CHAPTER I – THE PLOTTERS

Jim McGovern was poring over his lesson one afternoon in the Ashton public school, perplexed by the thought that unless he mastered the problem on which he was engaged he would be kept after the dismissal of the rest, when he was startled by the fall of a twisted piece of paper on his slate.

He looked around to learn its starting point, when he observed Tom Wagstaff, who was seated on the other side of the room, peeping over the top of his book at him. Tom gave a wink which said plainly enough that it was he who had flipped the message so dexterously across the intervening space.

Jim next glanced at the teacher, who was busy with a small girl that had gone to his desk for help in her lessons. The coast being clear, so to speak, he unfolded the paper and read:

“Meat Bill Waylett and me after scool at the cross roads, for the bizness is of the utmoast importants dont fale to be there for the iurn is hot and we must strike be4 it gits cool.

Tom.”

The meaning of this note, despite its Volapük construction, was clear, and Jim felt that he must be on hand at all hazards.

So the urchin applied himself with renewed vigor to his task, and, mastering it, found himself among the happy majority that were allowed to leave school at the hour of dismissal. A complication, however, arose from the fact that the writer of the note was one of those who failed with his lesson, and was obliged to stay with a half-dozen others until he recited it correctly.

Thus it happened that Jim McGovern and Billy Waylett, after sauntering to the crossroads, which had been named as the rendezvous, and waiting until the rest of the pupils appeared, found themselves without their leader.

But they were not compelled to wait long, when the lad, who was older than they, was seen hurrying along the highway, eager to meet and explain to them the momentous business that had led him to call this special meeting.

“Fellers,” said he, as he came panting up, “let’s climb over the fence and go among the trees.”

“What for?” asked Billy Waylett.

“It won’t do for anybody to hear us.”

“Well, they won’t hear us,” observed Jim McGovern, “if we stay here, for we can see any one a half mile off.”

“But they might sneak up when we wasn’t watching,” insisted the ringleader, who proceeded to scale the fence in the approved style of boyhood, the others following him.

Tom led the way for some distance among the trees, and then, when he came to a halt, peered among the branches overhead, and between and behind the trunks, to make sure no cowens were in the neighborhood.

Finally, everything was found to be as he wished, and he broke the important tidings in guarded undertones.

“I say, boys, are you both going to stick?”

“You bet we are,” replied Billy, while Jim nodded his head several times to give emphasis to his answer.

“Well, don’t you think the time has come to strike?”

“I’ve been thinking so for two – three weeks,” said Billy.

“What I asked you two to meet me here for was to tell you that I’ve made up my mind we must make a move. Old Mr. Stearns, our teacher, is getting meaner every day; he gives us harder lessons than ever, and this afternoon he piled it on so heavy I had to stay after you fellers left. If Sam Bascomb hadn’t sot behind me, and whispered two or three of them words, I would have been stuck there yet.”

“He come mighty nigh catching me, too,” observed Jim McGovern.

“You know we’ve made up our minds to go West to shoot Injuns, and the time has come to go.”

The sparkle of the other boys’ eyes and the flush upon their ruddy faces showed the pleasure which this announcement caused. The bliss of going West to reduce the population of our aborigines had been in their dreams for months, and they were impatient with their chosen leader that he had deferred the delight so long. They were happy to learn at last that the delay was at an end.

“Now I want to know how you fellers have made out,” said Tom, with an inquiring look from one to the other.

“I guess you’ll find we’ve done purty well,” said Jim; “anyways I know I have; I stole my sister’s gold watch the other night and sold it to a peddler for ten dollars.”

“What did you do with the ten dollars?”

“I bought a revolver and a lot of cartridges. Oh! I tell you I’m primed and ready, and I’m in favor of not leaving a single Injun in the West!”

“Them’s my idees,” chimed Billy Waylett.

“Well, how have you made out, Billy?”

“I got hold of father’s watch, day before yesterday, but he catched me when I was sneaking out of the house and wanted to know what I was up to. I told him I thought it needed cleaning and was going to take it down to the jeweler’s to have it ’tended to.”

“Well, what then?”

Billy sighed as he said, meekly:

“Father said he guessed I was the one that needed ’tending to, and he catched me by the nape of the neck, and, boys, was you ever whipped with a skate strap?”

His friends shook their heads as an intimation that they had never been through that experience.

“Well, I hope you never will; but, say,” he added, brightening up, “mother has a way of leaving her pocket-book layin’ round that’s awful mean, ’cause it sets a fellow to wishing for it. Pop makes her an allowance of one hundred dollars a month to run things, and last night I scooped twenty dollars out of her pocket-book, when it laid on the bureau in her room.”

“Did she find it out?” asked Tom Wagstaff.

“Didn’t she? Well, you had better believe she did, and she raised Cain, but I fixed things.”

“How?” asked his companions, deeply interested.

“I told her I seen Kate, our hired girl, coming out of the room on tip-toe, just after dark. Then mother went for Kate, and she cried and said she wouldn’t do a thing like that to save her from starving. It didn’t do no good, for mother bounced her.”

No thought of the burning injustice done an honest servant entered the thought of any one of the three boys. They chuckled and laughed, and agreed that the trick was one of the brightest of the kind they had ever known. Could the other two have done as well, the party would have been on their Westward jaunt at that moment.

“I’ve sometimes thought,” said Tom Wagstaff, “that the old folks must have a ’spicion of what’s going on, for they watch me so close that I haven’t had a chance to steal a dollar, and you know it will never do to start without plenty of money; but I’ve a plan that’ll fetch ’em,” he added, with a meaning shake of his head.

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute; you see I’ve got everything down fine, and I’ve made some changes in our plans.”

His companions listened closely.

“You know that when we got through reading that splendid book, ‘Roaring Ralph, the Cyclone of the Rockies,’ we made up our minds that we must have two revolvers and a Winchester repeating rifle apiece before we started?”

The others nodded, to signify that they remembered the understanding.

“I was talking with a tramp the other day, who told me that he spends each winter among the Rocky Mountains killing Injins, and it’s the biggest kind of fun. He says he steals up to a camp where there’s ’bout fifty or a hundred of ’em, and makes a noise like a grizzly bear. That scares ’em so they all jump up and run for the woods. He takes after them and chases ’em till they climb the trees. Then, when they are all trying to hide among the limbs, beggin’ for their lives, he begins. He takes his place in the middle, and keeps popping away until he has dropped ’em all. He says he has to stop sometimes to laugh at the way they come tumbling down, a good many of ’em falling on their heads. One time he treed forty-seven of ’em where the ground was soft and swampy. Twelve of the bravest Injin warriors turned over in falling through the limbs and struck on their scalps. The ground bein’ soft, they sunk down over their shoulders, and stayed there wrong-side up. He said he almost died a-laughing, to see their legs sticking up in air, and they kicking like the mischief. When he got through there was twelve Injins with their legs out of the ground and their heads below. He said it looked as though some one had been planting Injins and they was sproutin’ up mighty lively. He tried to pull ’em out, so as to get their scalps, but they was stuck fast and he had to give it up.”

“And didn’t he get their scalps?” asked Jimmy McGovern.

“No; it almost broke his heart to leave ’em, but he had to, for there was some other Injins to look after. Well, this tramp told me that all we needed was a revolver apiece.”

“Oh! pshaw!” exclaimed Billy, “we can’t get along without rifles of the repeating kind.”

“Of course not, but we must wait till we arrive out West before we buy ’em. If each of us has a gun on our shoulder we’re liable to be stopped by the officers.”

“Well, if the officers git too sassy,” suggested Billy, “why we’ll drop them in their tracks and run.”

“That might do if there wasn’t so many of ’em. We don’t want to bother with them, for we’re goin’ for Injins, and now and then a grizzly bear.”

“I’m willing to do what you think is best; but who is this tramp that told you so much?”

“He said he was called Snakeroot Sam, because he rooted so hard for rattlesnakes. He tells me what we want is plenty of money, and it was our duty to steal everything we can from our parents and keep it till we get out West, where we can buy our Winchesters. If the people charge too much or act sassy like we can plug them and take the guns away from ’em.”

This scheme struck the listeners favorably, and they smiled, nodded their heads, and fairly smacked their lips at the prospect of the glorious sport awaiting them.

“Snakeroot Sam is a mighty clever feller, and he says he will help us all he can. When we get enough money we are to let him know, and he will take charge of us. That will be lucky, for he can be our guide. He isn’t very clean-looking,” added Tom, with a vivid recollection of the frowsy appearance of the individual; “but he tells me that after we cross the Mississippi it’s very dangerous to have our clothing washed, ’cause there’s something in the water that don’t agree with the people. That’s the reason why he has his washed only once a year, and then he says he almost catches his death of cold.”

“Gracious!” said Billy, “if he knows so much about the West, we must have him for our guide. Injin slayers always have to have a guide and we’ll hire him.”

“That’s my idee exactly. I spoke to Sam about it, and he said he would like to oblige us very much, though he had two or three contracts on hand which was worth a good many thousand dollars to him, but he liked my looks so well he’d throw them up and join us.”

“How much will he charge?”

“I didn’t ask him that; but he’s a fair man and will make it all right. What I don’t want you to forget, boys, is that we’ve got to raise a good deal more money.”

“What a pity I didn’t steal all there was in mother’s pocket-book when I had such a good chance,” remarked Billy, with a sigh; “if I get another chance I’ll fix it.”

“I think I can slip into father’s room tonight after he’s asleep,” added Jim McGovern, “and if I do, I’ll clean him out.”

“You fellers have a better chance than me,” said Tom, “but I’m going to beat you both and have twice as much money as you.”

This was stirring news to the other boys, who were seated on the ground at the feet, as may be said, of their champion. They asked him in awed voices to explain.

“You’ve got a pistol, Jimmy?”

“Yes; a regular five-chambered one, and I’ve got a lot of cartridges, too.”

“There’s going to be a concert at the Hall to-night,” added Tom, peering behind, around, and among the trees again to make sure no one else heard his words, “and father and mother are going. They will take all the children, too, except me.”

“How’s that?”

“He says I was such a bad boy yesterday that he means to punish me by making me stay at home, but that’s just what I want him to do, and if he feels sort of sorry and lets up, I’ll pretend I’m sick so he will leave me behind. I tell you, fellows, Providence is on our side and we’re going to win.”

His companions shared the faith of the young scamp, who now proceeded to unfold his astounding scheme.