THE TELLTALE FOOTPRINT
As the spot Dick and Leslie were heading for lay only a short distance
away from the heart of the camp the two boys quickly reached it. They
could plainly hear the laughter of the others when the minister reached
some comical part in his story of the early experiences associated with
his checkered career.
“Here’s the wreck of Dan’s trap,” remarked Leslie. “He lost heart when
the wild man smashed things so easily, and hasn’t managed to hatch up
another scheme to catch him, though I know he’s thinking about it all
the time.”
“Let’s take up every piece of wood first, and see if they can tell us
anything,” suggested Dick.
Leslie looked as though for the life of him he could not see how a mere
piece of broken branch could speak and explain; but at the same time he
knew Dick must have a meaning attached to his words.
Accordingly, they commenced to handle the remnants that told of Dan’s
wonderful trap, which had failed to hold the wild man.
Leslie suddenly heard his chum give a low bubbling cry.
“What have you found?” he asked, hurriedly, all excitement.
“Come here and see,” he was told.
“Well, I declare! that’s a bunch of hair clinging to a broken bit of
wood, or I miss my guess!” ejaculated Leslie Capes almost immediately.
“And sort of reddish-brown hair at that, you notice,” Dick told him.
“That must have come from the hide of an animal, mark you, and not from
a man at all!”
“Gee whittaker, Dick! What are you saying?”
“The wild man, as we’ve been calling him, isn’t a human being at all,
it seems,” Dick continued, slowly, as though he were trying to grasp a
stupendous idea.
“But, Dick, don’t forget that Nat has seen the creature twice now,”
urged Leslie.
“I know that,” admitted Dick.
“Yes, and there was Alonzo Crane and Dit Hennesy, too, who told us they
glimpsed him before he vanished into the brush. All three vowed it was
a short-looking man with awfully broad shoulders and long arms, and
that he bent over as he moved.”
“Granting all that,” persisted Dick, clinging to his rapidly forming
theory, “it could have been an animal just the same.”
“A four-footed animal do you mean, Dick?”
“Why not?” came the steady reply. “Some animals that can be called
four-footed sometimes walk on their two hind feet, such as monkeys and
apes. Even bears can do the trick without much trouble; and we’ve seen
elephants dancing in a circus, keeping their forelegs elevated all the
while.”
Leslie gave a whistle to indicate his surprise.
“Look here, Dick, you’re getting close to the truth of this mystery, I
just know it from your ways. Tell me what you think, please, Dick.”
“Wait a bit,” admonished the other. “Let’s look around here and see if
we have any better luck than I did in the camp.”
“You mean hunting for signs, don’t you?”
“Yes, see if you can run across any footprint that doesn’t look like
those the boys would make with their shoes,” he was advised.
Both busied themselves at that, bending low the better to examine
closely every foot of the neighboring ground. It was Leslie who gave
utterance to a cry this time.
“Oh! come over here, Dick!” he exclaimed, as though thrilled by a
discovery he had made. “I’ve found something!”
When Dick bent over and took a look he laughed.
“Just what I was expecting we’d run across somewhere around,” he
said. “The plain imprint of a bare foot! And no human being, wild man
or not, ever made that mark, let me tell you, Leslie.”
“It does look somewhat queer I own up, Dick.”
“For a human being I should say it was impossible,” continued the
other. “Notice its peculiar shape in the first place. And the foot is
hardly longer than the toes. Yes, and they’ve got long nails on them in
the bargain. There’s also a pad to the sole that no human ever has.”
Leslie’s eyes were staring. He turned them on his companion with
an interrogation point in each orb. Somehow Dick was usually to be
depended on to rise to an occasion like this, and find out the truth.
His chums had long ago learned how absolutely they could depend on him
when the necessity arose.
“What sort of animal, Dick, would have feet like those?” he asked,
boldly.
[Illustration: “WHAT SORT OF ANIMAL WOULD HAVE FEET LIKE THOSE?” HE
ASKED.]
“Well, a gorilla might, for one,” Dick declared.
No wonder Leslie gasped his amazement.
“A gorilla, Dick? An ape loose in the woods on Bass Island! Why, surely
I must be dreaming, or else you’re joshing me.”
Dick, however, stuck to his guns manfully.
“Remember, Leslie,” he went on to say, steadily, “I can’t even guess
how such an animal could get across from the mainland, even granting
that one escaped at some time from a menagerie that was wrecked in a
storm. We’re dealing with facts now, not theories. There’s an animal
over here, because some of our crowd have seen it, and all of us have
looked on the wreck of the trap set to hold it. I honestly and truly
believe it’ll turn out to be a gorilla.”
“Well, let’s figure out how that explanation agrees with what we know,”
was the sensible way Leslie commenced. “All the boys who have glimpsed
the creature agreed that it was short in stature, and with broad
shoulders, as well as long arms. I remember that gorillas are built
that way, Dick.”
“Yes, and travelers say they are very powerful,” added the other. “I’ve
read how a wounded gorilla will snatch the rifle out of a hunter’s
hands, and twist the barrel as easily as if it were made of wire, tying
it in a knot.”
“So he would have no trouble in smashing Dan’s silly trap, that’s
right,” Leslie went on to say. “Yes, and I can also remember reading,
Dick, that such an animal, when it gets mad, thumps on its chest and
makes a rumbling sound like the beating of a drum.”
“Sure enough!” Dick exclaimed, smiling with glee over the probability
of having solved the mystery that had been haunting the camp so long,
“didn’t the boys tell all about hearing some one drumming, when they
glimpsed the wild man as they thought, going through the brush?”
“Dick, I do believe we’ve solved the puzzle at last!”
“I’m dead sure of it!” Dick declared, “after finding this telltale
scrap of reddish hair on the stick, and seeing that queer footprint.
One thing certain, it’s likely we’ll never know just how the creature
managed to get across here.”
“You mean from the mainland, I suppose,” ventured Leslie. “Can a
gorilla swim, do you think, Dick?”
“I don’t know, but I should say not,” came the dubious reply.
“Well, then we’ll just have to make a stab at it, and let the thing go
at that,” Leslie continued, philosophically. “Mebbe the beast was on
a log that drifted away from the shore when he was washing his face
or trying to catch a fish for his dinner--if gorillas ever eat such
things, which I doubt. Then the floating log carried him across to the
island, and he’s been marooned here ever since. How about that for an
explanation, Dick?”
“For want of a better it will have to stand, I suppose,” Dick told him.
“But let’s go and give the rest of the bunch a surprise.”
Leslie, of course, was willing, and away they hurried to startle their
camp-mates with the recital of the discovery they had just made.
Every one had to examine the stick that had the clump of dun-colored
hair fastened to its splintered part. Then all rushed to the spot where
the remains of the man-trap lay scattered around, Dick taking care
that no one crowded so close as to endanger the strange and telltale
footprint.
Long and earnestly every boy gazed at this mark. Queer feelings came
over them as they realized that in all probability Dick had indeed
solved the mystery.
Nat in particular was triumphantly declaring that he had been
vindicated.
“Say, what did I tell you?” he demanded of Dan and Peg as a grin crept
over his face. “A gorilla can hop if it wants to, can’t it? Well,
that’s what the critter did with me when it saw me startin’ to sit up.
And say! ain’t a gorilla somethin’ like a short, squatty man with wide
shoulders and long arms? Well, didn’t all three of us try to describe
the thing we saw in the brush like that? Huh! next time don’t get quite
so fresh with your remarks, Peg Fosdick!”
“Oh, so far as that goes, Nat,” the other said humbly enough, “we all
admit that you must have been right. Yes, and I’ll go further when I
say that if a gorilla hopped over me in the night, and I saw him, I’d
think it was the Old Scratch himself. You’re all right, Nat, even if
you were scared half to death.”
Nat flared up as though inclined to resent this imputation regarding
his well-known courage. On second thought, however, he held his tongue.
Perhaps he remembered that he had frankly admitted being frightened.
And on the whole the sooner that matter was dropped the better.
Mr. Holwell, as well as the other two gentlemen, had, of course,
taken a decided interest in all that passed. In this he found a good
reason for adding to the high opinion he already had concerning Dick’s
abilities. Any boy who could figure out an answer to such a baffling
mystery deserved worlds of credit, and the minister was prouder of Dick
than ever.
Indeed, Mr. Holwell was feeling more and more pleased every day, that
he had decided to take a little vacation and spend it on Bass Island in
camp with the boys of the Junior Department of the local Y. M. C. A. He
dearly loved to study boy-nature, and watch the development of those
faculties that in the years to come might carry the possessors on to
fame or fortune.
Clint Babbett was coaxed to get his camera and take a photograph of the
strange footprint. He had more or less trouble in arranging things to
suit his ideas, but after several attempts declared that he believed
he had succeeded, and, in time, when he had developed that film, they
would be able to prove their claim by displaying an exact reproduction
of the telltale track. Others who possessed cameras were not deterred
from trying the same task.
“But I hope we don’t let it go at that, fellows,” the first
photographer said, after completing his last effort.
“Not much,” remarked Andy Hale. “Some of the knockers down in Cliffwood
wouldn’t believe a word of what we said unless we had better proof to
show than just a picture of some marks on the ground. Why, they’d claim
we’d made them in order to pull the wool over their eyes.”
Looks were exchanged, that spoke of hidden thoughts and grim
resolutions. Peg Fosdick undoubtedly voiced the sentiments of many when
he went on to remark seriously:
“One thing sure, boys, we must think up some way to kill this
Jabberwock of the Bass Island woods. We could have the skin stuffed,
and stood up in our room at the Y. M. C. A. building, you know. Every
one who called would ask for the story of what happened up here in
camp.”
Harry Bartlett glanced over at Mr. Holwell. He would have said
something himself, only he seemed to guess that the minister would
express his thoughts if given a chance.
“Wait a bit, boys,” said Mr. Holwell, gently. “Let’s consider this
thing well before deciding to try to kill this poor animal. The rooms
of a Y. M. C. A. building are hardly suitable for the exhibition of
stuffed wild animals. The rules of the organization do not encourage
the hunting instinct, only a laudable desire to build up the human
body, so that a healthy mind may be better qualified to grasp the
precious truths that are so frequently proclaimed within these walls.
In fact, I can easily imagine several patrons of the association
staring in wonder and displeasure upon discovering a stuffed gorilla
standing guard in your department.”
“But do we have just to keep on enduring his visits night after night,
sir?” Peg asked, appealingly. “Would there be any objection to Dan here
getting up some sort of trap that would hold the gorilla a prisoner,
so we could return him to the Zoological Gardens that mebbe he escaped
from?”
Mr. Holwell smiled on hearing that.
“I’m sure there could be no objection to such a scheme, provided Dan is
able to conjure up a plan that will turn out better than the last trap
did,” he answered. At this Dan blushed, and then grinned as though he
felt the remark was intended as a compliment.
“Oh! leave all that to me, sir,” he said, boldly. “Right now I’m
figuring on a bully scheme that is bound to work. And this time I don’t
mean to trust to just plain snares or traps.”