The Boys of Columbia High on the Ice/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
THE THREE CHUMS
Angry shouts arose all around. There were few who knew what had happened; only that Frank had been struck in some way. Lef Seller did not have many friends in Columbia High School, or the town itself, for that matter. He had made himself generally disliked; and when the word went around that it was his hockey stick that had, in a backward swing, struck Frank on the head and knocked him down, the murmurs of the crowd began to take on an ugly turn.
Of course the referee immediately ended the game. There was something else at that moment demanding attention.
"Keep back! The ice is cracking! Go back, or we'll all fall in!" shouted Lanky Wallace, waving his hands wildly, as he saw dozens start to leave the bank and hurry toward the group around the fallen lad.
His words were taken up by others.
"Keep away! It's dangerous to crowd on the ice! Frank's all right! He's getting up again! It's nothing serious, only a little accident!" they shouted, starting to hustle the squads of sightseers back.
The alarm having been given, numerous groups immediately turned back to the firm footing of the shore. Harrapin River had a swift current in places, and more than one skater had had a narrow escape from drowning in years gone by.
Frank was again on his feet, somewhat dizzy, but trying to appear just the same as before. He had received quite a hard blow on the head, as a lump proved; but could not even give a guess as to what had hit him.
Lef had not attempted to run away. He knew better. That must have proven him guilty of an intentional design to do Frank injury. He would have been mobbed before he had gone fifty feet.
So he hovered near the group, looking depressed as though he felt mortified to know it had all been his fault. Lanky, watching him closely, had difficulty in persuading himself that there was a trace of genuine regret in the mind of the other. He even fancied he could see the glitter of secret pleasure in those green eyes of the fellow, and believed Lef must be laughing in his sleeve.
"I hope you don't think I did that on purpose, Allen?" Lef exclaimed, pushing himself into the group as Ralph and Paul were examining the head of their friend to ascertain the extent of the damages.
Frank had been laughing as he assured his friends that he was all right. At the sound of the hateful voice of Lef the smile vanished from his face. Turning, he looked for almost half a minute squarely into the face of the other. Everyone held his breath, believing that the long-expected rupture between these two was about to break loose, and that in another minute they would be fighting it out then and there.
It was a mistake, for Frank deliberately turned his back upon Lef, who was standing there in an humble attitude, strangely unnatural for him. He had seen the same glitter in those half -veiled eyes that had appeared to Lanky. It told Frank that the LIow had not only been intentional, but carefully planned. Still, he had not an atom of proof. Cunning Lef generally fixed it that way.
A dozen boys shouted as Frank thus showed his utter contempt for the other. As for Lef himself, he would really have preferred an open defiance to this expression of disdain.
"Oh! well, have it just as you like, Frank Allen," he muttered, with a shrug of his shoulders; "if it was one of your chums you'd be only to willing to call it an accident, and let it go at that. But everything that Lef Sellers does is a crime!"
"That's so, Lef," remarked one of the bystanders, jeeringly; "but that's what you get for having a bad name. If that stick of yours had struck Frank on the temple instead of where it did, they'd be carrying him home now on a shutter. So you see how lucky you are, after all."
Lef turned away. The game had been a grand disappointment to him. Still, even if his side came out at the small end of the horn, they had temporarily disabled several of the regular Columbia players, and this ought to give him some little satisfaction. But the trouble was, the game with Clifford was some days off, and none of them had been so seriously injured but that they would be all right when the time came to play again.
Followed by his crowd, Lef skated away, going up the river. Those who remained with Frank were filled with indignation.
"He's getting worse every day!" grumbled Lanky; "and it's dangerous to have such a firebrand around. He ought to be cut dead by every self-respecting fellow in the whole town. Then his father would see that it was time to get him off to some place where they didn't know him, and his mean ways."
"That's what," echoed Buster Billings, "he's just beyond all hope of reforming. Listen to those guys laughing to beat the band as they skate away! They seem to think it was funny; and I reckon they're telling Lef he ought to have aimed better."
"It was a mistake to play them at all!" declared Paul Bird, indignantly.
"Yes, I guess it was," admitted Frank, "though like the balance of you, at the time I thought we just had to accept their challenge. However, no great amount of damage has been done. A couple of bruised shins, and a sore head tally up our hurts."
"Yes, and we just knocked spots out of 'em in the game, even with all their rough-house play. The practice pays up for the few bangs we got. But notice fellows, that not one on their side went out from hurts," remarked Jack Comfort.
"If I had it to play over again I'd do different," growled Shadduck, holding up his wounded left hand.
"Well, what's the use of crying over spilt milk?" observed Ralph; "we did what we started in to do, and showed Lef's crowd up for the tricky lot they are. Now the rest of the day is before us. Let's forget our troubles, boys."
So until noon came they skated around, or gathered in groups talking over the coming game with Clifford. Those who knew more or less about the strong points of the up-river players were eager to tell these things to their mates, so that they might profit by them.
Frank, Ralph and Lanky walked home together at noon.
"Wait for me here a minute, fellows, please," remarked Ralph, as they came to a bookstore where papers from New York were kept on sale.
He dodged inside, leaving Lanky looking at Frank with a puzzled expression on his face.
"I think he's gone to buy a daily paper that makes a specialty of all the latest shipping news. You know Ralph is intensely interested in watching for the arrival of the Empress of Japan at San Francisco. He believes she will be bringing some one for whose coming the poor fellow is anxiously watching—his mother!" said Frank.
"Oh! yes, you were telling me about it," murmured Lanky. "He was brought up by the Wests in the village of Scardale as their son, and only lately learned that he had been adopted, taken from the poorhouse by the couple when a baby. And about a year ago he began to receive some money on the first of every month, with a mysterious note telling him to get an education such as he yearned to receive."
Frank nodded his dead.
"Ralph has taken me into his confidence almost from the beginning," he said. "I went with him to see a man named Ben Davis who was dying. He had an idea that this man might be his father; but it turned out otherwise. Then he discovered that the lawyer in New York who sent the monthly sums was my Uncle Jim."
"Yes," said Lanky, eagerly, "I remember the time he came up here last Fall to see you. I guess it was then he admitted that he had been employed by a gentleman named Arnold Musgrove, who was traveling in Europe with his widowed sister, a Mrs. John Langworthy. And it turned out that Ralph must be the long-lost child of that same lady—that the brother had had the baby stolen for some selfish purpose. It was all just like a story."
"And Uncle Jim followed them through Europe and to India and China, for they were great travelers," said Frank, slowly. "The last we heard from him was a cablegram from Japan, saying that the lady knew all, and that he was about to sail with her for America. Now you understand just why Ralph is wild to learn if the steamer got in yesterday, when due."
"Here he comes out, and from the look on his face I guess she arrived," muttered Lanky, trying to appear as though he and Frank had been talking of matters concerning Columbia's chances in the coming hockey contest.
"It's all right. The steamer got in yesterday, Frank," cried Ralph, his face beaming with delight.
"Of course there's no list of passengers, though?" queried the other.
"That's so; and I only have to take it for granted that they were on board. You see this was the next steamer to leave after he cabled; and I don't believe they would have waited over; at least I hope not." and Ralph's mouth twitched in a sensitive way that told how his feelings were stirred at the prospect of meeting the mother whom he had really never known.
"It's all right, Ralph," Frank said, quickly. "Keep up heart a few more days, and then the bully times will come for you. I want you to come over and eat supper with us to-night; and it's understood, you know, that on Christmas you help to get away with the turkey and plum pudding at the Allen ranch."
"It's awfully good of you, Frank, thinking of me in that way. I don't know how I'd ever have stood it out only for you. Why, you've been like a brother to me, and your home is the dearest place I know. Yes, I'll be around some time in the afternoon," he said, squeezing the hand that was nearest him.
"And you drop in some time this evening. Lanky. There are some things I don't quite understand that I'd like explained," continued Frank.
"There's just one think I'd give a fit to understand, and nobody seems able to help me a little bit. Who is Bill? Just keep on thinking, Frank, and tell me if you remember seeing him before," and Lanky turned off to head for his own home.