CHAPTER X

Mysterious Happenings

When the pile was untangled, Garry Grayson rose to his feet with all the breath knocked out of him. He stood there gasping while Rooster kicked the goal, making the score 13 to 7 in favor of Lenox.

Before the ball could again be put in play the referee's whistle blew and the game was over.

The Pawling team, game in defeat, lined up and cheered the victors, who responded in kind, and then the boys broke for the clubhouse to escape the throng that swarmed down on the field from the Lenox section, intent on mauling and pounding their heroes. Garry was caught up in the swirl and carried round the field on the shoulders of his hilarious schoolmates, who only relinquished him reluctantly at the door of the clubhouse.

Once inside, Garry was the center of congratulations from his comrades on the team, who were frenzied with joy.

"Gee, Garry, how did you do it?" asked Nick, clapping him on the back.

"You went through that whole Pawling team like a knife through butter!" exclaimed Rooster.

"They couldn't have stopped him with an axe," jubilated Tom Allison, as he reeled off some steps of a snake dance. "It wasn't football; it was magic."

Mr. Phillips was less demonstrative than Garry's comrades, but his face was radiant with satisfaction as he put his hand on Garry's shoulder.

"Well done, Grayson," he said cordially. "That was the finest example of line bucking I've ever seen outside of a college game. It took nerve and determination of a high order, and you deserve the thanks of the school."

For several days after the game with Pawling Garry and his mates went around in a mood of exaltation. They had got the jump on the season by winning the first game. They were confident of other victories to come. There was not a cloud in their sky.

Then things began to happen, mysterious things that disturbed both teachers and students and filled the school with a vague unrest.

One morning Professor Blythe entered his orderly classroom to be confronted with a piece of malicious mischief that filled him with indignation.

A large map of the ancient Roman Empire hung along one side of the room. It was a fine and costly one, and was known to be highly prized by the Latin teacher.

Over the face of the map were large blotches of ink, obscuring the names of cities and outlines of countries. The miscreants, whoever they were, had done their work thoroughly. The costly map was ruined.

The excitement attendant upon this act of vandalism had scarcely abated when another sensation claimed the attention of the school. Several electric fans had been taken apart and essential parts had been spirited away, leaving the devices useless.

Mr. Allen, the principal, called a special assembly of all the students of the school and voiced a strong warning to the boys and girls under his control.

"This atrocious conduct must stop--and shall," he finished impressively. "Any student who injures or tampers with property belonging to the school is no better than a thief. Lenox has never tolerated and never will tolerate acts of malicious mischief. The offenders, when discovered, will be dealt with as they deserve."

After practice on the field that afternoon, Rooster, Bill and Garry strolled out for a walk in the country adjoining Lenox to discuss the recent and unpleasant developments at the school.

"It's got to a point where everybody suspects his neighbor," remarked Rooster.

"I only hope whoever's at the root of the trouble will take warning and stop in time," observed Garry thoughtfully. "These practical jokers think they're smart, but after all they're only nitwits."

"Talking about jokes, look at that poor old cow," said Rooster, pointing toward a field they were just passing. "I'll bet anything she thinks the joke's on her."

Dusk was falling thickly. Bill and Garry followed the direction of Rooster's pointing finger, but it was Garry who first discerned what he meant.

"Poor old bossy!" he laughed. "Her gate had been blocked up by some fallen rails and she can't get home. Listen to her moo."

"Wants to be milked," said Bill, climbing the fence and jumping into the pasture, with Rooster and Garry at his heels.

The cow welcomed their coming with a deep, pleading moo. They could see that the beast was suffering, for it was long past milking time.

"We'll get you out of your trouble in a jiffy, old girl," promised Garry. So he and his mates set to work and soon had the passage cleared.

The cow mooed gratefully and lumbered on her way, while the boys turned back to the road. As they did so, they saw three figures flit by in the dusk.

There was something familiar about those three figures, enveloped though they were in the semi-gloom. But when the boys reached the highway the road was clear before them as far as they could see.

"They've disappeared in a hurry," remarked Rooster. "I could have sworn that fellow on the outside was Sandy Podder. Walked like him, sort of a lazy slouch, hands in pockets, and now he and the fellows with him have done the vanishing act."

"Easy enough to be mistaken about identity in the dusk like this," said Garry carelessly. "Likely enough it wasn't Sandy at all."

"Speaking of that gink reminds me," put in Bill, and he went on to tell them of the conversation he had heard a few days before near the Stewarts' garage.

"I was as sore as a boil that I couldn't get on to what they were cooking up," he said, "but Lent's mother came along and I had to beat it. Whatever it was, Sandy seemed to be pretty sure it would work. Sandy said it was a pip."

"A pip?" laughed Garry. "All his schemes are pips to Sandy. It's only when he tries to put them in practice that they fall down. I guess this last one will meet the fate of all the others."

He might not have been so carefree had he known that Sandy Podder, Lent Stewart, and Chat Johns were at that very moment within earshot. As Garry and his chums passed an old deserted barn at the side of the road, the three plotters peered around a corner of it, grinning gloatingly. Inspiration had come to Garry's enemies, and they were about to make the most of it. Meanwhile, all unsuspecting, Garry, Bill, and Rooster wended their way home to good suppers and later a dreamless night's sleep.

Arriving at school the next morning, they entered their Latin room to find pandemonium broke loose.

Boys were laughing, shouting, jumping on desks to get a better look at the creature that undeniably held the center of the stage. This, Garry ascertained a moment later, was a cow, a great sleek meek-eyed cow!

"Jumping Jupiter!" cried Rooster. "How did that get here?"

"She came to pay us a morning call," replied Tom Allison, spying his friends and elbowing his way toward them.

"We're going to take her out on the campus and have fresh milk for lunch," added Pete Maddern, with a grin. "Get your tin cups ready, boys."

"But how did she get here?" asked Garry bewilderedly.

"That's what I should like to know," said a grim voice in the doorway.

The voice belonged to Mr. Blythe, and the students scattered before his indignant approach.

They formed such a comical contrast, the soft-eyed, bewildered cow and the grim, wrathful man as they exchanged look for look, that laughter broke in a wave over the room.

Mr. Blythe turned fiercely upon the boys.

"This is no laughing matter," he cried. "I am sorry that any student of mine finds it so. It is an outrage and shall be reported at once to the principal."

"The cow or the outrage?" Rooster whispered to Garry, but the latter nudged him to be silent.

"Old Blythe's on the rampage," he warned. "Better lie low."

"Take this animal outside," commanded the teacher irately. "Drive her out! Drive her out! Shoo!"

Again laughter assailed the boys. It doubled them up until they were breathless and weak from glee. However, at another stern command from the teacher some of them got behind the animal, some of them before, in an attempt to urge the cow from this unfamiliar stamping ground.

But bossy was scared now, and hard to move. Garry finally had an idea. He went out to the campus and returned with a handful of grass. Amid much hilarity he lured the animal inch by inch, step by step toward the front door.

The progress was marked by great pomp and ceremony, fully half the students of the school watching it while they howled with laughter. Order was for a time completely suspended and chaos reigned.

Arrived at the front door, the cow refused to go further, even for the tempting fodder in Garry's hand. It was necessary, therefore, for some half dozen boys to get behind and push.

"Step on the accelerator," cried a wag, and again there was a gleeful outburst.

Urged on irresistibly, the reluctant creature finally stepped out into the open. She had scarcely appeared there before a wrathful farmer came rushing up, declaring that he had searched over half of Lenox for his property. He took charge of the cow and led her off.

Once more back in their classrooms, the "joke" assumed more serious proportions. With the cow removed, the boys could see that this incident of the animal's appearance in the schoolhouse had probably been conceived and carried out by the same mischief-makers who had ruined Mr. Blythe's map and tampered with the electric fans.

"There's bound to be a big row over this," predicted Bill, as he and Garry were selecting the books they would need for the morning period. "Mr. Allen won't let this pass. He'll probably make a thorough investigation, and if he finds the fellows who planted that cow here, I feel sorry for them, that's all."

Bill Sherwood was right about the course the principal would take. Mr. Blythe entered an indignant protest at the office, and Mr. Allen promised to discover and punish the offenders if such a thing were possible.

"I will question each pupil separately," he declared, "and I am confident I shall have a clue to the rascals before school closes this afternoon."

This he did, beginning with the lower classes and progressing steadily towards the higher grades.

It was a long and tedious business, but it was evident to the least observant of the students that Mr. Allen was in deadly earnest about the matter and determined to get at the root of it.

About mid-morning the principal entered Garry's class. When it came to the latter's turn to be questioned he answered in a straightforward manner that he knew nothing about how the cow happened to be in the classroom that morning. The same answer was given as regarded the map and the fans.

Rooster, Bill, Nick, and Ted answered in the same way, as did all the other boys in that class.

"I am forced to take your word in this matter," said the principal, when the questioning was over. "But if I find that any of you have deceived me or have withheld information that might lead to the detection of the boys I seek, the punishment meted out to you will be far more severe than I had originally intended. Is there any one of you--" he paused and looked sternly about the attentive class--"who remembers something he would like to say to me."

There was dead silence. Mr. Allen spoke to the teacher in a low tone and went from the room.

Thus he went from class to class until he reached the junior grades. In these were included Sandy Podder and Lent Stewart.

The principal's examination, so far vain, took on an added impetus when he questioned Sandy Podder.

"Do you know anything of this, Podder?" Mr. Allen asked, almost perfunctorily.

Sandy hesitated. The hesitation was noticed and the class became immediately interested.

"Why--I--I--don't know anything very certain, Mr. Allen," Sandy said, with apparent reluctance.

The worried frown on the principal's face deepened.

"Tell me what you do know," he commanded.

"Why, it's--it's only that I happened to see some boys with a cow last night." Sandy spoke still more reluctantly, as though the facts were being drawn from him against his will.

"You did?" The principal's look became interested, intent. "Can you give me the names of those boys?"

"Why, I hardly know. I couldn't be sure. You see, it was nearly dark--"

"But you think you know the names of those boys, don't you?" Mr. Allen interrupted abruptly. "Speak out, Podder. I must know the truth."

"Well, then," replied Sandy, still with well-simulated reluctance, "I heard those boys talk, and I am sure that one of them was Garry Grayson."