Fast Nine Part 19

Once Ballinger struck, and was greeted by a whoop from the excited Hickory Ridge rooters, anxiously watching every move. The next one he declined to touch; and lo, it went over the plate for a second strike.

Rendered desperate finally, and seeing still a third floater coming sailing wabblingly along, Ballinger stepped forward and made a vicious swing for it, only to have his bat pa.s.s through thin air.

Then arose a tumultuous whoop. The game was over, and the score stood two to one in favor of Hickory Ridge.

While the shouts of the mult.i.tude were still ringing out, Elmer made straight for the rival pitcher, and thrust out his hand.

"Bully for you, Matt," he said. "It was so even that one little thing settled it--that home run hit. And if you haven't won this game, Matt, it's plain to be seen you've won another that counts for much more. I say good luck to the scouts of Fairfield. They're going to make things hum around here, I guess."

"That's nice of you, Elmer," returned Matt, quietly, yet with a gleam of satisfaction in his eye. "Somebody's got to lose, and next time it may be you fellers. But I reckon as how Fairfield people knows by now that things has changed some since these here games used to break up in a row. Never again. We're in this scout business for keeps now, and you got to look out, Elmer, if you don't want us to beat you when the two troops get together for tests."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MYSTERY SOLVED.

"I WANT you to go over with me to Colonel Hitchins, Mark," said Elmer, on the morning after the great victory over the Fairfield scout nine.

"Oh, see here, has it anything to do with that mystery connected with my cap being found under those peach trees that were robbed?" demanded Mark, jumping up; for his chum had found him in his den, busily engaged.

"Perhaps," smiled the other. "And oh, by the way, Mark, perhaps you'd better be sure and wear the very cap that was found. I might want to show it to the colonel again for a purpose."

He declined to say anything more, even though Mark teased him as he got his own wheel out, and the two started forth.

"Just you hold your horses," he said, shaking his head stubbornly.

"Sometimes it seems like a long night, but daylight always comes in the end."

"I take that to mean you've made some sort of discovery, then," declared Mark; "and honest, now, Elmer, I'll be mighty glad to know the truth.

That thing has puzzled me a heap, I admit. Perhaps Phil Lally has confessed that he found my cap, and left it there when he robbed the trees, meaning to have me looked on as the thief."

"Shucks, Phil Lally never saw your cap; and even if he did he wouldn't know it from mine or some other fellow's.

"Wait, and don't get so impatient. Unless I miss my guess, it'll soon be old history," and Elmer led the way along the road at a hot pace.

They soon arrived at the place of Colonel Hitchins.

"There's Phil Lally working in the garden, and he looks satisfied with the way things have come out," remarked Elmer, as they pa.s.sed toward the mansion.

"Why shouldn't he be?" argued Mark. "If Phil had his deserts, he'd be on the way to a ten-year sentence at the penitentiary right now. But the old gentleman knew what he was doing when he gave him this last chance; and I really believe the fellow will make good now."

"I'm dead sure of it," Elmer added. "He's had his eyes opened, and the thought of his old and fond mother is going to keep him on the narrow path. But say, turn aside here, and let's take a peep at the tool house, where I had that little rumpus Sat.u.r.day night."

"I'd like to see it," remarked the other, eagerly; for by this time he knew all the particulars of his chum's exciting adventure, and was deeply interested in everything that pertained to it.

So they walked around the tool house, and even stepped inside, while Elmer proceeded to once more relate how he had managed to fasten the two men in, after they had entered in search of kerosene.

"h.e.l.lo!" remarked Elmer, finally, "there's Bruno wagging his tail at us; he knows me by now, and we are pretty good friends; but, all the same, I don't mean to get too close to him when his master isn't around."

"He's a fine looking dog, as sure as anything," observed Mark.

"He sure is," Elmer went on, and then added: "see him shake that old shoe he has in his mouth! Just imagine it to be some other dog that Bruno is fighting with. I'd hate to have those teeth set in my leg, wouldn't you, Mark?"

"Well, rather," came the ready reply. "But look there, do they give him old shoes and such things to play with; I can count three close by his kennel right now? Perhaps it's the right thing for a dog's teeth, to chew on old leather."

Elmer laughed out loud at the suggestion.

"That's a new one on me," he declared; "but here comes Phil Lally from the garden. Let's put it up to him. He's been with the Colonel some time, and ought to be on to some of the tricks of Bruno."

Phil Lally smiled at seeing Elmer. He had taken a great liking to the boy; and no doubt had heard some things in connection with him from his employer at the time they talked matters over.

"Glad to see yuh here this fine morning, Elmer," he remarked. "And they tell me yuh knocked the Fairfield team out yesterday, good and hard. The kunnel says it was the best game he ever saw, barring none, and he's an old hand, yuh know."

"We all thought it a dandy," laughed Elmer; "and every fellow deserved a share of the glory. I pitched my best; but where would we have been if it hadn't happened that Lil Artha drove out that homer, fetching a run in ahead of him? But Mark here was wondering if you fed Bruno on old shoes; or gave them to him to keep his teeth in good condition, because there are just three around here. We don't happen to be from Missouri, Phil, but we want to know."

The man laughed loudly.

"Well, after all, it looks that ways, Elmer," he said. "But the fact is, n.o.body wants to make Bruno mad by takin' away his playthings. I tried it once, and would yuh believe it, the critter made a jump for me, and growled so ugly that after that I jest vowed he could keep piling 'em up, for all of me."

"Oh, I see; then you don't toss them to him?" said Mark, while his chum smiled, as though fairly well satisfied with the way the conversation had turned.

"Who, me, give Bruno them old shoes?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Phil Lally. "Well, I guess not. He gets 'em all hisself. It's an old trick of Bruno's. There have been times when he's had as much as seven old shoes layin' around here at one time. When I gets a chanct I sneaks 'em away an' buries the same. Got a regular cemetery fur old shoes back o' the stable."

"But where does he get them, if he's chained up here all the time?"

asked Mark.

"What, him?" echoed the gardener. "Oh, n.o.body don't seem able to keep that slick customer chained up no great time at a stretch. Sometimes I've knowed him to slip his collar as many as four nights a week."

"You mean he gets away?" asked Elmer, helping things along; for he began to see Mark casting eyes at him suspiciously.

"Always that. Bruno, he's a wanderer. He's got the habit bad; and as soon as he gets loose it's hike for him. But I will say he always knows when to come home, and in the morning we find him in his kennel, tuckered out mebbe, but happy."

"But do you mean he brings one of those old shoes home with him every time?" demanded Mark.

"He jest wont come home without _something_ like that in his mouth,"

continued the gardener. "I've seen him adoin' of the same, and had to laugh at the critter. Once it was a lady's hat. We reckoned that it must a' blew off when she was goin' past in a car at a fast clip, and they couldn't find it. But Bruno lighted on it, easy like."

"A lady's hat!" muttered Mark, and then he faced his chum, adding: "Look here now, Elmer, you didn't come back to see Bruno just by accident. You had a reason for doing it? Own up now!"

Elmer nodded his head and snickered.

"Let me take that cap of yours, Mark," he said, and the article in question was eagerly handed over to him. "Look here, Phil, this cap was found under those peach trees you've heard about, and on the morning the colonel discovered they had been raided. Luckily my chum was able to prove that he couldn't have been here; and a lot of us knew that he had lost this cap a mile away on the bank of the Sunflower, just as evening set in. But it's been a dark mystery how it got here."

Phil had turned red at mention of the peach trees. Then his glance went past Elmer to the big Siberian wolf hound.

"I reckon it must be up to Bruno, then," he remarked. "Let's see--yes, he was off that night, else I'd never dared do what I did."

"And if you examine the inside of the cap," Elmer went on, steadily, "you'll find the lining all torn, as if he had been shaking it like he did that old shoe just now. The marks look to me like teeth had torn the lining. And when the colonel handed it to me, I could feel that it seemed to be more or less wet inside."