Ted's greatest wild-animal adventure was so unexpected and astonishing
that it became the subject of wondering comment in the camp for days.
Strange to say, it came within less than twenty-four hours of the
bagging of the bear, after which achievement Buck Hardy, with but little
opposition, gave the boys the freedom of Deserters' Island.
"From now on," he said at supper, "I want the boys to be free to go
where they please on this island. I won't have a boy as smart and lucky
with a gun as Ted cooped up in this camp. Let the boys hunt this island.
No use hemmin' 'em in too close anyhow. They can't get away, with some
of us takin' the boats every day. They'll think twice before they wade
off in the swamp, not knowin' which way to go."
So after breakfast next morning Ted and Hubert started off openly, their
little guns over their shoulders and a camp dog, which they had petted
and become fond of, following gladly at their heels. They first walked
down to the lower end of the island and located the jungle trail a
second time. Then they slowly hunted up the left hand side to a point
nearly opposite and less than a mile and a half from the camp. During
all this time they saw practically nothing to shoot, and at last Ted
complained that luck had deserted him. Hubert, always the first to be
discouraged, proposed that they give up the hunt and "cut across" the
island toward camp.
Still tramping on, loath to surrender, Ted suddenly tripped and fell
over a log, striking the side of his head against a sharp snag. He was
at first slightly stunned and his wound, though but little more than a
scratch, bled freely. What was more serious, he sprained his ankle as he
fell and found it impossible to walk without unbearable pain. After
trying repeatedly, he became quite faint and was forced to lie down.
"Hubert, you'd better go on to camp," he said breathlessly, "and, if I
don't turn up by dinner time, tell 'em what's the matter. Mr. Hardy will
know what to do--if this pain keeps me from walking all day."
Ted raised himself on his arm, pointing, anxious to make sure that
Hubert took the right course, and then, as his alarmed cousin started
off at a trot, he fell back exhausted, closing his eyes. All was now
quiet except for the sighing of the breeze in the high pine tops and the
panting of the dog squatting near him. As long as he did not move the
pain in his ankle was eased, and, as the bleeding scratch on the side of
his head troubled him but little, he grew drowsy and in no great while
fell asleep.
Ted was awakened some time later more by a warning sense of danger than
by certain slightly disturbing sounds. On opening his eyes, he found the
dog standing close to him, the hair on its back erect and its tail
between its legs--both signs of fear. The boy's faithful guardian, with
low growling that was almost a whine, gazed steadily into the faintly
rustling foliage of a water-oak some thirty feet away. The tree stood on
the edge of the low, wet area, its boughs interlacing with the branches
of other trees behind it, these connecting in turn with myriads of
others and thus forming a leafy bridge for miles through the dense,
mysterious, softly whispering swamp.
While he slept something had come stealthily over this bridge--something
keen of scent, with eyes of hate and knife-edged claws, hungry for
blood--and now a long lank animal of a tawny hue, its twitching tail
uplifted and its small flat head lowered, lay along a limb of the
water-oak watching with green, glaring, cruel eyes as he stirred.
At first Ted saw nothing to alarm him, but soon he caught sight of a
tail like that of an enormous cat beating back and forth among the
leaves in a manner startlingly suggestive of both restlessness and rage.
He remembered to have heard one of the slackers say that the tail of a
panther twitched in that nervous way when the beast was crouching for a
spring. He remembered also the agreement of all the slackers engaged in
the conversation that no killing of a panther in the Okefinokee had been
reported for years.
"But that must be one," thought Ted, "and it smelt my blood and is after
me."
Forgetting his sprained ankle, the boy clutched his gun and started up,
but staggered and dropped to his knees in an agony of pain. On seeing
his master stir, the dog showed more spirit, putting on a bolder front
and barking wildly.
This seemed to put an end to the suspense. Almost at once the great cat,
snarling fiercely, tore through the leafage surrounding her and
descended toward her intended prey, striking the earth within a few feet
of the dog.
Ted managed to raise his gun and take aim, but before he pulled the
trigger the panther had leaped again and engaged the dog at close
quarters. To shoot then was to endanger friend as well as foe, and the
boy hesitated. Fearing that mere buck-shot would not serve anyhow and
that the faithful dog was his only protection, Ted painfully crawled
further away, looking back over his shoulder to watch the fierce
struggle between the two beasts, with never a moment's let-up in such
harsh growling and snarling as he had never heard in all his life.
The contending creatures, fast in each other's grip, rapidly drew
nearer, tearing up grass and brush as they came. Apparently the
panther's object was to shake off the dog and reach the boy, her real
intended prey, and it looked as if she would succeed, for she was larger
as well as much stronger than the battling friend of Ted who braved
her cruel claws in his defense.
[Illustration: The contending creatures, fast in each other's grip,
rapidly drew nearer]
In great concern for the dog as well as for himself, the boy again
started to his feet, but again the pain was more than he could bear. He
tottered, fell, and this time a black, quivering sea seemed to engulf
all his senses. When consciousness returned, which was almost at once,
the horrid din bombarded his ears as before, and, as he opened his eyes,
the panther accomplished a resistless rush in his direction, arriving
within perhaps five feet of him together with the heroic dog, which
still refused to be shaken off.
Ted thought his days were numbered, yet the very thought seemed to
steady his nerves and clear his head. Rising to his knees, he lifted his
gun and watched his chance. The fiercely struggling and snarling beasts
came nearer still, now the panther and now the dog turning a back to the
boy.
Suddenly, with a coolness that he afterward wondered at, Ted leaned
forward and, seizing the opportunity as it came, put the very muzzle of
his gun against the neck of his enemy and pulled the trigger.
As the report reverberated through the woods, the panther leaped high in
the air, wresting herself away at last from the grip of the dog's strong
teeth. It looked to Ted as if she would descend directly upon him, and,
as he shrank away, giving himself up for lost, his senses failed him
once more and oblivion followed.
When he revived and looked around the panther lay still on one side of
him and the dog, cruelly wounded, struggled feebly with a low whining on
the other. A large section of the mighty cat's neck had been literally
torn out by the discharge of the gun at close quarters and there could
be no question that life was extinct. Assured of this, and fearing that
the dog could not survive, Ted put an arm around his faithful savior's
neck and wept.
It was thus that the boy and the dog were found when, after the welcome
sounds of the rescuing party's nearing halloo, Buck Hardy rushed upon
the scene, followed by Al Peters, Bud Jones, Hubert and July.
"Are you all right, kid?" asked Buck, gathering Ted up tenderly.
"_I'm_ all right, but the dog--poor, faithful Spot! Can't you do
something for him, Mr. Hardy?"
A brush stretcher was hastily constructed and Ted was placed upon it,
but he refused to be borne to the camp by the four men until the wounded
dog had been laid at his side.
"We'd better hunt around this island tomorrow," remarked Al Peters, as
the four men labored across the island with their burden. "That boy bags
more game right here than we do on our long trips."
It pleased Ted greatly to overhear this, but his satisfaction was not
complete until, after a careful examination of the cruelly clawed dog at
camp, he was assured that his devoted friend would recover. His own
slight head wound and sprained ankle did not trouble him. After each had
received the most expert attention the sympathetic and admiring camp of
slackers was capable of, it was merely a matter of keeping still
temporarily in order to save himself from pain.
"What's a little scratch on the head and a sprained ankle," he asked of
the solicitous men about the camp fire that night, "compared with what
our soldiers have to stand--liquid fire and poison gas bombs in the
trenches and submarine torpedoes at sea?"
"I don't reckon anybody in this war has been up against anything worse
than you was to-day," remarked Buck Hardy, glancing at the panther skin
which had been brought in and hung up in the camp where the lame boy
could see it.
"Oh, yes, they have," insisted Ted; "but they were not scared the way I
was. Why, our soldiers on the _Tuscania_ stood and sang 'The
Star-Spangled Banner' while the ship was sinking and they were waiting
their turn to get off in the boats. Many of them went to their death
like the greatest heroes."
Ted then told what he had read about the sinking of this transport some
two weeks before he left his uncle's home in North Carolina to come down
to the neighborhood of the Okefinokee. The slackers had not heard of it
and all listened with great interest.
"Even women--lots of them--have been up against much worse in this war
than I was to-day," the boy continued. "Think of Miss Edith Cavell, that
lovely English nurse the Germans shot in Belgium."
As Ted eloquently told the story of the execution of this innocent and
devoted woman, practically all the slackers gave expression to lively
indignation.
"I wouldn't 'a believed a bunch o' devils would 'a done such a thing,
and _to a lady_ at that!" one voice called out.
"What do the Huns care about a lady or anything in the world?" cried
Ted. "They treat women as roughly as they treat men. They've carried off
thousands of Belgian and French women and made them slaves. They've
actually made women work in front of their lines under the fire of
French guns. They've herded up women and children in Belgian and French
towns and shot them down. They've carried off hundreds of thousands of
men and women from conquered countries and made them slave night and day
in Germany. The very songs they sing--I've seen translations of some of
them--tell proudly of cruel, barbarous outrages and boast that neither
women nor children are spared.
"Why, I've seen a list of the atrocities committed by the Germans in
this war that would make your blood boil, that would make you sick,"
the boy continued. "And it's the truth--all taken from what they call
'verified official reports,' with as many as ten witnesses for
everything. You see, the Germans believed they were going to conquer the
world, and so many of them didn't care _what_ they did. They massacred
prisoners in cold blood at Ypres and other places. They loot, burn and
often kill as they go. They've nailed people up alive against doors.
They've cut off hands and feet and left the poor creatures alive.
They've filled the streets with dead--not only fighting soldiers but old
men, women and children. They've burned people up in their houses.
They've cut even women to pieces. The way they get all the money in a
captured town is to threaten to kill everybody, and to prove that they
are going to do it they kill a few hundred to begin with. They drive the
helpless people like cattle--drive them out and leave them to starve.
They seem to delight in burning or knocking down churches with their
cannon. They've stuck bayonets in women and boys and girls and pitched
them into the fire of burning houses. The cavalry has tied men and women
to their stirrups and galloped around with them dragging. They throw the
dead into springs and wells. I can't begin to tell you of their awful
doings. They have even stuck their bayonets through little children and
held them up as they walked through the streets."
After twisting nervously in his seat and breathing hard as he listened,
Buck Hardy now started to his feet with a cry of rage. And then--- as
July described the exhibition later--he "gritted his teeth and shook his
fist and cussed awful." The negro did not exaggerate. Buck Hardy's rage
was as vocal as it was intense. He exhausted all the most picturesque
and crushing profanity he could think of, concluding: "I wish to God I
could get my hands on one o' them devils!"
It was on the tip of Ted's tongue to say: "Well, then, why don't you go
where you can get a chance to do it?" But a warning nudge from Hubert
reminded him to be discreet in the case of their best friend in the
camp. He also remembered July's advice not to push the big slacker too
hard. And perhaps he didn't need any pushing now; for clearly he was
awakened. So Ted merely watched Buck's signs of incandescent anger with
great joy and said nothing.
But Buck himself must have seen the thought in the boy's glowing eyes.
He must have sensed something in the general atmosphere of the fire-lit
circle tending to convey to him the startling warning that he had put
himself to the test by his own outburst. At all events he suddenly shut
his lips, turned on his heel, and strode off into the dark woods.
"The Huns are beastly," Ted then remarked to nobody in particular, "but
after fifty years of training they are fine soldiers and it's no picnic
to down them. That's why our country needs every able-bodied young man
to go on the job."
An embarrassing moment followed. Ted looked around at the sober-faced
slackers and their eyes fell before him. They had been thrilled,
horrified, stirred with anger and feelings of outrage; but they were not
ready to face the question they feared the persistent and plucky boy
would put to them. They shifted their positions uneasily, began to get
on their feet, and then in twos and threes went hurriedly off to bed,
anxious to escape another direct appeal.
"You put up a great talk and you sort of got hold of some of them this
time," whispered Hubert; "but you see--as I've told you before--that it
won't do any good."
"Maybe it will--after a while," said Ted, his eyes still glowing.
Buck Hardy now reappeared and called back two of the retreating
slackers. With their help, and without a word, he lifted Ted and carried
him up the ladder to his bed in the sleeping-loft.