Jack Rangers Western Trip | Page 3

promise you I never will!"
"Do you promise by the great seal of the United States?" inquired Jack, in sepulchral accents.
"Yes, Oh yes; I'll promise anything!"
"'Tis well! This was but the first trial by fire. The next time will be more severe!" and with that Jack kicked aside the phosphorous covered sticks and signaled to those holding the ends of the ropes to loosen them.
Tremblingly Tobias crawled into the house.
"Be ye dead, Tobias?" asked his frightened wife, yet she was not a little gratified that her husband had made the promise the mysterious visitors exacted.
"Jest about," was the answer. "Oh, this is a terrible night!"
"Hence, my brave men," spoke Jack solemnly. "We have work elsewhere. But remember, Tobias Smelts, if thou dost so much as raise a finger to a woman or child we shall hear of it through our ghostly messengers and will visit thee again."
"I'll be good! Oh, I'll be good!" promised Tobias.
Then at a nod from Jack the white-robed figures filed away into the darkness, Fred playing a dirge.
"Say, that was the best sport yet," said Sam, when they were at a safe distance.
"Yes, and it was a good thing," said Jack. "That old codger'll not beat his wife any more, I reckon."
And it might be said in passing that he did not for a while. The visit of the masquerading Klu-Klux-Klan was a most effective remedy, and the whole village wondered what had cured Tobias temporarily at least, of his bad habit.
"Say, but you're all right," remarked Bob Movel to Jack, as the boys rid themselves of the costumes in the woods a little later.
"Towering tadpoles! I should say he was!" exclaimed Nat. "What will you do next?"
"I guess we'd better be getting back to the Hall," said Jack. "Professor Grimm might take a notion to sit up late and spot us."
While the boys were slipping quietly back to their rooms, having enjoyed a night's fun, which also had its useful side, we may take this opportunity of introducing them more formally to the reader.
Those who read the first volume of this series, entitled "Jack Ranger's Schooldays; Or, The Rivals of Washington Hall," need not be told how it was that our hero and his friends came to be at that seat of learning. Jack was a bright American lad, who lived with his three maiden aunts, Josephine, Mary and Angeline Stebbins, in the village of Denton. Jack was to inherit some money when he became of age, but the conditions under which it was to come, as well as the secret of who his father was, bothered him not a little.
In the first volume of the series I told of his life in Denton, and the lively times he and Nat Anderson had before they were sent to the Academy. There things were even more lively, and there occurs a sort of sequel to a strange occurrence that happened in Jack's town.
At Denton, one night, Jack saw a man rob a jewelry store, but the only thing he took, as it developed, was a strange ring. It was one with a big moss agate, with the outline of a pine tree on it, and a lot of emeralds and rubies set around its center. This ring belonged to Jack's aunts, who had sent it to the jeweler's and when Jack told his relatives of the theft, and described the appearance of the man, they were much excited. However, they would tell him nothing.
At the academy, after many other adventures, including aiding and abetting the fighting of a mock duel between Professor Garlach, the German teacher, and Professor Socrat, the French instructor, Jack made the acquaintance of one John Smith, a half-breed Indian who had come to the academy for instruction. John had considerable Indian blood in his veins, as he proved on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, he and Jack Ranger became great chums.
One day John Smith disappeared. His friends found that his room had been entered at the school, and there were evidences of a hurried search having been made. Nat discovered, in John's absence, a curious ring under a steam radiator. It was the exact counterpart of the one the burglar stole in Denton. Jack was much puzzled at this, and more, when it developed that John had been kidnapped by some mysterious men. At last the semi-Indian lad was saved by Jack and Nat.
John Smith told Jack as much of the secret as he knew. It appeared that his father had given him the ring just before his death, and told him if he was ever poor or in trouble to take it to a man named Orion Tevis, and state who the bearer was.
Some time before that, the elder Smith had been in Oregon and Tevis came to him to get him