CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FORGERY DISCOVERED.
The second bell was ringing when Don entered the academy the following morning. As he stepped through the doorway he felt a pull at his sleeves and a well-known voice whispered in his ear:
“Well, did you do it, Scott?”
Bentley had been waiting for him, and Don saw the fellow’s face over his shoulder.
“Yes,” he answered quickly, in a low tone. “I got a good chance last night, for I waited with Sterndale till after the others were all gone home, pretending I wanted to have a talk with him. Then, when he didn’t see me, I dropped the letter just where Renwood had been sitting, and I saw him pick it up.”
“Good!” chuckled Leon. “Something will drop on Mr. Renwood to-day! You did a good job, old man.”
But Don had already begun to regret his action, having found time to think it over soberly when his blood had cooled somewhat, and he was not at all proud of what Bentley called “a good job.” His hatred for Renwood had not abated in the least, but his conscience told him he had made a false step. Had he by any honest means obtained possession of a letter from Dolph to Phil Winston in which the Rockspur coach betrayed to Winston the weak points of the Rockspur team, he would have denounced the traitor openly before the members of the eleven, backing up his charges with the letter. But, in a way that now seemed sneaking and underhand, he had succeeded in causing the letter forged by Bentley to fall into the hands of the captain of the team, and, even though he had no doubt of Renwood’s guilt, he now saw that he would not stand in a very favorable light were the whole matter made public. More than that, he felt that he had, to a certain extent, placed himself in Bentley’s power.
Leon, however, troubled by no such prickings of his conscience, chuckled inwardly as he entered the school-room.
“If it’s found out that the letter ain’t genuine, nobody can lay it onto me,” he thought. “I wasn’t around the old club-room to drop it there.”
To the surprise of both Scott and Bentley, the forenoon passed without any reference being made to the letter by Sterndale. The expected exposure did not come, and Leon was greatly disappointed. He hurried after and overtook Don as the doctor’s son was walking swiftly homeward.
“Are you sure Sterndale got hold of that letter?” asked the youthful rascal.
“I saw him pick it up,” asserted Don.
“Did he read it?”
“He looked at it, started, and then quickly put it into his pocket.”
“Well, it’s mighty queer, that’s all,” said Leon. “Why didn’t he jump on Renwood? He didn’t say a word—not a blessed word!”
“It is queer,” admitted Don; “but I think it’ll come out before night. He may be waiting to jump on Renwood to-night when we go up to practice.”
“Oh, I’ll be there!” sang Leon, as he skipped off at a corner on his way home.
Arriving home, Don ran lightly up the stairs to his room, the door of which he found standing slightly ajar. When he entered, he was surprised and startled to see his father standing by a window with a crumpled sheet of writing-paper in his hand. Instantly the boy felt that some unusual thing had brought the doctor to that room just then, and he halted, his face turning somewhat pale.
The doctor, likewise pale, regarded his son with searching eyes, making Don feel that his very thoughts were bring scrutinized.
“My son,” said the physician, calmly, “how does it happen that I find this half-written letter of mine in your waste-basket? I am sure I did not place it there.”
It was some seconds before the abashed youth found his voice, which did not sound quite natural when he finally spoke.
“I—I don’t know, father,” he said. “Let me see. Oh, yes! Why, I went down to your desk for some writing-paper one evening, and that was with the sheets when I brought them up here. I thought it didn’t amount to anything, so I threw it into the waste-basket.”
The doctor still regarded his son steadfastly, causing the blood to mantle Don’s cheeks, driving away the pallor and making his face very red. He felt for the first time in his life that he was not believed by his father, and the shame and humiliation of that feeling burned like coals of fire within his swelling bosom. No greater punishment for his wrong-doing, deception and falsehoods could have been inflicted upon him than befell at that moment, when he realized that his father doubted his statement and had lost confidence in him. In those few moments he suffered more keenly than ever before in all his life.
The doctor stepped toward Don slowly, placed a hand gently on his shoulder, and, in a low voice, said:
“My son, I am very sorry.”
Then he went out of the room and descended the stairs, leaving the stricken lad standing there, his hands clenched, his teeth set, his whole body trembling.
“He knows!” panted the miserable boy—“he has found out about the forged excuse! The jig is up, and my father knows just what kind of a wretched liar and two-faced hypocrite I am! Oh, I wish I were dead! I wish I’d never been born.”
He walked the floor, his soul torn by the poignant anguish that he had brought upon himself by his own false steps. Fancying he could never again look his father in the face, he thought of running away, of drowning himself, of doing anything to escape the mortification of the ordeal.
Then came a sudden, fierce surge of anger. “Renwood is to blame for it all!” he panted. “But for him I’d never done any of these things, for I’d stayed on the eleven, and it would not have been necessary! Oh, how I hate him! How I hate him!”
He made no attempt to reason calmly, therefore it was not possible for him to see the unjustness of his position. His eyes were not yet fully opened to his own moral weakness, nor had this exposure unveiled to him all the pitfalls of the crooked road into which he had been led by his ungoverned anger and by the craft of a bad companion.
As he was fuming about Renwood, he heard somebody leave the house. Hurrying through the hall to the front of the house, he looked out from a window in time to see his father pass through the front gate and join a bearded man who had paused on the sidewalk to wait for him. The bearded man was Simeon Drew, the deputy sheriff of the village of Rockspur. The two men walked away toward the village, Dr. Scott talking earnestly and Drew listening.
“Now, what does that mean?” wondered Don, beset by a sudden, vague sense of peril. “I don’t understand why Sim Drew waited for father at the gate, and I’d give a dollar to know what father is telling him.”
Having watched them till they disappeared from view, he hurried downstairs, where dinner was waiting, and Aunt Ella was in a state of flustered worriment.
“I can’t understand it,” declared the flushed woman. “Something has happened that worries Lyman, and he hasn’t told me what it is. He didn’t even wait to eat dinner, yet I’m sure he ain’t going to see a patient.”
Don did not eat much himself, but, after swallowing a few mouthfuls, he got away from the house, fearing his father might return and find him there.
The boys were practicing in the academy yard when he arrived, nearly all of the eleven having eaten with great haste and returned. He joined them, but somehow his work lacked the dash and vim he had put into it the previous night, his heart being gnawed by hatred for the quarter-back of the eleven.
It was plain Sterndale had remained silent about the letter, for Renwood continued to coach, apparently greatly in earnest, although Don was satisfied that all his earnestness was false pretense.
Scott found an opportunity to say a word to Bentley before the afternoon session began.
“A nice scrape you’ve got me into!” he guardedly snapped.
“Hey?” said Leon, showing his teeth. “What are you talking about?”
“About the forgery.”
“Forgery!” gasped the young rascal, his face turning yellowish-white. “Why—what—what forgery? You don’t mean——”
“I mean that excuse to the professor. My father has found out about that.”
“Oh!” said Leon, with a long breath of relief. “I thought you meant—something else. I thought you meant—er—that letter.”
“No; but I wouldn’t be surprised if that came out, too. I wish I’d never had anything to do with you!”
“But you did, and you’re just as deep in the mud as I am in the mire. You can’t peach now without giving yourself away.” He grinned as he said this, and, with an angry growl, Don hastened into the academy, fully expecting to be called up before the professor and questioned about the forged excuse.
To his surprise, nothing of the kind happened that afternoon. After school he went directly to the football field with the others of the team, where the usual amount of practice was obtained; but Don continued to worry, which made it impossible for him to appear at his best. Bentley kept away from the field, and still Dick Sterndale remained silent about the letter that had been prepared for the undoing of Renwood.
Puzzled, apprehensive, distressed, Don came down from the field and encountered Simeon Drew, who seemed to be waiting for him. The boy’s heart gave a heavy thump as the officer spoke to him.
“I won’t detain ye but jest a minute,” said Drew; “but I want to talk with ye private. Jest come over here to Robinson’s barn.”
Don followed, feeling both dread and wonder. He could not understand how the deputy sheriff might be concerned with the affair of the forged excuse, yet he feared that somehow he had done something that brought him beneath the ban of the law.
“Set down,” invited Drew, when they were in the barn, the door of which stood wide open. “I want to ax ye a few questions.” He pointed to a feed-box, while he picked up a stick, took out his knife and leisurely planted himself in the most comfortable position possible for him to assume upon a saw-horse, which he tipped down on its side.
Don remained standing. “What do you want of me?” he asked, nervously.
“I want to find out what you know about this here forgin’ business,” explained Sim, beginning to whittle. “I’ve kinder figgered it out that you know somethin’, an’ you might jest as well tell all ye know. It’ll be the best thing to do.”
It had come at last, and the boy braced himself to meet the emergency.
“I’d like to know what you have to do with it, anyway,” he said.
“Me?” cried Sim, looking up from his whittling. “Well, I guess, b’ Jim, I’ve gut somethin’ to do with it! I’m an officer of the law, an’ I’m goin’ to ’rest the forger.”
“Why you can’t arrest him for that little thing!”
“Can’t? Well, you don’t know much about law! It’s a State’s prison offense.”
Don gasped, but he quickly decided that the man was trying to frighten him, and he forced a laugh, which, however, sounded faint and unnatural.
“Get out!” he said. “I know better! It’s something for my father to settle with Professor Alden, and you don’t have anything to do with it.”
“Hey? Well, by Jing! I’d like to know what Professor Alden has ter do with it! It don’t consarn him nohow.”
“Why, the excuse was given to him.”
“The what? What be you talkin’ about? I don’t know northin’ about no excuse.”
“You don’t?” cried the astonished boy. “Then what are you talking about?”
“About that check for twenty-five dollars with your father’s name forged onto it,” answered the deputy sheriff.