Tom Slade on the River

  CHAPTER V ADVENTURE OF THE RESCUE PARTY

  "I bet there are real ghosts in here," said Garry, as they climbed theslope which became more difficult as they went along.

  "Regular ones, hey?" said Doc.

  "Sure, the good old-fashioned kind."

  "No peek-a-boo ghosts," said Garry.

  "Well, you can knock ghosts all you want to," said Connie, "but I alwaysfound them white."

  "Slap him on the wrist, will you!" called Doc. "Believe _me_, this issome impenetrable wilderness!"

  "How?"

  "Impenetrable wilderness--reduced to a common denominator, thick woods."

  Withal their bantering talk, it seemed indeed as if the woods might behaunted, for with almost every step they took some crackling or rustlingsound could be heard, emphasized by the stillness. Now and again theypaused to listen to a light patter growing fainter and fainter, or asudden noise as of some startled denizen of the wood seeking a newshelter. Ghostly shadows flitted here and there in the moonlight; and thenight breeze, soughing among the tree tops, wafted to the boys amurmuring as of some living thing whose elusive tones now and againcounterfeited the human voice in seeming pain or fear.

  The voices of the boys sounded crystal clear in the solemn stillness.Once they paused, trying to locate an owl which seemed to be shriekingits complaint at this intrusion of its domain. Again they stopped tolisten to the distant sound of falling water.

  "That's the brook, I guess," said Tom.

  Their approach to it seemed to sober the others, realizing as they didthat effort and resourcefulness were now imperative, and mindful, too,though scarcely hopeful, that these might bring them face to face with atragic scene.

  "Pretty tough, being up here all alone with somebody dying," said Doc.

  "You said something," answered Garry.

  They were entering an area of underbrush, where the trail ceased or wascompletely obscured, so that there wasn't even a ghost of it, as Docremarked. But the sound of the water guided them now and they workedtheir way through such a dense maze of jungle as they had never expectedto encounter outside the tropics.

  Tom, going ahead, tore the tangled growth away, or parted it enough tosqueeze through, the others following and carrying the stretcher andfirst-aid case with greatest difficulty.

  "How long is this surging thoroughfare, I wonder," asked Garry.

  "Don't know," said Tom. "I don't seem to have my bearings at all."

  After a little while they emerged, scratched and dishevelled, at thebrook which tumbled over its pebbly bed in its devious path downward.

  "We're pretty high up, do you know that?" Doc observed.

  "I don't see as there's much use hunting for marked trees," Tom said. "Imust have come another way before. I don't know where we're at. Whatd'you say we all shout together?"

  This they did and the sound of their upraised voices reverberated in thedense woods and shocked the still night, but no answering sound could beheard save only the rippling of the brook.

  "We stand about as much chance as a snowball in a blast furnace," saidGarry.

  "The thing to do," said Tom, ignoring him, "is to follow this brook,somebody on each side, and look for a trail. If there's anybody herethey'll be upstream; it's too steep from here down. And one thingsure--they'd have to have water. Lucky the moon's out, but I wish we hadtwo lanterns."

  "We'll be lucky if the oil in this one lasts," Doc put in.

  Following the stream was difficult enough, but it was easier than theforest they had just come through and they picked their way along itsedge, Tom and Garry on one bank and Doc and Connie on the other.

  "I don't believe anyone's been in this place in a thousand years; that'sthe way it looks to me," said Doc.

  "I'd say at least three thousand," said Garry.

  Tom paid no attention. He had paused and was holding his lantern over thestream.

  "Those four stones are in a pretty straight line," he said. "Would yousay that was a ford?"

  "Looks more like a Buick to me," said Garry, but he added, "They _are_ ina pretty straight line. I guess it's a flivver, all right."

  "Look on that side," said Tom, to the others. "Do you see anything overthere?"

  He was looking carefully along the edge; of the water when Doc calledsuddenly,

  "Come over here with your light, quick!"

  Tom and Garry crossed, stepping from stone to stone, and presently allfour were kneeling and examining in the lantern light one of thosecommonplace things which sometimes send a thrill over the discoverer--ahuman footprint. There upon that lonesome mountain, surrounded by the allbut impenetrable forest, was that simple, half-obliterated butunmistakable token of a human presence. Tom thought he knew now howRobinson Crusoe felt when he found the footprint in the sand.

  The exposed roots of a tree formed ridges in the hard bank, wherefootprints seemed quite impossible of detection, and it was in vain thatthe boys sought for others. Yet here was this one, and so plain as toshow the criss-cross markings of a new sole.

  "It's from a rubber boot," said Garry.

  "There ought to be _some_ signs of others even if they're not as clear asthis one," said Tom. "Maybe whoever was wearing that boot slipped off oneof those stones and got it wet. That's why it printed, probably. Anyway,somebody crossed here and they were going up that way, that's sure."

  They stood staring at the footprint, thoroughly sobered by its discovery.They had penetrated into this rugged mountain in the hope of finding someone, but the remoteness and wildness of the place had grown upon them andthe whole chaotic scene seemed so ill-associated with the presence of ahuman being that now that they had actually found this silent token italmost shocked them.

  "Maybe the wind was wrong before," said Tom. "What d'you say we callagain--all together? There don't seem to be any path leading anywhere."

  They formed their hands into megaphones, calling loud and long, but therewas no answer save a long drawn out echo.

  "Again," said Tom, "and louder."

  Once more their voices rose in such stentorian chorus that it left thembreathless and Connie's head was throbbing as from a blow.

  "Hark!" said Doc. "Shhh."

  From somewhere far off came a sound, thin and spent with the distance,which died away and seemed to mingle with the voice of the breeze; thenabsolute silence.

  "Did you hear that?"

  "Nothing but a tree-toad," said Garry.

  They waited a minute to give the answering call a rest, if indeed it camefrom human lips, then raised their voices once again in a long _Helloo_.

  "Hear it?" whispered Connie. "It's over there to the east. That's notree-toad."

  Whatever the sound was, the distance was far too great for the sense ofany call to be understood. The voice was impersonal, vague, having scarcemore substance than a dream, but it thrilled the four boys and made themfeel as if the living spirit of that footprint at their feet was callingto them out of the darkness.

  "Even still I think it must be near the stream though it sounds way offthere," Tom pointed; "we might head straight for the sound or we mightfollow the stream up. It may go in that direction up a ways."

  They decided to trust to the brook's guidance and to the probability ofits verging in the direction of the sound. It wound its way throughintertwined and over-arching thickets where they were forced to use theirbelt-axes to chop their way through. Now and again they called as theymade their difficult way, challenged almost at every step byobstructions. But they heard no answering voice.

  After a while the path became less difficult; the very stream seemed tobreathe easier as it flowed through a comparatively open stretch, and thefour boys, torn and panting, plodded along, grateful for the relief.

  "What's that?" said Garry. "Look, do you see a streak of white wayahead--just between those trees?"

  "Yes," panted Connie. "It's a tent, I guess--thank goodness."

  "Let's call again," said Tom
.

  There was no answer and they plodded on, stooping under low-hanging orbroken branches, stepping cautiously over wet stones and picking theirway over great masses of jagged rock. Never before had they beheld ascene of such wild confusion and desolation.

  "Wait a minute," said Tom, turning back where he stood upon a great rockand holding his lantern above a crevice. "I thought I saw something whitedown there."

  They gathered about him and looked down into a fissure at a sight whichunnerved them all, scouts though they were. For there, wedged between thetwo converging walls of rock and plainly visible in the moonlight was askeleton, the few brown stringing remnants depending from itunrecognizable as clothing.

  Tom reached down and touched it with his belt-axe, and it collapsed andfell rattling into the bed of the cleft. He held his lantern low for amoment and gazed down into the crevice.

  "This is some spooky place, believe _me_," shivered Connie. "Who do yousuppose it was?"

  A little farther on they came upon something which apparently explainedthe presence of the skeleton. As they neared the spot where they had seenwhat they thought to be a tent among the trees, they stopped aghast atseeing among the branches of several elms that most pathetic and completeof all wrecks, the tattered, twisted remnants of a great aeroplane. A fewsilken shreds were blowing about the broken frame and beating against thenetwork of disordered wires and splintered wood.