Cupid of Campion

“You’ll not get the chance. I’m off for the Coast at noon-time.”

“Here we are,” cried Abe presently, steering towards the shore. “This is the place that leads up to Pictured Rocks.”

“Hurrah for Pictured Rocks!” shouted Clarence, bringing with a few swift strokes the boat well up on the beach. “And what are Pictured Rocks anyhow?”

“The folks round here,” answered Abe, as he took the oars from the boat and carefully hid them in the undergrowth near the shore, “calls ’em Pictured Rocks, because the rocks up this here hill instead of being white like other rocks is in layers of red and orange and blue and all sorts of colors between, and they says that the Injuns used to come here and use the stuff of the rocks for war-paint.”

“Well,” said Clarence, blithely turning a few cartwheels on reaching the bank, “I’m ready for your Pictured Rocks. Do you think I’ll find the bright-eyed goddess of adventure amongst them?”

“I dunno. Come right along; we can get up there in about fifteen minutes.”

But the bright-eyed goddess of adventure was nearer than Clarence fancied. She took, on this occasion, the guise of a tramp, who, making his way along the railroad ties of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul towards McGregor and chancing to see a youth in a white sailor-suit, thought it worth his while to pause upon his weary journey.

Abe led the way. He passed the tracks unnoticed by the road adventurer. Clarence, pausing at every other step to take in the view, presently followed.

“Say, young feller, could I say a word to you?”

“Make it a dozen, while you’re about it,” answered Clarence, gazing at the long-haired, unshorn, shabby, middle-aged man before him.

“I ain’t had nothing to eat since last night. Could you spare me a dime?”

“With pleasure,” responded the youth, taking out as he spoke a handful of coin, selecting a quarter and handing it over to the hungry one.

The sight of money brings a strange light into certain eyes. The tramp’s were of that kind.

“You’re carrying too much money for a kid. Give me some more,” he said.

“Skiddoo! Hump yourself!” yelled Abe from a safe distance.

Clarence was looking hard at his new acquaintance. There was no mistaking the glint in the fellow’s eye. The beggar had developed into the highwayman.

“Excuse me!” said Clarence, and turning tail he dashed down the track.

The tramp had a good pair of legs in excellent condition from much travel. He was quick to the pursuit.

“Run faster!” roared Abe, content to give advice. “He’s catching up.”

Clarence had a start of nearly ten yards; but before he had gone far, it grew clear to him that his pursuer was no mean runner. Nearer and nearer drew the tramp. The race could not last much longer.

Suddenly Clarence stopped, whirled around, and before his pursuer could realize the turn of events, plunged through the air, landing with both arms about the astounded man’s knees. The tramp went down with a suddenness to which few men are accustomed, and, assisted by a quick shove from the boy’s agile arm, started rolling from the tracks down an incline of some fifteen feet. By the time he had arisen to a sitting posture below and passed his hand over the several bruises on his head, the boy was back with Abe and lustily making his way up the hillside.

The tramp saw him, no more; but as he rose to resume his wearied journey, he heard a blithe voice far up the hillside carolling forth:

“Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,
Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

CHAPTER III

In which Clarence and his companion, the Butcher’s Boy, discourse, according to their respective lights, on poetry and other subjects, ending with a swim that was never taken and the singing of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay for the last time

“That was great,” said Abe, enthusiastically, as he led the way up a steep and winding path. “You dished that feller easy. How did you do it?”

“I just tackled him.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you know anything about football?”

“Naw!”

“Well, when a chap on the other side has the ball and is running up the field with it and you want to stop him, you make a dive at his knees and clasp your arms right above ’em; and the faster he’s going, the harder he’ll fall.”

“I’d like to learn that game,” remarked Abe with some show of enthusiasm.

“What a nice little stream that is,” continued Clarence, waving his hand towards a tiny streamlet beside their upward path. “I like the sound of running water, don’t you? There ought to be a waterfall somewhere about here.”

“There is; it’s furder up.”

“Are you fond of Tennyson, Abe?”

“Eh? What’s that? Another game?”

“He’s a poet.”

“A what?”

“A poet: he writes verses, you know.”

“I don’t read nothin’.”

“Well, listen to this:

“‘I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern
To bicker down a valley!’”

“Sally is a girl’s name,” said Abe, whose brows had grown wrinkled from concentrated attention.

“I don’t think you quite got the idea of those lines,” said Clarence suavely. “But just listen to this:

“‘I chatter, chatter as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.’”

“Say that again, will you?”