CHAPTER XVI.
THE MYSTERY SOLVED.
"I WANT you to go over with me to Colonel Hitchins, Mark," said Elmer,on the morning after the great victory over the Fairfield scout nine.
"Oh, see here, has it anything to do with that mystery connected with mycap being found under those peach trees that were robbed?" demandedMark, jumping up; for his chum had found him in his den, busily engaged.
"Perhaps," smiled the other. "And oh, by the way, Mark, perhaps you'dbetter be sure and wear the very cap that was found. I might want toshow it to the colonel again for a purpose."
He declined to say anything more, even though Mark teased him as he gothis own wheel out, and the two started forth.
"Just you hold your horses," he said, shaking his head stubbornly."Sometimes it seems like a long night, but daylight always comes in theend."
"I take that to mean you've made some sort of discovery, then," declaredMark; "and honest, now, Elmer, I'll be mighty glad to know the truth.That thing has puzzled me a heap, I admit. Perhaps Phil Lally hasconfessed that he found my cap, and left it there when he robbed thetrees, meaning to have me looked on as the thief."
"Shucks, Phil Lally never saw your cap; and even if he did he wouldn'tknow it from mine or some other fellow's.
"Wait, and don't get so impatient. Unless I miss my guess, it'll soon beold history," and Elmer led the way along the road at a hot pace.
They soon arrived at the place of Colonel Hitchins.
"There's Phil Lally working in the garden, and he looks satisfied withthe way things have come out," remarked Elmer, as they passed toward themansion.
"Why shouldn't he be?" argued Mark. "If Phil had his deserts, he'd be onthe way to a ten-year sentence at the penitentiary right now. But theold gentleman knew what he was doing when he gave him this last chance;and I really believe the fellow will make good now."
"I'm dead sure of it," Elmer added. "He's had his eyes opened, and thethought of his old and fond mother is going to keep him on the narrowpath. But say, turn aside here, and let's take a peep at the tool house,where I had that little rumpus Saturday night."
"I'd like to see it," remarked the other, eagerly; for by this time heknew all the particulars of his chum's exciting adventure, and wasdeeply interested in everything that pertained to it.
So they walked around the tool house, and even stepped inside, whileElmer proceeded to once more relate how he had managed to fasten the twomen in, after they had entered in search of kerosene.
"Hello!" remarked Elmer, finally, "there's Bruno wagging his tail at us;he knows me by now, and we are pretty good friends; but, all the same, Idon't mean to get too close to him when his master isn't around."
"He's a fine looking dog, as sure as anything," observed Mark.
"He sure is," Elmer went on, and then added: "see him shake that oldshoe he has in his mouth! Just imagine it to be some other dog thatBruno is fighting with. I'd hate to have those teeth set in my leg,wouldn't you, Mark?"
"Well, rather," came the ready reply. "But look there, do they give himold shoes and such things to play with; I can count three close by hiskennel right now? Perhaps it's the right thing for a dog's teeth, tochew on old leather."
Elmer laughed out loud at the suggestion.
"That's a new one on me," he declared; "but here comes Phil Lally fromthe garden. Let's put it up to him. He's been with the Colonel sometime, and ought to be on to some of the tricks of Bruno."
Phil Lally smiled at seeing Elmer. He had taken a great liking to theboy; and no doubt had heard some things in connection with him from hisemployer at the time they talked matters over.
"Glad to see yuh here this fine morning, Elmer," he remarked. "And theytell me yuh knocked the Fairfield team out yesterday, good and hard. Thekunnel says it was the best game he ever saw, barring none, and he's anold hand, yuh know."
"We all thought it a dandy," laughed Elmer; "and every fellow deserved ashare of the glory. I pitched my best; but where would we have been ifit hadn't happened that Lil Artha drove out that homer, fetching a runin ahead of him? But Mark here was wondering if you fed Bruno on oldshoes; or gave them to him to keep his teeth in good condition, becausethere are just three around here. We don't happen to be from Missouri,Phil, but we want to know."
The man laughed loudly.
"Well, after all, it looks that ways, Elmer," he said. "But the fact is,nobody wants to make Bruno mad by takin' away his playthings. I tried itonce, and would yuh believe it, the critter made a jump for me, andgrowled so ugly that after that I jest vowed he could keep piling 'emup, for all of me."
"Oh, I see; then you don't toss them to him?" said Mark, while his chumsmiled, as though fairly well satisfied with the way the conversationhad turned.
"Who, me, give Bruno them old shoes?" ejaculated Phil Lally. "Well, Iguess not. He gets 'em all hisself. It's an old trick of Bruno's. Therehave been times when he's had as much as seven old shoes layin' aroundhere at one time. When I gets a chanct I sneaks 'em away an' buries thesame. Got a regular cemetery fur old shoes back o' the stable."
"But where does he get them, if he's chained up here all the time?"asked Mark.
"What, him?" echoed the gardener. "Oh, nobody don't seem able to keepthat slick customer chained up no great time at a stretch. SometimesI've knowed him to slip his collar as many as four nights a week."
"You mean he gets away?" asked Elmer, helping things along; for he beganto see Mark casting eyes at him suspiciously.
"Always that. Bruno, he's a wanderer. He's got the habit bad; and assoon as he gets loose it's hike for him. But I will say he always knowswhen to come home, and in the morning we find him in his kennel,tuckered out mebbe, but happy."
"But do you mean he brings one of those old shoes home with him everytime?" demanded Mark.
"He jest wont come home without _something_ like that in his mouth,"continued the gardener. "I've seen him adoin' of the same, and had tolaugh at the critter. Once it was a lady's hat. We reckoned that it musta' blew off when she was goin' past in a car at a fast clip, and theycouldn't find it. But Bruno lighted on it, easy like."
"A lady's hat!" muttered Mark, and then he faced his chum, adding: "Lookhere now, Elmer, you didn't come back to see Bruno just by accident. Youhad a reason for doing it? Own up now!"
Elmer nodded his head and snickered.
"Let me take that cap of yours, Mark," he said, and the article inquestion was eagerly handed over to him. "Look here, Phil, this cap wasfound under those peach trees you've heard about, and on the morning thecolonel discovered they had been raided. Luckily my chum was able toprove that he couldn't have been here; and a lot of us knew that he hadlost this cap a mile away on the bank of the Sunflower, just as eveningset in. But it's been a dark mystery how it got here."
Phil had turned red at mention of the peach trees. Then his glance wentpast Elmer to the big Siberian wolf hound.
"I reckon it must be up to Bruno, then," he remarked. "Let's see--yes,he was off that night, else I'd never dared do what I did."
"And if you examine the inside of the cap," Elmer went on, steadily,"you'll find the lining all torn, as if he had been shaking it like hedid that old shoe just now. The marks look to me like teeth had torn thelining. And when the colonel handed it to me, I could feel that itseemed to be more or less wet inside."
"Proven beyond the least doubt!" cried Mark, smiling broadly. "Brunocame on my cap while he was scouring the country. He fetched it home, ashe does other things that have belonged to people. And when he was goingpast those peach trees he got scent of the fact that some one had beenthere during his absence. So perhaps he laid the cap down, to nose allaround, and forgot to pick it up again!"
"That's just my theory to a dot," laughed Elmer; "so on the whole, Iguess, Mark, you'd better call it solved, and let the matter drop."
"I'm only too willing," replied the other, nodding. "But don't you thinkwe owe it to the colonel to take him into the secret?"
"I su
re do," replied Elmer; "because he was puzzled as much as we were.Still, you remember he was ready to own up that he couldn't believe youguilty; no matter if a dozen caps bearing your initials were found underhis trees."
"That shows what it means tuh have a good reputation," remarked PhilLally between his set teeth. "But, boys, never again for me. I've seenwhat a fool road I was trampin' with that habit of mine, and I'vechanged my course. I'm goin' tuh make good this time, or bust a b'ilertryin'."
"You'll make it, never fear, Phil, with such a good friend to help youas the gentleman you work for. I believe in you," said Elmer, thrustingout his hand; for something told him that the young fellow needed allthe encouragement possible at this critical stage in his uplifting.
So they did go in to see the colonel, who was deeply interested in thetheory. Elmer had to explain how his chum's cap chanced to be found thatmorning under the raided trees, when it was lost the evening previousaway over on the bank of the little Sunflower River.
"No doubt of it, Elmer," he declared immediately. "You've proved itbeyond the shadow of a doubt. If Bruno had put his visiting card insidethe lining he couldn't have done more when he made these tears with hissharp teeth. Seems to me as if I can see where every tooth went in. Butlet's forget all about that matter now, and talk about your magnificentvictory of yesterday."
"We may have beaten the Fairfield team by the narrow margin of one run,sir," remarked Elmer, "but there was one fellow against us who did aheap more than that, I give it to you straight."
"Who was that, Elmer, and what did he do that was so great? I'm sure,after seeing the game I fail to catch your meaning," remarked thegentleman.
"It was Matt Tubbs, sir; and he won a victory over himself which I takeit counts for more than just a single little tally in a baseball game.If that had been the same old Matt Tubbs of old, we'd never havefinished that game, for he'd have ended it in a row. As it was, he shookhands with every Hickory Ridge player, and complimented them on thefierce fight they put up. It was just fine! And they used to say MattTubbs was a rowdy who could never be made to see how he was wronging hisfamily, all Fairfield, and himself worst of all, by his ugly ways. Don'ttell me, anybody, that this Boy Scout movement isn't working wonders inlots of cases."
"I believe you, Elmer," replied the colonel, softly. "I have been prettymuch a gruff old soldier myself, and often scorned such an idea asgaining anything worth while without a fight for it; but I'm beginningto look at things in another light, boys, another light. Peace has itsvictories as well as war; and they count most in the long run, I reckon.I'm going to take more interest in these boys than ever I did before,because I'm learning something in my old age."
But the great victory over Fairfield was not the only event that markedthe closing days of that summer vacation, and in another volume we shallhave something to say about an occurrence which the Hickory Ridge BoyScouts were inclined to set down in their troop log-book as a matter ofhistory never to be forgotten.
THE END.
ADDENDA
BOY SCOUT NATURE LORE