The High School Boys' Training Hike Part 4

"But this paper says-----"

"Stop it," ordered Tom with a scowl. "I know what you're going to do. You'll read us some exciting stuff, and get us all worked up, and then in the last paragraph you'll stumble on the fact that some well-known Tottenville man was cured of all his ailments by Brown's Blood Bitters."

"Can you hold your tongue a minute?" demanded Greg ironically.

"Not when I see you headed that way," retorted Reade. "I've been fooled by the same style of exciting item, and I know how cheap it makes a fellow feel when he comes to the name of the Bitters, the Pills or the Sarsaparilla. Holmesy, I want to save your face for you with this crowd."

"Will you keep quiet, for a moment, and let the other fellows hear, even if you have to take a walk in order to save your own ears?" demanded Greg, with sarcasm. "This piece is about d.i.c.k Prescott, and he doesn't sign patent medicine test-----"

"d.i.c.k Prescott?" demanded Darrin. "Whoop! Let's have it!"

"It isn't a roast, is it?" demanded Danny Grin solemnly.

"No; it isn't," Greg went on. "Listen, while I read the headlines."

It was a four-line heading, beginning with "d.i.c.k Prescott's Fine Nerve."

"There! I was afraid it was a roast, after all," sighed Danny Grin.

"Take that fellow away and muzzle him," ordered Greg, then proceeded to read the other sections of the headlines.

By this time Greg had a very attentive audience. Even Tom Reade had ceased to scoff.

"Oh, bos.h.!.+" gasped d.i.c.k, when Greg was about one third of the way through the column article.

"Isn't it true?" demanded Dave.

"After a fas.h.i.+on," d.i.c.k admitted.

"Then hold off and be good while the rest of us hear about yesterday's doings."

So d.i.c.k stood by, his face growing redder and redder as the reading proceeded.

"That's what I call a dandy story," declared Greg as he finished reading.

"d.i.c.k, why didn't you tell us something about it last night?"

demanded Hazelton.

"What was the use?" asked Prescott. "And, though I've always thought the 'Blade' a fine local newspaper, I don't quite approve of Mr. Pollock's judgment of news values in this instance. I suspect that Mr. Pollock must have been away, and that Mr. Bradley, the news editor, ran this in."

"It sounds like some of Len Spencer's stuff," guessed Dave. "He's great on local events."

"If they had to print the yarn, eight or ten lines would have covered it," d.i.c.k declared. "Fellows, we've used up eighteen minutes for our halt, instead of ten. Come on!"

Greg, however, after rising, and before starting, was careful to fold the "Blade" neatly and to tuck it away in a pocket. He meant to save that news story.

All of our readers are familiar with the lives and doings of d.i.c.k Prescott and his friends up to date.

"d.i.c.k & Co.," as the boys styled their unorganized club of chums, was made up of the six boys, who had been fast friends back in their days of study at the Central Grammar School of Gridley.

They had been together in everything, and notably so in athletics and sports. All that befell them in their later days at Central Grammar School is told fully in the four volumes of the "_Grammar School Boys Series_."

Yet it was when these same boys entered Gridley High School that they came into the fullest measure of their local fame and popularity.

Even as freshmen they found a chance to accomplish far more for school athletics than is usually permitted to freshmen. It was due to their efforts that athletics were put on a sound financial basis in the Gridley High School. All this and more is described in the first volume of the "_High School Boys Series_," ent.i.tled "_The High School Freshmen_."

But it was in the second volume of that series, "_The High School Pitcher_," that our readers found d.i.c.k & Co. entered fully in the training squads of one of the most famous of American high schools. As described in the third volume, "_The High School Left End_," d.i.c.k & Co. were transferred from the baseball nine to the gridiron eleven, and by this time had become the undisputed athletic leaders of Gridley High School. These honors they had not won without tremendous opposition, especially by the formation of the notorious "Sorehead Squad" to oppose their hard earned supremacy in football. Yet d.i.c.k & Co. ever went strenuously forward, in manly, clean-cut fas.h.i.+on, working unceasingly for the furthering of honest American sport. Between the plottings of their enemies and a host of adventures on all sides, the school life of d.i.c.k & Co. proved exciting indeed.

In the "_High School Boys' Vacation Series_" our readers have followed the summer doings of d.i.c.k & Co. as distinguished from the doings of their crowded school years. The first volume devoted to the vacations of d.i.c.k & Co., "_The High School Boys' Canoe Club_," describes the adventures of our lads in an Indian war canoe which even their slender financial resources enabled them to buy at an auction sale of the effects of a stranded Wild West Show. In the second volume of this series, "_The High School Boys In Summer Camp_," our readers came upon an even more exciting narrative of keenly enjoyed summer doings, replete with lively adventures. In that volume the activities of Tag Mosher, a strangely odd character, kept d.i.c.k & Co. continually on the alert. In the third volume of the vacation series, ent.i.tled "_The High School Boys' Fis.h.i.+ng Trip_," were chronicled the things that befell d.i.c.k & Co. while away on a fis.h.i.+ng expedition that became famous in the annals of Gridley school days. This third volume was full to the brim with the sort of adventures that boys most love.

Some old enemies of d.i.c.k & Co. appeared; how they were put to rout is well known to all our readers. How d.i.c.k & Co. played a huge joke, and several smaller ones upon their enemies, is described in that volume.

In this present volume will be recounted all that befell d.i.c.k & Co. in August after completing their junior year in Gridley High School, just as the preceding or third volume dealt with the happenings of July of that same summer.

After that first halt d.i.c.k & Co. plodded on for another hour.

But Prescott, noting that Hazelton was still on the driver's seat of the camp wagon, blandly inquired:

"Harry, if you sit up there, lazily holding the reins, how do you expect to get your share of the training work of this hike?"

"Perhaps I'd rather have the comfort than the training work,"

laughed Hazelton.

"That will never do!" smiled d.i.c.k. "Suppose you climb down and let Danny Grin take your place at the reins until the next halt.

I suspect that Danny boy already has a few pebbles in his shoes, and that he'll be glad enough to look over the world from the driver's seat."

"I'm willing to sacrifice myself for the good of the expedition, anyway," sighed Dalzell, as Harry drew rein. "Come down with you, Hazy, and begin to share the delights of this walking match!"

The change of drivers made, d.i.c.k & Co. plodded on again.

"It seems to me that we ought to put on more speed," suggested Dave Darrin.

"Are you in a hurry to get somewhere, Darry?" drawled Tom Reade.

"No," Dave replied, "but, if we're out for training, it seems to me that we had better do brisker walking than we're doing now, even if the horse can't keep up with us."

"We're making about three miles and a half an hour," d.i.c.k responded.

"But will that be work enough to make us as hard as nails?" persisted Darry.

"We're getting over the ground as fast as the troops of the regular army usually travel," Prescott rejoined. "I believe our regulars are generally regarded as rather perfect specimens in the walking line. We might move along at a speed of six miles, and might keep it up for an hour. Then we'd be footsore, and all in. If the first hour didn't do it, the second hour would. But if we plug along in this deliberate fas.h.i.+on, and get over fifteen, eighteen or twenty miles a day, and keep it up, I don't believe any one of you fellows will complain, September first, that he isn't as hard and solid as he wants to be---even for bucking the football lines, of other high schools."

"I know that I can be satisfied with this gait," murmured Reade.

"If Darry wants to move faster," suggested Hazelton, "why not tell him where to wait for us, and let him gallop ahead?"

"I'll stay with the rest of you," Darry retorted. "All I want to make sure of is that we're going to get the most out of our training work this summer."

"I'll tell you what you might do, Dave, by way of extra exercise and hardening," offered Tom.

"What?" asked Dave suspiciously.