Boys of Oakdale Academy. Scott Morgan
wha-what?” gasped Phil Springer. “You don’t mean that you actually sus-scalped a schoolmaster, do you?”
“Sure. I removed a portion of the gent’s topknot with my trusty scalping knife. I opine it was a severe shock to his system, but he recovered in time, though he remained baldheaded in a spot as big as the palm of your hand.”
“You must be dangerous,” laughed Cooper. “I suppose you learned the scalping business that time you was captured by Injuns. You know you said you were captured once.”
“Such was the fate which befell me.”
“Tell us abaout it,” urged Crane. “Haow did yeou escape?”
“By breaking the bonds with which the savages tied me. I am the possessor of sure enough amazing strength, which enabled me to accomplish the seeming impossible. There were three of the onery redskins. They caught me when I was sound asleep, and they were taking me to their tribe for the self-evident purpose of amusing themselves by burning me at the stake, or something like that. It was a journey of two days or more. The first night we camped in a dark and lonely valley. My captors regaled themselves on roast beef cut from one of my father’s steers which they had stolen, but not a morsel did they offer me, although I was mighty near starved to death. When they had eaten their fill they rolled themselves in their blankets and slept. There I was, tied hand and foot, and apparently helpless. I watched the campfire die down and the stars twinkle forth in the lonely sky. I knew it was up to me, and so when the aborigines were securely wrapped in the arms of Morpheus I proceeded to put forth my energies to burst my bonds, and finally succeeded.”
“I s’pose yeou sneaked off and took to your heels then, didn’t ye?” questioned Crane.
“No, indeed, not any. I knew they would awaken and follow me. I knew there was only one salvation for me: I must destroy all three of those red fiends.”
“Did yeou kill ’em?”
“I confess that I did, but never in the history of the world have redskins died in such a manner. They laughed themselves to death.”
“How was that?” asked Tuttle, so interested that he had forgotten to eat peanuts.
“As they slept I crept upon them, one by one, seized them, gagged them, bound them all. This I did to each one in turn, without arousing the others. Having them securely bound, I meditated on my future course. It sure seemed some inhuman to hike off and leave them trussed up to starve or to be eaten by coyotes. I shuddered a plenty at the thought of tomahawking or shooting them. It was a right long time before I finally hit upon a mode of execution. Finally I removed their moccasins – stripped their feet bare. Then from the topknot of the chief I plucked some feathers. With those very feathers I proceeded to tickle first one and then another of the redskins upon the soles of his feet. In about two jiffys I had all three laughing and squirming, and the more I tickled them the more they laughed. I kept it up, gents, until those redskins laughed themselves to death.”
“Ge-gee!” exploded Phil Springer. “What a whopper!”
“Pretty fair,” nodded Roger Eliot – “pretty fair.”
Prof. Richardson entered. He paused a moment to peer over his spectacles, and his eyes fell on Rodney Grant. Slowly an expression of wonderment crept over the old man’s face.
“What’s this, young man – what’s this?” he inquired, coming forward and removing his knit woollen gloves. “What are you doing here in such a rig?”
“I reckon you’ll pardon me, Professor, but people around this neck of the woods seem to think I’m a fake Texan because I don’t look it, and therefore I took a notion to wear my cowboy regalia this afternoon.”
The professor shook his head disapprovingly. “Go home,” he said – “go home at once and change those clothes for civilized garments. I certainly shall not approve of your wearing such a rig while you attend this school.”
“Fate is against me,” murmured Rodney Grant, as he turned toward the door.
CHAPTER III.
ROD’S WONDERFUL JUMP
Prof. Richardson was giving his attention to the class in physiology when Rod Grant returned to the academy. The boy from Texas walked quietly down the center aisle and took his place in the class. In truth, as he now appeared, there was nothing about him, save possibly the deep tan of his cheeks, to give him an appearance different from that of any clean, healthy, manly-appearing Eastern youngster. He wore a well-fitting suit of dark blue serge, a negligée shirt, and a carelessly knotted crimson four-in-hand tie. On his feet were stout, serviceable, yet distinctly well made and stylish tan shoes.
Berlin Barker, who had been reciting, sat down. The principal surveyed Rod over his gold-rimmed spectacles, which perched precariously on the end of his nose, nodding his head slightly as if inwardly approving of the change in the new boy’s appearance.
“Grant.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You may recite.”
Rodney stood up.
“How many bones are there in the entire skeleton of an adult?”
“Two hundred, sir.”
“You may state the number and give the names of the various bones of the human arm and hand.”
Grant did so without hesitation, speaking in a clear, well-modulated voice, his language having no touch of the vernacular which Phil Springer had asserted to be characteristic of a Westerner. His accent and inflection, it is true, differed slightly from that of Easterners in general, but this difference was not sufficient to attract the notice of a person who was not particularly observing.
“Very good, Grant,” nodded the principal. “You may be seated. I have the pleasure of informing this class that I have been enabled, at considerable expense and after no end of trouble, to purchase a complete and perfect human skeleton, which arrived yesterday and is now stored in the laboratory. I obtained this skeleton for demonstrating purposes; but, not wishing to disturb those scholars who are naturally nervous or timid, I shall not display it before the school during the period of any regular session. To-morrow, however, such members of this class as may desire to remain after the last period will be given the privilege of seeing and examining the skeleton. I wish it understood, however, that no one is positively required to remain for that purpose, and I would suggest that the timid ones do not remain. Class dismissed.”
“Jiminy!” whispered Cooper in Sleuth Piper’s ear. “Where d’you s’pose he got his old skeleton?”
“My deduction is,” answered Sleuth, “that he obtained it from a cemetery.”
“What a grave thing to do,” grinned Chipper. “On the dead, it gives me a shiver.”
At intermission some of the boys gathered near the academy steps and talked about the skeleton.
“My eagle eye detected the long, gruesome-looking box in the express office yesterday,” said Piper; “but on lifting one end of it, which I did, my deduction was that the box, being very light, could not possibly contain a subject for a funeral. Ever since then the mystery has preyed upon me, but at last the prof’s statement has cleared it up to the satisfaction of all concerned.”
“Be yeou goin’ to see the old thing to-morrer?” questioned Crane.
“I shall take pleasure in doing so.”
“Pleasure! Great scissors! I don’t see no fun in lookin’ at a skeleton. The prof is a crank abaout such things; everybody says so.”
“I sure can’t see the necessity of exhibiting a genuine skeleton before the class,” said Rod Grant. “If we were medical students, it would be different; but, as far as I’m concerned, I can acquire all the knowledge I desire about the bones of the human body without examining such human framework at short range.”
“It can’t be possible,” said Chub Tuttle, “that a fellow who has scalped schoolmasters and tickled Injuns to death is afraid of a harmless skeleton.”
“I