Tom stirred uneasily and brushed his nose with his hand. A drop of
moisture had formed on it and was tickling him. Dimly aware of a change
in conditions since he had fallen asleep, he opened his eyes, blinked,
and sat up. The tent had disappeared; Dan had disappeared; Nelson had
disappeared; everyone had disappeared! There was nothing in sight save,
a few feet away, the blackened remains of last night's fire and the pile
of wood which he had collected. After the first expression of surprise
had passed from his countenance a smile of amusement settled on it. Tom
chuckled.
"I'll bu-bu-bet Dan did it," he said half aloud. He threw his blanket
from him and stood up. The fog was so thick that he couldn't see the
edge of the shore, but he remembered where the tender had been and, with
blanket over his shoulders, he walked toward it. He found the landing
but no tender.
"I suppose they're waiting for me to yell out to them. Well, they
probably won't come until I do. So here goes: O Dan! O fellows!"
Silence.
"_Vagabond_ ahoy!" shouted Tom. "Say, cut it out, will you? I want my
breakfast!"
Silence.
"Oh, thunder!" muttered Tom, pulling the blanket up over his head to
keep the fog from sifting down his neck. "Think you're smart, don't
you?" At that moment the fog cleared for a tiny space and Tom stared in
puzzled surprise. Then the mists shut down again as quickly as they had
lifted, but not before Tom had seen that the _Vagabond_ was no longer in
sight. He sat down on the stone wall and tried to reason it out. Of
course it had been Dan's idea; no one but Dan would think of such a
trick. They had gone off to the boat and had managed to get the tent
down without disturbing him. But afterwards? Why had they gone off in
the launch? Probably to make him think that they had left him for good.
Very well, then he would follow. He recollected that below the cove the
shore had jutted out into a wooded point; he had gathered wood along the
edge of it yesterday afternoon. They had probably taken the launch
around the point out of sight. So the best thing to do was to walk along
the shore until he got to where they were. Then he'd tell them just what
he thought of them!
So he set off through the fog, keeping the river's edge dimly in sight.
He began to feel rather soggy and very, very hungry. Also, it was none
too warm that morning, although after he had been walking for a time his
chilliness passed off. When he reached the woods he hesitated. To turn
to the left and follow the shore would mean much harder walking and a
much longer trip. So he decided to go through the wood and come out on
the other side of the point. After five minutes he began to think that
he had made a mistake. For there was no sign of a break in the trees,
nor, when he paused and listened, could he hear the lap of the little
waves along the shore. Probably he had borne too far inland. He changed
his course to the left and started on again. But the trees grew near
together, there was a good deal of underbrush and keeping a straight
course was out of the question. By this time his only thought was to
reach the shore again, and he kept bearing farther and farther to the
left. Some ten minutes passed. Tom's face began to grow anxious. He had
visions of spending the day in those woods, breakfastless, luncheonless,
dinnerless! He stopped and sat down on a fallen log to consider the
situation calmly and to get some of his breath back.
"The next time I leave home in a fog you'll know it!" he muttered,
apparently addressing the nearest tree. "What good's a fog, anyway?"
Presently he realized that his thoughts had wandered away on the subject
of fogs and that he hadn't solved his dilemma. By this time he had lost
all sense of direction and didn't pretend to know where the river lay.
The wood, he thought, couldn't be very large and so if he kept on
walking in a straight line he was certain to get out of it before long.
Once out of it--Well, maybe he could find a house or a road. As for the
_Vagabond_ and Dan and Nelson and Bob they could choke for all he cared;
what he wanted was breakfast, and lots of it!
So presently, having recovered his wind, he got up, fixed a direction
firmly in his mind and trudged on again. The fog was thinner here in the
woods than it had been along the shore; possibly, he reasoned, the
farther inland he got the less fog there would be. Although if he could
only find something to eat he wouldn't bother about the weather. He had
been walking for some five or six minutes when the trees suddenly
disappeared and he found himself on the edge of a planted field. The fog
seemed as thick as ever and it was impossible to see more than twenty or
thirty feet away. But a planted field, especially one planted with
vegetables, as this one was, argued a house near by. So he got between
two rows of cauliflower and tramped on. Presently he found his way
barred by a stone wall. On the other side of the wall was grass. Tom
perched himself on top of the wall and speculated.
He cut a queer figure as he sat there with the red-bordered gray blanket
over his head. One corner of the blanket had been dragging for the last
ten minutes and was covered with mud. Here and there a wet leaf was
pasted upon it. His shoes, the white canvas, rubber-soled "sneakers"
worn on the launch, were sights to behold, and within them his feet were
very wet and very cold. But what bothered him most of all was his
stomach. That felt dreadfully empty, and now and then little "shooty"
pains made themselves felt.
Probably he had mistaken the direction of the house belonging to the
field, he told himself dispiritedly. He should have walked across the
rows instead of along them. And the grass in front of him only meant a
meadow with silly cows, and, maybe, a bull! He wondered what a bull
would think of him if he saw him; nothing flattering, probably. On the
whole, he decided that he would a little rather not run across a bull
this morning. Then suddenly he heard, far away and indistinct, the
_Vagabond's_ whistle. He knew it too well to mistake it.
"Go on and blow it," he muttered. "Hope your arm gets tired. You won't
see me until I've had some breakfast, I can tell you that. That's right,
blow, blow! Who the dickens cares?"
From the direction of the sound it was evident to him that he had left
the river almost directly behind him. But what bothered him at the
present moment more than the location of the river and the _Vagabond_
was the location of the house and something to satisfy the craving of
his empty stomach. He strove to remember what he knew about farms.
Usually, he thought, the vegetable fields were near the buildings and
the meadows at a distance, although he didn't suppose there was any hard
and fast rule about it. Then it dawned on him that for a meadow this one
was unusually well kept. The grass was short and thick and the field
quite level. He wondered if it could be a lawn. He would explore it.
So, rather stiff by this time, he slipped off the wall and started
straight ahead across the turf. Presently he came to a ridge some three
feet high, rounded and turfed. He stopped and wondered. It disappeared
on either side of him into the surrounding grayness. He climbed to the
top of it and looked down. On the other side was a six-foot ditch of
coarse sand. He was on a golf links and the ridge was a silly old
bunker!
He slid down on the other side of it and rested there with his wet shoes
in the sand. It was all very nice, he told himself, to know that you
were on a golf course, but it didn't help very much. A chap could be
just as lost, just as wet and miserable and hungry on a golf course as
anywhere else. Somewhere, of a certainty, there was a clubhouse, but if
he knew where it stood and could find it it was more than probable that
it would be closed up on a day like this. And, anyhow, they wouldn't be
serving breakfast there! The idea of sitting just where he was until
some one came along suggested itself but didn't appeal to him. Once he
thought he heard a noise of some sort, but he wasn't sure. However, he
got up and headed in the direction from which it had seemed to come.
After a minute or two he came to a green with a soggy red tin disk,
numbered fourteen, sticking out of a hole.
"Glad it wasn't thirteen," said Tom to himself as he went on. "That
might have been unlucky."
Presently it seemed that the fog had lessened and that his range of
vision had enlarged; he was quite sure that he could discern objects at
a greater distance than before. But as there wasn't at that moment
anything particularly interesting to discern the discovery didn't bring
much encouragement. He was going up a steep hill now and when he had
gained the summit and seated himself for a moment on the edge of the
sand box, which stood there at the edge of a tee, he saw that the fog
was thinner because he was higher up. Behind him the ground sloped away
again, but not so abruptly as in front. As he sat there, struggling for
breath after his climb, it seemed that he was the only person in
existence. On all sides of him the hill lost itself in the enveloping
mists. He was alone in an empty gray space in which there was neither
food nor fire. He got quite discouraged about it and a little watery at
the eyes until he shook himself together and told himself that he was a
baby.
"There are houses and people all around you," he said disgustedly, "only
you can't see them. All you've got to do is to brace up and keep on
walking until you find them."
But that was easier said than done, for he had been walking a long time,
and for much of that time over hard ground, and his legs were tired out.
But he went on presently, slowly and discouragedly, down a long slope
and up another. He had begun to talk aloud to himself for very
loneliness, and some of the things he said would have sounded quite
ridiculous had there been anyone else to hear them.
At the summit of the slope he paused again to rest, and as he did so he
suddenly lifted his head intently, straining his eyes before him into
the fog. Of course it was all perfect tommyrot, but, just the same--well,
it did sound like music! In fact, it _was_ music, very faint and
sometimes dying away altogether, but still music!
"Maybe," said Tom aloud, "I've starved to death and got to heaven. But I
don't feel dead." Then, with returning animation, he strode forward
again. "Me for the music," he said.
Less than a minute later a great dark bulk took shape and form ahead of
him. At first it seemed like the edge of a woods, but as the music
increased momentarily that was out of the question. No, plainly it was a
building, and a big one! And in another minute Tom was standing in a
gravel roadway in front of a big hotel which stretched away on either
side of him. There were lights inside, and an orchestra was playing
merrily. The windows of the lower floor were dimmed with the fog, but he
could see the indistinct forms of persons inside and the dancing light
of a fire. Directly in front of him was a covered porch and beyond it
the wide glass doors.
Tom drew the blanket from over his head, folded it as neatly as he
might, laid it across his arm and, bareheaded and bedraggled, crossed
the porch, opened the door and went in.
He found himself in a great, luxuriously furnished hall. At the back a
wide staircase ascended. In the center a huge fireplace held a pile of
blazing logs. Beyond it, half obscured by palms in tubs, a
scarlet-coated orchestra was playing. To his right was a long counter
behind which two immaculate clerks moved. About the fireplace and
spreading across the big exchange were seated many persons. They had
been talking very industriously until the door opened. But for some
reason at Tom's advent the conversation lessened and lessened until, as
he walked across the shining oak floor, there was an impressive silence.
The two clerks stopped their work and gazed at him in amused surprise.
Tom, aware of the effect he was causing but caring not at all, stopped
at the desk, stuck his hands in his pockets and addressed the nearest
clerk in the calmest manner possible.
"I would like to see the manager, if you please," said Tom.
[Illustration: "'I would like to see the manager, if you please.'"]