"Shucks! now, I hadn't thought of that before," a.s.sented the tall boy, in a grudging fashion, as though he disliked giving up any cherished idea that may have seized upon his mind with conviction. "And if they've gone and put up money on Paulding breasting the tape first, why, of course they might plot to do something to lame the best runners in Riverport and Mechanicsburg. But Fred, in that case they'd be apt to send men here to knock you. These were boys!"

"Yes, that's so, Colon, and it looks like a weak link in the chain, doesn't it? But since the game didn't pan out the way they thought it would, perhaps these fellows will fight shy of trying anything like it again. We'll take a look around to-morrow, and see if we can notice any signs of their being on the hurt list among Buck's crowd."

"That's the ticket, Fred!" said Colon, jubilant. "That black eye would tell the story, wouldn't it, now? And then if Clem Shooks or Oscar Jones is seen to limp painfully, and grunt every step he takes, that ought to mark him as one of your poor victims."

"The whole three of them galloped off, didn't they?" asked Fred just then.

"I should say they did, and as fast as they could skip. But what makes you ask that, Fred?"

"I thought I heard a movement in this patch of bushes here, that's all; but it may have been a bird or a rabbit. Shall we start along now, Colon?"

"Just give me half a minute, will you, Fred?" begged the tall chum, who was fumbling in his vest pocket.

"What do you want to do?" asked Fred.

"Oh, strike a match, and take a little peep around," he was told. "Never know what you might strike. Remember picking up a sleeve b.u.t.ton once, after I'd been set on by a couple of fellows in the dark; and it gave the game away. Oh! yes, I returned the b.u.t.ton, but my bruises felt a heap better after I'd given the fellow a double dose."

He immediately snapped the match off, and began moving around close to the bushes. Fred heard him sing out before half a dozen seconds had pa.s.sed.

"Well, this is great luck, Fred!" Colon exclaimed. "Here I've found a hat trampled in the dirt. Maybe now that will tell the story. Hold it, please, while I strike another match. Let's look inside. What's this I see? First thing is the well known trademark of our enterprising Riverport hat dealer. Then here's some initials in gold fixed inside.

What d'ye make 'em out to be, Fred?"

CHAPTER XV

CLINCHING EVIDENCE

"As near as I can make out, they're C.J.," said Fred, after he had taken a look, before the match flickered, and went out in the night breeze.

Colon burst into another laugh.

"Told you so, Fred!" he remarked, triumphantly. "You don't need to guess twice to know whom that set belongs to. Let me mention his name to you---Conrad Jimmerson, and this is what proves it. I'd just keep that old hat, and make him eat it, if I were you."

There was another rustling in the bushes, and Fred glanced that way as though a trifle suspicious, but made no move to investigate.

"Oh! I don't know that I'll go as far as that," Fred observed, "because, while a fellow may have to eat crow once in a while, swallowing his own hat would be asking too much of him. But there's another way to rub it in."

"How?" asked Colon.

"Suppose now I took this hat to school Monday," continued Fred, seriously enough, "and told the story of how we were waylaid by three mysterious chaps, who did their level best to injure us about the shins, and without any doubt meaning to knock us out from taking part in the big race?

Don't you think nearly everybody would be warm about it?"

"Hot about the collar as they could be, and ready to take it out of the hide of the three guilty ones, if only they knew who they were," the other boy affirmed in his positive way.

"Well, I might put this old hat on exhibition, and ask every boy to take a good look at it before seeing the tell-tale initials inside. Then we'd hear what they thought, and if any of them recognized the same. In that way, Colon, it ought to be easy to run down the rascal."

"Yes," added the tall boy, "and once you nailed him, it wouldn't be so hard to make him own up who his cronies were. He's a coward, when you pin him down. I'd dare him to stand up and have it out with me. Then p'raps it was C.J. who rammed his old eye so hard against my fist, trying to feaze me. Oh! the evidence is going to acc.u.mulate against him like a regular old mountain. There's that rabbit of yours moving again, Fred.

Queer all this row didn't start him off, isn't it?"

"I just happened to think," remarked Fred, "that we're on a false mission, after all."

"Right now, you mean, don't you, Fred?"

"Yes, because it wasn't Bristles at all I was talking with, but one of this same crowd. No wonder his voice sounded so queer to me, and m.u.f.fled." Then Fred had to laugh, after which he went on to say, "And to think how sly he was making out the cause of it to be that sudden cold he'd taken."

"That was a mighty clever dodge, let me tell you," Colon went on to say.

"You see, he knew you'd notice the difference in voices, for even over the wire it's easy to recognize a friend's way of speaking; so he fixed it up, with a nut in his cheek, and then told you about the cold."

"And that cough, why, I tell you it was splendidly worked, and whoever carried it out was a sharp one, Colon."

"However do you guess it was done?" asked the tall chum.

"Well, there must have been a fourth member of the gang, who had his part of the game to play. Chances were he was to go into some place downtown where they have a public 'phone booth, at exactly eight o'clock, and call me up. The other three were to be hiding here before that time, waiting for me to cross over. And I must say it worked out to a charm---only for the walking-stick, and you, Colon. They didn't figure on my receiving such important reinforcements at the eleventh hour, as to turn the tide of battle."

"Talk to me about Blucher coming up to help Wellington at Waterloo, you were in just as good luck to-night. And the French didn't feel any more sore when they had to run, than Buck and his pals do right now. I'd give thirty cents to see what the lot of them are doing this very minute; rubbing their bodies, and saying everything mean about us they can think of. Ho! ho! ho!"

Colon seemed to extract a considerable amount of amus.e.m.e.nt out of this unexpected happening. He evidently considered that he had been in for more or less luck simply because he happened to be in Fred's company when the other ran into the ambuscade. Colon was not averse to an occasional measure of excitement, and although not all considered a pugnacious fellow, he could at the same time hold his own when difficulties arose.

"Of course," pursued Fred, "if I thought it worth while I could easily find out who sent that message to me, and played the part of Bristles."

"You mean by going to telephone headquarters, and learning who connected with your number tonight about eight; is that it, Fred?"

"And after they had told me it was, say, Dudley's drug store," Fred continued, as if figuring it all out, "I could step in there and ask Gussie Lightly what boy used the booth about that time."

"Easy enough, because of course Gussie knows all the boys about town, and if it was Ben Cushing or Clem Shooks or Oscar Jones, he could tell you right off the reel. Why don't you do it, Fred?"

"I may when I get home, because it can all be done just as well over the wire you know," the other replied. "Gussie is a good friend of mine, I feel sure, and if only he knew what a mean game had been set up on me, he'd do anything to square matters."

"And at school Monday," Colon suggested, "it might be a good thing for you to be able to prove it was one of Buck's cronies that talked with you, making out to be Bristles, who hasn't any cold at all."

"I'm glad of that, too," Fred observed, "because I was feeling that he couldn't go along with us tomorrow on the trial spin."

"It was a dirty trick, Fred, but I must say pretty well worked out. I can see the fine hand of our old friend, Buck, back of it all. There isn't another fellow in all Riverport who could get up such a combination. Buck's as full of schemes as an egg is of meat. That's why the others all flock after him. He's got the brains, and carries the money too."

"Now, while it seems that Bristles didn't call me up, and beg me to come over, as we're already part way there, we might as well finish the lap, Colon."

"Oh! you know I gave him to understand that maybe we might run in on him," he was told by the other.

"But it's too bad," remarked Fred, grinning broadly.

"About what?" demanded his friend.

"We're going to be badly disappointed, I'm afraid."

"We are, eh? I'd like to know how that comes, Fred?"