SURPRISING THE SHERIFF.
“That settles it, then,” Hugh told them all, “so let’s be off.”
“Just give us a minute, please, Hugh,” interposed Alec. “I want to carry
along a fine club I’ve got in the tent here.”
“And if Monkey Stallings will lend me that electric torch he brought
with him I might find a chance to make good use of the same,” observed
Ralph who, being the best trailer in the whole troop, anticipated that
much would be expected of him in the present crisis.
“Sure I will, Ralph,” replied Monkey Stallings. “There’s a brand new
battery in the torch, too, so it ought to last you a good while. I’ll
get it right away.”
A few of the other fellows were also bustling around. Perhaps they
thought it best to arm and equip themselves with staves or cudgels as a
means of defense, should they come in contact with the three desperate
guards. Scouts may be debarred from handling firearms as a general
practice, but occasions are apt to arise where they are compelled to
defend themselves; and at such times a club is a pretty good thing to
have in hand.
This took but a few minutes. Hugh was getting impatient to be off, for
he considered that they had already wasted enough time. The trail would
be getting colder all the while; and besides, they would still have to
pick up some points over at the plant.
Finally they were all ready, and a glance at their eager faces spoke
volumes for the willing spirit with which those scouts entered into this
game of trying to recover the lost boy.
Harold Tremaine and Monkey Stallings, with rueful looks, saw their
comrades depart. They were undoubtedly keenly disappointed. Smothering
this feeling as best they could they called out after the party:
“Here’s wishing you and Nurse Jones the best of luck!”
She waved her hand back at them. It must have pleased her to know that
these happy-go-lucky scouts had already become quite fond of her in the
short time they were favored with her acquaintance. Friends were not so
plentiful in her sad experience that she could afford to despise the
honest interest these lads were taking in her fortunes.
Hugh remembered that he had made out the time as about nine o’clock just
before the unexpected coming of the sheriff and Mr. Campertown with
their startling news.
Not that the scout master carried a watch with him, or had even asked
one of the others to inform him as to the time. A scout’s clock is
usually in the heavens. If he has learned his lesson properly he is able
to tell pretty accurately, in case the sky is clear, what hour of the
day or night it may chance to be.
This is only done by making himself familiar with the positions of the
various heavenly bodies, the sun by day, the moon and planets by night.
In time he knows just by taking a rapid survey of the blue vault above
him how the night goes, for he has become aware that this star or that
one will be in a certain position, behind the western horizon at twelve,
one, two or three o’clock.
If the disappearance of the little fellow was discovered about dark, as
they had been given to understand, that would mean an hour or more had
since elapsed.
Hugh went even further and figured that the abductors would hardly try
to do their work until the shades of evening had commenced to gather, so
they might slip away without being detected.
The boys were already at the works now, having skirted the settlement on
the way, and noticed that there was renewed excitement as the padrone
started the inmates to scouring the immediate vicinity in search of
traces of the missing child. Hugh could see that the women who wore
those bright-colored handkerchiefs about their heads seemed to be most
in evidence, nor did he wonder at this; since they had children of their
own, ragged and dirty-faced, but nevertheless precious to them, and they
could therefore feel for the stricken millionaire.
“They’ve forgotten just now all they suffered at his hands, I do
believe,” Nurse Jones was saying in the ear of the scout master, for she
persisted in tripping along close to Hugh.
“It seems so,” the boy replied; “and I hope Mr. Campertown will not
forget the fact, either. If we have the good luck to fetch Reuben back,
I’m going to hold him to the promise he made us; and I know what it is I
mean to ask him to do.”
“I think I can give a good guess, Hugh,” Nurse Jones murmured. “I wish
to say that the thought does you credit. I only hope and pray we may
find the child, and that he can be taken back unharmed. I believe it
will be a turning point in the life of that stern old man. It’s a lesson
he’s been in need of——”
Now that they had reached the stockade around the cement works, they
found, as upon the occasion of their other visit, that some of the
sheriff’s posse stood on guard.
Apparently they had received their orders not to debar any of the scouts
from entering as they pleased, for when Hugh started to pass through the
gate there was no remonstrance made.
“What d’ye reckon Hugh means to do here, Billy?” whispered Whistling
Smith, as with all the others he passed inside the building that had
been without workers for so long a time now.
“Why, here’s where the little chap was when last seen,” explained Billy;
“and to get on his track we’ve had to come here. If we only had a dog
now, one of the right kind that’s accustomed to following a scent, a
hound like they use to hunt escaped convicts from the turpentine camps
down South, all we would have to do would be to let the dog sniff at
some article of clothing worn by the kid. After that he’d pick out the
trail, just by his sense of smell, and lead us straight to the spot.”
“But Ralph is a crackerjack of a trailer, you remember, Billy,” said
Whistling Smith; “and he’s bound to do his level best this time.”
“Oh! I reckon Ralph is as good a hand as any ordinary scout can be,”
Billy admitted. “I’ve been reading lots lately about what wonderful
things those smart tracking hounds have been known to do; and, say, I’d
just like to see some of it with my own eyes. But then we’ll stand back
of Ralph, and help out all we can.”
Considering that Billy was not known to be much of a hand at reading
signs and following a trail through brush and over hills this was very
condescending on his part. No doubt Ralph would have felt greatly
encouraged could he have heard the noble resolve.
Ralph at that moment was busily engaged. With Hugh he had sought the
offices of the plant, thinking that the sheriff might be found there, if
he were still about the buildings. It proved to be a good guess, for
they did discover both the sheriff and Mr. Campertown, the latter
looking more dejected than ever, which was ample proof that thus far no
signs had been found of the strangely missing child.
At the entrance of the two scouts, Mr. Campertown started and looked
eagerly toward them as though a sudden wild hope had seized upon him.
When he saw who the newcomers were, and realized that they could not
have any glad tidings for him as yet, he heaved a great sigh and sank
back again in his chair.
Perhaps he and the sheriff may have been consulting on some plan. If so,
they immediately put it out of their heads at the coming of Hugh and
Ralph.
“Are you ready to begin on the job now, boys?” asked the officer kindly,
yet with a touch of half-veiled sarcasm in his voice, as though, after
all, he had grave doubts as to the lads being able to undertake the
successful carrying out of such a task as now lay before them.
“We wanted to ask a few questions first, sir, and then make our start
from here,” the scout master informed him.
“That sounds like business, anyway,” the sheriff observed, “and I
suppose it is about the boy last being seen you want to know?”
“For one thing, yes,” Hugh told him.
“I’ll try and give you the few facts we’ve dug out so far,” said the big
official. “I have two of my men who used to be on the police force in
Boston working on the case. You’ll have to take care, or they’ll cut the
ground out from under the feet of the scouts.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference to us if they did,” said the scout
master; “our only idea is to find the child, and so long as that’s done,
it doesn’t matter who has the luck to bring him back. Please tell us
what you’ve found out, sir.”
“The little fellow ate his supper with his grandfather at half past six.
In fact, the three of us sat at that table over there, and tried to make
the best of the meal they prepared for us here in the plant. It’s been
the habit of little Reuben to be put to bed early, and so Mr. Campertown
took him off immediately we were done. Why, the kid was that sleepy he
went off while we sat here at the table, and the last I saw of him he
was lying like a log in his grandfather’s arms.”
Mr. Campertown barely suppressed a groan. The recollection evidently
came near overpowering him, so that it was only with an effort he shut
his jaws tightly and held his feelings in with a tight rein.
“An hour or so afterward, about eight it was, and just dark,” continued
the sheriff, “Mr. Campertown had occasion to go again to the room over
yonder, where you see that partly open door. There had been a couple of
cots arranged for himself and the child, the rest of us meaning to bunk
in other parts of the plant. Well, I heard him give a cry, and he came
staggering out, looking as white as a ghost, and trying to tell me that
the boy was gone.”
“Whew! that _was_ exciting,” Ralph could not help saying when the
sheriff paused to catch his breath, for he was a large man, and talking
was not his strongest point.
“Of course I hurried in,” the official went on, “and found a window wide
open, showing where the abductor had entered. We had heard no sound
while we sat here, which proved that the man or men had worked with
expedition and great caution, not even arousing the child. That’s about
the extent of our information, son. Whoever the contemptible scoundrel
was, he left no card behind him with his signature.”
“It happened between seven and eight, then, according to what you say,
Mr. Sheriff?” Hugh ventured to say, as though that fact might be worth
remembering later on.
“That’s a certainty, son. The main thing, though, is the fact that they
took the kid out through the window without my men being any the wiser.
Then there was the stockade to consider; they must have known where a
weak place could be found in that.”
“If they were on guard here for days and weeks they would be apt to know
every foot of the place, don’t you think?” asked Hugh boldly, so that
the sheriff stared at him, and then exclaimed:
“What does this stand for? Have you lighted on a clue already that my
men missed? Why do you speak of those guards we sent packing? What have
they got to do with this kidnapping game, son?”
“Only that my chum Ralph, here, saw three of them sneaking around in the
brush outside the picket lines in the afternoon,” Hugh informed the
astonished officer. “He watched them a while, and from their actions
felt that they were up to some mischief. We talked it over, and wondered
if they had designs on the safe here; but, since you and your strong
posse were on duty, we concluded that it was none of our business, and
that we wouldn’t be thanked if we tried to give you a tip; so we kept
still. But, after we learned that a treasure many times more valuable
than any in the safe had been stolen, we saw a great light.”
Then the sheriff, still staring at Hugh, slapped his hand down on his
thigh, and was heard to mutter, as if to himself:
“By George! It begins to strike me there may be something after all to
that talk about the clever way these scouts do their work. I’m getting
my eyes opened!”