Chapter 14. Dick & Co. Make An Apple "Pie"

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_ CHAPTER XIV. DICK & CO. MAKE AN APPLE "PIE"

"Then I wish we had 'em here!" sputtered Tom Reade vengefully. "I could eat two of them at this moment, and without salt!"

"They need salting badly!" growled Dave Darrin angrily.

The tent was not only down. Each guy rope had been cut in the middle, so that the cordage could not be used again.

"I never saw anything more sneaking!" cried Reade in rage and disgust.

"Unless it will be the way that we shall sneak up behind the rah-rah crowd and square matters!" remarked Darry meaningly.

"First of all, we must be sure of their guilt," warned Dick. "It won't do to try to even up a score that's based only on suspicion. Wait until I get a lantern out of the wreck, and then we'll explore the ground to see if we can discover any real proof against the rascals."

"Let's get into our working clothes first," proposed Reade. "We might want to wear these white clothes again before we get home."

So Tom and Dave held up a part of the canvas while Dick slipped in under the folds of the tent to find the box in which they had left their hike clothing.

"The box isn't here," Dick called. "Neither can I see any of the bedding."

"Get hold here, fellows, and lift up more of the canvas," Reade called.

"There isn't anything in the tent. All the stuff has been cleaned out." Prescott announced in a voice of disgust.

"It was the tramps, then," Dave declared. "The rah-rah boys wouldn't take the risk of stealing anything."

"Hold on! I've found a lantern," called Prescott. "I'll come out with that."

He appeared a moment later, lighting the lantern.

"Now, let's see what we can find," he urged. Not far away the high school boys came upon the prints of sharp-toed shoes.

"The tramps didn't wear shoes that would make these prints," declared Dick. "Neither do any of our crowd. Fellows, we owe our surprise to the rah-rah humorists."

"Then we'll pay 'em back in good measure," cried Darry in exasperation.

After some searching Dick & Co. came upon their clothes chest, at a distance of some hundred yards from camp. The chest had not been rifled, for it was locked and the key rested in Dick's pocket.

"Help me with it, Tom, and we'll carry it back," said Prescott in a low, hard tone. "We need our working clothes at once, for there is work to be done to-night!"

The needed change of costume was quickly made. Off came the white suits, which were carefully folded and put away. Then on went the khaki and flannel clothing.

"Dan, you stay with the tent," Dick ordered, with the air of a general. "Greg, you and Harry make it your main business to see if you can find the horse. The rest of us will concern ourselves with finding out whether the rah-rah fellows are still outside the hotel."

"Here's the horse---grazing," shouted Greg, two minutes later.

"Run back, Dave, and pilot Greg and Harry here, after they've staked the horse down," Prescott suggested. "We don't want to make too much noise, for our tormentors may yet be about somewhere."

"Hazy stumbled upon some of the blankets," Greg announced, when he and Harry joined Dave. "I don't believe any of our stuff has been carried off, Dick. It has just been scattered."

"Perhaps we'd better gather in all our camp stuff first, then," Dick decided. "We can't afford to lose any of our camp outfit."

Ten or fifteen minutes of searching, with the aid of the lantern, resulted in recovering all of their scattered possessions, even to the last of the cots, pillows and blankets.

"Now, let's make a sweep of the dark parts of the hotel grounds, and we may happen upon the rah-rahs, still chuckling over the fun they've had with us."

But the five boys had not gone far when they were stopped by a well-dressed young stranger of about twenty.

"Mr. Prescott?" asked the stranger.

"Yes," nodded Dick.

"I am one of the bell-boys at the hotel. When I went off duty I asked the manager's permission to change my uniform for citizen's clothing and watch those eight noisy fellows."

"The college boys?" asked Harry quickly.

"They're not college boys!" returned the young stranger. "They've been giving a fake Saunders yell, and that was what made me dislike them, for I've just finished the sophomore year at Saunders myself. I'm working at the Terraces as bell-boy to help pay next year's tuition at Saunders. The manager permitted me to watch those fellows, but somehow they got away from me. I got track of them again near to your camp. Just as I came along they were scooting away, but a glance showed me the mischief they had worked, so I followed them."

"Do you know where they are now?" Dick asked eagerly.

"I know where they were ten minutes ago," replied the bell-boy.

"Then please take us to them as quickly as you can," begged Darry vehemently. "I'm fairly aching to pass the time of night with them!"

"I'll do it," agreed the bell-boy. "Follow me, please."

"I wonder why they went to all that trouble to be so disagreeable to us," Prescott muttered, as the little party strode along.

"You had some dispute with that crowd, on the hotel porch to-night, didn't you?" asked the bell-boy.

"Yes; they tried to address some of our girl friends, whom they didn't know and we objected to their insolence."

"That was what made the rah-rah boys sore," went on the bell-boy. "I heard them talking about it before I left them. It seems, too, that the manager sent the head waiter to stop their nonsense in the dining room to-night. For some reason these sham college boys blame you fellows for that humiliation also. So they're chuckling over what they've done to your outfit to teach you to mind your own business, as they put it."

"I hope we catch up with 'em before they get back to the hotel," uttered Tom fervently. "But warn us, please, whenever we get so close that they're likely to hear our voices."

The bell-boy now led them through an orchard.

"There seem to be a lot of apples on the ground," remarked Prescott, halting.

"Green ones---they're no good," replied the bell-boy.

"Then they are good---just what we want!" ejaculated Prescott. "Hold on, fellows! Fill your hats with these apples."

"What are you going to do when you come upon these fellows?" asked the bell-boy.

"Scuttle 'em---the way they did our tent!" Tom retorted.

"I hope you pay them back generously," muttered the bell-boy. "I've a score to settle with them for trying to blacken good old Saunders! But see here! Up to date, at least, they're guests of the hotel, and I'm an employe there. Now, if they get too much the better of matters in a scrimmage, I'll sail in with you boys, even though I have to resign my hotel job. But, if I see that you can handle 'em all right, I shall just stand by without taking any part in the fight"

"We understand your position, and appreciate it," Dick replied. "We thank you, too, but we believe that we can take care of them all by ourselves. If we can't, then we'll take our drubbing."

"You boys have done some things in athletics, haven't you?" asked the bell-boy, noting the way that each of the five present members of Dick & Co. carried himself.

"Gridley High School football team last season," Dick replied, a trace of justifiable pride in his voice.

"You were?" demanded the bell-boy eagerly. "Then shake! My name is Gerard. We know a lot about the Gridley High School brand of football at Saunders."

Introductions were quickly passed.

"Now, I'd like to feel that I'm really one of you, and I'll fight shoulder to shoulder with you!" chuckled Gerard.

"Please don't try to take a hand in any fight that may occur," Prescott begged. "If you're working your way through college, just keep your eye on your job. Don't mix up in any trouble with the guests."

"We'll soon be at the spot where I left the bunch," said Gerard, a few moments later.

Over a rise of ground the bell-boy led Dick & Co. Then he pointed to a little grove of chestnut trees.

"There is the rah-rah crowd," he whispered. "You see, they have one of your lanterns, and they're lunching on some of your food supplies that they brought along with them."

"I wonder what those freshies are saying now," came in a laughing voice, from the rah-rah group under the chestnut trees.

"Their potted chicken is all right, anyway," laughed another. "Cut me off another slice of the bread. Whee! This college mischief on a dark night gives one an appetite."

Dick gave whispered instructions to his own forces, then signed to Gerard, who drew back into the shadow.

"I'd like to see the fresh kids now," jeered another rah-rah youth.

"May all your wishes in life be as promptly fulfilled!" muttered Tom Reade under his breath.

"We might have had a nice time to-night dancing with the girls from Gridley if their kid friends hadn't stepped in and spoiled it all in their juvenile way," grumbled another.

"We've finished up all the borrowed food," said another. "What shall we do next?"

"For 'next,'" roared Dick Prescott, "you fake collegians will stand up and take your medicine!"

There was instant consternation in the group under the chestnut trees. All the rah-rah boys leaped to their feet, but, ere they could stir, there was a whizzing sound on the air.

Plunk! Plunk! Ker-plunk! Missiles were flying through the air and the rah-rahs were stopping a good many of them with their own persons.

"Hey! Stop that!" bellowed one of the rah-rahs. "You---wow!"

For his utterance had been for the moment stopped by a large-sized green apple that had struck him full in the mouth.

"Hey! Let up!"

But nothing could stay the fast and furious volley of green apples until Dick & Co. had exhausted their ammunition. Most of the shots found targets, too.

Once they had had time to recover from their bewilderment the rah-rahs turned in full, inglorious flight, without attempting to strike a single blow in their own defense. Who was going to be fool enough, anyway, to run blindly into a storm of flying green apples?

Dick and his chums expended the last of their ammunition while chasing the rah-rahs. Their missiles gone, the Gridley boys put on full speed, ran after and overhauled some of their late foes and drubbed them well.

But at last, by common consent, Dick & Co. came to a halt.

"I reckon we paid the score," laughed Prescott. "They ought to let us alone hereafter."

"No doubt they will," replied Gerard grimly, coming up with the Gridley boys. "I haven't a doubt that the manager will order them to leave the hotel in the morning."

After extending their heartiest thanks to Gerard, the Gridley boys returned to their camp. There, from their supplies, they rigged new guy-ropes and erected their tent. Soon after, all hands turned in, feeling quite secure against another visitation that night.

The manager, at first, the next morning, said nothing whatever to the rah-rah youths. But, at about ten o'clock a constable appeared and gathered in all of them on a charge of disturbing the peace.

Dick & Co. were not even asked to go the justice's court. The hotel manager and bell-boy were on hand, but the crest-fallen lot of rah-rah youths all pleaded guilty. They paid fines of ten dollars apiece.

Then, on their return to the hotel, they were informed that their rooms were wanted at once.

The manager and Gerard personally escorted the rah-rah boys off the grounds of the Ashbury Terraces, and they were seen no more thereabouts. Who they were was not learned, but Gerard's word was accepted that the rah-rah boys had no connection with Saunders College.

Dick & Co. had two more pleasant meetings with their high school friends before an about-face was made, and the return hike to Gridley started.

Their liveliest adventures were yet ahead of them. _

Read next: Chapter 15. Making Port In A Storm

Read previous: Chapter 13. A Snub And The Quick Retort

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