ON THE ISLAND WITH THE BAD NAME.
"Keep back, Bandy-legs; that's a rattlesnake!" shouted Max, and some of
the others turned white with sudden alarm, as they also noted for the
first time the incident buzzing sound from a point nearby.
Immediately every one started toward the spot where the foolish
Bandy-legs was standing, holding a rather short stick in his hand, with
which he had doubtless been tormenting the larger snake just as he had
previously annoyed her young brood.
He was now seemingly turned into stone, although fortunately enough he
had managed to spring back a pace upon hearing the dreadful words
shouted by his chum.
"Get clubs, and make them as long as you can!" called out Owen. "Be
careful how you let her have a chance to reach you when she springs out.
A rattlesnake can sometimes strike as far as her own length, they say."
Immediately a scene of great excitement followed. Each fellow ran
around, trying to find a suitable stick, that would be stout enough to
do execution, and at the same time have sufficient length. For now that
they knew what its species was, the coiled serpent looked terribly ugly,
as, with head drawn back, she waited for another attack, all the while
sounding her rattle like a challenge to battle.
Steve happened to be the first to find a stick that he thought would do
the business, and he immediately rushed forward.
"Slow, now, Steve!" warned Max, fearful lest the natural headstrong
nature of the other might get him into trouble.
Just then Owen also picked up a long pole, and advanced from the
opposite side. The badgered snake, only intent on defending her young,
thinking that here was a chance to get away from all this turmoil, had
slipped out of coil, and even started to glide off; but as Steve made a
wild swoop with his pole, she again flung herself into coil, ready to
fight to the end.
Nobody spares a rattlesnake, however much they might wish to let an
innocent coachwhip or a common gartersnake get away. From away back to
the Garden of Eden times the heel of man has been raised against
venomous serpents. And somehow the close call their chum had just had
from a terrible danger, seemed to arouse the hostility of the chums
against this snake in particular.
When both Max and Toby came up, each, with a part of a hickory limb in
their hands, the destiny of that snake was written plainly, strive as
she might to escape, or reach one of her human tormentors.
Whack! came Steve's pole down across the reptile's back, and from that
instant the fight was taken out of the scaly thing.
"Wow! this is what I call rushing the mourners!" gasped Bandy-legs,
after they had made sure that the rattler was as dead as might be
expected before sundown; for Owen declared that he had some sort of
belief in the old saying that "cut up a snake as you will, its tail will
wriggle until sunset."
"I should say yes," added Steve; "and you're bent on bein' in the center
of every old thing that happens. First you shout out your boat's
sinking, and while we're fixing her you wander out and stir up a
hornets' nest about your ears."
"Say, it did sound like it, sure as anything," admitted the repentant
Bandy-legs. "I'm sorry I gave you all so much trouble, boys; next time I
run across a litter of little snakes, it's me to the woods. Wonder what
became of the beggars? They disappeared about the time the mother came
tootin' up."
"Mebbe they ran down her throat," suggested Owen; "some say snakes can
hide their young that way, but I never believed it."
"Well," remarked Max, who was examining the dead reptile, "this one
didn't, so I reckon they must have skedaddled off in the bushes. Perhaps
they're old enough to take care of themselves, though I hope they don't
live to grow up. If there's one thing I detest on earth it's a poisonous
snake."
"Me, too!" piped up Bandy-legs; "but then, you see, I never thought this
one was loaded. Yes, I just reckoned she'd come to see what I was doin'
with her bunch of youngsters, and I kept on jollyin' her. Thought I was
havin' fun, boys, but never again, you hear me!"
"Want to take these rattles along, Bandy-legs?" asked Owen, who had
severed the horny looking appendage at the end of the tail; "it'll serve
to remind you of what a silly job it is to play with a snake that you've
never been properly introduced to."
"Not for me," replied the other, with a little shudder. "I'd just hate
to have my folks know how foolish I was. Keep 'em, and hang the thing up
in the clubhouse, boys."
"Sure," interrupted Steve; "do for a dinner horn some time; better than
Japanese wind bells to make music."
"Ugh! I'll never hear it without thinkin' of the grand scare I got when
Max here shouted out the way he did," admitted the one who had been the
cause for all this commotion.
"The canoe's ready for business at the old stand," announced Max, "and
don't be afraid that there's going to be any trouble again with that
same leak. I've fixed that plug in good and strong, Bandy-legs. Now
let's be off!"
Accordingly the voyage was resumed. And just as some of the boys had
said, they speedily turned from the main river into the branch called
the Big Sunflower, which, as the scene of their late successful search
for pearls, was invested with memories of a rather pleasant character
for the five chums.
As they paddled along against the rather brisk current, first one, and
then another had something to call out regarding this place or that.
"It's just great to be coming up here again, after buying these boats
with some of the hard cash we earned that time," declared Steve, who was
keeping closer to the others now.
"How many fellers d'ye reckon started grubbin' up here, after we quit?"
demanded Bandy-legs, who was working the paddle fairly well, though at
times he made a bad stroke, and seemed to learn slowly that it could all
be done without the splash and noise he insisted on making.
"Dozens of 'em," replied Owen; "but they didn't find much, and it soon
petered out. Why, one boy told me he'd hunted two whole days, and found
just three mussels, which didn't turn up a single pearl. He said we'd
cleaned the whole river out, and sometimes I think that way myself."
"But that bunch back of Ted were as smart as anything, too," observed
Max. "Think of them finding that there was a whole lot of ginseng
growing wild in the woods around Carson, and gathering it in on the
sly."
"They sold it for a snug little sum, too," Owen admitted; "and then
started to plague the life out of us. But we came out of the large end
of the hole, didn't we, fellows!"
Chatting in this strain they tugged away, and continued to mount higher
up toward the headwaters of the sinuous river. But the Big Sunflower was
an odd sort of a tributary; in fact, like the Missouri, it should really
have been called the main stream, or as Steve expressed it, the "whole
push."
"I've been told that it runs right along into the next county, and
sometimes spreads itself into a bouncing lake. Why, right where
Catamount Island lies, the river is three times as broad as the
Evergreen at Carson."
It was Max himself who volunteered this bit of information. They had
been keeping at this steady paddling for some hours now, and Bandy-legs
was not the only one who grunted from time to time, as he looked at
blistered hands, and felt of his sore arm muscles.
"Well, we don't mean to keep on that far, I hope, fellers," remarked
Bandy-legs, pathetically, at which Steve laughed in derision.
"You'd sure be a dead duck long before we crossed the border, my boy!"
he cried.
"Keep a good lookout ahead," advised Max, some time later.
"He means that the island can't be far away, and by the jumping
Jehoshaphat, boy, I think I can see something that looks just like an
island around that bend yonder," and Steve pointed with his extended
paddle, as he spoke so enthusiastically.
A cheer broke forth, even if it did sound rather weak, for the paddlers
were a little short of wind right then. It was the island, sure enough;
and as they picked up new vim at the prospect of being soon allowed to
rest their weary muscles and backs, the boys examined the place and its
surroundings with considerable interest.
They then exchanged looks that meant volumes. Indeed, if Catamount
Island did have a bad name, it seemed to deserve all that. The trees
were very dense, and made the place look gloomy, and as Bandy-legs
declared, "spooky." Several had partly fallen during some heavy blow,
and rested upon others that had proven better able to stand up against
the wind. A few were fashioned in weird shapes, too; and to tell the
truth, it looked as if Nature had taken pains to gather together on that
one particular island all the freak things possible.
"What do you think of it, boys?" asked Max, smiling a little as he noted
how even bold Steve was just a little bit awed by the gruesome aspect of
the place which they meant to make their stamping ground for a full
week, unless they wished to bring down upon their heads the scorn and
derision of Herb and his crowd, and hear their cries of "I told you so;
who's a scare-cat now?"
Then Steve gritted his teeth after his usual fashion, and laughed,
though truth to tell, there was not any too much mirth about that
mockery of a laugh.
"Come on, who cares for expenses! Me to be the first to put a foot on
our island," he called out, as he dropped his paddle into the water
again, and urged his little buoyant canvas canoe onward with vigorous
sweeps.
"_Our_ island! Listen to him, would you? Oh! like that, now. As for me,
you don't hear me claiming a foot of the old place. Ugh! it's enough to
make a fellow shiver just to look at it. And it smells like cats or
skunks lived around here. But if the rest of you are bound to go ashore,
I suppose I'll have to follow suit. But I'm glad I said good-by to
everybody before I came up here."
Nobody paid any attention to what Bandy-legs was saying, as just then
they were making for the lower shore of the island, where a fair landing
place seemed to offer its services.
The rest were all ashore and looking around, before Bandy-legs managed
to jump out of his cranky cedar canoe. He acted as though glad at least
to have arrived safe and sound, if very sore.
Pretty soon the whole of them were as busy as beavers, putting up the
two tents on ground which Max had selected as suitable for the camp. In
doing this he had to consider a number of things, such as a view of the
river, nearness to the boats, a chance for drainage in case of a summer
storm that might otherwise flood them out, and soak everything they
owned; and such matters that an old and experienced camper never fails
to remember in the start.
Then came the delightful task of getting the first meal. That is always
a pleasure, though it begins to pall upon the party before the weekend.
Everybody wanted to have a hand in that first meal, and so Max fixed it
that they could enjoy the privilege to their heart's content.
And after the night had closed in around them, what joy to sit around
with the dancing and crackling fire, while they brought forward
recollections of other occasions when they partook of camp fare, and
looked forward to a period of keenest enjoyment.
Even Bandy-legs seemed for the time being to have quite overcome his
feeling of timidity and uneasiness, so that he laughed with the rest,
and appeared as joyous as anybody, sitting there and watching the
curling flames eat deep into the dry wood that had been tossed to them,
and feeling so restful after the meal.
Steve was filled with complete happiness. Somehow or other he seemed to
be more set than any of his chums upon proving to Herb and his comrades,
that they had been a lot of chumps who were almost afraid of their own
shadows. He had never been in a gayer mood, Max thought.
Presently all sorts of sounds arose around them, among which were the
cries of night birds like the whip-poor-will; owls started to hoot back
somewhere on the island; giant frogs boomed forth their calls for "more
rum, more rum!" and altogether there was soon quite a noisy chorus under
full blast.
But as all these sounds were familiar to even Bandy-legs, though it was
not often they heard them in concert, no one remarked that he objected
to them.
Max was just in the act of declaring that if there was one dish of which
he was particularly fond it was frogs' legs, and that he meant to start
on a hunt for some of those blustering fellows in the morning, when a
shriek that was entirely different from anything else, broke upon their
startled ears.
In spite of all their boasted self command, Steve, Owen, as well as Max,
Toby and Bandy-legs scrambled to their feet, and looked at each other
speechlessly, while their faces certainly took on a degree of pallor
that was remarkable, considering how red were the flames of the fire
that tried to paint their cheeks a rosy hue.