The Girls of Central High in Camp: or, the Old Professor's Secret

CHAPTER XVII
A PERFECTLY UNSATISFACTORY INTERVIEW

“Goodness gracious!” gasped Bobby, the first to find her breath. She fell limply against Laura and Jess. “What do you know about that? Say, girls! Do you see the same thing I do, or am I going crazy?”

“Hush!” commanded Jess, hoarsely.

“Don’t be ridiculous, child,” advised Laura, rather sharply. “He will hear you–”

“Will that be a crime?” demanded Bobby, still in a whisper.

“It may be,” said Laura, slowly. “We don’t know why the professor is here.”

“To commune with nature, I judge,” said Jess, drily.

“I can’t imagine Old Dimple communing with nature – not as a pastime,” giggled Bobby.

“He surely has some good reason for being here,” Laura murmured.

“We won’t accuse him of robbing the camp that time, I suppose?” asked Jess. “Or being up there last evening in the storm?”

“That trail came this way,” declared Bobby, suddenly forgetting to laugh.

“Barnacle’s nose might have deceived him,” said Laura.

“I haven’t faith in much of that dog but his nose,” declared Jess. “He showed particular intelligence in following the trail down here. Why should we suddenly suspect him of being foolish, just because we found what we didn’t expect.”

“Clear as mud!” exclaimed Bobby. “‘Didn’t expect’ is good, however. If you had asked me a minute before we saw him, who was the most unexpected person to find at the end of our walk, I should have said Old Dimple.”

“Why!” gasped Jess, “it couldn’t be Professor Dimp.”

“You mean he couldn’t have been the kleptomaniantic thief?” chuckled Bobby.

Laura began to laugh softly herself. “Nor could he have been the person we – and the Barnacle – have been trailing,” she said, suddenly.

“Why not?” demanded Jess and Bobby together.

“Did you ever notice Professor Dimp’s feet?” asked Mother Wit.

“Horrors! No. Never saw him barefooted,” said Bobby.

“Miss Smartie! His shoes, then?” proceeded the unruffled Laura.

“I – I–Why, no,” admitted Bobby.

“Look at them now. He’s not a big man, but he has plentiful understandings,” chuckled Laura. “See?”

“Plain!” exclaimed Jess, peering through the branches.

“And those footprints we followed were of a person who wears a narrow, small boot. Small for a man, I mean. I don’t believe the old Prof. ever could get into such shoes.”

“Hurrah for Mother Wit – the lady detective!” cheered Bobby, under her breath.

“I am going to ask him–”

“What?” demanded Jess, half frightened as Laura started to press through the fringe of bushes.

“If he knows anything about that young man.”

“What young man?” demanded the startled Jess.

“The young man who scared Liz last evening in the storm. The same young man who took the things from our camp – and left the ten dollar bill.”

“The kleptomaniantic!” breathed Bobby, tagging close behind.

“Then it’s the man who has been fishing with the professor?” gasped Jess.

“You’ve guessed it,” said Laura. “They are together. This is a camp for two. You can see the fish-heads lying about. There are two tin-plates and two empty cups.”

“Are you sure the – the old Prof was one of those fishermen we saw in the boat?” asked Bobby.

“I recognize that old coat and hat,” said Laura, firmly. “I do not see why I did not recognize Professor Dimp, in spite of his disguise, before.”

“Well!” sighed Jess. “I am thankful one of our fellow-inhabitants of the island is nobody worse than Professor Dimp.”

“But why?” demanded Bobby, wonderingly.

“We’ll find out what it means,” said Laura, with more confidence than she really felt. Of course, she was not afraid of any physical violence. But the old professor was so terribly stern and strict that it took some courage to walk across the glade, where Barnacle was chewing fish-heads, and face the shabby old gentleman.

“What, what, what?” snapped Professor Dimp, rising up from the log on which he had been sitting. “Girls from Central High, eh? Ha! Miss Belding – yes; Miss Morse – yes; Miss Hargrew – yes. Well! what do you want?”

He seemed grayer than ever. His outing in the woods (if he had been here ever since school broke up) had done him little good, for he was wrinkled and troubled looking. His thin lips actually trembled as he greeted the three girls in characteristic manner. His eyes, however, were as bright as ever – like steel points. He looked this way when the boys had been a trial to him in Latin class and he was about to say something very sharp.

“We are sorry to disturb you, Professor Dimp,” said Laura, bravely. “But we are in a quandary.”

“A quandary, Miss Belding?”

“Yes, sir. Our dog has been following a man who came to our camp last night and frightened us. The dog led us right here to this spot. Have you seen him?”

“Seen the dog?” demanded the old professor. “Do you think I am blind?”

“I mean the man,” said Laura, humbly.

“What does he look like? Describe him,” commanded the professor, without a change of expression.

Laura was balked right at the start. She had no idea what the young man looked like, whom she believed Liz Bean knew, and whom she believed had come to the camp at the other end of Acorn Island twice.

“I only know what his boots are like,” she said, finally, and looking straight into the old professor’s face.

“Well, Miss?”

“I think you can supply the rest of his description,” said Mother Wit, firmly.

“What do you mean, Miss?” snapped the old professor.

“He wore narrow boots, and his footprints lead directly to this place,” said Laura. “Surely you must have seen him.”

“Why should I?” demanded the professor.

“Because you have had a companion here. Two men made this camp – have eaten more than one meal here. Where is your companion, sir?”

“Miss – Miss Belding!” exclaimed the professor in a tone of anger. “How dare you? What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean to offend you, sir,” said Mother Wit, while Jess tugged at her sleeve and even Bobby stepped back toward the fringe of brush. The old gentleman looked very terrible indeed.

“I don’t mean to offend you, sir,” repeated Laura. “But that man has been twice to our camp. He has disturbed us. He was there again last night and frightened our little maid-of-all-work almost out of her wits. We have got to know what it means.”

“You are beside yourself, girl!” gasped the old gentleman, and instantly turned his head aside so that they could not see his face.

“Liz calls him ‘Mr. Norman,’” Laura pursued. “If you do not tell me who he is, and what his visits to our camp mean, I shall find out more about him —in Albany!”

Professor Dimp did not favor them with another word. He walked away and left the trio of girls standing, amazed, in the empty camping place.

CHAPTER XVIII
AN EVENTFUL FISHING TRIP

Jess and Bobby were both disappointed and disturbed over the interview with Professor Dimp. Laura said so little about it that Jess was really suspicious.

“Can you see through it?” she demanded. “What do you think the Dimple means?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” said her chum, frankly.

But there was another thought which Laura Belding was not so frank about. She spoke of this to neither Jess nor Bobby.

They agreed, as they went back toward their camp, with Barnacle, that they would take nobody into their confidence about the professor being up here at Lake Dunkirk, fishing. Suspicious circumstances had attached themselves to the old gentleman’s presence here; yet the girls could not believe that Professor Dimp had anything to do with the raid on their larder, or the frightening of Liz Bean the evening previous.

However, Laura took Liz aside when they arrived at the camp and endeavored to get the truth out of her.

“Liz,” she said to the sad-faced girl, who seemed gloomier than ever on this morning, “who was the man who scared you in the rain last evening?”

The maid-of-all-work did not look startled. Perhaps she had nerved herself already for just this question.

She merely stared at Laura unblinkingly and asked. “What, Ma’am?”

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean, Liz,” said Laura, impatiently. “I found the man’s tracks and the Barnacle found his camp for us. The man came right into this tent last evening in all that storm, and you let him out at the back and laced down the flaps.

“Of course, there was no harm in it. And there may be no harm in the man himself, or his reason for being here on Acorn Island.

“But if the girls hear of it – all of them, I mean – they are going to be scared again, and it will break up our outing and spoil all our fun. Now! I want to know what it means, Liz.”

“Don’t mean nothin’,” declared the girl, sullenly.

“Why, that is no answer,” cried Laura.

“Then there ain’t none,” said Liz, shrugging her narrow shoulders, and she turned to her work again.

“You absolutely refuse to talk to me about him?” demanded Laura, rather vexed.

“I ain’t got nothin’ to say,” muttered Lizzie Bean.

“Then I’ll find out about him in some other way. It is that Mr. Norman you spoke about before – I am sure of that. And I shall write to Albany and learn why he is up here and what he is doing. Of one thing I am sure: he has no business on this island frightening the girls. The island is private property and is posted.”

If Liz was at all frightened by this threat, she did not show it. And, to tell the truth, it was an empty threat. Laura Belding did not know whom to write to in the city. She did not know the address at which Liz had worked there, and at which the mysterious Mr. Norman had been a boarder.

Some of the boys came over that afternoon and arranged with the girls of Acorn Island Camp to go fishing up the lake the next day. There was a certain creek, which came in from the north side, that was supposed to be well stocked with perch and trout.

“Part of it is posted, I believe,” said Chet. “Some old grouch owns a fishing right on the stream. But we can keep off his territory. And we’ll show you girls how to fish with a fly, and to use your reels.”

“Teach us how to fish with mosquitoes – they’re more plentiful than flies since the rain,” Jess said, slapping at one which was just presenting his bill.

“Crackey!” exclaimed Billy Long. “You’ve got it good here. There are not many of the beasts on this island. But there’s a swamp not far behind our camp, and it’s a shame to call the things that come from that swamp, mosquitoes – they are more like flying tigers!”

“I suppose the old sabre-toothed tiger, of our prehistoric days, was no more savage than these swamp fly-by-nights,” Chet laughed.

“Don’t you have any other visitors over yonder?” Laura asked.

“Oh, say! we had some this morning. Did you hear the hounds baying?”

“Hounds?”

“Real bloodhounds,” said her brother. “Sheriff’s posse–”

“Hush!” gasped Laura, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Haven’t you any sense at all? Want to scare Lil and Nellie out of their next five years’ growth?”

“Wow!” muttered Chet.

“Shut Billy off, too. And then come and tell me all about it,” commanded Laura.

Chet grabbed Billy by the collar and dragged him away from the girls. Then, after whispering to the smaller boy, emphatically, for a minute, he let him go and rejoined his sister.

“Now, what do you want to know, Sis?” he demanded.

“All about it,” said Laura, eagerly. “Is there really a sheriff’s posse hunting him?”

“Who’s who?” asked Chet, in much amazement.

“Why – whoever they are chasing,” replied Laura, rather blankly.

“Just curiosity?” Chet wanted to know.

“You can call it that,” responded the girl, smiling whimsically at him.

“You never were just idly curious in all your life,” declared Chet, grinning at her. “Well! the men were after that fellow who stole from the Merchants and Miners Bank of Albany.”

“Oh!”

“They got wind of his being up this way. Somebody saw him, or thought he did. Crackey! Do you suppose he was the fellow who took the food from your tent, Laura?”

“Yes, I do,” admitted his sister.

“Then he’s far enough away from the lake now,” said Chet, nodding. “That amount would have lasted him till he got over the Canadian border.”

“Perhaps,” said Laura. “At any rate, those dogs won’t be able to follow his trail much after the hard rain of last night.”

“Sure not,” Chet rejoined. “That’s what the sheriff said. He got us to promise to let him know at Creeper Station if we saw anybody who looked like Norman Halliday–”

“That’s it!” gasped Laura, clapping her hands together.

“What’s ‘it?’” demanded her brother, wonderingly.

“His name.”

“Of course it is. The fellow who stole the securities from the bank. They will get him of course.”

“With bloodhounds? How terrible!”

“Not at all. They are muzzled. And friendly brutes, at that. They only follow the scent they are put on, and probably would do their quarry no harm, even if they were unmuzzled.”

“Well, it seems terrible, just the same,” murmured Laura. Then she added: “Suppose he was somebody we had an interest in, Chet?”

“Humph! that would be tough. But he isn’t.”

“Just the same, promise me something,” urged Laura, clinging to his shoulder with both hands.

“What is it, Sis?” asked Chet, in surprise.

“Don’t tell the sheriff if you should run across the poor young man. Don’t tell anybody!”

“Why, Sis!”

“I have a reason. I can’t tell you what it is,” Laura said, half sobbing. “Will you mind me, Chet?”

“Surest thing you know!” declared her brother, heartily.

“And without asking questions?”

“That’s putting a bit of a strain on me,” laughed Chet. “But I know you must have a good reason, Sis. Only remember, when you want help, you haven’t any friend like your own ‘buddy.’”

“I know it, dear,” said Laura, kissing him. “You are the best brother who ever lived!”

This was all “on the side.” When they rejoined the others, neither Chet nor Laura revealed any particular emotion. The girls all promised to be ready for the fishing trip an hour after daybreak on the following morning.

Meanwhile, everything at Acorn Island went on as usual. Liz Bean seemed no more morose than before. Mrs. Morse was much too busy to notice small things. She had half-heartedly offered to accompany the girls and boys to Bang-up Creek for the fishing; but they had all assured her that it would be unnecessary.

Instead, they were to come home by mid-afternoon and all have supper at the island. The boys brought over a part of their own provisions, when they arrived in the bigger motorboat soon after sun-up.

Purt Sweet was the only boy who did not have a smile on; he looked gloomy indeed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jess.

“Surely he isn’t afraid of the Barnacle, is he?” queried Dora.

“Don’t bother about him,” said Dorothy. “He’s tied up, anyway, so as not to follow us.”

“How do you think that dog can follow us, when we’re going ten miles by boat?” demanded Reddy Butts.

“I don’t know but the Barnacle would sprout wings and fly through the air after Purt,” giggled Bobby.

“It isn’t the dog this time that troubles Purt – deah boy!” drawled Lance Darby.

“What is it?” asked Laura.

“Purt’s day is spoiled,” declared Lance. “He has come off without his cigarettes.”

“Cigarettes!” exclaimed Jess. “I thought we had shown him the folly of smoking coffin nails long ago.”

“Oh, he doesn’t smoke any,” Lance returned. “But he always carries a case of them around with him. You know, he bought a thousand once with his monogram printed in gold on them, and he never will get rid of them all. He thought it would be a good thing to bring them to camp with him so as to use them for a smudge to chase off the mosquitoes.”

“And they work all right,” grunted Chet. “The smoke chases the mosquitoes, you can believe. But then, the smoke chases us, too. Purt’s brand of cigarettes is made out of long-filler Connecticut cabbage.”

“That’s all right; don’t make fun of the poor fellow,” Lance said, with exaggerated sympathy. “Even if anybody had cigarettes to lend him, he couldn’t smoke any with anothah fellah’s monogram on ’em, don’tcher know, old top?”

But it came out that there was something else on Purt Sweet’s mind. He had a very expensive rod, reel, and book of flies. And to tell the truth, he had never strung a line on such a rod, and did not know any more about using the flies than a baby in arms!

He hated to admit his ignorance, for the boys were not at all tender with the Central High dude. However, Chet and Lance were not ill-natured, and Purt plucked up courage finally to beg Lance to take him privately up stream (when they reached the creek) and give him a lesson in fly-casting.

Lance had already taken Laura under his wing – as was to be expected; but Mother Wit made him give Purt the assistance he needed. The three wandered up stream, far above the series of quiet pools where the other members of the party were casting for trout, or fishing for perch.

The trio passed a series of rapids, several rods long, and then struck a very beautiful stretch of calm water, with tree-shaded banks, and shallows where the cat-tails and rushes grew in thick clusters.

“I see a sign up yonder,” Laura said to Lance. “Didn’t you say a part of this stream was a private fishing preserve?”

“So I’ve been told. We won’t go beyond the sign,” said Lance.

He got Laura and Purt properly stationed and then cast, himself. They were having good sport and had landed several beauties, when Billy Long came idly up the stream on the other side.

“Hello!” he grunted. “Everywhere I go, there are girls. Isn’t there a place where a fellow can get away from them and fish? They chatter so much that they drive all the fish into the mud, with their fins over their ears – that’s right!”

“Horrid thing!” said Laura. “We can keep just as silent when we’re fishing as any of you boys.”

“Try it, then,” advised Short and Long, gruffly.

He kept on up stream. “Look out there, Billy,” Lance advised. “It’s posted above there.”

“Posted?”

“Yes. Don’t you see that sign?”

“Huh!” said the smaller boy. “I never did believe in signs. And besides, it says there’s no fishing here – and I believe it! I haven’t had a bite all the way up this brook.”

He went on a bit farther and cast his fly again. Quiet fell upon the long pool, where the shadow and sunshine lay in alternate blocks.

Suddenly there was a scrambling through the brush on the side of the stream where Short and Long was standing, and then appeared a big dog and a big man, the latter holding the former in leash. The man was just as ugly looking as the dog – and the Barnacle was a howling beauty beside this dog!

“Hey, you!” exclaimed the man to Short and Long – and he certainly did speak savagely.

CHAPTER XIX
THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE GUN

“Oh, dear, Lance!” gasped Laura Belding, in a whisper. “I am afraid Short and Long will get into trouble. That man looks perfectly savage!”

But the small boy did not seem to be in the least disturbed. He had just made a very pretty cast into the stream as the dog and its master appeared.

“Say! can’t you read that there sign?” demanded the man, very red in the face. The sign really was plainly to be seen, and easily read. In large black letters it said:

PRIVATE

NO FISHING ALLOWED

The angler looked at the sign on the tree unabashed and observed:

“I didn’t notice it. You see, Mister, they taught me never to read anything marked ‘Private.’”

“Well, it says ‘No fishin’ allowed,’ anyway,” snarled the farmer.

“But I’m not fishing aloud,” came from Short and Long, who was perfectly serious. “That’s what I’ve been kickin’ about. The other folks down stream are making so much noise that they’d give every trout in the brook nervous prostration. I tell you I came up here especially to be quiet about my fishing–”

“You may think you’re funny, youngster,” interrupted the man; “but you’re fishin’ just the same, aren’t you?”

“Not so’s you’d notice it,” declared Short and Long. “All I’ve managed to do so far is to give my fly a chance to swim. Haven’t even had a rise.”

“I’ll give yer a rise, confound ye!” roared the man, coming with a rush through the bushes. “Git out o’ there, an’ git out quick, or I’ll set this dawg on ye!”

Here Lance took a hand in the affair. He shouted across the stream:

“Have a care, there, Mister! If that dog is savage, don’t you turn him loose.”

“Who the dickens are you?” snarled the farmer. “This is my land, and it’s posted, and this here is my dawg–”

“Let me have that pistol of yours, Purt,” commanded Lance, firmly, reeling in his line.

The dude, who had stood open-mouthed and shaking, could not follow Lance’s lead worth a cent. “You – you know, Lance,” he stammered, “the pistol won’t shoot–”

“Ho, ho!” cried the farmer, who had stopped abruptly when Lance had spoken. “Tryin’ to scare me, was you? Now you step lively, or I’ll let the dawg go.”

“You poor sport!” gasped Lance, scowling at the shaking dude.

Short and Long, having tempted the fates far enough, was winding up his own line. And just before the fly left the surface of the water a trout jumped for it and caught the hook.

“Whee!” yelled Short and Long, as the line reeled out, singing shrilly.

“Stop that!” yelled the man. “That’s my fish–”

“I can’t help it,” responded the boy from Central High. “I was reeling in, wasn’t I? He came right up and jumped for my fly. Call off your old fish, if you don’t want him caught on my hook and line.”

But Billy Long was too saucy that time. He was playing the fish while he talked, just as well as he knew how. The farmer gave a yell, let the dog’s strap run through his hand, and the beast, with an angry bay, dashed straight at the youthful fisherman.

Perhaps the farmer did not really intend doing such a cruel thing. For the dog would have torn Billy Long to pieces had he reached him.

There was a shout from across the stream – on the side where Laura stood – and a man leaped into the open. He carried a gun. As he reached the bank of the brook he threw up the shot-gun and erupted the contents of one barrel into the fore-shoulder of the angry dog.

The distance was scarcely two rods. The small shot peppered the dog well, and gave him a whole lot to think of beside grabbing a defenseless boy.

The farmer began to yell vociferously; the dog raised his voice even more loudly and, after falling and rolling over and over on the ground for a moment, he got to his feet and cut into the bushes like a flash. He was more scared than hurt.

“I’ll have you arrested for that!” yelled the dog’s owner, shaking both clenched fists at the young man with the gun.

“You’d better thank me that the beast did not grab that boy,” was the reply.

The young man with the gun seemed perfectly calm. He was a pale-faced young man, well dressed in a hunting suit, and with narrow boots on his rather small feet. He was doubtless a city sportsman.

“I bet I know who you be, ye scoundrel!” bawled the farmer.

The young man turned away instantly. Laura saw that he flushed and then paled again. He did not stop to say a word to the party of young folk from Centerport. Instead, he stepped into the thick underbrush and was almost instantly lost to their sight.

Short and Long had hastened to get over the border of the farmer’s posted preserve. But he had brought the trout with him – and it weighed a good pound and a half!