CHAPTER XXIII
THE SEARCH
Following the finding of the Chinese button, and Frank's conclusionthat the smugglers had carried Fenn off, the three chums, back in camp,startled by the terror the thought gave them, stood looking at eachother for several seconds. They did not quite know what to make of it.
"Do you really think the smugglers have him?" asked Ned, of Frank.
"Well, it certainly looks so. Fenn is gone, and this button is evidencethat some Chinese have been here."
"But might not Fenn be off in the woods somewhere, and the Chinese havepaid a visit here while he was away?" asked Bart.
"Of course that's possible. But I don't believe Fenn, sick as he was,would remain away so long."
"Couldn't that brass button come from some other garment than one wornby a Chinaman?" inquired Ned.
"It could, but for the fact that it has some Chinese characters stampedon the under side, where the shank is," and Frank showed his chums thequeer marks, probably made by the Celestial manufacturer. "Then, here'sanother bit of evidence," and he pointed to the ground.
Ned and Bart looked. There, in the soft earth, they plainly saw severalfootprints, made by the peculiar, thick-soled sharp-pointed shoes theChinese wear.
"They've been here all right," admitted Bart in a low voice. "What's tobe done about it?"
"I think we ought to see if we can't find Fenn," declared Ned. "We oughtto follow and see where these Chinese footsteps lead. Maybe Fenn is helda prisoner."
"That's what we ought to do," agreed Frank. "However, it is too late todo anything much now. It will soon be night. I think we'd better getsomething to eat, sleep as much as we can, and start off the firstthing in the morning. Maybe we can trail the smugglers by followingthe Chinese footprints, and, in that way, we may find--Fenn."
Frank hesitated a bit over his chum's name, and there was a catch in hisvoice. The other boys, too, were somewhat affected.
"Oh, we'll find him all right," declared Ned, confidently, to cover upthe little feeling he had manifested. "If those smugglers have him,why--we'll take him away from them, that's all."
"That's the way to talk!" exclaimed Frank. "Now let's get some grub.What did we shoot all these ducks for?"
The chums soon had a meal ready, but, it must be confessed, the ducksdid not taste as good as they expected they would. However, that wasmore because of their anxiety over Fenn, than from any defect in thebirds or their cooking.
Morning came at last, after what the three Darewell boys thought was thelongest night they had ever experienced. They only slept in dozes, and,every now and again, one of them would awake and get up, to see if therewere any signs of the missing Fenn.
"Poor Stumpy," murmured Ned, on one occasion, when a crackling in theunderbrush had deluded him into the belief that his chum had returned,but which disturbance was only caused by a prowling fox. "Poor Fenn! Ihope he's in no danger!"
If he could have seen Fenn at that moment he would have had good reasonfor expressing that hope.
"Now for the trail!" exclaimed Bart when, after a hasty breakfast, thethree boys, shouldering their guns, were ready to start. "Which way,Frank? You seem to have run across the track of these smugglers, andit's up to you to follow it. Lead on."
"I guess we'll have no difficulty in following the trail as far as itgoes," remarked Frank. "When a Chinaman goes walking he leave a trackthat can't be duplicated by any other person or animal. Lucky it didn'train in the night, for what tracks there are will still be plain. And wedon't have to worry about a crowd walking over the place where theywere. We're not troubled by many neighbors in these woods."
They started off with Frank in the lead, and he kept a careful watch forthe Chinese footprints. At first they were easy to follow, as the groundwas soft, and the queer cork-soled shoes had been indented deeply in theclay. But, after a time, the marks became so faint that, only here andthere could they be distinguished.
Then it became necessary for Frank to station one of his chums at theplace where the last step was seen, and prospect around, considerably inadvance, until he picked up the next one.
"If we had a hound we wouldn't have all this trouble," he said.
"But, seeing as we haven't, we'll have to be our own dogs," retortedNed. "I guess we can manage it."
They followed the footprints of the one Chinaman for a mile or more, andthen they came to an end with an abruptness that was surprising,particularly as the last one was plainly to be seen in a patch of softmud.
"Well, he evidently went up in a balloon," announced Bart.
"It does look so, unless he had a pair of wings in his pocket,"supplemented Ned.
Frank went on ahead, looking with sharp eyes, for a recurrence of theprints. He went so far into the woods that Bart called to him.
"Do you think he jumped that distance?"
"I don't know," replied Frank. "I'm going to look--"
He stopped so suddenly that his chums were alarmed and ran forward towhere he was. They found him staring at some marks in the earth, and themarks were those they sought--the footprints of the Chinese.
"How in the world did he ever get over that space without touching theground?" inquired Ned. "He must be a wonder, or else have a pair ofthose seven-league-boots I used to read about in a fairy book, when Iwas a kid."
"Look there!" exclaimed Bart, pointing up to a tree branch overhead.
"Horse hair!" exclaimed Ned. "I didn't know a horse could switch histail so high."
"Horses nothing!" retorted Bart. "That's hair from the queue of aChinaman, or I'll eat my hat!"
"But what's it doing up in the tree?" demanded Frank.
"That's how he fooled us," replied Bart. "He thought some one mighttrail him, and when he got to a good place, he took to the trees. Theyare thick enough here so he could swing himself along from limb to limb,and, after he covered twenty-five feet or more, he let himself down. Itwas a good Chinese trick, but we got on to it. His pigtail caught in abranch. I guess it hurt him some."
"Yes, here are his footsteps again, as plain as ever," said Frank,pointing to where the queer marks were to be seen.
"But, say, we've forgotten one thing," said Ned suddenly.
"What?" asked Bart.
"We haven't looked for Fenn's footprints. All along we've been payingattention to only the marks made by the Chink. Now where does Fenn comein? This Chinese fellow couldn't carry him; could he?"
"Not unless the Chink was one of the gigantic Chinese wrestlers I'veread about," admitted Bart. "That's so, Ned. We have forgotten all aboutFenn's footprints."
The three boys looked at each other. In their anxiety at following thetrail of the queer marks they had lost sight of the fact that theywanted a clue to Fenn, as well as to the smugglers.
"I suppose we'd better go back to camp and begin all over," suggestedNed.
"No," decided Frank, after a moment's thought. "Let's try these prints alittle longer. Maybe they'll lead us to some place where we can get onFenn's trail."
The others agreed to this plan, and, once more, they took up the search.They had not gone far before Frank, who was again in the lead, calledout:
"Here we are, fellows! This explains it!"
Ned and Bart hurried forward. They found that Frank had emerged upon awell-defined trail, that led at right angles to the one they had beenfollowing. But, stranger than that was what the trail showed.
There, in plain view, were the footprints of two Chinese and theunmistakable mark of a white man's foot.
"There were two parties of smugglers!" exclaimed Ned.
"Either that, or one member of the single party made a cut through thewoods, came to our camp, and then joined the others right here," saidFrank.
"Still, I don't see anything of Fenn," remarked Bart.
"No? What's that?" demanded Frank quickly, pointing to footprints, quitesome distance back of the others.
"Fenn's! I'll be jiggered!" cried Bart. "I can tell them by the trianglemark, made
with hobnails that he hammered into the heels of his shoes,after we decided to come on this trip. He said that would prevent himslipping around on deck."
"Those are Fenn's footsteps all right--unless some one else has hisshoes," declared Ned. "Come on! We're on the right trail at last." Andthe boys hurried forward, hope once more strong in their hearts.