The High School Left End Part 5

"Don't you dare to print a word about this affair!"

d.i.c.k looked quietly at young Dodge.

"Did you hear me?" demanded Bert.

"Yes."

"Then what's your answer?"

"That I heard you, Bert."

"You young puppy!" cried Dodge, advancing threateningly. "Don't you address me familiarly."

"I don't care anything about addressing you at all," retorted Prescott, flushing slightly under the insult. "At present I can make allowances for you, for I fully understand how anxious you are. But that is no real excuse for insulting me."

"Are you going to heed me when I tell you to print nothing about my father's disappearance?" insisted young Dodge.

"That is something over which you really have no control," d.i.c.k replied slowly, though not offensively. "I take all my orders from my employers."

"You young mucker!" cried Bert, in exasperation. "You print anything about our family misfortunes, and I'll thrash you until you can't see."

"I won't answer that," d.i.c.k replied, "Until you make the attempt.

But, see here, Dodge, you should try to keep cool, and as close to the line of gentlemanly speech and conduct as possible."

"A nice one you are, to lecture me on that subject," jeered Bert Dodge. "You---only a mucker! The son of-----"

"Stop!" roared d.i.c.k, his face reddening. He advanced, his fists clenched. "If you're going to say anything against my father or mother, Bert Dodge, then stop before you say it! Before I break your neck!"

"Stop, both of you," interjected Hemingway, springing between the white-faced High School boys. "No blows are going to be struck while members of the police department are around. Dodge, of course, you're upset and nervous, but you're not acting the way a gentleman should, even under such circ.u.mstances."

"Then drive that fellow away from here!" commanded Bert.

"I can't," confessed the officer. "He is breaking no law, and has as much right to be here as we have."

"Oh, he objects to my saying anything against his father or mother, but he's out tonight to throw all manner of slime on my father's name," contended Bert Dodge. His voice broke under the stress of his pent-up emotion.

"You're wrong there, Dodge!" d.i.c.k broke in, forcing himself to speak calmly. "I'm here to gather the facts on a matter of news, but I am not out to throw any insinuations over your father, or anyone whose good name is naturally precious to you. Sometimes a reporter---even an amateur one---has to do things that are unpleasant, but they're all in the line of duty."

"'The Blade' won't print a line about this matter," raged Bert tremulously. "Mr. Ripley is my father's friend, and his lawyer, too. Mr. Ripley will go to your editor, and let him know what is going to happen if that scurrilous sheet-----"

Here Bert checked himself, for d.i.c.k had begun to smile coldly.

"Confound you!" roared Bert Dodge. He leaped forward, intent on striking the young junior down. But Officer Hemingway pushed Dodge back forcefully.

"Come, come, now, Dodge, we won't have any of that," warned the officer. "And, if you want my opinion, you're not playing the part of a gentleman just now. Prescott understands your state of mind, however. He knows you're so upset, your mind so unhinged by the family trouble that you're doing and saying things that you'll be ashamed of by daylight."

"I suppose, next, you'll be inviting this reported fellow to go on the boat with us when it comes," sneered Bert Dodge.

"That would be for the chief to say. Reporters are, usually, allowed to go with the police. Come, come, Dodge," urged Hemingway, laying a kindly hand on the young man's shoulder, "calm down and understand that Prescott is not offering to make any trouble, and that he has been very patient with a young fellow who finds himself in a heap of trouble."

"I can cut this short," offered d.i.c.k quietly. "I don't believe it would be worth my while, Mr. Hemingway, to ask the chief's permission to go on the boat with you. 'The Blade' can find out, later, whether you discover anything on the river."

"Where are you going, now?" demanded Bert unreasonably, as Prescott turned away.

"Back to the horse and buggy," d.i.c.k replied coolly.

"Then I'm going with you, and see you start back to town," a.s.serted Bert Dodge.

Hemingway did not interfere, but, leaving his brother policeman at the river's edge, accompanied young Dodge. In a few minutes they arrived at the spot in the lane where d.i.c.k had tied the horse.

Here they found Dave Darrin seated in the buggy. Dave glanced unconcernedly at them all, nodding to Hemingway way, who returned the salutation.

"Now, I'll watch you start away from here," snapped Bert.

"All right, then," smiled d.i.c.k, climbing in, after unhitching, and picking up the reins. "I won't keep you long."

With that, and a parting word to the policeman, d.i.c.k Prescott drove away.

"I saw Hemingway coming, and knew you wouldn't need me," Dave explained with a laugh. "So, to save Bert a double attack of nerves, I slipped off in the darkness, and came here. But what on earth ails Dodge, anyway?"

"Why, for one thing, he's worried to death about the disappearance of his father," replied d.i.c.k Prescott.

"I've seen people awfully worried before, and yet it didn't make madmen of them," snorted Darrin.

"Well---perhaps-----"

d.i.c.k hesitated.

"Well----?" Darrin insisted, rather impatiently.

"I'm half inclined to think that Bert Dodge has been leading the soreheads who sulk and won't play football in the same team with some of us common fellows," d.i.c.k laughed. "If so, the very fact of my being sent to look into the news side of his father's disappearance would make Bert feel especially sore at me."

"By George, you've hit the nail right on the head there," cried Dave. "That's the trouble. Bert has been leading a kick that was aimed very largely at d.i.c.k & Co., and now it almost puts him out of his head to find that d.i.c.k Prescott, of all the fellows in the school, has been sent by 'The Blade' to gather the facts concerning Theodore Dodge's mysterious disappearance---or death."

"Mr. Dodge isn't dead," replied Prescott slowly.

"What? And say! Do you realize, d.i.c.k, that you're letting the horse walk?"

"I intended to," returned d.i.c.k. "Whoa!"

"There's a boat coming up the river and showing a search-light,"

broke in Dave, pointing.

"I saw it. That's why I stopped the horse. It must be Chief Coy's launch that he went after. Yes; there it is, putting in where we first saw Bert Dodge and the officers."

"Well, if you're not going to keep track of the launch, why don't you hit a fast gait for the office?" queried Darrin.

"There is plenty of time yet," d.i.c.k replied, "and we've nothing to report to the office yet. I'm just waiting for that boat to take on its pa.s.sengers and get well away from the spot."