E-text prepared by Jim Ludwig
The High School Boys Fishing Trip
or
Dick & Co. in the Wilderness
By H. Irving Hancock
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
"Hello, Timmy!"
"'Lo, Reade."
"Warm night," observed Tom Reade, as he paused not far from thestreet 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, forTom Reade, amiable and budding senior in the Gridley High School,smiled good naturedly as he stood surveying as much as he couldmake out of the face of Timmy Finbrink in that dark stretch ofthe street.
Timmy was merely a prospective freshman, having been graduateda few days before from the North Grammar School in Gridley.
Tom, himself, had been graduated, three years before, from thefine old Central Grammar, whence, in his estimation, all the "regular"boys came. As a North Grammar boy, Timmy was to be regarded onlywith easygoing indifference. Yet a tale of woe quickly made TomReade his young fellow citizen's instant ally.
"Aren't you out pretty late, Timmy, for a boy who isn't even aregular high school freshman as yet?" inquired Reade, with anothersmile. "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 trouncingwhen 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, withoutfail," Timmy explained. "I came along just five minutes ago,and found that pop has the house planted for me. I can't slipin without his knowing it."
"Oho! So your father has the other members of the family stationedwhere 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 sisterare away visiting, and pop is all alone in the house."
"But he can't watch both the front and back doors at the sametime," Reade suggested hopefully.
"Can't he do just that, though?" sputtered Timmy. "I've beenscouting on tip-toe around the house t