Part 9 (2/2)

”Maybe so,” a.s.sented July, adding with a shrewd shake of the head: ”But you better not push him too hard, Cap'n Ted.”

After the noon meal at the camp Buck Hardy kept his promise and took the two boys on a deer hunt. This was a more easy and comfortable expedition that Ted had expected. It was merely a matter of waiting and watching at a ”stand” until there was a chance to shoot at a deer running by. The ”still hunt” method, with its wearying efforts to sneak watchfully through the woods without making the slightest noise, was not attempted.

Buck prepared only for a ”deer drive.” He first dispatched July with the dogs to the south end of the island, which was about four miles long, instructing him to go quietly with the dogs in leash. At the south end he was to untie them and start them running northward. Meanwhile, after giving the boys sh.e.l.ls containing buck-shot, the ”c.o.c.k of the walk”

leisurely selected a promising ”stand” for each and took one for himself along the backbone of the island at the upper end.

The boys were instructed not to fire too quickly and be careful to take good aim. They at first waited and watched in great excitement, expecting every minute to have their first chance to bag n.o.ble game; then they calmed down and began to wonder if anything was really going to happen; and at last they looked wearily down the aisles of the open pine woods, their enthusiasm fast waning.

In due time the distant baying of the dogs was heard, the sound drew nearer, and after a long while their loud yelping plainly showed that, though unseen by the boys, they were running past the immediate neighborhood. Later July himself was heard coming, his voice lifted in tireless repet.i.tion of a brief, chant-like sing-song of barbaric African origin, which rang pleasingly through the woods. But no frightened leaping deer was seen, and not a shot broke upon the air of the balmy afternoon. Then, finally, came Buck himself, to tell the boys, in great disappointment, that no game had been beaten out of the brush, and that it was all over for the time.

”I reckon they are off feedin' in the swamp shallows to-day,” he said.

By the time the slackers had lit their pipes around the camp fire that night Ted had recovered from his disappointment and he casually remarked that, after all, he was glad they didn't get a deer.

”Did you hear what that boy said?” asked Al Peters, laughingly drawing general attention to Ted.

”Of course, I would have enjoyed it,” the boy explained, ”but we don't need it for food, July says--I asked him--and it's a great pity to waste even an ounce of meat at such a time. The President and Mr. Hoover have asked everybody not to waste a sc.r.a.p of food and not to eat any more than is actually necessary.”

”Well, I'll be dog-on!” exclaimed Bud Jones, and the slackers in general looked their astonishment.

They had grown up to lavish feeding and wasteful methods in the handling of food. They had never heard of anything else, except perhaps in the case of some ”triflin'” white man too lazy to work or some poor negro in rags, and they wondered that such ”meanness” could be recommended by the President of the United States. Some of them were even inclined to doubt Ted's word. There was a suggestion of scorn in Al Peters' tone as he asked:

”What for?--for goodness' sake!”

”Why, to stave off famine, or near-famine,” explained Ted. ”We've got to help feed our allies in Europe as well as ourselves. They are too busy fighting to be able to raise their usual crops and their supplies from other countries are cut very short. I read not long ago that the German submarines had sent three million pounds of bacon and four million pounds of cheese to the bottom of the sea in a single week.”

At this the uneducated young backwoodsmen who had been in hiding since the late spring of 1917 opened their eyes, several of them repeating the figures in astonishment.

”I heard tell of them submarines,” one of them remarked. ”They sneaks up on s.h.i.+ps and shoots 'em from under the water.”

”But why don't our people and our friends over the big water get after them sneakin' things and knock 'em out and stop it?” asked Bud Jones.

”We are doing all we can, and we are really doing a lot,” said Ted. ”Mr.

Edison is working night and day on inventions and our destroyers are hunting submarines all the time, and they and the English destroyers bag a lot of them, too. They drop tremendous explosives where they see bubbles and it tears the submarine to pieces. But the Germans keep on building them very fast.”

With an oath Buck Hardy expressed the earnest wish that ”every one of them devilish water-snakes” might be blown up. Ted a.s.sured him that such a wish was very generally shared, remarking further in his own boyish way that German submarines were hated in America all the more because they virtually made war on the United States long before an actual and formal state of war existed. Then, returning to the subject under discussion, he added:

”You see, there's nothing in history like this thing that has come upon the world. This great war touches everybody and everything, and we've all got to help in some way.”

”Now he's got on the war again!” exclaimed Sweet Jackson, rising to his feet. ”If you men had sense enough to listen to me, you'd shut him up.”

Without waiting for a response the most unpopular member of the camping party spat in his disgust and walked off toward the sleeping loft.

”We've all got to help in some way,” repeated Ted, taking no notice of the interruption,--”either by fighting, giving money, making munitions, supplying brains or skilled labor, raising crops, or by saving food.

It's got to be done, or there's no telling what may happen.”

The boy was again advancing upon dangerous ground and a disturbed atmosphere was at once perceptible. The slackers were beginning to realize that the war was a bigger thing and much more exacting in its demands than they had supposed. But they had chosen their course and they did not wish to be reminded that duty called them. They s.h.i.+fted their positions uneasily, yawned, spoke of other things, remarked that they were sleepy, and one by one rose to their feet. Within a couple of minutes they had followed Sweet Jackson, only Buck Hardy, July and the two boys remaining by the fire.

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