Captain of the Crew

Something approaching a shudder passed over the throng, and Dick turned aside to hide a grim smile. Then the first batch of candidates trooped off to the locker room to don gymnasium attire, and the new recruits were registered, instructed to report for examination the following afternoon, and dismissed looking heartily relieved. When the last one had gone Professor Beck heaved a sigh and turned to Dick.

“Hope, are you certain there was no mistake made? You’re sure you didn’t issue a call for candidates for a tiddledy-winks team?” Dick smiled dismally.

“No, there’s no such luck. We’ve got thirty-four fellows, of which a possible two dozen are rowing material.”

“Hum; I think we shall be able to turn out an excellent second eight, but as for a varsity crew – do you happen to have an idea as to where we are going to get that, Hope?”

“No, sir, I haven’t,” replied Dick miserably. Professor Beck polished his glasses thoughtfully for a minute and studied the wintry landscape through the high window. Then he smiled, settled the shining lenses again on his nose, and turned toward the door.

“We’ll have to use our wits, Hope. Above all, don’t allow yourself to become discouraged. We still have a couple of weeks before us, and – well, I guess we can accomplish something in that time. Are you ready?”

Together they passed out onto the floor and in a few minutes the first squad of crew candidates had begun their training. Of the twenty, two had rowed in the varsity boat of the preceding year, four had rowed with the second eight, three had trained as substitutes, and the balance, eleven candidates, represented new and inexperienced material as far as shell-rowing was concerned. Well-nigh all were what Trevor would have termed “wetbobs,” and had paddled about in tubs or perhaps rowed now and then in a pair-oar. Professor Beck and Dick were busy for the half hour that constituted the first day’s exercising. Generally speaking, each candidate required a different work from his neighbors. In Brown the forearm muscles were undeveloped; in Smith the chest muscles had been neglected; in Jones the back was as unbending as a two-inch plank, while Robinson, perchance, was in a state of general flabbiness. The professor viewed attentively the work of each boy, altered the exercise here, stopped it there, increased it elsewhere, while Dick stood beside him, listening to his instructions and memorizing, as pointed out to him, the needs of the different ones. After awhile the fellows were sent to the track for the briefest of trots, and so, having stood for an instant under a shower-bath, dressed, and went their ways full-fledged crew candidates, with an inalienable right to look down condescendingly upon their schoolmates, to cut Friday night lectures, and comport themselves generally in the manner of coming heroes.

And Dick, with Trevor at his side, went back to his room for an hour of study before supper, not overjoyful, but yet somewhat comforted by the professor’s hopefulness and by the fact that real work had at last commenced.

On Friday night Professor Beck announced to Dick that the fourteen newer candidates had been examined, and in five instances found wanting. “Of those that remain,” said the professor, “two look like good men; as for the rest – ” He shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “But we can tell better in a week or two. Meanwhile, we must keep up the recruiting. I have my eye on an upper middle boy, and I think I’ll have him hooked in a day or two. If we can secure say another half dozen good men I think we can pull out all right.”

The next morning – it being a bright and sunny Saturday toward the last of January – Dick, Trevor, Carl, and Stewart boarded the train and traveled to Euston Point, but a few miles distant, where they called on the man whose advertisement Carl had read in a local paper, and by him were conducted to a loft by the river, where a dilapidated-looking triangle of timbers and bolts – which its owner declared loudly was the fastest cat-rigged yacht on the Hudson – was shown to them. The bargain was soon closed, Carl conducting the negotiations and talking learnedly of runner planks, center timbers, and stays. The boat was to be supplied with a new rudder-post, a new sail and rigging, the runners were to be reground, and the whole was to be delivered at the boat landing at Hillton Academy four days from that date for the munificent sum of seventeen dollars and seventy-five cents. Carl was elated.

“We’ve saved two dollars and a quarter,” he declared.

“I don’t see how,” objected Dick. “You told us last week that we could get the thing for fifteen dollars.”

“I know I did; that’s what I thought. But you heard him ask twenty at first, didn’t you? Well, and I jewed him down to seventeen seventy-five. Isn’t that two and a quarter saved?”

Dick had to acknowledge that it was, and Carl insisted on celebrating his successful financiering by treating to very nasty hot soda at the town’s only drug store. And so to Carl’s business acumen may be traced the series of events that led shortly to Trevor’s disgrace.

Their way to the station took them past the open door of a livery stable. When they were abreast of it something round and white shot out, rolled over and over down the little incline, and brought up at Trevor’s feet. It proved to be a young puppy, which, when it stopped rolling, found its four unsteady feet, barked joyously, and tried to gnaw the buttons from Trevor’s trouser cuffs. But he was instantly seized upon and elevated in Trevor’s arms for the inspection of the others.

“Isn’t he a little beauty?” cried Trevor.

“Yes; what is he, a fox terrier?” asked Stewart, allowing the squirming and delighted puppy to chew his gloved fingers to its heart’s content.

“Fox terrier!” replied Trevor scathingly. “Of course not; it’s a bull. Look at that nose!”

“I am looking at it,” answered Dick. “Nice and ugly, isn’t it? What makes it so pink?”

“That’s the way it ought to be,” answered Trevor with fine disdain for his friend’s ignorance. “I wonder who it belongs to?”

“Belongs right here, sir!” The boys glanced around and found a colored stableman observing them smilingly from the doorway. Trevor placed the puppy upon the ground, where it at once relapsed into a state of loud and poignant grief, leaping with snowy feet against his stockings, and crying vehemently to be again taken up. Trevor patted it, whereupon its grief gave place to uncontrollable delight; it stood on its hind legs, buried its short nose in a small snow-bank, and attempted to take the boy’s entire hand into its pink mouth, and all within the instant.

“It’s the liveliest pup I ever saw,” said Carl.

“That’s a fine dog, sir,” said the owner. “His mother took a first and two second prizes at the dog show last week, and his father’s got lots of ’em. Yes, siree, he’s a mighty fine dog, he is.”

“Come on,” said Dick, “we’ll lose the train if we’re not careful.”

But Trevor paid no heed. He was looking intently at the puppy, which, with the boy’s left thumb between his teeth, was radiantly happy.

“He’s got a pedigree as long as yer arm,” continued the stableman.

“Has he?” muttered Trevor.

“He can be registered ter-morrer, he can; he’s blue-blooded right through, he is.”

“Is he?” said Trevor. The puppy was now on its back, legs limply aloft, and Trevor was thoughtfully rubbing a pink-and-white stomach.

“Was you wanting to buy a dog, sir?”

“N-no, I think not,” answered Trevor.

“Say, come on, Nesbitt, or we’ll be late,” cried Carl.

The stableman glanced over his shoulder. “Lots of time, gentlemen; train ain’t due for twelve minutes yet.” Then, addressing Trevor, “I had four of them and sold ’em all ’cept this one; an’ he’s the best of the lot; an’ cheap, too – dirt cheap.”

“How much?” asked Trevor with elaborate carelessness.

“You can have him for five dollars.”

“Phew!” said Stewart.

“Give you fifty cents,” said Carl. The stableman turned indignantly.

“I reckon you don’t know much about what bulldogs is worth,” he said. “This gentleman here knows that that ain’t too much for a puppy as fine as that one; don’t you, sir?”

“I dare say he’s worth that much,” answered Trevor, “but I couldn’t pay it.”

“What would you do with it if you had it?” asked Dick.

“Now, look here; I’ll tell you what I’ll do, sir,” said the stableman. “You can have him for three dollars and a half. And that’s mighty cheap, that is.”

Trevor looked longingly at the puppy, who was now for the moment quiescent, and who was gazing up into Trevor’s face as though breathlessly awaiting his verdict.

“I – I’ll give you a dollar to-day and pay you the rest next Saturday,” he said finally.

“You one of the Hillton young gentlemen?” asked the stableman.

“Yes.”

“Well, you can take him along. What’s your name?”

Trevor gave it amid the expostulations of his friends, who asked wonderingly where he expected to keep his new possession, how long he thought Faculty would let him have it, and how he was going to get it home. To all of which Trevor made no reply. Paying the man the first instalment of the money, he seized upon the delighted puppy and strode off, fearful lest the former owner should regret the bargain and change his mind.

“Well, of all things!” ejaculated Dick. “Where in thunder will you keep him?”

“Don’t you worry,” answered Trevor. “I’ll find a place.”

“What’s troubling me,” complained Carl, “is how you’re going to pay your four dollars and forty-four cents toward the yacht and the three dollars and a half for the pup.”

Trevor looked blank.

“I’d forgotten about the yacht,” he muttered.

“Forgotten about it!” cried Carl. “Why, man alive, we just bought it ten minutes ago!”

“I know. But – I tell you – I’ll write to the pater; I fancy he’ll send me money enough for the puppy; he always gives me any money I may need for useful things.”

The others exploded into violent laughter.

“Call that useful?” gurgled Dick, holding his sides and pointing derisively at the puppy, which lay limp but blissful with half-closed eyes in Trevor’s arms. A warning whistle made unnecessary any reply, and the four boys hurried toward the station.

“You’d better hide him under your coat, or else they’ll make you ride in the baggage car with him,” cautioned Dick. And so Trevor boarded the train with a suspicious portliness, happily unobserved of the conductor, and, when they had yielded their tickets, drew the uncomplaining puppy from under his sweater.

“I’ll say one thing for it,” remarked Carl grudgingly, “it behaves mighty well, considering that it has just been torn from home and parents.” He held out a hand and the puppy went into spasms of delight over the evidence of friendship and licked the fingers deliriously. “Funny little beggar! How old is it, Trevor?”

“About ten weeks, I fancy.”

“What are you going to call him?” asked Stewart.

Trevor shook his head thoughtfully.

“I don’t know yet. I shall wait until I find something appropriate.”

“Talking about names,” said Carl, “let’s find one for the boat. That fellow said she was the Lucy G., but that’s silly and doesn’t mean anything.”

“Ought to be something wintry,” suggested Stewart.

“Something like Blizzard, or Snowflake, or Ice King,” added Dick.

“It can’t be any of those,” objected Carl, “because there are heaps of Blizzards and the other things you said. How would The Polar Bear do?”

Every one sniffed derisively.

“Well,” said Trevor, “if it must be something wintry, what’s the matter with The Ulster or The Cough Drop?”

“Or The Chilblain?” laughed Dick.

“I think a good name would be The Sleet,” Stewart struck in. “That’s wintry enough.”

A vote was taken, and The Sleet carried.

“We can have a sail next Saturday,” suggested Carl.

“So soon?” groaned Dick. “Carl, we’re so young to die!”

“That’s all right, my funny friend, but just you wait until I get to sailing that thing; you’ll see!”

And Carl’s prediction, though vague, proved in a measure correct.

CHAPTER XI

ADVENTURES OF A BULL PUP

Trevor smuggled the puppy into his room undetected, against Dick’s advice.

“If Faculty finds it out you’ll not only lose the animal, but get into trouble. And they’re bound to learn of it before long. Why, the ‘goody’ will see the thing when she makes the beds.”

“No, she won’t; I’ll find a way to fix that,” answered Trevor confidently.

“But how’ll you keep him alive?” asked Dick. “The poor little thing has got to eat.”

“Oh, I can bring him something from dining-hall.”

Dick shrugged his shoulders and gave up the argument. And having relieved his conscience by his protest, joined his roommate in teaching the puppy to sit on his hind legs and hold a piece of cracker on his nose: a feat which the animal could not for a long time see the philosophy of. When, however, he discovered that obedience invariably gave him possession of the fragment of biscuit to crumble to his heart’s content over the hearth-rug, he began to understand the game, and to even show a certain pleasure in it. After the work in the gymnasium that afternoon Trevor and Dick walked to the village and the former purchased – I regret to say on credit, thereby infringing one of the rules – a red leather collar and a steel chain. When Trevor left the dining-hall after supper his coat pockets bulged suspiciously, and later the puppy feasted regally on cold roast beef and graham bread, while the two boys watched every mouthful with delight. When bedtime came Trevor arranged a pair of old tennis trousers by the hearth, and placing the puppy thereon, assured him sternly that he was expected to remain there quietly until morning.

Perhaps Trevor’s commands were not altogether clear. That as may be, he had no sooner put out the light and snuggled himself into bed than there arose a sound of grief and dismay in the study, followed presently by tiny footfalls on the bedroom floor.

“Lie down!” commanded Trevor sternly.

The whining ceased for a minute, and a tail thumped the floor delightedly. And then, as no further recognition seemed forthcoming, the whining began again in increased volume and with added pathos.

“Puppy, go lie down,” whispered Trevor, more mildly this time. Dick was laughing silently beyond in the darkness. The puppy again thumped the floor with his tail.

“Perhaps he’s cold,” suggested Dick.

“The poor little fellow wants to get up on the bed, I fancy,” answered Trevor. “I’ll spread my dressing-gown for him at the foot.” This was done, and the disturbing element was hauled to the bed by the nape of his neck. But stay on the dressing-gown he would not, and Trevor finally fell asleep with the small, warm bundle of dog lying against his breast, and a tiny, bullet-shaped head resting peacefully on his neck.

The real troubles began next morning. When the two boys started for breakfast they locked the door carefully, and had reached the stairs, when, faint but unmistakable as to character, came a long howl of grief. Fearfully, Trevor hurried back. The puppy was sitting erect and tragic just inside the door. His delight at Trevor’s return was, however, short-lived, for he was ignominiously shut in the closet, and Trevor, with the key in his pocket, again set forth. But he could find little enjoyment in breakfast, for all the while he was haunted by the fear that the “goody” would get into the room before he could return, hear the dog’s howls, and report the matter to Professor Tomkins, the resident instructor. He hurried back to Masters with his meal but half eaten, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found the beds still unmade and the room still untidied. From the closet came eager, questioning sniffs and whines of impatience. Trevor opened the door, tossed in a mutton chop, and quickly secured it again. And then the study door opened and the “goody” entered.

“Good-morning, Mr. Nesbitt.”

“Good-morning, Mrs. Pratt.”

Trevor seized a Latin book, subsided into a chair by the closet and tried to read. From behind the locked door came sounds of busy gnawings; once a diminutive growl was audible. But the “goody” was in the other room and so all was safe. Trevor discovered that he was holding the book upside down; he corrected the mistake and wondered why it was that the beds took so long to make this morning of all others. They were finally completed, however, and the crucial moment arrived. Armed with dust-cloth, the woman came out and slowly began to move about the study. Suddenly from behind the locked door came two distinct taps; it was only the puppy worrying the mutton bone, but the “goody” didn’t know that, and looked in alarm toward the closet.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What was what?” asked Trevor.

“That sound; them sounds – in there?”

“Pshaw, you’re dreaming; there – there’s no one in – ”

Something bumped softly against the door; the woman glanced suspiciously from Trevor to the closet. Trevor looked carelessly out the window and began to whistle. A low whine issued from the prison. Trevor heard it, but apparently the “goody” didn’t; he whistled louder. The whining increased. Trevor began to sing.

Then began a most appalling series of bumps, growls, knocks, whines, jars, gnawings, and similar disturbing noises from the closet. With loudly thumping heart Trevor sang on, rapidly, loudly, unceasingly. The woman turned and viewed him in astonishment not unmixed with alarm. Trevor’s singing was more creditable from the point of vigor and whole-souledness than on the score of harmony or rhythm. His notes were nearly all flats, which, with the fact that he never for an instant varied the time, made even the most joyous of ballads lugubrious when performed by him. He had finished In the Gloaming, Way down upon the Suwanee River, and Rule, Britannia, and was now breathlessly, heroically thundering forth Hilltonians in tones that could be, and probably were, heard in the next dormitory:

“Hilltonians, Hilltonians, your crimson banner fling”(Bang! Bump! Gr-r-r-r!)“Unto the breeze, and ’neath its folds your anthem loudly sing!”(Whack! Bang! Bump!)“Hilltonians, Hilltonians, our loyalty we’ll proveBeneath the flag, the crimson flag, the bonny flag we love!”(Gr-r-r-r! Ao-o-oow! Ao-o-o-ow! Bang!)

And then, with her hands over her ears and her dust-cloth trailing in defeat, the “goody” fled from the room, and the day was won! Trevor sank back exhausted. From the closet the strange sounds continued to issue. He sat up and stared fearfully at the closed door. What, he asked himself with sinking heart, what could they mean? He drew forth the key, crossed the room, unlocked the door, threw it open, and —

Out tumbled the puppy and – and – could it be? It could; it was! – one of Dick’s immaculate patent-leather pumps, torn and chewed into as sorry a looking object as he had ever seen!

At sight of Trevor the puppy dropped his prize, put his small head on one side, wagged his tail proudly, and gazed up at his master as though asking “How’s that for a good job well done?”

Trevor peered into the closet and groaned. The floor was a mass of débris; shoes and garments from the hooks were writhed together madly; and everywhere was set the puppy’s mark of approval. Trevor gathered up the garments and returned them to their hooks. A cold, blunt nose thrust itself into the way. Trevor’s hand rose and fell smartly twice, and with a yelp the puppy retreated to the hearth-rug, where he turned and barked defiance.

Trevor observed him wrathfully for an instant, but his attitude of insulted dignity and his ferocious challenge to combat were so ludicrous that the boy subsided amid the wreckage and laughed until the tears came. And the puppy, bounding joyfully upon him, instantly forgiving, gurgled his pleasure and licked his hands, shoes, and face with whole-souled impartiality.

And upon this scene entered Dick!

Let us draw the curtain.

That night, long after Dick had dropped off to slumber, he was awakened by Trevor’s urgent voice.

“Dick! Dick! Wake up!”

“Wha-what’s the matter?” cried Dick, starting suddenly from sleep, and sitting up in bed with confused visions of fire and flood.

“I’ve found a name for him,” answered Trevor triumphantly.

“Name? What name? Who’s name?”

“The puppy’s. I’m going to call him Muggins!”

Dick snorted wrathfully and went back to sleep.

Trevor fondled the slumberous puppy. “Isn’t he an unfeeling brute, Muggins?” he whispered. And Muggins thumped his tail affirmatively, sleepily.

The following night, when all was silent in the dormitory, a form bundled against the weather in a greatcoat, and followed by a second form, vastly smaller in outline and wearing only the coat that nature had provided him with, might have been seen – but were not – tiptoeing from study No. 16 and descending the creaking stairs. The door was locked, but the key was there, and in a moment the two forms had vanished into outer darkness and the portal had closed again.

As the discerning reader has no doubt already surmised, the mysterious forms were those of Trevor and Muggins.

Trevor had concluded that Muggins’s health demanded more exercise than his puppyship was getting, and so on the preceding night and again to-night Muggins, at the end of the steel chain, had been surreptitiously conveyed from the building for a stroll about the yard. It was bitterly cold and Trevor shivered as he ambled slowly toward the gymnasium followed by the dog; but since Muggins’s health demanded exercise Muggins should have it, though the thermometer stood at miles below zero, which luckily it didn’t to-night. Around the gymnasium plodded Trevor, slipping, sliding on the icy walks; around trotted Muggins, sniffing, shivering in the nipping wind. Then down the path by Bradley to Turner, around the corner of Turner, and —

Alas, tragedy was in the air that night!

Trevor paused, listening. Footsteps sounded loudly, frostily at a little distance, and in the darkness a dim form loomed up from the direction of the gate. It was but the work of an instant to slink into the recess of the building made by the protruding entrance, and to pull Muggins after him. The footsteps drew nearer. One of the professors returning late from the village, Trevor told himself. The form came abreast of him, a scant two yards distant, and was almost past his hiding-place when Muggins awoke to the demands of the occasion.

Muggins, despite his tender age, was valor to the tip of his wagging tail. He heard strange footsteps; he saw a strange form; he feared an attack on his master. But, what ho! was not he, Muggins, there? Certainly! And —

Away went the chain from Trevor’s numbed fingers; away went Muggins, dashing to the fray like a knight of old!

“Bow! Bow-wow!” challenged Muggins.

Trevor heard an ejaculation of alarmed surprise, saw the form of the tall professor jump back, and then – then there was a crash, and Trevor, seizing the opportunity, was off like the wind, and had gained the doorway of Masters Hall ere the astonished professor had regained his feet. For Muggins in his excess of valor had got his small body between his adversary’s legs, and great and sudden was the fall. Trevor waited long at the entrance of Masters Hall, standing with door ajar and peering anxiously into the darkness; once even venturing upon a subdued whistle and a yearning “Muggins, Muggins!” But his appeals were vain, and after a while he crept dejectedly upstairs and back into his cold and Muggins-less bed, wondering, sorrowful, fearful of the morrow.

CHAPTER XII

MUGGINS IS EXPELLED

Dick learned the story the next morning while the boys were dressing, and, to Trevor’s pained surprise, subsided onto the hearth-rug, where he sprawled at length, and gave way to heartless mirth.

“Oh, I dare say you don’t care,” said Trevor with wounded dignity. “He wasn’t your dog. If he had been” – savagely – “I dare say I should have laughed!” Dick stopped rolling and sat up against the wood-box.

“But – but, don’t you see, Trevor,” he gurgled, “I’m – I’m not laughing because you’ve lost Buggins – ”

“Muggins,” corrected Trevor coldly.

“I – I mean Muggins. I’m awfully sorry about that, honest injun! But – but think of Longworth – it must have been Longworth, you see – think of him rolling over there on the ice, all tangled up with Bug – Muggins and the chain! Oh, jiminy!” And Dick went off into another spasm of laughter.