“Is it from Hen?” asked
two or three at once, that being the all important
fact stamped upon their minds.
At the same time they realized just
as well as anything it must be so, else Elmer would
not be smiling and frowning as he deciphered the meaning
of the scrawl. As all the boys knew, Hen Condit
was one of the poorest writers in the Hickory Ridge
High School. It may be remembered that in speaking
of his other note some of them brought this fact forward,
stating that a teacher had once declared the boy well
named, since his efforts looked like “hen-tracks”
on paper.
“It’s lucky that I’m
able to read any sort of old writing,” remarked
Elmer, not without a touch of boyish pride; “it’s
a gift with me, and Hen sometimes came to ask me to
tell him what he’d set down, for after it got
cold he couldn’t well make it out himself.”
“Then you’ve sensed the
meaning of his present communication, have you, Elmer?”
questioned Mark, a little bit given to stilted language.
“I can read it all right,”
was the reply he received, “but understanding
the gist of it is another thing. The sentences
seem disconnected, and some of them are queer.
When Hen wrote this he must either have been half
out of his mind, or else he was in great fear of something,
or somebody!”
Of course, when the scout-master said
this, it produced something of a sensation among the
other six fellows. They exchanged grave looks,
while Lil Artha was seen to shake his head, and give
that gun of his a little tilt upwards, as though he
now believed more than ever the time was near at hand
when he would be compelled to make some sort of use
of the same, in order to save the kidnapped chum.
“Please read it out to us, Elmer!” begged
Landy.
“Yeth, we’re wondering what it can all
be about,” added Ted Burgoyne.
“Then listen, and please don’t
interrupt me until I finish,” said Elmer.
“This is what Hen’s written with a lead
pencil on this sheet of paper, which I think he must
have torn from a little memorandum book I happen to
know he always carries about in his pocket.”
He held the crumpled paper closer
to his eyes, for in places the writing was rather
faint, and in two particular spots Elmer had to guess
at a word, for evidently a drop of something, perhaps
a salty tear, had fallen on the paper, blurring the
work of the lead pencil stub.
“Boys, perhaps you’ll
get this-he says he counted seven and everyone
wore a khaki uniform-he thinks you must
be the militia-course I know better-but
it’s no use, you just can’t help me-I’m
a goner, and the most miserable boy on earth-but
I say on the honor of a scout I never meant to do
it-I’ve just got to disappear-maybe
I’ll let you hear from me if ever I get Out
West where they can’t find me. Oh! what
hard luck, but I have to do whatever he says, no matter
what I want. I’m meaning to leave this
behind in the scout way, and don’t I hope you’ll
find it. There, he’s calling to me to hurry,
for we’re going to quit this hide-out and try
to escape. I’m awful hungry, too.
Better leave me to my fate unless you can find a
way to seal his lips. That’s all.
Hen.”
“Great Caesar!” exclaimed
Lil Artha, who had hung on every word spoken by Elmer.
“That proves one of two things. Either
our poor pard is looney, or else he’s got in
the power of a rascal who controls his mind.
I always knew Hen was weak in the upper story just
a teenty mite. Poor old chap, we’ve got
to find him if it takes us till Christmas. You
hear me talking now!”
“Yeth, and we all thay the thame!”
burst from Ted, as he doubled his none too expansive
fists, and looked as savage as he could.
Indeed, a hasty glance around just
then would have told any observer that this strange
message, filled with despair and yearning, left by
Hen Condit in the crotch of a stick thrust into the
ground, had renewed their former resolution not to
give over the search until they had either found the
missing chum or exhausted every known device looking
to success.
“If you asked me,” said
Elmer, “I’d say the answer to the riddle
lay between the two things you mention, Lil Artha.
Hen is crazed almost, but it is with fear.
He finds himself in the power of a brute who is using
him for his own purposes. How it’s been
done, of course, we can only guess, but the boy believes
he has been forced to rob his guardian, and that a
posse is searching right now for him, with the intention
of putting him in jail. That explains his panic.”
“And say, he tells us right
at the end of his note that he’s some hungry,”
Lil Artha went on to remark; “and, according
to my notion, that condition is next door to being
insane. Why, mebbe the poor fellow hasn’t
had a solitary bite for a whole day or even two of
’em. I pity him from the bottom of my heart.”
“Notice what he incidentally
says near the end,” added Elmer. “’Better
leave me to my fate unless you can find a way to seal
his lips.’ That seems to strengthen our
theory, doesn’t it?”
“All this mention of ‘he’
must stand for the unknown man who has got Hen, of
course?” ventured Mark.
“Couldn’t be anybody else,”
the patrol leader made answer; “in fact, Hen
just now doesn’t seem able to even think of any
other person.”
“The fellow is no common rascal,
let me tell you, suh,” Chatz declared.
“He must have been some sort of professor along
the lines of magic, perhaps a hypnotist who performed
wonders on the stage before crowds, and then dabbled
in things that the law sat down on, which landed him
in the penitentiary finally.”
“When the truth comes out, Chatz,
I’m positive that your theory will be found
pretty near the exact facts,” affirmed Elmer.
“But all the time we’re
jabbering away here,” warned Lil Artha, “remember
that they’re getting further and further away
from us.”
“As to that,” the patrol
leader assured him, “a few minutes don’t
make so much difference, and it’s always best
to start right, so as to avoid a loss of ten times
as much later on by making mistakes. Then again,
I’m pretty sure that man is too smart to think
of trying to leave Sassafras Swamp before night comes,
even if he plans to do it then.”
Somehow, this intelligence comforted
the more impetuous ones. They had such unlimited
faith in Elmer knowing what course was best to pursue
that his judgment was accepted on its face value every
time-just as the Treasury notes of the
United States Government are relied upon to be worth
their face denomination in specie.
“About how long ago would you
thay they had thkipped out of here?” Ted asked,
as they still lingered, looking to the right and to
the left, as though wanting to make certain nothing
valuable in the way of a clue could have escaped their
scrutiny.
“Lil Artha, we’re depending
on you for that information,” suggested Elmer,
although it could not be doubted that he himself was
able to give a pretty good answer, for he had observed
certain signs as well as the tall scout.
“Not more than two hours ago,
I’d say, Elmer,” Lil Artha ventured, with
considerable confidence manifested in his manner, as
though if put to it he was able to muster all the
evidence necessary to establish his veracity.
“Just about what I thought myself,”
added the scout-master, with a satisfied smile.
“Two heads are better than one, any day, Lil
Artha, especially when they seem to work together
as well as ours do.”
“Then the man didn’t think
to skip out right away after he got back here, did
he?” asked Landy, “because a good many
hours have elapsed since Lil Artha woke us all up
with that sudden shot.”
“No, he must have slept for
some time,” answered Elmer, “knowing there
wasn’t apt to be any sort of a pursuit in the
night. Then again he relied more or less on
having blinded his trail, as a man who had spent some
time in the West among Indians and cowboys would have
done. It wasn’t a great while before dawn
when he must have aroused poor Hen and told him they
must get away.”
“But when do you think our chum
could have scribbled that message?” asked Mark.
“Evidently, after he knew about
our being within a mile of him,” replied Elmer,
with a promptness that told how he had figured it all
out. “I suppose the man told him about
the khaki soldiers who were in the swamp looking for
them, thinking it would make Hen more frightened than
ever; but we know he guessed the truth about our being
his comrades of the Wolf Patrol.”
“Then, believing he would be
hurried off again, sooner or later,” Mark continued,
“he took the first chance he had to write that
message. He must have fixed it in that split
stick, and just as they were leaving here stuck the
wand in the ground, scout fashion.”
“We seem to have it all sized
up to a dot by now,” remarked the leader, preparing
to move; “and as there isn’t anything else
for us to do here, suppose we get busy on the trail
again, Lil Artha?”
“I’m your chicken, and
you can depend on me when it comes to scenting out
a trail, Elmer. Wonder if that man will be up
to any more high jinks in the way of walking along
logs, climbing trees, and such tricks? We’ll
keep a good lookout for such capers, believe me.”
They were soon moving along, the two
trackers in the van as before, with others trailing
after. Landy brought up the rear, though Mark
kept a careful eye on him most of the time, as though
rather skeptical about his ability to make progress
without getting into some sort of trouble.
It would be just like clumsy Landy
to trip, and make a headlong plunge into the brown
tamarack water of the swamp just when he should have
been most careful. They had known him to do such
things more than a few times in the past; and on this
account Mark always made it a point to drop back and
keep him company when he imagined the situation became
acute.
From the rapid manner in which Lil
Artha and Elmer picked up the trail it was plainly
evident that so far the unknown fugitive from justice
had not bothered resorting to any of his tricks looking
to blinding the tracks.
He had been compelled to wait for
daylight before trying to move through the swamp,
because progress would have been next door to impossible
at night time unless one were familiar with the way,
or else carried a lantern. Neither of these
happened to be within his scope, and so he had to
depend upon daylight.
Of course, none of the boys knew what
sort of a reception they might expect when finally
they overtook the man they were following. What
little they could gather from various sources inclined
them to believe he must be a pretty desperate sort
of customer. The occasional mention of him in
that strange message left by Hen was along those very
lines.
He might be armed for all they knew.
Such criminals usually are, though in this case it
might be otherwise, Elmer had told them, since he
believed the man had been a prisoner making his escape
when first he struck Sassafras Swamp, and concluded
to have his hide-out in its depths.
Still Lil Artha was not for taking
too many chances. As he moved along, the tall
scout managed to keep that reliable gun of his in
position for quick use, should an occasion arise calling
for service.
He also tried to glance ahead from
time to time, in hopes of locating any suspicious
ambuscade. A sudden attack that would leave himself
and Elmer weaponless might throw the entire party
into a state of helplessness, which would always reflect
on their ability as scouts.
They spent half an hour in this fashion,
though the trail wound in and out so much that at
the end of that time they could hardly have been more
than a quarter of a mile away from the late camp of
the fugitives.
“Did you hear that, Elmer?”
whispered Lil Artha, suddenly, throwing out a hand
so as to clutch the other’s arm; while everyone
became rigid with suspense.
“It certainly sounded like a cough,” admitted
the other.
“But I’m dead certain
it wasn’t from in front of us, but over to the
left, which would be some queer,” muttered the
tall tracker, staring in the quarter which he now
indicated with outstretched finger.
“I thought the same, Lil Artha,”
Elmer told him; “but then this trail twists
and turns so much it might get around that way easy
enough.”
“Of course it might, Elmer.”
“All we can do is to keep going
along as we are, and some of us watch for signs of
Hen and the man over yonder,” added the scout-master.
“Then you don’t think
it’d pay to strike out to the left?” questioned
the other, who seemed to be hesitating between two
opinions.
“We would be silly to quit a
sure thing for an uncertainty,” said Elmer,
decidedly. “After all our ears may have
deceived us, and it might have only been some queer
grunt of a frog, a heron fishing for minnows, or even
a muskrat choking over his dinner. No, we must
keep on as we’re going, that’s sure.”
Lil Artha looked relieved. After
all, it pleased the tall scout to have someone decide
a puzzling question like this for him. Responsibility
weighs heavy on the shoulders of many even capable
boys, and they are only too glad to be able to shift
it on occasion.
“Just as you say, Elmer, and
I reckon you’re quite right, too,” always
in a low, sibilant tone that would not carry further
than a dozen yards at the most.
They again turned to take up the trail,
which just at that point happened to run through some
bushes coming up to their hips. It was easy
to see where those ahead of them had brushed through,
for they had trampled down the lush grass, and brushed
aside the tender branches of the bushes.
Elmer had even bent over to take a
good look down at the ground before setting forth
when he heard Toby Jones give a sudden, violent hiss.
Now, that was a well-known sign among
the boys of the Wolf Patrol, and which had served
them in good stead many a time in the past. Heard
under such thrilling conditions, it could mean only
one thing; Toby had discovered some sort of danger,
and was warning his comrades in order that they might
drop down out of sight.
Every fellow seemed to understand
this instantly, for as though they were all moved
by the same controlling influence, they allowed themselves
to sink on their knees amidst the friendly bushes that
afforded such splendid shelter. Even as Elmer
dropped thus he had shot a quick glance toward the
left, from which that seeming cough had come, and
saw something that electrified him.