THE MYSTERY SOLVED—CONCLUSION.
The sheriff was satisfied to find that he had the much sought thief in
his hands, and that the stolen property of the rich planter turned up
after a search of the interior of the shack; though some of the younger
elements in his posse felt a bit disappointed because they had had such
a small part to play in the affair, the honors of which seemed to go to
Thad and the swamp ranger.
As for the scouts, they were fairly wild with delight over the
successful outcome of their trip into Dixie. Thad declared that they
would make for New Orleans as soon as possible, where he expected to
interview the sisters at the convent school at which Pauline had been
kept for years.
Jasper, after he had recovered in a measure from his bitter
disappointment, began to show a yellow streak. Perhaps he cherished a
faint hope that if he tried to make amends Thad might interest himself
in seeking to have his punishment lightened; as though anything the boy
could do would make a difference with the stern justice of the law he
had defied so long.
He admitted before them all that the girl was the Brewster baby, and
that he had been guilty of stealing her, just to get even with those
whom he hated because he had wronged them, and had been found out. Thad
was wise enough to get him to write out a confession, and have the
sheriff and several others witness the same. He believed that this would
be enough to prove that Pauline was his long lost sister. But all the
same Thad did go to New Orleans with his chums later on, and made sure
to get the little garments which the sisters had kept all these years,
and which they affirmed had been upon the child when she was first
brought to them by the man who called himself her father, and who paid
well to have her taken care of.
They left the strange island in the heart of the quaking bog in the same
way they had reached it. And Jasper thus learned that after all he had
not been the only one who knew about that hidden ridge, by following
which the treacherous bed of slime could be safely crossed.
When the scouts once more arrived at the spot where their boats had been
left they concluded to spend the night in camp. Alligator Smith would
not leave them; but the sheriff was eager to get back with his prisoner
and the loot, so that he might claim the rich reward that had been
offered for the capture of the man, and the safe return of the stolen
property.
“Our last night in old Alligator Swamp, boys,” said Allan, as the
afternoon began to wear along, and found them very comfortable, with the
tents erected, and a cheery fire blazing near by, “and let’s make it a
memorable one by every means in our power.”
“If we’re meaning to have a real pleasant evening,” spoke up Davy Jones,
with a determined look upon his face; “then I move that the first thing
we do is to make Bumpus here sink his old suit in the swamp, and put on
his nice clean one.”
“Second the motion; and all in favor say aye!” shouted Giraffe,
excitedly.
A loud shout attested that the desire was unanimous. Even Thad nodded
his head.
“We’ve sure been a patient crowd, Bumpus, as you’ll admit,” he said;
“and now that you’ve gone and got that nasty mud plastered all over you,
we’ve reached the end of the rope. Here, take that jacket off, and hand
it to me. I’ve got an idea the truth is about to come out. Oh! no wonder
some of the boys have been complaining about this. See here, Bumpus,
your cold is better, isn’t it? You can begin to sniff around some again,
can’t you? Well, just take a whiff of this coat, and tell me what you
think!”
Bumpus proceeded to do so, while the rest of the boys awaited the
result. Sure enough, the round, jolly face of the fat scout immediately
screwed itself up as if he were not favorably impressed.
“Put your hand in the inside pocket, Bumpus,” continued Thad, severely,
“because I think you’ll find a little package done up in paper there,
and which you’ve been wondering about this long while.”
A shout went up from the other boys when Bumpus did fetch out a small
but very _powerful_ packet, tied with the red cord used by druggists in
their business.
“Why!” ejaculated the astounded Bumpus, staring hard at the contents of
his hand; “would you believe it, that’s the very package I’ve been
worrying my head off about, and never able to say whether I gave it to
my ma, or left it at the house of some fellow I visited on the way
home!”
“Yes,” Thad went on to say, “you put it in the pocket of your old
jacket; and when you got home just rolled that up, and stowed it in your
knapsack, because we were off the very next day. And when you put that
suit on down here, you had such a bad cold in the head you never guessed
a thing about it. Bumpus, do you know what that awful stuff is? Why,
it’s just asafetida, one of the rankest drugs going. Most people have to
keep it out in the barn, because it’s pretty nearly as bad as a skunk to
have around. Perhaps your mother wanted to use it for a cold. I think
that’s what they buy it for; and according to my mind it would scare any
respectable cold off in one inning. Now, you just take this coat, and
sink it as deep as you can in the swamp; yes, get in your tent and
change to your new suit. We’ve stood about all we can of this thing.”
Bumpus looked around at his seven chums, and grinned.
“Well, to think that I’d find that lost package after all; and had it
along with me all the time, but didn’t know it,” he went on to say, as
though this struck him as the most remarkable part of the whole affair.
“But we knew it, all the same,” avowed Davy; “and after you’ve loaded
that suit with a stone, and sunk five feet deep, perhaps we’ll accept
you again as a member in good standing. But you sure are the most
stubborn fellow that ever lived.”
“Anyway, my mind’s relieved of a load,” affirmed Bumpus, composedly;
“because I know now what I did with that lost package.”
He soon made the change, and then some of the boys went with him to see
that he buried the strong smelling garments where they would never come
back again; which ceremony was conducted with all manner of laughter and
boyish jokes.
True to his promise Step Hen did manage to secure that musket which the
cunning Jasper had used in constructing his man-trap; and spent an hour
extracting the load from the rusty barrel. He confessed himself very
much disappointed, however, because, after all, it proved to contain
only a single bullet instead of the handful of missiles that he had
prophesied would be found packed away there. But he took the old weapon
away with him, and declared he would hang it from the wall in his den at
home, to remind him of other days.
In New Orleans Thad easily procured all the further evidence needed to
prove that the girl whom he had found with Jasper was really his own
true little sister Pauline; and when the scouts once more reached
Cranford there was quite a furore in the town over the successful
outcome of the boys’ trip South.
Thad had even asked the sheriff about the escaped black convicts said to
be hiding in Alligator Swamp, and whom he expected to round up with his
posse after placing Jasper in a place of security; and when Giraffe and
the rest heard that there was really a fellow who was minus the third
finger of his left hand, they gave the patrol leader great credit for
reading the signs of the trail aright.
Having accomplished the one important mission that had taken them down
into Dixie, and successfully navigated the numerous perilous channels
upon which their boats had embarked, it should not be necessary for us
to accompany the Silver Fox Patrol any further in these pages; but we
shall surely hope and expect to meet with Thad Brewster and his chums
again at some time in the near future; for such wide-awake and
enterprising scouts must of necessity constantly encounter new and
interesting adventures which would be worth while telling. Until that
time arrives, then, we will ring down the curtain, and say good-bye.
THE END.
SAVE THE WRAPPER!
If you have enjoyed reading about the adventures of the new friends you
have made in this book and would like to read more clean, wholesome
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_Orders for these books, placed with your bookstore or sent to the
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The Boy Scout Series
BY HERBERT CARTER
For Boys 12 to 16 Years
All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles
PRICE, 50 CENTS EACH
Postage 10c Extra
New Stories of Camp Life
THE BOY SCOUTS’ FIRST CAMPFIRE; or, Scouting with the Silver Fox
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THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE BLUE RIDGE; or, Marooned Among the Moonshiners.
THE BOY SCOUTS ON THE TRAIL; or, Scouting through the Big Game
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THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The Secret of the Hidden Silver
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THE BOY SCOUTS ON STURGEON ISLAND; or, Marooned Among the Game-Fish
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THE BOY SCOUTS DOWN IN DIXIE; or, The Strange Secret of Alligator
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THE BOY SCOUTS AT THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA; A story of Burgoyne’s Defeat
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In this series we follow the fortunes of two American lads unable to
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With the Navy
BY
ENSIGN ROBERT L. DRAKE
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All Cloth Bound Copyright Titles
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Frank Chadwick and Jack Templeton, young American lads, meet each other
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THE RADIO BOYS RESCUE THE LOST ALASKA EXPEDITION
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Corporal Rand and his young recruits solve a mystery and find a
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THE RANGER BOYS FIND THE HERMIT
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THE RANGER BOYS AND THEIR REWARD
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Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
--Added a Table of Contents.
--Fixed the caption of the frontispiece illustration:
When this book and “The Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island” were printed, the
captions of their frontispiece illustrations were swapped. This eText
restores the correct caption from that other book. The illustrations
themselves (and the book name portion of the caption) were printed
correctly. For reference, the other book’s caption is:
“There’s the Island!” yelled Giraffe, pointing to the right. “But
we’re going past it!” shrieked Bumpus. Page 136.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Boy Scouts Down in Dixie, by Herbert Carter