How I Reached the Hanford Camp

My companion's voice roused me from these hurried reflections.

"I don't mind telling you," he said, "that some of our boys at the camp play foot-ball. I was thinking we might arrange a match with you. You would have to come up to the camp and play, of course, as the boys would not care to play in public, but we might possibly bring it about. They would do it just for the fun of the thing."

"To be sure-and the practice," I added. I imagined he pulled the bridle again rather suddenly at this, as the horse's hoofs clattered sharply behind me for a few seconds; but I hastened to add carelessly that the proposed game would be good fun for both sides, and that I was in for it if he was. "Can we play where you suggest?" I finished.

"I should think there would be no place suitable near your camp."

"I shall have to explain something to you before we get there," was his response, less cheerfully given. "Otherwise you would be surprised at what you will see-which is nothing less than a football 'gridiron' carefully cleared and leveled off, and completely equipped for playing on."

"Is it possible?" I exclaimed.

"Yes--you see, to be perfectly candid with you" (which he was not altogether, although he was doing nobly with a very difficult situation), "my friends are football players in season, when they are in the city, and they come up here to indulge in quiet practice, away from the crowds, and in the bracing, healthful atmosphere of a new climate and

new surroundings. That is why you will see a first-class foot-ball field adjoining our camp; and there we may possibly arrange to have a little game some time later in the month, providing my friends are willing, and that you and your friends will respect our desire for seclusion and will keep quiet about it while in town."

I answered him with a monosyllable which he took for assent; and thereupon both of us fell into silence, he as though he had talked too much already, and I for the reason that I had a lot of thinking to do in private.

So we plodded through the dark of the night mountains in silence for the next three or four hours, when we stopped to light a fire, to rest, and to eat a bite from a lunch which my companion had brought with him.

Another very long and very wearisome travel brought us into daylight, and almost with the coming of the dawn a circle of white tents broke upon my vision through the trees, and I knew we were at the end of our journey.

My companion seemed half dead for sleep, which was the way I felt, and he beckoned me to follow him in silence, while he, after dismounting and turning the horse loose, made his way around the tented circle to an open door, and invited me to enter.

though I was painfully tired and had been sleepy but a moment ago, I now found myself seized with that brilliant wakefulness which must follow a nervous fatigue, and which was to precede an inevitable period of drowsy exhaustion later on. In this accented alertness I could hear the slightest sound that fell upon the early morning air, even to the dropping of pine needles in the woods, the hopping of birds from limb to limb, the fluttering of wings and the swaying of the trees in a very light breeze. Soon I began to hear footsteps in various directions, and they moved as though the persons making them were still rubbing their eyes and yawning.

In the tent next to the one I occupied I presently heard voices in the half-articulate and rather stupid speech of men just waking from sleep, and heard them stretching their arms above their heads and kicking out lazily with their feet.

"Time to get up," said one, with his hand on his mouth. "Glory! but these mornings in California are fine."

"They're just as fine in the mountains of Pennsylvania," said another voice. "I'll be be glad to get back there and try them."

"It will be winter before you can do that," was the reply.

"Yes, I suppose we'll have to stay the term out for the sake of keeping up the gag. Do you know how long they're going to hold us up here practicing?"

"Until their college opens. Then we're to become full-fledged Hanford freshmen; that's the blooming part of it that amuses me. To think of my coming to be a freshman here after being a senior at Cornell and a third-year foot-ball man!"

"You're well-paid for it, my boy; and it's a jolly lark. I was a soph at Pennsylvania, and played my second year on the 'varsity; but you don't hear me kicking."

"You're the best kicker in the country," was the retort. "That's why you're engaged to leave your happy Pennsylvania home and come out here to help a young California university lick its overgrown rival on the gridiron. What do you suppose the overgrown rival would say if it knew that Baxter, the famous Pennsylvania dropkicker-the greatest kicker, as I have said, in the country,-were up here on the mountain-top making ready to go down next Thanksgiving and kick its foot-ball hopes in

I could not imagine what the "overgrown rival" would say, for there I lay unable to say anything, although I was a part of the overgrown rival myself, and was now in possession of the whole astonishing truth!

Hanford had imported from the big colleges of the East enough first-class foot-ball players to make a team, and these were to be entered at that university as freshmen with the beginning of the next term! They were then to be "discovered," one by one, as likely candidates for the university eleven; were to be "tried," put through a pretense of training and finally entered against the Buckeley team on Thanksgiving day!

Our college rules were that a 'varsity player must be a student at the university in good standing, a non-professional, and a man who had played less than four years on a regular 'varsity eleven. Technically, if all these Easterners could be enrolled as Hanford students and had not played the limit of four years on any 'varsity team, or teams, they were eligible to play against us, whether we found them out and exposed them or not.

"I wonder if Dalton's got back yet," said one of the voices in the next tent. "Poke your hand in and see."

A hand came under the canvas and tapped me in the ribs.

"Yes, he's there," said the owner of the hand; and then he shook me violently, calling on me to wake up and tell him the news.

"Yes, you Rip Van Winkle," said the other. "Open up. Got any letters for us?" "He's dead," was the first one's comment. "Let him alone."

But here was an opportunity that was not to be lost, so I assumed as sleepy a tone as I could, by talking into the blankets, and asked what the matter was.

"Matter?" echoed one of the voices next door-"plenty of matter. Here we've been buried alive for a week without a newspaper or a word of writing, and you come serenely home with your pockets full of stuff and fall calmly to sleep without giving us a scrap. Come, hand 'em out."

"There are no letters for you," I said. "No letters!" cried the invisible voices, indignantly; "didn't vou go to Redding?" "I have arrived from there just now," I re

plied.

A deal of grumbling from both parties in the next tent followed, in which various relations and friends were mentioned in a way I'm glad they never knew of; then one of the voices asked me if there were any letters for Driscol.

"What was that absurd name he gave them to address him by?" continued the voice, at a pause.

"Locsird Selrahc," I replied promptly. "That was it," said the other. "Did you get any letter addressed to that name?" "None," I answered.

"Well, in that case, Driscol told me to tell you that you were to turn loose this last carrier"-here the tent wall was lifted high enough to admit a small wooden box, which I took. "Turn the bird loose, old Somnus,

posure meant ruin to them-ruin in many directions. It was a disaster they would prevent with the extremest measures, if There were big things to be sorted out of the confusion, and not the least was the fact that here was a lone Buckeley student all but lost in a mountain wilderness forty miles from friends, a camp of enemies at his back whom he had invaded and despoiled, and the chances of their capturing him about as thick as the leaves in the forest. In the possession of this dangerous intruder was complete knowledge of all their most vital plans for which they had made sacrifices of money, pleasure, comfort,and some little honor, if the point were squeezed; and to which they had proposed giving up an entire vacation. This was something more than a little afternoon frolic.

Ex

and then go back to your dreams." "I'm going," I replied.

Taking the pigeon from the box and thrusting it into my coat, I crawled out of the tent and went.

CHAPTER V.

Donaldson Goes to the City.

With my hat fairly lifting with the bristling secrets which were now crowded under it, so that it felt ready to pop off like a hot skittle-lid, I took to the woods on my tip-toes and started down the mountain side. I had a kind of feeling that I was passing through nature's bedroom before she was quite awake, and should have to be very silent about it till I was out-for that is how the woods will awe an early-morning adventurer; but in the lightness of my tread just now there was caution of another kind, too, and I wanted to find a sheltered place where I might rest and untangle my sensations.

necessary. And the more I thought of this the more lonely the dawn-washed woods felt to me, and the farther I seemed from Tom and Donaldson.

I soon found a hiding place in which to sleep, in a huge pile of rocks-being too sleepy to reflect that a pursuer would ransack that place first of all if he should strike the neighborhood-and had scarcely crawled into it before I was down on my back asleep.

Imagine my relief when I awoke to find myself still undiscovered and apparently unsought. I arose and made a hurried inspection of the neighborhood for half a mile around and saw no sign that any other human being than I had ever snapped a twig in that tremendous solitude. It seemed that I had not been followed, whether I was suspected or not.

Hungry as I was, I felt strangely rested, and looked to see where the sun was that I might be guided by it on my way toward

as though it might be setting; but somehow it had the smell of being on the rise, and I rubbed my eyes and sniffed the air to see if I had not slept twenty-four hours instead of twelve. I speedily found that such was the case. Small wonder then that I felt rested!

Suddenly I put my hand into the breast of my coat and pulled out the pigeon, almost fearing to look at it. But it was undeniably alive. I had not rolled on it, nor had it been able to get out. That it still breathed was even a greater wonder, but breathe it did, although somewhat wheezily. I held it in my hand while I walked the first ten miles after that, then I sat down and gazed at it with a hungry eye. Clearly Providence nad spared it for my breakfast. Yet when it looked up at me it seemed to say that just we two were all alone up there in the wilds, and that we were bound together by a sympathy of interest. Doubtless the

bird felt as far away from anywhere as I did, despite the inexplicable instinct which would steer him straight home if I were to let him go.

I took the message off of him and put it in my pocket. Then I grabbed him by the neck-very gently, for fear of hurting him! -and, unclasping my fingers, smoothed down his ruffled plumage with friendly courtesy and restored him to the inside of my coat. The message I unpocketed and readand it was indicative of how excited I must have been, up to now, that I had not done this before. It ran as follows:

To W. G.-Why do I not hear from any of yon? Write me immediately whether you have received my messages. Perhaps you are wondering why I haven't written to you, but when I explain that Dalton contrived to let loose a pigeon without any message on it last Wednesday you will understand why you failed to receive the communication I promised to send you. However, of course, my father has passed over to you my messages to him, as he regards you as next to myself in this enterprise. Of course you are practically in charge of that end of it, and I have no fear that anything will go wrong there under your direction. This message -which goes by the very last pigeon we have is to say that we are ready for the other boys to join us now. I don't think we can use more than two or three of the old team, as I have men here that are much better. I do not intend to play myself. Even if

be only as a blind, since we really don't need one of them. These Easterners are wonders. I have twenty-two of them here, and will select the best. I want you to see them play and help me with your advice, but perhaps you would better stay there long enough to keep things quiet while school is breaking up and the boys are starting away on their vacations. The enemy is always more watchful then than at other times.

And now I'll tell vou how the boys are to find us, and how you are to come. Take the train to Redding one at a time. Every Saturday Dalton goes to Redding for supplies, and he will "do the rest" when he sees any of our boys there. Don't make any sign of recognition, but just let him do the acting. He'll get you here safe enough. None of the rest of us go to town, as it would attract attention to see many strangers of our class loafing around. Somebody might follow us and ask too many questions.

Let one of the boys-(you had best send Slade and Halbeck)-bring another lot of pigeons with him.

There's nothing else of importance to tell you. Send as many boxes of good things to eat as you please, and address them all to Locsird Selrahc. Dalton has a room in town where he stores our supplies, and he will bring us what he can carry on a couple of horses twice a month.

The only thing that we have to fear is that he will get careless some day and let someDody follow him up here. Still these country chaps are easily satisfied, and I can concoct a yarn that will send any inquisitive fellow about his business if one should happen to come in spite of Dalton's precaution. Yours as ever, L. S.

I smiled and put the note back in my pocket. Then I sheltered the pigeon under my blouse and resumed my long tramp on an empty stomach down the hills to Redding.

The morning after my arrival, tired and half-starved, at our rooms-where I caused no end of a sensation, you may be sureDonaldson got on the train and went to San Francisco. Tom and I stayed in our rooms to the point, as the big toe said when it entered the stocking."

"You'll get to the point next Monday all right," I said. "I shall strike for the mountains to-night. This is Friday. Dalton, the Hanford factotum, will come to town tomorrow. I'll miss him on the way up and have a clear field to work in while he's away. Now, don't fail to do your part, mind you, not later than Monday."

"Monday it will be," said Donaldson.