THE SKIES BEGIN TO BRIGHTEN
It was not very light inside the cabin, so that the first thing Thad did
in his customary energetic way was to take a lantern from a hook, and
put a match to the wick. After that they could see better.
"Don't seem, to be much of anything around here now that we can see
half-way decent," remarked Giraffe.
"Oh I ain't there?" said Bumpus, who was, pinching his nose between his
thumb and forefinger, "now, it strikes me there's a whole lot, when you
come to think."
"However those men could sleep in here beats me?" ejaculated Step Hen,
who was not looking very happy himself, as he sniffed around.
"Oh! mebbe you'll kinder get a little used to it after awhile," Bumpus
assured him, in a tone meant to be comforting.
"I don't believe they did sleep in here at all," Thad remarked, after he
had been spying around a little longer. "You can't see a sign of a bed,
or a blanket, or even leaves in a corner to tell where anybody laid
down."
"And outside of these few old oilskin rags that they use to wear in
their business," added Giraffe, "and hung up on nails along this wall,
there ain't anything to tell that they stayed here. Say, Thad, whatever
do you think this shack could a been used for?"
"Where's your nose?" demanded Bumpus at that juncture.
"Yes," Thad went on to say, "that's about the only thing you need to
tell you, Giraffe. Seems like they must store their catch here until
they get enough on hand to pay to stop work, and pack and ship the same
out. Let's look around. What d'ye call this but a kind of trap in the
floor?"
"It sure is, Thad," admitted the tall scout, promptly.
"Looks like it had been used a heap, in the bargain," advanced Step Hen.
"Why, of course, because there must be some sort of well underneath the
house, where they keep ice all the while, and drop the fish in as they
net them. Perhaps one reason why they hate to leave here in a rush is
that they've got illegal nets out in different places right now, which
cost a heap of money, and they hate to let them go. Hand me that strip
of iron, please, Davy. Looks to me as if they use this to pry up the
trap. There, what did I tell you?"
As the scout-master said this he managed to skillfully raise the square
that was cut in the floor of the cabin. Underneath the old building
there must have been a natural well in among the rocks; for as Thad held
the lantern over so that all of the boys could see, they discovered what
looked like a cellar of solid stone, some fifteen feet deep, and with a
ladder at one side that was doubtless used as a means of passing up and
down.
"Well! I declare! look at the piles of fine fish, will you?" exclaimed
Step Hen.
"All sorts too--trout, white fish, and even black bass, whoppers at
that!" added Davy, staring at such a remarkable sight.
"They must take these in some way that's against the law!" Thad
declared. "Their suspicious actions prove that, plain enough."
"That's the greatest lot of game fish I ever saw together!" Giraffe
ventured, "and if such things keep going on, chances are even the Great
Lakes'll be drained of decent sport before many years. It's a shame,
that's what it is."
Bumpus was the only one who had made no remark; but all the same he
seemed to be busy. They saw him dive into a pocket, and what should he
fetch out brut a stout fish line wound around a bobbin, and with a hook
attached. This he immediately began unrolling so that the end carrying
hook and sinker fell down toward the bottom of the pit.
"Look at Bumpus, would you?" exclaimed Step Hen; "he's gone clean dippy,
that's what? Thinks he's out on the lake, and these fish are swimming
down there waitin' to bite at his bait! Poor old Bumpus, that knock on
the head was too much for him!"
"Was, hey?" snapped the object of this commiseration, as he went on
unreeling his line; "you just wait and see whether I've lost my mind, or
if I ain't as bright as a button. See that buster of a trout alying
there on top? Well, that beats the record so far; and if I can only tip
my hook under his gill I'm meaning to yank him up here the quickest you
ever saw. Guess the rules and regulations of our watch only said a
fellow had to catch his fish with hook and line; it never told that they
had to be alive, and swimming, not a word of it. You watch me win that
championship right here!"
"There's a fish pile down in the cellar," spoke up the rival of Bumpus,
indignantly, "and what d'ye think, Bumpus here means to fetch up a lot
of 'em with his hook and line, and count the same against me. Hey!
guess two can play at that sort of game, if there's going to be anything
in it; so look out; because I'm after that same big trout myself."
Twice Bumpus managed to get his hook where it seemed to catch upon the
monster trout's exposed gill, and with a cry of triumph he started to
pull in; but on one occasion the slender hold his hook had taken broke
away; and the second time it chanced that Giraffe had managed to fasten
his barb somewhere about the dorsal fin of the fish, so that there was
an immediate struggle for supremacy, with the usual result in such cases
that the anticipated prize fell back, and was lost to both contestants.
"Tell them to let up on that silly business, and let's get out of here,
Thad," said Step Hen, when this thing had gone on for some time, with no
result save a weariness to the two rivals.
"But seems to me," Dave put in just then, "that couple of them same
trout and white fish would be mighty tasty dish for a bunch of scouts I
know of who always carry their appetites with them."
When Giraffe heard him say that, he suddenly seemed to lose all his
fierceness as a contestant for honors.
"Here, let's stop this business, Bumpus, because I ain't agoing to let
you grab up any fish that easy like; and I reckon you feel the same way
about me. Anyhow, I leave it to Thad here if it's a sportsmanlike way
of scoring in our game? If he says no, why I'm willing to let you hook
up some of the beauties for our dinner; or to make things more lively I
agree to climb down that greasy old ladder and put 'em on the hook for
you. How about it, Mr. Scout-master; is it fair?"
"Perhaps the letter of the law might favor such a course," he said,
solemnly; "but we pretend to be sportsmen, all of us, and as such we go
farther than that. And Bumpus, you know very well that nothing of this
kind was thought of when you made your wager with Giraffe. As I was
counted on to be the umpire I say now and here that the fish taken have
to be alive at the time they are hooked, and swimming in the lake."
"Then that settles it, Thad," chuckled Bumpus, with a grin; "anyhow, I
was only fooling, and wouldn't want to count honors won so cheap as
this. But drop down there, Giraffe, since you were so kind as to
promise, and hook me on that gay fellow I nearly had two different
times. Let me feel how heavy he is? I'd go myself, but chances are I'd
sure collapse down there, because already I'm feeling weak again, and
that's the truth."
Giraffe evidently did not mean to go back on his word; and accordingly
he carefully climbed over the edge of the opening, found a resting place
for his feet on the top round of the ladder, and then began to slowly
descend.
First of all he hooked on the big trout, and gaily Bumpus pulled the
prize up, remarking at the time that it felt as though he were lifting a
grindstone. When he lowered his line again Giraffe had a splendid fresh
looking white fish ready, and this he sent up, after the trout.
"I just can't stand this any longer," the boy below called up; "and I'm
acomin' right along with the next one, which ought to be a white fish, I
reckon. Oh! my! hope I don't keel over before I get to the top. If I
do, please, please don't run away and leave me to my fate, boys!"
Perhaps Giraffe was only joking, but it was noticed that when he hastily
clambered out of the fish pit he made a streak for outdoors, still
hanging on to his latest capture.
In fact, as they had had enough of that thing, all of them hastened to
follow the example set by the tall and lanky scout. Outside they found
Allan examining the prize with considerable interest, while Giraffe was
fanning himself, and making all sorts of grimaces as he raised first one
hand and then the other to his nose.
"I'll step in and take a look now, while we're here," mentioned Allan;
"because I may never get another chance to see what a fish poacher's
storage place is like."
"Queer where they've gone and hidden themselves," Step Hen remarked, as
he looked all around as though half expecting to see a bearded face
thrust out of the bushes, or above a pile of rocks near by.
"Well, just now they're in a sort of panic, and hardly know what to try
next," Thad told them. "Of course they must see that we're only boys,
after all; but from the fact that we wear uniforms they suppose we are
connected in some way with the militia, and that perhaps a boatload of
soldiers is even now on the way here, obeying some sort of wireless
signal we've managed to transmit. They thought to seize Bumpus, and
perhaps get us all, one by one; but when they found that he had rendered
their boat helpless they just threw up the sponge and quit."
"Well, I kinder feel a mite sorry for the rascals," Step Hen observed;
whereupon the usually gentle Bumpus, who could be depended on to forgive
the first one of all, fired up, and burst out with:
"Then I ain't, not one whit; and I guess you wouldn't either, Step Hen
Bingham, if you had a lump as big as a hickory nut on top of your head,
that felt as sore as a boil, and knew one of that crowd did it to you.
Ain't they breaking the law of the land; and every fish they take in
their illegal nets or seines means one less for the fellow that fishes
for sport, or the man that does business according to the rules and
regulations. Sorry, well I guess not! And when we move away with their
old boat we'll send somebody with brass buttons over to Sturgeon Island
to take off the marooners."
"Whew! listen to the savage monster, would you?" purred Step Hen; but
Bumpus had suffered too much to be in a forgiving humor, and he
continued to shake his head ominously while he kept on breathing out
threatenings, like Saul of old.
"Now let's head for our camp," Thad gave the order, when Allan had
joined them, and declared he had seen all he wanted of the fish
poachers' storehouse.
"I only hope they haven't stolen a march on us, and got away with our
traps," Davy happened to remark, as they stepped out at a lively rate.
"What a job we'd have cookin' these fine fish, if we didn't have any
frying-pan," was the first lament of Giraffe.
"And my blanket that I think so much of, I wouldn't like to lose that,"
Bumpus told them; but Thad gave it as his opinion that after the men had
fled, upon hearing the voices of the boys near by, they must have fallen
into such a panic that no doubt they were now in hiding away off at the
other end of the island.
"Now don't forget to show us where you bid that crank belonging to the
boat engine, Bumpus," Step, Hen cautioned, as they strode along.
"Good thing you spoke of it when you did, Step Hen," the fat scout
declared, "because here's the old stump right now. Feel down, and see
if it ain't there, somebody. Here, let me do it myself, because I know
just where it lies."
In proof of his words Bumpus speedily drew out the crooked bit of steel
in question.
"Here you are, Giraffe, like to like!" he sang out gaily, as he tossed
his find toward the tall scout.
"I s'pose that's as much as calling me a crank," muttered Giraffe; "but
then, we'd take anything from you, Bumpus, just now, we feel so good
after your splendid work."
Of course upon receiving that fine compliment Bumpus became contrite at
once.
"Excuse me for saying that, Giraffe," he called out; "because I reckon
now you ain't one whit more a crank than some others in this crowd."
And then noticing that Step Hen and Davy were looking daggers at him, he
hurriedly added, "particularly a stout feller they call Bumpus for short
instead of Cornelius Jasper Hawtree."
"My idea is about this," Thad went on to say; "as we are going to depend
so much on using this boat to get away in, we'd better make our camp
right alongside; and in that way they won't have much chance to steal
the same from us."
"But ain't we going away soon?" asked Davy, looking around him again, as
though he still expected to see a party of furious poachers rush towards
them, reinforcements having meanwhile arrived on the island.
"Not till that sea goes down a whole lot more," replied the scout-master;
"and if that doesn't happen until late this afternoon I'm afraid
we'll have to spend one more night on Sturgeon Island," which
information the others did not hear with any degree of enthusiasm for
they were all heartily tired of the place.