Dave Porter in the Far North/Chapter 1
DAVE PORTER IN THE
FAR NORTH
CHAPTER I
ON THE TRAIN
"Here we are at the station, Dave!"
"Yes, and there is Phil waiting for us," answered Dave Porter. He threw up the car window hastily. "Hi, there, Phil, this way!" he called out, lustily.
A youth who stood on the railroad platform, dress-suit case in hand, turned hastily, smiled broadly, and then ran for the steps of the railroad car. The two boys already on board arose in their seats to greet him.
"How are you, Dave? How are you, Ben?" he exclaimed cordially, and shook hands. "I see you've saved a seat for me. Thank you. My, but it's a cold morning, isn't it?"
"I was afraid you wouldn't come on account of the weather," answered Dave Porter. "How are you feeling?"
"As fine as ever," answered Phil Lawrence. "Oh, it will take more than one football game to kill me," he went on, with a light laugh.
"I trust you never get knocked out like that again, Phil," said Dave Porter, seriously.
"So do I," added Ben Basswood. "The game isn't worth it."
"Mother thought I ought to stay home until the weather moderated a bit, but I told her you would all be on this train and I wanted to be with the crowd. Had a fine Thanksgiving, I suppose."
"I did," returned Ben Basswood.
"Yes, we had a splendid time," added Dave Porter, "only I should have been better satisfied if I had received some word from my father and sister."
"No word yet, Dave?"
"Not a line, Phil," and Dave Porter's usually bright face took on a serious look. "I don't know what to make of it and neither does my Uncle Dunston."
"It certainly is queer. If they went to Europe your letters and cablegrams ought to catch them somewhere. I trust you get word soon."
"If I don't, I know what I am going to do."
"What?"
"Go on a hunt, just as I did when I found my uncle," was Dave Porter's reply.
While the three boys were talking the train had rolled out of the station. The car was but half filled, so the lads had plenty of room in which to make themselves comfortable. Phil Lawrence stowed away his suit case in a rack overhead and settled down facing the others. He gave a yawn of satisfaction.
"I can tell you, it will feel good to get back to Oak Hall again," he observed. "You can't imagine how much I've missed the boys and the good times, even if I was laid up in bed with a broken head."
"You'll get a royal reception, Phil," said Dave. "Don't forget that when you went down you won the football game for us."
"Maybe I did, Dave, but you had your hand in winning, too, and so did Ben."
"Well, if the fellows Say, here comes Nat Poole." Dave lowered his voice. "I don't think he'll want to see me."
As Dave spoke, a tall, fastidiously dressed youth came down the car aisle. He was not bad-looking, but there was an air of dissipation about him that was not pleasant to contemplate. He wore a fur-trimmed overcoat and a cap to match, and heavy fur-lined gloves.
"Hello!" he exclaimed, on catching sight of Phil Lawrence. "Going back to the Hall, eh?"
"I am, and you are going back too, Nat, I suppose."
"Yes," drawled Nat Poole. He turned and caught sight of Dave and Ben. "Humph!" he muttered, and without saying more continued on his way down the aisle and through to the next car of the train.
"He's real sociable, he is," observed Ben Basswood, with a grin.
"I knew he wouldn't want to see me," said Dave.
"What's up—more trouble, Dave?" questioned Phil. "Remember, I've been away from Oak Hall so long I've rather lost track of things."
"This trouble didn't occur at the school," answered Dave. His face grew a trifle red as he spoke.
"It happened back at Crumville," broke in Ben, and winked one eye. "You see, Nat wanted to come to a Thanksgiving party the Wadsworths gave. But Dave told Jessie just what sort Nat was, and she left him out at the last moment. It made Nat furious, and I've heard that he is going to do his best to square up with Dave this winter."
"You're mistaken, Ben; I didn't have to tell Jessie anything," corrected Dave. "A fellow named Bangs wanted Nat invited, but Jessie didn't want him and neither did her folks. Bangs got mad over it, and said he wouldn't come either, and he and Nat went to a show instead."
"Well, I heard that Nat blamed it on you."
"He is apt to blame everything on me—if he can," said Dave, with a short, hard laugh. "It's his style. I suppose he'll even blame me for getting Gus Plum to reform."
"Well, you did get Gus to do that," declared Ben, heartily. "It's the best thing I ever heard of, too."
"If Plum cuts Poole, what's the dude to do?" asked Phil. "The two used to be great cronies."
To these words Dave did not reply. He was wiping the steam from the car window. Now he peered out as the train came to a stop.
"Hurrah! Here we are!" he cried, and leaped from his seat.
"Where are you going?" demanded Ben.
"After Roger. I know he'll be at the station, for I sent him a special message," and away went Dave after Roger Morr, one of his best and dearest schoolmates. The two met on the car platform, and as the train moved off again, both came in to join Ben and Phil.
To those who have read the former volumes in this "Dave Porter Series" the boys already mentioned need no special introduction. They were all pupils of Oak Hall, a first-class boarding school located in the heart of one of our New England States. At the academy Dave Porter seemed to be a natural leader, although that place had been at times disputed by Nat Poole, Gus Plum, and others. It was wonderful what a hold Dave had on his friends, considering his natural modesty. Physically he was well built and his muscles were those of a youth used to hard work and a life in the open air. Yet, though he loved to run, row, swim, and play games, Dave did not neglect his studies, and only a short time before this story opens had won the Oak Hall medal of honor, of which he was justly proud.
In times gone by Dave's enemies had called him "a poorhouse nobody"—something which had caused him a great deal of pain. When a child, he had been picked up alongside of the railroad tracks by strangers and taken to the Crumville poorhouse. At this institution he remained until he was nine years old, when a broken-down college professor named Caspar Potts, who had turned farmer, took him out and gave him a home. At that time Caspar Potts was in the grasp of a hard-hearted money lender, Aaron Poole, the father of Nat Poole, already mentioned, and the outlook soon became very dark for both man and boy.
Then came an unexpected turn of affairs, and from that moment Dave's future seemed assured. As related in my first volume, "Dave Porter at Oak Hall," the boy called upon Mr. Oliver Wadsworth, a rich manufacturer of that neighborhood. The gentleman had a daughter Jessie, a bright-eyed miss some years younger than Dave. She was waiting to take an automobile ride when the gasoline tank of the machine caught fire. It was plucky Dave who rushed in and, at the peril of his own life, saved the girl from being fatally burned.
The Wadsworths were more than grateful, and when Mr. Wadsworth discovered that Caspar Potts was one of his former college teachers, he insisted that both the old man and Dave come to live at his mansion. He took a great interest in Dave, more especially as he had had a son about Dave's age who had died.
"The lad must go to some boarding school," said Oliver Wadsworth, and at his own expense he sent Dave to Oak Hall. With Dave went Ben Basswood, a friend of several years' standing.
Dave made friends with great rapidity. First came Roger Morr, the son of a United States senator, then Phil Lawrence, whose father was a wealthy ship-owner, Sam Day, who was usually called "Lazy," because he was so big and fat, "Buster" Beggs, "Shadow" Hamilton, and a number of others, whom we shall meet as our story proceeds.
For a while all went well with Dave, but then came trouble with Nat Poole, who had come to the Hall, and with Gus Plum, the school bully, and Chip Macklin, his toady. The cry of " poorhouse nobody" was again raised, and Dave felt almost like leaving Oak Hall in disgust.
"I must find out who I really am," he told himself, and fortune presently favored him. By a curious turn of circumstances he fell in with an old sailor named Billy Dill. This tar declared he knew Dave or somebody who looked exactly like him. This unknown individual was on an island in the South Seas.
"My father's ships sail to the South Seas," Phil Lawrence told Dave, and the upshot of the matter was that Dave took passage on one of the vessels, in company with the ship-owner's son, Roger Morr, and Billy Dill.
As already related in the second volume of this series, "Dave Porter in the South Seas," the voyage of the Stormy Petrel proved to be anything but an uneventful one. Fearful storms arose, and Dave and some others were cast away on an uninhabited island. But in the end all went well, and, much to the lad's joy, he found an uncle named Dunston Porter.
"Your father is my twin brother," said Dunston Porter. "He is now traveling in Europe, and with him is your sister Laura, about one year younger than yourself. We must return to the United States at once and let them know of this. They mourn you as dead."
There was a good deal of money in the Porter family, a fair share of which would come to Dave when he became of age. The whole party returned to California and then to the East, and word was at once sent to Europe, to David Breslow Porter, as Dave's father was named. To the surprise of all, no answer came back, and then it was learned that Mr. Porter and his daughter Laura had started on some trip, leaving no address behind them.
"This is too bad," said Dave. "I wanted so much to see them."
"We'll get word soon, never fear," replied his uncle, and then advised Dave to finish out his term at Oak Hall, Mr. Porter in the meantime remaining a guest of the Wadsworth family.
How Dave went back to Oak Hall, and what happened to him there has already been related in detail in "Dave Porter's Return to School." His enemies could no longer twit him with being a "poorhouse nobody," yet they did all they could to dim his popularity and get him into trouble.
"He shan't cut a dash over me, even if he has money," said Nat Poole, and to this Gus Plum, the bully, eagerly agreed. There was likewise another pupil, Nick Jasniff, who also hated Dave, and one day this fellow, who was exceedingly hot-tempered, attempted to strike Dave down with a heavy Indian club. It was a most foul attack and justly condemned by nearly all who saw it, and thoroughly scared over what he had attempted to do, Nick Jasniff ran away from school and could not be found.
There had been a number of robberies around Oakdale, where the academy was located, and one day when Dave and his chums were out ice-boating they had come on the track of two of the robbers. Then to his surprise Dave learned that Nick Jasniff was also implicated in the thefts. He knew that Jasniff and Gus Plum were very intimate, and wondered if the bully of the school could be one of the criminals also. At length, one snowy day, he saw Plum leave the Hall and followed the fellow. Plum made for the railroad, where there was a deep cut, and into this cut he fell, just as a train was approaching. At the peril of his life Dave scrambled to the bottom of the opening and drew the bully from the tracks just as the train rolled by.
If ever a boy was conquered, it was Gus Plum at that time. At first he could not realize that Dave had saved him. "To think you would do this for me—you!" he sobbed. "And I thought you hated me!" And then he broke down completely. He confessed how he had tried to injure Dave and his chums, but said he had had nothing to do with the robberies. Nick Jasniff had wanted him to go in with the robbers, but he had declined.
"I am going to cut Jasniff after this," said Gus Plum, "and I am going to cut Nat Poole, too. I want to make a man of myself—if I can."
But it was hard work. A short time after the railroad incident the two robbers were caught and sent to prison, to await trial, and Plum had to appear as a witness for the state and tell how he had been implicated. In the meantime Nick Jasniff ran away to Europe, taking several hundred dollars of the stolen funds with him. Dave thought he had seen the last of the young rascal, but in this he was mistaken, as the events which followed proved.