AN UNEASY CAMP
The boys who had remained in the camp stood watching and listening as
the field squad rushed off on the trail of the man who had slipped
down into their camp. Small as the boys were, every one of them wished
earnestly that he had been included in the party delegated to do the
active work, and it was with some envy that they saw their more favored
comrades run out of the circle of light and enter the black belt of the
woods.
But Ted had no intention of allowing them to stand around and watch.
There were things to do and he knew that action would relieve them of
some of their stored up feelings.
“All right, fellows,” he called to them. “Let’s get on the job and
build big fires. We don’t know what time the other boys will get back,
and when they do we want to have the fires going briskly. Get your axes
and we’ll snap to it.”
“There is a pile of wood near the fire now,” pointed out one boy.
“Yes, but that wood is going on right now,” replied Ted, piling the
pieces of cut wood on the red fires. “We will have to hustle and cut up
a big supply so that Buck and the boys will have a guide when they come
back. Light the lanterns and we’ll get busy.”
The lanterns were lighted and they plunged into the fringe of the
woods. The sound of several axes rang out as their owners began to
chop the wood for the fire supply. The lanterns were placed on the
ground and made a neat ring near them and in the circle of this ring
they chopped off dead limbs and split logs. As soon as the wood was
collected they carried it back and piled it beside the fires.
Both fires were now going at their best and the light cast from them
lighted up the camp from all angles. Some of the boys would have
stopped with their first load, but Ted knew that they might have to
wait a long time before their companions returned, so he kept them at
the task. The pile grew and grew until it towered above their heads,
and in this way fully an hour went by. At last Ted felt that they had
enough.
“All right, that will be enough,” he called.
The work was not yet all over, for the wood which had been dragged in
required to be split into convenient lengths, although some of the big
logs were piled on entire. While the work went on they kept looking up
toward the mountain, but no sound reached them and they speculated on
the fact.
“They must have had to run a long way,” said Alfred, as he split wood.
“I guess they went clear over the mountain,” nodded Ted. “It may be
that they are trailing the man.”
“You don’t suppose that anyone has hurt them, do you?” another boy
asked, anxiously.
“I hardly think so,” smiled Ted. “One man, no matter how strong he is,
would have a big job in front of him if he tried to run off with that
bunch of fellows. I guess they’ll be back pretty soon.”
But the time dragged on and the boys became silent, glancing restlessly
up the mountain side. Ted, looking at his watch, saw that it was eleven
o’clock.
“A good two hours since they went away,” he thought, somewhat
anxiously. “Oh, well, I suppose time seems longer when you are waiting
for something than it does if you aren’t. If we only knew what was
going on we’d feel better.”
He tried to keep the conversation brisk but the boys would not react.
They were visibly oppressed, and they showed in their dogged silence
that they were uneasy. Although none of them believed for a moment in
anything ghostly, they found the vague stories of the camp a distinct
hindrance to their peace of mind and the feeling of depression was
heavy upon all of them. Ted wondered if there was not something that
they might do to ward off the feelings which gripped them off, and he
was thinking busily along this line when a sound reached their ears.
It was a low-pitched moaning and it seemed to come from a point above
their camp, in the pine thicket which covered the knoll there.
They looked in the direction of the sound, their blood chilling under
its influence. It was weird and mournful, and the icy shivers ran up
and down the spine of more than one of the young boys. Ted was not in a
comfortable state of mind himself, but he knew that something had to be
done about it. He leaped to his feet.
“Come on, we’ve got to see if anyone is hurt up there!” he called,
reaching for his lantern. The other boys followed him closely and he
passed around the tents and ran rapidly up the incline toward the pine
clump. The groaning had ceased as soon as they had started for the
place from which the disturbing sounds had come.
They arrived in the grove in a group, the lanterns flashing generous
beams around them, but there was no one to be seen. Thinking that
someone might be concealed in the bushes they thrust their lights in
there and looked closely, but there was no sign of a living person, and
as only a living being could produce the sound which had startled them
so profoundly, they half expected to see someone who had been injured
in some manner. But although they searched the grove they could not
find a trace of anyone.
“That’s funny,” commented Ted, now more annoyed than frightened. “The
groans came from here, didn’t they?”
“Sure they did,” was the ready response.
“Well, the groaner has moved somewhere else,” said Ted, half angry and
half jokingly. “We won’t even be able to find any footprints, because
there is such a carpet of pine needles that a print wouldn’t show.
Confound this whole business, I——”
From across the camp, and on the other side of Bear Creek, came the
groaning sound again. The boys stirred and looked anxiously at Ted.
The hot blood surged into his face and he would have liked nothing
better than to have come to instant physical encounter with the
groaner. While he waited to control his hot anger the groans came
in long drawn out wails that, under the circumstances, chilled their
blood. Besides being angry Ted was also puzzled.
“Buck and his squad chased that fellow up the mountain,” he said aloud.
“I wonder if he could have slipped around them and come back? Maybe he
just wanted to lead them off on a chase.” Abruptly he turned to the
boys. “Come on back to the camp.”
They followed him in silence back to the camp and as soon as they
entered the circle of light cast by the fires the groaning ceased. A
weighty silence succeeded.
“Fellows,” Ted addressed them, in a low tone. “There isn’t any use of
us running all around trying to find out who this practical joker is.
He’ll just run us ragged, so let’s retire into the center tent and stay
there until Buck and his squad gets back. We can watch everything that
goes on from the flap of the tent and by keeping under cover we’ll make
the chap who is so fond of tricks either show himself or shut up!”
They all crowded under the canvas of the second tent, glad for the
shelter, frail as it was. From their position some of the boys could
look out and watch the other tents and all of them could watch the
fire. Ted did not go into the tent at once, but took a lantern and
made sure that his flashlight was at his side.
“You fellows stay here and keep a sharp lookout,” he directed. “I’m
going down to see if there is any way for anyone to cross the creek.”
“Going all by yourself?” a boy asked, his eyes staring in awe.
“Yes, but I’ll be right back,” nodded Ted. “See you later.”
He walked off, leaving them to chatter in a hushed way among
themselves, and going at once to the creek, took his course along it
and away from the camp. He knew that there was a shaky old wood bridge
down the creek at some yards from the camp, and while he had told the
boys that he was going only that far, Ted secretly determined to cross
and have a look at the rather marshy ground on the other side of the
curving stream. He was almost certain that he would find nothing, but
he wanted to look nevertheless.
“But I mustn’t allow anything to happen to me,” he thought, anxiously.
“These boys would be leaderless at least until Buck got back, and
there is no telling what might happen to them. I mustn’t be gone long,
either.”
He came to the bridge, which he had found one day in his wanderings,
and he crossed it, his footsteps sounding hollow and damp as his shoes
pressed the rotted boards. On the other side he stepped ashore into a
slippery species of soil that gently oozed water as his foot struck and
sank slightly into it. The bushes here were thick and he was compelled
to force his way through them. Before going beyond the bridge he
lowered his lantern and looked at the soft earth and at once perceived
something which excited his closest attention.
There was the imprint in the dirt of a large shoe.
The shoe was evidently a good one and showed no sign of wear, while the
heel of it was quite new and left impressions which proclaimed it to be
a rubber one with regulation holes and a trade mark which was too faint
to be of more than passing value to him. But the sight of the print
alone caused him to rejoice that at last there was a clear record.
“Now, I’ll just see where this print leads to,” he thought and started
off. A moment later he halted as another thought came to him.
“The prints don’t return. Suppose the man is hiding in the bushes, just
waiting for me!”
The reflection made his skin creep and for a moment he fought a growing
desire to turn and go back. But after an instant of indecision he
fought it off. “I’ll have to chance it and go on. I won’t go far from
camp, and if I do see anyone, I can fight it out or run like a streak.
I won’t cross the bridge, either, I’ll cut right across the ground and
jump into the creek and swim it. Don’t know if I’m foolish or not, but
here goes!”
With every sense on the alert he walked forward, eyes straining, ears
pitched for a sound, ready to retreat at a moment’s notice. It was no
easy task to follow the footprints and look around him at the same
time, but he managed to do it as he advanced. At a point opposite the
camp he came to a complete halt and marked the spot where the man had
evidently stood when he delivered the groans, for there the soft ground
was foot-printed lavishly. From that spot the man had gone off down the
stream away from the camp until he had come to the creek at a point
where rocks protruded so far above the stream that he had found it easy
to walk across and take to the woods alongside of the camp. Ted noted
that the ford was out of sight of the tents and while they were going
into the tents the man had evidently crossed the low part of the stream
and had entered the woods at a point not far from where Buck and his
squad had entered it.
“After he finished his groaning he must have decided that he had scared
us enough,” mused Ted, as he stood there peering around. “Confound
him, if I ever get my hands on him, I’ll knock his head off, provided
I’m big enough! What anyone should take all the trouble to try and
scare a bunch of fellows out of camp for is more than I can figure out!”
He crossed the stream at the point where the mysterious man had crossed
and made his way back toward the camp, coming up alongside of the
fires, in plain sight of the anxiously waiting boys. They were greatly
astonished to see him come from the opposite direction from that in
which he had started.
He opened his mouth to call out a cheery greeting to them and then his
mouth remained open, no sound issuing from it for the moment. In the
pine grove above them he detected a spurt of fire, and the next instant
a dry bush burst into crackling flame. He awoke from his temporary
muteness.
“Come on boys, on the jump!” he shouted. “Grab all the pails you can
get hold of! The woods are on fire!”