THE WIGWAG MESSAGE
The other side of the rough shack was partly open, so that
considerable light managed to gain admittance. This had enabled the
scouts to see a figure lying on some old blankets, together with the
skins of several animals.
It was without doubt the wild man who had given some of their troop such
a bad scare when he turned up near the camp soon after their arrival on
the island.
He seemed to be sound asleep, and none of them were at all anxious to
make any sound calculated to arouse him. Indeed, more than one put a
finger to his lips to indicate that they were sealed, as he turned and
looked anxiously at his comrades.
Paul made motions to let them know it would be just as well if they quit
the vicinity of that queer shack, where the crazy man, as they now deemed
him, had his home.
A few minutes later, when they had put enough distance between themselves
and the rude shelter to permit conversation, Bobolink could no longer
keep his opinions to himself.
"He was a jim-dandy, all right, and a genuine wild man of the woods!" he
remarked. "What are the circus fellows thinkin' of, to let such a fine
chance slip by to get a real 'What-is-it,' fresh from the jungles of
Borneo, half man, and the rest gorilla?"
"And he had Nuthin's dog, after all," observed Paul, quietly.
"What makes you say that, Paul?" asked Jack.
"Because, in the first place, I saw a lot of bones, picked as clean as a
whistle, lying on the ground over in a corner. Then there was a lair that
looked as if an animal slept in it. And if that wasn't enough, I noticed
a piece of broken rope fastened to a stake, close by that corner. You
remember I said the dog was dragging a piece of rope around with him,
when he came creeping up near our camp last night? He broke away, all
right; and I guess the wild man will be minus his dog after this."
"Well, that's one thing settled," asserted Phil "We know now, for sure,
there _is_ a wild man up here; and some of the officers will have to come
and capture him. My father is one of the county freeholders, and he's
overseer of the poor in the bargain; so I suppose it'll be up to him to
carry out the job. They can't afford to have people say there's a crazy
wild man at large, in our district, you see."
"Did any of you notice that there was a rude sort of table in the shack?"
asked Paul, as they kept on moving forward, wondering if a third
discovery might be made at any minute.
"Well, now, that's a fact," replied Bobolink. "I did see that, but
somehow didn't think it queer at the time, not enough to mention it,
anyhow. But come to think of it, it was kind of out of the way in the
shack of a wild man, eh?"
"There was something on the table that would seem stranger, if you'd
noticed it. I saw a battered old coffeepot there!" observed Paul,
smiling grimly.
"What?" ejaculated Bobolink. "A wild man liking coffee! Where d'ye
suppose he gets the roasted bean? It don't grow on the bushes up here;
and he sure don't look as if he had the cash to buy it. Oh! p'raps they
use him to pass some of this bogus coin they make! Mebbe he goes to
towns, and buys their supplies, all the time they're workin' like beavers
up here, makin' the stuff."
"I don't just agree with you there, Bobolink," said Paul. "In the first
place, as Phil will tell you, if such a scarecrow ever came into
Stanhope, or any other town in the country, the officers would be sure
to arrest him, and examine him to see if he oughtn't to be shut up in the
asylum. If he got the old pot and the coffee to go with it from these
men, then it was in the nature of a bribe not to interfere with their
business, as they wanted to stay here on his Island."
"Great brain, Paul; you seem to hit the right idea every time. And
chances are, that's just what happened," Bobolink remarked.
"That dog didn't come back," observed Tom Betts.
"And therefore he's still loose," added Phil, uneasily. "Hope we don't
run across the beggar again; but if we should, remember Paul, the country
expects you to do your duty. You must bag him, no matter what noise you
have to make doing it"
"Leave that to me," remarked the scout master. "Now that we know pretty
well how the land lies, and whose dog it is, perhaps I won't be so
squeamish about shooting the beast if the chance comes along."
"Here's the foot of the rise," Jack broke in.
"And the trees grow more thin as the ground ascends, you notice," Paul
went on. He called their attention to all such things, because he was
acting as scout master of the troop, and it seemed to him that he should
not allow any chance to pass whereby he might enlarge the horizon of
scout lore of the lads under him.
"Then it strikes me that we ought to be a bit careful not to show
ourselves too plain, as we go up," Jack suggested.
"You're right," added Bobolink. "For all we know, these fellows may
have a lookout in a tree, as well as we have, and he'd see us if we got
careless. That means we must dodge along, taking advantage of every
sort of shelter that crops up. Great fun, boys, and for one I'm just
tickled to death over the chance to prove that we learned our little
lesson O. K."
All were presently stooping at one moment, where the bushes grew sparse;
crawling in among some sheltering rocks at another, and even getting down
to wriggle along like so many snakes, when not even so much as a bush
offered a means of hiding from observation, in case hostile eyes happened
to be turned upwards toward the hilltop at the foot of the lone cedar.
It was not a great distance to cover, and before long they found
themselves close to their goal.
Already could they see over the southern side of the island; and after
they gained the cedar it would probably be easy to also survey the
northern half, the part which doubtless held more of interest to them
than any other, since they had reason to believe that the mysterious
dwellers on the isle were somewhere there.
"Five more minutes will do it," remarked Paul, when they had gathered in
a shallow depression which afforded shelter until they caught their
breath again for another climb.
Paul was looking hard at something far beyond the lake. Bobolink, of
course, being attracted by his scrutiny, also allowed his gaze to wander
in that quarter; but all he saw was what he took to be a buzzard, almost
out of sight--a dim speck in the heavens, and about to pass out of sight
altogether where clouds hovered above the southern horizon.
"I c'n see about where our camp is," Phil was saying, "and I think I know
which tree the signal corps is stationed in. Anyhow, I seem to glimpse
something white moving among the green leaves, which, I take it, is a
flag being held ready to wave at us."
"I reckon Paul will soon let 'em know we're still on the map," observed
Bobolink. "But won't they be s'prised when they learn that we saw the
terrible wild man in his own den; and ran across the plant where those
rascals make their bogus coin, that looks as bright and good as any Uncle
Sam stamps out?"
Just then the leader gave the signal for another advance, and the six
scouts who followed set about completing the last leg of the climb.
They finally found themselves at the roots of the cedar tree that crowned
the elevation, and which proved of a size far beyond what any of the
scouts had imagined.
"Well, here we are at last," said Phil, breathing hard after his
exertions.
"And," added Bobolink, also badly winded, though he would chatter; "now
to see Paul get one of the other fellows on the line, to wig his wag at
us, or do something that sounds that way. There he goes at it. And looky
there, they've been watching us climb, I reckon, because almost before
Paul made the first sign, that other fellow began sendin'."
They watched the fluttering red flag with the white centre. Some of them
had taken more or less interest in sending and receiving messages; but
the boy in the tree proved too fast for any of them to follow. They
suspected that it was Jud Elderkin himself; for outside of Paul and Jack,
he was the best hand at that sort of thing.
"My stars! he keeps right along doing it; don't he?" muttered Bobolink.
"Must be some message, too, believe me," added Phil.
"N-n-now, what d'ye s-s-suppose has happened at c-c-camp since we
q-q-quit?" remarked Bluff, anxiously waiting for the message to be
translated.
Not once did Paul break in on the sending of the message. He sat there,
close to the base of the big cedar which sheltered his back from the
north side of the island; and seemed to be wholly engrossed in
transcribing the various signs of the flag code.
They could not see the boy in the branches of the tree; but from their
elevated position the white and red flag was in plain view. Up and down,
and crosswise, it continued to write its message, that was doubtless like
printed letters to Paul and Jack, while unintelligible to those who had
never taken lessons in wigwagging.
Finally came the well known sign that the message was done; and that the
sender awaited the wishes of the party with whom he was in communication.
Paul turned upon his comrades. They saw that the frown had come back
again to his usually smooth forehead, as though he had learned
something to add to the perplexities of the problem they were trying so
diligently to solve.
"It's Jud," he said, simply, "and he's just sent an astonishing
message. This is the way it ran, boys: 'Presence here known. Man in
aeroplane passed over camp. Went down lake half hour ago. Out of sight
now. Answer!'"
No wonder Bobolink fairly held his breath, and the other five scouts
looked at each other, as though they could hardly believe their ears. For
a full minute they sat there and stared; while Bobolink remembered the
far-away black object that, at the time, he had thought to be a buzzard.