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The High School Boys in Summer Camp, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 23. What Tag "Borrowed" From The Doctor |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. WHAT TAG "BORROWED" FROM THE DOCTOR
"If it fares badly," called Dr. Bentley dryly, "you will find your curiosity possibly fatal. Come back here. It is time for us to be getting away. I am sorry we have no fire arms, or we could settle Mr. Bull very quickly. Come along, boys! Come, Dick!" But Prescott, for once, didn't prove over, tractable. He went closer, anxiously studying the condition of the rope wound around the first tree. Until Dick was ready to go none of his chums would leave the scene. Dr. Bentley had turned away; but when he found himself unaccompanied, he wheeled about once more. "You can't do anything---except run in danger, Dick," the physician called anxiously. "I am studying this business trying to find out if there isn't something that I can do," Prescott replied. "There isn't," Dr. Bentley assured the boy, walking over to him, "and by staying you're only putting your life in almost certain jeopardy." But Prescott shook his head and went on studying the turn of rope around the tree trunk. "You foolhardy fellow, I wish I had authority to order you away from here," exclaimed the physician irascible. "I know you think I'm foolhardy, sir," Dick answered respectfully, "but, from the way the rope is fraying, this beast is going to be free presently. I feel that I simply have to find a way to prevent his doing mischief. We boys can take to trees, but how about the girls? How about Mrs. Bentley?" "They can get inside of the wooden houses at need," urged Dr. Bentley. "It is hardly likely that even a crazy bull would attack a wooden house." "He might charge through our camp, though, and frankly, doctor, we can't afford to lose that camp," Prescott argued. "You other boys get back!" commanded Dr. Bentley, but Dick's chums came closer. "Hoo-hoo! hoo-hoo!" sounded a masculine voice from the direction of Dick & Co.'s camp. "Hoo-hoo!" Dick answered, in his loudest tone. "Who are you?" "Hibbert," came the reply. "I understand you are bull chasing!" "Yes." "Want any help?" "Yes; if you're an expert in handling wild bulls," Dick shouted back, between his hands. "I guess that will hold him, for a little while," chuckled Dave. "The idea of Hibbert handling wild bulls with those dainty little white hands of his!" Soon the sound of running steps was heard. Then on the scene came Hibbert, carrying a second rope that he had found. "A queer hitch-up you've got there," murmured the dapper little man, as he halted near the group. "Yes; and the bull is going to get away pretty soon, according to all predictions," replied Tom Reade. "Though, perhaps, Mr. Hibbert, you may have an idea that hasn't occurred to our addled brains." "That's hardly likely," murmured the young man, as he began to tie a running noose in one end of the rope with an air of preoccupation. "I don't know very much about cattle." "I suppose not," Tom nodded. "The very little that I know about the beasts," Hibbert went on quietly, "was what I picked up during my college vacations, when my good old Dad sent me west to rough it on a ranch. I'm not a cowboy at all, you know. All I know about them I discovered merely by sitting in saddle and watching the cowboys." Now Hibbert slipped around to the rear of the bull, which, for the moment, was behaving very quietly. "Look out!" yelled Prescott suddenly, for Hibbert, slipping in closer, had begun to tease the beast's left quarter. Mr. Bull, as though resenting such familiarity with all his force, reared, plunged, snorted. The rope hitched about the tree seemed likely to snap at any moment. Just as the bull came down on its hind legs, its forefeet raised in the air, Hibbert made a swishing throw. "Hurrah!" broke swiftly from the onlookers, for the dapper young man had made a throw that had roped the animal's forelegs together. Hibbert made a sudden haul-in on the rope, with the result that the bulky beast crashed sideways, falling. Then, all in a twinkling Hibbert leaped in, hobbling the thrown beast effectively. Having done this he made a few knots in the rope with workmanlike indifference. "Now, the beast won't run about very fast, if he get's up," remarked Mr. Hibbert, rising from his task. "For that matter, I hardly believe he'll get up." Hibbert next busied himself with gathering in the rope that Dick had used. Cutting this off beyond the point where some of the strands had become frayed, Hibbert made a new cast about the bull's head, then tied that animal effectively to the tree. "Fixed the way he now is," remarked Mr. Hibbert pensively, "I believe Mr. Bull, unless he has human aid in freeing himself, will still be here when the meat inspector gets around." "For a man who knows nothing about cattle," said Tom Reade, breaking the silence of the on-lookers, "it seems to me that you've done a most workmanlike job with that bull." "To an amateur like you or me," admitted Hibbert modestly, "it looks like a very fair little tie-up. But I'm afraid my former friends on the Three-Bar-X would feel decidedly ashamed of me. Shall we now go back to camp, or were you intending to go further into the woods?" "I believe we'd better go back to camp," said Dr. Bentley. "You didn't come alone, did you, Mr. Hibbert?" "Oh, no, indeed," replied the dapper little man. "Mr. Page and Colquitt are waiting back at the camp." As the party came in sight of the camp the women were plainly still agitated. "We've treed the bull!" shouted Dr. Bentley. "At least, I mean, he's safe." "He's been safe all along," cabled back Mrs. Bentley. "But are we safe, too?" "The bull is roped so that he will do no harm," Dr. Bentley answered. "None of you need feel the least uneasiness now. The work that young Prescott started so well Mr. Hibbert has finished satisfactorily. The bull cannot get loose and do you any harm. He will stay just where he is until some of the local cattlemen come along to take care of him." Just before dark, it may be added, two of the tenders employed by the owners of the cattle were stopped in passing. They led the bull away, the animal's legs being partly hobbled. "You haven't seen my boy," remarked Mr. Page wistfully, as Dick and his chums reached the space before the tent. "I am afraid we hardly expected to see him again, sir," Prescott answered. "As you've doubtless heard, sir, your son has been back this way, and visited Dr. Bentley's camp. From there, I take it, he meant to make his escape out of these woods for good and all. I have an idea, Mr. Page, that a further hunt will lead far away from here." "My son ought not to be able to get far away," went on the father, holding out a handbill. "I have felt obliged to proclaim a reward of a thousand dollars for the boy's discovery within a week, with a further thousand if it happens within three days, and still another thousand for his being brought to me within twenty-four hours." "Then you can expect results, sir!" Dick went on, brightening. "Money talks, I've heard." "And talks in every language," added Reade. "Mr. Page, a lot of men who are not police or peace officers will be out hunting for young Mr. Page. 'Tag Mosher' will be more eagerly sought for than ever before in his life. "I don't see how Tag has a ghost of a show to get away," observed Dave Darrin. "Whew, but I'm thirsty," remarked Dr. Bentley, going over to the spot where the drinking dipper hung. "And it looks as though it were my turn to go after water." "Is there no water there?" Prescott inquired. "Not a drop." "Then I'll get some water, doctor," offered Dick, coming forward and taking up a pail. He went briskly away to the spring where the boys obtained their water supply. The spring was some distance from camp. Dick reached the little glade where the spring lay, and turned down into it. As he did so he saw a movement of the bushes, as though some animal had crawled into shelter. "Anyway, it wasn't anything as large as a bull," laughed Dick, as he bent over the spring, bucket in hand. He filled the bucket, then set it down on the ground. "I wonder what is under those bushes?" he muttered, boyish curiosity coming to the surface. Prying the bushes apart, stepping forward, he suddenly halted, a cry of astonishment coming to his lips. "You, Tag?" he questioned, in astonishment, gazing down at the sullen face of the larger boy who lay on his back in the thicket. "Yes; it's Tag, and I'm It," mocked the other. "What are you doing here?" "Waiting for you to call your friends, the officers. There's a reward offered for me, I suppose." "Yes; there is," answered Dick, wondering why Tag didn't leap up and scurry away. "And guess who offers the reward?" "Who?" "Your father!" "Bill Mosher?" laughed Tag, despite his sulky air. "What does Bill offer? The next dozen of eggs?" "Tag, Bill Mosher isn't your father, and he has admitted it. You were a strange child that came into his care, and he kept you, at first, hoping for a reward. Your real name is Page, and your real father is now over at camp. I'll call him." "You may as well," agreed Tag sullenly. "But Page is a new name. Is that what they call the sheriff now?" "Tag, aren't you ever going to be serious?" demanded Dick, flushing with eagerness. "Not while you go on springing the same old line of fairy tales on me," retorted the other lad. "Is my father, as you call him, as rich as he was yesterday and the day before? Has he still barrels of money that he's waiting to hand me? Money? Humph! If it hadn't been for money I wouldn't be in the fix I am now. Prescott, I'll tell you something. I've kept the cupboard full by stealing. I'll admit that. But I never stole money before to-day. I went through those dog-houses---what do you call them?" "Do you mean the portable houses of the Bentley party?" asked Dick. "I guess that's the right name. Anyway, I went through those houses to gather in some food, for I was going to leave these woods for good and all." "So I guessed," nodded Dick. "And I came across two twenty dollar bills. Prescott, I've always helped myself to food, because, some way, it always seemed to me that food belongs to the fellow who needs it most. But I had never taken any money, before, from anyone. That's honest---flat! But the twenties looked fine to me. They would carry me a long way on the railroad, and I haven't had any notion to stay here and go to jail for something I didn't do anyway. So I took the money, the grub, too, and stepped off fast through the woods. But, Prescott, you may believe me or not, that money got heavier with every step. Remember, I've never had any practice in stealing money. By the time I'd gone three or four miles that money in my pocket got so heavy that I couldn't drag my feet another step. I took the money out and threw it away. But that didn't help me any, either, so I went back, found the money, and started back this way to put that money back where I got it. I never knew that anything I helped myself to would grow so heavy, but back I had to come with that money. I can't understand what made me feel that way about a little money. Maybe it was" "Conscience," suggested Dick promptly. "Conscience?" repeated Tag wonderingly. "What's that? I know I've heard that word somewhere---some time." Dick was wondering how to make sure of Tag this time. If he shouted to his friends in camp Prescott felt positive that Tag would leap up, knock him down and glide away. Give him a start of a hundred yards in these forests, and Tag Mosher, otherwise young Page, was quite certain to distance and elude all pursuit. _ |
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