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."