Battling the Clouds Part 10

"Found this in my pajama coat," he said; then as Bill waved his fist, "What! Have you the same thing?"

"Surest thing you know!" said Bill. "Never had so much money in my life.

The darned old peach!"

"I haven't counted it," said Frank. "It sort of scared me. Who do you think gave it to us?"

"Didn't you read your letter?" asked Bill, wiggling the rest of the way up and taking a paper like his own from Frank's envelope. He handed it over and Frank unfolded and read it. Reluctantly, but seeing no way out of it, he handed it over to Bill.

"Frank," said the letter, "Lawton is a dead one. Nuthing in it for boys except rattles and guns and pink silk shirts and stick pins.

But your dad wouldnt let you have the pins and your mothers wouldn't see you found dead in them shirts, and the pins was sort of advansed, so I want you to spend this money on something you like when you get to whatever it is.

"Just a present from your friend "LEE."

"P. S. Say, Frank, lets take a fresh start me and you. I wouldnt believe you would lie or steal even if some do do such. So you must take it from me that a good indian is a good indian just as a good white man is good.

"So that all we want to bother about that.

"Your true friend "LEE."

"Well, this beats all!" said Bill, handing back the letter. "Isn't Lee the _peach_ though? I wish I was sure Mom would let me keep this. Isn't it great--all new fives! I suppose he thought it would be handy that way for us to spend."

"What does he mean about not believing that I lie or steal?" said Frank, scowling.

"Why, just what he says, you nut!" exclaimed Bill. "Can't you read? He means he knows _you_ wouldn't do anything wrong, and so you must believe in _him_. I bet he has overheard some of the things you have said about him. Anyhow, it is just as he says. You must keep his present, and make a new start. He wants to be good friends with you and wants you to like him. And I should say he deserves it."

Frank said very little about the present but Bill didn't notice. He was too busy voicing his own surprise and grat.i.tude. Before he finally slid down into his own berth he had spent the crisp new fives twenty times over. He thought he was too excited to sleep, but after he had pinned the present back in his coat pocket, and had carefully laid himself down on that side, and tied all the curtains shut, and balanced his suitcase on end at the front of the berth so a possible robber would tip it over on him, he was asleep in two seconds. It would have worked all right at that, only by-and-by in the middle of a dream where Bill was batter in a baseball nine that used ice-cream cones instead of b.a.l.l.s, the train went around a curve and over came the suitcase. Bill was awake in a second, and for a moment had a hand-to-hand fight with the curtains before he realized what had happened. With a laugh he felt for his precious pocket, and slept again.

But in the upper berth Frank Anderson had tossed Lee's friendly letter and the packet of bills down to the end of the berth as though they were worthless. He was only a boy and should have slept but all night long he lay and stared at the little electric bulb burning dimly over his head.

He lay and thought; and his thoughts burned like fire.

It was very late the following night when they reached their destination. Bill had come to the conclusion that Frank was not a very jolly traveling companion. He was moody and inclined to be really grouchy. And touchy.... _Whew!_ It was all Bill could do to say the right thing. Finally he remembered that some people are always car-sick when they travel, and on being asked, Frank admitted that he didn't feel so very good. So Bill let him alone and things went better. Bill made a good many friends that day and came within an ace of being kissed by a pale little lady who found a chance to take a much needed nap because Bill took charge of her two-year-old terror of a baby boy while she slept. There was an old gentleman too, who asked him a million or more questions, and enjoyed himself very much. He asked the boys to take luncheon with him, and proved that he had not forgotten his boyhood by ordering the _dandiest_ dinner--even a lot of things that were not on the bill. He was a director of the road, or vice-president, or something, the porter told Bill in a whisper, but Bill didn't pay much attention. What the old gentleman _didn't_ tell was that he was a trustee of the very school the boys were going to attend. Some day they were going to meet him again, but that is another story.

Anyhow, it was very late when they arrived and they were piloted to their room by a pale young instructor who met them at the station in an ancient and wheezy Ford belonging to the school. They were the last boys to arrive, he told them, and school was to begin at eight o'clock in the morning. He warned them to be perfectly quiet as the boys were all asleep and it was against rules to speak or have the lights on after nine. But they were to be allowed a light to undress by, and he would come in in fifteen minutes and put it out.

They undressed in about a tenth of the time it usually took for that ceremony, and even Bill, who forgot to brush his teeth and had to get up again to do it, was deep under the covers when Mr. Nealum, the instructor, came silently in, said goodnight without a smile, turned off the light, found the door by the aid of a big flashlight he carried and silently disappeared.

"Undertaker!" whispered Frank.

"Shut up!" said Bill. He listened intently, then said under his breath, "Be careful! I thought I heard him breathe!"

"He is gone," answered Frank. "I heard him walk away."

"Not much you did!" said Bill. "He p.u.s.s.yfooted it. Must have had rubber soles on his shoes."

"I heard him anyhow," insisted Frank. The boys lay still, thinking over their new situation. It was very exciting. They were not lonely. Their narrow beds, but little wider than the quartermaster cots at Sill, were side by side, nearly touching. Presently Bill spoke.

"What's the matter with you, Frank?"

"Nothing! What ails _you_?" retorted Frank.

"Nothing, but you _breathe_ so hard--sort of choky and gaspy."

"That's you doing _that_," said Frank. "I can't sleep with you snorting so."

"I tell you it's you!" said Bill. "I listened to myself breathe, and you couldn't hear me. I was breathing just like this." He gave a sample, and you could not hear him. Then as both boys listened, things began to happen.

Frank made a light leap from his bed and landed on top of the stunned, scared and astonished Bill.

"Sssssh!" hissed Frank. "The money!... Robbers!... Under the bed!"

Frozen with horror, the boys listened intently. The breathing _was_ under Bill's bed. It seemed as though they lay listening for a week before Bill made a violent motion to free himself from Frank's grasp.

"Where you going?" hissed that youth.

"To light the light and give the alarm. If he tries to get out, we will hold him."

"Stay here!" commanded Frank.

For answer Bill wrenched himself free and bounded out on the floor. With another bound he reached the light and turned the b.u.t.ton. No light responded. He stood beside the wall, uncertain what move to make next.

The sensible thing seemed to be to shout an alarm or else go out and find Mr. Nealum. In either case what would the robber do to Frank, who was roosting right above him? The breathing under the bed continued, now fast, now slow, up and down. Bill had heard something like that somewhere.

As his fright subsided, he recognized the sounds as very familiar. Bill had not lived in the apartments at Sill for nothing. Too, too often had he listened to the sounds that trickled clearly through the plaster-board part.i.tions. Those part.i.tions were like sounding boards.

From one apartment to the next, they transferred the arguments, discussions and all goings-on on the other side. Bill laughed soundlessly in the dark. The lights had been turned off at some central switch, and the darkness was intense. He was lost in the strange room.

He took a step sidewise along the wall and stubbed his toe against a suitcase. Bending, he found that it was his own. The problem was solved.

Rummaging hastily, he found his flashlight.

"Frank!" he called in a low whisper.

"W-w-what?" quavered from the dark.

Following the direction of the low sound, Bill crossed the room until his outstretched hand collided with Frank's eye. This mostly happens, you know. Frank stifled a howl as Bill hissed, "Listen! We have him now!

He's asleep--snoring. Let's take a look at him and then beat it for Mr.

Nealum. He must be somewhere about."

"Don't you do it!" whispered Frank, clutching Bill. "Find Mr. Nealum first. You go to flashing that light in his eyes and you will wake him up. He's apt to kill us before you could get to the door."

"Think what a lark it will be if we take him prisoner all by ourselves!

We can tie him up with these sheets in no time. Now I tell you how we will work it. As soon as we see just how he is lying, I will shove the bed off him, and you lam him good and plenty with that dictionary. Soon as you do that I will throw all the blankets and bedclothes and the mattress on him and then we will sit on him and yell. Somebody ought to come."

Frank still objected, sure from the size of the sounds that were now easily recognizable as snores, that the robber was really in a deep sleep.

"If he is anything like Lee," he said, "he will throw us off in a second."

"But you are going to lam him one!" whispered Bill patiently. "You must hit hard enough to knock him out--stun him."

"Well, have it your own way!" conceded Frank. He commenced to realize what a wonderful introduction this would be to the boys of the school if it went through as smoothly as Bill seemed to think it would.

"Here, take the flashlight, but don't turn it on," whispered Bill. "I want to get the bedclothes ready."