LOST ISLAND
It was only a thin edge of a moon that now stood barely above the low
line of tree-covered hills beyond the east bank of the river. The light
it gave was a misty, watery sort of ray that was a doubtful help in
walking over the broken shore line. The two boys were too occupied in
watching their footing to do much talking. Jerry led the way, bearing
to the water's edge, finally stopping where a light rowboat had been
pulled well up on the rocky beach.
"We'll have to divide forces, I guess. In this uncertain light we never
could be sure of seeing the boat if she was on the other side. I'll cut
across while you go down this bank."
"Why not take the boat and go down the middle?"
"Too hard work getting through the shallows, and, besides, this way
we're closest to the place where the boat would most likely have been
snagged. We can go lots faster on foot. We'll keep about opposite each
other; we can yell across once in a while and it won't be quite so
lonesome. You go ahead till you get below the riffles, and wait there
till I catch up with you."
Jerry stepped into the boat and took up the oars. Dave gave the boat a
mighty shove that almost put the stern under the water.
"Hey! What you kids doing?" bellowed a gruff voice that the boys hardly
recognized as being that of Mr. Aikens.
"Just duck and say nothing," called Jerry guardedly to Dave. "He might
try to stop us."
So Dave scurried into the shadows of near-by trees, while Jerry bent
low over his oars and noiselessly shot the boat out into safe waters.
It was the work of only a few minutes to push the nose of his boat high
and dry on the sand of the opposite shore. He was in the heavy shadow
of a big cottonwood and felt safe from peering eyes, so without wasting
time to mask his movements he jumped out and scurried along the bank. A
level stretch of a hundred yards carried him around a bend; he stopped
for a brief rest and a glance toward the other side, where a great
crashing of bushes told him that Dave was safely out of sight and well
on his way toward the riffles.
A chuckle almost escaped Jerry as he listened to the thrashing about,
but remembrance of their errand killed the laughter. In fact, the
chuckle turned to a genuine sob, for Tod Fulton was his closest chum.
So, without an instant's pause, he made his way to the foot of the
riffles, where their search would really begin. How soon it would end,
there was no telling; it might be one mile; it might be twenty. But
Jerry grimly determined that he would carry the undertaking through to
the end.
The riffles was really a succession of pools of treacherous depths,
joined by foaming, rock-broken rapids. The bank was lined with great
boulders through which a day-time path wound a difficult way. Jerry
wasted no time in trying to follow it, but skirted far around through a
waist-high cornfield. A barb-wire fence held him prisoner long enough
to allow Dave to break cover first on the opposite shore and send a
vigorous but quavery "hello" across the water.
"I'm stuck on the fence!" shouted Jerry in return. "Go ahead. I'll be
along directly."
But he noticed that Dave stood waiting on the shore when he finally
managed to release himself and broke through the thin fringe of
willows. "All right, Dave," he urged. "Let's not be losing any time."
For a while the going was much easier. On Jerry's side a wide reach of
sand lay smooth and firm in the pale moonlight. On Dave's side a few
yards of sand lay between a steep bank and the water's edge, but every
few hundred feet a shallow creek broke through and forced wading.
There was no chance for the boat to have stranded here, and the boys
hurried along. Within a mile the character of the ground changed. Now
the water lapped along under high, steep banks, with tiny,
willow-covered islands alternating with bass-haunted snags of dislodged
trees barricaded with driftwood. The moon cast queer shadows and more
than once Jerry's heart felt a wild thrill as he fancied he saw a boat
hull outlined against the silvered current.
Every few hundred yards the two boys stopped and sent encouraging
shouts across the widening water. It was a lonesome, disheartening
task, with every step making the task all the harder. Deep bays cut
into the shore line; the feeder creeks grew wider and deeper. The night
air was chill on their dripping shoulders. Plum Run was no longer a
run--it was a real river, and Dave's voice sounded far off when he came
out on some bare point to shout his constant:
"Nothing doing--yet."
They were now on a part of the river that was comparatively strange to
them. Jerry had more than once followed the Plum this far south, but it
had always been by boat, or at best on the west bank, Dave's territory,
where a chain of lakes followed the course of the river. Each new twist
and turn sent a shiver of nervous dread through him. Many the story of
rattlers and copperheads he had heard from fishermen and campers--and
the night was filled with unexpected and disturbing noises, overhead
and underfoot. Of course he knew that snakes are not abroad at night,
but the knowledge did not help his nerves.
Moreover, they were drawing near Lost Island, and no boy of Watertown
had ever been known to cast a line within half a mile of that dreaded
spot. For Lost Island was the "haunted castle" of the neighborhood. It
was nothing more than a large, weed-and-willow-covered five acres, a
wrecked dam jutting out from the east bank, and a great gaunt pile of
foundation masonry standing high and dry on a bare knoll at the north
end.
It had a history--never twice told the same. The dam had been
dynamited, that much was sure. By whom, no one knew. The house, if ever
a house had been built over those rain-bleached rocks, had been struck
by lightning, hurricane, blown up by giant powder, rotted away--a dozen
other tragic ends, as the whim of the story-teller dictated. The owner
had been murdered, lynched, had committed suicide--no one knew, but
everyone was positive that there was something fearfully, terribly
wrong with Lost Island.
It was one of the few islands in Plum Run which was not flooded over by
the spring freshets, and the land was fertile, yet no one had ever been
known to live there through a season; this in spite of the fact that
Lost Island was known as "squatter's land," open to settlement by
anyone who desired it.
And Lost Island lay barely half a mile farther down the river. Jerry
fervently hoped that their search would be ended before they were in
the shadow of that forsaken territory. His nerves were not calmed any
by the tremble in Dave's voice as he shouted across:
"Lost Island's just below us, Jerry. Shall we go on?"
"Sure thing, Dave!" called Jerry with a confidence he did not feel. "It
can't be any worse than what we've already gone through--and we've gone
through _that_ all right."
"Supposing," hesitated Dave, "supposing the boat's grounded on Lost
Island itself----"
"It's the boat we're looking for, isn't it?" But Jerry knew as he
spoke, that, hard as the going was, he would be well satisfied to
discover the boat five weary miles farther on.
Once more they plodded along, the dark, forbidding hulk of Lost Island
looming nearer and nearer. Just before passing behind the northern
point Jerry came out to the water's edge and had cupped his hands about
his mouth for a final reassuring shout, when a sudden discovery made
him pause. A shout, that seemed to split in mid-air, convinced him that
Dave too had just then caught sight of the astounding object.
It was a gleaming, flickering, ruddy light, and it came from the very
center of Lost Island!
Jerry's first thought was fright. But that soon gave way to the wildest
of conjectures. Suppose Tod had been in the boat. Suppose he had come
to in time, but too weak to do more than remain in the boat till it
grounded here on Lost Island. A waterproof match-safe easily accounted
for the fire. Jerry refused to allow himself to reason any further.
There might be a dozen reasons why Tod had not swum the scant hundred
yards to shore.
"Do you see it!" finally came a shout from the other side.
"It's a camp fire," called Jerry. "Do you suppose it could possibly
be----"
"It couldn't be Tod, _could_ it!" came the answer, showing the same
wild hope that had surged through Jerry.
"Oh--_Tod!_" rang out from two trembly throats on both sides of the
river.
There was no reply. At least there came no answering shout. But the
next instant Jerry rubbed his eyes in bewilderment. The camp fire had
been blotted out as if by magic. Only the deep gloom of thick-set
willows lay before him.
"The fire's gone!" came in alarmed tones from Dave.
"_Tod--Oh, Tod!_" rang out once more through the still night air.
This time there was an answer, but not the one the boys expected. A
gruff voice demanded angrily:
"Say, you idiots--what in the thunder you want!"
"We're looking for a boy who was drowned up at----" began Jerry, who
was closest to the high point where a man was presently seen stalking
through the fringe of bushes.
"Boy who was drowned? _Calling_ for him! Ye crazy loons!" interrupted
the man.
"We don't know whether he was drowned or not," answered Jerry hotly.
"Well I'll never tell you," was the surly response. With a disgusted
shrug of the shoulders the great hulk of a man slouched back toward the
center of the island, pausing just before he disappeared once more in
the wilderness to warn:
"Any more of that howling's going to bring a charge of buckshot, and I
don't care which of you I hit."
"Do you care if we come over and look along the shore of the island?"
shouted Dave at the retreating figure.
The answer, which was more like a growl than a human response, left no
doubt of the man's meaning. Neither boy felt the slightest desire to
swim across to Lost Island. Instead Jerry waved his arms over his head
and then pointed downstream.
So once more they trudged along, disheartened more than ever, for
somehow the actions of that weird figure on Lost Island had made their
search look more of a wild goose chase than ever. The island was soon
passed, but Jerry found himself peering hopelessly across a sluggish,
muddy-bottomed slough that promised many a weary minute of wading
before he could hope to establish communication with his companion
again.
So it was with a great feeling of relief that, once more on solid
ground, he heard Dave's call.
"Say, Jerry, we're pretty near down to Tomlinson's wagon bridge. What
you say that we hustle on down and meet halfway across--and wait there
for daylight. I'm about woozified."
"Good!" agreed Jerry, pleased that the suggestion had come from Dave.
"Even the thought of it rests my old legs till they feel like new. I'll
just race you to it!"
But it was a slow sort of race, for neither boy was willing to take a
chance in passing the most innocent shadow--which always turned out to
be a water-soaked log or a back-eddied swirl of foam. Nevertheless, it
was a spent Dave who sank gasping to the rough plank floor of the
middle span of the wagon bridge a scant second ahead of another puffing
boy.
A good ten minutes they lay there, breathing hard. Then both rose and
walked over to the edge and leaned heavily against the girders as they
looked gloomily down the river.
"Looks almost hopeless, doesn't it!" admitted Jerry, finally.
"Worst of it is we don't really know whether she's down below yet or if
we've passed it. She was riding pretty low."
"Wonder what that man was doing on Lost Island?" speculated Jerry,
crossing wearily to the north edge of the bridge and peering through
the gray dawn-mist toward the island, barely visible now. A mere
twinkle of light showed among the trees, and he stood there for a long
minute. Dave come to his side, and the two waited in silence for the
dawn. Jerry had almost fallen asleep standing up, when a sudden clutch
at his arm nearly overbalanced him and sent him tumbling off the dizzy
height.
"Look!" gasped Dave.
"What is it?" exclaimed Jerry, turning to his companion, all sleep gone.
"I'll swear it's the boat--right under us!"