[Illustration: THE NEXT MOMENT SOME ONE WAS SEEN HOLDING A LAMP IN
HIS HAND]
THE CAMPERS OUT
OR
THE RIGHT PATH AND THE WRONG
BY
EDWARD S. ELLIS, A. M.
Author of “True to His Trust,”
“Among the Esquimaux,” etc.
THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA MDCCCXCVIII
Copyright 1893
by The Penn Publishing Company
CONTENTS
I. The Plotters
II. How the Scheme Worked
III. A Startling Occurrence
IV. The Runaways
V. The Way of the Transgressor
VI. Sowing Seed
VII. One Afternoon in Autumn
VIII. Fellow-Passengers
IX. Dick Halliard
X. A Startling Summons
XI. No Joke
XII. The Victim of a Mistake
XIII. Adrift in the Swamp
XIV. Host and Guests
XV. The Forest Path
XVI. The Plotters
XVII. A Brave Exploit
XVIII. An Act of Forgetfulness
XIX. An Error of Judgment
XX. The Baying of a Hound
XXI. “Help! Help!”
XXII. Hot Quarters
XXIII. A Brilliant Shot
XXIV. Suspicious Footprints
XXV. Up a Tree
XXVI. Hunting the Hunters
XXVII. A Race for Life
XXVIII. A Cry from the Darkness
XXIX. A Sad Discovery
XXX. A Friend Indeed
XXXI. Dick Halliard Is Astounded
XXXII. How It Happened
XXXIII. Conclusion
THE CAMPERS OUT
CHAPTER I
THE PLOTTERS
Jim McGovern was poring over his lesson one afternoon in the Ashton
public school, perplexed by the thought that unless he mastered the
problem on which he was engaged he would be kept after the dismissal
of the rest, when he was startled by the fall of a twisted piece of
paper on his slate.
He looked around to learn its starting point, when he observed Tom
Wagstaff, who was seated on the other side of the room, peeping over
the top of his book at him. Tom gave a wink which said plainly enough
that it was he who had flipped the message so dexterously across the
intervening space.
Jim next glanced at the teacher, who was busy with a small girl that
had gone to his desk for help in her lessons. The coast being clear,
so to speak, he unfolded the paper and read:
“Meat Bill Waylett and me after scool at the cross roads, for
the bizness is of the utmoast importants dont fale to be there
for the iurn is hot and we must strike be4 it gits cool.
Tom.”
The meaning of this note, despite its Volapük construction, was clear,
and Jim felt that he must be on hand at all hazards.
So the urchin applied himself with renewed vigor to his task, and,
mastering it, found himself among the happy majority that were allowed
to leave school at the hour of dismissal. A complication, however,
arose from the fact that the writer of the note was one of those who
failed with his lesson, and was obliged to stay with a half-dozen
others until he recited it correctly.
Thus it happened that Jim McGovern and Billy Waylett, after sauntering
to the crossroads, which had been named as the rendezvous, and waiting
until the rest of the pupils appeared, found themselves without their
leader.
But they were not compelled to wait long, when the lad, who was older
than they, was seen hurrying along the highway, eager to meet and
explain to them the momentous business that had led him to call this
special meeting.
“Fellers,” said he, as he came panting up, “let’s climb over the fence
and go among the trees.”
“What for?” asked Billy Waylett.
“It won’t do for anybody to hear us.”
“Well, they won’t hear us,” observed Jim McGovern, “if we stay here,
for we can see any one a half mile off.”
“But they might sneak up when we wasn’t watching,” insisted the
ringleader, who proceeded to scale the fence in the approved style of
boyhood, the others following him.
Tom led the way for some distance among the trees, and then, when he
came to a halt, peered among the branches overhead, and between and
behind the trunks, to make sure no cowens were in the neighborhood.
Finally, everything was found to be as he wished, and he broke the
important tidings in guarded undertones.
“I say, boys, are you both going to stick?”
“You bet we are,” replied Billy, while Jim nodded his head several
times to give emphasis to his answer.
“Well, don’t you think the time has come to strike?”
“I’ve been thinking so for two—three weeks,” said Billy.
“What I asked you two to meet me here for was to tell you that I’ve
made up my mind we must make a move. Old Mr. Stearns, our teacher, is
getting meaner every day; he gives us harder lessons than ever, and
this afternoon he piled it on so heavy I had to stay after you fellers
left. If Sam Bascomb hadn’t sot behind me, and whispered two or three
of them words, I would have been stuck there yet.”
“He come mighty nigh catching me, too,” observed Jim McGovern.
“You know we’ve made up our minds to go West to shoot Injuns, and the
time has come to go.”
The sparkle of the other boys’ eyes and the flush upon their ruddy
faces showed the pleasure which this announcement caused. The bliss of
going West to reduce the population of our aborigines had been in
their dreams for months, and they were impatient with their chosen
leader that he had deferred the delight so long. They were happy to
learn at last that the delay was at an end.
“Now I want to know how you fellers have made out,” said Tom, with an
inquiring look from one to the other.
“I guess you’ll find we’ve done purty well,” said Jim; “anyways I know
_I_ have; I stole my sister’s gold watch the other night and sold
it to a peddler for ten dollars.”
“What did you do with the ten dollars?”
“I bought a revolver and a lot of cartridges. Oh! I tell you I’m
primed and ready, and I’m in favor of not leaving a single Injun in
the West!”
“Them’s my idees,” chimed Billy Waylett.
“Well, how have _you_ made out, Billy?”
“I got hold of father’s watch, day before yesterday, but he catched me
when I was sneaking out of the house and wanted to know what I was up
to. I told him I thought it needed cleaning and was going to take it
down to the jeweler’s to have it ’tended to.”
“Well, what then?”
Billy sighed as he said, meekly:
“Father said he guessed I was the one that needed ’tending to, and he
catched me by the nape of the neck, and, boys, was you ever whipped
with a skate strap?”
His friends shook their heads as an intimation that they had never
been through that experience.
“Well, I hope you never will; but, say,” he added, brightening up,
“mother has a way of leaving her pocket-book layin’ round that’s awful
mean, ’cause it sets a fellow to wishing for it. Pop makes her an
allowance of one hundred dollars a month to run things, and last night
I scooped twenty dollars out of her pocket-book, when it laid on the
bureau in her room.”
“Did she find it out?” asked Tom Wagstaff.
“Didn’t she? Well, you had better believe she did, and she raised
Cain, but I fixed things.”
“How?” asked his companions, deeply interested.
“I told her I seen Kate, our hired girl, coming out of the room on
tip-toe, just after dark. Then mother went for Kate, and she cried and
said she wouldn’t do a thing like that to save her from starving. It
didn’t do no good, for mother bounced her.”
No thought of the burning injustice done an honest servant entered the
thought of any one of the three boys. They chuckled and laughed, and
agreed that the trick was one of the brightest of the kind they had
ever known. Could the other two have done as well, the party would
have been on their Westward jaunt at that moment.
“I’ve sometimes thought,” said Tom Wagstaff, “that the old folks must
have a ’spicion of what’s going on, for they watch me so close that I
haven’t had a chance to steal a dollar, and you know it will never do
to start without plenty of money; but I’ve a plan that’ll fetch ’em,”
he added, with a meaning shake of his head.
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute; you see I’ve got everything down fine, and
I’ve made some changes in our plans.”
His companions listened closely.
“You know that when we got through reading that splendid book,
‘Roaring Ralph, the Cyclone of the Rockies,’ we made up our minds that
we must have two revolvers and a Winchester repeating rifle apiece
before we started?”
The others nodded, to signify that they remembered the understanding.
“I was talking with a tramp the other day, who told me that he spends
each winter among the Rocky Mountains killing Injins, and it’s the
biggest kind of fun. He says he steals up to a camp where there’s
’bout fifty or a hundred of ’em, and makes a noise like a grizzly
bear. That scares ’em so they all jump up and run for the woods. He
takes after them and chases ’em till they climb the trees. Then, when
they are all trying to hide among the limbs, beggin’ for their lives,
he begins. He takes his place in the middle, and keeps popping away
until he has dropped ’em all. He says he has to stop sometimes to
laugh at the way they come tumbling down, a good many of ’em falling
on their heads. One time he treed forty-seven of ’em where the ground
was soft and swampy. Twelve of the bravest Injin warriors turned over
in falling through the limbs and struck on their scalps. The ground
bein’ soft, they sunk down over their shoulders, and stayed there
wrong-side up. He said he almost died a-laughing, to see their legs
sticking up in air, and they kicking like the mischief. When he got
through there was twelve Injins with their legs out of the ground and
their heads below. He said it looked as though some one had been
planting Injins and they was sproutin’ up mighty lively. He tried to
pull ’em out, so as to get their scalps, but they was stuck fast and
he had to give it up.”
“And didn’t he get their scalps?” asked Jimmy McGovern.
“No; it almost broke his heart to leave ’em, but he had to, for there
was some other Injins to look after. Well, this tramp told me that all
we needed was a revolver apiece.”
“Oh! pshaw!” exclaimed Billy, “we can’t get along without rifles of
the repeating kind.”
“Of course not, but we must wait till we arrive out West before we buy
’em. If each of us has a gun on our shoulder we’re liable to be
stopped by the officers.”
“Well, if the officers git too sassy,” suggested Billy, “why we’ll
drop _them_ in their tracks and run.”
“That might do if there wasn’t so many of ’em. We don’t want to bother
with them, for we’re goin’ for Injins, and now and then a grizzly
bear.”
“I’m willing to do what you think is best; but who is this tramp that
told you so much?”
“He said he was called Snakeroot Sam, because he rooted so hard for
rattlesnakes. He tells me what we want is plenty of money, and it was
our duty to steal everything we can from our parents and keep it till
we get out West, where we can buy our Winchesters. If the people
charge too much or act sassy like we can plug them and take the guns
away from ’em.”
This scheme struck the listeners favorably, and they smiled, nodded
their heads, and fairly smacked their lips at the prospect of the
glorious sport awaiting them.
“Snakeroot Sam is a mighty clever feller, and he says he will help us
all he can. When we get enough money we are to let him know, and he
will take charge of us. That will be lucky, for he can be our guide.
He isn’t very clean-looking,” added Tom, with a vivid recollection of
the frowsy appearance of the individual; “but he tells me that after
we cross the Mississippi it’s very dangerous to have our clothing
washed, ’cause there’s something in the water that don’t agree with
the people. That’s the reason why he has his washed only once a year,
and then he says he almost catches his death of cold.”
“Gracious!” said Billy, “if he knows so much about the West, we must
have him for our guide. Injin slayers always have to have a guide and
we’ll hire him.”
“That’s my idee exactly. I spoke to Sam about it, and he said he would
like to oblige us very much, though he had two or three contracts on
hand which was worth a good many thousand dollars to him, but he liked
my looks so well he’d throw them up and join us.”
“How much will he charge?”
“I didn’t ask him that; but he’s a fair man and will make it all
right. What I don’t want you to forget, boys, is that we’ve got to
raise a good deal more money.”
“What a pity I didn’t steal all there was in mother’s pocket-book when
I had such a good chance,” remarked Billy, with a sigh; “if I get
another chance I’ll fix it.”
“I think I can slip into father’s room tonight after he’s asleep,”
added Jim McGovern, “and if I do, I’ll clean him out.”
“You fellers have a better chance than me,” said Tom, “but I’m going
to beat you both and have twice as much money as you.”
This was stirring news to the other boys, who were seated on the
ground at the feet, as may be said, of their champion. They asked him
in awed voices to explain.
“You’ve got a pistol, Jimmy?”
“Yes; a regular five-chambered one, and I’ve got a lot of cartridges,
too.”
“There’s going to be a concert at the Hall to-night,” added Tom,
peering behind, around, and among the trees again to make sure no one
else heard his words, “and father and mother are going. They will take
all the children, too, except me.”
“How’s that?”
“He says I was such a bad boy yesterday that he means to punish me by
making me stay at home, but that’s just what I want him to do, and if
he feels sort of sorry and lets up, I’ll pretend I’m sick so he will
leave me behind. I tell you, fellows, Providence is on our side and
we’re going to win.”
His companions shared the faith of the young scamp, who now proceeded
to unfold his astounding scheme.