Boys of Oakdale Academy

CHAPTER I.

A BOY OF MYSTERY

“He’s a fake,” declared Chipper Cooper positively, backing up against the steam radiator to warm himself on the other side. “I’ll bet a hundred dollars he never was west of Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

“A hundred dollars,” drawled Sile Crane, grinning. “Why don’t yeou bate something while you’re abaout it? Nobody’d bother to take a measly little wager like that. Now I’ve kinder got an idee that the new feller really comes from Texas, jest as he says he does. I guess he ain’t no fake.”

“Oh, is that so!” retorted Cooper, a bit warmly. “Well, I’ll talk business to you, Mr. Crane; I’ll really bet you fifty cents Rodney Grant never saw the State of Texas in his life. Now put up or shut up.”

“I don’t want to bate on it,” said Sile; “but I guess I’ve got a right to my opinion, and I cal’late Rod Grant ain’t no fake Westerner.”

“I knew you didn’t have the sand to back your opinion,” chuckled Chipper. “It’s my idea that Grant is a fake and you’re no bettor.”

“Awful bad pun, Chipper,” said Chub Tuttle, a roly-poly, round-faced chap who was munching peanuts. “I think you’re right, though; I don’t believe he’s a Texan. Why, he hasn’t a bit of brogue.”

“Bub-brogue!” stuttered Phil Springer, who had a slight impediment in his speech. “Texans don’t have a brogue; they have a dialect – they talk in the vernacular, you know.”

“Talk in the ver – what?” cried Cooper. “Where did you get that word, Phil? I don’t know what it means, but I do know Rod Grant talks through his hat sometimes. When he tells about living on a ranch and herding cattle and breaking bronchos and chasing rustlers and catching horse thieves, he gives me a cramp. He certainly can reel off some whoppers.”

At this point up spoke Billy Piper, commonly known as “Sleuth” on account of his ambitions to emulate the great detectives of fiction.

“Of late,” said Billy, “I’ve been shadowing this mysterious personage who came into our midst unannounced and unacclaimed and who has been the cause of extensive speculation and comment. My deduction is that the before-mentioned mysterious personage is a big case of bluff, and I must add that, like my astute comrade, Cooper, I gravely doubt if he has ever seen the wild and woolly West. His tales of cowboy life are extremely preposterous. All cowboys are bow-legged from excessive riding in the saddle; the legs of Rod Grant – I should say the before-mentioned mysterious personage – are as straight as my own. Westerners wear their hair long; Grant – the before-mentioned mysterious personage – has his hair cut like any civilized human being. Likewise and also, he does not talk as a true Westerner should. Why, nobody has ever heard him say ‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’ or any of those characteristic words all Westerners scatter promiscuously through their conversation. Therefore – mark me, comrades – I brand him as a double-dyed impostor.”

“Speaking about Grant, I presume?” said Fred Sage, joining the group by the radiator. “I think you’re right, Sleuth. Why, I told him only last night that no one around here believed him the real thing, because he didn’t look like it, act like it or talk like it. What do you suppose he said? He claimed he had to keep on guard all the time to prevent himself from using cowboy lingo – said he was sort of ashamed of it and trying to get out of the habit.”

Berlin Barker, a tall, cold-eyed chap who had been listening without comment to this conversation, now ventured to put in a word.

“Fellows like this Grant are more or less amusing,” he observed. “I’m also inclined to think him a fraud, and I have good reasons. Didn’t Captain Eliot try to get him out for football practice the very day he showed up here at Oakdale Academy? He looks stout and husky, and Roger thought he might work in as a substitute; but, after watching practice one night, he wouldn’t even step onto the field. It’s my opinion the game seemed too rough and rude for this wild and woolly cow-puncher. If anybody should ask me, I’d say that he has all the symptoms of a chap with a yellow streak in him. I don’t believe he has an ounce of sand in his makeup.”

“Somebody ought to be able to find out if he really does come from the West,” said Tuttle. “Why don’t we ask his aunt?”

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard,” chuckled Cooper. “Nobody else wants to ask her. People around here know enough to keep away from Priscilla Kent.”

“Oh, she’s cracked,” stated Piper. “She’s lived here in Oakdale for the last twenty years, and nobody has ever been able to find out much of anything about her. Take a woman who lives alone with only a pet parrot and a monkey for companions, and never associates with the neighbors, and talks like an asylum for the simple-minded, and you have a proposition too baffling for solution even by my trained and highly developed mind. My deduction is – ”

“Here comes Roger!” exclaimed Fred Sage. “Let’s ask him what he thinks about the fellow.”

It was the hour of the noon intermission at Oakdale Academy, and, the season being early November, with the atmosphere biting cold, Roger Eliot stepped forward to warm his hands at the radiator, near which hovered the group who were discussing the new boy. Roger was a tall, well-built, somewhat grave-looking chap, whose sober face, however, was occasionally illumined by a rare smile. The son of Urian Eliot, one of the wealthiest and most influential men of the town, Roger, being a natural athlete, was the recognized leader among the academy boys.

“Hello, fellows,” was his pleasant greeting. “Talking football?”

“No,” answered Hayden; “we were discussing that fellow Rodney Grant. We were trying to size him up, and it seems to be practically the universal opinion that he’s a fraud. We doubt if he has ever been west of the Mississippi. What do you think about it?”

“Well,” confessed Roger slowly, “I’ll own up that I don’t know what to, think. Still, I don’t see any reason why he should lie about himself.”

“Some fellers had rather lie than eat,” observed Sile Crane.

“Why shouldn’t he lie about himself?” questioned Cooper. “He’s told some wallopers about everything else. I never heard a fellow who could bust the truth into smithereens the way he can.”

“Oh,” said Eliot, “I know what you mean. When he first struck Oakdale he didn’t have much of anything to say, and you fellows kept at him, asking questions, until I fancy he grew weary and took a notion to sling off a few big yarns for his own amusement.”

“Putting aside the question as to whether he came from the West or not,” said Barker, “I’ve decided that he’s a quitter – in short, a coward.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Roger.

“Why shouldn’t I think so? Didn’t you try to get him out for football practice? and didn’t he refuse after watching us work one night? It was too husky business for the gentleman who had punched cows and hunted cattle thieves. Why, even Hunk Rollins doesn’t take any stock in that chap, Eliot, and yesterday Hunk backed him down completely. Rollins had a chip on his shoulder and was looking for trouble. He picked out Grant and loaded him with jibes and insults. The cow-puncher swallowed them all. Any one with a particle of grit would have climbed all over Hunk.”

“Perhaps you may be right, boys,” admitted Roger; “but don’t forget that you made a blunder in sizing up Ben Stone when he came here. It is possible you’re just as far wrong about Rodney Grant. He – ”

“’Sh!” hissed Piper suddenly, as the door swung open and another boy entered the room. “Here he comes now!”

CHAPTER II.

PLAYING THE PART

For a few moments they stared in dumfounded silence at the latest arrival. Sile Crane was the first to speak; a grin broke over his homely face, and in a suppressed tone he drawled:

“Great codfish! He’s sartainly come to school this arternoon all dressed up fit to kill.”

“Oh, ginger!” snickered Chipper Cooper. “Here’s the real wild and woolly article now. Just look at it!”

Chub Tuttle snorted, clapping a hand to his mouth to check the spray of half-munched peanuts which flew from his lips. “’Scuse me,” he entreated, as Barker fell back a step, frowning and producing a handkerchief to brush some of the peanut crumbs from his coat sleeve. “Couldn’t help it. Did you ever see such a funny sight in all your life?”

Even Roger Eliot could not repress a smile as he gazed at the new boy in Oakdale who professed to come from the State of Texas; for never before had a person thus attired ventured to cross the threshold of the academy, and in a moment the eyes of nearly every boy and girl in the room were focused upon Rodney Grant.

Grant was a well-set-up youngster of sixteen, somewhat large for his age, and yet not large enough to be noticeably overgrown. He had clear, dark brown eyes, which were almost black; a strong, well-formed, prominent nose; a square, firm chin; and a mouth which, while in no way disagreeable, had something about it to give the impression that the boy could say “no” and stick to it. In his dark brown hair there was a glint of red. The short time he had spent as a student at Oakdale Academy had not yet begun to weaken perceptibly the deep tan of his cheek and neck.

Set a bit rakishly on the boy’s shapely head was a battered, wide-brimmed old felt hat that looked as if it had seen any amount of wear. The crown was encircled by a buckled leather strap, and in front the brim had been turned up and fastened with a thong. Neither coat nor vest covered the loose woollen shirt, which had been left open a bit at the throat. A dark red handkerchief was knotted about the lad’s neck. His legs were encased in shiny, soiled, calfskin chaps, fringed down the outer seams; and these likewise bore the tokens of much wear. Hanging loosely from the point of his left hip was a cartridge-looped belt that supported a pistol holster dangling low against the upper part of his right leg. On his feet were tight, thin-soled, high-heeled boots, to which were attached huge roweled spurs that clanked with every step he took.

Calm, serene, without the flicker of a smile on his face or a symptom of self-consciousness in his manner, Rod Grant glanced around and then walked toward the staring lads near the steam radiator. His high-heeled boots gave him a somewhat awkward gait.

“Howdy, gents,” he saluted. “This yere weather is sure some nipping to-day. If it continues, it’s right certain she’ll freeze up tight before long. Out on the Canadian we’d get it this cold on the front edge of a no’ther.”

Berlin Barker’s lips curled scornfully as he openly took the measure of the speaker from head to feet. “On my word,” he sneered, “you’re a sight. You’re all dressed up, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” was the cheerful answer. “Not knowing but that I might be invited out to afternoon tea or some sort of social function, I spent as much as five minutes adorning my person for the occasion. I own up I’m a heap more familiar with the social etiquette of the range, being generally accustomed to taking my grub from the tail end of the cook’s wagon; but, when he sent me East, my old man he says to me, says he, ‘Rod, when you’re in Rome you must seek some to emulate the Romans.’ Therefore, being plenty dutiful, I feel it incumbent to stand up and meet what’s coming without shying or bucking.”

“Oh, slush!” snickered Cooper. “Who said he didn’t talk in the ver – what-do-you-call-it?”

“I presume,” said Barker, “that he picked up that line of talk from some cheap Western novel.”

“You’ve certain got two more guesses coming, partner,” retorted Grant, still unruffled. “Since locating on this here section of the range, I’ve spent the greater part of my time in the right painful effort to talk pure Bostonese. What has been the result? You gents hereabouts have acquired the impression that I’m an impostor, and therefore all my trouble has gone for naught. I allow you’ll admit that this must be a heap discouraging to a person with a naturally retiring and sensitive nature – that’s me. I now give you notice that henceforth and hereafter I’m Rodney Grant of the Star D Ranch, Roberts County, Texas Panhandle, and any gent who doesn’t approve of my style is at liberty to segregate himself from my society.”

Roger Eliot laughed outright, which was unusual for him.

“That’s plain enough,” he said. “A great many people find it necessary to play the part in order to be accepted as the real thing.”

Grant flashed him a look from those deep brown eyes; to his surprise, here was a fellow who seemed to understand.

Barker shrugged his shoulders. “My dear chap,” he said patronizingly, “I’m afraid you were rather careless in letting us get onto your curves. Tell us, how much did that rig-out cost you? I presume you bought it from some fake cowboy in a dime museum.”

“I’ve already noticed,” returned Rodney, “that you’re a presuming sort of a gent. Being of a forgiving nature, I’ll overlook it and charge it up to your ignorance.”

Barker flushed with anger. “Cut it out, you freak!” he exclaimed. “Why, you’re a sight! Folks around here weren’t born yesterday, and you can’t fool anybody with your bluff. Next thing we know you’ll be calling us tenderfeet; but we’re not so tender we can’t tell the difference between a fake and the genuine article.”

“I pray thee, be not so harsh, Berlin,” chuckled Cooper. “Why, we can all see by looking at his clothes that Mr. Grant is a real, genuine, bona fide cow-puncher from the Texas Panhandle, just as he claims to be. At least, he not only looks it, but he’s slinging the lingo.”

Sleuth Piper shook his head doubtfully. “He hasn’t yet said ‘whoop’ or ‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’,” he muttered.

“Thanks, my friend,” bowed Grant, beaming on Cooper. “It’s sure a relief to know that at last I’m making an impression on one person, at least.”

“Have a peanut,” invited Chub Tuttle. “Can you shoot a pistol?”

“I’m a rip-roarer with a gun.”

“Know how to throw a lasso?”

“Sure. I can rope and tie a wild steer in thirty-six seconds. The world’s record is something like forty-one and a half. But that’s because I’ve never competed in a public steer-roping contest.”

“Bah!” sneered Barker. “Did you ever see a longhorn steer in your life?”

“At least,” returned Grant, gazing fixedly at him, “I’ve seen a long-eared donkey.”

“Score one for the gent from the Panhandle,” snickered Cooper.

“You insolent puppy!” breathed Barker, in a low, savage voice. “You want to be careful of your language, or you’ll have a fight on your hands. Somebody will – ”

“I never fight with my fists.”

“No, I don’t suppose you ever fight with anything but your mouth. You showed the white feather when Hunk Rollins got after you. It’s my opinion you’re a big case of blow.”

“Your opinions are of so little value that they don’t disturb me any at all.”

“Quit it, fellows!” interposed Eliot, stepping forward to keep them apart in case Barker should go at Grant. “You know what it means to have a scrap here, Berlin.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t touch him – here; but, if he isn’t more civil, I’ll catch him somewhere and teach him a lesson.”

With which threat Berlin turned disdainfully and walked away, watched as he departed by the eyes of Grant, in which there shone a strange gleam of mingled anger and amusement.

“Yeou better not git that feller stirred up, Mr. Cow-puncher,” advised Sile Crane. “He’s a bad critter when he’s mad. He never forgits a grudge.”

“I ask you fair and square, gents,” said Grant, “did I begin it? Didn’t he start the rumpus by spurring me a plenty with slurs and insults? Never mind, I won’t fight him anyhow, because, as I before stated, I don’t fight.”

“How about fighting cattle thieves and Injuns?” questioned Cooper.

“That’s a heap different. Having a right violent temper of my own, I reckon it’s best for me to keep it hobbled constant and regular. Gents, when I’m riled I’m bad – I sure am. I opine I’ve caused my old man no end of disturbance and worry. This yere is the first school I’ve never been expelled from – and there’s enough time for that. Last school I attended, the master allowed it was his duty to give me a ferruling. It certain was the mistake of his life, for he got me going some, and I clean lost my head. As a result, I threw him, traddled him, and lifted his scalp.”

“You wha-what?” gasped Phil Springer. “You don’t mean that you actually sus-scalped a schoolmaster, do you?”

“Sure. I removed a portion of the gent’s topknot with my trusty scalping knife. I opine it was a severe shock to his system, but he recovered in time, though he remained baldheaded in a spot as big as the palm of your hand.”

“You must be dangerous,” laughed Cooper. “I suppose you learned the scalping business that time you was captured by Injuns. You know you said you were captured once.”

“Such was the fate which befell me.”

“Tell us abaout it,” urged Crane. “Haow did yeou escape?”

“By breaking the bonds with which the savages tied me. I am the possessor of sure enough amazing strength, which enabled me to accomplish the seeming impossible. There were three of the onery redskins. They caught me when I was sound asleep, and they were taking me to their tribe for the self-evident purpose of amusing themselves by burning me at the stake, or something like that. It was a journey of two days or more. The first night we camped in a dark and lonely valley. My captors regaled themselves on roast beef cut from one of my father’s steers which they had stolen, but not a morsel did they offer me, although I was mighty near starved to death. When they had eaten their fill they rolled themselves in their blankets and slept. There I was, tied hand and foot, and apparently helpless. I watched the campfire die down and the stars twinkle forth in the lonely sky. I knew it was up to me, and so when the aborigines were securely wrapped in the arms of Morpheus I proceeded to put forth my energies to burst my bonds, and finally succeeded.”

“I s’pose yeou sneaked off and took to your heels then, didn’t ye?” questioned Crane.

“No, indeed, not any. I knew they would awaken and follow me. I knew there was only one salvation for me: I must destroy all three of those red fiends.”

“Did yeou kill ’em?”

“I confess that I did, but never in the history of the world have redskins died in such a manner. They laughed themselves to death.”

“How was that?” asked Tuttle, so interested that he had forgotten to eat peanuts.

“As they slept I crept upon them, one by one, seized them, gagged them, bound them all. This I did to each one in turn, without arousing the others. Having them securely bound, I meditated on my future course. It sure seemed some inhuman to hike off and leave them trussed up to starve or to be eaten by coyotes. I shuddered a plenty at the thought of tomahawking or shooting them. It was a right long time before I finally hit upon a mode of execution. Finally I removed their moccasins – stripped their feet bare. Then from the topknot of the chief I plucked some feathers. With those very feathers I proceeded to tickle first one and then another of the redskins upon the soles of his feet. In about two jiffys I had all three laughing and squirming, and the more I tickled them the more they laughed. I kept it up, gents, until those redskins laughed themselves to death.”

“Ge-gee!” exploded Phil Springer. “What a whopper!”

“Pretty fair,” nodded Roger Eliot – “pretty fair.”

Prof. Richardson entered. He paused a moment to peer over his spectacles, and his eyes fell on Rodney Grant. Slowly an expression of wonderment crept over the old man’s face.

“What’s this, young man – what’s this?” he inquired, coming forward and removing his knit woollen gloves. “What are you doing here in such a rig?”

“I reckon you’ll pardon me, Professor, but people around this neck of the woods seem to think I’m a fake Texan because I don’t look it, and therefore I took a notion to wear my cowboy regalia this afternoon.”

The professor shook his head disapprovingly. “Go home,” he said – “go home at once and change those clothes for civilized garments. I certainly shall not approve of your wearing such a rig while you attend this school.”

“Fate is against me,” murmured Rodney Grant, as he turned toward the door.

CHAPTER III.

ROD’S WONDERFUL JUMP

Prof. Richardson was giving his attention to the class in physiology when Rod Grant returned to the academy. The boy from Texas walked quietly down the center aisle and took his place in the class. In truth, as he now appeared, there was nothing about him, save possibly the deep tan of his cheeks, to give him an appearance different from that of any clean, healthy, manly-appearing Eastern youngster. He wore a well-fitting suit of dark blue serge, a negligée shirt, and a carelessly knotted crimson four-in-hand tie. On his feet were stout, serviceable, yet distinctly well made and stylish tan shoes.

Berlin Barker, who had been reciting, sat down. The principal surveyed Rod over his gold-rimmed spectacles, which perched precariously on the end of his nose, nodding his head slightly as if inwardly approving of the change in the new boy’s appearance.

“Grant.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You may recite.”

Rodney stood up.

“How many bones are there in the entire skeleton of an adult?”

“Two hundred, sir.”

“You may state the number and give the names of the various bones of the human arm and hand.”

Grant did so without hesitation, speaking in a clear, well-modulated voice, his language having no touch of the vernacular which Phil Springer had asserted to be characteristic of a Westerner. His accent and inflection, it is true, differed slightly from that of Easterners in general, but this difference was not sufficient to attract the notice of a person who was not particularly observing.

“Very good, Grant,” nodded the principal. “You may be seated. I have the pleasure of informing this class that I have been enabled, at considerable expense and after no end of trouble, to purchase a complete and perfect human skeleton, which arrived yesterday and is now stored in the laboratory. I obtained this skeleton for demonstrating purposes; but, not wishing to disturb those scholars who are naturally nervous or timid, I shall not display it before the school during the period of any regular session. To-morrow, however, such members of this class as may desire to remain after the last period will be given the privilege of seeing and examining the skeleton. I wish it understood, however, that no one is positively required to remain for that purpose, and I would suggest that the timid ones do not remain. Class dismissed.”

“Jiminy!” whispered Cooper in Sleuth Piper’s ear. “Where d’you s’pose he got his old skeleton?”

“My deduction is,” answered Sleuth, “that he obtained it from a cemetery.”

“What a grave thing to do,” grinned Chipper. “On the dead, it gives me a shiver.”

At intermission some of the boys gathered near the academy steps and talked about the skeleton.

“My eagle eye detected the long, gruesome-looking box in the express office yesterday,” said Piper; “but on lifting one end of it, which I did, my deduction was that the box, being very light, could not possibly contain a subject for a funeral. Ever since then the mystery has preyed upon me, but at last the prof’s statement has cleared it up to the satisfaction of all concerned.”

“Be yeou goin’ to see the old thing to-morrer?” questioned Crane.

“I shall take pleasure in doing so.”

“Pleasure! Great scissors! I don’t see no fun in lookin’ at a skeleton. The prof is a crank abaout such things; everybody says so.”

“I sure can’t see the necessity of exhibiting a genuine skeleton before the class,” said Rod Grant. “If we were medical students, it would be different; but, as far as I’m concerned, I can acquire all the knowledge I desire about the bones of the human body without examining such human framework at short range.”

“It can’t be possible,” said Chub Tuttle, “that a fellow who has scalped schoolmasters and tickled Injuns to death is afraid of a harmless skeleton.”

“I don’t admit any that I’m afraid of the thing,” returned Grant; “but I simply say, what’s the use?”

Standing near, Berlin Barker shrugged his shoulders and laughed an unspoken sneer, which caused the warm blood to glow through the tan of Rod’s cheeks. Turning on his heel, Barker joined some fellows who were jumping at the corner of the academy. Grant’s gaze followed him. In a moment or two, urged to do so, Barker, who prided himself on his ability as a jumper, stripped off his coat and entered into competition with Jack Nelson.