JOE DIGBY MISSING
"Merritt! Merritt, wake up!"
The boy sleepily opened his eyes and saw bending over him the pale
features of Rob, whose voice quivered with suppressed excitement as he
shook the other's shoulder.
"I didn't hear reveille blow yet. What's up? Have I overslept?"
murmured the young corporal.
"No, it's not six-thirty yet--barely after half past four, in fact.
But young Digby--he had the night watch, you know--and was to have been
relieved at three o'clock. Well, Ernest Thompson, his relief, roused
out at that hour, but not a trace of Digby was to be found!"
"What!" The sleepy boy was drowsy no longer. "Digby gone?"
"Hush! We don't know yet. Don't wake any of the others. Thompson and
I have skirmished around ever since it began to get light, and we have
not been able to find a trace of him."
Merritt was out of his cot while his leader was still speaking, and ten
minutes later, during which time the boys exchanged excited questions
and answers, he was in his uniform and outside the tent.
The sun was just poking his rim above the western horizon and the
chilly damp of early dawn lay over the island. The sea, as calm almost
as a lake, lay sullen and gray, scarcely heaving. Behind the sleeping
camp a few shreds of mist--the ghosts of the vapors of the night were
arising like smoke among the dim trees. At the further end of the
assemblage of tents, and beyond the smoldering fire, stood a silent
figure, that of Ernest Thompson.
"Have you explored the island thoroughly?" asked Merritt under his
breath. Somehow the dim hour and the situation seemed to preclude the
idea of loud talking.
"Of course not. Not yet," breathed the other in the same tones. "We
will break the news to the rest of the Patrol after breakfast. It's no
use alarming them yet."
"It isn't possible that he went off on an early fishing expedition?"
For answer, Rob waved his hand toward the water, where the Flying Fish
lay rocking gently at her anchor. Ashore the dingy lay as Merritt and
his companions had left it the night before.
"But what can have happened to him?" burst out Merritt, as they made
their way over to Ernest Thompson's side.
"I cannot think. It is absolutely mystifying. I am going to start for
the captain's place now. He may be able to throw some light on the
affair."
Merritt shook his head.
"Hardly likely. If there is no trace of Joe Digby on this side of the
island, it is improbable that Captain Hudgins knows anything about him."
"Well," rejoined Rob in a troubled voice, "we've got to try everything.
I am responsible for his safe keeping while he is in camp. I blame
myself for allowing the kid to go on sentry duty at all."
"No use doing that," comforted Merritt; "there's one thing sure, he
can't have melted away. He must be somewhere on the island. There are
no wild beasts or anything like that here to carry him off, so if we
keep up the search we must come upon him sooner or later."
"That's what makes the whole affair the more mystifying," rejoined Rob.
"What can have become of him?"
"Well, if he's on the island, we'll find him," he continued; "and if he
isn't--"
"We'll find him anyway," declared Merritt in a determined voice.
"That's the stuff!" warmly exclaimed the other. "And now I'm going to
take a cruise round to the other side of the island, and see if I can
find out anything there."
A few seconds later he was in the dinghy and sculling out over the
water to the speedy Flying Fish. In a short time he was off.
As the "chug chug" of the motor grew fainter, Merritt turned to young
Thompson.
"Don't breathe a word of this to the others till we know for certain
that Digby has vanished," he said.
The other boy nodded.
"I understand," he said, and the look with which he accompanied the
words rendered Merritt perfectly confident that he would be obeyed.
"And now let's rouse out Andy Bowles and get him busy with that tin
horn of his," cheerfully went on Merritt, walking toward Andy's tent.
That youth was much surprised to find that it was morning, but tumbled
out of his cot in double-quick time, and soon the cheerful notes of
reveille were ringing out over the camp, on which the sun's rays were
now streaming down in that luminary's cheerful morning way.
The soldier who immortalized himself by sing the words: "We can't get
'em up, We can't get 'em up, We can't get 'em up in the morning--, We
can't get 'em up, We can't get 'em up, We can't get'em up at
a-a-l-l-l!" to the stirring notes of the army's morning call had never
been in a camp of Boy Scouts. If he had he wouldn't have written them,
for before the last notes had died away the camp was alive and astir,
with hurrying lads filling tin washbasins and cleaning up.
The cook and "cookee" for the day--Jim Jeffords and Martin Green--soon
had their cooking fire going, and presently the appetizing aroma of
coffee and fried ham and eggs filled the camp.
"Give the breakfast call, Andy," ordered Merritt, as the proud if
flush-faced cooks announced their labors complete, and with a clatter
and bang of tin dishes and cups the Boy Scouts sat down to breakfast.
"Where's Rob and Digby?" demanded Andy Bowles, as he dug his spoon into
an island of oatmeal completely surrounded by an ocean of condensed
milk thinned down with warm water.
The moment that Merritt had dreaded had arrived.
"Why, he and Rob went off early to see the captain," he said. "I guess
they'll be back soon."
"Pretty early for paying social calls," commented Andy, too busy with
his breakfast, however, to give the matter more attention, for which
Merritt was duly thankful.
After breakfast Merritt ordered a general airing of bedding, and the
side walls of the tents were raised to let the fresh air blow through
them. Still there was no sign of Rob. Merritt grew so anxious that he
could hardly keep from pacing up and down to conceal his nervous state
of mind. However, he stuck to his duties and oversaw the first routine
of the morning without betraying his anxiety to any of the lads under
his charge. At last there came the awaited chug chug of the returning
boat, for which he had been so eagerly listening, and Rob appeared
rounding the little point below the camp. In the craft was another
figure, that of the captain himself.
Merritt's first hope when he saw the two persons in the boat--namely,
that one of them might be the missing boy--was promptly dashed, and he
instinctively guessed by Rob's silence as he dropped the anchor and he
and the captain tumbled into the dinghy that there had been no news.
"No," said Rob, shaking his head dejectedly as they reached the shore,
"there isn't anything to tell. The captain is as much in the dark as
we."
"Well, you'd better have some breakfast," said Merritt, after he and
the captain had exchanged greetings, "then we can go ahead and notify
the others and institute a thorough search."
"That's the stuff, my boy," agreed the veteran. "Overhaul ship from
bilge ter royals, and if not found, then take a cruise in search uv."
Rob ate his meal with small appetite, but the captain, urging on his
young companion the necessity of "filling his hold," devoured
prodigious quantities of food, and then, arising, suggested that the
time had come to "pipe all hands aft and read orders."
The boys had been so busy about their morning tasks that fortunately
none of them, except Tubby, whom Merritt had told of the disappearance,
had found time to notice Rob's return or ask questions; so that when he
announced to them that Joe Digby was missing it came as a stunning
shock.
"Now, boys," said Rob, after he had communicated the full details, so
far as he knew them, of the circumstances of the disappearance, "there
is only one thing to do, and that is turn this island inside out. It
won't take long, but I want it done thoroughly. Don't leave a stone
unturned. If after a painstaking search we find nothing on the island,
we'll know we have to look elsewhere. You are all fairly good woodsmen
by this time, and can trail by signs as effectively as first-class
scouts. Use your eyes, and good luck."
Merritt at once assigned searching parties, he and Rob and Tubby taking
the center of the island and the others being detailed to search along
the shores in two separate squads for any trace of their missing
comrade.
"Call me a lubber if this ain't the most mystifyin' thing I've run my
bow into since the Two Janes, uv Boston, brig, lost her bearings in a
fog and fetched up off Iceland," declared the captain, who had elected
to accompany the three leaders of the Patrol. "But drown or swim, sail
or sink, we'll find that kid if he's on deck."
The searching parties construed this speech as a sort of valedictory to
them as, indeed, the captain intended it--and greeted it with a cheer.
"The first scout that finds a trace of Joe is to light the four
'smokes', meaning come to council," was Rob's last order. "Light them
on as prominent a place as you can find and we will all meet in camp to
hear the news."
The searching parties at once separated, one striking off to the right,
the other to the left and the three young leaders and their grizzled
friend making a dead set for the center of the island.
If Joe Digby was to be found, the look of determination on the face of
each scout showed that it would not be the fault of his young comrades
if he were not.