Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums Part 2

"I tell you what let's do," said Jack, immediately afterwards; "I'll get my lantern, and we'll walk back over that path. Possibly the wind may have carried the letter further away than where you looked. How about that, Bob?"

"It's mighty kind of you to take so much trouble for such a stupid comrade, Jack, and let me tell you I appreciate it a heap. Yes, and I'll also get out before dawn in the morning to scour every yard of ground on the way from my house to the post-office. If I could only find that letter I'd be the happiest fellow in Chester, believe me."

So they once more donned their caps, and Jack lighted the lantern he had mentioned. While its rays might not be as strong as the glow of the hand-torch, it was able to cover much more ground at a time; and with its help a white envelope half hidden in the long gra.s.s could not escape detection.

Jack could easily understand just what had happened to Big Bob. He had become so "rattled" when that dreadful suspicion first flashed into his brain after supper that for the life of him he found it impossible to say positively one thing or the other. Now he thought he could remember distinctly pushing the important letter through the slot or drop inside the post-office; and immediately afterwards doubts again a.s.sailed him, leaving him worse off. after each experience.

If they failed to find the letter, and the postmaster and his a.s.sistant had no recollection of having noticed it in cancelling the stamps of the heap that went out with the afternoon mail, then there was no help for it; and poor Bob was doomed to wait day after day, as even weeks went on, always dreading lest each morning was destined to usher in the time when his great crime must come to light, and his punishment begin.

They were soon on the spot, and each with his separate light started to carefully examine the long and tangled gra.s.s, now partly dead, that lay on either side of the well-worn path across the lots.

Doubtless Bob's heart still beat high with hope and antic.i.p.ation; for when Jack on one occasion started to say something he saw the other whirl around as though thrilled with expectations that were immediately doomed to disappointment.

Nothing rewarded their search. Bob might further satisfy himself, and believe he was only doing his duty, by coming out again at peep of dawn and once more covering the ground before giving it up as hopeless; but Jack felt certain nothing would be found. If that letter had dropped from the boy's pocket, then some one must have long since picked it up. He believed he would hear of it if this person, being honest, delivered the letter at the post-office, and told how he had come to find it on the vacant lot.

"Well, it's no use looking any further, I guess, Jack," Big Bob now remarked, in a decidedly dejected tone, after they had gone twice over the entire width of the three lots, and without any success attending their efforts.

"I'm afraid not, Bob," the other admitted with genuine regret, because he felt just as sorry as could be for the poor chap. "I suppose you'll sleep mighty little tonight, for worrying over this thing. Try your level best to follow out all you did when in the post-office. Some little thing may recall to your mind that you certainly did drop that particular letter in the slot."

"I will, Jack, surely I will," Bob told him, vigorously; "but I'm afraid it won't do much good. You see, I've become so mixed up by now, thinking one thing and then another, that no matter what did happen I couldn't honestly say I remembered it. But I still have a little hope you'll hear good news from Mr. d.i.c.kerson; or that in the morning it may be handed in at our house, for my dad put his full address on the back flap, I remember that very distinctly. Yes, I'd be willing to stand my gruelling and not whimper if only it turned up."

He walked away looking quite down-hearted, Jack saw. Really he felt very sorry for Big Bob Jeffries. The latter was well liked, having a genial disposition, like nearly all big boys do, the smaller runts being the sc.r.a.ppy ones as a rule, as every one knows who has observed the lads in their play hours, and made any sort of a study of their characteristics.

On another occasion Jack well remembered he had come very nearly losing one of the best players on the baseball nine, when the pitcher, Alec Donohue, appeared exceedingly gloomy, and confessed to Jack that as his father was unable to obtain work in the Chester mills and shops, and had been offered a position over in Harmony, he feared that he would thus become ineligible to pitch for Chester.

But Jack, as so often happened when trouble beset him, took the bull by the horns. He went and saw a gentleman who could give Mr. Donohue employment, and enlisted his sympathy. It had all ended right, by a place being found for the man who was out of work; and so Alec pitched the great game whereby Harmony's famous team went down to a crushing defeat.

Jack could not but take note of the similar conditions by which Chester was to be threatened with the loss of one of the strongest members of her team.

"Looks as though history liked to repeat itself," Jack mused, as he walked back home after parting company with Big Bob; "only in this case it's the football eleven that's liable to be weakened if Bob's father takes him out; and we never could scare up a fullback equal to him if we raked old Chester with a fine-tooth comb. So I certainly hope it'll all come out right yet, I surely do!"

CHAPTER IV

A FRIEND IN NEED

It lacked only five minutes or so of the school hour on the following morning when Jack Winters, hurrying along, was intercepted by a disturbed looking boy, who had been impatiently awaiting his arrival.

Of course this was none other than Big Bob Jeffries, who had kept aloof from all his customary a.s.sociates ever since arriving, and had never once taken his eyes off the street along which he knew Jack must come.

He seized hold of the other eagerly. Jack needed no second look to convince him that poor Bob had pa.s.sed a wretched night. His eyes were red, and there was an expression of mute misery on his usually merry face, that doubtless had induced more than one fellow to ask if he felt ill. No doubt Bob had a stereotyped answer to this sympathetic question, which was to the effect that he was "not feeling himself."

"Oh! I thought you'd never come along, Jack!" he exclaimed, in a voice that quivered with eagerness and anxiety; "though of course I understood that you must be waiting for Mr. d.i.c.kerson to be free to talk with you. Tell me what you did, please, Jack?"

"I'm sorry to say I couldn't learn much at the post-office," the other hastened to say, determined not to keep Bob in suspense any longer than could be helped.

"But you did ask about the foreign letters, didn't you, Jack?"

"Yes, I worked that part of it pretty well, and managed to get into a talk about the great difficulty which most foreigners here in this country found in communicating with their old folks abroad. Mr.

d.i.c.kerson said there was a time when every day he had quite a batch of letters going out to different countries; because you know there are many foreign workers in our mills here, and they were constantly sending money home to their poor folks. But as the war went on, he said, they began to write less and less, because they feared the letters were being held up by the British, or the vessels being sunk with all the mail aboard by the German subs. So he said it was a rare event nowadays for him to cancel the stamps on a foreign letter, though he had one yesterday, he remembered."

"Yesterday, Jack? Oh! what do you mean?"

"But it was to Italy the letter was going," Jack hastened to explain.

"Mr. d.i.c.kerson said he took particular pains to notice it, because the stamp was put on the wrong end of the envelope. He remembered that Luigi, the bootblack at the railroad station, always insisted on doing this. He also read the address, which was to Luigi's parents in Genoa."

Big Bob's face darkened again.

"Too bad!" he muttered, disconsolately; "why couldn't that letter he chanced to notice have been my lost one? Hard luck, I must say, all around."

"Then you didn't meet with anything this morning, I take it, Bob?"

continued Jack, hardly knowing what to say in order to raise the drooping spirits of his friend.

Big Bob shook his head in the negative.

"Not a thing, Jack," he went on to admit, "though I was really out, and walking up and down that path at peep of day. I couldn't tell you how many times I went over the ground without finding anything. Why, I even remembered which way the breeze was blowing yesterday, and spent most of my time on that particular side of the path. Think of that, will you, Jack; and yet for the life of me I can't positively recollect whether I did drop that letter into the slot along with the rest. I must be getting looney, that's what."

"Well, you've just got to brace up, Bob, and believe it's all right,"

Jack told him, slapping the other heartily on the shoulder, boy fashion. "As time goes on you'll sort of get used to it; and then some fine day your father will speak of having heard from his correspondent abroad."

"Thank you for trying to bolster up my nerve, Jack It's mighty nice of you in the bargain. I'll need your counsel more than a few times from now on, and I'm right glad I can have some one to go to when I feel so sick with the suspense, All the while I'm waiting and hoping I've got to tremble every time my father speaks to me That's the result of having a guilty conscience you know. I've read about such things before, but this is the first time I've actually had the experience myself."

"Besides," continued Jack, "even if you did mail the letter, that's no a.s.surance it would ever reach the party he wrote to. Many a vessel has gone down before arriving at its destination, a victim to the terrible policy of the Germans with their U-boats. And of course the mail sinks when the boat goes down in the war zone. If your father were wise he would duplicate that letter several times, and in that way make sure one of them had a chance to reach the party abroad."

"Do you know I thought of that myself, Jack!" exclaimed Bob, quickly; "but you see it would never do for me to mention it to him. Why, he'd suspect something lay back of it at once, and ask me the question that I shall be dreading to hear--'Did you positively mail that letter I gave you?' Jack, sometimes I can see just those words in fiery letters a foot high facing me, even when I close my eyes. It makes me think of the handwriting on the wall that appeared before the eyes of that old worthy, a victorious general, I believe it was, or an ancient king, but which spelled his doom."

"If I knew of anything else I could do to help you, Bob, I'd be happy to try. Now, I do remember reading an account of a gentleman who carried out the very policy of follow-up letters that I was speaking about. He explained how to make sure he reached his correspondent across the water he would send a duplicate letter every week for a whole month; and so far he had never failed to connect, although more than one boat carrying his letters went down. Now, perhaps I can find that same newspaper, and give it to you. If you placed it where your father would be apt to pick it up, with the article marked a little, he'd read it, and might act upon it."

"That sounds good to me, Jack. Please look hard, and see if you can run across that paper. It might be the solution of the whole thing. If father wrote again and even a third time I'd lose my guilty fears, because one of his letters would be bound to get across."

"Why, even the possibility of this proving to be a success caused the boy to smile, though he looked almost comical while so doing, because his heart still hung like lead in his breast.

"Well, try and forget it all you can, Bob," Jack went on to say, encouragingly. "I believe I can find that paper, and I'll hunt far and wide for it, I give you my word. If anything else strikes me meanwhile, I'll speak to you about it. If I were you I'd throw myself into the game, and that ought to help you forget your troubles."

"Yes, it's all very good for the time being, Jack," sighed the other, "but say, after the excitement is all over with, and you find yourself nearing the house, and father, the most terrible feeling grips you around your heart. I know I'll have a perfectly terrible month of it, every day seeming to be forty-eight hours long. But it serves me right. After this Bob Jeffries will be a reformed boy, I give you my word for that. Never again can I allow myself to grow careless, and do important things as though I was in a dream. I've awakened at last, Jack."

"Then if that is so, Bob, you're bound to profit by your lesson. It may seem hard, but in the long run it'll pay you many times over. I'll not mention your trouble to either of my chums, though for that matter both Toby and Steve would feel just as sorry as I do. Still, there's no way they could help you, and for your sake and peace of mind I'll keep mum."

Big Bob impulsively clutched Jack's hand, and squeezed it so fiercely that it actually hurt.

"You're a friend worth having, Jack Winters!" he exclaimed, warmly, while his eyes seemed to dim in a strange fashion, though he winked several times to conceal the fact that tears were near. "You put fresh heart into a fellow every time. If you can find that paper with the account of the duplicate letters in it, please let me know, and I'll run over to your house to get it."

"I'll give a big look tonight," Jack a.s.sured him; "and I'm almost sure I know just where I saw it. Father never allows papers to be destroyed under a month old, and it'll likely be up in the attic. Depend on me to get it for you, Bob."