THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT
Maybe I wouldn’t have thought the same as Hervey did about it, only for
his telling me that the person who answered the ’phone lisped. I hadn’t
noticed anything in Administration Shack at all, I have to admit that.
But if some one answered the ’phone some one must have been there. And
if there were signs that some one had been there, we ought to have
noticed them.
When I thought about it as we rowed out on the lake, gee whiz, I could
see plain enough that that young freak we had met would be just likely
to hike around to camp and walk into Administration Shack if no one was
there. Anyway all the camp was at supper when we were waiting for Hervey
to ’phone, I knew that much.
Probably he didn’t find anything in the map-case to help him, but that
wouldn’t stop him from grappling around in the lake late at night. Mr.
Ellsworth says that people who hunt for treasure are always fools. A lot
of fools had hunted for that tin box before the sharpy, I know that. And
a lot of fellows had talked about it all around the neighborhood. Look
at Harry Donnelle; he was starting to hunt for it.
Anyway, one thing, I knew that the only way Hervey could square himself
was for him to get hold of the fellow who answered his call. You needn’t
think I was going out on a treasure hunt, because I wasn’t. But Hervey
only had that one chance, and I was going to help him.
We rowed around the edge of the lake close enough in so that we could
make out the shore, because that night we couldn’t have seen where we
were going if we hadn’t. Sandwich sat on the little three-cornered seat
in the bow; he looked funny sitting there. The mist was so thick the
handles of the oars were wet and it was all beady with little bits of
drops of water all over inside the boat.
I said, “What are you going to do, Herve? Suppose it’s him, what are you
going to do?”
“I’m going to make him admit what he did, I’m going to make him admit it
to Arnoldson,” Hervey said. “That’s all I care about.”
“And then you’ll stay—at camp?”
“_What? Me?_” he said. “Not so you’d notice it. I’m through with this
crowd—a lot of medal chasers.”
I was rowing and he was sitting sideways up on the stern seat with his
knees drawn up and his hands clasped around them. The little hat without
any brim that he always wore looked funny. It always looked funny but, I
don’t know, that night it looked especially funny. It was all cut full
of holes. Somehow it kind of seemed to me that nobody understood him.
Maybe Sandwich did. Anyway I hoped that things would work out like he
thought they would.
I said, “Herve, if the fellow that answered you lisped, why didn’t you
say so right then? Didn’t it make you suspicious?”
He said, “I never thought about it till we got back, and I saw how
things looked in the office—and Arnoldson called me a liar. Then I
remembered. I remembered that the fellow we met lisped and that the
voice over the ’phone lisped. I’ll nail him all right,” he said. “You
leave it to me. He’s got more resourcefulness, or whatever you call it,
than most of you chaps have, I’ll say that much for him.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” I said. It seemed funny to me that he
wasn’t mad at the fellow for what he did, only at Mr. Arnoldson. He
seemed to think the fellow had done a pretty good stunt. If anybody can
understand Hervey—_g-o-o-d night_!
He just sat there, perched up on the stern seat, very calm and quiet. I
couldn’t make out if he really wanted to square himself or just have an
adventure. I rowed around past the outlet and then he beckoned for me to
stop. I rested on my oars, and we both listened. It was very still. Once
a fish jumped, and that startled me. I could hear an owl way far off.
We drifted out from shore a little till we couldn’t see the shore at
all. It seemed as if we were in the middle of the ocean; we couldn’t see
anything only just a little water around us. It was so strange it had me
nervous. There wasn’t any light anywhere that we could see.
“Listen,” Hervey whispered.
“I don’t hear anything,” I said under my breath.
“Shh,” he said.
“Do you mean that little clanking sound?” I asked him.
For just a minute or so he looked down into the water. I couldn’t see
anything there except that the water was rippling a little. I didn’t
think that was anything worth noticing.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered.
He didn’t say anything, just reached and took one of the oars from me.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered.
Still he didn’t say anything but felt around a little in the water with
the oar.
I whispered, “I don’t think it’s worth while fooling around after the
money if that’s what you’re after. That’s not going to square you at
camp.”
“Got a fish-line?” he whispered.
I just couldn’t help saying, “Yes, I have; scouts carry fish-lines,
that’s one good thing about them.”
There was a hook on my line. He tied an oarlock to the cord for a sinker
and let it down into the water. Pretty soon he began pulling it up again
and all of a sudden, there right outside the boat was a long, thick,
gray thing. Right away I saw it was a fishing seine that he had lifted
up. He reached over and grabbed it and then, somewhere near us I heard a
terrible scream, and then a splash. I couldn’t see anything, only the
thick mist all around....