



Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rick Morris, Rod Crawford,
Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdp.net






[Illustration: HE LANDED HIMSELF THROUGH THE AIR WITH A LONG GRACEFUL
LEAP. —Page 31.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           BOYS _of_ OAKDALE
                                ACADEMY




                                   BY
                              MORGAN SCOTT
                 AUTHOR OF “BEN STONE AT OAKDALE,” ETC.




                   _With Four Original Illustrations_
                           _By MARTIN LEWIS_




                                NEW YORK
                           HURST AND COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            Copyright, 1911,
                                   BY
                            HURST & COMPANY




------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                CONTENTS


              CHAPTER                                 PAGE

                   I. A Boy of Mystery                   5
                  II. Playing the Part                  13
                 III. Rod's Wonderful Jump              26
                  IV. The Fellow Who Refused            39
                   V. Ambushed                          50
                  VI. The Result of a Practical Joke    61
                 VII. The One Who Laughed Last          70
                VIII. The White Feather                 80
                  IX. Moments of Apprehension           88
                   X. Who Told?                         99
                  XI. In Doubt                         110
                 XII. Cold Weather in Texas            118
                XIII. A Bond of Sympathy               129
                 XIV. A Narrow Escape                  136
                  XV. When a Grant Fights              150
                 XVI. Independent Rod                  162
                XVII. The First Snow                   170
               XVIII. Rabbit Hunting                   179
                 XIX. An Encounter in the Woods        192
                  XX. A Sunday Morning Caller          200
                 XXI. What Sleuth Piper Saw            208
                XXII. The Fate of Silver Tongue        218
               XXIII. Following the Trail              229
                XXIV. The Proof                        239
                 XXV. Settlement Day Draws Near        248
                XXVI. Grant’s Defiance                 254
               XXVII. Spotty Refuses to Talk           264
              XXVIII. Aroused at Last                  274
                XXIX. The Incriminating Letter         283
                 XXX. The Reason Why                   291
                XXXI. Something Worth Doing            300

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                        BOYS OF OAKDALE ACADEMY.




                               CHAPTER I.

                           A BOY OF MYSTERY.


“He’s a fake,” declared Chipper Cooper positively, backing up against
the steam radiator to warm himself on the other side. “I’ll bet a
hundred dollars he never was west of Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

“A hundred dollars,” drawled Sile Crane, grinning. “Why don’t yeou bate
something while you’re abaout it? Nobody’d bother to take a measly
little wager like that. Now I’ve kinder got an idee that the new feller
really comes from Texas, jest as he says he does. I guess he ain’t no
fake.”

“Oh, is that so!” retorted Cooper, a bit warmly. “Well, I’ll talk
business to you, Mr. Crane; I’ll really bet you fifty cents Rodney
Grant never saw the State of Texas in his life. Now put up or shut up.”

“I don’t want to bate on it,” said Sile; “but I guess I’ve got a right
to my opinion, and I cal’late Rod Grant ain’t no fake Westerner.”

“I knew you didn’t have the sand to back your opinion,” chuckled
Chipper. “It’s my idea that Grant is a fake and you’re no bettor.”

“Awful bad pun, Chipper,” said Chub Tuttle, a roly-poly, round-faced
chap who was munching peanuts. “I think you’re right, though; I don’t
believe he’s a Texan. Why, he hasn’t a bit of brogue.”

“Bub-brogue!” stuttered Phil Springer, who had a slight impediment in
his speech. “Texans don’t have a brogue; they have a dialect—they talk
in the vernacular, you know.”

“Talk in the ver—what?” cried Cooper. “Where did you get that word,
Phil? I don’t know what it means, but I do know Rod Grant talks through
his hat sometimes. When he tells about living on a ranch and herding
cattle and breaking bronchos and chasing rustlers and catching horse
thieves, he gives me a cramp. He certainly can reel off some whoppers.”

At this point up spoke Billy Piper, commonly known as “Sleuth” on
account of his ambitions to emulate the great detectives of fiction.

“Of late,” said Billy, “I’ve been shadowing this mysterious personage
who came into our midst unannounced and unacclaimed and who has been
the cause of extensive speculation and comment. My deduction is that
the before-mentioned mysterious personage is a big case of bluff, and I
must add that, like my astute comrade, Cooper, I gravely doubt if he
has ever seen the wild and woolly West. His tales of cowboy life are
extremely preposterous. All cowboys are bow-legged from excessive
riding in the saddle; the legs of Rod Grant—I should say the
before-mentioned mysterious personage—are as straight as my own.
Westerners wear their hair long; Grant—the before-mentioned mysterious
personage—has his hair cut like any civilized human being. Likewise and
also, he does not talk as a true Westerner should. Why, nobody has ever
heard him say ‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’ or any of those characteristic
words all Westerners scatter promiscuously through their conversation.
Therefore—mark me, comrades—I brand him as a double-dyed impostor.”

“Speaking about Grant, I presume?” said Fred Sage, joining the group by
the radiator. “I think you’re right, Sleuth. Why, I told him only last
night that no one around here believed him the real thing, because he
didn’t look like it, act like it or talk like it. What do you suppose
he said? He claimed he had to keep on guard all the time to prevent
himself from using cowboy lingo—said he was sort of ashamed of it and
trying to get out of the habit.”

Berlin Barker, a tall, cold-eyed chap who had been listening without
comment to this conversation, now ventured to put in a word.

“Fellows like this Grant are more or less amusing,” he observed. “I’m
also inclined to think him a fraud, and I have good reasons. Didn’t
Captain Eliot try to get him out for football practice the very day he
showed up here at Oakdale Academy? He looks stout and husky, and Roger
thought he might work in as a substitute; but, after watching practice
one night, he wouldn’t even step onto the field. It’s my opinion the
game seemed too rough and rude for this wild and woolly cow-puncher. If
anybody should ask me, I’d say that he has all the symptoms of a chap
with a yellow streak in him. I don’t believe he has an ounce of sand in
his makeup.”

“Somebody ought to be able to find out if he really does come from the
West,” said Tuttle. “Why don’t we ask his aunt?”

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard,” chuckled Cooper. “Nobody else wants to
ask her. People around here know enough to keep away from Priscilla
Kent.”

“Oh, she’s cracked,” stated Piper. “She’s lived here in Oakdale for the
last twenty years, and nobody has ever been able to find out much of
anything about her. Take a woman who lives alone with only a pet parrot
and a monkey for companions, and never associates with the neighbors,
and talks like an asylum for the simple-minded, and you have a
proposition too baffling for solution even by my trained and highly
developed mind. My deduction is——”

“Here comes Roger!” exclaimed Fred Sage. “Let’s ask him what he thinks
about the fellow.”

It was the hour of the noon intermission at Oakdale Academy, and, the
season being early November, with the atmosphere biting cold, Roger
Eliot stepped forward to warm his hands at the radiator, near which
hovered the group who were discussing the new boy. Roger was a tall,
well-built, somewhat grave-looking chap, whose sober face, however, was
occasionally illumined by a rare smile. The son of Urian Eliot, one of
the wealthiest and most influential men of the town, Roger, being a
natural athlete, was the recognized leader among the academy boys.

“Hello, fellows,” was his pleasant greeting. “Talking football?”

“No,” answered Hayden; “we were discussing that fellow Rodney Grant. We
were trying to size him up, and it seems to be practically the
universal opinion that he’s a fraud. We doubt if he has ever been west
of the Mississippi. What do you think about it?”

“Well,” confessed Roger slowly, “I’ll own up that I don’t know what to,
think. Still, I don’t see any reason why he should lie about himself.”

“Some fellers had rather lie than eat,” observed Sile Crane.

“Why shouldn’t he lie about himself?” questioned Cooper. “He’s told
some wallopers about everything else. I never heard a fellow who could
bust the truth into smithereens the way he can.”

“Oh,” said Eliot, “I know what you mean. When he first struck Oakdale
he didn’t have much of anything to say, and you fellows kept at him,
asking questions, until I fancy he grew weary and took a notion to
sling off a few big yarns for his own amusement.”

“Putting aside the question as to whether he came from the West or
not,” said Barker, “I’ve decided that he’s a quitter—in short, a
coward.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Roger.

“Why shouldn’t I think so? Didn’t you try to get him out for football
practice? and didn’t he refuse after watching us work one night? It was
too husky business for the gentleman who had punched cows and hunted
cattle thieves. Why, even Hunk Rollins doesn’t take any stock in that
chap, Eliot, and yesterday Hunk backed him down completely. Rollins had
a chip on his shoulder and was looking for trouble. He picked out Grant
and loaded him with jibes and insults. The cow-puncher swallowed them
all. Any one with a particle of grit would have climbed all over Hunk.”

“Perhaps you may be right, boys,” admitted Roger; “but don’t forget
that you made a blunder in sizing up Ben Stone when he came here. It is
possible you’re just as far wrong about Rodney Grant. He——”

“’Sh!” hissed Piper suddenly, as the door swung open and another boy
entered the room. “Here he comes now!”

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              CHAPTER II.

                           PLAYING THE PART.


For a few moments they stared in dumfounded silence at the latest
arrival. Sile Crane was the first to speak; a grin broke over his
homely face, and in a suppressed tone he drawled:

“Great codfish! He’s sartainly come to school this arternoon all
dressed up fit to kill.”

“Oh, ginger!” snickered Chipper Cooper. “Here’s the real wild and
woolly article now. Just look at it!”

Chub Tuttle snorted, clapping a hand to his mouth to check the spray of
half-munched peanuts which flew from his lips. “’Scuse me,” he
entreated, as Barker fell back a step, frowning and producing a
handkerchief to brush some of the peanut crumbs from his coat sleeve.
“Couldn’t help it. Did you ever see such a funny sight in all your
life?”

Even Roger Eliot could not repress a smile as he gazed at the new boy
in Oakdale who professed to come from the State of Texas; for never
before had a person thus attired ventured to cross the threshold of the
academy, and in a moment the eyes of nearly every boy and girl in the
room were focused upon Rodney Grant.

Grant was a well-set-up youngster of sixteen, somewhat large for his
age, and yet not large enough to be noticeably overgrown. He had clear,
dark brown eyes, which were almost black; a strong, well-formed,
prominent nose; a square, firm chin; and a mouth which, while in no way
disagreeable, had something about it to give the impression that the
boy could say “no” and stick to it. In his dark brown hair there was a
glint of red. The short time he had spent as a student at Oakdale
Academy had not yet begun to weaken perceptibly the deep tan of his
cheek and neck.

Set a bit rakishly on the boy’s shapely head was a battered,
wide-brimmed old felt hat that looked as if it had seen any amount of
wear. The crown was encircled by a buckled leather strap, and in front
the brim had been turned up and fastened with a thong. Neither coat nor
vest covered the loose woollen shirt, which had been left open a bit at
the throat. A dark red handkerchief was knotted about the lad’s neck.
His legs were encased in shiny, soiled, calfskin chaps, fringed down
the outer seams; and these likewise bore the tokens of much wear.
Hanging loosely from the point of his left hip was a cartridge-looped
belt that supported a pistol holster dangling low against the upper
part of his right leg. On his feet were tight, thin-soled, high-heeled
boots, to which were attached huge roweled spurs that clanked with
every step he took.

Calm, serene, without the flicker of a smile on his face or a symptom
of self-consciousness in his manner, Rod Grant glanced around and then
walked toward the staring lads near the steam radiator. His high-heeled
boots gave him a somewhat awkward gait.

“Howdy, gents,” he saluted. “This yere weather is sure some nipping
to-day. If it continues, it’s right certain she’ll freeze up tight
before long. Out on the Canadian we’d get it this cold on the front
edge of a no’ther.”

Berlin Barker’s lips curled scornfully as he openly took the measure of
the speaker from head to feet. “On my word,” he sneered, “you’re a
sight. You’re all dressed up, aren’t you?”

“Sure,” was the cheerful answer. “Not knowing but that I might be
invited out to afternoon tea or some sort of social function, I spent
as much as five minutes adorning my person for the occasion. I own up
I’m a heap more familiar with the social etiquette of the range, being
generally accustomed to taking my grub from the tail end of the cook’s
wagon; but, when he sent me East, my old man he says to me, says he,
‘Rod, when you’re in Rome you must seek some to emulate the Romans.’
Therefore, being plenty dutiful, I feel it incumbent to stand up and
meet what’s coming without shying or bucking.”

“Oh, slush!” snickered Cooper. “Who said he didn’t talk in the
ver—what-do-you-call-it?”

“I presume,” said Barker, “that he picked up that line of talk from
some cheap Western novel.”

“You’ve certain got two more guesses coming, partner,” retorted Grant,
still unruffled. “Since locating on this here section of the range,
I’ve spent the greater part of my time in the right painful effort to
talk pure Bostonese. What has been the result? You gents hereabouts
have acquired the impression that I’m an impostor, and therefore all my
trouble has gone for naught. I allow you’ll admit that this must be a
heap discouraging to a person with a naturally retiring and sensitive
nature—that’s me. I now give you notice that henceforth and hereafter
I’m Rodney Grant of the Star D Ranch, Roberts County, Texas Panhandle,
and any gent who doesn’t approve of my style is at liberty to segregate
himself from my society.”

Roger Eliot laughed outright, which was unusual for him.

“That’s plain enough,” he said. “A great many people find it necessary
to play the part in order to be accepted as the real thing.”

Grant flashed him a look from those deep brown eyes; to his surprise,
here was a fellow who seemed to understand.

Barker shrugged his shoulders. “My dear chap,” he said patronizingly,
“I’m afraid you were rather careless in letting us get onto your
curves. Tell us, how much did that rig-out cost you? I presume you
bought it from some fake cowboy in a dime museum.”

“I’ve already noticed,” returned Rodney, “that you’re a presuming sort
of a gent. Being of a forgiving nature, I’ll overlook it and charge it
up to your ignorance.”

Barker flushed with anger. “Cut it out, you freak!” he exclaimed. “Why,
you’re a sight! Folks around here weren’t born yesterday, and you can’t
fool anybody with your bluff. Next thing we know you’ll be calling us
tenderfeet; but we’re not so tender we can’t tell the difference
between a fake and the genuine article.”

“I pray thee, be not so harsh, Berlin,” chuckled Cooper. “Why, we can
all see by looking at his clothes that Mr. Grant is a real, genuine,
_bona fide_ cow-puncher from the Texas Panhandle, just as he claims to
be. At least, he not only looks it, but he’s slinging the lingo.”

Sleuth Piper shook his head doubtfully. “He hasn’t yet said ‘whoop’ or
‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’,” he muttered.

“Thanks, my friend,” bowed Grant, beaming on Cooper. “It’s sure a
relief to know that at last I’m making an impression on one person, at
least.”

“Have a peanut,” invited Chub Tuttle. “Can you shoot a pistol?”

“I’m a rip-roarer with a gun.”

“Know how to throw a lasso?”

“Sure. I can rope and tie a wild steer in thirty-six seconds. The
world’s record is something like forty-one and a half. But that’s
because I’ve never competed in a public steer-roping contest.”

“Bah!” sneered