THE FORAGING PARTY
"A 'coon on two legs, as sure as you're born, Will!" ejaculated Bluff
presently.
"It's a man!" cried Jerry. "A man with a white beard in the bargain!"
"Frank, it's going to turn out a pretty fair picture, don't you
think?" demanded the proud artist, thinking first of all of the
success that had crowned his efforts.
"Seems like it, Will," replied the other; "but you've certainly given
us a big surprise when you sprung this on the crowd. He must have run
across the cord you had connected with the trigger of your flashlight
apparatus, and it went off while he was in the act of falling
forward."
"His face doesn't show as well as I'd like," continued Will,
reflectively; "but even as it stands the chances are we'll find a look
of astonishment there when I come to get a print."
"Well," remarked Bluff, "who wouldn't look staggered if, when he was
walking along through the woods, all of a sudden he caught his toe in
a cord that was stretched across the path, and then had what seemed to
be a flash of lightning strike him in the face?"
"I never happened to go through the experience," confessed Frank; "but
I'm pretty sure it would give me a fierce jolt."
"But who can the sneaker be, Frank; some darky chicken thief prowling
around in hopes of picking up some of our camp duffle?" asked Jerry.
Will turned on him with the scorn an expert photographer always
displays when he meets crass ignorance.
"Why, can't you see from the dark shade of his face in the negative,
Jerry, that he's a white man?" he demanded. "If it were a negro you'd
see his face almost white here. That point is settled without any
question."
"All right, Will, I acknowledge the corn," Jerry hastened to say; "but
that doesn't bring us any nearer a solution of the mystery. Why should
a white man, and one with a white beard at that, be wandering around
our camp in the night?"
They looked at Frank. It was an old habit with the three chums.
Whenever an unusually knotty point arose that needed attention, and
their powers seemed baffled, Frank was always depended on to supply
the needed answer.
"So far as I'm concerned, fellows," he told them, "I can think of only
one old man around this vicinity, and that happens to be Aaron
Dennison."
"Ginger! why didn't I guess him right away?" grumbled Bluff. "Seems as
if my wits go wool gathering nearly every time there's some sudden
necessity for thinking up an answer. Course it's Aaron, and nobody
else!"
"Yes," Jerry went on to say, as though not wholly convinced; "but what
under the sun would Aaron be doing here, tell me, and acting
suspiciously like a thief in the night?"
"Of course we can't say what tempted him to come out," Frank observed;
"we've never met the gentleman face to face, but we have heard that
he's a queer one. Besides, if you stop to think, you'll remember a
little circumstance that seemed to connect old Aaron with this cabin
on the Point many years ago."
"It takes you to piece out these things, Frank," admitted Bluff
candidly. "Sure! We figured that out by finding a part of an old
envelope in the deserted rat's nest under the floor board."
"Just as like as not," added Jerry, "the old chap owns all the ground
along the lake shore, including this cabin; and if that's so he'd
have a perfect right to walk out this way whenever he chose, at
midnight or noon, as the notion struck him."
"Oh, well," remarked Will with a sigh, "he spoiled my little game with
Br'er 'Coon, though I mean to make another try along that line. When
this film dries, which may be around noon, I'll strike off a proof,
and then we can see what the old hermit looks like."
"One thing goes without saying," chuckled Bluff.
"What might that be?" Jerry asked him.
"Our night visitor didn't wait to find out what had blinded him on the
trail, but must have turned and made lickety-split for home."
"Can you blame him?" demanded Will, demurely. "Stop and think how
you'd feel if all of a sudden you got such a shock. Bluff, you said
you were awake at the time, and heard some sort of a sound, didn't
you?"
"Why yes, I'm dead certain I did; and now that we know it was a man
who got the scare I reckon he gave a little screech. I thought it was
a yelp from some wild animal at the time, but it could have been an
exclamation just as well."
They continued to talk about the incident for some little time, but
although several suggestions were advanced, in the end they were
really no closer to an explanation of the mystery than when they
started.
All they knew was that some man, probably Aaron Dennison himself, had
been walking along the old trail leading to the cabin from above when
his foot caused the concealed trap to be sprung.
He must have turned hastily and retreated after the flash. What he
thought the sudden dazzling illumination was caused by, the boys had
no means of knowing.
Jerry and Bluff were now getting ready to start on their mission in
search of supplies. They both expressed the hope that these could all
be procured, once they reached the distant village on the lake shore,
many miles off.
It promised to be an interesting trip, for they would pass along a
shore neither of them had ever examined at close range before. To
those who love outdoor life there is always a novelty about
exploration. With new and interesting scenes opening up constantly
before the eyes the senses are kept on the alert.
Bluff even had the temerity to suggest that Will loan them his camera
for the occasion.
"We might run across some dandy pictures that would be worth while
snapping off, you know, Will," he went on to say in a wheedling tone
of voice, which Bluff knew so well how to use.
Will, however, shook his head. Usually he was of a most accommodating
nature; and on numerous occasions had willingly entrusted his highly
valued camera into the keeping of the other boys, who knew how to use
it almost as well as did the owner himself.
"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you, Bluff," he remarked
slowly.
"Oh! well, just as you say," declared the other, shrugging his broad
shoulders as though it did not matter much after all, and as if taking
care of the camera might possibly prove a task rather than a pleasure;
"I reckon you're thinking about the chances of my dropping it
overboard; or our running into a storm where the little old black box
might get soaked and ruined."
"Not so much that, Bluff, as that I want to do some work on the
camera," explained Will. "There's a little matter that really needs
adjusting, and I told myself I'd fix it this morning sure. Then again
I've laid out a scheme for to-day that if it works will call for the
use of the camera."
"That's all right, Will," remarked the other, briskly; "it doesn't
matter a pin to me, only I thought you mightn't ever be going all the
way to that village; and something fine could be run across between
here and there."
He dropped the subject and began to talk with Frank about other
things. Will looked a little uncomfortable. He disliked being thought
selfish, and seemed almost on the point of changing his mind. Then on
second thoughts he determined to carry out his original plan.
Frank looked over the old boat that had been patched up as well as the
conditions allowed.
"It seems to hold pretty well," he told the two who expected to make
use of it during the day. "Of course if the lake gets very rough so
that you pitch about considerably, keep on the watch for a sudden
inflow of water. The planks will hold, but I'm not so sure about the
oakum I pounded into the open seams."
"But you did a good job, Frank," objected Jerry, "and so far none of
it seems to have started to loosen."
"That's because we haven't had a chance to subject it to any big
strain," Frank explained. "When a boat tosses up and down on the waves
it gets a terrible wrench with each jerk. I've known seams to open at
a time like that when they were believed to be closed as tight as a
clam."
"Oh, well, we mean to follow your advice, Frank, and keep fairly close
to the shore," Bluff promised.
"And if there is any trouble both of us are good swimmers, you
remember," added Jerry confidently. "All I hope is that we get those
precious eggs packed in a way that they won't be scrambled on the
journey home. It'd be rough now if after all our hard work we had that
happen. I prefer my eggs boiled or fried every time."
None of the four chums as they joked in this fashion dreamed of what
Fate had in store for them before the sun went down behind the western
horizon. How could they suspect when just then the heavens looked so
fair and inviting?
"What's that you've got there with you, Jerry?" asked Bluff, who had
been fixing a phantom minnow on a troll, in the expectation of picking
up a fish or two while they rowed.
"Oh! a little cold snack in the shape of grub," explained the other,
who on all occasions possessed a voracious appetite.
"But don't you remember we planned to be in the village long before
noon, and expected to get dinner there?" protested Bluff.
"All right, that strikes me as a good scheme," came the ready reply;
"but with my customary caution I'm only insuring against starvation.
How do we know but what we'll be shipwrecked half-way there, and find
ourselves up against it? For one I don't propose to go hungry when
there's a chance to save myself."
Bluff laughed on hearing this explanation.
"Trust you to look out for that, Jerry!" he declared. "And I suppose
that in case we do get dinner at the village tavern or a farmhouse,
you'll be ready to make way with your snack on the voyage back?"
"I might be influenced by strong pressure," chuckled the other.
"How about the weather, Frank; see any sign of a storm in the offing?"
asked Bluff, turning to the leader of the camp.
"Nothing in sight right now," he was told; "the chances are you'll
have clear weather going, though there may be some wind behind you.
What's going to happen in the afternoon is another matter. I'm not a
weather sharp, and so I throw up my hands when you ask me to lift the
veil."
All being ready, the boys launched their boat. Bluff was to use the
oars for the first shift. When he began to tire he was to call on his
chum to change places, unless in the meantime the breeze had
freshened enough for them to make use of their sail.
"Good-bye, fellows!" called out Will; "see you later, and take mighty
good care of those eggs, remember!"
"Listen to him, would you?" jeered Jerry. "So long as the hen fruit
gets here unbroken Will doesn't seem to care what happens to his
chums. But that's all right, and we hope to turn up safe and sound
before sunset." And under the steady influence of the oars the boat
glided on until the voices of the boys died away in the distance.