The High School Left End Part 10

"No, I won't, either," he muttered. "This belongs to my paper.

Let them tip off the police. h.e.l.lo! Give me 'The Blade' office, Gridley, please."

d.i.c.k waited patiently a few moments. Then:

"Hullo! 'The Blade?' This is Prescott. Is Mr. Pollock there?

He is? Good! Tell him I want to speak with him."

Then Mr. Pollock's voice sounded over the wire.

"Hullo, Prescott! Why aren't you on hand, with that big Dodge story hanging over our heads? Why, it brought me down hours before fore my time."

"Pollock, I've found Dodge," replied d.i.c.k Composedly. "At least, Darrin and I-----"

"What's that!" broke in the editor's excited voice. "You've found Dodge? Alive?"

As rapidly as he could young Prescott told the story. Mr. Pollock listened gladly.

"Now, where are you, Prescott?"

d.i.c.k told Mr. Pollock the name of the farmer from whose home he was telephoning.

"Just you wait there, Prescott. And, oh!---pshaw! I came near forgetting to tell you the biggest news of all---for you. Mrs.

Dodge this morning offered a thousand dollars' reward for the finding of her husband, dead or alive. You'll get that reward---you and Darrin! But I've no more time to talk. Stay right where you are until I reach you."

Nor was it long before d.i.c.k, pacing by the farmyard gate, saw an automobile approaching at a lively clip. In it were the chauffeur and Editor Pollock.

The latter waved his hand wildly when he caught sight If his High School reporter.

Right begged this automobile sped another, in which sat Chief Coy, Officer Hemingway and a uniformed policeman, in addition to the chauffeur.

"We didn't lose much time, did we?" hailed Mr. Pollock, as the first auto slowed up "Jump in, quick! Show us the way."

"I suppose there's some excitement down in Gridley, about this time?" laughed d.i.c.k, as the two autos raced along once more.

"Not a bit," replied the editor. "And for the very simple reason that no one knows that Dodge has been found."

"His family know it, of course?" queried d.i.c.k.

"No; not a word. Chief Coy kept it quiet, and asked me to do the same. He didn't want the Dodge family all stirred up by false hopes in case you had made a mistake. The silence will keep 'The Evening Mail' from learning the news for a while. And I've had our forms left standing. We're all ready to run out an extra ---in case you haven't made a mistake, Prescott," added Mr. Pollock quizzically.

d.i.c.k smiled resignedly at this implied doubt. But the autos were making fast time, and soon the machines had gone as far on the way as they could be used.

"Now we'll have to get out and strike across country, through the woods," Prescott called.

So far d.i.c.k had resolutely tried to keep out of his mind any thought of that thousand-dollar reward. It sounded too much like "Blood money" to take pay for helping any afflicted family out of its troubles. Besides, it had been the glory of doing a piece of bright newspaper work that had allured the two High School boys at the outset.

"Yet a thousand dollars is---a thousand dollars!" d.i.c.k couldn't help feeling, wistfully, as he piloted his party across fields and through the woods. "A thousand dollars! Five hundred apiece for Dave and me! What a fearful big lot of money! What we could do with it, If we had it! I wonder whether it would be right and decent to take it?"

Then, as he neared the place where he had left his chum on post d.i.c.k Prescott found other and anxious thoughts crowding into his mind.

Was Dave Darrin, staunch and reliable Dave---still there, on post, and unharmed?

Was Theodore Dodge there? Were his captors still with him?

CHAPTER VI

THE SMALL SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN

A few minutes later all fears and doubts were dispelled.

Dave Darrin rose to greet the newcomers informing them, in a whisper, that all was still well in the old shanty below.

He of the brogans and club heard a slight noise outside. Swiftly he rose and darted to the door, ready to pounce.

But he beheld the policemen, with the newspaper trio just behind them. More, Chief Coy and his subordinates had their revolvers drawn.

"Howdy, gents?" was Mr. Brogans' greeting as he dropped his club and tried to grin.

"Take care of him, Hemingway," directed Thief Coy, briefly.

"Me?" demanded Brogans, in feigned astonishment. "What have _I_ done?"

The noise roused Bill, who sprang up. But Bill must have found the police wonderfully soothing, for he quieted down at once.

Both rascals were taken care of. Then Theodore Dodge was found lying bound and gagged on the floor. A ragged, foul-smelling coat had been subst.i.tuted for the one that had been left at the river's bank. The banker looked up at the intruders with a stupefied leer, betraying neither alarm or pleasure.

As soon as the two rough-looking fellows had been handcuffed Mr.

Dodge was freed, and his tongue also, but Chief Coy, after raising the banker and questioning him, muttered:

"Clean out of his head. Daffy. Must have wandered away from Gridley during a loony streak. He isn't over it yet."

The two rough-looking ones protested loudly against being deprived of their liberty.

"I don't really know that you fellows have done anything," admitted Chief Coy. "But I'm taking you along on suspicion that it was you, and not Mr. Dodge himself, who bound and gagged him."

This retort, given with a great deal of dry sarcasm, silenced the prisoners for the time being.

"We ought to have this out an hour before 'The Evening Mail' people,"

exulted Editor Pollock. "Prescott, my boy, you're a born reporter!

And, Darrin, you're not much behind." "Theodore Dodge found by two "Blade" reporters! That won't sound bad!"

The briefest questioning was enough to show that Theodore Dodge was in no condition to give any account of himself. He did not reply with an intelligible word. His eyes held only a vacant stare. It was as though memory and reason had suddenly snapped within his brain.

"The doctors will want him," commented Chief Coy. "And we can't be hustling back a bit too soon."