THE PLASTER-MUD
“Where do you imagine he’s keeping himself?”
“Give it up!”
“Oh, he’s after bugs--you can make up your mind to that. Bugs or that
two-tailed lizard.”
Thus Jerry asked a question, and Ned and Bob, in turn, answered it.
The three motor boys were seated on the porch of Jerry’s house one
warm summer day, about a week after Professor Snodgrass’s departure to
Bellport. Since then they had seen nothing of him, and had only heard
from him in that first brief note.
“Well, if he’s going with us he’d better get a move on,” observed Ned,
idly whittling a stick. “We want to leave by the end of this week if we
can.”
“That’s right,” chimed in Bob. “And I say, Jerry, I hope you have
mapped out our route so it won’t be too far between eats.”
“Oh, I had you in mind all the while, Chunky,” laughed the tall lad.
“There’s a restaurant, or corner grocery, about every five miles, and
that ought to be close enough for you.”
“Huh! Don’t get fresh!” retorted Bob, who resented too pointed
references to his eating propensity.
“No, but speaking seriously,” put in Ned, “the professor ought to be
on hand if he is going with us. And I suppose he will want to go,” he
added. “He hasn’t missed a trip since we went to Mexico. Say, there
were some doings then!” he exclaimed with a sigh of regret.
“Oh, we may have just as much fun and excitement now,” commented Jerry.
“We’ve got a long trip mapped out. And, if the professor doesn’t want
to come with us, I suppose we’ll have to go without him. Though it’s
more fun when he’s along.”
The boys had, as Jerry intimated, planned a trip for their summer
vacation. It was to be made partly in their big auto, and partly by
motor boat, and several hundred miles would be covered. They intended
to tour the upper part of New York State, and end with a long voyage
on Lake Champlain, whither their motor boat would be sent. But the
unexpected delay caused by Professor Snodgrass remaining at Bellport
had rather hampered them.
“What’s the matter with taking a trip over there and seeing what’s
keeping him?” suggested Ned, after a pause. “He’ll be glad to see us,
and, if he hasn’t caught that two-tailed lizard yet, he may be glad to
change his base of operations. Let’s take a run over in the car. It
isn’t far.”
“Go ahead!” agreed Jerry. “I’m with you.”
“Same here,” half-grunted Bob, for he was chewing gum, probably as a
substitute for eating.
“Well, as long as we’ve made up our minds to hunt up the professor,”
said Jerry, “we might as well make a full day of it, and go out to the
swamp. I want to look around there.”
“What’s the good?” asked Ned. “Your mother has sold the land; hasn’t
she?”
“Yes, that’s gone, and I suppose I ought to be satisfied with the price
she got,” spoke the tall lad. “But, somehow, I can’t get over the
notion that there’s something back of it all. Those fellows weren’t
square and above-board, I’m positive of that.”
“Do you mean they cheated you?” asked Bob.
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” replied Jerry, slowly.
“They paid mother what they agreed to; but it was their veiled threats
as to what they’d do if she didn’t sell that made me mad. They
practically forced her to dispose of that land, though I’m not saying
but what the condition of her money matters might not have made her
sell it anyhow.”
“But I’ve a notion I’d like to see how things are going out there, and
whether those fellows are really draining the place as they said they
were. Come on. It won’t take long to go there in the boat, and then
we’ll make the trip to Bellport in the auto.”
“I’m with you,” assented Ned. “Only you know your mother doesn’t own
any land there now, and we may be ordered off as trespassers.”
“I’ll take that chance,” returned Jerry.
A little later, in the motor boat, they were winding their way up
Cabbage Creek.
“It hasn’t changed much,” observed Bob, as they came within sight of
the swamp. “There’s as much muddy water as ever, in spite of their
drainage ditches.”
“I’m not so sure they were drainage ditches,” observed Jerry, who was
at the wheel.
The boat swung around a bend in the sluggish stream, and as it did so
Ned uttered a cry.
“Look!” he shouted. “They’ll never let us land there!”
He pointed to a large sign, and, even from where they were, the boys
could read that all trespassers were warned off under the “full penalty
of the law.”
“Hum!” grumbled Jerry. “They didn’t lose any time. I wonder what’s up?”
“Let’s go as near as we can and see,” suggested Bob, and he steered the
boat to the usual landing place. But that was as far as it could go.
Barbed wire stretched across the right of way by which Mrs. Hopkins’s
land had formerly been reached, and there was another sign which warned
trespassers away.
Across the swamp a number of men, with big rubber boots, and
long-handled shovels, could be seen working. And it needed no very
intent observer to see that they were taking out quantities of the
yellow clay. It was not excavating work at all; it was more like
mining--mining for mud.
“I thought so!” remarked Jerry. “But what’s it good for? That’s what
gets me. What in the world are they doing with it?”
“I guess that’s for us to find out,” spoke Ned. “We can’t go any
closer, that’s evident.”
“No,” agreed Jerry, in a low voice.
As he spoke there was a movement among the diggers, and a figure
detached itself from among them and came forward.
“For the love of stamps!” cried Bob. “Look who’s here--Noddy Nixon!”
It was indeed the old enemy of the motor boys who was advancing toward
them. They had not seen him in some months--not since the last time he
had made trouble for them.
“Hey! You fellows want to clear out of here!” said Noddy, with his
supercilious air. “Vamoose, or you’ll be arrested!”
“Oh, is that so? Who says so?” returned Bob.
“I say so!” and Noddy bristled up like an angry rooster. “This is
private land, and I order you away.”
“Who are you?” asked Ned, with a laugh. “Seems to me we’ve seen you
before.”
“Don’t get fresh!” advised Noddy. “I’m in charge here, and I order
you away. This land belongs to the Universal Plaster Company, and I’m
assistant foreman. They made me that when they bought my father’s swamp
land. Now you get away!”
“What’s the row, Noddy?” asked a voice, and the boys saw Fussel coming
toward their enemy.
“These fellows won’t get away!” blustered Noddy.
“I should say we wouldn’t!” snapped Jerry. “This creek is public
property, and we have a right to be here.”
“Well, don’t you come on this land!”
“Wait until we do, before you order us off,” suggested Ned.
“They aren’t on our property, Noddy,” observed Fussel, quietly. “You
boys can read, I suppose?” he asked, and his voice was a bit sharp.
“Oh, we’ve been to school,” replied Ned, easily.
“Well, just observe what the sign says--that’s all,” the foreman went
on. “You haven’t any rights here now, you know,” he said, addressing
Jerry.
“And we don’t intend to claim any,” was Jerry’s answer. “At least not
now.” There was a significance in his tone that made Fussel look at him
in a peculiar manner.
“I guess you don’t need to stand guard, Noddy,” went on the foreman,
“and I need you over at the work. Come on.”
“You needn’t worry. We won’t take any of your yellow clay,” called out
Jerry.
“You’d better not!” blustered Noddy. “That clay is----”
“That’ll do!” interrupted Fussel, sharply. “Go back where you belong,”
and Noddy, rather taken down by this rebuke, slunk off.
Fussel, as though he knew the signs would not be disregarded, had
turned away, and Jerry, after standing up in the boat, so as to get a
good view of the men digging in the yellow mud, threw in the clutch and
started the craft on her return trip.
“What in the world do you imagine that yellow clay is good for, Jerry?”
Ned remarked.
“I haven’t the least idea in the world, but I’m going to find out.
Professor Snodgrass said it was valueless, but he may have been
mistaken. I’m going to find out what it is good for.”