CHAPTER XX
LONELY DAYS
"What in the world can have happened?" asked Tom, speaking aloud tohimself. He had to do that to drive away some of the loneliness thatthrust itself upon him as he walked around the deserted camp. "There'ssomething queer been going on, and I'm going to find out about it," headded determinedly. "Maybe they're hiding away from me for a joke."
He made a round of the little spot there where they had camped in thewilderness, but there were few places for his chums to have hidden savein the woods themselves--the woods that were on three sides of thetents, the lake forming the fourth boundary.
"Well, if they're in there they'll wait a good while before I gohunting for them," he said. "If it's a joke they can come back whenthey get ready."
And yet, somehow, he felt that it was not a joke. He and his chums wereas fond of fun as any lads, and, in times past, the boys had playedmany a trick on each other. But there was a time for such antics, andTom realized that this occasion was not now. He knew his comrades wouldrealize the strain he was under, in losing his boat, and in trying tosolve the mystery of the mill against the activities of Mr. Skeel andthe two cronies.
"I don't believe they'd do it," mused Tom. "There is something wronghere. Hello, fellows!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Dick! Bert!Jack--Jack Fitch! Where are you?"
The echoes from the darkness were his only answers.
"They're gone," he said, "and yet, by Jove, I don't believe they'd gowillingly--unless--"
He paused, for many thoughts were crowding to his brain. He had a newidea now.
"Unless they saw something of Skeel, or Sam and Nick, and followedthem off through the woods. Maybe the hermit himself passed here, andthey thought he was on the trail of the treasure. They would naturallyfollow him, and if I wasn't here they would not wait for me, knowingthey could explain afterward. I'll wager that's it. They've gone forthe treasure. It's all right after all."
He felt a little better, having arrived at this decision, and proceededto get himself a meal. He lighted the stove, made coffee, and fixedup some sandwiches from a tin of beef. It was while sipping the hotbeverage that another thought came to him.
"I wonder if they went away prepared to stay all night?" he askedhimself. "I'll take a look."
In the main, or sleeping tent, the cots had been made up that morning,as was the rule, so that, no matter how late the chums returned tocamp, they could tumble into bed. The cots showed no signs of havingbeen disturbed when Tom inspected them with a lantern. And then the ladsaw something else.
The caps and sweaters of his chums still hung from the ridge-pole ofthe tent.
"By Jove!" cried Tom aloud. "They would hardly go off that way--in thedampness of the night--without having taken more than they wore when Istarted on my walk. And they had on mighty little then. Even if theyhad to take the trail on the jump there would have been time enough toslip on a sweater, and grab up a cap. Those fellows went off in a bighurry."
He paused, to gaze in silence around the tent. He was more lonely thanever, as he recalled the jolly faces that he had thought would greethim on his return from the stroll in the woods.
"And here's another thing," he reasoned. "If they _did_ take the trailafter some of our enemies, one of them would most likely have remainedto wait for me, and tell me to come along. I'm sure they'd have donethat. And yet--they're all gone, all three of them!"
Tom Fairfield shook his head. The problem was becoming too much forhim. He sought for a ray of light.
"Of course," he reasoned, "there may have been two parties of them.Skeel and the two cronies in one, and the old hermit by himself. Inthat case the boys may have divided themselves. Maybe that's it. Oh,hang it all!" he exclaimed as if he found the puzzle too much for him."I'm going to wait until morning."
But the morning brought no solution of the problem. Tom awoke early,after a restless night, during which he several times imagined he heardhis chums calling to him. He would jump up, rush to the flap of thetent, toss some light wood on the camp fire, and peer out eagerly, onlyto find that he had dreamed about or imagined it.
Once or twice he called aloud, listening and hoping for an answer, butnone came. And so the night passed and morning came.
Tom felt little appetite for breakfast, but he knew he must eat to keepup his strength for the task that lay before him.
"I've got to find them!" he decided. "I've got to take the trail.Something may have happened to them. That bear we saw may have--" Andthen he laughed at the notion, for he knew that a bear, however large,could not make away with three strong, healthy lads. "Unless there werethree bears," he mused, with a smile, "and that's out of the question."
He was thinking deeply, so deeply in fact that he forgot to look to theoil stove, and the first he knew the coffee had boiled over, and thebacon was scorched in the pan.
"Oh, hang it!" Tom exclaimed. "I can't even cook!"
He fried more bacon, and an egg, and on that, and coffee, he made alonely breakfast.
"Now to reason things out," he spoke aloud. "I'm glad the rowboat ishere anyhow, I can navigate the lake to a certain extent."
He walked down to the shore, and what he saw there caused him to uttera cry of astonishment.
"There's been a struggle here--a fight!" Tom cried. "The boys have beentaken away against their will!"
He bent over and looked closely at the sandy shore. It was all tooevident that some sort of a struggle had taken place there, and thatrecently. The marks visible by day but not at night proved this.
"Those marks weren't there when we landed yesterday afternoon," decidedour hero. "Besides, they're quite a distance from where we broughtthe skiff in. There's been some sort of a boat here," he went on, ashe bent over the impression made by the sharp prow of some craft inthe sand. "Someone came in a boat, got hold of the boys somehow, andcarried them off. But there was a fight all right, and a good one, too,I'll wager."
It did not take a mind-reader to decide this. The sand in severalplaces was scuffed about, raised up in ridges, or scratched intodepressions, while the heel marks, deeply indented in the softmaterial, showed how desperate had been the struggle. But the chums hadbeen overpowered, that was certain, for they had been taken away.
"And in my boat, too, I'll wager!" cried Tom. "The impudent scallawags!To take my boat, and then use it to carry off my friends. They musthave taken some of my gasolene, too. Oh, wait until I get a chance atthem!"
The new discovery was overpowering for a time, and Tom sat down tothink it out. Then he came to a decision.
"I've got to help my chums," he said. "I've got to go to their rescue.There's but one place where they would be taken. The old hermit, orSkeel and the cronies, have them in the old mill--or, hold on--maybethey're captive in the cave where we stayed that night. Those are twoplaces where they might be. What shall I do?"
It was no easy problem for the lone camper to solve, and Tom wasfrankly puzzled.
"I think I'll tackle the old mill first," he decided. "That's the mostlikely place. Though I wonder why in the world the hermit or Skeelwould want to capture Dick, Bert and Jack? Unless the treasure has beenlocated, and they don't want us to find out about it. But they haven'tgot me!"
With Tom, to decide was to act, and so, putting himself up a lunch, heset off in the skiff for the old mill. It was hard rowing alone, forusually two worked at the oars, but our hero stuck to it, and in duetime he reached the river. Then he decided to pay a visit to the cave.
He concealed his boat under some bushes, and, taking the oars with him,he hid them well up on the hill.
"If they get away with the boat, they can't row, anyhow," he reasoned,"and I don't believe they'll find her."
He approached the cave cautiously, for he did not want to fall a victimto those who had captured his chums. But the cavern in the hillside wasempty, and Tom felt a sense of disappointment.
"Now for the mill," he mused, as he set off in the skiff again. He hadalmost reached it, and wa
s debating within himself how best to approachit, when a new thought came to him.
"Suppose they catch me?" he asked himself. "They are four to one, and,though I don't mind Sam or Nick, the hermit and Skeel would be morethan a match for me. If they get me I can't be of any help to the boys."
Tom was no coward, and he would have dared anything to rescue hischums. Yet he realized that this was one of the occasions whendiscretion was the better part of valor.
"I think I can serve 'em best by staying on the outside a while," heargued, as he got to a point where he could catch a glimpse of the oldmill. "I'll look about a bit," he went on, "and see what sort of a planI can think out."
Keeping well in the shadow of the bushes that lined the river bank, hewatched the mill. For half an hour or more there was no sign of life init, and then, so suddenly that it startled Tom, there appeared at oneof the third story windows the form of the old hermit, and he had a gunin his hands.
"There he is!" whispered Tom. "He's on the lookout for me. Lucky Ididn't rush in. And he's on that third floor, though there doesn't seemto be any way of getting up to it. I've got to go for help," and Tom,waiting until old Wallace had disappeared from the casement, slowlyrowed away.
He reached the lonely camp late in the afternoon, for he spent sometime going along the shore of the lake, searching for his motorboat.But he did not find it.
"Now what shall I do?" he asked himself as he sat down to a solitarysupper. "Go for help, or try to make the rescue myself?"