CHAPTER XV.
IN THE AUTUMN WOODS.
Don did not attend school that day, for he felt that he could not study, and he wished to be alone. He set out toward the academy, it is true, but kept on, paying no heed to the boys and girls who were gathered in groups about the steps and grounds of the white school building, passed the fenced-in football field, and struck off by a path that led toward the picnic grove in the vicinity of High Bluff.
The fields were showing brown in spots, while here and there a tree was tinted with crimson and gold, the gorgeous banners of advancing autumn. The sky was blue and cloudless, the air clear and still, transmitting distant sounds with a softened distinctness that was agreeable to the ear, while over all seemed to hang the delightful, dreamy languor that is typical of this season in the country.
Crickets were chirping merrily in the brown grass beside the path that led the feet of the unhappy boy toward the picnic grove, but he heard them not, for in his heart there was a tumult that drowned all other sounds. From a farm-yard far across the unrippled harbor sounded the crowing of a cock, mellowed by the distance, but the music of the sound did not seem to reach Don’s ears.
In the heart of the grove he found a mossy bed, upon which he threw himself, giving way to the bitterest reflections. He lay there while the forenoon slipped away. Squirrels chattered in various parts of the grove. A mischievous-looking little chipmunk perched on a stub a few feet away and stared at the reclining lad, observing in an inquiring manner: “Kuk? Kuk? Kuk?” A bluejay lighted on a branch high above him, cocked its tufted head to one side, and shrilly screamed: “Wake up! Get up! Wake up! Come on!” Then, as the lad stirred, he shot away like a blue arrow from a bow, wildly shrieking: “Phe-phay! Phe-phay!”
These sights and sounds did not interrupt the tumultuous flow of the boy’s thoughts, and he was not aroused till the whistles of the mills far across the river told him that the noon hour had arrived. Then he sprang to his feet and hurried from the grove, making great haste to get back to the village.
There was no one in the vicinity of the academy to observe him as he reached it and scudded past, but he found his aunt “sputtering” when he reached home.
“Goodness sakes! where have you been?” she impatiently exclaimed. “The other scholars went past twenty minutes ago, and I had dinner all ready then. Everything will be stone-cold.”
“I—I staid behind,” said Don.
“What for?” she questioned, curiously. “Was it something about your lessons that kept ye?”
And he answered: “Yes.” Having taken the first step by deceiving his father and telling him a falsehood, he was surprised to find how readily this untruth came from his lips.
The doctor ate dinner with them, but his mind seemed to be occupied, so that he talked very little, which was decidedly to Don’s satisfaction.
Leon Bentley was loitering past the house when Don came out, and he called:
“Hello, Scott, old man! Where were you this forenoon? Didn’t see you at school.”
“Shut up, you idiot!” hissed Don, hurrying down the steps and out to the sidewalk. “What do you want to come round shouting like that for?”
“Oh, ho!” grinned Leon. “I catch on! Don’t want your old man to know, eh? Played hookey, did you?”
“I didn’t feel like going to school to-day, and so I’m not going.”
“Then you mean to stay out this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Well, say, I’m with you. Where’ll we go?”
Don was not at all pleased, for he did not desire Leon’s company; but that made no difference to Leon, and, discovering his companion was determined to hang on like a leech, the doctor’s son said:
“I’m going anywhere out of the village. I feel like getting off by myself.”
“Then, say, let’s go over into the Powder Mill Woods. I’ll get my rifle and we can have some fun popping at squirrels and birds. We might strike some partridges. What do you say?”
“I’d as lief go there as anywhere, but I don’t care about tramping all the way round by the road.”
“We’ll get a boat down by Nutt’s Wharf and row over. Let’s turn round and go back for my rifle.”
“I’m not going back, for we’ll meet somebody on the way to the academy.”
“Then I tell you what, you just go straight to the wharf, and I’ll be along as soon as I can get that rifle. Will you do that? Will you go to the wharf and wait for me there?”
“Yes.”
There was something about Don’s manner of saying this that made Leon suspicious, and he quickly demanded:
“Do you mean it? Will you really wait for me at the wharf?”
Instantly the dark-eyed lad blazed forth:
“What do you take me for? Do you think I’m a liar, same as all the others think? Didn’t I say I’d be there?”
“Yes, but I——”
“Well, get your old rifle and come along! Hurry up about it, too!”
“All right,” breathed Leon, hastily. “I’ll hustle, you bet.”
He turned and ran down the street, while Don sullenly walked on, in anything but a pleasant mood. At the first corner, he turned to the left and made for the shore, considering himself lucky when he left the main streets of the village without meeting any of the scholars besides Bentley.
When Leon reached Nutt’s Wharf, he found Don sitting on one of the old spiles, gazing moodily down into the water that was eddying round the barnacle-encrusted timbers. Hearing Bentley approaching, Don looked up, a frown still on his face.
“Well, where’s your rifle?” he asked. “Couldn’t you get it?”
“Sure thing,” grinned Leon, unbuttoning his coat and displaying a small rifle with a detachable stock. “I kept it out of sight by tucking it under there. Just as well, for I ran into some of the fellows, and they would have asked questions if they’d seen it.”
“Now, where’s your boat?” demanded Scott.
“We’ll take Jeff Tyler’s old dory. I know where he hides the oars.”
“Did you ask Jeff for her?”
“What’s the use of asking?” chuckled Bentley. “I’ve used her more than once, and I never asked yet.”
“Jeff might not like it if he knew.”
“What do we care? He’ll never know, for he’s at work over in Lobsterville. Come on.”
Don followed Leon, who drew out the oars from their place of concealment beneath some old timbers piled at one end of the wharf, and then led the way round to the tagging, slimy steps that enabled them to reach the dory. Don entered the boat first, Leon casting off the line and springing in a moment later.
“We’d better not pull straight across,” said the doctor’s son. “There goes the academy bell. We might be seen, so let’s pull up the shore to Duffy’s Nose and keep under the land till after school begins.”
“All right,” said Leon. “Go ahead. I’ve got to take care of this rifle.”
He made a pretense of disposing of the rifle, while Don took the oars and rowed away up the shore. Bentley lighted a cigarette and found a comfortable position in the stern of the dory.
“This is great stuff,” he nodded, with satisfaction. “It’s a corking day. A fellow’s a fool to mope away his time in school on such a day as this. Say, you can’t guess what the fellows said about you because you failed to show up this forenoon.”
“I don’t give a continental what they said!” snapped Don.
“They said you were afraid,” grinned Leon, exhaling a great breath of thin, blue smoke. “You stirred up a dickens of a mess when you accused Renwood of doing that job; but, say, didn’t he come back at you with both feet! That must have jarred you some.”
Don had stopped rowing, and his face showed how his companion’s words had aroused him.
“So they say I’m afraid?” he muttered, bitterly. “I didn’t think about that. If I had thought—— But what do I care what they say!”
“Of course you don’t care, old man. I’m your friend, and I’ll stick by you. If the whole town says you did that trick, I’ll never believe it. I know better.”
Leon said this with such evident earnestness that the unfortunate youth could not help feeling gratitude and showing it.
“Thank you, Bent,” he said, his voice being a trifle husky despite himself. “I’m glad to hear you say that, anyhow. I won’t forget it, either.”
“I don’t believe you are the kind to forget easily,” asserted the crafty Leon. “It wouldn’t be like you to forget that I was the only one to stand by you and believe in you when almost everybody turned against you.”
“No, I do not forget easily, and I’ll not forget Dolph Renwood! My turn will come, and I’ll soak him when it does! I suppose they were saying all manner of nasty things about me?”
“Rather. They said you put up a big bluff, but Sterndale was sure you’d come round and cave in before night.”
“He never made a bigger mistake in his life.”
“But he says he’s going to apply to your father for pay for the football and suits if you don’t fork over. You don’t want him to do that, do you?”
“I don’t want him to, but I’ll never pay to keep him from doing it. Not in a million years! If he thinks I will, he’ll find he’s awfully mistaken.”
Don was rowing again, and he pulled the boat up under the shelter of the high promontory known as Duffy’s Nose, where they lingered till they knew the afternoon session at the academy had begun. Then away across the harbor the boat went, with Scott laboring at the oars and Bentley lazily smoking in the stern. Into Crab Inlet they steered, pulling up as far as the bridge across Powder Mill Creek. Having tied the dory beneath the bridge, where it would remain hidden from view, they set off on foot toward the Old Powder Mill.
Leon put his rifle together and loaded it, having brought along a supply of cartridges, and began to look round for something to shoot.
“I wouldn’t mind taking a shot at a sheep or a cow, just for fun,” he grinned. “It would be sport just to wing somebody’s old cow enough to make her run and kick up.”
“I fail to see where the fun would come in,” growled Don.
At the Powder Mill Dam, where the water came rippling over in a shining sheet, they lingered a while, and Bentley fired at a swimming fish, but did not touch it. Don would have been content to remain there longer, but his companion was eager to plunge into the woods and discover something to shoot.
The chatter of a squirrel caused Leon to hurry forward eagerly. They came in sight of the squirrel after a time, a handsome fellow, with a large, bushy tail, and Bentley began shooting, while Don looked on. After Leon had fired four times, the squirrel scampered off and disappeared, quite unharmed.
“Well, I have my doubts about your being able to hit a cow unless you put the muzzle of the rifle against her,” said Don.
Leon flushed, chagrined at his ill success.
“It’s a pretty good trick to hit a little object like a squirrel with this kind of a rifle,” he declared. “I bet you can’t do it.”
“I don’t see the fun in shooting squirrels, anyway,” retorted Don.
“Oh, you don’t?” grinned Bentley, tauntingly. “That’s because you know you can’t hit one. You don’t dare to try.”
He continued to talk in this manner till they came upon another squirrel, when he held out the rifle and invited Don to show what he could do.
“Get out!” retorted the dark-eyed lad. “I don’t want to shoot him. See how handsome he looks, perched on that limb with his tail up over his back.”
Leon sneered and scoffed, persisting that Don did not wish to shoot because he knew he could not hit the squirrel, till, with an angry exclamation, the doctor’s son caught the rifle from his companion’s hand, took careful aim and fired.
From the limb an object dropped toward the ground, which it struck with a sodden plump.
“You got him!” shouted Leon. “Why, you’re a crackajack!”
He ran forward, and Don followed slowly with the rifle, a strange look on his face. There was a rustling beneath the tree, and Bentley made a forward dive, crying:
“Great smoke! he’s trying to get away! You broke his back!”
The other boy stood still, his eyes following the crippled squirrel that was trying to drag itself away to a place of concealment. Leon headed off the wretched little creature and began poking it about with a stick he had picked up.
“Stop that!” snarled Don, springing at his companion, with his eyes blazing. “Why don’t you kill him? Can’t you see he’s suffering?”
Then he caught the stick from Leon’s hand and struck the squirrel till the tiny animal lay motionless and dead at his feet. This done, Don straightened up and stood staring down at the work of his hand, his lips quivering queerly, while something seemed to swell up in his throat and almost choke him.
“Hoop-la!” shouted the other lad. “You’re a mighty hunter and a dead shot, but I’ll bet you a quarter you miss the next one you shoot at.”
“Take your old rifle!” palpitated Don, thrusting the weapon at Leon. “I wouldn’t shoot at another one for fifty dollars!”
“Why, it’s sport!” laughed Leon. “That’s what we came over here for.”
“It’s not sport for me, and I didn’t come here for anything of the kind. I’m going back to the dam.”
“Not now? Why, we’re going to hunt through the woods for partridges.”
“You may go where you like,” said Don, turning away. “When you get ready to go home, you’ll find me down by the dam.”
His thin lips curling, Leon stared after Don, who talked swiftly away. Bentley scornfully muttered:
“He’s got a soft spot about him, after all, or he’d not act that way over a common squirrel.”
Alone by the dam, Don lingered in the sunshine, listening to the plashing water and the rustling whispers of the wind amid the trees. His face, that had been hard and angry, was sad and shaded with sincere regret.