The Adventures of Bobby Orde Part 25

He leaned his rifle in the barn and followed the disappearing trio. His doubt as to how the smooth board fence was to be surmounted was soon resolved. The new-comers evidently knew all the ins and outs. In the very end of the long woodshed stood a chicken-feed bin. By scrambling to the top of this, it was just possible to squeeze between the edge of the roof and the top of the fence. Once there, one had the choice of descending to the other side or climbing to the shed roof.

The expedition at present led to the other side. Here was no necessity of dangling, for the two-by-fours running between the posts offered a graduated descent. Bobby found himself in the back yard of a tall house that occupied nearly the entire width of the lot. It was a very impressive cream-brick house. A cement walk led around it from the front. There were no stables, no clothes-lines, no pumps, nothing to indicate the kitchen end of a residence. The swift curve of a gra.s.sed terrace dropped from the house-level to that on which Bobby stood. Four large apple trees, mathematically s.p.a.ced, would furnish shade in summer.

That the shade was utilized was proved by the presence of a number of settees, iron chairs and a rustic table or so.

"There's Carrie!" cried May Fowler. "Why didn't you come on over? This is Bobby Orde who lives over there. This is Caroline English."

"We're going to play robber and policeman," announced Johnny English, cheerfully.

"All right," said Carrie.

She sat down behind one of those rustic tables.

"She's police sergeant," confided Morton Drake to Bobby. "She's always police sergeant because she doesn't like to get her clothes dirty."

"Here come the rest! Goody!" cried the alert Johnny as four more children came racing around the corner of the house.

Robber and policemen was a game absurd in its simplicity. The policemen pursued the robbers who fled within the specified limits of the Englishes' yard. When an officer caught a malefactor, he attempted to bring his prize before the police sergeant. The robber was privileged to resist. a.s.sistance from the other policemen and rescues by the other robbers were permitted. That was all there was to it. The beautiful result was a series of free fights.

Bobby, as a new-comer, was made a robber. So were Grace Jones, Morton and Walter. The nature of the game demanded that the oldest should be policeman, otherwise arrests might be disgracefully unavailing.

At a signal from Carrie the robbers scurried away. At another the sleuths set out on the trail. Each policeman elected a robber as his especial prey. Bobby ran rapidly around the front of the house, dodged past the front steps and paused. Behind him he heard stealthy footsteps approaching the corner of the house. Instantly he ducked forward around the other corner and ran plump into the arms of Johnny English.

That youngster immediately grappled him.

Johnny was no bigger than Bobby, but he was practised at scuffles and his body was harder and firmer knit. Bobby tugged manfully, but almost before he knew it he was upset and hit the ground with a disconcerting whack. Of course, he continued to struggle, and the two, fiercely locked, whirled over and over through the leaves, but in a humiliatingly brief period Johnny had twisted him on his back and was sitting on his chest.

"There, I told you I could lick you!" he cried triumphantly.

"Let me up! Let me up, I tell you!" roared Bobby, kicking his legs and threshing his arms in a vain effort to budge the weight across his body.

Johnny looked at him curiously.

"Why! You ain't _mad_, are you!" He shrieked with the joy of the discovery. "Oh, kids! Come here and see him! He's getting mad!"

Bobby's eyes filled with tears of rage. And then he saw quite plainly the top of a sand-hill and the village lying below and the blue of the River far distant. And he heard Mr. Kincaid's voice.

"But, sonny, you can always be a sportsman, whatever you do," the voice said, "and a sportsman does things because he likes them, Bobby, for no other reason--not for money, nor to become famous, nor even to win----"

He choked back his rage and forced a grin to his lips--very much the same sort that he had once accomplished when he "jumped up and laughed"

at his mother's spanking, simply because he had been told to do that whenever he was hurt.

"I'm not mad," he disclaimed and heaved so mighty a heave that Johnny, being unprepared by reason of shouting to the others, was tumbled off one side. Instantly Bobby jumped to his feet and scudded away.

He was captured eventually--so were the others--but only after fierce struggles. Even did a policeman catch and hold a robber, to drag the latter to jail was no easy problem. For if he summoned the help of a brother officer that left at large an unattached robber who would create diversions and attempt rescues. At times all eight were piled in a breathless, tugging, rolling ma.s.s, while Carrie, behind her rustic table, looked on serenely lest some of the simple rules of the game be violated. In fact Carrie was just as severe in antic.i.p.ation of possible infractions, as over the infractions themselves, which, perhaps, goes far to explain Carrie.

Bobby returned home at lunch time to be received with horror by Mrs.

Orde.

"You're a sight!" she cried. "_Where_ have you been, and _what_ have you been doing? I never saw anything like you! And look at those holes in your stockings."

"I've been playing robber 'n policeman with Johnny English and Carter Irvine and all the kids," explained Bobby blissfully.

After lunch Mr. Orde kissed his son good-bye.

"Going up in the woods for a week, sonny," said he.

"Papa," asked Bobby holding tight to the man's hand, "can I have the kids shoot with my rifle?"

"Not any!" cried Mr. Orde emphatically. "Not until I get back. Then maybe we'll have a shooting-match and invite all hands."

He was slipping on his overcoat as he spoke.

"Which of the boys do you like best?" he asked casually.

"I don't know," replied Bobby after an instant's thought. "Carter Irvine's got an air-gun: I like him. And Johny English is all right, too. I wish I were as strong as Johnny English," he ended with a sigh.

Mr. Orde paused in reaching for his valise.

"Can he take you down?" he asked shrewdly.

"Yes, sir!" replied Bobby with a vivid flush.

"All right, you be a good boy, and when I get back I'll show you a few tricks to fool Mr. Johnny," Mr. Orde chuckled. "There's a lot in knowing how."

XIV

THE SHOOTING CLUB

When Bobby proposed again that his father oversee general shoots in the back yard, the latter demurred.

"Haven't any time," said he. "And you youngsters certainly can't be turned loose with two guns alone. I'll tell you: you organize your club, and have a regular time to shoot every week. I'll appoint Martin Chief Inspector; but it must be distinctly understood that there is to be no shooting unless he's here."

Martin was the "hired man" about Grandpa Orde's place.

The children fell on the idea with alacrity, and at once adjourned to Bobby's room. Carter Irvine suggested formal organization.

"Somebody's got to make targets; and somebody's got to buy cartridges and collect the money for them; and somebody's got to buy prizes--we got to have prizes--and somebody's got to keep the scores."

After much talk they elected officers to perform these duties; and formulated curious but practical by-laws. Bobby was elected secretary and treasurer; and he has to-day a copy of them written in his own boyish unformed hand. Among other things they provided that "any one pointing a gun, accidentally or otherwise, at anybody else or Duke, is fined one cent." The entire club went into a committee of the whole, marched down town in a body and pestered a number of store-keepers.

Finally it purchased a silver bangle a little larger than a ten-cent piece, had it hung from a bar pin, and inscribed "First Prize." The second prize, following Mrs. Orde's practical suggestion, was a bright ribbon. Winners were privileged to wear these until defeated. The shoots were conducted with great ceremony. Each took a single chance in turn until five rounds apiece had been expended. In a loud voice the scorer announced the results, and the name of the next on the list. The shooting was done from a dead rest over the saw-horse, and at about fifteen yards. Martin sat by on the bridge-approach to the barn, smoking a very short and very black clay pipe upside down. He rarely said anything; but his twinkling eyes never for a moment left the excited group. Martin was reliable. Occasionally he was called upon to referee some particularly close decision--as to whether a certain bullet-hole could be said to have cut the edge of the black or not--and his decisions were never questioned.

The shoots were taken very seriously. He who won the first or second prize wore it proudly. Scores, individual shots, good or bad luck, distracting influences were all discussed with the greatest interest.

Grandpa Orde, happening home early one day, watched the performance with great enjoyment, his hands behind him underneath the flapping linen duster, his eyes twinkling, his jaws working slowly. At the time he made no comments; but next shoot day he was punctually on hand, carrying a small paper parcel.

"Here's another prize," said he.