CHAPTER XI. ALLIGATOR SMITH, THE GUIDE.
"What's the matter, Thad?" asked Allan, some time later, while they werelounging around the jolly camp-fire, and taking things easy.
"Why, I thought I heard the splash of a paddle just then, when it wasall still!" and the scout-master continued to cock his head on one side,in the act of straining his hearing, as though half expecting to catch arepetition of the sound.
Every scout remained mute, and an anxious look seemed to creep over nota few boyish faces; for they had been told such strange stories aboutthe "hideout" people of Alligator Swamp that all sorts of fancies hadtaken possession of their young minds.
"You're right, I do believe, Thad," muttered Giraffe, who had splendidhearing, as well as wonderful eyesight.
"Then you caught the splash that time, too?" questioned thescout-master.
"Sure pop, and it wasn't the flap of a 'gator dropping in from a bank,or the sportive play of a muskrat, either. Nothing but a paddle wouldmake that noise; and as sure as you live I can see the canoe acomingthis way right now!"
This announcement created no end of excitement. Every fellow thought itwas up to him to get in readiness to resist boarders, and when he couldnot have a gun because there were not enough to go around, at least aclub, the camp hatchet, or in an emergency the long bread-knife seemedto offer some degree of comfort.
"I see him too!" remarked Step Hen; and others echoed the words; indeedit would have to be a very dull fellow who could fail to distinguish themoving object that was approaching so boldly.
"He ain't afraid, anyway!" ventured Davy Jones.
"No more he ain't," added Giraffe; "which would seem to give the ideathat he didn't mean us any harm; or else felt that one man was equal toa whole patrol of Boy Scouts, which don't seem possible."
"Well, he's got another guess coming if that's so," muttered Bumpus,who, with his gun in hand was not showing much alarm; for since he hadseven chums to back him up, the fat scout could not see why he shouldtremble, save with excitement.
"There is only one man in the boat," remarked Thad, a little anxiously;"and as he's coming about over the course we did, I wonder now if itcould be any messenger sent after us by that telegraph agent at thetown?"
"Oh!" gasped Smithy.
Instantly every fellow felt a queer sensation pass over him. The wordsuttered by Thad had conjured up all sorts of grave possibilities asconnected with their various happy homes away up North; and doubtlessthey suffered tortures from that moment on.
Straight for the camp came the solitary paddler. He was seated in aroomy boat built after the prevailing type used around the neighborhoodof the swamp, and from the dexterity with which he handled the paddle itwas plain that he must be quite at home on the water.
"Hello! boys, I'm comin' ashore tuh jine yuh!" he called out; perhapsbeing a little dubious as to what sort of reception they werecalculating on giving him; for the display of guns and hatchets andknives must have looked ominous indeed.
"All right, come along then!" Thad sang out in reply.
Two minutes later and the stranger's boat was drawn up on the slopingbank, and he strode toward the fire. Then the eager boys saw that he hada genial if wrinkled, sun-burned face, and a scraggy gray beard.
"I'm Alligator Smith," he announced, just as though that name might beknown in all that section well enough to explain everything; and it was,too, for the reader may remember that it was this very man whom Thad hadonce wished he could come upon to try and engage him as a guide.
Here was luck with a capital L. Thad immediately offered the other hishand.
"Glad to meet up with you, Mr. Smith," he said; "here's a namesake ofyours with us, though we call him plain Smithy; and this next Boy Scoutis Allan Hollister; the stout chap Bumpus Hawtree," and so he went on,introducing each chum, while the angular native proceeded to shake handswith them in rotation.
"We wanted to run across you, the worst kind, sir, and so we call this ahappy meeting," Smithy remarked.
"What's thet yuh say?" asked the other, apparently puzzled.
"Why, we had need of a good guide for poking around in this swamp, andeverybody seemed to fight shy of the job; but they all said that if wecould only come on Alligator Smith, and he'd engage with us, we'd be alllovely," Giraffe observed.
"Oh! that's it, hey?" the alligator hunter went on to say, smilingbroadly; "why if so be yuh wants me still, I ain't no 'jections tuhmakin' arrangements lookin' thataways, 'cause the 'gator hide biznessain't what it used tuh be; an' money's tight nowadays. But what underthe sun be yuh awantin' tuh hunt around in this ole swamp fo', boys?They ain't near so much game in hyah as yuh cud find in the canebrake,or up on the high ground. Ducks don't come in much, an' yuh seldom stirup a deer or a bar nowadays."
Plainly Alligator Smith had already had his curiosity aroused. And soThad believed that it would be as well to tell him everything right inthe start, since he must know the facts so that he could serve them tothe best of his ability.
"We didn't come down here just to hunt," he started in to say, "thoughwe thought it best to fetch a few guns along for an emergency. To tellthe main thing right in the start, we're looking for a man."
"Yes, I reckons as how I ketch on tuh that same," observed the hunter,as he crossed his legs close to the fire, and made himself quite athome, with the scouts hovering around him.
"And a small girl!" continued Thad, watching the face of the otherclosely, so as to judge whether any flash of intelligence would passover it that would serve as good news to the anxious lad.
"Oh! a gal too, yuh say? An' d'ye reckons as how they be somewhar nearAlligator Swamp?" asked the man, quickly.
"A gentleman wrote my uncle that he had seen this man and girl go intothis swamp," Thad continued. "It may have been ten days ago. They seemedto have a lot of provisions in the boat, as though they were laying in amonth's supply. He had a gun, and looked ready to hold his own againstany runaway black convict he might happen to meet. Do you know of anyman and girl like that, Mr. Smith?"
It seemed as though every boy ceased to breathe while waiting for theanswer to come to this important question which Thad had asked. Theswamp hunter nodded his tousled head slowly up and down. He appeared tobe thinking intensely.
"Why, yas, 'twar about thet time I seen 'em," he finally remarked. "I'member as how I'd jest got outen terbaccy, and nawthin'd do but I mustmake fo' the village store tuh lay in a new s'ply. Yas, an' I jestglimpsed thet boat as I kim outen a side bayou. Reckoned as how't mustbe a stranger, 'case I never seen the man afore as I knowed on. I waveda hand at him, but he never made out tuh notice. So I jest reckoned ashow they must be some new settlers as'd took up a cabin I knowed 'boutjest beyond the start o' the swamp. Never guv it another think, 'case Ihappened tuh hev troubles o' my own aplenty jest then, with my jawsrusty from not havin' any terbaccy fo' nigh on two days. So them be thepussons yuh want tuh find?"
"I think there's no doubt about it, Mr. Smith," replied Thad, his eyesshining brightly with renewed hope; "but do you really think they couldbe so near the edge of the swamp? We came on an old tumbled-down shack,with a mud and board chimney, and a door hanging by one hinge; but therewasn't a sign of life around it."
"Then I war mistaken when I reckoned thet way, son," admitted thehunter; "'case that's the on'y cabin around in the swamp wuth mentionin'anyway. They must agone deeper in. P'raps the man air like some othersas I knows 'bout, an' don't want tuh meet up with a livin' soul, so he'sburied hisself in thar sumwhar."
"If he's the man we think, his name is Felix Jasper!" Thad went on tosay.
"Hey, Jasper, d'ye say? Well, now, thet's makin' me go away back sum.Yuh see, thar used tuh be a fambly by thet name alivin' 'round hyahyeahs an' yeahs ago; but the ole man he died and the rest cleared out."
"Then this might be one of the sons, mightn't it?" the boy asked.
"Tuh be sure it mout, and which wud account fo' his knowin' so much'bout
this hyah swamp; 'case yuh see, it'd be all a man's life was wuthtuh come in and git lost among all these bewilderin' waterways. More'n afew never kim out in yeahs gone by; an' them as hide hyah now knowsevery crook and bayou like yuh do the fingers of yuh hands."
"Then you would be willing to stay by us, and see us through, if we paidyou the right sort of price?" Thad asked, determined to clinch thebargain at once.
"Glad tuh do thet same, son," replied Alligator Smith.
"How would three dollars a day and find suit you?" the scout-master wenton.
"Fine," answered the other, readily.
"All right then," Thad continued, "let's call it five dollars a day. AndI hope there's nothing in the way to prevent you sticking with us fromnow on?"
"Well, thet's what I calls handsome, an' yuh kin depend on Tom Smithastickin' tuh yuh like a plaster. We'll sure find the man, an' theh gal,too, if so be we hev tuh run through theh ole swamp like a fine toothcomb. An' I hopes as how they turn out tuh be the same as yuh want."
"You can understand how much I'm hoping that way, when I tell you thatwe think the girl may be my little sister, who was stolen when she was ababy," Thad went on to say; and upon the other evincing great interestin the matter, he thought it best to relate the whole story concerningthe dismissal of the estate manager on account of his evil practices,and his subsequent hatred for the Brewsters, which gradually led up tothe mysterious disappearance of little Pauline ten years ago, and theinability of the best detectives in the country to find her.
Tom Smith was evidently a rough fellow, but he had a heart, and the wayin which he pressed the hand of the young scout-master, after the wholestory had been told, indicated very plainly that he sympathized greatlywith him in his mission, and would do everything in his power to bringabout a meeting with the strange man who had entered the swamp ten daysbefore, with that pretty child.
And Thad looked fully a hundred per cent brighter, now that the chancesfor accomplishing the end he had in view when he came South, seemed tohave gained a new impetus. With such a man as Alligator Smith to leadthem, knowing every part of the mysterious depths of the swamp as hedid, from long years of hunting in its depths, it really looked asthough they were now on the road to success; and that before long thetruth would be made known. So that everybody, even Bumpus, seemed to bein a more jolly mood than had happened in some time.