by Roy Rockwood
CHAPTER VIII
A STARTLING SURPRISE
Dave ran to the door, his heart sinking, and alive with the keenestexcitement. Arrived there, he checked himself. He realized that he couldnot rush out in the shape he was in.
“I can’t do it!” he cried resentfully, as his eyes fell upon the clothesleft in place of his own. “Oh, this is terrible!”
A little faint and a good deal dismayed, the youth sat down on the edgeof his bed to get a better grasp of the situation. He saw now that hewas probably too late to overtake the thief. His eyes fell upon twonickels lying on the floor near the cot. These had been a sort of aguide to the robber, who must have heard them jangle to the floor whenDave accidentally dropped them.
“That fellow must be a real bad one,” mused Dave. “He probably pretendedto be asleep all the time, and was watching me! Anyhow, he has managedto get hold of everything I had. The worst of it is the watch and themoney and the medal belonging to Mr. King are gone too. The thief mayhave been gone from here for hours, for all I know. I’m in a bad fix.”
Dave felt very rueful. He had not come up against much of the wickednessof the world before this. He blamed himself for not guarding hispossessions more carefully, for coming to the lodging house at all.
“There’s nothing for it but to put on these clothes,” he decided atlast, with a sigh. “I don’t suppose it will do any good to tell thelodging house keeper about the thief, and in a big, strange city thereis little chance of my running him down.”
The clothes of the boy who had robbed Dave very nearly fitted him.Dave’s own attire had been threadbare in spots, but it had been clean.Somehow, Dave could not repress a feeling of repugnance as he put on theclothes. The shoes pinched, being short and narrow, but he managed toget them on.
Dave went down stairs and into the office on the second floor of thebuilding. A lot of loungers were sitting around on benches and a newclerk was behind the desk.
“Is the young man here who was on duty last night?” inquired Dave,returning the room key.
“I just relieved him,” was the reply. “He’s gone home to sleep.”
“He gave me room 58,” went on Dave. “There was a boy in one of the beds.These clothes are his.”
“Hey?” ejaculated the man, with a stare.
“Yes, sir. He’s taken mine. I shouldn’t think you would allow suchcharacters in here.”
The man shrugged his shoulders indifferently. He pointed to a signbehind the desk. It informed roomers that the house was not responsiblefor thefts.
“If you had anything valuable in your clothes,” advised the man, “youshould have left it in our safe.”
The speaker pointed to a box with a padlock behind him. Dave decidedthat he could place little reliance in either the man or his strong box.
“I did lose something valuable,” he cried, smarting under his lost.
“Did, eh?”
“Yes, sir—fifty dollars in money, beside other valuables.”
“That so?” smiled the man incredulously. “Know the thief?”
“I do. Don’t I tell you that he slept in the same room with me?”
“Know him again?”
“I am sure I would.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Yes, he had a scar on one cheek.”
“Better put the police on his track, then.”
“Thank you, I’ll do just that,” replied Dave with energy, startingbriskly for the door under the impetus of the suggestion.
Dave hurried from the building and down the street. At a crossing hefound an officer in uniform. This man directed him to the neareststation. Dave framed in his mind the most accurate description he couldgive of the thief.
“It hadn’t ought to be very hard to trace down a fellow with a scarredface like that,” meditated Dave. “Hello! I never thought of it before.”
With the words “Police Station” staring him in the face from the frontof a grim looking brick building, Dave came to a dead halt with a shock.
It had just occurred to him that he might invite considerable risk byvisiting the police. They would want to know how he came by the pocketbook of Robert King. He would have to tell them the circumstances andhis name. They might have received some word already from Brookville tolook out for him. They might get to inquiring into his story and detainhim as a runaway.
“No, it won’t do at all,” declared the boy emphatically.
He got away from the place as fast as he could, all stirred up as hefound time to realize that he was still near enough to Brookville to beseen and recognized by some one who might inform on him. Dave went backto the railroad depot and consulted some maps and time tables.
He found that Fairfield was not on the direct line, and that theindirect route covered about sixty miles. If he could go back pastBrookville in the other direction it would be ten miles less. Acrosscountry on foot, as nearly as he could make it out, on air line route itwas not over thirty-five miles.
“Why, I could walk it in a day,” thought Dave—“and I’ll do it!”
He had just ten cents in his pocket—the two nickels the thief haddisdained to pick up. He had made up his mind that it would be a wasteof time to try and hunt up the boy who had robbed him. In the firstplace, Dave was unfamiliar with the city. The thief had probably gotaway from it with his booty as fast as he could.
Dave walked across the city. Near its limits he went into a bakery andinvested the ten cents in crackers and buns. The shoes he wore began tohurt his feet. After a brief lunch he struck off on a smooth countryroad.
“It’s my duty to reach Fairfield and find this Mr. King,” he decided. “Isuppose he values that medal very highly. He is in better shape than Iam to start a search for the thief or the plunder.”
A little after noon Dave sat down by a little stream and took off hisshoes. They had hurt him terribly the last mile he had traveled. Hefound his feet blistered and swollen, bathed them in the cool water, andwhen he resumed his tramp walked barefooted, carrying the shoes strungover his shoulder.
Shortly afterwards Dave reached a little village. As he passed acobbler’s shop he went in and asked the man in charge if he wouldexchange his shoes for anything he could wear. The shoemaker went over alot of stock uncalled for, but there was nothing among them that wouldfit Dave. Finally he made a bargain to take twenty-five cents for hisshoes, and resumed his journey.
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when Dave met with a newadventure. It had more influence on his future career than he dreamed ofat the time.
He had followed a path leading along a ravine. Its edges were heavilywooded, and at the bottom a pretty babbling brook coursed its way. Davewas glad to get once more where things were green. He lay down on thegrass, fell asleep, and awoke from his nap with the echoes of a seriesof sharp reports ringing in his ears.
“Hello! some one shooting,” exclaimed Dave. “Oh, the mischief!”
He had traced the sounds as coming from the valley, and had crept to theedge of the ravine and leaned far over in an effort to peer past thethick foliage. The crumbling edge gave way under the weight of his body,and Dave took a tumble.
He grabbed out at some bushes, but they gave way, only briefly slowingdown his progress.
Then as he whirled along he was conscious that he was rolling directlytowards a towering bronzed figure, standing like a statue on a ledge ofrock.
The form was that of an Indian, remarkable and startling in thisunexpected place. He stood posed magnificently, an uplifted tomahawk inhis hand, and not ten feet distant on another ledge of rock was a mandressed in hunter’s costume. This latter person had a rifle in his hand,and was sighting along its barrel, and on the other side of the ravine,seated under a tree conversing with a young lady, was another man.
In the flashing sight he had of all this, it looked to Dave as thoughthe hunter was going to shoot the man with the lady, unless the Indianhurled his tomah
awk in time to prevent him.
Straight up against the Indian Dave rolled. Quickly the latter put outhis foot. He brought it squarely down on Dave’s chest and held himmotionless.
“Lie still,” he spoke rapidly, “or you’ll spoil the picture!”
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