X
TOM’S DISCOVERIES
AS no attack had been made upon the camp the boys gradually relaxedthe vigilance of their guard duty; but they still maintained a sentryat the lookout tree at night and made occasional visits of observationduring the day, going to the tree sufficiently often to avoid beingtaken by surprise.
“And what if they should attack us in daytime?” argued Dick. “We’d behere, armed and ready for them.”
There was fishing to be done, and a game of chess or backgammon wasusually in progress. Moreover, like any other company of bright youthsaccustomed to think, they had enough to talk about, many things toexplain to each other, many stories to tell, and many questionsto discuss. Thus the daytime sentry duty was reduced to nearly noactivity, except upon Tom’s part. He was apparently fond of going tothe lookout and remaining there sometimes for hours at a time.
The others did not know why he should care for that as for anamusement. Tom did, but he said nothing. Tom was finding out somethingthat the others knew nothing about.
On the next morning but one after the deer hunt he had climbed tothe crotch of the tree to make a further study of the trail he haddiscovered. After a little while he decided to climb farther up thetree, in order to secure a better view.
From that loftier perch he saw something at a distance that deeplyinterested him. It was a sort of hovel, so buried in undergrowth thatit would have been scarcely visible at all except to one looking from ahigh place as he was.
But what interested him most was that presently he saw the lameintruder of two nights before come out of the hovel and limp downtoward the shore, where, as Tom easily made out, there was a small,crooked little cove running into the woods, not from the creek, butfrom the broader water outside.
Tom lost sight of the man when he reached the cove, and so did not makeout what he was doing there, but after a time he saw him limp awayagain and go back to the neighborhood of the hovel, which, however, hedid not enter or approach very nearly.
He loitered around for awhile, like one who must remain where he is,but who has nothing to do there during an indefinitely long and tediouswaiting time. At last he stretched himself out on a log in the shadowof the trees, as if to pass away the time in sleep.
Tom’s curiosity was by this time master of him. Having seen so much,he was eager to see more. Accordingly he clambered down the tree, and,with gun in hand, set out to follow the blind trail.
He moved silently from the first, and very cautiously toward the end ofhis half-mile journey. He was careful not to tread upon any of the drysticks that might make a noise in breaking, and to permit no bush toswish as he let it go.
At last he reached the neighborhood of the hovel, and, securing agood hiding place in the dense undergrowth, minutely studied hissurroundings. The lame man lay still on his log and apparently asleep,until after awhile the sun’s changing position brought his face intothe strong glare. Then he rose lazily, rubbing his eyes as if the sleepwere not yet out of them. Rising at last, with muttered maledictionsupon the heat, he limped over to a clump of palmetes and from amongthem lifted a stone jug, from which he took a prolonged draught.
“That’s the stuff to brace a man up!” he muttered as he replaced thejug in its hiding place.
Tom observed that there were nowhere any traces of a camp fire, presentor past, a fact that puzzled him at first, for obviously the man livedthere in the thicket, or at least remained there for prolonged periodsat a time, and, as Tom reflected, “he must eat.”
The man himself solved the riddle for him presently by going to anotherof his hiding places and bringing thence a great handful of coarse shipbiscuit and a huge piece of cold pickled beef of the kind that sailorscall “salt-horse,” which he proceeded to devour.
“Obviously,” reflected Tom, “his food, such as it is, is brought tohim here already cooked. He makes no fire, probably because he fearsits light by night or the smoke of it by day might reveal his presencehere. But why does he stay here? What is he here for? Who are theywho bring him food, and when or how often do they come, and for whatpurpose? It’s a Chinese puzzle, but I mean to work it out.”
Having made his observation of the place as minute as he could Tomsilently crept away, not walking in the trail, but through the bushesnear enough to let him see it and follow its winding course. He didthis lest by walking too often in the trail he should leave signs ofits recent use.
When he reached the lookout tree, to his surprise he found his threecomrades there.
“Hello! What are you fellows doing here?” he asked, breaking out ofthe bushes and thus giving the first sign his comrades had had of hisapproach, for even to the end of his little journey he had been atpains to travel in absolute silence as an Indian on the war path does.
“Why, Tom, where have you been?” was the first greeting the others gavehim.
“We’ve been dreadfully uneasy about you,” Larry explained, “and when Iwhistled through my fingers to call you to dinner and you didn’t come,we hurried out here to look for you. Where _have_ you been and whathave you been doing?”
“I say, Larry, that reminds me that I want you to teach me the trick ofwhistling through my fingers in that way. Will you?”
“I’ll teach you some things that are easier to learn than that,”answered his companion, “if you try any more of Cal’s tricks of beatinground the bush. Why don’t you tell us where you’ve been and why, andall the rest of it? Don’t you understand that we’ve been on tenterhooksof anxiety about you for an hour?”
“Well, as I’m here, safe and sound, there is no further need ofanxiety, and as for your curiosity to hear what I have to tell, I’llrelieve that while we’re at dinner. Come on! I’m hungry and I reckonthe rest of you are, too. Anyhow, what I’ve got to tell you is wellworth hearing, and I shall not tell you a word till we sit down on ourhaunches and begin to enjoy again the flavor of that venison, broiledon the live coals. You haven’t cooked it yet, have you?”
“No. We got the chops ready for the fire, and then I whistled for you,so that we might all have them fresh from the coals. As you didn’tcome, we got uneasy and went to look for you. So come on and we’ll havea late dinner and sharp appetites.”
No sooner were the juicy venison chops taken from the fire and servedupon a piece of bark that did duty as a platter than the demand for thestory of Tom’s morning adventure became clamorous.
With a chop in one hand and half an ash cake in the other, Tom told allthat he had done and seen, giving the details as the reader alreadyknows them. Then, after finishing the meal and washing his hands, faceand head in the salt water of the creek, he set forth the conclusionsand conjectures he had formed.
“In the first place,” he said, “I am certain that our late visitor—hewith the game leg—is the only person anywhere around. We are in nodanger of an attack, either by night or by day, until his comrades,whoever they may be, come here and join him. We have no need of doingsentry duty out there at the gum tree, except to keep a sufficientlookout to make sure that we know when they do come. In my opinion thatwill be at night sometime.”
“Why do you think so, Tom?”
“Simply because it is evident that they don’t come here for any goodor lawful purpose. If that lame fellow with the whisky jug is a fairsample of the crew, they are the sort that prefer darkness to lightbecause their deeds are evil.”
“Who do you think they are, Tom?” asked Cal, “and what, in youropinion, are they up to?”
“I don’t know, but I mean to find out.”
“How, Tom?”
“By watching, and, if I don’t find out sooner, by being within sightwhen they do come. I’m going to reconnoiter the place again to-night tosee what that fellow does down there. Perhaps I may make out somethingfrom that. At any rate, it’s worth trying.”
“Why shouldn’t we all go with you?” Dick asked eagerly. “Then if by anyaccident that evil-visaged person with the lame leg should discoveryou, we’ll be there in for
ce enough to handle him and the situation.I’ve heard that one of your southern generals during the Civil War oncesaid that strategy is ‘getting there first with the most men.’ Whyshouldn’t we practice strategy?”
“Why, of course, I counted on that,” Tom answered. “I knew all youfellows would want to go, and I reckon that’s our best plan. Anyhow,we’ll try it.”
“Now,” said Cal, “I have something to report which I regard as ofsome little importance, particularly as it means that the _Hunkydory_will have to leave this port pretty soon—probably within the nextforty-eight hours, and possibly sooner.”
“Why, what’s the matter, Cal?” asked all the others together.
“Only that our spring is rapidly drying up, and as there is no otherfresh water supply within reach, we shall simply be obliged to quitthese parts as soon as we can get ourselves in shape to risk it.”
“To risk what?”
“Why, putting off in a boat on salt water. We can’t do that withoutsome fresh water on board. I’ve already begun the filling of the kegsby thimblefuls. It promises to be a slow process, as the spring seemsunable to yield more than a gill or so at a time.”
“But, Cal,” interrupted Tom, “we can get all the water we want bydigging a little anywhere around here. It doesn’t lie three feet belowthe surface.”
“Neither does the fever,” answered Cal.
“How do you mean?”
“Why, I mean that the milky-looking water you find by digging a fewfeet into the soil of these low-lying lands is poisonous. It is surfacewater, an exudation from the mass of decaying vegetable matter thatconstitutes the soil of the swamps. To drink it is to issue a pressinginvitation to fever, dysentery and other dangerous and deadly diseases,to take up their permanent residence in our intestinal tracts.”
“But why isn’t the water of our spring just as bad?”
“Because it isn’t surface water at all, but spring water that comesfrom a source very different from that of the swamp soil. You haveperhaps observed that the bottom of our spring is composed of clean,white sand, through which the water rises. That sand was brought up bythat water from strata that lie far below the soil.”
“What makes it brackish, then?”
“It is brackish because a certain measure of sea water from the creekthere sipes into it. The sea water is filtered through the sand,losing most of its salt in the process. You’ve noticed, perhaps, thatthe spring water is more brackish at high than at low tide. That’sbecause—”
“Oh, I see all that now. I hadn’t thought of it before. But really,Cal, it seems rather hard that we must sail away from here just whenwe’ve run up against something mysterious and interesting. Now, doesn’tit?”
“Let me remind you,” answered Cal in his most elaborate manner ofmock-serious speaking, “that I am in nowise called upon to assumeresponsibility for the vagaries of a casually encountered spring. Idid not bring up that spring. I had no part in its early education ortraining. Presumably it is even my superior in age and experience. Inany case, I feel myself powerless to control or even to influence itsbehavior. Moreover, I feel as keen a disappointment as you can in thefact that we shall have to abandon our search for knowledge of thepurposes of our neighbor with the game leg. But it is not certain thatwe shall have to sail away with that inquiry unfinished. It will takea considerable time to fill our water kegs, and in the meanwhile we maypenetrate the mystery sooner than we expect. Anyhow, we’ll see what weshall see to-night.”