Read Ebook: Dick Hamilton's Cadet Days; Or The Handicap of a Millionaire's Son by Garis Howard Roger

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Ebook has 2252 lines and 60178 words, and 46 pages

He started off at a fast clip, the others sprinting after him, and he would have won, but that he stubbed his bare toe on a stone, and had to finish the rest of the distance on one leg, holding the injured member in his hands, making, the while, wry faces at the pain. Bill Johnson won the impromptu race.

"Hurt much?" asked Walter, as Dick limped up.

"Like sin. Say, Hannibal Caesar Erastus Jones, will you do me a favor?" he asked, as the colored cook, who did the camp cooking, came from his tent.

"Ob co'se, Massa Dick. What am it?"

"Just go back there in the woods and bring me the pieces of that stone I broke with my toe. I want 'em for souveniers."

"Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Massa Dick, doan yo' go to playin' no tricks on me! Not jest at de present auspicious moment," and the colored man grinned broadly, showing a big expanse of white teeth, in an area of blackness.

"Why not, Rastus?"

"Never mind those souveniers," said Dick. "We'll be with you in the twinkling of a flea's left hand eyelash," and he hopped into his tent, and began to dress, an example followed by the other boys.

"Humph!" murmured Hannibal Caesar Erastus Jones, as he stood in the midst of the camp, rapidly blinking his eyes. "Fust I eber knowed a flea had a eyelash. But Massa Dick, he must know, 'case he's po'ful smart. But I 'spects I'd better git ready to serb up de grub, as dey calls it, 'case dey's allers pow'ful hungry when dey's been in swimmin'. Come t' t'ink ob it, dough, dey's most allers ready t' eat." And, chuckling to himself, Hannibal started toward the cook tent.

It did not take the boys long to dress, and as they emerged from the tents, their faces glowing with health, and bronzed from their life in the open, they were as fine a group of lads as you would meet in a day's travel, or, maybe a day and a half. They were all guests of Dick Hamilton, who, as had been his custom for several years past, had taken a crowd of his chums off to camp on the shores of Lake Dunkirk, a large body of water near Hamilton Corners, where Dick lived.

"Ah! Um! Smell that chicken!" murmured Bill Johnson, as he lifted his nose high in the air.

"There you go again! Displaying your lack of manners!" objected Fred. "Why don't you wait in patience and dignity, as I do."

"Well, wouldn't that melt your collar button!" remarked Bricktop. "Where's the glass case they took you out of, Fred?"

"Manners?" asked Dick, as he approached Fred from the side. "Excuse me, but there's something sticking out there."

As he spoke he slyly extended his foot, and, a moment later Fred measured his length on the carpet of soft, pine needles of the woods.

"Goodness me! Did you fall?" asked Dick, as he looked down, in apparent surprise at his chum. "How careless of you."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Bill. "Come here, Fred, and I'll pick you up."

Fred arose, smiling rather sheepishly, but not at all angry. He brushed off his clothes, and joined in the laugh that followed.

"It's your turn next," observed the young millionaire. "I'll have to keep my weather eye open, Fred."

"All right," said the lad who had been tripped.

"Well, Hannibal--Alphabet--Jones; art ready for the gathering of the clans who hunger after the flesh-pots of Egypt?" asked Dick.

"All ready, Massa Dick," replied the colored cook. "Come on."

"First down! One wish-bone to gain!" called Walter Mead, as he took his place at the table set under the tent fly.

For the next five minutes the boys were so busy eating the roast chicken, corn bread and other good things that Hannibal-and-the-rest-of-it-Jones, with his knowledge of Southern cookery had provided, that they said not a word. Then, with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction, Bill observed:

"There certainly is nothing like a good meal."

"Unless it's two," added Bricktop. "I didn't much fancy Dick's plan of taking a professional cook along when we came to camp this year, because it used to be fun to do it ourselves, but our cooking was never like this."

"Never, never, never!" exclaimed Fred. "I'll have a little more chicken, if you don't mind, Dick."

"Certainly not. There's plenty."

"Yes, this is better than having to do it ourselves," said Frank Bender, as he finished polishing off a juicy leg. "No dishes to wash, nothing to bother with after you're through, only have a good time. Dick, you're a brick!"

"As long as I'm not a gold one, it's all right," said the millionaire's son. "But I thought you'd agree with me that it was best to take a cook along."

"It sure is all to the pancake batter," observed Bricktop. "Well, I don't mind if I do have a little more of the white meat, if you insist," he added, though no one had asked him to pass his plate.

Dick laughed as he helped his chum to some choice bits. Matters were moving more slowly, now that the first edge of hunger was dulled, and the boys were taking occasional stops to make remarks.

"What's the program for this afternoon?" asked Walter, as he drained his coffee cup. "Are we going fishing?"

"Whatever you say," replied Dick, who, like a true host, always consulted the wishes of his guests. "We can fish, take a walk, or go out in the motor boat."

"The motor boat for mine," said Bill. "I want to get on a pile of cushions and take a snooze."

"Well, wouldn't that give you the nightmare!" came from Bricktop. "You're getting lazier every day, Bill."

"Help yourself," spoke the sleepy youth, as he slumped from the table and stretched out under a tree.

"I guess a trip in the motor boat would suit us all best," observed Dick. "Hannibal 'Rastus, just fill up the gasolene tank, will you?"

"Cut it out!" cried Walter, throwing a pine cone with such good aim, that it went right into Bricktop's open mouth.

"Oh! Ah! Ug! Blug! Chug! Hum!" spluttered the discomfitted one. "Who threw that?" he demanded, when he could speak.

Nobody answered, and, feeling in no mood to get up and chastise Walter, whose sly grin proclaimed him the culprit, Bricktop stretched out again.

"Hark! That sounds like a wagon coming," observed Fred, as he sat up, after a few minutes of silence.

"Guess it's the ice man," said Dick, for he had arranged to have a supply left at the camp. He believed in having all the comforts possible when he went into the woods.

"Doesn't rumble like an ice wagon," commented Bill.

"Sounds more like a load of steel girders," added Walter.

At this, Dick arose. He peered through the trees toward a seldom-used wagon road, which ran near the camp. He caught sight of something moving.

"It's a wagon, all right," he said, "but it isn't the ice man."

A few moments later a remarkable rig hove into sight. It consisted of a rattle-trap of a wagon, loaded with all sorts of scrap iron, and drawn by a horse that looked as if it had escaped from the bone yard. It just crawled along. On the seat was a bright-faced youth, who was doing his best to excite the animal into a speed a little better than that of a snail. He jerked on the reins, called at the horse, and cracked his whip, but all to no purpose.

"It's no use!" he exclaimed, as he looked through the trees and caught sight of Dick and his chums. "He's got the pip, or something like that."

"Why, hello, Henry," called Dick. "What brings you away off here? There's no scrap around here."

"I thought maybe you boys might have had one or two that you'd sell cheap," said the young dealer in old iron, and there was a twinkle in his eyes.

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