The High School Boys' Training Hike Part 10

So the three high school boys started off down the road together, old Reuben Hinman trudging tirelessly along with them, acting like a man in a trance.

At last they came to the old, red wagon. The tethered horse, disturbed, rose to its feet.

"Now, the rest of you keep away," requested young Prescott, "until I've had time to look all around the wagon with the lantern.

I want to see if I can discover any footprints that will help."

For a considerable radius around the wagon the high school athlete scanned the ground. He could find no footprints, other than those of Reuben Hinman, and the fresher ones made by himself.

"Nothing doing in the footprint line, boys," d.i.c.k called at last.

"Now, come along and we'll search the wagon."

"Let me have the first chance," begged Dave, taking the lantern.

Reuben Hinman showed where he had slept on the pile of rags, but this was hardly necessary, the impression made by his slight body being still visible.

Dave began to rummage. At last he got down into the body of the wagon. With the rays of the lantern thus concealed, the other three stood in darkness.

"Hooray!" gasped Dave at last. Then rising, leaning over the side of the wagon, he called:

"Mr. Hinman, I've found a wallet, with a lot of greenbacks inside.

How much I don't know. Please count it and see if all the money is there intact."

With an inarticulate cry the old peddler seized the wallet that was handed down to him. He shook like a leaf as Tom held the lantern for him to count the money. Now that the strain was over, Mr. Hinman's legs became suddenly too weak to support him. He sank to the ground, Tom squatting close so that the lantern's rays would fall where they would be most useful. Thus the old peddler counted his money with trembling fingers.

"Where did you find the wallet?" young Prescott asked Darrin.

"Up against the side of the wagon, under a partly tilted, upsidedown feed-pail," Dave answered. "I can understand why Mr. Hinman didn't find it. He was too much upset---too nervous, and it certainly didn't look like a likely place."

"It must have fallen out of his pocket as he slept," Prescott guessed correctly. "Did you find any papers down there on the floor of the wagon?"

"Yes; some sort of paper stuff," nodded Dave. "I took it for rubbish."

"The money is all here!" cried the old peddler, in a frenzy of joy. "Oh, how can I thank you young men? You don't know what your blessed help means for me!"

"Was it all the money you had?" d.i.c.k asked feelingly.

"Yes; all except for few loose dollars that I have in a little sack in my trousers pocket," replied Mr. Hinman.

"Then it was all you had in the world, outside of your peddling stock and your horse and cart?" Prescott continued.

"All except a little house and barn that I own, and the small piece of ground they stand on," said the peddler. "If I had not found my money I would have been obliged to mortgage my little home to a bank---and then I am afraid I could not have repaid the bank, and my home would be taken from me."

"But you would have found the money in the wagon some day soon,"

suggested d.i.c.k.

"Perhaps," replied the peddler. "Who knows? Perhaps someone else would have rummaged the wagon and found it before I did.

Oh! It might have been taken a little while ago, even when I was toiling down the road, or talking with you boys at your camp!"

he added, with a sudden wave of fright over the thought.

"One thing is certain, anyhow, Mr. Hinman," d.i.c.k concluded. "Someone may have overheard you talking with us about this money. You will hardly be safe here. I urge you to come to our camp, and there spend the night with boys who know how to take care of themselves, and who can look after you at need. You will not be attacked in our camp."

Reuben Hinman eagerly agreeing, Dave harnessed the bony horse into the wagon. After a while the red wagon rested within the confines of the camp of d.i.c.k & Co.

In the bright light of the morning, Harry Hazelton was the first to be astir. He saw Prescott asleep on the floor of the tent, rolled up in a blanket, while another blanket rested on d.i.c.k's cot, brought back to the tent, as though some stranger had slept there.

Outside, attached to the seat of their camp wagon, Hazy found a note that mystified him a good deal at first. It read:

_"The sun is now well up. I shall go at once to Hillsboro, and then my great worry will be over. Boys, you will ever be remembered in the prayers of R.H."_

"Now, that's mighty nice of R.H., whoever he is," smiled Harry Hazelton, not immediately connecting the initials with the name of the little, old peddler.

Nor was it until Prescott and Reade were astir that Harry was fully enlightened as to the meaning of the words scrawled in pencil on the sheet of paper.

"You boys call me Hazy, and I must look and act the part," laughed Hazelton shamefacedly, "when we can have such an invasion of the camp, and such an early get-away with a loaded wagon, and all without my stirring."

Reuben Hinman was on his way, and, all unknown to himself nearer the hour when he would meet the high, school boys under vastly more exciting circ.u.mstances.

CHAPTER VI

THE NO-BREAKFAST PLAN

"Let's get the tent down, fellows," d.i.c.k called. "Greg is loading the bedding on to the wagon now."

"Haven't, you forgotten something?" Danny Grin asked.

"What?" challenged d.i.c.k smilingly.

"Well, a little thing like breakfast, for instance?"

"We don't get that until after we've had our swim," Prescott rejoined cheerily.

"I suppose that's all right," observed Tom, his jaw dropping.

"Still, in that case, Mr. Trainer, why didn't you camp nearer to a stream?"

"The nearest stream fit for swimming is two miles from here,"

d.i.c.k replied. "At least, that's what I judge from the map."

"There's the creek the bull-heads came from," suggested Hazelton hopefully. "That's close at hand."

"I know it is," d.i.c.k replied, "but I've had a look at it. That creek is both shallow and muddy. No sort of place for swimming."

One thing these Gridley High School boys had learned in the football squad, and that was discipline. So, though there were some gloomy looks, all remembered that d.i.c.k had been chosen trainer during the hike, and that his word, in training matters, was to be their law. So the tent came down, in pretty nearly record time, and was loaded on the wagon. The horse was harnessed, also without breakfast, and the party started down the road with Harry Hazelton holding the reins.

"I hope it's a short two miles," growled Reade to Darrin.