THE CAMPERS.
As midday approached, the weather grew warmer. Harvey Hamilton left his
traveling bag at the home of Aunt Hephzibah Akers, since he did not
intend to journey far, and it would be easy to go back when necessary.
Most of the distance between him and the tent on the edge of the lake
was a gradual slope downward, through the usual underbrush and around
occasional rocks and boulders, but the traveling, on the whole, was
not difficult, and he made fair progress. He doffed his outer coat and
slung it over an arm as a sort of balance to the field glass suspended
by a cord from the opposite shoulder.
He remembered that when he peeped down from his aeroplane he saw no
signs of any one near the tent, but if the owners had gone on a tramp
as he supposed, some of them had returned during the brief interval.
While drawing near along the beach he saw a man a little to one side of
the primitive dwelling, where he had started a fire and was evidently
preparing the noonday meal. His companion lifted the flap, stooped, and
was in the act of passing from sight when Harvey caught his first good
view of the tent from the ground. A little later the other person came
out. This brought him face to face with Harvey when about a hundred
paces separated them. The back of his companion was toward the caller
of whose coming as yet he was not aware.
Harvey had noticed that they were attired in modern camping costume,
with leggings, gray flannel shirts, and caps instead of hats. A gaudy
handkerchief was knotted loosely about the neck and dangled over the
shirt front, across which the big red letters “C A & W E S” could be
traced, as far as the young men themselves were distinguishable.
The one who confronted Harvey looked at him for an instant, and then
touched the forefinger of his hand to his cap in military salute. The
visitor returned it and pushed on. The second camper heard his footfall
and wheeled around.
“How do you do, sir?” he called. “We’re glad to see you.”
They both offered their hands as Harvey went forward. He was won by
their hospitality and cheeriness of manner. He explained:
“I am Harvey Hamilton, from Mootsport, New Jersey, and I have come to
the Adirondacks on a strange errand in which perhaps you can help me.”
“It will give us pleasure to do so,” replied the one with the
briarwood. As he made this answer Harvey distinctly saw him wink at his
companion, who returned the trivial and yet often significant signal.
The young aviator was mystified, for he suspected instinctively that
something was back of it.
“We are sophomores at Yale, and are up here on a little outing. My name
is Val Hunter, and I am from Vicksburg, Mississippi. This ugly looking
tramp with me is Fred Wadsworth, from the wilds of western New York.
We have a third member who sneaked off with our boat this morning and
there’s no saying when we shall see him again.”
“I have a brother who is a sophomore at Yale,” said Harvey; “and he is
or was a short time ago somewhere in the Adirondacks. You must know
him.”
“What is his front name?”
“Dick.”
The two looked at each other and Hunter said: “I recall him and there
isn’t a more popular fellow in college. He can box, row, play baseball
and football, and leads his class in his studies.”
Harvey’s heart warmed to the Southerner.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear you say that; something of the
same nature has come to us at home and father and mother are proud
enough, but Dick never tells us anything about himself.”
“We tried to get him to go with us on this trip, but a party of seniors
dragged him off. He was very sorry to part with us and wouldn’t have
done so but for his promise made earlier. We are honored in having his
brother with us and beg he will make more than a short call.”
Harvey was sure he had never met two finer gentlemen. Val Hunter
was a true specimen of the aristocratic Southerner, with his black
hair and eyes, olive complexion, now darkened by tan, and his lithe,
sinewy limbs. His words were marked by the slight drawl now and then
and the suppressed “r” which often mark the speech of those born and
reared south of Mason and Dixon’s Line. His companion, Wadsworth, from
New York, was of stumpy build, with a round ruddy face, also well
tanned, light gray eyes and inveterate good-nature, but by no means as
comely in looks as Hunter. It was evident that they were attached to
each other, probably on the principle of like and unlike being drawn
together.
In front of the tent and a little to one side, a short decayed log
had been rolled. This was useful as well as convenient. When the young
men wished to smoke they could use it, if they preferred to sit rather
than loll on the bare ground. Besides, if they needed a table for their
plates when eating, here it was, though an up-ended box served them
oftener.
“I was about to prepare dinner,” said Hunter, “It being my day for such
menial duty, but it is early and we can sit for awhile. Have one?”
He handed a package of cigarettes to Harvey, who thanked him and shook
his head.
“Father and Dick do the smoking for our family.”
“You’ll be along in time,” replied the other; “cigarettes aren’t good
for some folks and I’m one of ’em, which explains why I smoke ’em.
You know that’s the basic principle of human nature; the way to make
a person do a thing is first to convince him he shouldn’t do it. It
shines out in those beautiful lines of Shakespeare or Milton, I forget
which:
‘I ne’er would have been in this condition
But for mother’s prohibition.’”
“That’s clever in its way, because of the profound truth involved,”
remarked the New Yorker, “but for fine, delicate fancy it does not
equal that quatrain:
‘This road is not passable,
It is hardly jackassable,
And you who do travel it
Should turn to and gravel it.’”
Harvey laughed at the solemn manner in which this nonsense was
delivered. Nodding toward Wadsworth he asked:
“What do those letters mean?”
The other smiled.
“That reminds me of a day when I saw a scorer in the grandstand at the
ball grounds ruling off and writing captions on his card. With much
twisting of his mouth he scrawled the word ‘Ares.’ I asked him what it
meant. With a look of pitying scorn he answered: ‘Why them’s errors.’
It is with something of the same emotion that I reply to your question:
Those letters signify ‘Champions of the Adirondacks and the Whole
Empire State.’”
“If your modesty strikes in,” said Harvey, catching the spirit of the
moment, “it will be fatal.”
“That’s what we’re afraid of, but wait till you meet the Duke.”
“And who is the Duke?”
“I beg pardon for not explaining before. His full title is Duke de
Sassy. He really is a poor Cracker from Florida, who has such a hard
time getting through the University that several of us are paying his
expenses on the dead quiet.”
“Has he much ability?”
It was the Southerner who took it upon himself to reply:
“Below the average, which makes it all the harder for him. Wadsworth
and I, out of pity, invited him to go with us on this outing. Florida
is a mighty poor place in the summer season.”
“Or any other season,” amended Wadsworth.
“We were glad to do so, but it galls us to fail to see the first spark
of gratitude or appreciation on his part. Not once has he said so much
as ‘Thank you’ for all the favors done him.”
“It is hardly fair to refer to his prodigious appetite and I shall not
do so further than to say that it has doubled our expenses.”
“I hope you don’t begrudge him his food,” said Hunter reprovingly to
his friend, whose slur struck him as in poor taste.
“Of course not; it’s _our_ food that I dislike to see appropriated by
him.”
“I suppose the treat is so rare a one for him,” suggested Harvey,
“that he cannot help making the most of it.”
“There may be something in that,” replied Wadsworth, “but the fellow
is absent and it doesn’t seem fair to abuse him when he can’t reply,
though what we have just said has been said to his face.”
“How does he take it?”
“Grins and eats more than ever. Which reminds me that the Adirondacks
seem to have become a favorite tramping ground for airships. Two of
them are hovering over and about us.”
“Yes,” remarked Hunter, “and we saw a rarity to-day. We were fishing
when a biplane sailed overhead with two women as passengers.”
“Did you recognize the aviator?” asked Harvey.
“How should we?”
“It was myself.”
“No!” exclaimed the Southerner, and he and his companion stared in
astonishment at their caller; “you don’t mean it?”
“It was certainly myself and the two ladies belong to that house up
yonder at the head of the lake. I came to this section from New Jersey,
covering the whole distance in my aeroplane, and I expect to return the
same way, but with only one passenger. My machine awaits me at the
house of Guide Ackers.”
Thereupon Harvey told his story, which it need not be said was listened
to with deep interest by his new friends.
“I never heard of anything stranger,” commented Hunter; “that crazy
inventor whom you call Professor Morgan has been in these parts for
nearly a week. We must help you to get the colored boy away from him.”
“I shall be glad if you can, for from what I have told you he is in
imminent peril. You understand that the first necessity is to locate
the prison where he holds the poor fellow.”
“By George!” exclaimed Wadsworth, slapping his knee; “don’t you
remember, Val, that the first time we saw the machine sailing overhead
there were two persons in it?”
“You are right; we were sitting on this very log with the Duke, all
three smoking and talking of nothing in particular, when the Duke
caught sight of the thing well over toward the other side of the lake.
He dived into the tent, brought out his binoculars and we all took a
squint at it. It was going very fast and the man on the driving seat
sat up very straight with his hands on the wheel and his feet down in
front.”
“That was the Professor,” said Harvey.
“We couldn’t make out whether the one sitting beside him was colored or
not. He must have fancied we were watching him, for he waved his cap at
us and we returned the salute.”
“That was Bunk: he always does that. Now, how long did you watch the
monoplane?”
“As long as it was in sight. It returned later in the day and went back
over the same course, but it carried only one person.”
“That confirms the theory I formed some time ago. Professor Morgan was
afraid to have Bunk with him at his workshop, because he might change
his mind and run away, or could be found more readily by his friends.
So he took him to some place out yonder, where he intends he shall stay
until he is ready to start on the maddest trip an aviator ever dreamed
of. Now can you tell me how far the Professor went with his machine?”
“I had the glass and was standing right here watching him,” replied
Wadsworth. “Up among those rocks and trees which you see a little to
the left and six or eight miles away, the machine seemed to come to a
stop and to hang motionless in the air, but that could not be.”
“That is exactly what you saw; the Professor has invented what he calls
an ‘uplifter,’ which is nothing more than a horizontal propeller under
the engine, by which he can hold himself stationary when he wishes.”
“I was so puzzled by the sight that I handed the glass to the Duke, who
laughed at what he called my fancy. But when he had looked it was his
turn to be surprised, for he couldn’t see any aeroplane at all. It had
vanished as completely as if it had dived into a hole in the ground. He
passed the glass back to me, but I was no more successful than he. Then
Val tried it with the same result.”
“You knew what that meant?” said Harvey inquiringly. “There was no
mystery about it.”
“I presume the aviator made a landing among the trees.”
“His uplifter enables him to descend where he chooses, for he can come
as straight down as a stone falling from the sky. A space a few yards
wide will answer and there must be plenty of such spots even in so wild
a region as that beyond us.”
“That must be the explanation,” said Hunter, “and of course he can
make the same kind of start, though we have never seen him do it. We
couldn’t afford to wait here until he came back, but have noticed him
several times since.”
“Hello! that must be the Duke!” said Wadsworth as the three heard the
sound of whistling from the wood on the other side of the tent.
“Brace yourself to meet this undesirable citizen,” added Hunter,
lowering his voice; “try to bear with him, for he needs your charity.
He’s a ‘bad egg.’”
The next moment the third member of the little party, still whistling a
popular air, came into view from behind the tent and Wadsworth, who had
risen, said impressively:
“Mr. Hamilton, permit me to introduce you to the Duke de Sassy, a
general nuisance and--”