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THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL

OR

FRANK JORDAN'S TRIUMPH


BY FRANK V. WEBSTER

AUTHOR OF "TOM THE TELEPHONE BOY",
"COMRADES OF THE SADDLE", "THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS", ETC.




             CONTENTS

    I     FRANK JORDAN'S HOME
    II    THE TINKER BOY
    III   THE DIAMOND BRACELET
    IV    GILL MACE
    V     THE RUINED HOUSE
    VI    AN ASTONISHING CLUE
    VII   THE CONFIDENCE MAN
    VIII  NIPPED IN THE BUD
    IX    A BOY GUARDIAN
    X     AN OBSTINATE REBEL
    XI    TURNING THE TABLES
    XII   A STRANGE HAPPENING
    XIII  SOME MYSTERY
    XIV   THE ROW ON THE CAMPUS
    XV    DARK HOURS
    XVI   THE FOOT RACE
    XVII  THE TRAMP AGAIN
    XVIII A DOLEFUL "UNCLE"
    XIX   A CLEAR CASE
    XX    FRANK A PRISONER
    XXI   A QUEER EXPERIENCE
    XXII  A STARTLING MESSAGE
    XXIII UNDER ARREST
    XXIV  CLEANING UP
    XXV   CONCLUSION









CHAPTER I

FRANK JORDAN'S HOME


"Where did you get that stickpin, Frank?"

"Bought it at Mace's jewelry store."

"You are getting extravagant."

"I hardly think so, aunt, and I don't believe you would think so, either,
if you knew all the circumstances."

"Circumstances do not alter cases when a boy is a spendthrift."

"I won't argue with you, aunt. You have your ideas and I have mine. Of
course, I bought the stickpin, but it was with money I had earned."

The aunt sniffed in a vague way. The boy left the house, looking irritated
and unhappy.

Frank Jordan lived in the little town of Tipton with his aunt, Miss Tabitha
Brown. His father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South,
seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as
his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly,
fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not enjoyed life
very greatly.

There were two thoughts that filled Frank's mind most of the time. The
first was that he would give about all he had to leave his aunt's house.
The other was a wish that his father would write to him soon, telling him,
as he had promised to do, that he had decided that his son could leave
Tipton and go to boarding-school.

What with the constant nagging of his sour-visaged relative, the worry over
his sick father, and the suspense as to his own future movements, Frank did
not have a very happy time of it. He felt a good deal like a boy shut up in
a prison. His aunt used her authority severely. She kept him away from
company, and allowed none of his friends to visit the house. From morning
until night she pestered him and nagged at him, "all for his own good," she
said, until life at the Jordan home, roomy and comfortable as it was,
became a burden to the lad.

"It's too bad!" burst forth Frank as he crossed the garden, climbed a
fence, and made toward the river through a little woods that was a favorite
haunt of his. Reaching a fallen tree he drew from its side a splendid
fishing-pole with all the attachments that a lover of the rod and line
might envy. His eye grew brighter as he glanced fondly along the supple
staff with its neat joints of metal, but he continued his complaint: "When
she isn't scolding, she is lecturing me. I suppose if she ever hears of my
fishing outfit here, she'll be at me for a week about my awful
extravagance. Oh, dear!"

Frank had a good deal over which to grumble. His aunt certainly was a
"tyro." She was making his life very gloomy with her stern, unloving ways.
Frank had promised his parents, when they went away, that he would be
obedient in all respects to his aunt. He was a boy of his word, and he felt
that he had done exceedingly well so far, hard as the task had been. His
aunt was very unreasonable in some things, however, and he had been at the
point of rebellion several times.

"You'd think I was some kind of a beggar, to hear her talk," he grumbled to
himself. "Father sends plenty of pocket money, but the way Aunt Tib doles
it out to me makes a fellow sick. As to the stickpin--heigh ho! I won't
think about it at all. I've lots to be thankful for. I only care that
father gets well and strong again. As to myself, he's sure to decide soon
what school I will be sent away to. That means no Aunt Tib. I shall be
happy. Hello! What's wrong now?"

From the direction of the river there had come two boyish screams in quick
and alarming succession. Frank recognized a signal of pain and distress. He
started on a run and reached the edge of the stream in a few moments. He
leaned beyond a bush where the bank shelved down a little distance along
the shore. His eyes lit upon quite an animated scene.

A strange-looking, boxed-in wagon, with an old white horse attached, stood
stationary about forty rods distant. Just this side of it was a ragged,
trampish-looking man. He had just picked up a piece of flat rock, and as he
hurled it Frank discovered that he had aimed at a tree directly across the
narrow stream, but had missed it.

"Why, there's a boy in that tree," said Frank. "That big bully must have
hit him before I came, and that was the boy's cry I heard. The
good-for-nothing loafer!"

Frank rounded the brush in an impetuous and indignant way. He was about to
challenge the man, when the latter shouted something at the boy across the
stream, and Frank stopped to listen.

"Are you going to come down out of that tree?" the man demanded in a
bellowing tone.

There was no reply, and the man repeated the challenge. The boy addressed
continued silent. Frank could see him crouching in a crotch, his face pale
and distressed.

"See here," roared his persecutor, getting furious and shaking his fist at
his victim, "I'm after you, Ned Foreman, and I'm going to get you! Why, you
vagabond, you--you ungrateful young runaway! Here I'm your only solitary
living relative in the whole world, and you sit up in that tree with a big
stone ready to smash me if I come near you."

"Yes, and I will--I will, for a fact!" cried the lad, roused up. "You try
it, and see. Relative? You're no kin of mine, Tim Brady. I'd be ashamed to
own you."

"I hain't?" howled the man. "Who married your step-sister? Who gave you a
home when you was a helpless kid, I'd like to know?"

"Huh, a healthy home!" retorted the boy. "It wasn't your home; it was my
sister's, and you robbed her of it and squandered the money, and broke her
heart, and she died, and you ought to be hung for it!" and the speaker
choked down a sob. "Now you come across me and try to rob me."

"Say," roared Tim Brady, gritting his teeth and looking dreadfully cruel
and hateful, "if I hang twice over I'll get you. Better give me some of
your money."

"It isn't mine to give."

"Better give me some of it, all the same," continued the man, "or I'll take
the whole of it. I'm desperate, Ned Foreman. I'm in a fix where I've got to
get away from these diggings, and I've got to have money to go. Are you
going to be reasonable and come down out of that tree?"

"No, I ain't."

"Then I'm coming after you. See that?" and the man held up a heavy stick
and brandished it. Then he sat down on a rock and started to remove his
shoes, with the idea of wading across the stream.

Frank felt that it was time for him to do something. He was not a bit
afraid of a coward, but he realized that he and the boy in the tree
together were no match for the big, vicious fellow just beyond him. The boy
in the tree looked honest and decent; the man after him looked just what he
was--a tramp and perhaps worse. Frank thought of hurrying toward the
village for help. Then a sudden idea came to his mind, and he acted upon
it.

The man who was preparing to go after the boy who would not come to him,
sat directly under a big bush. Right over his head among the branches Frank
noticed a double hornets' nest. He knew all about hornets and their ways,
as did he of all the interesting things in the woods. Frank drew his
fishing-pole around and upward, until its willowy end rested against the
straw-like strands by which the hornets' nest was attached to the limb.

Very gently he got a hold on the connecting strands of the double nest and
detached it from the limb. Then he lowered it, carefully poising it with a
swaying motion over the head of the stooping figure of the man.

"Now!" said Frank breathlessly.

Already the disturbed hornets were coming out of the cells in the nest,
angrily fluttering about to learn what the matter was. Frank gave the
fishing-pole a swing. He slammed its end and the hornets' nest right down
on the head of the tramp.

Instantly a swarming myriad of the little insects made the air black about
the man. The fellow gave a spring and a yell of pain. Then, his hands
wildly beating the air, he darted down the river shore like a shot.




CHAPTER II

THE TINKER BOY


"You had better hurry over here quick, if you want to get away from that
man," said Frank, coming out from cover.

"Yes, I will," responded the boy up in the tree.

He threw to the ground a flat stone he had been resting in the crotch of
the tree, his only weapon of defense, dropped nimbly down after it, and
started for the water.

"Hold on," directed Frank; "there's a crossing plank a little way farther
down the stream."

"I'm wet, anyway," explained the boy, dashing into the water, and he came
up to Frank, dripping to the waist.

"Don't be scared," said Frank, as his companion looked in a worried way in
the direction the tramp had taken. "That fellow will be too busy with those
hornets for some time to come, I'm thinking, to mind us."

"Oh, I hope so," said the lad with a shudder. "He's a terrible man. I must
get away from here at once."

As he spoke the boy ran to where the wagon stood and climbed upon its front
seat. As Frank, keeping up with his pace, neared the vehicle, he noticed
across its box top the words: _"Saws, knives, scissors and tools
sharpened scientifically."_

"I wish you would stay with me until I get to town," remarked the boy,
seizing the lines with many a timid look back of him.

"Oh, you want to get to town, do you?" observed Frank. "All right, I'll be
glad to show you the road."

The boy started up the horse with a sharp snap of the lines. The animal was
old and lazy, however, and could not go beyond a very slow trot.

"Turn at that point in the rise," directed Frank, pointing ahead a little
distance, "and it will be a shorter cut to town."

"Yes, yes. I want to get away from here," said Ned Foreman anxiously. "Oh,
there he is again!"

Frank followed the glance of his frightened companion to observe the tramp
in among the brush. He was slapping his face and body as if he had not yet
gotten rid of all the hornets, but he was certainly headed in the direction
of the wagon.

"Your horse won't go fast enough to keep ahead of that fellow," remarked
Frank. "Don't tremble so. He shan't bother you again if I can help it. Keep
on driving."

Frank leaped to the road. Keeping up a running pace with the wagon, he
stooped twice to pick up two pieces of wood of cudgel shape and size, and
then regained his seat.

"Now, then," he said, "drive on as fast as you can. It's less than a
quarter of a mile to houses. If that man overtakes us you must help me beat
him off. If we can't make it together, I'll pester him and keep him back
while you run ahead for help."

"I'd hate to leave you--he's a cruel man," said the lad, "but I've got
quite an amount of money, and it doesn't belong to me."

"Aha!" exclaimed Frank suddenly. "There's no need of our doing anything.
I'll settle that tramp now."

From the cut in the road ahead they were making for, a light gig had just
come into view. On its seat was a single passenger, with a silver badge on
the breast of his coat and wearing a gold-braided cap.

"It's Mr. Houston, the town marshal," explained Frank, and his companion
uttered a great sigh of relief. "Stop till he passes us. Oh, Mr. Houston,"
called out Frank to the approaching rig, "there's a man over yonder
annoying this boy and trying to rob him."

"Is, eh?" cried the officer. "Whoa!" and he arose in the seat to get a good
view of the spot toward which Frank pointed. "I reckon he's seen me, for
he's making back his trail licketty-switch."

"Keep your eye on him so he won't follow us, will you, Mr. Houston?"
pressed Frank.

"I'll do just that," assented the marshal pleasantly. "I'm after these
tramps. There's a gang of them been hanging around Tipton the last day or
two, begging, and stealing what they could get their hands on, and I'm
bound to rout them out."

"There's your chance, then," said Frank, "for, from what this boy tells me,
that fellow yonder is as bad as they make them."

The officer drove on slowly, keeping an eye out for the tramp. Frank's
companion urged up his laggard horse. His face had cleared, and he acted
pleased and relieved as they got within the limits of the town.

"Any place in particular you're bound for?" inquired Frank.

"Yes."

"Where is that?"

"I'm due at the town square."

"Then keep right on this road," said Frank, and within five minutes they
arrived and halted on the shady side of a little park surrounded by the
principal stores.

"I expect some one will be here to see me soon," said the lad. "I don't
know how to thank you for all you've done for me. If that man had got hold
of me he would have robbed me of every cent I had. I've been trying to keep
away from him, fearing he might be looking for me and come across me
accidentally. Now I'm safe."

"Won't he hang around and try it again when you leave town?" questioned
Frank.

"But I'm not going to leave town," explained Ned Foreman, "that is, not on
this wagon. I've been working for a man who runs half a dozen of these
scissors grinders over the country. At Tipton here another employe will
relieve me. I give him what I have taken in the last week, and he pays me
my wages out of it. I'm going to give up this job now."

"Don't you like it, then?" asked the interested Frank.

"Well enough--yes, it isn't unpleasant; but I've an ambition to get an
education, and have been working to that end," said Ned in a serious way
that won Frank's respect. "I want to go to school. I have saved up a little
money, and I shall start in right away."

"That's good," said Frank. "I'm only hoping to get away to school myself
soon. Say, what kind of a traveling caravan is this, anyway?"

"I'll show you," said Ned promptly, and as both got to the ground he
touched a bolt and the back of the wagon came down, forming steps. Reaching
in he moved a bracket, and a section of the side of the wagon slid back,
letting light into the vehicle. Frank noticed a sort of a bench, a lathe,
and some small pieces of machinery.

Ned Foreman got up the steps and touched something. There was a click and a
spark of light. He pulled a wheel around and then there was a
chug-chug-chug.

"Now, what's that?" asked the curious Frank.

"It's a little gasoline motor," explained Ned. "Step in and see what a
famous tinkering shop on wheels we've got."

"Why, this is just grand!" declared Frank, as he glanced around the
interior of the wagon in an admiring way.

"Yes, it's clean, attractive and made up to date," said Ned. "The man who
owns these outfits is working up some good routes. If you have anything to
sharpen, now, I'll show you the kind of work we do."

Frank whipped out his pocket knife in a jiffy. Ned touched a lever near the
motor, and things went whirring. There was a busy hum that made the place
delightful to Frank. He was astonished and pleased to observe how deftly
his companion handled the knife, putting it through a dozen operations,
from grinding to stropping and polishing. Then he adjusted a little drill
to a handle and said:

"I'll put your name on the handle, if you like."

"All right," assented Frank with satisfaction. "It's Frank Jordan."

"There you are," said Ned a minute later, handing the knife back to Frank.
"You'll find a blade there that will cut a hair."

"Yes, that's