CHAPTER XXVIITHE GREATER MYSTERY
Since there was no solution of this singular puzzle, Tom did not let it continue to trouble him. He was too busy with his duties incidental to the closing season to concern himself with mysteries which were not likely to reveal anything of value. The kidnapping was a serious affair, and the curious discovery which he had made in the woods was soon relegated to the back of his mind by this, which was now the talk of the camp, and by his increasingly pressing labors.
"DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?" TOM ASKED.“DID EITHER OF YOU FELLOWS DO THAT?” TOM ASKED.
Moreover he believed that some scout or other had visited this now memorable spot and marked his initials on the mud, squatting on the log the while. To be sure, the absence of footprints close by, save those easily recognizable as Skinny’s, wasperplexing, but since there was no other explanation, Tom accepted the one which seemed not wholly unlikely. At all events, what other explanation was there?
For an hour or more that same night Tom lay under Asbestos’ elm pondering on his singular discovery. Then realizing that his duties were many and various, he put this matter out of his head altogether and went to work in the morning at the strenuous work of lowering and rolling up tents.
The papers which the boys brought up from Catskill that afternoon were full of the kidnapping. Master Harrington’s distracted mother was under the care of a dozen or so specialists, six or eight servants had been discharged for neglect, Mr. Harrington offered a reward of five thousand dollars, somebody had seen the child in Detroit, another had seen him in Canada, another had seen him at a movie show, another had heard heart-rending cries in some marsh or other, and so on and so on.
In New York “an arrest was shortly expected,” but it didn’t arrive. The detectives were “saying nothing” and apparently doing nothing. MasterAnthony Harrington’s picture was displayed on movie screens the country over.
But out of all this hodge-podge of cooked up news and irresponsible hints there remained just the one plausible clew to hang any hopes on and that was trainman Hanlon’s recollection of seeing a child in a mackinaw jacket and carrying a jack-knife in the company of two men who alighted from a northbound train at Catskill, within ten miles of Temple Camp.
One other item of news interested the camp community, and that was that boy scouts throughout the country had been asked to search for the missing child.
Meanwhile, the kidnappers sat tight, expecting no doubt that their demands for a large ransom would be more fruitful after the chances of legitimate rescue had been exhausted. The great fortune of Anthony Harrington of Wall Street was quite useless until a couple of ruffians chose to say the word. And meanwhile, Master Anthony, Jr., might be hacking himself all to pieces with a horrible jack-knife.
It was just when matters were at that stage that Pee-wee Harris, Elk Patrol, First BridgeboroTroop, went in swimming for the last time that summer in the cooling water of Black Lake. He gave a terrific cry, jumped on the springboard, howled for everybody to look, turned two complete somersaults and went kerplunk into the water with a mighty splash.
CHAPTER XXVIIIWATCHFUL WAITING
In a minute he came up sputtering and shouting.
“What’s that? A hunk of candy?” a scout sitting on the springboard called. For Pee-wee seldom returned from any adventure empty handed.
“A tu-shh-sphh——” Scout Harris answered.
“A which?”
“A turtshplsh—can’t you hearshsph?”
“A what?”
“A turtlsh.”
“A turtle?”
“Cantshunderstand Englsphish?”
He dragged himself up on the springboard dripping and spluttering, and clutching this latest memento of his submarine explorations.
“It’s a turtle—t-u-r-t-e-l—I mean l-e—can’t you understand English?” Pee-wee demanded as soon as the water was out of his mouth and nose.
“Not submarine English,” his companion retorted. “You can’t keep your mouth shut even under water.”
It was indeed a turtle, which had already adopted tactics for a prolonged siege, its head, tail and four little stubby legs being drawn quite within its shell. Nor was it tempted out of this posture of defense when Pee-wee hurled it at Tom Slade who was standing near the mooring float, watching the diving.
“There’s a souvenir for you, Tomasso,” Pee-wee called.
Tom caught the turtle and was about to hurl it at another scout who stood a few yards distant, when he noticed something carved on the upper surface of the turtle’s shell. He pulled up a tuft of grass, rubbing the shell to clean it, and as he did so, the carving came out clearly, showing the letters T. H.
The scout who had been ready to catch the missile now stepped over to look at it, and in ten seconds a dozen scouts were crowding aroundTom and craning their necks over his shoulders.
“Somebody’s initials,” Tom said without any suggestion of excitement.
“Maybe—maybe it was that kid who was kidnapped,” Pee-wee vociferated.
“Only his initials are A. H.,” Tom answered dully.
“No sooner said than stung,” piped up one of the scouts.
“What’ll we do with him? Keep him?” asked another.
“What good is he?” Tom said, apparently on the point of scaling the turtle into the lake. “Some scout or other cut his initials here, that’s all. I don’t see any use in keeping him; he isn’t so very sociable.”
“Lots of times you crawl in your shell and aren’t so sociable, either,” Pee-wee shot back at him. “I say let’s keep him for a souvenir.”
“We’ll have a regular Bronx Park Zoo here pretty soon,” a scout said. “We’ll have to give him a name just like Asbestos.”
Tom set the turtle on the ground and everybody waited silently. But the turtle was not to be beguiled out of his stronghold by any such strategy.He remained as motionless as a stone. Pee-wee gave him a little poke with his foot but to no avail. They turned him around, setting him this way and that, they tried to pry his tail out but it went back like a spring.
They moved him a few yards distant in hopes that the change of scene might make him more sociable. But he showed no more sign of life than a fossil would have shown. So again they all waited. And they waited and waited and waited. They spoke in whispers and went on waiting.
But after a while this policy of watchful waiting became tiresome. Apparently the turtle was ready to withstand this siege for years if necessary. Disgustedly, one scout after another went away, and others came. Tempting morsels of food were placed in front of the turtle, in a bee line with his head.
“Gee whiz, if he doesn’t care for food whatdoeshe care for?” Pee-wee observed, knowing the influence of food.
That settled it so far as he was concerned, and he went away, saying that the turtle was not human, or else that he was dead. Others, more patient, stood about, waiting. And all the famedingenuity of scouts was exhausted to beguile or to drive the turtle out of his stronghold. At one time as many as twenty scouts surrounded him, with sticks, with food, and Scouty, the camp dog, came down and danced around and made a great fuss and went away thoroughly disgusted.
The turtle was master of the situation.
CHAPTER XXIXTHE WANDERING MINSTREL
With one exception the most patient scout at Temple Camp was Westy Martin of the interesting Bridgeboro, New Jersey, Troop. He could sit huddled up in a bush for an hour studying a bird. He could sit and fish for hours without catching anything. But the turtle was too much for him.
“We ought to name that guy Llewellyn,” he commented, as he strolled away; “that meanslightning, according to some book or other. There was an old Marathon racer a couple of million years ago named Llewellyn.”
“That’s a good name for him,” Tom admitted.
“You going to hang around, Slady?”
“I’m going to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer,” Tom said.
Thus the two most patient, stubborn living things in all the world were left alone together—the turtle and Tom Slade.
Tom sat on a rock and the turtle sat on the ground. Tom did not budge. Neither did the turtle. The turtle was facing up toward the camp and away from the lake. Tom rested his chin in his hands, studying the initials on the turtle’s shell. If they had been A. H. instead of T. H. they would indeed have been the very initials of Master Anthony Harrington, Jr. But a miss is as good as a mile, thought Tom, and T. H. is no more like A. H. than it is like Z. Q.
This train of thought naturally recalled to his mind the letters he had seen imprinted in the mud up in the woods. But those letters were H. T. and there was therefore no connection between these three sets of letters.
Tom knew well enough the habit of the Temple Camp scouts of carving their initials everywhere. The rough bench where they waited for the mail wagon to come along was covered with initials. And among them Tom recalled a certain sprightly tenderfoot, Theodore Howell by name, who had been at camp early that same season. Doubtlessthis artistic triumph on the bulging back of Llewellyn was the handiwork of that same tenderfoot.
And likely enough, too, those letters up in the woods were the initials of Harry Thorne, still at camp. Tom would ask Harry about that. And at the same time he would remind some of these carvers in wood and clay not to leave any artistic memorials on the camp woodwork. It was part of Tom’s work to look after matters of that kind. About the only conclusion he reached from these two disconnected sets of initials was that he would have an eye out for specialists in carving....
But Tom’s authority was as naught when it came to Llewellyn. The turtle cared not for the young camp assistant. He sat upon the ground motionless as a rock, apparently dead to the world.
Tom had now no more interest in the turtle than a kind of sporting instinct not to be beaten. He could sit upon the rock as long as his adversary could sit upon the ground. In a moment of exasperation he had been upon the point of hurling the turtle into the lake, but had refrained, and now he was reconciled to a vigil which should last all night.
Llewellyn had met his match.
For fifty-seven minutes by his watch, Tom waited. Then the tip end of Llewellyn’s nose emerged slowly, cautiously, and remained stationary.
Eleven minutes of tense silence elapsed.
Then the tip end of Llewellyn’s nose emerged a trifle more, stopped, started again and lo, his whole head and neck were out, craned stiffly upward toward the camp.
Tom did not move a muscle, he hardly breathed. Soon the turtle’s tail was sticking straight out and one forward claw was emerging slowly, doubtfully.
Silence.
Another claw emerged and the neck relaxed its posture of listening reconnaissance. Then, presto, Llewellyn was waddling around like a lumbering old ferry boat and heading straight for the lake. As he waddled along in a bee line something which Tom had once read came flashing into his mind, which was that no matter where a turtle is placed, be it in the middle of the Desert of Sahara, he will travel a bee line for the nearest water.
But his recollection of this was as nothing to Tom now, when he saw with mingled feelings of shame and excitement something which seemed to open a way to the most dramatic possibilities.
As the turtle entered the muddy area near the lake Tom realized, what he should have known before, that the tracks which Hervey Willetts had followed from the mountain and which Skinny had followed from the lake were the tracks of a turtle!The tracks of a turtle coming from a locality where it did not belong, straight for the still water which was its natural element.
With a quick inspiration Tom darted forward into the mud catching the turtle just as it was waddling into the water. He did not know why he did this, it was just upon an impulse, and in making the sudden reach he all but lost his balance. As it was he had to swing both arms to keep his feet, and as he did so the turtle fell upside down in the drier mud a few feet back from shore. As Tom lifted it, there, imprinted in the mud were the letters H. T.
The initials T. H. on the creature’s back had been reversed when he fell upside down. And Tom realized with a thrill that what had just happened before his eyes had happened at that log up in the woods.
Llewellyn, the Humpty-dumpty of the animal world, had slid off the log, alighting upside down.
For a moment Tom Slade paused in dismay.
So Teddy Howell and Harry Thorne had nothing to do with this. This lumbering, waddling creature had come flopping along down out of the silent lower reaches of that frowning mountain, straight to his destination. He was not the first printer to print something the wrong way around.
Who, then, was T. H.? Not Master Anthony, Jr., at all events. But some one afar off, surely. Abstractedly, Tom Slade gazed off toward that towering mountain whence this clumsy but unerring messenger had come. It looked very dark up there. Tom recalled how from those lofty crags the great eagle had swooped down and met his match before the hallowed little home of Orestes.
In a kind of reverie Tom’s thoughts wandered to Orestes. Orestes would be in bed by now. Orestes had lived away up near where that turtle had come from. And the thought of Llewellyn and Orestes turned Tom’s thought to Hervey Willetts. He had not seen much of Hervey the last day or two....
Tom fixed his gaze upon that old monarch where again the first crimson rays of dying sunlight glinted the pinnacles of the somber pines near its summit. How solemn, how still, it seemed up there. The nearer sounds about the camp seemed only to emphasize that brooding silence. It was like the silence of some vast cathedral—awful in its majestic solitude.
And this impassive, stolid, hard-shell pilgrim, knowing his business like the bully scout he was, had come stumbling, sliding, rolling and waddling down out of those fastnesses, because there was something right here which he wanted. And he had brought a clew. Should the human scout be found wanting where this humble little hero had triumphed?
“I never paid much attention to those stories,” Tom mused; “but if there’s a draft dodger living up there, I’m going to find him. If there’s a hermit I’m going to see him. If there’s....”
He paused suddenly in his musing, listening. It was the distant voice of a scout returning to camp. He was singing one of those crazy songsthat he was famous for. Tom looked up beyond the supply cabin and saw him coming down, twirling his hat on a stick, hitching up one stocking as often as it went down—care-free, happy-go-lucky, delightfully heedless.
He looked for all the world like a ragged vagabond. The evening breeze bore the strain he was singing down to where stolid Tom stood and he smiled, then suddenly became tensely interested as he listened. Tom often wondered where Hervey got his songs and ballads. On the present occasion this is what the blithe minstrel was caroling:
Saint Anthony he was a saint,And he was thin and bony;His mother called him Anthonee,But the kids they called him Tony.
CHAPTER XXXHERVEY MAKES A PROMISE
“Tony!”
The word reached Tom’s ears like a pistol shot.Tony.
His mother called him Anthonee,And the kids they called him Tony.
Anthony—Tony. Why, of course, Tony was the universal nickname for Anthony. And if any kids were allowed within the massive iron gates at the Harrington Estate, undoubtedly they called him Tony.
Tom, holding the turtle like a big rubber stamp, printed the letters several times on the ground—H. T. He scrutinized them, in their proper order on the turtle’s back—T. H. Tony Harrington.
Could it be? Could it really mean anything in connection with that lost child? Was it possible that while Detective Something-or-other, and Lieutenant Thing-um-bob, and Sheriff Bullhead and Captain Fuss-and-feathers were all giving interviews to newspaper men, this sturdy little messenger was coming down to camp with a clew, straight from the hiding place of a pair of ruffians and a little boy with a——
With a new jack-knife!
Tom was thrilled by this fresh thought. For half a minute he stood just where he was, hardly knowing what to do, what to think.
“You’re a good scout, Llewellyn,” he finally mused aloud; “old Rough and Ready—slow but sure. Do you know what you did, you clumsy old ice wagon? You brought a second-class scout badge and an Eagle award with you. And I’d like to know if you brought anything else of value. That’s what I would.”
But Llewellyn did not hear, at least he did not seem at all impressed. His head, claws and tail were drawn in again. He had changed himself into a rock. He was a good detective, because he knew how to keep still.
Tom strolled up to supper, as excited as it was in his nature to be, and greatly preoccupied.
On his way up he dropped Llewellyn into Tenderfoot Pond, a diminutive sheet of water, so named in honor of the diminutive scout contingent at camp. He would have room enough to spend the balance of his life resting after his arduous and memorable journey. And there he still abides, by last accounts, monarch of the mud and water, and suns himself for hours at a time on a favorite rock. He is ranked as a scout of the first-class, as indeed he should be, but he is frightfully lazy. He is a one stunt scout, as they say, but immensely popular. One hundred dollars in cash was offered for him and refused, so you can tell by that.
After supper Tom sought out Hervey. “Herve,” he said, “I don’t suppose you ever tried your hand at keeping a secret, did you? Where’s your Eagle badge?”
“My patrol has got it.”
“Well, if you can’t keep a badge do you think you can keep a secret? You were telling me you wouldn’t let a girl wear an honor badge of yours——”
“That was three days ago I told you that. Girls are different from what they were then. Can you balance a scout staff on your nose?”
“I never tried that. Listen, Hervey, and promise you won’t tell anybody. I’m telling you because I know I can trust you and because I like you and I think you can help me. I want you to do something for me, will you?”
“Suppose while I’m doing it I should decide I’d rather do something else? You know how I am.”
“Well, in that case,” said Tom soberly, “you get a large rock tied to your neck by a double sailor’s knot, and are gently lowered into Black Lake.”
“I can undo a double sailor’s knot under water,” said Hervey.
Tom laughed in spite of himself. “Hervey,” said he, “do you know what kind of tracks those were you followed?”
“A killyloo bird’s?”
“They were the tracks of a turtle and I was a fool not to know it. That turtle had the letters T. H. carved on his shell. Do you know what those letters might possibly stand for?”
“Terrible Hustler? How many guesses do I have?”
“Those letters were printed wrong way around in the mud up near that log when the turtle fell off the log upside down,” Tom continued soberly.
“He fell all over himself, hey?”
“You didn’t happen to notice those letters up there, did you?”
“Not guilty.”
“It’s best always to keep your eyes open,” Tom said.
“Not always, Slady.”
“Yes, always.”
“When you’re asleep?”
Tom was a trifle nettled. “Well, are you willing to help me or not?” he asked.
“Slady, I’m yours sincerely forever.”
“Well then, meet me under Asbestos’ elm tree at quarter of eleven, and keep your mouth shut about it. We’re going to see if we can find Anthony Harrington, Jr.”
“T. H.?”
“Tony is nickname for Anthony; you just said so in your song.”
“When my soul burst forth in gladness, hey?The scout Caruso, hey, Slady? What are we going to meet under the elm tree for?”
“You’ll see when we get there. All you have to do in the meantime is to keep still. Do you think you can do that?”
“Silence is my middle name, Slady; I eat it alive.”
CHAPTER XXXISHERLOCK NOBODY HOLMES
Since Tom Slade, camp assistant, said it would be all right for Hervey to meet him at quarter of eleven under the elm tree, Hervey was only too glad to jump the rule, which was that scouts must turn in at ten thirty, directly after camp-fire. This stealthy meeting under the old elm tree near the witching hour of midnight was quite to Hervey’s taste.
He found Tom already there.
“Now for the buried treasure, hey, Slady?” he said.
“I want you to promise me not to sing,“ Tom said soberly. ”Now listen,“ he added, whispering. ”That turtle came from way up in that mountain. It has T. H. cut on its shell, and Ithink the carving is new. That trainman said two men with a kid got out at Catskill. He said the kid had a jack-knife. His folks said he had a sweater. Maybe the men put the jacket on him—keep still till I get through. Maybe they wanted to disguise him.
“It’s bad enough for detectives to make fools of themselves and get that kid’s family all excited, without scouts doing it. Maybe I’m all wrong but we’re going to make sure.”
“Are you going up there, Slady?” Hervey whispered excitedly, as if ready to start.
“No, not yet. We’re going to find out something about the sweater first.”
“No one is in this but just you and I, hey?”
“And Llewellyn and Orestes. Now listen, I want you to climb up this tree and don’t scare the bird whatever you do. You can climb like a monkey. Don’t interfere with the nest, but feel with your fingers and see if you can give me an idea what that red streak is made of. Don’t call down. All we know now is that Orestes and Llewellyn came from pretty near the same spot. Two little clews are better than one big one if theymatch. Go on now, beat it, and whatever you do don’t call down or I’ll murder you.”
Hardly a rustling of the branches Tom heard as the young scout ascended. One silent leaf fluttered down and blew in his face. That was all. A minute, perhaps two minutes, elapsed. Then Tom saw the agile form slowly descending the dark trunk.
“I’d make a good sneak thief, hey?” Hervey whispered.
“You’re a wonder on climbing,” Tom said, with frank admiration.
“It’s kind of like worsted, Slady,” Hervey whispered, as he brushed the bark from his clothing. “It’s all woven in with other stuff but it feels like—sort of like worsted. I put my flashlight on it, it’s faded—”
“I know it is,” Tom said, “but it was bright red when we first saw it and that’s what makes me think it hasn’t been in the nest long. I don’t believe it had been there more than a couple of days or so when we found the nest. All I want to know now is whether it’s wool, or anything like that. You think it is?”
“Sure it is.”
“All right, then one thing more and we’ll hit the trail. You meet me in the morning right after breakfast.”
CHAPTER XXXIITHE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY
Early the next morning Tom and Hervey hiked down to Catskill.
“I don’t see why we don’t hike straight for the mountain,” Hervey said; “it would be much nearer.”
“Didn’t you ever sail up the Hudson?” Tom asked him. “All the trails up the steep mountains are as plain as day from the river. If you want to discover a trail get a bird’s-eye view. Don’t you know that aviators discover trails that even hunters never knew about before? If the kidnappers went up that mountain, they probably went an easy way, because they’re not scouts or woodsmen. See? It would be an awful job picking our way up that mountain from camp.If those men are up that way they knew where they were going. They’re not pioneers, they’re kidnappers.”
“Slady, you’re a wonder.”
“Except when it comes to climbing trees,” Tom said.
At Catskill they hired a skiff and rowed out to about the middle of the river. From there Hervey was greatly surprised at what he saw. His bantering mood was quieted at last and he became sober as Tom, holding the oar handles with one hand, pointed up to a mountain behind the bordering heights along the river. Upon this, as upon others, were the faintest suggestions of lines. No trails were to be seen, of course; only wriggling lines of shadow, as they seemed, now visible, now half visible, now fading out altogether like breath on a piece of glass.
It seemed incredible that mere paths, often all but undiscernible close at hand, should be distinguishable from this distance. But there they were, and it needed only visual concentration upon them to perceive that they were not well defined paths to be sure, but thin, faint lines of shadow. They lacked substance, but there they were.
“That’s old Tyrant,” Tom said. “See?”
Hervey would never have recognized the mountain. The side of it which they saw was not at all like the familiar side which faced Temple Camp. That frowning, jungle-covered ascent seemed less forbidding from the river, but how Tom could identify it was beyond Hervey’s comprehension.
It was apparent that by following a road which began at Catskill they would skirt the mountain along its less precipitous ascent, and Tom assumed that the trail, so doubtfully and elusively marked upon the height, would be easily discoverable where it left the road, as undoubtedly it did.
Deduction and calculation were not at all in Hervey’s line; he would have been quite satisfied to plunge into the interminable thicket on the side near camp and get lost there.
“You see there is more than one way to kill a cat,” Tom observed. “I was thinking of the kidnappers while you were thinking about the mountain. As long as they went up I thought I might as well let them show us the easy way.”
“You’re a wonder, Slady!”
“There are two sides to every mountain,” Tom said.
“Like every story, hey?”
“You’re a good scout only you don’t use your brain enough. You use your hands and feet and your heart, I can’t deny that.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said Hervey. “We’re going to sneak up the back way, hey?”
“No, we’re going up the front way,” Tom smiled. “Llewellyn came down the back way.”
“He’s a peach of a scout, hey?”
“The best ever.”
Hervey had soon a pretty good demonstration of the advantage of using the brain first and the hands and feet afterwards. And he had a pretty good demonstration of the particular kind of scout that Tom Slade was—a scout that thinks.
They hit into the road about fifty yards from the boat landing and followed it through a valley to where it ran along the foot of the mountain.
“Are you sure this is the right mountain?” Hervey asked. “They all look alike when you get close to them.”
“Yop,” said Tom; “what do you think of it?”
“Oh, I’m not particular about mountains,” Hervey said. “They all look alike to me.”
Following the road, they watched the bordering woods on the mountainside carefully for any sign of a trail. Several times they clambered up into the thicket supposing some tiny clearing or sparse area to be the beginning of the winding way they sought.
Hervey was thoroughly aroused now and serious. Once they picked their way up into the woods for perhaps a dozen yards, only to find themselves in a jungle with no sign of trail. Tom returned down out of these blind alleys, his hands scratched, his clothing torn, and resumed his way along the road doggedly, saying little. He knew it was somewhere and he was going to find it.
Suddenly he paused by a certain willow tree, looking at it curiously.
“What is it?” Hervey asked excitedly.
“Looks as if a jack-knife had been at work around here, huh? Somebody’s been making a willow whistle. Look at this.”
Tom held up a little tube of moist willow bark, at the same time kicking some shavings at hisfeet. “Looks as if they passed this point, anyway,” he said. “Ever make one of those willow whistles? I’ve made dozens of them for tenderfeet. If you make them the right way, they make a dickens of a loud noise.”
CHAPTER XXXIIITHE CLIMB
At last they found the trail. It wound up and away from the road about half a mile farther along than where they had found the shavings.
“I guess no one would have noticed those but you,” Hervey said admiringly; “I guess the detectives would have gone right past them.”
“A lot of little clews are better than one big one,” Tom said as they scrambled up into the dense thicket. “The initials on the turtle, the new jack-knife, the willow shavings, all fit together.”
“Yes, but it takes Tom Slade to fit them together,” Hervey said.
“Maybe we might be mistaken after all,” Tom answered. “Anyway, nobody’ll have the laugh on us. We didn’t talk to reporters.”
Their journey now led up through dense woods, but the trail was clear and easy to follow. Now and again they caught glimpses of the country below and could see the majestic Hudson winding like a broad silver ribbon away between other mountains.
“Hark!” Tom said, stopping short.
Hervey paused, spellbound.
“I guess it was only a boat whistling,” Tom said.
“It’s pretty lonesome up here,” Hervey commented.
The side of the mountain which they were ascending was less precipitous than the side facing the camp, and save for occasional patches of thicket where the path was overgrown, their way was not difficult.
“But I think it’s longer than the trip would be straight from camp,” Hervey said.
“Sure it is,” Tom said; “Llewellyn proves that; he went down the shortest way. He might have come down this way to the Hudson, only he hit a bee line for the nearest water.”
After about three quarters of an hour of this wearisome climb they came out on the edge of alofty minor cliff which commanded a panoramic view of Temple Camp. They were, in fact, close to the edge of the more precipitous ascent and near the very point whence the eagle had swooped down.
From this spot the path descended into the thicket and down the steep declivity. Below them lay Black Lake with tiny black specks upon it—canoes manned by scouts. The faintest suggestion of human voices could be heard, but they did not sound human; rather like voices from another world.
Suddenly, in the vast, solemn stillness below them a shrill whistling sounded clear out of the dense jungle. It might have been a hundred yards down, or fifty; Tom could not say.
He was not at all excited nor elated. Holding up one hand to warn Hervey to silence, he stood waiting, listening intently.
Again the whistle sounded, shrill, clear-cut, in the still morning air.
CHAPTER XXXIVTHE RESCUE
“Take off your shoes and leave them here,” Tom whispered; “and follow me and don’t speak. Step just where I step.”
Tom’s soft moccasins were better even than stocking feet and he moved down into the thicket stealthily, silently. Not a twig cracked beneath his feet. He lifted the impediments of branch and bush aside and let them spring easily back into place again without a sound. Hervey crawled close behind him, passing through these openings while Tom held the entangled thicket apart for both to pass. He moved like a panther. Never in all his life had Hervey Willetts seen such an exhibition of scouting.
Presently Tom paused, holding open the brush.“Hervey,” he said in the faintest whisper, “they say you’re happy-go-lucky. Are you willing to risk your life—again?”
“I’m yours sincerely forever, Slady.”
“We’re going home the short way; we’re going down the way the turtle did,” Tom whispered. “It’s the only way—look. Shh.”
With heart thumping in his breast, Hervey looked down where Tom pointed and saw amid the dense thicket a glint of bright red. Even as he looked, it moved, and appeared again in another tiny opening of the thicket close by.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“A. H.” Tom hardly breathed. “It’s little Anthony Harrington—shh. Don’t speak from now on; just follow me. See this trickle of water? There’s a spring down there. They can’t have their camp there, they’d roll down. The kid is there alone. If you’re not willing to tackle the descent, say so. If we go down the regular way we’ll have them after us. We’ve got to go a way that theycan’tgo. Say the word. Are you game?”
“You heard them call me a dare-devil, didn’t you?” Hervey whispered. “They claim I don’tcare anything about the Eagle award. They’re right. I’d rather be a dare-devil. Go ahead and don’t ask foolish questions.”
For about twenty yards Tom descended, stealthily pausing every few feet or so. Hervey was behind him and could not see what Tom saw. He did not venture to speak.
Then Tom paused, holding the brush open, and peering through—thoughtfully, intently. He looked like a scout in a picture. Hervey waited behind him, his heart in his throat. He could not have stood there if Tom had not been in front of him. It seemed interminable, this waiting. But Tom was not the one to leap without looking.
Suddenly, like a flash of lightning, he threw aside all stealth and caution and, tearing the bushes out of his path, darted forward like a hunted animal. Hervey could only follow, his heart beating, his nerves tingling with excitement. What happened, seemed all in an instant. It was over almost before it began. Tom had emerged into a little clearing where there was a spring and the next thing Hervey knew, there was his companion stuffing a handkerchief into the mouth of a littlefellow in a red sweater and lifting the little form into his arms.
Hervey saw the clearing, the spring, the handkerchief stuffed into the child’s mouth, the little legs dangling as Tom carried the struggling form—he saw these things as in a kind of vision. The next thing he noticed (and that was when they had descended forty or fifty yards below the spring) was that the child’s sweater was frayed near the shoulder.
Down the steep declivity Tom moved, over rocks, now crawling, now letting himself down, now handing himself by one hand from tree to tree, agilely, carefully, surely. Now he relieved one arm by taking the child in the other, always using his free hand to let himself down through that precipitous jungle. Never once did he speak or pause until he had left an almost perpendicular area of half a mile or so of rock and jungle between them and the spring above.
Then, breathless, he paused in a little level space above a great rock and set the child down.
“Don’t be frightened, Tony,” he said; “we’re going to take you home. And don’t scream whenI take this handkerchief out because that will spoil it all.”
“Is it safe to stop here?” Hervey asked.
“Sure, they’ll go down the path when they want to hunt for him. They’ll never get down here. The mountain is with us now.”
“I didn’t drop my whistle,” the little fellow piped up, as if that were his chief concern.
“Good,” said Tom, in an effort to interest him and put him at ease. “That’s a dandy whistle; tell us about it. Because we’re your friends, you know.”
“Am I going to see my mother and father?”
“You bet. Away down there is a big camp where there are lots of boys and you’re going to stay there till they come and get you.”
“They sent me to the spring to get water and I took my whistle so I could soak it in the water, because that makes it go good. I made it myself, that whistle.”
Tom, his clothes torn, his face and hands bleeding from scratches, sat upon the edge of a big rock with the little fellow drawn tight against him.
“And when you whistled we came and got you, hey? That’s the kind of fellows we are. AndI bet I know how that nice sweater got frayed, too. A little bird did that.”
“I left it hanging on a tree near the spring when they sent me to get water,” the boy said, “and I left it there all night.” He poked his finger in the frayed place as if he were proud of it.
“And I’ll show you who did it,” Tom said; “because that little thief is right down there in that big camp. And I’ll show you the turtle you carved your initials on too. Because he came to our camp, too. There’s so much fun there. And you’re going to step very carefully and hold on to me, and we’re going down, down, down, till we get to that camp where there is a man that knows how to make dandy crullers. I bet you like crullers?”
A camp where even birds and turtles go, and where they know how to make crullers, was a magic place, not to be missed by any means. And little Anthony Harrington was already undecided as to whether he would rather live there than at home.