A CLEW.
CHARLEY and Walter climbed into the auto with Mr. Bruce, who
immediately started up the machine and drove slowly out on the old
road, noting his surroundings with interest.
"I have never been out in this country before," he said. "It seems
wonderfully strange and interesting to me. So unlike anything I have
ever seen in the North. I suppose that thick growth of trees ahead is
the jungle you told me about."
The boys assured him that such was the case, and before entering the
jungle he stopped the car and looked back at the machine. "At the rate
your men are working, you will have the road completed up to the jungle
in another week," he observed.
"Yes," Charley agreed, "that is, if we are not molested too much. I
dread the work through the jungle, though."
"I should think you would dread it," agreed Mr. Bruce as the car
slipped into the jungle's gloomy depths. "Gosh, I never saw such a
sickly looking place and these awful snakes. I'll dream of them for
weeks. Why, the place fairly reeks with fever and disease."
"We are going to set fire to it before we put the machine into it,"
Walter said. "The fire will kill off a good many of the snakes, but it
won't stop the danger from fever much."
Mr. Bruce drove on in silence until the car rolled into Indiantown,
where he stopped it in front of one of the truck gardens with an
exclamation of surprise. "My, I never saw stuff grow like that before,"
he said. "This land must be wonderfully fertile, although it does not
look so very rich on top."
"There's a soft grayish rock a little below the surface," Charley
explained. "I believe it produces that wonderful growth. I've got some
samples of it in my game bag. You can have them if you want them. This
land is wonderfully fertile, as you say," he continued, while Mr. Bruce
examined the bits of rock, "but I don't believe, even with that in its
favor, that it will be worth much until a railroad runs through here.
It's too far from transportation."
"Yes," agreed Mr. Bruce absently. "It is too far away to be worth much
for farming purposes."
The little party rode on as far as the trading-post, then Mr. Bruce
declared he had seen enough, and turning the car around headed back for
camp.
"It's queer how a really brilliant mind sometimes overlooks plain
simple little things," he said as they slipped by the row of surveyor's
stakes. "Now the man who is directing operations against you is a
man of considerable intelligence, the ingenuity of his moves against
you prove that. He has kept in concealment, and, in spite of all the
annoyance he has caused you, you haven't got the slightest bit of
evidence against him. Some of his tricks have been infernally clever,
and yet he has overlooked one little thing that would have put you out
of business in a short time."
"Don't name it out loud," Charley begged. "I noticed it long ago, but I
haven't even dared think of it for fear it might occur to him."
"I don't know but what you fellows are in the same class with him,"
said Mr. Bruce, with a smile. "This case reminds me of a story by Edgar
Allan Poe about a long search for a hidden document. All sorts of
out-of-the-way nooks and places were searched, and all the while the
document lay in full view upon a mantel shelf."
"You mean that we have overlooked the solution of our troubles because
it was in plain sight?" said Walter eagerly.
"Something like that," Mr. Bruce admitted. "I am not positive about it
yet, but I expect to be within a few days. In the meantime, I'm going
to refuse to answer any questions about it."
It was not yet noon when they got back to camp and Mr. Bruce retired at
once to Charley's tent and began filling in the blank places on a lot
of legal forms he had brought with him. "I want all you Americans to
sign these without asking any questions," he said. "I know it's rather
an unusual request, but this case is rather an unusual one, so you will
have to do this blindfold if you want me to go on with your case. You
will just have to trust to my honor, that's all."
Without any hesitation, our little party affixed their signatures to
the papers, the contents of which the lawyer kept carefully hidden.
They reasoned that in their present position they had nothing to lose,
if the lawyer proved dishonest, which they did not believe he would,
for they were all favorably impressed with his appearance and brisk,
business-like manner.
After they had signed, the teamster and engineers were called in and
also asked to sign, which they willingly did, without question or
comment.
"Now," said Mr. Bruce, when the signing was over, "I'll be going, for
I've got to do some hustling the next few days if I am going to be of
any use to you."
"Better wait for dinner," Charley urged, but Mr. Bruce shook his head.
"I'll get a lunch in Jupiter," he said. "Every hour is important now.
I wish you had come to me sooner; as it is, I have only a short time to
do a whole lot of work in."
Charley followed him out to the auto. "I wish you would tell us what
you have discovered and what you are going to do," he said.
"No, I'm not going to do that," said the lawyer decidedly, "not until I
am sure that I am right. Do you think you can keep on working and stand
those fellows off for a week longer?"
"I think so," Charley said simply.
"Good," approved Mr. Bruce, "I will be back within a week. I must warn
you, however, that if my theories are correct the further you dig the
more trouble you are likely to have. I expect the enemy will abandon
all tricks and resort to attempts to kill before the week is out."
"That's a cheerful outlook," said Charley dryly.
Mr. Bruce hesitated before replying. "As a lawyer," he said, "I am
against killing in any form, but as a mere man I would say that I would
shoot to kill if the other fellow was doing the same."
"But killing is an awful thing," protested Charley. "It is never
justified except in war."
"Then just consider that this is war," smiled the lawyer. "You will not
have to stretch your imagination much. Good-by. I will be back in a
week." The teamster climbed into the auto with him and in a few minutes
the car was out of sight.
Charley slowly returned to the camp, where he told his chums what the
lawyer had said.
"I think I know about where those gunmen are camped," Walter said. "I
can see the smoke of a campfire near where the convicts camped. If we
have any more trouble with them, we could, perhaps, capture them in the
daytime when they are sleeping and turn them over to the sheriff."
Charley shook his head. "That won't do," he said. "In the first place,
even counting in the engineers, there would only be seven of us to do
the job, for we could not count on the Spaniards. They lack the nerve
for such work. Seven men could hardly handle twenty. In the second
place, we have no evidence against any of them, except the one who
killed the mules, and he is dead. If we turned them over to the sheriff
he would have to turn them loose again."
"You're right about the Spaniards lacking nerve," Captain Westfield
observed. "All these mysterious night attacks are frightening them. I
am afraid we are going to have trouble holding them if this sort of
thing continues."
"I've been fearing that very thing," Charley said thoughtfully. "They
are a superstitious people and what they cannot understand frightens
them. I can see only one thing more that we can do and that is for Walt
and I to go on the night guard with them, and if there is any shooting
we had better do as the lawyer says--shoot back."
"I don't like the idea of bloodshed," said Captain Westfield.
"Nor I," said Charley grimly. "But if blood must be shed I would rather
it would be theirs than ours."
"Same here," agreed Walter. "If we are going to keep watch to-night,
Charley, we had better eat dinner and turn in for a nap."
It was nearly sundown when the boys emerged from their tents where they
had been awakened from their sleep by a clamoring outside.
They found the din the herald of the arrival of Willie John with all
his worldly goods, consisting of numerous dogs, pigs, cattle, two
wagons, eight oxen, a squaw, his mother and his mother-in-law, a crowd
of children, and a couple of wrinkled old Indians, likely his father
and father-in-law.
Much to the chums' relief, Willie John decided to make camp further
on close to the machine. After they had reached their camping place,
Willie John left the squaws to the ignoble menial work of making camp,
and with his son, a fine looking Indian lad, came over to discuss
business with his pale-face employers.
"Me drive one wagon, four oxen," he said. "Boy drive one wagon, four
oxen. How much?"
"Six dollars a day," said Charley promptly. "Six dollars and plenty of
tobacco."
"It is well," said the Seminole. "Some tobacco now."
Charley went to the supply and got a package, and the Indian, filling
his pipe, sat down on a log and puffed away in silent content, his son
sitting by his side silent and motionless except for the quick shifting
of his black, beady eyes that took in every detail of the camp and its
occupants.
"Fine boy you've got," observed Walter, who had been admiring the
perfect form and proud carriage of the Indian lad.
There was a glint of fatherly pride in Willie John's eyes as he laid
his hand caressingly on the lad's black head. "Him good boy," he said
simply. "Him run faster, wrestle better, swim better than any other
Indian boy. Him no drink wyomee (whiskey). Him no smoke. Him save all
money. By and bye, he go to school, all the same as pale-face boy."
"That's good," Walter approved. "How old is he?"
"Twelve years," answered the Seminole. "We go back to camp now.
Good-by."
"He certainly thinks a lot of that boy for an Indian," Walter remarked
to his chum.
"Why not?" said Charley. "Don't you suppose Indians have feelings like
other human beings?"
Both lads had occasion to remember this conversation in the near
future.