A QUEER CONFERENCE
That Jerry Hopkins, especially, and his two chums, relatively, were
disappointed by the verdict of Professor Snodgrass may easily be
imagined--and “disappointment” is putting it mildly. True, there had
been no real grounds for thinking that the queer, yellow mud was of any
value, and yet Jerry had chosen to assume as much. And his half-belief
had affected his chums. Now to find out that it was worthless was
something of a shock.
“No, I can’t imagine any use for it,” went on Dr. Snodgrass, as he
fingered the sticky, yellow lump Jerry had handed to him. “I am
familiar with most kinds of clay in this region, and this is not among
the valuable sorts. What made you think it was, Jerry?”
“Well, the way those fellows seemed to be taking it out for one thing,
and the eagerness with which they are trying to get mother’s land for
another.”
“Are you sure they were taking out the clay itself?” asked the
scientist.
“They said they were merely excavating ditches to drain the swamp,”
spoke Ned.
“Well, I think that is more likely to be right than that they are
trying to utilize the clay itself,” went on the professor. “I am sorry,
boys, but--Oh, there’s one of those queer green flies I’ve been trying
so long to capture. One moment, Mrs. Hopkins. He is on your dress!
Please don’t move, and I’ll have him!” and with that, dismissing from
his mind, for the moment, all thoughts of the clay the professor
“concentrated” on the fly in question.
He stole softly up to the side of Jerry’s mother, and, with a little
net, which was never absent from him, Mr. Snodgrass made a neat capture
of the buzzing insect.
“Ah, there you are, my beauty!” he exclaimed, as he clapped the fly
into a small wire box. It was anything but a beauty, being very large,
with a green body, and unpleasantly mottled wings--a vicious-appearing
fly. But to the professor it was beautiful from a scientific standpoint.
“A rare insect!” he murmured, holding the wire box up to the light to
examine his catch more closely. “A rare find. This has been a lucky day
for me.”
“And an unlucky one for us,” remarked Jerry, disconsolately, as he
tossed the lump of clay out of the window.
“Maybe someone else could give you another opinion about it, Jerry,”
suggested Bob, as the three chums went out. They knew it was of little
use to question the professor further. He had given his ultimatum, and,
besides, he would be so interested now in his new specimen--preserving
it and making notes about it--that he would find time for nothing else.
“No, I’m not going to bother any more about it,” declared Jerry. “The
professor evidently knows what he’s talking about. I guess I was on a
wrong lead. Those fellows must have been telling the truth, though it
didn’t seem so. I was foolish to dream that the clay could be valuable.
I guess mother will have to sell the swamp land as a bog tract and
nothing else. Come on, let’s go for a spin in the car.”
“Maybe it’ll do him good,” whispered Bob to Ned, while their tall chum
was filling the gasoline tank from a supply in the garage. “He sure has
got the blues.”
“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “We don’t often see Jerry that way, either.
His mother must have lost considerable money, and he depended on the
swamp land to make up the shortage. Well, it’s too bad!”
“That’s what it is!”
If Jerry had been absent-minded on the occasion of the ride following
the ball game, he was much more so on this occasion. He was so careless
in his steering that once he nearly ran into a tree, and another time
he came so close to running down an elderly man that Bob and Ned, in
the rear seat of the automobile, leaped up in alarm.
“What’s the matter, Jerry?” cried Ned, when the machine was slowed down.
“I don’t know,” confessed the tall lad. “I guess one of you fellows had
better take my place. I get to thinking about that yellow clay, and I
can’t put my mind on anything else. You’d better steer, Ned.”
“Well, perhaps I had, old man, if we count on getting home safely.”
“But say, you aren’t still thinking that clay is any good; are you?”
asked Bob. “Not after what Professor Snodgrass told you?”
“I guess it’s foolish, but I am,” admitted Jerry, as the auto proceeded
after the change of seats. “Somehow I can’t help thinking that there’s
more in it than appears on the surface.”
“Oh, forget it!” advised Ned.
“Well, I’m going out there to have another look in a day or so,”
decided Jerry. “Maybe those fellows will show a bit more of their
hands, and I can get a line on what their game is. Yes, I’m going to
have another look.”
“Will you have time before your mother makes up her mind to sell?”
asked Bob.
“Oh, yes. There’s a new slant to the affair now. It seems those fellows
have bought up all the swamp but the tract mother owns. And, if she
doesn’t sell, they threaten to shut off her right of way--that is, even
if she owns the land she won’t be able to get to it unless she goes up
in our airship.”
“Can they do that?” asked Ned.
“It seems they can. No one ever thought much of that swamp land, and
deeds and papers regarding it weren’t as carefully drawn as they would
have been if the land had been on the main street. So if mother doesn’t
sell, her land won’t be worth anything, anyhow.”
“That’s too bad!” sympathized Bob. “Still, it may be for the best after
all.”
“I hope so,” murmured Jerry.
In the days that followed the professor’s characterization of the
yellow mud as worthless, the boys saw little of him. He was off,
presumably searching for the two-tailed lizard, a reptile in which our
heroes, for the time being, took little interest.
“The professor sure has found some queer things in his day,” admitted
Ned, “but this is the limit! I wonder if he really believes there is
such a thing?”
“Well, of course such a thing is possible, as a freak,” spoke Jerry. “I
saw a two-headed calf at a fair, once, so a two-tailed lizard wouldn’t
be so much out of the way.”
The professor seemed willing to search indefinitely around Cresville
for the lizard, or other specimens, though, once or twice, he did ask
the boys when they expected to start off on a tour, for no summer went
by without seeing them off after some sort of adventures.
“We’ll go next week,” decided Jerry. “By that time this land business
will be settled, one way or the other, and I’ll feel easier in my mind.
Now let’s go out there, and see what’s up.”
They went up Cabbage Creek to Ryson’s swamp in the motor boat, as on a
former occasion, making their way to the land owned by Mrs. Hopkins,
wading with their big rubber boots.
“Well, boys, here you are again!” called Fussel, with what he probably
meant to be cordiality. “Better make the most of your trips here,” and
he laughed.
“How’s that?” asked Jerry, though he guessed at the other’s meaning.
Jerry looked around. Considerably more work had been done in
excavating, and it did look as though only drainage was the object,
for long ditches had been dug, the yellow clay being piled about
promiscuously.
“Well, we’re going to close up that right of way, if we don’t get that
tract there,” and Fussel motioned to Mrs. Hopkins’s land on which the
boys were standing. “Have to use an airship on your next visit, I
guess,” and he smiled, showing his big, white teeth.
“That’s what we thought,” spoke Jerry, with a laugh. He was not going
to let the foreman gain an advantage on him by being good-natured.
Jerry could play that game, too, if it meant anything.
The boys looked about them. There seemed to be more men digging in the
swamp than on their former visit. The laborers were delving in the mud
and water with their long-handled shovels, taking out the sticky mud
and clay. The yellow stuff lay beneath a layer of black peat, and Jerry
noticed that the peat was piled on one side of the ditches, while the
yellow clay was stacked on the opposite bank.
They made their way to where the motor boat was moored, and, as they
reached it, Jerry looked back for a moment in the direction where the
men were digging in the swamp. As he did so he uttered an exclamation
of surprise.
“What’s up? Another bite?” asked Ned.
“No! But look!” whispered Jerry. “Isn’t that Professor Snodgrass?” and
he pointed toward the place of the yellow mud.
“It sure is,” agreed Ned. “He must be looking around here for the
two-tailed lizard.”
They saw the little scientist, with his green specimen box and his
butterfly net, talking to Fussel.
“Seems like they have met before,” observed Bob, and indeed the boys
noted a cordial greeting between the professor and the foreman of the
diggers.
“Oh, the professor would make friends with anybody who could tell him
where to find a new kind of pink-nosed mosquito,” laughed Jerry. “Shall
we wait for him?”
“Better not,” recommended Ned. “Dr. Snodgrass will want to stay here
all day, gathering specimens, and if he has a liking for being eaten
up by swamp mosquitoes, I haven’t. He wouldn’t want to come with us,
anyhow, very likely. Let’s leave him to his own devices.”
“All right,” agreed Jerry, but, as the tall lad set the motor going
he looked back at the place whence they had come. He was somewhat
surprised to see Professor Snodgrass and Foreman Fussel in apparently
earnest conversation. And the subject seemed to be the yellow clay, for
the foreman was holding a lump of it out to the scientist.