Bobby Blake on a Plantation; Or, Lost in the Great Swamp
CHAPTER I
THE SINKING BOAT
“I tell you what, fellows, that was some game yesterday,” said Fred Martin, as he sat with his comrades on the steps of Rockledge Hall, the day after that memorable Thanksgiving Day when Rockledge had beaten its great rival, Belden, in the annual football game.
“It was a close shave though,” remarked his chum, Bobby Blake, who had been the chief factor in the victory. “There were only two minutes left of playing time when, we got the touchdown. It came just in the nick of time.”
“I thought you were a goner when that fellow Hoskins dove at you,” put in Jimmy Ailshine, better known as “Shiner.” “That fellow sure is a terror when it comes to tackling. He grabs you as if you were a long-lost brother.”
“He came mighty near stopping me,” admitted Bobby. “I just felt his fingers touch me as I dodged. But a miss is as good as a mile, in football as in everything else.”
“It was a tough game for Belden to lose,” commented Perry Wise, a big, fat boy, who went by the ironical nickname of “Pee Wee.” “But both teams couldn’t win, and we were just a little bit too good for them,” he added complacently.
“Listen to that ‘we’,” jibed “Sparrow” Bangs. “Lot you had to do with it, you old elephant.”
“Wasn’t I sitting there rooting to beat the band?” demanded Pee Wee in an aggrieved tone. “And let me tell you I’m some little rooter.”
“Well, we’ve won the banner of blue and gold anyway,” declared Howell Purdy. “Maybe it won’t look good floating from the top of that flagstaff.”
“I wonder when we’re going to get it,” pondered “Skeets” Brody. “Have you seen it yet, Bobby?”
“Not yet,” replied Bobby. “But Frank Durrock told me all about it. It’s mighty nifty. It’s made in blue and gold, with a football in the center. Then at each of the four corners there’ll be the emblem of one of the schools that played for it, and it will have embroidered on it: ‘Champions of the Monatook Lake Football League.’”
“I’d like to have the letters big enough so that the Belden fellows could read it from across the lake,” chuckled Sparrow.
“Come off, Sparrow,” said Bobby with a laugh. “You’re like the Indians who scalp the dead. It ought to be enough for you that we beat them, without wanting to rub it in. Besides, we didn’t beat them by such a margin that we can afford to brag much about it. They sure let us know that we’d been in a fight.”
“Talking of fighting,” chimed in Billy Bassett, “did any of you fellows hear of the hold up that took place in town this morning?”
“Hold up!” came in a chorus from the lips of all the boys, as they crowded around him.
“Yes,” replied Billy, “up at Mr. Henderson’s house, about nine o’clock.”
“In broad daylight!” ejaculated Fred. “Gee, but those robbers are getting bold. Are you sure about it, Billy?”
“Dead sure,” replied Billy. “In fact, I just happened to be passing by, and I saw the whole thing.”
“You saw it!” cried Sparrow, fairly bubbling over with excitement. “It’s a wonder you didn’t say something before. How many were there in it?”
“There were two against one,” answered Billy.
“Weren’t you awfully scared?” asked Skeets.
“Not a bit,” declared Billy. “Why should I be scared at seeing two clothes pins holding up a shirt?”
There was a moment of awful silence.
Then with a howl the crowd rose and threw themselves on Billy, and mauled and pounded him until he begged for mercy.
“To think that I fell for it!” snorted Fred disgustedly. “I sure am easy.”
“I’m just as bad,” mourned Sparrow. “I swallowed the whole thing, hook, line and sinker. I’m not fit to go around alone. They ought to put me in an asylum for the feeble-minded.”
“Serves you both right,” laughed Bobby. “You ought to know Billy by this time. Whenever he starts to talk you can be sure that he’s trying to put something over on us.”
“I’d hate to have your suspicious disposition,” grinned Billy, highly delighted with the success he had scored.
“Say, fellows, isn’t it getting near time for lunch?” spoke up Pee Wee from his recumbent position on one of the steps.
“Can’t that tank ever get filled up?” asked Skeets. “Look at the way he polished off that grand old Thanksgiving dinner, and he’s starving yet.”
“That was yesterday,” explained Pee Wee. “How long do you think one dinner’s going to last? Don’t you suppose I’ve got to keep up my strength?”
“What for?” scoffed Skeets. “You’re too lazy to use it anyway.”
“Don’t forget that he’s got a lot of weight to carry around,” admonished Fred.
“What seems to be the matter down there,” put in Sparrow, pointing to a tree on the campus about a hundred feet from where the boys were lounging.
The others followed the direction of Sparrow’s finger and saw two boys engaged in what seemed to be an angry dispute. Even as they looked, the larger of the two snatched off the cap of his companion and threw it on the ground.
“Bill Snath is at it again!” exclaimed Fred, jumping to his feet. “He’s ragging that new pupil that came in a few days ago, Cartier I think his name is.”
“Might know that Snath couldn’t stay decent for long,” remarked Skeets. “He toned down a little after Sandy Jackson skipped out, but now he’s up to his old tricks. Cartier’s a good deal smaller than he is.”
“That’s the reason Snath’s picking on him,” said Bobby. “Trust that bully not to tackle anyone of his own size. Come along, fellows, and let’s see what the trouble’s about.”
They hurried in the direction of the two disputants, even Pee Wee showing more speed than usual, although even at that he brought up in the rear.
In the meantime, Snath had added insult to injury by planting his feet firmly on Cartier’s cap and looking on with a malicious grin on his face, while his victim tugged at it in vain attempts to regain it.
As the running boys neared the two, Snath caught sight of them, and a look of disappointment, not unmixed with fear, came into his small, pale eyes. For a moment he appeared as though about to slink away, but he thought better of it and stood his ground.
“What’s going on?” asked Bobby, as his eyes went from one to the other.
“Don’t know that that’s any of your business,” growled Snath, a pasty-faced, loose-jawed youth, with mean eyes set too close together.
“We’ll make it our business, you big bully,” Fred was beginning, when Bobby placed a restraining hand on his chum’s arm.
“Just a minute, Fred,” he said. “Let’s hear what Cartier has to say about it,” he went on, turning to the other boy. “How about it, Lee?”
“I was passing by him when he told me to take off my cap to him,” replied Lee Cartier, a slender, dark-eyed boy with a clean-cut, intelligent face. “I told him I wouldn’t and then he grabbed it and threw it on the ground. He’s standing on it now,” and he pointed to the crumpled cap under the bully’s feet.
“Suppose you let Lee have his cap, Snath,” said Bobby.
“Suppose I don’t,” snarled the bully doggedly.
“Then we’ll make you,” Fred burst out hotly, his face almost as red as the fiery hair combined with a fiery temper that had gained for him the nickname of “Ginger.”
But again Bobby intervened.
“Easy, Fred,” he counseled. “Now look here, Snath,” he continued, fixing his eyes steadily on the bully, who tried to meet his gaze, though his shifty eyes wavered, “we’ve had enough of