Barbour Ralph Henry
On Your Mark! A Story of College Life and Athletics

CHAPTER XVIII
AN ALARM OF FIRE

 
“Mary had a little dog,
It was a noble pup;
’Twould stand upon its front legs
When you’d hold its hind legs up!”
 

Thus warbled Tommy as, having kicked the door shut, he subsided into one of Allan’s chairs by sliding over the back. Allan pushed his book away, yawned dismally, and looked over at his visitor mutely questioning:

“Where’s Pete?” Tommy demanded.

“Am I his keeper?” asked Allan.

“You’re his fidus whatyoucallit. Seen him to-night?”

“No; maybe he’s studying.”

“Careless youth,” muttered Tommy. “Say, did you hear about Pete and Bœotia?”

“No; who’s Bœotia, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s that place in – er – ancient history, you know. It was at recitation this morning; Professor Grove asked Pete how Bœotia was situated. Pete wasn’t prepared, but he thought he’d make a bluff at it. So he gets up and drawls out in his cheerfully idiotic way, ‘Oh, he had a pretty good situation, but he lost it.’”

“What did old Grove say?” laughed Allan.

“Well, I wasn’t there and can’t tell you. I’m going to settle my debts this week, and we’ll have that dinner at the Elm Tree Saturday night, if that’s all right for you fellows.”

“It’s all right for me,” said Allan.

“The funny part of it is,” Tommy went on, smiling, “that I made just enough to pay for the dinner out of the reports of Pete’s drowning which I sent to the Boston paper. I got my account yesterday.”

“Tell that to Pete,” laughed Allan.

“I’m going to. Where’s the angel child?”

“The angel child is probably out in the kitchen. I can’t keep her at home since vacation; she found out then where the grub comes from.”

“I think she ought to go to the dinner with us, don’t you?”

“Well, scarcely. Let’s go down to the ‘Ranch’ and see what Pete’s up to. I can’t study any more to-night.”

Town Lane was as dark as pitch save at remote intervals where street lamps flickered half-heartedly, and to reach Pete’s domicile at night without breaking a limb was quite a feat. To-night nothing more exciting occurred than a collision with a stable door which was swinging open, and the two reached the corner to find Pete’s windows brightly illumined. Tommy, being in a musical mood, took up a position underneath and broke into song.

 
“Here ’neath thy window, Love, I am waiting,
Waiting thy sweet face to see,”
 

he declared, strumming the while on an imaginary guitar. But the verse came to an end without signs from the window, and so they climbed the stairs. The “Ranch” was deserted. But even as they assured themselves of the fact by looking into the bedroom, soft footfalls sounded on the stairs from the third-story loft, and a moment after Pete, looking like a conspirator, crept into the front room and softly closed the door behind him. Then his eyes fell on Allan and Tommy, and he grinned mysteriously.

“Where’d you come from?” Allan demanded.

“Up-stairs.”

“What’s doing up there?” asked Tommy, suspiciously.

“Nothing at all.” But the grin remained. Tommy sniffed.

“I’m going up to see,” he threatened.

Pete sank into a chair, took up his pipe, and spread his hands apart as if to say, “Please yourself; believe me or not, as you like.” Then he lighted his pipe.

“What have you done with your coat?” asked Allan. “And why are you festooned with cobwebs and decorated with dust?”

“Quien sabe?” answered Pete, shrugging his broad shoulders.

“Just the same, you’ve been up to something,” declared Allan, sternly. “And you’d better ’fess up.”

“Huh!” grunted Pete.

“Out with it!” commanded Tommy.

“Huh!” said Pete again.

“Sounds like a blamed old Indian, doesn’t he?” asked Tommy, disgustedly. “Well, don’t you come and beg me to intercede with the Dean for you.”

The smile on Pete’s face broadened; he chuckled enjoyably; but commands and demands failed to move him to confession, and, after arranging for the dinner at the Inn, Allan and Tommy took their departure, Pete, for some reason and contrary to custom, making no effort to detain them. As they clambered down the steep stairs, Pete called after them:

“Say, it would be a great night for a fire, wouldn’t it?”

“Fire?” repeated Allan. “Why?”

“Oh, such a dandy old high wind,” answered Pete. “Well, adios.”

“Wonder what he meant?” said Allan, on the way back. “It would be just like him to get into another mess.”

“About time,” chuckled Tommy. “Good night.”

Allan went to bed soon after eleven, with Two Spot, according to nightly custom, curled up against the small of his back. For a while he lay awake listening to the howling and buffeting of the wind, but presently sleep came to him.

It seemed hours later, but was in reality scarcely thirty minutes, when he awoke abruptly with the wild clanging of a bell in his ears. He sat up and listened. It was undoubtedly the fire-bell, and had he had any doubt about it the sound of running footsteps in the street would have convinced him at once.

For a moment he weighed the prospective excitement of a conflagration against the comforts of the warm bed. In the end the fire offered greater inducements, and he leaped out of bed, lighted the gas, and tumbled into his clothes. And all the time the fire-bell clanged and clashed on the March wind. Leaving Two Spot to the undisputed possession of the bed, Allan left the house and looked expectantly about him. But there was no glow in the sky in any quarter; darkness reigned everywhere save about the infrequent street lamps. Here and there persons were running toward the fire-house, and Allan followed their example.

Down Main Street he hurried, entered the yard back of the library, and cut across in the face of the buffeting wind to the beginning of Town Lane. When he reached Elm Street he was part of a steady stream of excited citizens and students, all hurrying anxiously toward where, half-way down the narrow thoroughfare, the brazen alarum was pealing deafeningly forth. And then, for the first time since he had awoke, Allan recollected Pete and his mysterious observation regarding fire. And instantly he knew that Pete and the fire-bell were in some way working mischief together.

Pete’s rooms were in the building at the corner of Center Street, and next door stood the fire-house, a plain two-storied building, surmounted by a twenty-foot tower, at the top of which hung the bell. When Allan reached the scene the windows of Pete’s front room were brilliantly illumined, and from one of them hung Pete, exchanging lively salutations with friends in the throng below.

For a moment Allan’s suspicions were deadened. In front of the fire-house the crowd jostled and craned their necks as they stared wonderingly upward to where the tower showed indistinctly against the midnight sky. On every hand were heard bewildered ejaculations, while members of the volunteer fire department ran hither and thither, questioning, suggesting, and plainly distracted. The big doors were open and inside the engine and hose-cart, horses in harness, were ready to sally forth the instant any one discovered where the fire was or why the bell clanged on and on without apparent reason. Through a hole in the ceiling a big rope descended, and at every clang of the bell it rose and fell again, and the building shook with the jar.

“Hello, Allan! Isn’t this great?” shouted a voice in his ear, and Allan turned to find Hal, arrayed principally in a plaid dressing-gown and white duck cricket hat, grinning from ear to ear.

“But – but what is it?” asked Allan, bewildered.

“Don’t know; nobody knows. There’s the bell and there’s the rope; no one’s pulling it; must be spooks! Isn’t it jolly?” And Hal leaped with delight and thumped Allan on the back.

“But why does the bell ring?” he asked, following the general example and staring upward at the tower.

“That’s it! Why does it? Some say it’s the wind, but that’s poppycock, you know. What I think is that some one’s got a rope hitched to the bell and is pulling it from the back of the building somewhere; that’s what I think.”

“But haven’t they been around there to see?”

“Yes, but they’re so excited and fussed they wouldn’t know a rope if they fell over it. Some one’s having a lark, you can bet on that. Isn’t it a picnic? Just hear the old bell! Wow! Listen to that!”

Allan put his mouth to Hal’s ear and whispered a single word. Hal started, shot a glance at Pete’s window and Pete himself, and burst into a gale of laughter.

“D-d-do you think so?” he gasped. “But – how could he? Look, there he is at the window. O Pete!”

“Hush up!” whispered Allan. “They’ll get onto it. Look, they’ve got a ladder! They’ll find out what’s up now, all right, because the rope will be hanging. We ought to warn Pete; come on!”

They wormed their way through the crowd, exchanging shouts of salutation with acquaintances as they went, until they were under Pete’s window. There they found Tommy, note-book in hand, looking very important and excited.

“O Pete!” shouted Allan. “Is your door unlocked?”

“Hello, partner!” returned Pete in a happy bellow. “Isn’t this great? Here I sit at my parlor window and watch all the wealth, beauty and fashion of our charming metropolis. And, say, ain’t the racket fine? This is more noise than I’ve heard since a dynamite blast went off behind my back! Why, it’s almost like living in a city! Say, if you fellows – ”

“We want to come up,” shouted Allan. “Unlock your door.”

Pete shook his head.

“Not on your life, partner; I’ve only got my nightie on. Want me to freeze to death?”

“Well, put something on,” said Allan anxiously, “and come down.”

“’Fraid of catching cold. Besides, I must turn in now; I’m losing my beauty sleep.”

“But – but, Pete, they’re – they’re putting up a ladder!” blurted Allan.

“Are they?” asked Pete imperturbably. “Well, I’m not coming down to help ’em. They’ll have to get on without me, my boy. Hello, Hal, that you? Ain’t this wano? Such a cheerful – ”

Pete’s roar stopped suddenly, as did the noise of the crowd. Two firemen half-way up the ladder at the front of the building nearly fell off. For a sudden appalling silence gave place to the uproar! The bell was still!

After a moment of startled surprise – for at first the silence seemed louder than the noise – every one broke into incoherent laughter and ejaculations. The men on the ladder paused, undecided, and finally slid back to earth to hold a consultation.

“Well, ain’t that a shame!” lamented Pete. “Just when I was beginning to get sleepy! Now I’m all woke up again. Say, you chaps, wait a bit and I’ll slip something on and let you up.” He disappeared from the window and was gone some time. Then the key scraped in the door at the foot of the stairs and Allan, Hal, and Tommy slipped through. Pete, standing guard, locked the portal in the faces of several undesired fellows and followed them up-stairs.

As Allan entered the room he glanced eagerly around. Just what he expected to find would have been hard to say, but whatever it was he didn’t find it. The room presented its usual appearance, save that articles of apparel lay scattered widely about just wherever Pete had happened to be when they came off. Pete locked the room door, took his pipe from the table and proceeded to fill it. The others looked about the room, looked at each other and looked at Pete. Pete scratched a match, lighted his corn-cob and smiled easily back. Allan sank into the easy chair.

“How – how did you do it?” he gasped.

“Do it? Do what?” asked Pete, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the open window. Outside sounds told of the dispersing of the throng.

“You know what,” said Allan.

Pete went to the window, called good night to an acquaintance, closed the sash and ambled back, smiling enjoyably.

“Wasn’t it moocha wano?” he asked. “Just answer me that, Allan. Did anything ever go off more beautifully, with more – er —éclat, as we say in Paree? Is your Uncle Pete the boss, all-star bell-ringer? Did you get on to the expression, the – the phrasing? Did you – ”

“Shut up, Pete,” said Hal, grinning. “Tell us about it. Go on, like a good chap.”

“There’s little to tell,” said Pete with becoming modesty. “Up there” – he pointed toward the ceiling – “is a loft. Over there is a bell. Bring a rope from the bell into the back window of the loft, down-stairs and through that door and – there you are! Quite simple.”

“But, look here,” piped up Tommy. “You were at the window when the bell was doing its stunts. How – how was that?”

“Simple, too,” answered Pete, waving aside a cloud of smoke. “There was a noose in the end of the rope and the noose fitted over my knee as I kneeled on the floor. It was hard work and I guess the hide’s about wore off, but it was all for the sake of Art.”

The three deluged him with questions simultaneously, and Pete, sitting nonchalantly on the edge of the table, answered them as best he could.

“But how about the rope?” asked Allan finally. “They’ll see it and trace it through the window.”

“Oh, no, they won’t, because, my boy, it isn’t there any longer. When I said I’d put something on and let you fellows in, I cut it off at the foot of the tower and brought my end of it away. They’ll find a rope there, all right, but they’ll never guess it went through the back window. Besides, I can prove an alibi,” he ended, with a generous and virtuous smile.

“That’s so,” answered Tommy. “We saw you at the window.”

“When the bell was ringing,” added Hal.

“And I saw both his hands,” supplemented Allan.

“Yes, I meant you should,” said Pete. Going to the trunk he took from behind it the lariat which usually hung on the wall, and from one end of it detached a few feet of hemp rope. This he put into the stove. The lariat he replaced upon the wall.

“Thus we destroy all evidences of guilt,” he said.

CHAPTER XIX
PETE PUTS THE SHOT

For a few days following the mysterious serenade on the fire-bell there was an epidemic of mild colds throughout the college; and as each fellow who had a cold was able and eager to tell – through his nose – what had happened at the fire-house, it would seem that there might have been some connection between the affliction and the midnight occurrence. But no serious illness resulted, and so we may leniently assert that no harm came of Pete’s joke.

Not that any one knew it was Pete’s joke, save the quartet and one other. The one other was Mr. Guild, out at Hillcrest. When morning came the severed rope hung in plain sight from the bell tower, and although it told clearly what had happened, yet it threw no light on the identity of the culprit. Of course every one – townfolk especially – declared it to have been a student prank, but none suspected Pete Burley, for it apparently entered no one’s head that the bell might have been rung from Pete’s room. The perpetrator was popularly believed to have been hidden in some near-by yard.

That Pete’s innocence was never questioned was a lucky thing for Pete, because the faculty would have viewed the affair in the light of a last straw, and Pete’s connection with Erskine College would have ceased then and there. As it was, the affair remained forever a mystery.

Mr. Guild heard the story a few days later, when the quartet drove out to Hillcrest in a rattle-trap carryall and spent the afternoon. This was the second visit the fellows had made to the owner of the ducks since the beginning of the term. Mr. and Mrs. Guild had been in the South for two months, and after their return, in February, the snow had made the roads almost impassable. Hal and Tommy had been introduced on the occasion of the previous visit and had been cordially welcomed. Mr. Guild enjoyed the story of the bell-ringing and laughed heartily over it.

“That’s a better joke, Burley,” he said, “than that drowning business of yours. That was a trifle too grim to be wholly humorous. And when I remember the way I had the river dragged for your lifeless body, and expected to see it every time the men drew the grapples up, I – well, I hope your dinner the other night choked you.”

But it hadn’t. The dinner had passed off very successfully, and save that Hal had partaken of too much pie and had sat up in bed until three o’clock in the morning well doubled over, it had been an affair worthy of being long remembered. Even Pete, who claimed the right to be severely critical, had found nothing to find fault with, save, perhaps, the fact that in winning the banquet he had unwittingly provided the money to pay for it!

The second week in March witnessed the return of the track team candidates to practise in the gymnasium. Spring was unusually late that year – perhaps you recollect the fact? – and several feet of snow hid the ground until well toward the last of March. But meanwhile the candidates, thirty-eight in number, were divided into two squads and were daily put through chest-weight and dumb-bell exercises and sent careening around the running track. Allan, who since his failure to “make good” – in the language of the undergraduate – had been somewhat disgusted and down in the mouth, with the return to practise experienced a renewal of faith in himself and his abilities. Billy Kernahan laughed at his pessimistic utterances and assured him that outdoor work would do wonders for him.

Meanwhile Hal was hard at work with the freshman baseball squad and was turning out to be something of a “star” at the bat. Tommy, who during the winter months had found much difficulty in keeping himself busy, was as happy as a lark, since the awakening activity in athletics, the class debates and the final debate with Robinson afforded him opportunities to perform wonderful feats of reporting and gave him almost as much work to do as even he could desire.

Pete was left forlorn. Of the quartet he alone had no interest in life save study; and without wishing to be hard on Pete, I am nevertheless constrained to say that in his case study as an interest was something of a failure. He managed to stand fairly well in class, but this was due rather to an excellent memory than to any feats of severe application. When, toward the last of March, the baseball men and the track team went outdoors, he was more deserted than ever. Hal and Allan were inaccessible to him save in the evenings, and even then insisted on studying. As for Tommy —

“You might as well try to put your thumb on a flea as to try and locate Tommy,” he growled aggrievedly. “I tried to meet up with him on Monday, and the best I could do was to find out where he had been last seen on Saturday. I haven’t caught up with him yet, by ginger!”

“Why don’t you go in for something?” asked Hal. “Try baseball.”

“Baseball!” grunted Pete. “What do I know about baseball? It would take me a month to learn the rudiments of the game. I’ll go out for spring football practise next month, but that only lasts a couple of weeks, they say, and after that I guess I’ll pack up and go home.”

“Try golf,” said Allan, with a wicked smile. Pete snorted.

“I’d look well hitting a little ball with a crooked stick, wouldn’t I?” he asked disgustedly. “No; I may be a blamed fool, but I know better than to make such a show of myself as that.”

In the end Pete found an interest, and the manner of it was strange. It happened in this wise.

It was a few days before the class games. If his friends would not come to him, Pete could, at least, go to his friends. And so he had got into the way of walking out to the field in the afternoon and watching Hal on the diamond or Allan on the track. Sometimes he had a word or two with them; but at all events it was better, he thought, than moping about the college. The scene was a lively and, when the weather was bright, a pretty one. To-day the sky was almost cloudless, the sun shone warmly and there was a quality to the air that made one want to do great things, but yet left one content to do nothing.

When Pete approached the field he saw that the varsity and freshman baseball teams were both at practise, that the lacrosse candidates – whose antics always amused him – were racing madly about at the far corner of the enclosure, and that the track men were on hand in force. The scene was full of life and color and sound. Pete broke into song:

 
Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home,
And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam;
He hit the trail for Texas a cowboy for to be,
And a kinder-hearted feller you’d never hope to see.
 

Pete’s voice was untrained but hearty. Had the tune been more melodious the effect would possibly have been more pleasing. As it was, the adventures of Sam Bass were chanted – as they always have been where Pete came from – in a melancholy reiteration of some half-dozen notes that threatened in the course of time to become terribly monotonous.

 
Sam used to own a thoroughbred known as the Denton mare;
He matched her in scrub races and took her to the fair.
He always coined the money and spent —
 

The song died away to a low rumble as Pete stooped and picked up a battered sphere of lead which lay on the sod before him. It was surprisingly heavy and he wondered what it was. Then his gaze fell on a lime-marked circle a few yards away, and it dawned upon him that the thing he held was a sixteen-pound shot, such as he had seen the fellows throw. Near-by the sod was dented and torn where the weight had struck. Pete hefted the thing in one hand and then the other. Then he raised it head-high and threw it toward the circle. It narrowly missed smashing the stop-board. Pete took up his song once more:

 
He started for the Collins ranch, it was the month of May,
With a herd of Texas cattle, the Black Hills for to see.
 

He picked up the shot again and looked about him. There was nobody near, and of those at a distance none was paying him any attention. So he laid his pipe on the ground, balanced the shot in his right hand, stepped to the front of the circle and sent it through the air. It described a good deal of an arc and came down about eight paces away. Pete was sure he could beat that, so he strolled over and recovered the weight, and, humming lugubriously the while, strolled back and tried it over again. This time it went a few feet farther and Pete was encouraged. He took off his coat and rolled his sleeves up, spat on his hands and seized that lump of lead with determination.

Up near the finish of the mile, by the side of the track, Allan was in conversation with Kernahan. Suddenly he stopped, smiled, and pointed down the field.

“For goodness’ sake,” he exclaimed, “look at Pete Burley trying to put the shot!”

Billy turned and watched. When the shot had landed, he asked:

“Has he ever tried that before?”

“No, indeed; Pete’s stunt is football.” Kernahan smiled.

“Sure. I remember him now. Well, you try a few sprints of thirty yards or so, and I guess that’ll do for to-day. That stride’s coming along all right; don’t be in too big a hurry. To-morrow do a slow mile and a few starts. Then you’d better knock off until the meeting.”

Allan nodded, turned and jogged away up the track. Billy strolled toward Pete. When he drew near his ears were greeted with a plaintive wail:

 
Sam Bass was born in Indiana, it was his native home,
And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam;
He hit the trail —
 

Away sped the shot, and fell with a thud fully thirty feet distant. Pete grunted. Billy’s face lighted. Pete wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of one big hand and strolled after the shot. When he turned back he saw the trainer. He looked somewhat abashed and showed a disposition to drop the weight where he stood. But he thought better of it.

“Taking a little exercise,” he explained, carelessly.

Billy nodded.

“Good idea,” he said. “Don’t throw it, but push it right away from you as though you were punching some one. You get it too high.”

“Oh, I was just fooling with it,” said Pete.

“I know; but you try it, and don’t let it go so high.”

The first attempt was a dismal failure, the shot scarcely covering twenty feet. Billy’s presence embarrassed the performer.

“Try it again,” said Billy. Pete hesitated. Then,

“All right,” he said, cheerfully.

This time he did better than ever, and Billy paced off the distance.

“About thirty-two feet,” he announced. “That’ll do for to-day.”

“Huh?” said Pete.

“That’s enough for this time. You don’t want to lame your muscles, if you haven’t done it already.”

“Oh, my muscles will stand it,” answered Pete. “Do ’em good to get lame, I guess.” But Billy shook his head.

“No, that won’t do. You leave off now and report to me to-morrow at four-thirty.”

“What for?” asked Pete, in surprise.

“For practise. We’ll try you in the meet next Friday.”

“No, I guess not,” said Pete, shaking his head. “If you had a roping contest I might try my hand, but these athletic stunts have me beat.”

“Never mind about that,” answered the trainer, “you do as I say. We need you, and we’re going to have you. Four-thirty, remember; and you’d better get some togs.”

He nodded and walked away. Pete, staring after him, expressed his surprise by a long whistle.