For the next few days Fleet kept away from his chums for the greater part of the time, and when they pressed him to know how he was occupying his time, he merely winked, and said:

“Wait and see.”

Hour after hour he spent in his den, the door locked, and the only way they could communicate with him at such a time was by means of a telephone, and then his answers were sometimes short.

“I’m awfully busy,” he said one day to Chot, when his chum rang him up and asked him to go swimming in the creek. “Sorry, but I’ll have to ring off.”

And that was all Chot could get out of him. So he and Tom and Hoki went off to the creek together, speculating on what Fleet was doing, but not reaching any satisfactory conclusion.

“It may be an invention of some sort,” said Tom.

“No; I believe not,” said Chot. “Fleet is not of an inventive turn of mind. He’s a good electrician and a good general mechanic, but when it comes to originating ideas along these lines, he has never displayed any talent.”

“That’s right,” Tom replied. “Well, I suppose he will tell us about it in due time.”

At last one day Fleet came out of his den, his face wreathed in smiles, and when he went to the post office he carried a package of considerable size, which he stamped and mailed.

Then he joined in the activities with the other boys. Excursions to the woods, canoeing on the creek, with daily swims in the cool waters, served to make the time pass quickly.

Hoki was initiated into the mysteries of an athletic life. He already knew considerable of his own jiu-jitsu, and he, in turn, taught the boys considerable of this, and much of their time was spent in becoming perfect in it, as its many advantages were manifest.

Learned in connection with scientific boxing, it would prove formidable against any sort of an antagonist, they felt.

Hoki was a continual source of delight to them, his quaint manners and methods of speech causing them to laugh uproariously on all occasions. This the little Jap took good naturedly. It did not discourage him in the least. He was determined to learn thoroughly American ways and customs, and in exchange for the knowledge given him by the boys, told them many wonderful things about the land of the Mikado.

One afternoon a little incident occurred that proved beyond any doubt the Jap’s loyalty to the Comrades.

Hoki had been down to the post office on an errand for Chot and Tom and was returning when he was accosted by several of the village boys, led by a young bully, named Carter Dane. Carter had never liked the Comrades, and insisted that since they had been away a year to school they were “stuck up,” and did not care for the company of their former associates.

“Watch me have some fun with this Jap,” he remarked, a sneer curling his lip, as he saw Hoki approaching along the road.

The little Jap was moving at a good pace, despite the hotness of the afternoon, and was right upon the boys, who were sitting on a fence in the shade, before he saw them. Then, to show his good will, he grinned and bowed.

“What do you mean by speaking to your betters?” cried Carter Dane, as he confronted the Jap.

He towered at least a head over Hoki, and was built after a stocky fashion, with plenty of muscle and strength from a life lived mostly in the open air.

“No understand,” said Hoki, pausing and backing away a little, as if in doubt as to Carter’s purpose.

“No, I guess you don’t understand,” continued the bully. “No Jap ever understands anything worth understanding. I don’t know why those fellows ever brought you to Mortonville, but I do know one thing—you can’t speak to every boy you meet in the village.”

Hoki said nothing, unable to fathom Carter’s motive for talking thus. He could not see where one whom he had never harmed could have a motive for wishing to do him injury.

“So you’re afraid, eh?” demanded the bully. “I thought so. You get that from Chot Duncan and his crowd.”

“Chot Duncan all right!” said Hoki. His face was expressionless, but his little black eyes fairly snapped fire as he glared at his antagonist.

“Oh, he is, is he?” said Carter, advancing toward him. “I think I’d better teach you a lesson. You can’t talk impudently to your betters. Don’t you know that?”

“You’re not my better,” said the Jap boy, and as he spoke he straightened up and waited for Carter to approach.

Then, as the bully struck out straight from the shoulder, intending to lay Hoki out with one blow, something surprising happened. The Jap sidestepped, linked his arm around the bully’s neck, and sent him hurtling over his shoulder into the roadway, where he lay, white and still.

“You’ve killed him!” cried one of the other boys.

“No, kill,” said Jap, grimly. “Could kill, but don’t want to kill—this time. Tell him it my pleasure is that he avoid me in future.”

And with that Hoki started on up the road.

“Here, here,” cried one of the boys; “you can’t go yet. Wait till we find how badly he’s hurt.”

“He only stunned,” Hoki replied. “Should you wish me, it would me great pleasure give to entertain you at the mansion of Mr. Duncan.”

Then Hoki went on, while the boys assisted Carter Dane to his feet. Carter and the other boys started immediately for the Duncan residence, bent on vengeance, followed by several villagers who had seen the affair.

By the time they arrived, Hoki had told his story, and Chot, Tom and Fleet, with the Jap, were out in the yard, ready to receive them.

“Chot Duncan, you’ve got to give us that Jap,” said Carter Dane.

“What do you want with the Jap?” Chot calmly asked.

“He played me a dirty trick down there, and we’re going to beat him.”

“What about the trick you played him, Dane?”

“I played him no trick.”

“He says you stopped him in the road and threatened him, telling him not to talk to his betters, and from what I know of your reputation, I’m inclined to believe him.”

“Of course you’ll take his word before mine, but these boys saw the affair.”

Several of the boys nodded, but they did not seem at all anxious to confirm Dane’s statements.

“I saw it, too,” said one of the villagers, “and the Jap was in no way to blame. Dane confronted him and made him fight, and then got mad because the Jap threw him over his shoulder into the road. The Jap’s got pluck and I admire him for it.”

“That’s right,” said several of the others.

“Now, listen to me, Dane,” said Chot. “Hoki is under our protection. I brought him to Mortonville as my guest. When you insult him you insult me. I want you to beg his pardon right now, or you’ll have me to settle with.”

“I won’t!”

“Very well.” Chot rolled up his sleeves and leaped quickly over the fence into the road. “You and I had it once before, about two years ago, Dane, and you know what happened. Will you beg his pardon?”

“Aw, I don’t want to fight you,” growled the bully. “I didn’t mean anything. It was only a joke as far as I was concerned.”

“Then let’s call it a joke. It reacted on you, that’s all. Do you beg his pardon?”

“Yes; I beg his pardon.”

“All right. The next time I bring anyone to Mortonville as my guest, you either be civil to him or leave him alone. Understand?”

But Carter Dane’s only response was a growl, as he slunk off down the road.

Hoki rose even in the estimation of the Comrades by his thrashing of the bully, and when a letter arrived the following day from Commandant Cullum, telling them that he would be glad to receive the Jap at Winton, and overlook some deficiencies in his education, everyone was delighted, Hoki most of all.

The same mail brought a letter from Lucy. It was a big official-looking envelope, and when Chot opened it, he saw besides the letter the certificate of stock. The letter read, in part, as follows:

“Dear Chot:

“I am sending the mining stock as you request. Do as you wish with it. As I told you before, the matter is entirely in your hands. I know that whatever you do will be right. Have been staying with my aunt since leaving Mortonville. Hope to see you again before the fall term of school opens. I shall be at Professor Pinchum’s Academy as usual.”

There were several other things in the letter which Chot did not read aloud to Tom and Fleet. But he saw the wink that passed between them, and seizing a couple of the sofa pillows from a couch in his den, sent them hurtling at the heads of his chums.

The certificate was shown to Mr. Duncan and Mr. Kenby, a check was made out for one thousand dollars in favor of Lucy, and another in favor of Luther Pendleton. In case the mine never amounted to anything, Lucy would have her thousand. Mr. Kenby insisted on this, and the boys knew that his generous heart was overflowing with kindness toward the girl who had been placed in such an unfortunate position.

“Someday we shall perhaps be able to do more for her,” said he.

“If the mine pans out, you three boys and Lucy shall divide your three-fifths share among you, and something seems to tell me that Pendleton is not fooling his time away out there for nothing,” said Mr. Duncan.

So with that the matter was allowed to rest, and the time was now approaching when the boys would go back to Winton. They could not foresee the incidents to be recorded in “Winton Hall Cadets,” the next book of this series, and went enthusiastically about the preparations for their leave taking.

The opening date for the fall term was September 7, and three days before they left they received a letter from Pod, another from Truem Wright, and still another from Bert Creighton, telling the days they were starting for school. The day before leaving letters came from Wilkes Davis, Randy Denton and Dan Kirlicks, with the information that they, too, were leaving at once for Winton.

“Looks like it’s going to be a grand reunion,” said Fleet, “and I’ll bet you fellows won’t jolly me any more about not being a poet.”

As he spoke he held up triumphantly a letter he had just received from a New York publishing house. Then the truth of Fleet’s secret work in his den dawned upon Chot and Tom.

“They accepted the manuscript I sent them, and will use one of my nature poems,” Fleet continued. “Now congratulate me, you lobsters, and I’ll forgive what you said to me on the trip that night.”

Of course they congratulated him. They had known all along that he was destined to make his mark and if their criticism had been at times severe, they felt that it was now bearing results, though, of course, they did not tell Fleet that.

THE END.

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