CHAPTER XVII
“WE WANT YOU.”
A stubbly red-head protruded itself through the opening. The crucial moment had come.
“Take that!” cried Rob bringing down the bulk of timber with a resounding crack on the fellow’s pate. He grunted, clutched at the sill of the opening for an instant, and then went toppling down the stairway in a heap.
A roar of fury and a rush of feet from below followed. But Rob did not wait for the sequel.
“Hope I haven’t seriously injured the chap,” he thought, as he sprinted for the window, “I hit a bit harder than I meant to.”
But the next instant, when red-head’s voice was added to the uproar below, Rob knew that he had, at least, not impaired the miscreant’s talent for profanity.
All need of concealment was gone now. Rob’s heart leaped to the adventure. Jumbo was half way through the window as the lad reached it. Rob hastened him with a shove and a quick word. The black held for an instant, clutching the sill, and then he dropped. The next moment Rob had followed him. He fell in a sprawling heap on top of the black. Both were up in a jiffy.
“Which way?” gasped out Jumbo.
“Any way – this!” cried Rob, dashing across a moonlit strip toward a dark belt of woods.
A fusillade of shots rang out behind them. Rob heard the bullets screech as they spun by.
“Law’sy, Marse Rob, dem bullets talk ter me mighty plain,” gasped Jumbo as they gained the comparative security of the dark hemlocks.
“What did they say?” asked Rob, breathlessly.
“Dey say Jum-bo, we’se ah lookin’ fo’ you, chile!”
Whatever Rob’s reply might have been it was forestalled the next instant by an entirely unsuspected and startling happening. From the woods
ahead
of them, came a sudden trampling of feet.
“Quick, Jumbo. Down in here!” exclaimed the Boy Scout, dragging the quaking negro down into a clump of bushes. They were just in time. The next moment half-a-dozen dark figures rushed by them through the woods, going in the direction of the hut they had just vacated so summarily.
“What on earth does this mean?” gasped Rob, half aloud in his utter astonishment. Parting the bushes a bit, he could perceive the dark outlines of the hut and the newcomers deploying across the moonlit strip in front of it.
A loud crash echoed through the sleeping woods as the door of the hut was suddenly slammed shut.
Almost simultaneously, the walls of the hut and the space in front of it seemed to spit vicious flashes of fire.
“Gee whiz!” cried Rob, excitedly, “they’re attacking the hut, Jumbo! What under the sun does this mean?”
“Dunno,” said the negro, “but mah hopes is dat dey jes’ nachully exterminaccouminicate each other like dem Killarney cats.”
“Kilkenny cats, you mean, don’t you?”
“It’s all de same,” retorted Jumbo, “but say, Marse Rob, we’d bettah be clearing out ob here.”
“No, let’s stay awhile. We’re in no danger here. In fact I’ve an idea that this may all turn out to be a good thing for us.”
The attacking party now dropped back a bit.
“They’re well armed and desperate,” Rob heard one of them say, “better breathe a bit, boys, and then we’ll go for ’em again.”
“Let’s get a log and smash the door down,” said a voice.
“Good idea, O’Malley,” was the response, “here’s an old hemlock trunk. It’s just the thing. Lay hold, boys, and we’ll smoke out that nest of rats in a jiffy.”
Willing hands laid hold of the big stick of timber, and the next instant they were staggering with it toward the hut. There was a low word of command and a sudden dash. The log was poised for an instant and then:
Smash! crash!
The massive door stood for a moment and then toppled inward, falling with a splintering crash. But a dead silence followed the fall of the door. No more pretence of defense was made by the inmates of the hut. Could they be going to give up so tamely?
Then a sudden voice floated through the night. The voice of one of the attacking party.
“Say! There’s nobody here, boys!”
“Confound them! Have they escaped us again?” came another voice.
“Look’s like it. Scatter and find them – back for your lives, all of you!”
The warning cry was followed almost instantly by a deafening explosion. A vivid flash of blue flame occurred simultaneously.
“Gollyation!” gasped Jumbo, “de end ob de worl’ am comin’.”
The whole hut seemed to burst into flame at once. Lurid, vivid fire seemed to gush from every window and opening in the place. In color it was an intense blue.
“Shades ob Massa George Wash basin!” yelled Jumbo, “all de debils in dat pit we see back dar is on de job! Come on, Marse Rob. Let’s git out ob here in double quick jig time.”
“Nonsense,” said Rob sharply, “I see it all, now, Jumbo. That place was a moonshine joint – an illegal distillery. Those men who just attacked it are revenue officers. The explosion was caused by hundreds of gallons of spirits. I guess the moonshiners set it on fire to destroy the evidence.”
Each instant the blaze rose higher. The hut, within its four walls, was a mass of flames. It glowed like a red hot furnace. Rob watched it with fascinated eyes. The whole clearing was bright as day. The dark woods beyond were bathed in a blood-red glare from the flames.
The intense heat fairly blistered the trunks of the nearest hemlocks. Resin ran from them freely.
“Let’s get further back, Jumbo, it’s too hot here,” said Rob presently.
“Golly goodness! It am dat,” declared Jumbo in awed tones, “dat fire dere puts me in mo’ fear ob dat bottomless pit dan all de preachifying I ever listened to.”
But their retreat into the woods was checked in a strange manner. Rob, who was in advance, recoiled suddenly. A whole section of the woodland floor seemed to uprear itself before his eyes, and a wild figure, with a tangled black beard and shifty, wicked eyes, emerged. Rob realized in a flash that it was a trapdoor cleverly concealed by brush and earth that had just opened. Simultaneously he recognized the figure that was crawling from it as that of Black Bart himself.
The man was too much perturbed to notice their nearness to him. But suddenly his eyes fell on them. With a furious oath he dashed at Rob.
“You young fiend! You’re responsible for this!” he yelled in a frenzy.
A knife glittered in his hand, but before he could use it Jumbo’s black fist collided with his jaw. Black Bart fell sprawling back upon the trap door which he had just opened.
“Reckon Jack Johnson himself couldn’t hev done no bettah!” grinned the negro.
“Oh, no you don’t, sah!” he exclaimed the next instant as Black Bart struggled to rise; “ah reckon you can repose yo’self right dar fo’ a peahriod ob time.”
So saying he pinioned the ruffian’s arms to his sides and held him thus.
As he did so, violent knockings began to resound from under the trap-door. Evidently somebody was imprisoned there.
“Hey! Let us out! Let us out!” came sharp cries from below, albeit they were considerably muffled by the trap-door.
“Yo’ all come an’ sit on hyah too, Marse Rob,” urged Jumbo. “Ah reckon den dey kain’t git dat door open till we am willing dat dey should conmerge inter terrier firmer.”
Rob guessed at once what had happened. The moonshiners, following the attack of the revenue officers, had realized that continued resistance would be useless. They had, therefore, made their escape by the secret passage, led into by the swinging hearthstone. Its outlet evidently being by the trap door on which they were then stationed. But first, with wicked craft, they had ignited their whole stock of spirituous liquors, hoping in the consequent explosion, that the revenue men would perish. This much seemed clear. Indeed, it was confirmed afterward, and – but we are anticipating.
The Boy Scout had just reached these conclusions when a sudden stir in the brush behind him made him look up. Two men stood there, the light of the conflagration showing every detail of their figures and countenances plainly. They were regarding the group on the top of the trap-door with peculiar interest.
Rob started up toward them but was abruptly checked as two rifles were jerked to two shoulders, and aimed straight at him.
“Don’t move a step!” warned one of the men, “I guess we want you.”
CHAPTER XVIII
JUMBO EARNS $500.00 – AND LOSES IT
“Guess you do want us, but not exactly in the same sense as you mean,” retorted Rob with a chuckle.
“What do you mean, boy?” asked one of the men sharply, as several others of the revenue officers – as Rob had guessed them to be – came up.
“I mean that we’ve got the whole gang you were after bottled up in a tunnel under this trap door,” rejoined Rob breezily.
“Yas sah, Misto Arm-ob-de-Law,” grinned Jumbo, “ah reckin no coon up a tree was eber moh completely obfusticated dan dose same chill’uns.”
“What does all this mean?” asked another of the group, a gray-moustached man of stern appearance, “this boy is either one of the gang or he has been reading dime novels.”
“Nebber read a bit ob dat classification ob literachoor in mah life,” snorted Jumbo indignantly, “ef yo’ alls don’ want dese men we got obfusticated under hay’ah, why we jes’ gits off dis yar trap door an’ lits dem skeedaddle.”
“Who’s that you’re sitting on, nigger?” demanded the gray moustached man, who seemed to be in authority.
“Why, dis am a genelman what answers to de ufoinious name ob Black Bart,” grinned Jumbo amiably, “an’ ah’s not a nigger, ah’s a ’spectable – ”
“Do be quiet, Jumbo,” exclaimed Rob, as the inevitable protest came into evidence. “The case is just this, gentlemen,” he continued. “I am a Boy Scout. This man is attached to our camp. We wandered away and got lost.”
Rob did not tell all that happened, for he foresaw that such a procedure might lead to questions which would bring out the fact of their treasure hunt.
“I see that you wear a Scout uniform now,” said the gray-moustached man.
“Yes, and Boy Scouts don’t lie,” put in another man, “my sons are both in the organization.”
“What troop?” asked Rob.
“The Curlews of Patchogue.”
“Why, we’ve met them in water games at Patchogue,” exclaimed Rob, “my name is Rob Blake.”
“And mine’s Sam Taylor,” said the man, advancing, “glad to meet you, Rob Blake, I’ve heard of you. This lad is all right,” he said, turning to the leader. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“All right,” rejoined the gray-moustached revenue officer, “but we can’t be too careful. Well, Rob Blake, what’s your story? Go ahead.”
“As I said, we lost our way,” went on Rob. “We stumbled on that hut. We were tired and faint, and for pay this man, on whom Jumbo is sitting, took us in. I awoke in time to overhear a plot to rob us. We escaped and while hiding in the brush – not just knowing who you were, friend or foe, we saw that trap-door open and nailed that man – Black Bart. At least Jumbo did.”
“Then it looks as if Jumbo gets five hundred dollars reward for the capture of Black Bart, and more may be in store. You say that the rest are in that passage?”
“Yes.”
“Some of you fellows tie Black Bart,” ordered the leader.
When this was done, the sullen prisoner not uttering a word, the order to open the trap-door was issued.
“No monkey tricks, you fellows,” warned the revenue officer, as it swung back, “we’ll take stern measures with you.”
One by one the occupants of the hut crawled out and were promptly made prisoners. They were almost exhausted, and could not have put up a fight had they been so inclined.
“Glad to get out,” said the blonde-bearded man as he submitted to being handcuffed, “it was hot enough in thar to roast potatoes.”
“So you got scorched by the same fire you intended should destroy us,” said the chief revenue officer dryly.
“Young man,” he went on, turning to Rob, “I shall bring this bit of work to the attention of the government. In the meantime, I may tell you, that besides the five hundred dollars offered for Black Bart’s capture, there was a reward of two thousand dollars for the apprehension of the gang as a whole. I shall see that you and your companion get it.”
“But – but – ” stammered Rob, “you had all the trouble and risk – ”
“Hush, Marse Rob! don’ be talkin’ dat way. Dey may take dat reward away ag’in,” whispered Jumbo, whose eyes had been rolling gleefully. He could hardly credit his good fortune.
“We’re paid for our work,” said the revenue man briefly, “I’m not saying that we always get much credit for the risks we take. Half the time they don’t even mention our raids in the papers. But we do our duty to Uncle Sam and that’s enough.”
Soon after, a search having been made of the ruins of the hut, the revenue men set out with their prisoners for the lake, where they had a boat and two small bateaus. Rob and Jumbo accompanied them. Jumbo walked like one in a trance. He saw money fairly hanging to the trees.
“What will you do with all that money, Jumbo?” asked Rob amusedly as they strode along. Under the skilled leadership of the revenue men the path to the lake was a simple matter to find.
“Ah reckon’s ah’ll buy a ’mobile, Marse Rob, an’ a pair ob patent lebber shoes – dem shiny kind, an’ some yaller globes (gloves) an’ – an’ what’s lef’ ober ah’ll jes’ spend foolishly.”
“If I were you I’d put some of it in a savings bank,” advised Rob, smiling at the black’s enumeration of his wants. “You get interest there, too, you know.”
“Wha’ good dem safety banks, Marse Rob? Dey calls dem safety but dey’s plum dangerous. Fus’ ting yo’ know dey bus’ up. Ah had a cousin down south. Some colored men dey start a bank down dere. Mah cousin he puts in five dollars reposit. ’Bout a munf afterward he done go to draw it out and what you think dat no-good black-trash what run de bank tole him?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure, Jumbo,” answered Rob.
“Why, dey said de interest jes’ nacherally done eat dat fibe dollars up!”
As Rob was still laughing over Jumbo’s tragic tale there came a sudden shout from ahead.
Then a pistol shot split the darkness. It was followed by another and another. They proceeded from the knot of revenue men who, with their prisoners, were a short distance in advance.
“Gollyumptions! Wha’s de mattah now?” exclaimed Jumbo, sprinting forward.
A dark form flashed by him and vanished, knocking Jumbo flat. Behind the fleeing form came running the revenue men.
“It’s Black Bart! He’s escaped!” cried one.
Rob joined the chase. But although they could hear crashing of branches ahead, the pursuit had to be given over after a while. In the woods he knew so well the revenues were no match for the wily Black Bart. With downcast faces they returned to where the other prisoners, guarded by two of the officers, had been left.
“I’d rather have lost the whole boiling than let Black Bart slip through my fingers,” bemoaned the leader, “wonder how he did it?”
“Here’s how,” struck in one of the officers, holding up a strand of rope, “he slipped through the knots.”
“Serves me right for taking chances with such an old fox,” muttered the leader, self-reproachfully.
“Anyhow we got the rest of them,” said the man who had recognized Rob, “better luck next time.”
“Dere ain’t agoin’ ter be no next time,” muttered Jumbo disconsolately, “dat five hundred dollars and dat gas wagon I was a-gwine ter buy hab taken de wings ob de mawning!”
The lake was reached shortly before dawn. True to their promise, the revenue men put Rob and Jumbo ashore at the Boy Scouts’ camp. The amazement and delight their arrival caused can be better imagined than set down here. Anyhow, for a long time nothing but confused fusillades of questions and scattered answers could be heard. Much hand-shaking, back-slapping and shouting also ensued. It was a joyous reunion. Only one thing marred it. The canoes were still missing, and without them they could not proceed.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FOREST MONARCH
“Say, what’s that up yonder – there, away toward the head of the lake?”
Tubby, standing on a rock by the rim of the lake where he had just been performing his morning’s ablutions, pointed excitedly.
“I can’t see a thing but the wraiths of mist,” rejoined Merritt, who was beside him. The lads were stripped to the waist. Their skin looked pink and healthy in the early morning light.
“Well, you ought to consult an oculist,” scornfully rejoined Tubby, “you’ve got fine eyes for a Boy Scout – not.”
“Do you mean to tell me you saw something, actually?”
“Of course. You ought to know me better than to think I was fooling.”
“What were they then – mud hens?”
“Say, you’re a mud rooster. No, what I saw looked to me uncommonly like our missing canoes.”
“You don’t say so,” half mockingly.
“But I do say so, – and most emphatically, too, as Professor Jorum says,” rejoined the stout youth, “there they’ve gone now. That morning mist’s swallowed ’em up just like I mean to swallow breakfast directly.”
“But what would the canoes be doing drifting about?” objected Merritt. “From Rob’s story yesterday, Hunt and his gang had them in that cove. Do you suppose they’d have let them get away?”
“Maybe not, willingly,” rejoined Tubby sagely, who, as our readers may have observed, was a shrewd thinker, “but it blew pretty hard last night. The canoes may have broken loose from their moorings.”
“Jimminy! That’s so,” exclaimed Merritt, “I’ll go and tell – ”
“No, you won’t do anything of the kind,” said Tubby, half in and half out of his Boy Scout shirt.
“Why not?”
“Because if they did turn out to be mud hens we’d never hear the last of it.”
“H’um that’s so. What do you advise, then?”
“We’ll wait till after breakfast. Then we’ll say we’re going to take a tramp and sneak off toward the head of the lake. If they are the canoes they’ll still be there.”
“And if not – ”
“We’ll have had a tramp.”
“Say,” exclaimed Merritt as a sudden idea struck him, “how do you propose to get them, even if they do turn out to be the canoes. Stand on the bank and call ‘come, ducky! ducky!’”
Tubby looked at his corporal with unmixed scorn.
“We can swim, can’t we?”
“I see you have every objection covered, like a good Scout, Tubby. Well, we’ll try after breakfast. If they’re not the canoes there’s no harm done, anyhow.”
“Except to our shoe leather,” responded Tubby finishing dressing.
The morning meal over, and Jumbo washing the tin plates in silence – he was still regretting that five hundred dollars – the two lads, in accordance with their plan, got ready for their tramp.
They buckled on their belts, saw that their shoe-laces were stout and well laced, and equipped themselves with two scout staves. It was against the rules to carry firearms unless the major or one of the leaders was along. No objection was interposed to their going. In fact, the major, worried as he was over the vanished canoes, was rather glad to have an opportunity for a quiet talk with the professor. Rob was still rather fagged by his experiences of the preceding night and day, and Hiram and Andy Bowles had decided to indulge in signal practice.
“Well, good-bye,” called the major as the young Scouts strode off.
“Bring back the canoes with you,” mockingly hailed Rob.
“Sure. We’ll look in all the tree tops. I’m told they roost there with the gondolas,” cried the irrepressible Tubby, with a wave of his hand.
The next instant the two adventurers had vanished over the ridge.
“Say, what a laugh we’ll have on them if we really do bring the canoes back,” chuckled Tubby merrily, as they plodded along.
Distances in the mountains are deceptive. From the camp it had not looked so very far to the head of the lake. But the two lads found that, what with the innumerable ridges they had to cross, and the rough nature of the ground before them, it was considerably more of a tramp than they had bargained for.
Of the canoes too, there was no sign. The mists had now vanished and the sun beat down on the smooth surface of the lake as if it had been a polished mirror.
“Maybe they’ve drifted ashore,” said Tubby, hopefully.
“If they have I’ll bet they chose the other one,” said Merritt, “it’s what they used to call at school ‘the perversity of inanimate things.’”
“Phew!” exclaimed Tubby, “don’t spring any more like that. I didn’t bring a dictionary.”
It was about noon when they came to a halt in a ravine near the lake shore and sat down on a log to rest.
“Gee, I wish we had something to eat,” groaned Merritt.
“Ever hear of a fairy godmother?” inquired Tubby, gazing abstractedly up through the tree tops.
“Well, if you aren’t the limit, Tubby. What on earth have fairy godmothers to do – ”
“They were always on the job with what was most wanted, I believe,” pursued Tubby.
“Oh, don’t talk rot. Let’s – Gee whiz! I’ll take it all back, Tubby. You are a real, genuine, blown-in-the-glass fairy godmother.”
Merritt’s exclamation was called forth by the fact that Tubby had produced, with the air of a necromancer, two packets of sandwiches and ditto of cake.
“There’s water in that spring, I guess,” he said laconically ignoring Merritt’s open compliments.
The two lads munched away contentedly. They were seated at the head of the little ravine which ran back from the shore of the lake. Above them towered a rocky cliff from which flowed the spring. Ferns of a brilliant green and almost tropical luxuriance festooned its edges. The water made a musical tinkling sound. It was a pleasant spot, and both boys enjoyed it to the full. They would have appreciated it more though, if they could have stumbled across the canoes which Tubby was beginning to believe were a figment of his imagination.
“Wonder if there were ever Indians through here?” said Merritt, after a period of thought.
“Guess so. They used to navigate most of these lakes,” said Tubby, stuffing some remaining crumbs of cake into his mouth.
“Why?” he added, staring at Merritt, with puffed out cheeks.
“I was just thinking that if we were early settlers and an Indian suddenly appeared in the opening of this canyon or ravine or whatever you like to call it, that we’d be in a bad way.”
“Yes, we couldn’t get out. That’s certain,” said Tubby, looking around, “I guess the red men would bury the hatchet – in our heads.”
“I’m glad those days are gone,” sai