Part 16 (2/2)

With the excited, track squad, non-athletes, and the baseball crowd, which had ceased the game to watch the start, yelling, cheering, howling, and whistling, T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., drawing his knees up in exaggerated style at every stride, started to lead the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade on its cross-country run. Without wondering why Coach Brannigan had suddenly elected to sendalong with the hammer-throwers and shot-putters, on the jog, and not having seen the insane facial contortions of the Brigade, before the Coach gave orders, the gladsome Senior started forth in good spirits, resembling a tugboat convoying a fleet of battles.h.i.+ps.

”'Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! And over the country we go!'” warbled Hicks, as the squad left Bannister Field, and jogged across a green meadow. ”'--O'er hill and dale, through valley and vale, Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho! Yo! Ho!'”

”Save your wind, you insect!” growled Butch Brewster, with sinister significance that escaped the heedless Hicks, as the behemoth Butch, a two-miler, swung into the lead. ”You'llit, you fish, before we get back to the campus! Notfast, you flock of human tortoises. You'll be crawling on hands and knees, if you keep that pace up long!”

A mile and a half pa.s.sed. Butch, at an easy jog, had led his squad over green pastures, up gentle slopes, and across a plowed field, by way of variety. At length, he left the road on which the pachydermic aggregation had lumbered for some distance, and turned up a long lane, leading to a farm-house. Back of it they periscoped an orchard, with cherry-trees, laden with red and white fruit, predominating. Also, floating toward the collegians on the balmy May air came an ominous sound:

”Woof! Woof! Woof! Bow-wow-wow! Woof!”

”Come on, fellows!” urged Butch Brewster. ”We'll jog across old Bildad's orchard and seize some cherries--the old pirate can't catch us, for we are attired for sprinting. Don't they look good?”

”Nothing stirring!” declared Hicks, slangily, but vehemently, as he stopped short in his stride. ”Old Bildad has got a bulldog what am as big as the New York City Hall. He had it on the campus last month, you know! Not for mine! I don't go near that house, or swipe no cherries from his trees. If you wish to shuffle off this mortal coil, drive right ahead, but I will await your return here.”

T, Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, dread of dogs, of all sizes, shapes, pedigrees, and breeds, was well known to old Bannister; hence, the Heavy-weights now jeered him unmercifully. Old ”Bildad,” as the taciturn recluse was called, who lived like a hermit and owned a rich farm, did own a ma.s.sive bulldog, and a sight of his cruel jaws was a ”No Trespa.s.s” sign. With great forethought, when cherries began to ripen, the farmer had brought Caesar Napoleon to the campus, exhibited him to the awed youths, and said, ”My cherries be for , not to be !” which object lesson, brief as it was, to date, had seemed to have the desired effect. Yet--here was Butch proposing that they literally thrust their heads, or other portions of their anatomies, into the jaws of death!

”Well,” said Bunch Bingham at last, ”I tell you what; we'll jog up to the house and ask old Bildad tous some cherries; we can pay him when he comes to the campus with eggs to sell, Come along. Hicks, I'll beard the bulldog in his kennel.”

So, dragged along by the bulky hammer-throwers and shot-putters, the protesting T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., in mortal terror of Caesar Napoleon, and the other canine guardians of old Bildad's property, progressed up the lane toward the house.

”I got a hunch,” said the reluctant Hicks, sadly, ”that things ain't a-comin' out right! In the words of the immortal Somebody-Or-Other, 'This 'ere ain't none o'doin'; it's a-bein' thrust on me!' All right, my comrades, I'll be the innocent bystander, but heed me--look out for the bulldog!”

CHAPTER XVI

THANKS TO CAESAR NAPOLEON

The Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade, towing the mosquito-like T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., advanced on the stronghold of old Bildad, so named because he was a pessimistic Job's comforter, like Bildad, the Shuhite, of old--like a flock of German spies reconnoitering Allied trenches. Hearing the house, with Butch and Beef holding the helpless, but loudly protesting Hicks, who would fain have executed what may mildly be termed a strategic retreat, big Tug Cardiff boldly marched, in close formation, toward the door, when the portal suddenly flew open.

”Woof! Woof! Bow! Wow! Woof! Let go, Butch--there's the dog!”

Amid ferocious howls from Caesar Napoleon, and alarmed protests from the paralyzed Hicks, who could not have run, with his wobbly knees, had he been set free by his captors, old Bildad, towed from the house by Caesar Napoleon, who strained savagely at the leash until his face bulged, burst upon the scene with impressive dramatic effect! It was difficult to decide, without due consideration, which was the more interesting. Bildad, a huge, gnarled old Viking, with matted gray hair, bushy eyebrows, a flowing beard, and leathery face, a fierce-looking giant, was appalling to behold, but so was Caesar Napoleon, an immense bulldog, cruel, bloodthirsty, his ma.s.sive jaws working convulsively, his ugly fangs gleaming, as he set his great body against the leash, and gave evidence of a sincere desire to make free lunch of the Bannister youths. As Buster Brown afterward stated, ”Neither one would take the b.o.o.by prize at a beauty show, but at that, the bulldog had a better chance than Bildad!” T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., let it be recorded, could not have qualified as a judge, since his undivided attention was awarded to Caesar Napoleon!

”What d'ye want round here, ye rapscallions?” demanded Bildad, courteously, holding the savage bulldog with one hand, and constructing a ponderous fist with the other, ”Hike--git off'n my land, y'hear? Git, er Caesar Napoleon'll git holt o' them scanty duds ye got on!”

”We want to--to buy some cherries, Mr.--Mr. Bildad!” explained Bunch Bingham, edging away nervously. ”We won't steal any, honest, sir. Well pay you for them the very next time you come to the campus with milk and eggs.”

”Ho! Ho!” roared old Bildad, piratically, his colossal body shaking, ”A likely tale, lads--an' when I come for my money, ye'll jeer me off the campus, an' tell me to whistle for it! Off my land-- an' don't let me cotch ye on it inside o' two minutes, or I'll let Caesar Napoleon make a meal off'n yer bones--!”

To express it briefly, they got. T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., not standing on the order of his going, set off at a sprint that, while it might have caused Ted Meredith to lose sleep, also aroused in Caesar Napoleon an overwhelming desire to take out after the fugitive youth, so that Mr.

Bildad was forced to exert his vast strength to hold the ma.s.sive bulldog.

Butch, Beef, Hefty, Tug, Buster, Bunch, Pudge, and Biff, a pachydermic crew, awed by Caesar Napoleon's bloodthirsty actions, jogged off in the wake of Hicks, who confidently expected to hear the bulldog giving tongue, on his trail, at every second.

Another lane, making in from a road making a cross-roads with the one from which they came to Bildad's house, ran alongside the orchard for two hundred yards, inside the fence; at its end was a high roadgate. At what they decided was a safe distance from the ”war zone,” the Heavy-Weight-White-Hope-Brigade, and T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., the latter forcibly restrained from widening the margin between him and peril, held a council on preparedness.

”The old pirate!” stormed Butch Brewster, gazing back to where the vast figure of old Bildad, striding toward the house, towered. ”We can't let him get away with that, fellows. I'll have some of his cherries now, or--”

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