Scott Morgan
Boys of Oakdale Academy

CHAPTER III.
ROD’S WONDERFUL JUMP

Prof. Richardson was giving his attention to the class in physiology when Rod Grant returned to the academy. The boy from Texas walked quietly down the center aisle and took his place in the class. In truth, as he now appeared, there was nothing about him, save possibly the deep tan of his cheeks, to give him an appearance different from that of any clean, healthy, manly-appearing Eastern youngster. He wore a well-fitting suit of dark blue serge, a negligée shirt, and a carelessly knotted crimson four-in-hand tie. On his feet were stout, serviceable, yet distinctly well made and stylish tan shoes.

Berlin Barker, who had been reciting, sat down. The principal surveyed Rod over his gold-rimmed spectacles, which perched precariously on the end of his nose, nodding his head slightly as if inwardly approving of the change in the new boy’s appearance.

“Grant.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You may recite.”

Rodney stood up.

“How many bones are there in the entire skeleton of an adult?”

“Two hundred, sir.”

“You may state the number and give the names of the various bones of the human arm and hand.”

Grant did so without hesitation, speaking in a clear, well-modulated voice, his language having no touch of the vernacular which Phil Springer had asserted to be characteristic of a Westerner. His accent and inflection, it is true, differed slightly from that of Easterners in general, but this difference was not sufficient to attract the notice of a person who was not particularly observing.

“Very good, Grant,” nodded the principal. “You may be seated. I have the pleasure of informing this class that I have been enabled, at considerable expense and after no end of trouble, to purchase a complete and perfect human skeleton, which arrived yesterday and is now stored in the laboratory. I obtained this skeleton for demonstrating purposes; but, not wishing to disturb those scholars who are naturally nervous or timid, I shall not display it before the school during the period of any regular session. To-morrow, however, such members of this class as may desire to remain after the last period will be given the privilege of seeing and examining the skeleton. I wish it understood, however, that no one is positively required to remain for that purpose, and I would suggest that the timid ones do not remain. Class dismissed.”

“Jiminy!” whispered Cooper in Sleuth Piper’s ear. “Where d’you s’pose he got his old skeleton?”

“My deduction is,” answered Sleuth, “that he obtained it from a cemetery.”

“What a grave thing to do,” grinned Chipper. “On the dead, it gives me a shiver.”

At intermission some of the boys gathered near the academy steps and talked about the skeleton.

“My eagle eye detected the long, gruesome-looking box in the express office yesterday,” said Piper; “but on lifting one end of it, which I did, my deduction was that the box, being very light, could not possibly contain a subject for a funeral. Ever since then the mystery has preyed upon me, but at last the prof’s statement has cleared it up to the satisfaction of all concerned.”

“Be yeou goin’ to see the old thing to-morrer?” questioned Crane.

“I shall take pleasure in doing so.”

“Pleasure! Great scissors! I don’t see no fun in lookin’ at a skeleton. The prof is a crank abaout such things; everybody says so.”

“I sure can’t see the necessity of exhibiting a genuine skeleton before the class,” said Rod Grant. “If we were medical students, it would be different; but, as far as I’m concerned, I can acquire all the knowledge I desire about the bones of the human body without examining such human framework at short range.”

“It can’t be possible,” said Chub Tuttle, “that a fellow who has scalped schoolmasters and tickled Injuns to death is afraid of a harmless skeleton.”

“I don’t admit any that I’m afraid of the thing,” returned Grant; “but I simply say, what’s the use?”

Standing near, Berlin Barker shrugged his shoulders and laughed an unspoken sneer, which caused the warm blood to glow through the tan of Rod’s cheeks. Turning on his heel, Barker joined some fellows who were jumping at the corner of the academy. Grant’s gaze followed him. In a moment or two, urged to do so, Barker, who prided himself on his ability as a jumper, stripped off his coat and entered into competition with Jack Nelson.

Rod drew near and looked on.

“That’s pretty fair,” he observed, when Berlin, doing his level best, had beaten Nelson by a good six inches.

Barker turned on him. “Pretty fair, you lead-heeled gas bag! Perhaps you think you can beat it?”

“Maybe so,” nodded Rod.

“I’ll bet ten dollars you can’t come within a foot of my mark.”

“Keep your money in your clothes, partner; you may need it some.”

“You’ve been blowing around lately about what you can do, but nobody has ever seen you do anything. I’m not from Missouri, but you’ve got to show me, and there are various other fellows who feel the same way.”

“I’m out of practice,” said Grant, slowly removing his coat and dropping it to the ground; “but, as long as you’ve put it up to me that fashion, I opine I’ll have to show you a stunt.”

Eagerly the boys gathered around to watch the fellow from Texas, who stepped forward with a calm, confident air and toed the mark. Backward and forward at his sides Grant swung his clenched fists, stooping a little, while the muscles in his body grew tense. Suddenly he launched himself through the air with a long, graceful leap, flinging his feet forward beneath him at the proper moment and planting his heels firmly and fairly in the turf, coming upright without a falter or a struggle.

The spectators shouted.

“Jerusalem!” cried Sile Crane. “He’s beat Berlin, ding my boots if he hain’t!”

Measurement with a tape showed that the lad from Texas had outjumped Barker by fully four inches.

“Great work, Grant,” said Roger Eliot approvingly; but Berlin, choking with chagrin and wrath, turned away without a word.

“Oh, that was right easy,” beamed Rod, accepting his coat from Crane, who had hastened to get it. “Sometime when I’m feeling plenty like it I’ll show you a real jump.”

“What’s the longest jump you ever made?” asked Piper.

“I hold the world’s record,” replied Rod unblushingly.

“Oh, say! what are you giving us?” cried Jack Nelson.

“Cold facts, my friend. In dire peril of my life, I once made a jump only equaled by the original owner of the seven league boots.”

“Tell us abaout it,” urged Crane, scenting a story. “How fur did yeou jump?”

“Twenty miles.”

“Wha-what?” gulped Phil Springer. “Oh, say! Now that sus-spoils the whole story.”

“Yes,” sighed Crane, “that spiles it. If yeou had only stretched her a little bit – just within the bounds of reason!”

“I was well aware, gents,” said Grant, smoothing a wrinkle in his coat sleeve, “that you would think me prevaricating. I presume it’s right natural that you should. Nevertheless, I’ll tell the tale. I learned the art of jumping from grasshoppers; you know they are great jumpers. Occasionally these pests come down in millions upon the Panhandle country. They have been known to eat every blade of grass clean to the roots on a section as big as the State of Rhode Island. They have even invaded houses and chewed up muslin window curtains, carpets, rugs, and similar articles. Two years ago we had the greatest grasshopper season ever known in Roberts County. The pests came down on us suddenly in swarms which darkened the sky and blotted out the light of the sun. I was out riding the range at the time the advance guard of the varmints appeared.”

“Oh, jinks!” hissed Piper. “He said varmints!”

“Some of our boys over on Bitter Crick had sent me with a message to the ranch, and I started out at an early hour. The ranch house is located on the south bank of the Canadian River. We were some thirty miles or more to the north of the river. Shortly after sunrise I perceived what I took to be a cloud in the sky. It drew nearer with great rapidity, and I was looking for a dry gully or some shelter to protect me from what I took to be a sure enough tornado when the first sprinkling of grasshoppers settled around me. It didn’t take me long after that to make out what that cloud was – nothing but grasshoppers. They kept on coming thicker and thicker, until the air was literally full of them and the ground was covered to a depth of several inches. The sunshine was blotted so that it was almost as dark as twilight on a late autumn day. The blamed things got in my nose, my ears, my eyes, and they crawled down my neck and filled my hair. It sure was some unpleasant. All I could do was ride along, letting my horse pick his way; for, not having a compass nor being able to see the sky or the surrounding country, I had no idea where the river lay.”

“Yeou sartain was in a scrape, wasn’t ye?” grinned Crane.

“Wait, my friend – wait. I have not begun to tell you the full extent of my horrible dilemma. Once or twice I fancied I smelled something like smoke, but I paid no heed to this until a sort of dull reddish glow penetrated that mass of flying insects. Finally, looking back, I perceived behind me, spreading out on both sides, a gleam like fire. It was fire. The dry prairie grass was burning, and the wind was sweeping the flames down on me with the speed of an express train. In a measure that accounted for the tremendous number of grasshoppers now swarming about me and beating against me in their flight. They were being driven ahead of the flames, and as the fire advanced their numbers became greater and greater, until I could scarcely breathe without my nostrils being plugged by grasshoppers.”

“Horrible!” snickered Cooper.

“It was horrible,” said Grant solemnly. “When I realized my peril from that onrushing conflagration I put spurs to my horse in a hopeless effort to keep ahead of it. It was like galloping through the darkness of night. The beating and rustling of grasshoppers’ wings, which had sounded faint at first, had gradually risen until it was like the roaring of a gale. The pressure of insects against my back helped in a measure to carry me onward. Finally, however, my horse plunged into a gopher hole and broke its leg. Poor beast!

“But think of me, gents – think of me some! There I was dismounted in the path of that fearful prairie fire. Desperately I succeeded in rising, and madly I stumbled on knee deep amid squirming grasshoppers. The gloom was penetrated in a way by the light of the flames, and I could feel the scorching heat upon the back of my neck. Suddenly right ahead of me I beheld a deep fissure in the plain. The bottom of the fissure was packed with layers of grasshoppers many feet in depth. For a moment I hesitated, and then, as the fire rushed upon me, I launched myself in a desperate spring for the opposite side of the fissure.

“At that very moment, apparently aroused, despite their weariness, by the close approach and searing heat of the flames, the grasshoppers in that gully rose in a solid mass. They actually lifted me and bore me upward for a few moments. True, I was nearer smothered than ever before in all my life. Like a drowning person, I sought to rise higher by paddling with my hands and treading with my feet.

“I rose, gents – I sure did. I kept on rising, too, until I opined I was, pretty near the top of that tremendous mass of grasshoppers, which was sweeping along the surface of the earth ahead of the fire. I soon discovered that by paddling gently with feet and hands I could keep myself up, and to my unbounded relief I perceived that the flying grasshoppers were bearing me along with such speed that the flames could not gain upon me.

“I don’t know just how long I was in the air, but I do know that at least twenty good miles of Texas territory was passed over before that mass of flying grasshoppers became so thinned that I finally sank slowly and gently, like a feather, to the ground. Believe it or not, I landed on the south side of the Canadian River, and thus my life was saved; for when the flames reached the river they could go no farther.

“That, gents, is, I reckon, beyond the shadow of dispute, the longest jump on record. If any one has ever beaten it, I’d like to meet up with the party and yield him the palm.”

The bell clanged; intermission was over.

“Oh, suffering misery!” groaned Chipper Cooper, staggering toward the academy door. “Somebody support me. I’m weak and exhausted. That’s what I call a real w-hopper!”

CHAPTER IV.
THE FELLOW WHO REFUSED

Coached by Dash Winton, a former Dartmouth College player, the Oakdale Academy football team thus far had not lost a game for the season, and there was now but one more game to be played, which, however, was the one the boys especially desired to win; for, could they defeat Wyndham, the school that during the past three years had held the county championship, they would themselves win the title of champions.

As usual, Wyndham had a strong eleven; so strong, indeed, that in almost every respect it had wholly outclassed its opponents, thus far not having been once scored against; therefore, having won some of her contests by the narrowest possible margin and succeeded only once in blanking the enemy, it was no more than natural that Oakdale should feel more or less apprehension over that deciding battle so soon to be fought. Another reason for apprehension lay in the fact that Oakdale’s battered rush line contained several cripples; but it was likely that only the coach and Eliot, the captain, had detected certain alarming indications that the players were “going stale,” a calamity which they had privately discussed. In his heart Winton feared he had driven the youngsters too hard, when better judgment should have held them somewhat in restraint for the great battle of the season.

The autumn days had grown so short that there was little time to practice between the closing of the afternoon session at the academy and the coming of nightfall. As soon as possible, on being let out, the boys rushed from the academy to the gymnasium, jumped into harness and hurried onto the field, where they invariably found the coach waiting. Night after night they put in a brief practice game against the scrub, which contained a number of grammar school boys and was strengthened by the regular substitutes and, usually, by Winton himself.

But even this work had ceased to be properly beneficial, especially in developing defensive tactics; for the time had passed when the scrub could force them to exert themselves to the utmost. Indeed, the only substitutes obtainable were few in numbers and sadly deficient in real football qualifications, so that even the least astute knew that disqualifying injuries to two or three regular players, occurring in the game with Wyndham, would be almost certain to weaken the team hopelessly.

The great desire for reliable substitutes had led Roger Eliot to ask, almost to beg, Rodney Grant to come out for practice. For even though Grant might know little about the game, there was a chance for him to acquire some rudimentary knowledge, and, being a strong, lithe, athletic fellow, there was a possibility that he could be used to fill a gap at a time of extreme emergency. Eliot’s entreaties, however, had proved unavailing, the Texan flatly declining to practice, without giving his reasons for the refusal.

This new boy, entering Oakdale in the midst of the autumn term, where he appeared unannounced and unacclaimed, had at first seemed to be quiet and retiring to the verge of modesty. Of late, however, beset, almost pestered, by his schoolmates, his manner had undergone a decisive change, and it was not at all remarkable that various lads besides Berlin Barker had come to regard him as a braggart.

In the midst of practice on the afternoon of Grant’s feat as a jumper, Hunk Rollins, filling the position of right guard for the regulars, gave his right knee, injured in the last game, a twist that sent him hobbling off the field. There was a pause, in which Eliot consulted Winton concerning a substitute.

“No use to try Springer or Hooker,” said the coach in a low tone. “Neither is fitted for the place. In fact, we haven’t a man.”

Ben Stone, the left guard, an uncomely chap who, nevertheless, had become amazingly popular with the boys, chanced to overhear these words. In a moment he joined them.

“Why don’t you ask Grant again, captain?” he suggested. “I don’t know why it is, but I have a notion that he can play the game.”

“Grant?” said Roger in surprise. “I’ve asked him once, and he refused. Where is he?”

“Sitting alone over yonder on the seats,” answered Ben, with a movement of his head. “I saw him come in shortly after we commenced work.”

“Oh, yes,” muttered Roger, perceiving the solitary figure of Rod Grant. “There he is. Confound him! why doesn’t he come forward like a man and get into it? I did my best to induce him.”

“Let me talk to him,” said Winton, starting quickly toward the young Texan.

Barker, observant, strolled over in the wake of the coach.

Reaching the lower tier of seats, Winton shot a sudden question at Rodney Grant:

“Do you know anything about football?”

“Mighty little,” was the surprised answer.

“But you do know something? You’ve played the game, haven’t you?”

“Not much.”

“That’s an admission that you’ve played it some. We need you to fill a hole in the line – just for this practice game, you understand. Come on.”

“I reckon you’ll have to excuse me, sir,” said Grant. “I don’t believe I’ll play football.”

“This isn’t a regular game; it’s practice. You’ve got a little patriotism, haven’t you? You’ve got some interest in your school and your school team, I hope? It won’t hurt you to practice. Come, we haven’t any time to lose before it gets dark.”

But the boy on the seats shook his head. “I thank you for the invite, but I allow I’d better keep out of it. You’ll certain have to get some one else.”

Barker’s cold, irritating laugh sounded at Winton’s shoulder. “He’s afraid! He hasn’t even got sand enough to take part in a practice game.”

“You’re a – ”

Rod Grant cut himself short with the third word trembling on his lips. Involuntarily he had started up and was coming down over the seats.

“Say it – say it if you dare!” cried Barker, springing past Winton. “I wish you would.”

The young Texan faltered on the lowest seat. “Never mind,” he said slowly. “I judge maybe I’d better keep my tongue between my teeth.”

“You’re right, you had,” Barker flung back, his aggressiveness and insolence increasing, if possible, with the hesitation of the other. “What are you here for, anyhow? If you haven’t got sand enough even to practice, why do you come out here and sit around watching the rest of us? You’d better get off the field before some one runs you off.”

Grant stepped down to the ground. “I sure hope nobody will try it,” he muttered.

By this time Winton had Barker by the shoulder.

“Why are you butting in here?” he exclaimed warmly. “If you would let him alone, perhaps I’d get him to – ”

“Don’t you believe yourself, Mr. Winton. You couldn’t get him to do anything but talk and blow. I’ve been up against this same chap once before to-day, and he knows what I think of him. He’s a white-livered coward, that’s what’s the matter with him.”

Again it seemed that the boy from Texas would be taunted beyond endurance, and for a moment he crouched slightly, as if on the verge of springing at his insulter.

“Come on,” invited Barker. “You know how many bones there are in the human hand, even if you are afraid to examine a skeleton at short range. Come on, and I’ll let you feel the bones in my fists.”

These loud words had brought the boys flocking to the spot. Not a few of them believed for a moment or two, at least, that the impending fight between Barker and Grant must take place then and there, and, boylike, they welcomed it as a test of the stranger’s courage. Imagine their disappointment when Rod Grant dropped his half lifted hands by his sides and turned away.

“I’ll get off the field,” he muttered huskily. “I’m going, and I hope Mr. Barker will let me alone in future. He’d sure better.”

They watched him depart in the direction of the gate.

“That proves what he is,” said Berlin.

“By jinks, I guess yeou’re right,” acknowledged Sile Crane. “He is a coward.”

“Fellows,” said Ben Stone, “I may be wrong, but I don’t believe he refused to fight because he was afraid.”

“Perhaps not,” said Winton, shrugging his shoulders; “but I’d like to know why he refused to practice. Come on, boys, we’ll put some one in Rollins’ place and go ahead.”

It was quite dark when Stone, having shed his football togs, left the gymnasium and strode down the street toward the cottage of the Widow Jones, where he roomed. As he was passing through the front yard gate some one called to him, and he saw a figure hurrying toward him. It was Grant, who came up and stopped with his hand on the fence.

“Stone,” said the Texan, “I heard what you said as I was leaving the field to-night, and I want to thank you. It’s mighty agreeable to know that one fellow, at least, was inclined to stand up for me.”

“Look here, Grant,” said Ben, “I wish you’d tell me why you swallowed Barker’s insults. There must have been a reason.”

“There was; but I can’t tell you – not now, anyhow.”

“Why didn’t you fight him?”

“I – I didn’t want to,” faltered Rod.

“You weren’t afraid, were you?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Yes,” answered Grant in a low tone, “I was afraid.”

“I didn’t think that,” muttered Ben in disappointment.

“I can’t explain it now,” Grant hastened to say. “Sometime I will – perhaps. I won’t forget that you stood up for me. I can hear some of the fellows coming. Good night.” He turned sharply, and a moment later his figure melted into the darkness down the street.

Puzzled and wondering, Stone reached the door of the cottage and stopped there, listening involuntarily to the voices of several fellows he could see approaching. They were nearly opposite the house when he heard Chipper Cooper laugh loudly and say something about frightening the Texan into fits.

“If we can make it work it will be better than a circus,” said the voice of Fred Sage. “Are you sure you can get the old thing, Sleuth?”

“I’ve a skeleton key that will admit us,” replied Billy Piper.

“Oh, a skeleton key!” chuckled Chipper Cooper, as they passed on. “That’s the kind of a key for this job. Eh, Barker?”

Barker was with them. He said something, but Stone could not understand his words.

With his hand on the doorknob, Ben stood there speculating. “They’re putting up some sort of a job on Grant,” he murmured. “I wonder what they mean to do?”