The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch: or, The Cowboys' Double Round-Up

“I offered to pay for it,” put in Ned Lowe, “and so did Dan. But the colonel said that wasn’t the point. That he wanted the discipline of the Hall maintained.”

“Did he say anything about Professor Duke?” questioned Fred.

“Not a word.”

“Well, he told us something,” continued the youngest Rover, and then related what had been said on the subject.

“Say, that squares with something I once heard,” cried Walt Baxter. “I met Professor Duke down at the barn one day where he was waiting to have Nixon drive him down to town. The professor was walking around, wringing his hands and muttering to himself. He looked all out of sorts, and he said something that sounded to me like ‘I don’t see how I can do it! I don’t see how I can really attempt it!’”

“And what do you suppose it was that bothered him, Walt?” questioned Jack curiously.

“I’m sure I don’t know. I watched him walk up and down and wring his hands. And then he took a notebook out of his pocket and began to study some of the figures in it. Then Nixon came along with the auto, and he jumped in and rode off.”

“Well, that sure is a mystery,” declared Randy.

This news concerning Snopper Duke gradually spread throughout the school, and many of the boys watched the teacher curiously. In the meantime Colonel Colby had a conference, not only with Duke, but also with Professor Grawson; and when the classes opened the next day Jack and the others found themselves treated just as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“Colonel Colby said he would let the matter pass, and I guess he’s going to keep his word,” remarked Fred.

There was only one boy who remained troubled, and that was Codfish. He avoided the Rovers and the others as much as possible, often running away at the sight of them.

“Codfish is just about scared stiff,” remarked Randy. “He knows he got himself in wrong.”

“What a poor fish he is,” answered his twin.

On Saturday afternoon a number of the boys obtained permission to visit the town and attend the moving picture performance if they so desired. Jack had telephoned to his sister, and Martha had answered that probably a number of girls from Clearwater Hall would be in town at the same time.

“And I’ve got something to tell you, too, Jack,” said Martha over the wire. “Something I’m sure you’ll be interested in hearing.”

“Why don’t you tell me now?” he replied.

“Oh, this isn’t something to tell over a public telephone,” his sister answered.

The snowstorm had come to an end, and it was clear and bright overhead when the four Rovers and some of the others tramped to Haven Point. Here, at the railroad station, they met Martha and Mary, and also Ruth Stevenson, May Powell, and several other girls from the academy.

“How are your eyes feeling, Ruth?” questioned Jack anxiously, as he walked side by side with the girl on the way to the moving picture theater. As my old readers know, Ruth had once suffered dreadfully through getting some pepper into her eyes, and it had been feared that she might go blind.

“Oh, my eyes are quite all right again, Jack,” answered the girl. “Sometimes they feel the least bit scratchy. But I bathe them with a solution the doctor gave me and then they feel quite natural.”

“I’m mighty glad to hear that,” Jack returned warmly. For of all the girls who were friends of his sister he liked Ruth the best.

As luck would have it, there was a very good show on that afternoon, and as a consequence a crowd had assembled to obtain tickets of admission. Randy went ahead to get all the tickets needed, and while he did this Martha plucked her brother by the coat sleeve and drew him a little to one side.

“What’s this you’ve got to tell me, Martha?” questioned the young captain in a whisper.

“It’s about a fellow at your school – a chap named Lester Bangs,” replied the girl.

“Oh, you mean the fellow we call Brassy Bangs! What about him?”

“He and one or two of his particular chums have been up to Clearwater Hall three times. They took some of the girls out in a sleigh they hired, and that Bangs did his level best to get Ruth to go along. And now he has invited her to attend some kind of a party next week,” was Martha’s reply, words which for some reason he could not explain even to himself cut Jack to the heart.

CHAPTER VII

SOMETHING ABOUT A SLEIGHRIDE PARTY

“What kind of a party is it, Martha?”

“I don’t know, except that it’s somewhere out of town and some of the girls and fellows are going to the place in sleighs. I wasn’t asked to go, and I got the information in a roundabout way.”

“Then Ruth hasn’t said anything to you about it?”

“Not a word. But I’m sure she received this Lester Bangs’ invitation.”

“And you think she may accept it?”

“I hope not, Jack. Because I don’t like Bangs. He wears such showy clothing and jewelry.”

“That’s the reason we call him Brassy – he is brassy in looks and brassy in manner. He’s just as much of a hot-air bag as Tommy Flanders,” went on the young captain, referring to an arrogant youth who the summer before had pitched for Longley Academy and been knocked out of the box.

“Isn’t it queer, he put me in mind of Flanders?” whispered Martha. “I hope you don’t have any trouble with him, Jack.” And then, as some of the others came closer, the private conversation had to come to an end.

While in the moving picture theater Jack sat with Ruth beside him. They occasionally spoke about the scenes presented to them and also about school matters in general, but not one word was said by either about the party Martha had mentioned.

“Mr. Falstein certainly gets good pictures,” remarked the girl, when the performance had come to an end and the crowd of young people was moving out of the theater. “They’re just as good as one can see in the big cities.”

“They’re the same thing, only he gets them a little later,” answered Jack.

“I like the comic pictures better than anything,” declared Andy. “I hate those serious ones. They’re generally so awfully mushy.”

“Why, Andy Rover, how you talk!” cried Alice Strobell. “I think that picture they showed today of Life in a Big City was perfectly grand.”

“Especially where the heroine sobbed herself to sleep over the sewing machine in her garret room,” went on Andy, with a snicker. “Wasn’t that just the tear-bringer?”

“I don’t care! It was just as true to life as it could be,” answered Alice sturdily.

“Well, maybe,” was the airy return of the fun-loving Rover. “Come to think of it, I never did run a sewing machine in a garret room with the snow blowing through a busted window. I’d rather sit in the shade of the old apple tree reading a good book and getting on the outside of some ripe pears,” he continued, and at this there was general laughter.

As was their custom, the young folks drifted from the theater to a nearby candy and ice-cream establishment. Here they split up into various groups at some tables in the rear. Of course, the boys insisted on treating the girls, and there was quite a discussion over what each would have. Martha and Mary had paired off with Gif and Spouter, and Fred and the twins were with some of the other girls, and this left Ruth and Jack by themselves.

Several times the young captain wanted to bring the conversation around to the question of the party that had been mentioned. But every time he checked himself.

“What were you going to say?” questioned Ruth, when he caught himself once. “You act as if you had something on your mind of special importance, Jack.”

“Not at all! Not at all!” he returned hastily. “How are you getting along with your studies, Ruth? Do your eyes interfere much with them?”

“Not a great deal. But, of course, I have to be more or less careful. But I’m doing finely, so the teachers say.”

“We’re going to have an election of officers soon,” continued the young captain. “Some of the fellows are urging me to run for major of the battalion. Ralph Mason is going to drop out, you know.”

“Oh, Jack! why don’t you run?”

“Do you want me to run, Ruth?”

“Why, of course! if there’s any chance of getting it, and I don’t see why there shouldn’t be,” she returned quickly.

Her manner was so intimate that once again he was on the point of mentioning the party. But then he shut his teeth hard and pretended to be interested in something taking place at the other tables.

“Don’t you think you could win the election if you tried?” Ruth continued, after looking at him questioningly for a moment.

“Oh, I guess I’d have as good a chance as any one in command. Of course, there are a number of other officers who would have as good a chance as I’d have. But I’m not altogether sure that I want to be major. If I held that office Colonel Colby would expect me to toe the mark all the time just as an example to the others. Even as it was, he didn’t like to have me as a captain and Fred as a lieutenant mixed up in that snowball affair.”

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