The Boy Scouts' Mountain Camp

CHAPTER XI

THE MOUNTAIN CAMP

Supper concluded, the talk naturally fell to the object of their expedition. The chart or map of the treasure-trove’s location was brought out and pored over in the firelight, for the nights were quite sharp, and a big fire had been lighted.

“How soon do you think we will be within striking distance of the place?” inquired Rob.

“Within two or three days, I should estimate,” replied the former officer, “but of course we may be delayed. For instance, we have a portage ahead of us.”

“A-a – how much?” asked Tubby.

“A portage. That means a point of land round which it would not be practicable to canoe. At such a place we shall have to take the canoes out of the water and carry them over the projection of land to the next lake.”

“Anybody who wants it can have my share of that job,” said Tubby, “I guess I’ll delegate Andy Bowles to carry out my part.”

There was a general laugh at the idea of what a comical sight the diminutive bugler would present staggering along under the weight of a canoe.

“Andy would look like a little-neck clam under its shell,” chuckled Merritt.

“Well, you can’t always gauge the quality of the goods by the size of the package they come in,” chortled Andy, “look at Tubby, for instance. He – ”

But the fat boy suddenly projected himself on the little bugler. But Andy, though small, was tough as a roll of barbed wire. He resisted the fat lad’s attack successfully and the two struggled all over the level place on which the camp had been pitched.

Finally, however, they approached so near to the edge that Rob interfered.

“You’ll roll down the slope into the lake in another minute,” he said. “Two baths a day would be too much for Tubby. Besides, he’d raise the water and swamp the canoes.”

The fat youth, with a pretence of outraged dignity, sought his tepee and engaged himself in cleaning his twenty-two rifle. After a while, though, he emerged from his temporary obscurity, and joined the group about the fire, who were happily discussing plans.

“One good thing is that we have plenty of arms,” volunteered Hiram, “in case Hunt and his gang attack us we can easily keep them off.”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed the professor, “surely you don’t contemplate any such unlawful acts, major?”

“As shooting at folks you mean,” laughed the major. “No indeed, my dear professor. But if those rascals attack us I hope we shall be able to tackle them without any other weapons than those nature has given us.”

“I owe Freeman Hunt a good punch,” muttered Tubby. “I’d like to make the dust fly around his heels with this rifle.”

“Goodness, you talk like a regular ‘Alkali Ike’,” grinned Hiram.

“Bet you I could hit an apple at two hundred yards with this rifle, anyway,” asserted the stout youth.

“Bet my hunting knife you can’t.”

“All right, we’ll try to-morrow. This rifle is a dandy, I tell you.”

“Pooh! It won’t carry a hundred yards.”

“It won’t, eh? It’ll carry half a mile, the man who sold it to me said so.”

“Minds me uv er gun my uncle had daown in Virginny,” put in Jumbo who had been an interested listener, “that thar gun was ther mos’ umbliquitos gun I ever hearn’ tell uv.”

“It was a long distance shooter, eh?” laughed the major, scenting some fun.

“Long distance, sah! Why, majah, sah, dat gun hadn’t no ekil fo’ long distancenessness. Dat gun ’ud shoot – it ’ud shoot de eye out uv er lilly fly des as fur as you could see.”

“It would, really, Jumbo?” inquired Andy Bowles, deeply interested.

“It sho’ would fer sartain shuh, Massa Bowles.”

“Pshaw, that’s nothing,” scoffed Tubby, with a wink at the others. The fun-loving youth scented a joke. “My uncle had a gun that once killed a deer at three miles.”

“At free miles, Massa Hopkins?”

“Yes. It sounds incredible I know, but they had the state surveyor measure off the ground and sure enough it was three miles.”

“Um-ho!” exclaimed Jumbo, blinking at the fire, “dat’s a wun’ful gun shoh ’nuff. But mah uncle’s gun hed it beat.”

“Impossible, Jumbo!” exclaimed the major.

“Yas, sah, it deed. Mah uncle’s gun done cahhey so fah dat mah uncle he done hed ter put salt on his bullets befo’ he fahed dem.”

“Put salt on his bullets before he fired them, Jumbo! What on earth for?” demanded Rob while the others bent forward interestedly.

“Jes’ becos of de distance at which dat rifle killed,” explained Jumbo. “Yo’ see, and especially in warm weather, dat salt was needed, ’cos it took mah uncle such a time te git to it after he done kill it dat if those bullets weren’t salted the game would hev spoiled. Yes, sah, da’s a fac’, majah.”

A dead silence fell over the camp at the conclusion of this interesting narrative. You could have heard a pin drop. At last the major said, in a solemn voice:

“Jumbo, I fear you are an exaggerator.”

“Ah specs’ ah is, majah. I specs’ ah is, but you know dat zaggerators is bo’n and not made, lak potes.”

Then the laughter broke loose. The hillside echoed with it, and Jumbo, who deemed that he had been called a most complimentary term by the major, gazed from one to the other in a highly puzzled way.

“Reminds me of old Uncle Hank who keeps a grocery store near my uncle’s farm up in Vermont,” put in Hiram. “One night in the store they were talking about potato bugs. One old fellow said he had seen twenty potato bugs on one stalk.

“‘’Pshaw!’ said an old man named Abner Deene, ‘that’s nothing. Why, up in my potato patch they’ve eaten everything up and now when I go outdoors I kin see ’em sitting around the lot, on trees and fences, waitin’ fer me ter plant over ag’in.’

“Then it came the turn of an old fellow named Cyrus Harper. Cyrus laughed at Abner.

“‘Sittin’ roun’ on fences,’ he sniffed, ‘that’s nuffin’. Nuffin’ at all. Why whar I come from the potato bugs come right into the kitchen, open the oven doors and yank the red hot baking potatoes out of the stove.’

“My uncle hadn’t said a thing all this time, but now he struck in.

“‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘all these potato-bug stories don’t begin to compare with the breed they had down near Brattleboro, where I come from. Down there I used to clerk in Si Toner’s grocery and general store. Well, the potato bugs used to come into the store in the spring and look over Si’s books to see who’d been buying potato seed.’”

“Funny thing your uncle never met the wonderful rifle shot, Philander Potts,” said the professor musingly, after the laughter over Hiram’s yarn had subsided.

“Philander Potts,” exclaimed the boys, “never heard of him.”

“Too bad,” said the professor musingly, “he was the best shot in the world, too, I guess. Why, once he undertook to fire at a rubber target 2,000 times in two minutes. The way he did it was this. He had a repeating rifle and kept firing as fast as he could at the india-rubber target. The bullets would bounce off and he caught them in the muzzle of his rifle as they flew back and fired them over again.”

“But what about the bullets that were coming out? Didn’t they collide with the ones coming back?” asked Andy Bowles in all seriousness.

“No,” said the professor gravely, “you see, Philander was so swift in his movements that he was able to fire and catch alternately.”

“I’ll have to practice that,” laughed Tubby.

Soon after the narration of this surprising anecdote, the major looked at his watch.

“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed, “nine o’clock. Time for lights out. Andy, sound ‘Taps’ and we’ll post the sentries for the night.”

Tubby and Hiram were selected for the first watch. The major and young Andy were to stand the second vigil while the third period of sentry duty fell to Merritt and Rob. It seemed to the latter that they had not been asleep half an hour when the major entered their tepee and aroused them for their tour of duty. He reported all quiet, and a clear moonlight night.

Hastily throwing on their uniforms the Boy Scouts turned out. For some time they paced their posts steadfastly without anything occurring to mar the stillness of the night. The moon shone down brightly, silvering the surface of the lake which could be glimpsed through the dark trees.

Suddenly Rob, who had reached the limit of his post, which was not far from where the canoes had been hauled up, was startled by a slight sound. It ceased almost instantly, but presently it occurred again.

Cautiously the boy crept through the forest toward the water’s edge. He took every advantage of his scout training and carefully avoided treading on twigs or anything that might cause a sound of his approach to be made manifest.

Gliding from tree trunk to tree trunk he soon arrived at the spot in which the canoes had been dragged ashore. At the same instant he became aware of several dark figures moving about among them. Suddenly, right behind him, a twig snapped. In the stillness it sounded as loud as the report of a pistol. Rob wheeled round swiftly, but not before a figure leaped toward him from behind a tree trunk. Before Rob could raise a hand in self-defense another form sprang at him.

The lad tried to cry out and discharge his rifle, but before he could accomplish either act he was felled by some heavy instrument, and a gag thrust into his mouth. The next instant, bound and incapable of uttering a sound, he was borne swiftly toward the canoes.

CHAPTER XII

CAPTURED

But silently as the attack upon Rob had been made, it had not taken place without causing some disturbance. Moreover, the sharp crack of the snapping twig which had attracted Rob’s attention to his trailers, had also reached Merritt’s sharp ears. In the silence of the night-enwrapped forest sounds carry far.

Merritt was all attention in a flash. The snap of the twig might have been caused by some prying animal or —

“Gee whiz! That’s the scuffling of feet!” exclaimed the young sentry the next moment as the sounds of the tussle came to him.

His first act was to fire a shot. It should have been aimed in the air, but in his excitement Merritt fired low. The bullet whizzed in the direction of the camp, struck a tin kettle which was piled up with a number of other tin utensils, and brought the whole pile down with a crash. Now Jumbo’s chosen sleeping place was right behind this barricade of tin hardware. When it fell it came crashing about the colored man in an ear-splitting avalanche. Jumbo leaped to his feet with a howl. He was attired in his shirt, trousers and shoes, not having bothered to remove these when he retired.

“Fo’ de lan’s sake what dat gum gophulous racket?” he yelled. In a flash his long legs began to move.

“Ah’ll bet a pint uv peanuts dat’s Injuns!” he shouted as he sped along, “mah goodness, ah wish ah had mah uncle’s gun. But as ah ain’t ah’s jes’ a gwine te trus’ ter mah laigs.”

Jumbo, in great leaps and strides, arrived at the lake-side in a few instants. In the meantime, the camp behind him was in an uproar of excitement over the midnight alarm.

The negro had already reached the waterside before he felt himself knocked flat by a heavy blow on the head. Now Jumbo’s head, like all negroes’, was about as hard as a bit of adamant. But the cowardly fellow deemed it better to lie perfectly still when he was knocked flat. Presently he felt himself being picked up and thrown into something that the next instant began to move off. He realized in a flash that he was lying in the bottom of one of the canoes.

“Hailp! Hailp!” he began to yell, but was silent instantly as a harsh voice breathed in his ear:

“You shut up if you don’t want a bullet in your black head.”

Jumbo lay silent after that. But his thoughts were busy.

“Bullet in mah haid, eh?” he mused, “mah goodness, ah don’t want nuffin’ lak dat. Mah cocoanut feels now laik ah’d done tried ter butt a locusmocus off’n de track. Wondah what deportentiousness uv all dis unusualauness done mean?”

His meditations were interrupted by a shout from the shore.

“Bring back those canoes at once!”

“Mah goodness, dat am de majah,” exclaimed Jumbo, but to himself. “He shuh am po’ful mad. Wondah if dem boys is playin’ pranks. If dey is dey’ll be sorry fer it.”

The black ventured to raise his head a little and peep up to see who was in the canoe with him. In doing so his eyes fell on another figure lying beside him. In the moonlight he could see the cords that bound it. The radiance of the moon also revealed the Boy Scout uniform.

“Gabriel’s Ho’hn! Dat’s one of dem Boy Scrouts!” he exclaimed, “an’ mah gracious, ah wondah who dat fierce lookin’ man am whose paddlin’ dis yar boat. Reckon ah’d better lay quiet. He looks pretty frambunctious.”

In the meantime, the aroused inmates of the camp had rushed to the shore. They reached it just in time to see their entire flotilla of canoes being paddled swiftly off across the smooth, moonlit waters. Tubby and Hiram raised their rifles when a hoarse laugh of defiance greeted the major’s command to the marauders to halt. But in a flash the officer saw what they were about to do.

“None of that, boys,” he ordered sharply, “put down those rifles.”

“No use for them now,” grumbled Tubby, “see, they’ve disappeared round that point.”

“Let’s get after them,” suggested Hiram.

The major shook his head.

“Over this rough ground they could easily outdistance us,” he said, “is anyone missing?”

It took but a few minutes to ascertain that both Rob and Jumbo were not among them.

“This is even more serious than the theft of the canoes,” exclaimed the professor, “do you suppose that it was Hunt’s gang that took them?”

“I don’t doubt it,” said the major, “who else would be interested in annoying us? But let’s hear Merritt’s story. What did you hear, my boy?”

Merritt soon told his narrative of the crackling twig and the struggle. A visit to the beach showed that there had, indeed, been a struggle before Rob had been landed in the canoe. A disconsolate silence fell on the little party.

“What are we to do now?” wondered Hiram.

“Get in pursuit of them as quick as possible, I should think,” opined Tubby.

The major shook his head.

“Not much use in that,” he decided, “we would not be likely to find them. No, the best plan is to wait right here. If Rob escapes he will be able to find his way back again.”

“Do you think they mean him harm?” inquired little Andy Bowles tremulously.

“I hardly think so,” responded the major, “they wouldn’t dare to do much more than keep him prisoner. But even that’s bad enough.”

“But what object can they have in all this except to annoy us?” asked the professor.

“Simple enough,” said the major, rather bitterly, “I guess they are going to hold Rob as a hostage.”

“What do you mean?”

“That if they manage to keep him prisoner we shan’t see him again till I have given them the plans to the location of the Dangerfield treasure cave.”

“They wouldn’t dare – ” began the professor. But the major interrupted him.

“We have already had a proof of what they will dare,” he said, “they are as desperate a band of ruffians as I have ever heard of.”

“I guess that’s right,” agreed Tubby, “but I’ll bet,” he added stoutly, “that Rob will find a way out of it yet.”

In the meantime the canoes sped on through the night. Rob mentally tried to keep some track of the distance traversed, but he was totally unable to do so. He judged, however, when the paddles finally ceased their splashing, that they must have come some distance, for it was day-break when the canoes came to a halt.

Rob was roughly jerked to his feet and then, for the first time, became aware of Jumbo. For his back had been toward the negro in the canoe.

“Mah goodness, Marse Blake,” exclaimed the black, “ain’ dis de mostes’ parallelxillus sintuation dat you ever seen. Ah declar’ – ”

But further remarks on Jumbo’s part were roughly checked by the man who had paddled the two prisoners to their present situation. He was none other than the big-limbed rascal, Jim Dale, who had played such a prominent part in the theft of the pocket-book.

“Shut your black head, nigger,” he ordered gruffly.

“Ah ain’t no niggah. Ah’s a ’spectabilious colored gent”; protested Jumbo, “’nd I kain’t shut mah haid nohow ’cos it keeps openin’ an’ shuttin’ of its own accord whar you busted me on it.”

But a fierce look from the man made even the garrulous negro subside. As for Rob, he disdained to talk to the fellow, or bandy words with him. Instead, he gazed around while the other canoes, filched from the Boy Scout camp, were coming up. He noted that one was paddled by Peter Bumpus, while the third one contained Stonington Hunt and his son Freeman, the lad who had already given the Boy Scouts so much trouble.

It was a curious place in which the boy found himself. But Rob, with his scout instinct, could not but admire the skill with which it had been chosen as a retreat.

The spot was like a large basin with steep rock walls on all sides but one. On the open side a narrow neck of the lake led into this natural fortress. Great trees and luxurious water growth masked the entrance and anybody, not knowing of it, might have passed by it on the lake side a hundred times without noting its presence. The canoes had been paddled through this natural screen of water maples and rank growth of all kinds, which had closed like a curtain behind them.

A beach, narrow except at the far end of the cove, ran round the water’s edge at the foot of the rocky walls. A small tent was pitched there, and a fire was smoldering. Evidently the place had been occupied for some little time as a camp. Rob found himself wondering how the men, in whose power he now was, had ever found the place. He did not know then that Jim Dale and Pete Bumpus had once been associated with a gang of moonshiners, whose retreat this had been before the officers of the revenue service broke the gang up and scattered them far and wide.

Hunt had gleaned enough knowledge from the plan, during his brief possession of it, to divine which route the party would take to the hidden treasure trove. He had, therefore, sought out this place when Dale and Bumpus told him of it. The boys’ enemies had made straight for it, and had been encamped there some days awaiting the arrival of the party. The notes of Andy Bowles’ bugle floating out across the lake the night before had apprised them of the arrival of the party, and plans had immediately been made for a hasty descent on the Boy Scouts’ mountain camp. How successful it had proved we already know. But of course, to Rob, all this was a mystery.

The canoes were grounded at the end of the cove on the broad strip of beach. Rob and Jumbo were at once ordered to get out, and Rob’s leg-bonds being loosened and gag removed, he followed Jumbo on to the white sand. Hardly had their feet touched it before Stonington Hunt and his rascally young son, the latter with a sneer on his face, also landed.

“Fell neatly into our little trap, didn’t you?” jeered Stonington Hunt, staring straight at Rob with an insolent look.

“Yo’ alls kin hev yo’ trap fo’ all I wants uv it”; snorted Jumbo indignantly, as Rob disdained to answer.

“Be quiet, you black idiot!” snapped Hunt, “we didn’t want you, anyhow. I’ve a good mind,” he went on with a brutal sort of humor, “to have you thrown into the lake.”

“By golly yo’ jes bring on de man to do it,” exclaimed the negro with great bravado, “ah reckon ah kin tackle him. Ah’m frum Vahgeenyah, ah is, an – ”

But Hunt impatiently checked him. He turned to Peter Bumpus. “Cook us up a meal,” he ordered.

“For them, too?” asked Bumpus, jerking his thumb backward at Rob and Jumbo.

“Of course. You may as well get used to it. I expect they’ll make quite a long stay with us.”

Rob’s heart sank. He was a lad who always schooled himself to look on the brightest side of things. But no gleam of hope lightened the gloom of their present situation. Things could not have been much worse, he felt.

CHAPTER XIII

ROB FINDS A RAY OF HOPE

The meal, a sort of stew composed apparently of rabbits, partridges and other small game, was despatched and then Rob, who had been released from his bonds while he ate, was tied up once more.

“These fellows don’t think much of breaking the game laws,” he thought as he ruminated on the contents of the big iron pot from which their noon-day meal had been served. Then came another thought. If they so openly violated the laws, the country was surely a lonely one, and seldom, or never, visited. Indeed, the thick forest of hemlock and other coniferous trees that fringed the cliff summits, would seem to indicate that the spot was well chosen.

Jumbo was not confined. The gang seemed to esteem him as more or less harmless for, although a sharp watch was kept on him, he was not fettered. Once or twice he caught Rob’s eye with a knowing look. But he said nothing. One or another of the men kept too close and constant a watch for that. And so the hours wore on. Tied as Rob was, the small black flies and other winged mountain pests made life almost intolerable. With infinite pains the lad dragged himself to a spot of shade under a stunted alder bush. He lay here with something very like despair clutching coldly at his heart. The canoes had been anchored, with big stones attached to ropes, at some distance out in the little bay. Only one remained on shore, and by that Jim Dale kept an unrelaxing vigil.

Jim and Peter were talking in low voices. Rob overheard enough to know that their talk was of the old lawless days when the moonshine gang made the hidden cove their rendezvous.