Stratemeyer Edward
Dave Porter and His Classmates

CHAPTER XIII
THE GEE EYES' INITIATION

"Well, you're a sight!"

"I don't look any more stylish than yourself, Roger."

"Stylish is good, Dave. I guess both of us look like circus clowns."

"Whoop la!" shouted Buster Beggs. "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the renowned Oak Hall Company of Left-Over Clowns and Monkeys – the most unique aggregation of monstrosities on the face of the globe. This one has the reputation of – "

"Hush, not so loud, Buster!" cried Dave, "or you'll have old Haskers down on us, and that will spoil the fun."

"Speaking of looking like clowns puts me in mind of a story," came from Shadow, who was still struggling to get into his club outfit. "One time a country fellow who wasn't a bit good-looking wanted to join a circus as a clown. He went to see the manager. 'Can I have a job as a clown?' he asked. 'Well, I don't know,' answered the manager, slowly, as he looked him over. 'Who showed you how to make up your face? It's pretty well done.'" And the usual short laugh went up.

The Gee Eyes in the past had worn simple robes of red with black hoods over their heads. Now, by a special vote, they had purchased robes that were striped – red, white, and yellow. For headgear each member had a box-like contrivance, cubical in shape, with holes in the front for the eyes and an orange-like lantern on top, with a candle in it. This box rested on the shoulders of the wearer, thus concealing his identity completely.

In the past, Phil Lawrence had been president of the organization, but now that office was filled by Sam Day, under the title of Right Honorable Muck-a-Muck. Ben Basswood was secretary, and was called the Lord of the Penwiper; Buster Beggs was treasurer, known as the Guardian of the Dimes, and Luke Watson was sergeant-at-arms under the title of Captain Doorkeep.

The organization met whenever and wherever it was convenient. This was done for two reasons: first, because the members did not wish their enemies to know what they were doing, or otherwise information might be imparted to the teachers; and, second, they never met unless they were going to initiate a new member or were going to have some sort of a feast.

"Where are the intended victims?" asked Dave, after he had adjusted his robe and his headgear to his satisfaction, and possessed himself of a long stuffed club.

"They were told to wait in the old granary until called for," answered Messmer.

"Do they seem to be timid about joining?" asked Ben.

"Tom Atwood is a little timid, – he heard how little Frank Bond was almost scared to death by Gus Plum's crowd one term."

"By the way, where is Gus?" asked Henshaw.

"He said he wanted to study," answered Dave. "I asked him to come, but he wouldn't."

"My, but didn't Gus give us a funny story the time we initiated him!" cried one of the students.

"Yes, and do you remember how Link Merwell and Nat Poole placed those big firecrackers under our fire and nearly blew us all to pieces," added another.

"Never mind – we got square," said Buster. "I guess they haven't forgotten yet the drubbing we gave them."

It was late at night, and the boys had had not a little difficulty in stealing away from the school unobserved. With all in readiness, the three boys who were awaiting to be initiated were sent for, and they presently appeared, escorted by four of the club members, each carrying a bright and very blunt sword. As they came into the old boathouse, lit up by various fantastic lanterns representing skulls, dragons, and the like, the Gee Eyes set up a low chant:

 
"Hail the victims! Let them come!
Let them enter, one by one!
Let them bow the humble knee!
Let them now forsake all glee!
Death! Blood! Tomb!"
 

And then arose a weird groaning, calculated to make any lad feel uneasy. The three victims were forced to their knees and made to touch three chalk-marks on the floor with their noses. Then one of the members of the club came forward with a big tin wash-basin and sprinkled them with what looked to be water but was really ammonia. This caused some coughing and some tears commenced to flow. But the victims were "game" and said nothing.

"Lock two of them in yonder dungeon cell," commanded the Right Honorable Muck-a-Muck. "They shall be led to their fate later." And the Soden brothers, twins named Joe and Henry, were led to a big closet of the old boathouse and thrust inside.

Then Tom Atwood was taken outside, and a long march commenced behind the school grounds and leading to a secluded spot among some bushes. Here Atwood was suddenly blindfolded and his hands tied behind him.

"Now to Jackson's Gully with him," cried several, and then the party proceeded a little further into the bushes.

"Look out, don't slip into the gully," whispered one member, but loud enough for Tom Atwood to hear.

"Oh, I'll take care!" whispered another. "Why, the gully is a hundred feet deep around here."

Then Tom Atwood was led up and over some rocks and halted a short distance beyond.

"Say, that looks mighty dangerous to me," whispered Roger.

"Oh, he'll get over if he's got nerve," answered Dave.

"Base slave, list thou to me!" cried the president of the Gee Eyes. "We have brought thee to the edge of a gully some hundred feet deep. If thou wouldst become a member of this notorious – I mean illustrious – organization thou must cross the gully on the bridge we have provided. Dost thou accept the condition?"

"I – I don't know," faltered Tom Atwood. "I – I can't see a thing."

"Nor wilt thou until thy task is accomplished. The gully must be crossed, otherwise thou canst not be of us."

"How big is the bridge?"

"One board wide."

"Any – er – handrail?" went on the victim.

"Nary a handrail," piped up a small voice from the rear. "What do you want for your money, anyway?"

"Say, that puts me in mind of a story – " came from another, but he stopped short as a fellow-member hit him with a stuffed club.

"I – I don't know about this – " began Tom Atwood. "I – oh, say, let up!" he cried, as he received several blows from stuffed clubs. "I – oh, my back!"

"Wilt try the bridge?" demanded the Right Honorable Muck-a-Muck.

"Yes, yes, but can't I – I crawl if I want to?"

"Thou canst, after thou hast taken seven steps."

"All right, here goes then."

Tom Atwood was led forward to the end of a long plank.

"Be careful," he was cautioned. "There, put your foot there and the other one right there. Now you are all right."

"And must I really – er – stand up and take seven steps?"

"Yes, exactly seven, or woe betide thee!" came the answering cry.

With great caution the blindfolded victim took a step and then another. He was trembling visibly, which caused the club members to shake with silent laughter. He counted the steps and when he had taken just seven he fell on his hands and knees, clutching the sides of the plank tightly.

"Ho – how long is – is it?" he asked, his teeth commencing to chatter. "I – I ain't used to climbing in such places. It – it makes me dizzy!"

"Go on! go on!"

"The plank is only fifty-four feet long," said one boy.

"Oh, my! fifty-four feet; I'll go down – I know I will!"

Slowly, and clutching the plank with a death-like grip, Tom Atwood moved forward a distance of eighteen feet. Then the plank came to an end. He put out one hand after the other, but felt only the empty air.

"I – I don't feel the rest o – of th – the bridge!" he chattered.

"It is gone!" cried one boy, in a disguised voice. "Turn around and come back."

"But be careful how you turn, or the board may wabble and let you drop," added another.

More scared than ever, Tom Atwood turned around very gingerly. Once he thought the board was going over, and he set up a yell of fright. Then slowly and painfully he came back over the plank until he reached the solid ground once more.

"Hurrah!" cried the Gee Eyes. "Bravely done, Tom!"

"Now you are one of us!"

"He didn't mind that deep gully at all!"

"Yes, but I did mind it," answered the victim, as they were taking the cover from his eyes. "I wouldn't do that again for a hundred dollars in cash!"

"It was certainly the bravest thing to do I ever heard of," was Dave's comment, and then he tore the bandage away. Immediately, by the light of the lanterns the boys had on their headpieces, Tom Atwood looked at the plank which had cost him so much worry and fright.

"Well, I never!" he gasped.

And then what a roar of laughter went up! And well it might, for the plank rested on nothing but two blocks of wood and was less than a foot from the solid ground! The location was nowhere near Jackson's Gully.

"Tom, you'll do it for a hundred dollars now, won't you?" questioned Roger, earnestly.

"Oh, what a sell!" answered the victim, sheepishly. "Say, please don't tell the other fellows of this," he pleaded. "I'll never hear the end of it!"

"The secrets of the Gee Eyes are never told outside," answered Phil. "But there is one more thing you must do," he added.

"What?"

"Carry that plank back to the boathouse."

"All right."

"And here is a suit for you," said Ben. "Put that on, and then you can participate in the initiation of the Soden brothers."

"Where are they?"

"Locked up in the closet at the old boathouse."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"You'll see when you get back."

With Tom Atwood and the plank between them, the members of the Gee Eyes took up the long march back to the old boathouse. To do this they had to cross a country road which was but little used. As they did this they heard an unusual sound from a clump of trees near by.

"There they are!" a voice called out. "I told you I had seen some ghosts."

"Sure enough, Billy, they must be ghosts," was the reply, in a deeper voice. "It's a good thing I brung my shotgun with me."

"Are you goin' to shoot at 'em?"

"That's what, Billy."

Hardly had the words been spoken when, to the consternation of the Gee Eyes, a shotgun was discharged, the load whistling through the trees over the lads' heads.

"Hi! hi! stop that!" yelled Buster Beggs. "We are not ghosts! We are – "

Bang! spoke up the shotgun a second time, and the load went clipping through the bushes on the left.

"Hand me your shotgun, Billy," said one of the voices. "I don't know if I hit 'em or not, but this'll fetch 'em!"

"Run!" cried Dave. "Run for your lives! That old farmer is so scared he doesn't know what he is doing!"

And then all the boys ran across the roadway and dove into the woods beyond. They heard another report, but the contents of the gun did not reach them.

CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH JOB HASKERS GETS LEFT IN THE COLD

The boys kept on running for fully a hundred yards, plunging deeper and deeper into the woods which lined the roadway. Tom Atwood had dropped the plank and two of the club members had lost their headpieces, but nobody dreamed of going back for the articles.

"I think I know who that man is," said Phil, when the crowd came to a halt.

"Mike Marcy?" questioned Dave.

"Yes."

"I thought that, too, but I wasn't sure. He called the other fellow Billy."

"He has a boy working for him now and his name is Billy," said Shadow. "I met him on the road several times, driving cows. He isn't just right in his mind. I suppose Marcy got him to work cheap."

"I wonder if Marcy really thought we were ghosts?" mused the senator's son. "Maybe he only said that to scare us. He might have thought we were up to some kind of a job around his farm."

"Well, whether he thought we were ghosts or not, he certainly shot at us," was Phil's comment. "Ugh! I am glad I didn't get a dose of the shot!"

"And so am I," answered several others.

"That is one more black mark against Mike Marcy," said Luke Watson. "We'll have to remember to pay him back."

"Never mind about paying him back just now," answered Roger. "The question is, What's to do next? That run warmed me up and I'll take cold if I stand here long doing nothing."

"We must get back to the boathouse. Remember, the Soden boys are still locked up in that closet. It hasn't much ventilation and we don't want them to smother."

"I'm not going around by the road," said Henshaw.

"Not on your life!" exclaimed Ben. "I'd rather go down to the river and walk over the ice."

It was finally decided to follow Ben's suggestion, and the crowd continued on their way through the brushwood until the Leming River was reached. They saw or heard nothing more of Mike Marcy and his hired boy, for which they were thankful. Reaching the ice, they set off at a dog-trot for the old boathouse.

"If we only had skates this would be fine," declared Dave. "But as we haven't any we've got to make the best of it."

"As the servant girl said, when she told her mistress that she couldn't make sponge cake because they didn't have any sponges," answered the senator's son.

"Say, that puts me in mind of a story about a – " began Shadow. But just then one of the boys put out his foot and down went the story-teller of the school on the ice. "Hi, you!" he roared and pulled the other youth on top of him. Then began a wild scramble on the part of both to see who could get up first, and the story was forgotten.

When the Gee Eyes came in sight of the old boathouse they were surprised to learn it was well past midnight.

"We'll have to rush matters," said Dave. "If we don't, somebody may report us, and the doctor won't let us off very easily if we stay out too late."

"Maybe we'd better postpone the other initiations," suggested Luke.

"Oh, no, go ahead!" cried half a dozen. "We are safe enough."

Entering the old boathouse, the boys lit all the lanterns they possessed, and those who had lost their head-coverings tied masks over their faces. Then some approached the closet in which the Soden twins had been confined.

"Hello!"

"They are gone!"

"What does this mean?"

"They must have broken out and run away!"

Such were some of the exclamations indulged in when it was found that the apartment was empty. A hasty examination was made of the hasp and staple of the door, and they were found intact. A wooden peg had served to keep the hasp in place.

"It looks to me as if somebody had let them out," said Dave, after an examination.

"But who would do that, Dave?" questioned Phil.

"Somebody not a member of the Gee Eyes – some enemy of the club."

"But why should the Soden boys run away?" asked Shadow. "They were willing to be initiated."

"Perhaps they got cold feet – mentally as well as physically," ventured Henshaw. "They may have got to talking things over in the dark and got scared."

"They didn't break out, that's sure," declared the senator's son. "Somebody on the outside removed that wooden peg."

"Well, we didn't do it," said one of the boys.

"Can they be anywhere around?"

Some of the boys began a search, but this was in vain – the twins had disappeared.

"We may as well give up for to-night," said the president at last.

"I move we adjourn to bed," said Ben, and this was put and carried, and without delay the robes, headgears, and stuffed clubs and swords were hidden away, and the students hurried to Oak Hall.

Here another setback awaited them. The side door was locked, and the false key they had put on a convenient nail was missing.

"Somebody is playing us tricks," said Dave. "I thought so before and now I am certain of it. I shouldn't wonder if that somebody had gone and told Mike Marcy to look out for ghosts at the end of his lot."

"Who would do it?"

"Several fellows – Link Merwell, Nat Poole, and their cronies."

"Never mind that crowd now," said Shadow. "How are we to get into the school without waking anybody up?"

"Let us try all the doors and lower windows," suggested the shipowner's son.

This was done, and at last one of the boys found a basement window unfastened. He notified the others.

"I know where that leads to," said Dave. "The laundry."

"Yes, I've been in the laundry, too," added the senator's son.

"Then one of you see if you can get upstairs through the laundry and let us in," said Buster. "And please don't be all night about it either, for I am getting cold."

"Don't say a word," came from Messmer. "My ears are about frozen already."

"I'll go," said Dave.

"I'll go along," returned Roger.

Both climbed down through the basement window, to find themselves in a place that was pitch-dark. Here Dave struck a match and by its faint rays led the way to an open cellar and then to a stairs running up to the kitchen.

Tiptoeing their way up the stairs, they tried the door at the top, and to their joy found it unlocked. They stepped into the kitchen, and just then the match went out, leaving them again in the dark.

"I know the way now, so there is no need to make another light," said Roger.

"Wait, – better have a light," answered Dave. "You don't want to stumble over anything and make a noise."

He found a candle and lit it, and then the chums crept silently from the kitchen, through the pantry and dining room to the side hall. They wanted to stop for something to eat from the pantry, but did not wish to keep their friends waiting out in the cold.

The two youths were just on the point of turning a corner of the hall when a sound struck their ears. Somebody was close at hand, snoring lustily!

"Who can it be?" asked Roger, in a faint whisper, when both realized what the sound meant.

"I'll soon find out," answered Dave, and held up the candle.

"Don't wake him up, or there'll be trouble!"

Step by step they drew closer to the sleeping person. It was a man, wearing an overcoat and a skullcap. He was seated in a comfortable armchair taken from the parlor.

"Old Haskers!" cried Dave.

"He must have been on the watch for us and fallen asleep," was the comment of the senator's son.

"Don't wake him – let him sleep."

"To be sure, Dave – I'd like to chloroform him!"

The boys passed the snoring teacher and reached a side door. Unlocking it, they slipped without, and closed the door again. Then they summoned the members of the Gee Eyes and told them of what they had discovered.

"You'll have to go in as quietly as mice," said Dave. "Otherwise he'll wake up and catch us, – and then the fat will be in the fire."

"Dave, somebody has surely been spying on us," said Phil.

"Exactly – but we can't take that up now. In you go, and take off your shoes before you start upstairs. Maybe – " Dave paused.

"What, Dave?"

"Maybe we can play a joke on Haskers, when we are about safe."

"How?" asked several.

"We might carry him out on the piazza and lock the door on him. Under that overcoat he has on only his night clothes and a pair of slippers."

"If we only could do it!" murmured Phil, gleefully.

One by one the members of the Gee Eyes entered the school building, slipped off their shoes, and went upstairs. Then, wrapping their coats around their heads, Dave, Roger, Phil, and Shadow came back and surrounded Job Haskers.

"Now listen," said Dave, who still held the candle. "If he wakes up, drop him. I'll blow out the candle, and all scoot for the dormitories, – but without noise, remember that!" And so it was agreed.

As carefully as possible they raised up the sleeping man, armchair and all, and carried him to the side door, which Dave opened. Then they took their burden outside and put the chair down in the snow at the foot of the piazza steps. This accomplished, they ran back into the school, closed and locked the door, and threw the key in a dark corner.

"Now for the dormitory!" cried Dave, and blew out the light. "And everybody undress in jig-time!"

All understood, and the way they flew up the stairs was a wonder. Like lightning-change actors they threw off their garments and got into their sleeping clothes. The other boys were already disrobed, and some were at the windows, looking down through shade cracks, to see what might happen below.

They had not long to wait. Job Haskers speedily grew cold and woke up with a start. In the darkness he stared around in perplexity and then leaped to his feet.

"Oh!" the boys heard him mutter, as some of the loose snow got into his slippers. "What can this mean? Where am I?"

He took several steps, and more snow got into his slippers. Then he slipped on a patch of ice and plunged straight into the snow with his arms and shoulders.

"Confound the luck!" the boys heard him say. "Boys, what does this mean? Who put me here? Oh, but won't I make you suffer for this! Oh, my feet!" And then he rushed for the piazza steps. Here he slipped again, and the students heard him yell as he came down on his left elbow. Then he disappeared from sight under the roof of the piazza.

"He won't get in right away!" whispered Roger. "Oh, this is the best yet!"

They heard Job Haskers fumble at the knob of the door. He tried to turn it several times and then shook it violently. Finding the door would not open, he began to pound upon the barrier with his fist.

"He's making noise enough to wake the dead!" whispered Phil.

"Somebody is going below," said Dave, a moment later. "Now I guess there will be more fun!"

"If only we aren't caught!" murmured Shadow, who was a bit afraid that the fun had been carried too far.