I’ll have to call the game.”

In five minutes the field was deserted save for the Mannig players and a handful of Mannig supporters. Everyone else was scurrying along the road leading to town. Dan, a quiet smile on his face, drew Nelson aside.

“Let’s get out of this,” he whispered. “It’s not going to be healthy around here after a bit. Let’s move on to the next town.”

Nelson looked perplexedly at Dan’s smiling countenance for a moment. Then, scenting mischief, he nodded and went in search of Tom and Bob. Without explaining, he announced that they were breaking camp, and in a twinkling the Four were following the crowd. On the way Dan told what he knew about it, and the others laughed until the tears streamed down their dusty faces – all save Bob. Bob smiled a bit, but he shook his head too.

“It’s kind of a low trick, Dan,” he said.

“But I didn’t do it,” protested Dan. “I merely told Fultz what I had heard. It wasn’t my fault if – ”

“But you expected him to do it!”

“What of it? Of course I expected him to; it was just the sort of a trick I’d expect these muckers to do!”

“That sounds well from you,” answered Bob dryly.

“Oh, get out! I didn’t tell him to do it; I didn’t even suggest it! Why, when that bell rang I was so surprised – !”

Bob had to laugh in spite of himself.

“Well, just at present what we’ve got to do is to get our things from the hotel before the irate citizens of this charming village discover that they’ve been hoaxed! And I move that we move faster!”

And they did. When they reached the hotel they found it deserted save for a sixteen-year-old boy, the proprietor’s son, who was evidently not staying there from inclination. They found him on the sidewalk, looking longingly toward where at the far end of the main street a confused rabble was pouring around a distant corner.

“Where’s the fire?” asked Dan.

“I don’t know exactly,” was the excited reply, “but it’s somewhere over by the railroad.”

“How far is that?” asked Dan.

“Pretty near a mile. And they say it’s a daisy! Maybe it’s Tompkins’s lumber yard!”

The Four heaved sighs of relief. Before Tompkins’s lumber yard was reached by the valiant fire fighters they hoped to be well on their road. Very quickly they rescued their packs, slung them on their shoulders, and, to use Tom’s expression, “hit the trail.” Once out of sight of the hotel they paused while Bob consulted his map.

“Cupples’ Harbor is three miles,” announced Bob. “That’s where we’d better make for.”

“All right,” responded Nelson, with a laugh. “Any place out of here!”

“How do we go?” Dan asked.

“Straight ahead and turn to the left about four blocks down,” was the reply. So straight ahead they went, and allowed no grass to grow under their feet. When they had almost reached their turning they heard a great noise behind, and paused to see what it was. Down the street trotted the two Mannig coaches filled with their exultant passengers. The Mannig war whoop aroused the echoes of the almost deserted town.

“The umpire’s called the game,” chuckled Dan.

When the first coach was abreast of them they were recognized and loudly cheered. They waved their hands in response while the occupants of the coaches showered unintelligible messages upon them. But as the second load went by, one remark met their ears which they understood. Fultz, beaming and red of face, leaned far out over the side, made a megaphone of his hands, and shouted:

“You fellows had better get out of here pretty quick!”

Dan winked merrily.

“Trust us!” he shouted back.

The fire bell which had been ringing incessantly for ten minutes stopped suddenly as the Four turned from the main street and smelled the salt air from the ocean. In ten minutes they were well out of Laurelville, and slackened their pace.

“What’ll happen?” asked Tom. “When they find out, I mean.”

“They’ll be so mad they won’t be able to see straight,” chuckled Dan. “And if they find any Mannig citizen roaming around, they’ll probably make life very interesting for him!”

“Do you suppose they’ll be able to prove that Mannig did it?” asked Bob.

“Sure to. They’ll find that the fellow who brought the alarm was a stranger, and guess at once.”

“Still, I don’t see how they are going to prove it!”

“Well, maybe they won’t,” allowed Dan. “But there’s one thing you can bet on, and that is, no matter whether Mannig gets the purse or not, there won’t be any more baseball games between the two towns for a while!”

“And a good thing too!” said Nelson. “That sort of baseball makes me tired!”

They reached Cupples’ Harbor at a little before six, very hungry, and somewhat tired. After supper Dan said:

“Say, do you fellows realize that it’s just a week since we left New York?”

“A week!” shouted Tom.

“Get out!” said Nelson. “It seems a month!”

“It surely does,” Bob agreed. “But we’ve had a pretty good time so far, haven’t we?”

“Dandy!” said Tom. Nelson laughed.

“We’re forgetting about being robbed, and going hungry, and all the rest of it!”

“That’s so,” answered Dan. “Gee! Weren’t we a disgusted lot the day we trailed into Millford? For two cents I’d have jumped a train and gone home!”

“Guess that was the way with all of us,” said Bob. “Only we didn’t have the two cents!”

The next morning when they tumbled out of their beds they found the rain dashing against the windows, and an old-fashioned sou’easter having things pretty much its own way. To continue their journey in the face of such a storm was out of the question, and so they got their soiled clothes together, and made arrangements to have them washed in the hotel, and dried in time for them to go on the next day.

There were few guests left, and the Four had the house almost to themselves that day. After breakfast they got into their rubber ponchos, and braved the tempest. The surf was fine, and they watched a long time from the shelter of an old hut on the point, about a mile from the hotel. They got pretty wet, but it was great fun; and the roaring fire in the hotel soon dried them off after they got back. The rest of the day passed quickly enough with books and cards, and they went early to bed.

The next morning the rain still fell, but the wind had died away, and after a consultation they decided to go on. Their clean clothes were brought up to them, and after they had put some of them on, Nelson said he felt respectable for the first time in three days. The walking was hard, but they did five miles by half-past eleven, and stopped at Seapoint for luncheon or dinner, whichever it might turn out to be. It happened to be dinner, and, as they were all frightfully hungry, they ate a good deal, and felt very little like continuing their journey afterwards. Tom was for spending the night where they were, but he was overruled, and at two o’clock they set out for Beach Neck, eight miles farther east. The rain, which had once or twice sobered down to a drizzle, now held up entirely, although the clouds still hung low and ominous. The road, however, constantly got worse, and it was slow going.

“I see where we get a late dinner to-night,” said Dan, at about three o’clock. “I’ll bet we haven’t gone two miles in the last hour!”

“Told you we’d ought to stay where we were,” said Tom.

“And I guess you were right, Tommy, my boy. Never say die, though!” And Dan hitched his pack into place, and trudged on. By four, they were still but little more than halfway to Beach Neck, and Bob got his map out.

“Well,” asked Nelson, “is there any sign of civilization around here?”

“Not very near,” answered Bob. “But, say, the railroad strikes the road near here somewhere – just beyond, I guess – and it’s lots nearer than the road we’re on.”

“Nearer what?”

“I mean it’s shorter that way to Beach Neck than it is by the road.”

“Gee! Then let’s take it!”

“Railroads are mighty hard walking, though,” said Tom.

“Can’t be much harder than this sloppy, sandy quagmire,” said Dan. “I move we hit the ties.”

So they did when, as presently happened, the railroad came into sight and ran along the highway in a neighborly fashion for a little way. It was hard walking, as Tom had predicted, especially at first. But after awhile they got into what Dan called “the swing of it,” and it wasn’t so bad. At least, as Bob pointed out, it was a deal drier. But Tom answered that he didn’t see that that counted for much, because his feet were sopping wet already.

Half an hour later, without any warning, the rain started in again in a fashion that almost took their breath away. It came down in torrents, so that they could see scarcely a yard ahead of them, and made such a racket, besides, that Bob called a halt.

“Look here,” he gasped, “we can’t see nor hear anything, and this track isn’t a healthful place for us; a train could come along and knock us into the next county without our getting so much as a hint of it.”

They were at the beginning of a little cut, where the track had been built through a wooded hill.

“Gee!” sputtered Tom, and stumbled down the embankment to the side of the track. The others followed. The raindrops lashed their rubber ponchos, drenched their heads, and trickled down their backs. Barry, with what remained of his tail tucked as far under him as it would go, sought shelter from the pelting drops at Dan’s feet.

“Let’s break for cover!” shouted Nelson.

They broke. Nelson led the way, stumbling along what at one time had been an embankment, on which a spur track had run a few hundred yards to a gravel quarry. The quarry had become almost obliterated with underbrush and trees, and it was under one of the largest of the latter that the Four finally drew up, panting. The hill rose abruptly behind them, but the sheets of rain were so dense that they could make out but little of their surroundings. The tree, a young maple with wide-spreading branches, kept the worst of the torrent off them for the moment.

“These ponchos are all very nice,” said Dan, “but they have their limitations. I’ll bet you’d get six gallons of water out of me if you wrung me. Can’t we find a better place than this? The roof’s leaking, and the merry little raindrops are playing tag down my back.”

“How far do you suppose we are from Beach Neck?” asked Nelson.

“At least a mile,” answered Bob. “You fellows stay here a minute, and I’ll look around and see if there isn’t a better shelter.”

He brought the poncho closer about his neck, and retied it.

“If I yell, you answer. I may get lost in this drizzle.”

Then he stepped out from under the tossing, dripping branches, and was lost to sight almost instantly. The others waited silently, their hands in their pockets for warmth. After awhile Bob shouted, and presently rejoined them.

“I’ve found an old shed or something over here. Come on.”

He led the way at a run, and they raced after him, gasping for breath as the solid curtains of rain dashed into their faces. Then they were under the lee of a building, Bob was wrenching open a door which hung from one leather hinge, and in a moment they were inside, blinking the water from their eyes. At first it was too dark in there to see much, but presently as they became accustomed to it they began to make out objects in the gray gloom.

The hut, for it was scarcely more, was about twenty feet long and twelve feet wide. There was one door, through which they had entered, and two windows, one still containing the remnants of a sash, and the other having been roughly boarded up. Along the back of the hut remnants of a double tier of wooden bunks remained. In the center of the floor, resting on four bricks, was a rusty stove. At one time there had been a pipe leading through the roof, as the round hole there indicated. But now the pipe was gone, and the hole leaked water like a spout. The place was littered with rubbish, old newspapers, tin cans, and bottles, a broken pick, and a worn-out pair of overalls. Bob lighted a match, and they explored, kicking their way through the débris.

“Not what you’d call a first-class hotel,” observed Dan.

“No,” said Tom. “And it’s evidently very much on the European plan.”

“Unless you can eat tin cans, Tommy,” answered Bob. “But it’s dry, anyhow, and that’s something. And seems to me we might manage a fire in that stove with some of this truck.”

“We’ll be smoked out.”

“We might leave the door open. Anyhow, let’s see.”

So they stuffed the old stove full of paper, added a few pieces of wood which they found, and touched it off. It was smoky, there was no doubt about that, but it looked cheerful, and after a minute or two even gave some warmth. The rain drove in through the door at times, and prevented the smoke from going out, but save that it occasioned an epidemic of coughing, the fire was quite a success.

“Let’s see if we can’t get some of that wood from the bunks,” suggested Nelson.

It was hard work until Dan thought of the broken pick. He showed that a pick may be used as an ax when occasion demands, and soon they had quite a respectable pile of firewood by the stove. Bob borrowed the implement, and tore off the boarding from the window, thus supplying more fuel, and creating a cross draught that cleared a good deal of the smoke out. By this time the stove was getting red hot, and they stood around it, having thrown aside their ponchos, and steamed and regained their good humor.

“Say, Nel,” asked Dan, “what does this remind you of?”

“Turkish bath,” answered Nelson.

“No, but do you remember the hut in the woods at Chicora last summer? This rain’s a dead ringer for that one, except that there isn’t any thunder and lightning.”

“Don’t suggest it,” warned Bob.

“Yes, and do you remember how scared you were at that skeleton?” laughed Nelson.

“You don’t say?” drawled Dan. “I guess I wasn’t the only one who was scared. If Bob hadn’t grabbed you as you went through the door, you’d have been running yet.”

“Pshaw!” said Nelson with a grin. “I wasn’t scared; I was just going for assistance.”

“I suppose there’s no supper for us to-night,” said Tom hopelessly.

“Supper? What do you want supper for?” asked Bob. “Didn’t you eat enough dinner to last you a week?”

“We’re a lot of idiots not to keep some chocolate or something of that sort in our pockets,” said Nelson. “You bet that when I get to a store I’m going to lay in a supply.”

“Wish I had some now,” wailed Tom.

“We might eat Barry,” suggested Bob.

“You might get killed too,” said Dan grimly. “This old rain will have to hold up after a while.”

“It’s holding us up just at present,” observed Nelson.

And apparently it was contented to continue doing that, for the open doorway turned from a misty-gray oblong to a black, and still the downpour continued. There wasn’t a watch among them, and so they had no way of telling time.

“Well,” said Bob, filling the stove up again, “we’ve got a dry place to sleep, and that’s something. I vote we go to bed as soon as we can sleep, and get an early start. Beach Neck can’t be far off, and we can make up for supper at the breakfast table.”

“Sounds good to me,” answered Dan. “But I’m not the least bit sleepy; only hungry.”

“Same here,” murmured Tom wistfully. He was sitting on the floor as near to the stove as he could get without scorching, and Barry was curled up in his lap. “If you and I had a dog biscuit, Barry, we could do a dandy trick with it, couldn’t we?”

But Barry only wagged his stump of tail drowsily.

“He’s the only philosophic one among us,” said Nelson. “He didn’t have a tenth as much dinner as we did, and look at him! Not a whimper!”

Whereupon Barry suddenly sat up, pricked his ears, and growled. Bob and Tom began to laugh, but Dan held up his hand.

“Wait a minute!” he whispered. “Barry hears something.”

The dog slipped stealthily from Tom’s lap and moved toward the door, sniffing and growling. They listened and watched. Then simultaneously Barry broke into fierce barking, and a face appeared in the dark frame of the doorway.