Salmon's House, to which division of Deepwater College Jack Symonds and his study-mates belonged, was famous for its exclusive set of youngsters—a band who had clubbed together for their own advancement, and the confusion of everybody else, and had named themselves the Crees. It amounted in the long run to a sort of secret society; it had its president, but no one outside its numbers knew who he was. It was never known for certain who the members were, either; and that gave a delightful uncertainty to everything connected with it.
It so happened that both Jack and his friend Billy Faraday were members. With the others, they were notified that on a certain afternoon a special meeting would be held. They knew well enough the object of the meeting. Dick Richard, the founder of the Crees, and the society's first president, had left at the end of the previous term, and there would be some hot contention for his position.
"Do you mean to go for the job, Jack?" asked Billy, as they strolled across the fields to the appointed spot—a secluded position in the rear of a waste of scrub-land.
"Why not? It'd give me a bit of a pull, and there's no end of fun to be got out of it," returned Jack, in his practical manner. "I don't see anyone to give me much of a run for it."
"Except Cummles."
"Except Cummy, of course. And he can't do anything but bluster and kick up a dickens of a row. What sort of a time would we have under him?"
"No sort of a time at all. The man's got no initiative."
"No—but any amount of push and brute strength!" Jack laughed.
When they arrived at Three Skull Hollow—an entirely fanciful name bestowed upon it by the Crees—they discovered that most of the Crees were already assembled, and the loud voice of Les Cummles was dominating the assembly.
"Of course," he was saying, "there's absolutely no question—I'm putting in for the job, and if anyone else thinks he'd like it, let him say so." He stared round with a somewhat truculent expression. "Here's Symonds and Faraday—they'll bear me out in this, I know."
It was a direct challenge.
"Bear you out in what?" asked Symonds quietly.
"Why, my filling Dick's place as president—you're agreeable, aren't you?"
"I don't know so much about that, I was thinking of taking it over myself."
"Hear, hear!" said an invisible Cree, behind Cummy's back. He wheeled round and frowned upon the party.
"Now, what are the laws of electing the president?" he asked.
"Nominations first, and then a show of hands—that's all we've got to do. It's quite simple." He took a seat and addressed the assembled Crees. "I'm in the chair—any nominations for Chief Cree?"
"I propose Les Cummles," said one of the bully's toadies, with clockwork readiness.
"Good—seconded? Thank you. Now, anybody else?"
He looked round fiercely, as if defying anybody else to speak. But, finally, it was shown that he could not carry off the bluff. Billy Faraday spoke in his quiet voice.
"Jack Symonds—my nomination," he said.
"I second that," another Cree spoke quickly, and there was a murmur of approval.
"Anybody else?" Cummles's tone was distinctly nasty by now, and he glared at Bill savagely. "No—well, we'll have a show of hands."
This time he frowned round on the Crees with real anger. He was not a bad general, and he thought that by this show of force he would intimidate any wavering members, and make them feel that it was perhaps better to vote for him and feel safe.
The upraised hands for Cummles were counted slowly; there were twenty-one. And then the Symonds vote was counted.
"Twenty-one also," said the Cree deputed to tell the votes.
"Dead heat!"
"Wait a moment," said Cummles. "As chairman, I have right to a casting vote, and I—"
"Rot—it's a swindle!"
"All right, Moore—I'll settle with you afterwards," said Cummles wickedly. "I've every right to settle—"
"You're a big bluff!"
Feeling was certainly running very high. Lots of the fellows who had timidly voted for Cummles now regretted their action. Moore was an excitable little fellow, and Cummles's threats had roused him to defiance.
"Enough said. I—"
"Yah! Who do we want?"
"Symonds!" There was no mistaking the volume of the shout.
"Casting vote—" roared Cummles.
"Bluffer! Another counting! Another counting!"
"—chairman's right—"
"It's a swindle!"
"—therefore declare that—"
"Symonds, Chief Cree!"
"—I am elected to the position—"
A tremendous hullaboloo arose from the Cree meeting, and about a dozen free fights between heated partisans were taking place. Upright on a raised spot Cummles was endeavouring to state that, giving his casting vote to himself, he was elected Chief Cree. Jack and Billy were more like amused spectators, than anything else. The furious Crees were not anxious to be ruled by the heavy hand of Cummles, but many sought favour in his eyes by endeavouring to quell the insurgents.
There is no saying what might not have followed, but for the fact that a strange diversion had been preparing itself, and now burst upon the meeting of the Crees with no sort of warning. There was not even any preliminary noise; but even if there had been, the uproar in the meeting would have sufficed to drown it. Something darkened the sky with startling abruptness; then, there was an immense crackling and crashing in the scrub near by.
"Look out—coming over!" yelled a voice.
Only one or two heard the cry; Cummles, who was raging like a bull, certainly did not. So that, when some weighty object smashed into his back and hurled him to the ground with violence, he was taken completely by surprise. He was precipitated into the waistcoats of a couple of fellow-Crees who were seated upon the ground.
"Here—help!" shouted the assaulted ones, taking his action for one of personal violence. "What have we—"
"Ouch!" bellowed Cummles, struggling in vain to free himself from the tangle of arms and legs into which he had been so rudely thrown.
"Ha, ha, ha!" When the amazed Crees had collected their wits sufficiently to be able to take in what was happening, the humour of the situation was apparent. The object that had collided with Cummles tugged and clung on to a rope—and at the other end of the rope was an immense kite-like affair that flapped and ducked in the air twenty feet above them. The plight of the astounded Cummles and the dangling and racing legs was farcical in the extreme.
"Help!" came the cry of the aviator. "Grab the rope—she's getting away. Catch hold, quickly!"
Several of the Crees flung themselves on the rope, and, hauling manfully, brought the big kite to the ground. It was tugging with the strength of several bulls, and it required all their strength to bring it to earth. It was quite a big affair, of weird construction, something along the lines of a box-kite, and Septimus Patch himself was seated in a light saddle in the centre of it.
"Patch!" exclaimed Jack Symonds in astonishment.
"That same, comrade! I fear I startled you somewhat—eh? But the machine would not behave."
His assistant, the boy who had been swinging on the rope in an endeavour to hold the kite down was discovered to be Fane, the shy New Zealander. Evidently he and Patch had struck up a friendship.
"Yes," he said, mopping his forehead, "I had my work cut out to keep her down—I've been dragged over a mile and a half of scrub. The blessed thing rises quicker than the price of eggs. Old Septimus nearly had a wetting—didn't you, Patchie, old boy?"
"It looked like it for quite a while," admitted the inventor modestly. "I must allow that I'd forgotten to provide for coming down again, once I'd got up. In the future, I'll have to have about twenty juniors hanging on to the rope. Or I might remedy that before the next ascent."
The Crees had gathered around the big kite, examining it with evident curiosity.
"I say," said one of them, "she must be pretty strong to lift you up like that."
"Well, she's not badly designed, comrade," said Patch, with lordly condescension. "This is Flying Fox III. Numbers I and II, I regret to state, would not fly. They absolutely refused. Why, I don't know. But they—"
He found himself gripped hard by the shoulder, and turned to front the crimson face of Cummles, who, angered as he had been by the opposition to his presidency, had been doubly enraged by his ignominious fall. His dignity had been injured, and as he had a certain prestige among his fellows, he wanted redress.
"Look here," he said, shaking Patch's shoulder till the inventor's horn-rimmed spectacles shivered on his nose. "Look here, what the dickens do you mean by it?"
"Mean by what?"
"Why, barging into my back like that, and sending me flying? It was your wretched kite thingummy, and like your cheek!"
"My dear fellow," said Patch.
"Dear fellow, nothing! It's an apology I want, you glass-eyed goat! Down on your knees, too, and repeat what I say."
"I'm sure it wouldn't be worth repeating," said Patch coldly. "Anyway, there was no need to flare up like that over a simple accident. Reflect, comrade, on the injustice you are doing to yourself, and—"
"If you don't apologize the way I say," said Cummles inflexibly, "then you're going to be put through it."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you'll get bashed," said Cummles, who was obviously in a dangerous mood. His dignity had been injured, and he meant to show the Crees just how he could impose his will on others. It should make an impression, he thought. "If you think you can play your silly fool tricks on me, then you're making the mistake of your young life! See? Now, what about that apology?"
"No," murmured Patch, with a worried air. He had gone very white, for the idea of a physical encounter hardly appealed to him. "You mean you're going to fight me?"
"I don't fight fools like you," said Cummles trenchantly, still bent on showing the Crees what he was made of. "I don't fight them—I just whip them. Apologize?"
For answer, Patch gave one look round on the circle of still, watching faces, and then sighed. Then, with a deliberate movement, he began to take off his coat. A gasp went up, for Cummles was a big, bull-necked sort of fellow, and a regular terror in a fight. Poor Patch, it seemed, was in for a very torrid time; but the spectators were forced to admire his courage. What sort of a chance would he have, though, with a smashing hitter like Cummles?
It was quite unfair, and Jack Symonds for one was dead against it. Cummles would have to learn to control his temper; it was too bad that Patch should get whipped for a pure accident. Just as Jack was on the point of protesting—just as, indeed, he had stepped forward to check the fight preparations, a new voice cut in before he could utter a word.
"Wait a moment." It was Fane, the quiet New Zealander, and he looked shyer than ever as he introduced himself, blushing, into the circle.
"Well?" Cummles demanded, with the truculence of a dog interrupted in worrying a bone.
"Patch mustn't fight—can't fight," said Fane, still in that uneasy, self-conscious manner. "You see—it wasn't his fault, really. I was the one that actually barged into you, and so—"
"Are you ready to take his place then?" demanded Cummles, with brutal directness.
"If necessary."
The Crees were even more disturbed at this, for if Patch was a hopeless opponent for the bully, Fane was even more so. He was half a head shorter than the big fellow, and his appearance was altogether quiet and inoffensive. He removed his coat and, with the air of a veteran, rolled up his sleeves.
"I'll see if I can't justify my title of bully-killer," he said, without any appearance of boasting. "Will one of you give me a knee?"
"But look here—" said Jack.
"Where?"
"It's all absurd. You don't know what you're up against. Cummles here is a fighter—"
"You wouldn't have me back down, would you?"
"No; but—"
"The fight will go on," said Fane simply. "I know how to take care of myself. Cummles was anxious to pick a quarrel, and as Patch can't fight for sour apples—"
Patch was standing by, with a little criss-cross mark of puzzlement showing between his eyes.
"I ought really—" he began.
The sardonic voice of the bully interrupted him. "When you fellows have finished gassing to save time," he said, "I'll be ready to thrash you. Both, if you like—it doesn't matter to me a bit. One after the other—who's first? But hurry up."
He had not troubled to remove his coat, anticipating an easy time with Patch; but now he did so, and rolled up his sleeves, moved by something in the bearing of the quiet boy before him.
Without any further argument, without any courtesies of combat, he and Fane flew at each other, and there was the sound of a collision and heavy blows. For a moment the spectators looked on with dismay, fearing that Fane would pay dearly for his temerity and get hopelessly smashed about. But in a minute or two their apprehension changed to excitement, and they set up a volley of cheering.
Fane was a dark horse—everybody recognized that at a glance. He quite obviously knew more than a little about boxing—and fighting, too. He had a good stance, and hit long and straight, and with both hands, like a professional.
Cummles was vastly shocked when, at the end of the first furious rush, he ran fairly upon a stiff left jab that split his lip instantly. Again and again he strove to get past that propped-out fist, but try as he would he could not get his head out of the way, and every time it was as if he had jammed his face against a beam of wood.
Then, too, Fane's right hand, with heavy body-swing behind it, followed up the left like a piston and thudded upon every portion of Cummles's anatomy in solid drives, until he began to feel acutely miserable, and, stung to desperation like a tormented bear, he commenced to hit with all his force, in wild swings that Fane dodged in good style. It was a magnificent exhibition of pluck and skill of the first water, opposed to brute force and doggedness. Fane seemed to be able to land hits at will. A trickle of blood from the bully's split lip coursed down that fellow's chin, and added nothing to his appearance.
"Go on, the bully-killer!"
The name had caught on, and the Crees yelled it in pure enjoyment, for they had all suffered more or less at Cummles's hands, and they appreciated to the full this repayment of his own medicine.
"Look at him—he's blowing like a grampus!"
Cummles was not in the best of training at this early stage of the term, and he was feeling the disadvantages of his condition. He was puffing badly and perspiring profusely. His movements slowed down and he seemed tired. Fane could not hit hard enough to knock the bigger boy over; but there was no doubt that he was cutting him about badly.
"Hand it out," yelled the bully's enemies, eager for the downfall of their tyrant. "You know, Fane!"
The Crees went simply wild with delight, for Cummles was getting the worst trouncing of his life. They cheered the New Zealander on with loud cries of encouragement, although it would have been impossible to have added to the sting and venom of his attack.
"Go on, Fane!"
"Give it to him—he's been looking for this for a long time!"
The bully-killer, as he had called himself, propped off another of Cummles's blind rushes, with stinging hits.
"Had enough?" he gasped, lowering his hands momentarily.
"No!" wheezed Cummles, lurching forward; and with a tremendous swing he clouted his opponent on the side of the head, sending him flying head over heels to the ground, where he lay outstretched.