TO THE RESCUE!
This much of the interview was perfectly clear to Jerry afterwards, but
what followed he could not quite understand at the time or later. For a
moment it was almost laughable. There stood Aikens fiercely clutching
one arm and waving it up and down as if to pump further information
from him. Mr. Fulton, after the first dazed instant, darted across the
room and grabbed Jerry's other arm.
"_Where_ is he? Tell me--quick!" he demanded.
Then it was that Jerry could not understand, for the look that came
over Mr. Fulton's face at his reply was neither belief nor doubt. His
eyebrows almost met in a frown as he repeated mechanically:
"On Lost Island, you say? But--but--how do you know? You weren't _on_
Lost Island, were you?"
"No--o," answered Jerry slowly.
A look of relief, quickly hidden, came to Mr. Fulton's face, but Jerry
saw it, and wondered.
"Did someone tell you he was there, then?"
"Someone told me he _wasn't_ there----" began Jerry, when the
ting-a-ling of a telephone bell cut him short.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Fulton and hurried from the room. His muffled voice
could be heard in a lengthy conversation. Jerry impatiently awaited his
return, anxious to tell the rest of his story. Imagine then his
surprise when Tod's father delayed his return unreasonably, and his
only response to Jerry's eager sentences was, "Yes, yes, I know."
Jerry's heart sank unaccountably--he sensed the fact that Mr. Fulton
was not listening, was only waiting, in fact, till the boy should
finish and he could decently get rid of Jerry. The story was
consequently hurried through. Disappointed beyond description, Jerry
left the house, not even noticing that Mr. Fulton had left the room
even before Jerry had reached the door.
Something was wrong somewhere; Jerry had expected that his story would
be literally snatched out of his mouth; instead it had been smothered
under the dampest kind of wet blanket. Feeling not a little sore over
his failure to impress the two men with the importance of his
discoveries, Jerry plodded along home, determined that as soon as he
had gulped down a little breakfast he would hike back to Lost Island
alone and make one more attempt to gain the cover of its wooded banks.
Even that plan was doomed to disappointment. Jerry's mother had saved a
goodly breakfast for him, and bustled about making him comfortable.
Contrary to Jerry's expectations, she had no word of blame for his
having remained away overnight without asking consent, and even
listened with sympathetic ear to the story of his adventures. But just
at the moment when Jerry was about to announce his intention to return,
Mrs. Ring was called to the back door, to return a few minutes later
with the announcement that it had been Mr. Aikens, and that Jerry was
not to worry any more about Lost Island.
"But I've simply got to go back, ma," sputtered Jerry, his mouth
uncomfortably full of pancake. "Mr. Fulton isn't going to--well, he
didn't show much interest in my theories---"
"But Mr. Aikens seemed to think he did. You just rest easy, son. If two
grown men can't take care of your Lost Islander--and your theories,
too, why, well--you just get ready to pile into bed, that's all."
"But, ma--there's the boat."
"It'll take care of itself till you get there."
"But, ma----"
"Hush up, now. Into bed with you."
"But can I go after the boat when I----"
Mrs. Ring caught up a flat piece of wood from the back of the kitchen
range, and laughingly but firmly put an end to the coaxing, Jerry
retreating hastily to the shelter of his bedroom.
Both Jerry and his father stood in awe of tiny Mrs. Ring, who barely
reached to overgrown Jerry's shoulder.
"Wake me up at twelve, will you, ma?" called Jerry, in his most
wheedling voice. His mother only laughed, but Jerry felt sure she
would. Besides, there was his dollar alarm clock.
Jerry repented his request when sharp at twelve o'clock he was called
for noonday dinner. He was sleepy and cross and not a bit hungry. His
muscles were sore, and the drill to Lost Island did not have quite the
romance by broad daylight that it had had a few hours before.
Jerry watched his father put on his hat and hurry back to work, with a
great deal of relief. His mother was much easier to handle in a case of
this sort.
"You won't mind if I don't get back till late?" he asked, hoping she
would give her unqualified consent to his remaining away as long as he
saw fit. "You promised me I could go camping this summer--let me take
it now, _please_, ma."
"Will you promise me to come back and let me pick the birdshot out of
you after you've made a landing on Lost Island?" she asked in mock
anxiety. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Ring was about as proud of her big
boy as a mother well could be without making herself a nuisance to the
neighbors. From his earliest boyhood she had cultivated the
independence of spirit he showed with his first pair of real trousers,
and now she often strained a point to let him exercise it. To be sure,
she sometimes wondered how much was genuine self-confidence and how
much was a reckless love of adventure.
Now she raised her eyebrows in denial, but at the eager look on the
boy's face she relented. "Trot along, Jerry," she agreed, with a quick
pat at his shoulder--the Rings were not much at kissing each other. "If
you can't take care of yourself by now, you never will be able to. I
know you're as anxious as you can be about Tod--I do hope it turns out
that you are right about him."
With a muttered, "I've got to be right," Jerry set about making himself
a couple of substantial sandwiches and stuffing them in the pocket of
his canvas hunting coat, which he took along for emergencies.
"Good-bye, ma," he called over his shoulder. "I'll be back as soon as I
can bring Tod with me."
Once outside, he wasted no time but struck off at once cross-lots to
rout out Dave Thomas and Frank Ellery. Fortunately Frank came first,
otherwise Jerry might not have been equal to the task of waking up
Dave. They tried everything they had ever heard of. They tickled his
feet; they set off a brass-lunged alarm clock under his very nose; they
dumped him roughly out of his bed, but even on the bare floor he
slumbered peacefully on. Cold water brought only temporary success.
They were in despair.
It was Frank who finally solved the problem. Seating himself on the
foot of the bed, he raised his head much in the fashion of a hound
baying at the moon--the sound that issued from his throat would put to
shame the most ambitious hound that ever howled. Jerry caught up a
pillow and would have shied it at the head of the offender, but the
perfectly serious look on Frank's face withheld his arm. Gradually it
dawned on him that the boy was trying to sing--and, more than that, it
was one of Dave's favorite songs he was murdering.
Then it was that Jerry understood Frank's strategy. The bed-clothes
began to heave; they had piled them all atop Dave as he lay on the
floor. Frank began on the chorus. A wriggling leg emerged from beneath
the comforts. Jerry joined in, his voice a villainous imitation of
Frank's discords. Another leg came to view.
They began to repeat the chorus, further off key than before. One line
was all they were suffered to torture. A catapult of boy, bedclothes
and pillows bounded from the floor and sent Frank spinning into the
bed, while Jerry barely saved himself from a spill on the floor.
"You will yowl like a lot of bob-tailed tomcats, will yuh!" yelled
Dave, dancing up and down on one foot--he had stubbed his toe against
one of his shoes in his charge across the room.
"You will snore away like six buzz-saws on circus day, huh?" snorted
Frank, neatly catching Dave in the pit of the stomach with a pillow
caught up from the floor.
For a second it looked like a free-for-all, but Jerry had no time to
waste.
"Get your clothes on--hustle. We're going back to Lost Island."
"Suppose my mother won't let me?"
"Suppose you tell her we've got to go and get our boat? She'll let you
go all right. You just want to get back to bed, that's all that's
worrying you. Hustle, Dave. We can't lose a minute."
"But didn't you tell Tod's dad about what we--found out?" Dave
hesitated over the last. It was plain to be seen that he was none too
sure in his own mind of the importance of their discovery.
"I did, and he--well, he acted so queer about it that I don't know what
to think. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they--he and Mr. Aikens, you
know--never went near Lost Island. They think we're just kids."
"But we don't really _know_ anything, Jerry; we're only just guessing."
"Guessing, huh? Well, I'm only just guessing that you're wasting a lot
of time about getting your clothes on, but in about half a minute I'm
going to climb all over you."
At that Dave bristled up a bit, but his fingers became spryer with
buttons and hooks and very shortly he stood fully dressed and ready to
go downstairs. Jerry had already made peace with Mrs. Thomas, so little
time was lost in waiting for Dave to snatch a bite to eat and be on his
way.
"I've got four bits loose in my pocket," announced Jerry, once they
were out on the street. "If we don't let any grass grow on the side
streets while we're moving we can make the two-five express on the
Dellwood Interurban. We can drop off when they slow down at Downers
Crossing; that must be almost opposite Lost Island. It's hard going
through the swamps to get to Plum Run, but I guess we're good for it."
They made the two-five--with about three seconds to spare. Their car
was empty, so each dropped into a seat and sprawled out comfortably.
Jerry smiled grimly to himself as he looked back perhaps five minutes
later and saw how the two had slumped down in their seats. It did not
need a throaty gurgle from Dave to convince him that the pair were
sound asleep. "A fine pair of adventurers," he muttered to himself, not
entirely without some feeling of resentment. It was well enough to be
the leader, but--well, he wouldn't have minded a little snooze himself.
He did not feel quite so critical, however, when, perhaps a half hour
later, at a terrific jolt of the train, he was roused from the doze
into which he too had fallen. A hasty glance out the window told him
that they were at Downers Crossing. With a yell that would have done
credit to a whole war-party of Comanches, he pounced upon the two
sleepers and dragged and pushed and pommeled them out onto the platform
of the car. The train was beginning to move, so their descent was none
too dignified.
"Why in thunder didn't you wake us in time so I could have got a
drink?" complained Frank.
Jerry said nothing; he felt too guilty to risk any answer. After they
had cut across to the wagon road that led in the general direction of
the river, he consoled his chum with: "Downer's farm is only about half
a mile in, and we can get all the buttermilk we want there----" adding
mischievously: "----on Wednesdays, when they churn."
Both Dave and Frank promised instant murder for that, so he had to
admit that they would reach the best spring in Winthrop County within
three minutes.
"Saved your hide by just twenty-nine seconds," declared Dave as he
plunged his face into the bubbling surface of the clearest, coldest
kind of a hillside spring.
Their gait was much livelier after that, and in less than ten minutes
Plum Run was sighted, But they did not come out as close to Lost Island
as Jerry had predicted. In fact, they were not certain in which
direction it lay, for to the north lay a cluster of trees apparently
surrounded by water, and which might well be the place they sought. To
the south lay another green spot away from shore.
"It's north of here," declared both Dave and Frank, but Jerry exclaimed
triumphantly, after the first tangle of argument:
"It must be south. If Lost Island was north the wagon bridge'd be
between us and it."
So south they went; and as they drew nearer they saw that the patch of
green was indeed Lost Island. Once they were within close sight of it,
they went forward with all caution. The last hundred yards or so they
made on hands and knees, finding cover in every clump of bushes or
willows on the way.
But finally they were ready to break through the last fringe of willow
and spy out the prospect. Jerry, who was ahead, waited for his two
companions to catch up with him.
"Not a sound, now," he cautioned as they crouched beside him.
Stealthily they pushed aside the leaves that obscured their view.
Suddenly, from behind them a yell, blood-curdling, absolutely
hair-raising, rang out through the stillness. The three turned.
But it was too late. Breaking cover at the same instant, a half-dozen
husky young chaps charged on the surprised trio.
"Up and at them, fellows!" came a roar. "They're part of the gang!"