CHAPTER XI

Under Suspicion

At the mention of Garry Grayson's name there was a startled murmur among the students. Mr. Allen was himself surprised, but kept an impassive face. He looked closely at Sandy Podder.

"Did you recognize any of the other boys that you say were with Grayson?" he asked.

"I think Bill Sherwood and Rooster Long were with him," Sandy returned, still with the air of having these things wrung from him. "Though of course," apologetically, "as I said before, it was impossible for us to tell exactly."

"Us," said the principal sharply. "Then there were others with you when you made this discovery."

Sandy nodded, and under the gravity of his expression lurked a smirk of triumph.

"Lent Stewart, of the Lenox High boys, and Chatwood Johns, one of the boys of the town," he said.

Lent Stewart, being in the classroom, was questioned immediately. Of course he upheld Sandy's statement. He could not be sure, but he thought that the boys with Grayson were Bill Sherwood and Rooster Long. But as regards Garry, he was reasonably certain, for he had recognized his voice.

"You say they were seen with a cow," the principal went on. "What were they doing with it?"

"We didn't stay to see," replied Sandy, still reluctantly. "But it looked as though they were leading it somewhere."

"H'm!" The principal stood for a while in deep thought. Then he looked at Sandy from beneath level brows. "Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Yes, sir," answered Sandy, with apparent frankness. "That's all."

"And it's enough," he said to himself, as, with a resolute gesture, the principal turned away. "If that swell-headed Garry Grayson and his friends don't get what's coming to them, I miss my guess. Old Allen's fighting mad."

But here Sandy was wrong. Mr. Allen was not fighting mad. Instead he was sad and sorely worried.

He had known Garry since the latter was a baby. He knew something of the splendid records the lad had made both in his studies and on the athletic field. He knew Rooster Long and Bill Sherwood also as clean, straight-shooting lads, who had up to that time been a credit to Lenox High. It seemed impossible that boys like these could be guilty of the malicious mischief that had set the whole school by the ears and seriously interfered with discipline.

And yet he knew--none better--that at a certain age boys were apt to mistake lawless practical joking for legitimate humor. Their judgment was not yet fully formed. Youthful effervescence had to be reckoned with. It might be so in the case of Garry and his friends, and it was his duty to question them and try to get to the bottom of the matter.

When Garry, Bill, and Rooster were summoned to the principal's office they wondered somewhat at the summons, but were not seriously alarmed. But the principal's first question warned them that there was something in the wind.

"I have heard that you three boys were seen in a pasture on the outskirts of Lenox last night," Mr. Allen began without preface. "Is that true?"

"We certainly were in a pasture just about dark last evening," Garry replied frankly. "But whether any one saw us there or not we can't tell. Some people, though, passed us on the road."

Mr. Allen looked at the boys steadily for a moment, and then asked with significant emphasis.

"What were you doing with the cow you found in the pasture?"

A glance of amazement passed between the boys, a look not lost on Mr. Allen.

"Her gate was closed up," Bill answered quickly. "We opened it so that the cow could get through."

"It was long past milking time and the cow wanted to go home," added Rooster.

"H'm!" said Mr. Allen thoughtfully. "Then you admit that you were in a pasture with a cow last night. Why is it that you did not tell me about that when I questioned you earlier in the day?"

"I suppose because we didn't think it was important," replied Garry. "You asked us whether we knew how the cow got into the Latin room, and we told you the truth."

"Do you say again that you don't know who brought the cow to the classroom?" asked Mr. Allen, looking at them keenly.

"On our word of honor we don't know any more about that than you do, sir," replied Garry earnestly, and Bill and Rooster nodded their acquiescence.

"That will do for the present." The words were accompanied by a gesture of dismissal.

Feeling the futility of making any further attempts at defense, the boys had no alternative but to leave the office. They were under a cloud, and they knew it. While they smarted under a sense of injustice, they asked themselves and each other who could have told Mr. Allen of that innocent incident of their being with the cow the evening before.

Innocent it surely was, prompted purely by their kindness of heart. But they were acutely conscious that it had been extremely unfortunate that the day before the cow appeared in the classroom they had been seen with a cow in the pasture.

"Not guilty, but how can we prove it?" asked Rooster disconsolately.

"Who told Mr. Allen that we were there?" pondered Bill.

"You fellows are thick," declared Garry. "Sandy Podder is the answer."

The others nodded a quick assent.

Those three boys, only half seen through the dusk! Rooster thought he had recognized Sandy Podder. Now in the light of after events, the boys were sure he had. Who but Sandy Podder or one of his cronies would care to implicate them by reporting their where-abouts the evening before? Any one else passing along the road would have seen, despite the dusk, that their business there was simple enough.

A little later their suspicion was confirmed when on the dismissal of the classes, they learned of the principal's interrogation of Sandy and Lent and the answers they had given.

"Pretended to be awfully sorry that he had to give his evidence, too," reported Ollie Scarsdale, who was in the same grade with Sandy. "Yet I saw him grinning afterward and whispering to Lent Stewart. He thinks he's got you in Dutch all right."

"There's Sandy's pip," remarked Bill later, when the boys were discussing the matter among themselves.

"It's a dirty put-up job!" cried Rooster hotly.

"Of course it is," agreed Garry. "He and Stewart thought they saw a chance to get us in bad by producing circumstantial evidence, and you can trust them not to overlook a chance like that. Oh, if we hadn't taken that walk last night! As it is, we've played right into their hands!

"Anyway, we know, if no one else does, that we didn't bring the cow into the school," he continued, trying to put as cheerful a face as possible on the matter. "They can't prove something on us that we didn't do."

If he could have known that even as he was speaking, Mr. Allen was reading an anonymous note that had been dropped mysteriously on his desk while he was out of the room, Garry might have found his determined cheerfulness severely shaken.

For these are the words that Mr. Allen read over and over again, his brow wrinkled in anxious thought:

"This note is written in the interest of Lenox High. If you want to know who spattered the map, spoiled the fans, and took the cow into the school, ask Grayson, Sherwood and Long. They know."

The note was typewritten on ordinary paper and bore no signature. There was absolutely no clue to the writer.

Contemptuous as he usually was of all anonymous documents, the message impressed the principal in spite of himself.

"If those three boys are guilty, I'll find evidence of it," he said to himself, with a grim tightening of his lips. "This nonsense has gone far enough."

But it seemed that the "nonsense" was to go still farther.

An anonymous letter was published in the next morning's edition of the town paper. It was a venomous missive and alleged that "wild parties" were occasionally staged at Lenox High. It was hinted also that it might be worth the while of any one sufficiently interested to examine the desks of the some of the students in the school.

The paper went on to say that, although usually averse to publishing anonymous communications, recent acts of vandalism in the high school seemed to justify it in making an exception of this case.

"Lenox High has hitherto enjoyed an enviable reputation," the article added. "It is sincerely hoped by the citizens of Lenox that those who are attempting to tarnish that reputation may soon be brought to book. In our opinion, no zeal should be spared toward the accomplishment of this end."

Wrathfully Mr. Allen read the article. His administration of the school that far had been very successful. He was responsible for its management. If the things that were hinted at proved to be true, it would be a serious reflection on the discipline of the school.

Upon reaching the office he at once wrote a note and sent it around to all the teachers, instructing them to search the desk of each pupil personally and report to him at once.

The order was carried out at once, and with astonishing results.

In the desks of Garry Grayson, Bill Sherwood and Rooster Long three squat flasks were found, hip flasks, each containing a small amount of liquor! No other desk offered anything incriminating.

The hapless trio were thunder-struck. The other members of their class were utterly bewildered. They could not believe it; did not want to believe it. Yet there was the evidence, those three evil smelling flasks with their wretched contents. The evidence seemed overwhelming.

"We're done!" groaned Bill, after class had been dismissed and they were awaiting with dread a summons to the office. "We've been framed, all right, and I only wish I could get hold of the fellow who did it."

"We've got to think how to get out of this jam first," said Garry. "Keep still, fellows, and let me think."