The High School Boys Fishing Trip | Page 4

securely as it should be. In endeavoring to fix it he found it
necessary to remove the screen from the window. Hardly had he done
so when, gazing down into the darkness, he saw a dimly visible figure
flitting over the ground below.
"Who's that?" murmured Dick to himself. "What's up?"
Whoever the prowler was, he was flitting over to the ash cans set out by
a neighbor. One can contained ashes only, the other contained various
kinds of rubbish. It took the prowler but a moment to find an empty
bottle in the second can. Then he came straight over toward the rear
window of the store, which was situated directly under Dick's own
window.
"There's some mischief afloat," murmured Dick, unable to recognize
his chum in the darkness. "I can't get down in time to catch him, but I'll
mark him so that I'll know him when I overtake him."
Tip-toeing over to his washstand, Dick quickly picked up the water
pitcher. He returned to his window just as Tom crouched under the
store window with a bottle in his left hand and his felt hat in his right.
Then Tom struck the harmless blow against the window, at the same
time breaking the bottle.
Smash!
Splash!
"Gracious!" gasped Dick, believing that the store window had been

broken.
A yell from Tom arose as the contents of the pitcher deluged him.
Reade was up and away like a shot, reaching the street only to cause a
hue and cry to be started after him as he ran.
So swiftly had Tom moved, that by the time Dick Prescott reached the
street both pursuers and pursued were a block away and going fast.
Dick was about to join the chase when his father called after him:
"Dick! Dick! Come back here!"
"Yes, sir," replied young Prescott, halting, wheeling, then springing
back. "But that scoundrel smashed the rear store window!"
"No, he didn't," laughed Mr. Prescott. "That was Tom Reade, and he
was playing a trick on you---with our permission. Now he's being
chased. Do you want to go out and aid that crowd in capturing him?"
"Of course I don't, sir," replied Dick, who knew full well that such a
sturdy high school athlete as Tom Reade was in very little danger of
being caught by any citizen runners to be found on the street at that
time of night. "But what did Tom do, Dad?"
"I don't just know," admitted the bookseller. "Reade told us there would
be a smash of glass, but that it would be harmless. He warned your
mother, Dick, so that she wouldn't he startled when it came. Tom did
the right thing in warning your mother. I wish all boys could realize
that only cowards and fools go about frightening women."
"But something else happened," insisted Mrs. Prescott. "I wonder what
it was?"
"Suppose we take a lantern and go out in the back yard and see,"
proposed Dick.
While Dick was finding the lantern the elder Prescott closed the front
of the store, also drawing down the shades for the night.

Dick's mother followed him into the rear yard. The fragments of the
bottle under one of the store windows told the whole story to one as
experienced in jokes as Dick Prescott.
"But see how wet the ground is," Mrs. Prescott remarked after Dick had
explained the trick.
"That was because I didn't recognize the joker, and emptied the
contents of my water pitcher on him just as he broke the bottle," Dick
smiled. "Poor old Tom. That was really a shame!"
"But why did you pour the water on him?" asked Mrs. Prescott.
"Because I felt sure that the prowler was up to some mischief, and I
wanted to mark him for identification, mother," Dick explained. "If we
had found a fellow on the street looking as though he had just come out
of the river, we'd have known our man, wouldn't we? Poor Tom! I don't
blame him for letting out that yell when that drenching splash hit him."
"I hope he didn't get caught by the men who started after him," sighed
Mrs. Prescott.
"Don't worry about Tom, mother," urged Dick. "No one about here
could catch him, unless he happened to be a member of the Gridley
High School Eleven!"
But was it true that Tom Reade had escaped without disaster? That
remained to be seen.
CHAPTER II
DODGE AND BAYLISS HEAR SOMETHING
"If we start to-morrow we must hustle all day long to-day," declared
Dave Darrin.
"That's true," agreed Greg Holmes, as the two boys stood on a side
street not far from Main Street in Gridley.

"I wish the rest of the fellows would hurry along," Dave went on
impatiently.
"At all events, I wish Dick would hurry