The motion of the sloop seemed to cease, as if by magic. Tubby felt himself hurled forward into darkness by the shock. His head crashed against something, and a world of brilliant constellations swam in a glittering array before his eyes. Then something in his head seemed to give way with a snap, and young Hopkins knew no more.
“Hullo! Wonder what’s become of those two fellows?”
Merritt voiced the inquiry, as he and Rob emerged from the police station. The sergeant in charge had promised to do all he could to apprehend the stealers of the pocketbook if they were anywhere within striking distance of Aquebogue.
Rob looked about him. There stood the automobile. But of the two lads they had left to guard it there was no sign. After waiting a reasonable time, the two Boy Scout leaders began to feel real alarm.
“Somehow I feel as if Hunt and his gang have got something to do with this,” murmured Rob uneasily.
“It does seem queer,” admitted Merritt. “Let’s look around a bit more, and then, if we find no trace of them, we’ll go back to the police station and look for aid.”
“All right; I guess that’s the best thing to do.”
But, as we know, it was impossible that their search could terminate in anything but failure. Not a little worried, Rob informed their friend, the sergeant, of what had occurred. That official at once galvanized into action. Before this, he had not seemed to take much interest in their affairs. But now he really moved quickly. By telephone he summoned two detectives, and the lads soon put them in possession of the facts in the case.
“Pretty slim grounds to work on,” remarked one of them with a shrug.
Rob could not but feel that this was true. After their consultation with the detectives, who at once set out to scour the place for some trace of Hunt and his crew, the two lads, much dispirited, and with heavy hearts, set out for home. They arrived there in the early morning, and turned in for a brief sleep. As Rob had expected, his father was not at all pleased when he learned of the nocturnal use made of his car, and of the serious consequences which had ensued. But Major Dangerfield, who had listened to the lad’s story with interest—it was related at the breakfast table—was inclined to take a less serious view of the matter.
“After all, Mr. Blake,” he said, “the boys behaved like true Boy Scouts. It was their duty to try to aid in the matter of the pocketbook, and they did their best. I think that it was cleverly done, too.”
“But young Hopkins and Hiram are missing,” protested Mrs. Blake. “What will their parents say?”
“I don’t think, from my observation of Master Hopkins, that he is the kind of lad to get into serious difficulties,” said the major. “In fact, I am convinced that he has stumbled across some clew and is following it up.”
“I hope it may be so, and that both of them are safe,” said Mrs. Blake fervently.
The first duty, after the morning meal, was to call on Mrs. Hopkins, who was a widow, and also on Hiram’s parents, and explain the case. It was not a pleasant task, but Rob saw it through with Spartan courage. He succeeded in quelling the first vivid alarm of the lads’ parents, however, and promised to return with news of them before the day was over. This done, Major Dangerfield, Merritt and Rob set out in the Blake car for Aquebogue.
“It is your duty as Boy Scouts to find your missing comrades,” said Mr. Blake, as the car started off.
“We’ll do it, if it’s possible——” began Merritt dolefully.
“We’ll do it, anyway,” said Rob stoutly.
“That’s the right Scout way to talk,” said the major commendingly, “that is the spirit that will win.”
No news greeted them on their arrival in Aquebogue. The two detectives were still out on the case, and the officials in charge had nothing to report. This was discouraging, but before long one of the detectives arrived with an important clew. He carried in his hand a paper package. On being opened, it proved to contain two pairs of shoes, of Boy Scout pattern. Rob and Merritt immediately identified them as belonging to Hiram and young Hopkins. The major seemed much impressed by the value of this bit of evidence, and before many minutes had passed they were all in the auto and spinning toward the spot where the articles of apparel had been discovered.
The detectives, it transpired, had not yet explored the hut, and Rob’s keen eyes were the first to spy the jagged hole in its roof. He at once set his scout training to work. The first thing he observed was that the hole had been freshly torn. An investigation of the inside of the hut showed the traces of the fight between Hiram and young Hunt.
All at once Rob gave a sharp exclamation, and pounced on some object in a corner of the place. Its bright glitter, as the light fell on it through the hole in the roof, had attracted him at first. True Scout as he was, Rob did not allow even the minutest object to escape his scrutiny. In this case, he was richly rewarded, for what he had seen turned out to be a Scout button. It was one that had been torn from Hiram’s coat in the struggle.
“This is conclusive evidence that the two lads were here,” decided the major. “What else can you deduce from what you have seen, Rob?”
The leader of the Eagle Patrol pondered a moment. Then he spoke.
“In the first place,” he said decidedly, “it is evident that Tubby and Hiram in some way got on the track of our enemies in the town. They followed them here. That is proved by the finding of their shoes on that dune near the hut. They took their shoes off for some object, of course. Evidently it must have been to silently observe the men who occupied this shanty. By looking at the footmarks in the sand outside, I traced them to the wall of the place. The steps did not turn in at the door, therefore, obviously, they must have climbed on the roof, for the steps ended at the low-hanging eaves, and they do not go back.
“An examination of the roof shows that it must have given way under their combined weight. See, that beam is as brittle as match-wood, from dry rot. They could not have been hurt—at least, I don’t think so—or this button, which must have been torn off in a struggle, for they are tightly sewn on, would not have been found.”
“Very good,” approved the major. “I have seen Indian scouts on the border who could not have done much better. But what is the next step?”
“To find out what has become of them, of course,” put in Merritt.
“Well, let’s see how close we can come to deciding that,” said the major, with a side glance at the detectives, who seemed puzzled and bewildered at the swift deductive work of the young Scout.
Merritt left the hut and made a hasty examination of the numerous tracks without. He then scrutinized the muddy banks of the inlet closely. The tide was not yet full, and the marks of the sloop’s keel still showed. Also sand had been tracked on to the little wharf. It was evident that a vessel of some sort had lain there between tides. Equally plain did it appear, that the two missing lads had been carried on board her. Merritt lost no time in communicating his discoveries to his companions.
“You have done well,” commended the former army officer, “I am convinced that your deductions are, in the main, correct. But now the thing is to get some craft to go in pursuit of these fellows.”
“Ike Menjes, up the creek a little way, has a big gasoline launch he lets out,” volunteered one of the detectives.
“We’ll get it if possible,” said the major instantly. “Is she a fast boat?”
“None quicker hereabouts,” said the other arm of the law.
Ten minutes later a bargain had been struck, and with Ike Menjes at the engine, and Rob at the wheel, the swift launchAlgonquinwas dashing off down the winding creek headed for the open sea. As she tumbled and rolled through the rough waters of the bar at the creek’s mouth, Rob’s eye swept the sky.
“Bad weather coming,” he remarked.
“No need to worry in this craft,” declared Ike; “she’s weathered the worst we ever get off here.”
“I expect so,” agreed the major, with an approving glance at the craft’s broad lines and generous beam.
Before many moments had passed, Rob’s prediction came true. TheAlgonquin, without any diminution of speed, was being pushed along through a rapidly rising sea, while the wind howled about her, growing stronger every moment. Rob caught himself wondering what sort of a craft the kidnappers of the boys possessed. He hoped it was staunch, for in his judgment the blow was going to be a bad one.
“It’ll get worser before it gets betterer,” opined Ike Menjes, coming forward from his engines and peering ahead at the tumbling masses of green water. The rising wind caught their tops and feathered them off in masses of snowy spume. Overhead, dark, ragged clouds raced along. So low did they hang that they seemed almost to touch the crests of the angry waves.
Each time theAlgonquintopped a roller and then staggered down into a deep trough, Rob scanned the surrounding sea eagerly. But no sign, had, so far, appeared, of any craft resembling the one which they knew must have left the creek. Seaward some sails showed, but they were all those of large coasting schooners.
The craft they were in search of was, no doubt, a smallish vessel, otherwise she could not have negotiated the narrow, winding creek, with its innumerable bends and shallow places.
“Keep more in shore,” advised Ike. “They may have hugged the land to get the benefit of the weather shore.”
Rob headed closer in toward the low-lying coast. He could see the waves breaking angrily in white masses on the sandy beach. All at once, above a distant point of land, he sighted the gray shoulder of a sail. The next instant it had vanished.
Had it found an opening through which to slip into an inlet in the bleak coast, or had it foundered in the wild breakers?
The question agitated Rob hugely. Some intuition told him that the craft he had glimpsed had been the one they were in search of, but of its fate they could have no immediate knowledge.
When young Hopkins came to himself, he was dimly conscious that the driving motion of the sloop had ceased. Instead, lying there in the pitchy darkness of the hold, he could feel the vessel being struck with what appeared to be mighty blows from a Titanic hammer. Tubby guessed instantly, from the sensations, that they were aground, and that what he felt was the terrific bombardment of enormous breakers.
A swift “overhauling” of himself soon showed the lad that he was not hurt, although the blow on his head, when he had been hurled from the ladder, had stunned him. Of how long he had been unconscious, he had, of course, no knowledge. Worse still, he could not form any idea of how to get out of his dark prison, and he realized that he had no time to lose if he wanted to save Hiram and himself.
Risking the chance that their enemies were prowling about, waiting for the lad to declare himself, Tubby set up a shout.
“Hiram! Oh, Hiram!”
In the intervals of the crashing blows that shook the frail sloop from stem to stern, Tubby listened intently. But for some time no answering cry came to greet him. Then all at once he thought he caught a feeble shout. He responded, and the cry came more distinctly. Guided by it, he made his way aft with considerable difficulty. Presently a dim, gray light, filtering through the blackness, apprised him that he was nearing the door in the bulkhead through which he had blundered into the hold. A moment more and he had passed through the engine-room and was in the cabin. Hiram, looking pale and wild, was clinging to a stanchion. Water had come into the cabin through a broken port, and was washing about the floor.
“Oh, Tubby, I’m so glad you’ve come. Where have you been?” breathed the unfortunate Hiram, weak and shaky from his bout with seasickness. “What is happening?”
“I guess we’re aground somewhere,” rejoined Tubby. “I’m going to see.”
He made for the companionway and rattled the door at the top. As he had dreaded, it was locked. They were prisoners on board a doomed vessel. For an instant even young Hopkins’ resourcefulness came to a standstill. His heart seemed to stop beating. His head swam madly. Was this to be the end of them, to be drowned miserably, like two captive rats?
But the next instant the thought of their plight acted as a stimulus. “A true Scout should never say die,” thought the boy, and then, retracing his steps, he joined Hiram.
“What’s become of Hunt and his outfit?” he asked.
“Why, Stonington Hunt and Freeman passed through the cabin a few minutes ago,” replied Hiram, “right after that terrible bump——”
“When the sloop struck,” thought Tubby. Aloud he said:
“Well?”
“I heard them say that you were done for, and that I could be left to drown.”
“Yes, yes, Hiram; but did they say anything about escaping themselves?”
“Yes. I heard them shouting on deck to cut loose the boat. Then I heard a lot of noise. I guess they launched her. That’s all, till I heard you shouting back in there.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Tubby; “so they left us to perish on this old sloop, eh? Well, Hiram, we’ll fool ’em. We’ll get away yet in spite of them.” In talking thus, young Hopkins assumed a confidence he was far from feeling, but he deemed it best to stimulate Hiram with hope.
“Got any matches?” was his next question.
Hiram nodded, and presently handed out a box.
“Good. Now follow me. By the way, how’s the seasickness?”
“Oh, better, but I feel shaky yet. I can manage, though.”
“That’s the stuff—wough!”
A heavier blow than usual had been dealt the sloop. The two lads could feel her quiver and quake under the concussion like a live thing.
“Come on, we’ve got to move quick,” said Tubby. Striking a match, he set off into the hold. Hiram followed. Before long they stood at the foot of the ladder from which Tubby had been so violently flung a short time before.
The stout youth darted up it with an agility one would not have expected in a boy of his girth. With the strongest shove of which he was capable, he pushed up the scuttle above.
To his great joy, it gave, swinging back on hinges. But, as he opened it fully, Tubby came nearly being hurled from the ladder for the second time. A great mass of green water swept across the deck at that instant, and the full force of the torrent descended into the hole through the open hatch. Luckily, Tubby had seen it coming in time to warn Hiram, and the downeast lad clung on tightly enough to avoid being carried from his foothold.
In a jiffy young Hopkins clambered through, shouting to Hiram to follow him. It was a wild scene that met both boys’ eyes when they emerged on the deck of the stranded sloop. She lay in a small inlet which, though partially sheltered, in hard storms was swept by the seas from outside. The sloop was heeled over to one side at so steep an angle that standing on her wet decks was impossible without clinging to something.
About three hundred yards away lay the shore, a wild, uninhabited expanse of wind-swept sand dunes, overgrown with dull, green and prickly beach-grass. No sign of a human habitation could be discerned. Outside on the beach the big seas thundered, flinging masses of white foam skyward. It seemed almost impossible that she could have been navigated through the narrow inlet leading into the small bay where she had stranded. As a matter of fact, it had been more by luck than by design that she had accomplished the passage.
All at once, as the two castaways stood looking about them, a figure bobbed up from behind one of the sand hills. It was instantly recognized by Tubby as Stonington Hunt. The lad now saw that a boat lay on the beach; evidently then, that was how they had reached the shore, as Hiram had surmised. Hunt had apparently been seeking shelter from the storm behind the dune, with the rest of his band. As his eyes fell on the figures of the two Boy Scouts standing on the deck of the stranded sloop, he beckoned toward the dune. Instantly there appeared the rest of the lads’ enemies.
They stood staring for a few minutes, as if amazed to see the Boy Scouts. But before they had time to take any action, an astonishing thing happened.
The sloop began to move.
The incoming tide, which had been steadily rising, had floated her, and she gradually reeled off the sand bank, on which she had struck, into open water. As she did so, Tubby suddenly ducked low, and something whistled by his head. Above the wind came the crack of a firearm’s report. Gazing toward Stonington Hunt, Tubby saw that the man held a revolver in his hand. It was from this weapon, evidently, that the projectile had been discharged.
“Get out of the way, Hiram, quick!” exclaimed the stout lad, for he now saw that the others were preparing to discharge pistols at them. It was apparent that they did not mean the boys to escape if they could avoid it.
But Tubby had suddenly thought of a plan. It had been born in his mind when the sloop rolled off the shoal into deep water. He knew something of gasoline engines from his experiences on board theFlying Fish. Why would it not be possible to get out of the little and dangerous bay under motor power? The shots hastened his decision. Clearly if they remained where they were, destruction swift and certain threatened. Stonington Hunt did not mean to let them land, so much was only too apparent.
Before the men left the sloop they had hauled down the canvas, probably in an effort to keep her from grounding. It was the work of an instant for Tubby to dash below and give a turn to the rear starting device on the engine. It worked perfectly. Then he turned on the gasolene, easily finding the connection, and threw on the switch. A blue spark showed that the current was on. Then, with a beating heart he turned the starting device once more.
Bang!
The engine moved. To the lad’s delight it worked steadily. This done, he darted back on deck and took the wheel. He was not a moment too soon, for, with no one at the helm, the craft was heading once more for the sand bank. Crouching beneath the stern bulwarks, and ordering Hiram to do the same, young Hopkins navigated the sloop skilfully ahead, steering straight for the open sea. Tempestuous as it was, the sloop seemed still staunch, and he felt they were safer there than in such close proximity to Hunt. Especially since they were followed by an unceasing fire from the pistols of the gang. But although some of the shots splintered the bulwarks, sending showers of slivers about the two crouching lads, neither were hit.
At last, after a dozen hair-raising escapes on the choppy bar, the sloop gained the outside, and throwing showers of spray high over her bluff bows, began to breast the sweep of the seas.
“Go below and take a look at the glass oil cups,” ordered Tubby as soon as they were safe from the firing, “if any of them are empty fill them. There is an oil can on a shelf beside the motor.”
Glad to do anything to help out, Hiram hastened on this errand. He was below about ten minutes. When he returned on deck his face was white, and he was breathing quickly. Tubby’s quick eye noted, too, that the lad was wet to the waist.
“What’s up below?” he demanded.
“The cabin’s half full of water, and it seems to be rising every minute;” was the disquieting reply.
At the same instant the sloop’s motion stopped and she began rolling in a sickening fashion in the troughs of the mighty seas.
“Jehoshaphat!” exclaimed Scout Hopkins, “we’re in for it now. The water’s reached the engine and it’s stopped!”
As he spoke a gigantic mountain of green water suddenly towered right above the helpless sloop. Its crest seemed to overtop the mast tip. Automatically Tubby crouched low and reached out a hand for Hiram.
The next instant the wave swept down on them enveloping the lads in a turmoil of salt water. The two boys were swept away in the liquid avalanche like feathers before a gale.
When the wave had passed, the wreck of the sloop could be seen staggering and wallowing like a stricken thing. But of her two recent occupants there was no trace upon the wilderness of heaving waters.
From the bow of theAlgonquinRob kept his eyes riveted on the spot at which he had seen the sloop vanish. But for some time he could see nothing but the billowing crests of the waves. Suddenly, to his astonishment, from the midst of the combing summits, there was revealed the swaying mast of the sloop, cutting great arcs dizzily across the lowering sky.
As theAlgonquinclimbed to a wave top the entire length of the sloop was disclosed to the lad’s gaze. On her deck he could now plainly see two figures.
“Got a glass?” he inquired of Ike.
“Sure,” responded that individual, floundering forward with a pair of binoculars.
Rob clapped them to his eyes. The figures of Hiram and Tubby Hopkins swam into the field of vision. At the same instant, or so it seemed, Rob made out the wall of green water rushing downward upon the sloop.
While a cry of alarm still quivered upon his lips, the sloop rallied an instant, and then—was wiped out!
The others had pressed forward too, and theAlgonquinhad, by that time, gotten close enough for them all to witness the marine tragedy.
“Steady, Rob,” exclaimed the major, his hand on Rob’s shoulder, “they may be all right yet.”
Rob’s face was white and set, but he nodded bravely. It seemed impossible that anything living could have escaped from the overwhelming avalanche of water.
Merritt seized the glasses as Rob set them down to take the wheel again. He peered through them with straining eyes.
“Hullo, what’s that off in the water there?” he shouted suddenly, pointing.
The next instant the object he had descried had vanished in the trough of a sea.
“Could you make out anybody?” asked the major anxiously.
“It looked like a spar with—Yes, there are two figures clinging to it.”
“Here, let me look!” Rob snatched the glasses out of his comrade’s hand.
“Hooray!” he cried the next instant, “it’s Tubby and Hiram!”
“Are you sure?” asked the major, “perhaps it’s some members of Hunt’s crew.”
“No, it’s Tubby and Hiram. I can make out their uniforms,” cried Rob. As he spoke he swung the wheel over, and theAlgonquin’shead was turned in the direction of the spot where a spar with two objects clinging to it had last been seen.
“Wonder what can have become of Hunt and his crowd?” said Merritt presently.
“Maybe they’ve met with a watery grave,” conjectured one of the detectives, “and from what you’ve told me it would be a good end for them.”
“If they hain’t taken that pocket-book with them,” put in his companion, “the kidnapping of those boys was as desperate a bit of work as I’ve ever heard tell of.”
In a brief time the two lads, none the worse apparently for their immersion, had been hauled on board theAlgonquin, and were being plied with eager questions.
“I guess I caught on to that boom more by instinct than anything else,” explained Tubby, “when I got the water out of my lungs I looked about me and saw that Hiram had grabbed it too.”
“That’s what I call luck,” said one of the detectives in a wondering tone.
“It surely was,” agreed Hiram, “but I guess there’s a bigger bit coming.”
“What do you mean?” asked the major, struck by something odd in the lad’s tone.
For answer Tubby thrust a hand into an inside pocket of his coat and drew forth something that, dripping with water as it was, could be easily recognized as—the missing pocket-book!
Tubby drew forth the missing pocket-book.Tubby drew forth the missing pocket-book.
Tubby drew forth the missing pocket-book.
“I guess they forgot to search me for it in the excitement following the collapse of the roof. I’m sorry it got wet, major,” he added.
But the major and the others could only regard the fat boy with wondering eyes. Suddenly the major, the first to recover his senses, spoke:
“I don’t know how I’m ever to thank you for this, Hopkins——,” he began.
“Tell you how you can,” spoke the irrepressible Tubby swiftly.
“How, my boy?”
“By taking us some place where we can get something to eat,” quoth Tubby, “I’m so hungry I could demolish the left hind leg of a brass monkey without winking.”
* * * * * * * *
From the tumbling waves of an angry sea to the cool shadows of a magnificent forest of chestnut and oak may be a long distance to travel, but such is the jump over time and space that we must make if we wish to accompany our Boy Scouts to their Mountain Camp. The evening sun, already almost touching the peaks of the nearest range, was striking level shafts of light through the forest as our party came to a halt, and Major Dangerfield ordered the canoes, by which they had traversed the smooth stretches of Echo Lake, hauled ashore.
It was more than three days since the party had left the shores of Lake Champlain. The passage of the lake from its lower end had been made by canoes. The same craft they were now using had transported them. There were three of the frail, delicate little vessels. One was blue, another a rich Indian red, and the third a dark green.
The canoes had been purchased by Major Dangerfield at Lakehead, a small town at which they left the railroad. They had been stocked with provisions and equipment for their long dash into the solitudes of the Adirondacks. Reaching Dangerfield, the canoes had been transported overland till the first of a chain of lakes, leading into the interior, had been reached. Here, to the boys’ huge delight, they once more took to the water.
In the party were Rob, Merritt, young Hopkins, Hiram and little Andy Bowles, the bugler of the Eagles. Andy had been brought along because, as Rob had said, he was so little he would tuck in anywhere. Of course there had been keen regret on the part of the lads who were, of necessity, left behind. But they had borne it with true scout spirit and wished their lucky comrades all the good fortune in the world, when they embarked from Hampton.
Travel had bronzed the lads and stained and crumpled their smart uniforms. But they looked very fit and scout-like as they bustled about, making the various preparations for the evening’s camp. Two members of the party have not yet been mentioned. One of these was a tall, lanky man with a pair of big horn-rimmed spectacles set athwart his nose, and arrayed in a queer combination of woodsman’s clothes and a pedant’s immaculate dress. He had retained a white lawn tie and long black coat, but his nether limbs were encased in corduroys and gaiters, with a pair of big, square-toed shoes protruding beneath. On his head was an odd-looking round, black hat, which was always getting knocked into the water or caught on branches and swept off. This queer figure was Professor Jeremiah Jorum.
The second addition to the party was the major’s factotum, Christopher Columbus Julius Pompey Snaggs. But for purposes of identification he answered to the name of Jumbo. Jumbo was a big-framed negro, intensely black and with a sunny, child-like disposition. He had a propensity for coining words to suit his convenience, deeming the King’s English insufficient in scope to express his emotions.
Standing on the sandy strip of beach as he emerged from the red canoe, with a load of “duffle,” Jumbo gazed about him in an interested way.
“Dis sutt’in’ly am a glumpferiferous spot to locate a camp,” he remarked, letting his big eyes roll from the tranquil expanse of lake, fringed with feathery balsams and firs, to the slope above him clothed in its growth of fine timber, some of it hundreds of years old.
“Here you, Jumbo, hurry up with that bedding and then clean those fish!”
The voice was the major’s. It hailed from a level spot a short distance above the sandy beach. On this small plateau, the canvas “tepees” the Boy Scouts carried were already erected, and a good fire was burning between two green logs.
“Yas, sah, yas, sah! I’se a comin’,” hailed the negro, lumbering up among the loose rock, and almost spilling his load in his haste, “I’se a coming so quintopulous dat you all kain’t see muh fer de dus’ I’se raisin’.”
Before long the fish, caught by trolling as they came along, were frizzling in the pan, and spreading an appetizing odor abroad. The aroma of coffee and camp biscuit mingled with the other appetizing smells.
“Race anybody down to the lake for a wash!” shouted Rob suddenly.
In a flash he was off, followed by Merritt, Hiram and Tubby. Little Andy Bowles, with his bugle suspended from his shoulders by a cord of the Eagle colors, hurried along behind on his stumpy little legs.
“I win!” shouted Rob as he, with difficulty, paused on the brink of the lake. But hardly were the words out of his mouth before Merritt flashed up beside him.
“Almost a dead heat,” laughed Rob, “I——But hullo, what’s all this?”
Above them came a roar of sliding gravel and stones that sounded like an avalanche. In the midst of it was Tubby, his rotund form dashing forward at a great rate. His legs were flashing like the pistons of a racing locomotive as he plunged down the hillside.
“Here, stop! stop!” shouted Rob, “you’ll be in the lake in a minute!”
But the warning came too late. Tubby’s heavy weight could not be checked so easily. Faster he went, and faster, striving in vain to stop himself.
“He’s gone!” yelled Merritt the next instant, as a splash announced that Tubby had plunged into the lake water.
In a flash the fat boy was on the surface. But he was “dead game,” and while his comrades shouted with laughter he swam about, puffing like a big porpoise.
“Come on in, the water’s fine,” he exclaimed.
“Even with your uniform on?” jeered Hiram.
“Sure! Oh-ouch! what’s that?”
The fat boy had perceived a queer-looking head suddenly obtrude from the water close to him. It was evident that he was not the only one to enjoy an evening swim that day. A big water snake was sharing his involuntary bath with him.
Tubby struck out with might and main for shore, and presently reached it, dripping profusely. The major, when he heard of the occurrence, ordered a change of clothes. When this had been made, Andy’s bugle sounded the quick lively notes of the mess call, and the Boy Scouts and their elders gathered round the table which the boys’ deft hands had composed of flat slabs of birch bark supported on trestles of green wood. They sat on camp stools which they carried with them. How heartily they ate! They had the appetites that are born of woods and open places.
“Mah goodness, dose boys mus’ have stumicks lak der olyphogenius mammaothstikuscudsses!” exclaimed Jumbo as he hurried to and from his cooking fire in response to constant demands for “more.”
Supper concluded, the talk naturally fell to the object of their expedition. The chart or map of the treasure-trove’s location was brought out and pored over in the firelight, for the nights were quite sharp, and a big fire had been lighted.
“How soon do you think we will be within striking distance of the place?” inquired Rob.
“Within two or three days, I should estimate,” replied the former officer, “but of course we may be delayed. For instance, we have a portage ahead of us.”
“A-a—how much?” asked Tubby.
“A portage. That means a point of land round which it would not be practicable to canoe. At such a place we shall have to take the canoes out of the water and carry them over the projection of land to the next lake.”
“Anybody who wants it can have my share of that job,” said Tubby, “I guess I’ll delegate Andy Bowles to carry out my part.”
There was a general laugh at the idea of what a comical sight the diminutive bugler would present staggering along under the weight of a canoe.
“Andy would look like a little-neck clam under its shell,” chuckled Merritt.
“Well, you can’t always gauge the quality of the goods by the size of the package they come in,” chortled Andy, “look at Tubby, for instance. He——”
But the fat boy suddenly projected himself on the little bugler. But Andy, though small, was tough as a roll of barbed wire. He resisted the fat lad’s attack successfully and the two struggled all over the level place on which the camp had been pitched.
Finally, however, they approached so near to the edge that Rob interfered.
“You’ll roll down the slope into the lake in another minute,” he said. “Two baths a day would be too much for Tubby. Besides, he’d raise the water and swamp the canoes.”
The fat youth, with a pretence of outraged dignity, sought his tepee and engaged himself in cleaning his twenty-two rifle. After a while, though, he emerged from his temporary obscurity, and joined the group about the fire, who were happily discussing plans.
“One good thing is that we have plenty of arms,” volunteered Hiram, “in case Hunt and his gang attack us we can easily keep them off.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed the professor, “surely you don’t contemplate any such unlawful acts, major?”
“As shooting at folks you mean,” laughed the major. “No indeed, my dear professor. But if those rascals attack us I hope we shall be able to tackle them without any other weapons than those nature has given us.”
“I owe Freeman Hunt a good punch,” muttered Tubby. “I’d like to make the dust fly around his heels with this rifle.”
“Goodness, you talk like a regular ‘Alkali Ike’,” grinned Hiram.
“Bet you I could hit an apple at two hundred yards with this rifle, anyway,” asserted the stout youth.
“Bet my hunting knife you can’t.”
“All right, we’ll try to-morrow. This rifle is a dandy, I tell you.”
“Pooh! It won’t carry a hundred yards.”
“It won’t, eh? It’ll carry half a mile, the man who sold it to me said so.”
“Minds me uv er gun my uncle had daown in Virginny,” put in Jumbo who had been an interested listener, “that thar gun was ther mos’ umbliquitos gun I ever hearn’ tell uv.”
“It was a long distance shooter, eh?” laughed the major, scenting some fun.
“Long distance, sah! Why, majah, sah, dat gun hadn’t no ekil fo’ long distancenessness. Dat gun ’ud shoot—it ’ud shoot de eye out uv er lilly fly des as fur as you could see.”
“It would, really, Jumbo?” inquired Andy Bowles, deeply interested.
“It sho’ would fer sartain shuh, Massa Bowles.”
“Pshaw, that’s nothing,” scoffed Tubby, with a wink at the others. The fun-loving youth scented a joke. “My uncle had a gun that once killed a deer at three miles.”
“At free miles, Massa Hopkins?”
“Yes. It sounds incredible I know, but they had the state surveyor measure off the ground and sure enough it was three miles.”
“Um-ho!” exclaimed Jumbo, blinking at the fire, “dat’s a wun’ful gun shoh ’nuff. But mah uncle’s gun hed it beat.”
“Impossible, Jumbo!” exclaimed the major.
“Yas, sah, it deed. Mah uncle’s gun done cahhey so fah dat mah uncle he done hed ter put salt on his bullets befo’ he fahed dem.”
“Put salt on his bullets before he fired them, Jumbo! What on earth for?” demanded Rob while the others bent forward interestedly.
“Jes’ becos of de distance at which dat rifle killed,” explained Jumbo. “Yo’ see, and especially in warm weather, dat salt was needed, ’cos it took mah uncle such a time te git to it after he done kill it dat if those bullets weren’t salted the game would hev spoiled. Yes, sah, da’s a fac’, majah.”
A dead silence fell over the camp at the conclusion of this interesting narrative. You could have heard a pin drop. At last the major said, in a solemn voice:
“Jumbo, I fear you are an exaggerator.”
“Ah specs’ ah is, majah. I specs’ ah is, but you know dat zaggerators is bo’n and not made, lak potes.”
Then the laughter broke loose. The hillside echoed with it, and Jumbo, who deemed that he had been called a most complimentary term by the major, gazed from one to the other in a highly puzzled way.
“Reminds me of old Uncle Hank who keeps a grocery store near my uncle’s farm up in Vermont,” put in Hiram. “One night in the store they were talking about potato bugs. One old fellow said he had seen twenty potato bugs on one stalk.
“‘’Pshaw!’ said an old man named Abner Deene, ‘that’s nothing. Why, up in my potato patch they’ve eaten everything up and now when I go outdoors I kin see ’em sitting around the lot, on trees and fences, waitin’ fer me ter plant over ag’in.’
“Then it came the turn of an old fellow named Cyrus Harper. Cyrus laughed at Abner.
“‘Sittin’ roun’ on fences,’ he sniffed, ‘that’s nuffin’. Nuffin’ at all. Why whar I come from the potato bugs come right into the kitchen, open the oven doors and yank the red hot baking potatoes out of the stove.’
“My uncle hadn’t said a thing all this time, but now he struck in.