Garry

“ But Sandy beat him by several seconds, for no sooner did he get his first sight of the boys than he broke from the leash by which Tom was leading him and made a mad dash for the chums. He nearly knocked Garry over as he leaped on him, then he jumped from one boy to another in frantic glee, giving vent to sharp barks of delight as the boys mauled him in their joy at seeing him again.
“Sorry we’ll have to put you in the baggage car on the trip, old timer,” said Garry, “but the railroads have a rule against big fellows like you being in the car.” ”

“ Toward evening the answer to his letter came, he was requested to call at Herman Hall at ten o’clock the next day, and then he might decide whether the terms would suit him.
At ten o’clock he was at the porter’s lodge, where the solemn-looking personage who had so awed Garry stood ready to receive him. A low, garden-chaise, with a pair of handsome ponies, was waiting for him, into which he seated himself. The ride was enchantment. No fairy dream could have conjured up the beautiful scenery which opened to his view at every turn of the road. ”

“ You boys walk on ahead and I’ll trot back to Denton’s and get a little. I won’t be more than five minutes and will catch up with you by the time you reach Aunt Abbie’s house,” and Garry was off at a trot for the store.
He procured his candy, and was walking back to join his comrades, when he became suddenly aware that he was being followed.
Garry could not see anyone, but he had that instinct that comes to anyone when he is being followed. It is the same feeling that one has when he realizes that there is someone else in a room with him when it was supposed to be empty. ”

“ Nicholas Garry at the other end of the table, also very pompous and smooth, but with a look on his face as if he were sitting above a powder mine, the Highland pipers dressed in tartans, standing at each end of the hall, filling the room with the drone and the skurl of the bagpipes. ”

“ And Garry, thundering down his mountain-road,
Was stopped, and could not breathe beneath the load
Of the dead bodies.—'Twas a day of shame
For them whom precept and the pedantry
Of cold mechanic battle do enslave. ”

“ You are so splendid, Jack. And you never disappoint me. It is Garry's poor little boy who must be protected. Everybody would pity the wife, but nobody would pity the child. He will always be pointed at when he grows up. ”

“ The three chums were aghast for a minute, then Phil and Dick instinctively turned to Garry to see what he would do. Garry had taken one look and saw the beast at the far end of the tent, lashing his tail and surveying the crowd, as though making up its mind as to what course to pursue.
The boys saw that Garry was hastily slipping his lasso from his shoulder, and in a moment they had understood what he was going to attempt, and followed suit.
“Now fellows, let’s try it. We may save a lot of lives. I’ll try for his head, and you two try for a foot each. I think we can catch him all right. ”

“ Garret looked at his slender, attractive mother and laughed again:
“Is that what keeps you so young and pretty, mother?—looking after me?”
“Alas, Garry, I’m over forty, and I look it!”
“Do you?—you sweet little thing!” he interrupted, picking her up suddenly from the floor and marching proudly around the room with her. “Gaze upon my mother, Jim! Isn’t she cunning? Isn’t she the smartest little thing in America? Behave yourself, mother! Your grateful son is showing you off to the appreciative young gentleman from New York——”
“You’re ridiculous! Jim! Make him put me down!” ”

“ A momentary gleam of fear appeared in the man’s eyes, but he made haste to answer:
“’Course not; ain’t no womenkind of any sort around here. This is Mr. Green’s house.”
Both Garry and Phil could see the man was lying, and knew that their guess was correct. Either Ruth was in the house, or this tramp knew something about her.
“Come on now, come through. You know the girl I mean. Where is she? Phil, keep your rifle on this fellow, and if he makes a move while I go through the house, blow him up,” ordered Garry.
“Say, listen. What do I get if I put you fellows wise to all this?” ”

“ Could she not find some excuse for him, something which she might use as her own silent defence of him in the years that were to come?
“Do you think Garry was out of his mind, Jack? He's been so depressed lately?” she asked, all her sympathy in her voice.
“No, my blessed, I don't think so. Everybody is more or less insane who succumbs to a crisis. Garry believed absolutely in himself and his luck, and when the cards went against him he collapsed. ”

“ We needed someone to do our chores—you know, the things that men dislike doing in the nature of housework and cleaning up. But she’s quite controllable, Garry. She wouldn’t have harmed you. Something must have slipped in her mechanism so that she became activated. It happens once in awhile. I’ll go take a look at her.”
“You don’t have to go far, Sir,” Garry said, rubbing away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. “She’s right outside the door.”
As the captain climbed from his bunk and slipped into his robe, Garry avoided the eyes of the others in the dormitory. ”

“ Suddenly a staggering thought hit Garry. Clemson street leading to Lafe Green’s farm. The secret passage. Ruth’s desire to help the boys play detective. Her eagerness last night. The secret that she would not let the boys in on.
All these thoughts flashed through Garry’s mind in rapid succession.
“I believe I have a good clue, and we’ll follow it up right away. My advice to you now, sir, is that you hustle off to bed and get some sleep. You’ll need all your strength, and you can depend on us to do everything in our power to help you,” said the Ranger leader. ”

“ This suggestion was hailed with delight by the others, and at the lean-to they made haste to spread the boughs to that they would make comfortable bunks, and then sitting Hindu fashion on the ground between the two branch lean-tos, opened the council.
Garry was the appointed leader of the boys on all expeditions. This had held true ever since they had first become friends, for Garry was a year older than the others, and possessed of a level head. His was a forceful personality that made him a born leader. ”

“ The sharpness of his tone startled the old man into activity. The words of Garry that there was one way to save her galvanized him into action.
“It’s up there on the shelf back of you. Can ye save my baby? Hurry! Save her an’ there’s nothin’ on this earth I won’t do for ye!”
Garry had fortunately remembered that he had in his knapsack a package of cornstarch that they had brought to make thickening for gravy in case they did any cooking. Garry, and for that matter both of his chums, were pastmasters in the art of first aid to the injured. They knew that the antidote for iodine was cornstarch. ”

“ Garry agreed. “But I would be satisfied if I could spend twenty-four hours a day aboard the Carefree doing anything. Gee, it’s going to be hard leaving here to go back to the orphanage.”
“Yeah,” Patch said sourly. “Gee whiz, Garry, why can’t they let a couple of guys live the way they want to?”
“We can someday, when we are old enough,” Garry said. “But the only way we could get around having to go back now would be for Captain Eaton to adopt us.” ”

“ He has black hair and mustache, and a jagged scar on one side of his neck, probably a knife wound from some lumber camp fight,” answered Howells.
Garry sank back with a sigh of relief.
“At any rate he is not the man we think he is. The scar and the age settle that, although the rest of the description fits him well enough to make him a brother to Jean LeBlanc, the one man we do want to run across in this neck of the woods,” replied Garry. ”

“ The words were hardly out of Garry's mouth, [Pg 46] and before his chums had had a chance to survey the stranger, the object of their conversation threw down his newspaper and getting up sauntered over to where the trio was sitting. The boys looked up and gazed inquiringly at the newcomer, who seemed not a whit abashed at their scrutiny.
"Going on a camping trip?" he inquired with a pleasant smile.
"Why yes, we are," said Garry quickly, before either of the others could make a reply. "Are you also?" ”

“ Garry was straining every nerve to make time, and took a pace that was much faster than the boys generally used when on plain patrol duty. Their summer in the woods had made good walkers of all of them, and they were able to make decent distances without more than ordinary fatigue.
It had been noon time when Garry left Hobart, and allowing himself until seven o’clock to get to the village of Chester, it would mean that he must make a trifle less than four miles every hour, counting out a few minutes for a breathing spell after every fifty or fifty-five minutes of walking. ”

“ Boone, who was still at the camp helping reorganize the men after the trouble of the preceding days. When Garry returned to the office, he found his chums, awaiting him. They had packed in a hurry, for Dick was still stuffing down the contents of his knapsack as Garry entered the shack.
“We’ll be all set in a few minutes,” declared Dick. “Have you sent for Dad Boone, Garry?”
“Yes, he’ll be here in a few minutes; he is only at the sawmill. Sure you have everything packed? Haven’t you forgotten anything?” asked Garry.
“Everything is as right as a trivet,” answered Phil. ”

“ Garry and Val sat alone by the sitting-room fire, constrained and far apart.
"They look blooming," he said. "This place suits them better than New York apparently."
(Ah! in his joy at seeing the children blooming he had not noticed her haggard face! Symptoms that in others would have aroused his professional interest in her went unnoticed, or so it seemed. She remembered that she had once heard a doctor's wife quote rather bitterly:
"Shoemakers' children have broken boots; doctors' wives never get treatment.")
"Then you will not mind our going on living here, Joe--for awhile?" ”

“ Cats, rats, and bats deserve their fate,”
he said pompously, and immediately brought the stick down on the rat’s head with a determination that effectually disposed of all plans for its future, educational or otherwise.
Garry and Francie cried out together, but James Canavan turned his back unregardingly upon them and his victim, and stalked back to Sir Benjamin, whose imprecations, since Francie’s escape, had been pleasantly audible.
“The old beast!” said Garry, looking resentfully after his late ally; “you never know what he’ll do next. ”

“ Garry took the bottle and the loon-skin rug home with him, and when he had gone, John turned to and beat his wives, one after the other, out of sheer vexation.
Garry’s home that winter was a one-roomed shack, lined with skins, buried to the roof in earth, gravel, turf—anything that would keep the winds out. It was built on the clean rock, because if you built on the earth, the whole thing was likely to collapse in sludge, after the stove had been lighted long enough to melt the ice under the earth. ”

“ Garry refrained from answering any questions, for there were three or four other men in the store, and he was now proceeding on the idea that every man was a potential enemy until he was proven otherwise. ”

“ They give their names as Boone, Wallace and Durant," and here the Chief described them. "They're all right, you say?" queried the Chief, in a slightly surprised tone. "All right, guess I was wrong then. All right, here's one right here." Then he turned to Garry and said:
"He wants to talk to you." [Pg 29]
Garry exchanged greetings with the Chief Ranger and heard him say:
"Can't you three take a step without running smack into something exciting? I declare, you fellows see more and do more than men who have ranged the woods for these past ten years. Keep it up, and keep out of trouble. ”

“ Calling Garry Boone.”
Garry laughed to himself as he thought how much it sounded like a bellboy in a hotel paging one of the guests.
Turning to his sender he called.
“Boone talking.”
This he repeated at intervals, and after a few minutes, in which he divined that Phil and Dick were probably working their tuning coil, he established connection.
But the connection was faulty, and he was afraid that at any moment the detector would fail to work. So he called briefly:
“Have found a clue to Ruth and am on her trail. Am safe. Tell Mr. Everett everything is coming out O. K. What news have you?” ”

“ Garry didn't dare to move for nearly five minutes after this. Then he started again, and after what seemed an age, reached the window.
Cautiously he raised himself up, and thrust a leg out of the window. Then followed the other, and he was sitting on the sill. Leaning out, he let his body fall towards the limb, caught it, and swung clear of the window.
In a trice he had thrown his leg up over the tree, his practice in the gymnasium making this an easy feat. Crawling carefully along the limb, he worked his way to the trunk, and then the descent to the ground was accomplished without trouble. ”

“ Garry’s last words to the tramp were to bid him to keep silent about his having told them about Ruth and LeBlanc, threatening if he opened his mouth to forget his promise to plead for special immunity for him. The tramp readily agreed to keep his silence.
“Now gather round here fellows. I’m going to stock up on provisions, and start for the river. You fellows had better arrange between yourselves to keep an eye on the engineer and Green. Decide who will take the engineer, and the other one watch Lafe. Either one may lead you to a clue. ”

“ Dick sat down in the cool kitchen while Aunt Abbie scurried about getting his lunch. She kept up a running fire of chatter as she worked, it being mostly about the missing Ruth. She wanted to know what news any of the boys had, and what they were doing to find her.
“Garry has some sort of a clue that he has a lot of faith in, and has gone to look it up. You needn’t worry, Aunt Abbie. If she’s to be found, Garry is the boy to do the trick.”
Dick did not want to tell her that Ruth was in the power of Jean LeBlanc, for he knew that she would worry even more. Then he asked how the grandfather was. ”