The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods: or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run. Allen Quincy
held its own, though Frank knew from the way some of Andy’s followers began to look over their shoulders that they were getting ready to retreat.
“Keep it going, boys!” he shouted to his three chums, as he scooped up more of the soft snow and started making fresh balls; “hit hard all along the line! We’ve got ’em wavering! Another rush, and the game is ours! Send in your best licks, and make every shot count!”
All of them were attacking Andy now. They realized that if he could be put to flight there must follow a complete collapse of his line; because these fellows were only held there by the fact that they feared Andy’s anger if they deserted him.
Andy had managed to make one last hard ball. He had even in desperation, as was afterward proven, snatched up a stone and hid it in the middle of the snowball he pressed between his half-frozen hands. This is reckoned a mean trick among most boys and frowned upon as much as hitting below the belt would be in a prize fight.
Frank saw that he had been selected as the victim of the bully. He managed to dodge in the nick of time, and the weighted missile, sailing across the street, smashed through the window of a house.
With the jingling of broken glass Andy Lasher gave a shout, and then with jeers of derision he and his followers vanished from sight, leaving the four outdoor chums to bear the brunt of the householder’s anger.
CHAPTER II – A BROKEN WINDOW, AND GLORIOUS NEWS
“Gee whiz! Look who’s coming out of the house on the rampage, will you!” cried Bluff Masters, as the front door was flung open and an excited man hurried down the steps toward the spot where the four chums stood breathing hard after their recent exertions.
“It’s old Isaac Chase, the meanest man in Centerville!” exclaimed Jerry, in dismay.
“But we didn’t break his old window, you know,” expostulated Will Milton. “Here are lots of witnesses to prove it came from the other side.”
“Little he’ll care about that,” Bluff told him. “He must have seen us in the fight, and that settles it. Frank, you talk with him. I’d be apt to get sassy if he scolded too hard.”
So it usually came about. Upon Frank’s shoulders was laid the burden of extricating them from numerous mishaps. But Frank rather liked being made the scapegoat; he certainly faced the angry old miser of Centerville without showing a sign of alarm.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, you young rapscallions!” cried Isaac Chase, so excited that he could hardly control his trembling voice. “I don’t know what this town is coming to, when a pack of boys are allowed to fight battles right on the public streets, and with stones in their snowballs at that!”
He held up something he had in his hand, so that every one could see. It was a stone, there could be no doubt about that, with some of the snow still adhering to its sides.
Bluff rubbed the side of his head at seeing this, as though wondering whether the missile that had struck him there had also been loaded in that way.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Chase, that your window was broken,” said Frank steadily; “it was an accident, I give you my word about that. I happened to dodge a ball fired from the other side, and it went through the glass.”
“What! You here in this rowdy business, Frank Langdon!” exclaimed the other, as though more than surprised. “I shall have to see your father and make complaint, if the Chief of Police declines to back me up and arrest a few of you.”
“As to that, Mr. Chase, I will tell my father all about it as soon as he comes home from the bank. I know what he will say, though, and it doesn’t frighten me one bit. My father was a boy himself once, not like some people who forget that they once used to play themselves.”
“Don’t be impudent to me, boy!” snapped the old miser angrily.
“I don’t mean to be so, Mr. Chase,” Frank continued; “and as for your window, we will send a glazier around right away to put in a fresh pane, and pay for it, too. I’m sure that is all you could expect from us.”
“That’s a measly shame, Frank!” objected Bluff impetuously.
“When it was Andy Lasher who broke the window,” added Jerry, filled with righteous indignation. “You only ducked, Frank, when you saw it headed your way. Perhaps Mr. Chase thinks you should have stood up and got that snowball with the stone in its heart smashed in your eye. It isn’t fair for you to pay the bill. Let him go after Andy.”
“No, I prefer settling the account myself, and not having any trouble about it,” Frank told his objecting chums. “Besides, we’ve had enough fun out of the business to stand a little expense like that. The innocent often have to suffer for the guilty.”
Some of the bystanders at this point tried to convince Mr. Chase that Frank was entirely innocent of the whole transaction; but the miser, acting on the principle that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” declined to let the generous offer Frank had made slip from his grasp.
“Someone’s got to pay for my broken window,” he insisted stubbornly, “and these boys admit they were connected with the rowdy crew that made themselves a disgrace to the town in front of my door. I shall expect him to fulfill his offer, which you heard him make, Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Mole. The sooner that window pane is replaced the better I shall be pleased. That’s enough.”
With that he turned his back upon the group and hurried to reenter his house, as though fearful lest some of the spectators might endeavor to shame him out of accepting pay from an innocent party.
Frank and his three comrades stood talking with some of those who had gathered when the crash of broken glass, followed by angry words in the high-pitched voice of the miser, drew attention to the scene of action.
“Come, let’s be moving along, fellows,” Bluff finally remarked. It galled him to think they had been made the scapegoats by Andy Lasher and his set, though he knew only too well that once Frank’s mind was made up to pay for the broken window nothing could change him.
True to his promise, Frank first of all visited the hardware store, and engaged the owner to send a man around at once to the home of the miser, so as to replace a twelve-by-twenty pane of glass.
“I expect to have a good many orders like that, Frank, before the day is over,” remarked the dealer, laughingly. “They always come with the first snow, for you boys must have your fling. A ball went wide of the mark, did it, and picked out the window of Miser Chase’s house to smash?”
“But the trouble is, none of us threw it!” burst out Jerry, determined that the true facts should be known at any rate, even if they did have to foot the bill. “Andy Lasher hid a stone in his last ball, and expected to do Frank damage, for he shied it straight at his head; but Frank dodged, and bang went the glass!”
“Andy and his cowardly bunch pulled out like fun,” Bluff hastened to add; “and so we had to stand for it. But then Frank says we were in the crowd that was fighting, and it wasn’t fair that Mr. Chase, who was an innocent party, should suffer from our fun. So I reckon we’ll have to put our hands in our pockets and pay your bill, Mr. Benchley.”
The hardware man nodded his head. There was a twinkle in his eye as he observed Frank Langdon. He knew the sort of reputation Frank had in Centerville, although the latter had not been a resident there much more than three years, having come from away off in Maine at the time his father took the local bank over.
“Believe me, I’ll let you boys off as lightly as I can, and not lose by it,” was what he told them. “I like the manly way you stand up and take hard knocks. If I had a boy, I’d want him to be just your style, Frank.”
As the four chums went away, Jerry chuckled.
“That was as neat a compliment as you ever had paid you, Frank, do you know it?” he asked the other.
Frank smiled, but he did not look displeased.
“I’m glad Mr. Benchley has such a good opinion of the outdoor chums,” he remarked, “for he meant every one of you, as well as me,