“Is that your car, Gusty?”
The rich man’s son gave a low cry of mingled surprise and joy.
“I declare if it isn’t my runabout!” he exclaimed. “And to think how easily you glimpsed it ahead. But what do you expect they drew it in here for, Hugh? Has the gas given out, or was there a smash of some sort? Seems to be all right, as far’s I can see at a glance.”
“We’ll have to figure that out in a minute or so,” replied the other. “You keep on examining the car while I look around to see which way the two men went from here. That would be apt to give us a clew.”
“In what way?” demanded Gusty, while he started to look his property over, in order to learn the condition in which it had been left by the two robbers.
“Well, if they kept on along the road it would look as if they had been unable to use the runabout further,” answered the patrol leader, as he stooped and began to use his practiced eyes to advantage. “On the other hand, if they plunged right into the woods I would think they had come as far as they expected to on wheels, and finished their journey afoot.”
“What a greenhorn I am not to have understood that!” declared the other boy, thoroughly disgusted with himself for not having taken the trouble to exercise his brain more in the past, so as to be alive to such situations as this; it galled his pride to have to depend on anyone else for information.
Monkey came along and dropped out of his saddle beside them. He was just as much surprised and tickled at seeing the car as the owner had been; but he did not immediately proceed to ask questions. He knew what Hugh was doing when he saw him bending down and examining the surrounding earth.
Just as Billy hove in sight and slowed down so that he could join his chums, the patrol leader remarked that the trail of the two men ran off directly into the thick of the woods, which at this particular spot grew rather densely.
“And I can’t find the least thing the matter with my car,” Gusty observed. “There seems to be some gasoline in the tank, too. So that they could have gone a good many more miles if they’d wished. Yes, you were right, Hugh. They abandoned it for another reason. I’d even say they might know of some hiding place in this region, and right here is a short-cut to it.”
“That was a time you struck the right nail on the head, Gusty,” remarked Hugh. “I believe that’s what it will turn out to be in the end.”
“Of course we push through the woods, don’t we?” queried Monkey.
“And that means we’ll have to leave our machines hid away somewhere,” Billy added, with a ring of solicitude in his voice. “I’d like to do something so as to make it impossible for anybody to ride away on my motorcycle while I’m gone. It would be a tough joke on us to chase after those rogues while they came back on the sly and hooked two of our precious wheels.”
“We can fix that all right. Meanwhile, Gusty, you disable your runabout in some temporary way, so that it couldn’t be of any use to anybody until the missing part is supplied.”
“A great idea, as sure as you’re born! I can do it as easy as anything!” exclaimed the other boy, hastening to carry out the suggestion without even stopping to consider that only an hour or so back he would have laughed scornfully if some one had told him that before long he would be taking orders from Hugh Hardin as meekly as any private in the scout troop.
All this took but little time, and presently they were ready to advance along the forest trail. Gusty found himself quivering with eagerness to see how these boys would manage to carry out the tracking part of the business. Had it been left to him, he would have made a sorry mess of it, he admitted to himself. His pride was touched, and he began to reflect that never again would he allow himself to be placed in a position where even a boy like Billy Worth, whom he had previously looked on as rather stupid, could give him pointers. He would learn these things for himself. Perhaps he might even organize a new patrol, and be its leader, if he only busied himself, and stocked his head with useful knowledge along the line of scoutcraft.
“Here’s what they were heading for!” said Hugh softly after they had been moving along for some ten minutes. He had several times pointed out faint indications of footprints to Gusty.
“Why, it looks like an old abandoned road all grown up with grass and briars!” declared Monkey.
“Just what it is,” replied Hugh. “I’ve been expecting to run across it right along, because my map shows where it lies. You see, once ever so many years ago many wagons came along here every day, some loaded with corn or wheat or rye, and others taking flour back home to the farm.”
“Oh! I know now what you mean, Hugh,” said Billy. “There was a spot marked on your map, and I read the words ‘old mill.’ Yes, and I remember hearing tell about some such place up here in the wilderness. Thirty years ago a miller used the water power of a creek that empties into the river to grind his grist. Do you think that’s where these two thieves were heading for, Hugh?”
“Looks like it,” nodded the patrol leader, pointing down. “You can see that as soon as they struck this sunken road they didn’t even halt, but started right along it, heading that way. We’ll do the same, and after this please speak in low whispers if you have to say anything. I don’t believe that mill can be more than half a mile away if it’s that.”
They moved on, all of them half bent over as they sought to keep track of the footprints of the two men. It was quite thrilling, Gusty admitted to himself every little while. He was enjoying it very much. If Boy Scouts practiced this sort of stunt very often he did not wonder that so many fellows had joined the organization; and the resolution he had taken continued to grip him more and more the deeper he pried into the matter.
“I think I hear water splashing ahead there, Hugh!” whispered Monkey, who had a very keen pair of ears.
“Yes, we must be getting close to the dam where the water falls,” the patrol leader told him. “Pretty soon we’ll know whether we’ve cornered the rats or not. Steady now, and keep under cover the best you can. Remember, not a sound, fellows!”
“There it is!”
Billy gripped the arm of the patrol leader when he said this in a faint tone. Indeed, all of them must have glimpsed the old mill at about the same time, for the trees had thinned out somewhat ahead; and that gurgle of dripping water drew their eyes toward the spot where the forlorn structure stood.
Having been neglected for many years, it was now only a tumble-down wreck. The big wheel was covered with green moss over which tiny streams of water trickled to drop with a splash into the pool beneath.
In the eyes of Billy, it had a haunted look. He admitted to himself that he would not much fancy paying a visit to the old mill after darkness had set in. Of course, he did not believe inghosts, for what boy will admit that weakness? But even the presence of owls and bats, and perhaps a prowling mink from the stream, would be apt to make a fellow’s flesh creep if he found himself left alone in such a place.
“Think they’re there, Hugh?” Monkey Stallings murmured in the other’s ear.
“Somebody is, for a fact,” came the ready response, “because if you look sharp you can see a little smoke curling up from the chimney.”
Gusty had not thought to glance at that part of the mill before. Now he saw that this was so. Evidently there must be some sort of a fire within. And as the mill was said to have been deserted by its owner years back, the chances seemed to be that this blaze had been made by the tramps.
“Wait here for me while I take a scout and find out if it’s so,” Hugh told his companions, “and be sure to keep down, because one of them might step out suddenly and discover you. That would put the fat in the fire, and spoil all our fine plans. I depend on you, Billy, and Monkey.”
“Count me in too, Hugh,” urged Gusty, perhaps considerably to his own surprise, for it was a new role for him to play “second fiddle” to anybody.
So Hugh crawled away. He went on his hands and knees, and avoiding the open road, chose rather to creep along where the wild growing bushes would shelter him from being observed. So cleverly did he advance, Gusty noticed, that even should one of the tramps be watching, there was little chance that he might discover anything amiss. Plainly these scouts had learned their little lesson and knew how to play the game, he told himself, as he saw Hugh sliding across a more exposed spot on his stomach, hitching himself along almost as a snake might have done.
Hugh was gone for some little time, and then he reappeared, returning over the same course he had taken before. Billy immediately read success upon the other’s face.
“Then they are there, is that it, Hugh?” he queried when he could place his lips close to the other’s ear.
“Yes, I managed to get a look-in. Both men are lying down, and I think they must have been cooking something to eat from the smell I got. One is smoking a pipe, and the other dozing, every now and then taking a nip from a black bottle that is passed between them. I saw the short one examining a wicked looking gun. I guess he’s just the kind of a bad man to use it before he’d think of giving up to a pack of Boy Scouts. We’ve got to go slow if we hope to win out here.”
“Well, what’s the program, Hugh?” asked Gusty eagerly.
“I’ve figured it out this way,” came the answer. “I’ll leave the rest of you here on guard while I make my way to the river, and find the island where some of the scouts are in camp under charge of Don Miller. All you have to do is to lie low and never do the least thing to let them know they’re watched.”
“But what if they take a notion to skip out?” suggested Monkey Stallings.
“Then you must be ready to leave a message for us in a forked stick right here, while you try and follow after them. If that happens, make as broad a trail as you can, because it will save the rest of us heaps of hard work following. And above all things don’t let them capture you, because from their looks I rather think it would go hard if you fell into their hands. They’re a tough looking lot all told.”
“I should say they were all of that, Hugh,” admitted Gusty, who had reason to know.
Before he left them, Hugh again examined his pocket map of the country. It was fashioned only as a sort of road guide for tourists, but anyone could judge from the formation of things about how far it was between the old mill and the river at the place where a bridge spanned the stream. And not a great way above this particular spot, the island lay upon which the scouts were in camp.
Five minutes later, and Hugh replaced the map in his pocket.
“Got your bearings all right, have you?” asked Billy, with more or less solicitude, for everything depended on the leader finding the camp of their comrades.
“I reckon it’ll be all right,” Hugh assured him. “You see I expect to go back first of all to where we left our motorcycles. Once in the saddle I can soon find my way to that bridge across the river. The island is only half a mile or so above, where the river widens; and I hope to find some sort of trail along the bank where I can push my machine.”
“Will you come back the same way?” asked Monkey.
“I don’t know about that,” Hugh replied. “The boys must have been tramping around more or less since they’ve been up the river, and perhaps they may know of some short-cut over the hills to the mill. But I’m off. Don’t expect us until late in the afternoon.”
“Gee! I hope you get here before night sets in,” muttered Billy with a quick glance toward the weird looking mill as seen through the scattered undergrowth.
Hugh did not have the least difficulty in following the back trail. All he had to do was to keep to the road until he came to a couple of white birches which he had noticed hung out in a queer way just about the place where the trail had formed a junction with the overgrown mill road. After that he kept his eyes mostly on the ground, where he could readily pick up the various footprints left by all those who had passed along.
When he finally arrived at the place where the motorcycles had been hidden, he hastened to get his own machine in hand. Once he started along the back road, he made quick time of it. There was small danger that he would lose his bearings, as Billy might have done under similar conditions, for Hugh made sure of things as he went along.
In due time he reached the bridge that spanned the river, which was quite narrow at this point. Looking up the stream, Hugh found that it made a quick turn some little distance away. He could also see that it was beginning to widen at this point.
“I guess it can’t be very far to Raccoon Island,” he told himself. Having jumped from the saddle, he started to push his machine toward the left side of the road.
As he had hoped might be the case, he found indications there to tell him that some sort of a trail ran along the river bank heading upstream. Doubtless, parties going fishing may have made it; and all sorts of people had used it in coming or going. Cows even followed the beaten track, for Hugh quickly discovered traces of their presence.
“Not half as bad as I expected,” he told himself as he pushed on, though it was anything but fun to urge that heavy machine over roots and uneven ground.
Hugh generally looked at the bright side of things. He kept his spirits up when the clouds grew dark and forbidding by telling himself that it might easily be a great deal worse. That is the way with scouts; they are taught always to look for the silver lining of the cloud and never to despair.
Twice the boy had to make a short halt in order to wipe his streaming brow with his red bandana handkerchief, and rest for a minute or so. But he always started on again with a grim determination to get there.
The third time he stopped it was to listen eagerly. Then he chuckled.
“I ought to know that voice among a hundred,” he remarked. “No one can sing quite as well as Blake Merton. I must be pretty close to the island camp right now. One more push will do the business, I expect. There’s a fellow I know who won’t be sorry, either.”
As he continued to urge the weighty motorcycle onward, Hugh presently saw something moving ahead of him. It was very like a white flag, only in its center it had a blood red square. He certainly ought to know a signal flag, since he had learned to wigwag equal to the best in the troop, and there were several experts among the scouts at that, particularly Bud Morgan, who had once worked with a surveying party, Arthur Cameron, Blake Merton, Walter Osborne, Sam Winter and Cooper Fennimore.
Two boys clad in the familiar khaki of the scouts were standing on a little elevation that was hardly more than a mound. They seemed to be in communication with some one who must be over on the island. No doubt they were indulging in a little talk, partly for the fun of the thing, and to improve their knowledge of the Myers code at the same time.
Hugh stood still and gave the slogan of the Wolf patrol:
“How-oo-ooo!”
This weird, long-drawn-out cry startled the pair with the flags. When they craned their necks and looked around, Hugh waved his hand.
“Hello! Sam and Cooper, how d’ye do?” he called out, starting toward them.
“Why! it’s Hugh!” cried one of the scouts as though rather taken aback by the sudden discovery. They had hardly been expecting that the assistant scout master would get up to Raccoon Island while they were in camp there.
“And say, look what he’s got along with him, will you?” exclaimed the second boy astonished. “A splendid motorcycle as sure as you live! No wonder he had to stay home and wait for it to come along. Chances are that Billy Worth and Monkey Stallings have got the same kind of bully mount. Are they back of you, Hugh? What news do you bring to camp?”
“Plenty of things doing, boys,” returned the patrol leader. “But you’ll have to hold your horses until I can see all the rest of the boys. Time’s too valuable for me to tell the story more than once.”
“Whew! do you hear that, Sam?” cried Cooper Fennimore excitedly. “Hugh as much as says there’s something going to happen to give us all a little whirl. Seemed to feel it in my bones this very morning when I turned out, that this day wouldn’t go by as quietly as the others did. Tom Sherwood said it must be going to rain, and that was what affected me; and Jack Dunham asked me how many helps I’d taken of that stew last night, because it was a case of indigestion I had developed; but you see after all it was what you might call a premonition of trouble. Coming events cast their shadows before, they say; and now I know it.”
“How do you get back and forth between the island and the shore?” demanded the newcomer impatiently, because Cooper Fennimore was known to be a great talker, and apt to waste considerable precious time.
“Why,” said Sam Winter, “we’ve got a cute little punt that they call a dinghy, which belongs to the big motorboat. You can push it with a pole in the shallow water, or use a paddle if it gets too deep for that. Here it is drawn up on the bank. It will just carry three of us, Hugh.”
“Then let’s be moving across as quick as we can,” remarked Hugh, “because the afternoon is wearing away, and there’s a lot to be done before sunset, if we expect to capture the two hoboes who held Gusty Merrivale up on the road and robbed him of the money he was taking to pay the men working in his father’s granite quarry.”
“Whee! listen to that, Sam!” gasped Cooper Fennimore, and then he hastened to push the flat-bottomed little tender into the water and take his place, ready to use the pole while Sam handled the paddle.
As they approached the island, there were evidences of considerable excitement ashore and a number of boys clad in the familiar khaki lined up to give their leader the customary scout salute. This, of course, pleased Hugh very much, for he was human enough to feel a thrill of pride in the affection his comrades seemed to entertain for him.
“Glad to see you, Mr. Scout Master!” called Bud Morgan as the dinghy drew in to the shore, and all the boys crowded down so as to be ready to shake hands with Hugh. “How’d you come up here, I’d like to know?”
“Oh! he’s got the dandiest looking twin-cylinder motorcycle you ever laid eyes on!” burst out Cooper Fennimore.
“But there’s something more than that he’s got to tell us,” added Sam as he threw his paddle ashore, and made ready to follow it personally. “He said there was no time to string the yarn more’n once, so we would have to wait till all the bunch had gathered around. Get ready to quiver, everybody, because there’s a thrill coming for you!”
Of course these words aroused the curiosity of the scouts. Even as they shook hands with Hugh, they were beginning to watch his face as though under the impression that they might be able to read his secret there.
“I ought to start right in the beginning, boys,” began the newcomer, “and tell you how we three, Billy Worth, Monkey Stallings and myself, planned to give you a surprise by running up here on our new motorcycles, which came the day after you left on the motorboat. That was why we said we couldn’t go along, but might be up in time to share the homeward voyage. Well, we had a great time practicing, because Billy was bound to get into all sorts of trouble. But we managed to get off to-day. Somebody bring me a drink, please, I’m as dry as a bone.”
Quickly his want was supplied, and then Hugh went on with his brief story. As it is already familiar to the reader, there is no need of repeating it here. Hugh wasted as little time as he could in bringing out the facts. From the way in which those boys hung on his every word, with eyes full of eagerness and wonder, it could be seen that he was making a decided sensation.
In a few minutes he had reached the conclusion by merely mentioning the fact of his coming to the island camp for help. Looking around him, he saw that there were just eleven boys present not counting himself. He also noticed that Arthur Cameron seemed to limp more or less whenever he had occasion to move, as though he might have sprained his ankle in some way; and that was an unfortunate thing for Arthur, since it marked him as one of those who would have to remain behind in order to watch the camp while the others were away on duty.
“Call for volunteers to go back with you, and clean up those hoboes at the old mill, Hugh!” suggested Don Miller, who had been having his hands full keeping the boys in order during the absence of both Lieutenant Denmead and Hugh, and was only too well pleased at having some one come to relieve him.
“All who want to go, raise their right hand!” called out Walter Osborne, leader of the Hawk patrol.
It seemed to be unanimous, for there were just eleven hands elevated. Hugh smiled and seemed pleased, though he knew that at least two among the scouts would be compelled to endure heart burnings through disappointment.
“Listen to me,” he remarked quietly and seriously, so that the boys knew he meant every word that was said, “Several will have to stay in camp. Arthur, with that lame ankle, you would hardly be fit to take an over-hill hike, so make up your mind that this time you’re not to be in the swim. And Ned Twyford will keep you company.”
He selected the last named scout because he knew that Ned had been sick before coming on this trip, and was not overly stout at best. If there was apt to be a battle of any sort with those tramps, then only the strongest boys should be allowed to take part in it, Hugh concluded.
Ned bit his lips as though in protest; but he knew better than to give vent openly to his disappointment. A scout learns to obey without questioning when it is a superior who gives the order; and in this way he shows that he has some of the elements of a true soldier in him though fighting is foreign to his training, and it must be resorted to only when all other means fail.
“How will we go, Hugh?” asked Bud Morgan, who had stepped over to one of the tents and reappeared, bearing a baseball bat in his hands.
His example started the others to skirmishing around in search of clubs. One of the boys strapped on his camp hatchet; another secured the belt that held his hunting knife. Still more found various-sized sticks to their liking. One and all looked grim and determined, as though they realized that this expedition was not in the nature of a picnic, but a serious undertaking, indeed.
“I was hoping that some of you might know a short-cut over the hill in the direction of that abandoned grist mill?” Hugh observed, looking straight at Don Miller.
The smile that immediately broke out on the face of the Fox leader told him that he was about to receive reassuring news.
“We do know a way over,” Don hastened to say. “Fact is some of us had heard about that old mill, and knew about where it lay. So just the day before yesterday, Arthur coaxed me to go with him. He said he wanted to snap off a few photographs of the ruin, which was worth while seeing, somebody had told him. Well, we made a cut across, and found the mill all right, but the clouds had come up so black that he never took a single picture. Arthur was feeling pretty bad about it, and made me promise to go with him again before we broke camp. Then, on the way back, he wrenched his foot, and I had to half carry him the last mile.”
“You saw no sign of anyone around the place when you were there, I suppose,” Hugh remarked.
“Well, there were footprints enough,” Don replied, “and we reckoned that parties sometimes wandered up that way to try the fishing in the pond above the mill or in the runway. But we didn’t meet anybody, if that’s what you mean, Hugh.”
“And Don, couldn’t you manage to carry my camera along, so if the sun shines you might find a chance to snap off those three views I showed you?” pleaded Arthur, as he held up the little black box.
Don gave a quick look toward the scout master.
“No harm carrying the camera,” the latter told him. “If you get some decent views, we’d all like to have copies later on to remind us of the adventure. Better be getting ashore as fast as you can, boys. Every minute is going to count, you know. Ned, if you feel like it, act as ferryman, won’t you? Three passengers might crowd aboard if you’re careful how you sit.”
“It’s so shallow that you could almost wade with your trousers turned up to your knees,” one of the boys declared, but since they all had their leggings on none of them started to try this method of getting ashore.
Hugh, ever thoughtful, gave a few more orders.
“We hope to be back some time to-night,” he told Arthur, who would have to remain behind, “but, in case necessity keeps us from doing it, we ought to take something to eat along to serve as a snack.”
“Well, that’s sensible advice, I must say,” remarked Walter Osborne. “It is tough to lie down to sleep on an empty stomach.”
“I generally lie on my back!” put in Tom Sherwood quickly.
“And that accounts for your snoring so loud,” he was told by one of the others.
Meanwhile the ferrying process was in full blast. When Ned had landed three of the scouts, he hastened back for another lot. After all, it did not take a great while to get those who were going on the tramp ashore, there being four trips necessary, since ten were to make up the party that expected to hike over the hill to the region of the old mill.
“Now I’m going to put the trip in your hands, Don,” Hugh said, as the entire party stood on the bank. “Look out for my motorcycle, will you, Ned, while I’m off? And if there is any chance for rain get some sort of cover over it if you can. So long as it’s so new and shiny I hate to get any part rusty. So-long, and here’s hoping we’ll all come back as sound of limb as we start out!”
“Same here, Hugh, and fellows. The best of luck go with you. If you come home by way of the hill, give us the signal when you’re up there, so we can have the dinghy ashore and waiting,” and as the party trailed along by twos and threes, with Don and Hugh in the lead, Ned waved his hand after them.
They were soon busily engaged in climbing the hill. Don kept on the alert, for he did not want to make any error of judgment now that the scout master had given him free reign. He had paid strict attention to many features of the landscape when going and coming on that other day, as a true scout is always expected to do when on the move, and in this way it seemed almost as though he were following a blazed path.
Now and then they could look back when an opening occurred, and secure glimpses of the winding river and the broad stretch of water where Raccoon Island lay. Once they caught sight of the two scouts in camp, who had evidently glimpsed their moving forms, for they were waving their hats. The sound of their cheers also came, borne on the wind up to the high spot where Hugh and his comrades had stopped for a minute to get their breath, as the summit of the hill was still above.
All of the boys were young and vigorous. They had also had more or less experience in mountain climbing, so that their muscles were fairly hardened to the exercise.
“The top of the ridge!” announced the guide as he came to a fourth pause, and perhaps at another time some of the scouts might have thought it their duty to raise a cheer at hearing how they had surmounted the difficult climb; but they knew better than to start anything of that sort now without orders from the chief.
Scouts on duty must refrain from giving expression to their feelings, leaving all that to the time when they are at play. They are expected always to keep their wits about them, and to exercise judgment.
It was down-grade after that, and much easier for making their way along. Don was showing commendable ability in following the return tracks of himself and Arthur, for they had saved considerable time and distance in coming back, having learned where short cuts might be made.
“We are getting close to the mill, Hugh,” announced the Fox leader, after some more time had elapsed, during which they had made good progress.
“Here, what’s this right now over here?” asked Bud Morgan.
“It’s a little stream,” Ralph Kenyon volunteered, “and like as not the overflow of the mill pond. I’ve never happened to get over in this part of the country while setting my traps for mink, otter, skunk, foxes and the like in winter, so you see I can’t post you as I might were we on my old stamping grounds. But from the specks of foam on the water here I should say it has come over a dam not far away from this spot.”
“Just what I thought, Ralph,” said Tom Sherwood. “If that’s the case, I reckon we’d all of us better close our potato traps and talk low.”
“The mill is still some distance away,” Hugh told them. “I know because that foam comes from the creek tumbling down among those rocks yonder. Don, you’ve been here before, how about it?”
“Won’t get there for nearly ten minutes according to my figuring,” came the ready response that proved the reasoning of the scout master to be nearly accurate.
“And I should think we’d only have to follow up this little stream to strike the mill,” suggested Walter Osborne.
“That was what we laid out the other day,” Don told him, “and it turned out all right. So, as I’ve luckily managed to bring you over the rise and within touch of the mill, I’ll only too gladly turn over things to Hugh here. He knows the lay of the land, I wager, and——”
“’Sh! drop down, everybody, behind these bushes!” whispered Hugh. “I saw something moving over yonder, and chances are the hoboes have broken loose!”
These low words coming from the scout master caused a general “ducking” on the part of the scouts. Every fellow carried out the tactics of screening himself from observation according to his individual notion. This one dodged behind an adjacent tree, another curled up back of a friendly bush, while a third might have been seen hugging the ground, with his nose touching the virgin soil. Possibly this latter class believed, like the foolish ostrich, that, as long as they could not see anything, their bodies must also be concealed.
And after all it turned out to be a false alarm. Hugh himself was the first to ascertain that it had been a rabbit bounding away that had disturbed his peace of mind, and caused him to give that sudden warning.
“It’s all over, fellows, and no damage done,” the scout master told them in his cautious way, though at the same time he could not help smiling at the ridiculous attitudes assumed by some of the scouts in their wild endeavor to hide. “Only a scared little bunny, as it turns out. We’ll go on where we left off.”
Immediately every boy straightened up again, and tried to look as though he knew all along that it was nothing worth mentioning. Several pretended to be looking on the ground, just as though they believed they had dropped something. A few, however, colored up, and allowed sheepish grins to decorate their faces.
It was not very long before Hugh realized that the scenery began to look rather familiar to him. This would indicate that they were getting close to the place in which he had left Billy, Monkey, and Gusty Merrivale.
Now Hugh did not wish to lead the entire command too near the mill. Something might happen to betray their presence before things had been properly arranged to surprise the robbers.
Under such circumstances, if the “mountain will not come to Mahomet, why one must go to the mountain,” an old Eastern proverb says. Accordingly, Hugh held up his hand to signify that every one was to drop down and lie low. Then he started in to make a sound that was similar to the grunt of a hedgehog searching for succulent roots under the trees.
Every once in so often the scout master would grunt, and then wait. He fancied that either Billy or his mate would catch the sound, for which they must have been listening more or less anxiously for a long time past. And as all these things had been arranged beforehand, the boys would know that it meant they should begin to back away, so as to place a little more distance between themselves and the ramshackle building that sheltered the enemy.
Five, six, seven minutes passed thus. Then, during one of the waits between the giving of the signals, there came a troubled grunting from a copse near by, which told Hugh the others must be coming. He encouraged them by getting part way up on his knees, and waving his red bandana handkerchief three times.
Immediately afterward a figure came stealing toward the concealed scouts, which turned out to be Monkey. When Hugh discovered two others following cautiously in the wake of the leader, he breathed easier. Perhaps, while on the way over to the island camp and back, he may have had more or less fear that some accident would betray the three boys to the wary tramps. The consequences would, of course, be very unpleasant.
Soon the trio had joined the balance of the boys, and, crouching among the bushes, they shook hands all around. Why, even Gusty Merrivale persisted in clutching the digits of these friendly fellows! Circumstances beyond his control had placed the rich man’s son in a position where things began to assume a new aspect in his eyes, and the sensation in his heart was so very gratifying that he allowed himself to give way to it entirely.
Hugh, believing that they should all work together, had Don Miller and Walter Osborne as leaders of the Foxes and Hawks get their heads close to his and discussed the situation from many angles.
On the way across country, while he and Don were keeping at the head of the hiking party, the scout master had asked many questions. Of course he knew something concerning the outside of the mill for, at the time he had taken that one scout around the place, he had made sure of surrounding conditions. Then Don had been all over inside when he and Arthur had roved this way, and he was in a position to tell how the place was arranged. Don was a careful, wideawake scout who had long since learned the value of keeping his wits about him, not knowing when it might prove advantageous to his interests to be able to describe what he had seen.
Consequently he had been able to draw something of a map of the interior of the mill, tell where the rusty and worthless machinery lay, and also just about where passing hoboes had always bunked, as the remains of many a cooking-fire proved.
Beckoning to Billy to draw near, Hugh asked him if anything out of the way had happened while he was gone. Nothing had apparently, according to the report of the Wolf scout. Once or twice they had seen a movement in the vicinity of the mill, as a hobo came out to take a suspicious look around, or perhaps gather up an armful of wood to keep the fire going until the time came to cook another scanty meal. But, as the three lads faithfully kept securely hidden, their presence in the vicinity had not been suspected so far as they could say.
The afternoon was pretty well gone. It began to look as though there was not the slightest chance for them to return to the island camp until another day had dawned, even if the shift might be made then. Billy understood this, and, as he was a great feeder, he became very solicitous to learn whether the boys had been thoughtful enough to provide against an enforced stay there by the mill. He also wanted to know if they had remembered that he and Monkey, and probably Gusty also, possessed something like an appetite; and whether the material to stop this squeamish feeling down below had been carried along.
He was made happy by having several of the boys assure him that they had stocked up with more than one ration, so that soon Billy figured he would have no end of a good time making way with the extra provisions.
“Nothing doing until it gets dark, seems like,” Billy told some of the others, for having been in consultation with the patrol leaders, he had managed to pick up information in regard to the decision reached in the council of war.
“And that strikes me as a mighty clever thing,” remarked Bud Morgan. “An attack like this is always apt to be successful when made under cover of the night.”
“Yes,” added Cooper Fennimore quickly, “in all the stories of border warfare I ever devoured, the Injuns always waited till a short time before dawn to rush the block-house. Seems like folks sleep heaviest just before day breaks, though any old time is good enough for me to get in seven winks.”
“But I don’t think Hugh means to wait till that late,” Billy told them. “From the smattering I managed to pick up, it seemed that they had figured on creeping up as soon as night set in, and starting things to working.”
Bud Morgan gripped his bat with vigor.
“Can’t come any too soon to suit me,” he muttered. As a rule Bud was not of a vindictive nature, but he could see that the Merrivale boy had not only been robbed but cruelly hammered by the fists of the two ugly hoboes and it riled the scout considerably.
“Let’s see,” mused Billy, while waiting for the patrol leaders to complete their plans and announce the method of working to the rank and file, “all told there are how many of us on deck?”
“A dozen, no, just thirteen, counting Gusty here, who looks as if he were in a humor to do his part in the fight, if there is one,” observed Tom Sherwood.
“Um, thirteen is said to be an unlucky number, too,” grumbled Billy.
“Don’t let that bother you any,” Jack Dunham told him. “I haven’t a single ounce of superstition in my make-up, and only wish it was Friday, the thirteenth of the month, into the bargain. I hate all that clap-trap so much that I always try my best to start things on the bad luck day. And so far there hasn’t any trouble swooped down on me. In fact, I’ve had more than my share of good luck.”
“Mebbe you carry a charm in your pocket—the left hind leg of a rabbit that has been shot in a graveyard at midnight in the full of the moon,” suggested Monkey Stallings mischievously, at which Jack only snorted and curled his upper lip, as though he could not find words to voice his contempt for such foolishness.
“There’s the sun setting, boys,” remarked Blake Merton uneasily, for he had never been very much of a hand in any rough and tumble game like football or hockey, and secretly would have remained just as well satisfied had Hugh picked him out to stick in camp with Arthur Cameron and Ned Twyford.
“Bully for the sun!” Bud declared, shaking his head aggressively. “The old chap knows when he isn’t wanted.”
“He knows a good thing when he sees it, anyhow,” added Billy yawning, for he dearly loved to sleep, and the idea of the sun going to rest for something like nine hours appealed to him very much.
“The council is breaking up,” Ralph Kenyon whispered.
“That’s right!” said Sam Winter of the Otters. He picked up the rather tough looking cudgel, which he had managed to secure while on the way across the ridge, and at the same time a flash of excitement came into his eyes.