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 this sort of thing in this school, and we’re not going to stand for any more of it. Sandy Jackson tried it and couldn’t get away with it, and you’re not going to, either. Take your foot off that cap.”

“I won’t!” snapped Snath furiously, though there was a perceptible wobbly movement of his knees. “Who do you think you are anyway, Bobby Blake? You just quit butting in and let me tend to my own affairs. You needn’t think you’re running this school.”

“Take your foot off that cap,” repeated Bobby, not raising his voice a particle, but moving a step forward so that he was within easy reach.

The rest of the boys crowded about the two, all agog with expectation of a “scrap.” There was not one of them but cordially detested the bully, and many of them had been the victims of his petty torments. They were eager to see him get the thrashing he richly deserved, and that they felt Bobby was fully able to give him.

But Snath was one of those who believed that discretion was the better part of valor. He hated to give in, with all the boys looking at him, but he hated still worse the idea of coming to blows with Bobby, although he was much the larger of the two. His eyes fell on Bobby’s fists which were slowly clenching, and then with a growl he stepped back off the cap. He could not resist, however, the temptation to give the head covering a vicious kick.

“Take your old cap,” he snarled. “As for you, Bobby Blake, I’ll get even with you for this when you haven’t got your crowd with you.”

“Make him pick it up, Bobby!” shouted Fred, who was disappointed at not seeing the bully get his just deserts.

But Lee had already picked up the cap and put it on his head, while he flashed a look of gratitude at his champion.

Snath shambled away with a last malignant look at Bobby that was full of threats of vengeance in the future.

“It’s too bad you didn’t have an excuse for trimming him, Bobby,” sighed Sparrow, as the bully’s form vanished round a comer of the building. “He’s had a licking coming to him for a long time, and you’re the one who could have done him up to the queen’s taste.”

“I don’t want to fight,” replied Bobby. “I never want to if I can help it. You know the trouble that came from that mixup with Sandy Jackson. But there’s been too much of this bullying going on in the school and it’s just as well to let fellows like Snath know where they get off.”

“He’s got it in for you,” declared Skeets. “Did you see that look he gave you when he went away? I’ll bet he’s figuring out right now some dirty trick to play on you.”

“Let him figure,” laughed Bobby. “I should worry a lot and build a house on it. But what do you say, fellows, to kicking the football around a little? I’m a little sore from yesterday, and it will help get some of the kinks out of my bones. Besides it will help us get up an appetite for lunch.”

All assented readily, except Pee Wee.

“I’ve got all the appetite I want already,” he said. “If I had any more I’d be starving to death. But you dubs go ahead and play, and I’ll lie down here and rest.”

“That’s the best thing you do,” chaffed Fred.

“Rest is Pee Wee’s middle name,” jibed Sparrow.

But the good-natured fat boy only smiled in a superior sort of way and made himself comfortable, while his comrades got the ball and put it in action. There were not enough of them to form two elevens and play a regular game, but they got up a couple of skeleton teams and were soon in the thick of some lively scrimmages.

The new boy, Lee Cartier, had been chosen by Bobby as one of his side, and although he was not familiar with the fine points of the game, he played with zest and spirit and showed that he had it in him to become a good player. What he lacked in weight and strength he made up in quickness, and he followed the ball in a way that called forth praise from Bobby.

“That was good work, Lee,” the latter said, after Lee had fallen like a flash on the ball that one of the opposing players had fumbled.

Lee’s face flushed with pleasure at the commendation.

“I’m afraid I’m a good deal of a dub at the game,” he answered. “If I could ever learn to play the way you did yesterday it would be something to talk about. I wish you would teach me the way the game ought to be played. Will you?”

“I’ve got lots to learn about it myself,” replied Bobby, “but what little I know you’re welcome to. There’ll probably be lots of days when we can practice before real cold weather comes.”

Just then a cry of alarm arose from Fred, as he happened to glance toward the lake.

“Look at that boat!” he shouted. “It looks as if it were sinking!”

All eyes were turned on a boat containing four boys, about a quarter of a mile from the shore. Two of the occupants were pulling desperately at the oars, but making scarcely any progress. The other inmates of the boat were waving their hands wildly and shouting at the tops of their voices, although what they were saying could not be distinguished at that distance.

Bobby gave one look and threw down the football.

“Come along, fellows!” he shouted, as he made for the boathouse at the top of his speed.

“They’re sinking and we’ve got to save them!”