I says, “What’s ailing you, Link?”
He says, “Don’t bother about me, Hawkins, I don’t feel very well.”
I says, “You ain’t sick, are you?”
He shook his head. “Not real sick,” he says, “just heart sick. That’s all, Hawkins.”
I says, “You ain’t had any bad luck, have you, Link?”
He says, “No, maybe not, but maybe so. Just kinda bad luck, like when a good friend turns you down, that’s all.”
I says, “You got back from Padooka this morning, didn’t you?”
“Last night,” he says. “The Hudson Lee had to go to Haley’s Landing, so I had to come back on the Kentucky Belle.” I looked at Bill, and Bill looked at me, but the Skinny Guy kept his eyes on the ground. I didn’t say nuthin’, but Bill spoke up.
“Where’s the Red Head?” he asks.
The Skinny Guy looked up at Bill and his eyes were sparkling. “Who wants to know?” asks Skinny Link. “Who’s got any right to ask me about Monk Bridges?”
I says, “Excuse us, Link; we didn’t want to butt in on your business.”
We walked away and left the poor kid sitting there by himself. Bill says, “Ain’t that a funny guy for you, Hawkins?”
I says, “Let Link alone, he’s got a worry on his mind; he will be all right when he comes to himself again.”
We went down to the hollow and passed the ball. It was a fine catcher’s mitt, and the new baseball was a dandy.
THURSDAY.—Bill was waiting for me when I come down today. He says to me, “Hawkins, come along with me. I just saw the Skinny Guy going down the hollow with a basket.”
I says, “Well, maybe he is going to pick dandelions.”
Bill shook his head. “Come on,” he says.
So I went. There was smoke coming out of the chimney of our shack in the hollow. We heard the rusty voice of Skinny Link Lambert singing inside.
We crawled up and peeped in the window. He was standing over the stove, and he had a frying pan in his hand with a fish in it. There was a half loaf of bread and a bottle of milk and some reddishes on the table, and a tin plate and tin cup.
We dodged down beneath the window every time Link moved around inside. At last we saw him take out the fried fish and put it on the plate. Then he covered it with a piece of paper, and put out the fire in the stove and carried out the ashes. Then he come out and closed the door and walked up the hollow, towards his pop’s houseboat.
Bill and me walked back after he was out of sight. “Funny,” says Bill, “he fixed that meal for somebody.”
“Yeah,” I says, “maybe he fixed it for himself, and is coming back to eat it after while.”
Bill shook his head. “You never can tell,” he says.
We went back to our houseboat, and Briggen and Ham Gardner was there. “Just want to see you a minit, Hawkins,” says Briggen.
I says, “What is it?”
Briggen says, “That fella who helps Stoner’s Boy was back here to-day. We saw him under the cliffs, but he got away before we could get acrost the river to him.”
I says, “What does he look like?”
Briggen says, “We couldn’t get close enough to see, but we did see some brass buttons shining on the fella’s pants, right on the sides at the knees.”
I says, “We got to know him by brass buttons on the knees of his pants?”
“Yes,” says Briggen, “and by something else, the new footprints he left in the mud.”
I says, “Are the new footprints like the ones we saw besides Stoner’s footprints on your side of the river?”
“Yes,” says Briggen, “they are the very same.”
“All right,” I says, “we will get him before very long. Go back on your side of the river, and watch careful, and if you can get him yourself, do it.”
Briggen went back.
Bill says, “Hawkins, Briggen is mighty friendly to you lately, ain’t he?”
I says, “He knows why. If we don’t help him fight this Stoner’s Boy, the Pelhams are likely to get hurt.”
FRIDAY.—This afternoon Bill went down to the houseboat right from school, and by the time I got there, he had been spying around a whole lot. He did the same thing today. “Hawkins,” said Bill.
I says, “Who?”
“The Skinny Guy,” says Bill.
I says, “Hush up, here he comes.”
Link was walking up the bank, slow. He smiled and waved his hand at me, but I could see there was a sad look in his eyes. We went over by the side of the houseboat together, and I says, “Link, I wish I could do something to help you out of that worry you got on your mind.”
He laid his skinny hand on my shoulder and says, “Don’t think about that, Hawkins, I will be all right again soon. I can’t get over a thing so quick.”
We were talking together in a low voice for a few minutes, when up the bank comes the Pelham gang, running. “Quick, Hawkins!” hollers Briggen, “he’s down in the shack in your hollow. We watched him through our spy glasses; he just came down from the cliffs.”
Link, poor Old Skinny Link, gave a sudden cry, like a dog what has his foot stepped on. “No,” he hollers. “No, Hawkins, there ain’t a soul down there. I been there and I didn’t see no one.”
But Briggen was running for the hollow already, and all the Pelhams after him, and our fellas just run with them. Link started after them. I followed Link. Just as we sailed down our side of the hollow, Oscar Koven tumbled, and four or five Pelhams rolled over him. There was so much noise and yelling then, that it sounded like the war had started all over again.
The door of the shack opened swift. A fella stood there, with a winter cap pulled down tight over his head. He had on blue pants, with brass buttons on the knees, and a brown coat with patches here and there. He had a little rifle in his arm. “Stand back,” he says, “stand back, if you don’t want to get hurt.”
All the fellas stood like a pack of wolves, looking at this poor fella. I felt sorry for him, because there was so many on one fella. But he had a gun—that was enough. He didn’t see Jerry Moore slip around the back of the cabin. We crowded closer. The fella raised the gun. But then Jerry come around behind him and pulled the gun away from him.
Briggen gave a yell and run up and pulled off the fella’s big cap.
It was the Red Head. I turned around to see Link, but the Skinny Guy wasn’t there. He must of gone back. “Well,” I says, “Monk Bridges, you been helping Stoner’s Boy, huh?”
The Red Head folded his arms and spoke through his teeth. “What of it?” he says. “Ain’t I got the right to pick my own pals?”
“You bet you have,” says Jerry Moore. “After the nice way we treated you last summer, and all we done for you, you turn around and help our enemy.”
“Take him up to our houseboat,” says Dick Ferris. “We will talk about it up there.”
Jerry and Bill Darby and Briggen pushed him along till we got up to the houseboat. We all got inside and put him up in front of the table, and us fellas took our seats, while the Pelham gang stood in back of us.
Just then the door was pushed open again, and in come the Skinny Guy. He looked around quick, and then he saw the Red Head. He give a little sob and run over to him. “Monk,” he says, “they got yuh; I told you they would. Why didn’t you do what I told you?”
Monk the Red Head smiled on Skinny Link and took his hand. “Never mind, Link,” he says, “I’ll get out of this like I get out of everything else and I ain’t got nothing against you. You been a brother to me.”
Briggen laughed out loud. “A fine brother,” hollers Briggen. “Ask him where he was all winter.”
Link looked mean when Briggen said that. “What do you know?” he says. “It ain’t none of your business.”
“No,” laughed Briggen, “maybe it ain’t, but these other fellas wouldn’t like it if they knew the Red Head was in the School for Bad Boys, and broke out a week ago.” The Red Head made one spring on the table, an
d it was over to where Briggen stood. His fist was quicker than the fellas who tried to stop him, and Briggen went down like a lump of lead.
Bill Darby and Lew Hunter grabbed the Red Head and shoved him back. “Don’t try anything like that again,” says Dick Ferris. “If Briggen is telling a lie we will tend to him.”
Briggen got up and rubbed himself. “It ain’t a lie,” he says. “We heard the Red Head and the Skinny Guy talking in the shack last night. The Red Head was eating, and Link was begging him to leave Stoner’s Boy and come and live with him and his pop in their houseboat. But the Red Head wouldn’t do it, and Link says he was afraid they would send some men from the School for Bad Boys to take him back again—”
“That will do,” says Jerry Moore. “Now you and your Pelham fellas get back acrost the river, and let us fellas handle the Red Head. He won’t give you Pelham fellas no more trouble.”
The Pelhams followed their leader out of the houseboat. Dick Ferris hit the table with his wooden hammer, and says, “Monk Bridges, we are going to turn you over to the sheriff, and have you sent back where you come from.”
But the Skinny Guy hollered, “No, Dick, don’t do that. Monk ain’t a bad boy; he just had bad friends. They made him get in trouble.”
Dick hit on the table again. “For your sake, Link,” says Dick, “we would like to set him free, but if we do he will make trouble for us again, him and Stoner’s Boy. So we got to turn him over tomorrow. It’s too bad, but we ain’t got any other way out of it.”
Link started crying. He walked out the door with his sleeve up to his eyes, and his sobs shook his skinny figger like the wind shakes a vine. I never felt so sorry for a fella in my whole life. My eyes got foggy, too. I felt just like I wanted to run and bring him back and say I would make his red head friend free myself, but I knew I couldn’t do it if I wanted to. The rules of our houseboat was whatever our captain ordered. I had to live up to the rules.
Nobody said a word as Link went out. After he was gone, Dick says, “Now, Monk Bridges, we are going to make you a prisoner in this houseboat, and if you try to escape by a window or a door, there are bells that will start ringing and we will hear it and capture you again. Besides, we will have a guard outside the houseboat door and he will have a gun, so you better not try anything foolish. Tomorrow we will bring the sheriff down here to take you back.”
Then we fastened the windows and went out and locked the doors.
“I will be the guard tonight,” says Jerry Moore, “but, Hawkins, you better bring your gun. I don’t like this one the Red Head brought.”
So, after supper I fetched my gun. I says to Jerry, “Did he try to sneak out yet?”
“No,” says Jerry, “the Skinny Guy brought him something to eat; he is eating it there now.”
I says, “You better go home and get your supper. I will watch till you get back.”
The Red Head didn’t try to escape.
Jerry went home at nine o’clock, after he peeped in the window and saw the Red Head sound asleep on the table.
SATURDAY.—The Skinny Guy was down early this morning, and he says to me, “Hawkins, I will stay with you, so the other fellas won’t think I am trying to set Monk free.”
I says, “That’s all right.”
We let the Red Head go out with us in the afternoon, and watch us play ball; we didn’t have the heart to keep him in all day. He behaved very nice, but I think it was because Jerry was always purty close with the gun over his shoulder. When it got dark, the other fellas went home for supper, and me and Jerry stayed to watch till they came back.
When Dick came back, he says, “Hurry and get your supper, Hawkins, then come down and we will send for the sheriff.”
Link come up to me, and says, “Hawkins, how soon you going to give Monk to the sheriff?”
I says, “It’s got to be soon now, Link, ’cause it’s getting late.”
We started a checker game; all the other fellas was watching over our shoulders. All of a sudden come a slow voice saying, “Stand back everyone, and don’t make no noise.”
Jerry jumped for the gun, but found himself looking into the muzzle of it, held by a gray figger standing in the doorway, the gray figger of Stoner’s Boy, with a cape over his shoulders and the hankachiff covering half of his face.
We all jumped back and stood flat against the wall. I heard a shot, and one lamp went out. I saw the Red Head reach out and throw down the other lamp, and there we was in the dark.
“Don’t move,” hollered the voice of Stoner’s Boy, “or you might get hurt.”
The next minit the electric bells started ringing, as one window went up. We stood with our back to the walls; we couldn’t see a thing. I heard Stoner’s laugh outside, reached in my pocket and struck a match. We were alone. Stoner’s Boy was gone, so was the Red Head.
“The fire,” hollered the Skinny Guy, “put it out, there, over in the corner.”
A little blaze sprung up where the lamp was smashed on the floor. The spilled oil caught the flame. In a second we had it stamped out.
“He’s gone,” says Jerry.
Lew Hunter lit two candles standing on the organ. “Well,” says Dick, “we won’t have to bother about the sheriff now.”
“No,” says Jerry Moore, and he looked hard at the Skinny Guy.
Just then we heard coming from the river the sound of Stoner’s horn, and the noise of the motor boat going back up the river.
“We might have known,” says Bill Darby. “We might have expected Stoner to come and save his pal.”
But I says, “There ain’t nothing to do now. We might as well take some money out of our chees hole and buy some new lamps.”
Which we did.
CHAPTER 13
The Light on the Cliff
MONDAY.—Us boys held our regular meeting in the houseboat after school today. Johnny McLaren got up and said, “Us fellas will have to stop this Stoner’s Boy; he has gone too far. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for letting him play all his mean tricks on us.”
Dick Ferris says, “Excuse me, Johnny, maybe if you was captain of this bunch again maybe you could find out a way to catch him.”
Johnny waved his hand. “Forget that kind a talk,” he says, “I ain’t trying to get your job, Dick. I was captain long enough; I don’t want to be the leader of this bunch again. All I want is for you fellas to put your heads together and catch this Stoner’s Boy.”
Jerry Moore got up and says, “Captain, maybe Johnny knows a way to catch Stoner’s Boy.”
Dick says, “If he does, he will tell us.”
Johnny smiled. “You fellas are like boobs sometimes,” he says, “and sometimes you act like you got good sense.”
“We have,” says Dick.
“Don’t try to prove it,” says Johnny, “just listen to my say, and then you can all do as you dern please.”
“Well,” says Dick, “say what you got on your mind?”
Johnny looked around at all the fellas, and then he says, “It seems funny nobody ever thought of it before, but as long as we let Stoner’s Boy get back to the river, he is going to get away. What we got to do is to head him off, so he won’t be able to get back to his motor boat. That dern thing can beat any of our canoes even if we tried to follow him.”
“Well,” says Dick, “suppose we do head him off at the river, what’s he going to do then?”
“Why,” says Johnny, “he will have to run back up into the town or let himself be caught.”
Jerry laughed. “Town, nothing,” says Jerry, “that gray ghost will take to the woods and lose himself among the trees.”
“I thought of that,” said Johnny. “We will have to head him off that way too, and so the only way he will have to go is up town.”
Dick nodded his head. “It’s a good plan,” he says. “Johnny is a boy with ideas. I wish to heaven some of you other boys would do some thinking once in a while.”
Jerry says, “Maybe the captain could do some thin
king, that’s what he is our captain for.”
Dick hit the table with his hammer. “Hawkins,” he says, “fine Jerry a dime for talking back to the captain.” Which I did.
TUESDAY.—The Skinny Guy was fishing on his houseboat when I walked down to the river after our meeting today. I says, “Any luck, Link?”
He shook his head. “Luck,” he says, “what’s that?”
I says, “You ain’t forgot what luck is, have you Link?”
“No,” he says slowly, “no I ain’t forgot it, but it’s forgot me.”
I says, “What you mean?”
He watched his cork in the water steadily while he answered, “I ain’t had none, to speak of, for a long time; luck ain’t in my line. All I git now is something I ain’t looking for, and something I don’t want.”
I walked over to the Skinny Guy. “What’s a matter, Link?” I asks. “Has your daddy been whipping you?”
He looked up quick. “Course not,” he snapped, “you ought’a know better than to ask me that, Hawkins. Pop never licked me in his life, ’cept when I deserved it.”
“Well,” I says, “what’s the trouble?”
Link pulled up his line with a fish on it. “Oh, oh, oh,” he says, “tain’t no use, Hawkins, my life ain’t nothing but one dern fish after another. I git so lonesome when I don’t fish for a couple of days I gotta go up town to the fish market where I can smell ’em.”
I laughed at him. I says, “You been making lots of money, ain’t you?”
He closed one eye and says, “What good is money? I ain’t never had no fun with money. All I want is some good friends, and looks like now I can’t keep a good friend when I git one.”
I says, “I’m your friend, Link, and so are all of the other fellas up in the houseboat.”
He baited his line again. “I know, Hawkins,” he says, “and I like you fellas, but dern if I can forgit the way Monk Bridges did me when he left so sudden like.”
I says, “Oh, let the Red Head alone, he will come back.”
Link went over and threw in his line again. He sat down on the end of the houseboat, and wouldn’t say another word. I walked back up to the houseboat. I looked around, once, and seen Link wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve. “Poor kid,” I says to myself, “poor little skinny kid.”
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