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Pony Rider Boys on the Blue Ridge

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<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> <h3>EXCITEMENT AT HUNT'S CORNERS</h3> "Is this another of those cry-baby songs?" questioned Ned. "Yassir." "Go on, go on," urged the boys. W'en de sun roll in an' de moon roll out, An' de li'l stars git sprinkl't all erbout, Den ah listens fer my honey an' ah calls her an' ah shout, O Lindy, Lindy, Lindy, O my Lindy! O Lindy, come erlong An' listen at my song; De mockin' bu 'd is singin' ter his honey, Come, lemme sing ter you An' tell you, tell you true, Dat ah loves you mo' dan heaps er silver money, Twice did the Pony Rider Boys roar out the chorus until they had drowned the voice of the singer entirely. In their merriment they forgot all about the breakfast, all about the thick slices of ham that had long since dropped from the frying pan of the singing Billy Veal. "Come, come, young men," interrupted the voice of Professor Zepplin. "Singing is all right, but I want my breakfast." Stacy thrust his chin up close to the Professor's face and in a low, crooning voice, sang, Come, lemme sing ter you, An' tell you, tell you true, Dat ah loves you mo' dan heaps er silver money. The boys chuckled at the ludicrous sight of Stacy Brown in his pajamas singing a lullaby to the dignified Professor. It was too much for the Professor's gravity, too. The latter let out his own voice in a roar of laughter that, according to Ned Rector in describing the scene later, fairly shook old Smoky, miles off to the northward of them. "Now, gentlemen," said Professor Zepplin, after having recovered his composure, "if you will be good enough to rescue the ham from beneath the feet of our guide, we will proceed with our preparations for the morning meal. You have a very fine voice, guide." "Yassir." "We shall be glad to have you sing for us again." "Some day when you have such cold that you can't speak above a whisper," added Stacy Brown, trotting back to his tent to put on his clothes. Shortly after eight o'clock the camp was struck, tents packed and everything put in shape for the journey to Hunt's Corners, the location of which Chops confidently assured them was a right smart distance straight ahead. This proved to be true. It was four hours later when the outfit drew up at a log building, one-storied, the low porch being piled with small agricultural implements. In the rear were three other buildings constructed of the same material, but not nearly so large as the store itself. Several mountaineers were lounging about, and the arrival of the Pony Rider Boys created considerable excitement. Jim Abs, proprietor of the store, came out to see what the commotion was about. He recognized Billy at once, but glanced suspiciously from one to the other of the boys, whose warlike appearance evidently stirred apprehension in the mind of the keeper of the store at Hunt's Corners. The boys slid from their saddles and tethered their horses at the tie rail to one side of the store building. Professor Zepplin stepped up, followed by the crowd of loungers, and introduced himself to the proprietor, stating that they were desirous of laying in a stock of supplies. "I reckon I kin accommodate ye," nodded Abs. "Where ye hail from?" "The north," the Professor informed him. "Say, Mister, where's the Corners?" piped Stacy. "This is them," grinned the storekeeper. "I don't see any corners except the corners of the building." "You wouldn't know a corner if you were to meet it in Smoky Pass," declared Tad. "I know a good thing when I see it, and those bananas hanging there look pretty real to me," answered Stacy, helping himself to half a dozen of the well-seasoned bunch. "That'll be thirty cents," said the storekeeper, extending a hand. Stacy regarded him solemnly. The fat boy's mouth was so full of banana that he was speechless for the moment. Chunky nodded his head at Tad, indicating that Butler was to pay for the fruit. Stacy was too busy to waste time in paying. Tad good-naturedly handed out thirty cents. "That's sixty-five cents you owe me now, Chunky. If you keep on at this rate I'll have to levy on your pony." "I wouldn't give sixty-five cents for his whole outfit," declared Ned. "Perhaps that is because you haven't sixty-five cents," retorted Tad. "Yes, I have. I've got several times sixty-five cents." "It's counterfeit, then," mumbled Stacy. "Boys," called the Professor coming to the door of the store, "did you know this is a post office?" "A post office?" cried the lads. "Yes. I thought perhaps you might wish to send off some letters." "Yes, we do. Indeed, we do," cried Ned and Tad and Walter in chorus. "But we shall have to write them. We haven't any letters ready. Can we get paper here? Ours is all down in the pass," said Tad. "I suppose you can get all you want in here, provided you have the money to pay for it," smiled Professor Zepplin. "Oh, we have the price, though I suppose I shall have to pay for Chunky. He is broke as usual," laughed Butler. "He'll be broke worse before he finishes this nice peaceful trip. Don't you say so, Chops?" jeered Ned. "Yassir," grinned the guide. "Do you want to write letters, too, Billy?" teased Stacy. "Yassir, nassir." "He does and he doesn't," laughed Tad. "In other words, Chops is on the fence," nodded Rector. "If we are going to do business I guess we had better get at it." "Agreed," answered Tad, striding into the store. There the boys got pads and pencils, for they had lost their own supply. They also bought stamps, peanuts and various other things that were either useful or that appealed to their boyish appetites. Having equipped themselves for writing, the Pony Rider Boys repaired to the porch where they sat down, and with pads on knees began to write, while the loungers gathered about, eyeing the lads curiously. Others were out at the side of the store, looking over the ponies and discussing the party, the like of which perhaps never before had been seen at Hunt's Corners. "How do you spell torrent, with one or two r's?" questioned Chunky after a few moments of silence, during which the lads had been writing industriously. "Depends upon the size of the torrent," retorted Rector. "Was that one last night a single or a double r'd one?" inquired Stacy solemnly. "I reckon it was a double r," laughed Butler. "You are safe in using two of them in this instance." "Chunky's writing an article for the paper," suggested Walter mischievously. "That's right. That's just what I am doing and that's where I get even with you fellows. I can have the last say—" "Don't you use my name," snapped Ned. "I'm not looking for the kind of newspaper notoriety you would be likely to give a fellow. You tell them all you want to about Stacy Brown, but leave Ned Rector out of it." "I have," answered the fat boy significantly. "That's one for you, Ned," cried Tad. "But I wish you boys would keep quiet. I'm writing to Mother and she'll think something is the matter with me, for I've already written 'torrent' twice where it didn't belong and next thing I know I'll be putting in some of Chunky's stuff about last night. Do be quiet. If you don't want to write, go to sleep." Stacy yawned broadly at the suggestion of sleep. He was ready for sleep at that moment, but his desire to tell the folks at home, through the medium of the weekly paper, through what an exciting experience the Pony Rider Boys had gone, outweighed all other emotions. The boys had written for a half hour or more when suddenly a shot rang out somewhere off to the northwest. The lads glanced up inquiringly. At first they saw nothing of interest. Then a horseman swung into view, riding at a lively pace. As he drew near he began firing into the air from his revolver. "Whoop!" he roared. There was a scattering of the loungers. It was plain that they knew the man. The boys resumed their writing. "Whoopee! I'm the Bad Man from Smoky Creek! Higher up the creek you go, the bigger they grow, and I'm right off the headwaters!" "Bang, bang, bang!" "Turn the coyotes loose! Fer I'm out fer blood and a genwine killing! Whoope-e-e-e!" "Bang, bang, bang!" The crack of the six-shooter was almost wholly drowned by the yells of the fellow, but through all this the Pony Rider Boys wrote on as calmly as if nothing out of the ordinary were occurring, though Stacy gave the bad man a glance out of the corners of his eyes now and then. Stacy was ready to run if, perchance, the fellow should turn a gun in his direction. The lads had met with such characters before, and knew that it was not usually the man who indulged in such loud boasts who was to be feared. Still, it was a nerve-racking situation. Professor Zepplin and Jim Abs had appeared at the door at the first sound of the uproar, but they beat a quick retreat when they saw who and what was the cause of the disturbance. "Is—is there any danger to the boys?" stammered the Professor. "Not unless they stir him up. That's Smoky Griffin, one of the meanest bullies in the whole Blue Ridge. Everybody's afraid of him and I reckon they've got good reason fer being afraid. The kids don't seem to mind him, do they?" wondered Abs. "The kids, as you call them, are quite able to take care of themselves, even against such a ruffian as that," answered the Professor, proudly. "I hope he will let them alone. They might make up their minds not to endure too much imposition." Smoky now sat in his saddle, reloading his weapon and leering at the cool youngsters on the porch. To find men, to say nothing of boys, who did not fear him, was such a new experience to Smoky that it fairly hurt him. The ruffian had been a neighborhood bully for years, and was wholly accustomed to seeing men flee when he rode into town discharging his weapons, without any particular concern as to where the bullets went. Lack of awe in anyone injured his abundant self-esteem. Now that his weapons were reloaded, he again emptied them, driving all of the bullets into the porch posts at a level over the boys' heads. Still the Pony Rider Boys sat tight, though it must be confessed that they were making scant progress with their letter-writing. Observing this, the bully, with undue deliberation, slid from his saddle and made his animal fast to the hitching-bar. Then Griffin strolled up to the porch, and grabbing one of Stacy's feet gave the ankle a sharp twist. "Do that again," drawled Chunky, "and you'll get a kick from the northwest. You make a noise like one of those Germans we licked in France. Say, why don't you go get a job washing dishes in a lumber camp or something instead of trying to make folks think you're a man. Go put on an apron, Bo!" In another instant such things had started as had never before been seen at Hunt's Corners. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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