A SWIM IN TENSAS LAKE
There, splashing about in the muddy water of the little lake, was the
fat boy. At the moment when Tad first espied him, Chunky lay
floating lazily on his back, kicking an occasional foot and sending
up little spurts of water.
Stacy was enjoying himself greatly. He had been complaining all the
day before that he hadn't had a satisfactory bath since he came into
the woods. The guide had told him to dip up water in the buckets,
then let it settle until clear, after which he might take his bath.
This sort of bath did not suit the fat boy. He determined that he
would have a real bath or no bath at all, so at daylight that morning
he arose, and after peering about to make sure that no one observed
him, slipped on a pair of trunks and, barefooted, picked his way to
the edge of the lake. Stacy sat down on the bank to gaze at the
water. He knew it was deep from its appearance, but just how deep he
neither knew nor cared. The deeper the better.
"I wish the water weren't so black. I'll be a sight when I come out,
but at least I shan't feel so sticky," he muttered.
With that Chunky had permitted his body to slip down into the lake.
He swam about in circles, for a time casting an occasional
apprehensive eye in the direction of the camp, a short few rods away,
but no sign of life was observable there.
After splashing about for a few moments the fat boy flopped over on
his back for a delicious float. It is doubtful if Stacy gave thought
to the fact that these were reptile-infested waters, waters literally
alive with death-dealing monsters. Perhaps he did not know about it;
at any rate, the boy was untroubled by thoughts of peril. He was
humming to himself when Tad first saw him there.
At the same time Tad Butler's attention was attracted to something
else. Little circles on various parts of the lake were to be seen.
These circles were widening. It looked as if one might have
carefully dropped a stone into the water here and there without
causing a splash. The silent circles were growing with the seconds.
"Quick! Out of there!" yelled Tad. For once in his life, Butler was
excited. "Swim for it!"
"What's the matter with you?" drawled Stacy. "I'm having the time of
my life--"
"Alligators!" shouted Tad.
Stacy suddenly stopped moving his feet. The fat boy was paralyzed
with fear. He seemed to have lost all power of movement. Tad might
have leaped in to Stacy's assistance, but he had formed other plans
almost on the instant.
"Ned! Mr. Lilly!" he shouted.
Just then a black spot that might have been a floating knot appeared
on the surface of the water some thirty feet from where Stacy lay
trembling. The black spot was the center of one of those widening
circles.
Tad's rifle leaped to his shoulder. A crash echoed through the forest
and seemed to rattle among the canes all down the line. There was a
sudden and terrific commotion in the water where the black spot had
been seen, a floundering and threshing and a lashing of the waters,
for Tad's bullet had sped true.
But there were still other circles, each now rapidly drawing nearer
to where Stacy lay wide-eyed and motionless.
"Get him!" yelled Tad as Ned Rector sprang from his tent.
Ned comprehended on the instant. He saw Stacy out there in the water,
Tad on shore with rifle held slightly forward from his stooping body,
alert and ready to shoot. Ned did not wait. He took a running jump,
landing in the lake with a mighty splash, and came up shaking the
water from his face and lunged toward Stacy.
"Get out of this!" roared Ned.
"I--I can't," wailed the fat boy. "I--I'm too scared."
Ned Rector smote the fat boy with his doubled fist. It was the best
thing Rector could have done in the circumstances, for it stirred
Stacy to sudden activity. With a yell, Chunky threw himself over on
his stomach and began striking out desperately for the shore, with
Ned, yelling and threatening, following close behind.
Tad's rifle spoke again. It was just in time to stop a 'gator whose
snout was suddenly thrust above the water a few feet behind Ned. All
this had occupied only a few seconds, but they had been active
seconds in every sense of the word, seconds fraught with peril and
quickness on the part of two plucky boys.
A third time did Tad shoot. Though excited, his excitement did not
appear to affect his aim, for the Pony Rider Boy had not missed once.
With the third and last shot, Stacy's fingers clutched a bush on the
lake edge. The boy pulled himself from the water and fell over in a
heap on the bank.
"Get up. Get out of that!" commanded Tad. "Don't stop there."
"Hustle yourself," shouted Ned, himself losing no time in getting out
of the water.
Chunky scrambled from the beach, then ran with all haste to his tent,
with Rector following, making vain efforts to catch hold of the fat
boy. He succeeded in overhauling Chunky at the entrance of the tent.
Stacy, perceiving that he was going to be caught, found it convenient
to stumble. Ned was upon him, but not before Chunky had picked up two
handfuls of black, oozy muck, and as Ned fell upon him, Stacy
plastered the contents of first one hand, then the other, over the
face of his assailant.
Rector's mouth, nose and eyes were glued shut with the black stuff.
Unfortunately for Ned he had opened his mouth at the instant when
Stacy began painting his face.
"Now, maybe you will let me alone," jeered Chunky. "I guess I know
how to defend myself."
"You're a fool," snapped Lilly. The guide was actually pale. "Why,
didn't you know what was in the lake?"
"I'm busy. Come around after business hours," answered the fat boy,
making all haste to discard his trunks and get into his clothes. He
knew very well that, as soon as Rector was able to see and breathe,
there would be trouble in the camp. Stacy proposed to be out of
reach by that time.
The lad was out of the tent with remarkable quickness. He did not
wait to draw on his boots, having heard the voice of Rector
approaching. Stacy slipped out under the rear of his tent. He
carried a rope with him. Making a bee line for a birch, he shinned
up it almost with the speed of a squirrel, and a moment or so later
was sitting hunched in a crotch, blinking down into the camp below
him.
"Where's that ungrateful wretch?" raged Ned. "I'll skin him alive
once I set eyes on him. Where is he?"
"He may have gone back in the lake," answered the guide. "I
shouldn't be surprised at anything he did after that foolish play."
"I saw him go into his tent a few minutes ago," spoke up Walter.
"Stacy!"
The Professor called several times, but Master Stacy merely chuckled
to himself.
"I guess he is all right. Don't worry about him, Professor," advised
Tad. "You will find that he is in hiding somewhere about the camp.
Hello, Ned, what's the matter?"
"That fat cayuse plastered a pailful of muck on my face," complained
Rector. "And to think he would do such a thing after my having saved
his life."
"Yes, who would have thought it?" agreed Tad. "What were you trying
to do to him at the time?"
"I was after him to give him a trouncing."
"Oh, well, you can't blame him for defending himself, can you? By
the way, Mr. Lilly, there are three dead 'gators out there. What are
we going to do with them?"
"I reckon we won't do anything."
"Isn't there any way of getting them out?"
"No safe way that I know. You have just got one of your companions
out of difficulties. Please don't go to getting into any on your own
account."
"I don't intend to."
"Say, but you certainly can shoot. You plunked those killers
squarely in the eye every shot. I'm pretty good with the gun myself,
but for quick, accurate shooting there haven't many of them got you
beaten."
"I had to shoot straight. Somebody would have been killed if I
hadn't," answered Butler.
"You're right they would. But where is that boy. Where--"
Lilly uttered an exclamation and leaped aside as something came
twisting down, striking him on the head and bouncing off on the
ground. Tad found himself several paces to one side of the spot where
he had been standing. Both men held the same thought. They thought
it was a reptile that had dropped from the tree. Then Tad's quick eye
discovered that it was a rope that had fallen from the tree. Glancing
up, he made out the figure of Stacy Brown huddled in a crotch high up.
"Hey! There's a big bird up that tree. Watch me shoot him out,"
cried Tad, raising his rifle.
"Wow, oh, wow! Don't shoot! It's I, Stacy," yelled the fat boy.
"What--what--what's that?" stammered the guide. "That boy up a
tree?"
"Yes, and to think I came near shooting him," answered Tad, in a
voice loud enough for Stacy to hear.
"How did you get up there?" demanded Lilly in amazed wonder.
"I flew up. Didn't you ever see me fly? Why, I am a bird. And you
didn't know that?"
"I--I guess you are, at that. I am getting to the point where I'll
believe almost anything of you youngsters. Did he really fly up
there?"
"He says he did," answered Tad with a grin. Tad knew how Stacy had
climbed, for the rope already lay at the foot of the tree, but this
form of climbing trees evidently was new to Bill Lilly.
"Come down out of that!" yelled Ned, catching sight of the boy up the
tree.
"Where is he?" demanded the Professor.
"Up a tree," laughed the guide.
"Come down!" commanded Professor Zepplin.
"Chase Ned Rector away and I will."
"I'll stay right here till he comes down and then I am going to give
him a thrashing," declared Ned firmly.
"Then I don't come down," declared Stacy firmly.
"I know two ways to make you," answered Ned.
"How?"
"Place some food down here under you on the ground--something that
has an odor and something you like."
Stacy did not reply, but a troubled expression appeared on his face.
"What is the other way?" asked Tad, chuckling over the situation.
"I am not going to tell you. That's a dark secret. Are you coming
down, Stacy Brown?"
"I am not, Neddie Rector."
"Very good. Stay there all the rest of the day if you want to."
"I just love to be up a tree. There's another 'gator out there.
Pass me up a gun and I will shoot him. Look, there's a whole pond
full of them."
"No you don't. You don't catch me that way. I know what you are up
to. You are trying to stampede us down to the lake, then you will
clamber down and make a get-away. No, sir, there isn't anything
green in my eye that you can notice," retorted Ned.
"Except some of the green stuff that I rubbed in with the black,"
answered Stacy in a jeering voice. "Why don't you come up here if
you want to get me?"
"I believe I will, at that."
"If you do, you will get a kick in the face," threatened Chunky.
"You haven't any boots on. You can't hurt me."
"No, but I can dig with my toes. If you don't believe me just come
up here and try me. I dare you to come up! I double-dare you to
come up here. Ya, ya, ya! 'Fraid-cat, 'fraid-cat!" taunted Stacy.
The others were laughing. Ned's face was flushed.
"I'll show you whether I can get you down. We shall see whether I am
a 'fraid-cat or not."
Rector ran to his tent, reappearing at few seconds later with an axe,
Stacy in the meantime following the movements of the other boy with
anxious eyes.