CHAPTER XV

AN ACCIDENT BETRAYS RUFUS

“I guess yesterday was your big day, all right, Lanky!”

Frank laughed as he made this remark. It was Sunday afternoon, and he was taking a little stroll with his chum, “just to show the natives that they were as fresh as daisies after that five-mile Marathon yesterday,” as Lanky put it.

“Well, it did come pretty thick and fast, for a fact,” admitted the one for whom the remark was intended. “But my mother had pity on me, and let me sleep late this fine Sunday morning. Just got up in time to dress, have my breakfast, and then go to church.”

“I’m sorry I missed that little affair on the river,” Frank went on. “From all the accounts I heard, it must have been a great time.”

“It sure was a dandy picnic, Frank,” admitted the other, without hesitation, and drawing in a long breath, as imagination once more transported him back to the moment when he held Dora up with his right arm, and used the left to keep both of them afloat.

“And you went all the way up to the Baxter farm afterwards, they say, Lanky?”

“Oh! it isn’t so very far,” remonstrated the other. “The river makes a lot of turns, you know; and when a fellow is skating, it seems longer than when you’re in a buggy, on the main road, alongside a girl, and there’s just _heaps_ to be explained.”

“That’s right, Lanky, it does,” replied Frank, with a knowing look. “And I reckon it was all explained, too, long before you got to the Baxter place?”

“Smooth sailing from this on, Frank,” the other quickly retorted. “You see, when poor old Walter, with all his good looks, had to own up that he couldn’t swim a little bit, with Dora in the river a-waitin’ for somebody to do the rescue act, even if she can swim better’n any girl around Columbia, it just made her disgusted with such a poor stick. Anyhow, she told me she never had cared much for him, and was goin’ home from choir meetin’s with Walter just because she was mean, and wanted to hurt me. But it’s all right now, Frank; and I guess we’re better friends than ever before.”

“Well, that’s going some,” remarked Frank, knowingly. “But, Lanky, how in the wide world did you put on such an immense amount of steam in the last half mile? Why, I saw in a jiffy that I was a back number yesterday, and there was no use of a fellow trying to head you off. You went like the wind, I tell you. Give me the secret, if you don’t mind. It might come handy in the big, long run.”

“Shucks! it’s nothin’, after all,” replied Lanky. “I just kept thinkin’ of her, and how sorry she’d feel that our friendship was busted, when she saw me come in first, and heard everybody yelling. And she was, Frank, she admitted that to me. Why, she even couldn’t help jumpin’ up, and clappin’ her little hands, forgettin’ right then that there had ever been a wide gulf come between us. But it’s all right now, Frank, and there’s no such silly spat goin’ to happen any more. We both promised that.”

“Well, I’m glad that Walter has become a back number,” Frank observed; “because I knew you were worrying a lot about losing such a good little friend as Dora. You always did think a heap of her, right from the start. Remember the time that tramp set their farmhouse afire, after robbing them; and when we were skating up that way we had a roaring time putting out the blaze?”

“That was sure a screaming old time, Frank; I think of it often, and how pretty Dora did look, with her rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes.”

“Hold on, let’s change the subject,” broke in Frank, with a laugh. “I suppose now, you’re beginning to think your wire went astray, and that we’ll never hear from that Mr. Elverson?”

Lanky sobered up instantly.

“Say, three and a quarter gone up the flume, Frank,” he remarked, shrugging his shoulders in an expressive way. “Not that I’m carin’ so much for the hard cash, if only it ended in somethin’. But it comes in too slow to be just thrown away like that.”

“Wait,” said Frank, as he had done before; “the game isn’t over yet, by a long sight, Lanky. Sooner or later that message is just bound to catch up with Mr. Elverson; and if he hasn’t found his little Effie yet, it’ll bring an answer as fast as he can get it on the wires.”

“But the gypsies’ll sure vamoose long before that!” expostulated Lanky.

“Let ’em go,” Frank went on, as though he did not mean to worry over such a little thing. “Between us we ought to be able to find out some way to keep tabs on the tribe, no matter where they wander. And once we hear from the gentleman, if he hasn’t found his girl, and she _did_ wear such a baby bonnet as you described, why, it’ll be easy to get on a train, and go to the town near where they’re camped right then.”

“Of course it will, Frank,” Lanky admitted, brightening up like magic. “There never was a chum like you to see ahead. The fog can’t get so thick but what you manage to punch a hole in it, and glimpse light on the other side. Why, of course we can do what you say. It’s easy as fallin’ off a log.”

“Then stop bothering your head about it, Lanky.”

“Guess I will,” answered the tall boy, resolutely.

“I told you that other business would come out all right, sooner or later; didn’t I?” Frank demanded.

“That’s straight goods, Frank.”

“And it did, you noticed, Lanky?”

“It sure did,” was the candid admission of the other; “but see here, Frank, with all your smartness, I don’t reckon you ever dreamed it’d happen the way it did, now?”

“Well, I should say not,” returned Frank, highly amused. “Why, I never even had the slightest idea that you meant to go back to town aboard that old tub of Ben Allison’s; or that a certain young lady would be a passenger, too. And as to expecting Ben to steer into a sunken snag, and knock Dora overboard, why, who’d ever dream of such a thing? And it all worked out as fine as silk for you. But you seem to be wanting to turn off the main road here, and take that one leading to Budd’s Corners?”

“I see you’re onto me, all right,” confessed Lanky. “Fact is, Frank, since we’re out for a little walk, I thought it wouldn’t matter much if so be we turned in the direction of the gypsy camp.”

“Oh! I’m willing enough, if you promise me you won’t go to prowling around when we strike there, so as to make the men folks notice us. Remember, Lanky, once we give that sharp old queen any reason to believe we’ve got an interest in what she’s got hidden away in that wagon, the game’s up.”

“I hold up my hand and promise you to be careful,” the tall boy returned, as he went through the performance. “But looky there what’s comin’ along back of us like a house afire!”

“Only a boy on a bike, but he’s whooping it up rather fast,” Frank admitted, as he turned his head to look.

“Say, I know that feller, all right,” Lanky declared, as the boy on the wheel rapidly drew nearer to where they stood on the narrow road.

“Seems to me there’s something familiar about him, too,” said Frank. “His name is Rufus, isn’t it, Lanky?”

“Right the first guess--Rufus Kline.”

“Wasn’t that the name of one of Bill Klemm’s cronies--Watkins Kline?” continued Frank, still observing the approaching boy on the wheel.

“Yep; and they say his mother is nigh crazy because nobody’s seen a sign of any of that crowd since they skipped out, after the schoolhouse fire,” Lanky went on to say.

“Looks like Rufus must have been sent on an errand this fine Sunday afternoon,” Frank next remarked; “because I notice that he’s got something of a bundle tied to the handle-bars of his wheel. It’s clumsy enough to make him wobble more than a little as he rides, too.”

“Huh! that surprises me some, too,” Lanky remarked, as he stood there, watching the boy, who was now rapidly drawing nearer to them, and appeared to be wondering whether the two meant to stand aside and let him pass, or hold him up; in fact his actions seemed to indicate that Rufus was bothered not a little.

“Why should it?” demanded Frank, always ready to learn facts when he could.

“You see,” his chum hastily replied, “Mrs. Kline is a very religious woman, which makes it all the more queer why she lets her boy go with such fellers as Bill Klemm and Asa Barnes. Now, I never’d ’a’ believed she’d sent Rufus on an errand, and carryin’ a package like that, on a Sunday.”

“Oh! you never can tell,” replied Frank. “Perhaps he’s taking something to a sick woman friend of hers. There are lots of times when rules have to be broken, I reckon. But you don’t think of holding him up, just to ask; do you, Lanky?”

“I thought I’d inquire, Frank, just from curiosity, you see,” with a grin. “They say women-folks have all the curiosity there is, but I notice that boys--yes, and men, too--seem to have their share.”

“Hey! get off the road there, and let me past!” called out Rufus, slackening his speed somewhat, and looking bothered.

“Where you goin’ this fine Sunday afternoon, Rufus, and carryin’ that big package, too?” demanded Lanky. “Don’t you dare run me down, or somethin’ll happen right quick, understand. Keep off, now, I tell you!”

Something did happen, and just as speedily as Lanky had prophesied. Rufus, in his eagerness to slip by, made a miscalculation; and being also unbalanced by the sudden swinging of the large bundle hanging from his handle-bars, he slipped off the road into the shallow ditch that ran alongside.

As a natural consequence, boy and wheel came down with a crash.

“Oh! that’s too bad, Lanky; you’ve made him take a header!” exclaimed Frank. “I hope he isn’t hurt!”

Rufus was struggling to regain his feet, feeling of his left leg at the same time, and apparently hardly knowing whether to cry or get angry. He finally compromised by whimpering.

“See what you did, Lanky Wallace, by bein’ mean, and wantin’ to take the whole road?” he exclaimed, for Rufus was red-haired, and had a temper, too, in the bargain.

Lanky stepped over to the wheel, and began to lift it out of the ditch. Perhaps he was already sorry for interfering with the lone rider. It had really been none of his business where the younger Kline boy happened to be going on his bicycle. The fact that it was Sunday, and Rufus had a strict mother, who would not on ordinary occasions allow him to use his wheel on that day, might have excited Lanky’s curiosity, but it was no excuse for him to crowd the boy off the road.

“I oughtn’t to have done it, Rufus,” Lanky spoke up, with evident contrition in his voice and manner; “it was sure none of my business where you happened to be meanderin’ this Sunday afternoon. The road is free to everybody, gypsy as well as citizens of Columbia. Here’s your wheel; and outside of this bent handle-bar it doesn’t look like there was any damage done. I can straighten that in a jiffy.”

This he proceeded to do, after hauling the bicycle up on the road again.

“Frank,” he added, immediately afterward, “will you pick up that bundle, and tie it on again to the handle-bar after I get it a little straighter? It went flyin’ when the wheel slipped on the road, and took a flop.”

But Rufus sprang forward, and snatched the package out of Frank’s hands. There was almost a fierceness in his manner, that surprised the other very much.

“Don’t you dare meddle with my things, Frank Allen!” he cried. “Guess I can tie it up again myself, without any of your help. Next time you fellers better keep to one side, and let a wheel go past without blocking the road. It’s pretty small potatoes to have two big fellers pick on one little boy!”

“That’s right, Rufus; and I’m ashamed of myself for botherin’ you,” admitted Lanky; “there you are; and nobody’d ever know that handle-bar had been twisted. It’s weak, anyway, and I reckon this isn’t the first time she’s bent on you. Want me to give you a send-off, Rufus?”

“Naw!” snapped the boy, crossly; “just let me be; and as soon as I’ve got this package of clothin’ my maw’s sendin’ to a sick woman, tied up again, I’ll be all right. I’d thank you to keep away. I might ’a’ broke my neck takin’ that header.”

He quickly fastened the recovered package to the front of the wheel, and mounting from the rear, was off along the road. Lanky looked queerly at Frank.

“That was a silly thing for me to do,” he said. “I ought to be ashamed of myself to bother a smaller fellow. That curiosity is a terrible business, Frank. But looky here, what ails you?”

“I was thinking, that’s all, Lanky. An idea seemed to just jump into my mind. You noticed how he didn’t want me to tie up that bundle; didn’t you?”

“Why, yes, he was some touchy, that’s a fact,” answered the other, slowly, as if unable to understand what Frank was driving at.

“I saw something of what it contained; and Lanky, a sick woman might want the loaf of bread, wedge of cake and the other food; but tell me, what would she care for boy’s trousers made of corduroy, like the pair I’ve seen Watkins Kline wear on Saturdays, when he was off playing?”

Lanky stared all the harder, but the truth began to seep into his brain.

“Tell me about that!” he exclaimed. “I see what you mean now, Frank; Rufus is taking supplies to his brother, who is hiding somewhere in the woods with Bill Klemm and Asa Barnes! And he didn’t want us to know it.”