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CHAPTER IX – ANOTHER RAID

Hester Grimes, as the doctor said, had appeared late that afternoon at the Doyles’ little tenement. She had gone there from the basketball game instead of going directly home.

To tell the truth, she did not wish to be questioned by her mother, nor did she want to meet Lily. If she had felt hatred against her mates in Central High before, that feeling in her heart was now doubled!

For, as all anger is illogical (indignation may not be) Hester turned upon the girls and blamed them for the referee’s decision. Because Miss Lawrence had put her out of the game Hester would have been glad to know that her team mates had gone to pieces and been defeated.

She had managed to recover outwardly from her disappointment and anger, however, when she arrived at the domicile of her humble acquaintances. Mrs. Doyle knitted jackets, and Hester had ordered one for her mother.

“Ma is always lolling around and complaining of feeling draughts,” said Hester. “So I’ll give her one of these ‘snuggers’ to keep her shoulders warm. She’s always snuffing with a cold when it comes fall and the furnace fire is not lit.”

“Lots o’ folks are having colds just now,” complained Mrs. Doyle. “Johnny’s snuffling with one.”

“Oh, he’ll be all right – won’t he, Rufie?” said Hester, chucking the baby under his plump little chin, but speaking to his faithful nurse.

“In course he will, Miss Hester,” cried Rufus, and then opened his mouth for a roar of laughter, that made even the feverish Johnny crow.

“Rufus never gets tired of minding Johnny,” said the widow, proudly. “But he does miss his Uncle Bill.”

Rufe’s face clouded over. “He ain’t never home no more,” he said, complainingly.

“But you can go over to see him at the gymnasium,” said Hester.

“Not no more he can’t, Miss,” said the widow. “Rufus used to go over to see Uncle Bill evenings; but Uncle Bill can’t have him there no more.”

“Why not?” asked Hester, quickly; and yet she flushed and turned her own gaze away and looked out of the window.

“Bill’s had some trouble there. He’s afraid the Board of Education would object. Somebody got into the building – ”

“I heard about it,” said Hester, quickly.

“Wisht Uncle Bill had another job,” grumbled Rufus.

“Rufie’s real bright about some things,” whispered his mother. “And sharp ain’t no name for it! He is pretty cute. You can’t say much before him that he don’t remember, and repeat.”

“Wisht that old gymnasium building would burn up; then Uncle Bill could come home,” muttered Rufe.

Mrs. Doyle went to see to her fire. Hester beckoned the boy to the window and whispered to him. Gradually Rufe’s face lit up with one of his flashes of cunning. Money passed from the girl’s hand to that of the half-witted youth.

Just then Dr. Agnew appeared and Hester took her departure.

On the following morning Franklin Sharp, the principal of Central High, called a conference of his teachers at the first opportunity. He was very grave indeed when he told them that another raid had been made upon the girls’ gymnasium.

“Not so much damage is reported as was done before. But, then, the paraphernalia before destroyed was not all removed. But this time the scoundrel – or scoundrels – tried arson.

“A fire was built in a closet on the upper floor. Bill Jackway smelled smoke and got up to see what it was. He found no trace of the firebug – can discover no way in which he got out – ”

“But how did he get in?” asked one of the teachers.

“That is plain. It had rained early in the evening. Footprints are still visible leading across a soft piece of ground from the east fence to a window. The window was open, although Bill swears it was shut and locked when he went to bed at ten o’clock. That is how the marauder entered the building. How he got out is a mystery,” declared the principal.

“It is a very dreadful thing,” complained Miss Carrington. “I do not see what we can do about it.”

“We must do something,” said Miss Gould, with vigor.

“Suppose you suggest a course of procedure, Miss Gould?” said the principal, his eyes twinkling.

“I think it would be well,” said Miss Gould, “to sift every rumor and story regarding this matter. There is much gossip among the girls. I have heard of a threat that one girl made in the gymnasium – ”

“That is quite ridiculous, Miss Gould!” cried Miss Carrington, with some heat. “You have been listening to a base slander against one of my very best pupils.”

“You mean this Hester Grimes, Henry Grimes’s daughter?” said the principal, sternly.

“That is the girl,” admitted Miss Gould. “I know little about her – ”

“And I know a good deal,” interposed Mrs. Case, grimly. “Miss Carrington finds her good at her books, and her deportment is always fair in classes. I find her the hardest girl to manage in all the school. She has a bad temper and she has never been taught to control it. It has gone so far that I fear I shall have to shut her out of some of the athletics,” and she related all that had happened at the basketball game with the East High girls the afternoon before.

“I do not approve of these contests,” said Miss Carrington, primly. “They are sure to cause quarreling.”

“If they do, then there is something the matter with the girls,” declared Mr. Sharp, briskly.

“And I have received this request from the girls of the team – seven of them – this morning,” continued Mrs. Case, producing the “round robin.” “The only girls beside Hester who did not sign it is a girl who always chums with her – the only really close friend Hester has to my knowledge in the school.

“Now, I should like very much to be instructed what to do about this? The girls are perfectly in the right. Hester is not dependable on the team. There should be another girl in her place – ”

“Oh, but it is quite unfair!” cried Miss Carrington. “And remember her father is quite an important man. There will be trouble if Hester is put down in these tiresome athletics; or if this story that is going about is repeated to Mr. Grimes I can’t imagine what he would do.”

“Mr. Grimes does not run the Board of Education, nor does he control our actions,” declared Mr. Sharp. “We must take cognizance of these matters at once. I believe you should remove Hester from the team, as requested, Mrs. Case. You have ample reason for so doing. And this matter of the attempt to burn the gymnasium must be investigated fully.”

“But no girl could do these things in the gymnasium,” cried Miss Carrington, with considerable asperity.

“But she could get somebody else to do them – especially a girl who is allowed as much spending money as Hester Grimes,” said the principal. “I can imagine no sane person committing such a crime. It is wilful and malicious mischief, and could only be inspired by hatred, or – an unbalanced mind. That is my opinion.”

CHAPTER X – MOTHER WIT AND THE GRAY MARE

For some reason, that lively young “female Mercury,” as Jess Morse sometimes dubbed her, Bobby Hargrew, did not hear of this new raid upon the girls’ gym. early that morning; so, like the other pupils of Central High, she could not visit the athletic building until after school. She went then with Nellie and Laura and Jess, and the quartette were almost the first girls to enter the building that day.

“It’s a dreadful thing,” said Laura, in discussing the affair.

The girls were all noticeably grave about the matter this time. There was little excitement, or talk of “how horrid it was” and all that. There was a gravity in their manner which showed that the girls of Central High were quite aware that the case was serious in the extreme.

One of their number was accused of being the instigator of these raids on the gymnasium. True, or false, it was an accusation that could not be lightly overlooked. Laura Belding was particularly grave; and Nellie Agnew had cried about it.

The four friends went out into the field and examined the footprints in the earth.

“Those were never Hessie’s ‘feetprints,’ for, big as her feet are, she never wears boots like those!” giggled Bobby.

“He was a shuffler – that fellow,” said Jess. “See how blurred the marks are at the heel?”

“And he shuffled right up to this window – And how do you suppose he opened it, if, as Mr. Jackway says, it was locked on the inside?”

“Mystery!” said Bobby.

“Give it up,” added Jess. “What do you say, Mother Wit?”

“That is the way he opened it,” said Laura, softly, looking up from the foot prints.

“What’s that?” cried Jess.

“Why – I hear you talking, but you don’t say anything!” laughed Bobby. “How did he open it?”

“From the inside,” said Laura.

“Why, Laura!” gasped Nellie. “You do not distrust Mr. Jackway?”

“Hush! Of course not,” cried Jess, in a lower tone.

“No, I do not distrust him,” said Laura Belding.

“What do you mean, then, by saying that the fellow opened the window from the inside?”

“And that’s ridiculous, Laura!” cried Jess. “He walked up to the window from across the field – you can see he did. And there’s no mark showing how he went away. He did not leave by the window. He could not have been inside when he came from outside – ”

“Hold on! Hold on!” warned Bobby. “You’re getting dreadfully mixed, Jess.”

“But I don’t see what Laura’s driving at,” declared her chum.

“Why,” said Mother Wit, calmly, “the person who made those shoe prints walked backwards. Don’t you see? That is what makes the shuffling mark at the heel. And see! the step is so uneven in length. He escaped by the window; he didn’t enter by it.”

“Well!” cried Nellie Agnew. “That explains without explaining. The mystery is deeper than ever.”

“Why is it?” demanded Jess.

“Don’t you see? Before, we thought we knew how the fellow got in. It seems to be an easier thing to get out of the gym. than into it. But now Laura knocks that in the head. The mystery is: How did he get in?”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Bobby. “It makes my head buzz. And Laura is a regular lady detective. She’s always finding out things that ‘it would be better, far, did we not know!’”

She said this to Nellie Agnew, when they had separated from Laura and Jess, and were walking toward home.

“Say! do you know how Laura explained that canoe tipping over with Purt Sweet and Lily Pendleton?” pursued the lively one.

“I didn’t know that they had an accident,” laughed Nellie. “Those canoes are awfully ticklish, I know.”

“I should say they were! Well, Purt and Lil borrowed Hessie’s canoe and they no more than got started before they went head first into the water – and Lil, of course, helpless as usual, had to be ‘rescued.’ The number of times that girl has been ‘rescued’ this season is a caution!”

“I do admire your elegant language,” said Nellie, reprovingly. “But what did Laura say?”

“She explained it all for them. Both Purt and Lil were trying to tell how such a wonderful thing chanced to happen as an overturn, when Laura said she could explain it satisfactorily to all hands. She said that Purt had made a mistake and parted his hair too far on one side, and that had overbalanced the canoe!”

“Well, they do swamp awfully easy,” laughed Nellie. “I guess Laura has found the right explanation of how the villain left the gym. But there is one explanation that I would like to have – a much more important one,” concluded Nellie.

“What’s that?”

“Who did it?”

“I thought that was pretty well understood,” growled Bobby.

“No girl could have climbed over that fence, that’s sure!”

“Oh, I grant you that!” cried Bobby. “But she paid to have it done. There are plenty of tough fellows from down at the ‘Four Corners’ who work at the slaughter house. They could be hired to do it.”

“Hush, Bobby!” commanded the doctor’s daughter. “I feel terribly condemned. I am afraid we are accusing Hester wrongfully. A girl couldn’t have two such very opposite sides to her character,” and she promptly told her friend what Dr. Agnew had related regarding Hester’s rescue of little Johnny Doyle from the sewer basin.

“Gee! that was some jump, wasn’t it?” demanded the admiring Bobby. Then she shook her head slowly. “Well,” she remarked, “nobody ever said Hester wasn’t brave enough. She was brave enough to slap your face!” and then she giggled.

“I don’t care,” said Nellie, slowly. “I fear we went too far when we asked Mrs. Case to take her off the team. And I’m sure it isn’t right for us to accuse her of being the cause of the trouble at the gym. – without further and better evidence.”

“Oh, dear, Nell! you’re a great fuss-budget!” cried the effervescent Bobby. “Are you sure that your Daddy Doctor saw quite straight when he saw Hester save the kid? You know, he’s getting awfully absent-minded.”

Nellie smiled at her, taking Bobby’s jokes good naturedly.

“I know father is absent-minded,” she admitted. “But not as bad as all that.”

“I don’t know,” returned Bobby, with apparent seriousness. “The other day when he put the stethoscope to me before practice, I expected to see him take the receiver away from his ear and holler ‘Hello, Central!’ into it.”

“I’ll tell him that!” promised Nellie.

“All right. Do your worst,” giggled Bobby. “It will be a month old before he gets around to sound my heart action again, and he will have forgotten all about it by then.”

The Saturday following a crowd of the girls went out to visit Eve Sitz, and Nellie and Bobby were included in the automobile load that left the Beldings’ house right after luncheon. Saturday mornings Laura always helped in her father’s jewelry store, while Chet was behind the counter as an extra salesman in the evening; so the Beldings’ chauffeur drove the car to the Sitz farm for the girls.

There were chestnut and hickory woods on, and near, the Sitz farm, and the girls had in mind a scheme for a big nutting party just as soon as Otto Sitz – Eve’s brother – should pronounce the frost heavy enough to open the chestnut burrs and send the hickory nuts tumbling to the ground.

There was always plenty to do to amuse the young folk – especially young folk from the city – on the Sitz place. This day Otto and the hired men were husking corn on the barn floor, and Nellie, and Bobby, and Jess and the Lockwood twins were supplied with “corn pegs” and sat around the pile, helping to strip the golden and red ears.

Eve had an errand down at the nearest country store, so she put the old gray mare into the spring cart with her own hands, and Laura rode with her.

“We had a nice colt from old Peggy last year, and two weeks ago it was stolen. Otto had just broken her to saddle, and she was a likely animal,” Eve said. “Old Peggy misses her, and whinnies for her all the time,” she added, as the mare raised her head and sent a clarion call echoing across the hills.

“Hasn’t your father tried to find the thief – or the colt?” queried Laura.

“Yes, indeed. He’s over to Keyport to-day to see the detective there.”

“But the colt may be outside the county,” urged Laura.

“That’s so, too. We haven’t any idea where Jinks went. That was her name – Jinksey. She doesn’t look much like Old Peggy; but she was worth a hundred and fifty dollars, if she was worth a cent! More than father could easily afford to lose. And then – Otto really owned her – or would have owned her when he came of age. Father had promised Jinks to him.”

“It’s a shame!” cried Laura, always sympathetic. “And you have no suspicion as to who could have taken her?”

“No. Down beyond the store – beyond Robinson’s Woods, you know – there is a settlement of people who have a hard name. They rob the gardens and orchards on the edge of town – ”

“Toward Centerport, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“The Four Corners’ crowd!” cried Laura.

“Yes.”

“Oh, that gang are a bad lot. Once Chet and I motored through there and an ugly fellow named Pocock came out and fired a charge of bird-shot into a rear tire. He said an auto had been through there the week before and killed his pig, and he was going to shoot at every machine he saw. We’ve never taken that road again.”

“That Hebe Pocock is an awfully bad fellow,” said Eve, seriously. “He tried to work for us once, but father wouldn’t keep him more than a day. And he’s been mad at us ever since.”

“Maybe some of those fellows in that gang stole your Jinksey.”

“How are we going to know? Father or Otto wouldn’t dare go down there and look around. And I guess the police are afraid of those fellows, too.”

“Let’s drive down past the store,” suggested Laura, thoughtfully, after the old mare had again lifted up her voice.

“Oh, my, Laura! What for?”

“Something might come of it.”

“I guess nothing but trouble.”

“I’ve got what Chet and Lance call ‘a hunch,’” said Laura, slowly.

“We – ell – here’s the store.”

“Just a little farther, Eve,” said Laura, taking the reins herself, and clucking to the old mare.

They passed the store on the trot. Around the first bend they came in sight of the little hollow where the roads crossed, making the renowned “Four Corners.” Coming up the road was a boy on a bay colt. Instantly the old mare whinnied again, and the colt answered her.

“It’s Jinksey!” gasped Eve.

“We’re going to get her – if you’re sure!” declared Laura.

“Of course I’m sure. I’d know her anywhere – and so would Old Peggy.”

The colt snorted again, and the boy riding her tried to pull her out into a side path, to cut across the fields. Eve stood up and shouted to him. Laura urged the gray mare on, and she went down the hill at a tearing pace.

CHAPTER XI – HEBE POCOCK

“Oh, Laura!” gasped Eve. “That boy will never give the colt up.”

“Why not? See him?” exclaimed Mother Wit. “He knows he is riding a stolen horse. There! he’s sliding out of the saddle.”

The fact was, the colt – still but half broken under the saddle and with its eyes on its mother – would not move out of its tracks. The boy jumped off and tried to lead Jinks.

“Get away from that horse, boy!” commanded Laura, bringing the old mare down to a more moderate pace as they approached the stolen colt.

“I’ll tell my brother!” yelled the youngster. “I’ll set him on ye! This critter is his’n.”

“And he came by it just as dishonestly as you came by such grammar as you use,” said Laura, laughing, while Eve hopped over the wheel on her side of the cart and grabbed the reins out of the boy’s hands.

“Let that horse alone!” cried the youngster, kicking at Eve with his bare foot.

But Eve Sitz wasn’t afraid of any boy – not even had he been of her own size and age. Her open palm smacked the youngster’s head resoundingly and he staggered away, bawling:

“Lemme erlone! Hebe! Hebron Pocock! I wantcher!”

Laura was already backing the mare, preparatory to turning about.

“Come on with the colt, Eve!” she cried.

The boy they had unhorsed continued to bawl at the top of his voice. But for the moment nobody appeared. Eve lengthened the bridle rein for a leading strap and then essayed to climb into the cart again. The boy ceased crying and threw a stone. The colt jumped and tried to pull away, for the stone struck her.

“Whoa, Jinks!” cried Eve. “If I could catch that boy! I’d do more than box his ears – so I would!”

“Come on, Eve!” called Laura, looking over her shoulder. “Here come some women from the shanties. They will do something to us beside calling us names – or throwing stones,” as she dodged one that the boy sent in her direction.

“Whoa, Jinksey!” commanded Eve, again, trying to lead the frightened colt toward the cart.

“Hebe Pocock! Yi-yi! You’re wanted!” yelled the small boy again, sending down a perfect shower of stones from the bank above them, but fortunately throwing them wild.

Eve managed to climb up into the cart, still holding the snorting, pawing colt by the strap.

“Drive on! drive on!” she gasped, looking back at the several ill-looking and worse dressed women who were running toward them.

“Go on!” urged Laura to the mare, and Old Peggy started back up the hill, while Eve towed Jinks behind. Suddenly, however, the bushes parted, and a roughly dressed fellow, with a red handkerchief tied around his head in lieu of a cap, stepped out into the road. He carried a gun in the hollow of his arm, the muzzle of which was turned threateningly toward the cart and the two girls in it. The two barrels looked as big around as cannon in the eyes of Laura and Evangeline Sitz!

“Hey, there!” advised the ugly looking fellow. “You ladies better stop a bit.”

“It’s Pocock!” whispered Laura.

“I know it,” returned Eve, in the same tone.

“That horse you’re leadin’ belongs to me,” said Pocock, with an ugly scowl.

“You know better, Hebron,” exclaimed Eve, bravely. “It belongs to my father.”

“It may look like your father’s colt,” said Pocock. “But I bought her of a gypsy, and it ain’t the same an – i – mile.”

“The old mare knows her,” said Laura, quickly, as the colt nuzzled up to Peggy and the gray mare turned around to look upon the colt with favorable eye.

“That don’t prove nothing,” growled Pocock. “Drop that rein.”

“No, I won’t!” cried Eve. “Even the bridle is father’s. I recognize it.”

By this time the women from the shanties had arrived. They were dreadful looking creatures, and Laura was more afraid of them than she was of Pocock’s shot-gun.

“What’s them gals doin’ to your brother Mike, Hebe?” demanded one of the women. “They want slappin’, don’t they?”

“They want to l’arn to keep their han’s off’n my property,” growled Pocock. “Come! let the little horse go.”

“No!” cried Eve.

“Yes,” cried Pocock, shifting his gun threateningly.

“You bet she will!” cried the woman who had spoken before, and she started to climb up on Laura’s side of the cart.

Laura seized the whip and the woman jumped back.

“Shoot her, Hebe!” she yelled. “She’d a struck me with that thing!”

But Laura had no such intention. She brought the lash of the whip down upon the mare’s flank. With a snort of surprise and pain the old horse sprang forward and had not Hebe Pocock leaped quickly aside he would have been run over.

But unfortunately neither Eve nor the colt were prepared for this sudden move on Laura’s part. The colt stood stock-still and Eve lost her grip on the bridle rein.

“Go it!” yelled Pocock, laughing with delight. “I got the colt!”

He sprang at the head of Jinks. The women were laughing and shrieking.

“That’s the time I did it!” gasped Laura, in chagrin, pulling down the old mare.

And just then the purring of an automobile sounded in their ears and there rounded the nearest turn in the road a big touring car. It rolled down toward the cart and the group about the colt, with diminished speed.

“Oh! we mustn’t lose that colt after coming so near getting it away,” cried Laura.

“But father can go after it with a constable,” declared Eve, doubtfully.

“But Pocock will get it away from here – ”

“Why, Laura Belding!” exclaimed a loud, good-natured voice. “What is the matter here?”

“Mrs. Grimes!” gasped Laura, as the auto stopped. The butcher’s wife and daughter were sitting in the tonneau. Hester looked straight ahead and did not even glance at her two school-fellows.

“Isn’t that young Pocock, that used to work for your father, Hester?” demanded Mrs. Grimes. “That’s a very bad boy. What’s he been doing to you, Laura?”

“He has stolen that little horse from Eve’s father,” cried Laura. “And now he won’t give it up.”

“’Tain’t so!” cried Hebe Pocock, loudly. “Don’t you believe that gal, Mis’ Grimes. I bought this horse – ”

“Hebe,” said the butcher’s wife, calmly, “you never had money enough in your life to buy a horse like that – and you never will have. Lead it up here and let the girl have her father’s property. And you women, go back to your homes – and clean up, for mercy’s sake! I never did see such a shiftless, useless lot as you are at the Four Corners. When I lived there, we had some decency about us – ”

“Oh, Mother!” gasped Hester, grasping the good lady’s arm.

“Well, that’s where we lived – your father an’ me,” declared Mrs. Grimes. “It was near the slaughter houses and handy for him. And let me tell you, there was respectable folk lived there in them days. Hebe Pocock! Are you goin’ to do what I tell you?”

The fellow came along in a very hang-dog manner and passed the strap to Eve Sitz.

“’Tain’t fair. It’s my horse,” he growled.

“You know better,” said Mrs. Grimes, calmly. “And you expect Mr. Grimes to find you a good job, do you? You wanted to get to be watchman, or the like, in town? If I tell Henry about this what chance do you suppose you’ll ever have at that job?”

“Mebbe I’ll get it, anyway,” grinned Pocock.

“And maybe you won’t,” said Mrs. Grimes, calmly.

Meanwhile Laura and Eve, after thanking the butcher’s wife, drove on. But Hester never looked at them, or spoke.