THE TRAIL AMONG THE ROCKS.
Of course the scout-master was given a shock when he realized that Smithy could not be where he had told him to wait until relieved. All sorts of dire things commenced to flash through his head.
"Here, this won't do at all," he presently muttered, starting to get a firm grip on himself; "I've myself alone to depend on, to find out the truth about Smithy, and to do that I must keep my head level. Now, I wonder have I made a mistake about the calibre of Smithy, and could he have wandered off in a careless way?"
Somehow he did not find himself taking any great amount of stock in this theory. Why, had it been easy-going Bumpus now, or even rather careless Step-hen, Thad fancied that there might have been more or less truth back of the suspicion; but unless his study of the tenderfoot had been wrong, Smithy would not be guilty of disobedience.
"Well, what am I thinking about?" was the way Thad took himself to task presently; "trying to find the answer to a riddle by bothering my brains, when it ought to be written here on the sand as plain as print."
Immediately he commenced to move about, looking for signs. Of course there must be all manner of footprints there, some recent, and others made on the occasion of the preceding visit of the scouts. But Thad had studied trail finding more or less under the watchful eye of the Maine boy, who knew considerable about it; and hence he was able to decide what were new, and what old footprints.
And he had not been at this task more than half a minute when he received considerable of a shock.
"Why, here's that footprint with the marked sole!" he whispered, a new thrill in the region of his heart.
He could guess what that meant, for it was very fresh and new. The man whom he now believed to be some sort of criminal, had been right there on the beach since he, Thad, had quitted the spot to climb the tree selected for his signaling operations!
And since Smithy was supposed to be waiting there, only one inference could be drawn—the tenderfoot scout had fallen into the enemy's hands!
Evidently matters were approaching a crisis now. The two men who hid on this island as though they feared their fellows to see them, were beginning to grow bolder. At first they had only felt annoyed by the coming of the scouts, and the making of the camp opposite their secret retreat. Then, by degrees, as the boys began to infringe on their territory, they had commenced to strike back; first by causing the boat to disappear; and now by capturing poor Smithy, who must be nearly dead with fright because of his peril.
Thad suspected the men may have begun to fear that their hiding-place was known, and that the boys would be trying to either effect their capture, or communicate their discovery to the authorities in some neighboring town.
Perhaps they hoped to keep matters boiling at fever heat until night fell, when they could make use of the recovered boat to slip away; or else swim from the island retreat.
He looked further, and soon found marks that plainly told the story of a struggle. It had been brief, however, for evidently Smithy was evidently taken by surprise, and with his breath immediately cut off by a cruel grip, must have soon yielded.
Thad looked around him. Would the two desperate characters be coming back to find the other scout? Did they know that Davy had gone with that log? Perhaps even at that minute hostile eyes might be upon him!
The very thought caused Thad to take a firmer grip on the stout cudgel he carried, and resolve that should he be attacked, these rascals would not have the easy victory they had found with his comrade, Smithy.
But all was quiet and peaceful around him; and by degrees his excited nerves quieted down. What should he do, now that he knew the worst? Of course, being such a good swimmer, Thad might easily have stripped, and made his way over to the mainland, providing the men did not take a notion to chase after him in the boat. He put the thought aside with impatience. That would be deserting Smithy, who looked up to him as a faithful friend and ally; and this Thad would never be guilty of doing.
Should he simply conceal himself somewhere on the island, and wait for the coming of afternoon, and the expected officers? Suppose, for instance, Giraffe lost his way while trying to make Rockford, what then would become of Smithy?
Thad felt that he could never look a scout in the face again if he were guilty of such small business.
"I'm going to do my best to find Smithy, no matter what happens," he said to himself, as he shut his teeth hard together, and took a fresh grip on that comforting cudgel he carried again. "Perhaps they may stick close to their hiding-place, wherever that is, thinking they've scared the rest of us nearly to death; and that we'll swim ashore. Here goes, then, to follow the trail."
He had already discovered where the party had left the sandy stretch, plunging into the shrubbery, at a point beyond that where he and Smithy had made use of.
The island, as has been stated before, was so very rocky that Thad, not being an expert at following a trail under such difficulties, might have had a hard time of it in places, but for unexpected, but none the less welcome, assistance.
Here and there, when he came to a small patch of earth, he was surprised to find plain marks of feet, and several deep furrows, as though some one had sagged in his walk, and was being half dragged along by those who had hold of either arm.
This must have been Smithy; and at first Thad was dreadfully worried, under the belief that his comrade might have been struck on the head, and injured. But when the same thing kept on repeating itself, and invariably when there was earth to show the marks, he suddenly grasped the splendid truth.
"Oh! isn't that boy a dandy, though?" he whispered to himself, in delight; "as sure as anything now, he's just doing that on purpose, meaning to leave as broad a trail as he can, so I could follow. Didn't I say Smithy had it in him to make one of the best scouts in the whole troop; and don't this prove it? Good for Smithy; he's all right!"
It made Thad feel quite pleased to know that the tenderfoot could be so smart, with such little training. He continued to follow the tracks with new ambition. So energetic a chum deserved to be looked after; and Thad was better satisfied than ever because he had resolved to hunt for Smithy, rather than lie around, trying to hide from the enemy in case they were out looking for him.
By degrees he found that he was getting into a section of the island which did not seem familiar to him in the least. Evidently, then, in their various trips over the place, the boys had unconsciously avoided this part; possibly because of its very roughness, and the difficulty of pushing through the dense vegetation, and over the piled-up rocks.
"No wonder they chose this place to hide," thought Thad, as he climbed across a barrier that taxed his powers; and wondered at the same time however poor Smithy was ever able to make it, tied as he must be, or gripped in the hands of his two captors.
He realized that he must now be getting nearer the den where the two unknown men used as a hideout. The very solitude of the place affected him. It was as if a heavy weight had been laid on his back, that threatened to crush him.
Still, Thad was a very determined lad. Having made up his mind to accomplish the rescue of his comrade, if it were at all possible, he would not allow himself to be daunted by trifles such as these. Only shutting his teeth more firmly together, he kept pushing resolutely on, eyes and ears constantly on the alert.
Perhaps Giraffe was having just such a difficult job in making his way across the country between the lake and Rockford; and if so, Thad hoped he too was pushing resolutely forward, undismayed by no obstacles that loomed up ahead.
Now and then Thad was at a loss which way to turn, for the rocks left little or no trace for him to follow. At such times he had to exercise his knowledge of slight clues to the utmost. Then besides, he could look around him and judge pretty well how those he was following, foot by foot, must have gone.
And finally Thad saw something just beyond that told him he had reached the end of the faint trail. It was a gloomy looking hole among the rocks that stared him in the face, with the trail leading straight toward it.
If ever there was a bear that had its den on that island, surely this must have been the spot; for it far excelled anything else that the scout had seen since he had started to prowl around.
As he crept closer he was astonished to see what a peculiar condition existed with regard to that open mouth of the bear den. Just above hung an immense stone that ordinarily several men could never have turned over, or even moved; yet by some convulsion of nature far back, this rock had been so delicately poised above the mouth of the cave that Thad believed even a boy could send it crashing down, if he but hurled his strength against it.
"And if it did fall," he said to himself, with a sudden shiver of delight, "I honestly believe it would fill in that hole, so that not even a rattlesnake could crawl out. Oh! if those men are in there, as I hope, and I could start that cap-stone rolling, wouldn't they be shut up as snug as if they were in a bottle, with the cork shoved in?"
But fascinating as that possibility appeared to Thad, he must remember that the men had Smithy with them as a hostage. They could dictate terms of surrender so long as they held the tenderfoot scout a prisoner. And unless he could manage in some clever way to effect the release of Smithy, he had better go slow about trying to bottle them up in that bear's den.
He crept still closer, and lying there on his breast, listened anxiously, his ear close to the black opening. A regular sound came stealing out that, for a short time, puzzled him; and then Thad decided that it must be the snoring of a man who was asleep, and lying on his back.
Dare he try and crawl into the cave, to ascertain how the land lay? Thad was anything but a coward; but he could be excused for hesitating, and taking stock of the chances before deciding this important matter. But after a little he must have made up his mind; for he crept past the guardian rocks, and slipped into the entrance of the bear's den!