The Outdoor Chums After Big Game Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness

CHAPTER IV

START­ING HANK RIGHT

“He's alive, all right!” was the an­nounce­ment of Frank present­ly.

“I hear wa­ter close by. Hold on, and I'll get some,” said Will hur­ry­ing away.

Even Jer­ry was de­sirous of help­ing as best he could. He took hold with Frank, and the in­sen­si­ble Hank was car­ried along­side the road, to where some grass grew, and of­fered a soft­er rest­ing place.

Had it been a friend who was thus in need of suc­cor, they could hard­ly have shown more en­er­gy in at­tend­ing to his wants.

“He's com­ing to,” said Bluff af­ter Frank had sprin­kled the scratched face with some of the cold wa­ter.

There was a deep sigh, then Frank saw that the fel­low's eyes had opened, and were sur­vey­ing him with a trou­bled stare.

“Feel­ing bet­ter, Hank?” he asked qui­et­ly.

“Oh, I'm all right, I reck­on. What brought you fel­lows here? Where am I, any­how? Did I just drop off that mo­tor­cy­cle? No. I re­mem­ber, now. Flim­sy took the last cent I had while I lay in the road. The mean­est skunk I ev­er met up with. If ev­er he cross­es my path again I'll get even with the cur,” he growled, sit­ting up and hold­ing a hand to his head.

“What hap­pened to you, Hank? Why were you ly­ing in the road? Did you have a fight with that tramp print­er?” asked Frank, sus­pect­ing the truth.

“Yes. I told him I was sick of keep­ing with him. He's a bad one, and some fine day he'll land in the stone jug. He scared me the way he talked. I start­ed to tramp back home, and he kept nag­ging me all the way here. In the end he made me so mad I just tack­led him. That was what he want­ed. Why, he put me to sleep the eas­iest way you ev­er saw. I just re­mem­ber him fum­bling in my pock­ets be­fore he hoofed it.”

“Well, it was a lucky thing for you, Hank, af­ter all. If you'd kept with that ras­cal you'd soon have been just like him. Did you say you meant to go back home now?”

“That's what I meant to do, but he's fixed it so I can't,” mut­tered the oth­er, grind­ing his teeth in fury.

“How's that?” pur­sued Frank, be­liev­ing there must be a sto­ry back of his words.

“He took the ten dol­lars I stole from my dad. I won't nev­er dare face him and say I lost it. I thought I could put it back in the bu­reau draw­er, and he'd nev­er know. I'll have to foller that Flim­sy, and make him give it back.”

“You can't do that for he'd on­ly laugh at you, and per­haps beat you again.”

“The thief ought to be ar­rest­ed,” grum­bled Bluff in­dig­nant­ly.

“That would blow the whole thing, you see, and dad he'd know I grabbed it. I'm get­tin' all I ought to have, I reck­on. P'raps I might earn that ten some way, and hand it over. If I could on­ly get an­oth­er job as chauf­feur it'd be all right,” Hank Brady was mum­bling to him­self de­ject­ed­ly.

“Per­haps you can,” said Frank quick­ly. “I re­mem­ber, now, that our man had to go away sud­den­ly the day be­fore yes­ter­day. Look here, Hank! Do you re­al­ly mean to do the right thing now? Have you had your les­son pound­ed in­to you?”

“I sure have. Nev­er again for me, I give you my word. I guess my folks has been wor­ried some on my ac­count, but they don't need to any more. I've re­formed, I have. I'm goin' to walk a straight line af­ter this.”

The fel­low spoke as though he meant it, and Frank be­lieved he could de­tect the ring of sin­cer­ity in his voice.

“All right. Shake hands on that, Hank. Don't you for­get it, that you'll find plen­ty of fel­lows will­ing to give you a lift, just as quick­ly as some oth­ers want to give you a drag down. It all de­pends on where the oth­er chap is stand­ing him­self. You come and see me to-​mor­row, some time. I'm Frank Lang­don, and my fa­ther is the pres­ident of the First Na­tion­al Bank.”

“This is mighty white of you, fellers,” mut­tered the oth­er, ap­par­ent­ly ashamed.

“You can nev­er pay it back to us, Hank, but some time pass it along; hold out a help­ing hand to some oth­er poor chap in trou­ble. I guess if you know how to run a car de­cent­ly you will get the job, if I speak to my dad. Now, an­oth­er thing--that ten dol­lars you want­ed to put back, was it in one bill?”

“Two fives,” replied Hank, catch­ing his breath.

“Then per­haps we can fix it up. I've got one here. Jer­ry, can you help me out?” asked Frank, who be­lieved in do­ing the whole thing, once he start­ed.

“Just hap­pen to have it, by good luck,” replied the oth­er cheer­ful­ly.

“Say! that's too much, fellers--an' af­ter I played that mean trick, too!”

“Don't wor­ry about that. I'm not giv­ing you this, Hank, on­ly loan­ing it to you. You can pay it back out of your first month's salary. Here you are, and don't think for a minute that you're get­ting the best of all this. We're en­joy­ing it, in our own way, more than you ev­er can. See you to-​mor­row, then. Good-​night, Hank!”

They left the fel­low stand­ing there, quite dumb. He had tried to an­swer them as they rode off, but not a sound could he ut­ter.

“Talk to me about the queer things that crop up with us, will you!” laughed Jer­ry as he kept close at Frank's heels. “Did you ev­er re­al­ly hear the equal of that, now?”

“Oh, it's an old sto­ry. The on­ly de­cent thing about it is the fact that of his own free will Hank was break­ing away from his evil as­so­ci­ations and head­ing back home, when he met with this last trou­ble. I say, Bluff!”

“Hel­lo, Frank! What is it?” came from the rear, where the par­ty ad­dressed was fol­low­ing in the wake of his chums.

“How about Hank? Do you know if he ev­er played chauf­feur half-​way de­cent? I'd hate to risk the pa­ter's neck with a green­horn.”

“Come to think of it, he used to run old Cra­gin's car for quite some time. Had an ac­ci­dent, and was dis­charged; but some peo­ple said Hank wasn't to blame; that it came about be­cause the old man was too stingy to buy the right kind of tires, and al­ways picked up job lots.”

“Glad to hear it. He won't have that fault to find with the gov­er­nor. Well, here we sep­arate, fel­lows. To-​mor­row morn­ing, at the boathouse, about eight, to lay our plans and ar­range for the trip to the city.”

With a cheery good-​night the chums sep­arat­ed, and each head­ed for his home.

In the morn­ing they once more came to­geth­er, and for some hours there was an earnest talk, dur­ing which many ideas were put for­ward, and or­der grad­ual­ly took the place of chaos.

A knock at the door took Frank thith­er, for he sus­pect­ed who the vis­itor might prove to be, as he had left word at home to send Hank Brady there, if he called. Hank was now de­cent­ly dressed, and his face did not look so very bad, though it bore a num­ber of scratch­es.

“All right, Hank. I'm go­ing with you to the bank. My fa­ther knows all about it, for I thought it best to start square, so that you need not fear about his find­ing out any­thing about your past,” he said, shak­ing hands with the oth­er.

“And he don't give me the shake on that ac­count?” asked Hank ea­ger­ly.

“Of course he doesn't. He even said that what we did was right, and that he could look back to a day in his boy­hood when a kind word start­ed him along the straight and nar­row path. My dad's the right sort, Hank. Serve him de­cent­ly, and you'll nev­er want a bet­ter friend. But at the same time he hates de­ceit, and will not put up with a sneak. You've got the chance of your life to make good.”

“And I'm go­ing to make good, all right, or bust tryin'. I'll nev­er get over the white way you fellers act­ed with me, nev­er, if I live a hun­dred years!” said Hank in a bro­ken voice.

Frank took him over to the bank, where Mr. Lang­don was fa­vor­ably im­pressed with his looks, and en­gaged him, af­ter he had learned what he knew about the run­ning of a car. Hank had worked in a garage for a year, and this knowl­edge was in­valu­able to him in his busi­ness as a chauf­feur.

That af­ter­noon Frank and Bluff start­ed for the city, with a list of things they be­lieved should be pur­chased be­fore they went forth up­on their jour­ney. Bluff had in mind a won­der­ful hunt­ing-​knife, with an ivory han­dle, a pic­ture of which he had seen in the cat­alogue of a sport­ing goods house, and he was se­cret­ly de­ter­mined to pos­sess such a mag­nif­icent tool.

“The time might come when a fel­low would have on­ly his trusty blade be­tween him­self and death, and then you just bet he wants a good one. Think of a big griz­zly try­ing to hug you! Where would your lit­tle knife be, then? You'd soon wish you had that Cuban ma­chete that hangs on the wall of your fa­ther's den, Frank,” he said, when the oth­er ex­pos­tu­lat­ed with him about pur­chas­ing such a mur­der­ous-​look­ing weapon.

And Bluff did buy it, too. All the way home he kept tabs on that pack­age, and of­ten, when Frank was not look­ing, he would go through cer­tain ges­tures with it gripped in his hand, as though prac­tic­ing against that day when the afore­said griz­zly and he would have their lit­tle heat­ed ar­gu­ment for suprema­cy.

Jer­ry, too, ei­ther felt shocked at the enor­mous size of the won­der­ful hunt­ing-​knife, or else pre­tend­ed to be. He shrugged his shoul­ders in that scorn­ful way he had, and turned his back on the prize Bluff had drawn.

“What else could you ex­pect of a man who goes af­ter quail with a Gatling gun? Why, the poor in­no­cent griz­zly will faint dead away at sight of that cav­al­ry sword. It gives me a cold chill just to look at it,” he ob­served.

Bluff on­ly laughed.

“Rank en­vy eat­ing up your soul, that's all, my boy. Wait till you see me in ac­tion with that ra­zor-​edged tool. I'll have you all turn­ing green with en­vy yet,” he said, fondling the ivory-​han­dled weapon ere he thrust it back in­to its sheath.

The days dragged along. Will count­ed them, and each night heaved a sigh of re­lief that they were a notch near­er the time of de­par­ture. Fi­nal­ly the last night ar­rived, and their com­ing tour was to be marked by a lit­tle gath­er­ing at the home of Frank, which was in­tend­ed to be in the way of a send-​off.