Cheer Boys Cheer: The Boys' Journal, No. 62 — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

32 Jim made for where he imagined the man to be. He darted forward, sprang off at a tangent, slipped, ‘grabbéd with his hands, and clutched at something that — slipped through his fingers, wrenched round with his other hand, and gripped fast on a coat skirt. At the same moment, a blow struck at random hit his face, the knuckles grazing the bridge of his nose and scraping along his cheek. It was a nasty clout, and the pain made Jim vicious. He brought in his feet, just in time to get his toes severely stamped upon. He lunged with his left hand, and a thrill of satisfaction ran through him, for he got home heavily in the body, causing the reci- pient to gasp. Jim had been in several hundred football scrums, and more than one boxing competition, and what hap- pened during the next two or three minutes was a combination of the two, considerably aggravated. In grim silence the battle raged, the prisoner doing his best to get loose, and put Jim out, and Jim grimly deter- mined to hold on tightly, and do any putting out himself. They punched, they wrestled, they pulled each other here and there, now slipping, recover- ing themselves, falling into the wall, and rebounding again. Twice they came down headlong, but regained their feet, Jim sticking to his grip like a true British bulldog. At length he got in a leg trip that laid his opponent flat on his back, half stunning him. Leaving him for a moment, Jim grabbed at the door- handle, flung the door open, and, hold- ing his prisoner by one ankle, dragged him out to the landing. ““Te’s all right!’ gasped Jim to the old man, still holding the candle in his hand, who had cried out shrilly at his appearance. ‘“‘I’ve got him safe. I dons think he’ll do any fighting for a it |” And fighting was the last thing the prone man was likely to attempt. He was but partly conscious, lying passively on the floor and breathing heavily. But the owner of the house, who had been greatly impressed by his previous combat, refused to go near him or consider him safe. “Keep him there,’ he cried, “‘ and Pll go and wake up Williams to come and tie him up again until the police come !” Taking the candle with him, the man vanished down the stairway with great alacrity, his slippers fip-Aapping. He had not stayed long enough for Jim to get a glimpse of his prisoner. “Whew!” breathed Jim. who, as the best means of keeping the fellow safe, had taken a seat on his chest. ‘‘ That’s about the toughest up-and-downer I’ve had—or want. If this is one of the fellows who set about Holmes, no wonder the poor chap knuckled under. Why, he’s strong as a bullock, and savage as a tiger! Thought of penal servitude coming made him fight so hard, I reckon! “Ah, would you? Yes, groan away !”’ he said viciously, for the man stirred under him and moaned. ‘If I knew for certain you had hurt Paul, Td give you a bit more, helpless though you are!” Up the stairway came a pair of stockinged feet, and anotherin slippers. The former belonged to a strapping fellow, with lengths of rope in his hand. He looked disagreeable, and his ex- pression was none the more pleasant for a rapidly blackening eye. CHEER BOYS CHEER. “Tie him up, Williams, firmly this time!” commanded the elderly man, still holding the candle. Jim rose from his seat to allow Williams to operate, turned to look down on his late antagonist, stooped, and then suddenly stiffened like a board. The prisoner was Paul Holmes! With his face bruised, and covered with dust, and smeared with blood, even an old acquaintance might have been mistaken. But Jim’s chum_ it was, right enough; and suddenly Jim moved forward, and with one twist sent aside Williams, who was at work with his rope. *“Let him alone!’ shouted Jim. They looked at him as though faced by a lunatic. “He’s my chum! I thought he had been killed or carried away! Oh, you jackasses!” cried Jim fiercely. ‘‘ Touch him if you dare, and P’JI-—” He clenched both fists, and they understood him all right. Master and servant gaped at the young man. They staggered back. The elder man first recovered the use of his tongue. ““What’s that you say?’ he asked tremulously. ‘‘ He—he’s—your accom- plice?’”’ “My chum, I said. And yoy—you it is who are responsible for his being mussing from the camp!” * Bu-bu-but he’s a thief !’’ stammered the candle-holder, ‘‘ And y-you 3 * He is not!’ shouted Jim, in a voice of thunder, the more angry for know- ing that his own hands had _ inflicted far more damage to Holmes than those of the original captors. ‘‘ He’s honest — more honest than you; and if you say ” - Paul sat up weakly, looking wonder- ingly around with his undamaged eye. The elderly man, his hand shaking so terribly that the grease dropped all over the floor, turned a face of horror upon his servant. “ Williams,’ he interrupted . Jim, “‘we’ve got two of the wretches in the house! What can we do?’ Just at this juncture there resounded through the silence of the house a thundering bell-ringing, and hammer- ing with the knocker. “That’s the police; Jones has brought ’em. Ii go and let ’em in,” said the intelligent servant. And he was down the staircase with a celerity that left no time for his master’s agonised appeal to stay with him to reach his ears, Jim was engaged with his chum, whose still partly dazed brain had not yet accommodated itself to the peculiar situation. when the solemn tramp of boots became audible up the stairway. Twenty seconds later, four burly con- stables and a sergeanti—Williams an the other servant keeping discreetly in the rear—emerged upon the landing. “Weill. Mr. Golson, and where, sir, is the ’ousebreaker you copped so clever?’ asked the sergeant, with some deference. “Two of them, officer—there they are!’ shrilled the house-owner, point- ing at Jim and Paul. ‘The one standing up I asked into the house to protect me, and he turns out to be worse than the other. Arrest them, sergeant !”’ The sergeant moved forward uncer- tainly. “Vou give ’em both in charge, sir?” he asked, with some hesitation. “Pretty used up, both of ’em!” “They have been fighting desper- ately.” “One ag’in the other, sir?’ The intelligent sergeant was surprised. “But I thought you said as they was confederates?” “So they are. Both belong to the gang that has been about the house!” “Then why did they fight each other, Mr. Golson?” Jim, who had not spoken yet, thought it time to offer some explana- tion. In a few words he described the camp, the meeting with Mr. Golson, and the strange disappearance of his chum. “You lef? that note stuck in a stick by a tent?’ demanded the officer aud- denly. ‘Boy on a bike come for the p’lice to go to Furze Common, an’ we all come along together. You say your friend disappeared “Ves; but he’s found, though I never dreamt he was here.”’ And Jim pointed to Holmes. “Then why have you been fighting?” the sergeant asked. Scrambling to his feet with Jim’s assistance, Paul stared about him, pre- sently catching sight of Williams and the second servant. “They're the two who set on me!” he cried excitedly, turning to Jim. “And he”’—this was Mr. Golson— “was looking on all the time. They got me down, hustled me through the garden, and shut me up here; and what for I can no more tell you——” : “But I thought you were one of the gang of thieves who are hanging about. here,’ Mr. Golson said weakly. See The sergeant winked at Jim. Be “‘T think, sir, it’s just a mistake, :str. Don’t you worry no more,” he said kindly to Mr. Golson. “They ain’t thieves, ’cos if they was, would they have been fighting, as you say they was —an’ pretty tough fighting, it seems? Let’s go down an’ talk it over, sir. And as it’s a warmish night, and we've come a long way, an’ in a hurry, sir, being a bit dry, sir-——” “ And perhaps you can give us some hot water and arnica,’’ added Jim. “Paul, I never knew you could fight so hard,” he whispered, as the ser- geant’s suggestion was acted upon. Paul groaned. : Certainly he and his chum had come off worst, though the relief of finding Paul alive caused Jim to forget his bruises. Particularly expeditious in getting prepared for supper, Paul had strolled through the wood for a look around. He had been promptly seen by Mr. Golson, whose fear of housebreakers had become almost a mania since the actual robbery at his house a few months earlier, a couple of servants were called wp, and, after a fierce struggle, Paul had been overpowered. What happened after was, as the ser- geant said, when the explanations were made, ‘‘easier than eating your dinner.” “But what I can’t make out,” said Jim, when, the matter amicably settled, they started to spend what was left of the night in their tent—“ what I can’t make out is, why you didn’t sing out while we were fighting in that room, If I’d heard your voice, I’d have recognised it, and we'd have stopped before any damage was done!”’ “Why didn’t you?’ retorted his chum, holding up the lantern with which they had been furnished by Mr. Golson. “Vd have known your voice !”” But questions are easier asked than answered, THE END.