CHAPTER I.
A BOY OF MYSTERY

“He’s a fake,” declared Chipper Cooper positively, backing up against the steam radiator to warm himself on the other side. “I’ll bet a hundred dollars he never was west of Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

“A hundred dollars,” drawled Sile Crane, grinning. “Why don’t yeou bate something while you’re abaout it? Nobody’d bother to take a measly little wager like that. Now I’ve kinder got an idee that the new feller really comes from Texas, jest as he says he does. I guess he ain’t no fake.”

“Oh, is that so!” retorted Cooper, a bit warmly. “Well, I’ll talk business to you, Mr. Crane; I’ll really bet you fifty cents Rodney Grant never saw the State of Texas in his life. Now put up or shut up.”

“I don’t want to bate on it,” said Sile; “but I guess I’ve got a right to my opinion, and I cal’late Rod Grant ain’t no fake Westerner.”

“I knew you didn’t have the sand to back your opinion,” chuckled Chipper. “It’s my idea that Grant is a fake and you’re no bettor.”

“Awful bad pun, Chipper,” said Chub Tuttle, a roly-poly, round-faced chap who was munching peanuts. “I think you’re right, though; I don’t believe he’s a Texan. Why, he hasn’t a bit of brogue.”

“Bub-brogue!” stuttered Phil Springer, who had a slight impediment in his speech. “Texans don’t have a brogue; they have a dialect – they talk in the vernacular, you know.”

“Talk in the ver – what?” cried Cooper. “Where did you get that word, Phil? I don’t know what it means, but I do know Rod Grant talks through his hat sometimes. When he tells about living on a ranch and herding cattle and breaking bronchos and chasing rustlers and catching horse thieves, he gives me a cramp. He certainly can reel off some whoppers.”

At this point up spoke Billy Piper, commonly known as “Sleuth” on account of his ambitions to emulate the great detectives of fiction.

“Of late,” said Billy, “I’ve been shadowing this mysterious personage who came into our midst unannounced and unacclaimed and who has been the cause of extensive speculation and comment. My deduction is that the before-mentioned mysterious personage is a big case of bluff, and I must add that, like my astute comrade, Cooper, I gravely doubt if he has ever seen the wild and woolly West. His tales of cowboy life are extremely preposterous. All cowboys are bow-legged from excessive riding in the saddle; the legs of Rod Grant – I should say the before-mentioned mysterious personage – are as straight as my own. Westerners wear their hair long; Grant – the before-mentioned mysterious personage – has his hair cut like any civilized human being. Likewise and also, he does not talk as a true Westerner should. Why, nobody has ever heard him say ‘galoot’ or ‘varmint’ or any of those characteristic words all Westerners scatter promiscuously through their conversation. Therefore – mark me, comrades – I brand him as a double-dyed impostor.”

“Speaking about Grant, I presume?” said Fred Sage, joining the group by the radiator. “I think you’re right, Sleuth. Why, I told him only last night that no one around here believed him the real thing, because he didn’t look like it, act like it or talk like it. What do you suppose he said? He claimed he had to keep on guard all the time to prevent himself from using cowboy lingo – said he was sort of ashamed of it and trying to get out of the habit.”

Berlin Barker, a tall, cold-eyed chap who had been listening without comment to this conversation, now ventured to put in a word.

“Fellows like this Grant are more or less amusing,” he observed. “I’m also inclined to think him a fraud, and I have good reasons. Didn’t Captain Eliot try to get him out for football practice the very day he showed up here at Oakdale Academy? He looks stout and husky, and Roger thought he might work in as a substitute; but, after watching practice one night, he wouldn’t even step onto the field. It’s my opinion the game seemed too rough and rude for this wild and woolly cow-puncher. If anybody should ask me, I’d say that he has all the symptoms of a chap with a yellow streak in him. I don’t believe he has an ounce of sand in his makeup.”

“Somebody ought to be able to find out if he really does come from the West,” said Tuttle. “Why don’t we ask his aunt?”

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard,” chuckled Cooper. “Nobody else wants to ask her. People around here know enough to keep away from Priscilla Kent.”

“Oh, she’s cracked,” stated Piper. “She’s lived here in Oakdale for the last twenty years, and nobody has ever been able to find out much of anything about her. Take a woman who lives alone with only a pet parrot and a monkey for companions, and never associates with the neighbors, and talks like an asylum for the simple-minded, and you have a proposition too baffling for solution even by my trained and highly developed mind. My deduction is – ”

“Here comes Roger!” exclaimed Fred Sage. “Let’s ask him what he thinks about the fellow.”

It was the hour of the noon intermission at Oakdale Academy, and, the season being early November, with the atmosphere biting cold, Roger Eliot stepped forward to warm his hands at the radiator, near which hovered the group who were discussing the new boy. Roger was a tall, well-built, somewhat grave-looking chap, whose sober face, however, was occasionally illumined by a rare smile. The son of Urian Eliot, one of the wealthiest and most influential men of the town, Roger, being a natural athlete, was the recognized leader among the academy boys.

“Hello, fellows,” was his pleasant greeting. “Talking football?”

“No,” answered Hayden; “we were discussing that fellow Rodney Grant. We were trying to size him up, and it seems to be practically the universal opinion that he’s a fraud. We doubt if he has ever been west of the Mississippi. What do you think about it?”

“Well,” confessed Roger slowly, “I’ll own up that I don’t know what to, think. Still, I don’t see any reason why he should lie about himself.”

“Some fellers had rather lie than eat,” observed Sile Crane.

“Why shouldn’t he lie about himself?” questioned Cooper. “He’s told some wallopers about everything else. I never heard a fellow who could bust the truth into smithereens the way he can.”

“Oh,” said Eliot, “I know what you mean. When he first struck Oakdale he didn’t have much of anything to say, and you fellows kept at him, asking questions, until I fancy he grew weary and took a notion to sling off a few big yarns for his own amusement.”

“Putting aside the question as to whether he came from the West or not,” said Barker, “I’ve decided that he’s a quitter – in short, a coward.”

“What makes you think so?” asked Roger.

“Why shouldn’t I think so? Didn’t you try to get him out for football practice? and didn’t he refuse after watching us work one night? It was too husky business for the gentleman who had punched cows and hunted cattle thieves. Why, even Hunk Rollins doesn’t take any stock in that chap, Eliot, and yesterday Hunk backed him down completely. Rollins had a chip on his shoulder and was looking for trouble. He picked out Grant and loaded him with jibes and insults. The cow-puncher swallowed them all. Any one with a particle of grit would have climbed all over Hunk.”

“Perhaps you may be right, boys,” admitted Roger; “but don’t forget that you made a blunder in sizing up Ben Stone when he came here. It is possible you’re just as far wrong about Rodney Grant. He – ”

“’Sh!” hissed Piper suddenly, as the door swung open and another boy entered the room. “Here he comes now!”

CHAPTER II.
PLAYING THE PART

For a few moments they stared in dumfounded silence at the latest arrival. Sile Crane was the first to speak; a grin broke over his homely face, and in a suppressed tone he drawled:

“Great codfish! He’s sartainly come to school this arternoon all dressed up fit to kill.”

“Oh, ginger!” snickered Chipper Cooper. “Here’s the real wild and woolly article now. Just look at it!”

Chub Tuttle snorted, clapping a hand to his mouth to check the spray of half-munched peanuts which flew from his lips. “’Scuse me,” he entreated, as Barker fell back a step, frowning and producing a handkerchief to brush some of the peanut crumbs from his coat sleeve. “Couldn’t help it. Did you ever see such a funny sight in all your life?”

Even Roger Eliot could not repress a smile as he gazed at the new boy in Oakdale who professed to come from the State of Texas; for never before had a person thus attired ventured to cross the threshold of the academy, and in a moment the eyes of nearly every boy and girl in the room were focused upon Rodney Grant.

Grant was a well-set-up youngster of sixteen, somewhat large for his age, and yet not large enough to be noticeably overgrown. He had clear, dark brown eyes, which were almost black; a strong, well-formed, prominent nose; a square, firm chin; and a mouth which, while in no way disagreeable, had something about it to give the impression that the boy could say “no” and stick to it. In his dark brown hair there was a glint of red. The short time he had spent as a student at Oakdale Academy had not yet begun to weaken perceptibly the deep tan of his cheek and neck.

Set a bit rakishly on the boy’s shapely head was a battered, wide-brimmed old felt hat that looked as if it had seen any amount of wear. The crown was encircled by a buckled leather strap, and in front the brim had been turned up and fastened with a thong. Neither coat nor vest covered the loose woollen shirt, which had been left open a bit at the throat. A dark red handkerchief was knotted about the lad’s neck. His legs were encased in shiny, soiled, calfskin chaps, fringed down the outer seams; and these likewise bore the tokens of much wear. Hanging loosely from the point of his left hip was a cartridge-looped belt that supported a pistol holster dangling low against the upper part of his right leg. On his feet were tight, thin-soled, high-heeled boots, to which were attached huge roweled spurs that clanked with every step he took.

Calm, serene, without the flicker of a smile on his face or a symptom of self-consciousness in his manner, Rod Grant glanced around and then walked toward the staring lads near the steam radiator. His high-heeled boots gave him a somewhat awkward gait.