"Oh, won't they get it now!" cried Jack Eastwick.
"Keep on running, fellows. Some of them may be half killed, if that dog gets hold of them! Faster, boys; faster!"
Frank himself increased his speed. He had no love for the miserable cowards who, in order to gratify their private spite, would cripple their school team until the enemy must have an easy victory on the morrow. And yet he did not like to imagine what terrible things might follow if Kaiser got in among the boys who were treating his master so shamefully.
Perhaps they deserved whatever befell them; but Frank was himself a boy, and in a position to understand the true meaning of such a prank as was now being pulled off.
There had come a decided change in the racket ahead. No longer was it hilarious shouting and jeering, such as indicated sport for the boys, but something else to the human frog. True, the sounds had even grown in volume, but they were of a more serious nature.
"Listen to 'em howl, would you?" cried Lanky.
"The shoe's on the other foot, now. Wow! ain't they getting nipped hard, though?" shouted Herman Hooker, hardly knowing whether to be pleased or frightened.
"Faster!" gritted Frank, between his teeth, for he did not like those shouts.
Possibly the boys had picked up clubs, and were trying to beat Kaiser off, in order to continue their cruel sport of tossing poor Bones into the water, and pulling him out again by means of a rope fastened around his ankles.
Now the runners were close upon the spot.
"They're scattering!" called Lanky, as the shouts appeared to come from various localities.
"And I think Bones has got hold of the dog. I can hear someone speaking to him, and trying to quiet the brute!" gasped Paul Bird, who was also a keen runner, able to "keep up with the procession" as well as the next fellow.
"That's true. Hold on to him, Bones, old fellow!" Frank managed to shout.
A dozen seconds later, and they came upon the river bank. The half moon up in the western sky gave enough light to show them how matters stood.
"Hurrah! Kaiser cleared the decks! The last of the pirate horde has fled!" cried Amiel Tucker, whose reading was always along the old-time romances.
"And there's our friend Bones, all to the good, fondling that bristly terror! I say, three Bones for cheers!" shouted Red Huggins, known among his mates also as "Sorreltop," and who, when greatly excited, often became twisted in his mode of speech.
They clustered around, while Kaiser growled deeply, and licked the face of his young master. Jones was soaked to the skin, and already shivering, though possibly more from the nervous strain than the cold.
Frank immediately took off his own coat, and threw it over the shoulders of the boy who had been ducked again and again.
"What happened to you, Bones?" asked Lanky, who always wanted to know the full particulars, for he expected some day to branch out as a shining light in the legal profession, and believed he ought to practice while young.
"They jumped me, that's all," chattered the other, trying to laugh.
"When you went out to quiet your dog?"
"Yep. I hadn't gone half way when they pounced on me. Couldn't let out more'n a little peep when they covered my head with some sort of old horse blanket, and grabbed hold of me. After that it was all over. I heard good old Kaiser carrying on to beat the band. Oh, how I did wish he could break loose! Wouldn't he have scattered the bunch, though!" observed Bones, as he calmly accepted a second coat offered by another sympathizer.
"Which he did in the end, anyway. Say, what did he do to those sharks?" demanded Buster, coming panting up at this moment.
"You missed the sight of your life. They were having a grand good time dousing me in the drink, you see, when, all of a sudden, Kaiser burst among them. Such whooping and howling I never heard in all my life! You'd sure thought a lunatic asylum had broken loose, boys," and Bones laughed as well as he could between shivers.
"And then what?" persisted Lanky.
"Oh, they scooted like fun. Some went one way and others tumbled into the river, they were so badly scared. I think Kaiser nipped a few of the bunch before he ran over to lick my face, and I got a cinch hold on his collar. Only for that, he'd have gone back again, and mauled a few that couldn't run fast enough. But how did you come to think of putting him on the scent, fellows?"
"Give Frank here the credit for the bright thought," said Paul.
"Yes, he's all to the good when it comes to a question of doing something in an emergency. The balance of us were jumping around like so many chickens with their heads off, when he suggested that Kaiser would lead us to the place where you were. It was a grand idea, and it worked, too," remarked Lanky, warmly.
"Oh, piffle! Cut that out. If I hadn't thought of it, somebody else would have, in about a second. I just happened to get in first, that's all. But we must rush Bones home in a hurry, before he takes cold. A chill just now would knock him out of the game to-morrow, and hurt our chances of a win," with which Frank assisted the wet victim of the kidnappers to his feet.
Bones protested, but they would not listen to him. He was rubbed down with many willing hands, and patted and pounded in a way to start his circulation going at fever heat.
Kaiser hardly knew what to think of all this good-natured tussling, and many times growled his disapprobation, so that a word from his master was needed to influence him not to sink those gleaming teeth in the limbs of Buster or Lanky.
All the while they were making for town. Fortunately, Bones did not live a great distance off, and by making haste, they presently reached his house.
Buster volunteered to remain over with him and see that he was properly looked after.
"Somebody explain to Mattie King just why I can't get back!" he called out.
"Oh, don't bother yourself about that, Buster," remarked Jack Eastwick, coolly, "for I'd already made up my mind to see her home."
"You have? I've got half a notion—but, no, this once won't count. It isn't often you get a show, Jack, so improve the shining opportunity," answered Buster, from the stoop of the Shadduck home.
Of course, as the crowd wended its way back to the hall where the glee club had met for this one occasion, while the assembly room in high school was being repaired, the talk was wholly upon the late "unpleasantness."
"It certainly was that to those chumps," laughed Lanky. "Oh, how much we missed in not being on the spot! All Buster's faults for stumbling when he did, and letting go of the rope. Why under the sun didn't he hold on with a death grip?" demanded Tom Budd.
"Hold on? Goodness gracious, that dog would have dragged him over every rock and stump for a mile. A pretty sight he'd have been after that. I think Buster showed the finest judgment of his life in knowing when to let go!" said Lanky.
"Yes, that's so. They say a stitch in time saves nine. Think how many stitches would have been needed to sew Buster up if he needed mending," spoke up Sorreltop.
When finally they arrived at the hall, the girls, and those among the boys who had failed to join in the hunt, were, of course, just wild to hear about what had happened.
Everything else was, for the time being, forgotten, as they clustered around and excitedly demanded that the facts be given.
One told a portion, and another took up the recital. In this fashion, by degrees, the entire story was made known. Nor were the boys at all backward about giving the credit for the ingenious thought to Frank, who laughingly tried to declare that he deserved no more applause than the balance of the flock.
"They're all good fellows, every one, and as much deserving of your praise. We are of the opinion that there will be several limps noticeable at the game to-morrow, so if you happen to observe any fellow making a face as he walks, just whisper one word in his ear in passing. Do you know what that word is?" he asked.
"Kaiser!" they roared in concert.
"Oh, Kaiser, don't you want to buy a dog?" sang Jack Eastwick, and amid much laughter and merry exchange of talk, the glee club disbanded for that evening.
Ralph walked home with Frank and Helen. Others among the boys persisted in hovering near them, greatly to the annoyance of Ralph, and the amusement of the girl, who thought it something of a joke.
Frank had Flo Dempsey on his arm, and seemed to be unusually merry. To tell the truth, though, considerable of this was assumed. He happened to know that just back of them, Minnie Cuthbert and her new friend, Dottie Warren, were walking, and undoubtedly they could hear much that was being said.
That night, when alone in his room, Frank seemed to lose much of his merry demeanor. His face took on the grave look that had characterized it of late, ever since that minute when Minnie had given him the cruel cut direct.
"I wonder will I ever know what is the matter?" he mused, as he undressed, preparatory to tumbling into his inviting bed; "or must it always remain a deep mystery. I never thought she could treat a fellow that way, cutting him out without giving him the least chance to explain. But I'm not going to complain. They say there are as good fish in the sea as ever yet were caught."
With this philosophical reflection, he jumped into bed. Having a good control over himself, Frank was able to go to sleep. In this way, when he awoke in the early morning, he was refreshed and feeling splendid, so easily does youth recuperate.
"Anyhow, it's going to be a sharp day. That air feels like snow, only the sky is clear. Great football weather! I wonder how it will all come out," and hustling into his clothes, he immediately went out to the place arranged for the secret meeting to practice signal work.
The others were soon on hand, and under the coaching of the experienced old Princeton graduate, they went through all their paces with a cleverness that caused their trainer to nod his head in satisfaction.
"That's enough, boys," he said, warmly. "You've got your work cut out for you to-day, and it would be poor policy to tire you at this early hour. Back to the house now, and eat a breakfast such as I laid out for you; nothing more, mind. Everyone of you must consider himself at the training table now, until that game with Bellport is over with on Thanksgiving morning. That's all!"
When, about ten o'clock, Frank reached the athletic grounds, clad in his soiled suit and with his entire bunch of players along, he found that a tremendous crowd had swarmed over the big field, fully equal to any that had witnessed the hard-fought baseball battles during the preceding Spring and early Summer.
It was an enthusiastic crowd, too, shouting until the sound was not unlike the roar of a tempest. Thousands of miniature flags were waving, representing both schools. There were also many from Bellport present, some to enjoy the game, others to get points with regard to the playing of the Columbia eleven, against which their own team expected soon to be pitted.
"Ain't this the greatest sight ever?" asked Lanky, as they came upon the field, and the waving flags and handkerchiefs made the grandstand look like a vast flower garden in a strong wind.
"Columbia! Veni! vidi! vici! to-day we swallow the rooster!" came a concerted shout, as Herman Hooker got his cheer band in working order.
The emblem of the Clifford school was a rooster, while that of Columbia, like Princeton, was the tiger.
Immediately the Columbia fellows began booting an old ball about, and falling on it with reckless abandon, just as they had been taught to do by the coach.
"Look there, will you!" exclaimed a girl close to Minnie Cuthbert in the grandstand. "How nice and white the suits of Clifford seem, while our boys are dirty. They ought to be ashamed, I should think. We have just as good a laundry in Columbia as they have up above."
But to those who knew more about such things there was an atmosphere of strictly business about the soiled suits of Frank's team. They looked as though they were on the field for hard work, and not to show off, or "play to the gallery."
And the wise ones took stock of this fact. Some of the sporting men even began to hedge in their bets, and might have tried to even up all around, only that they happened to know of a secret upon which they were building great hopes.
And that secret concerned the signal practice of the Columbia eleven!
The Clifford boys were continually waving their hands to some people in the crowd they recognized. There was an air of assurance about them that seemed to loudly proclaim the fact that they anticipated no great trouble in putting the "Indian sign" on Columbia.
On the other hand, the home team seemed to notice nothing, save the fact that the ball was there to be shot around, and tumbled on heavily. They had a grim look, too, and in vain did the girls try to attract their attention, for it was rarely that one of the eleven so much as turned a look toward the spectators. All of their time was taken up in play, and observing their rivals.
"Just wait, and we'll dirty those sweet white suits some," chuckled Lanky, as he passed the ball like lightning to Shadduck.
Minnie was watching one player intently. For the first time in a long while he did not look along the rows of faces until he saw her waving wildly, and doff his cap, or in this case, wave his hand, since he had no cap to lift.
She trembled with secret delight as she finally saw Frank raise his head when the ball was in another quarter. But when he made a motion with his hand, it was in a different direction entirely, and looking over, Minnie saw that Helen and Flo Dempsey sat there.
"They're getting ready to line-up. See, the referee has the two captains over by him. It's going to be a toss for position," cried one eager spectator.
"Not much choice to-day, though, since the wind is light," returned another.
"But there always is one side better than the other. The sun will be in the eyes of the fellows who lose. That may count for something. And the breeze may grow stronger as the game goes on. There, Frank has won, for he's taking his men to the lower goal. But that gives Clifford the kick-off. That looks bad."
"Oh, I don't know. It will only spur them on to working a little harder. Wait and see. I've got a hunch that Frank Allen has a surprise or two up his sleeve for these gay white birds from up river. I'm not worrying. I've seen that boy on the baseball field, and on the river in the boat races. He is all there with the goods, and they're a full yard wide. You hear me!" and the enthusiast jumped to his feet, to flap his elbows as though they were wings, while he emitted a shrill crow that caused a laugh to break out in the immediate vicinity.
"Now we're going to see some fun!" called a fellow who was waving the colors of Clifford with great vim.
And under the eyes of thousands of eager spectators, the rival elevens took the places assigned to them to await the signal for play.
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