CHAPTER III.
ROD’S WONDERFUL JUMP

Prof. Richardson was giving his attention to the class in physiology when Rod Grant returned to the academy. The boy from Texas walked quietly down the center aisle and took his place in the class. In truth, as he now appeared, there was nothing about him, save possibly the deep tan of his cheeks, to give him an appearance different from that of any clean, healthy, manly-appearing Eastern youngster. He wore a well-fitting suit of dark blue serge, a negligée shirt, and a carelessly knotted crimson four-in-hand tie. On his feet were stout, serviceable, yet distinctly well made and stylish tan shoes.

Berlin Barker, who had been reciting, sat down. The principal surveyed Rod over his gold-rimmed spectacles, which perched precariously on the end of his nose, nodding his head slightly as if inwardly approving of the change in the new boy’s appearance.

“Grant.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You may recite.”

Rodney stood up.

“How many bones are there in the entire skeleton of an adult?”

“Two hundred, sir.”

“You may state the number and give the names of the various bones of the human arm and hand.”

Grant did so without hesitation, speaking in a clear, well-modulated voice, his language having no touch of the vernacular which Phil Springer had asserted to be characteristic of a Westerner. His accent and inflection, it is true, differed slightly from that of Easterners in general, but this difference was not sufficient to attract the notice of a person who was not particularly observing.

“Very good, Grant,” nodded the principal. “You may be seated. I have the pleasure of informing this class that I have been enabled, at considerable expense and after no end of trouble, to purchase a complete and perfect human skeleton, which arrived yesterday and is now stored in the laboratory. I obtained this skeleton for demonstrating purposes; but, not wishing to disturb those scholars who are naturally nervous or timid, I shall not display it before the school during the period of any regular session. To-morrow, however, such members of this class as may desire to remain after the last period will be given the privilege of seeing and examining the skeleton. I wish it understood, however, that no one is positively required to remain for that purpose, and I would suggest that the timid ones do not remain. Class dismissed.”

“Jiminy!” whispered Cooper in Sleuth Piper’s ear. “Where d’you s’pose he got his old skeleton?”

“My deduction is,” answered Sleuth, “that he obtained it from a cemetery.”

“What a grave thing to do,” grinned Chipper. “On the dead, it gives me a shiver.”

At intermission some of the boys gathered near the academy steps and talked about the skeleton.

“My eagle eye detected the long, gruesome-looking box in the express office yesterday,” said Piper; “but on lifting one end of it, which I did, my deduction was that the box, being very light, could not possibly contain a subject for a funeral. Ever since then the mystery has preyed upon me, but at last the prof’s statement has cleared it up to the satisfaction of all concerned.”

“Be yeou goin’ to see the old thing to-morrer?” questioned Crane.

“I shall take pleasure in doing so.”

“Pleasure! Great scissors! I don’t see no fun in lookin’ at a skeleton. The prof is a crank abaout such things; everybody says so.”

“I sure can’t see the necessity of exhibiting a genuine skeleton before the class,” said Rod Grant. “If we were medical students, it would be different; but, as far as I’m concerned, I can acquire all the knowledge I desire about the bones of the human body without examining such human framework at short range.”

“It can’t be possible,” said Chub Tuttle, “that a fellow who has scalped schoolmasters and tickled Injuns to death is afraid of a harmless skeleton.”

“I don’t admit any that I’m afraid of the thing,” returned Grant; “but I simply say, what’s the use?”

Standing near, Berlin Barker shrugged his shoulders and laughed an unspoken sneer, which caused the warm blood to glow through the tan of Rod’s cheeks. Turning on his heel, Barker joined some fellows who were jumping at the corner of the academy. Grant’s gaze followed him. In a moment or two, urged to do so, Barker, who prided himself on his ability as a jumper, stripped off his coat and entered into competition with Jack Nelson.

Rod drew near and looked on.

“That’s pretty fair,” he observed, when Berlin, doing his level best, had beaten Nelson by a good six inches.

Barker turned on him. “Pretty fair, you lead-heeled gas bag! Perhaps you think you can beat it?”

“Maybe so,” nodded Rod.

“I’ll bet ten dollars you can’t come within a foot of my mark.”

“Keep your money in your clothes, partner; you may need it some.”

“You’ve been blowing around lately about what you can do, but nobody has ever seen you do anything. I’m not from Missouri, but you’ve got to show me, and there are various other fellows who feel the same way.”

“I’m out of practice,” said Grant, slowly removing his coat and dropping it to the ground; “but, as long as you’ve put it up to me that fashion, I opine I’ll have to show you a stunt.”

Eagerly the boys gathered around to watch the fellow from Texas, who stepped forward with a calm, confident air and toed the mark. Backward and forward at his sides Grant swung his clenched fists, stooping a little, while the muscles in his body grew tense. Suddenly he launched himself through the air with a long, graceful leap, flinging his feet forward beneath him at the proper moment and planting his heels firmly and fairly in the turf, coming upright without a falter or a struggle.

The spectators shouted.

“Jerusalem!” cried Sile Crane. “He’s beat Berlin, ding my boots if he hain’t!”

Measurement with a tape showed that the lad from Texas had outjumped Barker by fully four inches.

“Great work, Grant,” said Roger Eliot approvingly; but Berlin, choking with chagrin and wrath, turned away without a word.

“Oh, that was right easy,” beamed Rod, accepting his coat from Crane, who had hastened to get it. “Sometime when I’m feeling plenty like it I’ll show you a real jump.”

“What’s the longest jump you ever made?” asked Piper.

“I hold the world’s record,” replied Rod unblushingly.

“Oh, say! what are you giving us?” cried Jack Nelson.

“Cold facts, my friend. In dire peril of my life, I once made a jump only equaled by the original owner of the seven league boots.”

“Tell us abaout it,” urged Crane, scenting a story. “How fur did yeou jump?”

“Twenty miles.”

“Wha-what?” gulped Phil Springer. “Oh, say! Now that sus-spoils the whole story.”

“Yes,” sighed Crane, “that spiles it. If yeou had only stretched her a little bit – just within the bounds of reason!”

“I was well aware, gents,” said Grant, smoothing a wrinkle in his coat sleeve, “that you would think me prevaricating. I presume it’s right natural that you should. Nevertheless, I’ll tell the tale. I learned the art of jumping from grasshoppers; you know they are great jumpers. Occasionally these pests come down in millions upon the Panhandle country. They have been known to eat every blade of grass clean to the roots on a section as big as the State of Rhode Island. They have even invaded houses and chewed up muslin window curtains, carpets, rugs, and similar articles. Two years ago we had the greatest grasshopper season ever known in Roberts County. The pests came down on us suddenly in swarms which darkened the sky and blotted out the light of the sun. I was out riding the range at the time the advance guard of the varmints appeared.”

“Oh, jinks!” hissed Piper. “He said varmints!”

“Some of our boys over on Bitter Crick had sent me with a message to the ranch, and I started out at an early hour. The ranch house is located on the south bank of the Canadian River. We were some thirty miles or more to the north of the river. Shortly after sunrise I perceived what I took to be a cloud in the sky. It drew nearer with great rapidity, and I was looking for a dry gully or some shelter to protect me from what I took to be a sure enough tornado when the first sprinkling of grasshoppers settled around me. It didn’t take me long after that to make out what that cloud was – nothing but grasshoppers. They kept on coming thicker and thicker, until the air was literally full of them and the ground was covered to a depth of several inches. The sunshine was blotted so that it was almost as dark as twilight on a late autumn day. The blamed things got in my nose, my ears, my eyes, and they crawled down my neck and filled my hair. It sure was some unpleasant. All I could do was ride along, letting my horse pick his way; for, not having a compass nor being able to see the sky or the surrounding country, I had no idea where the river lay.”

“Yeou sartain was in a scrape, wasn’t ye?” grinned Crane.

“Wait, my friend – wait. I have not begun to tell you the full extent of my horrible dilemma. Once or twice I fancied I smelled something like smoke, but I paid no heed to this until a sort of dull reddish glow penetrated that mass of flying insects. Finally, looking back, I perceived behind me, spreading out on both sides, a gleam like fire. It was fire. The dry prairie grass was burning, and the wind was sweeping the flames down on me with the speed of an express train. In a measure that accounted for the tremendous number of grasshoppers now swarming about me and beating against me in their flight. They were being driven ahead of the flames, and as the fire advanced their numbers became greater and greater, until I could scarcely breathe without my nostrils being plugged by grasshoppers.”

“Horrible!” snickered Cooper.

“It was horrible,” said Grant solemnly. “When I realized my peril from that onrushing conflagration I put spurs to my horse in a hopeless effort to keep ahead of it. It was like galloping through the darkness of night. The beating and rustling of grasshoppers’ wings, which had sounded faint at first, had gradually risen until it was like the roaring of a gale. The pressure of insects against my back helped in a measure to carry me onward. Finally, however, my horse plunged into a gopher hole and broke its leg. Poor beast!

“But think of me, gents – think of me some! There I was dismounted in the path of that fearful prairie fire. Desperately I succeeded in rising, and madly I stumbled on knee deep amid squirming grasshoppers. The gloom was penetrated in a way by the light of the flames, and I could feel the scorching heat upon the back of my neck. Suddenly right ahead of me I beheld a deep fissure in the plain. The bottom of the fissure was packed with layers of grasshoppers many feet in depth. For a moment I hesitated, and then, as the fire rushed upon me, I launched myself in a desperate spring for the opposite side of the fissure.

“At that very moment, apparently aroused, despite their weariness, by the close approach and searing heat of the flames, the grasshoppers in that gully rose in a solid mass. They actually lifted me and bore me upward for a few moments. True, I was nearer smothered than ever before in all my life. Like a drowning person, I sought to rise higher by paddling with my hands and treading with my feet.

“I rose, gents – I sure did. I kept on rising, too, until I opined I was, pretty near the top of that tremendous mass of grasshoppers, which was sweeping along the surface of the earth ahead of the fire. I soon discovered that by paddling gently with feet and hands I could keep myself up, and to my unbounded relief I perceived that the flying grasshoppers were bearing me along with such speed that the flames could not gain upon me.

“I don’t know just how long I was in the air, but I do know that at least twenty good miles of Texas territory was passed over before that mass of flying grasshoppers became so thinned that I finally sank slowly and gently, like a feather, to the ground. Believe it or not, I landed on the south side of the Canadian River, and thus my life was saved; for when the flames reached the river they could go no farther.

“That, gents, is, I reckon, beyond the shadow of dispute, the longest jump on record. If any one has ever beaten it, I’d like to meet up with the party and yield him the palm.”

The bell clanged; intermission was over.

“Oh, suffering misery!” groaned Chipper Cooper, staggering toward the academy door. “Somebody support me. I’m weak and exhausted. That’s what I call a real w-hopper!”