T.C. Bridges

Men of the Mist

Warsaw 2019

Contents

I. THE COMING OF BART

II. SEALED ORDERS

III. THE "BIG BRITISHER"

IV. A HASTY LANDING

V. THE "BORE"

VI. NIGHT IN THE FOREST

VII. THE COMING OF THE STRANGER

VIII. THE DEATH SLIDE

IX. THE LAST REFUGE

X. INTO THE UNKNOWN

XI. THE FALL OF THE GLACIER

XII. BILLY'S FIND

XIII. TREASURE TROVE

XIV. THE BROKEN ROOF

XV. PELLY SHOWS HIS TEETH

XVI. THE SECOND START

XVII. BIRDS AND BEASTS

XVIII. THE BOYS' BLUNDER

XIX. THE STONE MAN

XX. THE HOLLOW MOUNTAIN

XXI. THE BLACK GAP

XXII. THE VALLEY OF THE MIST

XXIII. LAKE FISHING

XXIV. WHEN THE STORM BROKE

XXV. INTO THE DARKNESS

XXVI. THE SOUND IN THE NIGHT

XXVII. NO WAY OUT!

XXVIII. THE MONSTER

XXIX. BILLY'S BRIGHT IDEA

XXX. THE OUTCAST

XXXI. THE INVADERS

XXXII. THE RACE IN THE SNOW

XXXIII. IN THE CLEFT

XXXIV. WHEN THE WATCHDOG BARKED

XXXV. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY

XXXVI. CLEM TO THE RESCUE

XXXVII. THE TABLES ARE TURNED

XXXVIII. CLEARING UP

I. THE COMING OF BART

TEA at Wasperton School was nothing but thick hunks of bread and margarine and an evil-looking black mixture served in huge metal teapots. The food was so bad that the boys could hardly eat it, but they dared not complain, not, at any rate, so long as they were under the hard eyes of their master, Mr Silas Crayshaw. For his eyes were no less hard than his cane–and never a day passed but some of them felt the sting of that.

Among the forty or so boys who sat at the two long tables were a couple who somehow looked different from the rest. In spite of their shabby clothes and patched boots, there was an air of breeding about Clem and Billy Ballard.

As Clem took his place beside his brother, Stiles, the grimy old school porter, came along and dropped a letter by his plate. Clem glanced at the address, and slipped the letter into his pocket. Pendred, a big, sullen-looking youth who sat opposite, laughed unpleasantly. “Scared to open it, I suppose?” he remarked. “Don’t want us to see the broad arrow on the paper.”

Clem went oddly white, but Billy’s eyes flashed and the colour rose hotly in his cheeks. Clem caught him by the arm. “Sit still, Billy. Don’t pay any attention to him,” he said coolly. “It’s from Uncle Grimston,” he added in a whisper.

Just then Mr Crayshaw came in, and Pendred subsided. He was not going to risk a cut from the master’s cane.

The meal went on in absolute silence, and the moment it was over the two Ballards hurried out. “Let’s go down to the quarry,” said Clem, and Billy, merely nodding, dropped into step.

Wasperton was near the big manufacturing town of Marchester, and the whole countryside was foul with soot and smoke. The two boys walked down a grimy lane, turned into a bare-looking field, and passing through some gorse and a clump of half-dead trees reached the edge of an old stone quarry, at the bottom of which was a deep pool of sullen greenish water. There they plumped themselves down on the grass. “What’s he say?” asked Billy.

Clem tore open the envelope, and had hardly begun to read before he stopped with a gasp.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Billy sharply.

“He–he–can’t have us back, Billy! We–we’ve got to spend the holidays here!”

“What! Here at Wasperton?”

“Yes. That’s what he says,” Clem answered, with his grey eyes fixed upon the fatal sheet.

“Oh, he can’t! He can’t mean it!” groaned Billy.

“It’s plain enough,” said Clem bitterly. “He says he can’t have us knocking about the place.”

“He always hated us,” said Billy fiercely.

Clem shrugged his shoulders. “Well, he’s kept us since Mother’s death. I suppose we ought to be grateful.”

“What’s the good of his keeping us?” cried Billy, “I’d sooner work as an errand-boy in a shop than go on like this. The school is a pig of a place; we don’t learn anything, there are no decent games, and I hate the very sight of it, and of Crayshaw too.”

In his excitement Billy sprang to his feet and went stamping up and down. “And the chaps jeering at us about Father!” he went on. “As if it was his fault or ours that they sent him to prison.”

“Steady, Billy!” said Clem. “It’s no good getting excited.”

“But I can’t help it!” retorted Billy. “It isn’t fair. Everything’s gone wrong since they tried Father for taking money which you and I know he never touched. And now to keep us in this place all the holidays! It’s the limit, and I’m not going to stand it!”

“Look out!” cried Clem suddenly and leapt to his feet. He was just too late, for Billy had gone too near the edge, and with a deep crunching sound a great piece of turf had broken off and slipped down, carrying Billy with it.

“Billy! Billy!” cried Clem in horror. When he reached the edge he fully expected to see his brother plunged into the depths of the pool thirty feet below, and his relief may be imagined when he caught sight of him clinging to a narrow ledge only a yard or so down. In a flash he had flung himself on his face, and reaching down caught hold of Billy. “Hang on!” he cried. “Hang on, Billy! I’ll get you up!”

But when he tried to do so he found that it was out of the question. The weight was too much for him to lift, and Billy could get no foothold. With a sinking feeling of horror, Clem realized that unless he kept quite still he himself would be pulled over the edge, and both would plunge to destruction in that noisome green water so far below.

“Help!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Help!”

Clods of earth fell away beneath him. Another slip threatened. Billy looked up at him with agonized eyes. “Let me go, Clem!” he said. “Let me go! I shall only drag you down.”

But Clem’s teeth set hard. “No!” he answered curtly. “Hang on!”

More earth fell. Clem was slipping. Another moment and it would have been all over, when he felt a tremendously powerful grip on his legs. “Hang on, sonny!” came a cool, deep voice. “I reckon I can pull ye both up if ye’ll hold still.”

Such a pull! It was like that of a steam-crane. Clem’s muscles cracked, but he held on, and next minute he and Billy were both safe on firm ground.

“There, that’s all right,” said his rescuer, as calmly as ever, and Clem, recovering a little, looked up into the face of a man of middle height, square built, and evidently of immense strength. His features were blunt, and tanned to the colour of an old saddle, but his eyes, of a singularly clear blue, held that curiously far-seeing look peculiar to men who spend their time entirely in the open air. He was dressed in a ready-made blue serge suit much too tight across his immensely broad chest.

“Thanks awfully,” gasped Clem. “You saved us both. I say, you are strong!”

The other smiled, and it was a very pleasant smile which lit up his whole face.

“Glad I came along in time, sonny. But you’re all right now. Well, I guess I’ll be going. Good evening.”

But Clem caught his arm. “Please tell us your name,” he begged.

The big man smiled again. “Bart, I’m called–Hart Condon. And what’s yours?”

“Ours is Ballard,” replied Clem. “I’m Clem, and this is my brother Billy.”

Condon’s blue eyes widened. Clem almost thought he saw him start slightly. But all he said was, “I’m mighty glad to have met you. You’re from the school, I reckon?”

“Yes,” replied Clem. “I say, you come from America, don’t you?”

“That’s so, son. Say, I’ll walk up as far as you’re going.”

So the three walked back together, but Clem had no chance to pursue his inquiries, for Condon did most of the talking. He asked many questions about the school, and by the time they reached the gates had got the boys to tell him practically all about it and about themselves. They had told him how their father had been put in prison for a theft he had never committed, how their mother had died of grief, and how their uncle, Mr Robert Grimston, a hard, mean man, had taken charge of them, and put them at this wretched school, where they had now been for two years.

“But your dad escaped, didn’t he?” asked Condon.

“Yes. But how did you know?” asked Clem quickly.

“Guess I read it in the newspaper,” was the reply.

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