CHAPTER XXII
THE WIGWAG MESSAGE
The other side of the rough shack was partly open, so thatconsiderable light managed to gain admittance. This had enabled thescouts to see a figure lying on some old blankets, together with theskins of several animals.
It was without doubt the wild man who had given some of their troop sucha bad scare when he turned up near the camp soon after their arrival onthe island.
He seemed to be sound asleep, and none of them were at all anxious tomake any sound calculated to arouse him. Indeed, more than one put afinger to his lips to indicate that they were sealed, as he turned andlooked anxiously at his comrades.
Paul made motions to let them know it would be just as well if they quitthe vicinity of that queer shack, where the crazy man, as they now deemedhim, had his home.
A few minutes later, when they had put enough distance between themselvesand the rude shelter to permit conversation, Bobolink could no longerkeep his opinions to himself.
"He was a jim-dandy, all right, and a genuine wild man of the woods!" heremarked. "What are the circus fellows thinkin' of, to let such a finechance slip by to get a real 'What-is-it,' fresh from the jungles ofBorneo, half man, and the rest gorilla?"
"And he had Nuthin's dog, after all," observed Paul, quietly.
"What makes you say that, Paul?" asked Jack.
"Because, in the first place, I saw a lot of bones, picked as clean as awhistle, lying on the ground over in a corner. Then there was a lair thatlooked as if an animal slept in it. And if that wasn't enough, I noticeda piece of broken rope fastened to a stake, close by that corner. Youremember I said the dog was dragging a piece of rope around with him,when he came creeping up near our camp last night? He broke away, allright; and I guess the wild man will be minus his dog after this."
"Well, that's one thing settled," asserted Phil "We know now, for sure,there _is_ a wild man up here; and some of the officers will have to comeand capture him. My father is one of the county freeholders, and he'soverseer of the poor in the bargain; so I suppose it'll be up to him tocarry out the job. They can't afford to have people say there's a crazywild man at large, in our district, you see."
"Did any of you notice that there was a rude sort of table in the shack?"asked Paul, as they kept on moving forward, wondering if a thirddiscovery might be made at any minute.
"Well, now, that's a fact," replied Bobolink. "I did see that, butsomehow didn't think it queer at the time, not enough to mention it,anyhow. But come to think of it, it was kind of out of the way in theshack of a wild man, eh?"
"There was something on the table that would seem stranger, if you'dnoticed it. I saw a battered old coffeepot there!" observed Paul,smiling grimly.
"What?" ejaculated Bobolink. "A wild man liking coffee! Where d'yesuppose he gets the roasted bean? It don't grow on the bushes up here;and he sure don't look as if he had the cash to buy it. Oh! p'raps theyuse him to pass some of this bogus coin they make! Mebbe he goes totowns, and buys their supplies, all the time they're workin' like beaversup here, makin' the stuff."
"I don't just agree with you there, Bobolink," said Paul. "In the firstplace, as Phil will tell you, if such a scarecrow ever came intoStanhope, or any other town in the country, the officers would be sureto arrest him, and examine him to see if he oughtn't to be shut up in theasylum. If he got the old pot and the coffee to go with it from thesemen, then it was in the nature of a bribe not to interfere with theirbusiness, as they wanted to stay here on his Island."
"Great brain, Paul; you seem to hit the right idea every time. Andchances are, that's just what happened," Bobolink remarked.
"That dog didn't come back," observed Tom Betts.
"And therefore he's still loose," added Phil, uneasily. "Hope we don'trun across the beggar again; but if we should, remember Paul, the countryexpects you to do your duty. You must bag him, no matter what noise youhave to make doing it"
"Leave that to me," remarked the scout master. "Now that we know prettywell how the land lies, and whose dog it is, perhaps I won't be sosqueamish about shooting the beast if the chance comes along."
"Here's the foot of the rise," Jack broke in.
"And the trees grow more thin as the ground ascends, you notice," Paulwent on. He called their attention to all such things, because he wasacting as scout master of the troop, and it seemed to him that he shouldnot allow any chance to pass whereby he might enlarge the horizon ofscout lore of the lads under him.
"Then it strikes me that we ought to be a bit careful not to showourselves too plain, as we go up," Jack suggested.
"You're right," added Bobolink. "For all we know, these fellows mayhave a lookout in a tree, as well as we have, and he'd see us if we gotcareless. That means we must dodge along, taking advantage of everysort of shelter that crops up. Great fun, boys, and for one I'm justtickled to death over the chance to prove that we learned our littlelesson O. K."
All were presently stooping at one moment, where the bushes grew sparse;crawling in among some sheltering rocks at another, and even getting downto wriggle along like so many snakes, when not even so much as a bushoffered a means of hiding from observation, in case hostile eyes happenedto be turned upwards toward the hilltop at the foot of the lone cedar.
It was not a great distance to cover, and before long they foundthemselves close to their goal.
Already could they see over the southern side of the island; and afterthey gained the cedar it would probably be easy to also survey thenorthern half, the part which doubtless held more of interest to themthan any other, since they had reason to believe that the mysteriousdwellers on the isle were somewhere there.
"Five more minutes will do it," remarked Paul, when they had gathered ina shallow depression which afforded shelter until they caught theirbreath again for another climb.
Paul was looking hard at something far beyond the lake. Bobolink, ofcourse, being attracted by his scrutiny, also allowed his gaze to wanderin that quarter; but all he saw was what he took to be a buzzard, almostout of sight--a dim speck in the heavens, and about to pass out of sightaltogether where clouds hovered above the southern horizon.
"I c'n see about where our camp is," Phil was saying, "and I think I knowwhich tree the signal corps is stationed in. Anyhow, I seem to glimpsesomething white moving among the green leaves, which, I take it, is aflag being held ready to wave at us."
"I reckon Paul will soon let 'em know we're still on the map," observedBobolink. "But won't they be s'prised when they learn that we saw theterrible wild man in his own den; and ran across the plant where thoserascals make their bogus coin, that looks as bright and good as any UncleSam stamps out?"
Just then the leader gave the signal for another advance, and the sixscouts who followed set about completing the last leg of the climb.
They finally found themselves at the roots of the cedar tree that crownedthe elevation, and which proved of a size far beyond what any of thescouts had imagined.
"Well, here we are at last," said Phil, breathing hard after hisexertions.
"And," added Bobolink, also badly winded, though he would chatter; "nowto see Paul get one of the other fellows on the line, to wig his wag atus, or do something that sounds that way. There he goes at it. And lookythere, they've been watching us climb, I reckon, because almost beforePaul made the first sign, that other fellow began sendin'."
They watched the fluttering red flag with the white centre. Some of themhad taken more or less interest in sending and receiving messages; butthe boy in the tree proved too fast for any of them to follow. Theysuspected that it was Jud Elderkin himself; for outside of Paul and Jack,he was the best hand at that sort of thing.
"My stars! he keeps right along doing it; don't he?" muttered Bobolink.
"Must be some message, too, believe me," added Phil.
"N-n-now, what d'ye s-s-suppose has happened at c-c-camp since weq-q-quit?" remarked Bluff, anxiously waiting for the message to betranslated.
Not once did Paul break in on the sending of the message. He sat there,close to the base of the big cedar which sheltered his back from thenorth side of the island; and seemed to be wholly engrossed intranscribing the various signs of the flag code.
They could not see the boy in the branches of the tree; but from theirelevated position the white and red flag was in plain view. Up and down,and crosswise, it continued to write its message, that was doubtless likeprinted letters to Paul and Jack, while unintelligible to those who hadnever taken lessons in wigwagging.
Finally came the well known sign that the message was done; and that thesender awaited the wishes of the party with whom he was in communication.
Paul turned upon his comrades. They saw that the frown had come backagain to his usually smooth forehead, as though he had learnedsomething to add to the perplexities of the problem they were trying sodiligently to solve.
"It's Jud," he said, simply, "and he's just sent an astonishingmessage. This is the way it ran, boys: 'Presence here known. Man inaeroplane passed over camp. Went down lake half hour ago. Out of sightnow. Answer!'"
No wonder Bobolink fairly held his breath, and the other five scoutslooked at each other, as though they could hardly believe their ears. Fora full minute they sat there and stared; while Bobolink remembered thefar-away black object that, at the time, he had thought to be a buzzard.