“What of it? He has to catch us first, and nobody ever comes here. Don’t chew the rag so much; light up and be happy.” Gallegher winked again.
“Naw—I’m in training for boxing practice with the Lieutenant,” said Blackie uncomfortably. “Smoking is bad for the wind, and I got to have good lungs to be a good scrapper.”
“Aw, one won’t hurt you,” Gallegher jeered. “Know what I think? I think you’re scared you’ll get caught. You’re just yellow, like all the rest of the babies at this camp.”
“I’m not scared. Here, give me one, Irish. I’ll show you.”
Blackie seized one of the white cylinders and hastily lighted the end. Gallegher lit another and settled back on the fallen tree trunk, puffing away expertly.
“Pretty soft, eh?”
“Not bad,” agreed Blackie, fumbling amateurishly with the lighted cigarette. He coughed and wiped away the tears that formed in his eyes as the smoke blew into them. “Say, are you sure nobody ever comes around here?”
“Sure they don’t—especially on a rainy day. I’ve had a quiet little cig here lots of times. Don’t get scared, kid—we’ll be safe. Besides, now we both got the honor emblem, we can get away with lots of stuff. If you wear one of these things on your chest”—he indicated the green swastika and the “L” upon his sweater—“you can put over stuff that would be too raw for other guys to get away with. I’ve been kind of layin’ low lately, but believe me, there’s goin’ to be some fun around this camp pretty soon, and I’m goin’ to get back at the guys that kicked me out of the Stuck-Up initiation. Are you with me, Blackie? They did the same dirty trick to you.”
“Sure—sure I’m with you, Irish.”
“Have another fag, then.”
“No, one is enough for me.”
“Come on, have another. What are you afraid of? We can eat a hunk of candy before we go back to camp, and nobody will ever know a thing about it.”
Blackie accepted another, but threw the stump away before he had smoked much of it. He didn’t like it, but the idea of sitting there hidden in the woods doing a forbidden act that would be heavily punished if it were known gave him a devil-may-care, excited feeling.
Later, after they had sneaked back to camp for swim, he did not feel quite so dashing. The secret act now appeared sordid. He felt uncomfortable and guilty; he could not forget what he had done, and went to bed that night with an uneasy fear that he might be discovered any minute. He dropped off to sleep assuring himself that never again would he let Gallegher or anybody else persuade him to break a camp rule and do an unworthy, hole-in-the-corner deed.
He awoke some time later. A pocket flashlight was shining in his face, and he blinked fearfully for half a minute before he came to his senses. Dimly he heard Wally whisper close to his ear.
“Get up and put on your bathrobe, Thorne. I want you to come up to the lodge with me.”
“Wha—what for?”
“You’ll find out later.”
He could hear the heavy breathing of his tent-mates about him as he struggled into his bathrobe; but when he stepped outside the tent he was surprised to find that all of them were not asleep. Gallegher, also attired in his bathrobe, stood waiting outside on the path with Wally, who had not yet undressed for the night.
“What time is it, Wally?” asked Blackie.
“About ten-thirty. Now, keep quiet and don’t wake up the rest of the fellows. Come along.”
The two boys followed him up to the lodge. The rain had stopped, and a crisp, bracing wind was blowing up from the lake. As they mounted the steps leading to the lodge porch, they saw a light still burning in the little office in one corner of the building. The Chief had not gone to bed yet, either. Wally opened the outer door, and stepped inside to let them enter.
“This way, you two.”
The boys exchanged scared glances. There was no time to do more. They stepped inside. The Chief turned in his chair and bent a serious look upon them.
“Sit down, Gallegher, Thorne. Come on in, Mr. Rawn. Now, I have had your leader bring you boys up here because I wanted to ask you some questions.”
Gallegher slumped in his seat with a scowl. Blackie shivered; he did not dare to face the Chief, but looked away, fearing what was to come.
“Mr. Rawn tells me,” continued the Chief in an even tone, “that to-night at Taps, he noticed that something fell out of Gallegher’s pocket as he was undressing. He brought this object to me. Here it is.”
Blackie stole a glance at the man’s outstretched hand. It was as he feared. The Chief was holding a crumpled paper package of cigarettes.
“I asked him to bring Gallegher to me right away. He was seen going into the woods this morning, and as Thorne was with him, I asked that both of you be brought up to talk with me. The directors of Camp Lenape, knowing that smoking is injurious to the health of growing boys, have a rule that any boy who smokes while at camp will be sent home in disgrace at once. Have you both heard that rule?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“I am going to ask each of you a question, and you are on your honor to answer it truthfully. Gallegher, have you smoked cigarettes while at Camp Lenape?”
There was a moment of silence. Gallegher bit his lip and considered. He was caught with the goods. He shrugged and mumbled, “Yes, sir.”
Blackie felt the Chief’s eyes upon him. “Thorne, have you been smoking at camp, too?”
He must not be sent home! Blackie shifted in his chair and tried to think. Sent home in disgrace, away from all the wonderful times at camp; sent back to town, to face his mother’s disappointed eyes, to be in the city and know that he had missed the big camp show, the boat regatta, the swimming meet—— The Chief and Wally couldn’t be sure—Gallegher wouldn’t give him away——
“Answer me, Blackie.”
There was only one way out. “N-No, Chief.”
He had done it! He had lied; deliberately he had told an untruth to save his own skin. He was glad the Chief was not looking at him any more, but had turned his attention to Gallegher. Blackie stared at the floor.
“Gallegher, I’m glad you haven’t made it any worse by lying about your act,” the director was saying. “Now, because you’ve owned up to it like a man, and because I know that you have lived in a bad neighborhood back in town and might in that way have picked up some wrong ideas about things, I’m going to give you a choice that may permit you to stay on here at camp. You can either leave camp to-morrow, or stay here and chop wood for the kitchen three hours a day. You’ll lose your honor emblem, of course. Which is it—stay or leave?”
Gallegher turned away, so that the Chief could not see his face. “I’ll stay and chop wood,” he muttered with a catch in his voice. “And—thanks, Chief.”
“I’m glad you took that choice, Gallegher. Camp has done a lot for you, and I’d hate to lose you now. Mr. Rawn, you may all go back to your tent now. Good-night!”
Wally nodded briefly, and the three left the lighted office. Not a word was spoken; they walked slowly and thoughtfully back to Tent Four, and turned in silently.
Between his blankets, Blackie drew a deep breath for the first time since he had been awakened. If Gallegher only did not give him away, nobody would ever know, and things would be just the same as before. Nevertheless, he did not find it easy to get to sleep, and woke before dawn to lie wretchedly in his bunk until the activity of the day would begin and he might win forgetfulness in the rush of the day’s program.
The first blow fell just before breakfast, when the entire camp strength was lined up after flag salute and morning Call to the Colors. Hungrily expectant and waiting for the command to march in to mess, the arrayed campers were surprised to find that the Chief delayed in giving the command. He stood beside the flagpole with a stern look in his eyes. The boys stirred in the ranks, shifted their feet curiously, uncomprehendingly.
“Why doesn’t he tell us to go to breakfast?”
“Gee—I never saw him do this before!”
“Quiet in the ranks!” came the command of Mr. Avery, the officer of the day. “Attention!”
The expectant bodies stiffened. The Chief cleared his throat.
“Timothy Gallegher, five paces forward!” he said.
A ripple of astonishment ran down the line. Blackie felt a movement at his side; Gallegher had left his place and now appeared in front of the Chief, standing with a strange white look on his drawn face, swaying slightly in his place.
“Timothy Gallegher, you have been guilty of conduct unbecoming to a Lenape camper. You will here, in the sight of all your comrades, be stripped of the honor emblem which you have been found unworthy to wear.”
The crowd gasped. Gallegher never moved, staring in front of him with a blind tenseness. The Chief reached into his pocket and drew forth a clasp-knife, opened one of the sharp small blades. From the end of the line came a muffled tattoo; little Pete Lister, trap-drummer in the camp orchestra, was sounding a rattling roll on his drum, as he had been told to do.
Slowly, in the sight of all, the swastika-L on the front of Gallegher’s sweater was cut away. The thin blade slit the stitches, and the Chief’s hand tore away the green and white emblem of honor. Blackie watched Gallegher’s face, fascinated. He should be out there, too, taking his medicine, suffering along with the Irish boy; he was just as guilty, and more so, for at least Gallegher had not lied about his guilt. Blackie wanted to cry out, to tell them all that he should be standing there, too, with the Chief tearing away his own badge; but he stood rooted in his place with a dry tongue and pale cheeks beneath his tan.
Now it was too late. The Chief had put the emblem and the knife into his pocket; the drumming had stopped; Gallegher shambled doggedly back to his place in the line, beside Blackie and the other boys of Tent Four. The chance to confess was past. Blackie rather envied Gallegher; he had owned up and taken his punishment, and however hard the work on the woodpile might be, at least he would have no ugly stain on his conscience.
“Right face! Forward—march!” The files trailed up toward the lodge steps, and instantly a curious babel of voices broke out.
“Gee, what did you do, Irish?”
“Say, you must have done something pretty wild to get stripped like that!”
“Aw, shut up!” said Gallegher. “Key down, see? That’s my business. Maybe, if the guys that run this camp knew their stuff, I wouldn’t be the only one to get stripped.”
“What do you mean?” asked Slater.
“I don’t mean a thing, see? Not a thing.” He looked darkly at Blackie, who pretended he had not heard. The boys of Tent Four clattered up the steps. There was a smell of breakfast in the air; everything was forgotten at the thought of heaping dishes of cereal, hot biscuits, steaming cocoa. But Blackie took his seat in worried silence, bowing his head for grace. As he looked down, there showed before him the emblem sewed on his jersey, the swastika-L he had won but had disgraced and now wore dishonorably. He had a sudden, unreasoning desire to pluck it from its place and throw it to the floor. It wavered before his eyes, the burning badge of his shame.
The day dragged on miserably for Blackie.
He had a feeling that the eyes of his tent-mates were always furtively upon him; when he would face them suddenly they would look away, but he could feel their silent condemnation. Gallegher spent the morning hours at work on the woodpile; Blackie saw him now and then bent over his job, toiling alone. They had not spoken together since Wally had wakened them both the night before; they did not speak at dinner or in the tent during siesta hour afterwards. Blackie felt that the Irish boy was avoiding the very sight of him.
When Recall sounded after siesta and the boys of Tent Four tumbled out for the afternoon’s fun, Blackie did not leave his bunk. He found himself alone with little Nightgown Guppy, who sat on the tent step busily scooping out a section of birch wood for a bird-house. He worked along in silence, but finally raised his head curiously and put a question.
“What’s the matter, Blackie? Are you feeling sick or something?”
“No, I’m not sick, you fool!” growled Blackie, turning over on his pillow.
“Well, then, why don’t you get out and play baseball with the bunch? The campers are playing the councilors to-day, and you ought to be in the game. I never thought you were a guy that would spend all his time doing bunk-duty.”
“Who cares what you think? Shut up and beat it. I’m sick of hearing you babies bawling around all the time.”
Guppy worked on for a minute. “What are you sore about, Blackie?” he asked after some time. “Is it because you’re scared the Chief will know you were smoking?”
Blackie sat up with a jerk. “How do you know I was smoking?”
“Oh, everybody knows.”
“If Gallegher said anything, I’ll knock his block off!”
“He didn’t have to say anything. We all know you were in on it, and lied out of it to the Chief.”
The bunk creaked as Blackie jumped up and advanced toward the smaller boy with doubled fists. “You say I’m a liar? By Jimmy, I’ll fix you for this!”
“Don’t hit me!” said Guppy, dropping his tools and edging away. “All I said was——”
“You said enough!” Blackie scowled fiercely, seized the lad’s arm roughly, and gave it a wrenching twist until Guppy cried out with pain. “That’ll teach you to keep your mouth shut around me! Now, will you be calling me a liar any more? Will you? Will you?”
“Ow!” screamed Guppy. “I only said——You let me be, Blackie Thorne, or you’ll be sorry——”
Blackie gave the arm another vicious turn. “If I hear you ever say again that I was smoking with Gallegher, I’ll kill you, do you hear?”
“No, you won’t,” said a new voice. Blackie looked up. Facing him were Ken Haviland, Gil Shelton, and a group of older boys who had approached unnoticed.
“Get him!” called Gil in a low tone. He and Sunfish jumped and caught Blackie’s arms.
“Don’t try to struggle, or it’ll be worse for you,” continued Ken. “All right, Gup—he won’t bother you any more.”
Blackie found himself pinioned on both sides, and a husky guard of four veteran campers formed about him. They put him, still struggling, on a locker in the center of the tent. Ken Haviland assumed a seat on top of an upper bunk, where he could look down upon the prisoner.
“The Kangaroo Court will now convene,” he said solemnly.
“What’s the idea?” protested Blackie. “Gil, I thought you and Sunfish and Soapy Mullins were friends of mine!”
“Silence before the judge,” warned Gil. “You are now in court. We’ll let your arms loose if you promise not to run away.”
“But why? If one of the leaders comes along now, you guys will sure look stupid.”
“All of the leaders are down at the baseball field,” Sunfish assured him. “Anyway, it’ll be worse for you if any of them hear tell of this. Now, shut up! The court-martial is beginning.”
Ken Haviland, on his perch above, cleared his throat and began to speak. “Gentlemen of the Kangaroo Court, you have been called together to try the case of Blackie Thorne of Tent Four, Camp Lenape. You will see that justice is done.”
The boys seated themselves about on boxes and bunks. There were eleven of them, all from different tent-groups, and all boys who had spent at least one season at Lenape. Ken looked sternly at Blackie.
“Prisoner, you are charged with breaking the camp law against smoking and deliberately lying about your act when questioned on your honor. Are you guilty or not guilty?”
“So Gallegher’s been squealing, huh?” exclaimed Blackie. “Well, what of it? What right have you to treat me like a convict?”
“The right of the Kangaroo Court. You’re a tenderfoot at camp, so I’ll explain to you what we’re doing here. The Chief and the councilors have nothing to do with it now. You were asked on your honor if you had broken a camp rule, and we know that you told a lie. Instead of owning up and taking your punishment like a man, you broke your word and sneaked out of it. The Chief accepted your word; that’s all he could do. But the campers of Lenape have something to say about how a fellow like you shall be treated. This court represents every boy in camp, and every boy will stand by our decision. Are you guilty or not?”
Blackie sneered. “And I suppose if I say I am, you and this gang of yours will run and tattle-tale to the Chief!”
“I said that the Chief has nothing to do with this. And you only hurt yourself by acting ugly.”
“All right,” said Blackie sullenly. “I did it. What are you going to do about it?”
“Gentlemen of the court, the prisoner has confessed his guilt. All in favor of inflicting the usual penalty will rise.”
Every one of the eleven boys rose to his feet. Blackie looked from one face to another of those who had been his friends, and read there only reluctant determination. Ken Haviland tore a scrap of paper from a notebook in his pocket, and scribbled on it with a pencil. Soapy Mullins yanked Blackie to a standing position.
“Prisoner,” said Ken gravely, “the unanimous decision of the Kangaroo Court is that you shall be given the Black Spot.” He held out the scrap of paper, and Blackie took it wonderingly. There was nothing on it save a rude pencilled black disc in the center. “From this moment you are branded as a disgrace to Camp Lenape, and not a single camper will speak so much as a word to you. Court’s adjourned!”
The members of the court departed toward the baseball field, taking Guppy with them, and the culprit was left alone with the marked piece of paper still in his hand. He crumpled it with an angry gesture, and tossed it to the ground.
“Huh! They must think they’ve done something smart! The Black Spot! Nobody will talk to me—we’ll see about that! And what if they don’t? A lot I’d care if I never saw any of this bunch of Sunday-school kids again!”
He caught up a hat and marched down to the ball field, drawn there by a desire to brazen it out and see if his sentence meant anything. The boys’ team was at bat, and Lefty Reardon, captain, was coaching off third base.
“Hey, Lefty!” Blackie hailed him. “How about giving me a game?”
Lefty turned, looked him up and down quietly, and turned away again as though he hadn’t heard the question. Blackie flushed, and after standing uneasily for a minute, tried to look unconcerned and strolled down to the gathering around the batter. There was a low ripple of whispers at his approach; boys nudged each other and turned to look, turned away with half-hidden smiles of contempt. He did not even dare to speak to one of them. For the moment he was tempted to rough-house one or two of the younger boys just to see whether or not they could be made to speak; but he remembered what had happened when he had twisted Guppy’s arm, and knew that any defiance of the unwritten code would be useless.
“What’s the score?” he asked of the world in general.
Not a boy answered him. Someone at his elbow snickered; no one looked in his face. He felt like a ghost, a branded being who had no right among that bunch of happy campers; he was lonely in a crowd.
The only reason he watched the game to its finish was because he refused to give the boys the satisfaction of having driven him away. It was the most wretched afternoon he had ever spent. He sat, drawn apart from the rest, inwardly seething with fury and wondering how long he could stand it. He forgot the exhilarating, breath-taking delights he had enjoyed at Lenape; he could only remember the little dislikes he had acquired, the humiliation of his ejection from the Stuck-Up initiation, the crude and unceasing jokes that had been played upon him. He hated the Chief, the leaders; with all the boys against him, staying at Lenape was unbearable. He would leave the hateful place! It was the only thing to do—run away from them all and never, never come back!
He sat there moodily, pondering the plan in his mind. It was easy enough to decide to run away—but where should he go? If he went back to the city, he would have to face his mother with a tale of disgrace, and the boys of the camp would soon discover that their punishment had driven him home like a whipped dog. If he slipped away and went east, toward Elmville and the railroad, Wally would soon discover that he was missing; a hunt would start, he would be easily traced and found before he could get far, and he would be brought back to camp again, baffled and more of an object of reproach than ever. But if he could manage to get too far away to be traced, and stay hidden somewhere for three or four days, they would think him dead, and when he finally did return they would be so glad they would forget all about his crime, would be sorry they had caused him to run off alone. The open road, that was the thing! He would be a hobo for a while, might even bum his way to some city miles off, having an adventurous time on the road while the Lenape kids did their smart little tricks and acted like Sunday-school babies and thought they were having a good time!
After some thought he decided not to leave immediately, but to wait until supper-time. He was watched too closely now; every boy in camp knew of his sentence and was covertly watching to see how he would take it. But if he slipped away when the camp was assembled in the mess hall, it was not likely that he would be seen. Wally might wonder what had become of him, but would not take steps to find out until after the meal; and by that time Blackie hoped to be several miles away in a direction they would not expect him to take. He had seen the county map which hung in the lodge, and knew that Newmiln Center, on Flatstone Creek, was about ten miles as the crow flies northwest over the mountains, in a rich farming region that was separated from camp by miles of wilderness into which nobody ever penetrated. They would not look for him on top of the ridges; they would never suspect that he dared go there. Why, given a fair start and three hours of daylight, he might even make Newmiln Center before dark closed in!
“I’ll do it!” Blackie muttered darkly to himself. “I’ll show them I won’t knuckle under, no matter what they do!”
He would take his blankets, he decided, and also his flash-lantern, ax, and compass. The next problem was food. That would have to be taken—“hooked”—out of the kitchen somehow. But unless there was one of the kitchen crew at work, the place was always kept locked. He would have to manage, somehow.
He thought over his plans during the two hours before Retreat and the evening flag-lowering ceremony. He did not appear for swim, but spent the time making a neat roll of his blankets, which he hid along with his flash-lamp, compass and ax in the bushes beside the road behind camp. He knew that if his absence at the swimming dock was noted, the boys would put it down to wanting to escape their silent contempt.
He was in his place when Retreat Call trumpeted out over the lake; but when the usual evening rush to tables began and the files clattered up the steps, he slipped around to the back door of the kitchen. He found himself in the pantry; shelves of canned goods lined the walls, under which were bins of vegetables, and the mirrored doors of the huge ice-box took up one side of the room. During the hush that preceded the saying of grace in the mess hall, he could hear Ellick whispering directions to Leggy and his other dusky assistants, who were busied dishing up the meal. This is what Blackie had counted upon, having the kitchen crew so busy at this time that they would not see him. Hastily he slipped a few potatoes and a can of peas into his shirt, and ran to the ice-box. A cool, humid breath of air came out to him as he opened the door and peered inside; it was dark within, and he felt about hoping to locate something he could take. His hand touched a plate of cheese, and he drew forth a good-sized chunk. There was a rattle of dishes from the kitchen. Ellick’s voice came to his ears.
“Leggy, you just hurry up now and bring in de butter from de ice-box!”
Leggy’s dragging footsteps sounded across the floor. With frenzied haste Blackie grabbed at whatever happened to be under his hand. It proved to be a slice of ham. Slamming the ice-box door, he clattered across to the exit and ran out of the skinny kitchen-helper’s sight. That had been a close squeak! Pausing only to stuff the ham and cheese into the pockets of his sweater, he darted around behind the wooden building that was used for an ice-house and gained the rutted road that led toward the mountains. Here he found his blanket roll and accouterments, slipped the roll over his head and hooked the ax and lantern on his belt, and trotted westward through the woods.
Half a mile up the road, where it turned at right angles to climb the mountainside, Blackie paused and took his first compass observation. His course was northwest; but he remembered that if he looked at the compass only now and then, he might go wide of his goal; the thing to do was to take an observation, note a landmark ahead in line with the NW on the compass, make straight for that place, and from there make a new observation on another landmark. The little shifting needle showed him that his first leg of the journey should take him diagonally up the wooded mountain to a grayish, scarred slide of stones that showed ahead in the dropping sun. He knew what that was, although he had never been there. It was the terminal moraine Gil Shelton had pointed out to him the day he had first landed in camp—the Devil’s Potato Patch, the campers called it—a heap of blotched, round boulders known as a favorite resort for rattlesnakes.
Blackie knew he must hurry if he was to reach the Flatstone valley before dark. Pausing only to stow his plundered supply of food more snugly in his pockets and to shift his blanket-roll to the other shoulder, he set off across an expanse of marshy pasture land toward his first goal. The deer-flies swarmed about his face and neck, stinging pitilessly, and he increased his pace as much as he could to get away from them. He had been prudent enough to wear his heavy hiking shoes, but in several places he floundered into muddy pools and sank into dirty water over his ankles. At last he reached the heavily-wooded base of the mountain, and was forced to slow down and begin a determined climb through the underbrush, up ledges of yellow, mossy rock, and across slippery patches of shale where he had to go slowly and watch his footing. Half-way up the mountainside, he gained the bottom of the terminal moraine. Huge rocks, gray with lichens and scratched in rough, random designs, stretched above him; he was forced to leap precariously from rock to rock, always upward, several times catching himself just in time to avoid a nasty headlong fall. Once, indeed, he slipped on a bit of moss, and toppled sidewise into a cranny between two of the boulders. His blanket-roll saved his body from being more than bruised; but in falling one hand slipped under his body, and his heavy electric flash-lamp banged down upon a rock, crushing one of his finger-tips badly. The darting pain brought tears to his eyes, and he shook the injured finger violently. Scrambling to his feet for fear he might have fallen close to the hiding-place of some vicious, venomous timber-rattler, he struggled on over the great rocks; and after what seemed like hours of toilsome climbing, he at last gained the top of the first ridge.
There, on the mountain’s top, the evening light was brighter, but in the valley he had just left the shadows were long and cool. He turned and faced toward the east. There was the lake, spreading like a polished deep mirror that reflected the gold and blue evening sky, the serried rows of trees along the margin. There were the ordered rows of white tents, the top of the lodge roof with smoke wreathing lazily from the stone chimney and with the bare flagpole standing up beyond. He could see Camp Lenape as if it were a toy model spread out at his feet, almost hidden in the gray-green foliage of the forest. A slight breeze brought to him the faint clatter of trays from the mess hall, the confused hum of campers’ voices. They would be almost finished supper, now. Wally and Haviland and Gallegher and the rest would be sitting about the mess-table, wondering where he had disappeared. Well, let them worry!
The thought of supper made him remember that he had had nothing to eat since dinner-time. He pulled out the piece of cheese he had looted from the ice-box, and began gnawing upon it. He could eat a little while he rested. He turned a bit to the left. Beyond the pasture-land he had crossed on his flight, he saw a line of trees that marked a lane. He knew that lane; it was the one which led to the hermit’s house, the road he had followed the night he had heard murder done by the two tramps, Reno and Lew. He could barely make out the weather-stained, mottled shingles of the roof of the house, and shivered slightly. He would be glad to go anywhere, anywhere away from the neighborhood of that grim house of crime.
Pulling out his compass, he marked a new line of march across the undulating summit of the mountain. It pointed toward a blasted pine taller than the rest, and he resolved to make for that. The going was easier here on the mountain; the daylight was clearer, and the trees were stunted and far apart, scrub pine and small oaks no more than waist-high, for the most part. Blackie trotted along with assurance, chewing upon a piece of raw ham torn from the slice in his pocket in lieu of supper. He crossed a ravine and stumbled up the other side; this took time, and now he could almost watch the sun dropping inch by inch toward the line of trees in the west. There was not a sign that human beings had ever passed that way; Blackie knew that no one ever penetrated that desolate wilderness except deer-hunters and blueberry pickers in the fall of the year. When he again gained level ground, he found that somehow he had lost sight of the blasted pine he had picked as a landmark. This did not trouble him much; he took out the compass and again sighted toward the northwest. His finger was bothering him more than anything else; the tip had swelled, and the nail was fast turning an angry purple color. It felt double its size, and as the boy swung along it throbbed and ached until Blackie was desperate with pain.
He had covered about a mile and a half since landing on the plateau on top of the ridge when he came to a section that was marked by long wooded swales, rank with rotting vegetation, crossing his path. The sun was dropping lower and lower; it shone like a flaming, bloody ball close to the horizon, and its slanting rays blinded his eyes until the woods about him seemed dim and unreal. He determined not to deviate from the line he had laid for himself, for fear of getting off the track; and when he came to the giant bole of a fallen tree, he tried to climb over it instead of going yards around. The knobs and splinters of the rotting trunk caught at his clothing and his equipment; while scrambling over the top he slipped and fell prostrate across it, knocking the breath from his lungs. A train of white ants crossed his arm, and when he crawled slowly and clumsily to his feet, he felt their red-hot stings on his wrist and up his sleeve. It seemed that the insects were everywhere under his clothing, jabbing their poisoned darts of pain into his skin. He jumped from the top of the trunk, landing on his face and scratching it until it was crossed by bloody lines. The ground now became marshy, and he was beset by a humming tribe of mosquitoes. Still he staggered on, until brought to a stop by a spread of green, scummy water that barred his path completely.
Blackie considered. At the rate the sun was disappearing, and at the rate he was taking to make a few miles across the mountains, he would never reach Newmiln by dark. It would mean a night alone in this unexplored region, a night of fighting mosquitoes and unceasing watchfulness for rattlesnakes, night-prowling animals, and perhaps worse. He remembered all the tales he had ever heard of lone travellers caught at nightfall in strange and desolate solitudes, of attacks by bears, wolves, ghosts of slain Indians. And suddenly, like a chilling cloak, fear came to him and enveloped him. He felt the short hairs of his neck rise and prickle; an icy finger trailed down his spine. He would have to get on; he must cross the swamp somehow, anyhow!
The water in the slimy pool was only a few inches deep; through the green scum he could see the muddy, coated bottom. Feverishly he looked about him, and seized a number of fallen branches that lay on the ground, filled with the idea of making a rough bridge by casting them across the few feet of swamp ahead. He worked furiously, and soon had a network of branches thrown ahead, across which he hoped to run and so gain the far side. There was no room behind him for a clear take-off; it would have to be a standing jump. He stood for a second, getting up his nerve; and with a leap he landed upon the center of the improvised bridge. There was a snapping crackle of branches—the ones he had chosen were ground branches, and rotten. They gave under his feet, breaking and sinking into the mud; and he fell headlong on his face into the sticky ooze.
The swamp was a sucking enemy, trying to drag him under and hold him close, until the foul waters should close over his head; it bubbled under him, seeming to chuckle like a fiend. Frantically he fought his way to an upright position; he was standing almost waist-deep in the slime. Urged on by fear, he floundered forward, caught at an overhanging bush, and pulled himself slowly to firm ground. There he lay for a minute, gasping with exhaustion and terror after his exertion. The lower half of his body was soaked with filthy mud; his face and blanket-roll were draggled and stained from his fall. But he must not stop; he must push on, onward to the northwest!
For ten minutes he wandered through the marshy swales, avoiding the frequent pools whenever he could. The forest was too thick for him to spot any landmark ahead, and he gave up the idea of climbing a tree for an observation, because it would take up too much of his precious time. At last the ground sloped upward again; open spaces began to appear; the footing was easier. He pushed on, deadly afraid to halt in that darkening place of horror.
Blackie never remembered afterwards very much what he did during the remainder of that twilight march. He had a picture of himself—a hungry, weary, frightened figure, dwarfed by the bigness and ominous vastness of that solitude, caked with drying muck, scratched with twigs and thorns, and ever followed by a cloud of stinging mosquitoes—fighting his way through the desolation. He had the feeling of one in a nightmare, when the dreamer is pursued by darkness and nameless horrors, and the very ground seems to rise and clutch and hold him back. And he remembered coming to the edge of the rhododendron thickets and feeling that he could not go on.
The tangled network of the rhododendrons fronted an implacable barrier to his steps. There was no way to go around. It offered little resistance as he first plunged into it, but as steadily as he advanced, as surely did the branching horns of the shrub take hold on him. It was like trying to walk through a gigantic wickerwork basket, woven of tough and intertwined saplings. Again and again he plunged like a line-bucking football guard, and inch by inch fought his way. In one place he tried to stoop and crawl beneath the clutching branches, and was caught among the roots as in a vise, until he felt that he could move neither forward nor backward, but would have to stay imprisoned in that dusky brake until he died of thirst and starvation. He gave a frantic heave, and was free to fight his way further. The shadows were lengthening; the clock of the sky warned him that his time was short.
In the midst of his trouble he began talking desperately to himself; and finally he broke into high-pitched, shouting song. Over and over again he roared out to the brooding silence of the woods every hymn-tune he had ever heard. Ridiculously, he thought this would protect him from the unnamed evils of the place, and the singing certainly bolstered his courage.
“Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,The darkness deepens—Lord, with me abide——”
“Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens—Lord, with me abide——”
He had lost his hat, he did not remember where. Plunge—plunge—forward through the gripping coppice!
“When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
“When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
At last! He gave a wild cry and broke through the last entangling thicket, and the rhododendrons crackled closed behind him. He was free again!
He did not pause to take any more compass courses, or to straighten his clothing or pack, or to snatch a bite of food. He broke into a staggering run. His flight took him for about half a mile, into the bloodshot eye of the sun. He was dripping with perspiration, and heaving great shaking sobs. A fallen pine tripped him and he rolled heavily down a steep bank. When he picked himself up he found that he was standing on a dimly-traced path through the woods—a bare, almost invisible trail, but a path nevertheless, leading in what he thought was the direction he should follow.
A path meant that humans passed that way at some time or another, and might lead to habitations and possible discovery. But the forest terrors so clouded the boy’s mind that he welcomed any companionship, no matter what kind. It would at least give him company and allies against the loneliness that beset him. It was growing dark; a blue jay somewhere overhead was bickering to himself among the pine branches. Blackie trotted down the path.
It led him along a wooded ledge of naked rock, and down across a marshy flat place where a brook widened and lost itself in a dense hedge of rushes. He crossed on a series of flat stones, and ascended a little hill. One look, and he gave a shout of surprise.
There, spread before him beyond the margin of the reeds, was a long flat sheet of water, a mountain tarn whose unruffled surface, like a plate of polished steel, gave off the last dying beams of sunset. He had come too far to the south; he was off the course he had laid for Newmiln Center. This must be Black Pond, the long body of water he had seen marked on the map in the camp lodge.
The pond, hidden among the rocks and dark trees of the mountain, at no time had a friendly look; now, at nightfall, it presented to the weary boy a face full of sinister threat. He was several miles out of his way; further progress that night was impossible. He would have to camp here on Black Pond.
He was just turning away to locate a camping place, when his eye was caught by something which he had not noticed in his brief survey of the pond and its surroundings. Through the trees to the right a thin wisp of smoke was curling up in a languid spiral.
Someone was camping beside the pond! Blackie did not hesitate; the fear of spending the night alone offered no choice. He ran to the end of the path. There, beside the still waters of Black Pond, was a small shack rudely knocked together from rough pine slabs and chinked with moss. The spreading wings and steel-edged talons of a hawk, shot at some time or another, were nailed to the wall near the low door, in the usual back-country fashion. The smoke of a fire came from a stone chimney at one end. A small rowboat with a puddle in the bottom was drawn up on the muddy shore.
Blackie paused for a moment. He didn’t like the looks of the place, but beggars can’t be choosers; it was now quite dark, and the smoke indicated a cheery fire inside. Some hunter or fisherman, who used this small hut for his camp, must be inside. Blackie tiptoed to the door and knocked hesitantly.
From beyond the rough barrier came a startled grunt, the sound of a body moving swiftly across the hut. Blackie knocked again, growing more and more concerned as the silence continued.
With a sudden jerk the door was flung open, and a man’s figure appeared outlined in the firelight, with one arm menacingly upraised, wielding what seemed to be a short iron bar. Blackie Thorne stared, and gave a shrill scream of fright.
He was looking in the face of the man called Reno, one of the two tramps he had overheard on the night of the snipe hunt planning to rob old Rattlesnake Joe of his imaginary treasure! He could plainly see the seamed face, the gray unshaven jowls, and the green eye-patch of that sinister character.
The tramp was as surprised as the boy. “In the devil’s name, it’s a kid!” he bellowed. “A kid, Lew! Nab ’im, quick!” He made a dive for Blackie, but the boy, pulled by terror, had already taken to his legs back up the path—away, away from that evil face in the hut. He stumbled frantically through the dark—the further away from Black Pond, the better! Behind him he could hear the baffled howling of Reno. He would escape yet——
He stumbled, felt a pair of gripping arms about him, holding him tight so that he could not struggle. A hoarse voice called, “Here he is, Reno! Got the bloody little rat!”