"Why, we laid out to hear the most thrilling thing that ever happened, you see," the other told him, in a voice of mock disappointment. "When Bristles with the m.u.f.fled voice and the bad cold told me he'd just burst if he didn't have someone to confide in right soon, he got me worked up to fever pitch. Now I've had to cool down. There isn't going to be any development. Our hair won't have to stand tip on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine. In so many words, Colon, it's all off, you know."

"I'm afraid it is, Fred," admitted the other, sadly, "and I'm some disappointed, too, because you had my curiosity whetted up. Why, I couldn't begin to tell you all I expected to hear when Bristles got busy.

Course, knowing about that Corny as you did, it was easy to figure out how he might be the one Bristles meant to tell about. Well, that ends it, and Fred, hadn't we better be hunching out of this, if you think there's no more hats or other trophies of the great victory lying around?"

"Yes, we'll be over at Bristles' place inside of five minutes more," Fred announced.

"If he happened to have his window open I wouldn't be surprised if he heard us carrying on high over here in the field," suggested Colon, and there was an air of expectancy in his voice, as though such a thing would not have been at all unpleasant to him.

"One thing sure," Fred a.s.serted, confidently, "he'll kick up an awful row just because he didn't happen to be in the little affair. Bristles never wants anyone to get ahead of him, when there's action stirring."

"No more he does," Colon echoed. "Here, suppose you keep this old hat.

I'm given to being careless, and I'd be apt to drop it somewhere. No danger of you doing that, Fred; you're always as particular about such things as an old maid."

"You can make your mind tip that when the evidence is needed to show up the owner of this hat at school, it will be forthcoming. I'll take it home with me, and keep it safe and sound."

The two boys were already moving off, heading across the field. They could easily see the lights in the Carpenter house, which was only a short distance away, though if one went around by the road it would take some fifteen minutes to make the journey.

They did not bother to look back after they had quitted the vicinity of the big cl.u.s.ter of bushes. Had they done so, and the starlight been strong enough for them to see as a cat does at nighttime, Fred and Colon might have discovered a bare-headed figure that came creeping out of the bushes. This wretched person looked after them with more or less grumbling and complaining, as though not at all relishing some of the things so recently spoken by the two chums.

CHAPTER XVI

TELLING BRISTLES

"h.e.l.lo there, Fred, and you too, Colon; glad to see you both! Step in, and come upstairs with me to my den, won't you?"

In this fashion did Bristles meet the two visitors at the front door, and convinced by the warmth of the reception that they were going to be welcome guests, Fred and the tall boy fell in behind the one who had admitted them. Presently they found themselves comfortably seated in such chairs as decorated the so-called "den," which was a small room on the top story, where Bristles kept his belongings and did his studying.

"Glad to see your bad cold is a lot better, Bristles!" remarked Colon, with a sly wink over toward Fred, who chuckled.

Bristles of course looked puzzled.

"I suppose that's, some sort of a poor joke," he ventured, cautiously, glancing from one to the other of his visitors; "but me, I'm groping all around in the dark, and don't seem to catch on. S'pose you open up, and explain how it works, Colon."

The tall boy allowed his eyebrows to go up as though tremendously surprised.

"Do you mean to tell me, Bristles Carpenter, that you didn't call up Fred, here, a little while back, and while begging him to hurry over, as you had something important to explain, say you'd taken such a cold you could hardly speak plain?"

"What, me? Say, you're dreaming, Colon. I never said a word of that, and right now I haven't got the least bit of a cold!" exclaimed the other, indignantly. At the same time he began to show a certain amount of curiosity, for his good sense warned him there must be a story back of Colon's strange accusation.

"And you didn't interrupt yourself several times to say, 'Oh! excuse me, while I cough!' and then start in whooping it up so hard Fred here had to take the receiver down from his ear or go deaf?"

"Oh! Come off, and tell me what all this silly stuff means!" demanded the still more mystified boy. "Has anybody been playing a rousing good joke on Fred, and making out to be me?"

"That's about the size of it, isn't it, Fred," Colon a.s.sented, eagerly enough. "It was a rousing enough joke, while it lasted, but the trouble is that it turned out to be one of those back-action, kicking jokes, that turns on the jokers, unexpected like. This one left a black eye, and a whole lot of black and blue marks behind it---that is, we believe so, and have a pretty good reason, too."

"All right, now tell me what it all means, please," Bristles pleaded, seeing that the tall chum was really in earnest.

Colon explained, and as he finished, the astonished listener demanded:

"But what d'ye reckon it all means?"

"Both of us noticed that their main plan seemed to be to kick at our shins every chance they got," explained Fred, "and Colon says they had heavy brogans on, too. It's a hard thing to say, Bristles, but we honestly believe they meant to lame us, so we couldn't be in shape to run to-morrow, and perhaps at the time of the great Marathon, too."

Bristles clenched his hands, and looked savage.

"Well, what d'ye think of that now for a savage trick?" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't believe it of those Mechanicsburg athletes, who've always seemed a pretty decent bunch of fellows."

"Hold on," said Fred. "Go a little slow, Bristles."

"What for?" demanded the other, impetuously and fiercely.

"Because you're making the same mistake Colon here did at first," he was told.

"About the boys up the river, you mean, Fred?"

"Yes. It isn't fair to accuse them without any proof," the other told him.

"But the Paulding crowd---" stammered Bristles, evidently taken aback.

"Get closer home," warned Colon. "What d'ye want to go climbing all over the country for, when you've only got to use your nose to smell a rat right in old Riverport!"

"Jupiter Pluvius! you must mean our old friend, Buck!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bristles, his elevated eyebrows indicating his astonishment. "Tell me about that, will you? Has he actually come to life again, and been up to his old tricks?"

"We're dead sure of it," Colon told him, nodding his head at a lively rate.

"Then chances are you recognized one of the bunch?" suggested Bristles.

"No," said Fred, "we couldn't do that very well, because they changed their voices, and had their faces hidden by their hats, coat collars, and even some sort of cloth that seemed to be tied about their jaws. But after the sc.r.a.p was over, we picked up a clue that we think will give the game away."

"What, Fred?"

"Take a look at this old hat, Bristles," continued the other, as he drew the article in question from his pocket.

"Well, I'm looking at it," he was told.

"Ever see it before?" asked Colon, eagerly.

"Of course I wouldn't like to raise my hand, and swear to it," remarked Bristles, slowly, "but I want to say this looks mighty like a yellow-colored hat I've seen a certain fellow wear, time and again."

"Suppose you go a little further, then, and mention his name," proposed Fred.

"Conrad Jimmerson!" promptly replied the other.

Colon laughed gleefully.