Boys of Oakdale Academy Read online

  Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rick Morris, Rod Crawford,Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Teamat https://www.pgdp.net

  HE LANDED HIMSELF THROUGH THE AIR WITH A LONG GRACEFULLEAP. —Page 31.]

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  BOYS _of_ OAKDALE ACADEMY

  BY MORGAN SCOTT AUTHOR OF “BEN STONE AT OAKDALE,” ETC.

  _With Four Original Illustrations_ _By MARTIN LEWIS_

  NEW YORK HURST AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS

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  Copyright, 1911, BY HURST & COMPANY

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. A Boy of Mystery 5 II. Playing the Part 13 III. Rod's Wonderful Jump 26 IV. The Fellow Who Refused 39 V. Ambushed 50 VI. The Result of a Practical Joke 61 VII. The One Who Laughed Last 70 VIII. The White Feather 80 IX. Moments of Apprehension 88 X. Who Told? 99 XI. In Doubt 110 XII. Cold Weather in Texas 118 XIII. A Bond of Sympathy 129 XIV. A Narrow Escape 136 XV. When a Grant Fights 150 XVI. Independent Rod 162 XVII. The First Snow 170 XVIII. Rabbit Hunting 179 XIX. An Encounter in the Woods 192 XX. A Sunday Morning Caller 200 XXI. What Sleuth Piper Saw 208 XXII. The Fate of Silver Tongue 218 XXIII. Following the Trail 229 XXIV. The Proof 239 XXV. Settlement Day Draws Near 248 XXVI. Grant’s Defiance 254 XXVII. Spotty Refuses to Talk 264 XXVIII. Aroused at Last 274 XXIX. The Incriminating Letter 283 XXX. The Reason Why 291 XXXI. Something Worth Doing 300

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  BOYS OF OAKDALE ACADEMY.

  CHAPTER I.

  A BOY OF MYSTERY.

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

  “A hundred dollars,” drawled Sile Crane, grinning. “Why don’t yeou batesomething while you’re abaout it? Nobody’d bother to take a measlylittle wager like that. Now I’ve kinder got an idee that the new fellerreally comes from Texas, jest as he says he does. I guess he ain’t nofake.”

  “Oh, is that so!” retorted Cooper, a bit warmly. “Well, I’ll talkbusiness to you, Mr. Crane; I’ll really bet you fifty cents RodneyGrant 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 rightto 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,” chuckledChipper. “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-facedchap who was munching peanuts. “I think you’re right, though; I don’tbelieve he’s a Texan. Why, he hasn’t a bit of brogue.”

  “Bub-brogue!” stuttered Phil Springer, who had a slight impediment inhis speech. “Texans don’t have a brogue; they have a dialect—they talkin 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 throughhis hat sometimes. When he tells about living on a ranch and herdingcattle and breaking bronchos and chasing rustlers and catching horsethieves, he gives me a cramp. He certainly can reel off some whoppers.”

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

  “Of late,” said Billy, “I’ve been shadowing this mysterious personagewho came into our midst unannounced and unacclaimed and who has beenthe cause of extensive speculation and comment. My deduction is thatthe before-mentioned mysterious personage is a big case of bluff, and Imust add that, like my astute comrade, Cooper, I gravely doubt if hehas ever seen the wild and woolly West. His tales of cowboy life areextremely preposterous. All cowboys are bow-legged from excessiveriding in the saddle; the legs of Rod Grant—I should say thebefore-mentioned mysterious personage—are as straight as my own.Westerners wear their hair long; Grant—the before-mentioned mysteriouspersonage—has his hair cut like any civilized human being. Likewise andalso, he does not talk as a true Westerner should. Why, nobody has everheard him say ‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’ or any of those characteristicwords 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 bythe radiator. “I think you’re right, Sleuth. Why, I told him only lastnight that no one around here believed him the real thing, because hedidn’t look like it, act like it or talk like it. What do you supposehe said? He claimed he had to keep on guard all the time to preventhimself from using cowboy lingo—said he was sort of ashamed of it andtrying to get out of the habit.”

  Berlin Barker, a tall, cold-eyed chap who had been listening withoutcomment to this conversation, now ventured to put in a word.

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

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

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

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

  “Her
e comes Roger!” exclaimed Fred Sage. “Let’s ask him what he thinksabout the fellow.”

  It was the hour of the noon intermission at Oakdale Academy, and, theseason being early November, with the atmosphere biting cold, RogerEliot stepped forward to warm his hands at the radiator, near whichhovered the group who were discussing the new boy. Roger was a tall,well-built, somewhat grave-looking chap, whose sober face, however, wasoccasionally illumined by a rare smile. The son of Urian Eliot, one ofthe wealthiest and most influential men of the town, Roger, being anatural 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. Wewere trying to size him up, and it seems to be practically theuniversal opinion that he’s a fraud. We doubt if he has ever been westof 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 toldsome wallopers about everything else. I never heard a fellow who couldbust the truth into smithereens the way he can.”

  “Oh,” said Eliot, “I know what you mean. When he first struck Oakdalehe 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 tosling off a few big yarns for his own amusement.”

  “Putting aside the question as to whether he came from the West ornot,” said Barker, “I’ve decided that he’s a quitter—in short, acoward.”

  “What makes you think so?” asked Roger.

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

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

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

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