THE COMPLETE MUDHEN

BY

Merritt Parmalee Allen

THE MUDHEN

CONTENTS

1. HIGH STRATEGY

2. COME HITHER, MUSE

3. HELP YOURSELF TO THE APPLES

4. WILL YOU TAKE GAS?

5. THE RISE OF AN ACTOR

6. CAMEL INTO EAGLE

7. REAL STUFF

8. A SUMMER INTERLUDE

9. A HUNTING WE WILL GO

10. THE MAN ON HORSEBACK

11. FAREWELL, CUPID

12. ALL THAT GLITTERS

The Mudhen and The Walrus

The Mudhen Acts Naturally

Chapter One

HIGH STRATEGY

"IS THE EVIDENCE ALL IN?" CHEESE EASTMAN, COMmander in chief of the Bears, frowned heavily as he asked the question.

"Yes, Your Honor," Advocate-General Noodle Perkins answered.

"Say 'Sir,' not 'Your Honor.' This is a military court," Cheese snapped.

"Oh, all right," Noodle said and sat down.

"Prisoner, stand!" Cheese ordered.

Froggie Bates stood up obediently, his hands tied behind his back, the nose of his weazened face red with cold.

"Prisoner Bates," Cheese rubbed his own nose sympathetically as he spoke, "you, a private in the Eagles' army, are charged with committing sabotage within our lines. Have you anything to say for yourself?"

"I was only scouting," Froggie declared, his breath rising in the cold air like the ghost of veracity.

The commander in chief scowled darkly. "It has been convulsively—I mean conclusively—shown that you were demolishing an ammunition dump," he said.

"I told you guys I stepped on your snowballs accidentally. Can't you remember anything as long as it takes me to tell it to you?"

"Prisoner, be silent!" Cheese thundered.

"Proof of your innocence is lacking," Cheese pronounced with immense importance. "The court finds you guilty. You are sentenced to immediate execution."

"Make it s-snappy," Froggie begged. "I'm 'most froze. This is a heck of a G.H.Q.! We've a stove in—"

"Silence in the court!" Cheese roared. He knew very well there was a stove in the Eagles' general headquarters, but he did not care to hear about it again.

"A heck of a G.H.Q.!" Froggie repeated, with super contempt. "Just an old barn! We've a nice little garage with a stove."

"Shut up!" Cheese shouted. Then, remembering that dignity should be the handmaiden of a judge, he added pompously, "Guard, remove the prisoner. I will command the execution in person. March!"

A dozen boys closed about Froggie and they all tramped away on rubbershod feet, rattling the loose boards of the barn floor.

"Squad—right!" Cheese barked, as they passed into the snow beyond the door. "Halt! Face the prisoner to the wall. Load your pieces." Each guard made himself a snowball. "Aim!" Their arms went up and back. "Fire!" Froggie sucked in his neck and the volley pelted him smartly.

"Better give him another," Noodle suggested conscientiously.

"No, you don't!" Froggie shouted, glancing over his shoulder. "I've passed out."

"He's only wounded," Noodle insisted, reloading.

"You can't kill me twice according to law," Froggie shouted.

"Cease firing," the commander ordered. He took out his jackknife and cut the strings from Froggie's wrists. "Now beat it to the office and report."

"I'll say I will!" Froggie whipped his hands.

"And if anybody asks you how the war is going, you tell 'em it is already copped by the Bears."

"Tripe!" Froggie's scorn was stupendous. "It's only nine o'clock. By night there won't be a Bear left." And he disappeared around the corner of the barn, headed for the dormitory on the hill.

The Bears re-entered their headquarters and Cheese sat down at his desk, three boards laid across two boxes. To give it a regal appearance, something like Alexander's throne, it was placed beneath a scaffold of planks that reached across the barn floor from one beam to the other. Over the desk, and also over the box which served as a seat, were draped strips of red carpet, making an ensemble that might well have been the pride of its inventors.

"The Frog is our first score," Cheese remarked to his staff. He sighed, as an overworked general will, and took out a notebook and pencil. "Advocate Perkins," he asked, "how do you spell sabbatodger?"

"There's no such word," Noodle said.

"There must be."

"What the heck does it mean?"

"Why, it's a guy who commits sabbatodge, like Froggie did."

"It's French, ain't it?"

"Sure."

"Then," said the erudite Noodle, "the guy who does it is a sabbatodgereuse."

"Well, how do you spell it?" Cheese gave him a cold look.

"It begins with s."

"So does sap." Cheese spoke with cruel suggestive-ness.

Noodle had a cerebral flash. "Call him a spy," he said, "it's about the same thing more or less, I guess." Cheese seemed relieved. "I'll write spy in the book, then look up the rest of it before I make out my official report."

"Good stunt." Noodle nodded. "Now step on it, it's colder'n Sam Hill in here."

The commander leaned forward and wrote, audibly, "January 12." He consulted the official G.H.Q. timepiece, a small alarm clock, on the desk, "9.06A.M. Executed Eagle Private Bates, a spy." He grinned at the advocate. "Ten points for us and— Aow! I'm assassinated!" He leaped up, his hands clawing at the back of his neck. "Take it out, Noodle! What is it? Take it out!" He bent double and lunged forward. "It's chaff," Noodle said, withdrawing his voice from the chorus of laughter that arose from the other officers and men. "About a quart of chaff and hayseed fell off the scaffold onto your bean."

"Well, fish it out, you cloth-head, can't you?" Noodle explored with cold fingers beneath his commander's collar and brought up a handful of dry chaff.

"How does it feel now?" he inquired. "Straighten up."

Cheese stood erect and writhed. "Gosh!" He clutched at his back. "If it was on the inside, I'd say I've swallowed a hairbrush. You didn't get half of it."

"I got all I could."

"Golly, it itches! I'll take off my shirt."

"You'll freeze to death."

"I'll go up to the dorm and change."

"You're a peach of a general!" Skunk Evans jibed.

"What you mean?" Cheese spun toward him.

"You should regret that you have only one back to itch for your country."

The shouts of laughter stung Cheese and, what was more, they restored his sense of duty.

"Guard," he shouted, seeing a way to silence the tittering idiots, "search that scaffold. Someone is concealed there."

"Aye, aye, sir!" Skunk led a platoon cautiously up the ladder. "It's Crane!" His voice throbbed. "It's The Mudhen!"

Exclamations ran about G.H.Q., for The Mudhen was the master mind of the Eagles. And now the old fox was a prisoner, caught in the very act of spying on the high command, an act that none but he would have attempted.

"Guard the door," Cheese snapped. "Bring him down, by force if necessary."

"Oh, cool your soup, I'm comin'." The Mudhen's well-known drawl and a shower of chaff fell from above.

He descended the ladder slowly, for even in that moment of stress his laziness had not forsaken him. Slothful and shrewd, contemptuous and cool, that was The Mudhen. Stooped like a schoolmaster, his dark eyes half-closed, a long overcoat flopping about his lean legs and a tall fur cap on his peaked head, he crossed the floor, sank upon a box, and sighed.

"Well, old funnymug, what you goin' to do about it?" he asked the commander in chief.

"Stand in the presence of the court," Cheese ordered, determined to make the most of his authority regardless of the itch.

"Go, climb a tree," The Mudhen answered with careless arrogance.

"I told you to stand and I'm the judge in this court!"

"Listen, shrimp. I've read military law—which you haven't-and there's nothin' in it to compel a prisoner to be tried erect, prone or seated. I choose to sit."

Cheese sidestepped a test of authority by announcing grandiosely, "The court rules to pass up the question because of lack of time." He scratched. "We will proceed with the business in hand. Prisoner, what were you doing in the headquarters of your enemy?"

"Oh, just lookin' around." The Mudhen yawned. "That chaff business was an accident, naturally."

"What do you mean, looking around?"

"I was curious to see this place. It's pretty punk, if you ask me. Now, we have a nice garage with a stove and—"

"You admit you were spying?" Cheese cut in.

"Spyin?"

"Yes, seeking intelligence from us."

"Intelligence from you?" The Mudhen smiled wearily. "Cheese, you're funny."

The guard snickered and the commander flushed, and scratched.

"Such talk is contempt of court!" he thundered.

"This court is sort of contemptible," the prisoner observed. "A barn! Our headquarters is a warm garage."

"Shut up!" Cheese exploded. "You're a spy and you're going to be executed."

"Before or after you change your shirt?" "Before." Cheese stepped forward. "Guard, take him out."

The boys closed around him, then from out the huddle Noodle's voice complained,

"He won't get up."

"Stand, by order of the court!" Cheese shouted. The Mudhen stood, slowly. "March!"

The Mudhen raised a hand in graceful protest.

"General Cheese," he said softly, "there is a well-known point of law stipulating that the court must furnish transportation for prisoners. I refuse to walk."

"Drag him out!" Cheese cried.

The Mudhen straightened his long body. "Listen," he, said. "Our beloved and much respected faculty, who drew up the rules by which this war is conducted, specifically— You know what that big word means, Judge?" The court glared, nothing more nor less, just glared. "Well, the faculty specifically stated that there is to be no unnecessary roughness. Either side found guilty of such shockingly ungentlemanly conduct will be fined one thousand points."

He was right as usual, and Cheese scratched reflectively. When it came time to check up on this war game, the faculty, sitting in august session, would be merciless in punishing violators of the laws it had made. If The Mudhen were forcibly removed from the barn, he might make it appear that he had been maltreated, and a thousand-point penalty would be a hopeless handicap. Though Cheese had rejoiced at The Mudhen's capture, he was beginning to see that he had caught a Tartar. Then he had an idea which was, all things considered, a brilliant one.

"We'll execute you right here," he announced. "Then you'll have to report to the office on your own steam."

"Thanks, dear heart," The Mudhen said with deep gratitude and sat.

It was obvious that this prince of indolence was happy at the thought of his exertions for the day being soon over. Once officially "dead" he could retire to his room as to Valhalla and, with his feet on the radiator, read detective stories while his companions, wet and cold, toiled and fought in the snow. Then in the evening, when the war was at an end, he would come forth and join in eating the banquet supplied by the vanquished.

To one of his temperament it was a rosy prospect and one that his captors, who knew him well, wished they had not made possible. Now, when it was too late, they even surmised that he'd had this very end in view when he allowed himself to be captured. Of course, if they could prove he was as craven as all that, his side would be penalized heavily for his dishonorable conduct, but they could prove nothing against him and they knew it.

Divining their thoughts, The Mudhen smiled triumphantly. And that was a mistake. Already itching outwardly and smarting inwardly, Cheese was spurred by that smile to achieve the hitherto impossible: to outwit The Mudhen.

"The court has changed its mind," he began, then paused to find words worthy of his dazzling thoughts.

"The court is to be congratulated," the prisoner drawled. "The mind it has been using was never any good."

Cheese gave him a look of tolerance, such a look as a cat might hand out to a mouse that was as good as swallowed.

"The court has decided to stay the execution," he pronounced. "The prisoner is sentenced to hard labor building the fort."

The guard, appreciating the consummate master stroke, howled with joy. The Mudhen opened his eyes wide, one of the few times such a thing ever happened.

"You can't do that," he bluffed. "I'm a spy, and I've got to be shot."

"Oh, you'll be shot all right," Cheese promised, with the geniality of a Borgia, "but not till the fort has been built."

"Spies have to be executed the minute they're caught," The Mudhen protested desperately, for he was cornered and fully aware of it.

"Wrong." Cheese grinned. "The court has power to fix the time of execution."

"But you can't make me—work." The Mudhen shivered as he spoke the word.

"I'll say we can."

"And how!" chorused the fiendish guard.

"I prefer death."

"It is not for a prisoner to choose."

"I refuse."

"Listen, Mud" The court switched to the informal approach. "It says in the rules that if a guy doesn't obey his captors, he'll be soaked a hundred points."

"So what?"

"If a bird deliberately causes his side to take a licking, he's a traitor and he can never take part in another school contest of any kind."

The prisoner was familiar with such points of law, but Cheese refreshed his memory to make sure he would have no excuse for violating any of them. The stakes were too high to take a chance, for to compel The Mudhen to do physical labor would be a greater achievement than winning the war.

In all his sixteen years, The Mudhen had never suffered as he did during those few minutes. Indeed, he was sure that all the anguish in the world was only a patch on the garment of distress that had suddenly enveloped him. Not only must he work, he who neither toiled nor spun, but he had been out-maneuvered into doing so. While he did convict labor on the snow fort under the eyes of the whole school, rumor would run abroad crying that Cheese Eastman had put one over on The Mudhen. He writhed mentally, yet his placid features gave no sign of agony. That again was The Mudhen. He was inscrutable as the sphinx, and nearly as inactive; no one could ever tell what he was thinking about. Yet it was a safe bet he was thinking, for beneath that tall fur cap was a brain that sparkled ideas like a new tin can in the sun. Still, it was that brain that had brought him to this pass, as the best horse will sometimes throw its rider.

"Oh, well," he yawned, "war is war. I'd rather work on your fort than stick around here. Our headquarters has a stove in it."

"You'll get what's coming to you, soon's I have a word with my men," Cheese gloated.

"I'll just step outside, dear lad."

"You will not!"

"I shrink from the thought of overhearing your plans."

"We don't intend you'll overhear 'em, don't worry."

"Put him on parole and step on it." Noodle spoke for the guard. "It's cold here."

"But it's warm in our headquarters," the prisoner remarked blandly.

"Don't mention your blasted headquarters again!" Cheese shouted.

"You itch, don't you?" The Mudhen's tone was tender. "Poor little fellow!"

"Will you give us your word to stay out of here while we talk things over?"

"Absolutely."

"Promise not to run away?"

"Yes, old friend."

It was enough, for The Mudhen's word was unquestionable. "Then beat it outside," Cheese ordered.

"Yes, my general." The Mudhen saluted mockingly. "I crave sunlight."

Yet no sooner was the door closed than he turned his back on the sun and went softly down the old hatchway that led to the basement of the barn. The Bears had forgotten its existence, but he had not. He had promised not to escape, but the agreement did not bind him to abstain from listening to what went on over his head. Therefore, he was free to move through the cellar and stop directly beneath the spot where Cheese was then speaking.

"Now, you birds, listen," the commander said. "I haven't had a chance to tell you the high strategy we worked out last night."

"Get a wiggle on," Skunk urged. "The rest of the army'll fight the whole war before we get out of this huddle."

"The army," Cheese answered impressively, "is acting according to plan."

"But what're we doing?" Skunk wanted to know.

"We haven't done so bad, have we? We've executed a spy, and we've got The Mudhen where we want him."

"That's something. But what's the plan?"

"It's more'n just a plan, I told you, it's high strategy."

"Gosh sakes! What is it?"

"Well, we're going to build a fort on the hill while the light troops are skirmishing. The big battle won't come off till that fort is finished and the flag is run up, because not till then will the fort be worth two hundred points to the Eagles."

"We all know that," Noodle said, kicking his toes on the floor.

"But you don't know we're to be all day building that fort."

"All day? What's the big idea?"

"There're several reasons. One is, the snow won't pack well till afternoon. Another is, we don't want it finished till 'most night. And another is, we want everybody to see us make Mud work."

A snicker greeted this delicious prospect. Beneath the floor The Mudhen winced and clenched his fists.

"Now here's the lowdown." Cheese's voice became confidential. "We haul the big snowballs up the hill on bobs, and build the wall. Then inside that wall, on two sides, we build another wall."

Of course none of his listeners understood why.

"This is where the high strategy begins to click," he continued. "That inner wall will be built on the bobs themselves. They have to be reinforced with planks."

"But if-"

"Shut up, Noodle! When that has been done behind the outer wall, so the enemy can't see what we're up to, and when the bobs in the inner wall have been camouflaged with snow blocks, we'll act as though we have changed our minds about the shape of the fort, and we'll take down the outer wall. It'll be dusk then."

"We going to fight the big battle in the dark?" someone asked apprehensively.

"No, in the dusk."

"How do you know just when it'll be?"

"The thing is run on schedule, like any modern war." Cheese paused, probably to scratch. "That's why I've got this clock right here in headquarters."

"What of it?" Noodle still wanted to know.

"If you'll give your face a rest, I'll tell you. The fort will be finished at dusk."

"You said that before."

"Dry up! In the meantime, two coils of rope have been lugged up the hill concealed in snowballs. This rope is all covered with white cloth. We tie one end of each coil to the bobs, then we drag the rest of the ropes to the foot of the hill. It being dusk and the ropes being white and we going up 'n' down all the time working, the Eagles won't notice the ropes."

"I don't see-"

"That's why I'm telling you, sap. Now here's the high strategy. At 4.35 we run up our flag, which is the signal for the Eagles to attack the fort. By 4.40 they'll be coming up the hill. We fight 'em off till 4.45 and then we beat it out of there."

"And lose two hundred points! You're nuts, Cheese."

"I told you there was high strategy in it."

"It's not strategy to give up the fort and lose two hundred points unless we have to."

"I expected as much from you." The commander's tone would have withered a pickax. "Listen. We evacuate the fort at 4.45. By five the whole Eagle army will be in the fort waiting for the judges to come and count 'em, for according to the rules the war will be over at 5.15."

"Well, you going to talk all day?"

"At 5.01 we dash to the foot of the hill, grab the ropes and snap the bobs out of the walls of the fort. Then we charge up both sides of the hill, enter the holes in the walls made by the bobs being pulled out, take the fort, and capture the whole Eagle outfit. So," Cheese's voice vibrated with emotion, "we will regain the two hundred points we lost by evacuating the fort, and we will have maybe two hundred and fifty more points, for there'll probably be twenty-five Eagles in the fort at ten points a prisoner."

"Wow!" Noodle whooped.

"It's the bow on the birdcage!" Skunk declared. "Did you think it up, Cheese?"

"Well," the general said modestly, "I had something to do with it."

A buzz of admiration ran through the guard.

"But," Noodle pointed out, "we can't have old Mud in the fort while we're fixing those ropes. He'd ball up the works."

"We'll execute him before then," Cheese promised.

"Sure he won't talk after he's dead?" one of the younger boys asked.

"The Mudhen plays fair," Cheese said reprovingly.

"But, boy, he's got a wicked bean," Noodle commented.

"For once we've got him where his bean won't help him." Cheese laughed in absolute confidence and began giving final instructions to his men.

When the guard filed out of the barn they found The Mudhen sitting on a stone, his back against the wall, his long legs drawn up to his chin, dozing in the sunshine.

"Snap out of it, convict," Noodle ordered. "We're off to the rock pile."

"Eh?" The prisoner looked about sleepily. "Where's Cheese?"

"Inside."

"I've got to go in and speak to him."

"You're to go to work."

"This is important, Noodle. He'll tell you so himself."

"Well, go on in. We'll wait out here where it's warmer. Step on it."

The Mudhen sauntered into headquarters, and found the commander stripped to the waist and thrashing his undershirt against the desk.

"That chaff business desolates me," The Mudhen murmured sadly. "It was all an accident—such a cruel accident!"

"What're you doing here?" Cheese paused, glared, and shivered.

"Got to write a note to my commanding officer."

"Not allowed."

"Oh, you may censor it. Keep going or you'll catch cold."

The Mudhen sat down at the desk, put his tall fur cap on the boards before him as though to cool his head, took out a notebook and pencil, and wrote rapidly. Cheese should have watched him, but the position of the mercury caused him to concentrate on the problem of getting into his shirt before he became akin to an icicle. When he was dressed and blissfully free from chaff once more, he found The Mudhen leaning against the desk adjusting his cap.

"Where's the note?"

"Here." The condemned one tore a leaf from his book. "Read it."

Cheese read: "Dave, I am a prisoner. Don't try to rescue me, for I have given my word not to escape. My fate is worse than death. Mud."

"O.K., Cheese?"

"What's the idea of it?"

"Just what it says. No use trying to fish me out when I'm on parole? I want Dave to know it."

"You're not writing in code or something?"

"Write it yourself. I'll sign it."

"No. Your word goes."

"Send it to Dave under a flag of truce, will you?"

"I'll have Noodle take it over."

"Thanks, dear lad. I am, as I said, absolutely desolated by havin' accidentally caused you so much scratchin'," The Mudhen murmured, as they walked to the door, where Cheese gave the note to Noodle. "When this cruel war is over I'll try to make amends for the ghastly incident," he called back as they marched him away.

Cheese returned to his desk before going out to inspect his troops. A general must be a general these days when war was run on schedule. It must be about time to- He stared in amazement, for the G.H.O. official timepiece was gone. That dazzling dollar alarm clock, which had been under his nose a minute before, was wholly missing!

A true military man, Cheese acted promptly, rushed to the door, and hailed the detachment, which was still visible.

"Hi!" he bawled. "Bring back that clock." "Halt!" Noodle faced about. "What clock you talking about?"

"The clock on my desk," Cheese explained as he overtook them.

"Nobody's got your clock."

"It's gone. You birds are the only ones who went near it."

"Huh! Think we'd pinch a little old clock?"

"If you don't shell out I'll search you."

"The nerve of some people's children!"

"Line up!" the general snapped. "I've a right to search you. It's military law, isn't it, Mud?"

"Sure is," The Mudhen answered heartily. "I'd search the bums if I were you."

Cheese searched them and was unrewarded, for nowhere on their persons did he locate a clocklike bulge.

"Feel better?" Noodle growled.

"This is a mystery," Cheese said truthfully.

"Go to it," Noodle said cheerfully. "We've got a war to fight. March!" and they moved away, leaving the general to ponder the most baffling problem of the campaign.

A detailed account of that day's war would be instructive, perhaps, but wearying, as most instructive things are. The chief item of interest to one and all was that The Mudhen worked. He did physical labor. To be sure, he moved slowly, but nevertheless he continued to move hour after hour. This phenomenon frequently suspended hostilities, while both sides desisted from skirmishes, raids on ammunition dumps, and other maneuvers to watch and satisfy themselves that a miracle was taking place. Truly a miracle, for, stripped of his long coat but clinging to his distinctive cap, The Mudhen tugged at a rope, hauling a bobsled up and down the hill. At last there was something new in the world.

In the late afternoon, when the fort was nearing completion, The Mudhen collapsed. Even a brave man, taunted by barbarians, can bear only a certain amount of humiliation and fatigue.

"Noodle," he moaned to the slave driver, "rend me limb from limb and feed me to the crocodiles, but I can do no more."

"We'll call it a day," Noodle answered. He was a good egg, and wise enough not to force martydom on a captive. And, anyway, they didn't want him around much longer. "Take it easy and I'll go see what Cheese says."

Alone on the hill for a few minutes, while the others were bringing up more snow, The Mudhen stretched full length on the ground inside the fort. There Noodle found him and broke the welcome news that he was to be excuted at once.

When the firing squad had done its duty, The Mudhen reported himself "dead" and went to the dormitory. There he took a bath, ate what bits of food he could find in his own and several other rooms, and realized his dream of a radiator and a detective story. At 4.40 he opened his window and listened. In the gathering twilight he heard the long rolling yell of the Eagle army as it charged up the hill. There followed five or so minutes of tumult, then the yell changed to a cheer of triumph. The Bears had evacuated the fort according to plan. Five more minutes he waited, a second five, and suddenly from two sides of the hill sounded a pandemonium of shouts and yells. This lasted for a brief time and then the Eagle cheer rose strong and clear. The Mudhen smiled, closed the window, and returned to his book.

At seven o'clock that evening there was a banquet in Chateau Chew or, as the English have it, the Hash House. The Bear soldiers, looking bewildered and suspicious of each other, knew they were paying for it, but not why. In some way they had lost the war by a heavy score and no one understood just how it had happened. Dave Pierce, the Eagles' commander, was authorized to speak officially on that point, but not until the last of his men sank back exhausted from the board did he take the floor.

"Officials and members of both armies," he began solemnly, "we are met here to celebrate a great victory. In fact, I think it is the greatest victory ever won in mock warfare since this branch of winter sports was inaugurated in this school."

The Eagles cheered and grinned across at the Bears. The Bears recalled what they had heard about good sportsmanship and refrained from throwing anything at the Eagles.

Dave continued: "Never mind how many points we won, I want to tell you about the part played by John Crane, known to the world as The Mudhen."

There were more Eagle cheers, but The Mudhen, sunk low in his chair, acknowledged none of them.

"Early this morning," Dave resumed, "old Mud, while on duty, was captured in Bear headquarters. As a spy, he should have been promptly executed, but his captors sought to humiliate him."

"And we did too!" Noodle interjected defiantly.

Froggie Bates hit him with a bun, and Dave went on, feeling eloquent enough to burst into Latin, as he might have done if he could have remembered the necessary words.

"When you Bears paroled him in your headquarters, he went to the basement, as he had every right to do, and overheard your plans."

"I forgot all about that darn basement!" Cheese admitted.

"Then," crowed the speaker, "he coolly walked into your headquarters and, at your own commander's desk and in the presence of that officer himself, he wrote me a note revealing those plans."

"Hold on!" Cheese cried. "I read that note myself and it didn't say a word about our plans."

"You read another note," Dave explained sweetly. "The one I refer to was in Mud's pocket at that time."

"Come on, Dave, open up," Cheese begged. "I'm licked and I want to know how it happened."

"I'll tell you. Before he left your G.H.Q. he picked up, as spoils of war, your alarm clock."

"You pinched that clock!" Cheese turned on The Mudhen, who regarded him drowsily.

"He took it," Dave said proudly.

"But I searched him myself, Dave."

"You didn't search his fur cap. He carried it in his cap all day, until this afternoon when you left him alone in the fort. Then he took it out, set the alarm at 4.50, tied a note to it and buried it in the wall of the fort. At 4.45 we were there, as you planned. At 4.50 we heard the alarm ring and dug it out. The note explained your 'high strategy.' It was easy after that."

There was a dead silence while these tremendous revelations sank in.

"I ask you one and all," Dave concluded dramatically, "to salute the greatest intelligence officer this school has ever produced."

He turned and pointed at The Mudhen—who was sleeping peacefully.

CHAPTER TWO

COME HITHER, MUSE

WITH ALL THE RHYTHMIC BEAUTY OF A GANDER PROPHesying rain, Froggie Bates commenced repeating for the tenth time:

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join—"

"Shut up!" The suggestion came from The Mudhen who, with a blue-and-gold dressing gown draped about his long person, sat tilted back in a chair, his feet on the radiator, reading a detective story.

"But, Mud," Froggie explained, "I've got to learn the darn thing before class tomorrow."

"I haven't," his roommate growled. "Learn it to yourself."

"You don't own this place. I guess I've a right to study here same's you have, you big lump."

"You don't have to study out loud like a Chinaman."

"I can't learn poetry any other way. I have to hear the lilt."

"The what?" The Mudhen raised his habitually half-closed eyes.

"Lilt. Know what that is?"

"No. Do you?"

"Sure it's the music of words. Didn't you notice it when I recited that line?"

"All I heard was something that sounded like a hippopotamus on a soup diet." The Mudhen resumed his reading.

"I'd sock you, only it's not sporting to hit a guy when he's asleep, and you're never awake." Froggie spoke with bitter contempt, and intoned:

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that—"

"If you like caravan stuff," The Mudhen cut in, "try The Sahara Murder Mystery. Mahomet's Mummy is good, too."

"Comfort me with cabbage!" Froggie burst out. "Do you think this thing is a mystery story? It's Thanatopsis, that's what it is."

"Fanny what? Who is she?"

"It ain't a she, it's a it, you fathead! Gosh sakes!" Froggie was slipping toward exasperation. "It's a poem— T-h-a-n-a-t-o-p-s-i-s"

"A long hard word for a little mind. What does it mean?"

"Why, .1 guess it's a sort of funeral procession or something."

"May one suggest that you go along with it, little man?"

"Gosh sakes!" The words were easy to fling. "How you think I can study in the same room with you?"

"Why study?"

"Because I haven't your nerve. I can't read stories all the time and bluff my way through classes."

"Each has his own niche in life, sonny."

"You give me a pain!"

"Because I am a charmin' conversationalist. Pray let us sit and converse as the shades of night enfold the wintry world. Did you get that lilt?"

"My neck aches." Froggie stood up. "I'm going somewhere to study in peace." He went forth.

The Mudhen smiled faintly and sank back, surrounded by the quiet he loved. As a prelude to such a state, others might have used physical force to eject a bothersome roommate, but that was not his policy. Being the essence of indolence, his labors were largely mental, for he had learned long ago that the mind can accomplish almost anything the body can, and with far less effort. A punch in the eye is only a punch in the eye, but a word well directed may be a knockout and can be delivered sitting down. Shaping his life along these lines, he had achieved what his friends believed to be a world's record for accomplishment without exertion. Others might drag their problems into the open field and there wrestle with them in hot-blooded fury, but he preferred to outwit them in the cool labyrinth of intellect. Such was The Mudhen.

He read in comfort for an hour or so, until down the hall sounded a dismal chant like the wailing of a ghost on a haunting tour.

"So live [it moaned], that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To the—to the—to the—"

The door opened and Froggie stumbled in, haggard, disheveled, and dull-eyed.

"Mud," he sank into a chair, "I can't learn the thing alone and nobody'll help me. Noodle kicked me out, Dave turned off the light and Cheese began loading his water pistol."

"So, spurned by the world, the pest returns to his roost." The Mudhen groaned.

"But, Mud!" Froggie clutched his book of American poetry with both hands. "I've got to read this thing aloud till I've learned it if it takes all night."

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" The Mudhen cried, jolted into recalling a line from Shakespeare or someone else. "Do you mean you're goin' to sit there yappin' about that bloomin' caravan all night?"

"But gosh sakes, Mud, what can I do?" Froggie's distress was pathetic. "The first thing in class tomorrow, J.B.'ll pop that verse at me."

"Be sick or bust a leg or somethin'."

"I can't get away with such things the way you can. I've got to learn it." Froggie stared at the wall a moment and then muttered:

"So live, that when thy summons comes to join

That immeasurable—those immutable—the immovable caravan that moves—"

"Shut up!" The Mudhen was waving both fists.

Froggie jumped, for such vehemence from his roommate was startling. But he persisted. "If J.B. flunks me tomorrow—"

"He won't," The Mudhen said in a desperate voice. "Leave it to me."

"What'll you do?"

"I don't know. What time is your English class?"

"Ten-thirty." Froggie's voice was awed, as that of one who mentions the date of his execution.

"That's an open period for me." The Mudhen's eyelids drooped. "You go to bed now and let me think."

Froggie stood up and breathed freely for the first time in hours.

"Oh, yes." He groped in a pocket. "Here's a letter I fished out of the hall box as I came by. It's from your father."

The Mudhen held it to the light. He shook it, listening intently, and his eyes clouded. He tore it across the end, took out the sheets, and squinted into the envelope. Froggie saw all too plainly that it was only a letter, an empty letter containing only words.

"Why are parents?" The Mudhen muttered, voicing the eternal question of youth.

"Dunno." Froggie began undressing.

The Mudhen glanced through the letter and moaned, "No dough till I go home at Easter."

"We're all in the same soup," Froggie comforted. "But it's only two weeks to go."

"A guy can starve in two weeks."

"Chateau Chew'll keep us from doing quite that." Froggie referred inelegantly to the dining hall.

"Huh!"

"What you goin' to do about it, Mud?"

"A man with brains can do something about anything."

"Yeh? We haven't brains enough to jimmy an extra dime out of our folks," Froggie said with supreme pessimism, as he rolled into bed.

"Folks! How much longer must we beg from our folks?"

"Till we find a better way of getting dough."

"Be an underling if you must." The Mudhen raised his right hand in a grand gesture. "I shall rise to greater heights."

"Blah!" Froggie remarked and fell asleep.

Apparently in a doze, which was his customary attitude when thinking, The Mudhen sat by the table. The world had become a desolate waste, a wilderness, a desert, where not a single dollar bill cast a refreshing shade. Standing, as it were, upon a mountain of misery, he gazed across this financial Sahara which he must cross. Somewhere beyond the horizon lay the delectable land of Easter Vacation where the weary might rest, but before it could be reached, a vast and cheerless waste must be traversed. It would be a journey of two weeks' duration, a march without a waterhole to revive the fainting bankrupt. Hunger and thirst would beset the weary wayfarer, and if they did not take his life, it would be because that life had become a thing too miserable to be worth the taking. And all because an accident of seniority made parents older than their children, thus placing them on top of the family finances.

The Mudhen rebelled against such injustice and his soul cried out against its burden. Lack of money was bad enough, but like a pebble under the packsaddle was the thought that a man who was seventeen years old, by five feet eleven, by one hundred and thirty pounds, still had pocket money doled out to him as though he were a child. Financial independence was what he craved with great gusto, an income free from parental restrictions.

It was a fascinating thought until it brought him up against the brutal reality that before the average person can be so blessed he must work. That was something else again, for in The Mudhen's Pantheon there was no place for the god of labor. Among his classmates he scorned those honest peasants who shoveled show, fed furnaces, and in other ways sold their muscle for cash. Mental work, such varieties as could be performed in a reclining position, was not distasteful to him, and under sufficient pressure he could accomplish wonders in that line. Even at this moment his mind, like a hound, was dashing thither and yon, panting to jump a get-rich-quick scheme, and panting in vain.

Gloom filled his heart, a peculiarly sticky kind of gloom that gummed up the mental works and reduced optimism to a shadow. Mournfully he picked up a magazine and re-read the conclusion of a detective story. It was worth a second reading, for in one paragraph three men, a woman and a bulldog met violent ends. That was writing! Brass hats in literature might rave about the old timers who hitched their wagons to Pegasus and made the best time they could in that one-horse way, but this guy, hanging on by his eyelids in the rumble seat of a detective fiction machine, passed them without noticing their dust. The world moved, ruminated The Mudhen, idly turning a page.

DO YOU WANT MONEY?

The words, in blackface type, smote his eye an almost physical blow and left him wide awake. Noah might have reacted in somewhat similar manner if, when things were dampest, someone had asked him how about a spot of dry weather. And this magazine was serious about it. No kidding, if you really wanted money you might have it by merely writing short stories. Editors were hungering and thirsting after new authors. Fame and fortune awaited those who could please them. And there was no joker in that. Talent and experience were unnecessary. The only requirements were a little spare time and a book called Mastering the Short Story. Two dollars postpaid.

The Mudhen sank in self-contemplation. As a rule he was egotistical, but the thought of suddenly be-coming an author gave him pause. It was a new responsibility, one that had hitherto been as far from his mind as the heavyweight championship. From what he had read, he had been led to believe that one spent years hewing his way through the jungle of difficulty before he entered that literary field where the clover grew. Hadn't Stevenson and Conrad said something to that effect? But they were back numbers. In this era, things were happening every day in business, science, politics, and what not that would have knocked the Victorians for a loop. Why not in literature?

For a brief moment he questioned his age, remembering that most authors he heard about were the other side of twenty. Well, what of it? Time is only relative, whatever that means. When inspiration knocks, it should not be kept waiting on the doorstep while a fellow grows a beard.

All things pointed to immediate authorship. The only obstacle was the price of the book, and The Mudhen knew without taking inventory that he was worth exactly five cents. And he also knew he could not raise another dime throughout the length and breadth of the school. Daily for the past week he had made the rounds and, like the ancient seeker after truth, had left by the door wherein he entered.

Still, after more thought, he took hope. To seek is to find, and he commenced seeking. His pockets yielded a jackknife in bad repair, fragments of four pencils, a policeman's whistle, two buckshot, part of a watch spring, and a pop bottle opener. Junk. His tin jewel case contained a collar button, a perfectly dead dollar watch, and a Chinese coin. In his table drawer were a pencil, some pawn tickets, and a candy bar. As he ate, The Mudhen checked off the tickets and found he had hocked all his valuables except a camera. The Mudhen found the camera in a bureau drawer and transferred it to a chair beside his bed. That done, he ordered a copy of Mastering the Short Story, and turned in, weary with things accomplished.

The following morning was serene, but not more so than The Mudhen. Such tortures as the rising bell, dressing in a cold room, and eating prunes for breakfast left him unruffled. He hummed a tune as he stood on the steps of Chateau Chew, gazing at a world that had both the aspect of winter and the promise of spring. Other boys, bareheaded and in short coats and sweaters, hurried here and there looking and acting much alike, but the languid Mudhen, his lankiness emphasized by his long overcoat and tall fur cap, was distinctive. He had individuality, and liked it. He descended the steps and strolled along, being one who could stroll even on glare ice, drifted in and out of the pawnshop, visited the post office, and gradually returned to the school.

His languor increased with the hours, until by half-past ten he had faded from sight. But he tumbled out with the others when the fire alarm sounded from the clock tower. It was a false alarm, and when this became known he mounted the gym steps and called on the student body to aid in hunting down the man whose perverted sense of humor caused the disturbance. He made a tolerable speech about it. What impressed Froggie was that it lasted until eleven o'clock, thus consuming all the period of J.B.'s English class.

Two days passed, and then, as quietly as though it were a mere book, Mastering the Short Story arrived. It was a pretty volume bound in green cloth. On the cover, symbolizing the means and the end, were crossed pens in a laurel wreath done in gilt. The lettering was gilt. It had, in truth, a gilty look.

For three hours that evening, The Mudhen perused the book with a diligence that astonished even Froggie Bates, who had seen him in many moods.

"What you reading, Mud?" he finally asked.

"I'm delvin' into the origin and growth of the brief narrative form."

"You're a nut," Froggie commented, and resumed his studying.

Until the lights went out The Mudhen held to the trail, steadily pursuing the short story until he felt he had but to reach out his hand and make it his own. Slow freights like Balzac, Maupassant, and O. Henry gave years to it, but this modern genius thought he had conquered it at one sitting. That, to him, was the beauty of authorship; it could be practiced most advantageously while sitting. Truly, it was a marvelous profession, that offered financial independence without physical outlay.

He went to bed. The hour grew late and the room cold, but he did not notice it He was ready then to put into practice what he had read. "First," asked the book, "what is the theme of your story?" "Crime," The Mudhen answered without hesitation, "a double murder, a robbery, a fire, and three suicides, all solved by Darcy Montmorency, whose hobbies were Babylonian art and scientific sleuthing." As the prospective author lay there he felt a strange, deep, pleasantly exciting warmth—he was creating.

In the morning he took Froggie partly into his confidence. They were partners in nearly everything and, too, it was better to have a roommate understand what was up than to be pestered with his inane questions.

"What you think about it, Frog?"

"I think you're nuts," Froggie answered, with the freedom of a friend.

"When I pull down a thousand bucks for my first story, who'll be nuts?"

"The guy who buys it."

"You fail to grasp the higher things in life."

"Tripe!"

"You never burned with ambition."

"Comfort me with cabbage!"

"You don't know what it is to be inspired."

"Salt my soup!"

"Remember you owe me something, Frog."

"I don't!"

"That English class."

"Well--yes."

"Then keep this story business under your hat. I don't want the whole school sticking its beak into my gravy."

"Trust me as you would an uncle, Mud."

Days passed, days during which The Mudhen moved as one who walks with unseen companions. The story was growing, and as it expanded in his mind it elbowed out the little things of everyday existence. He was taking authorship seriously, with an earnestness that was puzzling and painful to watch. Living the part, he affected the strangeness of authors, as he imagined them to be. He rumpled his hair and bit his nails, uttered strange ejaculations, strove to be absent-minded, showed a preference for coarse food. It was hard work and, as time wore on, it gave him indigestion and a desire to engage in a fist fight.

Froggie became worried. He had seen several displays of human behavior, but never anything like this. If it continued, the peace of the school might be threatened, for the boys were beginning to resent the snubs and insults the star-gazing Mudhen showered upon them.

"If you don't snap out of it," the Frog said one evening, "corn'll begin popping round here, Mud."

"Grrrrr!" the author answered, without looking up. He was in the midst of his second murder, where Bloody Ben and Congo Jake, a colored gangster, were having it out.

"Gosh sakes! What ails you, Mud?"

The Mudhen raised a haggard face and looked across the table with eyes that glowed beneath a towel tied around his head. He imagined it gave him the air of a literary man, but Froggie saw only a resemblance to a dyspeptic pirate.

"Friend," the author said solemnly, "I am not Harriet Beecher Stowe."

"Fan me with feathers!" Froggie gasped.

"Please remember that I am not Harriet Beecher Stowe." The Mudhen stared blankly at nothing for a moment, then returned to his murder.

Froggie shuddered. This was tragedy. Had his partner ventured the belief that he was not Adam or King Richard or Rabe Ruth, it would have been strange enough, but to seriously announce that he was not Harriet Beecher Stowe was proof of a wrecked mind. He did not know that his roommate's strange speech had merely referred to a passage in the book before him. "Absolute silence is necessary when writing," it said (page 111). "Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote her masterpiece amid the turmoil of a busy kitchen, but remember you are not Harriet Beecher Stowe." Ignorant of this, Froggie could only gaze in pity at him who had once outshone them all.

It was the next afternoon that The Mudhen staggered into their room in the twilight and sank into a chair.

"Frog," he said weakly, "I've had a session with the Old Guard."

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie sat up straight at the tone in which the headmaster was mentioned.

"He's been investigatin' that false alarm."

"Oh!" The Frog's voice was hopeless.

"He's learned that I rung it in."

"Do—do you get the gate, Mud?"

"No. I lose Easter vacation."

"You're lucky."

"Lucky!"

"I mean you might have got something worse."

"I have. I stay here and do a hundred lines of Latin every day for ten days."

"Suffering bobcats!" Froggie stiffened in his chair. After a moment he asked, "What do I get?"

"Nothin."

"But you rang in that alarm so I could duck a class."

"What of it?"

"Did you tell the Old Guard that?"

"Of course I didn't, sap."

"Mud, you're a honey!"

"Shut up!"

"But, Mud, it's not right for you to suffer for a jam I got you into."

"Go take a walk!"

Froggie did, straight to the Old Guard's office.

"Well, Bates?" The headmaster was ready to leave and stood with one arm in his overcoat.

"It's about Crane, Mr. Noble."

"What has The Mudhen done now?"

"Well, you see, sir, he rang that false alarm to help me. It was a sort of—of counterirritant to my English class."

The Old Guard, now all in his overcoat, leaned back and laughed. "Counterirritant, eh? Wait till I tell J.B. that."

"I'll take the rap, Mr. Noble, but don't dish it out to Mud. He did it to help me."

"He gave me no such impression of philanthropy."

"He wouldn't. That's why I want to stay here instead of him and do Latin during vacation."

"My word!" The Old Guard rubbed his chin. "This is something new."

"But, Mr. Noble," Froggie said truthfully, "I'm afraid Mud will go haywire if he doesn't have a vacation."

"Haywire? What do you mean?"

"He's been acting queer lately. He wants to be an author or something."

"Oh." Mr. Noble sounded relieved. "Don't worry about that."

"Seems like, sir, I would be a squarer shooter if I took his licking."

"Bates," the Old Guard put a hand on the boy's shoulder, "there are sentimental people who would applaud your attitude, but I am not one of them. My advice is, never take a licking if you can honestly avoid it. Plenty of the unavoidable kind will come your way."

"Maybe I can't honestly duck this one."

"Bunk!" the Old Guard snorted. "Crane rang the alarm and he must pay for the shot. Every guy in this school stands on his own feet." He guided Froggie through the door. "Now run along and don't stick your neck out."

That night The Mudhen worked late and was at it early in the morning. "Don't bother me," he said, waving Froggie away. "I'm strugglin' with the denouement."

As he pronounced it, "day-new-mong," it had a sinister sound suggestive of an Oriental devil.

Froggie gasped. "What is it, Mud?"

"Bloody Ben and Congo Jake are fightin' in my brain. I can't rest, Frog, I can't rest."

For another week he battled with the denouement, neglecting his work, his play, and his meals. Wearing the aspect of a mother hen that has hatched a duckling and is watching its first plunge into the pond, Froggie fussed around. Finally, unable to bear it alone, he had a talk with the House Mother, as that male teacher was called who lived in the dormitory. Froggie did not divulge the whole truth, but he managed to convey the fear that his roommate was breaking down under the strain of overwork. Knowing that woork was as foreign to The Mudhen's nature as sweet potatoes are to Greenland, the House Mother was not alarmed, and for the second time Froggie btad the virtuous feeling that he was misunderstood.

That same night, long after the lights were out, Froggie was awakened by a noise in the room. Snapping on his flashlight, he saw his long, lean partner, clad in dressing gown, slippers, overcoat and fur cap, a pad in his hand and a pencil between his teeth, standing by the door.

"What's up, Mud?" the Frog whispered.

"It's the day-new-mong again. I can't rest. It's cold here. I'm goin' to the furnace room to wrastle with it." He faded out.

Froggie, his teeth chattering, stared at the place where The Mudhen had been. Slipping out of bed, he ran down the hall and knocked on the House Mother's door. Snores came from within. More knocks. More snores. A louder knock, then a voice inquired who was there.

"It's m-m-me," Froggie chattered. "I've got to speak to you quick."

A switch clicked, the door was unlocked, and Froggie slipped in.

"The Mudhen's g-gone to the f-f-furnace room to wrastle with the d-day-new-mong," he panted.

"Eh?" The House Mother looked owl-eyed without his glasses. "Crane is where doing what?"

"In the f-furnace room wrastling with the d-day-new-mong, sir."

"The what?"

"The day-new-mong he said. He's woozy, sir."

"Good heavens!" The House Mother snatched up his dressing grown. "Come along, Bates. Quietly, we don't want the fellows to know this."

They found The Mudhen by the furnace, seated on one box and writing on another, his long legs drawn up almost to his fur cap.

"Working late, aren't you, Crane?" The House Mother tried to speak casually.

The Mudhen nodded and wrote in silence.

"You are supposed to be in your room at this hour."

"Day-new-mong won't lemme rest."

"What's the game, Crane?"

"Racket. Bloody Ben-Congo Jake."

The House Mother shot a startled look at Froggie.

"What's that you are writing, old man?"

"Worth a million."

"Let me see it. I am always interested in your work."

"Sure. Glad to have friends interested." The Mudhen rose, yanked open the furnace door and cast the paper into the fire. He closed the door and turned around, his face grave and his eyes focused on something far away. "Harriet Beecher Stowe wouldn't have done that," he remarked. "But I am not Harriet Beecher Stowe."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the House Mother. He was a young teacher who darned his own socks and had a high sense of duty toward his boys.

Froggie whispered, "He's always saying he's not Harriet Beecher Stowe."

"Dear me!" The House Mother tried to remember what he had read about cases of mistaken identity.

"Oh, hum!" The Mudhen yawned. "I'm goin' to bed." He stalked from the room and up the stairs,

"This is serious," the House Mother fussed, as they followed him. "The boy is obsessed,"

"Dippy." Froggie nodded tragically,

"He looks very tired."

"He don't sleep much. I told you he's overworking or something."

"Why did I not realize it before!"

"What we going to do with him, sir?"

"Keep close watch of him, Bates. If anything more develops, notify me immediately. In the morning I will consult Mr. Noble." The House Mother pattered away to his room.

The next morning the headmaster was reading the paper in his office when he was brought up standing by a screech which, if it had been a few octaves lower, might have been mistaken for a fire siren. It was followed by a crash and another screech of greater volume but ending in a throaty warble, such a sound as might have issued from a husky spook that had inadvertently swallowed a hot-water bottle. Leaping into the hall, the Old Guard saw Pete, the colored window washer, prone on the floor in a pool of his own suds, and atop him, The Mudhen tearing at his throat.

The House Mother was two jumps behind as the master collared the boy.

"I was about to present his case, Mr. Noble, as—"

"Grab him!" The Mudhen yelled. "Grab that man! He's the king of the gangsters!"

"I ain't no such thing, I ain't!" Pete spluttered, sitting up.

"He's Congo Jake! Grab him!"

"He mentioned that singular name last night," the House Mother said in the Old Guard's ear.

"Who mentioned it?"

"Crane. His case demands attention."

"I think so too." The Old Guard nodded to Pete, who faded out gladly. "Now, Crane."

The Mudhen looked about, and his eyes softened until they were normally sleepy.

"I guess I've been actin' queer, sir."

"Just a bit."

"You see, sir, I got ambitious a while ago. I thought I could write stories."

"Ah!" breathed the House Mother.

"I sort of lived in my story, if you know what I mean." The Mudhen stole a look at the master and was not reassured. He threw in all his talent. "Sometimes, when my head got to buzzin', it seemed I was Bloody Ben. He's the enemy of Congo Jake. I hate Jake with a great hatred. When I came along here and saw Pete, he looked so much like Congo Jake that I cut loose. My head was buzzin'—buzzin'."

"Overwork," the House Mother said gently.

"Better get away from your story for a while," the Old Guard added.

"Yes, sir. I—I guess I need a complete rest. There seems to be an awful pressure in my brain."

"A week or ten days of Latin exercises will clear your head," the Old Guard said, in a voice that left no misunderstanding.

"Yes, sir." The Mudhen walked away. He knew when he was licked.

Following the Old Guard into the office, the House Mother suggested nervously, "Don't you think Crane's health may be in danger, Mr. Noble?"

"I do not."

"His behavior has been questionable lately."

"Especially since he learned his vacation is to be cut."

"Why—why, perhaps so." The House Mother's eyes grew round. "Do you suspect his recent actions were a pose?"

"I don't suspect it, I know it."

"My soul! Is he that clever?"

"He is. That boy is going a long way if nothing happens to him. But he needs discipline."

"I suppose so, sir, and yet," the House Mother looked wistfully out the window, "it would be fun to let him pull our leg as he had planned to do."

"Yes," the Old Guard grinned slowly, "there are times when every human being yearns to be a sucker."

Chapter Three

HELP YOURSELF TO THE APPLES

Roughly speaking, a distance of six feet separated the south side of Cheese Eastman's corduroy trousers from the northern extremity of a charging bulldog. Under certain conditions such a margin might have been considered safe, but Cheese, who occupied the trousers, felt as Napoleon did in Moscow, that there was a threat from the rear. Increasing his speed from eighty to eighty-two and a half miles per hour, which was the best he could do, dog or no dog, he zipped between two clumps of hazel bushes and on into the open.

Then a strange thing happened. At least, it seemed strange to the dog. Directly in front of him a net snapped up from the ground, not taut but yielding so that when he crashed into it, it enveloped him with gentle firmness, rolled him over, and brought him up on his back as helpless as a fly in a spider's web. Instantly boys appeared from the bushes, boys whom he had been taught to hate above all earthly creatures. They swung him in the air and raced pell-mell down the hill, through the woods, over a fence and into a vacant barn. There they held him by a rope in his collar while the net was being removed, after which the rope, which ran through a knothole in the wall, was cut, and he was free to charge up and down his prison, continuing such remarks as hard-boiled bulldogs indulge in when displeased with life. Later he found himself provided with drinking water and a bone, but probably he lacked sufficient grace to be thankful for them.

"A swell Frank Buckian stunt, if you ask me!" The Mudhen panted, leaning against a corner of the barn and dusting his old white flannel trousers.

"Boy!" Cheese exhaled a long breath. "I thought that race was going to be a tie. Did you see how close that mutt was to me?"

"I didn't notice," The Mudhen said.

"You'd have noticed if he'd been after you."

"In the jungle," The Mudhen drawled, "they never use a valuable man for a decoy. They use a goat."

"Zat so!" Cheese stuck out his jaw.

"Sock him, Cheese!" Noodle Perkins flared. "You don't have to take it from an Eagle."

"Come on, Eagles!" Froggie Bates piped, with more spirit than avoirdupois. "Smear the Bears all over the map!"

"Cut it, you saps!" Dave Pierce thundered, exercising the good sense both factions always recognized. "This is no place for a scrap. Caleb might see us and get wise. Beat it!"

Hearing Dave's words and remembering that Halloween was at hand, a person would not necessarily have been bright to guess that Caleb Barney was slated for attention by members of the student body. But really there was more behind it than a mere seasonal prank. For years, Caleb, whose nature partook of the cheerful qualities of an ingrowing toenail, had been openly at war with the whole school. He enjoyed it. To be a thorn in the flesh was his favorite occupation and, as his farm adjoined the back campus, he was ideally located for the thorn business.

Caleb had never been in better form than during the past month. In his apple orchard, which was visible from the hill behind the school, he labored serenely, happy in the knowledge that each apple he picked was coveted by the students. Apples were cheap, and a bushel of them donated to the boys would have purchased good will for himself and immunity for his crop, but he wanted neither. Strife was the breath in his nostrils, so he and his dog Tige guarded the orchard day and night. And in spite of his best efforts, he always fell just short of his ambition, which was to capture a boy red-handed and march him off to the sheriff.

In his rebellious moments Caleb felt that nature had used him ill when she gave boys wits and legs so coordinated that their owners were as uncatchable as weasels. But hope persisted in his so-called heart, and counseling with himself he hit upon a plan. It was simple—he merely left one of his best trees unpicked and dared the boys to touch a single apple on it.

Guessing his challenge, but wishing to make sure, they sent a delegation to him offering to buy the fruit on that tree, as he appeared to have no use for it. The delegates were received in the public highway and told, with many shakings of the unclean Barney fists and much bobbing of the untidy Barney whiskers, that those apples were going to hang where they were till they froze. He would not sell them and did not want them for his own use, but anyone who so much as touched one of them would be jailed. So that was that—war.

Days passed. The tree, heavy with its red harvest, stood forth like a defiant flag. Long warm nights came and went, during which Caleb and Tige held the fort. Each evening the boys sallied out only to return defeated, Caleb's threats and taunts ringing in their ears. And so it came to the day before Halloween. Then, if ever, they must act, not only because it was the logical time for such a deed, but because the weather bureau predicted freezing temperature within twenty-four hours.

The first step was to remove Tige temporarily, and they set about it with the cunning of desperation. Late in the afternoon, scouts reported that Caleb had gone to town, leaving the dog on guard. Quickly a specially trained detachment seized an old tennis net and ran up the hill. Between two clumps of bushes they stretched the net on the ground, with boys holding each end. Then Cheese, who was the best sprinter in school, entered the orchard farther up and cut diagonally across toward the bushes. Tige fell into the trap and found himself netted in the manner described.

The enemy's strength was sharply reduced, but Caleb remained. Various forms of strategy were considered, and when none held a reasonable promise of success the boys decided on strong-arm methods as a last resort. If he persisted in patrolling the orchard that night, they would swarm him under and hold him down until the apples were toted away.

Under ordinary conditions that would be going too far, for the apples were his to do with as he chose. But this was the point, as they saw it: by deliberately refusing to use them or allow them to be used by others who were in need of them, he had forfeited his right to them. Their loss would cause him nothing but mental distress which, considering his past and present behavior, was less than he deserved. Let him complain to the authorities afterward, and then let him try to identify those silent shapes he had encountered.

Thus, sure of the justness of their cause, the boys crept up the hill that night. But they reckoned without their host. Caleb Barney had not lived through two score of Halloweens without learning that such a time was the climax of the year's warfare. If anything was going to happen, it would happen then; and he was prepared for it. As they closed in on the tree, he emerged from the shadow. There was no moon, but the night was clear, and they saw he carried what looked like a long stick. Dave, leading the advance, saw the danger first.

"Duck!" he shouted, throwing himself flat. "He's going to shoot!"

There was a flash and a roar. From where he lay under a tree The Mudhen was aware of falling leaves, cut off by shot.

"G-gosh!" Froggie chattered. "Th-that was c-c-c-close!"

Another broadside boomed in the other direction. There was a full minute of silence except for the noise Caleb made reloading. Through the night air drifted, the smell of burned gunpowder, an odor that conjured up visions of carnage. Not a word was spoken as the boys went away from there fast.

They rendezvoused at the foot of the hill, each one a bit surprised to find the others safe.

"Anyone get plugged?" Dave asked.

All hands reported themselves unpunctured.

"But I felt a bullet fan my cheek," Noodle said, drawing freely on a western he had been reading.

"Fan your Aunt Emma!" Froggie snorted.

"I guess I know a bullet when I feel one fan!"

"The heck you do? Anyhow, he used shot, not bullets."

"How do you know so much?"

"The shot knocked the leaves right off over our heads, didn't they, Mud?"

"Yeah." The Mudhen sat on a rock. "He shot to scare us."

"I guess he didn't make it work," Froggie scoffed, sufficiently recovered from his fright to sound almost natural.

"He scared me," Dave admitted.

"Me too," Sam Bowman chimed in. "He can keep his apples till the cows come home."

"You lack gumption," The Mudhen criticized.

"I'd rather lack that than an arm or leg," Sara returned.

"Nothin' ventured nothin' gained."

"Mud's a big shot—let him tell it," Skunk Evans scoffed. "He hopped out of that orchard just as fast as any of us."

"I didn't wish to be vulgarly conspicuous by my bravery," The Mudhen answered and seemed to fall asleep.

Around him raged a council of war that wound up in a decision to abandon the attack. The boys drifted away toward town, bent on less hazardous Halloween activities, but for a long time The Mudhen sat as motionless as the rock beneath him. Eventually he moved away, but in the course of time he returned, his white flannel trousers showing faintly in the gloom like the landing gear of a ghost.

Some minutes later Caleb saw the same trousers slipping toward him through the orchard. Them varmints thought he'd gone home, eh? He'd show 'em. The shotgun roared and the deed was done. The trousers spun about, staggered, and collapsed on the grass.

Silence. Then, "Help!" The Mudhen groaned. "Help me quick!"

Suspecting a trick, Caleb was not impressed at first.

"Ye don't fool me," he growled out of the darkness. "There's a dozen of ye waitin' to pile onto me when I'm off my guard."

"I am—alone," The Mudhen panted. "Lend me—a hand—Mr. Barney."

Caleb drew near cautiously. "Don't ye try no monkeyshines on me, young feller."

Slowly The Mudhen sat up, fumbled a flashlight from his pocket and wabbled it around before it focused on his left leg.

"Does that look like—monkeyshines?" he asked faintly.

Then Caleb believed something had happened.

Midway of the boy's thigh a dark stain was spreading.

"What's that?" he asked, trying to keep, the fear out of his voice.

"Don't you know what it is, Mr. Barney?"

"I—I shot over yer head. I couldn't have hit ye."

"Never mind that now. Help me tie it up."

Together and in silence they applied a handkerchief tourniquet. Several times Caleb's fingers touched the growing stain—it was warm and sticky and he shuddered.

"That feels better," the boy mumbled, dragging himself backward to the foot of the nearest tree.

"Can ye move yer laig?" Caleb asked anxiously.

"Yes—It's not broken."

"Can ye stand up?"

"Let me rest for a while."

"Feel squeamish?" Caleb displayed more concern than was intended.

"Yes."

"Want I should fetch a doctor?"

"Only as a last resort. A doctor would make you trouble."

"Make me trouble!" Caleb tried to bristle as of old. "I ain't to blame for this."

"You did the shootin'."

"You was tryin' to steal my property and I was defendin' of it."

"I was passin' by and you fired," The Mudhen said in a grieved tone.

"This land is posted and you know it, young feller."

"Yes, I know it. But does that give you the right to slay me on sight?"

"I didn't shoot at ye. It was an accident."

"Who will believe that?"

"Ye can't scare me," Caleb bluffed, because he was already scared.

"I scare you, Mr. Barney? No, no, no. I won't even make you trouble if you will be a sport."

"Eh? What you mean by that?"

"There will be no trouble if you pay for this." The Mudhen touched his leg and winced.

"I won't pay ye a cent—not one red cent!"

"Do you like lawsuits, Mr. Barney?"

"No, I don't."

"Tastes differ so widely. My father likes lawsuits-he is a lawyer."

"I ain't done nothin' to be lawed at."

"Nor have I done anything to be shot down like a nocturnal marauder." The Mudhen lay back and closed his eyes.

"I can prove ye was tresspassin'," Caleb declared, to break the silence he did not like.

"That point can wait." The Mudhen stifled a groan. "If you will please give me a hand, Mr. Barney, perhaps I can go home now."

Caleb helped him up. "Walk on it, can ye?"

"Hop is the word. Thanks. I'll be seein' you."

"Hey." There was anxiety all over Caleb's tone. "What ye want to do about this—accident?"

"I remember telling you my father is a lawyer."

"A man's got a right to defend his property, young feller."

"Providin' it is threatened. My father will know if you are to be charged with intent to kill."

Then Caleb made an unbelievable remark. "I don't want no trouble with my neighbors," he said.

"Neither do I." The Mudhen met him halfway. "That's why I offered to settle."

"Well, just for the idee of it, how'll you settle?"

"I want all the apples on that tree delivered to my room tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. The baskets will be returned to you."

"All them apples!" Caleb waved his arms. "There's ten bushel!"

"I would not dispute with you." The Mudhen started to hop away.

"Say," Caleb caught up with him, "you mean you'll square accounts for the apples?"

"Come across and no one will ever know what has happened."

"What if ye have a doctor?"

"Trust me to handle it."

"It's takin' a chance to trust any boy. Dang boys!"

"But a greater chance not to trust me, Mr. Barney."

"Dang fool of a boy, gittin' himself hurt 'n blamin' me fer it. Give me time to think it over."

"Certainly. But don't let the apples freeze." The Mudhen slowly faded into the darkness.

The next afternoon he lay on his bed, watching a game of checkers between Noodle and Froggie. Cheese, sitting on the windowsill, glanced over his shoulder at a noise outside.

"Golly!" he cried. "Caleb Barney is lugging a crate of apples in here."

"You might open the door for him," The Mudhen said. "He is makin' me a present of a few bushels."

A knock sounded and Cheese opened the door in the face of Caleb, who wanted to know if that was where that long-legged, sleepy-looking critter lived.

"Yes, indeed!" The Mudhen spoke up briskly. "This is young Mr. Crane's apartment. Bring in the apples, my good man."

"How ye feel?" Caleb asked under his breath, as he put the basket near the bed.

"O.K.," The Mudhen told him. "Won't you sit and chat?"

But Caleb neither sat nor chatted. When he had delivered eight more bushels of apples he slammed the door and departed.

"What the heck does this mean?" Cheese burst out.

But, being bound by a promise, The Mudhen could not tell him it meant that when you go to Cicero's and buy a bottle of tomato juice and have him warm it, and then you put the bottle in your pocket and take out the cork and let the stuff run down your leg, it looks enough like blood to fool a guy like Caleb Barney.

Chapter Four

WILL YOU TAKE GAS?

"What's on your mind, mud?" Dave Pierce asked, entering the room and closing the door after him. "You sent word you wanted to see me."

"Long, long ago."

"If you were in such a hurry, why didn't you come ever?"

"Dear David, it is so much easier to have you do the coming over."

"You're the laziest critter in the world, Mud!"

"Yet I am sweet and intelligent—a rare combination."

"You are a pain in the neck."

"Sit, little one, there's somethin' cookin'."

Dave sat. "What's cookin'?"

"I've a hunch that tonight the Bears will plan their initiation party."

"How come?"

"There's a pinup on the billboard that they'll have a business meetin' in the gym at four this afternoon."

"Sure, that was hours ago. They wouldn't lay any secret plans there."

"Yeh, but they did decide to have an officers' meetin' in the campus tool house this evenin' at seven-thirty."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, a few minutes before four, Frog and I happened to be in the gym alone, so I had him roll me up in the wrestlin' mat and leave me in a corner. I overheard what the Bears said."

"Mud, your old bean does percolate now and then."

"It has its moments."

Dave looked at his watch and frowned. "Seven-thirty," he said. "That was half an hour ago. Why didn't you tell us so we could sneak up on the meeting?"

"We couldn't sneak up on a secret meetin'—they'd have guards posted."

"Gosh, if we only had a spy over therel"

"Frog's there," The Mudhen said casually.

"What do you mean?"

"He's in a barrel. Remember there's an empty barrel in the back part of the tool house? He's in it. I sent him because he's the smallest Eagle and won't be so cramped."

"If," Dave said, almost reverently, "I were wearing a hat, I'd take it off to you."

The door opened sharply and Froggie Bates popped through, his thin face glowing. "Golly!" He glanced around suspiciously.

"We're alone" The Mudhen assured him. "Sit down."

"Not me. I'm never going to sit again. I've been doubled up in that barrel like a chicken in an egg for an hour."

"Has the cause profited by your suffering, old hero?"

"I've got the dope." Froggie grinned. "The Bears have their party a week from tomorrow night in the Yellow House."

"Wow!" Dave slapped his leg. "Atta boy, Frog!"

"What about the lion?" The Mudhen asked.

"They'll pinch it the night of the party."

"How?"

"Gosh sakes! I'm telling you fast as I can, ain't I?"

"No."

"Go on, Frog," Dave said, hitting The Mudhen with a shoe,

"He's too lazy to breath, but when I'm doing anything he wants me to step on it."

"Go on, Frog," Dave repeated.

"Well, the night of the party, Skunk is going to ask the Old Guard for permission to eat in town, then, when we go to supper, he'll pinch the lion."

"We might tip off the Old Guard," Dave said, "but it wouldn't be sporting."

"He's too good a scout to stick his beak in our soup that way," Froggie said.

"Anyhow, we've got to wash out those guys without hollerin' for help," The Mudhen declared.

"That'll be no pushover," Dave remarked; "those guys are clever."

"Use your head."

"Use yours."

"I will." The Mudhen closed his eyes and became oblivious to the world.

To those not in the know, it may be said that the problem before the Eagles was one of yearly recurrence. Every fall when they and their rivals, the Bears, had pledged new members, initiation banquets were held. Such ceremonial feasts were secret in so far as possible, for it was the sacred duty of the other side to attempt to break them up. And no such banquet was worth the name unless held under the rigid stare of the plaster of Paris lion which had dwelt on a shelf in the main hall since before the memory of man. As the lion was three feet long and must be removed by stealth from the very heart of the school, its safe transfer to the banquet was a triumph of schoolboy ingenuity.

Conversely, the prevention of such an act was an equal victory. Last year the Bears got away with it neatly by bribing a carpenter, who chanced to be working in the hall, to cart it out in broad daylight in his tool chest. Furthermore, a few days later when the Eagles tried to pass it out through the cellar in an ash can, they had been ignominiously blocked. They said little because there was little to be said, but now, when the day was again near, they were ready to shed their life blood to even the score.

Though they stood shoulder to shoulder in this common cause, a casual observer might have said that all they did was stand. Initiation week came and began to wear away, but as far as human eye could see, the Eagles had hit on no plan for defense or offense. The Mudhen, who was supposed to be their master mind, was as near dormant as a person can be without exciting medical attention. Bear spies reported him sunk in an orgy of detective stories. So great was his preoccupation with them that he was neglecting his usual trips to Cicero's, the fruit store in town run by a genial Italian. Cicero was a model citizen, but the fact that in his younger days in the old country he had belonged to a secret order that jollied its political opponents with dynamite made him a romantic figure to all boys, especially The Mudhen. They were firm friends, and spent hours in the back room of the store discussing the technique of crime. Neither would have harmed a mouse, yet the diabolical plans they concocted would have been, if printed, on the preferred shelf of any good Black Hand library.

When it became noised about The Mudhen left his room only for classes and meals, Cheese Eastman, the Bear chief, maneuvered until he was able to search the room. There he was rewarded, for under the bed he found an electric bell and batteries from which a wire led up behind a curtain and out a crack in the window casing. From there it was easily followed along the building to a tree, and thence to the main hall, where it disappeared through another window. Hot on the trail and helped by a fortunate absence of Eagles, Cheese picked up the wire inside the hall and traced it to the lion itself. Under two of its feet were tiny wires so arranged that when the statue was lifted, contact would be made, the bell rung, and the alarm sounded. That, as anyone could see, was why The Mudhen kept so close to his room. It was a clever idea; Cheese was sure it was the Eagles' sole defense, and as he cut the wire with his pliers he felt the thrill of victory.

For a while after that, life was serene, each side feeling secure enough to ignore the other. Then came the time for action. As Froggie had foretold, Skunk Evans secured permission to dine out that night and, while the rest of the school was busy with supper, he entered the main hall and walked out with the lion. An hour later he arrived at the old Yellow House, an inn two or three miles up the road. Presently he was joined by all the Bears, who reported that the Eagles were patiently waiting at home for a signal that never would sound.

It was a triumph of wit, the Bears were drunk with their own cleverness. Bearing the lion beween them on a board draped with the school colors, Cheese and Skunk headed a procession that marched up the stairs to the back room where the secret feast was to be held. Glacing at his watch, Cheese saw they were on the nose, and he wondered if Napoleon would have managed the campaign as skillfully.

Placing the lion in the middle of the table, the Bears gathered round to observe the ritual which always preceded such a banquet. That no word of the mystic ceremony might escape to listening ears, the doors and windows were closed. All was ready.

"Brother Bears," Cheese began in a deep voice, standing at the head of the table, "we are gathered here in solemn conclave to celebrate the—"

"BANG!"

The lion leaped into the air in a thousand pieces. There was a sweet smell like incense and a thin cloud of plaster of Paris dust filled the room and the eyes of those assembled there. As a clap of thunder sometimes precedes a downpour, so that explosion was followed by a flood. Tears burst in streams from every eye. Tears tumbled down the sides of every nose. Tears cascaded from the tip of every chin.

"We're gassed!" Cheese choked, and headed blindly for the door.

The others followed like sheep—weeping, bleating sheep. They stumbled into the next room, and the door closed after them. Unable to see, they supposed they were bumping into each other, until it dawned on them that unfriendly fingers were binding their hands behind their backs.

"Kidnappers!" Skunk bellowed as he lunged for the farther door. It was locked.

"Take it easy, children, you haven't a chance," The Mudhen's voice drawled through the fog.

"You!" Cheese shook the water from his eyes.

"Me and a few friends—gentlemen all," The Mudhen said gently. "You'll be able to enjoy our classic features in a minute or so."

Sight return as promised, and the blinking Bears found themselves entirely surrounded by Eagles whose grins were the least welcome items on display.

"What you mean by this holdup stuff?" Cheese bluffed.

"Your nose is as red as a red, red rose," The Mud-hen told him.

"We'll have the police on you!" cried a cub Bear who had not yet learned the ways of his clan.

"You puppy!" Cheese wheeled on him. "We don't whine when we're caught."

Both sides applauded this, for Cheese was always a square shooter. The cub hung his head in shame, the most miserable creature on earth at that moment.

"Buck up," The Mudhen said, clapping him on the shoulder. "The best of us speak before we think sometimes."

Good feeling filled the room like a warm wind.

"It's your move, Mud," Cheese said.

"Give us your word to stay put and we'll turn you loose."

"You have it," Cheese promised. And to the other Bears, "We're on parole for the rest of the night, remember."

"O.K.," said The Mudhen, and untied the cub first.

"I suppose we can go home now," Noodle said to Froggie. "You've busted the party wide open."

"It's just begun," Froggie answered, with more gaiety than was decent in the presence of so many mourners. "Food comes next."

"There won't be any food," Noodle answered soddenly.

"You ordered it and it's all cooked."

"What if it is?"

"We're hungry, that's what. And you paid for it in advance."

"How you know we did?"

"Our secret service knows everything."

"Then it knows we'll cancel the order."

"Too late." Froggie grinned wickedly.

At that point Dave Pierce, who had been out of the room for a few minutes, came back. "The dining room is aired out now," he said, throwing open the door. "Come in, everybody." His cordiality was delightful to those who were not Bears.

The Eagles herded their involuntary guests forward, but in the doorway Cheese held up the procession. He was staring at the table, where the old lion stood serene and intact.

"Where'd that lion come from?" he demanded of The Mudhen.

"From the main hall, little man."

"The heck it did!"

"I know whereof I speak."

"Skunk," Cheese snapped, "where'd you get the lion you brought here?"

"From the main hall."

"Were there two of them there?"

"'Course not."

"Then this one is a fake!" Cheese cried. "You Eagles will get in Dutch for busting up school property."

"Take your places, guest Bears." The Mudhen bowed.

"Places?"

"Seats, dear children. Do you think we'd ask you to stand durin' a meal? Perish the thought forever and a day."

"What you driving at, Mud?"

"Those chairs so neatly ranged against the wall are for our playmates, the Bears. We will sit at the table, as becomes those of higher rank. Gentlemen, be seated."

Cheese hesitated, then his chin went up, and he marched to a chair. He could take it. The Bears followed silently and sat themselves down. And there they continued to sit, boiling and seething and swearing vengeance, while before them the meal they had ordered and paid for disappeared into the depths of those despicable Eagles.

When it was over The Mudhen sank low in his chair. "Waiter," he said, "if there's any ice cream left you might give it to the children in the back of the room."

"Keep your distance," Cheese glared at the waiter. "We don't eat leftovers."

"My fault, waiter," The Mudhen murmured. "They're just not eatin' tonight."

"Mud," Cheese said, walking over to the table, "I want to look at that lion."

"Not a shadow of objection, dear lad."

Cheese picked up the statue and examined it.

"It's the real one," he said grudgingly. "I remember that scratch on the hind leg."

"Absolutely genuine."

"Then the other is a fake."

"Alas, the other is only a memory."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Ask Dave. I'm worn out." The Mudhen drooped and closed his eyes.

"It was easy as pie." Dave grinned. "When we got wise to the time and place of your party—"

"How'd you do that?" Noodle cut in, curiously conquering pride.

"Our secret service is the best in the world."

"I should kiss a pig!" Noodle snorted.

"No," Froggie put in. "Always be kind to animals."

"I'll punch your snoot when we get outside," Noodle promised.

"Try it."

"Dry up, you two," Cheese commanded. "We want to hear about the lion."

"It was Mud's idea," Dave told them. "We took this one down to Cicero's, and he made a plaster cast of it. He's quite a sculptor."

"It didn't take much of a job to fool you guys anyway," Froggie commented.

"Zat so!" Noodle flared. "You just wait, smart guys!"

"Dry up," Cheese suggested. "What blew the thing

up, Dave?"

"About as much gunpowder as there is in a cannon cracker. Cicero fixed it for us. He's been an anarchist or something, you know. And he rigged up the little tear-gas bomb too. Mud got the stuff from his brother, who's in the National Guard back home. The thing worked by clockwork. We muffled the ticker in cotton so Skunk wouldn't hear it when he was lugging it around."

"And I carried that infernal thing all the way from school!" Skunk cried.

"Yes. We substituted it for the real lion last night."

"Of course," Cheese said, with the air of one who has ceased to struggle, "that electric alarm business under Mud's bed was all flap-doodle."

"Oh, yes, just a sucker trap," The Mudhen said cheerfully.

Chapter Five

THE RISE OF AN ACTOR

NO ONE REMEMBERS WHEN THE MUDHEN LAUGHED. AT rare intervals he has smiled in a sad and weary manner, but in the matter of an outright laugh he has been as silent as a giraffe. Not for the same reason. With a giraffe it is due to mileage, his vocal efforts becoming lost in the tunnel before reaching daylight, but with The Mudhen it was a case of pure economy. It takes breath to laugh, breath requires energy, and he was never prodigal in that way. So at the present moment, if anyone had noticed faint tremors at the corners of his mouth, it would have been remarked as something unusual. However, as all eyes were on the small stage at the front of the room, no one observed those tremors.

It was Friday evening and J.B. of the English Department was throwing a party. So far as the boys were concerned, he might have thrown it in the ash can and forgotten it without incurring a deluge of regrets, but with examination time in the offing it was wise to please him, so they were waxing enthusiastic with all the exuberant hypocrisy of youth.

The thing had started off with charades, a game popular with J.B., and had gone from bad to worse until now it was a book-title guessing contest. It would have bogged down in that dismal morass had not the guests, egged on by fear of the day of reckoning, carried it forward by main force. It was their chance to impress J.B. with their love of literature, and they struggled manfully, especially those who knew the least about it. He had selected the titles in advance and provided the necessary setups, and now he stood by, rubbing his hands, while The Call of the Wild, Two Years Before the Mast, and other old reliables went over with reasonable success. The applause was loud, and once it was genuine—that was when The Mudhen impersonated Sherlock Holmes. Being a born actor as well as a worshiper of Sherlock, the character fitted him as a duck fits a pond, and he stood before them the Old Master himself. After the act he retired to the audience to rest and watch with half-closed eyes.

J.B. was delighted with the evening so far. He considered such contests entertaining without being sensational, which gave him the pleasant feeling of both amusing and instructing his class. Never had he seen a crowd of boys with a keener interest in literature. So fast did his enthusiasm bubble that he cut loose and proposed they continue the show in extemporaneous manner. They welcomed it with cheers, while wondering what that twelve-dollar word meant. He cleared up the mystery by inviting them to put on such acts as occurred to them hot off the griddle.

There was a painful silence. The boys realized they must act up, yet caution warned them to beware how they did it. They knew stunts aplenty, but it was questionable if they were the kind that would boost their batting average with J.B.

"Do you mean, sir, we can put on anything we want to?" Sam Bowman asked, thinking of his stock trick of throwing his elbows out of joint.

"Something of a literary nature," J.B. elucidated.

"Oh," said Sam, sitting down.

There was no rush toward the stage. To put it mathematically, if the number of those who dashed forward had been multiplied by ten, the sum would have equaled the square of the original number.

Noodle Perkins covered the situation when he whispered to The Mudhen, "Gosh, I wish I could think up a smart stunt to show J.B. I'm hot for his stuff."

It was then that The Mudhen almost smiled.

"Mud," Noodle urged, blinking his round, doll-like eyes, "use your bean."

"Give the lesser minds a chance."

"I bet you've got one hooked already."

"Oh, to be sure," The Mudhen mumbled sleepily.

"Don't go to sleep, Mud." Noodle made a pass at his companion's liver. "If you've got an idea, hop to it before J.B. chalks us all down for a bunch of saps."

"It takes two to act this one."

"I'll help you."

"You'll find it tough goin', my boy."

"I don't care. It won't be so tough as being flunked by J.B."

"It may be."

"Get a wiggle on, Mud. What is my part?"

"You follow me, that's all you do from start to finish, just follow me."

"Anybody can do that. Get going."

"O.K. You asked for it." The Mudhen moved briskly toward the stage.

A wiser person would have been on guard, knowing that haste on The Mudhen's part was a phenomenon demanding instant investigation. But Noodle was not keen. At its best, his intellect had all the zest and sparkle of a mud pie—no more. He was an easy mark at any time, but now, when he was inflamed by the desire to appear literary, he was as gullible as a young robin. With his ulterior motive tucked snugly in the back of his head, he trotted up the aisle, taking two waddling steps to each of Mud's long strides.

"You have an act?" J.B. beamed.

"Yes, sir," The Mudhen answered gravely.

"Splendid! Let's see how original you are."

Without preliminaries, The Mudhen took Noodle's arm and walked around the stage several times.

"Gome on, you guys, guess," Noodle cried, for he did not like to travel.

''Two Gentlemen from Verona," Sam Bowman shouted, to show J.B. he was reading Shakespeare--some of the titles anyhow.

"They're not from Verona," Dave Pierce objected, though he had no idea where or what Verona might be.

"And they're not gentlemen," Froggie Bates added, with unnecessary candor.

Strangely unperturbed by the remarks or the exercise, The Mudhen continued to march back and forth, dragging with him the now perspiring Noodle.

"Come, come," J.B. urged, "someone guess again."

"The Odyssey" Skunk Evans.piped.

"Where do you find the suggestion?" J.B. asked.

Thus unexpectedly pinned down, Skunk's mind spun like an egg beater, hopelessly mixing classic lore.

"Why," he said, "why, The Odyssey was a sort of dance or something that Homer and Dido did on the walls of Troy."

"You are a bit rusty there," was J.B.'s only comment.

The crowd laughed. The Mudhen continued walking. Noodle's round face was getting red, but he kept the pace and tried to look wise, failing completely. J.B. fidgeted with his watchchain. If things went on this way, they might wonder why he did not come across with an answer, and he was stuck the same as they were.

"I think, Crane, you should tell us the author's name," he finally said.

"It's Robert Louis Stevenson," The Mudhen complied, and towed Noodle around again.

The audience now had the key, which was all it amounted to. Even J.B., who thought he knew his Stevenson, was stumped. There was silence save for the sound of feet on the stage.

"Kidnapped," Cheese Eastman ventured, to ease the strain.

"Wrong," said The Mudhen, without slackening.

Noodle was getting publicity, but it was not pie. He was fat, the room was hot, and the steady exercise was not his idea of a literary performance. Hadn't Stevenson written something called The Wrecker? Was that what The Mudhen had in mind? Was he deliberately wrecking the person of George Perkins for public amusement? Such things had been done, as witness the guy who was rubbed out to make a Roman holiday. Noodle became suspicious.

"Say, Mud," he puffed.

"Forward," his escort commanded.

"What's the big idea?"

"Act your part and question not."

"How long'll it last, Mud?"

"Does it matter? We are impressin' J.B., as you wished to do."

"Well-" Noodle grinned heroically at the assembly, hoping to convey the thought that he was a party to rather than a victim of the mystery.

Obviously it was a sticker. Had R.L.S. himself been present, he might have hesitated before naming the brain child that was parading before his eyes.

"We give up, Crane," J.B. finally admitted.

"Last call?" The Mudhen eyed the crowd.

"What is the title, Crane?"

"Travels with a Donkey " The Mudhen answered, looking solemn.

Noodle took a step sidewise, and his chubby face flamed like a tomato in a seed catalogue.

"You think you're smart!" he cried, shaking both fists at his fellow actor.

"Oh," said The Mudhen blandly.

"I'll fix you for this, you big sap, see if I don't!"

"Perkins, Perkins, what are you doing?" J.B. admonished.

"I'm telling him, sir, he can't take me for that kind of a ride and get away with it."

The Mudhen registered one hundred and fifty percent innocence, with plenty more in reserve if needed.

"Dear lad," he begged, "what seems to be the trouble?"

"Don't you 'Dear lad' mel" Noodle was quite sincere. "You big hunk of tripe, you can't call me a donkey in public and get away with it."

The Mudhen answered sadly, as one will who is misunderstood, "I swear, on the tomb of Tut, I never called you a donkey."

"You did!" Noodle rose on his toes to give the words a boost.

"No, no, no!" The Mudhen pushed the horrid thought away with both hands. "I said our act was called Travels with a Donkey, but far be it from me to stipulate which one of us was the donkey."

"You looked at me when you said it."

"My friend, do you mean one has only to look at you to call you a donkey?"

"You think you're smart!" Noodle shrieked above the laughter. "You wait, I'll fix you!"

"No threats, Perkins, no threats," J.B. warned.

"You wouldn't like it, sir, if he'd called you a donkey same's he did me."

"But, Perkins, he did not call you one. For all he said, he himself might have been the donkey. I speak impartially when I say you assumed the donkey role voluntarily."

The crowd whooped, and too late Noodle realized that he was indeed the donkey. Had he used his wits he might have slipped the implication upon The Mudhen's shoulders or at least left it in doubt, but as it was he had saddled himself with it. And that was, he now saw, exactly what Mud had intended all along.

"He-haw!" a voice brayed from the back of the room. It spread like fire and burned up its victim. "He-haw! He-haw! He-haw!" Noodle fled.

Such was the beginning of what might be called the Donkey Era in the school's history. For days thereafter a stranger visiting the place might have wondered at the asinine behavior of students who, sometimes singly and again in groups, threw back their heads and he-hawed at the top of their lungs.

For every effect there is a cause, and a person with half an eye must have noticed that such outbursts occurred in the vicinity of Noodle Perkins. Verily, that poor innocent was being persecuted. Life once had been for him a peaceful valley, sheltered and secure, but now it was a hostile wilderness, set thickly with pitfalls and ambushes where donkey voices lay in wait to harass him. He was brayed up in the morning, brayed to meals, brayed across the campus, brayed in town, even brayed in his own room and in his own bed. Brays there were everywhere except in the classrooms, which drove him, as a choice between two evils, to spend as much time as possible under the wings of his teachers.

As is the case with all great movements, Art felt its influence. Self-expression surged upward and dotted the landscape with symbols of the new trend of thought. Those who could draw left pictures of donkeys on blackboards, walls and fences. Those who could sculp fashioned donkeys from vegetables and soap. Those who could carve created wooden donkeys. Indoors and out, in high places and in low, the donkey theme predominated. Music herself, gathering her classic robes about her, bestrode a donkey and ambled in the van of the procession disguised as a parody of a popular song:

Let's all sing as the donkeys do,

He-haw, he-haw, he-haw!

Wag your ears, it will help you to

He-haw, he-haw, he-haw!

Never mind if you do get socked,

It's good for what ails you,

Take your time from the whacks,

Get your words from the jacks,

He-haw, he-haw, he-haw!

The student body sang it in a way to stir the blood, especially Noodle's. Though he was constantly meeting happy faces, he partook of none of the joy about him. That was not strange when it is remembered that for him the world had become a donkey corral. He resented it, for when a fellow has been tricked, it takes a more generous spirit than Noodle's to forgive the trickster.

It may be said for The Mudhen, however, that things had gone farther than he expected. He loved a joke, but lacked the energy to carry one to a great length. He was not cruel by nature and, if possible, would have ended Noodle's misery at the end of the first day or two. But there he was powerless, for, once started, an avalanche must run its course. Though he took no part in the persecution, it was hard to believe he regretted it. For all his seeming innocence, the fact remained that it was he who had introduced the donkey motif. For that reason Noodle burned with thoughts of revenge and dedicated his life to the purpose of getting even, if it took a leg.

It was one evening during this time that The Mudhen strolled home and dropped into a chair.

"Where you been?" Froggie, his roommate, asked, looking up from the study table.

"Since when, creature, do I report my actions to you?"

"Thought you were coming right up after Chateau Chew."

"The Old Guard sent me a buzz."

"Golly!" Froggie perked up. "About this donkey business?"

"At last, old friend, my talent has been recognized."

"What about the Old Guard?"

"He has given me what I deserve."

"You been fired from school, Mud?"

"Brat, learn to mend your manners in the presence of your betters."

"Oh, yeah!"

"Listen. The Old Guard called me in to tell me I've been given the leadin' part in the school play. I'm to be the hero."

"Lord-love-a-duck!" Froggie stared hard. Slowly the pride he always felt in his roommate showed in his honest face. "That's good news, Mud!" he cried. "Swell! You've earned it too. You're the best actor in school."

"Thanks, Frog."

"What's the play, detective stuff?"

"No."

"Too bad. That's where you shine."

"This is pretty good though, it's cavaliers."

"Fish eggs?"

"Not caviar, you nut, cavaliers."

"Oh. Romantic birds with cloaks and swords?"

"Sure. They're usually Spanish and play guitars."

"Good gosh! You got to play a guitar?"

"No."

"It's not a musical comedy, then?"

"It's not a comedy, it's a drama. The only music is when Cheese—he's the villain—plays a mandolin a little in one scene. It's not music but my good sword that wins my inamorata."

"Who's he?"

"Rip Anderson."

"Rip's a swell skirt."

"I tell you, Frog, we'll have a play that!s the bow on the birdcage this time."

"Any crooks in it?"

"High-class ones. The theme is intrigue, a web of intrigue, through which the hero, cool, calm and clever, moves with the sureness of a master."

"That's you?"

"Sure. The role fits me like a glove."

"What do the other actors do, just sit on the fence and watch you?"

"They support me."

"A superduper cavalier like you can't support himself?"

"You don't understand, little one." The Mudhen. sighed. "Wait till you see the marvelous interplay of subterfuge, cowardice, heroism, sin, virtue, love, hate, and such like. Wait till you see that smashin' third act! Then you'll realize you stand awed and reverent in the presence of genius."

"I should kiss a pig!" was Froggie's inelegant comment as he turned to his books.

During the days that followed The Mudhen floated as on a cloud. The humdrum life of school became a dream, while the play took on the form of reality. Especially did the third act warm his heart and call forth every atom of his dramatic power. The setup was simple, as the greatest scenes always are. On a bench in the softly lighted garden the handsome and villainous cavalier, Cheese Eastman, made love to the coy heroine, Rip Anderson. That she was a dumb egg was not Rip's fault; she had to be that way or she would have given Cheese the gate in the first act and left the play without a leg on which to stand. Rip was good in feminine parts, and now he was so rouged and ruffled and curled that his own mother would not have recognized him if she had met him at a sewing circle.

"Ain't she cute!" Froggie giggled from the wings, where he was watching the first dress rehearsal.

"Varlet, hand me my cloak," The Mudhen said sternly.

"Gosh sakes! Ain't you goin' to wear pants and a sweater under that, Mud?"

"Don't need 'em with this long cloak and jack boots. I'm more graceful at sword play this way."

"But, boy, if you ever lost that cloak, you'd be in a tough spot!"

"Silence, fool!" the hero hissed, as he moved out from behind the garden wall.

Cheese and Rip were, according to instructions, too busy to notice the draped shoulders and plumed hat that appeared noiselessly back of them. The leading man listened to the villain's false words, noted their effect on the melting heroine and, boiling with righteous fury, flung open the gate and leaped into the garden.

"Draw, wretch!" he thundered so violently that Froggie jumped and collided with Noodle, who was also watching.

The wretch obeyed, but he had no more chance against that cloaked avenger than a cosset lamb would have with a hungry lion. Thrust and parry, in and out, up and down for a full minute, to give the audience its money's worth, then, "Death!" roared

The Mudhen and lunged. His sword, telescoping, seemed to pass clear through Cheese's heart.

"Boy, that's slick!" Froggie whooped. But Noodle did not applaud.

It thrilled The Mudhen to the marrow to be the hero of such a drama. He loved to act and, now that he was free to do so, he put his heart into the work. Not only was he awake, he was enthusiastic all of every day. The school wondered, but it caught his spirit. The other actors rose so far above themselves that the faculty realized that, for amateurs, they would put on a fine performance.

As the time drew near, the village and surrounding towns bloomed with bright posters announcing the coming event. The Mudhen saw his name in large letters, and little boys looked after him as he passed. Tickets began to sell, one block of them sending a pink flutter through the school.

"Wow!" Froggie cried, bursting into the room one afternoon. "We're going to have a humdinger of a crowd, Mud."

"Where?" the actor asked absently.

"At the show, you fathead. Where'd you think? We'll make a million."

"The commercial side is nothing to me."

"No?"

"Art alone interests me."

"Tripe! Say, guess who's bought three whole rows of seats?"

"Only a sea serpent could use that much room in a string."

"It's girls"

"Girls?"

"Yeah, from Calico Barracks. Half their school is coming over to see our show."

The Mudhen yawned.

"You pull that line now," Froggie said, "but you'll strut your stuff plenty with fifty girls watching you."

"Child," The Mudhen answered, "to an actor the play is the thing. Even at the great moment, the time of climax, it will be my art, not my audience, that holds my thought."

"Hooey! When the great moment comes, you won't forget the gals from Calico Barracks in the front row."

The truth of those words! Undersized and undistinguished though Froggie was, no bearded prophet ever rang the bell more distinctly than he did that time.

The curtain rose on a play which ran as smoothly as a brook. Such genuine interest did it create in the audience that seven privates and one officer from Calico Barracks forgot to powder their noses at the end of the second act.

In the third act sin seemed triumphant to the point where no power on earth could prevent the nefarious Cheese from winning the adorable Rip. If ever a girl needed a friend it was he. But where was that friend? Ah! When all seemed as good as lost, the hero was seen behind the garden wall. Saved! The Barracks brigade let out a sigh of relief that was just short of a squeal.

The Mudhen paused. He listened, to the blarney of Cheese, it is supposed, rather than to the near-squeal. His features contorted in awful wrath. His black mustachios quivered to their very tips. He gathered himself together, flung open the gate, and leaped into the garden.

Great guns! His long cloak did not leap with him. It lay behind him in the gateway, and he stood before them all, clad only in jack boots, plumed hat, and B.V.D.s!

No actor, great or small, ever had a worse moment. The audience was stricken dumb. Open-mouthed, wide-eyed, rigid, it stared at the hero, who was all too literally revealed. He turned quite naturally to regain his cloak and saw it disappear behind the wall. In a flash the crowd realized he was not the victim of accident but of foul design, and when it understood it gave him its sympathy.

Then The Mudhen rose to superb heights. Drawing his sword, he stepped majestically forward, a knight in shining white armor, though it was a trifle thin.

"Draw, wretch!" he thundered.

And be it said to the glory of Cheese Eastman and Rip Anderson that neither smiled nor forgot his lines. The duel was fought, the fatal stroke given, the heroine fainted and revived, and the play ended as smoothly as though the hero did not resemble a cross between a grand-opera tenor and a man in an underwear advertisement.

Truly, he was not ludicrous. There was something in the way he met and conquered the emergency that set him above clothes or the lack of them. When the curtain went down, the crowd broke loose in roars of appreciation.

"Boy, you're marvelous!" the Old Guard cried, rushing to the wings and forgetting he was the headmaster.

"Thank you, sir." The Mudhen blushed and leaned against the wall.

"Go out and take your curtain call." The master thumped him on the back. "Don't you hear 'em shouting for you?"

"I've got to dress first, Mr. Noble"

"No, go as you are—in the uniform in which you won the battle."

The Mudhen looked down at the shirt, the shorts arid the high boots. He hesitated a moment, then cocking his plumed hat on one side and drawing his sword, he strolled onto the stage.

Chapter Six

CAMEL INTO EAGLE

Froggie Bates barged into the room with a bang. On his face was a look of acute anxiety and in his eyes sat trouble.

"Mud," he said, using the tone of an organ grinder who has lost his monkey, "the worst has happened."

"Eh?" The Mudhen looked up.

"The Bears have bought the Camel!"

"No!"

"Straight dope—they've bought the Camel. Why didn't you close the deal yesterday?"

"I thought I had." The Mudhen lowered his feet from the table one at a time. "I told the garage man we'd give him twenty bucks for her, if we could raise it."

"Well," the Frog moaned, "the Bears got her for nineteen ninety-eight. They're bragging all over the place."

"They would!"

"That's not the only bus in the world."

"Sure, there are old cars to be bought, but that's not the point, Frog. The idea is, they've got the one we want, and they got it just because they know we want it. They beat us to it. They put one over on us. They've humiliated the Eagles."

"You're telling me!" Froggie wailed.

The Mudhen drooped in his chair, his eyes closed, and his thoughts were not sweet. Like a flashback in a movie, his mind returned to that day a week before when the Eagles decided that for the honor and glory of the brothers the outfit should have a car. They had no particular use for one, nor money enough to get out of town and back in it, but just to be able to drive down the street in a bus of their own, on whose sides was painted the emblem of their order, would lend immeasurable prestige to the name. Furthermore, it would be something the Bears had not done, for which reason it was worth doing.

Consequently, they had secretly gone shopping for a used car, a very much used car, and The Mudhen himself had located the Camel. She was so named because among her virtues, as enumerated by the garage man who owned her, her motor was in such perfect condition that it was always cool, thus requiring as little water as a camel. So, reeking with visions of grandeur, they had partly bargained for her, and gone away to raise the money. And now it appeared that by some surreptitious combination of espionage and finance, the Bears had not only learned about her but had actually bought her for themselves. Humiliation was a weak and flabby word with which to describe The Mudhen's reaction to that coup.

"Gone to sleep, Mud?" Froggie asked.

"No." The reply was a semi-snore.

"Won't they kid the pants off us!" Froggie shuddered. "They'll paint Bears all over that boat, and strut her up and down the street, and toot the horn every time they see an Eagle. We'll be disgraced just as long as that car runs, Mud."

"Eh?" - "I say-"

"Never mind. Crabbin' won't butter any parsnips. We've got to do somethin'."

"Well, do it, if you know so much."

The Mudhen extracted a stick of gum from his pocket, put it to its intended use and stood slowly upright.

"Frog," he asked, "where is the Camel now?"

"In Stokes' barn." Froggie pointed with his thumb beyond the campus. "The garage man just drove her down there. The Bears can't drive her till they get the transfer papers or something."

"I'm off," The Mudhen said and was.

As he went down the street there was a sadness in his eyes, a droop to his thin shoulders, and a lassitude in the motions of his long legs that bespoke coming action on his part. In the course of time he wandered over to the barn owned by Stokes, where he found an admiring assembly of Bears circled about the Camel and perched upon various points of her structure. These circlers and perchers grinned delightedly at sight of him and welcomed him as a garnishment for their triumph.

"How you like her?" Cheese Eastman sang out, placing a proprieary hand on the radiator.

"I'm glad you've got her," The Mudhen answered, leaning heavily on one of the rear fenders.

"You're a sport anyway, Mud," Rip Anderson said, voicing the admiration the Bears all felt for their arch rival.

"Yes, I'm glad you've got her because I know you'll have a lot of trouble with her."

The Bears bristled.

"What you mean—trouble?" Cheese demanded.

"Just that—trouble. I've looked her over." There was pity in The Mudhen's voice. "You know we had a chance to buy her."

Though they seemed to scorn this statement, it added nothing to the Bears' peace of mind.

"S'pose you did look her over, what do you know about cars?" Noodle Perkins demanded.

"Not much." As though oppressed by his lack of knowledge, The Mudhen sighed and shifted his weight to the gasoline tank, where he rested, chewing gum with the melancholy rhythm of a funeral bell.

"She's in perfect running order," Cheese said defensively.

"The man told me that too," The Mudhen murmured.

"She sounds good," Skunk Evans put in.

"Oh, yes, plenty of sound."

"She goes like a top," Cheese declared.

"An exact and descriptive phrase." The Mudhen nodded understandingly. "She sort of buzzes, then she wabbles and stops."

"She does not!" Cheese thumped the radiator. "We've all ridden in her, and we know she goes right along."

"How far did you ride?"

"Oh, round town."

"Dear children, that is as far as your pretty toy will go—perhaps a mile or two."

"Huh!" Cheese snorted. "Soon's we get a license we'll show you she'll run. You're sour grapes because we beat you to it, that's what ails you, Mud."

The others amplified this theme with great gusto, finding comfort in the sound of their own voices for, secretly, the pale flower of fear was already blooming in more than one Bear heart. The Mudhen knew it and, secure in the knowledge that he had done a good day's work, he sauntered away.

It was a day later that Sam Bowman came upon the Camel reposing beside the road near the back campus. Judging by what he heard and saw, she was not there at the request of her owners. Sam got busy. In less time than it takes to go to a fire the roadside was lined with happy Eagles, gathered to feast on the discomfiture of the Bears. There was plenty of it, and the Camel, by refusing to start, was constantly creating more. When urged to move she coughed apologetically and begged to be excused. Her masters would not excuse her. They said with increasing vehemence that they would make her run if it took a leg. And they said other things.

Among the Bears were several self-styled automobile mechanics who now mobilized and set about diagnosing the trouble. At the end of fifteen minutes Cheese issued an official bulletin.

"She doesn't get gas," he said, wiping the sweat from his nose and leaving grease in its place. "There's gas in the tank but not in the carburetor. The pipe line must be plugged."

"We can't clean it here," Skunk pointed out.

"My gosh!" Rip's tone was tragic. "A wrecker'll ask two bucks to tow her back to the barn."

"We'll push her back," Cheese decided. "It's part way down hill. Come on, get going."

So, amid the hoots and jeers of the Eagles, the miserable Bears tugged their recent purchase on her long heartbreaking journey, but at last the old barn received them and hid them from the world. Gathered outside, the Eagles gave three times three and a tiger for the Camel, and returned to the campus bearing their grins aloft.

An hour later The Mudhen strolled into the barn, whistling. The mechanics, oozing grease and gasoline, stood about their patient, eyeing her glumly.

"Well, what you want?" Cheese growled.

"Merely to inquire if the gas line was plugged," The Mudhen answered meekly.

"It was not."

"And still she will not start?"

"What's it look like, clothhead?"

"Such cars are temperamental. You have to know how to handle 'em."

"Yeah!" Cheese sneered. "Probably you know more about cars than we do."

The Mudhen was politely silent, but he cast an eloquent look at the inert Camel.

"She's got us stopped," Rip admitted. "But she'll be percolating pretty quick. We've sent for a garage man."

"The situation cries aloud for such treatment." The Mudhen nodded and leaned on a rear fender, chewing gum and drumming idly on the gas tank.

The garage mechanic arrived presently, sat behind the wheel, pressed the starter, and the motor sprang to life. The Bears stared open-mouthed. The man started and stopped her half a dozen times, jumped out, and slammed the door.

"What's the joke, getting me here?" he asked.

"She wouldn't start," Cheese explained.

"Hooey! Nothing wrong with her. Ever drive a car?"

"Sure we have."

"I was just telling the lads that a guy has to know how to handle these old cars," The Mudhen ventured.

"You're right, buddy."

"We have driven all kinds of cars," Noodle put in sharply.

"Well," the man grinned, "there's still a few things you don't know."

The Bears writhed.

"We thank you for coming over, Mister," Cheese said, with as much grace as he could muster.

"One buck makes it unanimous."

"One buck for—for doing nothing!" Cheese seemed displeased.

"You sent for me, didn't you? Time's money, buddy."

"Shell out." Cheese turned grimly to his brothers, while The Mudhen stepped behind the Camel, not caring to witness their agony.

"The dirty bum did start her," Rip was moved to admit, when the man was gone.

"She was ready to start anyway," Noodle wailed. "And we gave him a dollar!"

"Quit your crabbing," Cheese snapped. "Get in, you birds, and we'll take a ride. I'll drive."

They piled in, and the Camel started as willingly as heart could wish.

"Yah!" From the back seat Noodle thrust out his tongue at The Mudhen. "I guess we know how to handle a car. You Eagles haven't even got one to handle."

The Mudhen released no comment. He watched them disappear up the street, then he sighed and sat on a box beside the door. He was still there at dusk when they returned—pushing the car. Silently she rolled down the incline into the barn and silently he rose to receive her, uncovering his head as one does when welcoming a funeral train.

"Flooie again?" he asked gently.

"Oh, no!" Skunk kicked a tire. "We pushed her home so the trip would last longer."

"She flopped just like she did before," Rip spat out.

The Mudhen nodded. "One has to understand cars to-"

"Shut up, Mud!" Cheese burst out. "There's something wrong with her gas line. You'd know it if you knew anything."

"But, my child, you've just overhauled her gas line."

"We'll overhaul it again."

"There's no time tonight," Rip said.

"Tomorrow is Saturday. We'll get at it early."

"May I help?" The Mudhen asked politely.

"No!" Cheese shouted.

"I only offered out of sympathy."

"We don't want your darn sympathy."

"What you hanging round here for anyway?" Noodle asked suspiciously "It's not your car."

"I have a friendly interest in her."

"The heck you have!"

"Indeed I have." The Mudhen was very earnest. "We Eagles once considered the possibility of makin' her our own."

"You didn't get her and you just keep your beak out of our soup," was Noodle's parting shot for the day.

The following morning after breakfast, The Mud-hen emerged from Chateau Chew wearing the air of one who faces a busy day with equanimity. Moving leisurely, he descended the hill to Cicero's, where he bought a package of gum, and then continued along the street which divides the campus from the town.

Somewhere on the way he picked up Froggie, and they eventually arrived at the barn where the Camel rested. She was still there, very still. Glaring at her, as though to look dents in her sides, were a group of Bears, grimy and ill-tempered.

"Fine anything in her gas line this time?" Mud inquired cheerfully.

"None of your business!" Noodle handed him.

"Not a thing," Cheese said. "We can't dope it out."

The Mudhen shrugged. "My advice would be—"

"Keep your advice," Rip cut in. "We don't want it."

"Forgive me, dear boy."

Feeling less hostile than his brothers, Cheese explained, "We've sent Skunk for another garage man."

"Sure there's enough gas?" The Mudhen removed the cap and looked in the tank. "Yep, plenty."

"Think we're that dumb!" Noodle snorted.

"One never knows what to expect from a fevered brain," The Mudhen murmured, replacing the cap.

"You go jump in the lake!" Noodle said with real passion.

"Frog," The Mudhen said, moving over to the wall and leaning against it, "if we were Bears we would doubtless be as pitiful as other Bears." He gave Froggie a stick of gum, took one himself, and continued to lean and chew.

Soon the second garage mechanic arrived. There was, at the beginning, an air of confidence about him, and it increased visibly when the motor hummed at the first touch on the starter. The Bears stared at the Camel as at a thing bedeviled.

"That's twice she's done that!" Cheese cried.

"Done what?" the man asked.

"Started."

"Don't you want her to start?"

"Sure, but she won't."

"You just said she does."

"There's something screwy about it, Mister."

"I don't see why."

The Mudhen entered the conversation again, unbidden and unwished for. "The difficulty is, my friend," he remarked in a confidential tone, "these guys don't understand cars."

What the Bears then said bore no resemblance to polite conversation. Apparently overwhelmed by the attention thus showered up him, The Mudhen retreated to a corner and sat on a box.

With a conscientious desire to earn his money, the mechanic examined the Camel closely. She was old and worn, as everyone knew, but he was ready to bet his head, so he said, she would run for a long time yet. After which he collected the Bears' last dollar, idled the motor to a smooth purr, and went away.

As he disappeared over the hill the Camel coughed, shuddered, and was still. A silence filled the barn, a silence so thick that the motionless Bears seemed to stick in it like plums in a pudding.

"Stung!" Rip muttered, the first to speak.

"What a bum he was!" Noodle's voice had a hollow sound.

"I don't think so," The Mudhen said sweetly. "The Camel is all right if she's handled right."

"Suffering bobcats!" Even Cheese's good nature broke under that. "We've had enough from you, Mud."

The Mudhen strolled over and sat on the Camel's gas tank. "With no trace of egotism," he murmured, "I say I believe I can make her go."

"Fan me with feathers!" Noodle scoffed.

"Mud knows cars," Froggie said loyally.

"Then let's see him start this crate," Rip challenged.

"If I can't make her go, I'll give you what you paid for her," The Mudhen declared.

"Done!" Cheese cried, without waiting to consult his partners. "We'll call your bluff this time, Mud."

The Mudhen appeared to waver. They noticed it and jeered. He pulled himself together.

"O.K.," he said between his teeth. "Hop in front with me, Frog. You-saps sit in back if you want a ride."

They crowded in. There was a tense moment, then they were off.

"There!" Froggie twisted around triumphantly. "What you guys got to say now?"

"Wait till she's gone a mile," Cheese answered.

If the speedometer was truthful, she traveled a mile and two-tenths before she coughed. The Mudhen jerked the choke out, advanced the spark, stepped on the gas. She coughed again and died.

"We're licked, Mud!" Froggie gasped, but he was unheard because of the celebration on the back seat.

"Twenty bucks," Cheese shouted, leaning forward with outstretched hand.

"You paid nineteen ninety-eight," The Mudhen told him.

"Nineteen ninety-eight then."

"Here you are." The driver counted the money with steady fingers.

"You're a sport, Mud," Cheese said admiringly.

"What do you mean?"

"To pay for a lemon."

"Lemon? We Eagles have wanted the Camel for some time—now we've got her for two cents less than, we expected to pay."

"Yes, you've got her," Cheese agreed, and the Bears whooped.

To cover his emotion, The Mudhen got out and walked around the car.

"She'll be swell, Frog," he said, looking her in the face, "when she's painted the school colors, with an eagle on each side of her hood."

"I—I guess so," Froggie muttered.

"When we get home," Noodle jeered, beginning to climb out, "we'll tell the Eagles to come up and help you push her in."

"Why not ride with us?" The Mudhen slipped behind the wheel, the motor started, and the Camel rolled smoothly down the road.

The astonishing part was that she kept rolling. Mile after mile she clattered along, while Froggie's eyes grew wider and the chatter on the back seat sank to occasional whispers, then to complete silence. After a ten-mile run the solemn-faced Mudhen dropped his guests at the dormitory and drove away to the barn.

"Mud, I'm busting," Froggie panted, as they alighted. "Tell me what you did."

The Mudhen yawned. "You know a car of this kind won't run unless there's a vent in the gas tank. There's a little hole in the cap so the air pressure or somethin' won't stop the flow of the gas."

Froggie nodded. "I knew it, but I'd forgotten it."

"Same with the Bears, they forgot it too. When I looked the bus over after they bought it, I plugged the hole with chewin' gum. There was enough in the vacuum tank to run a few minutes, then she stopped."

"Oh, boy!" Froggie began to see.

"Before the first garage man came, I opened the vent with a pin, and he found nothin' wrong. Then I plugged it again. Same with the second garage man. Easy, little brother." The Mudhen yawned again.

"Swell, perfectly swell, Mud!" Froggie patted the Camel affectionately.

Chapter Seven

REAL STUFF

"GOOD MORNING, CRANE." THE OLD GUARD SWUNG around in his swivel chair.

"Good morning, Mr. Noble."

"How about a chair while you are here?"

"Thank you, sir." The Mudhen backed against a chair and sat on it.

"And a word or two of conversation," the headmaster urged, wondering what this unpredictable youngster had on his mind this time.

The boy arranged his long legs carefully. "I called to speak to you about Cheese Eastman, sir."

The muscles on the Old Guard's jaws tightened. "If Eastman is guilty he must take his medicine."

"Yes, sir, but I just wondered—" The Mudhen hesitated.

"We are all wondering about Eastman."

"Do you object to my making an investigation, sir?"

"An investigation? What do you mean?"

"The kind detectives make."

"Oh." The Old Guard smiled.

The Mudhen secretly resented that smile. "Just because Cheese and I are sort of rivals and are always raggin' each other doesn't mean a thing. I want to help him out of this jam."

"Go to it. He can't be helped out too quickly to suit me."

"Cheese is a square shooter, Mr. Noble."

"This is the first time I've ever had to question his honesty."

The Mudhen got up and walked across the office and bac£, showing that he was deeply concerned. "The evidence isn't all in, sir."

"I have done my best to bring it all in. I was never more disturbed. I can't believe it of him—yet there it is." The master made a helpless gesture with his big hands.

"Somethin' has been overlooked, Mr. Noble. Cheese just isn't that kind of guy."

"I suppose you have had the story from him."

"Yes, sir. And from everybody else. The whole school is loaded."

"Well," the Old Guard ran his fingers through his hair and looked worried, "if you are working on the case, you may like my side of it." For he too had read detective stories.

"That's the way they do in books." The Mudhen moved his hands nervously, something no one had ever seen him do before.

"You know, Crane, that Eastman flunked his math last month."

"Yes, sir. He's been grindin' to catch up with it, though."

"He was to have a special test on Saturday, that is, this morning." The master's words began to sound heavier. "Mr. Turner made out the questions and left them in a sealed envelope on his desk. That evening they disappeared. That was two days ago. Mr. Turner made a thorough search, then reported to me. We ransacked his room from top to bottom without finding a trace of those questions."

"I don't see, Mr. Noble, why you accused Cheese of pinchin' 'em."

. "We didn't accuse him, Crane. We strongly disliked to do it, but we felt obliged to speak to him about it. Does he consider that we flatly accused him?"

"Yes, sir, he does."

"I am sorry to hear that."

"He's sensitive, Cheese is. He thinks you have been unfair to him and he's sore."

"I'm sorry to hear that." It was the Old Guard's turn to get up and walk around the room. "I'll do my best to clear up that misunderstanding."

"You'll have to find the questions, sir, it's gone so far now."

"Perhaps I was hasty." The Old Guard sat down again. "Our line of reasoning was this: Cheese is the only one who could be interested in those questions. Being acquainted with Mr. Turner's forehandedness, as we all are, he knew the questions would be prepared days in advance. He could easily have slipped into Turner's room, while Turner was at a faculty meeting, and snitched the envelope from under the paperweight on the desk."

"But, Mr. Noble," The Mudhen argued, "if he had been dirty enough to pinch the questions, he wouldn't have been dumb enough to keep 'em."

"Yes, that's a point." The Old Guard mussed his hair again. "The object of getting hold of them would have been to copy them and return them quickly. As the envelope was sealed, it would have been necessary to take it somewhere and open it carefully. That would take considerable time, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

The master crossed his legs and drummed on the upper kneecap with his fingers. "Crane," he said slowly, "I will tell you something that is not generally known. That evening Mr. Turner had a headache and, instead of staying an hour as usual at the faculty meeting, he was back in his room in about twenty minutes. Get the significance of that. The person who removed the envelope did not have time to open it, copy the questions, seal it, and return it before Turner got back."

"Gosh!" The Mudhen muttered.

"All he could do was destroy the questions and take a chance on being suspected. As Eastman is the only one who could be interested, as I said, it is impossible for us not to suspect him."

"May I ask you if you're goin' to fire him, Mr. Noble?"

"We never expel a student without proof of his guilt."

"Cheese never did it, sir." The Mudhen was desperately earnest.

"With all my heart I hope you are right, Crane."

"But if he can't prove he didn't, some folks will always think he did. That's got him all fussed and bothered, the thought of being called a crook."

"I'm fussed and bothered too." The Old Guard tapped his desk. "I'm greatly concerned about the whole thing."

"I'm goin' at this the way detectives do in books," The Mudhen declared.

"This is reality, not fiction," the master reminded him, a trifle impatiently.

"Sure, it's real stuff, sir, that's why I'm here now. I came to ask permission to search the buildings and question the school employees."

"Granted," the Old Guard said without hesitation. "I don't believe you will get anywhere, but I am pulling with you, Crane."

Though people might lack faith in The Mudhen's ability to solve the mystery, there was no one, from the headmaster down to the tiniest freshman, who did not wish him luck. Cheese was popular to such an extent that the cloud of suspicion under which he found himself dampened the spirit of the whole school. As leader of the Bears and master mind of the Eagles, he and The Mudhen were officially enemies, but actually they were the best of friends. It was this personal friendship, together with a natural desire to help anyone in trouble, which caused The Mudhen to unlimber his guns as never before and go into action.

Leaving the Old Guard's office, he crossed the campus to that dormitory which was the special province of Mr. Turner. Being fat and earnest and given to sewing on buttons, he had earned for himself the sobriquet of House Mother, which fitted him as neatly as the soft rind fits a honeydew melon.

"Mr. Turner," The Mudhen began, "I'm workin' on Cheese's case."

"Dear me!" The House Mother clasped his pudgy hands. "What do you expect to do?"

"I'm goin' to prove he didn't do it."

"My goodness! I hope you do, Crane."

"Mr. Noble has given me permission to question you, sir."

"Me? I have been questioning myself incessantly for days and find I have absolutely nothing to impart." The expression on the House Mother's round, pink face substantiated his words.

"Well," the detective said soothingly, "sometimes a person who doesn't know anything—I mean, sometimes a guy doesn't realize how much he knows till another guy begins askin' him questions."

"But why question me, Crane?"

"Did you ever read a book called The Bloody Sponge?"

"Dear me, no."

"Or The Triple Corpse Murder?"

"I am afraid not."

"Then probably you don't understand detecting methods." The Mudhen sighed. "I'll try a few questions, if I may, sir."

"To be sure, if I can be of any assistance," The House Mother sat forward on the edge of his chair, where he balanced, threatening to roll off, like an apple on a wall.

"The envelope containin' the questions disappeared from this desk?"

"From under that paperweight."

"Which windows were open at the time, sir?"

"None of them. I loathe drafts."

"But, Mr. Turner, why use a paperweight if there are never any drafts here?"

"Merely as a precaution." That was the House Mother all over.

"An unnecessary precaution."

"What are you driving at, Crane?"

"Just getting all the dope I can on the case."

"Well."

"Then, Mr. Turner, if it was an unnecessary precaution it really didn't matter, and things that don't matter aren't easily remembered. So you are not sure you took it, are you, sir?''

"Took what?"

"The precaution."

"Oh, dear me, yes! The precaution. What was the question relative to the precaution, Crane?"

"You're not sure you put the paperweight on the envelope, are you, Mr. Turner?"

"Why," the House Mother twisted his pink fingers, "I suppose so."

"But you're not sure. You wouldn't swear you did."

"N-no."

"Then," The Mudhen warmed up, "we have to reckon with the possibility that you did not."

"But, Crane, even if I did not, the envelope must have been removed from this room. It could not have risen and walked out."

"That's so," the detective agreed, banishing the possibility of a perambulating envelope, intriguing as that sounded.

"Which brings us back in a circle," the House Mother noted.

"Do you think Cheese did it, Mr. Turner?"

"Dear! Dear!" The good man's distress was genuine. "Much as I dislike to say so, he seems to be the only one who might have been prompted to do so."

"Could he have pinched it?"

"Yes, while I was at the faculty meeting."

"Anyone else might have popped in here at that time."

"But Eastman was the only one with an interest in the envelope."

"I don't care if he was," The Mudhen said, "he didn't do it, Mr. Turner."

"My goodness!" The House Mother's mind was ranging. "Then who did? A sneak thief would not have stolen an examination paper."

"Have you missed anything else, sir?"

"Nothing. That is why the finger of suspicion points so straight at Eastman."

"The finger of suspicion is full of prunes," said The Mudhen, coining another of his metaphors.

"Can I aid you further, Crane?"

"One more question, sir. What do you know about the janitor?"

"His name is Swanson. He has a wife and four children."

"Does he ever come into this room when you are out?"

"Oh, certainly. But he says he never saw the envelope. He has an unblemished record of twenty years' service, and his word is unquestionable."

The detective wrapped himself in a cocoon of silence and went away.

A conversation with the House Mother was like a skimmed-milk diet, inasmuch as it left a great deal to be desired. But it created a belief that the whole world was not like that, and that better things could be found elsewhere if one searched. The Mudhen went forth to search, and after a while emerged from the janitor's quarters and leaned on the fence, deep in thought.

"Hi, Mud!" Froggie hailed, coming that way.

The Mudhen did not respond.

"Say, Mud!" Froggie jabbed him in the ribs.

"I wish," said The Mudhen wearily, "that you had been born a triceratops."

"A what?"

"Triceratops is the word."

"What the heck is it?"

"An extinct animal that ceased to worry the world one hundred million years ago."

Froggie was not interested in prehistoric possibilities.

"Say," he asked, "did you know Cheese is going to leave school?"

"What?" The Mudhen opened both eyes. "Fired?"

"No. He says he won't stay here and be called a crook."

The Mudhen's long face grew longer. "I don't blame him."

"You can't blame the Old Guard too much either."

"He won't fire Cheese."

"But he won't whitewash him."

"How can he, Frog? The evidence has got Cheese snowed, under. If the Old Guard wasn't a square shooter he'd have given Cheese the gate the first pop. Cheese must know that."

"Yeah. But he's going to leave just the same."

"He can't just walk out."

"He says he's going to join the navy or something."

"Why do things happen, Frog?" The Mudhen was discouraged.

m "That's a bright question! But this has happened, and there's no use crying over spilled beans."

"Go jump in the lake, Frog!"

"I feel just as bad as you do about it, but I'm going to carry on."

"Carry on what?"

"We're all going to the Holly Hill game this afternoon and cheer."

"Cheer!" The word was bitter in The Mudhen's mouth and he spat it out. "I won't go and cheer while old Cheese is in his room eatin' his heart out."

"You won't help him any, hanging on this fence like a dishrag."

"I'd give him my head if he wanted it. Frog."

"He's not a dog, he doesn't want a bone."

The Mudhen turned and Froggie went away quickly.

Hours passed. The students and some of the faculty departed for the game, and silence settled on the campus. It spread to the town. When in the late afternoon Cheese, with a suitcase in each hand, stole through the streets toward the railway station, it seemed that events had conspired to aid his unnoticed escape.

That was how he wanted to go—unnoticed, for when the world calls a fellow a crook when he is not one, that fellow longs to shun mankind. A boy, sensitive as Cheese was, can not live as a suspect, so he was running away. He did not know where he was going, nor did he much care. It was hard to go, but harder to stay, so he was going.

Behind the station in a tumbledown storehouse a junk man was busy with bales and bags. Occasionally a puff of dust drifted out the door and Cheese, wrapped in melancholy thoughts, reflected that life was like that—dust driven this way and that by the wind of circumstance. The train whistled. He squared his shoulders and turned to meet it.

Dirty and dust-covered, the junk man appeared in the storehouse door. He looked at the approaching train and at the solitary would-be passenger, then put down his head and ran in long, awkward leaps toward the station. He shouted something, but the roar of the locomotive drowned his words. He waved his arms, from which bits of rags and paper fell like feathers from a moulting gander.

The conductor was on the platform and Cheese was on the bottom step when this strange junk man seized him around the waist, raised him, suitcases and all, carried him back to the grass and there fell upon him. Cheese was no weakling, but for all his struggles he could not free himself until after the train had pulled out. Then he wriggled loose and turned furiously on—The Mudhen.

"You!" Cheese stayed his fists.

"Yeah." The Mudhen sat on the ground panting.

"When you get up I'll give you the darndest licking you ever got."

The Mudhen reached in his pocket and pulled out a dirty envelope.

"That," he said simply, "is the missin' examination questions with the Seal unbroken."

"Mud!" Cheese was trembling. "Mud, where did you stumble onto it?"

"Stumble onto it!" Reproach dripped from the words. "Things like that aren't stumbled onto."

'"How did you—come by it?" Cheese asked, with proper humility.

"Head work. Wastebasket near enough desk for envelope to fall into. Janitor emptied basket into bag of rags and paper he sold to junk man. Bag in storehouse with million others. Searchin' through 'em was a nasty job—but worth it."

The Mudhen stood up and began dusting his clothes.

Chapter Eight

A SUMMER INTERLUDE

THE MUDHEN WITHDREW HIS GAZE FROM THE STRATOsphere and focused it on something of less scientific interest but more cash value—a check for five dollars. It was an object to stir one's imagination to the depths, yet, like Betelgeuse or a boil between the shoulder blades, its exploration was restricted by its location, for it was in the possession of Froggie Bates. That was bad because Froggie was known to stick closer to money than a brother, even if that brother were built like flypaper.

"It's tough to be poor," The Mudhen remarked

Froggie returned the check to the letter in which it had just arrived and put them both in his pocket.

"The thought is, Frog, that now you've got five bucks, you might come across with the three you owe me."

"We'll fix that up sometime," Froggie answered cheerfully, and disappeared inside the tent.

"Well?" The Mudhen followed grimly.

"Mud, you're not going to be mean about a little three dollars!"

"I am if I have to be."

"I'll pay you next month."

"That promise has whiskers."

"Mud, I've got to buy some white pants."

"You've got a pair."

"I can't wear' em. You know what happened that night the Bears gave us a feed."

"I'm not to blame because you sat down on a pie."

"And I wasn't to blame because Sam pinched that pie and parked it on the car seat."

"You don't need white pants anyway. There won't be any more parties before we leave camp."

"I," Froggie hesitated, while his face adopted the color scheme of a boiled lobster, "I'm going on a picnic tomorrow."

"Picnic?" The Mudhen's eyes narrowed with interest. "I haven't heard about any picnic."

"It's—it's a—a -sort of junkey famlet."

"A what you say? What ails you, Frog?"

"I mean it's a family junket. That's what she called it, a family junket."

"She?"

"Dolly." Froggie's face flamed until his ears stood out like red wings.

"Oh-h-h!" The Mudhen saw the light.

"She's just a friend of mine," Froggie explained.

"Yeah?"

"A mere chance acquaintance. I happened to meet her over at the farmhouse the other day, when I was on an errand for the Old Guard."

"To be sure. Yes, yes."

"Well, I was on an errand for him. It was about the cow that got into the camp garden. That's how I happened to meet her. She and her father and mother are boarding there."

"The cow and her father and mother?"

"The girl, you droop."

"Oh, yes. You said her name is Bossy?"

"Dolly, Dolly van Alstrum."

"Is she much of a looker, Frog?"

"Swell!"

"Pretty name—Buttercup."

"Good gosh! I just told you her name is Dolly."

"So you did. She's sort of cowlike, eh?"

"Cowlike! Well, I guess not! She's a butterfly, that's what she is, a blue-eyed, golden-haired butterfly that can swim and play tennis and drive a car and play the piano and talk French."

"Some insect!" The Mudhen murmured.

"Don't you insult her, Mud!"

"Insult Polly? No-no-no!"

"Gosh sakes! Can't you remember her name is Dolly? Can't you remember it half a minute?"

"Does she chew gum and dunk her doughnuts?"

"She doesn't eat doughnuts. She's the kind that lives on angel cake and moonbeam salad."

"She's more ex-quiz-eet than the name Molly would indicate."

"Suffering bobcats!" Froggie jerked like a firecracker immediately before it exploded. "Her name is Dolly!" and he disappeared through the tent door.

The Mudhen relaxed. He knew that payment of the three-dollar debt had been deferred another month, but it was worth it to get Froggie's goat. Little things like that made life endurable. And, truly, if the child was going to a picnic, he needed some new pants after that encounter with the pie. A blueberry pie is a delightful article of interior decoration, but it becomes a positive blot when applied to the posterior expanse of white duck trousers. For the honor of the camp, Froggie must go arrayed as a gentleman.

How much those trousers influenced future events will never be known, but it seems a safe bet that without them several things might not have happened.

They were very white and very stylish, and it may be they lent Froggie a faint, extremely faint, air of swaggering romances Certainly, if he had such an air something must have lent it to him, for it was not an item of regular equipment. Undersized, and pinch-faced, he was not a lady's dream of a cavalier. To be sure, he played the mandolin and sang songs, but in such a way that any success he had must have stemmed from other sources. So at the time it seemed that the trousers had crashed Dolly's heart.

"Mud," he bubbled the night after the picnic, "what you think happened today?"

"You fell in the lake."

"I did not!" Froggie strutted the length of the tent. "The van Alstrums asked me to be in their play."

"What do they play, marbles?"

"Nut! They're getting up a play for the summer folks."

"How come they are?"

"Because they know their stuff. Mr. van Alstrum is a professor of dramatic art? Get that? a professor of dramatic art."

"What of it?"

"Why, it's a big thing to be, you fathead/'

"Is it?"

"I guess it is! He's got a school in New York where he teaches actors."

"Teaches 'em what?"

"To act—what you s'pose? Hundreds and thousands of his grads are on the stage."

"Must be a big stage."

"Good gosh! They're not all on one stage, you. They're scattered all over the world. I guess that's something you'd be proud of."

"I don't think I'd like being scattered all over the world."

"You know what mean, Mud. It shows that Mr. van Alstrum is a big shot."

"Yet he picked you to be in his show?"

"Sure. Why not?" Froggie expanded.

"You were never on a stage in your life."

''That doesn't make any difference. There's many a flower in the ocean's depths that wasn't born to burst unseen in the desert air."

"Fan me with feathers!"

"Dolly said that about my talent, if you want to know."

"So that's where you get the drag with papa!"

"No drag about it! She's recognized my talent."

"Boy, what a recognizer! Tell me how she did it, Frog?"

"Well, it was after lunch." Froggie rolled his eyes in memory. "We sat there on the beach and she looked hard at me and—"

"It is hard to look at you," The Mudhen interrupted, "even when you're dolled up in britches you bought with my money."

"I didn't! It was my own money."

"All right, little lad. Tell me about Dolly."

"Well, as I said, she looked at me and then she clapped her hands—"

"To her stomach?"

"I'll murder you in a minute, Mud."

"Tell me the story first, then maybe I won't mind the murder part."

Froggie assumed a cold attitude. "She clapped her hands because she was pleased with my looks. She said I would just fit a part in the play."

"Wonderful, Frog!"

"Then she talked it over with her folks and they said so too."

"Marvelous unity."

"The play is called W hip-Poor-Will Time. I'm going over tomorrow night to rehearse."

"So you've promised to be in it?"

"Sure. Dolly's in it."

"Frog," The Mudhen asked seriously, "are you sure she's not makin' a monkey of you?"

"I guess not! You don't know Dolly."

"Neither do you, little man."

"She's a honey, Mud!"

"Take my advice and—"

"You keep your beak out of my soup!" Froggie snapped. "You take the high road and I'll take the other road and we'll both of us be in Locked Lemon tomorrow morning."

"What the heck!"

"That's a song Dolly sings. I can almost remember the tune."

"Don't!"

"I wouldn't waste it on you if I could remember it. You wouldn't thrill to its soul-searching pathos."

"Is that the way Dolly talks?"

"Yes, only beautifuler. She knows how to express her emotions."

"Tripe!" The Mudhen commented and walked out.

Earlier in the season Froggie's sudden ambition to hit the trail of Booth and Barrymore would have aroused such suspicion that its motive would soon have been revealed to all, but now the calendar and the weather shielded him. After a long pull in camp the boys were fed up with things and were thinking about the welcome change of returning to school. There the pastures would be green again, even if they were haunted by the wolf named Work; then, too, it was dog days, the time when the mind contracts its orbit to the circumference of the swimming hole. All of which was auspicious to the affairs of Froggie.

Yet, there were clouds in that serene sky, the most threatening one being described by Froggie as a "puppy." The puppy cloud may be more easily visualized by mentioning that its name was Rupert, that it was eighteen years old, a neat dresser, and an open admirer of Dolly.

"So this Rupert bird is bargin' in on you?" The Mudhen asked one morning when he and Froggie were fishing for perch off the shady side of the point.

"He thinks he is," Froggie scoffed.

"Sock him."

"I would if it was necessary."

"How tall is he?"

"About six feet."

"And thick?"

"Fairly much."

"Which makes it unnecessary to sock him." The Mudhen landed a fish.

"I mean I'm so solid with Dolly I can ignore the puppy."

"Is Whip-Poor-Will Time makin' the grade?"

"It was."

"Was?"

"Old van Alstrum has gummed up the works."

"Speak more respectfully of papa, little one."

"He's a sick pig, Mud."

"Tut-tut-tut!"

"Yes, a sick pig. He's given that puppy the hero's part in the play."

The Mudhen wiggled his pole as he asked what he already knew, "Who's the heroine?"

"Dolly, pretty likely."

"Ah."

"And," Froggie jerked viciously at a bite, "I am the villain."

"Is that an undesirable role?"

"It's not first place. But Dolly says real actors are glad to take the parts they look like."

"Prithee!" The Mudhen gasped. "Doth the damsel say you look like a villain?"

"She thinks I'm handsome. She said so."

The Mudhen dropped his pole.

"She says her father picked me for the villain because I'm small and clever."

"Don't trust her, Frog."

"She's O.K."

"You're puttin' your head into the lion's mouth."

"She's smart and deep, Mud."

"So's a lion."

"I mean, she understands me. She says that because I'm man enough to do my best in a part I don't like, I'm a real hero. Brave hearts, she says, are more than —than something or other."

That was The Mudhen's first intimation that the Rupert cloud on Froggie's horizon might mean a spell of bad weather. Now the suspicion rapidly became a certainty. During the next few days the actor poured into his tentmate's ears a steady stream of words inspired by the puppy. It was not a limpid stream flecked with sunlight and mirroring happy scenes; it was a savage flood that leaped and boiled, sending up a spray of adjectives that hung like fog above its course.

Then, unexpectedly, the Frog seerned to have a glimmer of sense.

"I'm through!" he raged one aftefnodn, popping into the tent where his partner was mending a fish-pole!

"Eh?"

"Didn't you hear me say I'm through?"

"Through?"

"Say, you deaf?'

"Pray sit and cool your fevered brain."

"I'm cool as a cucumber."

"What's the rip, old vegetable?"

"I've resigned, that's what. I've washed my hands of the whole blasted bunch of saps and boobs and simps and droops."

"Meaning?"

"The van Alstrums and that puppy."

"In particular the last-named sap, boob, simp, and droop."

"They all make my neck ache, Mud."

"Because?"

"Because they think he's a great actor. Him—an actor!"

"What about dimpled Dolly?"

"She hasn't as many dimples as a pickle. She thinks he's the bow on the birdcage."

"Huh."

"They can take their little two-for-a-cent show and jump in the lake with it."

"Your old bean is coming alive, Frog."

"My old bean has had its fill of acting."

"Let's go out and have a spree tonight."

"I'm going to bust with Dolly tonight."

"You haven't busted with her yet?"

"I couldn't make a scene before that puppy. But tonight he'll be away, and I'll tell her where she heads in."

"Don't weaken, Frog."

"Not me! Boy, I'm fed up with that woman, and she's going to know it."

The following morning The Mudhen opened his eyes to see Froggie dressed and smirking before the mirror.

"Bugle tooted, Frog?"

"No." Froggie spun around, sucking in the smirk.

The Mudhen rolled over thankfully.

"Don't go to sleep, Mud." Froggie threw a cap at him. "I've got some news."

"Turn off the gas."

"It's big news!"

"What about?"

"Me."

"Dry up."

"Mud, I've reached the turning point in my life."

"Keep turnin'."

"You don't know what I mean."

"Go to thunder! Let me sleep."

"I've got to tell you, Mud, it's so huge and vast and big."

"Must be."

"It is. It's a flood in my affairs which, if I take it when it's full tide, will lead me somewhere."

"Tripe!"

"Dolly said it was."

"Then she's not so dumb."

"She didn't say it is tripe, she said it is a flood in my affairs."

The Mudhen yawned. "I thought you'd busted with her."

"Mud, she's one of those women who save men from their worser selves."

"You haven't any worser self than what you are."

"I was a fool, Mud."

"She can't change the original order."

"We had a long talk about chucking the play."

"And then didn't chuck it, you fathead!"

"Not after what she said. She thinks I'm a great actor."

"Comfort me with cabbage!"

"She knows actors, Mud, she's seen hundreds of 'em in her father's school. She says I've got a future ahead of me. She says the way I do the villain part is swell. She says it knocks that puppy for a loop."

"I don't like the sound of that, Frog."

"But listen, Mud, she said I'm an arteest."

"An artist? You can't draw a sled."

"I don't mean artist, I mean arteest."

"That's the feminine of artist, you dope."

"It's not! An arteest is a guy who makes a fine art out of anything he does. Arteests have souls and—what else is it she said they have?"

"The pip?"

"Dry up! Dolly told me what it is. It's something like exema."

"Oh, the itch."

"Dumbbell!" The soulful one raked his brain desperately. "It's ez—ez—I've got it! It's aesthetic qualities. That's what arteests have, Mud, aesthetic qualities."

"That the name of your trouble?"

"Gosh sakes! It ain't trouble, it's a gift, a divine gift, she says."

The Mudhen lay back on his pillow, and his breath oozed away as air escapes from a rubber sea horse that has been punctured.

"And here's the big news!" Froggie whispered tensely. "I'm going to New York to study dramatic art."

"You're what?"

"I'm going to study under Mr. van Alstrum," Froggie continued, sending in blow after blow. "From now on, acting is my life's work."

"What'll your folks say?"

"What can they say?"

"Plenty."

"They can't peep when they hear I've earned a scholarship in the great Van Alstrum School of Dramatic Art."

"Earned a scholarship?"

"Listen." Froggie leaned forward. "Dolly says if I star in Whip-Poor-Will Time, as she knows I will, she'll ask her father for the scholarship."

"Then you haven't it yet?" The Mudhen asked hopefully.

"Not yet, but Dolly gets what she goes after. It's all fixed. Next week, instead of hopping back into the coop with you birds, I go to New York to begin my career."

There was a dead silence, so dead that the rising bugle crashed into it like the Last Trump.

"Frog," The Mudhen said desperately, "if you want to chase a show, why don't you join a circus?"

"Circus!" Froggie threw up his hands. "Didn't I tell you I'm an arteest?"

The Mudhen groaned.

Nor was that the last groan Froggie's behavior was to draw from his partner's heart. Looking at it from any angle, The Mudhen could see nothing but ship-wreck ahead for the actor. Actor! That Froggie Bates, of all people, should get stage-struck was; both a joke and a tragedy. Why, the poor fish had never been able to memorize two lines of anything in his life. His voice was as musical as dragging a stick on a picket fence, and his facial expression as mobile as a four-poster. Yet he was going to New York to study dramatic art!

But what to do about it? He appealed to Froggie's loyalty to the school, his sense of comradeship, his duty to his parents, and every other time-honored ethical dodge he could think of, but Froggie the artiste was no longer bound by plebeian ties. Art was his life, and the world of common men was nought.

"Snap out of it, Frog," The Mudhen pleaded, "It's almost time for school to begin."

"School?" Froggie smiled at the childish word. "Art is my teacher."

"Sidetrack art for another year."

"And shorten life that much?"

"School's not suicide, you nut."

"It's artistic suicide."

"You're just plain goofy."

"You don't see things as I do."

"Nobody does."

"Arteests do."

"Arteests be darned!"

"I can't help it, Mud, fate made me an arteest. As Dolly said last night, there is a density that shapes our ends."

"Density is right," The Mudhen muttered hopelessly.

Thus the days rolled on until the premiere of Whip-Poor-Will Time was half an hour away. The camp had been invited and was on its way to the farmhouse, but The Mudhen sat in his tent, gloomily and grim, solacing himself with a detective story. Then, suddenly, the artiste appeared.

"What the heck!" The Mudhen stared at the actor, who was breathless, disheveled and swollen on the lips. "Who socked you?"

"That puppy," Froggie panted. "And I socked him back."

"Good stunt."

"Mud, you've got to help me."

"Sure. Where is he?"

"I mean you've got to help me act."

"Act?"

"Yeh. You see, in the first act I go under Dolly's Window and whistle like a whippoorwill. That's the signal for her to come out."

"Well?"

"My lips are swelled up so I can't whistle. I want you to double for me in the whistling."

"I don't look like you Frog. I can't double for you."

"Yes, you can. The stage is the front lawn, and it's almost dark in that act."

"Well?"

"You can pop out there and whistle, and nobody'll ever know it's not me."

"I'm not so sure."

"We won't even have to tell the other actors. You won't be on the stage a minute. You'll just slip on and off, and they won't know it."

"But if-"

"Please do, Mud. If you don't, my part will be a flop and I won't get the scholarship."

"Tell me just what I'll have to do." The Mudhen closed his eyes. "You stand in the wings, which is a clump of bushes, and when I punch you, you sort of glide out under the dormer window and whistle three times like a whippoorwill."

"How's this?" The Mudhen burst into birdsong.

"Swell! You sound better than I ever did."

"Then what happens? Do I flap my wings and go to roost?"

"When you whistle, Dolly sticks her head out the window, and then around the corner of the house in front of you comes that puppy. He's the hero, and it's his job to protect Dolly from me. You're supposed to be surprised. He makes a pass at you—"

"Does he sock me?"

"No, because you're yellow and you beat it. You disappear in the bushes and that's all. I'll carry on from there. Please do it for me, Mud."

"O.K."

"You're a peach!"

Seldom has a play had a more memorable first act. Taking his part with realistic gusto, the puppy made a swing at his rival. Right there, stage directions were thrown overboard and the acting became impromptu. Instead of retreating, The Mudhen ducked the pass and charged in. Quite unprepared, Rupert took a right to the eye and a left to the nose. He reeled. Smack! Smack! The turf received him with a thud. Dolly squealed, people shouted, the light went on—a split-second after The Mudhen and Froggie had dived under a low-spreading evergreen and lay still in the darkness.

"You've done it!" Froggie sobbed.

For some time after that, there was much running to and fro and searching here and there, all on general principles, because everyone was sure the villain had taken to the woods, as villains are supposed to do. Gradually order was restored, but the play was over, no understudies having been provided for such an emergency.

The hero was still present, but he was not in top form. Eventually he found the porch hammock and there, as he sat nursing a bleeding nose, a swelling eye, and an aching jaw, the heroine found him.

"Poor boy!" she cooed, and sat beside him.

Froggie gritted his teeth like a woodchuck.

"I didn't know he was coming at me," the puppy said thickly.

"The sneak!" Dolly hissed. "I always despised that miserable little Bates creature."

"Naturally," Rupert answered, regarding her with his one useful eye.

"We asked him to be in the play just because he is such a homely little runt that he looks like a villain."

"You told me so before." Rupert sounded more cheerful.

"He would have crawled out on us if I hadn't mentioned a scholarship in papa's school. I knew he was dumb enough to swallow that bait. I wish now he hadn't been."

"Never mind, Dolly," the puppy said.

"That despicable, disgusting, little shrimp of a Bates!"

Mrs. van Alstrum appeared in the doorway. "Dearie," she called, "have Rupert come inside and I will bathe his head."

"Yes, mama." Dolly and the puppy went into the house.

Without a word the ex-actor and his double slipped into the woods.

"Mud," Froggie said in a small voice, "I'm much obliged."

"Don't mention it, Frog."

"When we get back to school, I'll do all your math for a month."

"It's a peach of a night," The Mudhen remarked and yawned happily.

Chapter Nine

A HUNTING WE WILL GO

Sleepy and slow as he was, The Mudhen had some attributes of a leader. Among them was his willingness to meet any worthy rival who cared to cross blades with him. He was never afraid to match wits with anyone and, when he believed he was justified in so doing, he did not hesitate to make a point by embroiling the Eagles and Bears.

The present instance was such a case. Inflated by two recent athletic victories, the Bears had become openly arrogant toward their rivals. Past lessons to the contrary, they were beginning to act as though the most unpromising oyster ever hatched was superior to the entire Eagle ensemble. Naturally, the Eagles felt disinclined to take such insults lying down.

This was particularly true of The Mudhen. As the acknowledged master mind of the Eagles, he felt a personal as well as a fraternal resentment at being assigned to a lower place in creation than ordinary soup material. Oysters are fine in their place, but to be disadvantageously compared with them is an awful shock to the ego. So The Mudhen was stretched upon his bed with closed eyes, deciding what to do about it.

Froggie Bates looked up from his labor of putting a Prince Albert coat and stovepipe hat on the Apollo in the history book, and remarked, "I met a guy named Smith—"

"Spare me!" The Mudhen suggested. "That's seventeen times this evenin' you've said, 'I met a guy named Smith.' "

"That's as far as you'll let me go," Froggie complained. "Every time I get that far, you jump on my neck."

"Who cares a hoot about Smith!"

"He's interesting, Mud."

"I'm tryin' to think."

"Think what?"

"How to reduce the Bears."

"Reduce 'em? Noodle's the only one who's fat."

"Sap! I mean I want to put 'em where they belong. They're too cocky."

Frog eyed Apollo's coat tail with favor. "They're downright sassy lately."

"You're tellin' me?"

"Did you see that big poster on the fence this morning, advertising a football game between the Eagles and the town kindergarten team?"

"Pretty likely I saw it."

"Cheese Eastman made it."

"I know he did." The Mudhen sat up. "Frog," he said earnestly, "we won't stand that sort of thing. I admit they trimmed us at football."

"And trimmed us plenty," Froggie remembered sadly.

"But there are other fields, Frog."

"The field was all right. The trouble was with our line."

"I mean battlefields. We can trim 'em in a battle of wits."

"I bet Cheese could gain ten yards on every play against the whole Brain Trust."

"Forget football."

"I wish I could, Mud."

"The only way to retrieve our honor is to draw 'em into some game where brains count most."

"Checkers?"

"Naw!"

"You got an idea?"

"I might have, if you hadn't yapped all the evenin'."

"Me?" Froggie's innocence was genuine. "I haven't said a word except that I met a guy named Smith."

"Eighteen times!" The Mudhen groaned and left the room, presumably in quest of Smithless solitude. Presently he was leaning on the campus fence under an arc light, sagging in every joint, when the Old Guard happened along.

"How's everything, Crane?" The headmaster slowed down but did not intend to stop.

"Not so good, Mr. Noble." The leaner straightened up here and there.

"What's wrong?" The Old Guard pulled up.

"Recreation facilities, sir."

"What do you mean, Crane? What's wrong with our recreation?"

"It's unbalanced, sir. As we Eagles look at it, there's too much brawn and not enough brain in the school contests."

"Oh." The Old Guard chuckled. "You're still brooding over those football games-that's what's wrong."

"We're just itchin' to meel the Bears in our element, on an intellectual plane, Mr. Noble."

The master coughed before he asked, "What have you to suggest?" For he knew this boy always had something in mind. He leaned on the fence too.

"Well, sir, I've been thinkin' about a police-gangster game. Say, have the Bears the gangsters, and the Eagles the police."

"Splendid!" The Old Guard saw the possibilities in a flash. "Let them commit a crime and then give you fellows an allotted time to detect and arrest them—if you can. The loser to put up a supper."

"Swell!" The Mudhen enthused. "That'll be a test of intellect,"

"And fun besides." The master was already getting a kick out of it. "Bring some fellows from both sides over to my house within an hour, and we'll map it out."

So it was eventually announced that the following week end, beginning at three o'clock Friday afternoon and ending Saturday evening at nine, would be devoted to the struggle. As the idea was an experiment and time was short, it was agreed that the gangster Bears must commit their crime during the first six hours, thus giving the Eagles twenty-four hours in which to solve it, which was considered fair. The Old Guard would act as umpire and in that capacity he laid down a few simple rules. By and large, the Bears might perpetrate any reasonable "illegal act," that was first sanctioned by the headmaster, after which it would be up to the Eagles to bring them to justice by the use of brains and fair play. Obviously the Eagles had the harder part, but the Mudhen had begged that honor for them.

Friday afternoon. Clang! Clang! Clang! The old tower clock boomed out the time of open strife. The Bears had boasted loudly and long that, when that hour struck, they would plunge the school into a reign of terror heretofore undreamed of by man. Out of their secret meetings, held in Cheese Eastman's room, from whose window floated a red flag, had trickled promises of forthcoming crimes unnamed but of sufficient voltage to shake civilization to the bottom of the cellar stairs.

"Three o'clock!" had been the gangsters' watchword for days past. It had been muttered at the tables of Chateau Chew. It had been chalked on fences. It had been whispered in dark corners. It had even been screamed at dead of night, frightening the placid House Mother out of his wits. The scare campaign was well handled, and made the Eagles feel that evil forces would be released promptly on the stroke of three, Friday.

The police had taken what precautions they could, which were few enough in view of the fact that they had no idea what to expect. The most they could do was to stand poised, ready to dash into action at the first pop of trouble. Armed with whistles, they patrolled in twos, their faces grim, their chests out, their legs swinging in unison. At first it was rather thrilling to be on the lookout for crime, but at the end of two hours, when they had encountered nothing more sinister than a few grinning Bears, they began to feel foolish. Of course, that was part of Bear strategy.

The peaceful autumn afternoon wore on and twilight closed in from the hills. Street lights blinked in the town as the tower clock spoke five times in solemn tones.

"Heck!" The Mudhen yawned and leaned against a tree on the campus. As chief of the secret service, he had a roving commission, but he had not roved far.

"I'm getting cold," Froggie Bates complained, kicking his feet together.

"Duty should keep an officer warm," the chief reproved.

"This is a heck of a duty, if you ask me."

"Remember you are my aide!"

"Aide! What do you need an aide for? You've done nothing but sit around, and you've been asleep half the time at that."

"Remember those noble words by General Grant, 'Darn the torpedoes!' I'll stay here all summer if I feel like it. 'They also serve who only stand and wait.'"

"Comfort me with cabbage!" Froggie's disgust was both deep and wide.

"Maybe, Frog, I'll take a few winks, if you'll stand guard," the chief said.

"Guard what, for Pete's sake?"

"Anything may happen at a time like this."

"Blah! This gangster-police thing that was going to be so hot is about as snappy as a wooden Indian's funeral stuck in the mud."

"Buck up, little man."

"If those darn Bears are going to start something, why don't they start it?"

"A skillful checkup of developments convinces me they will wait till the last minute, in the hope of wearin' down our magnificent vigilance."

"You mean they won't pull the cork till nine o'clock?"

"Thereabouts."

"Salt my soup! We have to keep this up four hours Mud?"

"Perhaps so."

"Boy, I'm getting hungry."

"The feelin' is mutual. But if we go up to Chateau Chew tonight they'll pull their stuff then, and we'll be caught flatfooted just because we were such sissies we had to eat."

Froggie groaned, then said bravely, "I can stick it out if you can. Folks in stories go longer'n this without food."

"Occupy your mind and time will pass quickly," The Mudhen intoned, as though reading from a copybook.

"I'll tell you about that guy named Smith."

"Shut up, Frog! That's in my hair. Seven hundred times durin' the past week you've said, 'I met a guy named Smith.' "

"But, gosh sakes, Mud, if you'd let me tell you the rest of it."

"I won't! Just that much of it makes me goofy."

"You're goofy anyway or you wouldn't have started a game like this. Maybe you like it, but I don't, and I'll tell you right now I won't miss a meal tonight and starve to death before morning like the boy on the burning deck."

"Memory suggests that the lad in question did not starve."

"Well, anyway, he got bumped off because he was so stuck on doing his duty. I'm not that way."

The Mudhen gazed at the evening star, not in appreciation of its beauty, but because it happened to be there.

''Speakin' of duty," he said unexpectedly, "let's go downstreet and eat."

"Who pays?" Froggie asked suspiciously.

"I do, of course."

"I mean, whose money is it?"

"Sam gave me a dollar to get his shoes from the cobbler. They weren't done."

"Swell!"

"I wouldn't think of takin' the money for myself or for you," The Mudhen was careful to explain. "I wouldn't even buy gas for the Camel, though something tells me we'll be wishing we had her before this is over. But, bein' secret-service men, it's our duty to keep well nourished and ready for hard work."

"That's the way I feel about it," Froggie agreed fervently.

They went cheerfully down the hill, and Sam's dollar passed over a counter in return for as much nourishment as the current rate of exchange allowed. Feeling that while on duty an officer should not dally with his food, Froggie ate quickly and stepped outside to wait. The Mudhen ate with leisure and had hardly begun on his third piece of pie when he heard a squawk from beyond the door: "Mud!"

That was all, but it was uttered in anguish, and ended abruptly.

When The Mudhen reached the sidewalk an old sedan was disappearing in the darkness, not rapidly, but at a speed to discourage pedestrian pursuit. A town loafer volunteered that as Froggie stood by the curb the sedan drew up and stopped. Simultaneously, three boys appeared from an alley, tossed the miniature detective into the car, and drove away with him.

"Subtle," the secret-service man muttered as he headed for Eagle headquarters in the dorm; where Chief of Police Pierce and Lieutenant Bowman were
on duty.

"Sam," Dave snapped, when the report had poured in, "start the search with your bike patrol."

"Sure," Sam agreed, pulling on buckskin gauntlets, "but where'll we search? That car may be ten miles away now."

"She's an old one," The Mudhen said. "The Bears wouldn't have cash enough to hire anything else. What wouldn't I give for a few drops of gas in the Camel right now!"

"Get on its trail!" Dave cried. "Hunt for it! Question people at filling stations, and those coming in from the country."

"Step on it!" The Mudhen added.

But when the commander of the bicycle division had disappeared, the two officers exchanged solemn looks.

"They've pulled one on us this time, Mud," Dave said apprehensively.

"You've said it, brother." The secret-service chief folded up in a chair and closed his eyes.

"Boy, this is no time to go to sleep!"

"I'm not asleep, Dave, but I'm tired."

"You always were. Use your head, Mud."

"It works automatically in a crisis. First, we must name the abductors."

"A blind man with a wooden leg would know the Bears did it."

"Yes, yes, child, but I mean the individual Bears. They must have a place all fixed up to jug Frog. They'll probably go to that place several times tomorrow, for they'll take good care of him."

"Oh, sure they will. He's their prize baby."

"If we can figure out who his jailers are maybe we can follow them tomorrow." "Sounds sensible."

"Of course, considering its source. Right now it is supper time. I have eaten, so why don't you slip up to Chateau Chew, take on a load of vitamins, and check on the absent Bears? That'll give us a line."

"O.K." Dave started. "Stay awake while I'm gone."

"I stand poised for action," The Mudhen answered and sat down.

Within half an hour Dave was back, his eyes blazing, a sheet of paper held in both hands.

"Read it!" he roared. "Read that, Mud. It was under a baked potato on my plate."

The Mudhen reached for the paper and read its message:

"Darling Policemen: Frog is in a safe place. He is the only Eagle we don't pity because he is the only one of you drips who is not trying to use his brain against us.

Affectionately yours,

The Gangsters."

"Ain't that a slap on the snozzle!" Dave raged.

"An exact definition." The detective studied the note. "Subtle, Chief, mighty subtle. No chirography employed."

"Skip those forty-dollar words."

"Your pardon, sir. I observed that the message was written on a typewriter, and thus we cannot trace the handwriting. Very, very subtle."

"Mud, are we going to stand for this?"

"You're darn tootin' right we're not, Dave."

"We'll find Froggie or bust."

"I'll say we will! What Bears were missing at supper?"

"Cheese, Noodle, Skunk, and Rip. It's a cinch they're the kidnappers."

"Sure. If we can find that old car they used, we'll have a big start."

The chief of police spoke, giving a down beat to every word. "We—will—find—that—car."

Locating a needle in a haystack is perhaps a fairly difficult task, and one on which no sensible person would embark. It would be so much cheaper to buy a new needle. But if one were stubborn enough to demand the old needle or none at all, his work would be, after all, confined to definite limits. He would know that a specific stack of hay contained his needle, and he would find it if his time and patience held out. And when he found it, there might be some glory in knowing that he was that legendary nitwit people had talked so much about.

But to locate a car whose make, age, number, owner, and place of residence are all unknown is something else again. Instead of a paltry pile of hay, the searcher has the whole wide world for a field. It would be useless to try to describe the labor and the stratagems expended by the Eagles the next day in trying to trace that old sedan. How they visited public garages professing buyers' interest in used cars, how they solicited private owners with lines of imaginary accessories, the questions they asked, and the answers they received would fill a book.

But such a book, even if nicely bound and illustrated, would have caused less comment among the Eagles than the note the janitor delivered to Dave at headquarters that afternoon. It said:

"Dearest Chief: The car you funny children are trying to find is within stone's throw of your room. Do call on us if we can help. We have time and brains to spare.

Lovingly, yours,

The Gangsters."

It created considerable discussion, but no one was injured.

"And I believe it!" Dave groaned. "It's the truth, that's why they get a kick out of it."

"It can't be near this place," Lieutenant Bowman declared. "We've searched the whole shebang forward and backward."

"I bet a hat it is," The Mudhen put in. "That old Cheese is subtle."

Sam assumed an owlish look. 'Stone's throw,' " he repeated. "There's a clue right there."

"Right where?" the chief of police asked wearily.

"Listen. We'll go outside and throw stones in all directions, a sort of rough circle, then we'll draw a line from one to another of the stones, and the car'll be inside that line. See?"

"I bet it won't be," The Mudhen said.

"But, Mud," Sam was getting excited about it, "we're on the right track now, we're scientific."

That should have interested the detective, but it did not.

"But," Sam insisted, "drawing imaginary lines and all that is the way detectives dope out things in books. They call it the process of illumination or something."

The Mudhen was a hundred and ten percent unresponsive.

"We can take a shot at it, Frog," Dave said, for he was a thoroughgoing officer.

They went out, all except The Mudhen, and Sam heaved a stone a good distance eastward.

"It rolled almost to the birch tree." Dave noted. "We'll start the line there."

"What line?" Noodle Perkins asked, suddenly waddling around a corner.

"Fish line," Sam snapped.

"You'll catch some suckers." Noodle passed on, grinning.

"Snooper!" Dave hissed.

"Headquarters should be guarded all the time, Dave," Sam criticized.

"Plug another stone." the chief commanded impatiently.

Sam plugged, taking a vicious swing and no aim, for his mind was on other things. Nevertheless it was a neat hit, passing clean through the kitchen window.

The scientific police squad ducked in all directions. It seemed to be the best thing to do. A few minutes later, as Dave and Sam were walking innocently past the library a small boy handed them another of those notes:

"Sweet Eagles: That stone hit the cook on the nose. Such things are not nice. The car was within a stone's throw of Chief Pierce's room, but it has been moved, and you will never, never, never find it. Froggie is well but lonesome and sends you his love, as do

The Gangsters."

The chief returned to headquarters alone and in silence. For a while he stood looking out the window, then he said wistfully, "I wonder where Frog is and what he's doing."

"If," The Mudhen said, "there's anybody who'll listen to him, he's tellin' 'em about a guy named. Smith."

"He told me about Smith the other day."

"He would."

"Sort of interesting too. Smith lives outside the village and trains foxhounds."

"Chases foxes with 'em?"

"Sometimes but usually he trains them with a drag."

"I bite, what's a drag?"

"No joke, Mud. A drag is a bag filled with litter from a fox pen. He keeps tame foxes for that purpose. He drags the bag around the fields and woods, and the hounds follow it by the scent."

"You mean they'll follow that bag same as they would a fox?"

"Sure."

"Isn't that somethin'!" The Mudhen said, and passed into apparent slumber.

Hour followed hour, and in some respects the police force grew to resemble a pack of hounds that has run itself ragged after a fox. They were baffled, haggard, sad of aspect, for life had become just a bitter realization that they were trotting in circles while the quarry looked on and laughed.

Sunset came, bringing with it none of the peace and serenity that is oft associated with that time of day. The worn-out constabulary held desperate conferences, and singly and in parties tore their hair and muttered dark words.

Supper. Under Dave's plate was the last note:

"Poor Tired Little Lambkins: Don't look so sad. It will soon be over. Tenderest regards from

The Gangsters."

Dave read it and ground his teeth so horribly that Sam, sitting next to him, jumped and upset his soup. It was soon afterward that the police met to battle the unseen in a last stand.

That evening, a scant two miles from town, Froggie was pacing the circular floor of an empty silo and wondering what was happening in the world outside. Acting in full knowledge of what was afoot, and with the Old Guard's consent, a farmer had rented this silo to the Bears and furnished it with mattress, blankets, light, and electric heater. There the prisoner was well fed and warm and, with doors fastened on the outside, as nicely confined as a rat in a trap.

It was a very snug place, but because he knew the prestige of the Eagles decreased every minute he stayed there, Froggie was not content. Where were the brothers who had sworn to die for him if necessary? Where was his partner, The Mudhen, whose agile brain had so often kept the Eagles' colors flying? Where? And the silo echoed, "Where?"

A car stopped in the yard and Froggie became tense, then recognizing the voices of Bears as they passed the silo and entered the farmhouse, he relaxed with a flop. Miserable beyond words, he sat on his bed while hope trickled from his heart as sap drips from a wounded tree.

After a while the voices returned, a door four feet above the floor opened, and Cheese Eastman dropped in. The door closed behind him.

"We've been in the house settling your bill," the Bear leader explained cheerfully.

"I hope you got gypped," was all Froggie said, and gave his attention to the baying of a distant hound, thus intimating that a dog's voice was preferable to a Bear's.

"We were willing to pay a good price for keeping you here," Cheese said. "It was worth it. We've licked the Eagles to a frazzle at their own game."

"Zat so?" Froggie spat out.

Conversation lagged for a time, only the hound finding anything to say.

Finally Cheese announced, grinning broadly, "In about five minutes we start back to town with you."

Froggie was silent, strangely fascinated by the hound's voice.

"Somebody must be coon hunting," Cheese said, also listening.

"Coming this way."

"And coming fast."

"In the dooryard now. Boy, he's all het up." Barks, howls, shouts and yells suddenly burst forth outside.

"What in heck?" Cheese pounded on the wall. "Hi, Noodle, what's up? Open the door!"

The door opened obediently, and The Mudhen's somber eyes gazed at those within. "Nice evenin'," he drawled, making room for other Eagles who were pressing up from behind.

"What the heck you think you're doing here?" Cheese demanded.

The Mudhen ignored him. "Hop along, Frog," he said, "we'll ride back to town in our little playmates' car. They'll have to walk."

Wedged into a small car which held a dozen boys and a dog, Froggie could not talk much, but when he and The Mudhen reached their room, he demanded the works.

"It's been a tough case." The secret-service man sighed and sank into a chair.

"Tell me, Mud. Don't go to sleep."

"Oh, well. Just about dark we found the car in a barn by the river. It was rented to the Bears for tonight, so we figured they'd use it to lug you back to town. We could have followed 'em in the Camel but we're all broke; not a cent for gas."

"What did you do?"

"We went over to a guy named Smith. You've heard of him. We got a bag of stuff from his fox pen, and we tied it to the axle of the Bears' old bus. Then we borrowed one of his hounds, and he followed the scent, and we followed him. That's all."

Chapter Ten

THE MAN ON HORSEBACK

According to reports, The Mudhen had a cold, but, viewed from another angle, a cold had The Mudhen. He was in a bad way. The disease made him capable of taking only such nourishment as Froggie brought to his bedside, such as candy bars, ice-cream cones, peanuts, and hot dogs. His hearing was so impaired that the rising bell no longer brought gooseflesh to his spine. His memory had gone so blank he could not remember the hour of classes. His stricken eyes watered at the mere thought of a textbook. A cold had The Mudhen, and he struggled not to be free.

Into the sickroom barged Froggie Bates, his face shining with soap and excitement.

"Mud," he cried, his tongue floundering like a dog in deep snow, "we're going to precipitate in the parade!"

"Eh?" His roommate opened one eye.

"We're going to parsnip—that's not the word."

"We're goin' to precipitate a parsnip into the parade?"

"No-no-no!" Froggie waved both arms and one leg. "We're going to per—to per—"

"To purr like a kitty?"

"Shut up! I've got it now—par-tiss-i-pate—that's the word. We're going to par-tiss-i-pate in the parade. The Old Guard just told us so in Assembly."

"Don't excite me too much when I am sick."

"Sick! I should kiss a pig you are!"

"Sick as a goat, Frog. What's the dope on this parade business?"

A part of what Froggie had to tell was news. For a long time everyone had known the town was preparing to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of its settlement with music, speeches, and a pageant. But not until half an hour before had it been announced that the school was asked to contribute a feature of the parade which was to open the festivities.

"What stunt we goin' to put on?" The Mudhen asked, adjusting a pillow under his head.

"Search me." Froggie shrugged his thin shoulders. "All the Old Guard said was that we're going to parsnipitate—to per—"

"Bypass the big word. I'm too ill to be annoyed." The invalid closed his eyes.

"Ill—a horse's necktie."

"I'm faint, Frog. Hop down to Cicero's and get me a couple of dogs with mustard. I've had no solid food for hours."

"Who'll pay for 'em?" Froggie asked.

"Beast! Would you quibble over money with a fainting friend?"

"I'll get 'em," Froggie's conscience prompted him to promise. "But that makes sixty-four cents you owe me, and don't you forget it."

Eventually The Mudhen regained his health and then, such are life's vicissitudes, lost his peace of mind. There were several contributive causes to this unhappy state. The first, chronologically speaking, was one Jonas Willis, who wrote a letter to a friend exactly two hundred and one years before. Not that Master Jonas still survived, but his letter did, in the library of the State Historical Society. Despite blots and cockeyed spelling, it plainly states that on a day of the previous year a certain general of the British army, mounted on a snow-white horse and followed by fifers, drummers, foot soldiers, and whatnot, had marched into the valley and proclaimed that it was his sovereign's will to have a settlement started then and there. Hence the present town.

When the Old Guard came upon this letter, he envisioned his schoolboys, impersonating the general and retinue, marching in the parade on the first day of the celebration. A bit of diplomatic talking on his part, and the committee-in-charge saw eye to eye with him on the subject. It was decided that the entire student body, led by someone on a white horse, would strut its stuff in the guise of that party of first settlers.

The problem of uniforms and equipment was solved by a firm that rented such things. Then someone exploded dynamite by asking who would be the man on horseback. The Old Guard, as headmaster, had an undisputed claim to the honor, but he was determined that only the boys should participate. They must, he said, choose their leader by ballot at an election to be held the following Saturday night.

When this became known, the Bears and the Eagles, never at peace with each other, seized this opportunity to rally to their standards with the fervor of a Patrick Henry and the lung power of a steam calliope. If, said each side, the white horse was ridden by other than one of themselves, it would be ridden over their dead bodies. Of course the Bears nominated Cheese Eastman, and the Eagles The Mudhen. When those two were in the ring it was safe to bet on fireworks, but now, when the opposing forces were equal almost to a man, the coming battle promised to knock all other contests for a loop.

The campaign increased in intensity until it lacked little of open warfare, then it crashed head ort into the ballot box. Cheese won by three votes.

Amid the whoops of the victors The Mudhen left the gym and sat on a bench on the campus, displaying the same interest in life as does a person who has been hit on the head with the fat end of a club. He was disturbed by someone falling over his feet, at which he spoke so distinctly that, though it was dark, the stumbler felt safe in asking, "Who the heck gave you permission to block traffic, Mud?"

"And who," The Mudhen countered, "gave you permission to blunder all over the map like a cockeyed hippopotamus, Sam Bowman?"

Three other figures came out of the dusk and gathered round.

"Are we late, Mud?" Sam asked, speaking for the four.

"No, you're early." The Mudhen reefed in his long legs. "Dumbbells aren't required till gym class Monday mornin'."

"Zat so?" Sam sounded sour. "Well, what about the election?"

"Eh?" The Mudhen sat up. "Weren't you there?"

"No." Sam sat on the bench. "We've been victimized."

"What you mean? What's happened to you goose-heads?"

Sam's three companions resented part of the question, but they sat on the grass without taking issue. They seemed weary.

"You see," Sam said, "Pete, Ed, Pip, and I went for a little ride in the old Camel over to Greenville. We parked her on the street and went to get a sandwich, and when we came out she wouldn't start."

"Ah," The Mudhen breathed, scenting foul play.

"We looked in the tank and it was quarter full."

"And we tested the plugs," Pete said.

"And looked at the terminals," Ed added.

"And took off the distributor cap," Pip chimed in.

"Well, the whole story is," Sam resumed, "we pushed her to a garage, and the palooka there wouldn't do a thing till we plunked down a dollar."

"And you didn't have the buck?"

"I just told you we'd been to a restaurant."

"That garage bird was mean-looking," Pete reflected.

"Looked like a pirate," Ed seconded.

"Was a pirate," Pip declared.

"So," Sam went on, "we had to leave the old Camel and walk home."

"Four miles!" Pete groaned.

"Four hundred, if you ask me," Ed muttered.

"And nobody would give us a lift," Pip growled.

"That's why we're late, Mud," Sam said. "We'll have time to vote, won't we?"

"It's all over," The Mudhen replied in a faraway voice. "We lost by three votes."

"The heck we did!"

"Gosh sakes!"

"Ain't that a crying crime!"

"If we'd been here, you'd have got it by one vote, Mud."

"Listen." The Mudhen's voice was guarded. "Did anyone know you guys were going to Greenville?"

"Why, there wasn't any secret about it," Sam told him.

"Ah!"

"Anybody might have known it."

"Ah!"

"What you mean, 'Ah!' that way, Mud?"

"If you read more high-class fiction, like The Bloody Ballot or The Corpse at the Polls, you'd know no voter is safe on election day."

"What're you talking about?" Sam stood up.

"You said yourself you'd been victimized."

"By foul circumstance, as they say."

"Couldn't that foul circumstance have been a Bear?" The Mudhen whispered dramatically.

"A Bear?" Four gasps.

"Couldn't they have queered the Camel in Greenville and beat it back here in time to vote?"

Bloodthirsty sounds issued from the four other Eagles.

"Now listen." The Mudhen spoke distinctly. "Don't you quote me as sayin' the Bears did it. I'm only sayin' they might have done it."

Instantly the quartet swore eternal vengeance.

"Keep your shirts on," he ordered. "We're not goin' to holler just because we lost the election. We're not goin' to run to the Old Guard for help. We're goin' to do a little detective work, and then, if necessary, we'll settle the Bears' hash ourselves."

Thus outwardly did the Eagles accept defeat, but beneath the surface they seethed with greater activity than they had known for many a day. The hat was passed and the Camel redeemed, in running order. Her trouble was a broken wire, and the garage man said it might have been cut. Another week end of intensive detective work, and the Eagles were sure it had been cut.

They would possibly have been justified in squawking to the Old Guard, but, as The Mudhen had said, they preferred to settle the case out of court. Convinced that the election had been fraudulently won, their next problem was to devise a scheme whereby the party in power could be quietly and completely deprived of its gains. In this The Mudhen had a personal interest. Not only did he share the chagrin of all good Eagles at having been tricked by their rivals, but he was haunted by the awful picture of Cheese Eastman mounted on a horse and proceeding without physical effort while he, who abhorred walking across the campus, plodded painfully along in the parade through the hot village streets. He believed the place on the horse was his by rights, and it seemed to be so well worth fighting for that all else in life was small potatoes.

For a reason which must have been pure intuition, the conviction grew on The Mudhen that the white horse was the key to the situation. Coincidentally, the horse was getting more than his share of publicity in the preparations for the parade. The town was proud of the school and was giving it a prominent place in the setup, and on every side one heard and read about the general on the white horse. At the end of two weeks the animal was so well fixed in the public mind that the parade could hardly have been held without him.

Finding himself strangely drawn to the horse, which he had not seen, The Mudhen followed his hunch and began making inquiries as to its whereabouts. Immediately he sensed a mystery, for though he and the entire Eagle force searched high and low, they could find no trace of such a horse. It required no master mind to guess that the Bears had hidden the prize, fearing it might be tampered with by their rivals. Up to then the Eagles had no designs on the animal, but when they were as good as accused of it, they began to wonder what could be done along that line.

At least The Mudhen did. Being something of a lone wolf when it came to detective work, he rested on the back of his neck for an hour, then moved slowly down the hill to the village. A few minutes later he entered the smelly office of the town's only veterinarian and stated his errand.

"A white horse?" The old vet scratched his head pensively, as a fat hen scratches among fallen leaves. "There's just one such horse in this vicinity."

"How much territory do you include in this vicinity?" the detective asked.

"Oh, within twenty miles of this place."

"And only one white horse?"

"That's all. I know every four-footed animal like a schoolmarm knows A B C."

"I didn't know they were that scarce."

"I guess you haven't an eye for horses, son."

"I never thought much about 'em."

"Horses of all colors are scattering nowadays, but white ones—just that one."

"And where is that one, sir?"

"On the Biglow farm. It's about half a mile up the hill after you cross the bridge."

"I'd like to see that horse."

"No reason why you can't. They moved him up to Biglow's back pasture 'bout ten days ago. It's top of the hill and out of sight of the road behind woods."

"Thank you, sir," the Mudhen said and drifted away.

And, now, it is the day of the parade, the hour is eight a.m. The place is the Old Guard's office.

"Crane," the headmaster said sternly, "come clean."

"I don't see why I'm blamed for everything that happens." The Mudhen looked across at Cheese Eastman whose eyes were wild and whose hair looked like a robin's nest that had been built in an electric fan.

"You know you swapped that horse." Cheese's voice trembled. "We put a white horse in that barn yesterday and today there is a black horse in his place. I say you Eagles swapped 'em."

The Mudhen looked bored.

"Are you quite sure the horses have been swapped?" The Old Guard studied both boys closely.

"Yes, sir, I am," Cheese told him. "But I can't understand how it was done. There is a sandy driveway in front of the barn, and there aren't any horse tracks in it except the ones made by the white horse when we led him in there."

"Who has charge of the barn?" the Old Guard asked.

"The guy who owns it, a thoroughly reliable old gentleman."

"Was the barn locked last night?"

"Yes, sir, except for a window at the back."

"You're nuts," The Mudhen decided. "It's plumb impossible to take one horse out and put another horse in a barn through a window."

"This has gone far enough." The headmaster meant it "We must have that white horse. The parade starts within two hours. That horse has been advertised everywhere. Thousands of people expect to see him. If we use a horse of another color, our part of the parade will be a—a burlesque. For the honor of the school, we must do what we have promised to do. Crane, do you know where that white horse is?"

"Yes, sir." The Mudhen looked him in the eye.

"Produce him immediately."

"He'll be there in time for the parade, Mr. Noble."

"Good boy!" The Old Guard was too relieved to say more then.

"You're a honey, Mud!" Cheese suddenly looked young again.

"But I want to ride him in the parade," The Mudhen added evenly.

The Old Guard started to speak, then closed his mouth and watched the two boys.

"You can't get away with that stickup here," Cheese said.

"It's not a stickup," The Mudhen denied.

"What you call it?"

"Square shootin'."

"Yeah?"

"You know that election wasn't fair, Cheese."

Cheese flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I've never been quite sure about it, Mud," he said.

"O.K. I believe you. I can't prove it," The Mudhen said honestly, "but I'll bet a hat that some Bear, just to be smart, cut a wire in the Camel so the boys had to walk back from Greenville and didn't get here in time to vote."

"I honestly don't know whether they did or not, Mud."

"We're both pretty well satisfied they did."

"Yes." Cheese smiled faintly. "Still, that didn't give you Eagles the right to swap our horse."

"We didn't swap your horse." The Mudhen spoke impressively.

Cheese stared at the Old Guard, who had nothing to suggest, then he practically admitted defeat.

"Mud," he said, "if you can produce a white horse, go to it. Election or no election, you deserve to ride him."

"Is that O.K., Mr. Noble?" The Mudhen asked.

"Yes." The Old Guard reached for his hat. "I'll go along with you. I have seen white rabbits pulled out of thin air, but a white horse seems a tall order."

The scene changed again. It was the hour of the street parade. There was a great deal of noise afloat for a small village, then there was almost a hush as around the corner pranced a milk-white horse. On his back, with the air of Caesar, sat The Mudhen arrayed in laced cocked hat, scarlet and gold coat, white breeches, black top boots, white gauntlets, gleaming spurs, betasseled sword. Behind him came the fifers and drummers and after them a detachment of British soldiers swung proudly along, chins up and chests out. The crowd roared its applause, but the general stared coldly into space and passed on.

And now the final scene. Evening. The Mudhen was stretched on his bed luxuriating in a detective story. Froggie Bates entered, a look of almost holy joy on his unholy face.

"Mud," his voice was breaking, "it was the swellest thing that ever happened! The darn tootingest swellest thing that ever happened!"

"Have the Bears doped it out yet, Frog?"

"Naw! They're so petrified they can't dope out anything. After putting a white horse in the barn last night and finding a black one there this morning and then seeing you ride out the door on the same white one they put in there—why, they just can't think at all."

"The poor dears." The Mudhen looked dreamily at the ceiling. "Even if it was quite a job to get all that soot and rub it all over the white horse last night and then wash it off this morning—it was worth it."

He sighed contentedly and returned to his book.

Chapter Eleven

FAREWELL, CUPID

Swinging a baseball glove in one hand, cheese Eastman stepped out of the gym, paused, and brought the glove down on the head of The Mudhen, who sat hunched on the top step gazing far into the spring afternoon.

"Go jump in the lake," said the sitter without moving.

Cheese squatted on his heels and toyed with his glove. Blue-eyed, wiry, and athletic, he was the antithesis of his companion.

"Going to the hop tonight, Mud?"

"Naw."

"Some swell gals coming over from Calico Barracks."

"Gals!" The Mudhen's tone was withering.

"You're an odd duck, Mud."

"Individualistic is the word, my boy."

"Don't you ever do anything for fun?"

"I read and think."

"Don't you ever move?"

"My favorite activities are cerebral."

"Bunk!"

"I move on a high mental plane."

"A high mental pain in the neck."

"You don't understand such things, little man."

"Who wants to?"

The Mudhen made no attempt to answer the question. For a few moments there was silence, then from across the campus sounded a mandolin. The notes hesitated and trembled, shifted, rose in the air timidly, stopped altogether, made a few false starts and finally died away in defiance of all the laws of harmony and rhythm.

"It's awful!" The Mudhen shivered.

"What the heck is it?"

" 'The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, the moss-covered bucket that hung in the well' "

"You mean it's a tune?"

"Frog says it is."

"Is he making it?"

"He is." Agony colored The Mudhen's words with a vigorous brush. "He got that blasted mandolin three days ago and he's played The Old Oaken Bucket ever since. It's the only tune he even thinks he knows."

"You don't like it?" Cheese grinned.

"It's wreckin' my life."

"Why don't you wreck the mandolin?"

"Frog locks it in his trunk when he goes out."

"Well, he's your roommate, not mine," Cheese said, with the cheerfulness one often feels toward another who has a peculiar affliction.

"I'd like to hang him with the bucket in the well."

"Better come to the hop tonight and forget him."

"He's goin'. I'll stay home in peace."

The Mudhen spoke without dreaming that the peace he sought would not be his for many a day. Nor did he know that the reason for his incipient disquietude lay not in The Old Oaken Bucket, but in a far more modern cause that was even then abroad in the streets of the town. He was overtaken by it a few minutes later, as he strolled up the hill toward Chateau Chew for supper. With a strong wind at his back, he was making a little better than his usual one mile an hour when something white flashed past him and settled on the sidewalk.

"Oh, please don't step on it!" a quick voice said behind him.

He not only stepped on it, he stood on it, as he half turned to look at the speaker. It was one of those moments. The Mudhen's heart, hitherto removed beyond feminine touch, crumbled under two blue eyes, a halo of yellow hair, a blue dress, and other attributes of the girl. Romance deluged him as a summer shower might deluge a tadpole, leaving him blinking in breathless delight.

"May I have my letter, please?" she asked.

"Letter?" he repeated, and forgot to close his mouth afterward.

"The one you are parking on."

"Oh." He picked it up and as he dusted it against his trousers he saw it was addressed to Miss Nancy Lee. "That's a pretty name," he said, from the midst of his pink cloud.

"Thank you."

She took the envelope between fingers whose nails were not only clean but polished. He put his own hands in his pockets and wished he had washed them recently. He would have done so, perhaps, if so much old oaken bucket had not made him hate the thought of water.

"I'll fix that Frog!" he said distinctly, under the impression that he was only making a mental note.

"I beg your pardon!" Nancy looked at him in astonishment. They were walking up the hill by then.

"What's that, Miss Lee?"

"You said something about a frog."

"Oh. I was just thinkin' about him. He's my roommate."

"A frog?"

"Well, he's not really a frog. He's one of the guys in the dorm."

"Then you are one of the schoolboys?"

"Yes. My name is Crane. You may call me The Mudhen or just Mud, if you want to."

"What names—Frog and Mud." She laughed. "They sound dismal."

"This is a dismal place," he told her in sad confidence.

"Cheer up, you won't have to stay here forever."

"If it wasn't for my love of learnin' I wouldn't stay here at all."

"But you have fun playing baseball and things, don't you?"

"I'm the intellectual type," he said, to impress her.

She shot a look at him from the corners of her eyes and ventured, "Then you enjoy contact with the faculty."

"Faculty!" As he used the word it denoted a swarm of insects. "Miss Lee, the faculty are droops, from the Old Guard down."

"Who is the Old Guard?"

"Name's Noble. He's the headmaster."

"Oh." She coughed.

"A good scout in his way, but still," he made a hopeless gesture. "You know what I mean."

"Exactly." She coughed again. "You find the faculty oppressive at times."

"Oppressive is right!" He thrilled at the understanding between them. "They oppress me as the Romans did Mary Queen of Scots."

"That much?" She made a strange noise in her throat.

He looked at her and saw that her face was red. It was due, he guessed, to the embarrassment she felt at her lack of historical background. Girls weren't much at history. This one didn't need to be; her mission in life was to be gazed at. They were nearing the top of the hill, and he noticed that all the boys they met helped her fulfill that mission. He nodded to them but was careful to encourage no familiarity, as was the fitting air of one who trod Olympus with a goddess. A guy can't be quite his old self at such a time. Surely The Mudhen was not. Gone were his slothfulness and his snail-like gait, dissipated like a mist was the drowsiness that had once clouded his features. He stepped briskly, chatting as he stepped, and the world wondered.

As they crossed the street he took Nancy's elbow, for Cheese Eastman was approaching.

"Oh, hello there!" The escort brushed Cheese off the curb with a disdainful motion.

Cheese made no comment, a lady being present.

"A nice-looking boy," Nancy confided in a soft whisper.

"The crude, athletic type," The Mudhen answered, keeping her arm.

After a minute she said, "It's been lots of fun walking with you, but I must ring off here."

"I—I have made you sore or somethin'?" he gasped.

"Silly!" She laughed. "I live here."

"Here?" He blinked across a lawn at a house. "Why—why, this is the Old Guard's place."

"Why not? He is my uncle." She ran up the steps, leaving his hand wide open where her arm had been.

Late that evening Froggie returned from the hop and found his partner busy writing.

"Golly, Mud, you oughta been there," he began, kicking off his tight shoes. "Cheese and Dave 'most had a fight."

"Uh." The Mudhen did not look up.

"They wanted the same girl."

"Saps."

"I'm not so sure. She's a honey, Mud."

"There's no girl in Calico Barracks that's worth the flutter of an eyelash."

"This one's not a Barracks gal. The Old Guard and the Missus chaperoned the hop and they brought her along. She's their niece or aunt or something."

"What!" The Mudhen sat upright. "Was Nancy Lee there?"

"Salt my soup! What do you know about her?"

"I discovered her, if you want to know."

"The heck you did!"

"I was out walkin' with her this afternoon when Cheese first got an eyeful of her."

"Comfort me with cabbage!"

"You say Cheese danced with her?"

"Most of the time, then took her home."

"I'll murder that lump!"

"I never saw you steamed up about a girl before, Mud."

"I never saw a girl before."

"She's old, if you ask me."

"Old?"

"I bet she's twenty."

"Never mind. There's work for you to do, Frog."

"Me?"

"Listen, Frog. I've been plannin' and this is the plan tomorrow night you and I serenade Nancy."

"We serenade her?"

"You play your mandolin and we'll sing under her window."

"Fan me with a lilac!"

"It's somethin' Cheese would never think of."

"Nobody'd think of it but you."

"We'll show her I know the romantic thing to do and am not afraid to do it. You'll help me, won't you, Frog?"

"Good gosh, Mud, I never pulled such a stunt."

"All you got to do is play and sing with me."

"You sing!"

"Sure I can sing. Then when she comes to her window I'll step out and talk to her. It'll impress her."

Froggie breathed with a gurgling sound. "But, Mud," he said, "I can't play anything but The Old Oaken Bucket. We can't serenade a girl with just that."

"Why not?"

"Why, it's not that kind of a song."

"I've made it that kind of a song, little man. I've been sort of inspired tonight, and I've written a song to fit that tune."

"You've w-w-written a s-s-song!" "Stop chatterin' like a baboon. Now listen." From the table The Mudhen took a paper and read earnestly from it:

"How dear to this heart is the face of my dream-girl,

(You hum the tune along with me, Frog.)

As fond recollection presents it to view. There is nothing so sweet as the smile of my queen-girl.

(That don't quite rhyme, Mud.) (Shut up! Hum.)

When framed by her lips and her eyes of deep blue.

My dream-girl, my queen-girl, come open your portal.

And blow me a kiss from your fingertips small.

(Suffering bobcats, Mud!)

Which will make glad the heart of this poor wretched mortal,

My dream-girl, my queen-girl, come answer my call!

My dream-girl, my queen-girl, my beauty-serene-girl,

Oh don't be a mean girl. Come, answer my call!" 'I

There was silence in the room.

"Think she'll open her window?" The Mudhen finally asked timidly.

Froggie nodded. "Or maybe she'll try to escape by the door."

"You sap, this isn't a joke!" The songwriter rose up. "Are you goin' to help me or are you goin' to quit me, Frog?"

"I'll stick by you, Mud,"

"That's the old egg!"

"But I just know it'll be a mess."

Froggie, a conservative soul, might well be shaky about their success as troubadours, but he was not one to go back on a partner. Being confined to a repertoire of one old oaken bucket, a serenade in the romantic manner seemed a tall order; still, he was willing to try. To him, The Mudhen's poem was not a thing of beauty, but the fervor of its delivery might atone for some of its sins. Possibly the girl herself would be in a correspondingly soft state, or she might be hard of hearing or sleepy at the time, in which case there was a chance of breaking even. But cost what it might, Froggie Bates would do his part to help a friend in need.

Between classes next day they rehearsed diligently, but softly, behind closed doors. As Froggie watched The Mudhen, fully awake and pouring forth his soul in song, he felt the thrill of a Peary at the Pole, for he knew he was looking upon what no man had seen before.

Night came, a spring night with soft air, that told of early flowers and the piping of frogs. The lilacs on the Old Guard's; lawn cast dark shadows almost to the house, in which the lights had at last gone out. Beneath a southeast window something stirred. It not only stirred, it emitted a sound—plunk! The first note was suggestive of a baritone frog, then the mandolin gave to the breeze the opening bars of The Old Oaken Bucket. It died away, was gone for a while, and returned with reinforcements. Two voices joined in the ensuing sounds and, though aimed at one fair mark alone, assaulted everything near by.

Eventually the song was stilled. Not a breeze blew or a frog peeped. Nature was hushed, stunned. A pause. That which lurked in the shadow of the lilacs stirred once more. Would it again make its presence felt? It would. It did. Absolutely without request it repeated its song, bearing down hard on the final appeal:

.

"My dream-girl, my queen-girl, my beauty-serene-girl,

Oh don't be a mean girl. Come, answer my call."

The invocation was irresistible. A light showed in the room above and the window was raised. It was the moment for that "kiss from your fingertips small," but it did not materialize, because the Old Guard was not given to such gestures. Looking strangely pudgy in his pajamas, he stood there. That was all—he just stood there. It was enough.

"Good gosh!" Froggie muttered, as he crept through the lilacs, shielding his mandolin with both hands. "The wrong window!"

"The maid told me it was that one."

"Beat it, before he calls up the House Mother and checks on us."

"Cross lots. Follow me."

Splash!

"What the heck, Mud?"

"I forgot that lily pool."

"Wet?"

"Pretty likely, you nut!"

"Step on it!"

The morning dawned raw and cold, as spring mornings have a way of doing when something else is expected of them. Froggie was intact, but The Mudhen was a wreck. As he stretched his long limbs, one after another, he found them rusty in every joint, like a carpenter's pocket-rule that has been forgotten in a puddle over the week end. When he discovered a headache, backache, and sore throat, the pocket-rule, even if it had stayed in the puddle till Doomsday, would have had nothing on him. Add to this the memory of what had taken place a few hours before, and it is easy to understand why he longed for death and oblivion.

Both were denied him. As, aided by Froggie, he painfully climbed the steps of Chateau Chew in search of a breakfast he did not want, the phonograph that supplied music at mealtimes was playing Carolina Moon, and some fiend had timed it so nicely that as the troubadours entered the room it blared:

"I'm hoping tonight you'll go, Go to the right window."

In that awful moment, all the humiliation of the previous evening came home to roost. Such questions as "Who killed Cock Robin?" and "How old is Anne?" may some day be answered, but mystery forever surrounds the identity of him who first gave to the world the story of that misbeggotten serenade. Scarce was the school out of bed before it knew what had happened and, led by some diabolical genius, it had quickly formed its plan of torture. Original wit was dispensed with, and the simple refrain from Carolina Moon was chosen to hurl the darts of ridicule.

Quite correctly, such darts were not aimed at Froggie, he being regarded as a mere varlet who had done his master's bidding. But throughout that long, long day they followed The Mudhen wherever he went. They issued from windows as he passed by, they floated across the campus, they crept under doors, they echoed down hallways, they clambered upstairs and fell downstairs.

Through it all The Mudhen walked serene, but at a cost unappreciated at the time. He saw, or fancied he saw, the hand of Cheese Eastman in what was taking place, and it was a painful thing to wear the air of nonchalance. But more painful was his body,
which was suffering all the unpleasantness that a first-class cold can devise. The House Mother saw him at supper, followed him into his room, asked a hundred questions, took his temperature, and sentenced him to the infirmary. The Mudhen writhed, thinking of Hippo, the cowlike nurse who presided there. She was built like a ton of hay, and treated every boy who came under her jurisdiction as though he were four years old and small for his age.

The amazement of the Toltecs at sight of the Spaniards, of Marco Polo at the court of the Great Khan, and of various other people in various other places has been described, but words are of little use in attempting to frame the wonder of Froggie Bates when he visited the infirmary an hour later. The Mudhen was in bed, but it was not a bed of pain. He lay among the pillows, like a cherub on a fleecy cloud, his hands folded on his chest, a beatific expression on his long face, while in a chair beside him sat Nancy Lee in nurse's uniform.

"Hi, Frog!" he hailed, in a voice that was hoarse but bubbling. "Meet Miss Lee."

"My name is Bates," Froggie said automatically.

"We met at the dance." She smiled devastatingly.

"But you didn't dance with me."

"The next time perhaps." What eyes she had!

"Is that a date?"

"Yes." Her voice was like a flute or a lute or something.

"Say," The Mudhen coughed, "maybe this cold of mine is the flu. You'll catch it if you hang round here, Frog."

"I'll take a chance," Froggie answered, sitting down.

The nurse smiled again and left the room.

"Gosh!" Froggie whispered. "Where's Hippo?"

"Gone home. Brother's sick."

"This honey batting for her?"

"Yeh, she's a graduate nurse."

"You knew it all the while!"

"Honest, Frog, I didn't know a thing about it till the House Mother towed me in here tonight."

"Just plain fool's luck!"

"I like to believe it's my reward for some good deed."

"Prunes! Well, how you feel?"

"I'm awful sick, Frog."

"Like heck you are!"

"I've got blood pressure and heart action and respiration."

"Tripe!"

"I bet I'll be here a long time."

"I don't blame you, Mud." Froggie looked at the door through which the nurse had gone, and sighed like air leaking out of a pump.

The next day it rained. The sky wept, as the poets say, but no one else did. When it became known that The Mudhen had attained paradise by merely catching cold, every boy in school welcomed the raindrops as individual favors from heaven. Bareheaded and without coats, they walked in the rain and sat in the rain. They splashed through rivulets and stood soaking in puddles, and when obliged to stay indoors they managed to get in drafts.

One and all, they visited The Mudhen, whose welfare had suddenly become the concern of each. They breathed deeply and hopefully of the germ-laden air in his room, while they gazed at and talked with the nurse.

Cheese Eastman was the first to bring flowers-daffodils.

"Thought they might cheer you up a little," he said, handing the bouquet to his rival.

"So sweet of you," The Mudhen murmured.

"If hie doesn't like them perhaps you will." Cheese cast a gallant look at Nancy.

"I'm crazy about 'em," the patient declared, pressing the blossoms against his red nose.

"Better put them in water," Cheese suggested.

"I want 'em in my hands," the invalid insisted.

"They'll dry up," Cheese insisted, thinking of the eighty-five cents he had paid for them.

"Let 'em," The Mudhen answered, thinking of the same thing, but from a different angle.

"Don't be childish, Mud."

"It's because I'm so sick, old friend. Your gift has touched me."

Nancy turned her back and Cheese whispered, "I'll touch you in the snoot if you don't let her have 'em."

"Good old Cheese!" The Mudhen smiled and hung on tight.

Later, Dave Pierce brought chocolates and others came with more flowers, nuts, perfumery, and like sacrifices, all aimed at Nancy but necessarily offered to her patient. Eventually she got them all, but as each bore the stamp of The Mudhen's generosity, he scored in a way not intended by the original donor. This added to his bliss and, as Nancy was earning some welcome money, anyone could see that the
firmary was not the abode of misery.

When Doc Leonard called that evening, he sized up the situation and, being a good scout, ordered The Mudhen to stay for a while longer.

"Do you advise me to send for his parents, Doctor?" the House Mother fussed.

"No."

"You think he is doing well?"

"Quite."

"Should the student body take precautions?"

"Too late."

"You mean they have been exposed, Doctor?"

"Yes. There are several walking cases already."

"Oh, dear me! Do you fear an epidemic?"

"That's what I am looking for."

"My goodness!"

"It won't last long."

"Do you consider Miss Lee competent?"

"Very. She can handle everything."

The epidemic was under way the next morning. Bright and early, Noodle Perkins marched down to the doctor's office to exhibit a sore throat, an inflamed nose, and an assortment of coughs and sneezes any boy might have envied at that time. Doc examined him and gave him an order for treatment in the infirmary. When he entered those coveted walls, The Mudhen, who was breakfasting in bed while Nancy read the paper, became instantly suspicious.

"Well?" he growled.

"Doc sent me." Noodle's fat face beamed.

"Sent you for what?"

"I'm sick." Noodle handed the doctor's order to the nurse. "I've got the flu." To illustrate his condition he sneezed like a fair-sized earthquake and blew several long blasts on his pug nose.

"Noodle's a crook, Miss Lee."

"Hush," Nancy reproved.

"I'm not. It's you who's a crook, you big bum."

"Stop it! Are you Perkins?" Nancy was obliged to ask, for the doctor never bothered to fill in names.

"Yes, ma'am, George Perkins."

"The order says you are to have bed rest."

"A guy can't be too careful when he's sick." Noodle grinned.

"Sick!" The Mudhen again snorted.

"Take a hot bath," Nancy said and began preparing another bed.

Thus ended The Mudhen's happiness. No more could he lie for hours at a time, deliciously half asleep and free from the worries of classroom and campus. Noodle's presence did not destroy such luxury, but it dispelled that peace of mind necessary to its full enjoyment. And three is a crowd. With the detestable Noodle ogling from his corner, things would never be the same again. As a waddling pig might squeeze himself into a garden and trample the flowers, so Noodle had thrust himself into the infirmary and ruined it for The Mudhen.

Or perhaps the figure would be more exact if Noodle were compared to a sheep, inasmuch as others soon flocked after him. Before noon the four remaining beds were full of Dave Pierce, Sam Bowman, Skunk Evans, and Rip Anderson, invalids all. When the infirmary was full Doc dosed the overflow and sent them away, though some protested they were afflicted with obscure ailments that would prove fatal before night without nursing care.

That afternoon the doctor had a conference with the Old Guard, and in the evening he moved into the infirmary and began filling an atomizer with a dark liquid that smelled like roof paint. Just then Nancy appeared in street dress and said good-by to her six dumbfounded patients.

"Where is she going?" Dave had the courage to ask.

"I believe she and Cheese are going to a picture." The doctor tried the atomizer, and the room smelled to heaven.

The invalids became restless.

"That's a heck of a way to walk out on sick folks," Skunk said.

"She has had a hard day," the doctor said sympathetically.

"If you bums hadn't barged in here, she wouldn't have had a hard day," The Mudhen flung at them.

"Think you own this place?" Noodle wanted to know.

"Yeah," the others chorused.

Doc warned them not to get excited. "You are in a critical condition. That is why I have taken Miss Lee's place. I'll see you through."

"You mean," Rip gasped, "you mean you're going to stay here as long as we do?"

"That's what," Doc affirmed as cheerfully as an executioner.

Six groans sounded as one. Noodle neglected to close his mouth and Doc, being an opportunist, thrust the nozzle of the atomizer in and pumped. "Yahhhhhhhh!" Noodle reeled backward.

"It won't strangle if you don't breathe," Doc said pleasantly. "Open, please." He went down the line, leaving a string of writhing victims in his wake.

"I've great faith in this treatment. Frequent applications will do wonders."

Somehow, they survived the night with its atomizing torture. They lived to see the sun again and, as they looked into each other's eyes, they knew the time had come to escape or die. The Mudhen led the attack.

"Doc," he said, in a voice unmarred by sneeze or sniffle, "that dope is great stuff."

"Like it?"

"I feel a mile high."

"A few more treatments will cure you."

"I am cured, Doc. I'm sound as a dollar."

"Same here," Dave chimed in. "I was on the rocks yesterday, but now I feel fine."

The others tumbled over themselves to file testimonials of good health while the filing was good.

"My schoolwork worries me," Skunk said sadly. "If I lose much more time I'll get C in Latin," which was true, for he always got C.

"It'll ditch my math," Sam mourned. "I won't have a chance at class honors." Another statement heavy with truth.

Within an hour the epidemic had subsided and the infirmary was empty, though Hippo was expected back any time. It had gone flat at last, but The Mudhen could not forget his one glorious day. He had paid, for all things have their price, but there was sweet satisfaction in the thought that the miscreants who spoiled the party had also paid, and received less.

All in all, his heart might have found peace had it not been tormented by thoughts of Cheese. The knowledge that that worm had not only escaped the atomizer but, in addition, had borne away her for whom the others had suffered, was a wound that would not heal. And, what was more, Cheese boasted of it. He made those six persecuted ones look not like martyrs but like buffoons, and the school laughed. Add that to the fiasco serenade, which Cheese had publicized, and anyone could see why The Mudhen wanted to get even.

He might have held grimly to his purpose for years, but fortunately it was not necessary. Perhaps Fortune had become interested in the game and wanted to see it played out, so she gave the wheel another turn. That afternoon as The Mudhen, sad and morose, trailed slowly past the infirmary he caught a flash of white and a tinkle of laughter. Surely that was not Hippo, for she neither flashed nor tinkled. No, it was Nancy standing in the doorway talking with Cheese.

Yearning to think, The Mudhen found a sunny place beside a wall, where he lay on the grass and fell into a seeming doze. It was warm, and a mosquito lit on the back of his hand with the intentions of all mosquitoes. The boy slapped, missed, sighed, scratched, and idly watched the place swell. That was enough, inspiration was born.

Four minutes later, he strolled past the janitor in the science building, otherwise deserted. Many things were there, including a screen-covered box containing live mosquitoes to be used in experiments with frogs. An empty box is not nourishing and the mosquitoes had already found that out, so when a bared arm pressed against the netting they gave it the same attention that wolves give Russians in stories. He presented the other arm, then opened his shirt and held the box against his chest. The insects were kept for experimental purposes, so why not?

The next phase of the problem carried The Mudhen to Doc Leonard's office, where the girl told hina the doctor was just leaving on a business trip and would see no one.

"But it's important," he pleaded. "Awfully!"

"Well," she hesitated. "I will ask him."

She returned with the doctor, who wore his hat and carried a suitcase.

"Crane!" He stopped short. "Had a relapse?"

"I'm breakin' out with a terrible rash, Doc."

"Some more of your monkey business. See you Sunday, if you're alive."

"But, Doc, please look at these blotches." He bared his arms and chest.

"Insect bites, I'd say."

"Couldn't it be the hives? My grandmother used to have 'em."

"Your grandmother! You want to go back to the infirmary because you think that pretty nurse is there."

"I've got to go somewhere if I'm sick. My grandmother—"

"Hang your grandmother! And probably she was hanged if she was anything like you."

"She died of the hives, Doc."

"I'll see that you don't go that way." Dr. Leonard snatched a prescription pad and wrote: "Nurse, put this boy to bed for observation. Keep him on liquids, and release him on no account until I see him Sunday. (Signed) Dr. Leonard."

"Thank you, Doctor," The Mudhen took the note eagerly.

"That will cure your grandmother's hives," the doctor promised and clashed away.

The Mudhen walked down the street, as happy as the proverbial clam. At the corner he met Cheese whistling Carolina Moon, and remarked coldly. "Feller, you give me a pain."

"Better go to bed then," Cheese retorted.

"I'm on my way," The Mudhen drawled. "Durin' the next three days, while you work hard, I'll lie between cool sheets on downy pillows, with Nancy to wait on me."

"The heck you will!"

The Mudhen held out the doctor's order and as he watched Cheese read, all the sweet wine of revenge flowed into his cup.

"For three days I'll be undisturbed," he gloated. "You guys can't come crashin' in without an order, and Doc won't be back till Sunday."

Cheese did not beat about the bush. "I'll give you two bucks for that," he offered.

"You insult me, sir!"

"Three bucks."

"Worm!"

"Four bucks. Honest, Mud, it's all I've got."

"Good evening, shrimp!" The Mudhen sauntered on.

Half an hour passed, which would not be worth mentioning, except that during that time The Mudhen underwent a change of heart. It took place somewhere between the infirmary, which he did not enter, and Cheese's room.

"Make it five?" he asked.

"How come you've changed your mind?" Cheese asked suspiciously.

"Were you ever in debt?"

"You sure that order is good, Mud?"

"Good?" The Mudhen laid it on the table. "I give you my word."

"It will keep me in the infirmary the next three days?"

"You bet it will."

Cheese read it again and passed over four dollars.

"I said five," The Mudhen persisted.

"I haven't got another cent, Mud."

"Oh, well, what's a dollar between friends?" The Mudhen pocketed the bills and went out into the night.

An hour passed and he entered his own room, where Froggie was struggling with math.

"Frog," he asked, "want an eyeful?"

"Sure."

"Come with me."

They crossed the yard and approached the infirmary. A window was up and in one of those familiar white beds sat Cheese Eastman, rigid and miserable.

"What ails him?" Froggie whispered.

"He's in for three days."

"How did he-"

"Hush!"

A woman in white was approaching Cheese's bed, a woman who moved like a load of hay and had an unlovely face. In her hand was a book of bedtime stories which, when she had seated herself by the bed, she began reading aloud. Cheese lay back and buried his face in his pillow.

"Come away, Frog," The Mudhen said gently.

"Gosh!" Froggie said, when they reached the sidewalk. "I thought Nancy was still there."

"So did I." The Mudhen leaned against the fence. "Just in time, I discovered that Hippo had popped up. Poor old Cheese didn't hear about it until it was too late."

"Nancy is a honey," Froggie mused.

"She's a flirt, Frog, a shallow, superficial flirt."

"What you mean?"

"She's gone to get married."

"Ma-ma-married!"

"Yep. Been engaged to a guy for a year."

"How do you know?"

"She told Cheese so, just after she tucked him into bed and turned him over to Hippo."

"Comfort me with cabbage!"

"Frog," The Mudhen's voice hardened, "I'm through with women."

"Gosh sakes!"

"Let's go down to Cicero's and eat. I've got four bucks. If there's any left, we'll buy Cheese some flowers."

Chapter Twelve

ALL THAT GLITTERS

THE MUDHEN SAT ON A MAPLE LIMB TWELVE FEET above the ground, not from choice but from necessity. The immediate agent of such necessity was a mongrel bulldog that gazed upward with an earnestness fully appreciated by the boy. There was a fondness in Tige's expression which could not be misinterpreted, but unfortunately it was a fondness for the life blood of trespassers.

"Nice doggie," The Mudhen lied. "Good old Tige.' "Grrrrr!" said Tige, unmoved by applesauce.

The Mudhen clambered around the tree from limb to limb, and the dog followed, ready to take advantage of any misstep aloft.

"Get out of here!" the boy bellowed suddenly, shaking a fist, and kicking with one foot. "Scram! Go home, you hound! Beat it! Go home, sir!"

Tige's home may have been the dearest spot on earth to him, but at the moment he was not moved to visit it. With a simple devotion that would have been beautiful under some conditions, he sat on his haunches and continued to sit.

The Mudhen also sat, but he was not pleased with his position. Looking down and through the bushes, he could see a large no trespassing sign, and beyond it was a heavy growth of brush into which Caleb Barney, owner of the sign and land and dog, had recently disappeared, quite possibly on his way to town to get the sheriff. It was absurd to think of being arrested and fined for merely walking across the corner of a worthless pasture, but, nevertheless, it was a vivid possibility, for Caleb would delight in doing that sort of thing. In fact, he had done it before, so there was no question but that he meant business this time.

From where The Mudhen perched, the school was far beyond earshot, but, hoping some Sunday afternoon stroller like himself might be near by, he raised his voice in a lusty yell for help. At first there was no response, then, after the third SOS, he heard the approach of running feet. Saved! For there was no one who would not lend a hand in such a crisis. The Mudhen whooped triumphantly and stopped short, for on the stone wall that separated Caleb's field from the back campus stood the Old Guard.

Thus the boy was caught between two fires, for there was a school law forbidding students' trespassing on posted ground. It was a tough spot, yet when it came to taking a chance between the misanthropy of Caleb and the sporting spirit of the headmaster, he did not hesitate.

"Hello, Mr. Noble!" he called. "If you can get the mutt's attention for a minute, I'd like to move out of here."

The Old Guard looked into the tree and laughed.

"Sit tight for a moment, Crane," he answered. "That dog looks as though he would have to be convinced."

Still standing on the wall, he pulled out his jack-knife and cut a trustworthy club. When it was trimmed to a nice balance, he stepped down and advanced. Tige did not have a thoroughbred's sense of duty, but Caleb had trained him to hate whosoever came from the direction of the school. He charged behind a barrage of canine profanity. Mr. Noble sidestepped and brought him a double-handed blow on the ribs. He spun around and came in again, adding more sore ribs to his collection. His growling splintered into yelps and, when The Mudhen contributed stones to the shower party, he cut for cover.

As the dog neared the bushes Caleb burst out of them.

"Sic 'em!" he screamed, bounding into the air. "Sic 'em, Tige 1 Eat 'em up!"

Thus encouraged, Tige joined his master in the assault, but both were careful not to overtake the Old Guard and The Mudhen, who were walking backward toward the wall.

"I'll have the law on ye!" Caleb shrieked, when they were off his land. "I've got ye and I'll make ye pay for this!"

He stood by the wall, shaking his fists and making a show of himself. When Nature fashioned him, she was supremely indifferent to criticism, for she put short legs on a long body and long feet on the short legs. Then she topped off a bull neck with a head that suggested a pumpkin picked too early in the season, and trimmed it with black fur and misfit features. Finding the head empty, she left it so, except for a flicker of animal shrewdness which dimly illuminated it as a match might a jack-o'-lantern.

"I mean it," he raved. "Ye'll pay on the spot or I'll have the law on ye afore sunset. I don't care if ye be a perfesser."

It occurred to the Old Guard that he was in a fix. Regardless of what the provocation had been, the fact remained that he had trespassed on posted property to support one of his boys who was likewise trespassing. Furthermore, he had deliberately attacked the owner's dog that was guarding the property. It was not an enviable situation for the headmaster of a school.

"I am very sorry it happened," he said in all sincerity. "I hope you will accept my apology."

"I won't!" Caleb shouted, though he was only six feet away.

"Look here," The Mudhen interjected. "I'm to blame for this, Mr. Barney. I admit I was trespassin'. You treed me and when I thought you had gone I hollered for help."

"Fooled ye, didn't I?"

"Yes. Mr. Noble happened-to be passin' and he came over to see what was up. I asked him to."

Caleb was not one to toy with small fish when he had a big one hooked. For years he had hated the school with all his heart, if he had such an organ, and especially did he hate Mr. Noble.

"I ketched ye trespassin'," he raged, shaking a hairy forefinger at the Old Guard. "Ye come onto my land in plain sight of the sign, and ye beat up my dog. There's a law that'll learn ye a lesson."

A distressing amount of truth was in that speech. What was more, once the thing went to court and the newspapers got hold of it, there was no telling where it might end. It would be much easier, and wiser, to keep it from the ears of the trustees, alumni, and parents than to explain it to them afterward.

"How much have I damaged you?" the master asked.

"Twenty-five dollars."

"For what?"

"Ten dollars land damage and fifteen dollars for the dog."

"Neither has been damaged a cent's worth."

"Pay or I'll haul ye into court."

"It will cost you more for lawyer's fees than the court will allow you if you win, which is doubtful." The Old Guard flashed a ten-dollar bill. "That is every cent I will give you."

Eventually Caleb took it, grumbling outwardly and rejoicing inwardly. With silent contempt the Old Guard watched him clump down the hill with Tige at his heels.

"I'll pay you those ten bucks the first of the month, sir," The Mudhen said humbly.

"That's all right, Crane. I was in deepest."

"But I got you in."

"Knowing Caleb as I do, I doubt if you were much to blame."

"I had been up in the woods. You know how Caleb's land sticks out into the back campus, sir."

"I certainly do know," the Old Guard said with feeling.

"I thought it wouldn't do any harm just to walk across his cow pasture on my way home. He treed me. Then he laid low, in hopes somebody would come along and help me. He used me as a sort of decoy to catch another bird. That is, I mean, sir—"

"I know what you mean." Mr. Noble laughed. "He got the other bird too."

"I'm sorry I dragged you into the mess, sir."

"Of course, Crane, considering that the land is plainly posted, you should not have been there. But so far as the rest of it goes, you need not apologize. I went to your rescue the same as you would have gone to mine if the shoe had been on the other foot. Technically we were both wrong, but ethically I think Caleb was in the red."

"Why, that old skinflint would be sick abed if he did anything honest." The Mudhen sat on a stone. "Doesn't it make you sore, sir, to see what a worm he is?"

The Old Guard was sore and getting sorer.

"I've known him for years," he said, breaking a twig between his fingers in a way that betrayed his steam pressure. "When I came to the school, he and I clashed over this same piece of land, these two acres of brush that thrust out into our back campus."

"Like a sore thumb," The Mudhen interjected.

"Exactly. Until we own that land, this part of our property can never be developed. Those two acres right there not only balk our landscaping plans for the rest of the campus, but they make it impossible for us to use this hill for winter sports."

"And Caleb won't sell to the school, sir?"

"For a thousand dollars an acre. We refuse to be stuck up."

"He's just naturally mean."

"Two years ago he took us for a ride." The Old Guard found a larger stick and broke it spitefully. "He led us to believe he would swap those two acres for the four-acre field adjoining them. We bought the four acres, had the deed made out, and—he laughed at us."

"Just pure cussedness, sir."

"Nothing else. If his land were essential to the maintenance of the school, we could seize it by law and pay him its appraised value, but because we only want it to round out our campus, we can't do that."

"And he knows it."

"Yes. And he also knows I would be the happiest man in the world if I could get possession of those two acres for the school. It is my dream, and he blocks me. He is a thorn in the flesh, and he delights in it."

"The-the-" Words failed The Mudhen.

"Oh, well," Mr. Noble made a gesture of resignation, "there is nothing to be done about it. I have told you this, Crane, to show you that you are not the cause of the friction between Caleb and myself. Better forget about it."

The Mudhen, however, did not forget. His loyalty to the Old Guard forbade it. The headmaster was a peach, and deserved far better treatment than Caleb Barney was dishing out to him. Something should be done about it, a gesture of appreciation should be made before the end of the school year. But what?

The Mudhen pondered the question for days until fatigue stretched him on his couch, his head pillowed on a dictionary and a folded overcoat.

But when one struggles to achieve a noble plan, one cannot rest. Especially if one has Froggie Bates for a roommate. After a while The Mudhen said fretfully:

"A child's chatter wearies me as the song of a gnat gives pain to a lion."

"Listen to me, Mud."

"Unless I flee, what choice have I?"

"You know that ever since this school started it has been divided into two sides, the Eagles and the Bears."

"Factions would be a more descriptive word," The Mudhen corrected gently.

"I said 'sides.' I don't drag in twelve-dollar words just to show off."

"Simple, vigorous speech like yours is—"

"Dry up, you drip!"

"My weariness increases." The Mudhen sighed.

Froggie fired a shoe at his partner's stomach, and scored a direct hit.

"When I get up, I'll wring your neck," the owner of the target promised.

Having caught the attention of his audience, Froggie resumed: "You know as well as I do that every year a medal is given to the side—"

"To the faction."

"To the side that does the most for the school. Well, the Bears have had it for four years running."

"Who envies a poor Bear a medal? There should be some compensation for bein' a Bear."

"I say, Mud, it's time we got a squint at that medal."

"It's in the gym. Why not go and look at it, little man? And may I suggest you go immediately and stay a long, long time."

"You dumb nut, you know what I mean. We've got to win that medal this year, or look like thirty cents."

"Thirty cents doesn't look so bad to me just now," The Mudhen remarked, referring to his lopsided budget.

"You needn't crawfish. You know you're not doing a thing to help us win that medal."

"My services may have been negligible—"

"I'll say they have been!"

"But still I seek to serve."

"You don't do a thing. You're too lazy. Laziness sticks out all over you like a—" Froggie cast about for a fitting metaphor, "like fuzz on a peach."

"I am misunderstood, even if I am a peach."

"You're not a peach and you're not misunderstood. Everybody knows you. You're a disgrace to our side."

"To our faction," The Mudhen insisted softly.

"Blah!" The interjection, as Froggie used it, was not complimentary.

"Go away and let me think, little lad."

"You'd better think! Look what the Bears are doing. Cheese's pitching is grabbing all the ball games. Rip is a mile high in tennis. Shunk is editor of the school paper."

"It all counts for the glory of old Alma Mater," The Mudhen said piously.

"It counts for the Bears, that's who it counts for. They'll trim us to a frazzle and then trim the frazzle. Look at our side."

"Our faction, little one. Slovenly speech pains my ear."

"Somethin' else'll pain your ear pretty soon. What are the Eagles doing? Dave plays first base. Sam is a shark at math. That's all—all!"

"Master Frog is the fair-haired youth in chemistry."

"I try. We all try, except you."

"Ah, me!" The Mudhen stretched his long arms above his long head. "To few of us is given the privilege of scalin' the heights and plantin' aloft the banner of achievement."

"Tripe!" Froggie was almost in tears. "You've got brains, Mud, even if you do look and act like an ossified clam, but you're too lazy to use 'em. You just moon around and sleep and read books and fish. You're a slooth."

"A detective?" The one accused showed interest.

"Naw. One of those things that sleep all the time and hang by their toes from trees in South America."

"Oh, a sloth?"

"Whatever it is, you're it."

"But, dear boy, I can't hang by my toes from a tree, even in North America."

"You haven't any sense of duty," Froggie raged. "No matter what anybody says to you, it runs off like water off a duck's back because you've got a hide like a peccadillo."

"Isn't the little mind seeking the word armadillo?"

"You know what I mean."

"If, sweet Frog, you talked less you would be a more charming fireside companion." The Mudhen picked up a floppy straw hat from the table and left the room, with that lack of regret one displays when escaping from the plague.

The afternoon was delightful, as May afternoons often are, soft and sunny, sweet-scented and bubbling with bird song. Scattered clouds, fat and egotistical-looking, busied themselves in the sky, moving from place to place with an absence of effort that stirred envy in The Mudhen's heart. Why should a cloud, which is without intelligence and therefore incapable of fatigue, be perpetually blessed with free transportation, when a human being must pay in one way or another if he merely crosses the street? Past finding out is the reason for giving a wad of moisture greater privileges than a master mind.

Thus mused The Mudhen as he slowly climbed the hill, dragging his feet. And his thoughts were of other things as well, for, though he would never admit it, Froggie's words had wounded him. Outwardly he was as impervious to criticism as a fence post, but deep in his heart was a spot tender as the classic unwashed heel of Achilles. There dwelt his loyalty, and a more loyal person than he never lived. For that reason, to be told, even by Froggie, that he was callous to the distress of the Eagles made him uncomfortable. Coming on top of his unfulfilled obligations to the Old Guard, it made a burden that was hard to bear.

The medal, which was causing the fuss, had hitherto been little of his concern. He freely confessed that much. Naturally, he knew of its existence and that it was awarded about the last of May to the side which had accomplished most during the year, but he had small interest in anything that encouraged work. Were he to give a prize or win one, it would be for the contrary reason. With others, who were ambitious or competitive by nature, he had no quarrel. Still, it was not pleasant to know that one was looked upon as a slacker, or possibly a traitor.

Skirting the infirmary, where Hippo, the huge nurse, was weeding a flowerbed, he wandered for a while until he came to the old familiar stone wall, the unkept field, and the large no trespassing sign. He climbed the wall, not merely for the pleasure of being on forbidden ground, but to withdraw from the world and think. Behind a clump of witch-hazel bushes he sat down with his back to a stump, clasped his shins with his arms, rested his chin on his knees, and closed his eyes.

He should have found peace but he did not. In all seriousness, his spirit was troubled. He knew he was lazy, but until that afternoon he had seen no reason for being otherwise. If he chose to fish while others played games, or if he preferred a deep knowledge of detective fiction to the less worthy forms of study prescribed by the faculty, whose business was it? Everyone's, so it suddendly seemed.

The medal was the primary cause, perhaps, but left to itself it would have remained the same inoffensive piece of tin it had always been. The trouble lay in the significance Froggie had attached to it. He had made it a sort of flag which stood for all sorts of intangible virtues. What was more, his attitude was a clear reflection of school opinion, for Froggie never had an original idea. Dozens, scores, of boys looked upon him, The Mudhen, as a creature without loyalty.

And what to do about it? It is easy to correct a fault when the remedy is obtainable, but when it is not, that is something else again. He was not athletic, he was not scholarly, and it was too late in the day to even pretend he was. To attempt suddenly to play baseball or tennis or to burn the midnight kilowatts over textbooks would be ludicrous, to say nothing of the effort involved. Furthermore, it would be an open confession that he considered the plebeian ways of the other guys worthy of emulation. Never! Not by a jugful! Though he went down in history as a yellow cipher, he would not deviate from that solitary grandeur, that sturdy, if somewhat languid, individualism that was his. Mediocre worms like Cheese and Noodle and Froggie might take pride in putting over the commonplace, but he, the lone wolf, would win a shining crown singlehanded or he would win nothing.

Again popped up the question: How? Quite so. With the school year nearly ended, how could a man, hitherto dormant, hope to gain glory for himself and his faction? Only once in his life had he approached such an achievement, and that was the time he took the part of Sherlock Holmes in a school play. Then his heart had been in his work. Sherlock, long and lean and keen—ah, he had been superb! Acting was down his alley, but the theatrical season was over. He sighed. All doors seemed closed.

He continued his ramble, searching futilely for ideas, until fate and the force of gravity brought him to another part of the stone wall that separated the back campus from the land of Caleb Barney. At the moment it also stood between Mr. Barney and The Mudhen as firmly, the boy thought, as it had long stood between the Old Guard and his dream. Strange indeed that yonder lump, who was several steps lower than any form of life mentioned in the biology books, should be endowed with such tremendous nuisance value.

Remembering the unwritten law that Caleb must never be passed in silence, The Mudhen waved languidly and drawled, "A glorious day! The kind of weather we find irresistible, be we saint or be we sinner."

"Trespassin' again, be ye!" Caleb rested his fists on the top of the wall. "Or fixin' to."

"Again, my man?"

"I know ye, ye long-laiged pup."

"You flatter me, sir."

"I know that big straw hat of yourn."

"A rather distinctive lid, don't you think?"

"Don't git fresh to me."

"Fresh!" The Mudhen threw out his hands. "Non, non, mon ami. Like calls forth like, and there is no suggestion of freshness about you. Your personal appearance, in common with your behavior pattern, suggests an ancient egg, a hunk of overripe vegetation, a fish long since moribund. Get the point, neighbor?"

Caleb did, and it seemed to displease him.

"If I ever lay hands on ye, I'll bust yer head," he shouted.

"Poor head!" The Mudhen sat on a stone.

"I'll show ye!"

"Why not embrace opportunity when she beckons?"

"Eh?"

"Hop the wall and help yourself."

Caleb did not hop. In days agone he had been lured into ambuscades, but now he was wise enough to stay on his own land. The Mudhen guessed as much, which accounted for his bravado.

"I'll fix ye yit!" Caleb shook both fists. "I'll fix the hull school of ye!"

The Mudhen stood up. "Your grammar is terrible," he said. "It smites the cultured ear as the brayin' of a jackass shivers the strings of a harp. It drives me from you. Farewell, old top, I go to seek the bliss of solitude."

He strolled away and, continuing to stroll, found himself on that part of the back campus which the Old Guard so longed to swap for Caleb's two acres. Sitting down, he began idly playing with pebbles and, as he played, there stole across his face a sweet and dreamy expression which was the forerunner of action. One acquainted with The Mudhen's unique mental processes would have said he had an idea.

If such were the case, he kept it well concealed for many a day. He went serenely about his business, perhaps fishing more than usual after school hours, and the rivalry between Bears and Eagles apparently concerned him not at all.

"I wish you would at least act as though you were pulling with us," Dave Pierce said one evening as they came from Chateau Chew. "It's your indifference that gets me, Mud."

"I'm not gifted," The Mudhen answered tactfully. "It's not everyone who can play first base the way you and Babe Ruth can."

"Sure you don't mean Jack Dempsey or Helen Wills Moody?" Dave asked witheringly.

"I have to work along my own lines," The Mudhen murmured.

"Fish lines? You've been fishing every afternoon for a week."

"It's quiet there. I can think."

"I bet you either read a detective book or sleep."

"What of it, David?"

"Can't you understand that the Eagles need you? You have brains, Mud, and you ought to use 'em to help us instead of just loafing."

The Mudhen pulled his old straw hat over his eyes. "I hate to say it, Dave, but you sound a lot like Froggie and Skunk and that crowd."

"Can't you understand that all your friends are trying to wake you up, Mud?"

"Alas, the pity of it!" The Mudhen faded into the sunset.

Upstairs in his room, he took his fishing tackle from a drawer, and was turning toward the door when Froggie entered.

"Fishing again?"

"None of your business, runt. I mean just that." The Mudhen strode out.

When he returned it was night and, as far as the eye could tell, he had not diminished the fish population by as many as one. Indeed, had Froggie been a good observer, which he was not, he would have noted that none of his roommate's tackle had been wet that day. But Froggie, conscientious soul, was deep in his schoolbooks.

"Hard at it, eh?" The Mudhen dropped into a chair and hoisted his feet to the table.

"I'm working, but you don't know what that means."

"Don't I! My old cerebellum aches in sympathy."

"I can tell you something, Mud."

"It seems impossible, but you may try."

"If you don't wake up, the Eagles will drop you."

"I'll join the Bears."

"They won't have you."

"Then I'll start a crowd of my own. It'll be made up of interestin' people like Pete Rand and myself."

"Who?"

"Never mind. You wouldn't like Pete. He's not interested in salvagin' his fellowmen, as you are."

"That's all the thanks I get for trying to help you."

"Virtue like yours goes thankless to bed."

"You're a clinic."

"Cynic, little one, cynic. Be careful of the big words."

"Don't you high-hat me, Mud!"

"A coincidence. Pete Rand wears a sombrero. Boots too. And he limps in his left leg."

"Who is he?"

"He claims to be a western prospector, but he looks like a movie villain."

"Where does he live?"

"I've seen him over toward Caleb's place."

"Friend of Caleb's?"

"I imagine he'd be friends with anyone who had dirty work to do and was willin' to pay for it."

"Gosh!" Froggie's eyes bulged. "What do you mean, Mud?"

"I don't mean anything, but I can't help rememberin' that Caleb has it in for the Old Guard."

"Gosh!"

"That kind of a man doesn't grow sweet with age, Frog. If he happened to find a guy who was willin' to do a dirty job for pay—" The Mudhen shrugged and said no more.

Thus, casually, was rumor born. Nourished by youthful imagination, it throve mightily, and within twenty-four hours every boy had heard that a gunman from the west, in the employ of Caleb, was lurking in the woods, waiting his chance to exterminate the headmaster. Of course neither the Old Guard nor any of the teachers were told, because it might lead to an official investigation which would dissipate the mystery and spoil the fun. No one really believed that the danger existed, but it was thrilling to be unsure.

And it was stirring to venture into the woods in search of the man. What to do with him if they found him was an unsettled question, but, as he refused to be caught napping, that solution was not pressing. He was there beyond a doubt, for they found his tracks in the mud by the brook, the imprints of great leather boots such as The Mudhen had described. To make sure, the patrol examined the tracks under a magnifying glass, and reported that the maker of them had limped in his left leg. Then! they followed the trail almost to Caleb's house.

Days passed and, as no murder was attempted, interest began to lag. It dropped quite low, and then shot up when The Mudhen reported more tracks by the brook, many tracks that led up the hill and lost themselves in the back campus or Caleb's land adjoining it.

"I tell you guys," Froggie declared, "he's sneakin' up on the Old Guard."

"We can't prove it," Cheese said.

"Just the same, we shouldn't sit around here like bumps on a log and do nothing," Froggie insisted.

"The thing to do," Dave decided, "is to watch the hill tonight."

"Good stunt." The Mudhen came awake. "The four of us are enough. We don't want a crowd. I'll take the side next to Caleb's land, and you guys spread out along the woods by the campus."

"You'll fall asleep if you go alone," Froggie jibed.

"You cook your own potatoes," The Mudhen told him.

The result was that before the moon rose that evening the four detectives were at their posts on the hill, Dave, Cheese, and Froggie along the outer fringe of the back campus, and The Mudhen somewhere in the tangled shadow across the clearing. It was a beautiful night, still and warm, and when the full moon sailed up above the village, the time seemed better suited to romance than to dark deeds.

For all that, dark deeds were brewing. Half an hour of silence seemed like a year, then— Plick! In the direction of the brook, metal had hit on stone. It sent a thrill through the watchers, and made Froggie, who was perched on a stump, sit up and crack his head on an overhanging limb. Feeling he must have alarmed the whole county, he expected the others to charge in and expunge him on the spot, but nothing happened. Unlike his head, the silence mended itself and was soon as good as new.

More tense waiting— Snap! A dry stick broke in the woods not far away. Froggie crouched and fell to shivering. Straining his ears until their very rims ached, he heard a heavy, uneven tread coming up the hill. He crouched lower, shivered more, listened harder, concentrating so intently on what was approaching that the very force of thought seemed to compel it to materialize. Fifty yards away a small portion of darkness detached itself from the woods, assumed the shape of a man, and walked into the moonlight.

Even at that distance, it could be seen that he was tall and wore a sombrero. And he limped decidedly with his left leg. On one shoulder he carried a shovel, and the other hand swung in short half-circles as he moved farther into the clearing. Several times he stopped and looked around, not as a man does who is searching for something, but as one who fears he is being followed. At length he reached a certain spot, examined the ground closely, and began to dig.

Through Froggie's mind flashed all he had heard and read about buried treasure. No wonder, for there, before his very eyes, was the stuff of which such adventures are made. He was not looking at a picture or reading a book; he was, in all reality, watching a mysterious, bearded stranger digging by moonlight on top of a lonely hill. And it took no expert in crime to say he was not digging for fish worms. The furtive manner of his approach and the stealthy, yet eager, way in which he was using his shovel encouraged the wildest thoughts about Spanish gold and the bones of murdered men.

A hand fell on Froggie's shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin, only to find that the hand belonged to Cheese.

"He's got whiskers, Frog."

"And he l-l-limps in his hind 1-1-leg."

"It's Pete all right."

Dave crept up and joined them. "I'd like to rush him," he said impulsively.

"Gosh, n-no!" Froggie spread out his trembling hands to stop such a suicidal act. "He's p-p-prob'ly got an automatic and a knife."

"Sit tight," Cheese advised.

Tight was right, for their muscles were rigid as wood. They ached from sheer intensity, even their eyes ached with watching. Down at the school the tower clock struck and the distraction of sound was a momentary relief. Pete heard it and paused to listen, his dark form squarely outlined against the moon. A sinister sight. The boys felt the roots of their hair tingle and their palms turn wet with cold sweat.

The digging was resumed. It may have lasted five minutes or an hour, then Pete dropped to his knees in the hole. They heard him cry out softly. Whipping the bandana from around his neck he spread it on the ground, put something on it, folded it, slipped it into his pocket, picked up his shovel, and limped away without a look behind.

When he had completely disappeared, Froggie whispered, "We ought to have rushed him."

"Yeah!" Cheese scoffed. "You're a hot rusher."

"I held back because I didn't want you guys to get hurt."

"My eye!"

"He's headed for Caleb's house," Dave observed. Then, always practical, added, "We'd better beat it before we get locked out of the dorm."

"I wish Mud was here," Froggie said, as they went down the hill. "His bean clicks about such mysterious things."

"He ought to be coming along," Dave said. "He must have seen what we saw."

"If he wasn't asleep," Cheese added scornfully.

"Seeing as it's on school land, maybe we ought to tell the Old Guard," Froggie said.

"Let's have a look at the place by daylight first," Dave said. "We want all the facts before we spring it on him, or he'll think it's all banana oil."

They returned to school by way of the road. The Mudhen was not in his room, so Froggie sat up for him, bubbling with theories and speculations. Shortly before locking-up time the old straw hat appeared, its wearer looking more sleepy than ever.

"Well," Froggie opened, "what'd you think about it?"

"About what?" The Mudhen began undressing.

"What you saw on the hill—pretty likely."

"Oh. Nice moon up there, if you like moons."

"You don't mean you didn't see what happened!"

"Happened?"

"I knew it!" Froggie's suspicions burst, scattering contempt all over the room. "You were asleep! Oh, you droop! You drip! Asleep!"

"Asleep?" The Mudhen rubbed his head thoughtfully. "I just sat down and— Did I go to sleep?"

"You're a disgrace to your family and your friends! and the school and the human race and the world!" Froggie swung his hands.

"You forgot to mention the universe," The Mudhen reminded him mildly.

Saturday morning rolled around a few hours later, and Cheese, Dave, and Froggie drifted toward the woods, making vague remarks about birds' nests, though none of them knew a chickadee from a dodo. They visited the scene of the night's adventure, speculated, guessed, argued, and finally decided to confide in the Old Guard, for the mystery was out of control.

It got farther out a minute after they entered Mr. Noble's office, for Caleb Barney and Pete Rand stalked in. The headmaster would have been considerably less amazed if the king of Siam had dropped in, but he kept himself in hand.

"I ain't here as no friend," Caleb began, for in his way he was honest. "I'm here on business, and I've fetched my partner, Mr. Rand, to see nobody plays tricks on me."

"A needless precaution, I hope," the Old Guard remarked.

"What I want is to trade them two acres of my land fer them four acres of school land, like you mentioned once. And I want to swap even."

"I beg your pardon!" The Old Guard clutched the arms of his chair.

"You heered what I said. Will ye swap or won't ye?"

"I will."

The Old Guard felt dizzy, and wondered if his brain was functioning as it should. He looked hard at Pete, and the feeling of uncertainty increased.

"When?" Caleb barked.

"Ah—eh—whenever you say, Mr. Barney."

"I'll sign soon's the papers're made out."

"They have been made out for two years. Here they are." Mr. Noble took them from a desk drawer, as people do things in a dream.

Caleb snatched them. "Read 'em, Pete." His eyes were burning. "You know deeds'n' such like."

Pete read slowly, his lips moving awkwardly over the words.

"O.K., pard," he finally said in his beard. "Sign here."

Caleb signed.

"The trustees have given me power to act in this matter," the Old Guard said, "so my signature will be binding." He affixed it. "Now, Mr. Barney, may I ask-"

" 'Twon't do ye no good to ask nothin'." Caleb jumped up. "I've got ye. The land's mine. That's all I've got to say now."

"If you please, Mr. Rand, I want a word with you privately." The Old Guard rose.

"Pump him," Caleb cackled. "Find out all ye can 'n' the more ye find out the worse ye'll feel." He bounced out and slammed the door.

The Old Guard turned toward Pete, and as he turned his hand shot out and snatched that villainous black beard. It came off easily, and behind it was The Mudhen's long, solemn face.

"Boy!" Dave cried.

"Holy bobcats!" Cheese contributed.

Froggie was soundless.

"Crane," the Old Guard asked sternly, "what have you been up to now?"

The Mudhen removed his sombrero and wig and; laid them on the table.

"I rented the outfit downtown," he explained.

"You old son-of-a-gun!" Cheese always did admire his rival.

Mr; Noble looked again at the paper Caleb had signed, and repeated, "Crane, what have you been up to?"

"Well, sir," The Mudhen leaned against the table, "opportunity sort of knocked on my door."

"And you weren't asleep!" Dave was beginning to recover.

"Tell me about it." The master was more impatient than the boys.

The Mudhen had a grand dramatic opening, but he could afford to ignore it.

"It was just luck," he said humbly. "I happened to stumble on some iron pyrite up on the hill—fool's gold, you know it's called."

The Old Guard began to grin. "And Caleb was the fool?"

"He was the victim of his own greed." The Mudhen sighed at thought of such human frailty. "When he somehow got the idea I was a western prospector, he jumped to the conclusion I was huntin' gold."

"You didn't encourage him there?" The Old Guard's grin spread.

"I let him have his own way, sir. He's older than I am."

"Of course."

"He got so sort of steamed up that he told me there was gold around here. Could I truthfully say there wasn't? So the pot boiled."

"And the plot thickened," Dave put in.

"Beautifully, my lad."

"Caleb was an ideal sucker," Cheese gushed.

"One of four."

"You've said it! You took us for a ride last night." Cheese threw back his head and laughed. So did Dave.

Even Froggie, who was still partially dazed, made a creaking noise.

"I yielded to temptation," The Mudhen confessed solemnly.

The Old Guard looked at them and began shaking up and down his front.

"I wasn't to blame for what happened after that." The Mudhen appeared as innocent of guile as a custard pie. "Caleb told me I had found real gold. He is that way. I didn't misrepresent a thing to him. I just listened while he planned to swap land with you, sir. He can't kick if he got just what he asked for."

"He got four acres of land for two. Crane, how can I—how can the school—ever thank you?"

"Don't mention it, sir." The Mudhen stood almost straight.

"I shall mention it." The master clapped a hand on one of The Mudhen's lean shoulders.

Cheese Eastman did likewise to the other shoulder. "Mud," he said, "you're an Eagle, but you're the bow on the birdcage."

"Forget it," The Mudhen begged.

The Old Guard herded them toward the door. "We'll go down to Cicero's and blow the lid off with coke and ice cream," he said.

Which was a very satisfactory remark.

THE END

The Mudhen And The Walrus

Chapter One

The Mudhen sighed. Sighing was one of his favorite personal noises for it required little effort and, depending on the pitch, might express almost any emotion. The present one was full of appreciation and hope.

"A swell view here." He gazed through the farmhouse window. "And brother, what a place to eat and sleep!"

"You said eat?" Froggie Bates closed the chamber door and leaned against it, somehow suggesting a fly that had backed up on fresh paint.

"Sure." The Mudhen commenced unpacking his suitcase. "I'm as hungry as a Siberian wolf."

"And me," Froggie groaned, "I'm hungry enough to eat that wolf—if he was cooked."

"When do we have dinner?"

"We don't have dinner."

"Well, supper then."

"We don't have supper."

"You mean to tell me we have only one meal a day!"

"We don't have any meals—ever—no more, Mud." Froggie's voice broke.

"What!" The Mudhen leaned against a bedpost. "You don't eat anything?"

"We—" Froggie's lower lip trembled under the tread of misery. "We wibble like nabbits."

"You do what?"

"I mean we nibble like rabbits—carrots, cabbage, and such gunk."

"Listen, Frog." The Mudhen faced his friend. "What's all this babblin' about? What's cookin' here?"

"Nothing—that's the heck of it, Mud." Tragedy was standing in Froggie's eyes, knee-deep in tears. "It's Aunt Emma—and she won't."

"For Pete's sake, come in out of the fog and dry your whiskers!" The Mudhen exploded. "Aunt Emma won't what?"

"Cook. She's a raw-vegetable nut."

"One of those diet cranks?"

"Yeh."

"Fan me with feathers!" The Mudhen sat on the bed abruptly.

"I'm sorry I didn't have time to write you, Mud." Froggie twisted his hands miserably.

"But you did write me, and you said the feeds were swell."

"Aunt Alice was here then. She's a peach of a cook-pie and steak and pie and biscuits and gravy and pie." Froggie's voice had a post-Adam wistfulness. "But she's gone away to take care of her sick daughter and Aunt Emma is boss. We don't have a thing dished up but raw vegetables and Dr. Peppergrass."

"Eh?"

"Dr. Peppergrass."

"Who's he?"

"The jerk who invented the diet we're on."

"Oh, a faddist."

"What's a—a faddist, Mud?"

"A guy who rides a hobby till other folks' pants ache."

"That's him. I've never seen the goosehead, but I hate him worsen I hate raw carrots."

"Jeepers!" The Mudhen sensed disaster. "And you're stuck here for all summer?"

"If I don't pass out sooner."

"Hit the road."

"I can't." Froggie's small thin body writhed in torment. "I'm in an awful jam. That's why I sent for you. I've got to talk to somebody—and you're my best friend."

"Buck up," The Mudhen said gruffly. "We'll lick the vegetables."

"It ain't just vegetables," Froggie moaned. "It's something else besides."

"Somethin' worse?"

"Gosh, yes!"

"How can it—"

"Red light!" Froggie held up a warning hand.

A brisk tapping of heels sounded in the hall, a brisk tapping of knuckles sounded on the door, a brisk tapping of words sounded in the waiting ears: "Supper is ready, children, a delicious, healthful supper."

"Yes, ma'am, well be right down," Froggie answered, with the cheer and vigor of a frost-bitten geranium.

When the footsteps had clicked away The Mudhen whispered, "We have to go?"

"Oh, sure." Froggie glared at the door. "That word healthful' gets in my hair. She got it from Dr. Peppergrass—that and vitamins. Gosh, Mud, how I hate 'em! They're just like waving a red bull in front of a rag."

"Steady, old friend." The Mudhen stood up, one joint at a time, and looked down at his pal. "The situation calls for calmness."

"Brother," Froggie turned toward the door, "the situation calls for pie and beans and hamburgers."

As The Mudhen went down to the dining room he saw and smelled that the house was as clean as a new pin. But there was no sign of food, no intriguing wraith of steam rising from a covered dish, no nose-tickling odor of roasting meat and apple pie. Aunt Emma was as spotless as her own reputation—too spotless, no flour on her hands, no film on her spectacles from frying doughnuts. She was about forty years old, a thoroughly good person whose heart was in the right place but whose stomach was incommunicado.

"This is a beautiful evening, John," she said, giving The Mudhen a freshly sharpened smile.

"Yes, ma'am." He was polite but unenthusiastic, for a glance at the cold white table showed real victuals to be as abundant as uranium in Woolworth's.

"Please be seated, John and Arthur," she said cheerfully, though heaven only knew how she could feel that way.

"I'm not very hungry," Froggie mumbled.

"Nonsense, Arthur, you will love the meal. We have delicious carrot salad."

Froggie delicately cupped his hand over a noise.

"Do you enjoy carrots, John?" She beamed on The Mudhen.

"I'm sort of allergic to 'em," he answered, in a tone of deep sorrow.

"Absurd!" She snapped into her armor and was away on the old crusade. "A raw-vegetable diet is so healthful one cannot become allergic. Dr. Peppergrass assured me of that very fact."

The boys reserved comment.

"Now go right ahead and indulge your boyish appetites," she invited expansively. "Pass the luscious carrots garnished with cabbage, Arthur. Do you know the vitamin content of a raw carrot, John?"

The Mudhen did not.

"It is high among all known foods."

"No!"

"Yes, indeed. Dr. Peppergrass has instructed me in such matters."

"Oh."

"He says he never met a person so quick to grasp the fundamental principles underlying the basic conception of a healthful diet as I am."

"Just imagine that!" The Mudhen marveled. "Now, for example, what is the vitamin ratin' for a pie?"

'Pie!" She cast forth the word with enough force to bring down the walls of Jericho and several nearby towns.

'Pie, John, is the most unhealthful, deadly form of food ever devised by human ignorance."

"That's hard to believe," The Mudhen murmured, chewing on a cabbage leaf.

"Not when you understand food combinations."

"Such as steak and onions?"

"Shut up, Mud!" Froggie snapped under his breath and drooled in his napkin.

"Steak and onions!" Aunt Emma shuddered, pulled herself together and charged the enemy again.

In the course of time the lecture and the meal ended. At least, when Aunt Emma passed uncooked prunes on turnip leaves she called it dessert. After that the boys retreated to the backyard, where the air was untainted by the gospel of Dr. Peppergrass.

"You've lived a week this way!" The Mudhen shivered.

"It's seven days tomorrow noon since she came to take Aunt Alice's place," Froggie answered, as a ghost might repeat the date on his tombstone.

"Brother, you're rugged!"

"A neighbor down the road gave me four doughnuts."

"Why didn't you go to town and tank up?"

"Spent all my lettuce—darn that word—spent all my dough the Fourth."

"I've got ten bucks. Let's go."

"It's eight miles to walk."

"Jeepers!" Pedestrianism was not one of The Mudhen's hobbies.

"Besides, the only place they sell grub is at the grocery store and that closes early." Froggie sounded as he felt, super hopeless plus, multiplied by three billion. "We're licked, Mud."

"Never say die."

"But who wants to live on rabbit food?"

"Aunt Emma and Dr. Peppergrass."

"You don't have to take it, Mud. Get out while you can. Don't think of me."

"Comrade," The Mudhen said dramatically, but truthfully, "I am not one to forsake a friend in need."

"But she ain't your headache."

"I'll say she is!"

"I mean, you weren't born related to her as I was."

"Your burdens are my burdens, old friend." The Mudhen enjoyed sounding like a book. "Aunt Emma is our joint challenge. Together we shall overcome her and win our liberty."

"I tell you, mister, she's no pushover."

"Repose confidence in me and sleep peacefully," The Mudhen answered modestly.

"That reminds me, she's a som—a som—what-do-you-call-it?"

"A psalm singer?"

"Naw. She walks in her sleep."

"Oh, a somnambulist?"

"Yeh. I hear her up most any night."

"Just walkin' round?"

"Sure. She says she even goes down to the kitchen and doesn't wake up. Aunt Alice said so too."

"An interestin' case," The Mudhen remarked softly.

They sat on the grass, and after a few minutes Froggie said miserably, "I've got something more to tell you, Mud."

"Well?"

"It's why I invited you here. I couldn't write it."

"What's on your mind?"

"Aunt Emma."

"You said it was somethin' else."

"It's her again. You know she's the one who puts up the money for my school tuition."

"Yes."

"She's not very hepped up about my school record."

"You make your grades."

"But one point above passing doesn't satisfy her."

"She can't kick if you pass."

"It's more'n marks, Mud. She wants me to be more active in school life."

"Um."

"Athletics or dramatics or something."

"A fat chancel"

"Don't I know it? But what can I do?"

"Perhaps she's kiddin' you, Frog."

"Not her. If I don't do something outstanding shell cut me off. She says it and, brother, she means it."

"What!" The Mudhen sat up straight. "That dame is heartless enough to make you quit school?"

"That's it, Mud. If I don't shake a leg and 'show promise,' as she calls it, I'm through mighty fast."

"Promise anything, Frog."

"But, Mud, I've got to do more than that. I've got to convulse her."

"Convince is the word."

"Well, convince her, then, convince her I'm plastered with ambition. And I've got to do it right off or else she won't even let me go back to school in the fall."

"Good lord!" The Mudhen was all awake, for the prospect of school without Froggie was stark tragedy.

"What are we going to do, Mud?" Froggie's eyes were wide with anguish.

"We're goin' to lick this." The Mudhen's courage sounded supreme.

"How?"

"Don't ask me yet."

"But, Mud, if-"

"Silence!"

"You've got to save me, Mud."

"You make it sound so simple—for yourself." The Mudhen lay back on the grass and closed his eyes.

Chapter Two

During that night they heard Aunt Emma walking in her sleep. They listened hopefully but she neither tumbled downstairs nor fell out of the window. In the morning Froggie was up early, for neither his mind nor his body could rest long at such a time.

"Mud," he said, when he was dressed, "it's time to get up."

The Mudhen automatically ignored him. "Can't you hear anything?" Froggie laid hold of the bed and shook it.

"If you wake me up I'll kill you."

"I said it's time to get up."

"What for?"

"Gosh sakes! The day's not long enough for what we've got to do."

"Do what?" The Mudhen opened one eye.

"We've got to find a way out."

"Try the door." The Mudhen closed the eye.

"You're the laziest hunk of tripe in the whole world! Here I am, up to my ears in trouble, and you won't help me. I wish I had a hoseful of water—I'd fix you!" Froggie glared at his roommate, who was peacefully sleeping, then went out and slammed the door.

In due time, or considerably overdue time, The Mudhen awoke. He looked refreshed, but as consciousness resumed the burden of the day he sighed wearily. Why not? Aunt Emma was to be coped with on two fronts; her raw-vegetable fad must be ditched, in so far as it applied to Froggie and himself, while, at the same time, her money for Froggie's tuition must be embraced and held with firm fingers. Strike hard at her almost sacred cult, yet do it so gently that her purse would not be jarred shut. Brother, that would be finesse whittled down to a point and tipped with a hummingbird's whisker.

Despite the gloom within his heart, The Mudhen appeared fairly cheerful when he reached the dining room.

"I hope you slept well, John," Aunt Emma greeted him.

"Like a lamb." He slid into a chair and added, glancing at Froggie,

"That's more than you can say."

"Whatcha mean?" Obviously Froggie was not bubbling with joy.

"You wouldn't be the one who picked up the candy bar I left on the hall table?"

"I never touched your candy bar." Froggie leaned indignantly across the table, nearly upsetting his glass of vitamin-rich prune juice.

"Let it ride," The Mudhen said graciously. "Either you or Aunt Emma are perfectly welcome to the candy bar."

"I!" She dropped a luscious slice of raw turnip. "I never touch sweets—except honey in its natural form."

"Arthur is always up to such tricks," The Mudhen explained lightly.

"What tricks?" she demanded.

"Why"—he hesitated—"as I passed the open door of your room just now I noticed the candy-bar wrapper on your dresser."

"I didn't put it there," Froggie declared hotly. "Cross my heart and hope to die I didn't."

"Um." The Mudhen nibbled daintily on a carrot. "Could it be—this is merely a suggestion, Aunt Emma-could it be that you ate the candy in your sleep?"

"Good heavens!" She knocked over a bowl of shredded cabbage and scattered vitamins all over the place. "What a hideous thought!"

"Oh, it might not have happened," The Mudhen said hastily. "It's just that I've read sleepwalkers often do the very things they wouldn't do if they were awake. What ravishing carrots."

"If you'll excuse me, Aunt Emma, I'll go out and feed the hens or something," Froggie said abruptly.

"Certainly, if you have had enough."

"I have." He gave The Mudhen a look and went away.

"I wish," The Mudhen said pensively, "that Arthur could hit on a diet that would pep him up. Perhaps he has. He seems to be sort of reactin' to this food."

"Do you think so?" She smiled brightly at this obviously intelligent boy. "It is impossible to ignore the vitalizing effects of raw foods. Those are the exact words of Dr. Peppergrass."

"This potato is divine," The Mudhen murmured.

Aunt Emma delayed work on a cabbage leaf long enough to enthuse. "Such priceless truths are not for us alone. They belong to mankind and we must share them with the world. We must even force their adoption, if necessary."

"Delicious turnip," The Mudhen breathed.

Aunt Emma resumed two-way traffic, cabbage one way and words the other. "If a person through stubborn prejudice refuses to eat healthfully, I feel justified in compelling him to do so." She paused, then added warmly, "I observe that compulsion is unnecessary in your case."

The Mudhen bore down on the vitalizing end of a beet and answered, "I wish Arthur could see the fight. There is a lad with tremendous possibilities."

"They are well disguised," Aunt Emma said bluntly.

"Give him a few more years of school and he will shine."

"Not one more day of school unless he promises to turn over a new leaf." Aunt Emma's jaws clicked shut.

"For example?" The Mudhen suggested.

"His marks are disgracefully low and he has no outside interests."

"Well, he's not the athletic type," The Mudhen pointed out, which was superfluous to anyone who had seen Froggie.

"He is not a member of the literary club, in the orchestra, the glee club, or the dramatic club. Evidently he has no talent of any kind, so why spend more money on him?'' She meant business all right.

The Mudhen saw that his partner's fate was balancing on one toe at the edge of an abyss. Now, if ever, something must be done about it.

"What would you like him to take up?" he asked.

"My ambition is for him to be a newspaperman like his uncle."

"A coincidence!" The Mudhen looked amazed. "That's exactly what he wants to be."

"Then why hasn't he at least tried for the literary club?"

'Well"—The Mudhen chewed thoughtfully and thought furiously—"you see, Aunt Emma. Arthur is a—is an—an individualist in journalism, like Pulitzer was."

"What do you mean by that?" She eyed him sharply.

"He doesn't want to be held in check. He wants a paper of his own where he can express his views on things."

"What things?"

"Why, as the Walrus said, 'The time has come to talk of many things.'" The Mudhen almost jumped as an inspiration socked him. "That's what he plans to call his paper, The Walrus."

"Do you mean he has discussed it with you?"

"My goodness! Has he!"

"Why should a mere schoolboy expect to own a paper? Absurd! Such things cost money."

"Oh, sure, Aunt Emma, but I mean just one of those mimeographed things—a couple of pages or so at first, till people recognize his talent."

She thought for several minutes in silence, then leaned across the table. "John," she said earnestly, "I thank you for telling me this. I had no idea Arthur was so ambitious. I will take up the matter with him soon."

"He's just full of ambition," The Mudhen assured her. "A wonderful mind that needs just a little encouragement to pay off."

During that forenoon two other conferences took place, one behind the woodpile between the boys, the other, soon after in the sitting room, was attended only by Aunt Emma and her nephew. Froggie emerged sweating and visibly shaken, a mixed expression of triumph and dismay on his weazened countenance.

"Wake up, Mud!" He poked the ribs of his partner, who was napping in the shade of the barn.

"What news, herald?" The Mudhen rolled over and yawned.

"We've done it, but I don't know how the heck we'll ever do it." Froggie plunked down on the grass.

"Your meaning is not clear, little man."

"I mean she's going to keep me in school and pay for getting out The Whale."

"The title is The Walrus."

"Yeh."

"Long live Aunt Emma!" The Mudhen sat up. "But, Mud, I'm hogtied."

"Never mind. You're all set for next year. Pretty swell, Frog, pretty swell!"

"But listen, Mud. You said to promise anything, so I did. Listen to what I've got to do. I've got to bring out that paper every week—two pages of it—and give a copy to every guy in school and every one of the faculty, and the town library."

"Easy." The Mudhen nodded. "Chuck in anything and hand it out."

"But listen, you big drip! Every number of that paper must boost raw vegetables and—"

"Aha!" The Mudhen muttered darkly. "A subsidized propaganda sheet. Liberty lies in chains."

"But I had to do it, Mud," Froggie wailed. "It was my only chance to stay in school. And I won't stay in now if the paper don't convulse—convince—her I've got what it takes to be a newspaperman. She'll read every word of it. Ain't I on the spot!"

"Don't worry about that for two months," The Mudhen said cheerily. "Right now our problem is to survive."

"I don't see much chance." Froggie wagged his head.

"This will help," The Mudhen answered, and from a dark recess in the barn he brought forth a whole apple pie!

"Holy gosh!" Froggie forgot to close his mouth after the words. "Where'd you get that?"

"From a magnificent neighbor down the road."

"Let's take it up in the woods."

"Get goin'." The Mudhen handed him the pie. 'I'll bring a couple of Cokes from the house."

Froggie started around the end of the henhouse, holding the pie reverently in both hands and dreaming of what lay ahead. Or rather not dreaming what lay ahead, for as he rounded the corner he ran smack into Aunt Emma. She pounced and collared the miserable Frog.

"So!" She breathed invisible fire. "You are not to be trusted."

"I am—was just going for a walk," he explained.

"Out walking with a pie?" Oh, the sarcasm of it!

"You see—"

"Yes, I see. We will continue the walk." She steered him straight to the pigpen and ordered, "Throw the pie in there, sir."

"To the-the pig?"

"Yes, to the pig."

"Not to the p-p-pig, Aunt Emma!"

"I said to the pig"

For a moment Froggie considered violence, but when a guy is undersized and in the clutches of a determined woman he is at a hopeless disadvantage. Like the mother in the story who, to save her own neck, tossed her kids off the sled to the wolves, he closed his eyes and dropped the pie over the fence.

"There!" She released his collar. "Raw apples are healthful, but when cooked they become an indigestible mass, all but devoid of vitamin content."

"I hope it kills the darn pig!" Froggie choked. "I hope he dies with vitamins sticking out his ears in bunches."

"As Dr. Peppergrass said—"

"And Dr. Peppergrass too!" Froggie hurled from a safe distance. "I hope he eats raw cabbage and catnip and clover hay till he turns into a rabbit and ends up in a stew."

Just for that he was shown the lawn mower and consigned to penal servitude for several hours. But first they sat down to a dastardly raw meal and glasses of tepid skimmed milk. They had her word for it, in fact several thousand words, that Dr. Peppergrass considered such an outrage necessary to fortify oneself for the afternoon's battle.

"And the pig got pie!" Froggie sobbed to the lawn mower.

The Mudhen wandered away in sad silence. Not until late afternoon did he drift back, worn, perspiring, and more weary than usual.

"Frog," he said faintly, "behind the shed is a wheelbarrow loaded with grass. Under the grass are steak and onions."

"Jumping up man!" Froggie stared as though he had seen a large company of ghosts.

"Wheel it up to the henhouse, Frog, for I can do no more."

"Where've you been?"

"To town." The Mudhen dropped under the lilac bushes. "Let me rest, old friend. If Aunt Emma sees you, tell her you have some grass for the hens in the morning.

"Tonight we will snitch a skillet and go up to the woods for a feed."

"Brother, you're a honey!" Froggie bubbled.

The trouble with the wheelbarrow was its vocality. Every time the wheel revolved it screeched loud enough to arouse Aunt Emma and her suspicions. She appeared with gusto and demanded particulars.

"Hen food," Froggie answered nonchalantly. "Grass is so full of vitamins I thought I'd give the hens some for breakfast. They're awful nice hens."

Of course, that was enough to convince her there was more in the grass than vitamins. She investigated and came up with two steaks and a bag of onions.

"So!" She spoke calmly. "Once more you sought to deceive me."

"I didn't-"

"Not another word from you, Arthur Bates."

In a way, that suited Froggie, for his conversation account was already overdrawn. She eyed the contraband for a minute, then passed judgment on it.

"Onions are healthful, so I will put them in the shed. And I will put the meat in the refrigerator and feed it to the cats tomorrow. I shudder to think of the havoc it might have caused if cooked and eaten." She paced into the house.

Eventually time closed that day and opened another. At the usual hour Aunt Emma appeared in the kitchen and a moment later The Mudhen followed, making some remark about picking berries for breakfast.

"What do I smell?" she asked sharply.

"Smell, Aunt Emma?"

"Yes, smell." She sniffed viciously.

"It can't be." He turned this way and that, moving his nostrils delicately. "It can't be steak and onions."

"Good heavens! There's a skillet and knife and fork in the sink."

"My word, there is!"

She ran to the woodshed and shouted back, "The onions are gone!"

She skidded across the kitchen to the refrigerator. "The steak is gone!"

"Oh, no!"

"Where is Arthur?"

"He was asleep."

"He did it."

"Aunt Emma," The Mudhen looked her in the eye and said truthfully, "I give you my word he didn't cook a smitch of it. He was with me all night."

"Is this house haunted?" She stared at him.

"I don't think so. But—" He shifted from one foot to the other.

"But what?"

"I hesitate to make a suggestion."

"I command you to make it, John."

"Well, Aunt Emma, if you did-I say if you did—eat the candy bar, isn't it possible you ate the steak and onions?"

"Oh, my soul! In my sleep?"

"Sleepwalkers do strange things."

"Could I have done that-even in my sleep?" She wrung her hands.

"I don't say you did, but"—he coughed politely behind his hand—"may I smell your breath?"

She opened her mouth and he sniffed with utmost delicacy.

"Is there any—any evidence?" she faltered.

"I don't say you did it," he repeated, "but I do smell steak and onions."

"My soul and body!" She sank into a chair. "I have eaten enough cooked food to injure my health for years."

"Do you feel ill, Aunt Emma?"

"Not exactly ill. That will develop later."

"Shall I call a doctor?"

"A mere doctor? No. If only Dr. Peppergrass were available!"

"I'll send for him."

"It would be impossible for him to come."

"Then you must go to him." The Mudhen's voice was firm. "How long will it take you to reach him?"

"Five hours by train."

"You must start at once."

"But you boys—"

"We'll manage. Aunt Alice will be back pretty soon. For the sake of your health we'll make any sacrifice, Aunt Emma. You must take the next train home."

"Well-"

He turned toward the telephone. "I'll have a car here within an hour. You must go. You know what cooked vitamins may do if they are not checked." He talked and finally announced that the car would be right up.

Two hours later, when another phone call assured them she was actually on the train, Froggie danced a jig.

"Mud," he whooped, "you're a honey!"

The Mudhen yawned.

"Why didn't you tell me yesterday what you were up to?"

"Genius walks alone."

"Not when it got up and cooked steak and onions at four o'clock in the morning it didn't walk alone. I was with it."

"A nice little feed," The Mudhen said reminiscently.

Of a sudden Froggie was his old apprehensive self. "Mud," he said, "we're out of this jam, but how the heck am I going to run that darn Walrus?"

"That," The Mudhen answered gravely, "is a horse of another color and-I may add-a very dark color, too."

Chapter Three

It was good to be back in school. There was something about getting into the rut of classes, crabbing at the faculty, and sniping between the two frats, the Bears and the Eagles. Looking back, the summer seemed shorter than a rabbit's tail. Only yesterday, almost, the boys had packed up and gone whooping across the campus where the great elms wore their fresh new leaves. Now those leaves had a tired look and some of them were turning yellow with age and the heat of mid-September. The birds that had looked in dormitory windows and shouted spring greetings were silent and a million crickets were fiddling an overture to autumn. There was a mellow warmth in the air and, though they would not admit it, a glow in the boys' hearts that came from being together again. Another year was advancing over the hill; it might be good to them or it might be tough, but they would meet it.

Froggie Bates was the only one who viewed the immediate future with apprehension. And he had reason to inasmuch as The Walrus had to be launched on the sea of journalism within a week. There was no side-stepping it either, for if the first number did not appear as per agreement Aunt Emma would know the reason why. Froggie had already explained things to the Old Guard and, as usual, the headmaster was sympathetic. He had even contributed the use of the mimeograph machine in his office. The only trouble with the machine was that it would not collect and edit the news. That part of the job was up to the editor and such of his friends as he might wheedle into helping him.

Naturally his roommate, The Mudhen, was chief sufferer.

"You got me into this and you've got to help me get going," Froggie said the first afternoon, when they returned from registering and getting their class assignments.

"If I hadn't gotten you into it you wouldn't be here at all," The Mudhen reminded him, stretching out on his bed and sighing.

"I know it, Mud," Froggie agreed humbly. "You put your shoulder to the bacon—I mean the wheel—and saved my bacon. But I'm still in an awful mess."

"Well?" The Mudhen sounded drowsy.

"Wake up, Mud!" Froggie twisted his foot until he howled and sat up.

"Oh, heck! Got any candy bars?"

"I'll give you one if you'll help me."

"What kind of help?"

"I've got to have enough dope to fill a whole page."

"Got your sports news in?"

"There's no sports news yet."

"Society items?"

"Could I put the freshmen's names in there?"

"Why, I suppose they're a part of society, sort of. Yeh, stretch a point and put 'em in."

"They'll take up quite a lot of space." Froggie brightened.

"That's about all freshmen do anyway."

"And now—"

"Where's that candy bar?"

"Wait a while, there's still a lot of empty room."

"Got your raw-vegetable plug in?"

"Yeh, it's a poem."

"Huh. Who wrote it?"

"I did."

"Crown me with pansies and call me Agnes! You wrote a poem, Frog?"

"Sure." Froggie was nonchalant about his talent. "It takes up more room when you string it out that way. Instead of just saying 'Eat raw vegetables if you want to live long' you—"

"But who the heck wants to live long if he has to eat raw vegetables?" The Mudhen interrupted.

"Shut up! Instead of saying it like that in only one line you say it this way:

If you want to live a healthy life

And smile as you grow old,

Stick to a diet of raw vegetables

And eat all you can hold—

and you've got four lines. Smart, eh?"

"Super. That'll ring the bell with Aunt Emma."

"Think so, Mud?"

"Posi-tiv! Now what about that candy bar?"

"There's still almost a page to fill up and I've covered the whole school."

"Go outside the school, then."

"What do you mean? This is a school paper."

"Yeh, but just call it 'Beyond the Campus, by the Wandering Reporter' or somethin'."

"Swell! You be the Wandering Reporter, Mud."

"You lazy dog!"

"Please, Mud. Start wandering and see what you find."

"Where's that candy bar?"

"Here it is." Froggie fished it from his desk. "Now beat it and find something to write about."

"The future veils her face," The Mudhen said and drifted away, eating.

He didn't know where he was going, but that was unnecessary as Fate had made the arrangements. Outside the campus he fell in with Cheese Eastman, mogul of the rival Bear frat.

"Are you glad to get back?" Cheese asked, as they walked along.

"Oh, yes." The Mudhen sighed. "What's the diff? There's a certain amount of work to be done wherever a guy is."

"You're just as lazy as ever." Cheese vaulted a hydrant, which made his yellow curly hair wave in the wind. "I don't see how you get by, Mud."

"You wouldn't." The Mudhen gave him a pitying look from his sleepy dark eyes. "You're the crude athletic type, while I am an intellectual."

"Salt my soup!" Cheese snorted.

"You'll notice," The Mudhen continued, "that all Eagles have superior intelligence."

"Fan me with a lilac!" Cheese threw back his head and laughed. "You know, Mud, we Bears are going to trim the pants off you Eagles this year."

Wham! An egg-size stone smacked the picket fence beside which they were walking. They stopped. A hunk of wood followed the stone, arriving just ahead of a monkey wrench. All of which was strange because the area behind the fence was the garden of a certain Mr. Beeman who was as gentle as a June bug full of angel food. For him to engage in monkey-wrench throwing was as unexpected as spontaneous combustion in a bowl of bread and milk.

Zip! A small stone cleared the pickets, whistling as it went.

"They can't do that to me!" Cheese cried and went over the fence.

The Mudhen followed, somehow managing to keep up without hurrying much. Passing through a screen of shrubbery, they met Mr. Beeman himself, a portly gentleman with sideburns and, at the moment, a heavy load of agitation.

"Did you see him—or perhaps her?" he burst out, poising a flower pot like a hand grenade.

"No, sir." Cheese spoke respectfully, for the Bumble Bee, as he was called behind his back, was a good scout and a friend of the school.

"Oh, dear !" Mr. Beeman wagged his head. "Not even a trace of him—or, it may be, her?"

"What should we have seen, sir?" The Mudhen asked.

"A rat." The Bumble Bee waved the flower pot as flower pots were never made to be waved.

"Oh, just a rat."

"Not just a rat," Mr. Beeman corrected indignantly. "This rat is an individualist, a huge, gray creature, bold and cunning as Ulysses."

"Jeepers!" Cheese said understandingly. "That kind of rat is bad."

"Bad! Young man, this rat is fiendish. He eats my seeds, destroys my bulbs, uproots my flowers, and chews my vegetables. Furthermore, the sum of his activities is shattering my nervous system." Mr. Beeman dropped the flower pot, forever ending it as an entity.

"Bump him off," Cheese suggested.

"Exterminate him?"

"Why not?"

"You are unacquainted with this rat, my boy. He scoffs at traps."

"Feed him something."

"Of a poisonous nature?"

"Sure."

"I dare not use poison because of my pigeons."

"I've shot lots of rats," Cheese said.

"Indeed!"

"It's duck soup."

"Pardon?"

"I mean, it's easy to shoot rats. If you've got a gun I'll show you."

"The only firearm I possess is my grandfather's scatter-gun which I have not fired for years." The Bumble Bee made a hopeless gesture.

"Looks like Ulysses hasn't much to worry about," The Mudhen commented.

"He must be exterminated!" Mr. Beeman raised his clenched fists on high. And while he stood their inspiration bloomed above his sideburns. "I will give a gallon of ice cream to the one who does him in," he offered.

"I'll take that ice cream," Cheese said promptly.

"Yeh?" The Mudhen eyed him coldly. "There won't be any when I finish."

"Sez you!"

"Sez I, brother."

So began the rat hunt of the century. It started without publicity, for at first neither Cheese nor The Mudhen felt an urge to notify the school that a gallon of ice cream was about to graduate from dream to reality. The Wandering Reporter did not turn in that special item to his editor. A gallon was not enough to make a fuss about— unless the other guy had it. In that case, just dish out the news and he wouldn't have it long.

The whole thing was based on Ulysses the rat; his demise was the great objective. Poison being barred and firearms forbidden in school, traps seemed the best bet. The Mudhen blew a hard-saved quarter on a spring trap that was guaranteed to hold any rat dumb enough to stand under the bar and pull the trigger. Cheese borrowed a contraption from a janitor friend. By evening the stage was set and so were the traps, one in the tool house and the other near the compost pile. Each, in the eyes of the respective setters, was good for a gallon of ice cream in the morning.

But mornings can be so remiss in living up to expectations. Dawn chalked up two empties for the trappers.

"It must be the rat has moved out," The Mudhen decided, as he met Mr. Beeman in the path.

"Moved out!" The Bumble Bee waved his hands. "Rather, he has moved in. During the night he ruined a package of imported narcissus bulbs. Fancy that!"

"I'll get him," The Mudhen promised. "Let me have a few of the chewed-up bulbs for bait and you won't need worry any more. I'll have somethin' tomorrow mornin"'

Time made good his promise, but what he had was a small stick. He squatted on his heels and examined the stick closely, then reset the trap and wandered away.

"Any luck, Danl Boone?" Cheese whispered in math class.

The Mudhen shook his head sadly. "Ulysses is smart."

"Too smart for his boots."

The next morning Cheese got there first and found his trap sprung. The bait was gone and in its place was a

printed note:

Dear Trapper:

Your methods are crude but good as may be expected from a Bear. What is your favorite ice-cream favor?

With deepest respect,

Ulysses

"You rat!" Cheese growled when they met on the campus.

"Sir!" The Mudhen stared at him.

"What are you guys chewing about?" Froggie wanted to know.

"A personal matter," Cheese answered and moved on.

"Mud," Froggie demanded, "when are you coming across for the paper? The Walrus goes to press in two days."

"Oh—yes," The Mudhen answered absently. "Gosh sakes, you promised."

"You must trust the future, little man," The Mudhen murmured and wandered away obviously very unhappy.

That evening the two ratters chanced to meet in Mr. Beeman's garden, where they found that the proprietor was in a bad way, like a grasshopper that has made a forced landing in a henyard and doesn't know which way to turn.

"A beautiful day, sir," Cheese remarked.

"Beautiful!" The Bumble Bee was a scant jump ahead of tears. "Do you know what has happened? That rat has ruined my Glamour Girl!"

"Your—your what, sir?" Cheese gasped, for the Bumble Bee suggested romance as a field mouse does Hollywood.

"My Glamour Girl—the prize muskmelon I was preparing to exhibit at the horticultural meeting."

"Oh," said Cheese.

And The Mudhen muttered, "Life is cruel."

"When are you going to catch that creature?" Mr. Beeman demanded of them. Neither answered.

"I will double the reward. Two gallons of ice cream to the one who gets him."

"Well! That was talking! Someone somewhere must know a sure-fire way to catch rats. Each trapper made the rounds of his cronies, bullying, bribing, begging for the secret. No soap. Many were acquainted with such nonessentials as French verbs, cube root, and the chemical content of coal, but parents, faculty, and the wide world had taught them nothing of the principles of rat capture. Such is modern education; we trap the mysteries of the universe yet can't corner a garden variety of rat.

The Mudhen put all the cards on the table and implored his roommate's aid. When nothing came of it he remarked that Froggie was as helpful as tar on a drumstick.

"I'm trying to think." Froggie writhed in the torment of mental effort.

"With what?" The Mudhen's sarcasm would have withered a bull thistle at forty-five paces. "That's all the thanks I get!"

"It's all you deserve, you lump. Didn't you ever hear or read or see a picture about catchin' rats?"

"There was a sort of rat catcher in the poetry book."

"Who was he? How did he catch 'em? Step on it, Frog."

"Seems like they called him the Pie-eyed Piper. He played a tune on something and the rats beat it for the river."

"That's where I'm goin'," The Mudhen moaned.

"What about something for The Walrus?" Froggie asked cruelly.

"The river!" The Mudhen went out into the night.

Fate was up early the next morning directing traffic. First, it brought the boys into the garden together just as the tool-house door snapped open and Mr. Beeman came forth, wild-eyed and with his hands full of what looked like confetti.

"Data!" he wailed. "Data! Data!" And he staggered along the path.

"Did you speak to me, sir?" The Mudhen asked nervously.

"Data!" The Bumble Bee stopped and stared at him. "Scientific notes I have made from my study of plants."

"Oh. Well, take it easy, Mr. Beeman.'

"That horrible rat has made a nest of them!"

He might have wept had not Cheese at that moment looked past him, muttered "Jeepers!" and pointed at the tool house. There in the open door sat Ulysses, and those who saw him would take oath that he was holding his fat sides with laughter.

Anger painted Mr Beeman's face like a tomato in a seed catalogue.

'Brother it I had a gun!" Cheese groaned.

"Don't move, boys," the Bumble Bee whispered and was away up the garden path, his sideburns whistling in the wind.

"Suppose hell call the cops?" Cheese wondered aloud.

"A heck of a note if they get the ice cream!" The Mudhen said. "I'd almost rather have you and the Bears share it."

"We'd have it now if you hadn't butted in," Cheese snapped.

"What do you mean, butted in?"

"You've messed up everything from the start."

"You're wacky as usual."

"Shut up! You'll scare the rat."

"Same to you."

"Think we could sneak up and rush him?"

"A fat chance! Besides, the Bumble Bee has an option on him."

"An option on a rat! Where'd you get that?"

"Shakespeare. This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not swipe a rat from any man."

"You nut!" Cheese took a cautious step toward Ulysses.

"Hold it!" The Mudhen whispered. "Here comes the owner marching as to war."

The Revolutionary War at the latest, for he lugged a shot pouch, a powder horn, and a double-barreled shotgun as long as a letter from home.

"I hope he knows how to handle that cannon," The Mudhen whispered anxiously.

"Holy bobcats!" was Cheese's only remark at the time.

The Bumble Bee's color scheme had faded several shades, but, through his glasses, his eyes looked almost like red lights as he glared at Ulysses, who was still in the doorway.

"Give me time to load my piece, you—you beast!" Mr. Beeman hissed like a movie hero.

"May I help you, sir?" Cheese offered, meaning to hold the powder horn or something.

"Oh, dear me!" The Bumble Bee blinked nervously.

"Load her up," The Mudhen urged, one eye on the rat.

"I hardly know how to go about it." Mr. Beeman stared at the gun and tried to back away from it.

"You'll get along O.K.," Cheese encouraged.

"Grandpa taught me, but that was long ago."

"It works just the same now as then," Cheese urged.

"Oh, dear me! What do you boys suggest?"

"I never saw one of the things before," Cheese said.

"Nor I." The Mudhen eyed the heavy artillery warily. "Let's wait and see if we can't trap the rat, sir."

"Wait! Not another moment."

Mr. Beeman had crossed the Rubicon on a one-way ticket, and standing firmly on the far bank, he began loading the gun. He had been born with the usual number of hands, but for a while it looked as though they were not enough for the present job. Contrariwise, he appeared to have far too many thumbs on each hand.

The Mudhen watched him closely and silently. Once he seemed about to speak, but he controlled the impulse and also a smile that jiggled the corners of his mouth. Cheese, who was keeping an eye on Ulysses, suddenly whispered that the varmint was moving.

"I am ready," Mr. Beeman panted unexpectedly.

"He's going!" Cheese jittered.

"I shall try a wing shot." Mr. Beeman turned suddenly and collided with the gun barrel. There was a sickening tinkle and his glasses fell to the ground in pieces. "Good grief!" Tragedy spoke the words.

"He's on the barrel," Cheese whispered.

"The gun barrel!" The Bumble Bee made a wobbly pass at it.

"No, no, no! the water barrel in the tool house. Right on the edge of it. Plug him."

"I can't see a thing at that distance."

"Jeepers! What a jam!"

"You shoot him, boy." He thrust the gun toward The Mudhen.

"I pass." The Mudhen side-stepped.

"He must not escape," Mr. Beeman sobbed. "Someone shoot him."

"Not me," The Mudhen said firmly. "I double the reward-four gallons of ice cream."

"No takers," The Mudhen insisted even then. "Eight gallons!"

"Give me that gun!" Cheese grabbed it and swung it to his shoulder. The autumn air was filled with thunder and the gunner sat in a tulip bed.

"Did you get him?" Mr. Beeman shouted, covering both ears.

"Ohhhhh!" Cheese groaned.

"I say, did you get the rat?"

"Oh, oh, gosh!"

"The rat?"

"I don't care a hoot about the rat. Mud, come see if I m dead."

"Oh, my goodness!" Mr. Beeman felt his way across the path. "Did the gun explode?"

"No." Cheese stood up and groaned again. "But it kicked me for a row of ash cans."

"Dear me! Muzzle loaders do recoil, I seem to remember."

"So do I."

"But the rat?"

"Here he is!" The Mudhen shouted as he came out of the tool house, holding aloft the limp and very wet body of Ulysses. "I just fished him out of the water barrel."

"Brother, what a day!" Cheese grinned and rubbed his shoulder.

The Bumble Bee all but wept with joy as he gloated over the destroyer of Glamour Girl and data.

"I want to enjoy a better look at him. Pardon me while I fetch another pair of glasses from the house." He blundered away.

"Oh, boy!" Cheese continued to grin. "Eight gallons of ice cream for us Bears!"

The Mudhen winced at the thought, but he said bravely, "You earned it. I wouldn't have fired that cannon for fifty gallons."

"I know guns," Cheese answered chestily.

"Before you strut your stuff down that alley let me show you somethin'," The Mudhen said.

"Show me what?"

"Look here, little man." The Mudhen stooped and picked up the shotgun. "Watch closely." He tilted the barrels toward the ground and out ran a handful of shot.

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Cheese gasped.

"Voila!" The Mudhen almost smiled for the second time that day. "The Bumble Bee put the powder in one barrel and the shot in the other. The noise scared Ulysses so he tumbled into the water barrel."

"Yes, sir, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Cheese repeated.

"So long for now." The Mudhen moved away.

"Where are you going?"

"To the editorial rooms of The Walrus. Editor Bates wants somethin' for his 'Beyond the Campus' column. I'll whip up a little story about a rat named Ulysses. As I said before, so long for now."

Chapter Four

Time passed, about a monthful of it. September went over the dam and October sailed out on the millpond of the present like a lazy, bright-colored waterfowl. School was going passing well for everyone except Editor Bates of The Walrus. There was a man with a load. To be sure, the first issues had been successful, that is, they had made the grade with Aunt Emma, but no sooner was one tucked away than the next loomed on the horizon.

Added to the usual school work, the strain of editorship was wearing Froggie to a frazzle. There were days when he ate only three meals, and some nights he allowed The Mudhen to sleep scarcely ten hours. The other boys, both Eagles and Bears, helped when they could, for they realized what was at stake. But the value of their efforts was sentimental rather than practical, as on the afternoon after classes when Noodle Perkins bounced into Froggie's room, his round face shining like a paper jack-o-lantern, and puffed that he had a big idea for the paper.

"Shoot it quick." The harrassed editor looked up hopefully.

"It's a recipe for raw-vegetable salad. It'll take up a lot of room."

"Let's see it." Froggie reached for the blue pencil.

"I'll tell it to you. It's in my head."

"Oh." Froggie's voice indicated considerable doubt as to whether Noodle's head was a fit repository for a salad.

"Listen. Take one quart each of the following raw vegetables," and Noodle rattled off what sounded like a seed-catalogue index.

"Hold it!" Froggie cried, after a minute. "You've got more than a bushel already."

"It's a family-sized recipe," Noodle explained.

"A family of what? Cows?"

"Then don't use a quart, use a stalk."

"Of each?"

"Sure. Write 'em one under the other so they'll fill up space. Set 'em down. Asparagus, corn—"

"Hey!" Froggie waved his pencil. "You can't put a cornstalk in a salad, you goose head."

"Jumpin' up man!" Noodle exploded. "I try to help you and you get fussy as your grandmother's parrot."

"But the stuff has got to get by Aunt Emma."

"Oh, all right, all right, all right! Don't say one quart or one stalk, just say one. Get it? One pumpkin, one squash, one bean—"

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie shouted. "What kind of salad you expect to have out of a pumpkin and a squash and a bean?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"It don't make sense, that's what's wrong with it."

"Then write your own vegetable editorial," Noodle snapped.

"I can and I have," Froggie answered with dignity, picking up a paper from his desk.

"I bet it's a hot one."

"It's a sort of sonnet. Know what a sonnet is?"

"No. Do you?"

"Pretty likely. I wrote it. Listen." Froggie read slowly so the beauty of the words would not bounce off Noodle's large red ears:

"There was once a young lady named Rider,

Who was happy when anyone spied her.

Why was she so glad?

The truth is she had

Raw veg-e-tables inside her."

There was silence in the room for a space. "Well," Froggie finally asked, "does it put the message across?"

"Clear across and out the window," Noodle assured him.

Froggie wiped his wrinkled brow. "I wish Mud was here to pass on it," he said. "You seen him since math class?"

"Sure," Noodle grinned, 'he's out with the new Eagle."

"With the—" Froggie stopped and flushed.

"Yeh, with the mule."

'That's none of your business."

"Of course not. If he wants to be the laughing stock of the town it's his business—and his brother Eagles'."

"You keep your beak out of our soup!"

"I don't blame you for being sore. If he was a Bear I'd be ashamed of him too." After which, Noodle thought best to leave the room quickly.

Meanwhile, The Mudhen was happy. He did not smile, for that required muscular effort and he was averse to that, but deep within him was a feeling of contentment arising from the fact that he was behaving differently from any boy in school. Very differently, for while the herd transported itself on feet and bicycles and in inveigled cars, he, the individualist, was rescued from immobility by a mule.

In his youth this mule had been beautiful. Such a startling statement can be proved by close reasoning inasmuch as beauty fades, and beyond question the mule had faded. He had gone far in that direction, it may be, farther than any mule had ever gone. Yet obviously he was a champion unspoiled by achievement, for his face was sad. A unique creature, impervious to his own record and to the glory of hauling The Mudhen up Main Street in a buckboard that was as unique as either of them.

"Hey, you nut!"

The mule stopped, not because he thought he had been addressed but on general principles. He was a good stopper, in fact he should have been named Cork. The Mudhen glanced from under the brim of his floppy hat and saw Froggie Bates on the curb. The Frog's weazened face wore the earnest expression it always had when he was out to reform someone. The Mudhen sighed.

"Does the senor seek speech with the arriero?" he asked his roommate.

"The what?" Froggie stepped into the street.

"Little one, arriero is the Spanish word for a mule driver."

"That's not what the guys call you, Mud."

"Poof!" The Mudhen tilted his long nose.

"Just the same, what they're saying about you is no joke."

"Two poofs!" The Mudhen scoffed. "What cares a caballero for the vapid bleatings of a cabron?"

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie came close. "You gone clear off the beam?"

"One should explain that a cabron is of son of a goat."

"Bypass that lingo!" Froggie snapped.

"Its exoticism jars your provincial ear perhaps, si?"

"I'm here to tell you, Mud, that the Eagles are fed up with you and your mule business."

"You come as an envoy, little man?"

"No, sir, I'm no endive," Froggie answered, his subconscious still busy with vegetables. "I'm here as your friend."

"Ride with me and we shall converse at leisure," The Mudhen invited.

"Did you say ride with you?"

"Si, si, by all means."

"Do you think I'd ride behind that mule in a wagon that almost drags on the ground in the middle and wags its wheels like a dog with four tails?"

"Please try it once, dear Frog."

"No! And I mean no."

"As you wish, amigo." The Mudhen pulled on the reins and the mule took the hint, one joint after another.

"Where you going?" Froggie walked backward beside the buckboard.

"To the rancho." The Mudhen sank back and drew his sharp knees nearer his nose.

"Whoa!" Froggie commanded and the mule stopped again.

"You have changed your mind and wish to ride?"

"No!" Froggie leaned over the front wheel and said very distinctly, "I'm telling you, Mud, that the Eagles are talking about booting you out."

"Me? Their greatest ornament?" The Mudhen yawned behind his hand.

"You're as ornamental as a last year's summer squash."

"Many's the time the Eagles have gloried in my worth."

"They didn't glory in those eight gallons of ice cream Cheese pulled right from under your nose."

"A mere incident."

"And right now," Froggie continued hotly, "we're fed up with this mule and wagon. We're sick of hearing folks say, 'That screwball with the mule is an Eagle from the school.'"

"Almost a rhyme," The Mudhen commented. "Who would dream that the bloom of verse could spring unbidden from such barren soil."

"Shut up!" Froggie was sincere about it. "If you don't quit this foolishness you'll ruin our reputation."

"Ah me!" The Mudhen sighed again and urged the mule to move away.

He loved to ride that way, drowsing along, clogging traffic, and being bawled out by such travelers as wanted to go more than a mile an hour. The four wheels of the buckboard, which was probably second-hand in the days of General Grant, were colorless as to paint but deep-dyed with individuality, each squeaking in a different key and staggering around its axle at a different angle. In every detail the vehicle was a superb companion piece for the mule. The ensemble attracted attention of a kind to wring a wince from a sensitive soul, but The Mudhen was contented. Let the brother Eagles moan with shame and let the rival Bears jeer, he had found a new way to relieve the tedium of school life and the reaction of others was music to his ears.

He was awakened from his reveries by a girl's voice bubbling, "Oh, how definitely eccentric!"

He turned his half-open eyes to the sidewalk and saw three high-school girls looking at him and giggling.

"How positively compelling!" enthused the same voice, which he saw came from Mary Somebody, the one Cheese Eastman took to dances.

The Mudhen was not a ladies' man. For all he cared Cupid could go jump in the creek and plug his arrows at catfish, but this girl had paid him a high compliment and he responded gallantly.

"Taxi, senorita?" he invited.

"Are you asking me to ride?" Mary's eyes widened.

"Si, si," he answered, confident that the mule's anti-appeal would keep any damsel at a safe distance.

Which showed how little he knew about girls, for before he could throw up bulwarks Mary had boarded the buckboard seat beside him and the other dames were in back with their feet hanging off and their giggles going full tilt.

"Jumpin' jeepers!" The Mudhen muttered.

"I beg your pardon."

"Oh, sure."

"What is its name?" Mary thrust a toe muleward.

"Horace."

"I simply adore him!" she gushed. "He is so absolutely informal."

"Yeh. Sort of. That's right."

"He is the darbingest thing I ever saw!"

Doggone the girls! Perhaps if he headed for the dorm they would fade, The Mudhen thought, so he set the mule a course up the hill, happy as a duck in an ashcan. But the girls lapped it up. They shrieked with mysterious laughter and attracted more attention than a circus parade. Furthermore, when Mary saw Cheese Eastman on the sidewalk she leaned toward the muleteer and murmured, "I could definitely go on riding this way forever."

"That long?" The Mudhen moaned.

"Oh, yes—positively. This is absolutely super." And she smiled as maidens smile when they are at peace with the world.

"Whoa there!" The command came from Cheese, who was crossing the street with asphalt-shaking vigor.

Horace stopped and suddenly joy filled The Mudhen's heart, for obviously his arch rival was not in a jovial mood.

"Oh, please keep going," Mary begged. "The motion of this chariot is ecstatic."

"Chariot!" Cheese snorted. "A claptrap buckboard dragged by a blasted mule."

"His name is Horace," Mary chortled. "He is divine."

"I wouldn't ride to a dogfight behind him," Cheese scoffed.

"Oh, really?" Mary put her nose up a notch, while in blissful silence The Mudhen persuaded Horace to wander away from there. Across the street two Eagle spectators hot footed in opposite directions to spread the news.

Thus it was that, within an hour and by unpremeditated means, the status of The Mudhen and the mule changed from a thing of scorn to an object of beauty in Eagle eyes. When it became known that Horace had caused chagrin, even anguish, to the Bear leader every member of the rival frat softened toward the old wreck and his driver. The wound made by the loss of eight gallons of ice cream began to heal and the opinion spread that, after all, life might hold something worth while.

The Mudhen acted with characteristic languor and acumen. Though lacking in physical beauty and deficient in romantic appeal, he managed to pick up Mary every afternoon and exhibit her to the mob. To be circulated about town in such unusual manner stirred her sense of adventure and made her temporarily disdain other conveyances. Her escort seldom spoke, for that would require more effort than any girl was worth, but he gave her delicious publicity and she was grateful.

But Cheese was not. To be brief but specific, he regarded the whole thing as a bull is supposed to feel about red flannels. Just to see the radiant Mary—and he could not help seeing her—riding in that disreputable fashion with the unspeakable Mudhen made him paw the earth, and he roared outright when he remembered giving that same Mary some of the ice cream for which he had risked his life. Yes, she had gobbled about a quart of it, declaring that he was definitely her hero. And now look at her!

"Jeepers!" He smote the study table a terrific smite one evening. "What has Mud got that I haven't?"

His roommate, Noodle Perkins, jumped and upset a bottle of pop on The Merchant of Venice.

"Now look what you've done!" he wailed—Noodle, not the merchant.

"I didn't do it and I don't care if I did," Cheese thundered, pounding the table with both big fists. "I say, what's Mud got that I haven't?"

"A mule," Noodle answered, mopping the merchant with a towel.

"What do you mean?"

"What I said. Can't you understand English?" The good-natured Noodle, as well as the pop, was upset.

"You said a mule—"

"M-u-l-e. It's the m-u-l-e that Mary falls for."

"Jeepers!" Cheese leaned on the table. "You think so?"

"I know it." Noodle eyed the empty bottle sadly. "She told a girl who told a guy who told me."

"Well," Cheese brightened, "that's better than having her fall for Mud."

"It's not exactly a compliment to you, though, to be cut out by such a critter," Noodle said spitefully.

"Huh." Cheese scowled. "What the heck can I do about it?"

"Why do anything about it? There are plenty of other girls."

"I know there are, but if I don't get Mary back the Eagles will kid the pants off me."

"That's just what they're already doing."

"Don't I know it! Jeepers! What can I do?"

"Listen." Noodle's round face was earnest as a pie. "Why don't you fight fire with fire? Get yourself a mule."

"Eh?" Cheese stared at him.

"Rent one. Mud does."

"Rent a mule?"

For about two minutes Cheese sat as motionless as the pop bottle, then, "I'll do it," he said in a quiet voice. He hopped up. "Let's beat it down to Cicero's and have a Coke."

"Sure." Noodle picked up a couple of library books. "We'll take these along just in case."

Cheese poked him in the ribs and laughed.

"I'm off!" He tossed a book in the air and caught it. "Watch my dust."

Chapter Five

Innocent and unsuspecting, The Mudhen was buck-boarding down the street a few afternoons later when Percy passed. He passed at a good clip, too, for he was a long-legged bay mule attached to a dogcart in which Cheese Eastman sat and urged him with flicks of a buggy whip. And beside him sat Mary, as cool and crisp as one of Aunt Emma's vegetable salads.

The Mudhen gave no visible signs of having seen what he had seen. Cheese drove to the next corner, turned Percy with a flourish and trotted back.

"Whoa!" He pulled up opposite the obedient Horace and touched his cap with his whip. "A beautiful day, sir," he greeted.

"A pip." The Mudhen yawned.

"How do you like him?" Cheese grinned.

"Isn't he definitely superb?" Mary bubbled.

"The mule or the donkey?" The Mudhen asked solemnly.

"The mule, silly."

"Cheese," The Mudhen said, "how can you take out a girl that calls you a donkey to your face?"

"I never!" Mary blushed angrily.

"Right in a public street too." The Mudhen wagged his head.

"All right, Mister Smarty! I'll never ride with you again. That is definitely final," Mary hurled at him.

"Thank you, old friend." The Mudhen bowed to Cheese and drove away.

In spite of his outward calm, his emotions surged in a mighty surge. That despicable Cheese had horned in and robbed him of the glory of being the only muleteer in school. One mule was distinctive, a thing apart, but two mules cheapened both and made the arriero only another arriero. Drooling, sentimental old Cheese had done it to win Mary's attention. That part of it was O.K. He was welcome to her and her adjectives, but the Bears chose to regard it as a triumph.

During the next few days they made remarks suggesting that the intelligence of the entire Eagle clan was considerably farther down the scale than an earthworm's. When The Mudhen appeared in public with Horace they, by means of scouts and signals, would discover his course and presently Percy and Cheese would breeze past, often with Mary simpering on the seat of the dogcart. At such times The Mudhen tried to encourage Horace to sprint, but the mule's ambition in the matter was nonexistent. He could and would trot, but the pace was not the stuff from which victory is made and only attracted ridicule to himself, his driver and the fraternity of Eagles. They, in turn, lambasted The Mudhen.

"Say," Froggie demanded furiously of his roommate, "how long have we got to endure this hullmilly—hill-mully—"

"Humiliation is the word you're gropin' for," The Mudhen corrected gently. "What would my brothers have me do?" he asked humbly.

"Quit driving that darn mule, that's what."

"Be put off the road by Cheese Eastman?"

"The quicker you are, the quicker folks will stop laughing at you—and us."

"But, Frog, think of the principle involved."

"Think of us, too."

The Mudhen sighed and changed the subject. "How is The Walrus shapin' up for this week?"

"Rotten. And that's another thing, you promised to help me, but you're too busy driving that darn mule."

"Well," was the only remark The Mudhen could think of at the moment.

"If Aunt Emma gives me the goose egg you'll be to blame—you and—"

"That darn mule," The Mudhen finished.

"Yes, sir, just that." Editor Bates walked away.

The Mudhen put his feet on the table and went into a huddle with himself. Before searching his soul he searched the drawer on Froggie's side and found a candy bar. Chewing slowly, he turned to heavy thinking. And it was heavy. All right and airy thoughts had been squeezed from his mind by the weight of cruel circumstances. For days he had been suffering silently, tormented by the mess he was in and his inability to do something about it. His belief was that a guy with brains could think his way out of anything, yet here was he, the subtle old master, floundering.

To be sure, there was a way out, but he writhed at mention of it. He could withdraw Horace from circulation, as Froggie had suggested. A simple matter for some, perhaps, but unthinkable to The Mudhen, for it would be an open acknowledgment of defeat. It would call the world's attention to the fact that he could not cope with Cheese and had slunk from the field. Never!

For two more days he walked alone, not wilfully ignoring the world but too busy cogitating to be aware of its presence. One evening he disappeared for hours and when he showed up he was in that semi-somnambulant state that presaged action. He went to bed without a word to the toiling editor across the room and immediately Morpheus took him in tow.

The next afternoon as Cheese drove up the campus road, sitting pretty beside Mary in the dogcart, Horace, the buckboard and The Mudhen oozed around a corner and stopped squarely across the street.

"Gangway!" Cheese shouted and waved his whip.

The Mudhen removed his floppy hat and placed it on one knee.

"Cabron," he answered, "I would have a word with you."

"What did you call me?" Cheese demanded.

Out of the corner of his eye The Mudhen saw various Bears and Eagles converging on the scene.

"I said cabron," he repeated in a louder voice.

"Well, what does it mean?" Cheese asked impatiently.

"Yes," Mary twittered, "definitely."

"In the brotherhood of true arrieros, to which I belong," The Mudhen replied, "cabron designates a son of a goat."

Cheese pretended to ignore the whole situation by shouting, "Get the heck out of the way and quit blocking traffic."

"Amigo" The Mudhen answered firmly, "I must speak with you."

"Wiggle, worm." Cheese brandished his whip. "I am taking this lady to an appointment downtown."

"And I am positively ages late already," Mary added plaintively.

The Mudhen was unmoved. "It is obvious," he said, estimating that by then twenty boys were within hearing, "that this campus is too small for two mules. One of them must be withdrawn from the field."

"Sure." Cheese made an impatient gesture. "Take your hunk of cat meat and beat it."

"Not so fast." The Mudhen moved a hand in protest. "Listen to a sporting proposition. I challenge you to race our mules on the old fair-ground track. The loser promises he will never again drive a mule on the streets of this village."

"You're a nut," Cheese commented.

"Definitely." Mary giggled.

The Mudhen cocked an eyebrow and asked flatly, "Is Senor Eastman a sport or a drip?"

Cheese laughed insultingly. "It's like taking candy from a kid, but you asked for it. Steer your Wreck of the Hesperus over to the curb and well wrap up this deal." He grinned at the boys. "You guys witness my innocence."

Dave Pierce stepped into the buckboard and urged under his breath, "Don't be a fool, Mud. You know this mule couldn't win against a turtle."

"Fate drives me on," The Mudhen replied sadly.

Sam Bowman came up on the other side and grabbed the arriero's arm.

"Don't do it, Mud," he begged. "Youll just look ridiculous, and we'll never hear the last of it."

"The die is cast." The Mudhen's tone was tragic as he set a course for the curb.

There, under the elms, they agreed on terms that would terminate forever the local career of one muleteer. The race would be held the following Saturday afternoon on the old fair ground. The course would be one mile, twice around the track, and if the Old Guard was willing, as he no doubt would be, he and two faculty members chosen by him would be the judges. Each contestant promised that, if he lost, he and his mule would be seen no more together in public. The Bears were jubilant, as they had reason to be, for if ever a race was in the bag that one was.

"Give poor old Mud a chance, Cheese," Rip Anderson shouted. "Let him go once around the track before you start."

"Sure," Cheese said grandly, for Mary's benefit, "Ill agree to that handicap."

"Gentlemen," The Mudhen reproved, "this is a sportin' event, not an exhibition of feeble humor."

"Take my offer?" Cheese asked.

"I refuse any handicap." The Mudhen replied with great dignity.

He even seemed happy and confident, as though his once keen mind had taken such a slump as to hope the semi-petrified Horace had a chance of winning. Everyone else knew it was doubtful if he finished second, at least the same day. A worm in a henyard was more likely to beat fate to the wire.

"Gosh sakes, Mud, can't you think of any way out?" Froggie wailed one evening.

"Out of what?" The Mudhen looked up.

"The race, goose head. Or some folks call it a race-then they laugh."

"Oh."

"You aren't going through with it, are you?"

"Amigo," his roommate intoned, "the only way to cope with life's problems is to surge ahead."

"A lot of surging Horace will do!"

"He and I have dedicated our all to victory."

Froggie groaned. "Then you are going ahead with it?"

"Not only that, but I yearn for the appointed hour."

"When that hour comes your yearnerll go into reverse with a bang."

"By the way, little man"—The Mudhen rose to go to bed—"how is The Walrus comin'?"

"It goes to press tomorrow. This number doesn't seem very peppy."

"Suggestion to the editor," The Mudhen threw over his shoulder, "promise your readers a full account of the race next week. Tell 'em in big type youll have inside dope about it-somethin' exclusive. Make it sound mysterious."

"What do you mean, inside dope?"

"Just that—inside dope."

"Where'll I get it?"

"From me, the fountainhead."

"You won't let me down, Mud?"

"I will not," The Mudhen promised and was asleep.

Saturday dawned clear and the Eagles cringed, for there would be no postponement on account of rain. Doom marched inexorably forward, its hollow steps shaking the school's universe. For those who dwelt in fear the tower clock seemed to thunder out the hours at five-minute intervals until the great moment arrived.

The student body and many others arrived first and waited at the old fair grounds. Cheese had tried out Percy, his mule, there earlier in the day, but The Mudhen spent the forenoon in the sun on the back campus reading a detective story. Now, at the last minute, he made a slow-motion entry, drowsing over the reins as Horace's ears flopped languidly and the buckboard's wheels wove their unsteady way. On the dashboard of the vehicle was an iron gong about the size of a dishpan.

"What's that thing?'' Cheese asked suspiciously.

"A traffic signal," The Mudhen told him.

"What's the idea?"

"Why, it's a thing that warns people to get out of the way."

Cheese shouted with laughter.

"Do you object to its use?" The Mudhen asked gravely.

"No." Cheese wiped his eyes. "How do you sound it?"

"I've got a hammer in my pocket to hit it with when I come up fast behind anyone."

Even the Eagles whooped at the thought of The Mudhen and Horace doing anything fast. But they admitted he was a good sport to ridicule himself that way. Only the Old Guard gave him a careful look and saved some of his laughter for future use.

"Are you ready?" the headmaster sang out.

"Yes, sir." Cheese leaned forward in the dogcart.

"Okay, sir." The Mudhen lolled back in the buckboard.

"Then-Go!"

Ben Hur never got off to such a start. But, of course, he had different equipment. That made a difference, especially to Cheese, for when the crowd started yelling Percy stopped and looked around to see what was up. Before he could be persuaded to concentrate on his own business Horace was making the first turn. He was not exactly flying, but no one expected him to do that. Even in fairy tales and folklore a winged mule is seldom met.

When Percy understood he was on the stage and not in the audience he went to work. But in spite of all he could do he did not see the color of Horace's eyes until they were making the second turn. For Horace had astonished everyone, and probably himself, by trotting all that distance. However, there is a limit to all heroic effort and as they headed back toward the crowd he eased into a walk. It became a sort of stroll as he cast about for grass to eat.

"A nice day," Cheese hailed, coming up.

"Delightful for a ride," The Mudhen answered, still leaning back with his knees crossed.

"Are you going home today or camp out here tonight?" Cheese inquired, as he passed.

"I'm not hurryin'," was The Mudhen's obvious reply.

"Better sound your traffic signal."

"Okay."

The Mudhen bent forward, took a hammer from his pocket and walloped the gong. Then he sank back and languidly guided Horace in a left-hand detour. Such a move was necessary inasmuch as Percy had halted with such vigor that Cheese sailed over the dashboard and made a five-point landing, one point being his nose.

"Havin motor trouble, amigo?" The Mudhen called cheerily, as he urged Horace into a jog.

"Keep going!" Froggie screeched from down the track. "You've got to go around again, you know."

For The Mudhen had pulled to a stop, not a difficult task, and raised a hand for silence. When he got it he waved to the Bear-cheering section, where there was a current shortage of cheers, and shouted in a neighborly tone, "I stopped on my way past to say your champ will be along sometime. He was well and busy when last seen. Cheerio, comrades!" And he was off, shifting Horace's gears from walk to shuffle to trot.

He did not look back but as he started down the other side of the track he knew Percy was thundering in pursuit. By the sound, Cheese was not far behind and using his voice to step up the mulepower at his command. As a matter of fact, Cheese was standing up in the dogcart and Percy was hitting a pace no mule his age should consider even in dreams.

"Get out of my way!" Cheese yelled, as the wheels of the dogcart threw sand at the unperturbed Mudhen

Percy tore past in a way that did him credit The Mudhen nodded approvingly and once more smote the gong with the hammer. That time, when Percy stopped dead, Cheese did a fairly good imitation of a frog attempting to fly.

The Mudhen pulled up alongside and murmured sympathetically, "What a rude interruption of a pleasant ride! One never knows what to expect, does one?"

Still, he had a quite accurate notion of what to expect, if he was there, when Cheese got his wind back and the sand out of his eyes, so he went away as fast as Horace could amble. At a safe distance he hoisted his feet to the dashboard and relaxed. Thus, contrary to racing tradition, he passed under the wire at a walk, his eyes half closed, the reins dangling from one hand. And the cheers of the crowd were sweet to his ears.

That evening he basked in the glory that comes through a readjusted misunderstanding. When they were finally alone Froggie asked about the inside dope that had been promised for The Walrus.

The Mudhen stretched and began, "First, always remember to study the background of your opponent."

"Yeh?" Froggie leaned forward eagerly.

"When I saw that Horace or Percy must suffer eclipse I dug up Percy's history."

"I didn't know mules had histories," Froggie confessed

"Oh, yes. Some are fascinating."

"What about Percy?"

"I found where Cheese rents him. I pumped the owner. I learned Percy had spent twenty years in a quarry."

"You mean Horace—he's the fossil," Froggie cracked. "Don't joke about good old Horace."

"Yeh. But what about Percy?"

"He had worked twenty years in a quarry, hauling cars loaded with rock that was dumped on barges."

"I still don't understand, Mud."

"Have patience, infant. When Percy reached the spot where the load was to be dumped the bargeman rang a gong and he stopped."

"Golly!" Froggie began to see the light.

"I found that very gong on an old barge. Ah, the sweet cooperation of fortune! The owner of the mule, who is a swell guy, helped me try it out. It worked beautifully. Percy's reflexes reflexed every time. Simple as that." The Mudhen snapped his fingers. "There's your scoop for The Walrus. Write it up."

Chapter Six

Froggie Bates's small face wore a mystic sheen like a cucumber in the moonlight. "Mud," he confided to his roommate, "I've got a future ahead of me."

"Quite the place for anyone's future," The Mudhen commented, without looking up from his book.

"Listen, Mud, while I tell you."

"Yeh. Tell me what?"

"I am the very thimble—I mean symbol—of youthful promise."

"Don't I know it!" The Mudhen put a chewing-gum wrapper in the book and closed it. "You've promised forty times to pay me the buck and a half you borrowed last Christmas."

Froggie ignored the dun with the ease of long habit. "Mud," he said earnestly, "I am destined to rise."

"If the alarm goes off."

"I'm serious, goose head. I've had my fortune told."

"No!" The Mudhen dropped his feet from the table to the floor. "Yes, I have—by Signor Barree."

"That gink who has parked over the barber shop?"

"Uh-hu. He's a wow."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he understands people."

"What people?"

"Me, for one." Froggie's tongue toyed with his gum for a moment. Then he said, "He says I'm a meter."

"That's part of a gas works. Yes, he understands people."

"You're a stinker. He meant I am a shooting star."

"Did you ever see a shootin' star that wasn't headed downhill?"

"I'd as soon talk to a baboon."

"As to Signor Barree?"

"As to you, you big jerk!"

"I'd as soon you did." The Mudhen sighed.

"I don't have to!" Froggie jumped up.

"A thousand pardons," The Mudhen said gently. "Tell me more about the good signor."

Froggie was eager to do that and sat on the edge of the table, swinging one foot and chewing gum.

"He's got personality, Mud, and he's short and thinnish and nearsighted and wears a robe and a veil."

"A man wears a veil?"

"When he's crystalizing."

"When he's what?"

"Looking into his crystal—the big glass ball."

"Oh. Go on."

"He explained to me what makes it tick."

"Do crystals tick?"

"Shut up!" Froggie showed traces of annoyance. "His robes and veil are made of nonconducting stuff that keeps the electric waves from you from messing up the electric waves from him."

"How nice."

"He sits down cross-legged on a pillow and looks at the crystal and you sit across from him and the electric waves from you bounce off his clothes and hit the ball and he tells your fortune."

"At how much a bounce?"

"Half a buck. But he gives the money to charity, most of it."

"A pig's eye he does!"

"He told me so."

"Ah me!" The Mudhen got up slowly and went to bed.

The next morning Froggie crossed the campus under a double load of thought. First, as always of late, The Walrus was heavy on his mind, and then there was Signor Barree. That guy was intriguing. The way he could sit there and pull the future out of that glass ball was something. Not that Froggie wholeheartedly believed the stuff, but the way the fellow did it, his ability to create an air of supernatural mystery, was fascinating. The editor had already decided to give him a plug in The Walrus. It might even assume the dignity of a special article, and for that reason he must get better acquainted with the signor. If school would only fold up for some good reason a man would have more time to get on with his career. It was Froggie's opinion that the educational system operated wrong end to; school age should be the years between seventy and ninety, thus giving the fore part of life to doing important things. He might do an editorial on that sometime, for the editor business was growing on him.

"Oh, Bates!" The headmaster's voice cut in from somewhere.

"Yes, sir," Froggie answered, then located the voice in the office doorway.

"Step in here when you have a minute." That was the Old Guard all over, asking rather than commanding a boy to do something.

When Froggie was in the office Mr. Noble pushed a dish of peanuts across the desk and motioned to a chair.

"About The Walrus," he began, and paused to eat a peanut.

"Y-yes, sir." Froggie hung onto the sides of his chair.

"It is improving."

"Oh!" Froggie relaxed enough to think about peanuts.

"Nice work the way you built up the mule race in one number and then cracked it wide open in the next. That sort of thing creates interest among the readers."

"Thank you, sir." Froggie took a few peanuts on that. "It was sort of The Mudhen's idea."

"Which brings up another point." The Old Guard began filling his pipe, as he always did when he really wanted to talk. "I feel, Bates, that you depend too much on your roommate. Get what I mean?"

"No, sir," Froggie answered honestly.

"You allow him to do too much of your thinking for you."

"But old Mud is smart, Mr. Noble."

"Granted. But that doesn't signify that you are dumb."

"Mud sort of makes me feel that way sometimes."

"That's exactly it." The master lit his pipe and tossed the match into an ash tray. "You are unconsciously allowing him to dominate you."

"I don't kiss his big toe, if that's what you mean, sir."

"Unconsciously, I said." The Old Guard blew out a puff of smoke. "It is quite natural for you to lean on Crane, for he is, as you say, clever. But don't lean too hard. Don't get the idea that you must turn to him, or to anyone else, in every crisis."

"But—but pals always help each other, Mr. Noble."

"Of course they do." The Old Guard nodded his bald head vigorously. "It is that sort of loyalty that makes life worth living. But it is not wise to drift into a relationship where one pal expects the other to do all the helping. It puts the wrong value on friendship. Get the idea?"

"I—I guess so." Froggie chewed a peanut. "You mean every guy should stand on his own feet as long as he can."

"That's it! Especially when it comes to thinking. Listen to the opinions of others, but do your own thinking. It gives you confidence, poise, personality. One person's mind may be less powerful than his neighbor's, but it's his own mind and he has the privilege and duty of using it to the best of his ability."

"I get your drift," Froggie said slowly. "You think my— my personality is sort of pale because it's too much shaded by Mud."

"1 don't think it is yet, but it may be if you don't watch your step."

"Thank you, Mr. Noble." Froggie stood up, not yet sure how he felt about it.

"Hold on!" The Old Guard waved him back. "I didn't call you in to hear a sermon. That was extemporaneous. My original idea was to discuss an announcement in The Walrus."

"Yes, sir." The editor was interested.

"Has it occurred to you that things are getting dull?"

"The Walrus, you mean?"

"No, things in general." The headmaster made a wide gesture. "In a rut. We need to be stirred up by a contest, perhaps one of those detective games that clicked so well in the past."

"May the Eagles be the detectives?" Froggie asked eagerly.

"For the sake of variety, why not let everyone be a detective?"

"That wouldn't be a contest, sir."

"Let me explain." The Old Guard reached into a desk drawer and took out, one at a time, ten one-hundred-dollar bills.

"Wow!" Froggie quivered like a bird dog with a nose-ful of pheasant.

"Stage money," the Old Guard said.

"Gosh! I thought it was the real lettuce."

"A better imitation would be counterfeit."

"I'll say so!"

"My idea is this." The Old Guard packed his pipe with a forefinger. "In the near future this money will be stolen from my desk. The thief may be one of the faculty, the janitor—anyone, except a student. Only he and myself will know his name, and I won't know where he has hidden the money."

"That's deep," Froggie breathed.

"As soon as the theft is announced Bears and Eagles will be given the case. The side that finds the money will have a free feed from the treasury of the other side. How does that sound to you?" The headmaster grinned boyishly, for he loved to start such things and watch them develop.

"It sounds swell, sir!" Froggie fluttered his eyelids in ecstasy. Detective work, battling the Bears, all this and free grub too! Such was his idea of the abundant life. "The guys'll blow their corks when I tell 'em." He jumped up.

"Not so fast." The Old Guard waved him back. "Why not announce it first in The Walrus?"

"Make a scoop of it?"

"Yes. Influence your readers to turn to the paper as the source of school news. Build up its reputation that way. As I said, you gave it a good start when you featured the inside story of the mule race."

"But, as I told you, that was Mud's idea, sir."

"Let this be your idea. Surprise Crane as well as the others with it."

"Make Mud wait till it comes out in the paper?" Froggie's eyes widened.

"Why not? You are the editor. Stand on your own feet."

Froggie thought for a few moments and then promised to do it.

For the rest of the day, when not busy with school work or dodging it, Froggie's mind was running on two lines of thought. The Old Guard's advice about leaning too heavily on The Mudhen struck home. Just because a guy's roommate happened to be smart was not sufficient reason for putting his own brain away in moth balls. It was time to do some thinking on his own and, by golly, he would. He would be independent for a change, beginning with that announcement of the thousand-dollar theft in the next Walrus. Old Mud would get the news when it was made public, not a minute before. That sounded big, but when he boiled it down Froggie found that he must write the thing up for the paper instead of pinning the job on an associate editor. Oh, well, as everyone knows, independence has its price and its responsibilities as well as its pleasures.

Then there was Signor Barree to think about. The fortuneteller still held Froggie's imagination. It was Editor Bates' first meeting with the occult and he fell for it with a big splash. The signor himself was no great shakes in shirtsleeves, but when he put on his robe and veil and foreign accent he was, in Froggie's opinion, something pretty slick.

Froggie had seen him both offstage and on because he was his apprentice. In compliance with Froggie's wish, this was not public knowledge. But he aspired to blossoming out as a fortuneteller himself some day to the amazement of the school.

In exchange for doing odd jobs about the studio (two crumby rooms over the barber shop) Signor Barree had given him access to his three-volume library on necromancy and agreed to teach him the business, or at least some of it. The signor was not a wholly bad egg and the boy's admiration flattered him. Leading a wandering life, for reasons best known to himself, he found pleasure in having someone around to talk to. In that drowsy village people were so incurious about the future that a fortuneteller worried about almost everything except his income tax.

"When are you going to teach me to use the crystal?" Froggie asked, when he showed up after school that day.

As the signor knew nothing about crystal gazing, that was a poser.

"You read the books?" he stalled.

"Partly."

"There's a lot to science besides book stuff." The signor tried, and failed, to look deep and mysterious.

"I've got your lingo down pat," Froggie said. "Listen. Eef eet ees ze monee zat interest ze zhentleman—"

"Cut it!" the signor snapped. "Just the word money drives me nuts. I'm going out to shoot some pool. Sweep up the place." He kicked a stray newspaper viciously.

"What if you have a customer?"

"You're an optimist!" The signor laughed as cheerfully as gravel running down a spout.

"Well, what if one drops in?" Froggie insisted.

"Practice on the dope. I wish you luck—something I never had." He kicked the paper again and went out.

Froggie swept the floor of the back room and swatted the flies that were picnicking on odds and ends of the signor's recent meals of crackers and milk. He was itching to slip into the robe and veil and take a turn at the crystal ball. He had already experimented with it privately and found it to be as responsive as a door knob, but it might perk up at the urge of a customer. He wanted to see what it and he would do under professional conditions.

But no one appeared, so after a while other thoughts edged into Froggie's mind and started shouting for attention. Loudest was the voice of the forthcoming announcement in The Walrus. It must be snappy and informative, setting forth in not too few nor too many words the particulars of the contest. Ordinarily Editor Bates would have called The Mudhen into conference, but now he was determined to handle the thing alone. As Mr. Noble had said, a guy wasn't so hot if he always asked another guy to spoon his soup for him.

So Froggie got out a piece of paper and a pencil and went to work. There must be a headline, a subtle one that would grab the reader's attention and lead it away without a struggle. Froggie wrestled with one after another and finally settled for

CASH CACHE ON CAMPUS.

That should hook 'em! He held the paper at arm's length and smiled proudly.

Now for the story. How about making it informal and signing it "The Wandering Reporter"? Start it with a bang and gradually explain things, like "This morning as I sat in the headmaster's office I saw ten one-hundred-dollar bills in his desk drawer." That would make even the trustees prick up their ears and sniff the air. Then go on to say—

Burrrrr! The buzzer on the outer door knocked literary composition galley-west. Froggie dropped the paper and ran to the peephole where, as he knew, Signor Barree studied his clients before admitting them. Outside stood Cicero, proprietor of the snack bar and at the moment considerably perturbed.

"Open da door!" Cicero pushed the buzzer again and waved his hands. "Ah want finda ma dog."

Froggie thought fast. Less than an hour ago he had seen Cicero's bulldog dead among the shrubbery on the back campus, probably knocked out by a car. Cicero was a good friend—but—well—who wouldn't give fifty cents to learn the fate of a lost pet? And, besides, the old rascal was selling an inferior brand of ice cream lately. Perhaps fate had chosen this way to equalize accounts. If so, far be it from Froggie to oppose justice.

"Somebody home on da door?" Cicero shouted.

"Ye-es." Froggie slipped into the signor's professional tone, which was a sufficiently good fit for the present need. "I coom to admit ze zhentleman."

And in a short time, wearing the robe and veil, he bowed Cicero into the inner room.

"How mucha you ask to fina ma dog?" the client inquired.

"I do my bes' to serve ze zhentleman for feefty cents." "Here." Cicero laid half a dollar on the table. "Getta busy."

Froggie sat cross-legged on the greasy cushion and stared at the flyspecks on the crystal ball.

"Where is da pooch?" Cicero demanded.

"Ze zhentleman mus' have ze patience." Give him his money's worth. "Ah—I see—I see ze white dog."

"Ya, ya, an' da black tail behinda!"

"Now I see ze grass."

"No, no, no, no, no! Notta grass—dog!" Cicero threw his arms up.

"I see ze tree."

"Ya bonehead!" Cicero danced about. "Ees da grass los'? No! Es da tree los'? No! Da dog ees los'."

Froggie coughed in his veil. "Za zhentleman will fin' ze dog undair ze bush behin' ze beeg school on ze hill."

"Dat so?" Cicero stared wildly. "He hasa pass out?"

"Ze dog ees ver' still."

"Tank ya. Ah go see." Cicero was gone.

Half a minute later Signor Barree popped in and snapped up the fifty cents on the table.

"Don't we split that?" Froggie suggested, emerging from the robe.

"You expect pay for a lesson, huh?" The signor gave off an unpleasant look.

"I sort of earned it."

"Earned it, my eye!"

"You wouldn't have got it without me."

"And you wouldn't be a fortuneteller without me. See?"

"I'm not one."

"You've got a swell start. You're a smart kid. I've never seen a smarter." It would be bad for business to send the apprentice away angry and in a talking mood. "You stick 'round and I'll learn you the secrets. Then we'll split the gravy, see?"

"I'll think about it," Froggie said. But at the moment he found Signor Barree's company distasteful, so he went away and left it.

That evening he worked on the contest announcement. He had mislaid the beginning of the first draft and was obliged to start from scratch. The scratching continued, interspersed with the twisting of feet, thumping on a puzzled head, muttering in agony and groaning aloud, until The Mudhen looked up from his detective story and sighed.

"Is the little man immersed in difficulty?" he inquired softy.

"Go dunk your dome," Froggie retorted.

"Tut, tut! Was that polite?"

"I don't want to be polite."

"May I extend the helping palm?"

"No!" Froggie wailed, help being what he wanted above all things.

"So be it." The Mudhen rose and went to bed. From there he asked, "How come you vamoose every day after school?"

"I've got business," Froggie answered sharply. "I don't have to tell everything I know. Seems to me I'm old enough to stand on my own feet."

"The youth becomes a man," The Mudhen murmured and was soon asleep.

But the man was having all the youth's problems and then some. Early next morning when he hurried to the office, for the Old Guard to check the copy, he was met by a stern-faced headmaster who announced, "Bates, that stage money was stolen during the night."

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie blinked at him. "How could anybody have jumped the gun when only you and I knew about it, sir?"

"That is what I want to find out," the Old Guard answered.

Chapter Seven

Froggie looked as puzzled as might Mary's lamb if accused of slaying Cock Robin with George Washington's hatchet.

"Do you mean, Mr. Noble, that someone hooked the money from your desk drawer?" he asked.

"How else could it disappear?"

"Who would swipe stage money?" Froggie tried to look more intelligent than he felt.

"Offhand," the Old Guard said, "I can think of two reasons for doing it. First, in the dark, someone mistook it for real money."

"That might be, yeh."

"Second, it was done as a joke on us, to show us we are not as secretive as we thought we were."

Froggie scratched one ear thoughtfully. "You know, sir," he said, "that is like something The Mudhen would think of, but he wouldn't break in here."

"I am sure he would not." The headmaster shook his head. "But suppose he would, how did he know where the money was? Did you tell him?"

"No, sir." Froggie's tone left no question about it.

"Nor drop a hint?"

"No, sir, not to him or anybody else."

"In that case, I believe the office was burglarized."

"Will you call the police?"

The Old Guard smiled. "Ask the town to spend money searching for a few pieces of worthless paper?"

"Then the contest is ditched." Froggie's voice had a dull sound.

"Not at all." The Old Guard rocked back in his swivel chair. "It will be far more exciting now that we have, or think we have, a real criminal to deal with."

"Golly!" Froggie got the point.

"Give it to the Bears and Eagles under the same conditions—a free feed to the winners."

"Swell!" Froggie jumped up. Then his face fell. "But we can't wait to announce it in The Walrus- The paper won't be out for three days."

"Mr. Editor," the Old Guard grinned, "did you ever hear of an extra edition?" He half closed his eyes and went back to the time when he was a newsboy. "Extra! Extra! All about the robbery! Read about the thousand-dollar contest for Bears and Eagles! Extra! Extra!"

"Jumpin' up man!" Froggie's thin face beamed. "That'll make 'em sit up."

"Take it away!" The headmaster waved a hand. "You are excused for the first three periods today. Write your copy. The office girl will lend a hand with the mimeograph and the edition will be out in time for lunch."

"Gee, Mr. Noble, I can't thank—"

"Get going!" The Old Guard pushed him toward the door. "Don't you realize your biggest story is cooking? Scram!"

That noon, in Chateau Chew, Froggie realized every editor's ambition, that of seeing his paper eagerly read by the multitude. Copies of the Extra circulated faster than food and the tables buzzed with its story. Skunk Evans got so excited he put vinegar on his ice cream and his spoon in Noodle Perkins' ear.

The dullest of them realized that this was the real thing. Here on their very doorstep was a case that was a case. It was no cooked-up game, but something as genuine as the immortal Holmes ever bit into. Beyond a doubt the thief believed he had wrapped up the real stuff and would act accordingly. To catch him would be a dazzling feat, with plenty of glory and free food. So the mixed pack of Bears and Eagles went yelping away to pick up the trail, throwing into the hunt all the lore they had garnered from detective stories and movies and all the ideas they could invent.

"I tell you, brother," Froggie remarked to The Mudhen, "we've got to roll up our hands and spit on our sleeves."

"Oh, no!" His roommate looked shocked.

"Well, you know what I mean."

The Mudhen eyed him thoughtfully and finally asked, "Are you sure you have published all you know about this case?"

"Of course I have. What are you driving at?"

"How come the Old Guard spilled it to you alone?"

"Because I'm an editor. He told me at a press conference."

"A pig's eye!" Possibly The Mudhen was sore because he had not been admitted to the inside.

"Straight goods, Mud."

"This is the first time you haven't asked me to help you with The Walrus." Suspicion dripped from the words.

"If a guy is ever going to grow up he must start sometime."

"So you're a big boy now! Don't want Uncle Mud's advice never no more."

"I didn't say that, and you know it, you big hunk of tripe." Froggie moved toward the door, throwing back, "I can't waste time with you now."

"Yes, sir, a big, big boy!" The Mudhen wagged his head. "What are you doin' every day after school?"

"I told you I'm working." Froggie paused at the door.

"For money?"

"That's my business."

"A big, big, big boy!" Mild amusement crusted The Mudhen's tone. "I suppose he will find the burglar and the money all by himself."

"I am thinking about it," Froggie answered, as he went out, with a loftiness that was ridiculous in one of his size.

Truly, he was thinking about it, for to him, as to every boy in school, the solution of that mystery was his greatest ambition. But his thoughts were as fertile as a zero boiled in sterile water. Always before, when there was detective work to be done, he had played Watson to The Mudhen's Sherlock, but now he was on his own and acutely conscious of it.

He wandered down to Signor Barree's studio and found the necromancer reading the paper, with his feet on the table beside the crystal ball.

"How's business?" Froggie inquired, without interest.

"Rotten," the signor growled. "Sweep out the back room."

Froggie was so gloomy that self-persecution looked good to him. "Ill mop up the linoleum," he said.

"No!" The signor's feet hit the floor. "If you put water on that floor I'll conk you, see?"

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie backed away. "I won't even sweep your old floor."

"O. K." was the amazing answer. "I'll do it myself. A guy can't be too careful of linoleum."

"Yeh! There's a crack in it big enough to throw a cat in now."

"What I mean," the signor explained in a strangely conciliatory tone, "I want to leave it as good as I found it, see?"

"Leave it?"

"I'm taking off in a few days."

"I thought you would be," Froggie said. "What do you mean by that?" The signor gave him a look.

"Business is on the blink."

"Oh—sure." He pulled up his ragged cuffs. "These hicks're too solid. It's me for the big town where every cat is on the griddle and wants me to tell him which way to jump."

"I want to finish your fortunetelling books before you go."

"Sure. Any time. Make yourself to home. If I'm not here practice on any victim that comes in—and keep the change." Froggie gazed at him in surprise. The signor made a wide generous gesture, then added, "But don't mop the floor."

When Froggie returned to school he found the place deserted by the student body. Every last Bear and Eagle was detecting. Or trying to—more and more it was becoming evident that the fox need not worry too much about the hounds.

"What have you been doin' today?" The Mudhen asked in the evening, as he sank to his bed and lay with his hands under his weary head.

"You saw me in classes."

"Oh, I mean important stuff."

"I did some work on The Walrus." Froggie inferred he might have written a ten-column editorial. "I said important stuff."

"Gosh sakes, ain't that important? If it don't make the grade Aunt Emma'll cook my goose."

"Right now our objective is that free meal."

"What can I do about it?"

"I don't see as you're doin' anything about it."

"I'm thinking."

"Huh!" A snort full of sarcasm.

"Well," Froggie handed back, "if you're so all-fired smart, what have you done about it?"

"Plenty, as usual." The Mudhen drew a double sigh. "I've organized the Eagles into squads."

"Squads of what?"

"Detectives, you blockhead."

"Oh. What have the squabs—I mean squads—done?"

"Searched the Old Guard's office for fingerprints."

"And found nothing?"

"There were tracks of his angora cat. We practiced on 'em. Then we checked the busses and trains and taxis. I hear the Bears have been to the banks and stores without getting a whiff of the money."

"I bet you didn't do any frogging around."

"How could I? I had to direct operations from headquarters."

"Yeh! I've been on cases with you before."

"If you don't help us with this one you don't get any free grub."

"Well"—that possibility made Froggie wriggle uneasily —"as an editor, I've got to do some research reading before the end of the week."

"Tripe!"

"I guess I know what work I have to do."

"Two tripes!"

"And what I do, I do, I don't lean on you."

"What you do you do you don't—marvelous lucidity! Come, Sleep, and take my hand." The Mudhen rolled over and began snoring.

Froggie lay awake for some time thinking things over. For all his apparent indifference, there was no one in school more concerned about the money. Being a loyal person, he felt he should be working shoulder to shoulder with his brother Eagles, yet, on the other hand, as they were only going around in circles his presence would merely add to the current abundance of nothing. Also, his editorial capacity made him more or less a free lance and, too, he wanted to finish the fortunetelling books before Signor Barree pulled out.

The next afternoon when Froggie reached the studio the signor went out for his daily game of pool. Froggie sat down in the dingy back room and stared absently at the crack in the linoleum. He was vaguely uneasy, not physically but mentally, as though an idea was pecking at the shell and asking to be hatched. The nature of it was beyond his grasp, yet the pecking persisted and increased in force until he felt it must be the size of a young dinosaur. If all thoughts were born that way it must be awful to be an intellectual.

The doorbell brought sudden relief. Squinting through the peephole, he saw Noodle Perkins standing on one foot and swinging the other, as he always did when he was hepped up. He had come as a client! Brother, that was something! Froggie's mind cleared and on the screen of memory flashed a picture of himself being ducked in the fountain by a gang of Bears led by Noodle. Justice might not be so blind after all.

"Anybody home?" Noodle thumped on the door. "I want some crystal gazing done."

"I coom, I coom," Froggie answered, in the deepest tone he could roll out. "Ze zhentleman will pleese haf ze patience."

Three minutes later he walked slowly into the studio and threw open the door, so completely disguised in robe and veil that his own mother would not have recognized him.

"Ze day ees boo-ti-ful," he greeted. He had practiced that accent until it sounded as olive oil feels.

"Yeh, swell." Noodle stepped into the room and looked around nervously. "Are you the guy who found Cicero's dog?"

"Some dog ees los'?" Froggie moved toward the crystal.

"He's not lost now, but he was. He got conked by a car. Remember?"

"Ah, yes. I see zee poor leetle doggie een ze crystal. Perhaps you also haf los' ze dog?"

"No. But I've a job for you. What's your price?"

"Feefty cent only."

"Okay." Noodle laid it on the table. "Now step on it."

"Ze zhentleman ees zhoke. Why do I step on ze monee?"

"Excuse me. I forgot you don't understand English very good. I mean get busy and tell me what I want to know."

"Ah, yes. Quiet please." Froggie bent over the ball.

"What's cooking?" Noodle asked impatiently.

"Some monee ees los', vrai?"

"Hot dog! How do you know, mister?"

"I haf ze power."

"You see, this money was—"

"Si-lence!" Froggie interrupted. This was once he could shut Noodle up. "Ze robe an' ze veil are super-insulate to keep ze he-lectric wave from your brain from ze he-lectric wave een my brain. Now I con-cen-trate."

Froggie bowed over the crystal and for a long moment nothing happened. Then he began swaying from side to side and muttering.

"Got a nibble?" Noodle whispered.

Another minute or so of mysterious mouthing behind the veil, then, "I see ze rivaire."

"Don't tell me some dope put that paper money in the river!"

"An' ze bridge."

"Oh."

"An' ze road up ze heel een ze wood."

"I bet I know where that is, mister."

"Ze beeg rock."

"Yeh, that's right" Noodle almost had his nose on the glass ball. "Where do you see that stuff?"

"I haf ze power."

"What next, after the big rock?"

"Undair ze rock eet ees dark. I feel ze cool air, but I do not see."

"Could it be a cave, mister?" Noodle was jiggling all over. "I know where there's a cave like that about two miles from here. Make it snappy."

"Ze young zhentleman weel not get excite, please. Eet distort ze psychic at-mos-phere."

Noodle shut his mouth with a snap.

"I am een ze cave," Froggie muttered. "On ze floor has been ze fire." Every boy in the community had built fires in that cave. "Zair are beeg stone een ze circle. Undair ze ashes in ze circle— Ah, I cannot see. Eet fade. I cannot see eef undair ze ashes ees de monee. But I t'ink— I t'ink—" He was shaking visibly—"I sugges' zat ze zhentleman deeg undair ze ashes."

"Bet your neck I'll dig there!" Noodle wheeled toward the door. "Thanks an awful lot, mister."

"Eet haf been ze plaisir," Froggie answered truthfully.

A few minutes later he sat at Cicero's lunch counter, packing away fifty cents' worth of assorted nourishment. The pecking was in his brain again—and the shell was getting thinner. Whatever was in there was coming out soon, he felt it in his bones.

Then through the window he caught sight of The Mudhen and Dave Pierce high-tailing it toward the studio. Froggie set out in pursuit, wondering frantically how he could slip into the back room unseen. But he was spared that, for as he went up the stairs he heard the boys and Signor Barree talking.

"We'll be awfully obliged if you can help us," Dave said.

"My power ees at your comman'," the signor assured him.

"Cicero says you put your finger on his mutt," The Mudhen said.

"Ze zhentlemen shall see my power."

Froggie walked in, for he might as well see the show.

"Don't talk, Frog," The Mudhen waved him back. "We've paid half a buck and we don't want your mental waves bargin' in."

Froggie looked through the open door into the back room and his eyes focused on the crack in the linoleum. Then, "I've got it!" Froggie whooped.

"Shut up, Frog! We paid half a buck and—"

Froggie shot across the room and began tearing at the linoleum. Signor Barree leaped up but tripped on his super-insulated, nonconducting bathrobe and came a cropper. No one noticed him much, for just then Froggie came up with the ten one-hundred-dollar bills.

"He's got it!" Dave gasped.

"A free feed for the Eagles!" The Mudhen leaned happily against the door jamb.

Signor Barree untangled himself and stood up with his professional trappings at his feet.

"I don't get it," he said, in one last bluff.

"Ill say you don't!" Froggie stood up to him. "But you put it there yourself. You pinched it after you found the paper I lost."

The signor turned like a small dog that has been sat upon by a large bee and disappeared down the stairs very quickly.

"He thought it was the real stuff," Dave laughed.

"Nice work, Frog!" The Mudhen was openly proud of his partner. "How come you did it?"

"I'm a newspaper man." Froggie grinned and squeezed the precious bogus money. "For full particulars see the next issue of The Walrus."

Chapter Eight

The beauty of Indian summer meant little to The Mudhen at the moment. It was not so much that he was untouched by the sweetness of Nature as by the fact that he was faced by two hours of more or less steady work. Being at heart a good neighbor, he had agreed to help Editor Bates put the current issue of The Walrus through the press and was now waiting in the back room of the Old Guard's office while Froggie was downtown after more paper. Faintly through the open window he could hear Skunk Evans, quarterback, barking signals at the team in practice, but that did not interest him. He was an individualist, which made life both interesting and difficult in this day of standardization.

The door of the office was open and he was in no way guilty of eavesdropping when he heard a woman's voice say, fading in from the outside, "It is my uncle again, Jim.

And the Old Guard answered, "Well, Prudence, what has he been doing this time?"

By that The Mudhen knew the lady was Miss Bailey who lived beyond town and came in occasionally to keep an eye on Mr. Beeman, the wealthy and eccentric old bachelor next door to the school.

"It is what he isn't doing. Do you know it has been twenty years since there was new wallpaper or paint in that house?"

"Only twenty?" the Old Guard chuckled.

"He loathes the muss of redecorating and he won't leave the house for a day. I had hoped he might be the least little bit sick long enough to have the work done, but he is in perfect health."

"He has told me he is nervous. You may win yet."

"Pure imagination, Jim." Miss Bailey sounded almost anti-uncle. "He has the most fantastic notions. The more improbable a thing is the surer he is to believe it."

"He seems quite sane about his flower garden," the Old Guard ventured.

"Oh, that flower garden! It is his fairy kingdom. I am positive he believes it is inhabited by elves and such things."

"A harmless fancy, Prudence," the Old Guard said, for the Bumble Bee was his good friend.

"I suppose so. But for the sake of the family's reputation it would be better if some of his thoughts turned to interior decorating. I am positively ashamed of that dingy dump."

"Connive with his housekeeper."

"She is incorruptible. I have offered her twenty-five dollars to get him out of the house for a month. Her only reaction was shocked indignation."

"Twenty-five dollars! You do want some paint spread."

"Certainly I do. It is a matter of family pride. That offer stands. I must be going." Miss Bailey departed.

A few days later the Old Guard was in the midst of a more interesting call in Mr. Beeman's study.

"Yes, I agree with you," he was saying. "A pink cat is quite unusual." He leaned back in his chair and looked as grave as an owl.

"It is fantastic, Mr. Noble," the Bumble Bee said.

"Exactly the word for it, Mr. Beeman."

"But, Mr. Noble"—the Bumble Bee clasped his hands earnestly—"I assure you I saw such a cat in this room last evening."

"Oh, certainly. Beyond a doubt."

"Absolutely beyond a doubt. Not only did I see it, I picked it up. I fondled it. I stroked its fur."

"And that fur was pink, Mr. Beeman?"

"It was vividly pink, Mr. Noble."

The Old Guard wanted to say that the Bumble Bee was all wet, but he restrained himself and merely suggested that the light might have been at fault.

"Definitely not." Mr. Beeman shook his head.

"Sometimes a pink sunset is reflected in a way that—"

"My dear sir!" The Bumble Bee cracked down on that possibility. "I assure you the lights and everything else in this room were normal."

"Except the cat."

"Except the cat."

The Old Guard made one more try. "Could it be, Mr. Beeman, that you were dozing?"

"I was not dozing. I was reading a book on science."

"Such books are sometimes exhausting."

"I find them refreshing." The Bumble Bee's manner intimated that he had been socked by an aspersion.

"I automatically checked all details relative to the— shall I say, apparition. But," the Bumble Bee continued, "appreciating the value of unbiased testimony, I deposited the pink cat in that chair by the desk, then went to summon my housekeeper as witness." He paused and raked his sideburns in agitation.

"And then?" the Old Guard urged, in a tone designed to show continued interest in pink cats.

"You are acquainted with Mrs. Stebbins, Mr. Noble?"

"More or less."

"Then you may be aware that she is a bit slow in her actions and reactions, being afflicted with myopia and fallen arches."

"Oh," said the Old Guard sympathetically. "After you called her what happened?"

"I estimate that five minutes elapsed before I returned with her to this room. Can you imagine what we found here?"

Mr. Noble could not. A mauve giraffe or a crimson polar bear would have been his guess, but he said nothing.

"In that chair," the Bumble Bee pointed with a trembling hand, "in that chair, the very chair, mind you, where I had deposited the pink cat, we found my own Maltese cat!" He paused dramatically, as a stratosphere explorer might after announcing that the moon really is made of green cheese.

"Your own cat, eh?" said the Old Guard.

"My own cat."

"And also the pink cat?"

"No, no, no! The pink cat had disappeared." Mr. Beeman leaned forward and clutched his sideburns as though fearing they might do likewise.

The Old Guard twiddled his thumbs and asked if there had been any wisps of pink hair about.

"None. There was no trace of a disturbance. The room was exactly as I left it."

"Except for the change of cats."

"Except for the change of cats."

"Um."

"What explanation can be put forth?" The Bumble Bee threw up his hands. "Um."

"I am nonplussed, Mr. Noble."

"What did Mrs. Stebbins say?"

"That I had had one too many. Presumably one too many cats."

"She could have meant nothing else." The Old Guard coughed and blew his nose hurriedly.

"I am worried," the Bumble Bee admitted. He looked it.

"There is no cause for that," the Old Guard said soothingly.

"But when one sees pink cats one becomes apprehensive." And why not?

The Old Guard looked about the study which, like the rest of the house, was dingy and begging for a going over. He thought a pink cat or two might be a welcome touch of color, but he said, "If you have more experiences of that kind let me know, that is, if I may be of use."

"Thank you, Mr. Noble, thank you very much indeed." Mr. Beeman folded and unfolded his hands.

"Don't mention it."

"The knowledge of your sustaining friendship means much in this crisis."

"Call me any time." The Old Guard rose. "We at the school are your friends as well as your neighbors."

Mr. Beeman walked with him to the door, which opened on the garden. It was a nice garden, serene in the mellow afternoon light with the usual trees and flowers and pool. Its owner fancied himself a rugged outdoor man and it thrilled him to sally forth and do battle with aphids and fungi. Armed with a bug gun, he was a bad man to meet if you were, or even resembled, an insect.

Something moved in the vicinity of the pool, moved with the grace of an ossified tortoise racing with a petrified snail. The Old Guard looked once, twice, and wonder sat upon his countenance.

"You have a new garden boy," he whispered, as though fearful of disturbing what he saw.

"Yes, one of your school lads who wants work."

"Wants work?"

"He seems quite eager. And there is so much to be done before winter comes."

"Jeepers!" the Old Guard said under his breath. Then, audibly, "Is he satisfactory?"

"I have employed him only a short time. He seems trustworthy."

The Old Guard made a strange noise in his throat as though trying to swallow a large unfamiliar substance. Then he remarked about the weather and walked down the path.

"Well, Crane," he said, pausing by the pool, "I didn't expect to find you here."

The Mudhen leaned on his rake and explained solemnly that he needed extra money and so was working after school.

"Do you like your job?"

"Oh, it thrills me."

"Fine!" The headmaster walked on, wondering if pink cats were more phenomenal than the fact that The Mudhen was working and liking it.

Some minutes later the Bumble Bee donned his dainty blue-and-white striped unionalls, loaded his bug gun and went out to disarrange the plans of certain worms that were grazing in forbidden territory. He trod the garden path with grim intent, his heart beating fast at the prospect of freeing his domain from the crawling enemy—Saint George in a minor role.

Before opening the attack he paused to look about the field. His eyes stretched wide and horror dwelt therein. Wham! The bug gun clattered on the gravel and lay there, a lethal stream running from its nose. The owner might have clattered with it had he not caught a post of the rose arbor. There he clung and stared down at a crimson toad.

Yes, a bright crimson toad. A toad as vivid as a fire engine. A toad that smote the eye. A toad that upset all previous conceptions of toads. A toad that was, in fact, radical and revolutionary, yet real, for it hopped.

Coming on the tail of a pink cat, as it were, the toad created a major disturbance. Mr. Beeman made a noise somewhat like that of air going out of a kitchen pump. When he had made the noise several times he turned and dashed for the house.

Down the street the Old Guard was reading the afternoon mail and chewing his pipestem when the office telephone rang. He picked it up and received a message that was, well, unique.

'There is," panted a distressed voice, "there is a red toad under Dorothy Perkins."

"I beg your pardon." The Old Guard laid his pipe on the desk.

"Are you listening? Please do!" the voice pleaded. "Yes."

"Then I shall repeat, there is a red Perkins-No! Not that! I meant to say there is a red toad under Dorothy Perkins."

"You have the wrong number."

"I am sure I have not. Don't go away, Mr. Noble. Are you listening?"

"Yes. But to whom?"

"To Mr. Beeman."

"Oh! What can I do for you?"

"Listen to me."

"My dear man. I am listening. You have my ear exclusively."

"Oh, thank you! I say, it is hopping under Dorothy Perkins."

The Old Guard eyed his pipe sternly and demanded, "Who is Dorothy Perkins and why is she hopping?"

"She is not hopping, she is a climber."

"I understood you to say she was hopping."

"Oh, no, Mr. Noble, Dorothy Perkins is a rose."

"I see, a red rose."

"No, no, no! It is the toad that is red."

"Don't be absurd! Roses, not toads, are red."

"I insist that the toad is red. The violet is blue-Oh, dear me! I don't mean that. I mean the toad is red, the rose is pink—"

Mr. Beeman, what is this hoax? You know very well there is no such thing as a red toad."

"Of course there isn't. Come over at once and see it.

"Ill come, but I won't see a red toad," the Old Guard said and picked up his pipe.

Nor did he see one. When he and the Bumble Bee tiptoed down the garden path there was a toad, exactly where it should be at the foot of the Dorothy Perkins rosebush, but it was humble brown in color. Even if it had been embarrassed as no toad ever was it could not have blushed within a thousand shades of red.

"But I saw it not ten minutes ago!" Mr. Beeman cried. "I will find it."

"Why not go into your study?" the Old Guard suggested. "The sun is hot for this time of year."

"That toad must be here. It must be! Hey, boy!"

"Yes, sir, if you mean me." The Mudhen oozed around the trunk of a tree, looking blank as an egg.

"Come here and search for a red toad," the Bumble Bee commanded.

"For a—a what, sir?"

"I said a red toad." Mr. Beeman was on all fours.

"A red toad?" The Mudhen stared wide-eyed at the headmaster.

"I seem to have heard that phrase before," the Old Guard remarked.

"But, sir, do you think there is any such animal?"

"No. For a creature that does not exist, this one is over-publicized."

"But it does exist" Mr. Beeman sobbed. "I saw it. I must find it. Help me, please!"

"Humor him," the Old Guard whispered to The Mudhen.

They searched every inch of the garden and then searched every inch of the garden again. Four resident toads were apprehended, but they were just toads. Weary, wan, worn and wabbly, Mr. Beeman folded up on a garden bench. The Old Guard sat beside him in a brotherly attitude and The Mudhen stole away.

Days passed as days do. Mr. Beeman was not the same. He no longer relaxed but was alert and jumpy as is a shy bird that has been shot at and doesn't like it. When he made his will and neglected his sideburns Mrs. Stebbins sent for Miss Bailey.

"He ain't himself," the housekeeper said, "and the change is for the worse."

Miss Bailey asked what she meant by that.

"He sees things," Mrs. Stebbins answered in a whisper.

"Sees things? Will you please be more specific."

"Well, first he called me into his study to see a pink cat."

"Mrs. Stebbins?"

"It's the plain delinquent truth, Miss. Then the next day I heard his yelling over the phone for the schoolmaster next door to come over and see a red hoptoad."

"Mercy on us!"

"Ain't his nerves something fierce, Miss?"

"The poor man!" Miss Bailey displayed the sympathy a niece should have for a wealthy uncle.

"Something is wearing him down," Mrs. Stebbins ventured darkly.

"I believe it could be this house," Miss Bailey said. "It is gloomy enough to get on anyone's nerves. It should be brightened up and made cheerful, as I have said for years."

"I know it, Miss, but he can't stand the muss." "If he would only go away while it is being done." "He's a home body, Miss."

"I understand. But we should accomplish this for the sake of his health." Miss Bailey took a turn down the garden path where, it being after school hours, The Mudhen was placidly at work.

She returned home next day after assuring Mr. Beeman that, unless he did something for his ailing nerves, he might go from bad to worse and farther. But what preventative measures could a man take against pink cats and red toads? True, he could produce no witnesses to such sights, but he held stubbornly to the belief that he had seen them. Outwardly, that is, for deep in his heart was a growing fear that the Beeman bean was not what a bean should be.

Late the next afternoon he fortified himself with a cup of tea and went into the garden to see how the bugs and the boy were doing. "How are you today?" he asked the latter.

"O.K. But"— The Mudhen gave him an anxious look— "are you feeling well, sir?"

"Feeling well? Of course I am feeling well. Why shouldn't I be feeling well?"

"Oh, I just wondered," The Mudhen evaded.

"Wondered what?"

"You see, I had a cousin." The Mudhen sighed at the memory.

"What of it? We all have cousins."

"His eyes looked like yours, sir."

"What are you suggesting, young man? What if his eyes did look like mine?"

"They said it was a symptom, that's all." The Mudhen sighed again.

"Heavens! Don't sound so tragic. A symptom of what?"

"Oh, one of those things-just one of those things."

"Do you mean he was ill?"

"Oh, yes, frightfully ill, sir, for a long, long time."

"Did he recover?"

"Sure, he snapped out of it just as soon as he had a change."

"A change of environment, that is?"

"Yes, sir. He took a month's vacation and came back a well man."

"Really!"

"They said if he hadn't gone away he might have murdered his whole family."

"How horrible!"

"Yes, sir, he had eleven kids."

"Ah, well, such things happen." The Bumble Bee glanced out over the garden. "Have you seen more of the woolly bear caterpillars today?"

The Mudhen looked worried. "I wonder if they are eating the lily leaves in the pool," he said.

"Oh, darn!" Mr. Beeman exploded, with enough vehemence for a bigger badder word. "Where did I leave my bug gun?"

"I'll get it for you, sir." The Mudhen went away quickly.

Mr. Beeman dashed to the pool, his whole being intent on the rescue of his lilies. He took one look and began thinking about something else. That something was a large turtle, a purple turtle with yellow spots! The Bumble Bee made a strange noise and fled. Though the garden path was winding, he went straight to the house, smashing blossoms, branches and speed records.

"Mrs. Stebbins!" he shrieked. "Mrs. Stebbins! Where are you, woman?"

The housekeeper looked through the screen door with a startled expression, saying, "My land of Kingdom Come!"

"Mrs. Stebbins!" Mr. Beeman yelled. "Go down to the lily pool and watch the purple turtle."

"He's busted something," said the housekeeper to the screen door.

"Madam," Mr. Beeman thundered, "did you hear what I said?"

"I heard you, but I don't know what you said."

"Go down to the pool and watch the turtle, I said."

"Me? Watch a mud turtle? What for?"

"So he won't escape while I phone Mr. Noble. He is purple with yellow spots." Mr. Beeman was almost the same colors as he roared, "Woman, do as I say, if you value your position here."

"I don't," Mrs. Stebbins said and backed out of sight.

A few days later as he passed the Beeman place the Old Guard was amazed to see a decorator's truck in the yard, with ladders, paint pails and workmen visible through the windows. Mrs. Stebbins was in the garden, so he leaned over the fence and asked what was happening.

"Painting and papering for the first time in twenty years." She smiled. "Mr. Beeman has gone to a sanatorium for a month's rest."

"What! Is he ill?"

"No—upset. It was the purple turtle that done it." Mrs. Stebbins wagged her head. "When you and me and the garden boy seen just a common turtle where he thought he'd seen a purple one—well, coming after the pink cat and the red hoptoad, which nobody but himself had seen either, it was too much. The poor man's nerves must be awful."

"Yes, indeed."

"But Miss Bailey don't seem alarmed. She's sure hell be back fit as a fiddle".

"Um." The Old Guard glanced about. "And the boy, is he working here today?"

"He's resigned."

"Um," the Old Guard repeated. "Good morning, Mrs. Stebbins."

He walked over to the school and, as he crossed the campus, he met The Mudhen.

"Crane," he asked abruptly, "where did you get the idea of dyeing cats and toads and turtles?"

"From a guy back home, who had a circus side show," The Mudhen answered, without batting an eye.

"Wasn't it rather difficult to plant them and then switch them for normal specimens before witnesses arrived?"

"It called for the old deft touch," The Mudhen said modestly.

"The twenty-five dollars will come in handy."

"Yes, sir."

"Good morning, Crane."

"Good morning, sir."

Chapter Nine

The Mudhen was a careful spender. So careful that he kept the twenty-five dollars, Miss Bailey paid him, locked in his suitcase. As an added check on the free-and-easy habits of some of his friends he hid the suitcase key behind a volume of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations given him by an uncle and kept on the bookshelf in case the old gentleman popped in unexpectedly. In that way he protected his reserve and for several weeks was able to pose as a Croesus j. g.

A while after New Year's there was an acute shortage of cash and candy bars in the editorial office of The Walrus. That was bad, but to make it worse Editor Bates was stricken by the grippe and carried off to the infirmary. With the next number of the paper only five days distant and with the shadow of Aunt Emma threatening reprisals if so much as one issue was not up to what she called par, the boys rallied round to save Froggie's bacon.

Frat lines were disregarded and Cheese Eastman discussed the school's chances in basketball, Dave Pierce rapped those who had not paid their athletic dues, and Skunk Evans scored on a fluke by stumbling upon a ten-year-old almanac which contained an article setting forth the virtues of raw-vegetable diet. Nice work but, like most good things, altogether too brief, for there was still a whole page to be filled. The Mudhen did some thinking, then spent his last cent telephoning home for a copy of his sister's graduation essay entitled Silent Influence. It came on time and he filled the page with excerpts from it, a fine job, for the sister had talent.

Suddenly, it seemed, an essayist had blossomed in the school. He denied it but no one believed him, thinking he was shy about claiming something that was on the sentimental side. He was rather pleased with himself, not for having such a sister but because he had pulled out of a tight spot.

At the moment he was especially pleased with his brain's behavior in having turned in a neat piece of work with small outlay of bodily action. And then, out of a clear sky, the setup backfired. For no obvious reason except a desire to show off and stimulate thought at the expense of others, three trustees of the school got together and sponsored an essay contest between the two fraternities. An essay contest, of all things! A detective contest or a sports contest would have been welcomed by the student body, but those pseudo intellectuals must attach their names to something high-sounding. What was more, instead of making the incentive a good solid meal, it was decreed that the losing side was to present the author of the winning essay with an appropriate prize valued at approximately ten dollars and approved by the Old Guard. There was to be one entry on each side, selected by brother frat members and the contestants were to choose their own subjects. Of all the phony ideas! But the trustees had influence and folding stuff and must be catered to.

When the Eagles held an election their victim was The Mudhen. He was, they said with malicious justification, the very one to bear their banner to victory inasmuch as his recent essay had proved him to be a master of the art. In vain he reaffirmed that he had not written it and that he had borrowed it from his sister only to help Froggie. It would be a heck of a note, he declared vehemently, if he were penalized for giving aid to a brother who was ill. What kind of fraternal reasoning was that? Hadn't they ever heard of charity and friendship and brotherly love? Were they going to punish him for practicing those virtues?

Punish him! The righteous Eagles threw up their hands in horror. Surely Brother Mud must realize they only sought to honor him. He, of all their number, was the one chosen to defend their reputation of intellectuality. Perish the thought that he would not give his all to such a glorious cause! No other brain could carry the load, no other spirit could make the heroic attempt. Furthermore, he was elected, and if he didn't accept the job they would make life miserable for him to the end of the year.

He yielded, after telling them what a pack of heels they were to gang up on a defenseless friend. And the more he thought about it the higher he got his back up. By the great horn spoon, though he had never written an essay in his life, he would write one now or pass out trying! He would show them.

When the other Eagles were sure that the hateful task was firmly pinned on their suffering brother, they showered him with suggestions and offers of help. Suddenly each and every one of them knew what the essay should be and where the makings could be found. Dave Pierce had a brother who was an English prof at the state university and, if The Mudhen so wished, Dave would hit him up for the dope on modern British fiction. That would be something classy, an essay in the grand manner. "Huh," said The Mudhen and disappeared completely for hours. Sam Bowman had a friend who knew more about Indians than Pontiac, Sitting Bull and Pocahontas combined. Why not get some facts and figures from him and do an essay with real American background? "Huh," The Mudhen repeated and disappeared again.

So it went. One after another the boys came forward with stupendous ideas, which The Mudhen welcomed as cordially as a cat would a cold bath. As days passed, and he seemed to be not only indifferent but oblivious to the whole business, the Eagles fell to worrying. According to the Bears, their champion. Rip Anderson, was working night and day on an essay that, to put it mildly, was a masterpiece. And it well might be, for Rip was smart and came from a family of scholars. Meanwhile The Mudhen had not written a word or, to all appearances, thought a thought. Finally several of his frat brothers called on him and demanded to know what he meant by going into a coma when Eagle prestige depended on his efforts.

He heard them through patiently, then yawned.

"What have you to say for yourself?" Dave asked accusingly.

The Mudhen's eyes narrowed slightly. "Now you listen. I didn't ask for this essay job—you made me take it. And the understands' was I could do it my way. That's just what I am doin'."

"You mean your way of doing it is to do nothing," Sam sneered.

"Wrong, little Samuel," The Mudhen said softly. "I'm goin' to write the best essay I can—when I get around to it."

"When'll that be?"

"That's my business."

'It's the Eagles' business," Dave said.

"Then I'll retire in favor of them. A pleasure." The Mudhen bowed.

"Take it easy," Dave said hastily. "We were only sort of reminding you that the time is almost up "

Froggie tried to smooth things over. "What you going to write about, Mud? Somebody said it's detective stories."

"I heard it is politics," Dave said.

Sam put in, "I've got it straight that it's peanuts' place in civilization."

"I mentioned those topics and many, many more." The Mudhen yawned again, very politely behind his hand.

"Which one is it, Mud?" Froggie urged. "We won't tell the Bears."

"I don't care whom you tell," The Mudhen answered defiantly. "Put it in The Walrus if you want to. I'm goin' to write an essay on the care and feedin' of pigs."

They stared at him and saw he meant it.

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie gasped. "You can't write an essay about pigs, Mud."

"What he means," Dave said eruditely, "is something like Lamb's essay on roast pig, or whatever it was we had in lit last year. That's highbrow."

The others looked hopeful for a moment, until The Mudhen said, "None of that caviar on my plate. I'm writin' plain stuff about plain pigs, what to feed 'em, how to feed 'em, how to build their pens, what to do for 'em when they're sick—everything a pig raiser should know."

"Oh, my gosh!" Froggie wailed.

"But, Mud," Dave said severely, "you never raised a pig."

"So what?" The Mudhen gave him a look. "George Washington never made a hatchet but he used one, didn't he? Eh, didn't he? Well, I'm goin' to use a pig the same way."

It seemed to the others, it would be a major catastrophe or worse to have The Mudhen, as representative of Eagle culture, drag a common barnyard pig into the field of essay writing. But what could you do with The Mudhen? Leave him alone and perhaps- Perhaps what? Only time could answer that tough one.

As for The Mudhen, he had never been busier. Judging by outward appearances, his friends were justified in accusing him of laziness, yet not one of them was capable of such terrific mental effort as was his now when his dander was up. By forcing him into the contest, and then ridiculing his attempt to win, they had rubbed him the wrong way all the way. He was not only fighting the Bears but the Eagles as well. And he was out to win that prize, not for its money value but for the satisfaction of showing the doubters it could be done, and done his way.

He went at it in characteristic fashion. One of his basic rules, founded on reading and observation, was to study the background of your opponent. In this case cold reason told him his real opponents were the three trustees who were to judge the essays. It was they who must be overcome by skillfully arranged facts, beaten down and forced to surrender the prize to him; Rip Anderson was only the figurehead of the opposition.

So he investigated the private lives of the three gentlemen. This was not done with an eye to blackmail, for they were admirable citizens, but just to see what he could see. He saw it. He found that two of his victims, as they had now unwittingly become, were addicted to the scientific raising of pigs on their farms outside town. The rest was pie. From the state agricultural college he borrowed some books and in a few short days, though they seemed long to him, blossomed out as the author of a masterly treatise on the care and feeding of swine.

The two pig-fancying judges were impressed. Here, they said, was a boy after their own hearts, for they were too gullible to see he was after their votes. Let others talk about literature and history and science; this youth had his feet firmly on the ground and his thoughts were anchored to things as fundamental as pigs. He should be encouraged, so he was awarded the prize.

The Bears were stunned and the Eagles were dumbfounded. The Mudhen said nothing, for speech was unnecessary. He had won and his manner of winning was a personal matter. Wearily, as one who has fought a good fight, he heard the news that tomorrow in morning assembly he would receive his reward, or the tangible part of it. Its nature had not been announced but there were rumors it might be a sweater, a fountain pen or sport shoes. Very nice. But nicer still was the realization that this gravy was, in the eyes of his world, the result of superior intellect. It was a pleasant thought and The Mudhen found life sweet and blithesome.

But more often than not things are worse than they seem and one of the more oftens was coming up. It kept coming up until it met The Mudhen head on in assembly. Outwardly nonchalant and inwardly proud, he arose to receive the prize from the hands of his old rival and good friend, Cheese.

"Honored classmate," orated Cheese, swathing his words in solemn disrespect, "in acknowledgment of our defeat at your worthy hands we herewith present you with this token of victory. It is the belief of our headmaster and ourselves that the gift is a happy complement to the masterly essay by which it was won. Allow me, sir, in behalf of the Bears."

He bowed low, and from a box that Skunk Evans and Noodle Perkins brought from somewhere, he gravely removed a small white pig. Being barbarians, the boys laughed and whooped and yelled. Even the Old Guard grinned, for, after all, it was a slick bit of poetic justice— if you were not the receiver. And if you were, there was nothing to do but make the best of it, which The Mudhen did. Folding the pig to his bosom, he posed serenely and waited to be heard.

"Mr. Eastman and associates," he said sonorously, "I thank you. Never have I been so honored. Seldom have I been so touched. I am overwhelmed by the thought that in the hour of your defeat you have the nobility of character, the grandeur of spirit, to rise to the sublime height whereby you can voluntarily entrust to me the destiny of one of your own number." And he was out the door with the pig before they could think of a comeback.

Out the door but, he sensed, into trouble.

"Jeepers!" He looked helplessly this way and that. "What am I goin' to do with this critter they've pinned on me?"

Chapter Ten

In spite of his recent victory, to The Mudhen the near future looked as gaily colored as a crow sitting on a coal pile in the dark of the moon. He knew that while he owned that pig he would be the mark for Bear wit, so called. In an exclusive interview with himself he admitted that he had been nicked in style. It was a master stroke. They had socked him quite legitimately, graciously handing him a bouquet, yet in reality planting in the garden of his existence a weed that might well be a long bloomer.

From any angle of observation, a pig in school was a joke and the owner of the pig was in for a spell of bad weather. A coward would have plunged down the path of least resistance and disposed of the pig fast, but The Mudhen was not built that way. To him the pig was a challenge and he would bear it aloft to victory or know the reason why. Never should history repeat that the Bears had dished out more than, he could handle. He must make that pig pay off!

Sooner said than done, much sooner, and a whole lot easier. Three days passed and they didn't hurry about it either. Perhaps they lingered, hoping to learn if some modern Circe had come to the campus, for the place rang with the speech of swine. Squeals raced across the lawns, grunts leaped from windows, oinks went merrily to and fro in abundance. Pigs popped up in conversation, frisked through musical programs, barged into classes. The air was porcine to the ear.

The Mudhen heard and writhed inwardly, spasms of anguish shaking his spirit. On the fourth evening as he sat on a box in the basement of the dorm where, thanks to the kindness of the janitor, his prize was parked, he wished the last earthly pig had passed quietly away early in the Stone Age. Visions of a pigless world had much in common with Paradise.

"This is just awful!" Froggie Bates groaned in the shadow of the coal bin.

The Mudhen was audibly unresponsive, though his soul gave forth a hearty "Amen."

"And it's getting worse," Froggie added convincingly.

The Mudhen was hopelessly silent.

"Every minute," Froggie specified needlessly.

The Mudhen continued his negative part of the conversation.

"Say, Mud, are you awake? What are you going to do with the pig?"

"Oh, yes, the pig." The Mudhen sighed.

"You can't keep it forever."

"I feel as though I've had it that long already."

"Why don't you get rid of the darn thing?"

The Mudhen sighed again. "Don't you see, Frog, if I junk the critter I admit I'm licked?"

"You are licked."

"I am not licked."

T don't see why not."

"I don't see why not, either, but I know I'm not."

"Never mind yourself," Froggie said generously, "think of the rest of us Eagles. We can't take it too long. If your hide wasn't tougher than a rhinocerous you couldn't."

"I'm goin' to take it till I can dispose of that pig with honor. And that is that."

"Well, when? What are you waiting for?"

"I am waitin' for inspiration, varlet."

"You drip!" Froggie left the basement, setting his heels down hard.

Sometime during the next afternoon long-awaited Inspiration took The Mudhen by the hand and led him secretly away. They walked in sweet companionship for so long that it was evening before he returned to his room.

"Where have you been?" Froggie inquired across the study table.

"Up hill and down dale." The Mudhen folded into a chair with the air of a dust mop falling off a shelf.

"What have you been doing?"

"Pursuin' opportunity," The Mudhen mumbled and fell asleep.

For nearly another week the chase or whatever it was seemed to be continuing at a typical Mudhenian clip. With all the snap of wornout garters his muscles bore him to classes and to meals. He groaned with effort and his eyelids drooped, as they always did when things were happening behind them. He spent, strangely enough, every spare moment in the basement of the dorm. Some said he brooded there over the pig, others thought he had found a warm place to read detective stories and sleep, but no one really knew what went on behind the locked door of the inner basement room. Pressed to tell what he knew, the janitor would only say that from within the room came sounds suggesting conversations between boy and pig. In the days of witchcraft they would have taken alarm, but in this day and land it is nobody's business if a man and a pig choose to converse. So, obviously, the next move was The Mudhen's.

He made it one evening in Chateau Chew. Cheese passed him a platter of cold roast pork and around the tables the Bears broke out as usual. "Oink, oink, oink!"

"I can't touch it." The Mudhen shook his head sadly. "I just can't taste it."

"You're not fed up with pork?" Cheese grinned.

"Not in the accepted sense." The Mudhen pushed the platter away with gentle firmness. "It's just that I admire pigs too much to eat 'em."

"Yeah? Since when do you admire pigs?"

"Since I got acquainted with 'em. Cheese, their intelligence is wonderful." When some of the boys laughed, he added earnestly, "I'm not kiddin'. You should see the tricks that pig can do."

"Tricks?" Noodle asked warily, suspecting a trap.

"Sure, regular circus tricks. And I've had him only a few days."

"What can he do?"

"You'll have to see it to appreciate it. Come over to the basement at seven o'clock and I'll show you."

Before that hour the room was full. Bears and Eagles knew that the old fox had cooked up something, so, with eyes wide open, they went to sample it. And it was good. Strolling from the furnace room, the door of which he left open, The Mudhen turned and whistled a bugle call. There sounded a clicking of tiny hoofs and the pig marched out with military precision.

"Halt!"

The pig stopped stiffly. "Salute!"

As sure as there are hops in a toad that pig raised his right forefoot and touched his snout. "At ease!"

The pig sank back on his haunches and relaxed all over.

"About face! March!"

The pig wheeled and returned to the furnace room.

The crowd surged forward but The Mudhen locked the door and pocketed the key, explaining in a paternal manner that his little friend was too sensitive an artist to be rushed. The boys stared at each other as people are said to do when they have seen a ghost or a white blackbird or a wooden stone or some other item a bit on the unusual side.

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Cheese burst out

"Did you teach him those stunts, Mud?" Dave asked bluntly.

The Mudhen raised an eyebrow. "Can you suggest another who might have done so?"

"I don't get it," Dave said.

"Dear lad, so many things are beyond your mental grasp."

Cheese addressed the crowd: "Call me Gladys if he's not taking us for a ride."

"Oh, Cheese, how can you be so cruel!" The Mudhen looked about to weep. "The pig's amazin' I. Q. is beyond question."

"That's the fishy part of it," Noodle put in. "We went out to a farm and bought just a common pig."

"A common pig!" The Mudhen resented the aspersion. "That pig outshines all other pigs as the sun outshines the seat of your corduroy trousers."

"Has he got more tricks?" Skunk wanted to know.

"I'll keep you informed of his progress," The Mudhen promised. "If all goes well, he'll perform in public from time to time. Watch The Walrus for special announcements."

The Mudhen spent more hours in the basement and was seen to emerge, rubbing his hands and nodding his head. When The Walrus announced a second show for Friday night the student body came up on its toes in expectancy. Nor was it disappointed. In addition to his previous program, the pig walked on his hind legs and carried a parasol. The boys gaped in genuine amazement. Cheese still felt instinctively that their legs were being pulled, but he dared not say so. Beyond the shadow of a doubt the business was open and above-board, and the most skeptical of critics could not question the pig's ability as an entertainer. Cheese did not doubt the pig's sincerity or The Mudhen's honesty, but it was too much like dreaming of twelve pieces of pie at one meal—it was too good to be true.

Yet it must be true, for there it was before the eyes of the world. And those eyes were destined to open still wider and blink in even greater wonder. At the third performance the pig repeated all he had done before, then tossed up and caught a rubber ball, and finally dragged a toy wagon, turning right and left as The Mudhen commanded "Gee" and "Haw." It was a knockout.

"Progressin, eh?" the showman commented to the audience. -

"Terrif!" Froggie burbled, clenching his hands together and jumping up and down.

"I don't see how you teach him that stuff," Rip said, for though he was a Bear his admiration passed party lines.

"I claim no glory," The Mudhen answered and seemed to fall asleep.

But glory claimed him. Athletic heroes were neglected as Mud, the animal trainer, rose to the pinnacle of fame and sat there viewing the world through half-closed eyes. For a while Cheese clung to his belief that a humbug was masquerading as a busy bee, but he could prove nothing. The janitor, who was a truthful man, repeated that The Mudhen worked hours with the pig every day. Those were secret sessions, but that was reasonable, as even a super pig needed quiet in which to concentrate on his lessons. Finally, against his inner voice, Cheese admitted that monkey business was out. Not only the pig's performance, but his personality (or should it be pigality?) bore the unquestionable imprint of long and skillful tutoring.

"For Pete's sake, Mud, where did you get the dope on pig training?" Froggie cried one evening during study period.

"Tell me," the trainer countered, "where Julius Caesar got his knowledge. Caesar's ability came to him from an outer source. The same with me."

"What you mean, outer source?"

"Something outside of myself. Let that suffice."

"What am I to say about it in this week's Walrus?"

The Mudhen thought for a few moments and then nearly extinguished the editor with the prediction: "You may say that within a month the pig will be rolling a hoop, dancing to a recorded waltz, and fishing with rod and line in a tub of water."

"Boly hobcats!" Froggie gasped. "I mean holy bobcats. Will he do that?"

"You may safely stake the reputation of The Walrus on the statement," The Mudhen promised gravely.

It all took place exactly as advertised. The Old Guard and all the faculty were there that night and, like the tenderest frosh, they stared and marveled. Then the headmaster ran home for his movie camera and filmed the whole thing, The Mudhen being gracious enough to give a repeat. What was more, the Old Guard proposed a show on the gym stage, with the public invited and the school orchestra playing between acts.

"How about it, Crane?" he begged eagerly.

"It sounds good, sir," The Mudhen said.

"Will it frighten the pig?"

"He seems to like the limelight."

"Do you object to a public performance?"

The Mudhen was aching for it, but he answered hesitantly, "No—not if the orchestra will help me."

"It will," the Old Guard assured him. "Really, Crane, this is too good to keep within the school."

"Okay, sir." He sighed wearily, then added, "If things click, the pig will turn somersaults by then and, perhaps, walk a tight rope."

He did both. Naturally, the show was a wow. For days thereafter The Mudhen was nearly mobbed when he crossed the campus or went to the village. The old master had scored again. The whole school was proud to walk beside him. Outwardly he was the same, for he scorned a spirit weak enough to be visibly puffed up.

One evening, when his room was half-full of miscellaneous Bears and Eagles, Noodle Perkins burst in.

"Mud," he cried, "somebody wants you long distance on the house phone."

The Mudhen, lying on his bed, opened one eye and asked, "Whozit?"

"I don't know."

"Be gone, varlet, and find out." He closed the eye.

Noodle sped and returned all but in pieces.

"It's somebody from New York," he yelled from the doorway. "He's in the show business and he wants you to come to his office and talk about the pig."

"Yeah?" The Mudhen adjusted his pillow. "You tell him if he wants to talk business he can come here."

"But, Mud, he's a big shot!"

"Just tell him what I said."

"Oh k-kay."

The crowd gasped, but soon The Mudhen was snoring. Just like that. The boys moved away in a daze and, when they were gone, the corners of the animal trainer's mouth trembled.

The next afternoon, when campus life was at flood tide, a gleaming car drew up in front of the dorm and a man got out. By his dress and manner he was one who knew his way around.

"Boy," he addressed Rip, who was passing, "can you tell me where I will find Mr. Crane?"

"Mr. Crane?" Rip shook his head. "Never heard of him before. What does he do?"

"I have been told he is a student here. He has a performing pig."

"Oh, ugh!" Rip hesitated between collapse and explosion. "Sure I know him. Shall I tell him who you are, sir?"

"I am H. K. Barnes—entertainment business—New York. Will you direct me to Mr. Crane's quarters?"

"Yes, sir. Please come with me."

Rip towed the great man upstairs with all the deference he would have shown King Solomon or Babe Ruth.

"Howdy." The Mudhen rose little by little from his easy chair.

"Mr. Crane?"

"Yes."

"I am Barnes. I phoned you about the pig."

"Oh, did you? What about the pig?"

"Is it for sale?"

"Why—possibly. Sit down and well discuss details." The Mudhen nodded to Rip. "Close the door when you go out, boy."

Rip closed it, then spread the news all over the place. Within half an hour a small mob was palpitating in front of the dorm. It had its reward when Mr. Barnes and Mr. Crane emerged, the pig walking sedately between them.

"Well, sir"—Barnes put out his hand when they reached the car—"thank you again for your generous cooperation."

"Don't mention it," The Mudhen said carelessly, "the pig deserves a wider field for his talent than he has here."

"Quite right. And he shall have it. Millions of people will marvel at him. Good day, sir."

"So long." The Mudhen stood wrapped in sadness as man and pig entered the car and drove away.

"You sold him, Mud?" Cheese asked, speaking for the pop-eyed crowd.

"Don't talk about it." The Mudhen hung his head. "Let's not mention money as the price of a friend, though he is only a pig." He walked slowly back to his room.

Late that evening Froggie blew in. "Mud," he panted, "they say you got maybe a thousand bucks for that pig!"

"Bless their hearts, how they suffer," The Mudhen murmured.

"Mud," Froggie's voice trembled, "did you pull down that wad?"

"No." The Mudhen leaned back and raised his feet to the table.

"How much?" Froggie waited, open-mouthed. "Not one cent."

"You didn't give away that wonderful pig!"

"He wasn't mine, Frog."

"But the Bears gave him to you."

"Listen, they gave me a pig, yes. I thought I was stuck, but, as I have said many times, it pays to investigate backgrounds."

"Do pigs have 'em?"

"Sure. I hunted up the farmer they bought him from."

"Yeh. Then what?"

"To him I appeared as an angel."

"Gosh sakes! Was he plastered?"

"No, he was in a mess. His brother is a circus clown and the pig was his. He was sick."

"The pig?"

"The clown. He came home to stay a while with his brother and brought his pig. His brother had some common pigs."

"The pig's brother?"

"No, no, no! The clown's brother."

"Oh."

"He was away, the clown was sick, and somehow a cockeyed hired man sold the pig to a stranger, thinking it was a common pig."

"Oh, my gosh!"

"I arrived at the opportune moment. His pig was my pig. He offered to pay me a reward but I scorned money."

"You sap!"

"I asked for more than money."

"For Pete's sake, what?"

"Revenge. I asked him to help me take the Bears for a ride."

"Golly!"

"He's a swell guy. Every night he came to the basement and fed the pig and taught me how to pull off the stunts. A swell guy."

"But, Mud," Froggie looked worried, "you didn't give his pig to Mr. Barnes?"

"Innocent child, Mr. Barnes is the clown. He merely came for his pig—but he came in style."

"You may say that again!"

"Frog," The Mudhen closed his eyes, "we mustn't sail under false colors. We mustn't allow people to think I am an animal trainer. And we don't want 'em to think I've got a hunk of lettuce. Explain things in The Walrus, will you?"

"I will," Froggie promised almost reverently. "I'll do anything you say, Mud."

Chapter Eleven

The Mudhen felt pretty good about the pig deal. It gave him a sort of mellow, paternalistic feeling toward the other boys who were less fortunate than he in their mental equipment. When a fellow gets into that state of mind his emotions are off guard and he is more likely to fall prey to some kind of sentiment. The Mudhen did just that.

He was led into it because some well-meaning faculty member got up a quiz show. Ordinarily such a form of entertainment is as harmless as a bottle of pop, but this one produced an unexpected hangover. The first surprise was when a little freshman, named Skeeter Skillings, up to that moment a nondescript Eagle if there ever was one, held the fort round after round against the Bears' intellectual giant, Rip Anderson. And then, after he had pulled down high-sailing questions about math, history, literature, and what not, he muffed the origin of the poetical line, "Which was against the rule." Rip said correctly it was from the one about Mary's lamb, and so the battle was over.

Of course the Bears whooped up their victory, which was quite proper, but little Skeeter, being young and bashful and sensitive, thought they were hooting at his ignorance and his lip trembled. The Mudhen, who was in a sympathetic mood, scowled at the Bears and suggested that they lay off. At that, Skunk Evans shouted that a kid just out of kindergarten who didn't know Mary's lamb was a typical example of Eagle intelligence. It was the usual brand of kidding and all in fun, but Skeeter began to cry and ducked out the back door.

"Go easy on the kid," The Mudhen said. "Give his hide a chance to thicken."

"Yeah!" some Bear retorted. "Don't mention the fact that an Eagle took the count from Mary's lamb."

"Oh, shut up about Mary's lamb!" The Mudhen said wearily.

Of course, such a command, given in that tone of voice, was a major error, for no sooner did the Bears realize that old Mud was allergic to lamb than they went to town on the topic. And when it came to dishing it out they were there.

In less than a day's time they had widened their field of fire to include the whole Eagle fraternity. When one of that persecuted brotherhood appeared on the campus the welkin ba-a-a-a-ed, lambs frisked on classroom blackboards, soap lambs haunted bathrooms, lamb was loudly called for at the tables of Chateau Chew, questions about Charles and Mary Lamb peppered the discussion periods in lit classes, every Eagle received dozens of postcards depicting the gambolings of guileless but thrice-accursed lambs, and some diabolical genius found a record of the nursery rhyme, hooked it up to the public-address system and turned it on during morning assembly. It was silly, but it griped.

While the sun shone brightly on the Bears, on the spirits of the Eagles there sat a great cloud that resembled wool. Poor little Skeeter blamed himself for all of it and consequently writhed with chagrin. Never had writhing offered more inducements to a young man in his position, and as for the chagrin supply, he could have given three tons of it to every person between Medicine Hat and the Bay of Whales and had enough left over to fill the Grand Canyon.

The Mudhen dropped in to see him one evening, in hope of giving him a bracer, for there were signs that the situation might get the unseasoned freshman down. Skeeter was honored by a call from the great man, but that did not lessen his trouble.

"I feel awful about this mess," he began.

"It's nothin' at all." The Mudhen yawned.

"But they're laughing at all of us because I am such a dope."

"Let 'em laugh. Well have the laugh on them some time."

"Do you think so?" Skeeter asked just to be polite, for he was too far down to take hope seriously.

"Sure," the war-scarred veteran said confidently.

"Rip is a lot smarter than I am," Skeeter moaned. "What a goose head I was!"

"You did a swell job," The Mudhen told him. "We're proud of you."

"Gee whiz!" Skeeter looked ready to faint. "Gee whiz! After I flopped on Mary's lamb?"

"It was one of those trick questions."

"But it spilled the beans."

"Such is life."

From beneath the window rose fresh young male voices—or, more exactly, voices of fresh young males-joined in the old and cussedly familiar song that begins, "Mary had a little lamb." Skeeter's chin dropped and teardrops slid down each side of his nose.

"The doggone stinkers!'' The Mudhen muttered. Then, remembering his role of elder statesman, he looked compassionately at little Skeeter and said with grand indignation, "Why must they loose the slings and arrows of their puny wit at this frail target housed in human form!"

"Eh?" Skeeter snuffled in wonder.

"I must be movin'." The Mudhen rose, joint after joint.

"You're a swell guy to try to buck me up," Skeeter said, with almost pitiful appreciation.

"Don't mention it." The Mudhen yawned.

"I wish I had some candy or something to give you."

"Don't mention that, either, unless you've got it."

"I wouldn't care if they just laughed at me, but when they laugh at all the Eagles—gee whiz! I feel so miserable." Two more teardrops.

"Well settle their hash," The Mudhen said firmly.

"You mean that?" Skeeter cried.

"Sure."

"Can you think of a way to shut 'em up?" Skeeter's very life seemed to hang on the answer.

"That'll be duck soup," The Mudhen promised. "Leave all to me." And he sauntered out.

But duck soup can be hard to make. First, it is necessary to have a duck, in this case an idea, and such birds are often gun-shy. The Mudhen went to his room, which he found empty, sagged into the old easy chair and hoisted his feet to the tabletop. With his eyes half closed he put his thoughts in reverse and backed down the road that wound up the hill of time from the days when he too was a freshman. Ah those days! How sadly does an old man of seventeen winters look back at them! To force down the lump in his throat he reached over and hooked the last of Froggie's candy bars. The Frog would gladly contribute that bit to alleviate his friend's sorrow—like heck he would!

As The Mudhen chewed, his thoughts went forth in search of a scheme to lighten Skeeter's load. He had taken a fancy to the infant, who was obviously smart and would, when ripened by time, do credit to the Eagles. It was both humane and good policy to give the kid a hand in this crisis. And it could be done. He recalled pleasantly some of the times he had removed the cruel shoe of circumstance from the Eagle's claw and placed it on the paw of the clumsy Bear, thus saving face for his comrades and giving the opposition a bellyful. He was their hero then; they called him great, and they were right! For that reason he must proceed cautiously now, for when a man is raised above his fellows, when his genius has hoisted him into that clear, rare atmosphere in which his every move is visible to the vulgar eye, he must watch his step. The crowd demands perfection of a hero, and when he slips a cog, it forgets his past achievements and gives him a going over fourteen times worse than if he had always been a dope.

The Mudhen's duty was clear to him. First he must find a way for Skeeter to even the score with Rip, then he must humiliate those bacteria, the Bears, as punishment for carrying a silly joke too far. It was a challenge no man could refuse, a test no leader should delegate to others. So he went to work on it, relaxing completely and seeming to fall asleep.

He may have dreamed or he may have done some camouflaged cogitating. At any rate, he had acquired a working idea when he drifted in the next evening and found Editor Bates toiling on The Walrus.

"Got her lined up, Frog?" he inquired pleasantly.

"In spots." Mr. Bates bit his pencil.

"What is the current difficulty?"

"I'm trying to make up another raw-vegetable plug in verse."

"Does Aunt Emma like 'em that way?"

"She doesn't kick, and they take up more space."

"But art suffers cruelly."

"To heck with art!"

"Soulless wretch! What have you this time?"

"Listen." Froggie cleared his throat and read from a paper:

"Carrots, turnips, parsnips, beets,

Make the very best of eats.

Eaten raw they are a diet

Good for everyone, so try it.

Better far than cake and pie—"

"Holy Moses! What a lie!" The Mudhen interjected.

"I can't use that!" Froggie cried.

"It rhymes," the assistant editor pointed out, "and it's the truth."

"Aunt Emma would howl."

"I suppose so. Ain't some folks the queerest people!"

"I've got to wind it up somehow."

"Say, Eat 'em if you want to die."

"That's worse, dumbhead."

"Much worse."

"Jeepers, what a job to be an editor!" Froggie chewed his pencil, making a vicious crunching noise. Then inspiration smacked him one. 'Tell you what, Ill change it to

Better far than pie and cake,

It won't cause the bellyache."

"Terrif!" The Mudhen murmured. "Super! Magnifique!"

"I wish I could tack on about twenty lines more," the editor said, and began chewing again.

"Don't do it," The Mudhen begged. "Don't! You have delivered your message, so stop. Besides, I've got somethin' to fill up with,"

"Spill it." Froggie poised his pencil alertly.

"There's goin' to be another quiz show Friday night."

"Who says so?" Froggie leaned forward tensely.

"The Old Guard. I've just talked with him."

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie dropped his pencil hopelessly. "Wasn't the other one bad enough?"

"Plenty."

"It humilified all the Eagles."

"Perhaps you mean humidified," The Mudhen suggested. "We're all in a sweat about it."

"Have we got to be in this one, Mud?"

"We want to be in it."

"A pig's eye we do!"

"It's our chance to get even."

"Well keep Skeeter out of it, then, if we have to tie him up."

"No, we won't," The Mudhen said firmly. "It's his big chance."

"Oh, my gosh!" Froggie groaned. "After what happened before!"

"It will be different this time."

"Says who?"

"I do. Listen, Frog. It will start like the other one."

"Yeah—and end like it."

"Shut up! Bears and Eagles will line up. When each side has been reduced to one contestant it switches to sort of strip poker."

"What do you mean?"

"I expected you'd ask that before I had time to explain. The Old Guard asks one a question."

"Which one?"

"Either one, dear. If he misses, the participant removes an article of clothing from his person and gives it to his opponent, who immediately puts it on. This continues till one has lost everything, not including a bathrobe held in reserve for that purpose, or until the Old Guard stops the show."

"Heck!" Froggie burst out. "That's something like strip poker."

"Yes," The Mudhen agreed, with infinite patience. "You have a mind for fundamentals, little man."

"Brother, that show should be hot stuff!" Froggie grinned.

"Especially if, as I think, both sides play the game so that Rip and Skeeter square off at the end."

"Golly! Think it'll sugar off that way?"

"I believe there is sufficient sporting blood in evidence to make it possible." The Mudhen sounded as though considerable arranging had already been done.

"But gosh, Mud, what chance will Skeeter have against Rip?"

"A very good chance, considerin' the kid's ability and his thirst for revenge. There are other factors, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing—and this is strictly off the record— I am goin to coach Skeeter."

"Say!" Froggie squinted his eyes. "I smell a rat."

"Indeed! Then your nose is not, as might be supposed, purely ornamental."

"I'll say! But," Froggie added confidentially, "don't worry, Ill keep it under my hat."

Tempus kept fugiting, clicking off hours and days, and finally Friday night was up. When he oozed into the gym, where the quiz was to be held, The Mudhen looked weary and melancholy.

"And how is the little lamb tonight?" Cheese inquired sweetly, winking at the grinning Bears.

"Not so good," The Mudhen mumbled.

"That is ba-a-a-ad." Cheese put wool on the word and the Bears snickered.

"Lookit!" Froggie punched Noodle in the ribs. "You guys been inviting folks to this show?"

"What if we have?" Noodle retorted.

'There's a lot of outsiders here."

"They've heard how brilliant the Bears are."

"Well see about that."

"Baaaaaaa!"

At that point the Old Guard, as master of ceremonies and referee, opened hostilities by announcing that the contest would begin. It is immaterial to say how it happened, sufficient is the fact that during the next two hours circumstance, or some other mysterious force, worked to bring about the desired setup—two warriors left on the field, Rip and Skeeter.

Regardless of how they came to be there, no one could deny that they had battled heroically for their positions. Grimly they had closed with and overcome all the questions on history, current events, sports, and what not that the Old Guard turned loose in the arena. Each in his own way, they had fought well. Rip, the tall, blond, aggressive type, was on his toes, peeled down to his sweat shirt, perspiration shining on his face; Skeeter, small, dark, keen, was so nervous he had not unbuttoned his overcoat all the evening. When the Bears kidded him about it he blushed but kept it tight up to his throat. Plainly, the little freshman was plenty scared, yet he was doing a nice piece of work.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," the headmaster announced, "we have come to the second part of the program wherein when a contestant misses a question he removes and gives to his opponent one article of clothing that he is wearing. The opponent must immediately put it on over his own clothes."

There was a rustle of movement in the audience, for this thing had possibilities.

The Mudhen edged over and asked in a shy voice, "Mr. Noble, as there are ladies present, don't you think the changing should be done off stage?"

"By all means." The Old Guard's eyes twinkled. "We must observe the proprieties, eh?"

"Yes, sir." The Mudhen sat down wearily, as though bored with it all.

"Let's go." The Old Guard picked up his question card. "Anderson, who was the first detective in English fiction?"

Rip clenched his fists and went after that sleuth with everything he had, chasing him around the gym, up the rafters, under the table and into a corner, where he thought he had him.

"Sherlock Holmes," he answered confidently.

"Wrong." The Old Guard motioned as an umpire does when a man is out. "It was Sergeant Cuff in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, published in 1868."

"That's one on me." Rip grimaced good-naturedly.

"Back stage, both of you," the Old Guard ordered.

They went and returned, Skeeter wearing Rip's handkerchief in his overcoat pocket. The Eagles cheered their man for drawing first blood and the little fellow breathed deeply with excitement. But the Bears howled derisively for they knew Rip had a dozen such handkerchiefs on him and so, even if he lost repeatedly, he would avoid becoming ridiculous and the joke would be on Skeeter.

"Now, Skillings," the Old Guard resumed, "how was Roland related to Charlemagne?"

Skeeter shot a half-frightened glance at The Mudhen, who nodded faintly.

"Could it be—er—brother, sir?"

"You are answering, not asking, the question."

Skeeter gave The Mudhen another look and said distinctly, "Brother."

"Nephew," the Old Guard corrected and motioned them away.

But this time they did not return quickly. Instead, there were strange sounds from them, which the headmaster investigated and to which he added. More sounds suggested a small riot, then Skeeter appeared, buttoning his overcoat and looking as scared as a rabbit at a dogfight. A moment later out flounced a flaming-faced Rip-wearing a pink-silk petticoat over his pants! The audience gasped and soon made other noises.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mr. Noble said, when he could be heard, "I must explain that this conforms to the rules of the game inasmuch as Skillings was wearing the— the garment under his coat and Anderson was obliged to accept and wear it."

The Bears howled "Gyp," and "Crook" and other frank words, but the whooping Eagles drowned them out. The Mudhen sat with his chin in his hand, watching Skeeter with the eye of a trainer.

It is impossible to describe exactly what happened during the rest of the act or scene or drama or whatever is the word for it. Confused by the turn of events and wildly embarrassed by the pink petticoat, Rip lost his head. His sole thought was to end the misery as soon as possible and at any cost. To do that, it seemed to him, the best way was to answer every question fast and be done with it. Of course, that was the opposite of what he should have done, but it must be remembered that his mental processes were working like a runaway egg beater in a bowl of soup. And, too, the Bears were yelling advice at him and abuse at the Eagles; the Eagles were jeering and whooping and the audience was roaring. Only The Mudhen was silent, his natural sang-froid ten times sang-froider in the crisis.

It was not the ideal atmosphere for quiet thought, so Rip answered the next question correctly, not realizing that by so doing he reinforced the pink-silk fetters that bound him to the rack. He and Skeeter left the stage under the headmaster's guard, and when they returned Rip wore above the petticoat a blue blouse with a lace frill at the neck. The spectators acted and reacted instantly.

But The Mudhen was not one to demand too much for his money. As he looked at the miserable Rip he felt the cup of retaliation run over with a sweet satisfying sound. The score was more than even; the Bears had paid a full price for Mary and her lamb.

"Mr. Noble," he said aside, speaking for his crowd, "I think we are satisfied to call it a day."

"Thank you, Crane, thank youl" The Old Guard wiped his eyes. "I can't stand any more either." And he declared the contest ended.

The Mudhen sighed contentedly. It had been a lot of work, but Skeeter's radiant face made it worth while.

Chapter Twelve

To a poet it might seem that spring was tripping forth with sprinkling pot in hand, but to Cheese Eastman it was just a dreary rain that had washed out the first baseball game of the season and, consequently, put liim in ill humor. He stamped into the room occupied by Froggie and The Mudhen, shook himself like a dog, and sat down with a grunt of disapproval.

"Nice day," The Mudhen remarked, without looking up from his book.

"Sap!"

"You are welcome."

"Whatcha mean—welcome?"

"Welcome to change the weather, if you can."

"I would if I could, and fast."

"But you can't, so make the best of it, little man. Who knows but what the gentie rain is sent to test our characters."

"You sanctimonious old cuss!" Cheese snapped. Then, realizing he had taken the bait, he turned to Froggie for a change of conversation and asked, "How's the rag coming, Frog?" thus inelegantly referring to The Walrus.

"She's wrapped up for this week," the editor answered, with a touch of pride.

"Then I'm too late with my news."

"What news?" Froggie sharpened his interest. "There is always another week coming up."

"This won't be news by next week." Cheese enjoyed the suspense.

"What won't be?"

"You haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"That the Bears are going to have a mascot."

"Huh. A live one?"

"Sure, a goat."

"Why didn't you choose somethin' that would be a contrast?" The Mudhen put in.

"Did you ever hear of Bill Dawson?" Cheese ignored the aspersion.

"No."

"You wouldn't. He was a four-letter man."

"Only four letters?" The Mudhen raised his eyebrows. "Couldn't the poor boy master the rest of the alphabet? He must have been a Bear."

"It so happens," Cheese said, with dignity, "that he was the greatest athlete the school ever turned out."

"Oh, dear!" The Mudhen looked pained. "Why was it necessary to turn him out?"

"Will you shut up!" Cheese exploded.

"A thousand pardons," The Mudhen murmured, satisfied.

"What about the goat?" Froggie asked not unnaturally.

"I'm coming to that," Cheese promised. "You see, Bill Dawson is a naval captain and the goat was his ship's mascot, but the ship has been decommissioned and he wants to find a place for it ashore."

"For the ship?" The Mudhen asked blandly.

Cheese threw a book at him but missed and knocked over an empty pop bottle that landed on Froggie's shin.

"Now about the goat," he resumed.

"I don't care a hoot about the goat," the injured editor shouted, hopping about on one foot.

"But I do." Cheese disregarded the hopping. "Billy the Kid—that's the goat's name—served in the last war and now in his old age he deserves the best of care. So the Bears will have him for their mascot."

"Who says the Bears get him?" The Mudhen demanded.

"I do," Cheese answered defiantly.

"How come?"

Cheese explained in a superior manner, "He is a goat with a proud history, so it's proper for him to go to a frat with a proud history."

Those were fighting words and in no time at all the two fraternities were campaigning furiously for the guardianship of Billy the Kid. By afternoon of the next day The Mudhen was so aroused that he gathered a small crowd on the library steps and unwound a passionate line of oratory to the effect that heroic Billy deserved the best in life and so should be forever Eagle.

"A lot you know about goats!" Cheese jibed.

"My friend"—The Mudhen passed a languid glance his way—"I have made a study of such animals." Well, he had been reading up on them in the encyclopedia.

"A pig's eye you have!" Cheese scoffed.

"In their wild state, goats are distinctly an old-world group." The Mudhen paused to let that fascinating fact sink in.

"What about the American species that is heard blatting in front of public buildings?" Rip shouted from a lower step.

"A subspecies," the lecturer answered, "known as the Bear goat. A lowly animal and easily trapped."

The Eagles whooped and some of Rip's brother Bears grinned, an act in which he took no part.

"If," The Mudhen offered, "one quests farther for knowledge of goats, let him come to me and learn about the angora goat, the Nubian goat, the—"

"Go jump in the creek!" Cheese interrupted, with the ease of an old friend. "We don't give a rap about the breeds of goats, all we want is Billy the Kid."

"As an animal lover, I object." The Mudhen raised both hands in protest. "I shudder at the possibility of one who has served his country well and long falling into the hands of those who, though well intentioned, are ignorant of the care he should receive."

"Hooey!" Cheese snorted and was assured by his colleagues that the word had been well chosen.

"What is it now?" the Old Guard asked at that point, stepping out of the library.

As they explained the cause of the rumpus twinkles gathered in the Old Guard's eyes, for he loved these in-terfraternity scraps. They were among the compensations of being headmaster of a boys' school. He might have settled the dispute on the spot, but it looked too promising a situation to be dealt such a fate.

"I suggest," he said, "that each side demonstrates its ability to care for the goat."

"There's no question about our having the know-how, sir," The Mudhen said loftily.

"Prove it," the Old Guard said. "Let the Bears have him for a week, then the Eagles for a week, and so on for a month. His behavior will decide which is better qualified to own him."

That was a fair proposition and all hands agreed to it. When Billy the Kid arrived, the Bears took over and parked him in a deserted henhouse back of the campus and raised money to buy food and bedding. Cheese passed the hat and, if he neglected to drop something in it, the cause may have been his preoccupation with his responsibilities, for he had been elected chief goatherd.

His first duty was to his charge, and by Billy's attitude it would take a lot of buttering up to convince him that a fowl tenement was as good as a battleship. Cheese appointed escorts to promenade him on the campus, ostensibly for exercise and a change of scene but really to gripe the envious Eagles. At such times Billy wore a blanket bearing the embroidered likeness of a bear. As a matter of fact, it was a pillow top made by Noodle's sister, but a few strings and safety pins switched it to a passable item for any well-dressed goat's wardrobe. Billy appeared to be deserving of such embellishment.

So rapidly did his good behavior win trust that within three days he had the run of the campus. For hours at a time he strolled where fancy let him. The eyes of the school were upon him, for tradition has it that goats are busy sinners, but never once during those early days did this one trespass. In the sweet spring weather he walked sedately among rosebushes without pausing to nibble, he hopped into parked cars with only the pure motive of taking a nap, and when his mood called for a snack he thoughtfully ate grass that needed trimming anyway. His manners were perfect and the belief grew that he was a gentleman of character.

Then calamity doubled up its fist and made a pass at things. Billy the Kid became ill. Rumor ran hither and thither with the speed of a rabbit whose tail is on fire. When classes were over Bears and Eagles hot-footed it to the henhouse and found it closely packed with apprehension. A sign two feet by four hung on the door knob begging the public to be QUIET PLEASE. Inside, Billy lay on the floor, legs extended, whiskers wimpled by labored breathing. Cheese knelt beside him, a black bottle in one hand, a palm-leaf fan in the other, his face caught in a web of anxiety.

"Goin to croak?" The Mudhen whispered.

"Who cares if I do?" the nurse muttered miserably.

"Nobody. I mean the goat."

"He has a chance—perhaps."

"I'd give sennypillin-I mean penny—you know what I mean," Froggie advised. "Get a vet," Skunk suggested. "Had one." Cheese glanced at the bottle. "What'd he say?"

Cheese moistened Billy's lips with a sponge, then spoke straight out.

"I want you guys to know I am to blame for this. If it hadn't been for me Billy wouldn't be where he is now." He bowed his head and began fanning the patient.

"What did you do?" The Mudhen asked, not unkindly.

"Well, for one thing, I fed him salt."

"Salt's not poison."

"It is to those allergic to it."

"An allergic goat!" The Mudhen snorted. "Your grandmother's gocart."

"All right, bright boy, go ask a vet, if you've got two bucks for an office call."

"You paid two bucks for a goat doctor!" Sam cried.

"Sure," Cheese answered virtuously. "We promised to take care of him this week and we are doing our best."

"Gosh!" Dave Pierce worried. "I hope he feels better when it comes our turn next week."

"Yes, indeed," Cheese agreed, with suspicious charity. "Perhaps good care and a saltless diet will turn the trick."

Something did, for when the Eagles took over at the end of the week Billy was all that he should be—physically, that is. They dolled him up in a ritzy blue-flannel blanket decorated with a fringe of red eagles—a local dressmaker charged four dollars and twenty cents for making it—and strutted him up and down the campus.

"That's the way a mascot should look," The Mudhen remarked to Noodle. "Some diff between a pillow top and a tailor-made."

"What's that to a goat!"

"Plenty. There's a happy look in his eye already. He enjoys himself."

He did, but when they left him to go to classes he enjoyed the blanket more. Only one red eagle and a few shreds of flannel escaped to tell the story. He dozed in the shade for the rest of the day, looking so pious that even those who had paid for the blanket were led to believe he had merely been in error. It might be, said Sam Bowman, who had once read part of a psychology book, his act had been prompted by a thwarted urge to be an interior decorator.

"It is strange he didn't try to eat his blanket last week," Cheese observed.

"He probably tried to and that was what made him sick," The Mudhen retorted.

"One wonders," Cheese said thoughtfully.

The next morning the Eagles did more than wonder when the janitor let it be known, with gusto, that the ding-blasted goat had et a pair of his rubbers.

"Some old ones that were 'most worn out," Cheese said carelessly.

"Old ones nothin'. They was brand new. I want to know who settles for 'em."

"See The Mudhen," Cheese said, and explained why.

"Thanks." The janitor was off. "I'll tell them Eagles to cough up if they know what's good for 'em."

He did and they did. They also jugged Billy in the henhouse, where he climbed on a box and dined off the janitor's overalls. Three dollars.

That evening, Cheese met The Mudhen on the steps of Chateau Chew. Mud looked worried, as a fellow will when trouble besets him with besetting besettingness.

"How do you do!" Cheese greeted cordially.

"Don't be so polite all of a sudden."

"Forgive me. My thoughts were far away."

"Leave 'em there."

"Did it ever occur to you, Mud, that the goat's strange appetite might be caused by a vitamin deficiency in diet?"

"Nuts!"

"But don't you think it is strange that, when we Bears took care of him, he didn't—"

"Oh, all right!" The Mudhen interrupted. "We'll see what happens next week when you wise guys have him back."

They did. During the following week, under Bear supervision, Billy behaved in a way to make an angel green with envy.

"Swell, eh?" Cheese grinned at Noodle.

"How do you do it?" his roommate asked.

"Do what?"

"How do you make that goat behave?"

"I?"

"You take care of him. When they get him, he goes mean."

"It might be the association."

"I'm not kidding, Cheese."

"Kidding? Of course not. Couldn't it be that I create a—a sort of virtuous atmosphere?"

"No, it couldn't"

"Oh."

"What do you do to him?"

"Maybe he is trying to reform."

"Hooey!"

"Perhaps his conscience is stirring."

"Two hooeys!"

"Such things happen, you know."

"Not in goats. They don't have consciences."

"Who knows a goat's innermost thoughts?"

"You give me a pain in the neck!"

"Poor old neck!"

"You won't answer, eh? So you do do something to him."

"Let's stop the questions and just be glad he is alive and happy."

"You can't kid me, Cheese. You do something to that goat."

"There is that do again."

"Seems to me you might tell your best friend."

"What I do to him?"

"Yeah."

"What do I do? That is the question."

"You grip my gizzard!" Noodle snapped, and went back to his math.

Two days later Billy the Kid returned to the not-too-eager hands of the Eagles—and to the ways of transgression. He went to work early, too, eating a tennis racket for breakfast. It made a good meal, but not a good impression on the English prof who owned it. Conversing with the Old Guard, this prof promised to resign if the goat was not immediately retired from circulation. And there was also a matter of eight dollars' damage. So they tied Billy up and he slept for the rest of the day, innocence personified.

The next morning, Cheese paused to caress him with a warmth that infuriated a couple of nearby Eagles. Such attention may have stirred something deep within Billy for presently he escaped and ate much of the librarian's umbrella, which she had left on the library steps. She told the Old Guard that she did not like goats, her manner indicating just that. She settled with The Mudhen for four dollars. The Eagles, who had just been through the wringer to replace the tennis racket, thought the goat business was not one to attract young men.

Weary and penniless, those who had once wanted Billy the Kid for their own held a council of war and admitted, strictly to themselves, that the goat was too hot to handle.

"There's something fishy about it," Froggie moaned. "He acts like a lamb when the Bears have him, but the minute we get him he busts loose."

"What intelligence!" The Mudhen's tone would have withered a horned toad wearing asbestos pajamas.

"All right, smarty pants, but you're stuck, too."

"Don't I know it!" The Mudhen admitted honestly. "Old Cheese has somethin' we haven't. He knows his goats."

"But," Dave reminded them, "it was Cheese who fed the goat salt and nearly conked him. That wasn't so smart."

"He was sport enough to tell us so we wouldn't do the same thing," The Mudhen remarked generously.

"I wish the critter had conked," Sam said fervently. "I'm fed up with paying his bills. If he was a luxury that would be one thing, but he's a nuisance and we have to pay for him besides."

"Give him to the Bears," Froggie suggested.

"And quit!" The Mudhen glared at him.

"Why not? Were licked."

"But we'll play till the last man is out. We'll keep that goat as we agreed to do!"

So they returned Billy to the henhouse, where he spent two days wagging his whiskers and planning escape. Unable to think up a subtle scheme, he went primitive and when Froggie entered with his dinner he butted that unsuspecting goatherd into the water pail and went on the warpath.

Two hours later the Old Guard called The Mudhen to the office, fast.

"Crane," the headmaster opened up, "your goat is becoming intolerable."

"My goat, Mr. Noble?"

"You Eagles have him this week, I believe."

"I'll say we do!"

"Then take care of him."

"We are trying to, sir," The Mudhen answered wearily. "He is shut up in the henhouse."

"He is not!" The Old Guard seemed annoyed about something. "Since noon he has eaten Hamlet, which Mr. Peters left under a tree on the campus. He has ruined Mrs. Belmont's flower bed. He has wrecked the canvas chair in which Mr. Bigelow always sits on the lawn between classes."

"Sufferin' bobcats!" The Mudhen felt very ill financially.

"Why is it that you-" The phone rang. "Hello! Yes, this is the office." He spoke and listened alternately for some time and the blush of anger spread from his face and neck to his ears. Finally he hung up and spun around in his swivel chair. "That infernal goat has eaten four hats belonging to the trustees who are inspecting the library. They left them on a bench outside. This must stop, Crane."

"I wish it would, sir," The Mudhen said wistfully. "Get busy."

"Yes, sir. Well catch the goat and put a guard over him."

"Why is there none of this damage when the Bears have him in charge?"

"Honestiy, Mr. Noble, I don't know. It's got us stopped."

"Obviously they know how to handle goats."

The phone rang again. This time as he listened the Old Guard blazed to the top of his bald head.

"That devilish goat!" He pivoted in his chair and came to his feet in the middle of the room. "Now he has butted old Mr. Saintsbury into the fountain! Our wealthiest alumnus here on a visit!"

"I'll get the goat, sir," was all The Mudhen could say.

"Wait a minute." The Old Guard called a number on the phone. "Parks? This is Noble. You have some fine children and I want to make them the present of a goat-Yes, a goat. They'll have no end of fun with it out on your farm-That's all right-don't mention it. Drive in this evening and get him. Good-by." He drew a long breath. "Thank heaven!"

"Yes, sir," The Mudhen agreed and left.

A few minutes later the headmaster looked up and saw Cheese sauntering down the street.

"Eastman," he called through the open window, "I want a word with you."

"Yes, sir," Cheese came briskly into the office.

"I have given away the goat, Eastman."

"Oh!" Cheese sat down and grinned. "The Eagles will be glad."

The Old Guard eyed him sharply and demanded, "Why was it the goat gave you no trouble?"

"Well, sir"—Cheese leaned back—"as I told the guys, to handle goats successfully one must understand goats." He leaned back farther, and unseen by him, a thin white stream trickled from his pocket to the floor.

"What is that stuff?" the master asked.

"Stuff?" Then Cheese saw it and blushed. "My pocket has sort of sprung a leak, I guess. I'll go outside."

"Wait! What is it?"

"Salt, sir."

"Eastman," the Old Guard gave him a steady look, "come clean and tell me the connection between the salt and the goat."

"Goat, Mr. Noble?" Cheese tried and failed to look innocent.

"Yes, goat. You know what I mean."

Cheese also knew that the Old Guard was a square shooter. "Well, sir," he said, "goats are crazy about salt."

"What! Didn't I hear that salt nearly killed Billy the Kid?"

"Yes, sir, but that was a—a false rumor."

"Then what did make him sick?"

"Some stuff I got from a vet. It was guaranteed not to harm him permanently."

"I don't get your drift, Eastman."

"Well, sir, it was necessary to make the Eagles believe I can manage goats. So I gave Billy what he loves best-salt. But I sort of made the Eagles think he shouldn't have it, not a bit, so when it came their turn they wouldn't give him even a smell of it." He stopped and coughed.

"Finish," the Old Guard said.

"Well, I sprinkled a little salt around where he could find it—on his blanket—in the janitor's rubbers—you see, sir?"

"Yes, I see—now."

"He could smell it quite a distance and it did wonders for his appetite."

"Obviously."

"The next week I gave him plenty of salt with his meals and he didn't crave more of it. His temper improved, too. Then the week after that the Eagles took him, so I sprinkled a little salt here and there. So it went, sir."

"You worked hard, Eastman," the Old Guard remarked.

"Yes, sir," Cheese agreed. "A guy has to work hard to beat The Mudhen."

Chapter Thirteen

When in due time The Walrus, in the spirit of faithful nonpartisanship, told the full story of Billy the Kid, Aunt Emma wrote the editor an indignant letter. Entirely missing the point, as usual, she said the Eagles were cruel and wicked boys to deprive the gentle goat of salt, thus upsetting his nervous system and causing him to commit malicious acts of which he was fundamentally innocent. Ignoring the findings of naturalists, zoologists and experienced laymen, she declared that in their natural state goats have angelic dispositions because they follow a diet of uncooked vegetables. Froggie, she said, should have stressed this point in an editorial. In conclusion, she hoped fate would arrange it so that the dumb animals could get even.

"So do I," The Mudhen said when he heard about it. "I'm the dumb animal this time."

"There's always a tomorrow," Froggie chirruped with irritating cheerfulness.

The Mudhen said nothing. He lay back on his bed and for a full ten minutes seemed unconscious.

"Frog," he demanded suddenly, without stirring, "do you know anything about Cheese's plans for the near future? Do you know of any special activities he contemplates engaging in during the next week or two?"

"He doesn't tell me his business."

"As a newspaperman, you have contacts."

"Sort of, maybe."

"Think hard."

"About what?"

The Mudhen's fingers gripped a book, then relaxed. "About Cheese, dear heart," he said gently. "Try to remember if you have heard, or preferably overheard, any of his recent plans."

"Urn." Froggie chewed a pencil and screwed up his face. "Oh, yeh, Noodle told me Cheese's girl friend is coming home this week."

"That Mary creature who rode in my mule chariot?"

"No, the other one. She lives in town and goes away to school somewhere."

"I remember."

"Gloria something or other."

"Uh-huh. When does she come and how long will she stay?"

"Dunno."

"Does Noodle know?"

"Probably."

The Mudhen fished a coin out of his pocket. "Here's a quarter," he said, without sitting up. "Take Noodle down to Cicero's and buy him a Coke."

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie grabbed the money.

"Wait a minute. Find out when and where Cheese has a date with her during the week end."

"I will if I can."

"No ifs about it, bub. You get the dope or I'll never help you with The Walrus again."

"But, Mud-"

"Beat it!"

Later in the evening Froggie returned, loaded with the information that on the following evening, which would be Friday, Cheese would have dinner at the girl's house and then take her to a movie.

"Nice work, Frog." The Mudhen made a patting motion with one hand. "Just what I wanted and a lot easier than goin' after it myself."

"Now you've got it, what are you going to do with it?"

"I don't know."

"Then why did you want it?"

"To hold in reserve."

"That sounds big, but it doesn't mean a thing.

"Friend," The Mudhen said solemnly, "it often happens that a bit of seemingly irrelevant information is the spark that indirectly illuminates a dark scene."

"You think you sound like Sherlock Holmes, but that doesn't do my math." Froggie moved toward the work table.

"Your math is done," his roommate said graciously. "Just copy it off."

"Gosh, Mud, you're a swell guy!" Froggie's face shone with joy.

"Any other big news?"

"No. Oh, yes, Smoky Joe has sprained his wrist on the coal shovel. It's in a sling. Say, I'll put that in The Walrus." Editor Bates reached for his pencil.

"You might add that if he'd lived on raw vegetables he'd be too husky to sprain his wrist. That'll take care of the plug."

"I might rhyme it up." Froggie rubbed his hands in the glow of inspiration. "Raw vegetables will give you so much endurance that you won't need any accident insurance—or something."

"Some muse!" The Mudhen murmured as he fell asleep.

The next morning as The Mudhen meandered down the street he met Mr. Beeman.

"Good morning, Crane!" The Bumble Bee beamed.

"Good morning, sir," The Mudhen answered warmly, for they had been great friends since the days of the pink cat.

"Did you ever see a more beautiful day!"

"Swell," The Mudhen agreed.

"I trust all is well at school."

"Yes, sir. That is, except that the janitor has sprained his wrist," he threw in for the sake of conversation.

"Oh!" Mr. Beeman recoiled a step. "Is it a bad sprain?"

"He's got it in a sling."

"Oh, dear me! Then he has difficulty doing his work."

"He'll get along," The Mudhen said confidently, for he never worried about other people's work.

"My, my!" The Bumble Bee stroked his sideburns. "I must see what can be done to assist the poor man."

To understand such a remark it must be known that Mr. Beeman had purchased a place in the local scene by contributing generously to the school-building fund. He was wealthy and harmless, therefore the school authorities allowed him to take a sort of paternalistic interest— maternalistic might almost be a better word.

"That is very kind of you, sir," The Mudhen remarked. Then he added, incautiously, "Let me know if I can help."

"Indeed you can help, Crane. Why don't you aid the unfortunate man with his coal and ashes?"

"Jeepers!" The Mudhen muttered.

"I beg your pardon."

"I said that would be cheaper."

"And so kind of you, Crane."

In the back of The Mudhen's mind an idea suddenly clamored for recognition. He gave it the floor by saying to Mr. Beeman, "But you see, sir, the guys might not like it if I horned in on the job. Don't you think it would be better to elect a helper for Joe by a school ballot?"

"Well," the Bumble Bee considered the proposition, "it might be more democratic."

"That's exactly what I mean. Hold a meeting tonight and elect someone to serve. That's the way things are done in this country."

"Quite right, Crane, quite right." Mr. Beeman was beaming again. "I will see Mr. Noble at once and have a notice posted on the bulletin board."

"Be sure to have the meeting held tonight," The Mudhen urged. "Joe will need help tomorrow."

"To be sure, to be sure." The Bumble Bee trotted away on his mission.

"Good luck, sir!" The Mudhen called cheerily and almost hurried down the street, for he saw a busy day ahead.

The scene changes, as the radio announcers say. It is early forenoon of the following day and Cheese and Mr. Beeman are intensely conversing in the latter's study.

"I insist," the Bumble Bee is repeating, "that I see no reason why you should not help the janitor with his duties."

"I don't see why I should," Cheese answered stubbornly.

"Because," Mr. Beeman explained again, patiently but firmly, "when I learned Joe was injured I deemed it a kindness for you boys to elect one of your number to aid him with his work. You are the one chosen."

"But, Mr. Beeman," Cheese fumed, "I wasn't even at the meeting last night."

"That was your fault."

"But, sir, I-"

"You knew the hour."

"I tell you, sir, the guys who cooked up that election knew I had a date for that very time."

"A date, Eastman?"

"Yes, sir, with a girl."

"So you said before." The Bumble Bee was unsympathetic, never having ventured that far himself. "But you might have postponed the meeting with the young lady."

"Gee whiz!" Cheese fought to hold his temper. "You can't just tell a girl to wait till you haven't anything important to do."

"I fail to see why not," Mr. Beeman said with pitiful honesty.

"Because—why because she's a girl. Girls are different."

"In your estimation."

"I just couldn't stall with her, sir."

"Then it is my conviction that you should take the consequences, Eastman."

Cheese drew a long breath and made one more try. "Don't you see, sir," he said, speaking slowly for fear he would go too fast "the guys planned that meeting for a time when they knew I wouldn't be there and then they voted me in to save themselves from helping Joe with the dirty work?"

"There is no disgrace in such labor," Mr. Beeman replied, again displaying his sublime ability to miss the point of any argument.

"It's not the work I object to"—Cheese wanted to shout so much that his voice was almost a whisper—"it's the fact that I was framed—that's what gets me."

"Your personal opinion does not alter the will of the majority." The Bumble Bee stuck to his guns, completely unaware that his aim was cockeyed.

"Even though I wasn't there!" Cheese almost sobbed.

"Yes. You are the choice of your fellows and your duty is clear."

"But they framed me," Cheese repeated, for he could tliink of nothing else.

"When," said the Bumble Bee firmly, "one is elected by public acclaim, however humble the office may be, one should serve without question."

"Mr. Beeman," Cheese asked flatly, "would you serve in a case like this?"

"Eastman"—the Beeman sideburns trembled with intensity—"were I elected dogcatcher I would serve faithfully."

Cheese faced the choice of exploding or retreating and to his credit he chose the latter course.

"I guess I'll be going, sir," he said and showed how it was done.

He kept it up till he reached the Old Guard's office, where he dumped his load of trouble into the lap of supreme authority.

"Of course you were framed," the headmaster agreed, without hesitation.

"Then I don't have to serve?"

"I would, if I were you," the Old Guard said thoughtfully.

"In spite of the frame up?"

"I rather like the fellow who takes it—and waits his turn at bat? Get what I mean?"

"Helping Smoky Joe won't be much this time of year, but the Eagles framed me because I am a Bear. At least, that's part of the setup. The Mudhen sparked the business."

"It is possible." The Old Guard smiled strictly to himself.

"He makes a monkey out of the Bumble—out of Mr. Beeman."

"Well," the Old Guard decreed, "if you and the Bears don't like things as they are, do something about it. But," he added warningly, "that is not a blank check. I won't tolerate rough stuff. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," Cheese said and went out.

Chapter Fourteen

For a week or so The Mudhen went serenely on his way, and Cheese helped Smoky Joe. The Eagles agreed he was a good sport, and they were secretly glad that the mild spring weather made his labor light.

It came to pass, as the storybooks say, that on a day after school hours Cicero, who ran the Ice Cream Bar and was the friend of every boy in town, rapped on the door of Mr. Beeman's study. The good man dusted his sideburns and arranged his tie before opening up.

"How'd' do?" Cicero bowed politely.

"Good afternoon." The Bumble Bee hesitated, for the call was unexpected. "Is there something?"

"Sure." Cicero bobbed his head. "You catcha da pooch?"

"I beg your pardon."

"I say, mister, you catcha da pooch?"

"Dear me!" the Bumble Bee blinked. "I fear I don't understand."

"Da pooch." Cicero's nimble hands outlined such an animal in the air. "He ees los' on my place an' I hear you catcha heem. Dat so?"

Mr. Beeman twisted his fingers. "I am very sorry, truly I am, but I don't understand you at all."

"You know who da pooch ees, eh?"

"No, truly I don't. I never met him—or her-or it."

Just then Cheese appeared on the porch.

"Eastman!" To Mr. Beeman, Cheese's sturdy figure was as welcome a sight as was Pocahontas' to Captain Smith, that famous time. "Thank heaven you are here!"

"Anything I can do, sir?"

"Explain this man's behavior, which baffles me."

"He's okay." Cheese laid a hand on Cicero's shoulder. "He is trying to tell you about a dog. I sent him here."

"Sent him to me? For what reason?"

"He has found a lost dog."

"But I have not lost a dog. I don't own a dog. Cats are the only domestic animals I enjoy."

"But you are the town dogcatcher, Mr. Beeman."

The Bumble Bee drew himself up stiffly, and replied, "The joke, if so it may be called, is in poor taste, Eastman."

"Joke?" Innocence dripped from the word as nectar drips from an injured lily. "It is no joke, Mr. Beeman. Haven't you heard you were elected dogcatcher at Town Meeting yesterday?"

"I was elected—dogcatcher!" The Bumble Bee would have been less aghast if told he must fight Joe Louis.

"Why, yes." Cheese stared at him. "Haven't you been notified, sir?"

"Good heavens, no!"

"You catcha da pooch on my place?" Cicero urged. "Come an' I showa you."

Mr. Beeman stood for a moment.

"This," he finally sputtered, "is a preposterous thing! I shall—" The telephone bell interrupted. "Excuse me a moment, please." He walked across the room.

"We beat it, eh?" Cicero whispered.

"No, perhaps we can help." Cheese winked at him.

"Beeman speaking." Also puffing and sweating. "A bulldog? I am not remotely interested, madam—The fact that he is unlicensed is no concern of mine— Drive him out of your garden, then. Pelt him with stones, shoot him, call the police—What is it to me?—Will you please repeat that statement—Aren't you joking?—Good heavens! Then I was elected! Please be less impatient with me—Yes, I understand, a black-and-white bulldog—But, madam, I find myself in an unprecedented situation—In your garden, yes. The origin of my newly acquired status is so mystifying—Throw some of your kitchen utensils, if you have no stones or bricks—Please go away now and allow me to concentrate on the problem." He hung up.

"You come-a see da los' pooch now?" Cicero insisted cheerfully.

"No!" Mr. Beeman leaned on a chair. "First I shall investigate—"

"Mr. Beeman!" Skunk Evans' voice, beyond the open door, cut in like a fire alarm. "The lady in the big house by the bridge wants you to come right down there. A stray dog has chewed up her husband's shirt."

"And the husband?"

"No, the shirt was on the line. She's got him in the cellar—I mean the dog."

Mr. Beeman moved over and leaned against the wallpaper. "How chaotic!" he moaned. "What a ghastly error is prevalent!"

Half an hour later "ghastly" was still the word for it, so far as he was concerned. He trotted down to the Town Clerk's office and learned beyond question that he had been elected dogcatcher at the recent Town Meeting. Like many people, he had ignored that meeting, but the meeting had not ignored him. The office had sought the man and caught him flat-footed.

Instinctively he turned to the Old Guard, sprinting the last few yards to the office because he saw a dog coming down the street. Safely inside, he sat down with his umbrella, smoothed his windblown sideburns, and unwound what he knew of the tangled story. From time to time the headmaster made sounds in his throat.

Mistaking them for sounds of sympathy, Mr. Beeman implored, "I beg you to aid me in evading this—er—responsibility."

"I can't do that," the Old Guard told him straight out.

"Don't you appreciate the situation?"

"I believe I do, but," the Old Guard was a Roman for justice, "you are a taxpayer and as such you must take your turn in public office."

"But, Mr. Noble, you can't expect me to be a dogcatcher!"

"You are one, Mr. Beeman."

The Bumble Bee swallowed nothing several times.

"I made no effort to obtain the office," he pointed out.

"Then how did you get it—or it get you?"

"It baffles me." He rested his umbrella across his knees and stroked it as though it, too, were weary. "The Town Clerk informed me that, during the evening preceding the meeting, flyers were distributed to every house in the village, except mine, soliciting the office of dogcatcher for me. So great is the power of the printed word that I was elected on the following day."

"I see." The Old Guard turned his head away.

"I am at a loss to identify my unwelcome sponsors."

The Old Guard fussed with his pipe in silence.

"But, inasmuch as I was not present at the meeting, I feel justified in declining the office. Do you agree with me?"

"I do not."

"Why?"

"Because it won't work, Mr. Beeman. The other week you ruled against Eastman in a similar case."

"But that was a minor matter."

"It involved exactly the same principle. You can't be inconsistent in such things and hold the respect of the boys. You laid down the law to Eastman and you should abide by that same law when he hands it back to you."

"My soul!" The Bumble Bee jumped up. "Do you assume that Eastman fabricated this situation?"

"Of course he did."

"Then I shall take steps to—"

"Think twice about it," the Old Guard interrupted. "But, Mr. Noble, to be tricked by a schoolboy!"

"I have survived the experience many times." The headmaster smiled reminiscently.

"Do you consider such tolerance necessary?" By his tone the Bumble Bee saw a glimmer of light.

"Yes, if you want to be popular with the kids."

"Oh, I do—so much!" His eagerness was pathetic.

"Then take it with a grin. This is a test of your sportsmanship, Mr. Beeman. The boys are watching you. You will emerge either as a sour puss or a good egg."

"A sour puss or a good egg." The Bumble Bee pondered the words. "Mr. Noble, I much prefer to be known as a good egg."

"Then go to it."

"What er—course of action do you suggest?"

"Be the most enthusiastic dogcatcher on earth. Eat it up. Impound all the dogs that come your way—and there will be plenty of them or I miss my guess."

"But I believe there is no dog pound in the village."

"Use the empty garage back of the dorm."

"But, dear me, I am quite ignorant as to the care of dogs."

"Draft Crane to do the work, and see that he does it. He asked for it when he framed Eastman."

"Will he consent to be my assistant?"

"If he doesn't, you let me know."

"What a phenomenal display of justice." Mr. Beeman stared admiringly at the headmaster.

"Nonsense!" The Old Guard knocked out his pipe. "Applied sense, nothing more."

Three days passed, three barking, howling, growling days. The old garage was no longer vacant and was fast becoming less so. In other words, the dogcatcher and his assistant had deposited eighteen dogs therein. Where they came from was one of earth's mysteries, for the canine population of the village seemed undiminished. But come they did, with a rapidity unequalled in the animal world since Noah's day. They appeared in frontyards, backyards, sideyards, gardens, porches, parked cars and every other place. Not a one had a license number, a fact that was, strangely enough, noted by anonymous citizens who telephoned or sent a boy to report it. A striking coincidence was that such boys were usually Bears.

To the everlasting credit of Mr. Beeman be it said that, once he had accepted the job, he behaved manfully. Laying aside all other duties, he dedicated his life to dogs. And it told on him. He was not yet a wreck, but there was a furtive look about him suggesting a superstitious rat that is haunted by a terrier's ghost. Striving to be open-minded about it, he admitted that dogs, as such, were pleasant creatures that contributed to the fuller life, but in assorted lots of eighteen they made it too full.

The Mudhen shared that opinion as far as it went, but it didn't cover enough ground, nowhere near enough. In his estimation, the world was not merely crowded with dogs, it was cursed by them. When he was handed his assignment he tried every excuse his agile brain could invent, but the Old Guard was adamant. He was more than that, for a mere rock can be moved or bypassed. The headmaster filled the horizon, and his firmness made the Rock of Gibraltar look like a hunk of raspberry jelly.

Like an Indian at the stake, The Mudhen did not squawk audibly, thus depriving the Bears of some of their joy, but for all that they knew he was a hundred and eighty per cent fed up with chambermaiding mutts. For that was his part of the work, Mr. Beeman being busy answering phone calls, settiing complaints, trying to find out the source of the deluge and what to do about it. Four hours a day the boy, who loathed all manual work, labored to meet the physical needs of the new colony of Poochville. The sight of a dog, the sound of a dog, the smell of a dog, the very thought of a dog, smote upon his tortured spirit with a smite that left him trembling like a reflection on a millpond.

The Mudhen knew he was getting the same brand of soup he had dished out to Cheese, though the quantity was much greater and the seasoning far higher. Under certain conditions he might have swallowed it with a fair degree of grace, but to be tricked into it by Cheese, to be the laughing stock of the despicable Bears, made the pot of humiliation boil so furiously over the flame of resentment that the fumes choked him.

In his agony he cried out to his brother Eagles for help, but with rigid justice the Old Guard forbade them to lend a hand. In his opinion both the dogcatcher and his assistant had been too keen about law enforcement where Cheese was concerned and for a while it would do them good to find out how the shoe felt on the other foot. A little later, if the dog business still boomed, he would go to the village authorities and make some arrangement for hiring the work done. Not seeing that side of the picture, The Mudhen said to himself, Brother, if you're to get out of this jam alive you must polish up the old bean. Think or die.

One evening Froggie looked up from the editor's desk and threw a magazine at his roommate.

"Sir!" said The Mudhen severely, opening his eyes but otherwise not stirring in the big chair.

"I've been talking to you for ten minutes and you haven't said a word. Are you a human or an oyster?"

"At a certain age children ask a great many questions." The Mudhen's eyes closed.

"Wake up, Mud, and tell me if I've got to mention this dog mess in The Walrus."

"You're the editor."

"I'm afraid Aunt Emma will think the school is cruel to animals or something."

"It is. You might enclose a note in her copy saying I am still alive."

Froggie wagged his head impatiently.

"Do you know, Frog, that until this week the town dogcatcher picked up a total of two dogs in two years?"

"For Pete's sake!" Froggie used both hands that time. "Can't anybody in this whole world talk about anything but dogs?"

"Control yourself, little man. I was about to say—" A knock on the door cut him short.

"Come in!" Froggie reached for an unoccupied shoe.

"Bow-wow-wow-wow!" came through the door and footfalls died away rapidly.

"That was Noodle Perkins." Tears of rage stood in Froggie's eyes. "I know his bark. I'll liquidize him, see if I don't!"

"Oh, no. The vulgar resort to physical force. This is a battle of brains."

"Yeah!" Froggie's tone was beyond fretfulness. "If you had any brains we wouldn't be in this pickle." A chorus of barks and howls floated across the campus. "Now we've got to hear that for the rest of our lives, I guess."

The Mudhen got to his feet gradually and asked, "Will you lend me half a buck?"

"This is no time to go off and eat."

"I'm not goin' to eat, I'm goin' to telephone."

"Half a dollar's worth?"

"Long distance."

"Who to?"

"Never mind. I'll get the money somewhere else."

"Oh, here it is." Froggie took a coin from his pocket, elaborately kissed it good-by and handed it over.

The next afternoon when Cheese entered his room he noticed something unusual in its furnishings. Nor could he do otherwise, for it contained twenty dogs. As he backed out he smacked into The Mudhen and several other Eagles.

"Who put those dogs in here?" Cheese asked a natural question.

"I am responsible for it," The Mudhen answered gravely.

"Well, take 'em out if you don't want trouble."

"But, Cheese dear, they are yours."

"Snap out of it! You can't wish 'em onto me." Cheese raised his voice above the hubbub in his room.

"May I repeat that—"

"All right. I'll call the Old Guard and get some action."

"Take it easy." The Mudhen raised a warning finger. "I have already sent for him, as you will see if you cast your troubled eyes down the hall."

True, for the headmaster and Mr. Beeman were coming up the stairs.

"Mr. Noble, I am not to blame for this mess." Cheese pointed through the partly open door.

"Mr. Beeman seems convinced you are."

"I don't get that, sir." Cheese addressed the Bumble Bee.

"Dear me!" Mr. Beeman smiled nervously. "It is not quite clear to me either. Crane, will you please explain the unusual situation to Eastman?"

"Sure." The Mudhen turned almost briskly to Cheese. "As you know, the Eagle Bureau of Investigation neither slumbers nor sleeps. We know about your brother in the big town's City Hall and how he pulled a few strings to lend you a few mutts from the city pound."

One of Cheese's good points was his willingness to admit he was stuck when he hit the flypaper.

"Okay, I did it." He grinned. "I borrowed the mutts and I had a lot of fun."

"Nice work," The Mudhen said generously. "You put the steam on us, but the old worm just had to turn again."

"That doesn't mean you have a right to park the dogs here," Cheese declared. "Mr. Noble, I ask for a square deal."

"You are getting it."

"But, sir, I—"

"Listen, bub," The Mudhen put in, pulling some yellow papers from his pocket, "you hired 'em trucked here from the city—probably the Bears all chipped in—and these are carbons of the trucking receipts you signed."

"So what?" Cheese glared at him.

"The owner of the property must be named in such transactions. Here is your John Hancock as the owner of every dog."

"Just a formality," Cheese said impatiently. "You know I don't own those dogs."

"But these receipts—"

"Hogwash! They don't mean a thing."

"What about it, sir?" The Mudhen asked the Old Guard.

"They will stand in court. Eastman is the legal owner of the dogs."

"Okay, I'll ship 'em back." Cheese was still nonchalant.

"There is a license fee of two bucks on each one," The Mudhen said.

"I won't pay it!"

"And a fine of ten bucks for each unlicensed dog you own." That rocked Cheese.

"But," The Mudhen continued in a deep voice, "we are your friends and we have compassion on you. Well settle for a feed for the Eagles."

"Stick-up!" Cheese shrieked.

"Then pay your license fees and fines—two hundred and forty bucks."

"Mr. Noble," Cheese cried, "isn't this blackmail?"

The Old Guard grinned. "Let's drop this before it becomes too technical," he suggested. "Each side has been at bat and scored."

"But the feed?" an Eagle shouted backstage.

"Get together and make it a joint feed," the Old Guard answered.

"I'm for it!" Cheese whooped.

"Me, too," The Mudhen seconded. And he added the gracious touch: "Will you and Mr. Beeman be our guests of honor, sir?"

"We will," both gentlemen accepted.

Chapter Fifteen

Cheese Eastman looked down at The Mudhen and asked a direct question: "Do you know what I thought when I saw you sprawled on the grass like a dishcloth put out to dry?"

"That you never saw a more beautiful male child," the other suggested modestly.

"That you are the laziest guy on earth."

"Oh, that again." The Mudhen sighed.

"Why don't you stir your dogs at track or tennis or baseball or something?"

"To what end, if one may ask?"

"Heck, Mud, didn't you ever want to be an athlete?"

"Never. My aspirations are purely intellectual."

"Salt my soup!" Cheese snorted. "I'd like to see you where you had to move or bust."

"Should duty ever beckon in that direction, one trusts one may respond as becomes a gentleman," The Mudhen intoned piously.

Cheese swung away after saying, "You blasted drip!" in exactly the way The Mudhen hoped he would say it.

After a while he got up and ambled off toward the dorm, meeting Editor Bates on the way and inquiring casually what the big news was.

"The Old Guard has handed me a scoop for The Walrus," Froggie confided guardedly.

"What is it?"

"Promise not to tell? I want to spring it."

"Sure. Shoot."

"Well," Froggie edged nearer, "the alumni has offered a new prize for the best personal stunt pulled off on Founder's Day."

"Personal stunt?"

"Yeh. The other prizes, as usual, are for groups—floats and such like—but this goes to just one guy."

"Huh."

"Why don't you try for it, Mud?"

"What could I do?"

"Oh—I don't know. But you're a good actor. You might take the part of Rip van Winkle and just sleep."

"Too easy, and anything else would be too much work. No, I'm not interested." He started to move on, then stopped and asked, "How much is the prize?"

"Ten bucks. Think what that would buy! I'll help you, if I can."

"Thank you, but, as I said, I'm not interested." The Mudhen strolled away.

His lack of interest was sincere. In winter he usually took part in school theatricals, but when the weather was hot, as at present, he had no wish to put on grease paint and uncomfortable stage clothes and participate in the annual Founder's Day parade or other kinds of acting. He preferred to do his share selling tickets or refreshments in a shady booth.

It was the same with sports, such as baseball. He understood the rudiments of the game yet he had less desire to emulate a diamond star than a home-loving string bean has to climb to the Northern Lights. Even his intense loyalty to the Eagles had never fired him to attempt taking part in the inter-frat Founder's game. That was coming off next week, but why worry about it when there were plenty of others to handle the physical part of it?

Then of a sudden there weren't plenty. On the very day of the game the blow fell and it knocked the plans of Bears and Eagles flatter than a flapjack. In other words, the Old Guard ceased threatening and banged down the law, said law being to the effect that any student found deficient in the classroom would not be found at all on the athletic field. This time there were seventeen such students and, as though that were not enough salt in one banana split, six other boys had various diseases and injuries.

At first the fraternity game seemed wrecked beyond repair, for the lightning had been especially busy among the ballplayers. Gloom was chin-deep and rising at a rate that threatened to swamp the whole school. The parade, the floats, the stunts would occur as usual, but without the ball game all that part of it would be a mere cake without frosting.

To meet the emergency and rescue public morale the captains of the rival teams, Cheese and Dave Pierce, got together and issued a statement, declaring that the game would be played even if they had to use stuffed uniforms to fill some of the positions.

"That's okay for the Bears, but do you know what it means for us?" Froggie wailed when he heard of it.

"It means the game will go on regardless, and that's the right spirit, too," The Mudhen said.

"Have you stopped to count noses? Listen, Mud. Five of our first string and all the subs are sick or in the doghouse. Ain't that awful!"

"Sounds bad. How about the Bears?"

"They've got six first stringers and three subs."

"Sounds worse."

"We haven't a chance, Mud."

"Looks that way." The Mudhen wagged his head. "Dave knew it when he promised to play. I admire his—"

The door swung open and in barged Dave himself.

"Mud," he said, with no ceremony at all, "you've got to play right field this afternoon."

"Me!" The Mudhen looked as incredulous as Joe Louis might if told he had been elected president of the D. A. R.

"Yes, you." Dave eyed him. "You know how to play ball."

"But-"

"No excuses."

"I'm a rotten player."

"I know it. But it is not going to be said an Eagle was too lazy to try to help his side win."

"I feel-"

"I don't give a hoot how you feel. The point is not whether we win or lose the game, but whether we have sand enough to play against odds. Get that?"

"Sure, Dave." The Mudhen hoisted his feet to the table and sighed as he accepted the inevitable. "I'll be with you for the game."

"Atta boy!" Dave slapped him on the shoulder and was off.

The Mudhen tried heroically that afternoon. As for his brother Eagles, they fell litde short of performing miracles. Up against a team supposed to be twice their strength, they somewhere found what it took to make the score 12-12 when the ninth inning opened. The Mudhen had not starred, but to the amazement of his friends, he had kept awake and at times been almost active. But it had told on him.

"The old boy looks droopy," Cheese taunted when the teams changed places for the last of the eighth. As pitcher for the Bears, he was sore not to have scored a pushover.

"I'm on the brink." The Mudhen admitted.

"This is one time when your famous personality doesn't count." Cheese grinned. "We've got you where you can't do your heavy work in a rocking chair."

To The Mudhen that was both a suggestion and a challenge. And he was not one to ignore a challenge, especially when it was slammed at him by his arch rival. To this day no one knows where he found it, but when he returned to right field at the opening of the ninth inning he was carrying a rocking chair. He placed it in fielding position and sat down, stretching his long legs, and sighing happily. This was the life. Thank you, Cheese.

But others thought differently. First, his teammates made remarks that aspersed his taste in right-field furniture. Then the Bears came out and demanded the removal, if not the destruction, of the unorthodox chair. The Mudhen rocked gently, nothing more.

"Look here!" The umpire pushed his way through the ring of players. "You can't do this, Crane."

"But I don't need to stand up," the iconoclast explained mildly. "The whole team could sit down and lick those guys."

The Bears growled.

"But I say you can't do it," the umpire insisted. "Why not?"

"Because—why, because it never has been done."

"So they told Columbus."

"Columbus be hanged!"

"Oh, don't say that!"

"Take that chair off the field."

"Sir," The Mudhen said very respectfully, "may I ask you if there is a rule in your book prohibiting a guy from playing right field in a rocking chair?"

"Of course not," the umpire snapped.

"Then, as it is your duty to enforce existing rules, not to make new ones, why the objection?"

"Doggone it!" The umpire pondered that one. "In all the history of baseball you are the first one to think of such a thing."

"Then," The Mudhen answered placidly, "as I violate no rule by staying in this chair, I shall stay."

And he did, despite the strain placed on the English and American languages to remove him. He stayed and enjoyed the situation very much, for he was sitting down, he was doing the unusual, and he was so much in the public eye that some stranger was taking motion pictures of him.

The Bears went to bat with the double purpose of winning the game and putting the right fielder on the spot. To see him sitting out there, telling the world he could handle their hits in a rocking chair, was an insult not to be overlooked. And the Eagles, once they got the drift of things, put on a line of banter that did not soothe their opponents. What had been a hot ball game was now a boiling personal matter.

Osbert Jones, a sub, was first up. He was an earnest child and when he fouled out to the catcher he walked to the bench as slowly as though he'd had rheumatism since the winter of Valley Forge. Then the pitcher threw a drop and the thing kept dropping. Goldie Sutter, at bat, hit to short, who dropped it and threw to first, who dropped it and threw to second, who dropped it and threw to third, who dropped it and let it roll. The pitcher ran it down and held it with both hands, but Goldie was on third. The Eagles were not well pleased, knowing that those drops might become a flood on which the Bears could ride to victory. And the Mudhen rocked.

Next up was Pete Shell, a left-handed batter who asked just one thing of Fortune—a hit to right field that would stop that rocking chair. Fortune was deaf or busy elsewhere so he grounded out to first. And The Mudhen rocked.

Score 12-12. Two down. Runner on third. Cheese Eastman up; Cheese, the best hitter in the whole school. And The Mudhen rocked.

"For gosh sakes, Mud, get up!" Froggie pleaded from center. "He's liable to lam one right into your garden."

True. And what a nice garden it was. So pleasantly sunny that every nerve and muscle cried out for relaxation. And the old chair answered that cry as a mother comforts her child.

The Mudhen yawned contentedly and wondered why other fielders did not enjoy rocking chairs.

There was a distant crack and people began yelling.

"Take it, Mud!" Froggie screamed. "Take it!"

The Mudhen tried to move quickly and was almost on his feet when he saw a white meteor falling toward his nose. There was no time to dodge. He put up his hands and the ball fell sweetly into his glove. He clutched it fondly and sank back in the chair. Three out. And The Mudhen rocked.

Never had there been such a catch. For that matter, never had there been such a player. One chance in ten million had come his way and found him characteristically ready—in a rocking chair. It was uncanny. There were several full seconds before the crowd exploded, then even staid faculty members who had not blown a cork in twenty years leaped to their feet and threw away their hats. The Mudhen walked casually in and sat on the bench with the air of one to whom miracles are slightly boring.

Cheese went back to the pitcher's box with fire in his eye. Again he had missed putting his rival in a hole, but he still had a chance to win the game by preventing a score and giving his team another turn at bat. What was more, The Mudhen would be third up so, by heck and by Hannah, said Cheese to himself, he would put a dent in that guy's ego.

He struck out the first man, popped out the second, and smiled grimly as The Mudhen wandered to the plate and propped himself up with a bat. A called strike. The Mudhen yawned politely behind his hand. Cheese found such nonchalance nerve-wearing. It was like pitching to a sporting-goods dummy. Ball one, but the batter did not flinch. He would rather be hit than exert himself to move. Ball two. It fanned The Mudhen's nose, but that nose remained motionless and unafraid. Cheese was worried, for he didn't want to damage the dreamer.

He walked down to the umpire and protested. "Can't you make that dope stay awake?"

"I'm not sure, but I think he is awake," the umpire answered cautiously.

"Don't the rules cover that point?"

"Imagine a rule book written with him in mind!"

The Mudhen snored softly over his shoulder and Cheese strode back to the box, his ears red with anger. He threw a fast one that was a hair too wide, for ball three. The batter stirred slightly. He knew Cheese had no wish to give him a pass and would do his best to put the next one over. Better swing when it came along. He started to raise his bat as the ball whizzed past for the second called strike.

The Bear battery saw its chance. The catcher snapped the ball to Cheese, who returned it like a bullet. The trick would have worked had the batter's reflexes been normal, but in this case The Mudhen was still in the act of swinging at the previous pitch. When he saw the ball coming he had only to keep going to meet it, and for once in his life he put all he had into a physical effort. There was a sharp, sparkling crack and the ball was up and away.

The crowd was on its feet yelling, but The Mudhen turned languidly to the umpire.

"Anyone can see it's over the fence for a homer," he said. "Must I go all the way around the bases?"

"Suffering cats!" The umpire tore off his mask. "Was there ever such a ballplayer!"

"It's such a long way around and I'm tired."

"Get going, kid, and don't wait to call a taxi either."

So, slowly and with sadness in his face, The Mudhen carried the winning run from base to base. At third he stopped and motioned for a drink of water, for speech could not be heard in that pandemonium. When he was refreshed he walked home. Someone had placed his old chair beside the bench and he sank into it and closed his eyes. After a moment he sighed and resumed rocking.

That evening Froggie burst into the room, hands and feet waving.

"Wake up, Mud!" he cried. "You won the prize!"

"Eh!" The Mudhen looked up from his detective story.

"The prize for an individual stunt. Ten bucks!"

"I didn't put on any stunt."

"What do you call that ball playing?"

"That?" He thought a moment. "Just call it unpremeditated art. Nothing to make a fuss about." He hunched his shoulders. "Ten bucks, eh? Let's round up the team and go down to Cicero's."

Chapter Sixteen

Though The Walrus was not much to look at and was devoid of literary style, it had a way of making friends. Perhaps honesty was the word for it, for if ever a publication was floated by the sweat of conscientious effort it was that one. It cannot be said that Editor Bates threw himself into the work at first. He had been pushed into it by Aunt Emma. But once he was in, he developed energy and ability that astonished everyone, including himself. To be sure, he had help, which was also to his credit. The boys knew that unless the paper rang the bell with Aunt Emma he would be rubbed off the school map and so, because they liked the little pinch-faced duffer, they threw into the hopper everything coming their way that could be, and many things that could not be, used in the rag. Consequently, long before spring arrived it had earned a reputation for reliable school news and had taken its place in campus life.

As a whole, the faculty encouraged its fight for life and were lenient with Froggie when editorial burdens caused him to stumble in the path of scholarship. The Old Guard was especially pleased with it and always kept an eye open for its advancement. For that reason, when a college friend invited him and two of his boys up to old Fort Ticonderoga for a week end, he asked Froggie and The Mudhen to go along as representatives of the press. The editor and his assistant should do a good write-up about the fort and, too, they had earned a break.

So it followed that they arrived in the village of Ticonderoga. Not long thereafter Froggie lay on the floor of the Rosebud Restaurant, not from choice but from necessity. The necessity was contained in the fist of a youth referred to by his playmates as Bloody Jones. A state of unbalance was the direct cause, Mr. Jones being too hasty and Mr. Bates not hasty enough in dodging.

The Mudhen did not stop to weigh causes, only the effect concerned him. The friend of his bosom had been assaulted and forthwith he rose up from the lunch counter with unwonted agility and socked Bloody Jones with such vigor and precision that he sat on the linoleum with a thud. As soon as possible, after that, Bloody Jones went away, leaving a promise that at an early date he would completely atomize the swells from downcountry. So, in brief, was another batde fought in historic Ticonderoga.

It has been said that if one of his boys got into a jam in the cellar of a deserted house, on a back road in Outer Mongolia, at midnight in the dark of the moon, the headmaster would demand an explanation before noon the next day. In this case, less than an hour later, Froggie and The Mudhen were hauled onto the carpet in the big house near the fort, where they were staying.

"Sit down," the Old Guard ordered.

They sat and looked at the carpet, not enjoying the view. Froggie employed only one eye, the other having been victimized by Bloody Jones. The Mudhen relaxed against a cushion and spread a nonchalant sigh over his acute anxiety.

"This is a fine mess!" the Old Guard began, and his tone was not comforting. "A fine mess!"

There was no rebuttal. For a moment, silence sat heavily in the room.

"A fine mess!" the headmaster said a third time. "A friend is kind enough to invite us up here and you are not in town two hours before you engage in a street brawl!"

"It happened in a restaurant," Froggie ventured, feeling that any change of scenery would be welcome.

"All the worse," the Old Guard boomed. "Creating a disgraceful scene in a public place! What have you to say for yourselves?"

"I am sorry it happened, sir." Froggie rubbed his closed eye as though he meant it. "And you, Crane?"

The Mudhen raised his head and his usually sleepy eyes were bright and level.

"I am not sorry it happened, Mr. Noble," he answered.

In any mood the Old Guard respected The Mudhen's honesty. It had been proved too many times to be disregarded.

"As I heard the story," he said, "Bates asked for it."

"Me?" Froggie stared with an eye and two-fifths. He knew his limitations and a fist fight was the last thing on earth for which he ever yearned. Undersized and less aggressive than an Easter rabbit, he was not one to revel in physical disturbance. The very thought of it caused his tongue to stumble. "Good g-g-gosh, Mr. Noble."

"I'll take over " The Mudhen motioned him into retirement. "You see, sir, we went into town for a snack."

"You were supposed to be searching for historic landmarks," the Old Guard reminded him.

"In a way, we were sort of killing two birds with one stone The restaurant looked so old we thought it might be historic. We half expected to see"—he tried to sound like a travel lecturer—"the chair in which Ethan Allen sat."

"Or Napoleon Champlain," Froggie put in, eager to display his mastery of history.

"His name was Samuel," The Mudhen corrected.

"I meant Samuel. He had a fight with Indians here in Ticonderoga."

"That fight did not occur in a restaurant," the Old Guard remarked dryly. "Keep going, Crane."

Yes, sir. While we were there this Jones guy came in. "He strutted in, the big vacuum," Froggie amended. "He asked Frog where we came from and-"

"He stuck out his chest like a turkey gobbler," Froggie explained.

"And when Frog told him, he said all prep-school guys are sissies." "Ah!" the Old Guard muttered.

"Naturally, Frog denied that and then Jones pasted him, knocked him flat." The Mudhen paused indignantly.

"Was that all?" the Old Guard asked.

"I'll say not!" Froggie stiffened at the memory.

"I mean, was that all the conversation?"

"All of mine," Froggie answered. "I didn't sass him a word, Mr. Noble." He somehow suggested a Pekingese that had refrained from chewing up a bulldog.

"And what did you do, Crane?"

"Well, sir, when that big stiff sneered at our school and then punched Frog, I took a swing at him."

"Knocked him for a row of ash cans," Froggie added proudly.

"I'm glad I did, too." The Mudhen's tone was not defiant, but it was heavy with the satisfaction that comes from dishing out righteous punishment to a stinker.

"Ummmm," rumbled the headmaster.

"Wouldn't you have done the same thing if you had been in my place, sir?" The Mudhen asked right out.

"Yes, I would!" The Old Guard's blue eyes snapped.

"Atta boy!" Froggie whooed, then added decorously, "Quite right, sir."

The Mudhen sank back in his chair and seemed asleep. Victory rocked him in her arms and the motion was sweet music.

It was, however, a different tune for the Old Guard. He was in a tough spot and he said so, taking the boys into his confidence.

"The complication remains." The Old Guard grinned unhappily. "For the sake of the school's and our own reputations we must behave as gentlemen and refrain from fighting, yet, at the same time, no gentleman will ignore insults to his school and himself."

"I guess Mud settled Jones' hash so he wont be hanging round any more," Froggie crowed.

"But I know something you don't know." The headmaster got out his pipe, a sure sign of bad news. "Jones is Mr. Henry's nephew and will dine with us tonight."

"Oh, my gosh!" said one of his audience.

"Jeepers!" said the other.

"Have we"—Froggie showed signs of approaching physical and social collapse—"have we got to sit at the same table with that Jones and be gentlemen?"

"That's just what we're goin' to do, Frog," The Mudhen said firmly. "Mr. Noble was invited to bring us. Well, we're goin' to show 'em we know how to behave at a dinner table. We're not goin' to let Mr. Noble down."

"Crane, you are a jewel of great price," the Old Guard said sincerely. "Get along now, and try not to fight another battle of Ticonderoga."

Evening came on, bringing with it a dinner in the big house below the fort that was a classic of restrained emotions. Mr. Henry placed Bloody Jones between Froggie and The Mudhen at table. None of the three youths applauded the choice of position. Nor did they make other sounds one to another. Mr. Henry attributed the silence to shyness and felt fatuously confident that the ice would soon be broken. But the ice breaker was never made that could crack that jam.

When the glacier had crept past the dessert Mr. Henry beamed across the table like a donkey eyeing a carrot patch

"Day after tomorrow is the anniversary of Ethan Allen's capture of Ticonderoga," he said impressively. "It was the first American offensive of the Revolution and should be deep in the memory of every schoolboy."

He looked around and the sdence shouted, "So what!"

The Old Guard made some general remarks about Ethan Allen and wished the internal meal was over.

"For that reason," continued the host, "the owners of this property occasionally arrange a re-enactment of the scene as a public service."

"Very commendable, I am sure," the Old Guard commented politely.

"Yes, indeed." Mr. Henry took a swallow of water and resumed. "The principal of the local high school and I think it would be great fun, as well as very instructive, if we put on a small show of that kind this year. His boys will impersonate the soldiers. Uniforms will be rented from a place in town. We will re-enact the surrender of the fort to Colonel Allen."

"Swell!" The Mudhen finally spoke, for his dramatic instinct was stirring.

"How fortunate that we shall be here to witness it," the Old Guard remarked.

"To participate in it, if you will." Mr. Henry turned on his beamer again. "Because you are our guests we are asking Crane to take the part of Colonel Allen and Bates to be his aide."

"Wow!" The Mudhen envisioned himself swaggering up the stone stairway and demanding the surrender of the fort in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congess.

"That'll be the cat's pajamas," Froggie enthused.

"But, Uncle, I want to be Ethan," Bloody Jones objected, like the spoiled child he was.

"No, Rupert."

"Yes, I do too, Uncle!"

"Rupert, you will take the part of the British commandant and relinquish the leading role to our guest."

"These guys ain't my guests."

"You will take the part of the commandant and surrender the fort to Colonel Allen," his uncle said firmly.

"I don't want to!"

"Now let us go into the library and discuss the details." Mr. Henry rose and led the way.

"Watch me surrender to a lump like you!" Bloody Jones lashed out at The Mudhen.

"What an entrancing personality you have," The Mudhen murmured and ambled from the room, followed by Froggie, who paused to extend his tongue toward the unhappy Master Jones.

Thus was the stage set for the forthcoming play.

Chapter Seventeen

As though Bloody Jones was not sufficient headache for one week end, Fate had to dish out something more. During the watches of the night, pain sought out Froggie and sat heavily upon his right lower jaw.

"Looks like a tooth has gone haywire," The Mudhen said, after examining the expanding area by the light of dawn.

"A tooth!" Froggie groaned.

"Why not?"

"One tooth?"

"Possibly two."

"Two teeth? Why, brother, I've got acres of pain."

"You will have if your map keeps swellin'."

"Oh, Mud, it's awful!"

"I'll call the Old Guard."

"He's asleep. Anyway, it's too late. I'll pass out before there is time to do anything."

"Toothache never killed anyone."

"It's going to this time."

"Hooey!"

"Laugh, you big jerk!"

"I didn't laugh."

"I forgive you." Froggie tried to look pious, a difficult thing to do between a swollen jaw on one side and a partly closed eye on the other. "You're my best friend, Mud."

"Snap out of it, Frog."

"Too late. I'm a goner. I want you to have the four candy bars in my desk at school."

"I'll remember that when we get back."

"I hope you enjoy them." Froggie choked.

"Sure, I like candy."

"Take the good things of life when you can." Froggie clutched his face in both hands and groaned between his fingers. "Good-by, my friend."

"I'll be seein' you," The Mudhen said and went out.

A dentist did nothing to increase Froggie's life expectancy. That unsympathetic wretch said it was merely an abscessed tooth. "Merely" was the word he used, and Froggie registered a burning wish that the sadist might have seventeen just like it before sundown.

The thing kept swelling until by midforenoon the patient's silhouette resembled a hornet's nest. Just to be sure, the Old Guard called a physician, who said Froggie had a temperature and must remain quiet.

"That sews you up for the show tonight," The Mudhen said grimly, when they were alone.

"No, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"You've got to help me break jail after dark."

"I will not. If the doctor says you're in, you're in."

"But, Mud!"

"Nothin' doin'. That's that."

"You'll never take the fort without me."

"Big boy, eh?" The Mudhen made a contemptuous gesture.

"But I've always been your Dr. Watson."

"Don't worry, Doc. I'll lead my trusty Green Mountain Boys to victory as did Ethan of yore."

"But they ain't Green Mountain Boys, they're Ticonderoga kids," Froggie pointed out.

"What's the dif?"

"They're that Jones' buddies and they'll be in there pitching for him. They'll do you dirt if I'm not there to watch 'em."

"I should worry!" The Mudhen sauntered toward the door.

"Say, Mud, listen," Froggie called after him. "The doctor I had knows Aunt Emma's Dr. Peppergrass."

"Don't tell me you're on a raw-vegetable diet!" The Mudhen swung around in horror.

"Naw. My doctor is a real one."

"Then how come he knows old Peppergrass?"

"Well, I was sort of kidding and I said maybe if I ate raw vegetables I wouldn't have the toothache. One thing led to an other till it came out he knows Dr. Peppergrass —only he ain't a doctor at all."

"No!"

"He's a quack and his raw-vegetable business is all bunk."

"I'll be a monkey's uncle!" "He lives off suckers like Aunt Emma."

"Boy, you don't dare tell her that!"

"I'm not afraid of her."

"You better had be as long as you need her lettuce," was The Mudhen's parting advice.

The rest of the day was spent in briefing and parading around in the Revolutionary uniforms. If civil authorities had not been present in considerable numbers war might have broken out any moment. It griped the local lads to see a stranger in the place of honor, strutting in a colonel's uniform of buff and blue and clanking a long sword. He knew it, so he strutted and clanked the more.

It would be a glorious moment for The Mudhen when he marched into the fort at three o'clock the following morning and received the surrender of the place from Bloody Jones. It was only make believe, yet there was a personal issue involved that smelled of brimstone. And the beauty of it was, The Mudhen could honestly wear the cloak of innocence. He wore every thread of it.

Midnight came and the actors moved into the wings. According to history, two hundred Green Mountain Boys rendezvoused at Hand's Cove, some two miles down and across the lake, but because of a boat shortage only eighty-three went in the party with Colonel Allen. This time twenty-one gathered there. They might just as well have rowed directly across from the fort, where the lake is narrow, but the school principal was out for details and led the way in his power boat, Mr. Henry and the Old Guard remaining in the fort. Once there, the principal departed enough from tradition to bring out hot dogs and Coke, which would have raised a laugh among the frontiersmen who had fortified themselves with salt pork and "stonewalls."

The boys from Ti were perfect gendemen while the principal was there and The Mudhen did well. They might consider him a softie because he came from a boarding school, but they had to admire his capacity. He was long and lean and sleepy, but when it came to cargo space he had it. Which gave them an idea. When the principal had given his last instructions and chugged away, silence grew around the fire. It was a soft, seductive silence and by two a.m. it had done its foul work. The Mudhen slept.

He awoke with a start, as heroes often do. But one glance at the empty beach told him he was no hero. He was just a plain sucker, alone by a feeble fire. Out on the lake he heard laughter. And why not? After all his swaggering, the mighty Colonel had been left behind, asleep, when his men set out on their historic mission. To be sure, they had tiptoed away, literally sneaked out on him, but the result was what counted. Bloody Jones would not have to surrender the fort to an invader who was not there. They had tricked him and they had done a good job. When they marched into the fort without him their glory and his humiliation would be complete. It would be an awful time for him, but less awful than confessing to Froggie, the Old Guard, and the whole school. You had your chance and you went to sleep. You sap! You drip! You dope!

The Mudhen winced, but he did not cry aloud. He was boiling mad at himself and by the Eternal, as Ethan used to say, he was going to do something about it. As usual, his thoughts ran ahead of his legs and in this case neither were slow. Catching up his sword and letting his coattails flop as they would, he sprinted to the road and then on toward a house he had seen from the other shore.

The place was dark, but he found a door and beat upon it with both fists. After a while a window opened above his head and a man's voice wanted to know what the blue blazes was going on down there.

"Can I hire you to take me across to the fort in your motor boat?" The Mudhen answered, his voice dripping persuasiveness.

"I ain't got a motor boat," the man snapped.

"Just a row boat then, mister. I'll row it myself and return it tomorrow."

"I ain't got a boat."

"Not any kind of boat?"

"No! Can't you hear anything?"

"Who has a boat?"

"I don't know."

"I've got to find one, mister."

"You say you want to go to the fort?"

"Yes, sir."

"This time of night?"

"Sure. Right away. How can I get there?"

"The first ferry leaves at seven o'clock."

"But I can't wait till seven o'clock, mister!"

"What's your rank?"

"That doesn't matter, does it?"

"Yes, it does. I want to know why you're in such a sweat to go to the fort."

"Well, if you must know, I've got to take it in an hour."

"Take what?"

"The fort. Please hurry up, mister."

"Say, who are you anyway?"

"I am Ethan Allen."

"Cripes!" A flashlight came out of the window and shone on The Mudhen in all his glory, on his nifty uniform and his long sword, which by then he was waving over his head. "Mother of Mike!" gasped the voice, adding in a stage whisper, "Call the sheriff, Mary, this loon has escaped from somewhere."

The Mudhen went away fast. He was burning up, and that idiot behind the flashlight was no fire extinguisher. Ethan would cross the lake somehow if it took a leg. He ran to the shore and stood panting like a hunted stag or whatever it is that does a good job of panting. An hour would bring dawn and disgrace. The world would shout from the housetops that Ethan had missed the boat.

Would it? Hold everything, Fortune! In the darkness he had barked his shins against hope which, when investigated, proved to be a canoe. In all his life he had never paddled a canoe, being averse to much exercise, but he was going to do it now. It had always looked easy, all you did was kneel in one end of the thing and keep jabbing the paddle into the water till you arrived where you were going. Just like that.

Not exactly. Within fifteen minutes he learned that theory and achievement can be as far apart as Betelgeuse and Baltimore. If a gremlin and a mule had put their heads together they could not have mapped a course as erratic as the one that canoe thought up alone. It was a small canoe, but its cussedness was immense. Not only did it go contrary to the wishes of its captain and crew, but it did so with an arrogant ease that was maddening, sticking its nose in the air and cutting diverse patterns, circles, half circles, figure eights and zigzags.

The harder The Mudhen paddled and the more he sweated the more his maneuvers resembled those of an eel with cramps. Another five minutes and his sense of direction was as widely distributed as Humpty Dumpty would have been if he had tumbled off the wall into the arms of an active electric fan. East was east and west was west, but the twain were hopelessly mixed up with north and south and points between. Angry, confused, and completely allergic to canoes, he laid down his paddle and tried to think.

The trouble was he laid it down in the water and when, realizing what he had done, he grabbed for it he got only a handful of Lake Champlain. He clawed frantically in every direction but the lake and nothing else was there. It had been there for several million years and probably had pinched thousands of paddles, yet it wanted one more.

The Mudhen sat there on his heels, while the canoe rocked gently as with laughter. The pre-dawn darkness was almost thick enough to lean against. Earth, sky, and water all looked the same, being invisible. He was, strangely enough, a good swimmer and thought of trying for shore, but he had no idea where the shore was or what shore it would be if he reached it. Ethan Allen, help a guy out!

"I wonder if that boarding-school dope has waked up."

The words made him jump, for the old colonel seemed to have spoken from somewhere down the lake. Then came laughter and the creak of oarlocks. The Green Mountain Boys were rowing leisurely toward him on their way to the fort. He would have shouted for help if the laughter had not stung him. So he was a joke, was he? A still greater joke if they found him sitting there in his gold braid, helpless because he had been nitwit enough to lose his paddle. Then they would tow him in like a puppy on a raft, he, the commander! Oh, where was the brain that had so basely deserted him? Coming, Ethan.

It was too bad to dunk the uniform, but he did it, slipping into the water with no more noise than a big fish jumping. Slowly, as he did everything, he drifted toward the boats and caught the stern post of the last one with both hands. After that it was pie to lie there and be towed ashore, listening to the jokes that cracked back and forth at his expense.

They took their time disembarking, pausing for more talk and laughter, for it would be something of a coup to take the fort without Ethan. They went up the historic path and through the gate—and then they saw him ahead, his uniform dripping lake water, his eyes blazing, his sword held high.

"Come on, lads!" he roared, and he looked seven feet tall in the light of the lantern on the wall. "Follow me!"

They did, for at that moment there was something magnetic about him. They trooped up the stone stairway and yelled so loudly that Bloody Jones came out hesitatingly, as a surrendering commandant should come out.

"Surrender in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" Ethan thundered, and added, waving his sword, "Make it snappy, shrimp, if you know what's good for you."

The commandant gave up his sword. Then, his work finished, The Mudhen stalked majestically away without an explanation. They partly understood what he had done and were sportsmen enough to cheer him. And if Colonel Allen chanced to be looking down from the celestial ramparts he probably joined in the cheer.

Chapter Eighteen

The film of the school year was nearly unwound. Reviewing the pictures in his mind, The Mudhen found them not too bad. There had been unsatisfactory episodes yet, on the whole, the score was in his favor. One of the highlights was the establishment and growth of The Walrus. Officially, that was Froggie's project and to him went the credit for its success, but the assistant editor took deep pride in it. And, though he would not say so, in Froggie, too, for Editor Bates was doing a nice piece of work.

While The Mudhen was thus pleasantly raminating and helping his last candy bar fulfill its destiny, Froggie entered quietiy and stood looking out the window.

"What's cookin', Frog?" his roommate inquired, sensing something wrong in the wind.

"Plenty." Froggie gazed steadily away.

"Tell Uncle John all about it."

"I'm up a stump, Mud."

"Yeah?"

"I got a letter from Aunt Emma this morning."

"Oh, her again."

"Yes. She wants me to plug Dr. Peppergrass in The Walrus."

The Mudhen pondered this, then asked, "How thick does she want the butter?"

"Too thick. She sent me a lot of dope on him—dates, education, the wonderful work he's doing with his raw-vegetable diet."

"Hooey!"

"She says I must write him up big and advise all my readers to give him a whirl." Froggie turned slowly from the window. "I won't do it, Mud."

"Um." The Mudhen swallowed the last of the candy bar. "Because you think he's not a doctor?"

"I know he's not a doctor. The Ticonderoga man told me so, but just to make sure I went to see Doc Leonard. He showed me a copy of a medical magazine that's exploding—I mean exposing—quacks. Old Peppergrass was the one they slapped down hardest."

"Jeepers, Frog, this is somethin'!"

"And it's going to be more. When I tell Aunt Emma what I know shell hit the ceiling."

"Have you got to tell her?" The Mudhen sounded apprehensive.

"I've got to give some reason for not writing the plug."

"So you won't write it?"

"No, sir, I won't." Froggie was intensely serious. "I never printed a lie in The Walrus and I won't, if I know it."

"Nice goin', Frog." The Mudhen gave his friend a quick look of admiration, then sank back wearily.

"See why I'm up a stump?" Froggie sat on the edge of the table and nervously swung his corduroy-clad legs.

"Uhhu." The Mudhen thought for a moment. "Can't you stall till school is out?"

"Maybe I could, but I'm not going to." This was not the old Froggie, but the new militant editor. "She has brought this thing up and I'm going to tell her just what I know about her friend Peppergrass."

"You'll get Billy-de-dam by return mail, brother."

"I can take it." Froggie stuck out his small chin. "I've got to take it, Mud, I can't let my readers down."

He slid off the table, pulled up a chair, and began writing. The Mudhen watched him silently and thoughtfully. Surely, the Frog was growing up. A year ago he would have bypassed the issue or yelled for help to meet it, but now he was swinging his own bat. Sort of heroically, too, deciding what was right and then standing up for it regardless of the consequences. In this case the result could be serious. He knew it, yet he did not flinch. Quite a guy.

Jeepers, if one year of school had such an aging effect, they would all be in their dotage before they finished college. Unconsciously he put up one hand as though to stroke his beard.

"There it is." Froggie picked up the sheet of paper. "Want to hear it?"

"Shoot." The Mudhen closed his eyes.

"Dear Aunt Emma."

"Dearest Aunt Emma might butter her up more."

"Dearest is comparative, ain't it?"

"What do you mean, comparative?"

"Sounds as though I have more than one Aunt Emma, which I haven't."

"Thank heaven!"

"Shut up! Dear Aunt Emma—"

"Swell! 'Shut up, dear Aunt Emma' puts it all in a nutshell. Just sign your name and call it a day."

"I'll pulverize you, Mud!"

"At a later date. Go on with the letter."

"Then keep your lip buttoned.

"Dear Aunt Emma:

Your letter received. I cannot print in "The Walrus" the things you sent me about Dr. Peppergrass because they are not true. He is not a doctor at all but a quack. His raw-vegetable diet is bunk to make money. "The Walrus" is proud of telling the truth and is not going to start telling lies to help a dishonest man. You will understand now that I have told you the truth.

Your loving nephew.

"How's that, Mud?"

"She'll bite herself behind the ear, Frog."

"She ought to be glad to know the truth."

"Be glad to know she's been a sucker? You don't savvy la femme, little man."

"I can prove what I said."

"By the way, why not give her the names of the doctors who put you wise?"

"I don't want to ring them in unless I have to."

"That's sporting maybe, but there's safety in numbers, you know."

"I'm not afraid of what she says when I know I'm right. What was that in lit class the other day about a guy being thrice armed when his cause is just or something?''

"You'll want to be thrice legged when Aunt Emma gets after you."

"An editor has to stick up for what's right, doesn't he?"

"Sure he does, Frog," The Mudhen said quietly. "Mail the letter."

He did, and the reply came sailing back, sailing like a great black bird of misfortune, the shadow of whose wings covered the whole school. The Mudhen found Froggie reading the letter when he came in from history class. The littie fellow's face was white.

"This is it, Mud," he said in a tight voice.

"What is?"

"Either I print what Aunt Emma says about Dr. Peppergrass or—or I don't come back to school next year."

"She wouldn't do that, Frog!"

"She's has done it. Read it."

The Mudhen took the letter, which smelled of lavender, a fragrance that would stink for him henceforth. It was a very polite letter, for she was too much of a lady to blow her top on paper, and it was very firm. It said that Dr. Peppergrass was not only a physician of unquestionable standing but also one of the benefactors of the human race. The medical profession was persecuting him because as his gospel of raw-vegetable diet spread then-business dwindled. The Walrus, whose readers' minds were in the formative stage, was in a position of influence and unless Froggie employed it as directed his tuition would not be formcxraiing next year.

That was the gist of it, the crudest gist that had ever come Froggie's way.

"I'll be yellow if I do it, Mud," he said.

"A heel." The Mudhen tossed the letter on the table.

"But—gosh sakes—it will be tough not to be back with— with you guys next year."

"You will be back, Frog." The Mudhen felt about vaguely for a chair and sat down.

"Not a chance." Froggie put the letter in his pocket and went out.

He walked around the campus three times, seeing only the sidewalk and hearing only the voice of his thoughts. The other boys were merely winding up another year of school, but for him it was the end. All of a sudden he realized how much he loved the school. It had been his world for what seemed a long time and its people were his people. Now he had only two weeks left. But he might have longer, might go stepping along happily for years, if he put his name to a few words he knew were not true.

After all, The Walrus was a tiny publication and what appeared in it would make no difference to anyone. At the same time, what did not appear in just one issue would mean at least another year of school and fun for its editor. Wasn't he a fool not to let Aunt Emma have her way for another year anyhow? She meant well and was doing what she thought was right. Perhaps after a while she would discover her mistake and the whole thing would end happily. Why not take her money and wait, enjoying life in the meantime? People would never know.

People? He started around the campus a fourth time. What about himself and The Mudhen? They would know. To the end of their days they would remember how he printed a he for pay. "A heel," The Mudhen had said, and he meant it. That was Mud all over. He was a sly old fox, but when it came to a showdown he was foursquare. It had meant a tremendous lot having him for a roommate and it would be mighty hard—the worst of the whole business—to give him up. There was so much to give up—and it could be avoided, or at least postponed, by saying a few nice things about Dr. Peppergrass. Just that and the sky would be blue again. Would it, when he and Mud knew how he had sold the truth for money?

Doggone a conscience! Froggie looked up at the tree-tops in a spasm of misery and in that moment stepped off the curb. Stepped, in fact, into the school infirmary, or rather hobbled with the aid of Rip Anderson, who happened to be near at the time.

"The ankle isn't broken, but it is badly sprained," Doc Leonard decided. "I don't want you even to try crutches for a few days."

"But, Doc. I've got work to do," Froggie said through set teeth, for the pain was terrific.

"You can study here."

"It's more than studying."

"I am sorry, son, but those muscles must rest or you may have more trouble. You don't want to be laid up next year."

"I don't much care about next year." Froggie blinked back the tears, miserable in body and mind.

They gave him something to quiet the pain, but sleep only came and went, mostly went. Sometime during the night he made his decision, for usually a fellow has to do those things when he is alone. In the morning he sat up in bed and faced the Old Guard when he called.

"Mr. Noble," he said steadily, "I want to cancel my enrollment for next year."

"Cancel it?" The headmaster looked hard at him.

"Yes, sir. I won't be coming back."

"What has happened, Bates?"

"Well, sir, Ill tell you," and he gave him the story.

The Old Guard watched the boy's face as he talked and saw a miniature re-enactment of the old story of the knight and the dragon. None of us can escape it, he thought, it comes even to schoolboys.

"So that is why I am through, sir," Froggie concluded. "The Walrus means a lot to me and I won't sell it down the river."

"It means a lot to all of us." The headmaster smiled in a strange way. "It is priceless, for it can't be bought." He stood up as The Mudhen entered. "The patient is doing fine, Crane. It is immensely encouraging. See you both later."

"He looks sort of shot up," The Mudhen remarked.

"Maybe he thinks I'm a nut for slapping Aunt Emma down." Froggie wriggled his undamaged leg nervously.

"You're goin' to stand up to her, Frog?"

"Yes, Mud." He picked at the hem of the sheet. "I told him I won't be back next year."

"I got to be rollin' along. Chapel in fifteen minutes." The Mudhen turned toward the door.

"You think I'm a nut, Mud?" Froggie asked anxiously.

"No, a fruit."

"What do you mean?"

"A peach." The door slammed.

He actually ran to overtake the Old Guard and they talked earnestly together as they walked up the hill. After chapel exercises Mud took the floor, looking more awake than anyone remembered seeing him. With an eloquence that was real and stirring because it was unstudied, he told the student body about the crisis in Froggie's affairs and how it came about. He went back to the birth of The Walrus and traced its growth step by step to the present moment. He might truthfully have taken no small amount of credit to himself, but he gave it all to the little editor. As his roommate, he knew best how hard Froggie had worked and how conscientiously he had striven to make the paper not merely an answer to his aunt's whim but something really worth while.

All this and much more The Mudhen poured out to the boys. It was a masterpiece of word painting and Bears and Eagles alike were moved by the picture. When he had them solidly lined up for Froggie and The Walrus he sprang the dramatic news that both the editor and the paper were about to be swept over the dam. His references to Aunt Emma were restrained and gendemanly. There was nothing malicious in her actions, he felt sure, it was only that she was misinformed about Dr. Peppergrass. Nevertheless, she had cracked down on Froggie because—though she did not see it that way—he was too square a shooter to sell his self-respect and the good name of the paper for a year's tuition.

"Are we goin' to lose a guy like that or are we goin' to do somethin' about it?" The Mudhen shouted tensely. "I say we can find a way to raise that money and save the Frog. What do you say?"

They made a noise that, judged by its volume, indicated they could and would do just that. Cheese made the first concrete offer.

"I was going to buy a new glove," he said, "but I can get along without it a lot better than without Froggie. I'll put the ten bucks in the kitty."

"I'll match it." Noodle jumped up. "I don't need another pair of shoes, come to think of it."

Half a dozen others were on their feet with offers when The Mudhen raised a hand for silence.

"You guys have the right spirit," he said, trying not to show emotion, "but I know Frog won't accept a handout. We've got to make him think he's earned the dough."

"You can fix that up when you hand it to him," Rip said.

"No, I can't. But I've got an idea. Listen. All the year every one of us has received The Walrus free. Well, why not tell Frog—and it will be the truth, too—that the subscription has been worth two dollars and a half."

"That's quite a price," Skunk Evans remarked.

"Piker!" a chorus yelled, and that settled it.

Taking advantage of the set of the tide, The Mudhen continued, 'That's not all. I'll pay next year's subscription in advance if the rest of you will. There are a hundred and some odd subscribers—that's at least five hundred bucks. What do you say, gentlemen?"

With a few exceptions they approved the proposition, and heaven help the dissenters if they failed to come across with the others.

The Old Guard stood up and looked slowly around and out over the audience.

"Boys," he said, "Bates did a fine thing in taking the stand he did, and each of you has done a fine thing in approving it. I can't tell you how deeply this action of yours has touched me. You are making a real sacrifice to help a friend who deserves help. You should succeed and I believe you will. That is all I have to say at present."

When the meeting was over, Cheese and The Mudhen walked down the hill together.

"Even with a five-hundred buck start we're a long way from the goal line," Cheese remarked.

"You may say that again, brother."

"Mud, you've got to think of something else."

"Why me especially?"

"Because you're the best thinker in school."

"My dear!"

"I'm not kidding, Mud. You have pulled off more stunts than all the rest of us put together. You've got to deliver the goods this time. We mustn't let Frog down."

"No," The Mudhen agreed, half to himself, "we mustn't let Frog down." But deep in his heart he knew that the greatest fight of his life had only begun.

Chapter Nineteen

While Froggie sat in the infirmary, waiting for his ankle to look less like a blimp, the boys, without his knowledge, were carrying on their campaign in his behalf. First, they performed the near miracle of collecting and depositing with the Old Guard every cent pledged for The Walrus subscriptions—five hundred and twenty dollars—including payments by the faculty and libraries. That was something in a school where, at that time of year, the price of a Coke was a problem. A majority of the contributors felt so weak after the operation that they could do no more, but the leaders knew this was no time to throw out the clutch. The sum raised was only a fraction of what was needed.

"What are we going to do, Mud?" Cheese asked desperately.

"Think as we never thought before, my lad."

"I have thought till my head rattles."

"No, no, not loose, aimless thinkin'—precision work is what we need."

"Money is what we need. How are we going to make it?"

'The difficulty is not how to make money, but how to pry it loose from those who have made it," The Mudhen answered wisely.

"How are we going to do that?" Cheese ran his fingers through his curly blond hair.

"I mean it," he said hotly. "This is no Bear and Eagle deal, the whole school is tearing its hair. That is, all except you." Cheese spoke fretfully, as energetic people do when they are at the end of the rope and want to blame others for it. "If you won't do anything more, can't you at least suggest what we can do?"

"Certainly," The Mudhen answered placidly, "in the course of time," and he walked away.

He continued walking until he was in the Old Guard's office, seemingly by appointment. The headmaster sent his secretary out on an errand, and then said, with a sly look in his eye, "It worked, Crane!"

"Ah!" said the Mudhen.

"I spent the past two evenings with Mr. Beeman—playing chess, shall we say?"

"I have heard it requires great skill," The Mudhen remarked solemnly.

"Right." The Old Guard puffed his pipe quickly. "Mr. Beeman has decided to establish a thousand-dollar scholarship to be awarded each year to the most deserving student."

"Wow!" The Mudhen's eyes were almost wide open. "Will Frog get it?"

"Yes—if we can meet one stipulation."

"Oh!" The Mudhen's eyelids drooped.

"Mr. Beeman insists that the student have enough so that with the scholarship his expenses are completely paid for the year. There must be no balance due. His orderly mind abhors loose ends."

"Golly!" The Mudhen sighed heavily. "That means we must raise about a hundred dollars more or lose the scholarship."

"Yes. Can you do it?" The Old Guard watched him. There it was, "you" again. Everyone put the bee on him.

"Seems like we've squeezed the school dry, sir."

"But one more effort is vital, Crane."

"We will do it, Mr. Noble," The Mudhen promised grimly.

"That's the spirit!" The Old Guard chewed his pipe-stem enthusiastically. "Have you any idea as to how it may be done?"

"No, sir. Have you?"

"Not a vestige."

The Mudhen rose bit by bit. "Thank you, sir, for your tremendous help with the scholarship business. May I tell the guys?"

"Mr. Beeman prefers to announce it in chapel tomorrow." I see.

"Nor should we mention our part in it. Nothing to be ashamed of, merely that it pleases Mr. Beeman to believe the thought originated with himself."

"Of course. Let him carry the ball. But I must say you made a nice pass, sir."

"It was a double pass"—the Old Guard grinned—"Crane to Noble to Beeman."

"Touchdown," The Mudhen said, and almost smiled as he went out.

He was crossing the campus when he came face to face with a poster advertising a Legion dance one week from that evening. In other words, in seven days' time people, perhaps hundreds of them, would assemble with money to spend, good money from which they might be easily and legally separated by one employing the right technique. He sat on the grass and stared at that poster through narrowed eyelids. Then he strolled downtown and eventually appeared in the office of Attorney Evans.

"I've been told you are chairman of the committee on arrangements for the Legion dance," he opened.

"That's right." Mr. Evans looked him up and down. "What can I do for you?"

"My name is Crane. I represent the school." He turned a thumb in its direction. "Have you arranged for concessions?"

"Concessions?"

"Yes. If people do much dancin' they'll want soft drinks and popcorn and such things."

"Oh." Mr. Evans was disappointed that his caller was not a client. "If they want refreshments they can go out and get them."

"Don't you think, sir, it would be a drawing card if they knew they could get 'em on the premises?"

"Possibly, but we can't bother with it."

"May the school do it, sir?"

"Um." The lawyer was curious. "Just what do you propose doing?"

"Sell soft drinks and give away popcorn."

"Give away popcorn?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't get the meaning of that."

"Well, everyone who goes to the dance gets all the popcorn he or she can eat. Good corn, too, buttered and salted and bagged. Isn't that attractive?"

"Why, yes. But still I don't see why you give it away."

"Oh"—The Mudhen made an airy gesture—"we enjoy bein' generous."

"Generous my eye!" snorted Evans the skeptic. "You are not feeding the public free popcorn just because you love mankind."

"We are a very altruistic group of young men," The Mudhen assured him gravely.

"Oh, I dare say you are." Mr. Evans was enjoying this unusual kid. "Yet, there must be a catch in this free popcorn offer."

"My dear sir"—The Mudhen looked grieved—"what possible objection can you have to our giving people pure, wholesome, crisp, crunchy, delicious, invigorating, appetizing, taste-titillating popcorn?"

"None!" The lawyer threw up his hands. "Go ahead. As a precaution, though, I shall check with Mr. Noble."

"Do so by all means. Thank you very much, Mr. Evans." The Mudhen bowed himself out.

A few minutes later he was closeted with Cicero in the back room of the Ice Cream Bar. Their conversation was secret, but it may be assumed that he concentrated on the little Italian's well-known warm regard for the boys on the hill. Whatever the method employed, the result was Cicero's promise to supply at cost all the popcorn and soft drinks consumed at the dance. That done, The Mudhen headed back to school with the air of a man who has finished a good day's work.

The night of the dance arrived and so did a great many people, for the boys had advertised the event far and near, stressing the point of gratis popcorn. The townies, under the leadership of one Billy Brown, had gotten together and decided to go for a free treat. If the misguided school kids wanted to give away popcorn their neighbors would cooperate with them one hundred per cent, or farther, if nothing burst. But why were the boys doing it? And suspicion, born of long experience, echoed, "Why?"

Billy got the first bag, tasted it critically, and examined it in the manner of a master detective up against the perfect crime.

"More butter, sir?" Cheese, in white jacket and chef's cap, leaned solicitously over the counter in the refreshment booth.

"No."

"A dash more salt?"

"No." Billy moved away in a maze of thought, for the popcorn was all that popcorn should be. And it was free, you didn't even have to buy anything to get it. What sort of Utopia was this?

Presently, the only thing he was sure of was that he was thirsty. Well, it was only fair to buy a drink from the jerks. He put down a coin on the pop bar and received a cold bottle and a warm smile from Dave Pierce.

"Glad to see you here, old man," Rip Anderson burbled.

"Yeh. Hot night." Billy was perspiring.

"Leave your empty bag here and have another round of popcorn." Rip all but clucked like a mother hen urging a chick to help himself to the worms.

"Might as well," Billy agreed, more than ever mystified.

The evening grew and so did the crowd. Music held sway and perspiration trickled merrily. Round and round the dancers went, stopping often at the popcorn booth, returning again and again to the pop bar.

"Brother!" Noodle dodged over to whisper to The Mudhen. "They're soaking it up faster than we can dish it out."

"Put on more men," the chief ordered.

"Jeepers! it's hot."

"Delightful."

"We're dripping."

"Work in relays."

"The shoebox is 'most full of dough."

"Remember, no I. O. U's."

"Sure. It's all cash."

"Step on it," The Mudhen snapped. "Fill 'em up. Keep 'em rollin'."

They rolled. As a representative case, take Billy and his girl friend. Early in the program he had acquired a partner and treated her generously to popcorn. In fact, he urged her to eat all she could of the delectable stuff. She did. Soon she demanded pop. And more pop. He bought it and changed partners after the next number. That one ate and drank like a castaway rescued from a desert island. He tried a third girl—a fourth—a fifth, and drew a sponge every time.

He counted his money surreptitiously and for the next dance chose the smallest girl in the hall. It was pure mathematics that her capacity should be in ratio to her height, but she was no mathematician and drank three bottles before he could drag her away.

"How about some nice fresh water for a change?" he suggested.

"Water?" She gave him a diluted look.

"It's healthier," Skunk Evans heard him say.

"Do you think so?" She was not deeply interested.

"I know it," Billy declared. "The chemicals in pop are harmful."

"Oh, really? What chemicals?"

"Borozillium and heliotrate." Bill's tongue loosened as his purse strings tightened.

"Definitely? Those awful things?"

"Oh, sure. Let us play safe and get some water in the kitchen."

"Well, if the big boy says so." But anyone could see she was still pop-minded.

He steered her to the water faucet like a pilot making a forced landing. A crash landing, for not one drop of water answered his frantic appeal. The faucet was as dry as the Gobi desert.

"I'll investigate this outrage," he blustered and found the janitor.

The man yawned patiently and remarked, "Seems like everybody wants to drink water tonight."

"Why don't it run?" Billy demanded.

"Dunno, bub."

"It is your business to know."

"Definitely," the girl added through parched lips.

"Mebbe the reservoy's run dry," the janitor hazarded.

"Have you investigated?"

"Naw. It's twelve miles from town."

"Oh, really?" said the girl. "I figure, though, it's jest a busted pipe."

"Well, do something about it," Billy fumed. "I can't git a plumber before tomorrow."

"Do you mean we must die of thirst?"

"Why, no, course not, bub. Buy some pop."

Billy wiped his oozing face. "I have-cases of it."

"You never told me!" the girl pouted. "Where is it?"

"Gosh, it's hot!" Billy ignored her. "Why don't you open the windows? This joint is suffocating."

"Seems like everybody's het up." The janitor yawned again.

"Open the windows, man!"

"Tried. They're stuck. Can't budge 'em."

"So you are going to let us die!"

"I ain't saying what you should do."

Billy looked about hopelessly. On the floor sweating couples were mobbing the pop bar, for thirst was upon them like a plague.

"Let's take a chance on the awful chemicals," the girl begged.

"We might go outside for a while, sugar."

"But, honey boy, I'm definitely thirsty."

"Okay." Heroically he led her to the bar and bought her a drink with his last dime. Then he murmured a polite excuse and disappeared into the night. Other drought-bankrupt swains were doing likewise.

Hours later the weary gang gathered at the bar in the deserted hall.

"How much did we sugar off, Cheese?" someone asked. "Tell you in a minute." Cheese hunched over his figures.

"Step on it."

"Easy does it. Looks like a world's record for pop sales."

The Mudhen leaned against the bar and checked details of operation.

"Have you turned on the water in the cellar, Rip?"

"Yep. It runs in the kitchen now."

"Okay."

"What a lulu that was!" Rip's face glowed with pride and moisture. "Those guys would have soaked up ten bucks' worth of water if they could have got it."

"Did you take the wedges out of the windows, Skunk?" The Mudhen continued.

"Sure, Mud. Not a mark left to show where they were."

"Any popcorn left, Noodle?"

"Cupful."

"That goes back to Cicero."

"In the morning. I'm washed up."

"Any butter, Dave?"

"Just a hunk. But it's no good with all that extra salt we put in it."

At the word "salt" the boys whooped, and well they might, for that humble mineral had played its part well.

"Listen, guys!" Cheese's voice broke in excitedly. "We're in the black one hundred and three dollars and thirty cents!" At which they stopped whooping and yelled.

In due time they finished the job in style. There was music by the school orchestra, remarks by representative Bears and Eagles, a tedious speech by the Bumble Bee and a never-to-be forgotten finale by the Old Guard when he presented Editor Bates with a receipt in full for next year's tuition. Froggie, the big sissy, stood there on his sore leg and wept. Well, why not?

That evening he hobbled across the room and sat on the edge of the table.

"It's been a great day, Mud," he said in a queer voice.

"Yeh," his roommate answered from the big chair.

"And a great year."

"Yeh," faintly.

"It's all due to you. Are you listening?"

"Yeh," indistinctly.

"I couldn't have started The Walrus without you. I couldn't have kept it going without your help. You spark-plugged raising all the money. I—I owe it all to you, Mud."

He paused and through the stillness of the room came a faint snore, for The Mudhen was asleep.

The Mudhen Acts Naturally

chapter 1

The Old Guard, being headmaster, was acting as moderator of the school Town Meeting. He walked to the edge of the platform, stepping lightly as always, and asked, "Is there any further business to be transacted, gentlemen ?"

"Mr. Moderator." A tall, thin, sleepy-looking boy rose slowly joint by joint. He was The Mudhen, symbol of physical lassitude but famed for mental alertness, undisputed leader of the Eagle fraternity and past master at getting things done.

"Mr. Crane." The Old Guard acknowledged him expectantly, for he never tired of the things this boy thought up.

"I have been thinking." The Mudhen paused as though to pull his wits together, a purely dramatic gesture.

"With what?" The impertinent question was voiced by a fat boy, Noodle Perkins.

"You wouldn't understand, being a Bear," The Mudhen retorted, referring to the rival Bear fraternity.

Everyone was in fighting trim that day, as they always were when frat prestige was involved. There were lusty Bear shouts of "We won't take that!" "Throw him out!" "Throw all the Eagles out!" This moved the Eagles to reply, "Yeah!" "Sez you!"

The headmaster quieted them a bit reluctantly.

"You have the floor, Crane," he said, and waited to see what would come of it.

"Thank you, sir." The Mudhen turned around slowly and faced the audience of some seventy-five boys. When he addressed them it was in that earnest, persuasive tone that was one of his biggest guns.

"I feel sure you will all agree with me," he began, "when I say that, though we are too young for the armed forces, there is something we can do for national defense."

"Baby sit so the women can go and fight?" Cheese Eastman asked sarcastically. He was a Bear, as well as the school's outstanding athlete, and resented the suggestion that he was not a man.

"Sure, if that sort of thing appeals to you," The Mudhen replied blandly. "What I had in mind was to tax ourselves five bucks apiece to buy a defense bond that will be payable to the school's gym fund."

"Second the motion!" Froggie Bates shouted. He was The Mudhen's roommate and henchman, a thin boy with a thick head.

"Mr. Moderator!" Noodle Perkins jumped up, as he always did when money was mentioned.

"The chair recognizes Mr. Perkins," the Old Guard intoned.

Noodle turned an anxious round face about the room as he asked, "Do you guys realize that that would take more than three hundred smackers out of our pockets in one hunk?"

"Your math is on the beam," The Mudhen complimented him.

"Three hundred smackers is an awful lot!" Noodle wagged his head tragically. "An awful lot!"

"You're in the groove," Froggie remarked, referring to Noodle's well-known fondness for spending nothing as often as possible.

"Since when did you have so much happy cabbage ?" Noodle jeered, for Froggie was chronically bankrupt. "You should worry."

"I've been worried since I loaned you a dollar a year ago."

"When we get outside you'll have what's coming to you."

"Order in the room!" the Old Guard said sternly. "Order!"

Hoping to avert dissension at this point, so as to gain his end, The Mudhen continued sympathetically, "I know it's a lot of money, but wouldn't it be worth it to feel that we had helped our country?"

"Three hundred bucks wouldn't last the government one second," Noodle said bitterly.

"Right," The Mudhen agreed. "But it's the principle of the thing that counts, the warm glow that comes from patriotic cooperation."

"Go on and glow if you like it," Noodle suggested.

"I am appealing to all of you." The Mudhen made a wide gesture, and he was quite graceful when he was warmed up. "Isn't our school's self-respect worth three hundred dollars? I ask you, isn't it worth that much to feel we have made a sacrifice for the sake of honor, liberty and the rights of man?"

"Listen to old Daniel Webster," Cheese Eastman scoffed. "It takes an Eagle to pour it on."

"We're not Benedict Arnolds," Froggie hurled at him. "We don't put our money first and our country afterward the way Bears do."

"Simmer down, Frog," The Mudhen commanded. But the beans were spilled. In a twinkling the issue switched from national to factional status. Now it was the old, old story of Bears versus Eagles and anyone worth his salt would act accordingly. The Mudhen was perturbed, for his heart was in the proposition he had made. It was his idea and he believed in it with everything he had. Lazy and unemotional though he was, this thing stirred him deeply, so much so that he was ready to lay aside fraternal rivalry and make almost any concession for the sake of unity. Then and there, with all his eloquence, which was considerable when he was awake, he argued, begged and almost wept to win his point.

However, it was no soap. The Eagles supported him to a man, which was reason enough for the Bears to oppose him one hundred per cent. They fought with splendid gusto, plastering each other with language until their wind gave out. Then they voted and the Bears had a majority of one.

The Mudhen was gloomy about it and when he was gloomy he was gloomy. Shaking off the advances of friends, even Froggie Bates, he hunched his shoulders and slowly walked down to Cicero's for a Coke.

"You feela blue?" the little Italian inquired sympathetically.

"Dark blue."

"Can I helpa you?"

"No. There is no hope for a guy who is one hundred and fifty per cent knuckleheaded." The Mudhen put down his glass and wandered out.

Life was the most uninteresting thing he possessed at the moment. It just wasn't worth a hoot, yet there were people who thought it was grand. Such a person was Scotty Lauder. A year ago, fresh from college, he was assistant English professor at school, and next to the Old Guard, the most popular man on the campus. Then bingo! He broke a leg, got a bone infection and had been in the hospital ever since. Now he was more popular than ever, not because the boys pitied him—that word didn't fit Scotty—but because they admired his everlasting courage and his gay defiance of all that Fate had thrown at him. Brother, he could take it in a way that made you proud to know him! If you felt low, a few minutes with Scotty gave you a shot in the arm.

That was why The Mudhen kept ambling until he came to the hospital. Scotty was sitting up in bed, his curly, yellow hair rumpled as it always was when he was having a good day. On bad days he lay stilly and looked at the ceiling.

"Hi, Mud!" he sang out in a way no one would have taken for that of a professor of English.

"Hi, Scotty!" The Mudhen answered because Scotty wanted it that way.

"How did the Town Meeting go?"

"That?" The Mudhen slipped into a chair and continued slipping until he rested on the small of his back. "It was a tragedy."

"You have one of those at least once a week." Scotty grinned.

"Never this bad. Am I dumb!"

"What? The subtle Old Master has come a cropper?"

"Subtle old jughead." The Mudhen groaned. "Listen, Scotty, and you shall hear of the dumbest stunt of my whole career." He recounted what took place at the meeting.

Scotty delighted in the Bear-Eagle feud and his white face crinkled with amusement as he listened to its latest episode.

"You can't expect to win every time," he said, when The Mudhen lay moaning at the end of the story. "You have been stopped by the Bears before and survived."

"Oh, sure, that doesn't mean anything. What gripes my gizzard is the way I asked for it."

"How come?"

"Heck, Scotty, don't you see that I had all the marbles to start with? The idea of buying a defense bond that would later kick into the gym fund was sound."

"Absolutely."

"There isn't a guy in school, even Noodle Perkins, who wouldn't peel off five cabbage leaves for Uncle Sam and Alma Mater—if he had been approached. That's where I flopped. Me, who always strutted myself when it came to dishing out the butter!" A huge moan pulled The Mudhen's chin lower.

"Mr. Lauder," a nurse appeared in the doorway, "are you in pain?"

"No, the cry of anguish came from my friend."

"Is he sick?"

"I'm passing out." The Mudhen opened one eye.

"A swell idea," the girl said and closed the door.

"Not too sympathetic, eh ?" Scotty remarked.

"I don't deserve any sympathy." The Mudhen writhed in his chair. "I had something worth while in sight and I fumbled."

"Don't take her seriously, Mud."

"I'm talking about that bond."

"Oh."

"Instead of putting over a nice public-spirited job that might have been a credit to the school I did nothing but rub the frats' ears together. When peace was necessary I started a war. How far can a diplomat go in the wrong direction?"

"It seems to me that Froggie touched the whole thing off," Scotty said soothingly. "It was not your fault."

"Sure it was my fault." The Mudhen was merciless. "I know the Frog always says the wrong thing. I should have stopped him before he started. Because I didn't, I am to blame. I'm just a plain jughead. No, that's not the word, it flatters me." He got himself together and stood up in a series of hopeless motions.

"You are not going so soon?" Scotty motioned him back.

"Yes. I've probably bushed you with my bellyaching."

"No, no, you have given me something different to think about. This place in itself isn't very productive of new thoughts."

"But you're on the up and up."

"Oh, yes. I will be walking before long." Scotty had said that for weeks. "Swell! Anything I can do?"

"Yes, tell me all that goes on in school. I really live up on the hill. Especially, tell me how this bond business comes out."

"I guess that is wrapped up."

"I don't believe it. It is a big idea, and you are going through with it."

"What more can I do?" The Mudhen drooped against the door casing.

"You once said that a guy can think himself out of any jam if he thinks hard enough." Scotty leaned sharply away from his pillows. "Think, think hard!"

Chapter 2

The Mudhen thought progressively—hard, harder, furiously, desperately. If his brain had been a sawmill it would have turned out enough lumber to build a bridge to the moon. Had such a bridge existed he would have been the first to use it, for the world was a hateful place. He had a good idea, a dilly, his brother Eagles said so, the Old Guard approved it, most of all, Scotty expected him to put it over. That was what hurt most, to think he was disappointing Scotty who had plenty of disappointments as it was. That swell guy lay there suffering all kinds of discouragement, yet he was big enough to be interested in what went on at school. It was Scotty's school, though he had taught there only a year, and its problems were his concern. He was especially intent on having the boys buy a bond for the gym fund and he looked to The Mudhen to ring up the sale.

The Mudhen groaned and writhed and brooded. Seemingly asleep, as was his custom when cogitating in high gear, he put in long hours of silent thought while his carefree companions went on their merry way. The problem was not to sell the bond idea to the Bears, for they favored it in principle, but to maneuver them into a position where they would join the Eagles in voting for it. In view of the deep-dyed partisanship of the two frats that would take some doing.

Then one morning things began to pop. The Mudhen received the first volley from Froggie.

"Gosh sakes!" the Frog squeaked, nearly voiceless with excitement. "Oh, my gosh, Mud! What have you gone and done?"

"Done, little man?" The Mudhen inquired blandly.

"The bulletin board, the bulletin board, the bulletin board!"

"You mentioned the bulletin board?"

Froggie hopped up and down stiff-legged. "The whole school is burned up by that warning for a special Town Meeting. Why did you do it?"

"A warning has to be posted before a meeting can be held," The Mudhen explained patiently and leaned on the table.

"But, Mud, that warning is just plain Communist proper-gander."

"Propaganda is the word."

"You know what I mean. It might have been mitten in Roscoe—I mean written in Moscow."

"But it wasn't. I wrote it myself."

"Oh, my gosh!" Froggie sat on the bed. "And you and Dave and Sam signed—that thing!"

"Don't you know, Frog, that the school bylaws say a special Town Meeting may be held only when three students sign the warning and the headmaster approves it?"

"What!" Froggie came up standing. "Is the Old Guard a Red too?"

"He is as red as we are," The Mudhen answered as he trickled out of the room. Down on the campus he was overtaken and surrounded by Cheese Eastman. The big blond's eyes were blazing and his manner was not one of studied sweetness. "Louse!" he roared.

"The same to you and many of them," The Mudhen returned.

"Listen, you pink puppy. If you guys don't apologize publicly for dragging the name of this school in the mud you'll be thrown out."

"Conserve your energy for the minor activities in which you excel," The Mudhen answered in just the haughty tone that Would keep Cheese boiling.

The Bear leader reacted as promptly as a scratched match and flared, "I can tell you, mister, that no three Eagles can disgrace this entire school."

"One Bear has done so before now," The Mudhen said rather pointedly and wandered away across the grass.

After that, bitter invectives were so thick on the campus it was a wonder the trees did not wither and the paint peel from the buildings. No one paused calmly to investigate the cause of the rumpus; its effect kept them more than busy. Why the three top Eagles had done what they did was beside the point. The plain, shocking fact was that they had composed, signed, and posted to public view a document to warm the heart of Joe Stalin himself.

There it was, where all could read it, and during the day all did read it. Furthermore, as they read they raged and the ragers included all the rest of the Eagles, for they were equally resentful of their brothers' revolting depravity. Never in the history of the school had feeling run so high, never had so few gotten so far under the hides of so many. In fact, for reasons of personal safety, as well as for roast beef and apple pie, the three radicals accepted the Old Guard's invitation to dinner. Boos and catcalls sounded outside while they ate.

"We shouldn't have dragged you into this, sir," Dave Pierce apologized. He was serious-minded without being solemn.

"My consent to the meeting dragged me into it," Mr. Noble said.

"We didn't expect they would tear up the pea patch this way."

"I wouldn't have it otherwise." The Old Guard thumped the table. "Their reaction is magnificent. The way they have risen to defend our American ideals is superb. I can't tell you how much pleasure it gives me."

"More than it will give us if they put on a mob scene at the meeting," Sam Bowman said dubiously.

"I wish Scotty—that is Mr. Lauder—was in on this. It would give him something to think about," The Mudhen remarked. "I will tell him, if I survive tonight. If I don't he will read it in the paper."

"He's a good egg," Dave said.

"Grade A," Sam agreed.

"Do you think he will ever be with us again, sir?" The Mudhen asked earnestly.

"Certainly," the Old Guard answered.

It may be stated seriously that good fortune allowed the meeting to convene without bloodshed. Every boy was there, tense and ready for a fight to the finish. In the front row the three Reds sat together, surrounded by a quarantine area of empty seats. Dave stared intently at nothing; Sam concentrated on chewing gum. The Mudhen slouched in his seat, his hands in his pockets, his eyes half-closed.

"Mr. Moderator." Cheese fired the opening gun.

"Mr. Eastman," the Old Guard acknowledged.

"I make a motion that, as loyal Americans, we refuse to hold this meeting because the whole thing stinks."

"Second the motion!" Noodle shouted.

"You are out of order," the moderator ruled. "In accordance with the school bylaws, the meeting must be held because it has been legally called by a written petition from three students."

"Three traitors," Cheese corrected.

"Lousy commies," Skunk Evans put in, and many voices approved the description.

"Gentlemen!" The Old Guard walked vigorously to the edge of the platform. "This is a country where everyone is innocent until he has been proved guilty, where we have free speech and free assembly. We made the laws by which this meeting was called and it will be conducted as set forth in those laws. First, I will read the warning."

"Mr. Noble, please don't recognize that thing by reading it," Rip Anderson begged.

"It must be read at the opening of the meeting," the moderator answered firmly and read:

"The student body of Watervale Academy is hereby notified and warned to meet in the gymnasium of said Academy on Tuesday, September 18, 1952, at eight o'clock, in the evening to transact the following business, to wit:"

"Let's take a walk." Noodle jumped up.

"Sit down," Cheese growled. "You can't do that to Mr. Noble."

"Oh, well." Noodle sat.

"Article I." The moderator continued. "To see if the school body will vote to petition the school trustees to provide us with Communist instructors and textbooks."

"Ain't that awful!" Froggie cried in honest horror.

Bears and Eagles agreed to that by word and look, and above the hubbub Rip implored the moderator to conclude the meeting then and there.

"Order!" the Old Guard thundered. The noise subsided. "Article II. To see if the school body will vote to replace the Stars and Stripes on the campus flagpole with the flag of the U. S. S. R."

An ugly rumble ran through the room, but this time no one said a word. It was ominous. Dave tightened his belt; Sam clenched his fist; The Mudhen seemed asleep.

"Article III. To see if the student body will vote to send Joseph Stalin a gift valued at not less than three hundred dollars."

Dead silence.

The Old Guard waited for a moment, then asked, "Are there any remarks, before a vote is taken on these questions?"

Remarks ? Of a sudden the gym was so full of remarks that one more would have split the roof. Boiled down to the lowest possible understatement, the audience was unanimous in its wish to liquidate each of the three traitors a minimum of seventeen times.

Dave glanced toward the nearest exit; Sam spat on his hands; The Mudhen rose slowly.

"Mr. Moderator," he said, almost drowsily, "I ask permission to address this meeting."

"Of all the nerve!" someone sneered.

And another added, "That's what you expect from a Red."

"You have the floor, Mr. Crane," the Old Guard said dispassionately.

"Thank you, sir."

The Mudhen turned around and faced the crowd. There were a few boos, but most of the boys eyed him in cold silence, waiting for what he had to say.

"Gentlemen," he began, with his hands still in his pockets, "it is a cinch you want to know what this is all about. Well, it is this way: after the previous meeting some of us put our heads together and tried to figure out why you voted not to buy a bond."

"It costs too much," Noodle shouted at him.

"In your opinion," The Mudhen answered gently.

"I know the value of money."

"You should, Mr. Perkins, you handle more of it than any of us. Your allowance is the largest in school—ten bucks a week."

"That's none of your business."

"Right, but it helps explain things. Being the financier type, it gripes you to think of gambling less than a hundredth part of your income on what you call a poor investment."

"It's a gift, not an investment. We don't get it back."

"Right again. But some people think money put into national defense and school improvement is an investment. You don't."

"I never said so," Noodle denied.

"Watch your step, Noodle," Rip whispered. "He'll tie you up."

The Mudhen looked thoughtfully around the room and went on in a gentle, reminiscent tone, "You guys have all heard of Spike Williams, the best athlete and one of the best eggs this school ever turned out. Spike is in Korea now. He needs a lot of things: guns, ammunition, food, clothing, medicine. It will be too bad if he ever hears that the old school doesn't think he is worth what those things cost and doesn't care about building up the gym fund he helped establish. By the way, he was a Bear."

"What are you driving at, Mud?" Cheese demanded.

The Mudhen gave him a long look. "I'll put it this way," he said. "Every guy who voted against buying that bond the same as said to Spike and to every other man and woman in our services, 'To heck with you! Fight, freeze, starve, die—what do I care? I won't risk five bucks to help you or what you are fighting for.'"

"That's a lie and you know it!" Cheese shouted, after which there was almost more confusion than the moderator could handle.

The Mudhen backed up and sat on the edge of the platform while he waited for order. It was not a comfortable place to sit, but enthusiastic members of the audience would be less likely to throw things at him if he kept in line with the Old Guard. When peace was precariously enthroned again he stood up and said he wanted to touch on the articles in the warning. This was granted by the moderator.

"The first one," The Mudhen reminded them casually, "is about Communist teachers and books for the school."

That started another row, but the Old Guard quieted it.

"You see," the Mudhen explained, "it seemed to us that inasmuch as you guys voted not to support the United States in this business you must be Reds. That being the case, you probably want a Red setup in school."

Another explosion. More hard work by the moderator.

"In the first place, there's a law against it," Skunk Evans pointed out.

"Sure, there is," The Mudhen agreed cheerfully. "And there is an older law that says do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In the case of Spike Williams you ignored the older law, so why not the other one?"

There was a strange silence in the room.

"Now we come to Article II," The Mudhen resumed in a brisk tone. "Shall we replace the Stars and Stripes on the school flagpole with the flag of the Soviet Union? Well, seeing that a majority of you wouldn't give five bucks to keep Old Glory flying we figured you were lousy enough to run up the Red flag."

"It's treason for you to say that!" Noodle yelled.

"Just a moment." The Mudhen held up a hand. "Do you know what treason is?"

"Sure, it's anything that gives aid and comfort to the enemy."

"That's it—like refusing to invest a hundredth part of your Coke and movie money in the cause of freedom. That is treason."

Noodle started to reply, then sat down and his face was the color of a stop light.

"And the third article," The Mudhen went on, "asks if you guys want to send Comrade Stalin a three-hundred-dollar present. We figured that as long as you have the dough and won't use it to help the United States you must be saving it for the man who sees eye-to-eye with you in such things. Or, to look at it another way, by refusing to lend it to Spike and his buddies you have already promised it to Stalin."

"This has gone far enough!" Rip jumped up. "Throw the screwballs out!"

There was muttering and shuffling of feet. Dave and Sam stepped over and stood beside The Mudhen, who looked a foot taller as he faced the crowd, his once sleepy eyes blazing. It was one of those dramatic moments he loved, when he imagined himself as Patrick Henry or some other heroic word slinger.

"Hold it!" He threw up one hand impressively. "This is America where questions are settled by vote, not by violence. Ballot first, then if you must have bloodshed we will not deny you."

"Hooey!" Cheese Eastman laughed unexpectedly. "We may as well face it, guys. Old Mud has taken us for another ride."

"Sir!" The Mudhen exclaimed indignantly.

"Oh, come off your perch, my fine lord! You know you cooked this whole thing up. You took us for a ride and, by golly, it was bumpy enough to wake us up. You did a swell job of showing us to ourselves, Mud. I am ready to put five bucks on the line. What do you say, guys? Do we buy the bond?"

"Wait a minute!" Noodle jumped on a seat. "Let's make it a seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bond." This was, from him, the speech of the year.

While they were roaring their confirmation the Old Guard bent over and said in The Mudhen's ear, "Nice work, Crane!"

"Thank you, sir." The Mudhen yawned politely behind his hand.

Chapter 3

"It paid off pretty well," The Mudhen said next day, when he was telling Scotty about it.

"An understatement if there ever was one." Scotty's blue eyes shone with amusement. "You pulled off some real diplomacy."

"Nothing terrific," the boy said modestly. "I just acted naturally, sir."

"I have asked you to drop that 'sir,' Mud. At least forget it until I am back in school."

"O. K. I hope it won't be long."

"You may say that again." Scotty's lips tightened. "They tell me I am progressing."

"Oh, sure." The Mudhen tried to sound confident, though he had heard that things were not going well with the little professor. "Getting back to the bond, I got hooked in the end, as usual. They appointed me to collect the money and buy the thing."

"You should be able to do that."

"Yeh, the guys really want to pay and they will, a dab at a time, before the end of the school year. But it will take a lot of bookkeeping. I'll have to open an account at the bank to salt down the cabbage, till we get it all. I am not of age so my father will have to O. K. that—a lot of bother."

"Leadership means responsibility." Scotty grinned.

"I didn't lead those guys, I poked 'em from behind." The Mudhen unfolded and stood up. "I'll be seeing you, Scotty."

"By all means. Keep me posted on what's cooking," Scotty called after him.

A nurse came in with an official rustle of starched skirts.

"Did that dreary boy tire you?" she inquired professionally.

"Dreary? That kid is a breath of fresh air."

"I will take my air some other way. May I get you something?"

"Yes, paper and pencil, if you please."

"Going to make your will?"

"No." Scotty's eyes followed The Mudhen down the walk. "I have suddenly decided I want to live a while longer."

It was a commonplace thought but one that The Mudhen's roommate, Froggie Bates, did not share at the moment. Froggie was unhappily employed in running at top speed toward Mr. Beeman's garden. Mr. Beeman, by the way, was a wealthy, middle-aged bachelor who lived next door to the school and cultivated sideburns and flowers. The fact that the boys called him Bumble Bee showed that in spite of his fuzzy ways he was popular with them. Furthermore, his garden was a sanctuary to which they high-tailed it in time of trouble.

Froggie now entered this garden in a manner that suggested a rabbit pursued by a hound. The hound was not visible, but the hunted look on Froggie's face was. Crouching and weaving through the shrubbery, he scooted along the path and slid home between a lawn chair and Mr. Beeman's feet.

"Good heavens!" The Bumble Bee leaned forward and blinked in alarm. "A little more and you would have landed in the fireplace. Didn't you see the fire?"

"Yes, sir." Froggie edged around and sat on the grass behind a table. "It's a very pretty vegetable."

"Vegetable, did you say? The fire is a vegetable?"

"Excuse me, sir. I was thinking of something else when she spoke."

"She spoke? You seem confused, Bates."

"No, sir. Am I late for the dog roast?"

"On the contrary, you are early. The boys won't be here for half an hour."

"I came early to help you get ready—or something."

"Thank you, Bates, but all preparations have been made— frankfurters, rolls, mustard." The Bumble Bee waved a pudgy hand toward the table. "And the fire is burning so there will be coals."

"Plus vitamins." Froggie peeked around the table in the direction of the street.

"What ails you?" Mr. Beeman asked anxiously. "Your conversation is irrelevant and ..."

"Here she comes!" Froggie dived behind the fireplace.

Mr. Beeman looked down the path and saw a woman approaching. She was not the spring-flower type and she walked in the decisive manner of one who has a mission in life and won't be gypped out of it.

"Good afternoon, madam." The Bumble Bee rose politely.

"Have you seen a little boy?" she demanded.

"Er—why, living so close to the school I see many boys." He sidestepped the issue.

"Don't be evasive," she snapped. "I am looking for Edward Bates, my nephew."

"Oh." Understanding came to Mr. Beeman. "I assume you to be the Aunt Emma of whom I have heard him speak." Heard him howl would have been more like it.

"I am." Then she saw the hot dogs on the table and stiffened in her tracks. "May I ask what you intend to do with that poison?"

"Poison, madam?"

"Don't you know that meat in any form will ruin a person physically, mentally and morally?"

"Madam, I do not . . ."

"Well, it will. Statistics compiled by the Raw Vegetable League prove it."

"But I . . ."

"Here are the facts in printed form." She took a booklet from her handbag. "Here is the proof. Read it and you will resolve never to taste or serve any food except uncooked vegetables."

"Dear me!" The Bumble Bee rubbed his sideburns nervously. "I feel sure the boys will prefer sausages."

"Boys! Sausages!" She pronounced the words with the vehemence George III might have used had he found George Washington pie on the menu. "Are you guilty of poisoning young bodies and minds with this horrible stuff?"

"Why—why, I frequently have dog roasts for my young friends," he confessed. "One is in preparation now."

"Thank heaven I am here!" Aunt Emma cried, thus establishing her minority standing. "I had believed I only stopped off, on my way home from the national convention of the Raw Vegetable League, to learn what progress my nephew is making in school. Now I see I was led to protect him and his fellow students from the hideous practice of meat eating in which you encourage them. Will you destroy diat meat at once?" Sixty-nine words without breathing.

"I will not," the Bumble Bee answered firmly.

"Then I will!" And before he could do a thing about it she swept the dogs from the table into the fire.

"Madam, that is an outrage!" Mr. Beeman boiled.

"An outrage has been averted." She glared triumphantly at the ruined franks.

"An outrage," he repeated, "and an insult." He teetered up and down on his toes. "There is no excuse for such an act, madam."

"Indeed there is." Her eyes glittered with the zeal of a crusader who has cornered a heathen. "You have influence with these boys, therefore I consider it my duty to convert you."

"I have no desire to become a convertible—I mean a convert."

"Pooh!" She stabbed him with contempt. "I shall immediately establish a local branch of the Raw Vegetable League, with you as a charter member."

"I refuse to consider it."

"When I have opened headquarters in town we will discuss the matter further. Good afternoon!" She turned and paced back down the path.

The Bumble Bee did not echo her "Good afternoon." It was not a good afternoon; it was a shot afternoon. That woman would curdle milk in a refrigerator at a hundred yards—and she had threatened to return!

"Jeepers!" Froggie faded in from behind the fireplace. "Ain't she a dish of prunes!"

"A less descriptive term would be inappropriate." The Bumble Bee mopped his face.

"If I had known she would follow me I wouldn't have come here and bothered you, sir."

"I imagine you fled blindly."

"When I saw her barge into the dorm I hit the fire escape."

"An understandable act of self-preservation." Mr. Beeman pulled some money from his pocket. "Run down to the corner, Bates, and get more sausages before the boys come."

"Yes, sir. You're a peach." Froggie was away.

At the time, Mr. Beeman was pleased to be called a peach but within a week he hated the word, as well as the words apple, cabbage, carrot and all other fruits and vegetables that could be eaten raw. For Aunt Emma returned, as she said she would, and she kept returning. Being a shrewd lady, when she saw he was a long-suffering man with plenty of money, she determined to make him the kingpin of the chapter of the Raw Vegetable League she was trying to plant in town.

With this in mind she concentrated on him with all the enthusiasm of a fisherman with a six-pound trout. When he refused her lures she swung her net and tried to land him by main force. He kept out of her reach but her efforts roiled the waters of his placid life. Being too much of a gentleman to tell her what he thought, he ducked and worried until in dark moments he wondered if survival was worth the price. Would it not be better to sign the raw vegetable pledge and live in peace? Be a rabbit? Exchange his birthright for a mess of garden sass? Never! He would fight for freedom to the end, and, if need be, go down kissing the flag of liberty with carnivorous lips.

Such a situation had direct bearing on life as Froggie Bates lived it. In one way it was a boon, as it kept Aunt Emma too busy to investigate his school record, which had been her purpose in visiting town. In another way it was a mess inasmuch as it caused acute distress to the Bumble Bee, who was every boy's friend. Not that Froggie was to blame for his aunt's behavior, but the fact remained that if it were not for him she would be doing her crusading elsewhere.

"The way she pesters that poor guy makes me feel like a heel," he confided to his roommate.

"She is pouring it on ?" The Mudhen showed no interest.

"Brother—and how! Camps on his doorstep and gives him the works about the healthful diet and the vitamin content of raw vegetables till the cows come home. You know how she can dish it out?"

"Do I?" The Mudhen shuddered. "I once spent a week at her house as your guest."

"It was an accident."

"Darn near a fatal one."

Froggie kicked a table leg. "I can't let the old Bumble Bee suffer this way just because Aunt Emma bumped into him when she was after me."

"If she hadn't flushed him she would be stalking you now."

"Sure, but still it's a rough deal for him."

"Why doesn't he brush her off?"

"Brush off Aunt Emma!"

"Then let him duck when he sees her coming."

"He has ducked so much he is jittery. I tell you, Mud, I feel awful. Won't you get me out of this jam?"

"Me?" The Mudhen opened his book. "I have my own troubles right now. Besides, I am not to blame because you are related to your aunt."

"Neither am I." Froggie clenched his fists. "It's just one of those things. But I've got to get her off the Bumble Bee's neck. Help me, Mud, you're smart."

"I told you that I have troubles of my own." The Mudhen went to reading.

Froggie slammed the door as he went out.

Chapter 4

The Mudhen relaxed and closed his eyes, a sure sign of heavy thinking. Indeed, he had his troubles. Aunt Emma was not one of them, but the circus was. It would be in town two days hence, on Saturday, and his financial resources were an even ten cents. He tried to think of some possessions he could turn into money, only to realize sadly that his collateral had little sales appeal. A three-dollar watch, a fifty-cent jackknife and a fountainless fountain pen were not items to tempt even a depraved bargain hunter. To be sure, he had the ten bucks that he, as treasurer, had collected toward the annual Eagle feed at Cicero's, but that trust was sacred. Never would he touch the money, except for the common good. So as the circus approached it looked farther away. He had read of ambitious poor boys who carried water to the elephants and eventually owned the show, but he was not ambitious and he did not want a circus. All he wanted was to see this one.

But how? The day wore itself out and his brain was nearly in the same fix, yet no solution came up. There wasn't even a hope to work on. He considered talking it over with Scotty but decided against it for fear he might offer a loan that he could not afford. Anyone who had been in a hospital for weeks and had more weeks ahead of him there should not be making loans. Scotty never mentioned money and it was a pretty sure bet he had little of it to mention.

The next day Froggie's conscience throbbed at a faster clip. Aunt Emma had forced her way into Mr. Beeman's study and for an entire afternoon the vitamin content of raw vegetables filled the room as with a bad smell. Afterward they found the poor man poised between flight and self-destruction.

"She is wrecking his life and I am to blame!" Froggie wailed. "What can I do, Mud?"

"Try jumping in the lake," The Mudhen suggested wearily.

"Don't you have any sympathy?"

"Yes, but home consumption takes all I can manufacture."

"Can't you forget your blasted igloo?"

"Possibly you mean ego."

"You know what I mean. If you weren't a selfish worm you would help me fish the Bumble Bee out of this mess."

"What about my own trouble? Just one dime for the circus tomorrow."

"That's more than I've got."

"You had a dollar last Monday."

"I spent it."

"Dimwit."

"It was a sacrifice," Froggie explained sadly. "I sneaked a buck's worth of garlic into Aunt Emma's hotel room. I thought the proprietor would put her out and she would leave town."

"Obviously no soap."

"It put him out and he left town." Froggie moved away with the air of one who has been socked by fate.

Morning arrived and so did the circus. By noon its sideshows and merry-go-round were making a paradise for youthful eyes, but The Mudhen saw none of it. Grim as a cast-iron bulldog, he sat in his room reading a detective story, reading furiously, for the characters were being badly battered and he liked to have a vicarious hand in it. Such was his state of mind.

Into this atmosphere of murder by proxy barged Froggy, breathless and popeyed.

"Gosh sakes, Mud, we're going to the circus!" he whooped.

"Yeah?" The Mudhen did not believe in miracles, at least the Froggie Bates variety.

"The Bumble Bee is going so she can't feed him raw vegetables. Step on it, Mud!"

"Listen, Frog, I am reading and mustn't be disturbed."

"Listen yourself, jughead. Aunt Emma told him she is going to his house to teach him how to get up a whole meal of raw vegetables. Then she will stay there and make him eat it. Get that?"

"Sounds like her."

"And so as not to be there when she comes he is going to the circus. He invited me to go with him and ask another guy. I'm asking you."

"He is paying the shot?" The Mudhen dropped his book.

"Sure. Burn your toes, he's waiting for us."

For once in his life The Mudhen almost moved swiftly. Within the minute he and Froggie joined Mr. Beeman on the sidewalk and started happily for the show grounds. Happily? How tragically transient that word can be! Before they had gone ten yards Aunt Emma appeared. Where she came from did not matter; she was there facing them at close range, a gleam in both eyes and a bulging shopping bag in one hand.

"Edward!" Her tone wrapped cold fingers around Froggie's neck. "I was searching for you. I have work for you to do."

"I'm terribly busy this afternoon, Aunty dear," Froggie said sweetly.

"Your business can wait," she told him.

"Madam," the Bumble Bee came forward, "your nephew and I are going to the circus."

"Indeed you are not!" She pinned him with a look. "You have an appointment with me at three o'clock to prepare a healthful meal."

"The pleasure must be postponed, madam."

"No!" She stamped her foot. "However, I shall be happy if you will walk to the circus field with me."

"To the circus—with you?" Mr. Beeman would have been less amazed if she had asked him to escort her over Niagara Falls in a washtub.

"Jeepers!" Froggie gasped. "Are you stepping out, Aunt Emma?"

"Don't be silly." She glared at him. "I loath circuses, but I am going to distribute Raw Vegetable League pamphlets to the crowd. And you are coming with me, Edward. It will take us only a few minutes, then we will all go to Mr. Beeman's for a vitamin-rich banquet."

Before Froggie could dodge she grabbed him by the hand and marched him away. The Mudhen and the Bumble Bee, not knowing what else to do, trailed along like loyal compatriots following a comrade to execution. To make it worse, she continued leading Froggie by the hand as though he were four years old and small for his age. Other friends were attracted by the sight and fell in behind. Some of them were Bears, who made remarks that caused the prisoner's ears to glow.

When the procession arrived at the show grounds Aunt Emma opened her shopping bag and came up with an armful of printed matter. Barkers were yelling their heads off, music was playing and the merry-go-round had steam up waiting for customers to arrive.

"Edward," Aunt Emma commanded, "you will distribute these pamphlets to the spectators, please."

"Gosh sakes! I don't want to peddle that stuff," Froggie objected inelegantly.

"Don't quibble, young man."

"Say!" Froggie had an idea. "Give me the price of a ride and I will scatter some of them on the merry-go-round. Lots of people will see them there."

She considered the proposition and accepted part of it.

"It won't be necessary to purchase a ticket," she said. "You can distribute the tickets while the machine is idle."

"No soap," Froggie said. "I haven't the nerve to ask the guy that."

"Nonsense. He should be happy to aid a good cause."

"I just can't ask him unless I buy a ticket."

"Then I will do it myself."

She did. Perhaps the ticket taker was a philanthropist or he may have thought Aunt Emma's presence on the merry-go-round would be good publicity; at any rate he let her pass. She climbed aboard cautiously, for in her opinion it was a sinful device designed to divert money from worthy purposes. Still, the evil might be atoned for if this gilded chariot became instrumental in the work at hand. Taking a piece of string from her bag she bound one of the pamphlets to the arched neck of a red horse so he who rode might read.

To Froggie, who was watching intently, it appeared that the red horse trembled. And then . . . Could it be he imparted his nervousness to the other horses, creating in them a desire to stampede ? Mere fancy, of course, and yet, by golly, they were moving. More than moving . . . Wham! They were off with a jerk and a bounce.

Aunt Emma clutched the reins of the nearest horse as it reared. She threw her arms around its neck and let out a screech that must have ripped the stratosphere wide open. The horse's head went down, Aunt Emma's feet snapped high, but she hung on and made a beautiful landing, astride, as the animal's hindquarters rose to meet her.

The good lady was not an equestrienne but instinct told her to latch on tight if she wanted to taste vitamin-rich food again. Her dress, which was amply fashioned, seemed undetermined about sharing that resolve. It did not stand idly by while making up its mind, but rather it bucked and billowed and tugged at its moorings in a way that was truly breathless.

Aunt Emma was not breathless. She had an amazing abundance of breath which she was using for all it was worth. As the merry-go-round gathered speed, her voice picked up volume and by the time her body was spinning at a mad gallop the vocal part of her was cutting circles all over town. People heard it and ran to see and, when they saw, they realized that here at last was something new in entertainment. The merry-go-round had run away with Aunt Emma and she was running away with the show.

Running? Flying, rather, suspended between heaven and earth and emitting noises foreign to both places. The crowd was enthusiastic. Old gentlemen waved their hats, ladies shrieked, boys disrespectfully offered to bet on the cowgirl. Froggie Bates rolled on the ground. Mr. Beeman leaned against a tent rope. The Mudhen smiled.

All things end. The wild-eyed circus employee, who had been tearing at the engine with wrenches and pliers, finally found a vital spot and the runaway slowed to a stop. Aunt Emma dismounted and stood for a long moment glaring at Mr. Beeman, who was sobbing softly in his handkerchief.

"This is a loathsome town," she finally said in a sub-zero tone. "Thank heaven I am leaving it forever."

She marched away. A red-faced circus official approached to offer an apology but she brushed him off. When she had entirely disappeared, Froggie Bates came from behind a fat man, where he had been hiding, and found The Mudhen.

"Mud," he asked reverently, "how much did you pay that guy to cut the machine loose?"

The Mudhen made no denial to his bosom friend. "It took the ten bucks I had collected for the Eagles' feed," he answered.

"It was worth it, brother."

"But I've got to pay it back. Am I in the soup!"

"Crane," the boys wheeled to see Mr. Beeman behind them, "unintentionally I overheard the conversation." He was still wiping his eyes. "After the show I will take the Eagles—yes, and the Bears too—to Cicero's for dinner. Now for the show."

Arm in arm, the Bumble Bee in the middle, they turned toward the big tent.

Chapter 5

Astride the arm of a chair, Froggie was enacting Aunt Emma's ride for Scotty. The little professor lay back on his pillows and laughed until the watchful nurse popped in to see if he had gone delirious.

"Hadn't this young man better go away for a while?" she asked severely.

"No!" Scotty wiped his eyes. "Throw my medicine out the window if the room seems crowded but admit every boy who calls."

"I don't understand you at all. Not half an hour ago you asked not to be disturbed while you were writing."

"Hang the writing!" Scotty pushed his papers aside. "Very well." She went out briskly.

"Sour puss?" Froggie whispered, cocking an eye toward the door.

"Oh, no. It is just that I have been here so long they consider themselves my guardians. Another six months and I will have to ask permission to sneeze. Not," he added quickly, "that I expect to be here that long."

"Of course not." Froggie sat down in the chair. "You feel better, don't you, Mr. Lauder?"

"Oh, yes. But bone infections take time. Let's get back to the circus. Mud did some quick thinking, eh?"

"That's Mud." Froggie was always proud of his roommate's ability. "He looks as dopey as a rag doll but, brother, his old bean can waltz!"

"When there are tricks to be played on someone." Scotty chuckled.

"You've got him wrong," Froggie said earnestly. "Mud never plays a trick just for the deviltry of it. There is always a serious reason for everything he does."

"Like helping Mr. Beeman get rid of Aunt Emma. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes. He wouldn't give a hoot just to make a monkey of someone. There has to be more to it than that. He won't warm up his brain unless it is to help a guy out of a jam or whittle the Bears down to size or something worth while like that."

"A rather unique characteristic." Scotty jotted a word on his writing pad. "The Mudhen has individuality."

"Maybe so." Froggie was not sure how much ground was covered by that word.

"What is he doing this afternoon ?"

"Collecting money for the bond. That's him again, lazy as a goat but ready to work his head off for a good cause. See what I mean?"

"I am beginning to understand." Scotty jotted down another word.

"Well, I must trickle along." Froggie stood up. "I'll bring you another load of low-down soon."

"Do!" Scotty urged. "By the way, Mr. Beeman told me the other day his nephew is coming to visit him. Have you seen him?"

"No."

"Keep an eye peeled; he sounds interesting—a composer."

"I'll investigate. So long!"

"See you around, Frog."

Coincidentally, at the moment the nephew in question was being launched on the whirlpools and rapids of school life by his uncle. Two eminent members of the Bear fraternity were on the receiving end because they had been cornered while taking a short cut through Mr. Beeman's garden.

"This," the Bumble Bee said, beaming like a cat that has brought in a fat mouse, "is my nephew Rupert, a composer of piano music. Rupert, meet Mr. Eastman."

"Glad to know you." Cheese put out a sweaty hand that Rupert clasped as eagerly as he would a dead fish.

"Chawmed," murmured the clasper.

"And Mr. Anderson."

"How do you do?" Rip also extended a hand that was similarly received.

"Delighted, I am suah," Rupert lied, and with an arty gesture he tossed back his mane of taffy-colored hair.

Obviously he was a pain in the neck but the boys tried to conceal their opinion from the Bumble Bee, who was a good scout and a generous contributor to the gym fund. If he did not resent being attached by family ties to this hunk of custard it was his privilege.

"I guess we'll be wiggling along," Cheese suggested.

"Oh, no, please!" Mr. Beeman stepped in front of him. "I would dearly love to have you hear Rupert play."

"We have to practice this afternoon," Rip explained.

"Oh, I say!" Rupert showed interest. "What do you play?"

"Left end," Rip answered. "Cheese is fullback."

"Athletes!" Rupert recoiled.

"What's wrong with that?" Cheese bristled.

"Oh, not unethical, merely a bit primitive." Rupert looked down as from a great height at the two savages.

"Rupert plays superbly," Mr. Beeman put in, "you must come over to the house immediately and hear him."

"We wouldn't think of troubling him that much," Rip said.

"You wouldn't object, would you, Rupert?" his uncle wheedled.

"It is always a pleasuah to perform foh youah friends," Rupert assured him graciously.

"You are so generous with your talent!" Mr. Beeman clasped his hands. "Come, boys, you must hear him play one of his own compositions."

"Some day when we are not so busy," Cheese promised.

"Nonsense!" The Bumble Bee was so determined that his sideburns quivered. "You must come now."

So they went because they could think of no way out that would not offend Mr. Beeman. It was worse than they expected. The long-hair's diabolical fingers changed the placid living room into a chamber of horrors. Rupert played with the finesse of a bulldozer and the gentle old piano cried aloud at every blow. Its legs trembled; its ivory teeth chattered and the pictures of Grandfather and Grandmother Beeman, that had reposed serenely on its lid for half a century, cast jumpy glances at each other.

So did Rip and Cheese. Brother, what a racket! What a dance of the decibels! Even nerves conditioned to jitterbug music cringed under that avalanche of sound. The boys clung to their chairs, hunched their shoulders and wondered if it would ever end.

It did. With a final crash that suggested the bombing of a tin can factory Rupert threw both hands over his head and swung around on the bench.

"My own composition," he said, as though he was proud of the thing. "Its title is Atomic Rhapsody. It is ultrah-modern in theme and demahnds inspired interpretation."

"Oh—yes." Rip nodded, not sure of the words because he was still partially deaf.

"Ultrah-modern," the composer repeated. "Fawh in ad-vawnce of contemporary efforts. It may be yeahs befoah you heah anything like it."

"That is something," Cheese commented hopefully.

"Beg pahdon."

"I said it's something—that is, I can't find words to express my emotion."

"Out of this world," Rip translated.

"I call it stunning." Mr. Beeman beamed on his ultra-modern nephew.

"Stunning is the word for it," Cheese agreed heartily.

"I hope the whole school may hear Rupert play," the Bumble Bee burbled.

"That's an idea." Cheese turned to Rupert with unexpected cordiality. "Would it be possible to arrange a public exhibition of your talent, sir?"

"Easy!" Rip whispered in a frightened voice.

"Beg pahdon." Rupert eyed him suspiciously.

"I told him to go easy on asking such a favor of a stranger."

"Perhaps I was sort of presumptuous," Cheese apologized. "I guess I am too impulsive when it comes to sharing good things with others."

"A pleasing fault," Mr. Beeman purred.

"Yes, chawming," Rupert agreed, for he had swallowed the butter, spoon and all.

"If we could arrange to have you give a recital at school." Cheese paused as though overcome by emotion. "What an experience for the guys to hear you play your Atomic Rhapsody!"

"A great pleasuah." Rupert's ego was panting audibly.

"Swell!" Cheese caught the composer's hand in a brotherly grip. "A committee from school will call on you to make arrangements. You are a peach, sir! Step on it, Rip, let's spread the news."

"O.K." Rip gave him a queer look and they were away.

Outside and around a corner, Cheese spun on his toes and caught his brother Bear by the shoulders.

"Boy, we've got something!" he chortled.

"Are you nuts?" Rip pulled free and stepped back.

"No. Rupert and his music are our big chance."

"Don't call that stuff music. For Pete's sake, why did you ask the crackpot to play at school?"

"Because he'll win for us at the show Friday night." Cheese danced a jig.

"You are nuts."

"Listen, jughead." Cheese caught him by the arm and began talking fast.

After that they went into conference with brother Bears and then drifted over to Chateau Chew, the school dining hall, for dinner. The meal should have been a completely happy one, for there was plenty of chicken and ice cream, but despite those blessings a subdued verbal slugging match broke out at one of the tables.

"You're a heck of a talent scout, you are!" Cheese growled across at Noodle Perkins.

"How did we know there was such a guy in town?" Noodle defended himself.

"It was your business to know."

"Right under your nose too," Rip chipped in. "There he is visiting the Bumble Bee almost on the campus and you muffed it."

"The guy may not be so hot." Noodle wriggled uncomfortably.

"You never heard him—we have," Cheese said.

"Get a load of this." Rip leaned over the table impressively. "Rupert plays the piano like nobody else on earth and he composes his own stuff. Wouldn't that be a knockout?"

"Then he is too big to play in our little show," Noodle reasoned.

"He is not—that is just the point." Rip glanced across the pickles. "He told us he would play if he was asked."

"Red light!" Cheese warned in a stage whisper. "Do you want the Eagles to get wise to this and grab him?"

At a nearby table Froggie and Skeeter Skillings, Eagle talent scouts, had been all ears. The result was a perfect demonstration of cause and effect, for that very evening Rupert received and accepted an invitation to participate in the show under Eagle sponsorship. Those suckers who had never heard him play were almost as happy as the Bears.

Cheese was so jubilant that he had to tell someone, so he went down to the hospital to see Scotty. It was always safe to confide in him, for he never let a friend down.

"But don't count your chickens before they hatch," Scotty warned Cheese. "You may have a dud that will offset Rupert."

"Sure, but we've already pulled a fast one on the Eagles, Scotty. They took the bait without a gulp."

"Rather slick work," Scotty agreed.

"And even old Mud himself won't wake up till it's too late. Boy, oh boy, is that a dilly!" Cheese went out laughing.

"What did he find so funny?" the nurse asked when she came in.

"Plenty," Scotty answered.

"Tell me."

"Can't until after the final curtain." Scotty looked wistfully at the ceiling. "Wouldn't I love to be there! I have a hunch it will be something for to see."

Chapter 6

It was two days before The Mudhen woke up to the danger that threatened his world. Even then he had to be forcibly aroused, by Mr. Beeman of all people. The Bumble Bee was unaware of the act. All he did was to corner the boy on the street and drag him into the house to hear Rupert play.

The Mudhen never tried to put into words what he suffered during those few minutes. There weren't any words for it anyway because the inventors of the English language had never dreamed of filling such an order. When it was over and the awful echoes of the Atomic Rhapsody had died away, he lay back in his chair and stared at the wallpaper.

"You appear to be overcome," Mr. Beeman twittered happily.

"Yes, sir—overcome," the boy murmured.

"That is the composition I shall play at the school entertainment," Rupert said.

"Oh!" The Mudhen clutched his belt buckle as though a mule had kicked him thereabouts.

"It was so nice of the Eagles to invite him," Mr. Beeman said, and pride occupied the space between his sideburns.

"We always go in for high-class stuff." The Mudhen pulled himself together to fight for a cause that seemed already lost.

"Obviously," Rupert oozed. "It will be a pleasuah to plant the seeds of cultuah in such receptive soil."

"It would be O. K. for us," The Mudhen said, "but perhaps not for the Bears, who aren't so cultured."

"And who are the Beahs ?" Rupert asked.

"The other frat—roughnecks. They don't appreciate the finer things in life."

"The plebeian taste is so distressing." Rupert grimaced.

"Awful," The Mudhen agreed. "So for the sake of the Bears, how about substituting something popular for your atomic thing?"

"Absolutely not!" Rupert clenched his fists. "I strive to raise the standard of cultuah in musical circles and I shall play my rhapsody."

The Mudhen got out of there as soon as he could politely and staggered over to the dorm.

"Frog," he moaned, sinking into a chair, "do you know what you have done?"

"Done?" His roommate looked up from a book.

"Yes—done. You and the other Eagle talent scouts."

"Oh, that. Sure, we've got a swell show lined up."

"Yeah!" The tone was deadening.

"Well, what's wrong?"

"Frog, that long-hair you have signed up will ditch our wagon."

"You're all wet!" Froggie slammed the book shut. "Rupert is a dilly. Why, gosh sakes, he is not only a pianist, he plays his own stuff."

"Have you heard him play it ?"

"Well, no, not exactly."

"Yet you hired him."

"But you see, Mud, Cheese and Rip heard him and they say he is swell. If the Bear scouts hadn't been dumb we would never have got a chance at him."

"You poor innocent lambs!" The Mudhen said compassionately. "The Bears cooked up a hunk of sucker bait and you swallowed it, hook, line, bob and sinker."

"No, sir!" Froggie jumped up to defend himself. "It was us who pulled a fast one on them. We're on the ball, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you." The Mudhen sighed. Then he spoke gently, as to a child: "Frog, in all the world, probably in all the universe, there is not another piano player like Rupert."

"Sure. The Bumble Bee says he stands alone, way up front."

"Right. He stands alone because anyone who heard him play would run in the other direction."

"Have you heard him play?" Froggie asked uneasily.

"I have." The Mudhen shuddered. "The moment he busts out on that program the applause meter will start dropping and by the time he has finished his Atomic Rhapsody it will be sixty below zero."

"No kidding, Mud. Is he that bad?"

"He is. And he's got a personality that would sour the crowd even if he could play."

"Then you—you think the Bears will win ?" Froggie looked sick.

"It's in the bag for them," The Mudhen said mercilessly.

"I won't believe it!" Froggie hopped around. "No, sir! We'll fire Rupert and get somebody else."

"You can't do that." The Mudhen seemed resigned. "You have given your word—the Eagles' word—and you must keep it."

"We'll cancel the contract because of events beyond our control. Big businessmen do that."

"We're not big businessmen; we're peanuts. Besides, the Old Guard wouldn't let us do it because it would make the Bumble Bee sore. The school can't afford to let that happen."

For days after that not much was said about Rupert. The Bears could afford to be silent, waiting for the great moment, and The Mudhen and Froggie, the only Eagles who knew the awful truth, kept it to themselves. When they called on Scotty the subject was not mentioned, but he sensed a tension building up that was bound to pay off in fireworks. Again he cursed the leg that kept him from being there when they went off.

Froggie was in a sweat of apprehension, a slough of remorse and a dither of impatience. His roommate had flown no relief missions his way. But The Mudhen seemed oblivious to the world and its problems. In fact, he was so detached from school life that the day before the show he went for a long walk in the woods alone. Whether he sought solitude or something else was a matter he did not reveal at the time.

The fateful evening arrived on time. Unpleasant events are never late. Word had gone about town that the boys were putting on one of their famous inter-fraternity bouts, which was enough to fill the auditorium. Mr. Beeman sat in the front row, his sideburns quivering in anticipation of Rupert's triumph. Bears, Eagles, faculty and townspeople made up the rest of the crowd. Froggie and The Mudhen were as far back as they could get, the latter's long face wrapped in melancholy.

The Old Guard presided, for, though he had not been well of late, he would not miss this. He explained that the applause meter registered sound as a thermometer does heat and that the sum of each side's three acts would determine the winner. He urged the audience to put performance above partisanship and applaud accordingly. Then they were off.

The Bears opened with a ventriloquist that someone's brother had brought down from college for the week end. They whooped it up for him but the adults thought he was a rank amateur which, together with the Eagles' silence, gave him only four hundred and sixty points.

That was bad, but the Eagles' jazz orchestra was ten points worse. It had always been a good outfit in an honest, small-town way but of a sudden it tried to do big time and flopped. Froggie was so let down that he nearly wept as he applauded wildly. The Mudhen seemed asleep.

"Wake up!" Froggie jabbed him in the ribs. "Wake up and! holler."

"Holler for that?" The other's eyes did not open.

"They're on our side, jughead."

"That is nothing to cheer about either." The Mudhen slumped lower in his seat.

In the second round the Bears put on a skit by the local dramatic club and it was a wow. Those unpretentious players were packed to the gills with talent and the meter gave them eight hundred and eighty-five out of a possible one thousand. Had loyalty not tied their hands the Eagles would have put it over the top. They threw in everything they had after the efforts of their next entry, an Irish tenor postman. He tried hard but, if a pun is permissible, his special delivery was second-class matter, so the meter said seven hundred and thirty.

Round three—the last.

"Gosh sakes, Mud!" Froggie whispered in agony. "We are a hundred and sixty points behind now—and nothing but Rupert coming up!"

"You're telling me!" The Mudhen was awake.

"What can we do, Mud ?"

"Take it."

"How do you feel ?"

"Jittery." It was an astonishing confession for him to make. "I've got to get out of here." He slid toward the aisle.

"Stay and yell for Rupert," Froggie begged. "I can't, Frog, I've got a conscience."

"Forget it."

"I can't applaud that long-haired jerk." He slipped quietly out the back door.

The Bears' final bid was a barbershop quartette, four good men who gave their all to art but could boost the meter to only seven hundred and twenty. Every boy was busy with arithmetic, furiously, almost desperately, busy. The score stood: Bears two thousand and sixty-five, Eagles eleven hundred and eighty. So they needed approximately nine hundred points to win, and their sole hope was Rupert! The Bears leaned back in their seats and grinned confidently. They would have been dumb indeed to have done otherwise.

"Oh, my gosh!" Froggie whispered to the empty chair beside him. "We're licked, Mud! We're licked and I'm to blame!"

Rupert was on the stage, wearing a velvet jacket and flowing tie. Those two items were enough to knock off five hundred points, but on top of that the drip had to make a speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he orated, brushing his long hair back behind his ears, ears that to Froggie's biased vision resembled those of a Spanish donkey, "it is a pleasuah to introduce you to my Atomic Rhapsody. This is an ultrah-modern composition. You will fail to grawsp its significance, its subtle nuances and its scintillating impressionism, but I feel suah that the impact of its sheeah tonal mass will not leave you untouched."

Another five hundred points gone over the dam. Then he began to play. A shudder ran through the audience. Ladies glanced nervously toward the exits. Gentlemen picked up their hats. Only the Bears and the Bumble Bee seemed happy. Rupert was tearing into that rhapsody like a terrie; into a rats' nest, hair flying, arms flailing, body jerking and eyes bulging. The hall was so full of sound that the added squeak of a mouse would have pushed the windows out.

In many ways it was an impressive performance. Then without warning it became more so. Rupert was reaching for a double handful of notes when he ducked, swayed and slapped himself in the face. To the audience that seemed an unusual technique even for an eccentric pianist. Had someone else slapped him it would have been understandable. Stranger still, he gave up his music entirely and devoted his time to shadow boxing.

Nor was that all. Of a sudden he yelped, not an ultra-modern yelp but a primitive one, and leaped to his feet. For a moment, he stood glaring at the piano, then he yelped again and landed a loud slap on the area adjacent to the tail of his velvet jacket Soon afterward his gestures became wild, then wilder, and he went into a spin, a sort of extemporaneous ballet without music

By then the onlookers understood that Rupert was unhappy. It was a pleasant thought after the misery he had caused the and his antics added to their joy. Soon the crowd was roaring, As he pirouetted into the wings, moving so vigorously that one shoe took off into space, he received an ovation that for sheer volume was something to remember.

As the performer vanished on one side The Mudhen appeared on the other and respectfully touched the arm of the Old Guard who had taken refuge in a corner. The headmaster bent his head to catch the boy's words, then stepped over to the applause meter. The crowd fell silent.

"One thousand," the Old Guard announced.

"Then, sir, the Eagles win," The Mudhen said solemnly

"According to the rules of the game they do." And the ensuing cheer showed that the audience was satisfied.

Later that evening the Old Guard passed the hospital and saw a light in Scotty's room, so he got permission from the night nurse to pay a call.

"Mr. Noble!" The little professor was propped up in bed reading. "What brings you here so late?"

"Business." The headmaster grinned and Scotty noticed how thin he had become lately. "I try to keep the faculty posted on school affairs."

"Am I still one of the faculty?"

"Of course you are. That bum leg is only an incident."

"A prolonged one. What has happened in school?"

"We have just had a contest."

"I know. I am dying to hear the score. Did Rupert's Atomic Rhapsody explode as expected ?"

"Then you know about it?"

"I have had both sides of it from the start."

"Do the boys trust you that much?"

"Why, yes."

"Lauder," the Old Guard said heartily, "you have the makings of a real schoolmaster."

"Thank you, Mr. Noble." Scotty blushed. "That is the most encouraging thing I have heard for months."

"It is true, take it from an old-timer. But to get back to what happened tonight."

He recapped the high spots of the contest while Scotty listened closely.

"And now for the denouement." The Old Guard's eyes were dancing. "What do you think happened to Rupert of a sudden?"

"It sounds like a temperamental explosion of some kind."

"Superinduced by what?"

"By The Mudhen, if I know him."

"Right, Lauder. He found a nest of hornets in the woods, concealed it behind the piano, plugged it with a cork, ran a string from the cork downstairs, went down and yanked out the cork at the psychological moment. What a beautiful piece of work!"

"Superb," Scotty said, when he could talk.

"Things like that compensate for the hardships of a schoolmaster's life." The Old Guard wiped his eyes.

"But," Scotty was abruptly serious, "what about Mr. Beeman ? He must never know."

"Naturally—bless his heart! He has my word for it that the hornets came out of the woodwork. They did, too, for basically a hornets' nest is a wood product."

"I hope it won't be necessary to discipline Mud." There was a pleading note in Scotty's voice.

"It will be necessary to lecture him severely." The Old! Guard's eyes twinkled. "But the score will stand. According to the applause meter the Eagles' acts totaled the most points."

"As the boys would put it, you are a swell guy, Mr. Noble," Scotty said warmly.

"Don't be sentimental, Lauder." He stood up. "I must be on my way."

"Thank you a thousand times, sir, for dropping in. It give me something pleasant to think about in the night."

"You don't sleep well?"

"Not always."

"It is tough. I don't either."

"Are you ill, sir?"

"Not officially. A touch of nerves. Good night, Lauder."

"Good night, Mr. Noble."

Chapter 7

The threatened illness the Old Guard had hinted at caught up with him a few days later. It did not put him between the sheets but the doctor promised him it would if he did not lay off schoolwork for at least two weeks. After that, if he had not snapped out of it, he would have to go away for a long rest.

The boys were in a dither when they heard about it. Whether they had known him for four months or four years the threat of life under any other headmaster was tragic. As they passed his window that autumn afternoon they waved to him where he sat in the sunshine. He waved back, which was a sign that he was still interested in the things of this earth.

"I wonder what they are up to now," he said to his wife.

"They look innocent enough," she said.

"Too innocent. And all heading for the back campus."

"Just out for a walk this beautiful weather."

"I wonder. Did you notice they were all Bears, not an Eagle among them?"

"Oh, some deep and mysterious fraternity business."

"I wish I knew." He lay back in his chair. "Those fraternity battles are like fresh air to me."

"You and Scotty Lauder." She laughed.

"I told Lauder the other night he has the makings of a schoolmaster. The boys worship him."

"He is little more than a boy himself."

"Poor fellow!"

"Why do you say that? Isn't he coming along well?"

"Not too well. He is in for a long pull. And the expense Operations, medicine, hospital bills—he won't have a cent left if it goes on many months longer. It makes me sick to— Oh" He winced.

"What you need, James, is farm air," piped a sharp voice fro the doorway as a tall, angular old gentleman ambled in.

"Perhaps so." Mr. Noble wiped his forehead nervously.

"Now let me tell you about the air on my farm."

"Some other time, Cousin Ernest." The Old Guard sto up, trembling under his dressing gown. "It is time for me to rest. Doctor's orders, you know." He went out and closed th door, almost banging it.

"Nervous critter, ain't he?" Cousin Ernest commented as h sat down.

"Yes, he is very nervous," Mrs. Noble said.

"There used to be a feller up near my farm . . ."

"Excuse me." She rose quickly. "I must get James' medicine." She followed her husband.

"Remind me to tell you 'bout that feller later," Cousin Ernest called after her. "He was the nervousest critter I ever see. What you s'pose made him so?"

"His cousin," she said under her breath as she closed the door.

Meanwhile the Bears, in casual twos and three, had sauntered across the back campus by various routes and converged in the school vegetable garden behind the hill. Like all gardens at that time of year it was not a cheerful place; the leaves of cucumber vines were sickly yellow, tall spires of lettuce had gone to seed, tomato vines sprawled hopelessly in the dirt and near the middle of the field the last of the cornstalks had been gathered in a huge stook that stood like a solitary wigwam in a deserted Indian village.

"Well," Cheese Eastman addressed the assembled clan with smug satisfaction, "we put one over on the Eagles this time."

"I'll say we did!" Rip Anderson crowed. "Not one of 'em followed us."

"Yeah!" Noodle said bitterly. "What do you call that thing?"

He pointed toward a corner of the garden. The "thing" indicated was the tall, droopy form of The Mudhen leaning against a fence post.

"How did he get wise ?" Rip raged.

"Search me." Cheese shrugged. "He just naturally knows."

"There's espionage going on here," Rip declared.

"Sure there is," Noodle agreed. "It's time we got rid of some of these espionagers."

"Chase him off," Cheese ordered, sticking out a thumb toward The Mudhen.

"Chase him yourself," Noodle returned. "It's an ambush. Probably a dozen of the stinkers are waiting behind the fence with rotten tomatoes."

"There's one!" Skunk Evans cried.

"Tomato?" Cheese ducked.

"Naw—Eagle." Skunk pointed to the opposite fence, atop of which was perched the person of Sam Bowman.

"It's a heck of an idea if we can't hold a private meeting without those drips spying on us!" Rip kicked a cornstalk.

"Quit crabbing," Cheese said. "After all, they have as much right here as we have."

"You are too liberal," Rip said hotly. "You can't compromise with those outlaws."

"Who's compromising? Let 'em watch. It won't do 'em any good for at this distance they can't hear what we say."

"They'll manage to sneak up and listen."

"Are you guys perfectly helpless?" Cheese exploded. "Latcn onto some of those tomatoes and if an Eagle shows his puss this side of the fence nail him."

That sounded like good advice so the Bears armed themselves and drew back in a close circle around the stook of cornstalks Here and there in the distance Eagles could be seen but it was plain they dared not venture near, much as they wanted to know what was cooking. They were stymied and the Bears made uncomplimentary gestures toward them. Then the Bear got down to business.

"Listen, you guys," Cheese said in a low voice, "the Old Guard is sick and we will be heels if we don't try to cheer him up."

"Send him a postcard shower," Noodle proposed.

"That is sissy stuff," Cheese scoffed.

"How about flowers?" Skunk suggested.

"Worse yet. We should do something original for him "

"Well, wander along," Rip said. "Do you want to handle this ?"

Cheese glared at him. "No, but I wish somebody would."

"Listen to me, then. Some of us think it would be swell to put on a show on my tape recorder and run it off to amuse him."

"What you mean—show?" a voice inquired.

"A real snappy show with music and jokes by us and a sonrt of speech and a few plugs for him. Get the idea? Somethin to let him know the Bears are thinking of him."

"It might help our marks at midyear's," Noodle put in.

"You scheming heathen," Cheese chided.

"So you thought of it too." Noodle ducked behind the corn stook as Cheese hurled a tomato at him. "The recording tape is busted in a dozen places," Rip objected.

"I have mended it and it works perfectly," Cheese answered with dignity.

So they discussed the plan in low tones and agreed on its framework, the details to be worked out later.

"Why couldn't we have done this in the dorm and not hiked way out here?" Rip complained.

"And given the Eagles a chance to spy on us?" Cheese snorted.

"They know something is up." Rip glanced toward the distant watchers.

"But they don't know what it is and they never will because they can't get near enough to listen. This is one time when they can't stick their beaks into our soup."

Cheese felt pretty good about it as he left the garden followed by a triumphant procession of Bears. When the last of them had disappeared The Mudhen, Sam Bowman and Dave Pierce converged on the stook of cornstalks, pulled it apart and released Froggie from the interior.

"Did you get the dope, Frog?" Sam asked breathlessly.

"Sure." Froggie shook himself and spat out a cornsilk. "I couldn't miss a word they said."

"Nice work!" Dave thumped his back.

"Old Mud cooked it up, you know," Froggie reminded them. "It was duck soup once we got wise to their holding their powwow out here."

The Mudhen shrugged carelessly. "Spill it, Frog. We have more undercover work to do."

"It will take some undercovering to put this one on ice," Froggie said dubiously and then told his story.

After that the Eagle General Staff stood around for a while chewing grass stems and talking. "Anybody got an idea ?" Dave finally asked.

"We'll have to bust up that tape-recording business," Sam said.

"Not bust it up," The Mudhen objected.

"It's naturally our first objective," Sam insisted. "It's the key to the whole Bear setup."

"But if it will give the Old Guard any pleasure we mustn' ditch it," The Mudhen said.

"How can he get pleasure out of anything those bacteria do?" Froggie wanted to know.

"He might, being sick and hard up for amusement." The Mudhen stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"He's not that hard up," Froggie said.

"But," The Mudhen said understandingly, "when a guy is sick, just to know people care enough to try to please him bucks him up. We mustn't stop anyone, even the Bears, from trying to amuse him."

"You mean for us to sit and suck our thumbs and let him think the Bears care more for him than we do?" Dave asked hotly.

"I mean we must turn their efforts to our advantage withod hurting the Old Guard," The Mudhen answered vaguely.

"For example?" Dave challenged.

"I don't know. I'm telling you what we should do, not how to do it."

"Yeah? Well, when you figure out how to make the Beas work for us, you let me know." Dave stalked away, almost happy in the thought that he had handed The Mudhen an order he could not fill.

Chapter 8

The Mudhen found himself faced by a terrific challenge. Not only was he pitted against the Bears but for once his own frat brothers were openly skeptical of his ability to deliver the goods. He must outwit his rivals without opposing their worthy project of amusing the Old Guard and he must sustain his own reputation. That was diplomacy that called for a Ulysses.

For all his physical lassitude, he had the spirit of a warrior. The gauntlet had been cast at his feet and he had picked it up. The battle was joined from which he could not withdraw with honor. Though there did not seem any reasonable hope of winning, he struggled with all his might throughout the rest of that day. His mind remained as in an ink bottle at the bottom of a well, not a ray of light penetrating.

But life must go on and little things that mock ambition call for attention. The next morning, as previously planned, he carried an offering of flowers in the Eagles' name to the Old Guard's house. The maid was scrubbing the kitchen floor and told him to wait in the front hall until Mrs. Noble came downstairs. There was no chair available so he drifted into the next room and sat on a sofa, sat and finally dozed. Guarded voices at the foot of the stairs aroused him. "I feel certain, Doctor," Mrs. Noble was saying, "James will never recover while Cousin Ernest is here."

"As I told you, his is purely a nervous condition," Dr. Leonard said.

"You don't need to tell me that," she said wearily. "For weeks he has been cracking under Cousin Ernest's constant strear of talk about his farm."

"Is farm talk especially abrasive to James?"

"No. He enjoys a reasonable amount of it, but when he obliged to listen to it every minute he is home, day after day and month after month—well, it gets him down. It is the constant dripping that wears away the stone. For weeks he has not eaten or slept properly and now he is sick."

"Is this cousin a fixture here?" the doctor asked.

"I don't know." Her voice was worried. "He came last spring planning to stay a while. His doctor said he needed a vacation from the farm. Now it is we who need it."

"Can't you persuade him to leave?"

"James won't allow me to suggest it. Family ties are sacred to him."

"Then it would seem there is little to be done about it."

"But, Doctor, James can't go on this way much longer."

"He must not . . . Hum . . . Does Cousin Ernest show at signs of homesickness?"

"Of course he is homesick. That is why he talks constantly about his farm. The other day he heard a rooster crow and actually wept."

"If he visited the farm animals occasionally around here nostalgia might become overpowering."

"Unfortunately there are no such animals in town. " Mrs. Noble was in no joking mood as she followed the doctor to door and stood talking with him outside.

The Mudhen was wholly awake. A window had opened his mind and light was shining through. As soon as possible he delivered the flowers and went away, so deep in thought that he collided with Cousin Ernest at the corner of the porch.

"Look where you're going, boy," the man barked, reasonably enough.

"Pardon me, sir." The Mudhen backed up. "I was thinking about pigs."

"About what?" Cousin Ernest's eyes began to shine.

"About pigs, sir."

"Do you like pigs, boy?"

"I love 'em," The Mudhen said fervently.

"By Godfrey, you're a smart boy! Now let me tell you about some pigs I've got on my farm." And when The Mudhen finally escaped Cousin Ernest was still talking about them.

During the next few days the boy collided with other people and objects, for his mind seemed to be away from home. Or it may have been present but too busy to observe traffic rules. Other minds were on the hop too. The Bears, happily unaware that their plans were known, worked secretly and furiously on their recorded program, sneaking the machine out at night and rehearsing in a vacant barn outside the village. It was well away from spying Eagles and was wired for electricity, which the owner allowed them to use for a small fee. Their enthusiasm bubbled over to Scotty, who lay in his bed and smiled and thanked heaven for something to think about besides his aching leg.

Meanwhile the Eagles went about their usual business with such a lack of curiosity that their rivals became resentful. They bad hoped for a running fight of wits and so found this Eagle stupidity annoying.

"We fooled 'em so slick the first time they haven't even tried to smell a rat," Cheese boasted.

"It takes the zip out of the whole business," Noodle complained.

"Scotty warned us not to get too cocky."

"Do you suppose he thinks the Eagles are onto us?"

"No." Cheese was positive. "Those guys are asleep."

"I wish they would wake up," Noodle grumbled. "The recording is all made and waiting up there in our room for next Thursday afternoon and they don't give a hoot."

"I tell you, they don't even suspect it exists."

"Heck, they don't even act alive. Not a question out of them, not a thing disturbed in the dorm. Even that night I came back early from the barn they were all in their rooms studying. I like a little competition."

"We did a perfect job, that's the trouble," Cheese said almost regretfully. "We didn't leave a thing for them to work on. Well," he grinned at his roommate, "it will be safe for us to go home for the week end; we won't need to stay and guard the recording."

"Guard it! We could leave it on the gym steps and they wouldn't see it."

"They'll wake up some day. We have done a swell job on that tape."

"I wish all the Eagles could be there to hear it," Noodle said wistfully. "But Mrs. Noble doesn't want a crowd."

"Mud and Frog will be enough to spread the news." Chees went away whistling.

The world rolled around until it bumped into Thursday doing no damage, though at one time in the afternoon there was considerable excitement. That was when they gathered in the Old Guard's living room to hear the tape recording. It was a small group, out of consideration for the headmaster's health. He was over by the fireplace in his dressing gown. Mrs. Noble was knitting while she kept an eye on him. Cousin Ernest crashed the gate and sat by the window, sadly searching the street for a cow or a pig. Cheese and Noodle represented the Bears and had seen to it that The Mudhen and Froggie were invited, just to see them writhe with envy. On a stand in the middle of the room was the tape player, loaded and waiting.

"Cars, cars, cars!" Cousin Ernest addressed the meeting. "I've been here goin' on six months and I ain't seen one mule. Not a mule! I'd give more for a mule team than for all the cars this side of Tunket. On my farm I've got a pair of mules that be mules. Let me tell you about 'em." And he settled down to one of his twenty-minute solos.

Mrs. Noble shot a look at her husband, who was beginning to sweat, and suggested that, as the boys had only a short time between classes, it might be wise to get on with the show. Cousin Ernest yielded grumpily and resumed his search for livestock.

Thus cued, Cheese started the machine and hovered over it like a parent whose only child was speaking its first piece in public. The program opened with the recorded voice of Cheese himself announcing that the Bears were much perturbed by the illness of the headmaster and, as they could not call en masse, they had employed the medium of transcription to bring him their greetings. It was a nice speech and the Old Guard smiled his appreciation.

Now, said the tape in a professional tone, would come the school song played by the Bear orchestra, the Bear chorus coming in on the refrain. Seldom on this earth has there been heard such a burst of instrumental discord, such a complete absence of every element of music in one hunk, as forthwith escaped from that harmless-looking machine.

"Jeepers!" Cheese nearly fell down in his haste to turn the thing off. "Something has gone haywire."

"She has picked up a speck of dust," Noodle said, trying to sound technical. "Remove it gently by the force of air and repeat.

"Eh?"

"Blow on it and try again."

But Cheese was taking no chances. "We'll skip that part," he said and disconnected the speaker for two minutes by watch.

When contact was resumed the machine announced, "And now because Mr. Noble was unable to attend the game last week when the Bears crushed the Eagles by a score of 27 to 21 we will recount the closing moments of the battle exactly it happened."

A voice, obviously Rip's, took over and went on dramatically "The ball is on the Bears' three-yard line. One minute remaining. Can the Eagles break through and tie it ? It is their great opportunity. This is a supreme moment in history. The lines form. The immense crowd is hushed. The defense crouched low, heroically dedicated to defending their proud record. This is it! The ball is snapped to The Mudhen. He is too slow to run, of course, but he will pass to Dave. He turns with snaillike motion and throws the ball in the wrong direction and out of bounds! The great moment has come and gone. The Eagles have lost their golden opportunity. The whistle sounds. The game is over. The weary but triumphant Bears form a ring around their gallant captain, Cheese Eastman. Now listen their cheer. It is that famous old cheer that identifies the Bears as far as it can be heard."

There was a slight pause to emphasize the climax, then through the room in clarion tones rang three long brays of a mule.

"Holy cow!" Cheese pounded on the machine. "Who did that?"

"That's what I want to know." Noodle's fists were tightly doubled. "Who sneaked in and imitated a mule on that tape?"

"That wasn't no imitation." Cousin Ernest was on his feet, his eyes shining. "It was the real thing, by Godfrey! The sweetest music I've heard in six months. Play some more of it, boy."

"More of it!" Cheese's face was a fire hazard. "There shouldn't have been that much of it." He wheeled on The Mudhen. "Have you been monkeying with this thing?"

"I?" The Eagle made a gesture of horror. "Would I knowingly participate in a Bears' program?"

"You introduced that mule somehow, you old crook!"

"Allow me to assure you," The Mudhen replied, with terrific politeness, "if I knew a mule I would consider it unnecessary to introduce him to his brother Bears."

"If you weren't here I'd knock your block off," Cheese said in a furious aside.

"You are confused, little man," The Mudhen purred. "If I weren't here how could you knock my block off ?"

"You come outside and I'll show you what I mean."

"But, Cheese dear, you invited me to hear your recording."

"Let's hear the mule again," Cousin Ernest begged. "He made me plumb homesick."

"I am sure we all want to hear the rest of the program," Mrs. Noble said quickly.

"By all means," her husband seconded. "Go ahead, Eastman.!"

"Yes, sir." Cheese had to obey.

He started the machine again, apprehensively, and heard himself announce in deep tones that the next number was made at a table in Chateau Chew, where the Bears were discussing the day's events. Noodle began to look smug, for he had written that part of the script, which contained many complimentary references to the headmaster and a few tear-jerking regrets at his illness. It was a dilly, Noodle thought. Surely the Old Guard would understand how tenderly the Bears regarded him.

"Yes," the voice said impressively, "this is an on-the-spot recording of typical Bear conversation at dinner."

Again there was a brief pause, then the quiet of the living room was split wide open by a chorus of porcine grunts and squeals. It was as though all the pigs on earth had heard chow call and voiced their approval together. A noise like a Niagara of swine poured off that tape, flooded that room, threatened to drown the universe. Pictures jumped on the walls, window curtains trembled, rugs curled up under the impact of those hungry voices. Mrs. Noble covered her ears. The Old Guard jerked forward, then leaned back and opened his mouth, but the sound of his laughter could not be heard. Redder of face than any apple, Cheese caught up the machine, pulled out the plug and ran through the door. Noodle said something and followed him. On the sofa Froggie hung onto his stomach, while The Mudhen looked about in innocent bewilderment.

Cousin Ernest, too, was deeply impressed. "By Godfrey!" he cried excitedly. "That was beautiful. Them hogs want their corn. Can't you just see 'em rarin' and shovin' ? Wouldn't I like to feed 'em! That's the life." Tears oozed from his eyes.

"Does it bring back old times?" Mrs. Noble asked gently.

"Does it! It fetches 'em back like a landslide. I can't stand it no longer. I can't stand this place with no hogs nor mules."

"We have tried to be kind to you." She took his hand.

"You have been. You've used me like a prince." He squeezed her hand and tossed it aside. "But I'm goin' back to the farm— and I'm goin' now." He ran from the room.

"I will help him pack," she said and followed him.

"Drive him to the bus," the Old Guard called after her.

The two Eagles edged toward the door, but he stopped them.

"I want to know how you pulled that off," he said, as man to man.

"We borrowed the recorder," The Mudhen replied in the same vein.

"When the Bears weren't using it," Froggie inserted.

"And," The Mudhen elaborated, "we took it out to a farm where there are mules and pigs. The farmer is a nice guy."

"A very nice guy," the Old Guard agreed.

"Yes, sir," The Mudhen said solemnly. "Now, if you will excuse us, we will be getting back to school."

"School?" The Old Guard stood up with a bounce. "There will be no school tomorrow. I am declaring a holiday to celebrate my return to health."

Chapter 9

The Mudhen wandered into the hospital office and leaned against the desk. "I suppose," said the nurse in charge, "you want to see Professor Lauder."

"Later," the boy answered. "At present I am interested cats.

"Cats? Have you lost a cat?"

"No, ma'am. I never owned a cat."

"Do you want to own one ?"

"No. I am just wondering if there are any around here, say in the kitchen."

"Why, yes." She chewed the end of her pencil. "I have seen two."

"What color are they?"

"Yellow and white."

"No soap." He shook his head sadly. "I must have a black one."

"But you just said you don't want a cat."

"I don't. A cat is the last thing on earth I want to own."

She eyed him closely and finally remarked, "Yet you are intelligent enough to go to school." "That has nothing to do with cats," he assured her. "Cats aren't on the curriculum. But still, if I weren't in school I wouldn't be in need of a cat because I don't like cats well enough to be looking for one if I didn't want one mighty bad. Do you see what I mean?"

"Exactly. By the way, do they call you Mud because of your ability to make things clear ?"

"No, ma'am," he explained solemnly, "they call me Mudhen because of my graceful lines and pleasing voice. Now I must trot." He meandered down the corridor.

"Good morning, Dr. Crane!" Scotty sang out.

"What do you mean—doctor?" The Mudhen closed the door and leaned against it.

"Mr. Noble has told me how you cured him." Scotty laughed, then caught his breath in a wince that he tried to conceal.

The boy didn't like that wince but he ignored it and answered, "All the Eagles had a hand in that. I wish you had been there."

"So do I."

"It won't be long now, will it, Scotty?"

"It may be, Mud." The little professor picked at the bedspread with his white fingers. "Another operation is coming up."

"No! Not another!"

"It is one more step in the right direction," was the way Scotty put it.

"Golly, you've got what it takes, sir!"

"I asked you to stow that sir until I am on deck again."

"Sorry. It slipped out."

"Now tell me how you fixed the tape recording. I want all the particulars." Scotty settled among his pillows. The Mudhen went into details and his audience of one followed closely, his eyes twinkling. Occasionally he glanced toward the stand where his writing materials lay, but he did not reach for them.

"I guess I've bushed you." The boy stood up after a whil "That nurse will be in my hair."

"Not when I explain that you have given me a shot in the arm.

"I'll play safe and beat it." The Mudhen put his hand on the doorknob, then turned back to ask, "Do you ever see cats around here?"

"Sometimes, on the lawn."

"What color are they?"

"Yellow, with white markings."

"Never a black one?"

"No. Why?"

"Oh, I'm sort of interested in black cats, that's all." Mudhen sighed and went out.

Later in the day he sat in his room deep in thought. He wa so submerged in the stuff that his roommate was obliged to him on the head with a slipper to bring him to the surface.

"Beast!" The Mudhen hissed, partly opening his eyes.

"So you're awake." Froggie laid the slipper on the table, wasn't sure. "You never look any different awake or asleep."

"I was thinking, which is an occupation I cannot share with you." The sarcasm in the words would have withered an alligator at fifty paces.

Not being an alligator, Froggie remarked that he would not care to share the thoughts of one whose mental equipment wa Neanderthal at the latest.

The Mudhen stretched his long, thin body wearily and topped that one with, "Close association with you has established the fact that you brush your teeth with gunpowder, thus facilitating the ease with which you shoot off your mouth."

"If you are so smart, what are you going to do about the black cat?"

"Frog," The Mudhen said seriously, "I was thinking about something else. Scotty has got to have another operation."

They went into a gloom session for a while, but business forced them out of it.

"Getting back to the black cat," The Mudhen said resolutely, "I am going to find him tonight and you are going to help me."

"If I can, sure, but what can I do?"

"I'll tell you later. Now scram and let me polish my plans."

He sighed and closed his eyes. The stump up which he found himself was the result of someone's well-meant attempt at mass entertainment, always a dangerous thing to monkey with. The school social committee, hard pressed for ways to justify its existence, had hit upon the idea of aping the radio show "Truth or Consequences." As a whole it was a success, but The Mudhen hit bottom on the question of how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in his lifetime. So, as he did not tell the truth, he must pay the consequences which, in this case, consisted of delivering to the Old Guard not later than Saturday noon the whiskers taken from a black cat at midnight.

At first thought it seemed easy to pick up such a cat and hold him prisoner until the time came to separate him from his whiskers. The headmaster gave permission to the prospective barber and one assistant to be up and about at that hour, so everything looked to be in readiness. Everything except the cat, for a thorough survey of the town revealed the surprising and depressing fact that the only black cat belonged to Mr. Beeman.

The Bumble Bee was a good neighbor and popular with the boys, yet not one to whom one might say with any hope of success, "How about dropping in tonight and borrowing your cat whiskers?" For besides being a cat fancier he was conservativ in cattish matters and believed that a whiskerless puss was an affront to nature. Thus the only whiskers requisite to the present needs were hedged about with difficulty.

What is a hedge? A mere obstruction that may be removed if circumstances demand it. Now, in The Mudhen's honest opinion, all the circumstances were clamoring for such attention. They said, those circumstances did, that the loss of his whiskers would cause the cat neither pain nor lasting shame as they would soon grow out again. As to Mr. Beeman, he was the owner of the cat, to be sure, but did that fact give him jurisdiction over the cat's personal whiskers? Only a court of law could settle that question and it seemed hardly courteous to annoy a neighbor with a lawsuit. The kind thing to do was to deal directly with the cat.

About eleven-thirty that evening The Mudhen and Froggie entered the Bumble Bee's garden, stepping softly so as not to disturb the sleeping owner. The autumn moon peeped over the hill, then rose on tiptoe to see what was going on. Froggie carried a blanket while his partner was unencumbered except for a pair of scissors in his pocket. According to feline nature and the routine of the Beeman place, the cat should have been on the prowl enjoying the moonlight and the prospect of a mouse or two. As he was a friendly creature, it would be easy to approach him, drop the blanket on him, roll him up in and do a quick job of dewhiskering. Then back to the dorr and to bed.

It was a sound plan but as the minutes passed its success was threatened by the absence of the cat. On untold evenings the critter had strolled the garden paths, yet on this night when he had an opportunity to do his neighbors a good turn he wasn't there. The garden was as catless as mouse heaven.

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie whispered. "What we going to do?"

"Find that cat," The Mudhen answered grimly.

"But if he's not here?"

"Find that cat."

"Well, I'll scout the shrubbery. You try the back porch, he may be asleep there."

The Mudhen moved softly toward the house, which was dark and obviously deep in respectable slumber. Carpenters had been shingling the ell during the day and their ladder leaned against the shed roof in the moonlight, but he carefully avoided walking under it, not wanting bad luck. He did not find good luck either, for the porch was devoid of cats.

The Mudhen leaned against a post in the darkness and wondered what he would do if the cat shortage continued for many more minutes. Civilization would not totter as a result but his reputation would. He, the subtle old fox who was supposed to be able to wriggle out of any jam, would have to admit to the school that he was stopped. The humiliation of it! Why had he not investigated earlier and learned about the catless-ness of the neighborhood ? At the moment there were so many things he did not know.

One of them was that not until Mr. Beeman was in bed and nearly asleep had he remembered that he had left his brand-new bug gun on a garden bench where dew or frost might damage it. Being a true warrior, he valued weapons and had no intention of letting this one rust. A gardener that negligent would deserve to have his petunias chewed by beetles and his pansies gnawed by crickets. He might even expect to be visited by a worse calamity, if one could be imagined. So as he crawled out of bed, put on his slippers, drew a dressing gown over his nightshirt—for the evening was mild—and picked up his flashlight he shuddered at the narrow margin by which he had escaped disaster.

The Mudhen was so bogged down in his own unpleasant thoughts that the first he knew of this nocturnal sally was when the kitchen door opened and a beam of light sprang out, missing him by less than a yard. He flattened against a post and held his breath while Mr. Beeman passed into the moonlit garden, where being a thrifty soul, he snapped off the light. Froggie was somewhere out there and should be warned, but The Mudhen was in no position to alert his partner at the price of calling attention to himself. With his eyes on the garden he waited helplessly for what might happen.

He did not have to wait long. From his elevated stand on the porch he could see around the bend in the path the Bumble Bee was following. He saw a small black animal there. Approaching it from the other direction, with all the stealth of a supervillain, was Froggie, the blanket held wide in his outstretched hands. In the next fateful moment at least two things happened: Mr. Beeman stepped around the bend and Froggie lunged for his prize.

Other things happened immediately. The Bumble Bee, who: was a crime addict through the medium of printer's ink, had read that very evening about a kidnapping in which the victim had been overpowered in a blanket and carted off like a sack of meal. The guy had come out all right in the end but among Mr. Beeman's wildly leaping thoughts there was no such personal assurance. He didn't like meal anyway and he was not going to impersonate a sackful of it, not if his legs held out. Splitting the air with one mad screech, he wheeled and ran for the house, ran with an ease and speed perhaps never before attained by a portly gentleman hobbled by nightshirt and dressing gown.

The Mudhen, though deliciously innocent for once, thought best to be elsewhere. As he slid cautiously from the porch into the shadow of a tree Mr. Beeman caught a glimpse of him. Then the good man was perturbed. He fancied himself surrounded by kidnappers. They were in his garden, on his porch. They might well be in his house, waiting to pounce upon him with blankets. Increasing his speed he began to climb, literally. The carpenters' ladder was handy and he went up it so quickly that the dressing gown was cast off and floated earthward. With a dexterous kick he sent the ladder after it, then went up the staging to the roof of the ell, where he perched on the ridgepole on all fours, outlined in his nightshirt against the full moon. It was an unusual sight.

Or so it seemed to Mrs. Stebbins, his housekeeper, aroused by his voice and the falling ladder, as she looked out her chamber window facing the ell.

"Merciful heaven and earth!" Her voice ascended by leaps like a grasshopper climbing a screen door. "Mr. Beeman! What are you doing out there in your nightie?" She turned her back virtuously.

"Kidnappers!" he yelled. "They tried to throw a blanket over me."

"Why not?" she asked practically, over her shoulder. "You should be covered up."

"Woman, phone the police!" he ordered, trying to regain his dignity—a hard thing to do in his position.

"And tell 'em you're having a nightmare?"

"Attention!" He thumped the ridgepole with his fist. "I tell you they are trying to kidnap me."

"Who is?"

"Gangsters, woman, gangsters! The garden is full of them. They planned to entangle me in a blanket and overcome me with gas."

"What did you say?" She half turned, keeping one eye covered with her hand.

"I said gas. Gas! Don't you smell it?"

Mrs. Stebbins sniffed the air audibly and exploded, "Oh, my goodness!"

"Woman!" Mr. Beeman thundered. "I demand that you call the police at once."

"I won't do it," she refused flatly. "Come in this window and call 'em yourself if you want 'em. If it costs me my job I won't call the cops to hunt skunks."

"Out of my way, woman!" He started hopping along the roof.

"All right, all right." She disappeared and he followed.

Though there was a cessation of sound it could not be said that the night was empty. It was actually overflowing with evidence of animal life. It was amazing how one small animal could distribute so much evidence so quickly. Through the invisible, nose-twisting fog came a hesitant whistle. The Mudhen answered softly and soon Froggie joined him in the shadow.

"Jeepers!" Froggie whispered. "Did I pull a boner!"

"Zero in natural history," The Mudhen said. "But by moonlight they look like cats, Mud." "Get hit?"

"No. But that blanket must be a mess."

"Meow!"

"Go ahead and spread it on."

"I didn't say a word."

"You mewed like a cat."

"I did not."

"Meow!"

"There it is again."

"Hold everything!" The Mudhen stooped slowly, then stepped into the moonlight with a black cat in his arms.

"Gosh sakes!" Froggie gasped. "He must have been asleep somewhere till the rumpus woke him up."

"Kitty, kitty, nice kitty," The Mudhen crooned and scratched behind the cat's ears.

The cat closed his eyes in ecstasy and began to purr. Just then the tower clock boomed midnight and before it finished there was the sound of snipping scissors and the cat bounded away.

Chapter 10

Scotty had his operation the next week. The boys hovered around the hospital and finally closed in, to be stopped by the girl in the office with the usual "He is doing as well as may be expected." That was worse than nothing, for it might mean anything to those who didn't know what was expected.

"If they expected him to die and that's what he has done, then he is doing well," Cheese said bitterly.

"If that had happened they would have told us," Rip put in hopefully.

"They only notify relatives," Cheese gloomed.

"But, gosh sakes, we're his friends, which is more than can be said of relatives sometimes," Froggie burst out.

"Friends don't cut any ice in these joints," Cheese insisted.

"Don't these guys have any hearts?" Froggie demanded. "Are! they all rowboats?"

"Robots," The Mudhen corrected, for the sake of saying something.

"What's the difference?" Froggie snapped. "Neither has a heart."

"You are unreasonable, Frog."

"So are you, when you're awake, which isn't often."

"Cut it out," Dave Pierce growled. "All of us are on edge."

"We wouldn't be if that jughead at the desk knew how to say anything except 'He is doing as well as may be expected.' Jeepers!" Noodle kicked the ground. "Why don't they put a parrot in that dame's place? It would be cheaper and a darn sight better looking."

"She has to say what she is told," Dave defended.

"Yeah? So does a juke box, but it can play more than one tune," Noodle retorted.

"Maybe we feel better than we would if we knew the truth," Cheese added another layer of pessimism to the conversation.

"Holy cow!" Dave cried. "We will all be drizzle pusses if we don't snap out of this. I'm going to ask the Old Guard. If he knows he will tell us." He started up the street and the others followed in an irregular procession.

The headmaster gave them some encouragement, though far from enough. The operation itself was successful, but it would have to be followed by another, perhaps more.

"More!" The Mudhen groaned. "This was the third."

"I know it, Crane." The Old Guard looked gloomy. "It is one of those things that has to do with bone growth, and that is slow."

"Will they ever cure him, sir?" Cheese asked. "Certainly, if his courage holds out."

"And his money," Noodle added.

"It will take a great deal of money," the Old Guard agreed.

"Jeezum, I wish I was rich!" Froggie said longingly.

"If we could only do something for the poor guy," Rip said.

"You can," the Old Guard said. "Call on him often, tell him all that happens every day, make him feel he is as much a part of the school as he ever was. Above all, don't let him think you pity him. Sympathy is fine, but not pity. Scotty is a fighter and doesn't feel sorry for himself or want others to feel sorry for him. Buck him up, as one pal does another, but never, neverlet him feel that you do so from a sense of duty."

The boys drifted away by twos and threes, sober and thoughtful. The Mudhen walked alone, his hands in his pockets, his long face creased by tight lines at the corners of his mouth. He was resentful at the rough way fate was handling the little prof and he didn't care who knew it. It was unfair to dish it out that way to a thoroughly good egg, unjust in the first place and downright mean to keep pouring it on when he was down. The boy raged inwardly at circumstances and because he was unable to do anything about it he had a great desire to take out his anger on somebody.

It was a beautiful autumn day, warm as summer with air soft as a colt's nose, but the mellowness of it was not reflected in his mood. He felt like doing something vicious just to vent his feelings, but at the moment he could think of nothing attractive in that line. Completely out of sorts with himself and the world, he turned into the campus gate and sat down behind the hedge to think. The gardener had been setting tulip bulbs near by and a garden hose ran back to a stand pipe in the shrubbery. The Mudhen drank from the nozzle, sighed, wrapped his arms around his knees and dejectedly watched the street through a hole in the hedge. Usually he found the world a peach of a place in which to be, but at this moment circumstances had switched the peach for a sour apple.

Then he saw it coming down the street. It wore a green beret, a yellow goatee, a purple necktie, a plum-color jacket, green trousers and golden sandals. It actually did, in broad daylight, and it walked with a mincing, flopping gait that suggested a knock-kneed cockroach wading in a pie.

The Mudhen came out of his slump with a bang. One hand pulled the garden hose toward him, the other hand cheerfully cooperated in thrusting the nozzle through the hole in the hedge about four feet from the sidewalk. It was a nice hose and it was filled to capacity with high-pressure water that was itching to be released. It soon was. Perfectly timed and aimed, the eager stream shot forth and found its mark. The beret reeled backward, the sandals flew upward, the trousers went downward until they met the pavement, and, while the target bawled like a stricken calf, the sportive water went merrily to town. The Mudhen faded into the shrubbery, again convinced that life is not so bad if one takes advantage of its opportunities.

Also, one must pay the piper when one dances. Later in the day The Mudhen was called to the headmaster's office, where he learned that piper's fees are high nowadays.

"Crane," the Old Guard opened up, "do you realize what you have done?"

"I, sir?" The boy looked blank.

"Yes, you! And there was no reason for it."

"Are you sure, sir, that I have done anything out of line?"

"Of course I am sure," the Old Guard thundered. "You turned the hose on Mr. Josef Zahone. Don't deny it."

"Honestly, Mr. Noble, I never heard of such a person."

"That is just it! He is a newcomer in town, so there was no excuse for your act. For no reason at all you have mistreated an innocent man who is not only an artist of note but the house guest of Mr. Beeman."

"Whew!" was all The Mudhen contributed to the conversation at that point.

"What have you to say for yourself?" the headmaster demanded.

"Nothing much, sir. I don't know why I did it except that I had to."

"You had to?"

"Yes, sir. You see, I was sore at the whole world because Scotty has to suffer so much pain. I wanted to hit back. It didn't make any difference whom I hit. I felt as though I would blow up if I didn't. So when this guy came along all dressed up like that I just couldn't help letting him have it. It made me fee a lot better. I guess it isn't a very good excuse though."

"It is a very childish one," the Old Guard said sternly, knowing right well he would have loved to have done the same thing himself. "You behaved like a spoiled brat of six."

"Maybe it was one of those irresistible lapses into the infantilism that the psycho prof talks about."

"An interesting possibility." The Old Guard coughed. "I will consider it for two weeks and during that time you will be confined to the campus. If I hear of your being outside the school grounds you will regret it."

"Does that mean, sir, I mustn't call on Scotty at the hospital?" There was real concern in the boy's tone.

"Well," Mr. Noble hesitated, for he knew what those calls meant to Scotty, "under the circumstances you may go there."

"Thank you, sir," The Mudhen said gratefully and withdrew.

There was little visible excitement during the next week.) Scotty seemed much as before and the boys renewed their visits to him. Someone gave him the story of the artist's bath at the hands of The Mudhen and he went after it like a star reporter, but for all his questioning he learned little more. Mr. Zahone was obviously a crackpot but he was the Bumble Bee's guest and it was not fitting to say too much. It was rumored that h had set up a stove in Mr. Beeman's barn and was painting there, which seemed a practical thing to do until it was learned he was painting pictures, not the woodwork. Judging by the man's exterior, his pictures must be cockeyed, but if his host offered no objection no one else should. Or so the boys told Scotty during the first week, though his acute senses detected something fishy in their indifference. He waited impatiently for the developments he knew would come, for it was unnatural for The Mudhen not to follow through and expand an incident in which he had such a personal interest.

"You aren't going to let that artist wither on the vine, are you, Mud?" he asked one evening. "He seems to be a rare specimen that should be pickled in the brine of acquaintance for future study."

"Believe me, I am the one who's in the pickle," The Mudhen groaned. "Scotty, all my dreams of happiness are in the basement with the lights out."

"Is Mr. Zahone mixed up in this disaster?"

"I'll say he is! But, in the first place, Mr. Josef Zahone was born Joe Jones."

"Aha! An impostor." Scotty settled back on his pillows, with a grin.

"A phony," The Mudhen assured him. "Cheese's sister is an artist. We telephoned her and she looked the guy up in a directory or some such thing."

" 'We'? Who else is on his trail?"

"Scotty, every guy in school loathes that stuffed shirt."

"So I have gathered."

"And so does Mr. Beeman."

"I thought Josef was his guest. How come ?"

"He was, but 'pest' is the word for it now. You see, the Jones party has moved in on him and he can't shake him."

"Does Mr. Beeman know he is a fourflusher?"

"Probably not. The Bumble Bee never believes anything bad of anyone."

"Does Mr. Noble know?"

"No, and don't you tell him. Promise that?"

"O. K. But why?"

"It might look as though I am trying to get my sentence repealed by peaching on Josef. No, sir! I'll go through with it before I tell him."

"Regardless of his record, you weren't justified in dunking him from ambush." Scotty spoke as a schoolmaster.

"Maybe not, but I'm glad I did it and I'll take the rap."

"Shucks! Staying on the campus for two weeks isn't much punishment."

"Oh, that! No, that's not so bad, but listen to the rest of it. Josef has asked Mr. Noble for the loan of a boy to help him catalogue his pictures every afternoon from four till six. I am that guy, beginning tomorrow."

"Wow!" Scotty chuckled.

"I told Mr. Noble I don't know anything about pictures. He said it was my opportunity to learn. So that's my sentence— two hours a day with that drip in the barn. No pay, of course. And some guys get only the galleys or the salt mines!"

Chapter 11

The next afternoon at four o'clock The Mudhen went grimly over to the Bumble Bee's barn, which had been a conservative, self-respecting place until Josef moved in with his junk. The boy had too much respect for art to call them pictures. There were scores of the things, Josef being industrious in his way.

"Hi-ya, old sock!" The Mudhen hailed him, for he had decided that the quickest way to finish the job was to get kicked out.

"You—boy!" Josef spun around from his easel so violently that the tail of his pink smock snapped in the wind. "Did you address me?"

"You or the stove. Neither looks too hot." That should do it.

But it didn't. Josef even smiled in a patronizing way as he answered, "You will find me big enough to tolerate your pleasantries."

The drip didn't know he had been insulted. So try again.

"Mr. Noble sent me over to help you," The Mudhen said. "He thinks I will fit in here because I am the biggest jughead in school."

"So kind of the professor." Josef spoke as though the Old Guard had loaned him a wheelbarrow.

"I've been expelled seven times for setting fires," the boy volunteered cheerfully. "It seems cold in here; I'll put in some wood."

"No," Josef said sharply, "it is warm enough for my pictures."

"Those things!" The Mudhen shuddered visibly. Surely that would start something. But Josef was actually pleased.

"I see you are impressed," he said eagerly.

"Impressed ? Brother, I'm pulverized." Not to mention being hopeless and resigned to the worst. "But," he made one more feeble prod, "I thought pictures looked like something—like people or trees or buildings."

"Positively antiquated." Josef tilted his goatee and looked down his nose. "Modern art ignores things that are. It expresses artistic insight. It treats of abstraction and distortion. This," he pointed his brush at something that suggested an overripe summer squash after it had been stepped on by a cow, "this is my conception of love in a garden. Does it move you ?"

"I'll say it does!" The boy started for the door.

"Stop!" Josef stamped his feet making an awful clatter, for he was wearing sabots. "You are my assistant."

"I'm too dumb to get to first base with modern art."

"Your work will be utilitarian."

"I haven't gone that far in school."

"You can read, can't you?"

"Sort of."

"Then we will begin cataloguing my works. I am preparing a list for the International Association of Modernistic Craftmen. It must be typewritten."

"I can't use a typewriter," The Mudhen said, with sudden hope.

"I can." Josef pulled up his smock and sat down at a table where there was a portable typewriter and paper. There was also a pair of spectacles, which he exchanged for the ones he was wearing.

"Perhaps I'd better get some glasses too." The Mudhen again started for the door.

"No." Josef rattled his wooden shoes once more. "We will begin. You will remove each picture from the wall, read aloud the printed title on the back and replace the picture. Remember, boy, you are handling priceless art."

"Art my eye!" The Mudhen snorted in one last bid for the boot.

No soap. Josef only answered grandly, "My time belongs to mankind, don't waste it. The first title, boy."

"You win," The Mudhen moaned and reached for a picture.

In less than an hour he was seething. It was bad enough to be bossed by Josef but to be associated on necessarily civil terms with daubs of paint whose every line and color was an insult became nerve wracking. The titles he was obliged to read angered him by their sheer imbecility: "Woman With Fish and Harpsichord," "Boy With Teapot Playing Marbles In Treetop," "Swans In Flight Before A Barber Pole." Suffering bobcats! If this was art a pig's tail on toast was strawberry shortcake. Had he not told the Old Guard he could take it, The Mudhen would have left the barn fast and for keeps. Furthermore, such was Josef's ability to fuss and fiddle, at the end of two hours they had listed only twelve pictures. At that rate it would take until Christmas.

When it was over for the day The Mudhen staggered out of the barn and found Cheese waiting there. The big, blond brute looked happy.

"How's everything, Mud?" he inquired heartily.

As they crossed the yard in friendly hostility they came upon Mr. Beeman raking leaves in the dusk.

"I trust you had a pleasant afternoon, Crane," he said, with forced cheerfulness.

"You must have a rugged time with that artist, sir," Cheese said. One could always speak as man to man with Mr. Beeman.

"Quite so, Eastman. When I invited him here I was unacquainted with his personality and his intention to move in on me."

"So now you are stuck with him?" Cheese guessed.

"Exactly."

"I wish I could help you, sir," The Mudhen said honestly.

"Crane," Mr. Beeman lowered his voice, "I am not offering a bribe—or dear me, no!—but if someone should persuade Josef to change his place of residence I would present that person with a gallon of ice cream."

"That person will think about it," The Mudhen promised.

"I'll say he will!" Cheese came up on his toes. "The Bears can use that ice cream."

When the Mudhen faced Josef the next afternoon he was cheerful.

"Boy," the artist asked, almost before the barn door closed "do you know a fellow named Eastman ?"

"Yes." The boy smelled a rat.

"His sister, who is an artist, once lived in California ?"

"That might be." The Mudhen was cautious, for the rat was0 becoming more whiffy. "Do you know the dame?"

"I do not. Nor had I met this Eastman until today when he called to see my work. He is keenly interested in modern art."

"Uh-huh."

"A fine chap." Cheese must have spread the butter thick. "He suggested that this damp weather may injure my canvases. His sister believes Arizona is the only place for an artist live."

"I see." Who could not?

"He thinks I should move there."

The Mudhen leaned against the wall and did some fast thinking. Cheese's scheme was crude stuff, yet he would not think of wising up Josef.

"The climate doesn't seem so bad here," the boy ventured.

"It is deceptive." Josef gave a worried look at the pictures. "Eastman found mildew on two of my canvases. See, these."

The Mudhen would have bet his last dime that the spots were either flour or shaving cream but he dared not say so.

"However, I shall make no decision until after my exhibition," Josef announced.

"Exhibition?" The Mudhen raised an eyebrow.

"It has been arranged that one week from today I am to exhibit my choicest masterpieces in the school auditorium and lecture the student body on modern art."

Jeepers! Someone must do something fast. The Mudhen went to work.

"Do you feel well, Mr. Zahone?" he inquired anxiously. "Certainly, boy. Why do you ask?"

"Don't think I am trying to frighten you, but . . ."

"Frighten me?" Josef smiled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I heard of an artist who worked too hard and, before he cracked up, he had the same look in his eyes that you have."

"Pooh." Josef yanked open the table drawer, took out his reading glasses and put them on. "Give me the first title, boy." He turned to the typewriter.

"Yes, sir." The Mudhen read it off.

"Good heavens!" Josef fell back in his chair. "I can't seel Everything is blurred. I feel dizzy."

"I won't let you fall." The Mudhen slipped an arm about his shoulders. "Relax and close your eyes. I will take these off so they won't get broken." He pulled off Josef's spectacles and deftly exchanged them for an identical-looking pair from his own pocket, which he laid on the table. "Easy now. Open your eyes and see if you feel better."

"I—I believe I do." Josef looked around. "The vertigo has passed."

"They say the first spell never lasts long," the boy said cheerfully.

"What do you mean—spell?"

"It's what happens to artists who overwork. The next time . . . but we won't go that far. It may never come if you realize your condition and take a long vacation or something."

Josef put on the glasses and stood up.

"My vision is perfectly normal," he said. "Nothing ails me. You are an alarmist, boy. We must resume work." And they did.

Later, as The Mudhen crossed the garden on his way to the dorm, Mr. Beeman came out of the twilight.

"Any progress, Crane?" he whispered.

"I am not sure, sir. Right now he is hepped about an art lecture at school next week."

"Art lecture!" Tears were in the Bumble Bee's honest voice. "I have endured a perpetual art lecture for days on end. I have heard 'modern art' until I shudder at the words. I have looked at the stuff until I am sick." He paused, then added slyly, "The offer now stands at two gallons of ice cream."

The Mudhen was almost in a coma after that. Two afternoons later he sat in the barn running his concentrator at top speed and pouring on the fuel. Two more canvases were now affected by the "mildew" which he had positively identified as shaving cream.

"Boy!" The hated voice came through the doorway, along with the swish of a smock tail and the clatter of wooden shoes.

"I'm here early," The Mudhen answered valiantly. "I'm just crazy to work."

"Your work is to be expanded." Josef beamed at him. "You are to be my assistant at the art lecture."

"Me?" The boy shivered. "What can I do?"

"You will hold up the pictures before the audience while I dwell on their excellence." He uncovered the typewriter.

The Mudhen felt awful. Must he appear on the stage in front of the whole school with that screwball? Yes. He must show them he could take it. That was that.

"Title, boy." Josef rattled the keys.

With a long, moist sigh of resignation The Mudhen turned to the wall and took down a hunk of canvas. To him it looked like a peck of spinach thrown together around a huge, distorted mouth with one purple lip and one green one. "Meditating Devilfish" it was called.

"Do such critters meditate?" the boy wondered aloud.

"That is beside the point," Josef said. "The intellectual significance of the piece lies in the mouth from which may issue a dark liquid, suggestive of a cloud of sin. This may alter the entire aspect of life for the central figure. I shall explain it fully in my lecture."

"Uh-huh." The Mudhen studied the picture as he waited for Josef to type the title.

"Boy, read what I have written?" The artist's voice had a queer sound.

The Mudhen leaned over the table and after a glance at the paper said it didn't make sense. "Read it aloud."

"It doesn't read, but it spells xrenzotaez er7no5nsg."

"But I—I typed 'Meditating Devilfish.'" Josef rubbed his head.

Gently The Mudhen put the cover on the typewriter.

"No more work for a while," he said firmly.

"You mean I am having another—spell?" Josef was pale.

"Please, Mr. Zahone," the boy begged. "Take a long vacation before it is too late."

Silently, tragically, Josef hung up his smock and left the barn. The Mudhen stayed a while to enjoy the feeling that he was free to go when he chose and then cascaded down the hill in long steps to the hospital.

"We win!" he cried, flopping in a chair beside Scotty's bed.

"Josef has quit?" The little professor's eyes snapped.

"Same as."

"Hot stuff!" Scotty thumped the bed with his fist and scowled when it hurt his leg. "I didn't think it would work."

After school the next day The Mudhen went over to see when the ice-cream payoff would take place and found Mr. Beeman in the garden staring at nothing.

"Has he gone?" the boy whispered.

"Gone!" the Bumble Bee repeated, and it had a hollow sound.

Apprehension jabbed The Mudhen with a cold finger as he asked, "He is going to take a vacation, isn't he, sir?"

"Yes," Mr. Beeman swallowed several times, "he is going to take a vacation."

"Whoopee!" Cheese came around a bend in the path. "Then the Bears get the ice cream."

"Eastman, no one will get the ice cream." The Bumble Bee's voice was knee-deep in woe. "Josef is going to take a year's rest—and live with me!"

"Holy cow!" Cheese gasped.

"And what is worse, if anything can be worse," the poor man continued, "because he believes the barn is damp he is going to move his pictures into the house. I must look at them for a year or have a fearful row with him, and I can't do that."

Mr. Beeman trotted away and two gallons of ice cream melted with a sickening plop.

The boys stared at each other in silence until Cheese said dismally, "We've done it, Mud."

"The situation demands super consideration." Which it got.

Saturday approached as inexorably as the Day of Doom, and it was that in a small way. Josef was determined to give his lecture, so he gave it. No one wanted to attend but the Bumble Bee and the Old Guard had promised and the boys were dragged in. The room was hot, Josef's words were beyond human understanding; his superior air was infuriating and the pictures with which he chose to illustrate his talk would have caused gastric disturbances in a cast-iron ostrich. Merely to sit in the audience was an ordeal, but to be on the stage cooperating with the drip—a sort of human easel holding up canvas after canvas for two hours—was torture beyond anything The Mudhen had known before.

It might have overcome him had he not been cheered by the fact that Josef was boiling because no one applauded.

"I understand that your lack of enthusiasm is due to your ignorance of modern art," he finally burst out. "The swine in the parable were not censured for ignoring the pearls."

Wham! Everyone sat up. The Old Guard's face was seventeen shades redder than red and Mr. Beeman's sideburns bristled straight out.

"Nevertheless," Josef continued belligerently, "I shall now show you my masterpiece. It is one of the gems of modern art, something whose sheer depth of realism may be felt even by you. Boy, hold up 'Meditating Devilfish.'"

The Mudhen obeyed and moved closer to the speaker, keeping the picture between them. The audience groaned when it saw the spinach and the grotesque mouth from which, Josef explained, might issue foul sin that could blot out the beauty of life.

"Gentlemen," he orated, "the way to appreciate the magnitude of this work is to face it, as I am now doing, and scrutinize the picture at close range. In that way I get more out of it than you do."

He did. As he bent close to it a stream of dark liquid shot from between the hideous lips—marvelous realism indeed!— and hit him squarely on the nose. It splattered beautifully and, in keeping with the build-up, acted like sin. Though what Josef immediately said and did was unrelated to modern art, the audience was thoroughly appreciative.

The first clear impression the artist received was Mr. Beeman applauding more wildly than the others, which was some going.

"Beast!" Josef screamed. "That is the kind of friend you arel Very well! Our friendship is ended. Never more will I darken your door," and so on and so on to the vast delight of all present. These did not include the Mudhen, for he had stepped out.

The strangest part was that Josef kept his word: packed up and left town within two days. When it was a sure thing The Mudhen told Scotty about it and gave him a demonstration of how the devilfish functioned by means of a small rubber bulb to which was attached a rubber tube ending in a tiny nozzle. After a while, during which the little professor nearly rolled out of bed laughing, he wandered back to the dorm and found Cheese visiting Froggie in their room.

"Just to see the little guy laugh was worth all we put into it," he told them.

"It was all your idea," Cheese said generously.

"But the mechanical apparatus was your make-up." He handed the squirter across to Cheese. "Cooperation did it."

"I gave you the licorice for the juice," Froggie put in.

A knock sounded on the door.

"Who it is?" The Mudhen shouted.

"I am from Cicero's. There are five gallons of ice cream for you guys outside in the truck."

"Five gallons!" Cheese whooped. "How much of a sport can the Bumble Bee be!"

"Whatcha goin' to do with it?" the boy yelled through the door. "I can't wait all night."

"Coming, angel," The Mudhen answered. "Summon the clans, you bums, there's enough for all."

Chapter 12

They saved some of the ice cream for Scotty and while he ate it a roomful of boys gave him a blow by blow description of the great lecture on modern art. After they left the nurse found him crying.

"Is the pain intense?" She whipped out a thermometer, which was her first line of defense.

"Terrific." Scotty blew his nose angrily because she had caught him off guard.

He yanked his pillows. "Please hand me my writing things."

"You must be writing a book," she said, as she brought the board with its load of papers and pencils.

"What would I write a book about?"

"Boys."

"That is a tougher assignment than you imagine. Any fool can write about adult problems—and most of them do—but it takes a genius to understand the ticking of a boy's mind."

Time stepped along. The boys went home for Christmas, leaving a vacuum in Scotty's room that holiday spirit could not fill. Then they came back and settled down to winter sports, studies and inter-fraternity politics. Scotty knew the latter was bound to flare up again and he waited for it eagerly, but when it came it was, in the beginning, not the fun he had expected.

He learned about it first from J. B., the English professor who doubled as dramatic coach.

"You have only a bum leg to contend with," said J. B. in mock envy, smiling with one side of his mouth as was his habit.

"I will be polite and ask the substance of your trouble," Scotty answered without resentment. "Something in school?"

"Yes, a prima donna."

"In a boys' school!"

"His name is John Crane, better known as The Mudhen." The one-sided smile again. "He is a good actor."

"The best in school, but he feels insulted to be cast as a blonde in a floppy skirt and picture hat. Especially when Rip Anderson is the hero of the play. In fact, the whole Eagle frat is up in arms."

"They will get over it, J. B. A little griping is a sign of health."

"The point is, Mud doesn't gripe, he broods." J. B. toyed with a magazine on Scotty's bed. "It is ruining his ability to act. At this rate his part will be a flop."

"That is bad." Scotty was concerned, for he knew that dramatics was The Mudhen's darling. If he soured on it, all his work might suffer. "Sit down, J. B. We must think of a cure for this."

They talked for a long while and the coach went away with a plan to try. The next morning he tackled The Mudhen bluntly.

"What is wrong, Crane?" he demanded. "You are not the actor you used to be."

"Naturally not, sir." The boy gestured hopelessly. "I am an actress."

"So that is it! Sulking in your tent because you can't have the part you want."

"Well," The Mudhen thought for a moment, "at first I felt sort of that way—yes. Then I decided to make the best of it. But the trouble is I don't know how to act in a skirt. I don't know how to walk or sit down or stand up. I can't get the feel of it."

"Oh, that will come with practice," J. B. said confidently, as though the problem was solved.

"But it doesn't." The actress threw out her hands in dismay. "At rehearsals all the guys watch me and snicker and I get worse instead of better."

"I know you do. But, Crane, you can lick that."

"I would like to know how, sir."

"By practice, as I said. Familiarize yourself with feminine attire. Wear it till you feel at home in it."

"Wear it! You mean I should go around in a skirt all the time? I'll quit school first."

"Don't take me so literally." J. B. laughed. "I mean practice in your room during your spare time."

"In my room? With that roommate of mine?"

"I am sure you can count on Bates' loyalty."

"Even if I could handle Frog the other guys would get onto it."

"Why don't you come over to my house and practice ?" J. B. invited him.

"Alone? Not a rehearsal with the rest of the cast?"

"Yes. My wife has a dress the style of your stage costume. She and I will coach you."

"That is good of you, sir, but I couldn't trouble you that much." The boy shook his head.

"Shucks! It will be a pleasure for us." J. B. meant it.

"But it may take weeks, sir. I can't learn to be a dame in on easy lesson."

"Never mind how long it takes. We can lick this thing in our own way and no one will be the wiser."

So eventually The Mudhen put his fate in the hands of his two coaches. He didn't fancy the idea of slaving to become ladylike but his dander was up. They had cast him as a dame so, by golly, he would be the best dame that ever shook a ruffle on that stage. He would show them that no matter what they dished out he could take it and like it. He would earn their respect if it took his last hairpin.

Under the sympathetic and skillful direction of Professor and Mrs. J. B. he went at it with gusto. Evening after evening he slipped out of the dorm and over to their house, where he parked his personality and donned the heroine's. Clad in a long blue dress, a blonde wig and a sweeping hat, he walked, sat, went up and down stairs, ate, drank and otherwise went through the motions of a perfect lady.

He worked like a dog to learn those new tricks and he got results. After one of the rehearsals at school Rip said with honest admiration, "You're a swell gal, Mud."

"Don't get fresh, squirt," The Mudhen warned in his near-falsetto.

"No kidding, the way you do your stuff makes it easier for the rest of us."

"How definitely super of you to say so, you big handsome man!"

But, for all his pretended scorn of Rip's praise, it gave him a lift. His confidence was returning with a swagger and with it came a desire to share the triumph with his roommate. So he took Froggie into his confidence.

"All that work so you can act like a sissy!" Froggie missed the point as usual. "That's not so hot, if you ask me."

"Sometimes," The Mudhen said wearily, "you have less perception than an underprivileged fishworm. This is one of the times."

"I may be dumb," Froggie admitted, "but I know they insulted all us Eagles when they handed you that gal part and I don't see why you are happy about it all of a sudden. But if you want to wear pansies in your hair and call yourself Agnes it's none of my business."

"Can't you understand, Frog, it is not the part but the way a guy plays it that counts?"

"And can't you understand they slapped us in the face when they gave you that part?"

"I thought so at first, but now I am out to show those birds I can swallow anything they put on my plate."

"I think you're nuts, Mud."

"O. K., think so."

"But," Froggie added characteristically, "if I can help you wrastle this job just push the button and I'll be there."

"You might help, at that." The Mudhen closed his eyes.

"Well," Froggie asked after a while, "you gone to sleep?"

"No."

"Then tell me what I can do to help."

"You see," The Mudhen looked at him, "to polish my technique I am going to doll up and take a walk this evening. The weather is nice and mild."

"Jeepers! You don't mean you are going out on the street in a dress!"

"That's right. If I get by on the street I'll have a lot more confidence on the stage. Get the idea?"

"Sort of. What can I do to help, though?"

"Go along as my boy friend."

"But, Mud, what if we meet someone we know?"

"So what? They'll wonder where you got the dame. In no time you will be Romeo plus."

"Gosh!" Froggie considered that. "I have a feeling we will be putting our heads in a lion's den or something."

"Then stay home under the bed if you're afraid."

"I'll go if you do, you big drip!"

"O. K. Come along."

Chapter 13

The J. B.'s shared Froggie's doubts as to the soundness of The Mudhen's plan, but they were ready to sanction almost anything that might strengthen the boy's faith in himself. If his femininity was not questioned on the street he would gain the assurance he so much needed. So they buttoned him up with care, pinned the hat to his wig, covered the most of him with a long coat and sent him forth to test the ways of providence.

Though Froggie had a large surplus of skepticism, he was loyal to the core and when they reached the sidewalk he took The Mudhen's arm with a gallant gesture and faced the world. And he had to admit that old Mud had something on the ball. He tripped along, laughing and chatting with his escort in a falsetto voice that would have run the blockade at a Junior prom. His beauty, for all his make-up and veil, was not the kind to launch a thousand ships, but there was something about him that suggested he could paddle his own canoe.

They took in the business section of the town, idling along window shopping while Froggie dripped cold sweat for fear the galoot would enter a store and price stockings or perfume or something worse. When they had navigated the crowd in front of a movie house they bore away toward the residential district and Froggie saw with delight that his date was tiring. Even the zest for acting must give way before The Mudhen's inborn aversion to physical exertion. A few more blocks and this mystery ship would be safe in port after the most hazardous voyage the good tug "Frog" had ever made.

Then a mine exploded under her bow—Cheese and Rip came around a corner under a street lamp.

"Hi, you g-guys!" Froggie tried to sound nonchalant and missed by three hundred and ten points out of a possible three hundred.

"Hi-ya, Frog!" And though the other two were Bears they made wolf noises as they passed.

Froggie glanced back and saw them doing a double take. Instinctively he knew it would be fatal, for The Mudhen's stern was the most unconvincing part of his hull.

"If it's not Mud I'll eat a toad!" Cheese exploded, and they raced back to confront the damsel.

The Mudhen knew the jig was up and made no attempt to escape.

"You old crook from way back!" Rip cried.

"I am practicing acting," The Mudhen made a clean breast of it. "I want to see if I can pass for a dame."

"You didn't get away with it," Cheese crowed.

"I did several hundred times before you guys came along. That is not a bad score," The Mudhen said complacently.

"In the night."

"I wouldn't be afraid to try it in the daytime."

"I bet he could walk right into a house and make people think he is what he looks like," Froggie said stoutly.

"Yeh, what he looks like," Cheese jibed.

"I'm not so sure he couldn't do it," Rip said, for he appreciated his brother actor's ability.

"Want to try it?" Cheese's eyes had a sudden glint.

"No." The Mudhen stood on one foot and swung the other. "These darn shoes hurt my feet."

"I dare you," Cheese threw at him. "Dare me to what?"

"Listen, in this week's school paper didn't you see the Bumble Bee's ad for a maid ?"

"Advertised for a dame in our paper?" Froggie sounded shocked.

"He put it in just to help the paper, but I happen to know he wants a maid to help Mrs. Stebbins who doesn't feel well," Cheese explained. "Mud, I dare you to go up there right now and apply for the job."

In the creed of a good Eagle one thing above all others is law: never refuse a dare from a Bear. Never give those despicable varmints a chance to throw out their chests and say they stopped a member of the rival frat. The Mudhen seemed unimpressed, but he was thinking fast. Mr. Beeman was a trifle slow at putting two and two together and he was also myopic, which would help. If the house lights weren't too bright there would be a chance of pulling the gentleman's leg, an attractive possibility in itself, not to mention wrapping up the dare at the same time.

"I'll do it," he accepted grandly. "If you guys want to see how an actor works, come along."

They went and they saw. When Mr. Beeman answered the doorbell his pudgy form was nearly concealed by a long rubber apron. Beside him stood a bulldog whose facial expression was as reassuring as a truckload of TNT.

"Dear me!" The Bumble Bee's sideburns quivered with embarrassment. "I hope you will pardon my attire."

"Definitely," The Mudhen said sweetly, keeping an eye on the dog. "I'm Myrtle Tewksbury. I heard you want a maid."

"Yes, indeed!" Mr. Beeman bobbed his head. "Mrs. Stebbins needs assistance. Please come in."

The dog muttered something under his breath to the effect that he was allergic to maids.

"And your friends also," Mr. Beeman added, peering through the doorway.

"They are kids from school," Myrtle explained. "I have worked there so I brought them along as sort of references."

"How nice! Good evening, Bates, and Eastman, and Anderson. How kind of you to come."

"No trouble at all, sir," Cheese said truthfully.

"Myrtle is bashful with strangers," Rip said.

"The dog won't bite, will he?" Froggie asked anxiously.

"Oh, no," Mr. Beeman smiled confidently, "Alfred is a lamb. I am keeping him for a friend who is away on business."

The lamb sniffed Myrtle's dress and made a noise quite unlike anything usually found in a junior sheep's vocabulary.

"Go away, doggie," the maid suggested, edging into the hall.

"Come right into the sitting room." The Bumble Bee led them past a washtub of water that stood near the foot of the stairs. "This is the day to wash the rubber plants. They have become so large it is easier to carry the tub to them than them to the tub." He motioned toward three small trees that stood in a huddle as though dreading the bath.

"I just love flowers," Myrtle trilled.

Mr. Beeman smiled toward a chair. "Please be seated Miss— or is it Mrs. Tewksbury?"

"I am unmarried," Myrtle answered demurely. "Yes, yes, a mere girl."

"I am seventeen, sir."

"A tender age, a mere rosebud, if I may say so." The rosebud's three escorts looked hard at the rug, but Alfred walked back and forth in a stiff, unsocial manner. "Do you like dogs, young lady?" Mr. Beeman asked.

"They fascinate me," Myrtle confessed. "Have you noticed how Alfred gazes at you?"

"Definitely."

"Dogs have a way of appraising strangers."

"Yes, sir."

"Now as to your qualifications." The Bumble Bee became businesslike. "I suppose you are familiar with housework."

"I was raised by a good mother." Myrtle cast her eyes down.

"I am sure you were." Mr. Beeman stroked his sideburns thoughtfully. "But I feel constrained to consult Mrs. Stebbins inasmuch as you would be her assistant. Excuse me for a moment." He trotted from the room.

"Nice going, Mud!" Rip whispered.

"Rosebud!" Cheese giggled.

"I don't like that pooch," Froggie confided.

"He is a stinker," Myrtle declared frankly.

"Grrrr!" Alfred commented.

"Ignore him," Cheese advised. "He'll know it if you are afraid of him. Animals have a sixth sense."

"So have I," Myrtle said, "and it doesn't tell me to ignore that kind of noise."

"Red light!" Rip warned.

Mr. Beeman entered with the middle-aged housekeeper, who at once went to work on Myrtle. This was the real test and the rosebud met it magnificently. The results were so good that Mrs. Stebbins suggested they go upstairs to look at the maid's room.

Myrtle demurred but Mrs. Stebbins insisted that she remove her coat and follow her. Froggie gallantly assisted her out of the coat and the two ladies went up the stairs, with Alfred as rear guard. There was something sinister in the way the mutt did it, as though righteously aware that he had been chosen by fate to play a part.

At the top of the stairs he got his cue. Myrtle, who he knew well was phony, casually put out a hand toward a small table that was littered with miscellaneous articles. So she was a thief, eh ? Alfred lunged, but his feet slipped just enough to shorten his aim by an inch. With a snap like a bear trap his teeth caught the sleeve of Myrtle's dress. Right then The Mudhen cast aside pretense and stood forth for what he was—not a timid girl but a husky youngster who was plenty scared. With his other hand he grabbed Alfred's collar and began twisting, at which the dog let out a growl that would have set Daniel Boone looking for Ol' Betsy. Mrs. Stebbins also raised her voice, which was in excellent working order and ascended with the rapidity of a rocket ship.

An angry bulldog is a bad thing to have on one's hands. The Mudhen's urgent wish was to get rid of this one as soon as possible. He raised both arms and swung Alfred, who straightened out gracefully in the air and sideswiped Mrs. Stebbins amidships. The good woman was so upset that she rolled over on the floor and then went bumping merrily down the stairs, completely at the mercy of gravity.

At the very moment of her downfall Alfred's collar broke, the dress sleeve gave way. The Mudhen spun off balance and dog and boy joined the lady on the downward path. Their combined descent formed a cataract of feet, elbows, petticoats, fur, displaced banister, yells, screams and growls. Even when the mass came to rest among the rubber plants several moments passed before the individual elements could be identified.

The Mudhen broke away first and stood half crouching as he tried to get his feet under him amid the tangle of his skirt. Alfred came next, fast. The Mudhen leaped for the piano, but the dress stayed with the bulldog. Cheese, always calm in a crisis, snatched up a rug and enveloped Alfred, a by-product of the maneuver being an upset chair that landed on Froggie's shin. Rip came around right end to help Cheese but met the Bumble Bee instead. The old gentleman skidded and slid under a corner whatnot which collapsed, crowning him with a framed picture of Uncle Eben Beeman. Cheese, Rip and Froggie converged on rug-wrapped Alfred, carried him to the door and threw him out.

Even when he was gone the sitting room was not what it used to be. The furniture was scattered, Mr. Beeman sat on the floor surrounded by the whatnot and its cargo of bric-a-brac and on top of the piano stood The Mudhen wearing only his B.V.D.s. Suddenly Mrs. Stebbins, who had been temporarily mislaid, rose from the wreck of the rubber plants, pointed a condemning finger at the late Myrtle Tewksbury and screeched, "She's a man!" After which the horrified housekeeper took a backward step, swayed and sat in the washtub of water.

Everything had happened that could happen, so eventually the tumult petered out. Standing amid the debris, the Bumble Bee glared at the shivering Mudhen.

"Crane," he said sternly, "I demand an explanation of this prank."

"Prank!" The boy made a hopeless gesture. "I was only practicing."

"Practicing!"

"Yes, sir. I was given a feminine part in the school play." He paused, then laid it on thick. "I thought if I could deceive a person of your keen intelligence I would be able to act convincingly on the stage. It was sort of an experiment for art's sake, sir."

Whatever Mr. Beeman thought, he only said, "Very well, Crane, but I suggest that in the future you conduct your experiments in a circus ring or some other place suited to your talent."

"Yes, sir," The Mudhen answered humbly.

Chapter 14

The school play was a success. The heroine did a ladylike job, though it was far less interesting than the one put on by Myrtle Tewksbury. The most satisfactory part was that The Mudhen had shown the world he could rise above circumstances and do handsomely in a part that he disliked.

It gave him confidence in himself and on the strength of it he tackled the task of collecting the monthly installments on the defense bond the school had bargained for at the beginning of the year. The boys were willing to pay but often considerable time and patience were required to dig up the necessary lettuce. The Mudhen was a relentless collector and by February first, half of the seven hundred and fifty dollars was credited to his account in the bank. At that rate they would be able to buy the bond during the last week of school and present it to the treasurer of the gym fund as part of the Commencement exercises. The whole school might well be proud of that and The Mudhen found no little satisfaction in the fact that he had sparked the idea.

For those reasons his sky would have been blue and sunny if it had not been for Scotty. Not that the little prof was gloomy. He was the most cheerful one of all. Everyone knew that his sunshine was homemade at terrific cost to himself. He was not doing well. The recent operation was successful in itself but it revealed the dismal prospect of long months of building up to still another one. That one, the doctors said, would mean a cure, if he had the courage to fight that long. And if, though it was never mentioned aloud, he could find the money to stay in the running. He had a heavy load to pull and it brought anguish to the heart of every boy in school that they could do so little to help.

The Old Guard encouraged the comradery that existed between Scotty and the boys because of its good effect on the professor's morale. When Scotty suggested turning the local government over to the boys for a day to give them an insight into civic problems the headmaster approved and left the details to him. The town authorities cooperated and with considerable publicity announced that on the following Saturday, in so far as would not endanger public safety, all offices would be filled by potential citizens from the halls of learning on the hill. The mayor-for-a-day and his underling officials would be elected by ballot at a meeting in the gym at eight o'clock Thursday evening, a placid arrangement on the surface but pure dynamite underneath when it was remembered that the Eagle and Bear fraternities had exactly the same membership. To break that tie would be a problem for masterminds.

The Mudhen thought he had solved it by arranging to have five Eagles treat Noodle Perkins, a Bear, to strawberry shortcake at Cicero's during Thursday afternoon, for it was known that Noodle could not resist eating free food and that strawberries gave him the hives. It worked nicely. Before evening Noodle had blossomed out so flamboyantly that he was sentenced to the infirmary.

Whistling a happy tune, The Mudhen strolled up to his room and found a note from Froggie on the table:

Skunk had to go to Randolph to get film for his camera. He hired a taxi and invited me and Skeeter and Pink. We will be back early to vote. We don't get a free ride every day off that guy. Frog.

The Mudhen sat down weakly, for he knew the jig was up. That taxi containing three Eagles would not return until the voting was over. With diabolical cunning the Bears had tempted their three most gullible opponents and no matter what it cost it would be worth it, for it would give them the election by a majority of one. It was too late to do anything about it unless he actually disabled a couple of Bears, which, even if it were possible, would be too obviously gangster tactics. Old Mud, who prided himself on his ability to think himself out of any fix, was stopped by the stupidity of those saps. And the blow was doubly crushing because the saps were brother Eagles. It was almost too much.

But not quite. After a session of thought he set his jaw and went over to the gym to the election. The balloting was, as he knew it would be, cut and dried from start to finish. He fought hard to have it postponed until the absent voters appeared but that was voted down. He might have told the whole story to the Old Guard but it would have been too much like squawking, so he held his peace. The Eagles had been outsmarted and he for one was not going to crab in public. He could at least deny the opposition that much pleasure.

As it was, the Bears got altogether too much joy out of life, for not only did they elect their slate, starting with Cheese for mayor, but as a parting insult to the Eagle clan and The Mudhen in particular they chose him to be inspector for the Department of Health, a position which suggested poking into drains and examining the public dump. It was the spoils system at its worst and it stank, but what could be done about it? Refuse to serve? No, sir! The proud brotherhood of Eagles would show the world!

Before returning to the dorm he went over to the hospital and aired his emotions to Scotty.

"The whole thing is a crooked deal," he said vehemently. "But what can you expect from that gang?"

"What about Noodle's hives?" Scotty could not keep back a grin.

"That is one of those things," The Mudhen answered vaguely.

His ears told him Froggie was in the corridor.

A moment later a nurse put her head in the door and asked if Mr. Lauder could stand another of those kids. Yes. She said he must like punishment and he threatened to report her for being cruel to children. Presently Froggie was admitted, wild-eyed and panting.

"I've - been - to - the - dorm - and - heard - what - happened - and -I -thought-I-would-find-you-here-hello-Mr. Lauder-it's a-frameup-Mud," he poured forth.

"Easy, Frog, easy." The Mudhen pushed him into a chair. "This is a hospital room. Control yourself."

"I'm so mad I'm all decontrolled," Froggie puffed. "We've been framed, Mud!"

"It is possible," his roommate said calmly.

"You know darn well it is more than possible—it is is!"

"Meaning it is not not."

"You're a nut." Froggie pushed him out of the way. "Scotty, they hired that taxi driver to stall his car twelve miles from home and keep it stalled till election was over."

"Can you prove that ?" Scotty asked.

"Well, no, I can't prove it, but I know it didn't just happen. You should have seen Skunk grin when she stopped."

"What did the taxi driver say?"

"Nothing much, even when we called him a gangster. And Skunk didn't either. He didn't need to, he had us."

"Sure he had you," The Mudhen said, "and it was your fault. Why did you guys go with him ?"

"For the ride." Froggie twisted his fingers.

"Well, he took you for a ride and there is nothing we can do about it now." The Mudhen kicked a chair leg.

"Gosh sakes, Mud!" Froggie leaned toward him. "Are you going to fold up and let the Bears make a monkey of us ?"

"Am I?" His roommate gave him a scornful look. "You lose the election for us and then ask me to save our bacon. How unreasonable can a guy get?"

"But, Mud," Froggie was almost in tears, "the honor of the frat hangs in the balance. Think hard, Mud."

"Why didn't you drips do a little thinking of your own ?"

"We were dumb, I guess," Froggie confessed miserably.

"Right."

"But you—you've got sort of a legal mind or something."

"It will take an illegal mind to dope out a comeback to this one," The Mudhen said. "How about it, Scotty?"

The prof shook his head. "I don't see a thing you can do."

"We can protest the election on the grounds of dirty politics," Froggie said fiercely.

"You can't prove the taxi didn't stall accidentally." Scotty shook his head again. "If it was a natural stall you are the victims of accident. If it was arranged by the Bears you we outsmarted. In either case, bellyaching will do no good."

"We are not bellyaching," The Mudhen said grimly. "Come along, Frog. Good night, Scotty." The boys went out.

The roommates exchanged few words after that and those no few were not of high quality. In fact The Mudhen spoke to no one as he went drearily about the duties of life the next day. At four o'clock in the afternoon he sat with his feet on the study table, his long, thin body limp and his nimble mind flitting from thought to thought as a bee makes the rounds of a flower garden.

"You still there?" Froggie asked from the doorway.

"I am about to wend my winding way worldward." The Mudhen yawned.

"Gosh, Mud, it's awful!" Froggie flopped in a chair. "I've just seen Rip in his borrowed uniform. He'll be a cop tomorrow and strut up and down the streets with all the girls watching him."

"Why not?" The Mudhen murmured. "Rip is a good looker so why shouldn't the gals give him the gander?"

"But gosh sakes!" Froggie writhed. "If you were mayor tomorrow I might be a cop, then the girls would look at me!"

"Possibly. Dames do the darndest things."

"And now all I will be is assistant to a one-horse inspector in the Department of Health!"

"The knowledge of work well done is sufficient compensation for mature minds," The Mudhen intoned, as he rose and moved toward the door.

"You make me so mad, Mud! Are you going to take it lying down ?"

"I would love to lie down," The Mudhen answered wistfully, "but duty says I must sally forth to the mayor's office and acquaint myself with the duties of my new post. So long!" He oozed through the door.

Chapter 15

The next morning at nine o'clock The Mudhen meandered into the office of Mayor Cheese Eastman and sat in a leather chair.

"Nice place," he remarked, after languidly eying the furnishings, which included a blonde secretary. "A guy could idle away a day here and like it."

"Did you say idle?" Cheese frowned importantly across his desk. "There is work enough here for three men."

"You can handle it, Mister Mayor," the visitor purred.

"I shall do my best. I am fortunate in my office staff." Cheese rolled an eye or two at the secretary.

"And how!" The Mudhen sighed.

"Have you been briefed, Inspector, or must I take time to do that?" the mayor asked briskly.

"I knew you'd be busy so I dropped in yesterday and got the dope from the other mayor."

"Thank you." Cheese meant it, for he had no idea what a Department of Health Inspector was supposed to do. "Do you have a full schedule?"

"Yeah." The inspector sighed again. "Lots of routine inspecting—food, water, you know what I mean."

"Yes, yes, of course I know." Cheese swung around in his swivel chair. "There is always work to be done. Will you please take a few letters, Miss Greene."

"Yes, sir." The girl snapped into it, though the corners of her mouth quivered.

"Why not sign my card first, Mister Mayor ?" The Mudhen sounded less than half awake.

"What card?" Cheese swung back impatiently.

"Routine thing." The inspector reached in his pocket. "It gives me authority to examine samples."

"Sure, sure, I understand. Where is it?"

"Right here, Mister Mayor." The Mudhen laid a card on the desk and carelessly covered part of it with his fingertips. "Put your name across the bottom and I'll be on my way."

With a great show of high-power ability Cheese snatched a pen and scratched his name on the card.

"There you are, Inspector," he said snappily. "That makes it official. Now get on with your work and don't bother me unless something develops you can't handle."

"Yes, sir, Mister Mayor." The Mudhen took the card and ambled away.

In the street he met the Assistant Inspector, who was boiling like a small teakettle.

"Hey, Mud!" Froggie burst out. "That big jerk Rip Anderson just bawled me out for not crossing between the stripes, just because he's a cop for a day he picked on me and made me a public spectacle."

"I trust you suffered your persecution calmly, son."

"I didn't dare sass him, if that's what you mean. He'd have run me in and then the Bears would have had something on us."

"Right. Never let a Bear get away with anything."

"They are riding high today."

"The day is young. Where is Officer Anderson ?"

"Who?"

"Rip."

"He's up by the bank, strutting back and forth."

"Come along, Frog."

They found Rip standing on the curb in his shining uniform, which did wonders for his husky figure and his by no means puny ego. It was a warm day for winter but he was basking more in the public eye than in the sunshine.

"Hi-ya, Inspector!" he sang out. "Didn't they give you even a tin badge to wear?"

"I have a card," The Mudhen answered politely, though he was acutely conscious of the insult.

"That's all you need in your kind of a job."

"Right. Officer, can you tell me where Apple Lane is ?"

"No. Why?"

"I want to know how to get there."

"Have you got to investigate a dead cat or some other menace to public health?" Rip grinned derisively.

"One never knows what one may find," The Mudhen answered blandly. "Please direct me to Apple Lane."

"Find it yourself. I don't know where it is."

"Officer, you are a public servant." The inspector gave him a cold stare. "I have made a courteous request and I expect a courteous answer."

"You give me a gripe."

"Be careful of your language while on duty, Officer."

"You've got me there," Rip admitted good-humoredly. "Well, come down to headquarters and I'll get the dope for you."

"Iwill wait here," The Mudhen declared. "Lazy dog!"

"Officer, must I report you to your superiors?"

"Aw nuts!" Rip growled. "Come along, Frog, you can be errand boy for His Lordship the Inspector."

"You go jump in the lake," Froggie directed.

"You can get away with it now but I'll stir your soup when I get off duty," Rip promised as he strode away.

After a while he returned, perspiring considerably and in no better humor.

"They couldn't tell me at the police station so I had to go to the street department," he explained.

"So sorry," The Mudhen murmured. "Where is Apple Lane?"

"Down off the river road. It's a new street with only one house." He turned to go.

"Just a moment, Officer," The Mudhen begged. "In which direction do you mean?"

"Heck! That way of course." Rip pointed west.

"You said that way?" The Mudhen pointed north.

"He said that way." Froggie pointed south.

"Jumpin' jeepers!" Rip exploded. "Can't you guys understand anything?"

"Officer!" The Mudhen held up a warning hand. "You are on duty."

"Tell us again where Apple Lane is." Froggie grinned evilly.

"You—you . . ." Rip pulled himself together and answered with sarcastic politeness, "Gentlemen, if you will accompany rne it will give me great pleasure to conduct you to Apple Lane."

"But why?" The Mudhen looked blank. "We have no wish to go there."

"You asked me where it is, didn't you?"

"Quite right, but we have no reason for going there. Thank you, Officer," the inspector said sweetly and he and his assistant walked away.

After a few steps Froggie looked back and hugged his stomach delightedly as he reported that Rip looked ready to burst.

"First blood for the Eagles." The Mudhen almost smiled. A few minutes later they entered Cicero's Ice Cream Bar.

"You no worka on da city hall?" The proprietor grinned. As the confidant of all boys he was well aware of the devious ways of frat politics.

"No such luck." The Mudhen sighed and climbed upon a stool.

"No job, eh?"

"A lousy job—inspector for the Department of Health."

"Whata you do?"

"Oh, take samples of food and drinks that are for sale. Frog is my assistant."

"And raring to go," Froggie added.

"Here is my certificate of authority." The Mudhen pulled out his card. "Look it over."

"Whata it say?" Cicero asked, not being versed in written English.

"Well, it says that anyone offering food or drinks for sale in this town is required to submit samples to me and my deputy for examination. Said samples will be paid for by the city. It is signed by the mayor."

"So?" Cicero looked doubtful. "Whata I do?"

"We will inspect a couple of banana splits first," The Mudhe0 answered solemnly.

"Ho-ho!' Cicero's eyes twinkled. "You eata da sample and da city paya me?"

"What's wrong with that?" Froggie winked at him.

"We are obliged to do it that way," the inspector explained. "The department has no lab for making tests."

"While you're getting the splits, Cicero, I'll test a Coke," Froggie said in a businesslike tone. "It will save time. We have a lot of work to do."

The Mudhen watched while the test was being made, then took out a notebook and pencil.

"Our report must be itemized," he said. "Was sample No. 1 found to be satisfactory, Deputy Bates ?"

"Swell, boss."

The inspector entered the item in his record and went to work on one of the banana splits.

"Satisfactory," he pronounced after a while. "Product duly noted and found to contain no foreign substance or other gunk. Deputy Bates!"

"Yeah."

"Obtain two items each of all visible pop, candy bars, peanuts, et cetera. Thank you."

"The pleasure is all mine." Froggie jumped up. "Anyway, half of it is."

When he returned with an armful of loot and spread it on the counter, Cicero threw up his hands.

"Gee wheeze!" he cried. "You eata so mucha?"

"It is part of our job," The Mudhen said bravely.

"How you getta da job ?" Cicero asked.

"It was thrust upon us," the inspector said. "It is dirty politics but we are too sporting to refuse. One has to be civic minded, you know."

"Yah, I knowa you." Cicero chuckled. The Mudhen waved a languid hand toward the pile of samples and gathered in a candy bar. "No loafing, Deputy Bates," he said sternly. "Duty calls."

"And finds me home," Froggie responded enthusiastically. At lunch time it was noted that the inspector and his deputy did not appear as usual at Chateau Chew on the campus. Later in the afternoon the reason for it emerged when Cicero entered the mayor's office and laid down an itemized bill that covered three pages.

"What is this?" Mayor Eastman wanted to know. Cicero explained and the mayor became excited.

"Jumpin' up man!" he shouted in an unofficial voice. "Sixteen dollars and thirty cents for ice cream, pop, candy and other junk. Mud can't do that to me! I won't pay it."

"You signa da card," Cicero insisted. "I signed his identification card, that was all."

"Pardon me, sir," the secretary put in sweetly. "Did you read the card before you signed it?"

"Why—why, no." The mayor's deflating ego threatened to strangle him. "Did you ?"

"No, sir." She smiled. "I did not have the opportunity."

"Jeepers!" Cheese jumped up and went down the hall to the office of City Treasurer Noodle Perkins. "Hey!" He waved the bill under his friend's snub nose. "Are you authorized to pay this?"

"No. What is it?" Noodle laid aside a comic book. "Stuff Mud and Frog have tested and charged to the city.

Noodle looked at the total. "Holy cow!" he said and hign tailed it to the regular treasurer who was in an adjoining room.

That wretch went over the bill and decreed there were no funds available for its payment.

"Then Noodle must collect from the inspector?" Cheese asked hopefully.

"No, from you. You signed the card giving him the authorty."

"But I was tricked into signing it."

"Quite your own fault. City officials should keep their eyes open."

"You mean I must pay Cicero?"

"If I were you I would honor my signature like a man and charge it up to experience."

"I will," Cheese promised grimly, "just as quick as I order the police force to bring in that inspector and his deputy dead or alive."

However, those two hard-working public servants were not visible, for in order to conduct their tests without interruption they had retired behind the shrubbery in Mr. Beeman's garden, where the sun was warm on the brown grass. An hour had passed since they ate the last of the samples and they were able to talk again. But they were too rapturous to say much until The Mudhen sniffed sharply and asked, "Do you smell something, Frog?"

Froggie nosed the air and answered, "Yeh. What is it?"

"Apple pie."

"In a garden this time of year?"

The Mudhen crept over to the bushes and peered through them, then hooked a finger toward his deputy. There on a table on Mr. Beeman's back porch sat three steaming apple pies.

"Oh, gosh!" Froggie groaned. "Well, anyhow they don't smell like chocolate—that's a help."

The Mudhen rubbed his chin. "Are you game, Frog?" h| asked slowly. "We may never have this chance again."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you remember a sign in a store window advertising a club food sale today ? Mrs. Stebbins made those pies for that sale. It is our duty to test them."

"It would be suicide, Mud."

"I regret that I have but one life to give to my duty," the inspector answered and walked toward the house.

Froggie waited a few minutes, struggling with his capacity, and then followed heroically. The Mudhen came out the door with a knife, forks and plates. "It's O. K. with her as long as the city pays for it," he said and chose a pie.

They sat on the porch steps in the sunshine and ate slowly, doggedly to the end.

"How do you feel, Frog?" The Mudhen muttered.

"Awful!" Froggie leaned against a post. "Mud, politics is a swell business."

"I'll say it is!" the inspector agreed a bit faintly. "Especially when we lose an election."

Chapter 16

"That pie was almost too much of a good thing," The Mudhen said when telling the story to Scotty. "But we couldn't pass it up. We may never get another crack at a whole free pie."

"On the contrary, I think you will." The little prof shifted his sore leg and winced. "The law of averages seems to work that way."

"It never worked for me before," the boy said.

"That is what I mean," Scotty said. "A fellow goes for weeks without hitting a home run, then gets two in one game. Or he fishes day after day and catches nothing, but suddenly he gets the limit on two consecutive days. The breaks often come in pairs. I don't know why."

"You dope out a lot of things, don't you ?"

"Why not? I have nothing else to do."

"You teach us guys every day."

"Teach you? I haven't been in a classroom for months and you know it."

"I mean—well—coming here and talking with you gives us the right slant on things. It helps us."

"Helps you!" Scotty's eyes blurred. "What about me? I would have passed out long ago if you kids hadn't rallied round."

"Shucks!" The Mudhen stood up, acutely uncomfortable. "What you just said about pies helps me a lot. I'll live in hope." He waved a hand and wandered out.

He thought little more about it until one day about a month later. That Saturday morning slowly, as he did everything, he climbed the steps to the Bumble Bee's front door and rang the bell. After a while the door opened revealing Mrs. Stebbins, the myopic housekeeper.

"Is Mr. Beeman home?" The Mudhen asked, touching the brim of his floppy hat.

"He is." She peered out suspiciously. "But don't tell me that is a pie in your hand."

"A pie?" He was puzzled by the thought of anyone carrying a pie on the outside. "No, ma'am, it is a book Mr. Noble sent over.

"Thank goodness it's not a pie!" She swung the door wider. "Pies, pies, pies! The whole house is cluttered up with pies. Will you come in?"

"Yes, thank you."

He had not intended to stop but a house cluttered with pies was something to be investigated. He entered and gasped, for on the sitting-room table were an apple pie, a custard pie, a mince pie and a lemon pie, while on the piano bench were other pies and in an armchair a chiffon cream pie reclined like an angel on a pink cloud.

"Jeepers!" the boy muttered, remembering what Scotty had said about the law of averages.

He found Mr. Beeman in his study, wearing a bathrobe, slippers and the air of a sick rabbit. His sideburns had a HrflP look, his eyes were dim and his nose was suggestive of a nicely polished red apple.

"Good morning, Crane," he greeted him and sneezed twice.

"You are not feeling well, sir?" the caller guessed.

"As well as anyone feels who has a grippe cold and aches intensely from head to foot." Mr. Beeman started a forlorn smile but blew it to smithereens with a triple sneeze, after which he took a sip of hot lemonade and sneezed again.

"How wonderful!" The Mudhen murmured, thinking of the pies.

"Wonderful!" The Bumble Bee wiped his dripping eyes. "I didn't mean the disease, sir."

"The disease is bad enough, but its consequences are disastrous."

"That bad, sir?"

"Oh, heavens, yes! It so happens I am chairman of the committee that is to judge the entries in a pie-making contest sponsored by the local woman's club. They thought it clever to have men judges—less professional bias."

"Oh, yes."

"A subcommittee has eliminated all but twelve of the pies which, owing to my physical condition, have been sent here for the final decision. Dr. Leonard and Judge Pike will join me in judging them. But think of the inconvenience I am causing those busy gentlemen." Mr. Beeman turned to his lemonade for strength to bear the burden.

"I am sure they won't mind where the thing takes place," the boy said, assuming everyone shared his attitude toward pies and would be delighted to meet them face to face anywhere.

"It was difficult to persuade them to drop in at the clubrooms, but to come here is . . ."

The telephone interrupted and as he listened he frowned, then said petulantly, "Yes, Doctor, I understand that a human life is of greater consequence than pastry. But your presence was so needed here . . . Ah, yes . . . Good-by."

He wiped his eyes again and sneezed before he explained that Dr. Leonard had been called away.

"What shall I do?" He twisted the cord on his dressing gown as though it might talk under pressure. "There must be three judges in case of a tie. I gave the ladies my word that the prize would be impartially awarded. I must not betray their trust in me. To whom shall I turn?"

The Mudhen moved uneasily as though from inner struggle.

"The least I can do is to volunteer to help you, sir," he said gently.

"Crane!" The Bumble Bee blinked happily. "Are you qualified to judge pies?"

"I have had considerable experience, sir."

"Splendid! I accept your offer. I will . . ." The telephone again.

"Oh, good heavens!" Mr. Beeman pawed the air with one hand. "Judge, your client must wait. ... So are pies important. ... I am ill and I have given the ladies my word. . . . Very well, you old mule! Good-by!" He glared at the receiver as he hung it up. "By George! I will show him we can carry on. Crane, whom do you suggest to replace Judge Pike on the committee?"

The Mudhen thought hard. He wished he could ring in Scotty but that was out of the question so he finally suggested Froggie.

"Is Bates competent? Remember, this is not a matter to be regarded lightly. The ladies look to us for justice."

"Frog is the last person on earth to regard pies lightly," The Mudhen assured him. "He has deep respect for pies and the people who make them."

"Then by all means contact him immediately. Bring him here at four this afternoon. Despite the defaulters, I will not betray the trust placed in me by the ladies." The Bumble Bee made a sweeping gesture that all but wrecked his glass of lemonade.

The Mudhen went away from there deep, deep in thought. Never before had he been confronted by twelve unchaperoned pies and never again might fortune smile in quite the same way. Now was the appointed time. Seize this opportunity by the tail or nevermore look a pie in the face. He counted the change in his pocket, then, with the air of one whose heart is full of high resolve, went straight to a drugstore.

At four p.m. he and Froggie entered Mr. Beeman's home and stood in the presence of their hearts' desire. Though Froggie had been prepared, the sight of a dozen fat pies made him gasp like a choked chicken. He tiptoed reverently across the room and sat down.

"Do you feel better, sir?" The Mudhen asked, without a glance pieward.

"I do not," the Bumble Bee assured him. "Were I not sustained by a sense of duty I would be in bed." He drained his lemonade glass and started to rise.

"Let me fill it, sir." The Mudhen took the glass, moving faster than he had since falling down a well when a child. "Is there more in the kitchen ?"

"Yes, on the stove. Mrs. Stebbins is out until five." Mr. Beeman sneezed and sank back.

The boy went out and returned softly, displaying a sick-room manner that would have amazed Froggie had his mind been pie free.

"You are a fine boy, Crane." Mr. Beeman sipped the lemonade. "I believe this has more taste than usual." He drank it all. "Very good. Now for the judging. I have prepared these ballots and I charge you on your honor to cast them in an unbiased manner. Now we will . . . Oh!" The exclamation was such as an articulate cucumber might have uttered when hit by a hard frost, the resemblance being intensified by a yellow-green tinge of countenance. "Please excuse me for a moment." He gathered up his dressing gown and bolted from the room.

"What the heck ?" Froggie wondered.

"He thinks it is the grippe," The Mudhen said, putting the ballots in his pocket.

When Mr. Beeman returned he was a changed man.

"Take those pies out of my sight," he commanded, dropping on the sofa.

"What about judging them, sir?" The Mudhen looked worried.

"Judge them yourselves—where I can neither see nor smell them."

"But three judges are necessary, sir."

"I authorize you to appoint a third. Now take those pies out of here!" He turned his face to the wall.

The pies disappeared completely from the house, for it so happened that ten schoolboys were waiting at the back door to receive them. When they were safe in the barn The Mudhen counted them and made a note on a pad.

"What about forks?" Cheese asked. For Bears had been invited in order to spread the responsibility around.

"Not yet," The Mudhen said.

"I can use a knife." Cheese reached into his pocket.

"Hold it!" The Mudhen snapped.

"You said we were going to eat pie."

"It is going to be done legally."

"Holy cow!" Noodle piped. "Is there a closed season on pie?"

"Listen, you guys." The Mudhen waved them back. "This is no joke. Mr. Beeman promised the dames a square deal on their pie show and that's what they are going to get. It will be clean from start to finish."

"Well, start then," Froggie urged, teetering from one foot to the other.

"Keep your shirt on," his roommate said. "First, we two judges must choose a third. Will you serve with us, Cheese?"

"Sure, Mud."

"Is that O. K. with you, Frog?"

"Yeh. Now pass the pie."

"Hold it! Cheese, do you promise on your honor to be a fair pie judge?"

"I do, if I ever get any pie to judge."

"The bench is supplied with judges," The Mudhen announced. "Now we must have a jury. Will the rest of you guys serve as jurors ?"

"What sort of gag is this ?" Skunk Evans demanded.

"So you won't serve? Then get out." The Mudhen glared at him.

"Without pie? I guess not!" Skunk flared. "Come on, guys, take the pie by force."

The would-be pie pirates were advancing when The Mudhen held up a hand.

"Listen, jugheads," he said. "Nobody will stop you, but when the Bumble Bee asks for the minutes of this court he will get them from me straight. Then he will know who the pie thieves are, the women who made the pies will know, and the Old Guard will know. If you want that to happen come and get the pies." He folded his arms and waited.

The mob stopped and Dave Pierce asked what they were supposed to do.

"Act legally so there'll be no kick coming," The Mudhen told him.

"O.K." Dave grinned. "I'll serve on the jury." And the others agreed.

The Mudhen nodded. "Raise your right hands and repeat after me: I do solemnly swear—that I will to the best of my ability—vote for the best pie in the bunch. So help me Betty Crocker."

They swore in unison, more or less.

"Hustle the plates, Frog," The Mudhen ordered.

Judge Bates hopped to a corner of the barn and returned with twelve paper plates, twelve forks and a knife.

"We will now proceed with the business of the court," The Mudhen announced, taking a knife and cutting a pie in twelve pieces.

"Is that all we get?" Noodle wailed. "Quit crabbing," Cheese said. "A hunk that size from every pie will add up to a whole pie for each of us." "Oh." Noodle relaxed with relief.

Twelve times during the next few minutes The Mudhen served judges and jurors with exact wedges of the competing pastries.

"Is the evidence all in?" he finally asked.

"All in, Your Honor," Dave patted his belt buckle.

"Then give your verdict, gentlemen." The judge handed around the blank ballots and a pencil.

They voted two to one for an apple pie with maple sugar frosting made by a certain Ella Brown. The Mudhen thanked them solemnly and dismissed the court.

"You old fox!" Cheese shied his plate at the judge. "Any other guy would have just latched onto the pies, then we would have all been in the doghouse. But you made it airtight."

"So nice to be appreciated," The Mudhen murmured as he left the barn.

A few moments later he entered Mr. Beeman's study and found the good man still on the sofa but visibly improved. "You are feeling better, sir ?"

"Yes, Crane. The grippe is a most unpredictable disease."

"It seems to be." The boy held out a paper. "This is our report on the pie contest."

"Oh, thank you, Crane! Read it, please."

The Mudhen read:

To whom it may concern: We the undersigned, whose appointment is vouched for by Mr. Beeman, do declare that after examining all the entries we award the prize to Mrs. Ella Brown.

(Signed) John Crane, Edward Bates, Walter Eastman, judges."

"Dear me!" The Bumble Bee smiled wanly. "I can never sufficiently thank you boys for your assistance."

"It was a pleasure," The Mudhen assured him and went away.

As they were walking toward the school Froggie caught his roommate by the belt and pulled him to a stop.

"Mud," he asked bluntly, "what did you put in the Bumble Bee's lemonade that made him feel so?"

"A remedy for the grippe, of course."

"My eye! What was it?"

"Ipecac," The Mudhen answered, and they resumed walking.

Chapter 17

Winter finally skidded around a corner and disappeared down the road. Spring followed closely and when she saw that the old man was really gone she smiled and began moving in her equipment, such things as birds, frogs, baseballs, tennis rackets and fishpoles. Up at school boys sprawled on the campus grass, drank from the garden hose whether they were thirsty or not, and yelled taunts at each other through open windows. By their spontaneous actions rather than by conscious reasoning they proclaimed that life was a fine thing.

Over at the hospital things were the same. That was the trouble—things were the same. There was little visible change in Scotty. He was paler, if that were possible, and his hands were bony as bird's claws but his smile was as ready, or almost as ready, as ever. It was that smile that stirred The Mudhen to the depths. If the little prof had groaned or complained or cursed his luck it would have been so understandable, but to lie there in pain and disappointment month after month and still grin required a courage that was incomprehensible. It made Scotty a hero above anyone the boy ever knew, a true hero who fought his battle alone day and night without rest and without the stimulus of cheers and waving flags and bugles.

Not only The Mudhen but the whole school tried to help him fight. The boys ran to him with every bit of gossip on the hill, discussed with him their work and play, got his advice on athletics and practically turned the school paper over to him, for he was clever at writing. The faculty included him in their plans and used all their tact to make him accept tutoring and the grading of test papers for pay, though he never mentioned money.

When the weather got warm he lay on a recliner on the hospital terrace where there were birds and sky and grass. If he could not tramp as he loved to he could at least look into the long distances and let his imagination wander. From his aching body his thoughts went out like bees from a hive and returned with indescribable loads that sweetened his existence.

On a sunny afternoon The Mudhen set out for the hospital, taking a short cut through Mr. Beeman's garden and trying to think of something interesting to tell the little prof. But in spite of all the vigor of spring the local scene was, to him, smothered under a blanket of monotony. For weeks nothing had happened that packed enough wallop to vibrate a flea's eyebrow. Nor was there any prospect of joy to come, even when Mr. Beeman appeared in the path ahead carrying a large rhubarb leaf on which was stretched the body of a small gray cat.

"Oh!" said The Mudhen and stopped, defunct cats on rhubarb leaves being heretofore outside his orbit.

"Ah, Crane!" The Bumble Bee's voice shook. "Priscilla has left us!"

"You mean your cat, sir?"

"Mrs. Stebbins' cat. What shall I do with her?"

"With Mrs. Stebbins or Priscilla?"

"With Priscilla, so Mrs. Stebbins will not be shocked."

"Oh, just plant her somewhere."

"Dear me!" It was obvious that cat planting was not one of Mr. Beeman's hobbies. "I am so frightfully busy. At this very moment I should be meeting with the committee on arrangements for the hospital box picnic tomorrow. By the way, will you be there?"

"No, sir, I don't expect to go." As a matter of fact, The Mudhen was down to his last dime.

"I have charge of the boxes. Dear me! What shall I do with Priscilla? We should all be there."

"They wouldn't want a dead cat at a picnic, sir."

"No-no-no! I mean all the people should attend and help the hospital. If you were there you might lend me a hand with the boxes."

"That is something else," The Mudhen said. "I'll go if I can help."

"You are so obliging," Mr. Beeman said warmly.

"A guy doesn't deserve credit for acting naturally," the boy answered modestly.

"Oh, yes, he does." Mr. Beeman stepped closer to him. "Now, Crane, under the circumstances, because I am so busy and late for my appointment, I am asking you to make suitable disposal of poor Priscilla." He thrust rhubarb leaf and cat straight into The Mudhen's hands like a quarterback handing off the ball, then went around right end and down the field.

The Mudhen eyed Priscilla and shook his head. "Sucker," he addressed himself, "it is all right to be accommodating but there are times when you carry it too far." He sighed and moved away toward the back of the garden, bearing his unwanted burden and the conviction that the world was an uninteresting place.

It was no better when he finally arrived at the hospital, where Scotty was sunning himself on the terrace. The sun could not put color in that face, though it brought out its lines and hollows.

"What's the news?" the little prof asked hopefully.

"News?" The Mudhen dropped on the grass. "Nothing happens here any more. Even the cats are bored to death." He told about Priscilla and was paid for his trouble when Scotty kidded him about being an easy mark for the Bumble Bee.

The sunshine was warm and after a while The Mudhen fell asleep. But even that pleasure was soon taken from him. Without warning Cheese stepped on his stomach and sweet oblivion became sour reality.

"Can't you let a friend sleep in peace, you loathsome louse ?" The Mudhen complained, sitting up.

"What's on your mind, Cheese?" Scotty inquired.

"Plenty." Cheese sat down cross-legged beside the recliner. "The girl I was going to take to that hospital-community-picnic-box-lunch thing tomorrow has given me the bird for a town guy named Gusher Gates."

"Oh, well," Scotty smiled, "there are other girls."

"I know there are. This one is a squashhead anyway, but," Cheese dug his fingers into the grass, "don't you see, Prof, it is not a personal matter now, it concerns every last one of us on the hill. If that Gates jerk cuts in on me and gets away with it the prestige of the school won't be worth a hoot in town."

"If it ever was," The Mudhen commented.

"Shut up!" Cheese snapped. "Keep out if you're not interested."

"Who says I am not interested?" The Mudhen opened his other eye. "What's the score on the dame?"

"She is no knockout," Cheese said frankly, "but I call her a challenge. If Gusher Gates buys her box at the picnic tomorrow and gets her away from me we will all lose face."

"For some people that might be a physical improvement." The Mudhen yawned.

"Mud," Cheese said grimly, "haven't you enough school spirit to try to help?"

"Well."

"I think we should all try," Scotty remarked, for he wanted action. "As Cheese says, it concerns the school's prestige."

"But what can I do?" The Mudhen wanted to know.

"Give Gusher Gates the works one way or another," Scotty told him.

"As simple as that?" The Mudhen got up and walked away, whether in anger or dismay they could not tell.

He was, in fact, deeply stirred. It did things to him to have his rival turn to him in a crisis and beg help in saving the honor of the school. He could not put a finger on his emotions and say which was which but he knew some of them were kicking up in way that made him feel that his cosmos was all cluttered with circumstances. Then he heard footsteps behind him and words that brought him back to earth.

"Take it from me, baby, I will get your box if it costs me five bucks," said a confident male voice.

"You are so definitely aggressive," responded a feminine twitter.

The Mudhen edged toward the grass as Gusher Gates and the Challenge swept past, too busy with themselves to glance his way. He followed them, keeping just within earshot.

"It will be wrapped in white paper and marked with an artificial red rose," Gusher reminded her.

"Your memory for detail is positively marvelous!"

"But you haven't told me what the lunch will be."

"That is a deep, dark secret," the Challenge giggled. "All I will say definitely is that it will be exactly what I think you deserve."

"Devil's food ?" He laughed at his own wit.

"Perhaps, big boy, it will be angels' food." Another giggle.

They turned a corner and The Mudhen let them go. As he ambled toward the campus he realized that here were the makings of a hummer. All in one package were a beautiful heroine (more or less), a wealthy villain (Gusher must be rolling in it if he had five cucumbers to blow on a picnic lunch), a noble hero representing a worthy cause (Cheese was a good egg and was throwing in everything to save the school's honor), a mysterious box with secret markings and the Old Master himself in possession of the inside dope. If he did not ring the bell on that one . . .

He sat down by a tree and chewed a blade of grass. According to all the detective stories he had read, and they were many, the setup was complete except for a body. A bodyless mystery was as unorthodox as fricasseed ice cream. But where could he find a body ? And if he found one how could he tie it in with the Challenge's box? If he had more time he might work it out but schoolwork was pressing and already he had spent hours doing, or trying to do, good turns for Mr. Beeman, Scotty and Cheese, and he had foolishly promised to help with the boxes tomorrow. Obviously such neighborly kindness did not pay off.

Froggie later testified that old Mud sat up half that night in a misery of deep thought, then slept briefly and left the room before daylight. He was silent during breakfast and soon thereafter went over to fulfill his obligation to Mr. Beeman.

During the forenoon he made himself useful in the tent, where the lunch boxes were checked while their owners put on a program of sports, and about noon he meandered out with a small package under his arm and over to where the auction was beginning.

Cheese met him at the edge of the crowd, looking as cordial as a barbwire fence.

"Where have you been all day?" he growled, as though he had a right to know.

"Helping the Bumble Bee."

"I suppose he gave you a bottle of pop and a sandwich."

"Six sandwiches."

"That's all you care, just to fill your belly!"

"I wanted to do something for the hospital."

"Yeah ? What about doing something for the school ? What about trying to stop Gusher? You could think of something if you weren't too lazy to try. You get lazier every minute of every day. You haven't got as much school spirit as a goat."

"What's the row?" Froggie asked, coming up.

"There is no row," Cheese answered with dignity. "I was only stating a well-known fact: Mud is a louse."

"Oh that?" Froggie was disappointed.

"A swell guy, he is!" Cheese snorted. "Won't even try to help us. Spent all the forenoon tied to the Bumble Bee's apron strings just for the sake of a free lunch."

"Is that what's in that package, Mud?" Froggie, the always hungry one, asked.

"It might be." The Mudhen's eyes were working on the crowd. "Look there, Cheese! That must be your girl's box they are putting up now. Gusher is bidding on it."

"The Stinker!" Cheese charged toward the auction stand. "I'll stop him or kill him."

Froggie and The Mudhen followed leisurely, listening to the auctioneer's voice roll out: "Started at one dollar. Only one dollar for this beautiful box! If I know my romance this red rose tied to one corner means something. You, the gentleman in the sport jacket, what did you say?"

"A dollar and a quarter," Gusher shouted.

"A dollar and a quarter I am bid. A dollar and a half? Who says a dollar and a half?"

"Dollar and a half," Cheese yelled.

"That is the true spirit of rivalry, gentlemen. A healthy sign. One and a half I am offered. Who says one seventy-five ? Who will raise it a quarter and win the lady's favor ? Isn't she worth another twenty-five cents to one of you gentlemen ?"

"One seventy-five," Gusher upped.

"Two!" Cheese thundered. And in a desperate aside, "Quick, Mud, I've only got a quarter left. Lend me some." "Two and a quarter!" Gusher boomed. "Mud! Frog! Please!" Cheese was wild-eyed. "I'm broke," Froggie admitted.

"And I am doing my own bidding," The Mudhen said unexpectedly. "That gal is a honey." He raised his voice. "Two-fifty."

"Double crossed" Cheese hissed.

"Three!" Gusher raised.

"Three-fifty!" The Mudhen did not hesitate.

"Four!" Gusher was waving his arms, while the Challenge eyed him ecstatically.

"Call yourself my friend and steal my girl!" Cheese stuck out his jaw toward The Mudhen.

"Four-fifty!" the Mudhen shouted vigorously.

"He hasn't got two bits," Froggy whispered in wonder.

"Five!" Gusher leaped into the air.

Silence.

"What!" The auctioneer pretended to stagger, then held the box high. "Is chivalry dead? Is romance priced in the market place at a paltry five dollars? Gentlemen, where is your gallantry—your spirit—your love of high adventure? Am I bid only five dollars ? Oh, come, come, make it five and a half. Or five and a quarter. Can it be that this package of romance, this priceless token of a maiden's love, is going—going—gone to the gentleman in the sport jacket."

It could be and it was. Gusher took his prize and with the Challenge proudly latched to one of his arms made for the shade of a tree. Seemingly unconscious of what he was doing The Mudhen drifted after them, followed by Cheese, who was sending forth clouds of steaming language.

"It wasn't enough to let the whole school down," he sizzled. "You had to double-cross me to boot. Pretending to be my friend while all the while you were scheming to get her yourself! A swell pal you are! The minute we get off these grounds I'll pulverize you, you slimy worm!"

"Shut up!" The Mudhen whispered. "Listen to that drip over there."

"I got it, baby," Gusher was saying in a loud voice. "When I go after a thing I get it, that's my way."

"You are positively overwhelming!" the Challenge gurgled.

"I've got the old aggressive stuff," Gusher broke the string on the box and put the red paper rose in his buttonhole.

"You just wait till . . ." Cheese began again.

"For Pete's sake hold everything!" The Mudhen interrupted.

"Now we'll see what you think of me, baby." Gusher was removing the paper. "You promised to stuff this box with what I deserve."

"Definitely. Now peek, big man." She clasped her hands as he flipped off the cover.

He looked. She looked. He choked. She screamed. He threw the box on the ground and out bumped the body of a small gray cat. Without a word he wheeled and went away from there.

"Here, Cheese." The Mudhen ripped the covering from the package under his arm, revealing a box wrapped in white paper and adorned with a red rose. "This is her lunch. Give it to her before she dissolves definitely."

"I—I don't understand, Mud." Cheese stared at it.

"Scram! And tell the lady the guys from your school have a way of doing things." The Mudhen turned and strolled away.

Chapter 18

Cheese felt like a heel about the box-lunch incident and he was man enough to say so. The Mudhen brushed off his thanks but secretly he was elated by the way the leader of the Bears had been humiliated. To put the rival frat in his debt and at the same time to sustain the school's reputation by winning a bout with a townie was a neat bit of work.

Scotty thought as much and asked admiringly, "How do you think of such things, Mud ?"

"I don't think," the boy answered, "I just act naturally. That is a lot easier than trying to think things out."

"I admit that trying to think things out is rugged." The little prof doodled on a sheet of paper. "Thoughts can be brutal." He crushed the paper convulsively and The Mudhen noticed with a shock that there were tears in his eyes.

"Has something gone haywire, Scotty?" he asked awkwardly.

"Something? Everything. I must have another operation in a month or two. Why can't I die!" He stiffened suddenly and flushed. "I didn't mean to say that, Mud; it slipped out. Promise not to tell anyone."

"Not a word," the boy agreed. "I'm awful sorry, Scotty."

"Forget it," Scotty snapped. Then he smiled forgivingly. "Tell me what is cooking in school. Any news on the Bear-Eagle front?"

"I'm not sure," The Mudhen said. "Dave has called a secret meeting for this evening in the gym basement. That is the only place where we can talk things over in safety."

"A secret meeting sounds mysterious." Scotty was eager.

"Sort of. If anything pops I'll let you know." The Mudhen went away, whistling carelessly to cover up his concern over Scotty.

A few hours later the fraternity of Eagles was in secret session in the gym basement. There were more comfortable places to meet on a warm spring evening but they were not soundproof. When campaigning against the Bears no precautions should be neglected, for those wretches had a spy system that could penetrate the privacy of a pre-Cambrian fossil. Not only did they have it, they used it, in a way that generated anger and envy in the other gang.

Dave Pierce, who was responsible for calling the present meeting, snapped on every light in the place and took a long look around.

"Frog," he asked, "did you see that all the doors and windows are closed tight?"

"Sure." Froggie wiped his shining face. "Can't you tell there is no air in here?"

"Sam, did you look behind the ash cans, in the coal bin and under the stairs?"

"Looked and poked too," Sam reported.

"Then we'll get along with the meeting."

"And make it snappy or we'll smothercate," Froggie said.

"Why are we here anyway?" Skeeter Skillings wanted to know.

"I'll tell you," Dave said. "I have been tipped off by a guy at home that the carnival and wild-animal show that is coming here next week has a bunch of Indians in its street parade. They are recruited from schoolboys in the towns where they appear. We Eagles should have that job."

"Why?" Sam spoke up.

"Haven't you any imagination? Can't you see it would be swell to march in the parade all painted up and whooping and yelling ? Besides, we get free tickets to the show."

"And free lunch?" Froggie asked hopefully.

"I don't know. It doesn't matter."

"Since when didn't lunch matter?"

"Dry up, Frog!" Dave ordered. "The main thing is it will make the Bears pretty sick if we grab the job before they even hear about it."

He had something there, judging by the enthusiastic sounds that greeted it. Anything that promised discomfort for the Bears was worth careful consideration.

"What do you think of it, Mud?" Dave asked the boy who sat on a box seemingly ninety-three per cent asleep.

"Not interested."

"How come?"

"I am otherwise employed when it comes to walking a mile or two in grease paint on a hot day."

"You are the laziest dog on earth," Dave said, with the frankness of an old friend.

"So I have heard before." The Mudhen sighed and closed his eyes.

"I'd like to see you tied to that white horse's tail and made to march in that parade."

"What white horse?" The Mudhen opened one eye. "The Indian chief rides on a white horse in the parade."

"Does he?" The Mudhen opened the other eye.

"Don't bother to wake up," Dave said. "We can get along without you."

"You're hooked," The Mudhen said. "I was kidding about not being interested in the parade and you bit."

"So you are interested?"

"Sure. Who would pass up a chance to be in a parade?"

True, for if there was any riding to be done on a showy white horse before the public his dramatic instinct told him to go after it with everything he had.

"That makes it a hundred per cent," Dave said. "Now all we have to do is to line up the guy who runs the show and wrap up the details before the Bears get a sniff of what's in the wind. I appoint Mud to do that and report to us later."

"I'll do it," The Mudhen promised, already seeing himself on the white horse.

The meeting terminated on a note of mutual satisfaction. When the basement was dark and quiet Noodle Perkins, Bear spy de luxe, crawled out of a cold air flue over the furnace and high-tailed it to the headquarters of his clan.

The Mudhen thought of getting Scotty to help him with the application, for the little prof was handy with a pen, but time was precious so he went back to the dorm and sent off a letter that very night to the manager of the carnival and wild-animal show. It was a friendly and faintly paternal letter advising the gentleman that if he wanted his outfit to make a good showing in town he should employ the Eagle fraternity for the part of Indians in the parade. And, too, it would be to the advantage of all concerned if one John Crane, a member of that fraternity, were appointed chief and assigned to the white horse. Feeling sure that this would be satisfactory, the Eagles would consider the job theirs unless they immediately heard to the contrary.

Days passed without a reply, days during which confidence supplanted doubt in Eagle hearts. No news was good news and at the end of the week they were sure they had copped the prize and pulled a fast one on the Bears. To outsmart those old dimwits was almost too easy. In their jubilation the Eagles became charitable and all but pitied their rivals who were doomed to stand enviously on the sidewalk when the glorious and clever ones swept past in the parade.

Scotty warned The Mudhen that the Bears were far from dumb, but the boy was too sure of himself to bother keeping his fingers crossed. In his mind's eye was an image of himself astride the prancing horse in paint and feathers, cold and haughty as a chief should be, while the world looked on and cheered. The poor, poor Bears! Once again they would be brought face to face with their own inferiority and it would hurt them so! Brother, what a day!

Indeed what a day! When The Mudhen, trailed by Froggie, presented himself to the boss, who had arrived several hours ahead of the show train, he received a jolt that jolted all other jolts into insignificance.

"Sure," said the man, "I got your letter, but first come first served."

"But, sir," The Mudhen said firmly, "I was the first to write you."

"Yeh, but a guy named Eastman telephoned me the night before your letter came so I gave the job to him and his Bears."

"I asked you to write me if—if . . ."

"Sorry, son. I'm busy now. Run along." They did not run. They dragged their feet away from there in a fog of misery that enveloped the earth and obscured the sun. Somewhere they heard happy Bear voices saying things that would have wounded had not emotion been numb. Slowly they went up the hill to the school, bitterly they acknowledged to their fellows what had taken place, tragically they locked themselves in their rooms.

"We're licked, Mud," Froggie moaned.

The Mudhen lay full length on his bed and closed his eyes.

"The dirty bums," Froggie muttered.

His roommate showed no appreciation of the remark.

"They're too dumb to think of anything themselves," Froggie continued. "The only time they latch onto an idea is when they steal one from us."

A knock sounded on the door.

"Go jump in the lake!" Froggie stuck out his tongue at the door.

"Listen," answered an unfamiliar voice. "I've got a telegram for Mr. John Crane. Does he live here?"

"More or less," Froggie said.

"Open the door then. I can't wait all day."

Froggie complied and saw the conventional envelope in the hand of a messenger who barked, "Fifty-seven cents."

"Mud," Froggie asked cautiously, "will you give fifty-seven cents for a telegram ?"

The Mudhen neither spoke nor moved.

"Has he passed out?" the messenger inquired.

"It's hard to tell sometimes." Froggie went through his own pockets and came up with the money reluctantly.

When the messenger had gone, Froggie opened the envelope
and read aloud:

"Don't forget street parade tomorrow morning-
Love and sympathy.

(Signed) The Bears."

For some time thereafter Froggie moved about the room crushing the paper in his hands and saying things as he crushed. Finally he leaned against the table, panting like a stag at bay or something. From somewhere came the strains of music on a phonograph. He listened, then panted like two stags.

"Mud," he blazed, "hear that tune! It's the Indian Love Call. The louses! The stinkers! The . . ."

Another knock interrupted and a voice through the door announced a special-delivery letter from the postoffice.

"Beat it!" Froggie hurled a shoe against the door.

"O. K.," the voice said cheerfully. "But you had better sign for it. Specials are important."

"All right, I'll sign!" Froggie yanked the door open, negotiated for the letter and banged the door shut.

"It's for you, Mud," he said.

The Mudhen repeated his refusal to respond.

"Listen, if you're alive." Froggie read, gritting out the words between his teeth:

"Dearest Eagles, One and All:

May we call your attention to the fact that your stupid attempt to put one over on the Bears was a complete flop. Had your l.Q. been average you would not have dared to trifle with your superiors. But we forgive you and invite you to witness the parade tomorrow. Please don't make yourselves conspicuous by applauding too loudly when the Bears march past behind their handsome chief, who will be riding a magnificently superb white horse.

"With the tenderest regards and deepest sympathy for you in your hour of defeat, we remain, as always, one jump ahead of you.

(Signed) The Bears."

The Mudhen winced as though stung by a whiplash, t sat up and reached under his bed for his fishing rod.

"Where you going?" Froggie asked dully.

"Anywhere." The Mudhen stood up. "I'm fed up."

"I'll go too," Froggie said. "I'm fedder up than you are."

Chapter 19

They slipped out through the rear door of the dorm, across the back campus and into the country. The Mudhen stopped and looked over at the clump of trees that surrounded the hospital.

"I ought to go and confess to Scotty," he said. "He warned me not to get too cocky."

"He might help us out of this fix," Froggie said, without conviction.

"No one can help us now, Frog. Even Scotty couldn't fish us out of this mess."

"Anyhow, we've no business to go and see him with our faces a mile long."

"Yeh, he has trouble enough of his own. Oh, well. Let's go fishing. There's nothing else to do till afternoon classes."

"I've a mind to leave school, Mud."

"Run away from a few lousy Bears?" The Mudhen stuck out his chin. "We are not going to whimper and run away."

They wandered along and beyond the railroad found a grove beside a stream where they sat down. It was quiet there except for some birds that went happily about their business unaware that part of the fair world was out of joint. Responding to habit The Mudhen dropped his hook in the water, then lay back and closed his eyes, trying to think. Froggie sat with his back against a tree and tried not to think.

Silence for a while, then a locomotive wailed like a ghost caught in a wire fence and Froggie saw a long line of yellow boxcars pass against the distant landscape.

"There goes the show train," he muttered.

"Shut up!" said The Mudhen.

Froggie did for a while but it encouraged visions of painted Bears marching arrogantly behind a white horse. He sought relief in gazing beyond the stream and describing what he saw. It wasn't high entertainment but it was better than doing nothing.

"There must have been farm buildings over there," he speculated. "Only the silo is left standing."

"You wouldn't expect it to be left sitting," The Mudhen snapped.

"A nice silo," Froggie groaned on. "A lot you know about silos."

"Well, this one looks good to me. All the doors are in except the bottom one and—that's a goat."

"The bottom door is a goat?"

"Of course not, you sap! There's a goat walking round by the silo."

"What of it?"

"Gosh sakes, Mud, don't be so sour."

"What is there to be sweet about?"

"All right, all right." Froggie righteously decided to ignore his pal's attitude. "I wonder if he lives alone over there sort of like a hermit."

"Who ever heard of a hermit in a silo ?"

"I didn't say there's a hermit in the silo. I said there's a goat outside."

"Outside the hermit?"

"Oh, dry up, you big lump!"

"Then lay off goats."

"For Pete's sake! I just happened to mention one goat. What's wrong with goats anyway ?"

"We have just lost ours."

"Don't I know it! Our goat was cat meat for the Bears."

"Don't sit there reminding me of the egg on my face," The Mudhen growled.

"On all the Eagles' faces," Froggie groaned. "Shut up and let me fish."

"Then fish. You've got a bite."

The Mudhen picked up his nearly-forgotten pole, shook it languidly and muttered, "Go away, fish. Beat it!"

"Pull him in!" Froggie jumped up. "Pull him in!"

"Oh, well." The Mudhen sighed and brought up a fair-sized trout. To Froggie's amazement he removed it carefully from the hook and tossed it back.

"What the heck ails you, Mud ?" Froggie cried.

"I am persecuted," The Mudhen answered sadly. "When I try to think, first you and then a fish busts in and interrupts." He wound up his line.

"Now what you going to do?"

"I don't know. I can't face Scotty, I can't face the Bears, I can't face myself."

"You'd better face the brook or you'll tumble into it backwards," Froggie advised and grinned.

"So it's a joke!" The Mudhen glared at him. "It's funny to be a laughing stock, is it? It's very humorous to be made a monkey of. Oh, well!" He gestured tragically. "There is nothing for me to do but wander on alone."

"I'll string along with you," Froggie decided. "You're not the only one who wants to hit the wide-open spaces and forget."

In dismal silence they turned their backs on the world, picked their way across the brook and meandered in the general direction of the silo. Not that they were interested in it or the hermit goat but simply because when life is a solid mass of despair one place is as good as another.

Or is it? One moment Froggie thought so, then, chancing to glance over his shoulder, he was instantly convinced that of all places on earth this was the one where he least wanted to be.

"M-M-Mud! There's a l-l-lion after us!" His tongue shimmied over the words.

"My eye," The Mudhen said without interest.

"Turn round and l-l-look!"

The Mudhen turned—and saw a lion. It was not an imaginary lion or a stuffed lion or even a small lion, it was a real, large and vigorous lion. Furthermore, if there was any truth in signs, it was a hungry lion. Running low, it was closing in on the two boys. They would have given all the pie and ice cream they ever hoped to consume for three minutes' use of the Seven League Boots.

The best they could do was make the best of their conventional shoes in the direction of the nearest tree, which was not far from the silo.

"If w-we only had the f-f-fish to feed him," Froggie shouted.

"I don't think they eat fish," The Mudhen yelled back.

"Hit him with your p-p-pole."

"I've dropped it."

"Go b-back and g-get it."

"Shut up and run, Frog."

"What do you think I'm doing?"

Froggie glanced back and let out a screech that ripped the welkin. The lion was so close that its red tongue and white teeth were almost alongside, not a pretty puss when worn on the front of a huge tawny body coming your way. The Mudhen did not see it, being busy stepping up his speed from sixty miles an hour to seventy-five. At first the tree seemed to be doing even better than that but gradually they overtook it.

Then Froggie stumbled and went down.

"I'm dead!" he yelled as he rolled over.

The lion, unprepared for such a change of pace, put on his brakes and in a sitting position slid up even with Froggie, who rolled over again and stopped, lying across the animal's tail.

"Run, Mud, I'll hold him!" he squeaked, his sense of values cockeyed with fear.

The lion growled something in an uncomplimentary tone, then pulled his tail free and got out of the way. Froggie snapped up like a spring toy and lunged for the tree. At the same instant The Mudhen took off and gunned for the lowest branch. He made it, and as he swung there for a moment, Froggie leaped and blindly clutched whatever providence had to offer. It chanced to be The Mudhen's trousers and Froggie came to earth with them.

"He missed me!" The Mudhen croaked and pulled himself up on the limb.

"We're both safe," Froggie puffed, swinging up beside him.

"Jumpin' up man!" The Mudhen's tone had changed. "It's the goat he is after."

It was the truth, a startling anticlimax and a pleasing one for all except the goat. That dimwit stood there watching the fracas until he realized it had taken a personal turn, then it was too late. He shot for the silo and disappeared inside, but he would never boast of winning that race, for the lion followed him in.

And The Mudhen, his liberated shirttail flapping jauntily above his shorts, was following the lion.

"Come back here, you nut!" Froggie screeched, jiggling on the bough like a fledgling bird.

But his roommate was not open to suggestions. He walked calmly up to the silo, slipped the bottom door shut and flipped the latch. Then he sauntered back and put on his trousers.

"We've got him, Mud!" Froggie whooped, dropping to the ground. "We have!"

"Sure. He can't get out. We've got him!"

"What did you have to do about it?"

"Didn't I stop and hold him by the tail till you got away?"

"Never mind. Let's go."

"Where?"

"Back to civilization. I'm weary of the jungle."

Half an hour later they found the carnival boss on the show grounds. They had never liked him so it was a pleasure to see that he was perturbed.

"May I have a word with you, sir?" The Mudhen asked politely.

"Make it snappy, Buster," the man barked. "I wonder if you have lost a lion."

"I'll say I have! He busted out of the train. Has somebody seen him?"

"I have him on ice," The Mudhen answered calmly. "I latched onto his tail," Froggie put in. "What are you kids talking about?"

"A lion, sir. We found him wandering around and shut him up just in case you wanted him."

"I'll say I want him! Show him to me."

They did, riding out to the silo in a carnival truck. That part was disappointing, for a keeper merely shooed the lion into a cage and they drove back with as little excitement as though they had been out to pick up empty milk bottles.

"Come in here," the boss invited, leading the way to the office tent.

"Anything we can do for you, sir?" The Mudhen sat down wearily.

The boss drew a long breath. "You have already saved us a possible panic and a lot of bad publicity, though the old cat wouldn't hurt a fly. How much do I owe you kids?"

"Ten bucks," Froggie whispered to his partner.

"Not a cent, sir," The Mudhen declared graciously.

"Oh, come, come, put a tag on it, Buster," the man said.

"We only did what anyone would have done, sir."

"Not just anybody would grab a lion by the tail," Froggie interjected.

"But," The Mudhen ignored him, "if you feel obligated to us, sir, you might sort of do us a favor."

"Out with it, young feller."

The Mudhen's gaze rested dreamily on the man's face as he asked, "Do you remember, sir, when you went to school what rivalry there was between your gang and another gang?"

"I'll say I do!" The boss grinned.

"Then you will appreciate the fix we are in. It is this way."

Slowly and carefully, in that persuasive way of his, the Mudhen told the story that lay so heavily in his heart. After which he tactfully mentioned the reward they would accept for catching the lion. And the boss chuckled and promised to see what could be done about it.

He saw and so did the whole town the next morning. When the grand parade swung down Main Street it was led as usual by a royal elephant resplendent in trappings of crimson and gold. What was different this time was that in the houdah, arrayed as a prince of India, sat the solemn-faced Mudhen. And above him, proudly floating for all to behold, was a banner inscribed in great letters: Eagles.

Ah, the glory of it! Then, while people stared and roared, came the monkey cage and each monkey wore a blue jersey bearing the legend: Bears.

Somewhere down the line were a few Indians, but no one paid much attention to them.

Chapter 20

For a while after the parade The Mudhen felt that his world was a good place. Worry about Scotty crept in and spoiled the picture. For the first time in his life the boy was deeply concerned with an adult's welfare. Not that he had been selfish, but he had felt that his elders could handle their affairs without his help. Now it was different. Scotty was little more than a boy and he was in a tough spot. He needed a lift, though he never asked for one, and it seemed that no one was doing anything about it. Everyone was sympathetic toward the little prof, but ... He continued to lie there, getting thinner and paler while waiting for the next operation.

What griped The Mudhen was his own inability to help. He had always felt that a fellow worth his salt could think his way out of any jam, yet here he was stymied. The school year was nearly finished and soon he would be off for the summer without having done a thing to brace the most gallant warrior he had ever known.

"Isn't there something I can do for Mr. Lauder?" he asked one of the nurses he happened to meet outside the hospital.

"You have already done a good deal for him," she said.

"Me? What have I done?"

"Your funny stories have boosted his morale."

"Funny stories? I never told a joke in my life." The boy was dead serious about it.

"I don't mean jokes," she explained. "Just firing jokes at patients doesn't help much. I mean those humorous adventures of yours, like catching a lion and riding an elephant."

"Humorous?" The Mudhen stared at her. "I don't see anything funny in that."

"Nothing funny in putting hornets in that poor musician's piano or squirting licorice juice in the artist's face ?"

"Why, no, ma'am, those things had to be done to help Mr. Beeman out of a fix. They were just natural, not funny."

"Mr. Lauder and I think they were funny."

"Did he tell you about them?"

"Yes, all of them. What is more, he has written them all down."

"Why the heck would he write that stuff down?"

"Oh, for something to do, I suppose. If you have more funny adventures don't forget to tell him." She went along.

"I won't," he called after her. "But nothing funny ever happens to me."

That was the truth, as he saw it. What she called "funny adventures" were to him serious incidents in the everyday business of living and helping friends and keeping ahead of the Bears. If Scotty got any fun out of them, well and good, but how he could was a puzzle to the boy.

The warm spring weather caused him to wander in body and mind. After classes that afternoon he came to anchor on the grass of the back campus. Near by, Froggie Bates looked earnestly at the sky and repeated, "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said—hath said— hath said . . . Mud, what was it the guy said to himself?"

"It sounds like a horse," his roommate said, without raising his head.

"Naw! He didn't say 'it sounds like a horse.'"

"Keep still," The Mudhen kicked in his direction.

"But, Mud, I've got to learn the thing before class tomorrow."

"It isa horse. I can hear it walking with an ear to the ground like an Indian."

"For Pete's sake! A horse walking with his ear to the ground like an Indian! Where is your brain today?"

"It's in the Bumble Bee's garden." The Mudhen got up with unusual speed. "We should do something about it."

"I told you that long ago."

"I'm talking about the horse, jughead. He may ruin the garden."

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Froggie also stood up.

They climbed the fence, edged through the shrubbery and came upon Mr. Beeman digging in a flower bed. He looked up and smiled in his usual friendly way.

"I thought I heard a horse walking over here," The Mudhen said.

"You heard William Shakespeare," Mr. Beeman answered, as though that were an explanation.

"I," the boy paused and blinked, "I thought it was a horse, sir."

"William seemed restless so I tethered him behind the barn."

They hardly expected to find the Bard there, but just to put things straight they looked behind the barn. There, walking round and round a picket pin, was a fat little horse that looked lonesome and pricked up his ears in a pleasant gesture.

"This is William Shakespeare," said Mr. Beeman, who had followed them. "He belongs to my sister. She left him with me while she is away on a vacation."

"He is a honey," The Mudhen said enthusiastically. "Do you like horses, Crane?"

"I love 'em." The boy went over and stroked William's neck. "Do you mind if I sort of call on him once in a while?"

"Assuredly not," Mr. Beeman said eagerly. "Perhaps you would like to take care of him."

"Mud doesn't love him that much," Froggie said.

"I'll be tickled pink to take care of him, sir. Frog, go bring him a pail of water."

"Me?" Froggie snorted. "He's not my baby."

"Run along and get the water—if you want help with your math tonight."

"You can't boss me around that way," Froggie blustered. "I'll get the water because I am kind to animals, not because you told me to." He walked away with a great air of independence.

So began their friendship with William Shakespeare. Why he was so named was never explained to them, nor did it matter. They, like most boys, had a fondness for animals and this one was fat and friendly and something different to play with outside of school. When it came to caring for him The Mudhen said what should be done and Froggie did it, for that was the way their perfect partnership worked. And it was all right with the Bumble Bee, whose interest in horses was nil plus the square of zero multiplied by ten.

It may be that fate arranged this setup so that when it became necessary for Mr. Beeman to be out of town for a few days the horse would not be neglected. But if fate left the cover off the grain bin that day she was either downright careless or hopelessly dumb about the habits of horses. At any rate, William Shakespeare found the box open and ate three times as much grain as he was equipped to handle. When the boys went over to bed him down for the night they found him inflated to blimplike proportions, sweating rivulets and breathing in a way that brought terror to their hearts.

"Gosh sakes! He's g-got the f-f-flu," Froggie chattered.

"He's got the bellyache," corrected The Mudhen, pointing at the empty grain bin.

"Is that all?" Froggie looked relieved, for he had suffered that ailment and survived.

"All!" The Mudhen, who knew something about horses, gave him a look. "It is enough to kill him. Beat it for a phone and call a vet."

"But, Mud, they cost four or five bucks."

"That's cheaper than a dead horse. Scram!"

Froggie may have scrammed but it seemed to the anxious nurse that a fossilized snail might have passed him on the first turn. Minutes masquerading as hours dragged by while William groaned and sweated and finally lay down broadside on the barn floor. The Mudhen rubbed him with swabs of hay and begged him fervently not to pass out.

"You've got to hang on, Willie," he implored. "If you croak I'll be in Dutch with the Bumble Bee and he'll be in Dutch with his sister. No matter how punk you feel, you mustn't let us down. Please buck up till the vet comes."

But no vet came. Finally Froggie galloped in carrying an old-fashioned dinner horn and a huge pitcher of liquid.

"Where's the vet?" The Mudhen shouted.

"Sick," Froggie panted.

"There are two in town."

"The other is away. I called the sick one again and told him it is a matter of life and death, for William Shakespeare has a bellyache. He tried to be smart and said to call the British Museum because they know more about Shakespeare than he does."

"Didn't you tell him William is a horse ?"

"Sure, soon as I got a chance, and he said a name like that is enough to give any horse a bellyache."

"And he isn't coming?"

"I told you, Mud, he is sick—sick in bed. But he said to give William a pound of baking soda in two quarts of water and exercise him."

"Exercise him! How are we going to exercise a horse that can't walk?"

"How do I know? I'm telling you what the man said. So I got the soda from the Bumble Bee's housekeeper and she found this tin horn for me."

"Holy cow! What are you going to do with a tin horn?"

"It's not for tooting," Froggie assured him. "The vet said to pour the dope down William's neck through a funnel, but we couldn't find a funnel so Mrs. Stebbins said to use this horn. We poured some water through it and it perks."

Perking in the kitchen sink was one thing but perking down the throat of William Shakespeare was something else. Rank amateurs though they were, the boys knew that the horse's powerful teeth could crush a finger like a stick of candy.

"But we must give him this medicine," The Mudhen said grimly. "Whether he lives or dies we can't have people say we didn't try to save him."

"There must be a vet in some other town," Froggie reasoned. "I'll go ask Central to call . . ."

"Eureka!" The Mudhen interrupted.

"Is that a town or a vet?"

"It's this." The Mudhen dived into a corner of the room and came up with a stick about a foot long with a large hole in the middle. "It's a piece of busted ladder. We'll put it between William's jaws and stick the horn through the hole. If he bites he'll bite the wood."

"Hot dog!" Froggie's tone paid tribute to genius.

Deceptively, under pretense of inserting a bit, they persuaded the horse to open his mouth and accept the stick. Gently they worked it back as far as it would go and carefully pushed the dinner horn into the hole, the small end aimed down his gullet. Then, naturally enough, they discovered that while William was in that position nothing would run down his throat. It would be necessary to get him on his feet, pull his head up by running the halter rope through a convenient ring in the ceiling and then, standing on the stairs, transfer the bellywash from the pitcher to the tin horn.

William was, or thought he was, too ill to resist, so eventually he stood with upturned mouth wide open, the horn pointing skyward as though he were about to serenade the stars.

"I'll latch onto the halter. You hop up the stairs and drench him," The Mudhen said professionally.

"Do what to him?" Froggie looked doubtful.

"Drench him, that's what vets call giving a big dose of liquid."

"Drench" was the exact word for it and Froggie was the exact drenchee. William inhaled about a quart of the stuff and then sent it back propelled by a mighty cough that first drowned Froggie then knocked him off the stairs. The pitcher did not break because it landed on his stomach and emptied itself down his trousers legs. Instinctively The Mudhen leaped backward and let go of the rope, which flew up and smashed the electric light bulb.

"Are you hurt, Frog ?'' he shouted.

But before the sosgy Froggie could answer the darkness was rent, shattered, pulverized by a blast of sound.

"Jee-eepers!" The Mudhen reeled backward, overtook the open feed bin and jackknifed into it. The floor trembled as William bolted for the door, taking the fiendish noise with him.

"Where are you, Mud?" Froggie shrieked.

"Coming out of the feed box. What happened to Shakespeare?"

"I—I guess he exploded. It's all over me."

"But the noise? That was no explosion." Just then it sounded again outside the barn, a terrific, metallic bray that would have raised gooseflesh on a fence post. "He's blowing the dinner horn, Frog!"

"He can't."

"But he is. That board with the horn in it must have stuck in his mouth."

"Oh, my gosh! What'll we do, Mud?"

"You mean what will he do?"

"He is doing it."

He was, with gusto. All his life William had been a well-mannered horse. It is no disparagement to record that he suddenly abandoned his behavior pattern. Why not? In itself a bellyache is hard to endure and when in addition one finds one's mouth filled with something that feels like a woodpile and sounds like the Last Trump one is permitted to get the heck out of there. So he galloped down the driveway and into the street, the horn giving voice to what was possibly the only equine horn solo ever heard.

Under ordinary conditions a staunch dinner horn of the old school can make itself heard for a mile, but when it is activated by the lung power of a panic-stricken horse its range is amazing. And so is its tone which acquires not only enormous volume but a weird, unearthly note of alarm sufficient to cause a stuffed crocodile to climb a tree. William Shakespeare made the most of his unsought opportunity by putting his four feet to the pavement in a way reminiscent of Paul Revere, or Paul's horse, and high-tailing it down the street.

Then something else happened. By one of the most remarkable coincidences of modern times at the very moment of William's setting forth the main electric line went flooey and the town became dark. And down the black street, hoofs pounding and horn screeching, went William like a messenger of doom.

"Air raid!" someone screamed, and the words took wing. "Air raid! Air raid! Air raid!" flew along the streets, across gardens, over housetops. Somewhere someone snatched a telephone and called emergency headquarters.

"Can you verify it?" the operator snapped.

"Don't ask questions. They've landed by parachute outside town. They grabbed all the cars, cut all the wires, but a guy on horseback got through. Blow, you fool!"

The operator was still hesitating when a clatter of hoofs and a wild blast of alarm drew near and passed in the darkness. "That man is a hero!" the girl sobbed as she threw the siren switch.

"Oh, my gosh!" Froggie caught hold of The Mudhen as the wail rose to high heaven. "They'll put us in the pedal feniten-tary for this!"

"Come on!" The Mudhen tugged at him. "We've got to hide that horse before the lights come on."

"You're nuts."

"Everybody is. Scram."

They ran down the street that was intermittently lighted by passing cars. By then police cars were adding to the din and some misguided patriot was clanging a church bell like mad.

"I can't hear William any more," Froggie panted. "We'll never find him now."

The Mudhen stopped abruptly and pulled his partner onto a lawn.

"Do you know something, Frog?"

"Not a thing, Mud."

"If that horse has any sense he will beat it home where the Bumble Bee's sister lives. That is just outside town. Let's go there and look."

"There'll be nobody home; she's gone visiting."

"We don't want anybody home except William. This way, through this garden to the back street."

A car backfired a few feet away and from a window above them a woman shrieked, "That was a bomb! Get ready to jump!"

"Follow me, Frog," The Mudhen shouted.

"I can't see where . . ." Froggie's voice stopped with a smothered squawk.

"What's wrong?" The Mudhen turned back.

"They dropped a parachute on me!" Froggie sounded underground. "Pull it off me, Mud! I'm smothering!"

The Mudhen groped until he found cloth, a great blob of it that seemed to cover the whole lawn. It was heaving violently and from its depths came muffled cries and grunts. There was a ripping sound and Froggie coughed and spluttered like a stalling motor. The Mudhen put out his hands and found the air full of soft floating things.

"Feathers! Someone dropped a featherbed on you."

"I'm going to jump on the bed before the house burns!" The upstairs lady screamed, as another car backfired in the black street. "They're bombing us!"

"Hold it! Don't jump!" The Mudhen yelled. "There is no fire."

She caught the last word and flung it around for all it was worth: "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

"I'll send in an alarm," a neighbor whooped.

"I've got my hose hooked up," said a voice near by.

There was a gurgle and a hiss as a vicious unseen stream of water hurtled through the night.

"Aoooow!" Froggie's voice rose and fell with a splash.

"Shut it off!" The Mudhen roared.

"I'm keeping things wet," the man answered.

He was, so wet that by the time the boys were out of range they had made a piker of the proverbial drowned rat.

"Pft! Pft! Pft!" Froggie remarked.

"What ails you now?" The Mudhen asked testily.

"You'd spit if you were plastered a foot thick with wet feathers."

"Snap out of it! We must find that horse."

"I hope he's dead."

"I don't, I'm responsible for him."

"Then you're responsible for all this mess."

"Shut up, Frog!"

They listened for a while to the wild sounds about them, in which William Shakespeare and his horn were no longer participating. Playing The Mudhen's hunch, they made their way to his old home. He was innocently eating grass behind the empty house. Somewhere along the way he had lost his noise-making apparatus and his bellyache.

"Brother!" Froggie drew a long breath. "He got the exercise the vet ordered but in a way that wasn't funny."

"There was nothing funny about it," The Mudhen agreed. "But I hope when we tell Scotty about it he can find something to laugh at."

Chapter 21

Scotty did laugh until he cried, after he had been sworn to secrecy and told of the doings of William Shakespeare. He continued to chuckle off and on for days afterward at the fruitless efforts of police, newspaper men, radio announcers and private citizens to discover the author of the false alarm. If the great Sherlock himself had been present it is doubtful if he would have cast a questioning eye at a peaceful little horse nibbling grass behind a prosaic barn.

But Scotty had other thoughts that were not pleasant at all.

"How can I live without the boys?" he asked the Old Guard one evening. "I truly believe they have kept me alive during the past six months."

"And the rest of us try to figure out a way to live with them," the headmaster tried to pass it off lightly. Then he said in a different tone, "The world needs more teachers of your stamp, Lauder."

"More one-legged teachers ?" Scotty smiled ruefully.

"That is only temporary, you know it is."

"The next operation will tell the story. That is, if—but shucks!" He pulled himself together. "We were speaking of boys. I hope they will pull off one more stunt during this last month of school."

"I can't imagine a static month in this place." The Old Guard smiled.

"That's it!" Scotty's eyes shone. "Don't you see why I love them?"

"Yes. And I see why they love you—because you are one of them. Don't ever change—don't ever change."

That evening the Old Guard went up to his office and wrote a letter to the State Beekeepers Association accepting their proposition to sponsor a school debate on the subject "Resolved: that every family should keep bees." The prize was a swarm and hive, valued at Twenty Dollars. He had intended to ignore the offer, for it was not the time for extra work, but Scotty might enjoy watching the contest develop. Make it an inter-fraternity debate and there would be fireworks, perhaps one more thing for Scotty to remember with pleasure.

When the debate was announced neither side wanted the swarm but the probability of selling it for twenty dollars was an interesting item so they prepared for battle. Skunk and Rip would argue for the Bears, Sam and Skeeter for the Eagles. Books, magazines and pamphlets yielded such a raft of bee lore that within two weeks those four gentlemen, whose interest in bees had heretofore been purely evasive, were so well posted on the doings of drones, workers and queens that they were practically calling every bee by its first name. With the zeal of honey bears they followed bees down through the ages and accumulated enough evidence for and against them to stuff a hive and have enough left to smoke out a bee tree.

The evening of the great buzz arrived and the gym swarmed with spectators. It was a honey of a debate, waxing hot and furious, and afterward the decision made a beeline for the Bears. It was a fair award and there were no legitimate gripes.

Trouble started the next day. The prize was delivered during school hours and the janitor, who didn't like bees, no matter what anyone said in their favor, had the hive placed in a remote corner of the campus. That was all right with the Bears, for they had no idea what to do with the thing except to try to sell it. There had been glory in winning it, but now that they had it, its owners were skeptical of its value to themselves.

The Mudhen got out of class early to meet a dentist appointment and while taking a short cut downtown made the acquaintance of the new arrivals, who were still sore about being bumped around in a truck. The feeling, it seemed to the boy, was unanimous, for of a sudden he had a sensation each of the seventy-five thousand individuals of which the swarm was said to be composed was eager to contact him emphatically. Students staring pop-eyed from classroom windows witnessed the unprecedented sight of old Mud moving rapidly. And why not? Even at that speed seventeen of the bees got aboard with their bayonets.

Quickly after that the status of the swarm underwent a great change in the opinion of its owners. No longer was it a piece of merchandise valued at twenty dollars; it was a priceless friend that had raised seventeen bumps on the hide of the rival frat's top man, as well as wounding his dignity and distressing the whole Eagle clan. Before night Bear sentiment on that hive was as thick as moss on the old oaken bucket.

By the following day all thought of selling the prize was abandoned, at least for the present. Anything capable of annoying The Mudhen was to be cherished. Naturally the Eagles took this as a poke in the puss, which further pleased the Bears. The mere mention of bees struck sparks from every Eagle, therefore the Bears went wholeheartedly into the mentioning business. Cheese found an excuse for reciting "To be-e-e or not to be-e-e" in English class, and the prof penalized seven Eagles for blowing up. In math, when The Mudhen stumbled in expounding a problem, Noodle came to his aid by pointing out that while A was an unknown factor B should be familiar to him. Froggie jabbed the other side of Noodle with a pencil and got a black mark in the big book. Meanwhile some genius had dug up a recording of the Flight of the Bumble Bee, and by using a portable player and working in shifts the Bears managed to keep it going constantly within sound of Eagle ears. A few hours of that and a mere "buzzzz" cleared the decks for action.

"Jeepers!" Sam sizzled. "We'll go nuts if this keeps up."

"Let's do something." Froggie doubled his fists. "We don't have to just sit and let 'em humilify us."

"Do what?"

"Bust up that bee hive."

"Not me." The Mudhen rubbed his still swollen nose.

"We'll go at night," Froggie said.

"No," Dave objected. "The bees are private property and we have no right to destroy them."

"What about us?" Sam asked. "Do they have a right to destroy us?"

"We must get rid of them legally. If we mess with the law we'll be left with pie on our face."

"Right," The Mudhen agreed. "We must think our way out."

"Then do it, Brain Trust," Sam jibed.

"I will, varlet," The Mudhen answered grandly and walked away.

What he did about it was not at once apparent but other things were. The first to draw attention to itself was the janitor's right eye; it was closed, but his mouth was not.

"Look at me!" he bellowed at Cheese, who happened to be passing. "Your dang-blasted bees done it."

"Hold it," Cheese argued. "You don't know whose bees stung you."

"Yes, I do too!" The janitor gave him a one-eyed glare. "Two 'n' two makes four, don't it? Well, dang-blast it, in all the years I've worked here there ain't been a bee on the place before, but now I can't stick my head out the basement door that the air ain't full of 'em. Two 'n' two makes four, don't it? Don't two 'n' two make four?"

Cheese refused to become involved in mathematics. Instead, he said, "Don't strike at the bees. They won't sting you if you keep calm."

"Calm! You dang-blasted idjit! Calm with a swarm of bees round your head!" The janitor stormed away.

Cheese breezed along undisturbed by the man's trouble. Somewhere he could hear the Flight of the Bumble Bee, and across the campus two Eagles fairly bristled as they walked. The world was a swell place, Cheese thought. Whistling a tune, he went up the dorm stairs two at a time and was heading for his room when the door flew open and Noodle popped out, waving a slipper in one hand and a baseball bat in the other.

"It's lousy with bees in there!" he roared, slamming the door.

"Bees?" Cheese pulled up short. "How did they get in?"

"One screen is out at the bottom. When I came back for my math book the place was full of them."

"But why?"

"Why? How the heck do I know why? They're there, that's all."

"We never had a bee there before. You're dreaming, Noodle."

"I didn't get this lump on my ear from a dream."

"It's a dilly." Cheese grinned.

"If you think it's so cute why don't you stick your bean in there and get a few for yourself?"

"I haven't got time. Get your math book and we'll hike for class."

"You get it. You left the screen open and let the bees in."

"I did not."

"You did."

"No, sir!"

Down the hall a door opened and The Mudhen strolled out.

"Hey!" Noodle pointed the slipper at him. "He did it."

"Good morning!" The Mudhen saluted with exaggerated politeness. "You were saying what, sir?"

"I said you let a million bees into our room."

"Friend, lend me your ear—you have enough to lend. I have no bees to let into your room. You Bears own the only bees in this vicinity."

"Never mind who owns 'em," Noodle shouted. "Why are they in that room?"

"The answer is simple: bees go where there is sweetness. So they are found in Bear headquarters."

"Some day I'll pulverize you," Noodle said earnestly as The Mudhen faded down the stairs.

A few hours later Professor Phelps followed the same route he had taken every balmy school day for many years. At exactly noon he sat down to lunch at home. At exactly 12:25 he started across the campus. At exactly 12:30 he sat down in the same long green chair behind the library, placed his hat on the ground and fell asleep. He expected to awaken at exactly 12:55, put on his hat and arrive in his classroom at exactly one o'clock.

But there comes a time when the most methodical prof slips a cog. It takes so little to alter the best-established routine. A faint tickling on one ear caused him to stir and mutter in his sleep. Light footsteps crossing his bald spot made him slap viciously. A red hot needle on his florid cheek brought him up with both hands beating the air. Such violent motions excite bees and they have a way of imparting excitement to others. In the short time it took Mr. Phelps to dodge into the library, skid against the librarian, upset a stack of books, wreck a fernery and collide with The Mudhen at a table there was considerable turmoil.

"What is going on here?" the Old Guard demanded, stepping out of another room.

"I have been stung," Mr. Phelps panted, backing away from The Mudhen.

"Is that all?" The headmaster seemed relieved.

"All?" Mr. Phelps fingered his features tenderly. "I have been stung at least three times."

"Bees or hornets ?" the Old Guard asked.

"Bees—I saw them—bees from that infernal hive on the back campus." Mr. Phelps was not happy about it.

"But all bees look alike, sir," The Mudhen ventured.

"Don't attempt to defend those bees, Crane, just because they happen to be schoolboy property. I was never attacked until that hive arrived." He stalked out of the library.

"It's not fair for everyone who gets stung to blame it on those bees," The Mudhen said as he and the Old Guard went out. "There are other bees in the world."

"Yet there was no trouble until they appeared," Mr. Noble pointed out. "I have heard four complaints today."

And more were coming up. The track coach said there were bees in the locker room, the handy man would not mow the lawn because the shed was full of bees, the janitor demanded that something be done about bees in the dorm. Everyone was sure the Bears' swarm was guilty, though no one could prove it.

By evening the Old Guard was allergic to talk about bees, for he had heard little else all day. Due to mob psychology or something everyone he met had bee jitters and was ready to duck and run at sight of a fly. And of all times for this to happen! For tomorrow the trustees made their annual inspection of the school and things should be running smoothly. Rather than hear more bee chatter he moved the lawn table and chairs himself under the trees where, as was customary in good weather, the business meeting would be held. Then he went home to dinner and his wife told him she had heard there were bees on the campus.

The next morning things were calm, the sun shone reassuringly and if a bee patrolled the area he was a pacifist. The trustees came, benign gentlemen who harmonized with the school's peaceful atmosphere. When they had inspected the place and lunched leisurely they strolled over the grass to the chairs under the trees by the fountain. They laid their hats on the table and leaned back to discuss business. The birds sang merrily and to the Old Guard's discomfort there was the homey sound of bees at work.

"You may notice a few bees around here," he said casually, "but if they are ignored they are harmless."

"I love bees," said Mr. Saintsbury, a stout trustee. "Marvelous creatures. Any interest in bees among the students, Mr. Noble?"

"Considerable." The Old Guard noted with horror that a bee was crawling on one of Mr. Saintsbury's silkclad ankles. "Pardon me." He stooped to brush it away, in so doing convincing the bee that war had been declared.

"Aow!" Mr. Saintsbury yelled, kicking with both feet and hitting a table leg.

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Scott, who was slightly deaf.

"Bees!" Mr. Saintsbury grabbed his hat and waved it under the table where an air squadron had suddenly assembled.

"Swat 'em!" shouted Mr. Bell, a bearded gentleman. He reached for his hat, said something with gusto and jumped to his feet.

"Easy, gentlemen," the Old Guard implored. "They won't attack unless excited."

Zing! One nailed him on the upper lip, causing him to rear so violently that his chair overturned.

"Oh—bees." Mr. Scott now understood. "Let's get out of here." He rolled to his feet in time to collide with Mr. Saintsbury. Both gentlemen collapsed, Mr. Saintsbury sitting on Mr. Scott's belt buckle.

The Old Guard was up and doing two men's work, that of a ballet dancer and shadow boxer. As host, he felt it was his place to take command, so he yelled, "Step back a few paces, gentlemen, they won't follow."

"There's one in my beard!" Mr. Bell puffed.

He was already going backward, slapping his own face vigorously. Under those conditions it was impossible for him to steer a safe course; the choice was left to fate and fate is no respecter of trustees. Two more backward steps and Mr. Bell was in the fountain.

As soon as possible the Old Guard suggested to the Bears that they change their plans. In fact he gave them one hour in which to get those infernal bees off the campus. A local beekeeper offered to take them as a gift and the deal was quickly closed. Thus ended in defeat an episode that began in glory.

That evening The Mudhen sank into a chair in Scotty's room and breathed deeply of the breeze at the window. "It has been a busy day," he said, "lots of bees-ness."

"I suppose you know the Bears are trying to pin it on you."

"On me?"

"They say you trained those bees."

"I? Why, Scotty, I don't know a thing about bees—except that they can smell honey for a mile."

"Are you sure that is all you know?" Scotty looked at him closely. "Don't disappoint me, Mud."

"Let me think." The boy rubbed his head. "Do you suppose— this is all supposition—do you suppose someone might have put a small dab of honey in some inconspicuous spot, say, the basement door or Cheese's room or Mr. Phelps' chair or the lawn table? If that was the case the bees might have been attracted to it and started buzzing around. Suppose that did happen, excitable people may have struck at them and caused them to sort of hit back. Does that sound reasonable or am I dumb to even think of such a thing?"

"Dumb as a fox," the little prof said.

Chapter 22

June, the month of long shadows under the elms, baseball games, examinations and Commencement. But to The Mudhen it was more than that this year. His sense of values seemed to have changed; sports mattered less to him, fraternity rivalry appeared shallow and childish, even the rating on examination papers was not of major concern. In truth, as the school year drew to a close, anxiety about Scotty's condition was out in front of other interests.

Often before, The Mudhen had been moved to help a friend out of difficulty and when the crisis was passed he slipped back into his easy-going routine. He might again, providing he saw Scotty over the hump, but so far he could find no way to help. That baffled him until he could think of nothing else. For months now the little prof had lain there, pale and suffering but cheerful and courageous, and slowly the boy's friendship for him, born two years before in the classroom, had become hero-worship. He was not conscious of it as a concrete fact, he only knew he would give anything he had to help this man who needed help so badly and was so worthy of it. To fail in this, as he felt he was doing, gave him the awful feeling that he was letting Scotty down. And it would be worse when vacation came and he went away ostensibly for a summer of fun, leaving the little guy to fight on alone.

Things came to a climax at the beginning of the last week of school. Finding Scotty asleep when he called at the hospital, The Mudhen sat on the grass with his back to the sun-porch wall to wait. A window was open above his head and through it he heard steps and the voices of two doctors.

"Lauder should have his operation before long," one said.

"There is that question of money," the other answered, and they passed out of hearing.

The Mudhen felt cold in the pit of his stomach. So that was it: Scotty's money was gone and he couldn't have the operation, the one they said might cure him. For months he had been building up to it, suffering, waiting, hoping and now at the critical point they were stalling for lack of a few dirty dollars. Anger burned him up. Here were two men who had it in their power to bring relief, perhaps complete recovery, to a hero if there ever was one, yet they would not act unless their fee was guaranteed.

In the back of his mind he clung to the hope that it was not so. There must be some explanation. Miserable but determined, he sought out the Old Guard in his office.

"Mr. Noble," he asked bluntly, "is it true that Scotty's operation is being held up because he hasn't the money?"

"Well," the headmaster fiddled with a pencil, "at the moment that is the situation."

"My lord!" The boy's eyes flashed. "Are we going to let that happen, sir?"

"Easy, Crane." The Old Guard sensed the tension. "I am not free to discuss Scotty's finances, but I will say the operation is being postponed at his request. The surgeons are not concerned about their pay."

"That makes me feel better toward them," the boy said. "I had sort of lost faith in human nature."

"Don't worry too much about it, Crane."

"I'll try not to, sir. It's just that I am so awfully interested. As I dope it out, Scotty is so deep in debt now he can't bear the thought of going in deeper. Is that right?"

The Old Guard looked distressed. "As I told you, I am not free to discuss Scotty's business now. Perhaps later."

"Yes, sir." The boy went out slowly.

On a remote corner of the campus he sat down with his back to a tree and did the most serious thinking of his life. Two things were now plain to him: Scotty's pride would not allow him to go farther in debt for the operation, and he, The Mudhen, was the only one willing and able to help him. Yes, able, for as treasurer of the Defense Bond Committee he had seven hundred and fifty dollars in his name at the bank. It was school money and during the next few days he would convert it into a thousand-dollar bond which would be presented to the gym fund as part of Commencement exercises. Being a minor it had been necessary for him to have his father's permission to open the account and now, in preparation for the big day, he had that parent's written order authorizing him to withdraw the cash. He would do just that, then he would send it anonymously to Scotty.

The boy could not stop there without becoming a thief. Nor did he intend to. As he had done many times with lesser problems, he had thought his way in and out of this one before making a move. The way out was simple now that he had decided to give all he had to help Scotty. Years before, his father had laid away four one-thousand-dollar bonds to pay his prep-school tuition. There was now one left in the deposit box back home, the one intended for next year. But now there would be no next year. Quite calmly, as he sat there under the tree, he resolved to write his father a complete explanation and ask for the tuition bond to cover the money he was withdrawing for Scotty. Yes, it was simple: he would work next year instead of going to school. His father would understand, for he was that kind.

It was a tribute to both father and son that he did understand and immediately sent a check for seven hundred and fifty dollars, for, as he explained, it would take some time to go through the red tape of cashing the bond. While his heart thumped madly, The Mudhen cashed the check and mailed the crisp greenbacks to Scotty without a written word. He had done all he could for the little prof.

Casually he went through the activities of Commencement week but underneath was a sadness he had never felt before. Officially he was now a senior, but he knew he was not even a student any more. He was through; there would be no next year for him. When he presented the bond to the gym committee on behalf of the two fraternities there was a lump in his throat as he realized it was the last time he would ever see those guys together. Oh, well, so what ? If Scotty got well nothing else mattered. You can't have your cake and eat it— or something.

He tried to whistle a tune as he strolled across the campus. Everyone else was whistling or shouting as they buzzed around getting ready to leave. His favorite elm almost spoke aloud to him and he paused to pat its trunk and say good-by.

"Hey, Mud!" Froggie came out of nowhere fast. "Scotty wants you down to the hospital pronto."

"What's up?" The Mudhen's heart turned over.

"Don't know. The Old Guard is there too."

"Coming with me, Frog?"

"I've got to pack and catch a bus. See you next fall, Mud."

"Oh, sure." The Mudhen choked and hurried away.

He stopped short as he entered Scotty's room. Both those men were red-eyed, believe it or not. Something terrible must have happened.

"You sent for me, Scotty?" He held his breath.

"Yes. Sit down, Mud."

He sat and waited for the end of the world.

"You begin." Scotty looked at the headmaster.

"Well, Crane," the Old Guard chewed his pipestem. "I have had a letter from your father."

"Is he—all right, sir?"

"More than that," the Old Guard's eyes winked fast, "he is the proudest man on earth to learn he has a son like you."

"Like me?" The Mudhen stared, unable to get that.

"Don't try to cover up," the Old Guard said. "He wrote me the whole story of the bonds."

"Oh!" The boy stared at the floor. "I wish he hadn't, but as long as he did there is nothing I can say. There was nothing dishonest in what I did, was there, sir?"

"No, Crane, it was a very fine thing. Scotty and I are proud of you."

"Shucks!" The Mudhen blushed. "There was nothing to it. I just wanted to sort of help with Scotty's operation a little."

"I am going to have it tomorrow," Scotty said in a tense voice. "The doctors promise it will be a sure cure this time."

"Then you will use the money, even if you do know where it came from." The boy's face lit up with happiness.

"It won't be necessary," Scotty said, and coughed.

"I—I thought you needed it."

"I did. That was why I delayed the operation—a matter of foolish pride. But you saved my neck before the money came."

"There is something screwy about this," The Mudhen said, puzzled.

"Not a bit." Scotty grinned. "You see, Mud, all the year I have been writing down the things you told me—your adventure as food inspector, as a pie judge, as a lion catcher, all those things. I thought they were good so I wrote them up as short stories. Well, they sold, all in one bunch this week. They will run in a magazine and then be published as a book. The publishers have sent me an advance of fifteen hundred dollars."

"Hot dog!" The Mudhen jumped to his feet. "Scotty, you're a peach!"

"I couldn't have done it without your help, Mud."

"Shucks! I didn't do anything. I just acted naturally."

"So," Scotty continued, "I will return your seven hundred and fifty bucks and you will be back with us next year."

"Which will make us very proud and happy," the Old Guard added in a choked voice.

"Excuse me, please, I need air." The Mudhen yanked open the door and disappeared.

"And the beautiful part of the whole business is that he did act naturally," the Old Guard said to Scotty.

Table of Contents

THE MUDHEN

Chapter One

CHAPTER TWO

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The Mudhen And The Walrus

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

The Mudhen Acts Naturally

chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22