Kitabı oku: «The Boy Scouts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XIX
AN ENEMY OF THE PAST
They all recognized Jared now, although he had grown considerably since last Rob had seen him, and was a husky looking fellow, easily capable of doing a man’s work.
In other days he had been a thorn in the flesh of the newly organized troop of scouts in Hampton, doing every mean thing his wits could devise in order to annoy them. Then, later on, when some of the boys had visited the Panama Canal, in process of being dug at the time, they ran across this same young reprobate, and found him associated with a number of desperate foreigners who were trying to blow up the locks of the canal in order to effect the ruination of the whole grand project to unite the two oceans across the isthmus.
Still later, Rob had run across Jared down in Mexico, where he was having a hard time of it, having joined forces with some of the rival warring elements that at the time were smashing things right and left. Whatever became of Jared, Rob had never learned, nor had he bothered himself very much over the disappearance of the unscrupulous young rascal.
And now, to find him trying to steal things from their baggage, was enough to make them believe the world was a pretty small affair after all. Of the hundreds of thousands of people in San Francisco it was certainly queer that Jared, their old-time enemy, should be the one to attempt this thing.
“What’s this checkered jumper he’s wearing mean?” remarked Andy, when he could find his breath, which had really been taken away by the astonishing discovery.
“Looks like Jared might be doing some honest work at last,” added Hiram. “Else he’s just put it on to make people believe he belongs here in the hotel.”
“No, no, that isn’t so, Hiram!” hastily cried the wretched Jared. “I’m really a sort of porter here, you see. I fetch trunks up to guests’ rooms, and all that. Mebbe you didn’t know it, but I brought that steamer trunk of yours here when you were out. That’s how I got my first knowledge some of my old schoolmates had come on to the Fair, because I read the name of Robert Blake on the same, and Hampton, L. I., ditto.”
“Oh!” said Andy, “and you felt so warmly drawn to your old schoolmates, Jared, didn’t you, that you just couldn’t resist sneaking up here when they were out, and rooting all through their baggage in hopes of picking up a windfall?”
The wretched Jared groaned in a way that told how badly he felt, not because he repented for anything he had done, as Rob well knew, but on account of having had the ill-fortune to be caught in the act. That was what pinched the most, though it was not to be expected he would admit as much; for Jared had always been one of those tricky, whining, cowardly fellows who make big promises when in trouble, but forget all about them as soon as the wind blows fair.
“I’m just sick to get back home again, and that’s the truth, I give you my word it is, Rob!” he said, trying to appear very dejected and humble, because he knew from past experiences that this was the best way to work upon the sympathies of these good-hearted former school companions.
“And ready to rob us so as to get the money to take you there, you mean, don’t you, Jared?” Rob demanded.
“Oh, it was wicked, I realize that now, but everything has been against me out here,” whined the one who lay on his back on the floor. “I get to thinking of the folks at home on Long Island and it seems I would go crazy I want to get back there so bad again. If I ever do, I’m meanin’ to be a different feller than in the past. I’ve had my lesson, Rob; I’ve been kicked around like a dog till I came to hate nearly everybody that lived. But if I could only have one more chance I’d try awful hard to make good, sure I would. Oh, I hope you’ll believe me, Rob Blake!”
Now Rob, through so many dealings with this treacherous fellow in the past, had lost all faith in his possessing the least trait of decency in his composition. In most bad boys with whom Rob had ever had anything to do he could discover some sign of decency, even though it required considerable searching to find it; but upon Jared he had come to look as worthless.
All these promises Rob believed were only made with one idea in view, and this a wild desire to escape the punishment he so richly deserved.
Caught hiding under the bed after their effects had been searched and thrown recklessly around, Jared must certainly be treated as a common thief if arrested, and the management of the hotel would take great satisfaction in prosecuting him if only to discourage other employees from copying his example.
“Let him sit up, boys!” the scout leader told the two who had been pinning both of Jared’s arms to the floor.
They did as Rob requested, but from the way in which Andy and Hiram seemed to watch the culprit, meanwhile holding themselves in complete readiness to hurl their weight upon him at the first show of aggressive action on his part, it was evident that they attached small importance to his claim of repentance.
Rob hardly knew what to do. They had no reason to think well of this scamp who, in the past, never lost an opportunity to do them an ill turn, whether in the home town on the shore of Long Island, down at Panama, or upon the wide plains of Mexico. In Rob’s mind there was no shadow of belief with regard to that promise of reformation, or the gnawing desire to return home.
Still, so far as they knew, nothing had been stolen, so that there was no real reason why they should sink so low as to want to revenge themselves on Jared.
He certainly presented a most pitiable object as he sat there and turned his anxious eyes from one face to another of the four boys with whom he had gone to school for years, and who now held his fate in their hands.
“If I got anything, Rob, I meant to make it up to you later on when I could earn the money,” he was saying again, mistaking that serious look on Rob’s face and fearful that he meant to turn him over to the police. “I’m ready to go back to the farm and work it with the old man. This thing of knockin’ about the world ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, and I’m dead tired of going hungry half the time. Let me off, Rob, won’t you, please? It’d nigh ’bout kill the old woman if she learned I’d been caught tryin’ to steal from my schoolmates.”
Like all cowards, Jared, when he found himself face to face with the consequences of his folly, was ready to play the part of the prodigal son, and bring in his parents as a reason why he should escape punishment. Rob and the other scouts knew his mother and father, and while they had no reason to respect Farmer Applegate, still the fact that Jared was his son and must have almost broken the hearts of his people at home, was bound to influence Rob.
“Get up, Jared!” said the scout leader, shortly.
Andy gave a grunt of displeasure. He could guess what Rob was about to do, and felt like expressing his disgust, though it was seldom any of the boys ventured to differ with Rob, such confidence did they have in his long-headed policies.
Hiram simply contented himself with shrugging his shoulders. If Rob considered it best that they let the contemptible sneak thief off, after catching him in the very act as it were, well, it must be all right. Scouts were taught that when a foe was on his back and begging for mercy they must not be too hard-hearted. Jared was deceiving them, Hiram felt sure of that, but after all why should they bother with punishing him any further?
“Are you meanin’ to let me go, Rob?” quavered the fellow, as he managed to get upon his feet, with the four scouts clustered around him.
“Yes, because we haven’t lost anything through you as far as we can find out,” the scout leader told him, at which Jared’s face lost some of its strained look, and Andy thought he caught some of the old-time crafty gleam in his shifting eyes.
“I give you my word for it, Rob, I never took a single living thing,” he hastened to say.
“Well, we’ll make sure of that by taking a look through your pockets!” declared Rob, sternly. “You don’t seem to like that, do you? But make up your mind that if you start to show the first sign of resistance we’ll not only pile on you, but hand you over to the police afterward without listening to any more promises. Andy, you tap his pockets, and see what he’s got.”
Andy did not hesitate an instant; indeed, to see the way he started in one might believe this was an avocation with the scout, and that he had been employed a long time at police headquarters searching the pockets of prisoners before they were thrust into cells.
A number of things were brought to light, which did not possess any particular interest for the scouts. When, however, from an inside pocket Andy drew a roll of bills, fastened with a rubber band, Tubby was heard to give a “whee!” and Hiram nudged Rob in the side as if to say: “See how he yarned when he vowed he wanted to get back on the farm, but didn’t have the railroad fare East!”
Andy deliberately proceeded to count the contents of the roll, while the wretched owner followed his every move, as though he feared that by some hocus-pocus or sleight of hand process, with which he himself was possibly familiar, some of the money might take wings and fly away.
“Just ninety-seven dollars here, Rob!” announced Andy.
“Yes, that’s right,” declared Jared, cringing before Rob’s look, “and I earned every cent of that roll by honest days’ labor, every cent of it. I thought I needed just a little more to see me through all the way East. I was told it’d take about – say a hundred and ten clear. But I c’n wait now till I get my next wages. I was a silly fool to think to rob my old pals of the days in Hampton.”
“You never said truer words than those, Jared,” Rob told him, plainly, but with a feeling that nothing the other declared would be believed under oath, for truth and Jared Applegate had never been friends.
“But, Rob, I hope now you ain’t a-goin’ to keep any of my cash roll, or hand it over to the manager of the hotel. I’ve been working here quite some time now, and they treat me white so I’d hate to get bounced when I’m so near makin’ up the amount I need. It’s all clean money, Rob, you believe me, don’t you? Look at my hands and see how calloused they are? That’s a pretty good sign, I take it, that I ain’t been layin’ around, or playin’ cards like I used to.”
He had certainly been doing some sort of hard labor, though Rob was rather inclined to believe Jared must have been working in the mines with pick and shovel, and had only come to the city when driven out of the camp because of some crooked doings.
“You shouldn’t judge everybody by your own standard, Jared,” he told the other. “None of us could be hired to take a single cent of yours, no matter how you got the money, which is no affair of ours. Give it back to him, Andy; and I guess you’ve searched enough to satisfy us he is carrying away nothing that belongs to us.”
Jared clutched the money as might a miser, and hastened to stow it away again.
“And you mean me to go, don’t you, Rob? I take it you’re too high-minded to want to have revenge on a poor devil who’s down in the world, even if he has done you dirt in the past. Say I c’n skip out, won’t you, Rob? I’m a changed boy, I tell you; and you’ll never be sorry you acted white with me!”
“Open the door, Tubby,” said Rob, and the fat scout did so, though with apparent reluctance, for Tubby did not have the slightest faith in Jared’s wonderful reformation, and thought he ought to be punished in some way.
“Now go, and I only hope we never set eyes on you again, Jared Applegate. Only for the fact that you’ve already brought enough trouble on the heads of your folks at home I’d be in favor of handing you over to the police to deal with. Hurry up and leave before I change my mind.”
Jared did not linger a second longer than he could help. He gave each of the three scouts a look, and although he tried to appear grateful, they could see that there was the same old crafty gleam in his eyes as though deep down in his heart there existed not a trace of the desire to reform of which his lips had boasted. Passing through the open door, he vanished from their sight.
CHAPTER XX
LOTS OF EXCITEMENT
After all that excitement, Tubby could not immediately tear himself away from his chums.
“Why, seems as if all the sleep had been chased out of my eyes!” he declared, as he once more composedly sat down; and of course a general discussion took place in connection with their past experiences with Jared Applegate.
In the end they had to fairly pry Tubby away from that chair, and put him out of the door, in a friendly scuffle; he protesting to the last that as he had no expectation of getting a wink of sleep that night, there was no need of hurrying.
“Why, it’s half-past eleven right now,” Andy told him. “We’ll be a nice lot of blinking owls to-morrow unless we hit the hay in a hurry. You come back when you promised, and join the bunch. Good-night, Tubby!”
With that the door was closed, and of course the unwilling Tubby found there was no use trying to change the program; so he headed for the elevator, smothering a tremendous yawn by the way.
He made his appearance promptly on time when morning came, and they started for the Exposition grounds in a squad, all of them filled with lively anticipations of another great day of sight-seeing.
Of course the most anxious one of the company was Hiram. His business had not as yet come to a focus, and he was not at all certain how it might turn out. The others did not wish to hurry him unduly, for they knew Hiram to be very set in his ways; but at the same time they gave him plain hints that he would be unwise to wait too long.
“They’re expecting me any day now,” Hiram had explained in answer to these remonstrances, “and I’m just keepin’ ’em on the fence, you see. When I kinder guess the time’s ripe I’ll drop in on the company and tell ’em who I happen to be.”
“Hiram means he’s engineering a sort of climax,” explained Andy; “but the rest of us will be as mad as hops if he pulls the thing off without giving us a chance to see the fun.”
“You wouldn’t be so mean as that, I hope, Hiram?” pleaded Tubby.
“What d’ye take me for?” the other had exclaimed, in seeming indignation. “Guess I ought to know what my duty to my chums is. You’ll all have front seats on the band wagon when the music begins. Consider that as good as settled, Tubby. I’m having an extra big chair fixed for you, too, so you’ll be comfy.”
Tubby beamed his gratitude, and as they had arrived at the turnstile by that time the subject was dropped.
It was decided that they should keep together, for a while at least, though anyone could see that Hiram was wild to hurry over to where the Golden Gate Aviation Supply Company had its headquarters adjoining the field where the airships gave frequent exhibitions.
The crowd had not begun to make itself felt as yet, so that they found splendid opportunities to inspect numerous things that attracted their attention in some of the many immense Fair buildings.
An hour was spent among the pictures in the art building. Rob enjoyed this, for he was very fond of paintings, and at some future date he meant to put in a whole morning here.
Tubby soon tired of it, and as for Hiram it seemed to be pretty much of a bore. One whose heart and mind were wrapped up with all sorts of inventions could not be expected to content himself gazing upon works of art; they were too tame for his spirit; what Hiram delighted in was the whirr of machinery, the clack of the aëroplane propeller, and kindred objects that meant real work for him.
Just how it happened that about the middle of the morning they found themselves once more treading the devious ways of the Amusement Zone neither Rob nor Tubby nor Hiram could somehow understand. They dimly suspected, however, that the artful Andy must have managed to coax them in that quarter under a specious plea that he wanted to show them something wonderful.
The first thing they knew they were seated in chairs on the moving platform, and viewing the scenery along the stretch of the Panama Canal, which had a very realistic look for those who had been there themselves.
Each chair had a dictaphone attachment connected with the arm, and by applying this in the proper manner to their ears the occupants were enabled to hear a description of each section of the great ditch as it was reached.
Taken in all, it was a novel experience, and one they enjoyed very much; though in the end it required the strength of the other three scouts to drag poor Tubby out of his chair, which happened not to have been capacious enough for the standard requirements of the fat boy.
“Honestly,” said Tubby, in explanation of his sticking so tight, “I believe some skunk went and put a piece of shoemakers’ wax in that chair; and I feel that I’m lucky to have saved the seat of my new khaki trousers. If it had been the old ones there’s no telling what might have happened.”
“H’m! a poor excuse is better than none, they say,” muttered Andy; “but seems like instead of calling these chairs comfortable they might have added that they were the ‘Fat Man’s Misery.’ But forget it, Tubby; you’re safe and sound again, breeches and all. Come on and see what there is in this Bedouin Camp. The camels look like it ought to be a heap interesting.”
The others were not as much taken with the show as Andy. To him it was all real, and breathed the atmosphere of the desert and the traders’ caravan; but Rob saw how much was tinsel and make-believe, and really suspected that some of the so-called Arabs talked among themselves in pretty fair English.
It happened that shortly after they had issued from this concession, and Hiram was commencing to show signs of uneasiness, as though wanting to be off, something came to pass that for the time being made them forget their plans.
“Hey! what’s all that running about over there?” suddenly exclaimed Andy. “Mebbe there’s goin’ to be an Oriental elopement or a wedding? Let’s hurry over and get in line to see!”
“More’n like a dog-fight,” grumbled Hiram; “for I’ve noticed that in some of these squalid villages of foreigners they have some ugly yellow curs hanging around, which I should think the Fair people wouldn’t stand for.”
All the same, Hiram ran as fast as his mates to see what was going on. They made a discovery before they were more than half way to the spot. Indeed, the loud outcries borne to their ears, as well as the smoke that came from a building where the signs indicated that a celebrated Egyptian fortune-teller could be consulted, made this very manifest.
“Whee! it’s a fire!” gurgled Tubby, who was puffing very hard in his effort not to be left in the lurch by his more agile companions.
The excitement can be easily imagined in that always thronged section of the Exposition grounds. Scores of persons, many of them turbaned Arabs, Turks with red fezzes on their heads, or other foreigners were rushing this way and that, all wildly shouting, and wringing their hands as though they expected that a dreadful misfortune threatened that part of the Amusement Zone.
The gayly-dressed fortune-tellers were apparently up against a hard proposition. They could pretend to tell what the future held for others, but apparently had not been able to foresee such a common everyday occurrence as their booth taking fire.
No one seemed to be thinking of trying to do anything. The authorities of the Fair had provided arrangements for such accidents, and in due time, doubtless, the fire company would dash upon the scene, ready to pour a stream of water on the flames.
But seconds count when fire is seizing hold of flimsy curtains and woodwork. A minute or two in the commencement of a conflagration means that it may be smothered before it gets a firm clutch on the building.
Rob possibly remembered what had happened on that Long Island bay at the time he and Andy saved the naphtha launch owned by old Cap. Jerry.
Just then he discovered a couple of local scouts hurrying up. They were small lads, and might hardly know what was to be done in such an emergency. Rob seized hold of the first one.
“Tell me, do you know where the nearest fire extinguisher is fastened; I remember seeing some around the grounds here?”
No sooner had Rob put this question to the small scout than his face lighted up eagerly.
“That’s the ticket!” he exclaimed, shrilly. “I knew there was something a fellow ought to do! Why, yes, there’s one right back yonder, mister. All you got to do is to grab it off the stand and get busy. I know where another is further on!”
With that he darted off, followed by his companion. Rob had not even waited to hear all that was said. He had his eye on that little extinguisher immediately, and was leaping toward it, followed by the gaze of his admiring chums.
Why, it seemed almost no time at all before the scout leader had wrenched the extinguisher loose. His first thought was that luck favored him because lo! and behold it chanced to be one of the same pattern he always carried aboard his little motorboat, to provide against a catastrophe by fire.
Thus armed and equipped, Rob started into the small building from which the dense clouds of smoke issued, and amidst which tongues of angry flame were to be seen.
Andy, Hiram and Tubby followed close on his heels. They had nothing with which to fight the fire, but somehow seemed to consider it a part of their duty to back their energetic leader up to the full limit of their capacity.
It was, after all, nothing of moment, once Rob got the little stream started on the flames. The fire had not gained sufficient headway to make a stubborn resistance of it, and inside of three minutes Rob had it entirely subdued.
“Back out, fellows; it’s all over!” he managed to exclaim, though half choked by the penetrating smoke.
Just as the scouts came out, and by their smiles assured everybody that there no longer remained a spark to endanger the neighboring flimsy structures, the fire squad came hustling up. Of course there was a perfect mob gathered by this time, and Rob found it hard work to try and make his way through.
The man in charge of the fire-fighters hunted the scouts up and insisted on shaking hands with them, a procedure that many in the crowd copied, greatly to the displeasure of Rob, though Tubby and the others did not seem to mind it in the least.
One alert young fellow, who announced that he was a reporter on a San Francisco daily, tried his best to get an interview with Rob, who positively declined to say anything except that they were scouts from Long Island.
As this persistent newspaperman kept after them, and was seen in eager conversation with Tubby in the rear, it might be taken for granted that the fat scout was of a different mind from Rob. Trust Tubby to “blow the horn” good and strong, especially when he could sing the praises of one he cared for as much as he did for Rob Blake.
“Seems like things keep on happening wherever we go,” said Andy, after they had finally managed to shake off the last of the curious crowd, and retreated to another part of the Zone.
“It’s lucky for some people that such is the case,” asserted Tubby, promptly. “If we hadn’t happened to be around I reckon that fortune-teller’s place would have been burned to the ground. Some time we may be sorry we bothered with it. They’re all a lot of fakes, say what you will.”
Andy chuckled audibly at hearing that remark.
“You mustn’t mind Tubby, fellows,” he said, pretending to whisper, though he knew the fat scout could hear every word plainly; “ever since that time we were down at Coney Island, and a woman seeress there told him he had a glorious future as the world’s most famous fat man, Tubby has been sore on the craft. Now, that same wise woman told me I was going to be the greatest traveler since Livingstone’s time. She read my longings and aspirations, and I often think she could lift the curtain and see into the future.”
“Aw! you’re silly if you believe a single word they say!” burst out Tubby, with wrath and indignation; but in less than two minutes he was as amiable as ever; the unpleasant incident was forgotten; for Tubby could not stay out of humor long, and as Hiram was accustomed to saying, “trouble and anger slipped from Tubby just like water does from a duck’s back!”
More people were coming as the morning progressed, though the crowds would not begin to compare with those that the afternoon and evening would bring; when the band concerts were an added attraction, with numerous other events going on in every direction, until one would wish they could have a thousand eyes and ears so as not to miss anything.
Rob was tired of the scenes in the Amusement Zone, and ready to suggest that all of them make a change of base, though he knew it would not be an easy task to tear Andy away from the sights his heart yearned to keep in contact with.
“There’s one of the yellow curs we saw in that Indian village,” remarked Tubby; “and some boys are plaguing the life half out of him by throwing sticks, and trying to round him up. He must have broken loose from the enclosure where he was confined, and don’t know how to get back again. Look at the way he acts, will you? They’d better go slow, or he’ll bite one of those sillies! Oh, look at him snapping, will you, Rob? Makes me think of the mad dog that ran through our town last – ”
“Stop that talk, Tubby!” ordered Rob, sternly; but apparently it was too late, for some one gave a shout, and like magic the cry was taken up until dozens of frightened voices sent it rolling along the street of the Zone:
“Mad dog! mad dog! run for your lives, everybody!”
