CHAPTER XXII
A STARTLING MESSAGE
"Wake up, Frank!"
Frank, roughly shaken by Bob Upton, sat up in bed. He rubbed his eyes drowsily, and for a moment all the strange happenings of the previous night seemed like some dream.
Then Frank recalled reaching the school about ten o'clock in the morning, when all the students were in their classes, of reaching his room unobserved, lying down on his bed in his clothes to rest and collect his thoughts, and of dropping into a nap.
"I say," hailed Bob excitedly, "where in the world have you been?"
"It's a long story," explained Frank with a prodigious yawn and stretching himself. "You wouldn't believe it if I told it to you. Have I been missed?"
"Missed?" echoed Bob, almost in a shout. "The head monitor sat up for you all night. The gardener and the steward have been searching the creek and hunting for you everywhere. Our tutor had arranged to send a party of the class to hunt for you after dinner, and there's been all kinds of excitement and fuss about you."
"I'm sorry," said Frank, "but I couldn't help it. I've been kidnaped, Bob."
"What!"
"Don't blurt it out. I want to see Ned Foreman first. He's interested."
"Gill Mace was around with his sneering meanness," said Bob. "He said the boys had better see that none of their jewelry was missing."
"Did, eh?" said Frank. "He and his uncle will be interested, too, if things come out as I think."
"Frank, I must tell Professor Drake that you've come back."
"All right," assented Frank, who proceeded to take a refreshing wash as Bob flew from the room.
He returned just as our hero finished brushing his hair.
"You're to come down to the office at once," he said.
"All right," assented Frank.
He proceeded down the stairs without meeting any of his friends. Frank knocked at the office door and was admitted by Professor Drake.
"So you have returned, Jordan?" spoke the teacher in a somewhat severe tone.
"Yes, Mr. Drake," replied Frank.
"I hope you have some satisfactory explanation to offer in regard to your absence against the rules of this school."
"I certainly have, Mr. Drake," said Frank. "There is considerable to tell, and it is very important. I would like to see the president before I say anything, though."
"Professor Elliott is absent until to-morrow," said the tutor. "I am in charge here, and you must explain to me."
"I hope you will excuse me," replied Frank, "but there is a very good reason why I must tell the president before any one else."
"You are pretty mysterious, Jordan."
"I hope you believe that I am doing just what is right until Mr. Elliott returns," said Frank earnestly.
The teacher studied Frank's manly face for a moment.
"I must at least believe that you think you are right," he said after a thoughtful pause. "We will have it that way, if you insist, Jordan."
"Thank you, Mr. Drake," said Frank. "You will find that I am not deceiving you."
Frank was greeted at dinner with a babel of questions as to his mysterious absence. He told his friends that he had been away on business; that he could explain only to the president of the academy.
He attended his classes that afternoon, and joined the crowd on the campus after study hours. A baseball game was on. Frank was right-fielder, and he knew he was on his record in this, his first game, and did some pretty good work.
The game was running pretty close. Two of Banbury's men were on bases, when Frank noticed a ragged urchin run up to a crowd of spectators.
The strange boy asked some questions, and the lad he addressed pointed to Frank.
"Are you—are you Mr. Jordan?" the youngster panted, running up to Frank.
"Yes," nodded Frank.
"Please, sir, quick—there's a man in the old cabin on Greenlee's farm. He wants Ned Foreman to come right straight to him. He's all cut up and bleeding. He's dying. The boy yonder said you'd get Ned Foreman for me."
"Who is he?" demanded Frank, interested and startled.
"I don't know, only he said he must see Ned Foreman, because he won't last long. He's in an awful state. He's in an awful state. He just hollers and yells, and he's smashing a great big bracelet with shining stones in it."
"Jordan!"
"Hi—don't miss it!" Whiz!
Just past Frank's head flew a fly from the bat. Frank had not turned in time. But he heeded not the yells, "Deserted his colors!" "Run away again!" or the fact that his neglect had sent two of Banbury's cohorts home.
Frank knew at once that the man the excited boy spoke of was either Jem or Dan. The allusion to a bracelet had started him on a vivid run, the boy keeping breathlessly by his side, panting:
"I was passing the old cabin, when I heard some one groaning on the inside. Then the man told me to get Ned Foreman."
The little messenger led Frank straight to the hut and slipped down to the doorstep almost exhausted, while his companion rushed through the open doorway.
The man Dan lay on a heap of straw, silent and helpless. His clothing was stained with blood. Frank at once ascertained that he was still alive, but he had fainted from weakness.
He went out to the little fellow on the doorstep.
"What's your name?" asked Frank.
"It's Lem."
"Well, you're a grand little fellow," said Frank. "You've done a good deal already, but I want you to run to the nearest farmhouse and tell the farmer that he must get here right away to move a dying man to a doctor at Bellwood."
"Yes, sir," nodded the obliging little fellow eagerly.
"Tell him I'll pay all the expenses, and yours, too, Lem, as soon as we get through with this business."
The boy darted away. Frank re-entered the hut. As he did so his foot kicked some object, and it jangled across the rough board floor.
Frank picked it up with some eagerness and satisfaction. It was the bracelet that Lem had described—"with shining stones in it."
Our hero was a good deal excited as he examined the object in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket with quite a thrill of satisfaction. He then went closer to the suffering Dan.
The man seemed to have dropped into a deep daze or sleep. Frank realized that he could do nothing for him until he was removed to some place where skilled surgical aid could be summoned.
"It's wonderful," mused Frank, as he went outside, impatient and anxious for the return of his messenger. "This is certainly the bracelet that I've had so much worry about. I never saw it before, but it must be the one stolen from Lemuel Mace. How does it happen, though, that Dan has it here? Why is it all battered up? Where is Jem? Why wasn't it sold to the man, Staggers? Say, here's a big puzzle, but I've got the bracelet, and this man Dan can be made to explain all about it when he gets his senses back."
Frank certainly had some perplexing thoughts as to the peculiar situation of the moment. He could only theorize what had happened.
The way he figured It out was that Jem had been unable to make any bargain with the man Staggers and dispose of the bracelet. He had come back to the hut to report this fact to Dan. They must have had a quarrel over it, Frank decided. Jem had probably been beaten off. Not, however, until he had pretty badly bruised up his opponent. The bracelet must have got battered in the struggle for its possession, or Dan, In the delirium which the farmer boy had described to Frank, had banged it about, not knowing what he was doing.
Frank paced up and down In front of the hut, turning all these thoughts over in his mind, and really anxious about the condition of Dan, counting the minutes and hoping for the speedy return of his messenger with aid. He was walking slowly on his tiresome patrol, when he heard a rustle in the bushes. He turned, som6whait startled. Before he could get fully around a brisk hand slapped him sharply on the shoulder, with the words:
"Hello, you—glad I've found you!"
Frank drew suspiciously away from a lad about his own age, and a total stranger to him. He was well dressed, and had a keen pair of eyes and a pleasant, rather quizzical expression of face.
Frank was on nettles for fear Jem might return, and at first feared that the boy might be some emissary of Brady or his recent kidnapers.
"Don't know me?" questioned the lad, smiling' boldly and in an extremely friendly way into Frank's face.
"Well, I know you," retorted the other. "Here, Frank Jordan, of Bellwood Academy, shake," and he extended his hand.
"Who are you?" inquired Frank, only feebly returning the hearty handshake of the stranger.
"I am your everlasting debtor—friend, slave!" declared the lad vehemently. "See here; that night, or, rather, morning, dark hallway—two officers—nabbed you, took you for me, and I got away."
"O—oh!" exclaimed Frank slowly, and with a decided shock. "I remember you now."
"Thought you would," nodded the lad briskly. "You don't seem a bit glad to see me, but I am to see you."
Frank did not say anything in reply to this. In fact, the boy who had just revealed his identity was not exactly welcome to Frank just at that moment. The latter remembered what the policeman, Hawkes, had said about him—that he was an escaped convict, with a reward out for his arrest. That did not speak well for the fellow. Then, too, Frank did not fancy the proximity of such a person, with a diamond bracelet in his possession presumably worth a great deal of money.
"How did you come to find me here?" demanded our hero with blunt suspicion.
"Didn't—just ran across you. But I was on my way to find you."
"Where?"
"At the academy."
"How did you know I belonged to the academy?" challenged Frank.
"Why, didn't I hear you mention the place and tell your name to the policeman?"
"Yes, that's so," admitted Frank. "But why did you want to see me?"
"To thank you."
"For what?"
"For saving me from arrest."
"Oh, then you admit that you are what the policeman said?"
"What was that?"
"A convict."
"Yes," answered the boy promptly.
"And an escaped convict."
"That's right, too."
"I don't know, then," said Frank, "that I did right in shielding you."
"Oh, yes, you did," declared the lad buoyantly. "See here, you're a good fellow, a staving good fellow. You've just about made my future for me. Isn't that a big thing to do?"
"It is, if it's true," said Frank.
"Well, you'll think so when I tell you something. See here: I was an orphan boy down at the town where you saved me. Five years ago a crowd of fellows started out one Hallowe'en night for fun. We had a mean fellow named Tompkins for a leader. He got us to obey his orders. I had to set fire to a heap of brush at one farmhouse. The others were to do certain stunts in the same neighborhood. We found out later that Tompkins was using us as tools to cover some real spite work of his. I set fire to the brush heap to scare the farmer. The wind blew the sparks into a two-ton haystack near by, and it burned down. I was scared and sorry. I was worse scared and sorry the next day, when I was arrested. Tompkins and his crowd had burned down some barns and an old mill. Their folks were rich, and they could hire good lawyers. I was a homeless orphan boy, and was made the scapegoat. They sent me to the reform school till I was of age."
Frank's mind, of course, was full of anxiety for the wounded man In the hut and impatient for the return of his messenger, but he could not help but be interested In the story of his companion.
"My name Is Dave Starr," proceeded the lad. "I went to the reform school. I soon became a good-conduct trusty, but the life nearly killed me. I escaped one day, and If you go into any of the towns around Rockton you'll find my picture in the police stations, with a fifty-dollar reward offered for my arrest."
"What have you done since you escaped?" Inquired Frank.
"I have tried to make a man of myself," replied Dave Starr, drawing himself up proudly. "I want to show you something," and he drew a folded paper from his pocket and extended it.
This was what Frank read:
"Received from Dave Starr $37.72, being payment and interest for damage done to my haystack by fire. He says this was the only fire he was responsible for, and that it was an accident, and I believe him to be an honest, truthful lad.
"Understand?" inquired Dave.
"I think I do," nodded Frank. "You've cleaned the slate by paying your debts."
"That's it," assented Dave. "I went back to Rockton to settle that debt, and the policeman, Hawkes, saw me, recognized me, and I would now be back in that dismal, heart-breaking old reform school if it wasn't for you."
"Well, I'm glad I happened to help you," said Frank warmly.
"I've been pretty lucky since I escaped," narrated Dave. "I went away and got work at a factory just outside a little town. One winter day, when a lot of us were nooning, an empty palace car swung from a switching train into a ditch. It caught fire. There was no water near, and a good twenty thousand dollars was burning up, when I led the fellows to the car. We snowballed it till we put out the flames. That was my start in life. What do you think? About two weeks later an agent of the railroad came around. He gave each of my helpers a ten-dollar gold piece, and he gave me one hundred dollars for saving the railroad property."
"That was fine," commented Frank.
"Wasn't it, though? Well, that was my nest egg. I bought a small stock of notions. I made money. By and by I had five hundred dollars. I had an old friend, who had known my father, who had a ranch in California. I wrote to him, and he replied to my letter saying that he had a place for me. Well, I spent a year on his ranch, raising plums. Then a month ago I struck a fine idea. I heard of how they did things in some African fruit colonies. I enthused my employer. A month ago I came East, with his instructions and plenty of money to gather together one hundred monkeys."
"What!" fairly shouted Frank.
"Just as I say," declared Dave with a pleasant smile.
"One hundred monkeys?"
"Yes."
"To start a show?"
"Not at all."
"What, then?"
"To teach the little fellows to help in the plum orchards. They can be trained easily. You see, when the plums are ripe we spread a sheet under a tree and shake the tree. The monkeys pick up the plums fast as can be, and fill big wicker baskets with them. We take the gang around to other orchards, and save the hiring of a lot of men."
"Well! well!" murmured Frank admiringly. "What a novel idea."
"I've had to pick up the little animals all over the big cities in bird stores," explained Dave. "At last I've got the hundred. They are in a special car down the road, and we start for the Pacific Coast to-morrow morning."
"You certainly have had a queer experience, and you deserve a lot of credit," said Frank.
"I feel good for meeting a square, fair fellow like you, Frank Jordan," continued Dave. "I'd like to feel I had a friend in you, and if I write to you once in a while, will you answer my letters?"
"I shall be delighted," declared Frank.
"Well, I've said my say," resumed Dave in a practical way, "and I see you're busy about something about here, and I may be hindering you, so I'll say good-by."
"Good-by," responded Frank, "and good luck wherever you go."
"Thank you. I say, you wouldn't mind if I sent you a little present as a sort of reminder of what you've done for me, would you, now?" propounded Dave.
"Oh, you mustn't think of that," objected Frank.
"Do they allow pets up at the academy?"
"Oh, yes, if the fellows keep them from annoying others."
"Well, you'll hear from me about to-morrow. Good-by, Frank Jordan."
The strange lad waved his hand to Frank in a friendly, grateful way, and disappeared just as a wagon came rattling across the field toward the old hut.