Scott Morgan
The New Boys at Oakdale

CHAPTER XXI – THE CAMP ON THE ISLAND

Under the western shoulder of Turkey Hill the shadows were deep and heavy, and, the path being dim and faint from rare use, it was necessary for the party to proceed slowly. They did not talk much, and when they did speak their words were uttered in low and guarded tones.

Several times, Piper, in the lead, paused to make sure they had not wandered from the right course. The others seemed to rely almost wholly upon Billy, and no one thought of superseding him in the leadership. During one of these pauses, Cooper, who had halted with Springer a short distance behind the others, pulled at Phil’s sleeve and whispered in his ear:

“Say, old man, don’t you think it’s about time we told all we know about this business?”

Springer gave his body a queer sort of a shake.

“What gug-good will that do?” he whispered back. “It won’t help fuf-find Hooker.”

“No, but it may help us after he’s found.”

“I don’t think so; it’s tut-too late.”

“Why too late?” persisted Chipper.

“Because everybub-bub-body would know we were just scared into it, that’s all. It wouldn’t help us a bit, Chip – not a bit, to tell it now. If Piper thought it would do any good you bub-bet your life he’d have told already.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” sighed Cooper; “but it’s an awful load on my conscience, and I’d like to get it off my system.”

“Come on,” Piper called back in a low tone. “We’re all right. This is the way.”

They went forward again, turning presently to the left and descending to the lower ground at the border of the broad marsh. The trees became more scattering and the thickets grew thinner. Before long they saw the marsh, spreading out before them, silent and strange and uninviting in the moonlight which flooded its expanse of pools and reeds and brushwood, amid which a few scraggy dead trees rose here and there. In the midst of the expanse was a bit of higher ground, covered by a growth of small, dark, evergreen trees. This was the “island” on which stood the old camp where Piper hoped to find Roy Hooker. From knoll to knoll, in a zigzag course, led the path, the pools and marshy places bridged by felled trees and brushwood.

“I’m afraid you won’t find him there, Piper,” said Nelson.

Cooper, hearing the words, muttered for Springer’s ear:

“I’m afraid we will.”

Despite their caution in proceeding, at one point, Grant, breaking through the brushwood bridge with a cracking sound, plunged one leg to the thigh between the two lengthwise supports and drew it forth soaking wet.

“This yere trail,” said the Texan, “is sure some unreliable and treacherous.”

Those who reached the island first waited for the others to come up. They stood there whispering and listening, but hearing no sounds to assure them that the one they sought was near.

“As he’s deranged,” said Piper, “we want to take care not to frighten him more than possible, for it’s likely he’ll be scared and run when he sees us.”

“He can’t run fur,” declared Crane, “without plungin’ head over heels right into the swamp.”

“And that’s what we don’t want him to do; it might be his finish. We must prevent him from running away when we find him.”

“When we find him,” muttered Nelson. “But something tells me we won’t find him here.”

Slowly they pushed forward toward the center of the island. In a few moments they came to a small opening and paused again, before them the old camp huddling in the shadows of a thick grove which rose close beside it. The place was dolefully silent and forbidding at that hour. A breath of wind, sweeping across the island, set up a sudden rustling, which was accompanied by a sound that put their nerves on edge.

That sound was like a low, harsh moan or groan, and it seemed to come from the sagging, deserted camp before them. Some shrank back shivering, while others appeared eager to rush forward.

“He’s there!” breathed Nelson. “That must be he!”

Springer stooped and placed his lips close to Cooper’s ear:

“Sus-sus-sounded to me like sus-sus-some one dying,” he chattered.

“Let the others go ahead,” gasped Cooper. “I don’t want to find him first. I don’t want to see him. I’d like to get away this minute.”

With his arm outstretched and the palm of his hand turned backward to restrain his companions, Billy Piper advanced swiftly on his toes. Within a few feet of the shanty structure, he saw that the door was standing open. At that moment another gust of wind rustled through the trees, and immediately the harsh moaning sound was repeated.

“It’s the door,” declared Billy, enlightened. “The wind moves it and makes the old hinges creak.”

“My Jinks!” mumbled Crane, in great relief. “I thought it must be him sure; I thought it was Roy. Mercy! I’m all ashake.”

Stepping boldly to the black doorway, Piper struck a match, but a gust of wind extinguished it. Immediately he lighted a second match, shielding the tiny blaze with his cupped hands. Close behind him crowded the others, seeking to look over his shoulders into the camp when the blaze should be sufficient to reveal the interior of the place.

Having protected the match until it burned brightly, Billy held it out before him and slightly above his head, shifting his curved hands until they served as a reflector for the tiny flaring light.

The shanty contained only one room, which seemed to be quite empty and deserted, save for an old broken table and a few crude pieces of furniture. There were shadows in the corners, but none of these seemed sufficient to hide a human being.

The flame scorched Billy’s fingers, and he dropped the match, which, a bent and glowing coal, floated zigzagging and spiraling downward, burst into bits as it struck, and died out.

Some one behind Piper drew a long breath. “I don’t reckon he’s here, after all,” said the voice of Grant.

“There’s something white lying on the floor,” declared Billy, with suppressed excitement. “I saw it just as I dropped the match.”

Lighting another, he stepped forward and picked the thing up. It was a damp cloth, and with it in his hand he retreated into the moonlight outside.

“What is it? What is it?” questioned the boys, pressing around him.

Billy held it up. “Looks to me like a wet towel that had been wound round something and fastened into place with safety pins,” he said. “That’s what it is, too. Fellows, Hooker may not be here now, but he has been here – he certainly has. This proves it.”

“How do you make that out?” asked Osgood, doing his best to appear as calm as would seem consistent.

“This towel proves it,” reiterated Piper. “It couldn’t come here without being brought, could it?”

“No; but I don’t see – ”

“It’s wet. It’s the very towel that was used to hold the ice compress on Roy’s head.”

“If that’s right,” said Nelson swiftly, “he must be near. Perhaps he’s hiding close by in the bushes. We must search every foot of this island.”

“Every inch of it,” agreed Piper, “and we want to be about it right away. Let’s fall back to the place where we came on, and begin there. We must spread out and then advance together. There must be some system about it.”

Following his directions, they began the search on the island. It was dark, pokey work in the midst of the thicker growths, but, nevertheless, they did it with an amount of thoroughness that made it seem impossible for them to overlook a person seeking to hide on that small patch of dry land. Yet, when they had covered it all and reached the western side beyond which the swamp lay impassable for a person afoot, they had found no additional token of Hooker.

“Too bad,” said Nelson, discouraged. “He isn’t here. He can’t be here.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” admitted Piper, “yet this towel is sure evidence that he has been here.”

“He must have gone away before we came,” was Osgood’s opinion. “I don’t believe he could have dodged us after we got on to the island.”

Almost with one accord, they turned to Piper.

“What be we goin’ to do next, Billy?” asked Crane.

“Let’s take one more look into that old camp,” suggested the leader, who, although he did not admit it, was almost at his wit’s end. “I know where there’s an old pitch-pine log, and we ought to get a piece of that to serve as a torch.”

The log, which had been partly hacked up for firewood, was found, and a slender resinous strip was torn from it. Lighting one end of this strip of wood, Piper fanned it into a bright flame, and, bearing it in his hand, boldly entered the shanty.

The torch revealed nothing they had not previously seen, but it did give them complete assurance that the boy they sought could not be hiding there.

“Yes, he got away, that’s sure,” said Nelson; “and there’s only one way by which he could do it. He had to go back as he came.”

“And therefore,” said Billy quickly, “he must be in the woods somewhere yonder. That’s where we should look for him now.”

“Perhaps,” ventured Crane, “he’s near enough to hear us. Oh, Hooker! Hey, Roy!”

Piper sprang at him savagely. “Stop that, you idiot!” he snarled. “Stop shouting that way! What are you trying to do?”

“Why, I thought he might hear me.”

“Yes, he might and be frightened into fits. No more of that fool business, Sile. Keep still and come on. We’ll get off right away and do the best we can hunting for him over yonder.”

Over the treacherous crossing they returned to the solid ground beyond the border of the swamp. Looking backward, Cooper tugged at Springer’s sleeve.

“Now I’m afraid we won’t find him, Phil,” he confessed. “I’m afraid nobody will find him tonight. And when they do, it wouldn’t surprise me if they dug his body out of this old swamp.”

CHAPTER XXII – A SURPRISING CONFESSION

After a time Osgood and Nelson became separated from the rest of the searchers. They had come to a little opening where the moonlight shone upon a small pile of cord-wood that had been cut and left there during the past winter, and here they stopped and faced each other.

“It’s worse than useless, this searching without lights of any sort save what the moon affords,” said Jack. “There are thousands of places were one could hide from searchers if he chose. It would be better to go through the woods calling to Hooker and assuring him we are friends.”

“I doubt,” returned Ned, “if we’d find him then.”

“What do you suppose has become of him?”

“You can answer that question fully as well as I.”

“Well, then,” said Jack suddenly, “what do you suppose was the cause of all this trouble, anyhow? How was Hooker hurt?”

Osgood’s answer was a shrug. Motioning toward two short stumps which stood nearby, he suggested that they should sit down.

“I want to talk to you, Nelson,” he said, when they were seated. “I’ve got to talk to some one, and I’d rather it would be you than any one else. We’ve never been what might be called real friendly, have we?”

Surprised and wondering at his companion’s words and singular manner, Nelson replied:

“I don’t know that we’ve been exactly chummy, but – ”

“Tell the truth,” interrupted Osgood, reaching out and putting his hand on the other boy’s knee. “We haven’t been even friendly, although you seemed willing enough to be, and I’ve put up a bluff that I was. All the same, you didn’t trust me. You knew I was bluffing.”

“I – I don’t think – that I – actually knew it,” stammered Nelson, still more astonished.

Osgood threw back his head and smiled. The moonlight, full on his rather handsome, aristocratic face, showed that smile to be touched with bitterness, even with self-scorn.

“I’m a bluffer, Nelson – a thoroughbred bluffer,” he declared. “Intuition told you as much. All along I knew you were one fellow in Oakdale that I had not fully blinded. Piper, with all his natural shrewdness – and we’ll admit that he’s naturally shrewd – was deceived in me.”

“What are you talking about, Osgood?” exclaimed Jack. “Why are you telling me this stuff, anyhow?”

“I don’t know just why, but I’m telling it to relieve my mind. Perhaps it will relieve me in a measure, anyhow. I had no thought in the world of talking to you this way when we paused here a few moments ago, but suddenly an irresistible impulse came upon me. Something seemed to say, ‘You may as well tell him, for he sees through you, anyhow.’ Do you know, Nelson, I’ve hated you. Yes, that’s the word. I hated you because I couldn’t deceive you, and that’s why I longed to do something to hurt you.”

“You what? Of course I know I benched you in that Wyndham game, but I had – ”

“You should have benched me before,” exclaimed Osgood. “You should have fired me from the nine.”

“Fired you? Why, you were one of our best players. You really knew more baseball than any one else on the team. You were valuable.”

“Even if I could play better baseball than Hans Wagner himself, I was a bad man to have on the team, for I was trying to create insubordination, distrust and a disbelief in your ability as captain.”

“I – I knew Shultz was ready to kick against my authority at any provocation,” said Nelson, bewildered; “but you always seemed so decent and – ”

“Shultz!” exploded Osgood. “Why, he was simply carrying out my scheme. I let him think it was mainly his idea, but all the time it was mine. I fooled him, just the same as I did the others. When I perceived that you did not trust me, and when I became convinced that you thought me something of a fraud, I was bitterly determined to down you. I set about ingratiating myself into the good will and esteem of certain fellows on the team – certain fellows I felt confident I could sway to my will. Never mind who they are, Nelson, for they weren’t wise to the depth of my game. Still, I knew I was getting them, one by one, just where I wanted them. I knew that in time, when I should be ready to make a split on the nine, I could swing them to my side and carry the majority of the players with me. That was my object, Nelson. I intended to make trouble on the team, break it up under your leadership, and then suggest reorganization, with the purpose of being chosen captain in your place.”

Nelson leaped to his feet. “Why, you miserable scoundrel!” he cried furiously. “So that’s what you were up to! I did smell a rat. I did think you were up to something underhanded. So that was it, eh? You’re a scrapper; you can box, they say. Take off your coat!”

Osgood made no move to rise. “We’re not going to fight,” he asserted calmly. “Did you think I was telling you this in order to provoke a fight?”

“I can’t understand why under heaven you told me, anyhow.”

“Simply because I was determined to relieve myself of some of the load I’ve been carrying. Simply because in the last few hours I’ve come to see the full meaning of my dirty scheming. Oh, I don’t suppose you believe me, but that’s the reason – anyhow, it’s a part of the reason. And I’m done with it all, no matter what may happen to me to-morrow.”

His breast heaving, his hands clenched, Nelson continued to stand glaring down at the calm, abject fellow before him. And there was something so genuinely abject in Osgood’s appearance that gradually Jack felt his rage oozing away and leaving him.

“Sit down,” invited Ned once more. “I’m not half through. As long as I’ve begun on this thing, and said so much, I’m going to tell you more, although it’s likely you’ll hold me henceforth in the most complete contempt. You spoke of Shultz a moment ago. Do you know he’s not the sort of fellow with whom I can have any real natural bond of sympathy?”

“I’ve always wondered at your chumminess with him,” said Nelson slowly, reseating himself. “He’s so different. You’re a gentleman, while he’s plainly of the most plebeian and common stock.”

“He’s no more plebeian and common than I am,” declared Osgood instantly.

“But his family – he comes of a most ordinary family.”

“So do I.”

“You? Why, you have some high-grade ancestors behind you on your mother’s side, at least.”

“I wondered if you believed that, Nelson. If you did, it’s plain you did not see through me completely, as I fancied.”

“What? Do you mean to say that – ”

“My father and mother were just poor, illiterate people, neither of whom could trace their pedigree back three generations. To tell you the plain truth, I don’t know anything whatever about my ancestors on either side.”

“But the family portraits you have, and the crest you use upon your stationery?”

“Pure bluff, nothing else. I picked those portraits up as I chanced to find them and fancied they would serve my purpose. Any one who wishes can get a stationer to put a crest on his writing-paper. My father started out in life as a tin peddler; my mother came from an orphan asylum. They settled on a little farm, and by hard work were able in time to buy more land. On that land some years ago oil was struck. It made them rich, and in a wonderfully short time my father drank himself to death.”

Pity was now supplanting anger in Nelson’s heart.

“But why – why did you put up such a bluff, Osgood?”

Again Ned shrugged. “Simply because I’m a sort of cad and bounder, I suppose. I’ve always felt grieved and hurt because I had no family behind me. It must be true that, although she came from an orphan asylum, my mother has good blood in her. Naturally, she had a little education, too, while my father could scarcely write his own name. Mother wished me to have an education and become a gentleman; on the other hand, my father had really no true conception of what the word gentleman meant. After he died mother sent me to school. I’ve attended four different schools. Two of them were in the middle West, and at both the truth regarding my parents was somehow learned. Although I had money, I met certain chaps who, as I could very well see, looked down on me. They came from good families, and even when they pretended to be hail-fellow-well-met with me, I could feel the hidden contempt in their hearts. It made me sore, Nelson. I hated those fellows.

“I wrote my mother about it; I told her about it when I saw her. It’s true that her health is not very good, and she has gone to Southern California. Why didn’t she take me with her and put me into a school out there? If you could see her, you might understand. Her shoulders are bowed from work, and her hands are gnarled and knuckled. She knew that she would betray the truth to any one who might meet her. I knew it, too, and right there, when she proposed that we should be separated by the full width of the continent in order that I might attend some far school where there would be little danger of the truth coming out – right there I showed the real cad in my make-up. I accepted the proposition and went to Hadden Hall.”

“But you didn’t stay at Hadden.”

“No. Shultz thinks I was compelled to leave that school for quite a different reason than the real one. One day a fellow showed up there to visit a friend – a fellow who knew me. I had been putting up the same bluff I’ve put up in Oakdale. I had far better rooms than I’ve been able to obtain here, and I was supposed to be a remote descendant of British aristocracy. The fellow who knew me punctured that fabrication. I was exposed, and I got out. Then I chose a little school, where it seemed to me there would be no chance of any one recognizing me. That’s what brought me to Oakdale.”

CHAPTER XXIII – ANOTHER SURPRISE

At a loss for words, Nelson was silent. He was still unable to comprehend Osgood’s motive for this confession. Perhaps Osgood himself did not know what had led him to make it, beyond the fact that he had suddenly been overcome by an intense desire to unburden himself in a measure.

The silence became awkward, and Jack stirred restlessly. His elbows on his knees, the other boy was staring broodingly at the ground. Roused by Nelson’s movement, he lifted his head slowly.

“Well,” he said, almost whimsically, “you see now what a cheap, common skate I am.”

“A fellow who blunders and owns up to it, partly atones for his mistake, anyhow,” returned Nelson. “We’re none of us perfect, old chap. We’re all human, and we have our little failings.”

“It’s very decent of you to talk that way, Nelson. I didn’t expect it. I had no reason to expect it. You’ve every right to be thoroughly disgusted with me, and I’m disgusted with myself.”

“I can’t see that you’ve actually harmed anybody yet.”

“That’s because you don’t know everything. I haven’t told you all.”

“Great smoke!” exclaimed Jack, “Is there more to tell?”

“Some time, before long, when everything comes out, you’ll be compelled to think even less of me than you do now.”

“Look here,” said Nelson suddenly, “do you know anything about the cause of this Hooker trouble? You must be referring to that; it can’t be anything else.”

“Whatever I know you will learn in time,” was the evasive answer.

“You aren’t responsible for his condition?”

“I didn’t strike the blow.”

“You do know about it! Why haven’t you told before?”

“There may be various reasons. As one, you should see that it meant exposure for me; it meant looking into my past record and bringing to life the fact that I’m a faker.”

“Now that you’ve told that much about yourself, I can’t see any good reason why you should not tell it all. Seems to me it’s your duty.”

Osgood seemed to meditate again. “There are others concerned,” he said presently, “and I have a duty to them as well as to myself. What I’ve told of my own affairs doesn’t concern them, and I will claim that I’ve never yet played the squealer on any other chap.”

“But the truth will have to come out.”

“I haven’t a doubt about that. Let it come. But when it does, let it come from the right source.”

“I suspected that you must know something about it.”

“Oh, yes, you’ve suspected me all along, Nelson. In possession of the facts I’ve given you, it will be a simple matter for you to show me up in Oakdale.”

“If you imagine I’m going to run right away and tattle what you’ve practically told me in confidence, you’ve got me sized up wrong.”

“I was not aware that I told it to you in confidence. I do not remember that I exacted from you a promise of secrecy.”

“Perhaps that was because you thought I’d tell anyhow.”

“I didn’t think much about it. I didn’t stop to think. When the impulse seized me, I simply went ahead and told.”

“Perhaps you’ll be sorry you did.”

“Perhaps so, but it’s done now.”

Jack rose once more and placed a hand on his companion’s shoulder.

“Osgood,” he said, “I refuse to believe that a fellow with a conscience like yours can be thoroughly bad. Your natural impulses are right. You didn’t bind me to secrecy, but I’ll pledge you now that I’m not going to give you away.”

“I don’t suppose it will make any great difference whether you do or not,” returned Ned unemotionally; “but I thank you for your good will. Hadn’t we better look up the rest of the bunch? By this time they’re probably wondering what has become of us.”

As he was starting to rise, Jack gripped his shoulder, hissing:

“Keep still! What’s that? Some one is coming this way!”

From a distance came the sounds of a body moving through the underbrush. Slowly the sounds drew nearer, ceasing at intervals, as if the person, if a person it was, paused now and then to rest or listen.

“Who do you suppose it is?” whispered Nelson. “It doesn’t seem to me it can be one of the fellows coming back this way.”

Osgood shook his head as he rose noiselessly to his feet. Looking at each other, the same thought filled their minds.

Perhaps it was Roy Hooker!

Not far from them, yet wholly concealed by the thickets and the shadows, the moving object halted and remained silent for a long time. Gradually this silence wore upon their patience, and presently Nelson made signs indicating that he meant to investigate with all possible caution. Osgood nodded, and, side by side, they crept forward, stepping softly and peering anxiously into the gloom.

Beneath Nelson’s foot a dead branch snapped with a report like a toy pistol. Almost instantly there was a movement in the thicket, a rushing sound, a crashing as of a person in flight.

“Confound it!” exclaimed Jack. “Come on, Osgood, let’s run the thing down.”

Through the bushes and the shadows, they dashed in pursuit. Osgood, following the other boy too closely, was lashed in the face by whipping branches, which stung and blinded him. At the first opportunity he turned aside and chose a course he believed to be parallel with that Nelson was pursuing. All at once he perceived they were no longer guided by sounds made by the one they were after, and he stopped short to listen. The other boy ran on much farther before he also stopped.

Again the woods, bathed in the white light of the moon, seemed hushed and silent.

“Oh, Osgood! Where are you?”

It was Jack calling.

Ned had opened his lips to answer when something touched his ankle – touched it and gripped it. Looking down, he was amazed to see that it was a human hand thrust out from beneath a thick, low cluster of bushes, and for the moment the discovery robbed him of the power to make a sound.

The low bushes stirred. A head was pushed forth into a patch of moonlight, and to Ned’s ears came a tremulous, choking whisper, full of fear and pleading:

“Don’t answer, Osgood – for the love of goodness, don’t answer!”

Ned was looking down into the distraught, fear-stricken face of Charley Shultz!