CHAPTER XIX
THE BOY WHO WAS HAZED
"Well, Porter, proceed."
Ralph gave the direction. He and Fred were seated in the garden summer-house, settled comfortably on benches facing each other across a rustic table, after a good breakfast, a general restful feeling permeating them.
"All right," assented Fred. "Before I begin, though, I wish to make a remark. The way your mother and yourself have treated me has been just royal—I'll never forget it!"
"And never forget us," directed the young engineer with a warm, friendly smile. "You'll always find yourself welcome in this house."
"That's what gets me," said Fred, and there was a slight tremor and a suspicion of tears in his voice. "Most fellows would have little to do with an impostor, eh?"
"That's a pretty hard word, Porter," intimated Ralph. "Just the same, I believe in you. I have had confidence in you all along."
"And my story won't disturb it any," declared Fred. "Well, to begin—my name is not Marvin Clark."
"Of course, I know that already."
"It is Fred Porter."
"So you have told me."
"I am an orphan, homeless. As I said when I first came here, I have been a sort of a knockabout, a wanderer. I have been a poor boy. The real Marvin Clark, whose father is the real and genuine president of the Middletown & Western Railroad, is a rich boy. I have saved his life when he was drowning. He likes me for that, and there isn't much that he wouldn't do for me."
"You deserve it," said Ralph.
"Well, to make a long story short, he was a student at the Earlville Academy. He's a fine, manly fellow, nothing sneaking or mean about him. One night, though, he and his school chums got to cutting up. They raided the town and had a dozen fights with the village boys. One of them was taken prisoner, a lad named Ernest Gregg. The academy fellows decided to haze him. They put him through an awful course of sprouts. They ducked him in the river, scared him with mock gunpowder explosions, and wound up by tying him blindfolded to a switch near a railroad track. They left him there all night. The result was that when little Ernest was discovered the next morning, he was in a high fever and delirious.
"Too bad," murmured Ralph. "I don't think much of your Marvin Clark."
"Hold on, don't misjudge him. He helped to capture the enemy, as they called poor little Gregg, but he left the crowd right after that, supposing his chums would scare their captive a bit and let him go. Clark had no hand whatever in the downright persecution that sent the boy to the hospital. It seems that some of the gunpowder got into the eyes of the little fellow, and the douse in the river had given him a cold. The scare he got had nearly driven him out of his right mind, for he was a timid little fellow. A month later Ernest was discharged from the hospital nearly blind, thin, pale and weakly, a mere shadow of his former self."
"Of course the academy fellows tried to make up for all that," suggested Ralph.
"They didn't. Vacation came on, and they hied to their homes with not a thought of the great sorrow they had brought on their innocent victim. They say that Clark was just furious when he heard of it all. He laid out two of the ringleaders and shamed them in public. He sought out Ernest and took him to the best hotel in town. He hired doctors, and loaded the little fellow with comforts and luxuries."
"It must have cost him something," remarked Ralph.
"What did Clark care for that? His father was rich and gave him all the money he wanted. He had an account at a bank, and was heir to two aunts who doated on him and who were fabulously rich. I never saw a fellow take to heart the misfortunes of a poor little stranger as Clark did. The incident seemed to have changed his whole life. He sobered down wonderfully. He blamed himself for the whole thing, and took the whole responsibilities upon himself. Nearly all the time he was with Ernest, trying to cheer him up, hoping to find some way to make him well and strong and happy again."
"A royal good fellow, in fact, just as you said—I see that."
"Yes, sir," declared Fred staunchly. "Well, to continue: Clark's father and family were going to Europe. They had arranged for young Clark to go with them, but he wouldn't. Then there was a family council. Clark had not made much progress at school. He was fine at football, but no good at arithmetic. In fact, he was a disappointment to his father as a student. The old man, the academy professor, and the family lawyer, held a great consultation. Old man Clark came to a stern decision. It was planned out that young Clark should follow in the footsteps of his father and become a railroader. A regular arrangement was made. Clark was to have free passes everywhere, he was to spend his entire vacation traveling over different railroad systems, while his folks were in Europe. Twice a week he was to send to the family lawyer reports of his progress, accompanied by vouchers showing that he had not wasted the time."
"I see," nodded Ralph; "also where you come in."
"Yes, that's easy to guess," said Fred. "Just at that time I happened to be on a flying visit to Earlville, where one day I met Clark. He took me to the hotel, where I met Ernest. I had known young Gregg before, for he had come to Earlville a ragged, homeless lad before I first left, seeming to have no home or relatives, and going to work at odd jobs around the town. Clark told me of the fix he was in. While we were talking, a sudden idea came to him. He became very much excited and serious, and then made a very strange request of me."
"To assume his identity and go railroading in his stead?" inquired Ralph, anticipating what was coming.
"You've struck it," assented Fred; "just that."
"And you accepted?"
"And that is why you see me here," said Fred. "Don't think any the less of me, Fairbanks, for doing it. Don't find fault with me if I took up the imposture for all there was in it. It's my way—when I go at a thing, I do so with all my—nerves. I was Marvin Clark to the core. I took up his name, I played his part, and say, I tried not to disgrace his good name by one unmanly act. He taught me to imitate his handwriting perfectly one day. The next I was on the road, without a mishap until I met you."
"Which may not be a mishap after all," suggested the young engineer.
"I think as you do about that. I've come to you for advice, and I feel sure that it will be good advice. Now, then, to get to central motive of Clark's plan—a noble, grand act, a royal deed. It was all for the sake of his little charge, Ernest Gregg."
"I can imagine that," said Ralph.
"Clark could not get the little fellow out of his mind. He had got, it seemed, a clew to some of his relatives. He told me that only for a wicked enemy, and if he had his rights, Ernest would be in a position of positive wealth. He said that he was determined to find a certain old man who could clear up the whole situation. He was going to start out with Ernest to solve the secret of his strange life, while his friends supposed that he was following out the plan that his father had arranged. Clark made a plan how we were to keep track of one another, writing to certain points we agreed upon. I started out from Earlville on my part of the arrangement, while Clark stole out of town with his young charge. For three weeks I wrote regularly to him and he replied. During the last month I have not received a word from him, and some of my letters have come back to me."
"Then you are worried about him?" inquired Ralph.
"I am, very much. You see, he spoke of an enemy of Ernest. How do I know what may have happened to both of them? If Clark should disappear, see what a fix I am in, assuming his name, spending his money. I'd have a hard time explaining reasonably the wild, mad move Clark made me take."
"It is certainly a singular situation," admitted the young railroader thoughtfully.
"Isn't it, now? I've come to you to have you help me solve the problem. Think it over, give me some advice. Or, one thing—you go to many places with your railroading. You might keep a watch out for Clark, just as I am doing. You might get a clew to him or run across him."
"But how should I know him?" inquired Ralph.
"I'm going to give you his picture."
"That will help."
Fred drew out a memorandum book and selected from it a small photograph, which he presented to Ralph. The latter saw a bright, manly face portrayed in the picture.
"You keep that," directed Fred.
Ralph reflected for a few moments. Then they discussed the situation in all its bearings. There was not much to suggest, however, on the part of the young engineer. The most they could hope for, he told Fred, was that one or the other of them might by some circumstance run across the missing Clark and his young charge.
"I've' got an idea that I ought to run down a branch line of the road I have never been over," suggested Fred, at the close of their animated colloquy. "If I do, I'll have to catch a train in an hour. I'll get word to you soon again, and if you hear of anything that interests me, I'll arrange so that a letter or a wire will reach me if you address it to Marvin Clark, Lake Hotel, Wellsville."
"All right," agreed Ralph.
They strolled together down to the depot a little after that. A train from the west came in just as the one having Fred for a passenger steamed out. A familiar figure alighted from one of the coaches.
"Here I am again," announced Zeph Dallas, coming up to Ralph.
"How are your little friends, the Canaries?" inquired the young engineer.
"Safe and snug at home," replied Zeph.
"Going up to the house?"
"Yes, just come in from a special trip, and I probably have a lay-over till to-morrow. I want to call and see a friend at the hotel for a few moments. Then I'm at your service."
When they reached the hotel, Ralph sought out Archie Graham, to find the young inventor in his room, engrossed in putting together some kind of a mechanical model. The latter greeted Ralph with effusion.
"I'm having the prime chance of my life," declared Archie. "That note of yours was the open sesame to the roundhouse and everything about it. The foreman made me as welcome as a friend. I say, Fairbanks, they think a lot of you, these railroad chums of yours."
"Do they?" asked Ralph, with a modest smile. "I'm glad they do."
"I'll show you results in a few days," declared Archie, with a show of more enthusiasm than Ralph had ever before seen him exhibit. "I've got up an invention that will just about revolutionize engineering."
"You don't say so!"
"Yes, I do. Only a day or two, and I'm going to try it—you'll hear about it, all right."
Ralph did, in fact, hear about it in a very sensational way, and wthin a few hours after the interview.
He rejoined Zeph and they proceeded homewards. Zeph was just as mysterious as ever about his new employment. Ralph knew that he was bubbling over from a pent-up lot of secrecy, but he did not encourage his quaint friend to violate an evident confidence reposed in him by his employer.
Zeph announced that he would like to stay over at the Fairbanks home until the next day, and was made duly welcome. He amazed and amused Ralph by showing him his "detective outfit," as he called it. It was an incongruous mass, stored away in a flat leather case that he secreted in a great pocket made inside his coat—a wig, false whiskers, a pair of goggles, and a lot of other "secret service" paraphernalia, suggested to Zeph by reading some cheap and sensational detective stories.
"Well, I've got to get on the shadowy trail to-day," yawned Zeph, as he got out of bed the next morning.
"Where's the shadow, Zeph?" asked Ralph humorously.
"Let you know when I find my quarry."
"Ha, bad as that?" laughed Ralph.
"Oh, you can smile, Ralph Fairbanks," said Zeph resentfully. "I tell you, I'm on a mighty important case and—say, where did you get that?"
"What?"
"That picture!" exclaimed Zeph, picking up from the bureau the photograph of Marvin Clark, given to the young engineer by Fred Porter the day previous.
"Oh, that picture?" said Ralph. "A friend of mine gave it to me. He's trying to find its original, and hoped I could help him."
"Trying to find him?" repeated Zeph with big staring eyes. "Whew! I can do that for you."
"You can?" demanded Ralph.
"I should say so!"
"Do you know the original of that picture then?" inquired Ralph.
"Sure I do—why, he's the person who hired me to be a detective," was Zeph's remarkable reply.