The High School Boys in Summer Camp.

by H. Irving Hanc.o.c.k.

CHAPTER I

THE MAN IN THE FOUR-QUART HAT

"You'll find your man in the lobby of the Eagle Hotel or in the neighborhood of the hotel on Main Street," said d.i.c.k Prescott.

"You can hardly miss him."

"But how will I know Mr. Hibbert, when I see him?" pursued the stranger.

"I don't know that his name is Hibbert," d.i.c.k answered. "However, he is the only young man who has just reached town fresh from Europe. His trunks are pasted all over with labels."

"You'll know the young man, sir," Tom Reade broke in, with a quiet smile. "He always wears a spite-fence collar. You could bill a minstrel show on that collar."

"A collar is but a slight means of identification, in a city full of people," remarked the stranger good-humoredly.

"Well, then, sir, your man also wears a four-quart silk hat, and a long black coat that makes you think of a neat umbrella covering,"

Tom went on.

"And lavender trousers," supplemented Greg Holmes.

"Always wears these things, you say?" questioned the stranger.

"He has, so far," d.i.c.k nodded. "Mr. Hibbert has been in town only since late yesterday afternoon, and it's only four in the afternoon to-day."

"I shall be able to find my man all right," smiled the stranger.

"You've informed me that he is stopping at the Eagle Hotel.

Until now, I knew only that Mr. Hibbert was in Gridley. Thank you, young gentlemen."

"Now, I wonder how he knew that," murmured Tom reflectively.

"Knew what?" demanded Dave Darrin.

"That we're gentlemen," Tom responded.

"Oh, he guessed that," suggested Harry Hazelton.

"He's a good guesser, then," remarked Tom. "I always like to see a man so discerning. I'm ashamed to confess it, but d.i.c.k is the only fellow in our crowd who looks at all like a gentleman.

He is dressed in his Sunday best. Look at us!"

The other five certainly looked neat enough, even though they did not wear their "Sunday best."

"Now, fellows, what's the lowest I'm to take for the canoe?"

d.i.c.k inquired, after a glance at his watch. "The train is due in two minutes."

Instantly his five chums looked thoughtful.

"You'll get the most that you can, of course," Greg insisted.

"I shall try to get a good price," d.i.c.k nodded, "but I may find myself up against close bargainers. So hurry up and vote as to the lowest price that I'm to accept under any circ.u.mstances."

"What do you say?" asked Tom Reade, looking at Dave.

"We ought to get sixty dollars for it, at the very lowest," Darrin replied, slowly. "I'd like to pull in seventy-five dollars, for we need every penny of the latter amount."

"We might get along with seventy," hinted Harry Hazelton. "Suppose we say seventy dollars as the lowest possible price that we can consider."

"Sixty-five dollars, anyway," urged Dan Dalzell, otherwise known as "Danny Grin."

"What's your own idea, d.i.c.k?" asked Tom Reade, as the distant whistle sounded.

"If you fellows are going to be content with a sixty or seventy-dollar bottom price," suggested Prescott, "I wish you'd elect someone else to go in my place."

"Do you think we'll have to take fifty?" asked Tom Reade looking aghast.

"If you send me, and leave the trade in my hands," retorted young Prescott, "then you'll have to accept ninety dollars as the very bottom price, or there won't be any sale."

"Hurrah!" chuckled Danny Grin. "That's the talk! Ninety---or nothing!"

"Do you think you can get that much?" asked Dave doubtingly.

"I'll have to, or I won't make any trade," d.i.c.k smiled, though there was a glint of firmness in his eyes.

"Let it be ninety dollars or nothing, then," agreed Tom Reade, adding, under his breath, "With the accept on the 'nothing.'"

As d.i.c.k glanced about him at the faces of his chums they all nodded their approval.

"I have my final instructions, then," d.i.c.k announced, as the east-bound train rolled in at the Gridley station. It had been from the westbound train, a few minutes before, that the stranger seeking Mr. Hibbert had alighted.

"Wish you luck, old chap!" cheered Dave, as d.i.c.k ascended the carsteps.

"I wish us all luck," d.i.c.k called back from the car platform, "and I'll try to bring it back to you."

The train was moving as d.i.c.k entered one of the day coaches.

Silently his chums wished that they might all have gone with d.i.c.k, instead of turning away from the station, as they were now doing.

Funds were low with d.i.c.k & Co., however, and all hands had contributed to buy young Prescott's round-trip ticket to Porthampton, more than an hour's ride away.

"Do you believe d.i.c.k can get ninety dollars for the canoe?" asked Dave at last, when the high school boys were half way to Main Street.

"Why not? It's a six-paddle war canoe, a genuine one, and in good condition for the water," Tom Reade replied.

"But it's only a second-hand canoe," Darrin argued. "It was second-hand when we bought it at the Wild West auction a year ago."

"That canoe is in just as good order as it ever was," Greg maintained.

"It's a shame for us to sell it at all. We could have had a lot of fun with it this summer."