A HIDDEN CAVE
It was a little after eleven o’clock when Tom left the hotel. His mind
was so occupied with the events of the evening that he started at once
toward his camp, forgetting an intention he had earlier in the night of
visiting the locality of Jack Harvey’s camp in search of the missing box.
He stopped every few minutes to laugh long and heartily, as, one by one,
the mishaps of Colonel Witham came to his mind.
All at once he remembered the missing box. He had nearly reached his tent
by this time, but he stopped short. He called to mind the contents of the
box; among other things, a certain big cake, with frosting on it, and,
although he and Bob, as young athletes, were bound to hold such food in
little regard, there was one thing about it which particularly impressed
him just now, and that was the remembrance of how he had watched Bob’s
sister, with her dainty little fingers, mould the frosting on the top,
and how she had slyly wondered—as if there could be any doubt of
it—whether they, meaning Tom, would think of her while they were eating
it.
The thought of that cake falling into the hands of Jack Harvey and of Tim
Reardon and the others of Harvey’s crew, and of the jokes they would
crack at Tom’s expense, made his blood boil. He started in the direction
of Harvey’s camp, then turned back to get Bob to accompany him,—and then
paused and went on again, saying to himself that he would not awaken his
chum at that hour of the night. He started off through the woods alone.
The night was warm and pleasant, though it was quite dark, as there was
no moon. He passed by the cottages, and then turned into a foot-path that
followed the windings of the shore. The path led for some distance
through a thicket of alders and underbrush, from which at length it
emerged into an open field. Crossing this, Tom again entered a growth of
wood, the path winding among the roots of some old hemlocks and cedars.
All at once he saw a light shining indistinctly through the trees, and
knew that it must be in the immediate vicinity of Harvey’s camp.
“So much the better, if they are up,” muttered Tom. “If they’re sitting
around that fire they are sure to be talking.” He hurried on in the
direction of the light, still following the path.
The fire soon became plainly visible. At a point where the path divided
he could see the white tent, lit up by a big fire of driftwood that
blazed in front of it. He could hear the sound of voices, and
distinguished that of Harvey above the others. There seemed to be some
insubordination in camp, for Harvey’s tones were loud and angry.
Tom concluded not to take the path to the left, which was the one leading
direct to the camp, but continued on for a distance along the main path.
It was well he did so, for presently he heard some one coming toward him.
The paths were at this point so near together that he could not
distinguish which one the person was taking; so he drew aside and
crouched in the bushes, which were very dense between the two paths. A
boy, whom he recognized as Tim Reardon, soon came in sight, and passed
close by the spot where Tom was concealed. He carried a pail in his hand,
and was evidently going to a spring near by for water. He was grumbling
to himself as he passed along.
“I’m always the one!” he said. “Why don’t he make some one else lug the
water part of the time? I’m not going to be bullied by any Jack Harvey,
and he needn’t think I am.”
He kept on to the spring, however. Tom remained where he was, and Tim
soon returned, carrying the pail filled with water. Tom waited till he
saw Tim arrive at the camp and deposit the pail of water near the fire,
before he again emerged from the clump of bushes into the path that led
past the camp. He followed this cautiously. He could not as yet see
whether all the members of the crew were present about the camp-fire, and
he knew that to encounter any one of them at that hour near the camp
would not only put an end to all hopes of recovering the box, by
revealing to Harvey and his crew that he suspected them of having stolen
it, but that, once an alarm being given, he should have the whole crew at
his heels in a twinkling.
Tom was sufficiently acquainted with the reputation of Harvey’s crew to
know that it would go hard with him if they found him there. He stole
quietly along past the camp some little distance, and then, turning from
the path, got down on his hands and knees and crept toward the camp
through the bushes.
Near the camp was a hemlock-tree, with large, broad, heavy branches, that
grew so low down on the trunk that some of them rested on the ground. It
offered a place of concealment, and Tom, at the imminent risk of being
discovered, reached it and crawled in between the branches. If the
campers had been expecting any one, and had been on the watch, he must
surely have been discovered, for several times branches cracked under
him, and once so loudly that he thought it was all up with him, expecting
them to come and see what had made the noise. But they took no notice of
it, either because they were accustomed to hearing noises in the woods,
of cattle or dogs, or thought nothing at all about it.
From where he now lay, Tom could see the entire camp, and hear everything
the boys said. It was a picturesque spot which Harvey had chosen. The
land here ran out in one of those irregular points which was
characteristic of the shores of the island, and ended in a little,
low-lying bluff, that overlooked the bay. On the side nearer the village,
the shore curved in with a graceful sweep, making a perfect bow, and the
land for some distance back sloped gradually down to the beach. The beach
here was composed of a fine white sand, making an ideal landing-place for
rowboats. On the side farther from the village, the waterfront was of a
different character. It rounded out, instead of curving in, and the shore
was bold, instead of sloping. It was not easily approached, even by small
boats, as the water, for some distance out, was choked up with reefs and
ledges, which were barely covered at high tide, and at low water were
exposed here and there.
This apparently unapproachable shore had been taken advantage of by
Harvey in a way which no one in the village had ever suspected. There was
a channel among the reefs, which a small sailboat could pursue, if one
were accurately acquainted with its windings. With this channel, which
they had discovered by chance, the campers had become thoroughly
familiar, at both low and high water.
The point had been cleared of undergrowth, and most of the larger trees
had been cut down for some little distance back from the water. In the
rear of this clearing there were thick woods, extending into the island
for a mile or more.
The campers had pitched a big canvas tent at the edge of the clearing,
where they lived in free and easy fashion, cooking mostly out-of-doors.
They scorned the idea of making bunks, as smacking too much of
civilization, and at night slept on boughs covered with blankets. They
lived out-of-doors in front of the tent when the weather was pleasant,
and, when it was stormy, they went aboard the yacht and did their cooking
in the cabin, over a small sheet-iron stove.
It was altogether a romantic and picturesque sight that Tom saw as he
looked out from his hiding-place. At a little distance from the tent the
fire was blazing, while the members of the crew either sat around it or
lay, stretched out at full length, upon the ground. A pot of coffee was
placed on a flat stone by the side of the fire, near enough to get the
heat from it, and the delicious odour of it as it steamed made Tom
hungry.
The members of Harvey’s crew were utterly without restraint, saving that
which was imposed capriciously by Harvey himself. Harvey was not
naturally vicious. His mind had been perverted by the books he had read,
so that he failed to see that his acts of petty thievery were meannesses
and acts of cowardice of which he would some day be ashamed.
He fashioned his conduct as much according to the books he read as
possible, and, if he had been but trained rightly, would have been proud
to do courageous things, instead of playing mean jokes, for he had at
heart much bravery. He rarely wore a hat, and was as bronzed as any
sailor. The sleeves of his flannel blouse were usually rolled up to the
elbows, showing on his forearms several tattooed designs in red and blue
ink. He was large and strong.
The boys around the fire were telling stories and relating in turn
incidents of adventure that had taken place since their arrival on the
island. At the close of their story-telling, they arose and began making
preparations for a meal. Near by the fireplace they had built a rough
table, of stakes driven into the ground, and boards, with benches on
either side of it, fashioned in the same way. Two of the boys went to the
tent and brought out some tin dishes, and the steaming pot of coffee was
taken from the stone and set on the table.
Then Joe Hinman, taking a long pole in his hand, went to the fire and
proceeded to scatter the brands about, while a shower of sparks rose up
and floated off into the forest. Presently Joe raked from among the
embers a dozen or more black, shapeless objects. These he placed one by
one on a block of wood and broke the clay—for such it was—with a hatchet.
The odour of cooked fish pervaded the camp and saluted Tom’s nostrils
most temptingly. Inside of the lumps of clay were fish of some kind,
which Tom took to be cunners. As fast as they were ready, Tim Reardon
carried them to the table, where they were heaped up on a big earthen
platter.
The boys then fell to and ate as though they were starving. Tom wondered
for some time if this could be their usual hour for supper; but
remembered that he had seen the _Surprise_ several miles off in the bay
that evening, and concluded that the evening meal had been long delayed.
The _Surprise_ now lay a few rods offshore, with a lantern hanging at her
mast.
The boys continued to talk, as they ate, of tricks they had played and of
raids they had taken part in, down the island. In fact, the good citizens
of Southport would have given a good deal for the secrets Tom learned
from his hiding-place that night. Tom waited impatiently, however, for
some mention of the missing box. Could he be mistaken in suspecting them
of having taken it? No, he was sure not. That they were capable of doing
so, their own conversation left no room for doubt. Tom felt certain the
box was in their possession.
But he began to feel that his errand of discovery to-night would be
fruitless. They must, he argued, have some sort of storehouse, where they
hid such plunder as this, but no one had as yet made the slightest
mention of it. It was clearly useless for him to grope about in the
vicinity of the camp at night, and he began to think it would be better
after all to wait until day and select a time for his search, if
possible, when all the members of the crew were off on the yacht. But
that might come too late, and Tom wondered what to do.
All at once Joe Hinman made a remark that caused Tom to raise himself
upon his elbow and listen intently.
“Boys,” said Joe, “I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
The crew, one and all, stopped eating, rested their elbows on the table,
and looked at Joe curiously.
“I’ll bet it’s a salmon from old Slade’s nets,” said George Baker. “Joe’s
sworn for a week that he’d have one.”
“He’s all right, is Joe,” remarked Harvey, patronizingly. “There isn’t
one of you that can touch Joe for smartness.”
Thus encouraged, Joe told how he had seen the box that had been a part of
Tom’s and Bob’s luggage left on the wharf the night it arrived; how he
had ascertained that it contained food, by prying up the cover; and how,
early on the following morning, he had rowed up under cover of the fog,
and had brought back the box to the camp.
“It’s down in the cave now,” said Joe. Tom gave a start. “There’s a
meat-pie in it that is good for a dinner to-morrow, and a big frosted
cake, if you fellows want it to-night.”
“Hooray!” cried Jack Harvey. “You and I will go and get it.” Whereupon he
and Joe sprang up and made directly for the spot where Tom lay, passing
by so close that he could have reached out and touched them, and hurried
along the bank, down to the shore.
Tom allowed them to get well in advance before he ventured to crawl from
his hiding-place and follow them. He saw them at length disappear over
the bank at a point where there grew a thick clump of cedars. He turned
from the path into the woods, made his way cautiously past the place
where he had seen them disappear, turned into the path again, and then
climbed down the bank, which was there very steep, holding on to the
bushes, and looked for the boys, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Tom knew they could not have passed him. They had not reappeared over the
edge of the bank, and they were nowhere in sight along the shore. There
could be but one conclusion. The entrance to the cave must be located in
the clump of cedars.
It seemed to Tom that he had waited at least a quarter of an hour,
though, in fact, it was not more than five minutes, when he saw the boys
reappear. Tom groaned as he saw the big cake in Joe’s hand. Joe laid it
down on the ground, while he and Jack picked up several armfuls of loose
boughs lying about, and threw them up carelessly against the bank. Then
Joe took up the cake again, and they emerged from the cedars, climbed up
over the bank, and disappeared in the direction of their camp.
Tom lost no time in scrambling to the spot. The hiding-place was
cunningly concealed. It was an awkward place to crawl to from any part of
the bank, and no one would have thought of trying to land there in a
boat. The entrance to the cave might have been left open, with little
chance of its ever being discovered. Tom threw aside the boughs
sufficiently to discover that beneath them was a sort of trap-door, made
of pieces of board carelessly nailed together. Then he replaced the
boughs and, without even attempting to lift the board door, regained the
path at the top of the bank.
“There’ll be time enough to explore that later,” he muttered. “I’m not
the only one that will have lost something out of that cave before
morning, though.” He made his way cautiously past the camp once more, and
then started on a run for his own camp. His hare and hounds practice at
school stood him in good stead, and he did not stop running till he had
come to the door of his tent. He unfastened the flap and entered, panting
for breath. Bob was sleeping soundly. He shook him, but Bob was loath to
awake, and resented being so roughly disturbed.
“Wake up, Bob! Wake!” cried Tom, shaking him again.
Bob opened his eyes. “Why, is it morning, Tom?” he asked.
“No, it isn’t, Bob, but it soon will be. I’ve found the box, Bob.
Harvey’s got it, and I know where it is hidden,—down near his camp in a
cave.”
Bob shivered, for Tom had pulled the blanket off the bed, and the moist
sea air penetrated the tent. He dressed, stupidly, for he was not fully
rid of his drowsiness.
The boys went down to the beach, and Bob washed his face in the salt
water.
“I’m all right now, Tom, old fellow,” he said, “but, honest, Tom, I feel
ugly enough at being waked up, not at you, though, to just enjoy a fight
with those fellows.”
“There’s little prospect of that, if we are careful,” answered Tom. “What
we want to do is to show them we are smart enough to get the box back,
and, perhaps, play them a trick of our own.”
Then they carried the canoe down to the shore, launched it, and set off.
It was about one o’clock in the morning. They paddled away from the tent
and down along the shore, noiselessly as Indians. Past the village and
past the cottages, and not a sign of life anywhere, not even a wisp of
smoke from a chimney. The canoe glided swiftly along, making the only
ripples there were on the glassy surface of the bay.
As they came to the beach near Harvey’s camp, they landed, and Tom crept
up over the bank to reconnoitre. He came back presently, reporting that
the crew were all sound asleep, and everything quiet around the camp.
Then they paddled quickly by the end of the bluff and along the bold
shore beyond, picking their way carefully among the reefs, as they could
not have done in these unknown waters with any other craft than the
buoyant canoe.
They disembarked at the clump of cedars, and made the canoe fast to the
trunk of one that overhung the water. Tom took from the bow of the canoe
a lantern, and they scrambled up the bank. Throwing aside the boughs,
they disclosed the trap-door, which they lifted up. Tom lit the lantern
and they entered the cave.
They found it much larger than the opening indicated. It was excavated
from the hard clay of which the bank was composed, and, though not high
enough for them to stand quite erect, it was about eight feet long and
five feet wide.
It was filled with stuff of all sorts. There were spare topsails
and staysails,—possibly from coasters that had anchored in the
harbour,—sets of oars from ships’ boats, several boxes of canned goods,
that the grocer of the village had hunted for far and wide, coils of
rope, two shotguns, carefully wrapped in pieces of flannel and well
oiled, to prevent the rust from eating them, four lanterns, two axes and
a hatchet, and odds and ends of all descriptions useful in and about a
camp or a yacht.
The roof of the cave was shored up with boards, supported by joists. In
one corner of the cave was the box for which they sought, broken into,
and with the gorgeous cake gone; but that was all. The rest of the
contents were untouched.
They took the box, carried it down to the shore and placed it in the
canoe. Tom started to return to the cave.
“What are you going to do now, Tom?” queried Bob. “We don’t want to take
anything of theirs, of course.”
“Not a thing,” answered Tom. “We don’t go in for that sort of business,
but I just want to show them that we have been here and had the
opportunity to destroy anything that we were of a mind to. Perhaps it
will teach them a good lesson. It will show them that we are as smart as
they are, anyway.”
So saying, Tom began to gather up the guns, the good sails, the boxes of
provisions, and other things of value, and carry them outside the cave,
setting them down on the bank at some distance from the mouth of it.
“We won’t destroy anything of value,” said Tom. “But here are some odds
and ends of old stuff, some of these pieces of oars, empty crates,
bagging, and that sort of thing, which will make a good blaze, and which
would have to be thrown away some day. They are of no use to anybody. I
propose to make a bonfire of these in the cave, just to show Jack Harvey
that we have been here. He’ll find all his stuff that’s good for anything
put carefully outside the cave, and no harm come to it. But he’ll be just
as furious to find his cave discovered and on fire, for all that.”
“All right,” said Bob, “here goes.”
Bob was thinking of that cake.
Tom took one of the axes and chopped a small hole in the top of the cave,
some distance above the door.
“That will make a draught,” he said, in answer to Bob’s inquiry.
Then he blew out the lantern and poured the oil with which it was filled
over the pile of rubbish. There was still a small heap of stuff in one
corner of the cave, some old boards, and a few pieces of sail, thrown
carelessly in a pile, as though of no value. They did not stop to bother
with these, as they seemed of no consequence, and they were in a hurry.
Tom struck a match and set fire to the heap that he had accumulated.
“We can’t get away from here any too soon, now, Bob,” he said. “There’ll
be some furious chaps out here, when that fire gets to crackling and
smoking. We don’t care to be about here at that time. They are too many
for us.”
The boys scrambled down the bank, got into the canoe, and pushed off. As
they paddled away, the light of the fire gleamed in the mouth of the
cave. As soon as they had gotten clear of the reefs, they did not stop to
reconnoitre the camp, but pushed by at full speed. It was a race against
fire—and they little dreamed of its swiftness, nor of the hidden force
which they had let loose.
Along the shore they sped, speaking not a word till they had got the
village in sight and their arms were cracking in the joints. Then they
paused a moment for breath, for their little craft was out of sight of
the camp now, in the dull morning light.
Tom, who had the stern paddle, had looked back from time to time, but if
there was any light to be seen through the bushes it was very slight. The
spot was hidden now, too, by the intervening point of land.
“I don’t know whether I see a light or not,” he said. ”There’s a lot of
smoke, though, and I can imagine, anyway, that I see a gleam of fire in
the midst of it.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he swung the canoe around
with one quick sweep of his paddle.
“Look, Bob! Look!” he cried. “What have we done?”
The sight that met their eyes was amazing.
A sheet of flame shot suddenly into the sky. It looked like a tiny
volcano, belching up fire and débris and pushing up through the midst of
it a great black canopy of smoke. This was followed by the report of an
explosion that echoed and reëchoed through the village, reverberating on
the rocks across the harbour, and filling the whole country around with
its noise—at once startling and terrifying. Then the light as suddenly
went out, a shower of burning sticks and shreds of blazing canvas drifted
lazily down through the air, and a cloud of smoke hung over the spot.
Tom and Bob trembled like rushes. It seemed as though every particle of
strength had left them. There could be but one conclusion. They had blown
up the camp. Harvey and all his crew were, perhaps, killed.
Bob was the first to speak.
“Come, Tom,” he said. “We must get to camp before we are seen. Brace up
and try to paddle.”
Somehow or other they got to camp and dragged the canoe ashore. They
carried the box up to the tent and locked it up in the big chest. Bob’s
hand trembled so he could hardly put the key into the lock.
Tom seated himself, dejectedly, on the edge of one of the bunks, the
picture of despair.
“I guess I may as well go and give myself up first as last,” he said. “I
suppose I’ll have to go to jail, if they’re killed. What can there have
been in the cave? I didn’t see anything to explode, did you?”
“No,” answered Bob, “unless it was something over in that pile of stuff
in one corner. I didn’t examine it, but they must have had something
stored or hidden underneath there, either kerosene or gunpowder. By Jove!
Tom, I remember now hearing Captain Sam Curtis say he had missed a keg of
blasting-powder that he had bought for the Fourth of July, and he said he
thought some of the sailors down the island had stolen it. That’s where
it went to; it was hidden in that corner.”
“That doesn’t help matters much, if they’re all dead,” said Tom. “I’ll be
to blame, just the same. Oh, Bob, what shall I do?”
“Whatever you do,” answered Bob, “I stand my share of it, just as much as
you. I’m just as guilty as you are. But don’t go to pieces that way, Tom.
We don’t know yet whether they are hurt or not. The best thing we can do
is to get down there as quick as ever we can. Shall we take the canoe and
make a race for it?”
“I can’t do it,” answered Tom. “I haven’t got the strength,—and, to be
honest, Bob, the courage. It’s taken every bit of strength and nerve out
of me. Bob, I tell you, I’m afraid we’ve killed them,—and I, for one,
don’t dare to go and look.”
And Tom hid his face in his hands, while the tears trickled through his
fingers.
“I don’t believe they’re killed,” said Bob, stoutly. “They were some
distance away from the cave, you know. Come, we’ll go with the crowd, for
the whole town must be out by this time.”
And so he half-persuaded, half-dragged Tom away from the tent, and they
started for the hotel.
The explosion had, indeed, aroused every one. Men were running to and
fro, and the greatest excitement prevailed. The news quickly spread that
some frightful accident had happened at Harvey’s camp, and Tom and Bob
heard expressions of sympathy for them on all sides, from many who had
been the victims of their tricks, and who had time and again wished the
island rid of them. A rumour spread among the crowd of villagers—no one
knew where it originated—that a keg of powder, which the campers had left
to dry near the fire, had exploded, and blown them all to pieces. This
was only one of a number of wild rumours that were noised about that
morning in the confusion and uncertainty. It was generally believed that
the crew must have been killed.
Tom and Bob hung on to the edge of the excited crowd, which had assembled
in front of the hotel, and listened to these various expressions with
horror. Then, when the crowd moved on for the camp, they followed, with
sinking hearts.
It was a strange procession that went down along the shore that morning.
There were cottage-owners, who had grievances against the crew;
villagers, who had been tormented and tricked by them time and again; and
fishermen, who had lost many a tide’s fishing, because their dories had
been found sunk alongside the wharf, with heaping loads of stones aboard.
Yet, now that disaster had befallen the crew, they were one and all
willing to condone the offences, and anxious to render what help they
could.
They went on rapidly. Tom and Bob soon heard a cry from those in advance
that the tent was still standing. Then hope rose in Tom’s heart, that
spurred him forward.
He dashed ahead, rushed past the leaders, cutting through the woods where
the path made a circuit. There was the tent still standing, and
apparently uninjured by the storm of stones and débris that had rained
down about it. But the crew! Not the sound of a voice was to be heard.
Not a soul was stirring anywhere in the locality.