Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Football -- Juvenile fiction
"Why not? He found the trunk unlocked and maybe thought he could put it
back again without anyone knowing anything about it. See? That's just
about what happened, Roy. I'll bet he did the whole thing to get you in
trouble."
"Wasn't Tom in the dormitory when we got there?"
"Yes."
"Then maybe he was there when Horace got back; and Horace couldn't get
at my trunk without being seen."
"What do you suppose he'd do with it?" asked Chub.
Roy shook his head.
"Put it in his own trunk maybe," he answered.
"Come on," said Chub.
Back to the Senior Dormitory they hurried, for each of them had an
examination at two and it was almost that hour now. The dormitory was
empty and Chub stood guard at the head of the stairs while Roy crossed
the room and examined Horace's trunk.
"Locked," he announced softly.
Chub joined him and they stood for a moment looking at the trunk as
though striving to get an X-ray view of its contents.
"Maybe we could find a key to fit it," whispered Chub.
"I wouldn't like to do that," answered Roy, shaking his head.
"No more would I," answered Chub, "but I'd do it if I was just a little
more certain that the thing was in there. I'd like to bust it open with
an axe," he added savagely.
Then the two o'clock bell rang and they hurried downstairs.
"Keep mum about it," said Chub, "and we'll get to the bottom of it yet."
"The trunk?" asked Roy with a weak effort at humor.
"You bet!" was the answer.
Roy watched practice that afternoon. He stood on the school side of the
hedge which marked inner bounds and, out of sight himself, saw Patten
playing on first. It was lonely work and after a while the figures on
the green diamond grew blurred and misty. Then, suddenly, Brother
Laurence's advice came back to him and Roy brushed the back of his hand
across his eyes and turned away.
"'When you're down on your luck,'" he murmured, "'Grin as hard as you
can grin.'"
So he tried his best to grin, and made rather a sorry affair of it until
he spied Harry walking toward the tennis courts with her racket in hand.
He hailed her and she waited for him to come up.
"I'm awfully sorry, Roy," she greeted him. "I told dad you didn't do
it."
"And he believed you at once," said Roy despondently.
[Illustration:"'When you're down on your luck,' he murmured, 'grin as
hard as you can grin.'"]
"N-no, he didn't," answered Harry. "He--he's a little bit stupid
sometimes; I often tell him so."
Roy laughed in spite of his sorrow.
"What does he say then?" he asked.
"Oh, he just smiles," answered Harry resentfully. "I hate people to
smile at you when they ought to answer, don't you?"
Roy supposed he did. And then, in another minute, they were side by side
on the stone coping about the stable yard and Roy was telling Harry
everything, even to the examining of Horace's trunk and the reason for
it.
"That's it!" cried Harry with the utmost conviction. "He did it! I know
he did!"
"How do you know it?" asked Roy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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