CHAPTER XXI. AN EMPTY LARDER.
"I'm only afraid it'll be too late, Giraffe," Bumpus was heard to remark,with a skeptical air.
"Too late for what?" demanded the tall scout, who had dropped to hisknees, and was starting to follow the trail left by Wandering George,after the latter had gained his feet, and moved away from the vicinity ofthe camp.
"Why, there won't be a sign of our grub left by that time, you see;George; he'll be awful hungry, and it's surprising what a lot of stuff aregular hobo can put away when he tries."
"And hoboes ain't the only ones, Bumpus," intimated Davy; "I'd match youand Giraffe here against the best of 'em. But let's hope we'll find a wayto get off this island before night comes, and strike a farmhouse wherethey'll feed us like the Baileys did."
"Oh! do you really think there's a chance of that happening to us, Davy?"exclaimed Bumpus, intentionally omitting to show any ill feeling onaccount of the little slur concerning his appetite. "I'd be willing toeven go without my lunch in the middle of the day if I could believe we'dbe sitting with our knees under a groaning table to-night. Seems likewhen you're beginning to face starvation every good thing you ever likedkeeps popping up in your head."
Giraffe at this juncture called out, and his manner indicated that he hadmade a discovery of some sort.
"What is it, Giraffe?" asked Thad.
"I just bet you he's found where George sat down and ate up every crumbof that grub," muttered Bumpus, whose mind seemed to be wholly concernedwith the question of the lost supplies.
"George was joined here by his pal, who must have been hanging out,waiting for him," Giraffe told them; and as he examined the tracksfurther he added; "and say, I reckon now that second fellow got hurt someway, while he was cooped up in the black hole under the cabin floor."
"Now how do you make that out, Giraffe?" asked Davy.
"Why, I can see that he limps like everything," the other went on to say,doubtless applying his knowledge of woodcraft to the case. "One footdrags every step he takes, and it didn't do that before, I happen toknow. That's why George volunteered to do the cribbing all by himself,while the other waited."
"That makes two to handle instead of one, doesn't it?" Allan remarked;and once more Bumpus groaned.
"Two is a whole lot worse than one, to get away with things," heobserved, with a piteous air of resignation, as though he was nowperfectly satisfied they would none of them ever see the first sign ofthe stolen provisions again.
"If there's a trail why can't we start in, and track the two hoboesdown?" suggested Davy vigorously.
They had followed Giraffe, so that all of them were just back of him atthis time. The tall scout, however, shook his head in a disappointingway.
"I'd like to try that the worst kind," he remarked, "but I reckon it's nogo. You can hardly see the footprints here, and they get fainter as theygo on. Besides, we'd make all manner of noise creeping through thisscrub, and they'd be wise to our coming, so they could keep moving off.There's a better way to capture George than that, fellows."
"Yes," added Thad, "we can comb the island from one end to the other. Itcan't be of any great size, you see; and by forming a line across at thetop we could cover about every foot of it. In the end we'd corner thetramps, and make them surrender. We've got the whole day before us, andthe sun promises to shine, too, so we can count on its being warmer."
"The whole day," Bumpus remarked disconsolately, "that means twelve longhours, don't it? Well, I suppose I can stand the thing if the rest of youcan; but it's really the most dreadful calamity that ever faced us. Theysay starving is an easy death, but it wouldn't be to me."
No one was paying any attention to his complainings, so Bumpus stoppedshort in order to listen to what the others were saying. Possibly he toldhimself that the best way to forget his troubles was to get interested inwhat was going on. And it might be there still remained a shred of hopein his heart that if they made a quick job of the surround, and capture,perhaps they might retake enough of the purloined food to constitute abare meal at noon.
"First of all we've got to have our breakfast, such as it is," Thadobserved.
"Tea and grits--oh! my stars!" sighed Giraffe; whereupon Bob White turnedupon him with the cutting remark:
"You ought to be thankful for the grits, suh, believe me; it satisfiesme, let me tell you. I wouldn't give a snap fo' all the tea in China orJapan; but grits make bone and muscle. You can do a day's work on abreakfast of the same. Only it takes a long time to cook properly, suh;and the sooner we get the pot started the better."
"You attend to that, Bumpus, please," said Giraffe, "and be sure you getenough to satisfy the crowd, even if you have to use two kettles, and thewhole package of hominy. I want to talk things over with Thad here."
Bumpus hesitated for a minute. He hardly knew which he wanted to do most,stay there and listen, or return to the fire and begin operations lookingto the cooking of that forlorn breakfast.
Finally, as he received a message from the inner man that it was timesome attention was paid to the fact that nature abhorred a vacuum heturned away and trotted toward the camp fire.
Giraffe, together with Thad and Allan, tried to follow the trail of thetwo tramps further, but soon gave it up. After all, the several reasonswhy they should turn to the other way of rounding up the concealed menappealed strongly to them.
Later on they returned to the camp, to sit around and wait for theirbreakfast to cook. Nobody looked very cheerful that morning. Somehow thefact that they were isolated there on that island with only one mealbetween them and dire hunger, loomed up like a great mountain beforetheir mental vision.
In the end they found that grits did satisfy their hunger remarkablywell; and taking Giraffe's advice Bumpus had actually cooked the entireamount on hand, so there was plenty to go around three times.
The tea was another matter, for they had neither sugar nor milk to gowith it, and although each fellow managed to drink one cup, some of themmade wry faces while disposing of the brewing.
"Kind of warms you up inside," commented Davy, "and that's the onlyreason I try to get it down; but, oh! you coffee!"
"Here, none of that, Davy," said Thad; "scouts have to make the best of abad bargain, and never complain. We'd be feeling lots worse if it wasn'tfor this breakfast."
"Well, suh, I'm quite satisfied, and feel as if I'd had the pick of theland," Bob White remarked stoutly.
"Yes, but you like the stuff, and I never would eat it at home,"complained Step Hen.
"Time you began to know what good things are, then, suh," the Southernboy told him plainly.
Even Bumpus admitted that he felt very good after they had emptied bothkettles of the simple fare. For the time being he was able to put thedismal future out of his mind, and actually smile again.
Thad had not told them as yet what plan he was arranging with regard tohunting down the tramps who were on the island with them, and of coursemost of the scouts were eager to know.
Accordingly, after the meal was finished, they began to crowd around andgive the scout master hints that they were waiting for him to arrange thedetails of that "combing" business he had spoken of.
"It's going to be a simple matter," Thad remarked. "We'll go to the placewhere the shantyboat went aground, and make our start from there,gradually stretching out until we cover the island from shore to shore,and in that way pushing our quarry further along toward the lower end."
"And," pursued Giraffe, following the plan in his mind, "as the hoboeswill of course object to taking to the water, we'll corral the pair inthe end."
"Do you reckon they've got any sort of gun along, Thad?" asked Step Hen;though it was not timidity that caused him to ask the question, for as arule he could be depended on to hold his own when it came to showingfight.
"We don't know, of course, about that," he was told; "though it's oftenthe case that these tramps carry such a thing, especially the dangerou
sstripe like this Wandering George seems to be."
"He didn't pull any gun on the farmer, when Mr. Bailey caught him robbinghis desk, you remember, Thad?" Davy mentioned.
"No, but he upset the lamp, and then skipped out, leaving the inmates ofthe farmhouse to fight the fire, which was a cowardly thing to do,"Bumpus observed.
"I hadn't forgotten about the chances of them being armed when I spoke offorming a line across the island, and searching every foot of the same,"Thad explained; "and the way we'll be safe in doing that I'll explain.Now, we ought to leave two fellows to look after the camp, with a gunbetween them. The rest can be divided up into three squads, each couplehaving one of the other guns. We'll manage to keep in touch with eachother, as we work along, zigzag-like, and a signal will tell that thegame has been started. Do you understand that?"
"Plain enough, Thad," Giraffe told him, as he picked up his gun, and inthis way signified that he was ready for the start.
"Huh! but who's going to be left behind?" Bumpus wanted to know; hiswhole demeanor betraying the fact in advance that he could give a prettygood guess as to who _one_ of the unfortunates might prove to be.
"I think it would be wiser for me to appoint you and Smithy to that postof honor," he was immediately informed by Thad; "and you want tounderstand it is just as important that you do your duty well here, asthat we carry out our part of the game. A scout never asks why he's toldto do a certain thing, when perhaps he'd like to be in another position.Whether he serves as the hub, the tire, or one of the spokes, he feelsthat he's an important part of the whole wheel, and without him nothingcan be done. There's just as much honor in guarding the camp as increeping through the tangle of vines and scrub bushes. And, Bumpus, I'mthe one to judge who's best fitted for that sort of work."
"Thad, I'm not saying a single word," expostulated the stout scout; "factis, if you come right down to brass tacks, I'm satisfied to stay here,rather than scratch my way along, and p'raps break my nose tumbling. AndI'm sure Smithy is built the same way. I hope you'll let me hold the gunyou leave with us, which ought to be my own repeating Marlin, becauseit's already proved its worth. And, Thad, you remember I shot it withsome success the time we were out there in the Rockies after big game."
"That's only a fair bargain, Bumpus," he was told by the scout master;"and you can consider it a bargain. We'll look to hear a good report fromyou when we come back to camp again."
"And with our prisoners in charge, too," added the confident Giraffe.
Bumpus saw them depart with a gloomy look, as though he felt that allchances of winning new laurels had been snatched away when he was orderedto keep camp.