A HURRIED DEPARTURE
Three men were seated about a table in a small room. On the table were
several instruments, a delicate scale, glass vessels and test tubes,
a burning alcohol lamp that flickered under a pan, in which boiled,
bubbled and steamed some odd-smelling mixture.
“Isn’t it almost done?” asked one of the men. “It seems to me,
Professor Bailey, that it has cooked long enough.”
“What do you say, Professor Snodgrass?” was the reply of the one
appealed to.
“Hum! Well, you might put a little more of the clay in, and add
a bit more glycerine. I think that would make it about the right
consistency,” and the little bald-headed man bent over the steaming pan.
“All right, here goes a little more of the clay,” and the third member
of the trio, who in the dim light could be identified as Rickford
Fussel, put in the pan some of the yellow mud that he and his men had
dug from the swamp. “There’s plenty of it--that’s one consolation,” he
laughed, “and if it proves to be what we want, why, there’s a fortune
in it.”
“Several of them, I should say,” was the opinion of the man who had
been called Professor Bailey. He looked at Professor Snodgrass for
confirmation.
“Yes,” admitted the little scientist, nodding his head thoughtfully.
“There is no reason why this mixture should not replace the
old-fashioned poultice and mustard plaster. It seems to be highly
efficacious. But I want to make that final test on a large swelling, as
I told you, before I give my deciding opinion.”
“And you want to be sure the mixture is just right before you try it;
is that it?” asked Fussel.
“That’s it,” said Professor Snodgrass. “You say you have the subject on
whom it can be tried?”
“Yes, I’ve got the subject. He’s one of our workmen, and his knee is
badly swelled from rheumatism. If this yellow clay, with the medicines
we have put in it, will cure that, it will do other things in the
medical line that will make it worth all the money we paid for the
land, and more too.”
“I think so,” responded Professor Snodgrass, gravely.
Again he bent over the pan that was simmering above the alcohol flame.
He put in some more of the yellow clay, that was in a box on the
table, and added some glycerine and other things, stirring the mixture
slowly. A pleasant, aromatic odor filled the room.
“I think we might now call in the man on whom we are to try the
experiment,” said Dr. Snodgrass, after taking some of the mixture, and
examining it.
Fussel went to the door and called:
“Here you are, Bill!”
A man limped and shuffled into the room.
“How’s the pain?” asked Professor Bailey, a man with curiously shifting
eyes. He never, except by chance, looked you squarely in the face.
“The pain is fierce!” exclaimed Bill.
“And the swelling?” asked Fussel.
“Worse! My knee is as big as your head!”
“That’s good,” and Fussel rubbed his hands.
“Good!” cried Bill, indignantly. “Huh!”
“Well, I mean it’s good for our experiment, and it’ll be good for you
when the pain is gone and the swelling reduced. Now put out your leg
and we’ll clap the plaster on.”
The man, whose trouser leg was slit to the knee, exhibited a red,
inflamed and swollen leg. He could hardly move it.
“Now look here!” blustered Bill, “no monkey business, you know! I’m
willing to stand for this experiment, ’cause you paid me, and ’cause
none of the other doctors seem to do any good. But no hocus-pocus! No
cutting, you know.”
“No, nothing like that,” agreed Fussel, smilingly.
“Perhaps I had better explain,” Professor Snodgrass said.
“Perhaps,” agreed Professor Bailey.
“My friends here,” began Dr. Snodgrass (and how Jerry would have stared
had he heard the scientist address Fussel as a “friend”), “my friends,”
Professor Snodgrass went on, “have accidentally discovered a valuable
medicinal clay.”
“We discovered it,” broke in Fussel, “but it wasn’t until we appealed
to you that you suggested a use for it.”
“Well, be that as it may,” went on the professor. “They have found a
deposit of a curious clay that, when there is mixed with it certain
kinds of medicine, acts as a most efficient poultice, or plaster.”
“Maybe you know what you’re talkin’ about, but I don’t,” grumbled Bill.
“All I know is that my legs hurts.”
“Exactly,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Well, I will make it more simple.
Did your wife ever put a mustard plaster on you for pain?”
“Indeed she has, and it burned like fire, too!”
“Ah, yes, I expect so. And did you ever have on a flaxseed poultice?”
resumed Mr. Snodgrass.
“Once, when I had pneumonia.”
“Well, this new plaster, made of medicated clay, takes the place of a
mustard plaster, or a poultice. It will draw out pain, soreness and
swelling, as we have proved in several cases. We now wish to try it on
a larger scale, and with a severe case. It will not hurt you, and it may
benefit you greatly. Are you willing to risk it?”
“I’ll risk most anything to get rid of this pain!” cried Bill. “It’s
fierce! Go ahead with your plaster.”
The mixture in the pan was stirred some more. Then a part of it was
spread on a cloth, and, when it was cool enough, it was put on the
inflamed knee.
“Ouch! It burns!” cried Bill, jumping up.
“It will soon cool,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Sit still!”
The knee was bound up, and Bill limped away.
“We’ll look at it in the morning,” said Fussel. “Then you’ll be much
better.”
“If I’m any worse I’ll be dead,” grunted Bill.
“It is most fortunate that we met you, Professor Snodgrass,” spoke
Professor Bailey, when the things had been cleared from the table.
“We thought there was some value in the clay of the swamp, but it
needed your specific line of knowledge to bring it out. We are deeply
indebted to you.”
“Oh, not so much as you imagine,” was the professor’s answer. “My
accidental visit to the swamp resulted in the finding of several
valuable entomological specimens. And I have not yet despaired of
finding the two-tailed lizard here. I must resume my search to-morrow.”
The professor, who was stopping at the hotel in Bellport, sought his
room, leaving the two men, in the house they had engaged not far from
the hostelry, gazing thoughtfully at each other.
“He put us on the right track,” said Fussel.
“He sure did,” agreed his companion. “And as soon as we have the
widow’s land we won’t need to keep under cover any longer. Once we have
the deed we can announce our discovery, and I guess the stock of the
Universal Plaster Company won’t soar! Oh, no!”
“It will be a big thing,” agreed the other. “Medicated clay--no more
flaxseed poultices or mustard plasters. The new method will receive the
indorsement of all physicians. There’ll be a fortune in it for all of
us.”
“And the best of it is that no one around here suspects what we are up
to,” went on Fussel. “We’ve fooled ’em all!”
“And we mustn’t let this Snodgrass give us away,” cautioned Bailey. “We
must get rid of him, now that he has shown us how to use the clay.”
“That’s right. I hope it works on Bill.”
And it did. The new plaster mixture did all that was expected of it.
The swelling was all gone from Bill’s inflamed knee next morning, and
the pain much less.
“I thought it would work!” cried Professor Snodgrass, as he came over
from his hotel to look at the patient. He went into a long explanation
of the process of the plaster--how it contracted the small capillaries,
and brought the internal poisons to the surface, where the clay
absorbed them.
“I don’t care how it did it, as long as my swelling is gone down, and I
can go to work!” cried Bill.
The new plaster was a success. They had proved it before on small
cases, and now, on this severe one, their opinions had been confirmed.
“And there’s clay enough in that swamp to make us all rich!” cried
Fussel to Professor Bailey, when they were alone.
“Yes, but we must get the Hopkins tract,” was the answer. “The best
and the most of the clay is on that. We must have her land--by hook or
crook.”
And so, while Professor Snodgrass was busy looking for the two-tailed
lizard, and other rare specimens, and, incidentally, giving advice
to his new “friends” about the yellow medical clay, negotiations for
obtaining the land of Mrs. Hopkins were under way. They were nearly
concluded, when, one night, Professor Snodgrass, who was calling on
Professor Bailey and Fussel, remarked:
“Well, I don’t believe I am going to find that lizard here. I will
leave the hotel and go back to my friend, Jerry Hopkins. He and his
chums must be about ready to start on a trip. I am always lucky when I
go with them. I shall surely find my two-tailed lizard!”
Fussel and Professor Bailey stared at each other. Then they looked at
Professor Snodgrass. The same thought was in the minds of both.
“Are--are you a friend of Jerry Hopkins?” asked Fussel.
“Why, yes. I’ve known him for some years. He and his chums have often
taken me with them on their trips. I’ve been with them ever since we
discovered a buried city in Mexico. Oh, what rare specimens I got
there! Those were happy days. But now I need that two-tailed lizard,
and they may be going to the very place where I can find it.”
“And where is that?” asked Fussel, winking at his companion over the
professor’s head.
“Oh, I can’t say, as to that. But no matter where the boys go I am sure
to have some luck.”
“And you want a two-tailed lizard?” mused Fussel, thoughtfully.
“Indeed I do!”
There was a rapid interchange of looks between the two conspirators.
“Say!” suddenly exclaimed Fussel, “why didn’t I think of it before? You
know that shack of mine--that hunting cabin up in the Maine mountains,
Professor Bailey?”
“Of course I know it, Rick. What about it?”
“Why, don’t you remember those queer-looking, crawling things that used
to bother us so. Weren’t they lizards?”
“Why, yes, now I come to think of it; they were!”
“And didn’t they have a sort of double tail; not two tails side by
side, but one on top of the other--the short one on top; didn’t they?”
“By Jove! So they did!” cried Professor Bailey, clapping his hand on
his leg as though the idea had just occurred to him.
“Maybe they’re just what the professor is looking for,” went on Fussel.
“I didn’t dream of it before, but those were a sort of two-tailed
lizard.”
Professor Snodgrass, with a hopeful look on his face, gazed from one to
the other.
“Gentlemen, is this so?” he asked, eagerly.
“Well, of course I don’t know what sort of a two-tailed lizard you are
after,” observed Fussel, slowly, “but the kind you want might be up
around a place I have in the mountains. If you like, I’ll let you stay
there and hunt for the things. Glad to do it, in fact.”
“I’ll go!” cried the professor, with enthusiasm. “Where is it? How do I
get there? Tell me about it!”
They did, in a jumbled, confused way which showed how quickly they had
made up the story between them. But the professor was not critical. All
he thought of were the lizards.
“I’ll go!” he decided. “I’ll leave for Cresville at once, and get the
things I left with Mrs. Hopkins. Then I go. The boys can join me later
if they wish. I’ll go to Cresville at once!”
“No, you don’t need to do that!” exclaimed Fussel, again winking at the
other professor. “You can get a train from here. In fact, one leaves
this afternoon.”
“But I have many things, and some rare specimens, at the Hopkins house.”
“No matter. We’ll send there and get them for you, and forward them to
you. Just write a note, or order, saying you want them. We’ll attend to
the rest.”
“All right,” agreed Professor Snodgrass. He was in a sort of daze.
All that stood out clearly in his mind was the chance of getting the
two-tailed lizards.
While he was writing the note to Mrs. Hopkins, requesting her to
deliver to the bearer his possessions, Fussel and Bailey went out of
the room.
“Whew!” exclaimed Bailey. “A close call, that!”
“I should say so! I never knew he was a friend of the Hopkins chap, or
I’d never have asked him to make an examination of this clay.”
“Well, we’ve done it now. It’s too late to be sorry.”
“But no damage is done, if he doesn’t tell how valuable it is until we
get possession of the land. After that we don’t care what happens.”
“No; but we must get him out of the way before he has a chance to talk.
We’ve got to ship him right off. He mustn’t even see the Hopkins lad,
or his chums.”
“You’re right; he mustn’t. We’ll have to keep him on the move.
Fortunately he’s so wrapped up in this lizard business he won’t think
of anything else. Now we’ll stick by him until the train leaves. Once
he’s up in the mountains, hunting for lizards that don’t exist, we’ll
be safe. We’ll have the land in our possession in a few days.”
The two conspirators took the note the professor had written. Then,
never leaving him for an instant, they got him ready for his trip to
the mountains, where Fussel really did own a hunting cabin. It was
unoccupied, and was to be placed at the disposal of the professor.
“There you are now!” exclaimed Fussel, as he and Professor Bailey went
to the station with Dr. Snodgrass. “Just in time for the train.”
“And you won’t forget to send for my things at Mrs. Hopkins’s house?”
asked the professor.
“We’ll attend to that,” promised Bailey.
“And you’ll tell her and the boys, why I had to leave so hurriedly--in
order that I might not miss a chance to get those lizards; will you?”
“Oh, yes, we’ll tell them,” glibly promised Fussel.
The train pulled in. The professor was hurried aboard with some
articles of wearing apparel hastily provided for him.
“Sorry to have to hustle you off in this way,” said Fussel, as the
train pulled out, “but you really had no time to go to Cresville, you
see.”
“No, indeed,” added his fellow conspirator. “Those lizards are scary
things. They’re here to-day and gone to-morrow.”
“Don’t forget to send on my things!” cried the professor from the car
window, “and don’t neglect to tell the boys to come and see me!”