Part 20 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIX
BAD NEIGHBORS
”It seems to be getting worse and worse, the further we go, don't it, Thad?” Allan asked, after he had had time to digest the startling information which his chum had imparted, as they stood there within the outer edge of the glow cast by Giraffe's camp-fire under the overhanging ledge of rock.
”Looks that way,” replied the other, seriously enough, for he did not exactly like the situation.
”Seems like it wasn't bad enough for us to be wrecked, and marooned on this queer island, but we have to fall across the trail of some unknown parties who may be up to all sorts of unlawful dodges, for all we know.
But Thad, tell me more of what you saw and heard.”
”When I started out from here,” the scoutmaster began, ”I knew that I'd probably only have to look around at this end of the island, because no sensible man was going to take up his quarters where these storms always strike in. And then I figured it out that the chances were, these parties, if there were more than the one fellow I'd seen sneaking around, and spying on us, would want to be down close to the water, for a good many reasons. You can understand that, Allan?”
”Yes, and I think that notion would have come to me, just as it did you,” replied the other promptly, showing that he was following the narrative closely.
”Well, that being the case,” resumed the scoutmaster, ”I stuck to the lower part of the land, climbing over and around such outcropping rocks as I came across. The moon wasn't helping me very much, though it's up there behind the clouds; and on that account you see the darkness is never so bad as when there's no moon at all.
”It wasn't so very long before I heard something knocking softly near by, and listening carefully I made up my mind that it must be a boat that was kept in a snug cove perhaps, and yet where it got more or less wash of the sea beyond.
”That was just what it turned out to be, Allan, a fair sized motorboat, stoutly built, and yet something of a hummer when it would come to speed. Her outlines told me this as soon as I could make her out down in the berth she occupied between the rocks where they had protected the sides of the little basin with logs to keep her from chafing too much.
”Now, speed indicates that the people owning that boat expect to show a clean pair of heels, as they say, at times. They want to be in condition to skip out in a hurry, and be able to outrun any ordinary craft that might try to overhaul them. Wouldn't you think that way, Allan?”
”You're speaking my mind to a dot, Thad.”
”But I wasn't satisfied wholly, and made another move, to see whether they had any sort of a cabin around. Seemed to me that if they were using Sturgeon Island for some sort of shady business, they ought to have a shelter. Well, I found it before ten minutes had pa.s.sed, and by just creeping along what I made out to be a regular trail leading from the boat up the sh.o.r.e a piece.”
”Good for you, Thad; no woodsman could have done better!” exclaimed the other scout, who, having had practical experience extending through many trips into the wilderness with hunting parties, was pretty well posted on the numerous little ”wrinkles” connected with woods lore.
”Oh! that was the most natural thing in the world for any one to do, and I don't deserve any credit, Allan. But there were times when I admit I did have to almost smell that trail, for it pa.s.sed over little stretches of rock, you see. At such times I had to look around, guess about where it ought to be found where the earth began again, and in that way pick it up once more.”
”And it really led you to a cabin, did it?” Allan asked, as the other paused.
”Yes, and there had been a fire burning in front of the shack, though I found only the ashes, as though it had been-hurriedly put out, perhaps when they first saw us heading toward the island, just before the storm came along.”
”The ashes were still warm, then?” queried Allan, knowing that to be the logical way a forest ranger always learns about how long past a fire has burned out, or been extinguished.
”They were, and I could see that the brands had been torn apart, showing that some one was in a hurry to keep its light from betraying the fact of any person being camped on Sturgeon Island.”
”Just what I'd think myself, Thad.”
”After I saw that there was a cabin,” continued the scout-master, ”I wondered whether I had better take chances, and crawl up close enough to hear what they were saying, if so be there were men there. Before I had gone far in that scheme I realized that it was a little too risky, because I could hear a moving about, as though several men might be pa.s.sing in and out. I also caught an occasional low muttering tone; but the noise of the waves das.h.i.+ng against the rocks, and the rattling of the branches of the trees that overhung the lone cabin, kept me from catching more than a single word now and then.
”After listening for quite a while I thought you would be getting anxious about my staying so long; and as I couldn't get any real satisfaction out of the game by hanging around any longer, why, I made up my mind to clear out. I'd learned several things, anyway, and by putting our heads together thought we might get at the meat in the cocoanut.”
Of course that was a neat way of admitting that he wanted to talk matters over with his best chum, on the supposition that ”two heads are better than one.” Allan took it that way, for had he not on numberless occasions done just about the same thing?
”Of course you couldn't tell how many of these men there were, Thad?” he asked.
”I tried to make a stab at it by noticing the different sound of voices; and I'm dead sure there must have been three anyhow, p'raps more,” the scout-master told him.