“What is it, Giraffe?” he called out, even before the other had arrived.
“Yes, tell us what ails you, and why you’ve been running so fast?” Step Hen went on to say, as they all crowded around the panting runner.
“You guessed right, Thad!” said Giraffe, looking toward the patrol leader.
“About what?” demanded Step Hen.
“Why, that it’d be dangerous for us to try and stick to the old bug of a shanty boat, with all that wind blowing,” came the reply.
“Has she gone, Giraffe?” demanded Thad quickly, and the other nodded eagerly.
“Cleaned out, as sure as anything, and not a sign of her around, as far as I could see,” he went on to explain.
“Then it must have been the great big blast that set her adrift,” Davy added, doing his best to explain the mystery. “It was enough to whip her off the shore, with the water rising all the while. Well, that settles it for us.”
“How does it, Davy?” pleaded Bumpus.
“I mean we’re Crusoes at last, and the last link binding us to our beloved home is swept away,” the other continued, for the especial benefit of Bumpus, who was apt to take things too literally.
“Enough of that, Davy,” Thad broke in with; “you know we didn’t take so much stock in that clumsy boat, after all. It’s true we did talk about cutting some long setting-poles, and trying to make the shore when the water went down, but there will be other ways to reach the mainland when we’re ready, never you fear. Tell us about it, Giraffe.”
“Why, I took my time about getting there, you see, because I knew there wasn’t any need of hurrying, as we couldn’t do a thing to-day. Besides, Thad, I wanted to look around a little on the way, and find out if there was any sort of game onourlittle island. Well, there is, and I reckon, what with our guns and snares, we could keep ourselves from starving to death for a long while.”
“Good!” muttered Bumpus, as though that important statement removed a certain dreadful fear that may have been haunting him for quite some time.
“Yes,” continued the other scout glibly, “I saw two rabbits at different times, and a number of nut-crackers of the gray order, fine big chaps too, that would make a fine squirrel stew, let me tell you. They must have come out here at some time in the summer, when the water was awful low, and this island connected with the main shore on one side by an isthmus.”
“That’s the explanation, I expect,” assented Allan, who was always very much interested in all things concerning wild animal migration.
“But about the boat, Giraffe?” reminded Thad.
“Oh! yes, that’s so. I started in to tell you how I found out she was gone from that point where we left her a while back, didn’t I? Well, after I got to the place where you come right out of the woods and sight the point I began to rub my eyes, because I couldn’t believe I was seeing straight, for there wasn’t any boat on that shore at all, not the first sign of one. Of course I knew right away what had happened, and that it must have been the extra big squall coming out of the northwest that had driven her off.”
“Then you hurried back to bring us the news, didn’t you?” continued Thad.
“Say, I justflew, because I thought the sooner you knew about it the better. And so we’re prisoners on the island now, without any kind of a boat to take us off. We may have to wade or swim after the tide goes down again.”
“I don’t suppose you stopped to take a look, and see if there were any tracks around?” the patrol leader continued.
“Tracks—what of, the keel of the shanty boat?” asked Giraffe. “Oh! the splash of the water would have washed all those out easy, so what was the use? We know she’s gone, and that covers the whole bill. By now, what with that wind and current, if she hasn’t been stove in on some rock, the shanty boat must be five or ten miles down the river, and booming along, all the while spinning around like a top. Whee! I’m tickled to death to know I’m not aboard her right now.”
“So say we all of us!” roared several of the scouts in unison, showing how they felt about the matter.
“How about making a shelter?” asked Giraffe, his woodsman spirit aroused; which remark proved that he must have been pondering over these things while on the way to the upper end of the island and back.
“We were talking that over while you were gone,” said Thad, “and came to the conclusion that while we might try and put up some little cover good enough for one night, which would keep the dew off, even without the use of our ponchos, it would hardly pay us to go to any great trouble.”
“But what if we have to stay out here a long time?” continued Giraffe, whose whole manner told that he would not object in the least, as long as the eating was fairly good; and that the Easter vacation could be indefinitely prolonged so far as he was concerned.
“Well, we don’t intend to, and that’s all there is to it,” Step Hen assured him. “Of course we have to put in one night; but that ought to be all. The river will fall nearly as fast as it rose; and already Thad’s thinking up some scheme that’s going to take us ashore.”
“Any wings to it, Thad?” asked Giraffe laughingly; “or shall we make a balloon, and go flying over Cranford, to make the folks’ eyes stick out of their heads with wondering what those frisky Silver Fox scouts will be doing next, to get themselves in the spotlight?”
“Oh! I haven’t had time enough yet to get to that,” Thad told him; “just give me a chance to sleep over it first. But Step Hen is perfectly right when he says we haven’t the least intention of being cooped up here many days. Besides, unless we do get a move on us pretty soon, we’ll have to turn back home and get ready to go to school, instead of recovering the judge’s treasured army coat for him.”
“School!” repeated Bumpus; “my goodness! is there really such a place? Why, seems to me it’s been anagesince I recited a lesson. Just the thought of it makes me feel sad. But if we did have to camp out here for a couple of weeks we’d miss some hunky-dory good times in Cranford. The barn dance comes off next week, you know. And every one of us, I reckon, has promised to take somebody. Oh! we’ve just got to be home before then, Thad. Think what Sadie Bradley’d do if you gave her the mitten; and then how about Giraffe’s roly-poly sister, Polly, Allan; are you ready to forsake her? Perish the thought; the boys of the Silver Fox Patrol never were quitters, were they?”
Giraffe, whatever he may have thought about staying on the island as long as they could stand it, seeing that popular sentiment was against him, showed enough wisdom to quiet down. Possibly he may not have been one-half as bent on such a course himself as he made out; for Giraffe was notoriously shrewd, and fond of playing all manner of jokes.
They lounged around, some of them engaged in accomplishing certain things, but in the main content to lie on their blankets, with a poncho underneath to keep the dampness off. This was on account of the fact that they had been cheated out of considerable sleep lately, and felt the need of it.
Later on Thad commenced to make a bough shelter, with the assistance of several of the others. In summer time this is readily done, but when the leaves are off most of the trees it is not so easy a task.
By selecting hemlock and other trees that would afford a dense covering they managed by degrees to build up quite a shelter, under which they might lie without running much risk of being wet by the dews. And after the recent heavy storm all of the weather prophets seemed fully agreed that the air had surely been cleared, so that another rain was not apt to come along for some time at least.
Noon came and went.
They cooked a warm meal, thus reducing the amount of provisions on hand; but the result was worth all the sacrifice, Giraffe and Bumpus declared, as they lay on the ground afterward, hardly able to move on account of the full dinner of which they had partaken.
“Three more meals like that, and then the deluge!” said Giraffe; “but who cares for expenses? Gimme two cents’ worth of gingersnaps, as the country boy said when he wanted the girls in the store to see what a high roller he could be. If our plans turn out O. K. we hope to be where we can buy a dinner for hard cash by that time. No need of worrying any; keep a doin’ the smile-that-won’t-come-off business. We belong to the Little Sunshine Club, don’t we, boys?”
Most of them were there in the bunch, and as usual all trying to talk at once. Davy alone sat off to one side, and seemed to be trying to shut out the chatter, while he wrote in his private log book an account of their recent adventures.
“How did the grits go, Bob?” asked Bumpus, who, in order to please the Southern boy, had prepared a kettle of fine hominy, to which the other had certainly done full justice, if his three helpings counted for anything.
“Simply immense, suh, and no mistake about it,” came the hearty reply; “some of you wonder how it is every Southerner loves that good old dish, and I confess that I’m unable to supply the explanation. I only know it fo’ a fact; and that somehow they all say it seems to bring befo’ their minds’ eye a picture of hanging moss, orange trees, cotton in the field, magnolias in bloom on the green trees, and all sorts of other things connected with the South they love.”
“I don’t think there’s a part of this Union one-half so fond of their section of the country as you Southerners are, Bob,” Allan asserted.
“I reckon you’re about right, suh, when you say that. It’s always been that way with us befo’ the war and since. But Davy’s beckoning to you, Thad.”
“Well, I declare, what do you think of that for pure nerve?” muttered Giraffe, as he saw the scout in question crooking his finger, and nodding to the patrol leader, as though asking him to come over; “if the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, he has to go to the mountain. But whatever d’ye imagine ails Davy now? He don’t look sick, and in need of medicine, because he ate nearly as big a dinner as—well, as Bumpus here did.”
“Speak for yourself, John Alden,” retorted the stout boy scornfully.
Thad understood that Davy wished to say something privately, and on this account he did not hesitate to get up and move over to where the other was sitting with his log book in his hand.
He saw that Davy had a puzzled expression on his face, and from this judged he had run across some sort of enigma which he wanted the patrol leader to help him solve. As Thad was accustomed to this sort of thing, he did not think it strange, though naturally feeling some curiosity concerning the matter.
“Want to see me, Davy?” he asked, as he carelessly dropped alongside the other.
“Why, we’re all here, ain’t we, Thad, the whole patrol I mean?” Davy began.
“Count noses, and you’ll find there are just eight of us, which covers the bill,” Thad told him.
“While you-all were talking there did you hear anything queer?” continued Davy.
“Not that could be noticed,” Thad told him. “There were times when the boys made so much noise that it was hard for me to hear anything besides. Did you catch any suspicious sound, Davy?”
The other immediately nodded, and went on to say, at the same time casting a quick look all around him:
“Thad, I sure did. I was sitting here writing, and paying no attention to what the fellows were squabbling about, when all at once it came, as plain as anything, and right from over yonder,” with which he pointed across the island.
“Was it the bark of a dog, the mewing of a cat, the bray of a donkey, or the neighing of a horse, Davy?” asked Thad, smiling.
“Nixey, not any of those, Thad,” replied the other solemnly; “but as sure as I’m sitting here it sounded like a shout in a human voice!”
“You mean you think you heard some one shouting, do you?” asked Thad, apparently unmoved, though truth to tell he considered this new information of considerable importance.
“That’s what I want you to understand, Thad.”
“Could you make out what was said?” continued the patrol leader, anxious to get at the kernel of the matter as soon as possible.
“Well, no, I don’t believe I did; but it just struck me it was ayell, like anybody would let out if something happened to give him a shock. I reckon that’s what I’d be apt to do if a rattlesnake jumped at me, and I dodged back.”
“Well,” continued Thad confidently, “there couldn’t be any rattlesnake here on this island, I should think, and even if that was so, snakes never come out so early in the season. But Davy, do you think you could tell which direction the shout seemed to come from?”
“Just where I pointed, over there to the east, which is the side of the island. Now, if there’s somebody out here besides us, who could it be?” and Davy asked this question with the confidence the scouts had come to put in their leader, whom they apparently expected to know everything.
“Oh! it might be some fisherman who had a hut here; or even a fugitive from justice, hiding from the officers. You know we’ve run across things like that. Once we even met up with a crazy man who had broken out of an asylum, and was living like a hermit in the woods. All that will come later on, when we find the proof that you haven’t made a mistake.”
“But, Thad, I ought to know a shout given by human lungs, hadn’t I?” pursued the puzzled Davy.
“We all think that, Davy, but you know for yourself that a loon for instance can laugh so much like a man that you’d be ready to take your affidavit there was a fellow out on the lake trying to make you mad. You think you heard a shout; but it may have been one of a lot of things.”
“Of course anybody could be mistaken, Thad,” the other went on to say; and it is an accepted fact that when your enemy begins to look over his shoulder he is getting ready to retreat.
“You may have heard what you think, Davy; perhaps a boat was being swept past the island, and someone in it, seeing the smoke of our fire, called out for help; though I should think if that was the case he’d keep the ball rolling. Come, let’s take a turn across to the shore, and see if anything is in sight down-river way.”
“All right, Thad; count on me to go along. No need of saying anything to the rest, is there?” Davy remarked, with eagerness stamped upon his face.
“Not a bit,” replied the other.
When the others saw them moving off, very naturally they felt more or less curiosity to know what was in the wind.
“Hello! there, what’s up?” called out Giraffe.
“Oh! we’re just going over to take a look around, boys,” replied Thad.
“Don’t get lost, and give us the bother of hunting you up, whatever you do,” they heard Bumpus say; and the audacity of the thing struck Thad as so comical that he could be heard chuckling as he went on.
As there had been no invitation on the part of the patrol leader to the others to come along, they realized that they were not wanted.
“A case of two’s company, three a crowd, I reckon, suh!” remarked Bob White, as he tossed a little more wood on the fire, which felt pretty cheerful, since the air was still cool after the storm.
“Who cares?” said Bumpus, stretching himself out again at full length on his comfortable blanket.
Meanwhile Thad and Davy were engaged in making their way through the brush, and heading for the shore on the eastern side of the island that stood in the middle of the flooded Susquehanna.
They found it more difficult work than they had expected. The island could not have been used for any purpose, since under the trees it was a perfect snarl of bushes and creeping vines, some of the latter as thick as one’s ankle. Unless the person who was pushing his way through this wilderness of growth kept constantly on the alert he was very apt to catch his foot in a snake-like vine, and measure his full length on the ground.
Davy, indeed, uttered several little ejaculations when his hands came in contact with thorns growing on some of the bushes.
“This isn’t what it seemed cracked up to be, eh, Thad?” he muttered. “I guess there’s a sample of everything that grows around this region right here on this island, and then some. And seems like I’m finding the same out one after the other. There, that stub of a branch tried to poke my left eye out, and did bring blood on my cheek. I don’t see how you manage to get along without any accidents.”
“You’re not as experienced as I am in passing through places like this, that’s all, Davy. You move too quick, and don’t use your eyes enough. If you think I can take the cake at it you ought to see an Indian work, and after that you’d say I wasn’t in the same class. He’d like as not glide along like a snake; and try as hard as you pleased, you wouldn’t hear so much as a twig break under his feet.”
“Then I’m pretty sure I’ll never make a first-class scout,” commented Davy, “for I seem to be too clumsy. There, I thought that stick would bear my weight; but it broke under me with a sharp snap that would have told the enemy somebody was trying to sneak up on the camp. I guess it must run in the blood, Thad, and I haven’t got any of it in me. Yet I had an uncle who was said to be one of the greatest big game hunters that ever went out to South Africa after elephants and lions and all such things. They skipped me when it came to inheriting the instincts of a still-hunter.”
By degrees they forced their way through all these obstacles, and Davy seemed to improve as he went along, as Thad took occasion to tell him.
“Anyhow, it’ll be easy enough going back again!” Davy declared, “because we’ve left a fair trail behind us. I wouldn’t be surprised now if some of the other fellows take advantage of that to cross over here, so’s to get a squint of the river.” “Well, here we are, and it looks as if we might get a fairly decent look down stream, Davy.”
“Yes, there’s a little point sticking out here, thank goodness. Look at all the water going past, would you, Thad? This is a great flood, all right; and I hope it goes down a lot before we try to cross over to the mainland, to-morrow, or the day after. Do you think it’s come to a stand yet?”
“I guess you’ll find it that way,” returned the other; “and while we’re here I mean to make a mark, so as to tell just before dark what’s happening. But Davy, can you see anything like a boat down below?”
Davy shook his head, for he had been earnestly gazing in that direction.
“Not a single sign, Thad!” he declared, in a disappointed tone. “And as a boat couldn’t have passed from sight in this short time, why, that proves there wasn’t such a thing at all.”
“Looks that way,” assented the patrol leader confidently.
“And,” continued Davy, “that if I did really hear a shout, which of course hasn’t yet been proved for certain, then there’s somebody on this island besides our crowd!”
“We’ll have to let it go at that,” Thad told him. They looked about for a short time, and Thad arranged a stick at the edge of the river, that stood where the current would not displace it. By means of this he could tell whether the water rose or fell, since he had cut a groove in it to mark the present height of the flood.
“There, that ought to do the business for us,” Thad remarked, after he had finished his little job.
“Do we go back to the camp now?” Davy wanted to know, as though a little fearful that the other might propose a trip around the island, which, on account of the dense thickets of brush, he would not altogether fancy, though not the kind of a scout to easily back down.
“I reckon we might as well,” the patrol leader told him; and with this encouragement Davy immediately started off.
Thad used his eyes as he went, but could not say that he had managed to make any discovery that would throw the least light on the mystery of that strange noise his companion claimed to have heard.
Of course, when they joined the others, everybody was curious to know what their little jaunt meant; so they had to tell all about it.
“None of us heard a single thing,” remarked Giraffe sturdily, as though that fact ought to settle it, and that Davy must have allowed his imagination to work overtime.
“I should think you couldn’t, what with all the row you kept up,” Davy answered back sturdily. “All I want to say is this, that I heard something like a shout; and I’ll keep on saying that forever, no matter how you laugh, and make fun.”
Of course they talked it over, and viewed the happening from all sides. Every fellow had some sort of explanation to make to cover the ground. A few of these followed the same track Thad had hewn when stating his ideas to Davy; and yet after exhausting the subject the boys were no nearer a solution of the mystery than when they started.
Later on, just as Davy had suggested might be the case, several of them made up their minds they would like to take a look at the river, for Bumpus and Smithy started forth.
“Just follow our trail!” sang out Davy after the pair, “and you won’t have any trouble. But keep your eyes peeled every minute of the time if you don’t want to get in trouble.”
“What from?” demanded Bumpus, halting in his departure.
“Oh! all sorts of snares, in the shape of concealed vines that grab you by the ankles and throw you down; or branches that smack you square in the face, and nearly blind you. If you get in any hole and want help, just sing out, fellows.”
“Thanks, we will!” replied Bumpus scornfully, as though he did not anticipate such a thing happening; if Davy considered that he and Smithy were still greenhorns and must be treated as babes in the woods, he was very much mistaken, that was all.
As Giraffe liked to say, “you never can tell,” and stranger things than that can come about when boys are loose in the wilderness.
Those left by the fire continued to sprawl around in favorite attitudes, and take their ease. The day had another hour or so left, and there was Giraffe overhauling the food supply, evidently making out the menu which he meant to serve up for the evening meal—trust Giraffe for taking care of such things.
The sun was shining cheerily now, and that at least was some comfort to these castaway scouts. They expected that with the coming of another day they would be able to start a scheme looking to making a move to get away; and that thought gave them encouragement.
It was at this moment there rang out a sudden cry that caused everyone to spring up and look startled.
“It sounded like Smithy’s voice!” exclaimed Thad, as he gained his feet.
“Yes, that’s what it did!” echoed Giraffe; “something must have happened after all! Mebbe they’ve gone and met up with trouble! Mebbe therearesome people on this island that don’t like us being here! Thad, what shall we do?”
Quick and energetic came the patrol leader’s order.
“Step Hen, stay here to guard the camp; the rest of you follow me!”
Without wasting another second the five boys rushed away toward the spot where again and again they could hear Smithy’s shrill voice calling for help!
“Help! hurry up!”
That was what Smithy was calling, in agonized tones that thrilled everyone of the other scouts. They were rushing pell-mell along the trail which Davy and Thad had made in going to and coming from the river, and which the other pair had also followed when they went to take an observation. Now and then one of them would find a root or a vine, and take a header, but only to scramble erect again, and resume the furious forward rush.
The river was close by, and at least Smithy had not lost his voice, for he still kept up his cries; though getting hoarse through the excitement, and the constant strain on his voice.
Then those in the lead discovered their chum. He seemed to be lying flat on his chest at the very brink of the swift flowing river; and while one hand gripped an exposed root belonging to a tree, the other was stretched over the edge of the bank.
“It’s Bumpus!” gasped Giraffe; “and he’s fallen in!”
No one took the trouble to offer any objection to this explanation. Indeed, from their previous experience with Bumpus it seemed the most natural thing in the world to expect the clumsy scout to tumble overboard every chance he got. They could in fact look back to any number of similar accidents during the time the patrol had been taking these outings in the woods and on the waters.
“Hold him tight, Smithy!” snapped Thad, trying to increase his pace, which was rendered a difficult thing to do because of the many obstacles that must be encountered and overcome.
“Good boy, Smithy, keep a-going!” cried Davy, greatly excited.
No doubt these cheery symptoms of coming help did much to encourage Smithy to maintain his frenzied clutch upon the one who was in the water; for he was still holding on when Thad arrived on the spot, accompanied by Giraffe, the best runner of them all.
Down alongside Smithy they both dropped. Yes, there was poor old Bumpus in the flood, swimming with hands and legs, and spurting great volumes of the muddy water out of his mouth with each splurge. It chanced that it was quite deep there, and the river ran like a mill race; so that if Smithy had released his grip for a single instant the unlucky Bumpus must have been swept down-stream like a log, in spite of his strenuous efforts.
When his clothes were soaked through, the stout member of the patrol was apt to weigh several hundred pounds; so it was small wonder that, unaided, Smithy could do next to nothing looking to his rescue—just hold on desperately, and shout for help.
But when Thad and Giraffe took a grip it was a different matter. Altogether they started to drag the imperiled scout up out of his impromptu bath.
“Yo-heave-o! Up you come, my boy! One more pull, Thad, and we’ve got him. Wow! what an elephant he is!”
So saying, Giraffe bent again to the task, with the result that Bumpus was soon hauled over the edge of the crumbling bank, and dragged to a place of security. There he lay, sprawled out, gasping for breath, and shedding gallons of water from his soaked khaki suit.
The boys gathered around, staring at him. Although they often poked considerable fun at Bumpus, it was of an innocent sort, for they were exceedingly fond of him.
“Well, you sure look like a great big grampus hauled up on the beach!” remarked Giraffe, with pretended scorn, though to tell the truth in all probability he did not really know what a grampus was, only that it lived in the sea, and stood for something clumsy and large.
“Next time you feel like taking a bath, Bumpus, don’t be so greedy. You’re some size, but the river’s on a flood now, and too big for you!” said Davy; and turning to Thad he continued: “Like as not your stick will show that she jumped up a foot or more when Bumpus dropped in.”
“It’s a bad time to get your feet crossed, suh, when you-all happen to be on a river bank!” Bob White hinted.
“You’re all away off; I didn’t stumble, this time, anyhow, and I wasn’t trying to take a bath either,” spluttered the soaking Bumpus, as he sat up and started wiping his face with a very wet sleeve.
“How about that, Smithy; what happened to him?” asked Thad.
“The bank caved in under him, that’s the truth,” replied the other scout. “He was wanting to see just a little further down the river, when all at once he went in. I really couldn’t tell you just how I happened to catch hold of him by the back of his coat, because I don’t know myself; but I thought it my duty to call out, and try to get some help. You see, he was too heavy for me to lift. I almost broke my back trying, as it was.”
“I should think you would!” declared Giraffe; “and it’s a lucky thing we heard you calling. Only for that what would you have done, Smithy?”
“I was trying to think all the while,” replied the other. “You see, I didn’t dare let go my hold, for the current is terribly swift here. I had half an idea that if only I could work along the bank a little, it might shoal some, and then Bumpus would be able to get a footing. But I’m glad you came when you did, for I was rapidly becoming exhausted.”
Smithy generally spoke with great exactness, and used words that few of his comrades ever bothered with in their conversation; that was one thing connected with his previous condition that persisted in clinging to the former dandy of the patrol.
“You did the right thing, and that’s a fact!” commented Allan; “I don’t believe there’s a single fellow who could have raised Bumpus. But, Thad, he’s beginning to shiver in this air; don’t you think we ought to get him over to the fire?”
“Sounds good t-to me; fire’s what I w-want, and l-lots of it too!” stammered the stout scout, trying to get to his feet, in which effort he was ably assisted by willing hands. “As t-to that bank, how’d I k-k-know it was goin’ to c-c-cave in on me, t-t-tell me that, will y-y-you?”
They hurried him along as fast as he could be urged, and all the while he kept shedding little streams of water, as though he carried an almost inexhaustible supply. When finally the camp was reached, with the wondering Step Hen giggling over the comical sight Bumpus presented, they made the late swimmer disrobe, and hung his clothes around so that they would dry in the heat of the fire.
Bumpus himself was wrapped in blankets until he looked like a swathed mummy, and told to just lie there. Under all this manipulation of course his chilled blood regained its normal temperature, and he declared he felt as snug as a “bug in a rug!”
Even this excitement did not cause Giraffe to forget that he had business on his hands, and supper was taken in charge with the customary results; for they presently found themselves sitting down to a “bountiful repast,” Davy called it, to the evident complete satisfaction of the eminent cook.
By the time they were ready to roll up in their blankets and try to get some sleep, the clothes hanging from various bushes were thoroughly dry; so that Bumpus could don the same. This released all the extra blankets with which he had been swathed, which was a matter of vital importance to their various owners.
The fire they expected to keep going more or less all through the night. Besides the comfort that it brought through the necessary heat, its bright glow did much to dissipate the gloom around them, and render their situation less cheerless.
Giraffe insisted on keeping his gun close at his side, for he said there could be no telling whether they were safe there or not. If the island did happen to be the hiding-place of some desperate criminal, who might think to steal a march on them as they slept, he wanted to be ready to repel boarders.
He even had Thad promise to give a certain signal should anything out of the way happen while they slept; just as though Thad would be awake all through the night, and know about the same.
But the long hours of darkness dragged on, and there was no alarm. Some of the boys slept through the entire night without arousing once; but there were others who felt more of the weight of responsibility resting upon them, and who frequently sat up to look around, or else got upon their feet, in order to put more wood on the camp fire.
Morning broke and found them apparently in just the same condition as when they had wrapped their blankets around them, and lay down with their feet toward the fire, hunter-fashion.
Thad was the first up, and when Allan awoke it was to see the patrol leader returning over the trail that led to the river bank.
It was easy to decide that the other must have been over to learn what his tally-stick had to tell about the condition of the flood.
“How about it, Thad; falling, I hope?” Allan asked, as he stretched himself, after getting on his feet.
“Yes, and rapidly into the bargain, just as we expected would be the case,” came the reply. “That rain could not have extended all the way up to the sources of the river, you see; and it will run out in a big hurry.”
“Then we may be able to get across to the mainland before a great while?” queried Allan.
“We’ll talk about that while we’re eating breakfast,” Thad told him; “and as the sun is coming up I reckon we’d better waken the rest of the crowd. They’ve had a grand good sleep, I take it. Give Giraffe a push, Allan, will you, and roll Bumpus over a few times till he says he’s awake; that’s the regular program with him, you know.” One by one the scouts sat up, and yawned, and stretched, as sleepy boys are apt to do when they have not been allowed to have their last nap out. Of course Davy did not forget how Thad had made a flood-tally over at the river, which fortunately Bumpus had not kicked away when he took his unexpected plunge with a portion of the crumbly bank.
“I reckon, now, Thad, you’ve been over to see what’s doing,” he remarked, while Giraffe fixed his cooking fire, and set about beginning operations looking to having breakfast under way. “And if that’s so tell us how she stands. Did it drop half a foot or more during the time we snoozed?”
“More like three feet,” replied the other; “and if Bumpus fell over in the same place again he’d find the water hardly up to his waist, with little current in place of that mill race of yesterday. Yes, things begin to look encouraging all around, boys!”
“Like fun they do!” bawled out Giraffe just then, as he stood up, and turned a very red and angry face toward the rest of the scouts.
“Why, what ails you now, Giraffe?” asked Smithy, who, generally calm and cold as an iceberg himself, frequently took the others to task when they showed signs of great excitement.
“I’m as mad as a wet hen, I tell you, and I wish somebody’d kick me for not doing what I first meant to last night, ask Thad to set a watch!” exploded the tall scout, stamping on the ground, and grinding his teeth.
Thad smelled a rat immediately.
“Anything been taken, Giraffe?” he asked hastily.
“Anything?” roared the other; “why, there isn’t half enough left to give us a decent meal. I reckon I might be satisfied, but where the rest of you are going to come in beats me. Yes, this island is inhabited, all right, and they’re a set of low-down thieves at that. You hear me talking, fellows!”
When they heard the dreadful news the rest of the scouts looked almost frightened. It was bad enough to know that some evil intentioned man was on the island with them; but that he should have actually crept into their camp while they slept, and very nearly made a clean sweep of their already limited stock of provisions, seemed close to a tragedy. When you threaten to cut off their food supply it is hitting boys in their weakest place.
There was an immediate start for the spot where they had placed their haversacks and the food on the preceding night. Thad, however, held them back.
“Don’t all rush so,” he told them. “We want to look around, and see if we can find out anything. If everybody tramples the ground it’ll be little use trying. Let Allan and Giraffe help me look first. We’ll report anything we find.”
The advice sounded reasonable to the rest; so despite their eagerness to take a hand in the game they held back while the three scouts proceeded to examine the ground.
It was not long before Allan made a discovery.
“I think here’s where he crawled along,” he told Thad, who was close by; “you can see that something’s dragged here, which must have been his knees. Yes, and there’s where the toe of his shoe made a dent in the soil, with another and still another further on. And now he lay flat on his stomach. Perhaps one of us happened to move just then, and he was afraid of being seen.”
“You’re right, Allan,” remarked Thad, after taking a good look; “and to think it possible he was crouching here in the shadows when I got up and threw some wood on the fire. If I knew that I’d feel pretty sore.”
“Well, he went on again pretty soon, didn’t he?” observed Giraffe, who was hovering close by, and keeping close watch on everything that was done.
“Yes, that’s what he did,” resumed Allan, also starting on once more, following the tracks that looked so strange they would have sorely puzzled members of the patrol like Smithy and Bumpus, who were not noted as trackers; “and headed direct for the place where we stacked our things up.”
“It was a lucky thing none of us happened to leave our guns here with all the rest of the duffel,” observed Giraffe exultantly, as though it gave him considerable satisfaction to find that he had not been quite as foolish as might have happened.
“He finally got to our stuff,” Allan went on, “and rising to his knees started to pick out what he wanted. I guess he must have been pretty hungry, because grub was what he seemed to be after. Not one of our haversacks is gone, you can see. He took that piece of bacon we fetched from the boat, the packages of crackers, and—yes, the cheese is lost in addition, also a can of corn and the coffee. Fact is, it looks as if we didn’t have much left, outside this package of hominy, and the little tin box of tea you fetched along, Thad!”
Giraffe gave vent to a hollow groan.
“It’s just dreadful, that’s what!” he said, with a gulp, as though receiving the sad news that he had lost his best friend; “just think of grits and tea for our breakfast, and not another thing! The worst is yet to come, though, for we won’t getanythingfor dinner, you know! Why, I’ll be all skin and bone if things keep on going from bad to worse like that.”
“Bob White won’t think it’s so tough, if he can have his grits,” remarked Allan; “but breakfast to a New England boy stands for ham and eggs, flapjacks with maple syrup, and always coffee and cold pie.”
“Stop stretching out the agony, can’t you?” said Giraffe, holding both hands to his ears as though trying to shut out the mention of such delightful dishes; “it’s cruelty to animals to talk that way, Allan. But, Thad, what are we going to do about this same thing? Can’t we take up the trail, and try to get our stuff back? After all, this old island is only of a certain size, and with eight of us in line we ought to comb it from top to bottom. I feel like Sheridan did when he met the Union troops running away in a panic from Cedar Creek, and yelled out: ‘Turn the other way, boys, turn the other way! We’ll lick ’em out of their boots yet! We’ve just got to get those camps back!’ You see he was thinking of all the good stuff they’d lost with the camps. So are we.”
“Allan, suppose we look to see which way he went off, because it couldn’t have been along the same line as his advance?” suggested the scout master.
He knew considerable about these things himself, but trusted to Allan to learn facts that might even have eluded his observation. Allan had been in Maine and the Adirondacks a portion of his life, and picked up many clever ways from association with the guides that made him invaluable when it came to a question of woodcraft.
“That’s a good idea, Thad,” was what the other said in reply; and already his sharp eyes had begun to look for signs.
These were easily found, for the unseen thief had crawled away in the same fashion as he made his advance, though a bit more clumsily, which was doubtless owing to the fact of his being more heavily laden at the time.
Step Hen, Bob White and the other three were of course watching the every movement of the experienced trackers with great interest. They took some little satisfaction in trying to guess just what each movement signified. Bumpus and Smithy of course would never have been able to figure these things out, but the other three had more practical knowledge and could hit closer to the mark.