PIPER GROWS SECRETIVE.
Dressed only in underclothes while their other garments were drying, the
boys really suffered no discomfort whatever. They amused themselves in
various ways, and in camp the least ingenious person may keep himself
occupied and entertained without much trouble. For Crane and Stone the
account of the adventure of the others upon the mysterious island proved
deeply interesting, and much time was spent in discussion and
speculation. It was observed that of the trio who had visited the island
Piper had the least to say about it, being much absorbed in meditation.
“Look at Sleuthy,” whispered Sile, nudging Springer. “His analytical
mind is at work, and I cal’late he’s tryin’ to form a few deductions.”
As if he had caught the remark, Piper looked up and gave Crane a hard
stare that was doubtless intended to be piercing.
“Next time I visit that island,” he declared, “I’m going to take the
shotgun along, and it will be loaded, too.”
Springer whooped derisively. “Oh, yes, next tut-time you visit the
island you’ll tut-take the shotgun!”
“What,” questioned Grant, “would you have done with a shotgun if you’d
had one with you today, Pipe?”
“He’d dropped it when he ran,” asserted Springer.
Piper promptly turned on Phil. “If I were in your place, I’d be ashamed
to mention running. Like Crane, pursued by hornets, you demonstrated
that the wings of Mercury or the seven league boots would be of little
aid to you in covering ground when you’re thoroughly frightened.”
“I’m willing to admit,” said Grant, “that the sounds we heard on the
island and the conditions under which we made our visit of investigation
gave me a few unpleasant and awesome sensations. Nevertheless, sitting
here at this moment, I’m much disinclined to admit that I believe in
haunts. I reckon it was the approach of the storm, more than anything
else, that upset us complete.”
“How about the tut-ticking of the unseen clock?” asked Phil.
“A woodtick, perhaps, boring into the rotten timbers of the hut.”
“And the ghostly knockings?”
“There is no person who has not at some time heard seemingly mysterious
rappings, which were afterward found to be of the most commonplace
origin.”
“Well, there was that mum-moaning cry. You heard it, didn’t you?”
Rodney admitted that he had. “With more time at my disposal,” he
asserted, “I opine I would have looked around for the cause of it.”
“Bub-but the howling of the dog?”
“Most dogs are given to howling.”
“How about the white figures Crane and I saw on the island?”
“Imagination sometimes plays right peculiar tricks with the eyesight.”
“But we saw them. Yes, we did,” corroborated Sile earnestly. “I’ll swear
to that.”
Piper listened to this colloquy, his eyes bright, his manner that of one
keenly interested.
“Comrades,” he announced, rising to his feet and posing, “I shall remain
forever unsatisfied if we leave Phantom Lake with this mystery unsolved.
I propose to find the solution.”
“Oh, yeou’ll do a lot in that line!” sneered Crane. “Yeou’ve had a
swelled head ever since yeou was called to give testimony in court at
Stone’s trial. Before that you never done anything but talk, and yeou
ain’t done nothing since then. That was an accident.”
Sleuth’s lips curled scornfully. “Envy! Jealousy!” he declared. “The
opportunity has not since presented itself until the present occasion
for the full exercise of my acumen.”
“Wow!” whooped Springer. “Ac-cac-caccumen! That’s going some. Gee! Pipe,
when you’re at home you must sit up nights to study the dictionary.”
“In command of English pure and undefiled,” retorted Sleuth, “you are
plainly extremely limited.” Then he strolled off by himself and spent at
least a full hour in deep thought.
Some time before sunset Jim Simpson reappeared in the punt and landed at
the Point.
“Told ye I’d get round if I could,” he said, stepping ashore. “Didn’t
know but the old man would raise objections and have something else for
me to do, but when I told him what had happened to me, he give me a good
dressin’ down for being keerless, and then said that you chaps could
have any blessed thing you wanted that he owned. Say, the old gent ain’t
sech a bad feller, though he nigh works me to death sometimes. Soon’s I
come of age, you bet I’m goin’ to hit out for myself. Livin’ on a farm
ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, I tell ye that. I’ve got the truck for
ye here in the bo’t.”
He had brought a peck of new potatoes and a bountiful supply of green
peas, as well as onions, beans for baking and a pot to bake them in. But
that was not all; he proudly passed over something wrapped in brown
paper, announcing:
“Here’s some lambsteak for ye. The old gent killed a lamb yesterday,
and, thinkin’ mebbe you might like some meat, he cut this for ye and
sent it as a present.”
“Lambsteak, green peas and new pertaters,” spluttered Crane. “Gee whiz!
We’ll sartain have a feast. Say, Simp, yeou’re right abaout yeour old
man; he ain’t a bad feller. Get busy, Stoney, and start the repast to
cookin’.”
Ben was willing enough to do this, for his appetite, like that of the
others, had been keenly aroused by camp life.
He set his companions shelling the peas and preparing the potatoes,
while he started up a good fire.
“You fellers seem to be havin’ a pretty good time,” observed Simpson, as
he sat watching them. “Guess you’re enjoying it all right.”
“Sure we are,” answered Rodney. “Ever camp out?”
“Shucks, no; never had no time for that. Guess if you’d ever lived on a
farm you’d know how ’twas. Don’t s’pose you’re much used to real work.”
Grant smiled. “I was brought up on a ranch, and I reckon I know
something about work.”
“A ranch!” cried the farmer’s son, his eyes widening. “Where?”
“In Texas.”
“Sho! You don’t say! Well, I snum!” He suddenly regarded Rodney with an
amazing increased amount of respect. “Never saw nobody before that ever
lived on a ranch,” he confessed. “Was you a real cowboy?”
“In a way, yes; I’ve punched cattle.”
“I _do_ declare!” breathed Simpson. “That must be great fun. I’ve always
thought I’d like to be a cowboy.”
“Have you?”
“You bate! I say it must be rippin’ fun to be a real cowboy and jest
ride ’round on a horse and do nothing but tend cattle that don’t have to
be milked and cleaned and fed in a tieup and fussed over, the way
farmer’s critters are. I’ve read about cowboy life, and it sartainly is
the kind for me.”
The Texan laughed outright. “Not if you are adverse to hard work,” he
asserted. “Likely the stories you’ve read about cowboy life have given
you the impression that it consists principally of adventure and romance
and very little work. But let me tell you straight, partner, there’s no
harder work a fellow can do, and there’s mighty little romance connected
with it.”
But Simpson shook his head incredulously. “Can’t be so,” he doubted.
“Sometime mebbe I’ll go West and be a cowboy.”
“If you carry out that design,” returned Grant, still smiling, “you’ll
soon come to realize the fact that, in the way of work, Eastern farm
life is almost play compared with cow-punching. One experience upon the
range in a Texas norther would knock all the romance out of your noddle,
to say nothing of the lesson you’d get during a good dry, blistering
summer, when you’d have to be on the hike day after day from an hour or
more before the first peep of dawn until long after nightfall.”
Still Jim Simpson was not convinced, for, like many a mistaken Eastern
youth, he had come to regard the life of a cowboy as a most enviable
existence, and nothing but a test of its hardships could convince him
otherwise.
“Why, right now,” he said, rising, stretching and yawning, “I’ve got to
hustle back to the farm and putter around till it’s dark and time for
supper. S’pose I’d better be goin’.”
But ere he departed Sleuth mysteriously drew him aside and talked with
him for some time in low tones that carried no distinguishable word to
the rest of the campers. Naturally, Piper’s friends speculated over
this, and when Simpson was gone they sought in vain to quiz Sleuth. He
rebuffed them flatly.
“It’s told that curiosity once killed a cat,” he said, “and I can aver
that it got a certain party badly stung by ‘gougers.’ When I’m ready to
make known my private business, I’ll do so without being coaxed or
badgered.”