The High School Boys' Fishing Trip   By: H. Irving Hancock (1868-1922)

E text prepared by Jim Ludwig

The High School Boys Fishing Trip or Dick & Co. in the Wilderness

By H. Irving Hancock

CONTENTS

CHAPTERS I. Tom Reade has a "Brand New One" II. Dodge and Bayless Hear Something III. Dick & Co. Driven Up a Tree IV. Stalling the Red Smattach V. Bert Dodge Hears the Battle Cry VI. Paid in Full To Date VII. The Box That Set Them Guessing VIII. The Man With the Haunting Face IX. The Start of a Bad Night X. Powder Mills, or Just What! XI. In a Fever "To Find Out" XII. Dick Makes a Find XIII. Perhaps Ten Thousand Years Old XIV. More Mystery in the Air XV. The Scream That Started a Race XVI. The Camp Invaded and Captured XVII. Dick Makes Fish Talk XVIII. A Kettle of Hot Water for Someone XIX. Bert Dodge Hears Frightful News XX. A Frenzied Ride to Safety XXI. Real News and "Punk Heroes" XXII. Tom Tells the Big Secret XXIII. "Four of Us are Pin Heads!" XXIV. Conclusion

CHAPTER I

TOM READE HAS A "BRAND NEW ONE"

"Hello, Timmy!"

"'Lo, Reade."

"Warm night," observed Tom Reade, as he paused not far from the street corner to wipe his perspiring face and neck with his handkerchief.

"Middling warm," admitted Timmy Finbrink.

Yet the heat couldn't have made him extremely uncomfortable, for Tom Reade, amiable and budding senior in the Gridley High School, smiled good naturedly as he stood surveying as much as he could make out of the face of Timmy Finbrink in that dark stretch of the street.

Timmy was merely a prospective freshman, having been graduated a few days before from the North Grammar School in Gridley.

Tom, himself, had been graduated, three years before, from the fine old Central Grammar, whence, in his estimation, all the "regular" boys came. As a North Grammar boy, Timmy was to be regarded only with easygoing indifference. Yet a tale of woe quickly made Tom Reade his young fellow citizen's instant ally.

"Aren't you out pretty late, Timmy, for a boy who isn't even a regular high school freshman as yet?" inquired Reade, with another smile. "It's almost nine thirty, you know."

"Don't I know?" wailed Timmy Finbrink, with something of a shiver. "It's getting later every minute, too, and I'm due for a trouncing when I do go in, so what's the odds?"

"Who's going to give you that trouncing?" Tom demanded.

"My father," replied Timmy Finbrink.

"What have you been doing?"

"Pop told me to be upstairs and in bed by nine o'clock, without fail," Timmy explained. "I came along just five minutes ago, and found that pop has the house planted for me. I can't slip in without his knowing it."

"Oho! So your father has the other members of the family stationed where they can see you, whichever way you go into the house?" asked Reade, with genuine interest in the unfortunate Timmy.

"Nope," explained Timmy, with another shiver. "Mother and sister are away visiting, and pop is all alone in the house."

"But he can't watch both the front and back doors at the same time," Reade suggested hopefully.

"Can't he do just that, though?" sputtered Timmy. "I've been scouting on tip toe around the house to get the lay of the land. Pop is smoking his pipe, and has placed his chair so that he can see both the back and the front doors, for he has the room doors open right through. There isn't a ghost of a show to get in without being seen and pop has the strap on a chair beside him!" finished Timmy, with an anticipatory shiver.

"Timmy, you're a fearfully slow boy," Tom drawled.

"What do you mean?"

"I can fix it so you can get into the house while your father is doing something else," Tom declared.

"Can you? How? Ring the front door bell, while I slip in at the back door?"