Chapter VII
Turning It Over to Rob
Ralph turned hastily and gave Rob a strange look. Unconsciously he was already beginning to realize that Rob Blake could always be depended on to do the right thing when it came to a question of action.
“You’ve got a reason for talking like that, I’m sure, Rob?” he observed.
“I admit it,” came the answer, without the slightest hesitation. “Tell me first if you positively know that Peleg took your things?”
“Well, the evidence is only what you might call circumstantial,” admitted the other. “I remembered seeing him going hurriedly out of the barn an hour before I showed you and the rest of the fellows through there. He acted a bit guilty. I thought he avoided us; but the poor fellow has always been somewhat shy about meeting strangers, because he must know some mention will be made of his history, and that of his family. No, I can’t say I’ve got any positive proof he is the guilty one, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’ll tell you something, Ralph,” said the patrol leader, quietly. “Perhaps it may not mean much to you; but when a fellow becomes a scout, you see, he begins to study character, and notices a good many little things that show which way the wind blows, just as straws are said to do.”
“Go on, then, please; I’ll be glad to hear what you have to say, Rob.”
“It happened that when I was alone this morning I took a little stroll back of the barns, just to amuse myself by looking at the pigs, for they’re always amusing, in my mind. There I ran across Peleg, though at the time I didn’t know that was his name, or anything about him. What do you suppose the boy was doing?”
“Oh! I couldn’t guess in a year,” replied the other.
“Well, he had managed to pick up a young crow that had in some way broken its wing and couldn’t fly,” continued Rob, with a smile. “I suppose it would have been put out of its misery in a hurry by any ordinary farm hand; and perhaps Peleg himself might have fired at the black thieves if he found them getting at the corn in the field. But a wounded bird, and one in pain, distressed him. He was trying to mend that broken wing, and I found myself interested in watching how he succeeded.”
“That’s sure a queer thing for a farm boy to do,” admitted Ralph. “What could have been his idea, do you think?”
“I imagine he had more than one,” Rob replied, soberly enough. “In the first place, he was sorry for the poor thing, for he handled it as tenderly as if it had been a human being. Then I actually suspect that the boy has, deep down in his heart, a vague desire to do surgical work, though you might find it hard to believe.”
Ralph whistled.
“You don’t say?” he ejaculated, looking as though he hardly knew whether to laugh at the idea, or take what Rob was explaining seriously.
“I told you I was interested,” the other went on, “and I asked him a number of questions as to who had showed him how to go about mending a bird’s broken wing in that way. He said no one had, but it just seemed to be the natural thing for him to do. Honestly, Ralph, when I saw what a clever job he made of it I knew that boy had the making of a grand surgeon in him, if ever he found a chance to do the proper studying. It’s a gift, you know, with some people, and money can never purchase it. Clever surgeons are born, not made.”
Again Ralph puckered up his lips, and gave vent to a whistle, which seemed to be his pet way of expressing surprise.
“All that is mighty interesting, I own up, Rob,” he said, presently, after he had taken a little time to think matters over. “If it hadn’t been for this unfortunate happening, I’d be tickled half to death to try and encourage Peleg if he had secret ambitions that way. But why do you think, because he bothered mending a broken wing for a young crow, that he couldn’t have robbed me?”
“For this reason,” replied Rob. “Remember, I may turn out wrong, but I’m going on general principles when I say that I never yet have found that a fellow with such a tender heart could really be a bad case. So, on the strength of my observations, I want you to promise me that you’ll suspend sentence on Peleg until you have more positive proof.”
“I agree, and only too willingly,” said Ralph. “In fact, I’ll be glad to turn the whole case over into your hands for settlement. Do just whatever you think best about it. If you need any help, call on me. I’d be mighty glad to learn I was doing Peleg an injustice; for I’d try and make it up to him in every way I could. Shake hands on that, Rob, will you?”
So the agreement was ratified, and the other boys in the back seat did not even know what their chums had been discussing. It happened that Sim and Andy were engaged in a heated argument concerning something that they did not think the same about.
Shortly afterwards they arrived at the lake where they expected to do their fishing. A boat was procured, and after they had purchased some live bait from a man who lived near the water they started forth.
This was a sport which Rob and his two chums always enjoyed very much. Perhaps they might not meet with such good luck as if they had come early in the morning; but, then, no one can tell when the bass will take hold. It often happens that on a hot and still day nothing may be done until along about four in the afternoon when a breeze arises, with a spatter of rain in the bargain. Somehow, every fish in the lake seems to get ravenously hungry all at once, judging from the way in which they snap at any kind of bait.
“Let’s hope some such good luck comes our way, then,” remarked Sim, when Ralph had mentioned this peculiarity in connection with the gamiest fish that swims in fresh water, barring none. “The day has been warm and still enough, for that matter. There are signs of a shower later on, if those clouds mean anything over in the southwest. I guess we’d better not go too far away, Ralph, because for one I’d hate to get soaked through and through.”
“I’m taking the waterproof coverings from the car along, so that in case it does rain we can keep fairly dry,” explained Ralph, as they started forth.
For an hour they had very little luck. Then the conditions mentioned by Ralph seemed to suddenly come about, for the clouds covered the heavens, a breeze sprang up, and drops of rain began to fall.
“I’ve got one, and a hard fighter!” shouted Sim, as he bent his energies to the task of successfully playing his victim in order to tire the fish out, so a landing net might be successfully used.
“Here’s another, and just as big as yours, Sim!” ejaculated Andy from the bow.
By the time Sim managed to boat his catch, Rob was busily engaged; and, in turn, Ralph found plenty to do in handling an even more vicious fighter.
“Say, this is the best fishing I ever struck!” admitted Sim, some time later, as he cracked another capture on the head with a billet of wood in order to put it out of suffering, and then deposited the victim with a dozen others lying in the bottom of the boat.
The fun kept up furiously for half an hour more. Then the bass ceased biting almost as suddenly as they had commenced. Perhaps the fact that the clouds had broken, allowing the sun to shine again, had something to do with this change.
“We ought to be satisfied!” declared Andy, “after all that fun. I reckon we must have as many as twenty bass in the boat, running as high as three pounds, and enough to make a meal for two families.”
“Dandy fighters every one of ’em!” added Sim, “and I’ll remember this afternoon, I tell you, Ralph. This is a great little lake, and doesn’t seem to be fished to death, either.”
“No, the people down at Wyoming seem to prefer going to several other lakes and streams nearer at home,” the other explained. “Besides that, most of them are born trout fishermen. You know, some fellows pretend to look down on black bass as game fish.”
“Well, they don’t know what a fighter is, then, that’s all,” asserted Andy. “My stout rod bent nearly double many a time when they bore down. ’Course a bass doesn’t jump for a fly like a trout, just sucks it in; but once hooked I’ll match him against anything that wears fins and scales.”
They were now ready to quit and start for home. Ralph wanted to stop on the way and leave a portion of the catch with a poor widow who had a brood of children.
“We couldn’t begin to eat them all, you know,” he told the others. “I’m sportsman enough to stop taking fish when some one can’t use them. Mrs. Murphy has a hard time getting on with her family. We all like to give her a hand when we can. Many’s the string of fish I’ve left at her door, even when I had to go home without any myself. But, then, I’m not very fond of bass for eating, much as I love to feel them pull at the end of my line.”
“What was that you were saying about our going in to town tomorrow, Ralph?” asked Sim, when they were well on their way home.
“Why, there’s going to be a pretty fine entertainment, and I thought you’d like to hear that girl sing dad was telling you about. We believe she’s going to make her mark on the opera stage some of these days. So, if you’re agreeable, we’ll run in.”
It was decided that way, and not one of them dreamed how a strange Destiny was shaping her ends in beckoning them toward the town of Wyoming after nightfall, yet such really proved to be the case.