CHAPTER VII
"BILL HASN'T COME BACK"
ALL it meant to say that Bill hadn't come back did not come over me until I found myself hurrying after Benny down Park Street. Bill had left home on the morning of the second day before, intending to camp out one night and come back the next day. Two nights had passed and he was still away. What had become of him?
I hurried along faster and faster, thinking of all the things that might have happened. Mr. Norton and Bill's folks reached the house almost as soon as I did. I don't know how they found out that I had come back.
Bill's folks were nearly crazy about him. The first night out, they expected him to be away, of course, and so did not worry much. When dinner time came the next day and he hadn't showed up, they began to wonder what was keeping him, for the other boys who had started at the same time were home.
When night came again and he still was away, they began to grow very anxious and sent for Mr. Norton.
"I can't understand it," said he. "I supposed that he had come home long ago, and have been too busy to find out. The other three are back, I understand."
"Yes, they came back in time for dinner."
"I am surprised that William is still out, but do not feel alarmed, Mrs. Wilson. Something has detained him, but it cannot be anything serious. Both roads to North Adams are well traveled and the farmhouses are near together. As likely as not he stopped to help somebody out of a difficulty and it has taken longer than he expected. One of our laws, you know, says that a Scout's duty is to be useful and to do somebody a good turn every day. I'll run over and talk with Wallace. They started together and may have met when they crossed over from one road to the other."
Mr. Norton was more anxious than he pretended. Wallie said that he hadn't seen him and hadn't heard him, which was worse, for Bill usually could be heard a long way off. Wallie said that he had called to him every few rods when crossing over to the west road beyond North Adams but hadn't heard a thing. It would have been easy for them to miss each other, unless they happened to take the same crossroad.
"I might get track of him in North Adams," said Mr. Norton, after a little. "You see, I gave him a message to deliver to a friend of mine there. He surely will know something about him, but he hasn't a telephone and I think is out of town to-day, anyhow. Maybe I'd better drive up. The boy probably will get back before I do, but it will make me feel better to be doing something."
By that time everybody was getting scared. I mean all our folks were. Mrs. Wade was sure that Benny never would come home again, although it wasn't quite nine o'clock, the time when he said he would come.
Mrs. Wade is all right most of the time, only she can think of more trouble for Benny to get into than he could find in a week, if he looked for it. Mothers are often that way. I guess it is because they like us so well.
"He said he would come back, if he lived. Those were his last words. And he hasn't come."
She told that to Ma, over and over again.
"He'll come back all right," said Ma, "and so will John, when the time comes."
But she was worried about me, just the same, all on account of Bill. Of course, I didn't know about it at the time. I found out afterward.
No one ever made better time driving the six miles to North Adams than Mr. Norton did that night. Just outside the village he met Benny, coming on a run, and stopped long enough to ask him if he had seen Bill.
"No," said he. "I missed him. The Gang held me up at the Gingham Ground and almost made me late. I told Ma that I would be home by nine o'clock if I lived. I'm 'most dead, but guess I can hold out until I get there. She'll be having a fit pretty soon if I don't hurry. What time is it, anyhow?"
Mr. Norton whipped up his horse before Benny finished.
"William hasn't come back!" he shouted over his shoulder, just as Benny called to me in almost the same place. Then he tore down the road toward the Gingham Ground.
It was after midnight when he came back. There was a light burning in our house and he stopped.
"He has not been there!" was all that he could say, when Pa met him at the door.
"Hasn't been there!"
"No, I found Jenks, to whom I had sent the message, and he said that he had seen nothing of him, although he had been expecting him. You see, I told him that the boy was coming. The message has not been delivered."
"Mr. Smith," he went on, after a moment, "I can't face Mrs. Wilson with that news. You go to her, while I get the marshal started and see if something cannot be done. I tell you something has happened. I am convinced of that. Young Wilson would have delivered that message if he possibly could have reached the place, and it would have taken a great deal to stop him. There isn't a yellow streak in that boy anywhere."
"Did you make any inquiries?"
"Yes, I stopped at every house along the road where there was a light burning. Not a person had seen him, although several had seen your boy on the way out. At North Adams I notified the police, but I don't know what they can do."
"I'll go to Mrs. Wilson right away," Pa told him. "This certainly is bad business, but we can't do much until morning. As soon as it is daylight we'll send out a search party. There are only two roads, unless he went up through the Notch, which is not at all probable. It ought not to be a difficult matter to get some trace of him."
"I'll tell you where he is," he went on, after thinking a minute. "He met my John and went back to camp all night with him. They will come home together to-morrow; you see if they don't. John is a pretty safe boy. He's full of pranks, like the others, but he is more cautious. He'll come home all right and bring Bill with him."
Mr. Norton shook his head.
"I sincerely hope so," he said, "but it is not at all probable. Mr. Smith, I never will forgive myself if anything has happened to that boy."
"You are not to blame at all," Pa told him. "Depend upon it, if anything has happened, and we don't know that there has, the boy himself is to blame. He is a fine lad, but is a little reckless and thoughtless at times. Cheer up. It might be a lot worse. Now, if the boys had gone up into the mountains as they talked of doing at first, there would be real cause for worry."
That was why Benny waited for me outside the village the next day, and why Mr. Norton and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson met me at the house and why Skinny and the other boys came in a few minutes afterward.
Mrs. Wilson knew by my face that I had not seen anything of Bill and burst out crying.
"There couldn't have anything happened to him, Mrs. Wilson," I told her, sort of choking up in my throat, myself, because she was feeling so bad. "I mean anything much. Maybe a tramp locked him up somewhere when he was asleep, or some gipsies stole him. I saw some gipsies up above North Adams and they were going west to beat the band. But he'll get away from them. I'll bet on Bill every time."
When I spoke of gipsies to make Mrs. Wilson feel better it seemed to scare her worse than ever.
"Nonsense!" said Pa. "Gipsies don't go around stealing thirteen-year-old boys, who can make as much noise as Bill can."
"Well, I saw some, anyhow," I told him.
Just then Skinny jumped out in front of the rest of us, with his eyes shining and his cheeks redder than I ever had seen them before, and stood there with his arms folded, like a bandit, or a Scout, I don't know which.
"Fellers," said he, "Scouts, I mean. We got Bill into this scrape and we will get him out again. This is a job for us, not for the police. If anybody can find Bill, bet your life we can. We know the call of the Ravens. We know the signs and we know Bill better than his own folks know him. We'll track him. We'll follow him to the ends of the earth. Will you go with me?"
We sprang up with a cheer, forgetting how tired we were, those of us who had just come home from the long walk.
"Everybody scatter and look for signs."
"Wait a minute, boys," said Ma. "It's almost dinner time. You must not start without something to eat. There is no telling when you will get back. Let me give you a bite in the kitchen first."
That was just like Ma. We saw in a minute it was the thing to do and hurried in for a quick lunch.
"The boy is right," we heard Pa saying. "They'll find him, depend upon it. I never knew those boys to get into a scrape yet that they couldn't pull out of. But it won't hurt if the rest of us look around a little, too."
"Who saw him last?" asked Skinny, after we had started.
"I did," said Wallie. "We walked together until I turned off to take the east road. He kept straight on toward the Gingham Ground and I heard him yell some time afterward."
"You don't suppose that the Gang got after him, do you, and locked him up or something?"
"I'll bet that's what they did," said Benny. "That is just what happened. They got after me, too. I was scared half to death and didn't want to go through the Grounds, but it was getting late and I knew that Ma would be worried, so I braced up and started through on a run. In a minute two of them ran out and grabbed me by the collar."
"'It's one of them village kids,' said one of them. 'Let's call the Gang and duck him. He needs it to cool off.'
"Then he whistled and a lot of the others came and they hustled me down to the river. Gee, I was mad and I was scared. Then, just as I had about given up, another boy came chasing after us.
"'Is this Benny Wade?' said he.
"'It's all that is left of me,' I told him.
"With that he jumped in and took hold of me.
"'Youse ain't a goin' to duck this kid,' said he, 'unless you duck me along with him. His partner came through here this morning and fixed my dog's broken leg and he told me to watch out for Benny Wade and have him look at the bandage, to see if it was all right. Now, kid, you come along with me and look at my dog.'
"'Duck 'em both,' said some one.
"I guess maybe they would have done it, too, if Jim Donavan hadn't come along just in time."
"Maybe it was Bill who fixed up the dog," said Hank.
"No, I did it," I told them.
We had been walking along while Benny was talking. What he said surprised us some and would have made us mad at any other time. Benny had been so worried about Bill that he hadn't said anything about himself before, and neither had any of us.
"The first thing to do," said Skinny, "is to go to Jim's house and start from there. If Bill went through the Gingham Ground I'll bet that some of the Gang saw him."
The place which we call the Gingham Ground is a settlement near some big gingham mills. There are two long rows of brick tenement houses with a street between. We knew that Skinny was right, because Bill would have had to walk down that street between the rows of houses, and some one would have been sure to see him. He might have stopped at Jim's, or, anyhow, would have called to him when he passed.
It didn't take us long to get there, and as we came near we could see the Gang getting together. You see, they thought we were after them on account of what they had done to Benny.
We didn't pay much attention to them but went straight to Jim's house and found him eating dinner. He was surprised to see us and was glad.
"Wait until I call the Gang," said he, after we had told him about Bill.
In a few minutes they had all come up, as friendly as could be when they found out that we were not looking for a fight.
Not one of them had seen Bill. They all knew him and they felt sure that if he had gone through in daylight some of them would have seen him.
"I'll tell you what we'd better do," said Jim, finally. "I don't believe that he came this way, but, to make sure, the Gang will work north from here and ask at every house. You go back and look between here and the village. If he left there and didn't get as far as this, then he must have turned off somewhere."
We went back, stopping at every house we came to, on each side of the road. We couldn't find a person who remembered having seen him or any one like him. You see, if he passed at all, it must have been soon after seven o'clock in the morning. The men had gone to work in the mills and the women were busy in the back parts of the houses.
Then we started back again, not knowing what to do next. There was one house, larger than the others, which we had not visited, because it stood high above the road on a hillside and could be reached only by a long driveway. It was about halfway between the Gingham Ground and our house in the village. We couldn't think of anything else to do, so we went up there.
"I don't remember seeing any one," said the lady who met us at the door. "Of course, there are boys passing at all hours of the day. I might have seen him."
We looked at Skinny in despair.
"This one," said he, "was probably making a noise. Maybe he was cawing like a crow."
"I saw him, Mama," shouted a little girl, who had come up and stood listening. "I saw a boy go past, making an awful racket, and it sounded something like a crow."
"Was he carrying anything?" I asked.
"Yes, he had a rolled-up blanket on his back. I remember thinking he looked funny and wondering what he was going to do with it. Oh, yes, he had on a uniform, too."
"It was Bill, all right," said Skinny. "We've struck the trail at last."
We went down to the road and talked it over.
"He passed here," said Skinny, "on time and going north, and he didn't pass through the Gingham Ground. We feel sure of that much. He must have turned off somewhere in the next half-mile."
"We know something else," I told him. "He couldn't have turned east, because the river is in the way and there isn't any bridge."
We made up our minds to separate, one party to work north from where we were standing; one to work south from the Gingham Ground, and the others to work in between, to see if we could find where he had left the road.
"Look for a sign," said Skinny, "and look on the west side. There isn't much chance for finding footprints."
Hank was the one who found it. We heard him yell and went to him on a run.
He came out to the roadside and waited for us, waving his hat in the air, he was so excited; then, when we had come up, took us back from the road through a sort of lane, which pretty soon turned south and wound off through the woods.
Just at the turn stood a big stone, out of sight from the road. That is why we had not seen it before. On the stone was something which set us all yelling.
It was a circle and in the circle was the picture of a crow and there was an arrow. It was the Scout sign for "I took this path." The crow meant that whoever drew the sign belonged to Raven Patrol. We knew then that it was Bill.
"We've got him," shouted Skinny. "He went through this way so as not to meet the Gang."
It did look like that, but although we examined every inch of the way between there and the Gingham Ground, we couldn't find another sign of any kind. And we couldn't understand why he had not delivered the message to Mr. Jenks and come back home.
Sorrowfully we made our way out to the sign again and sat down to rest and talk about what to do next.
"Guess what!" said Benny, after a little. "That arrow doesn't point toward the Gingham Ground at all. It points straight back from the road. Let's go that way and see."
There didn't seem to be much use in doing it, but we had to do something.
"Come on," said Skinny, springing up. "He is somewhere; that's a cinch, and we know that he was all right when he drew that sign."
We hurried along and soon struck a little path, up which we ran as fast as we could, for it was growing late.
"Look for another sign," warned Skinny. "Scouts and Injuns always mark the paths they take."
"Hurrah, here it is!" he shouted, a little farther on.
When we had come up, he pointed to a stone, which had been placed in the middle of the path, with a smaller stone on top of it. It was the Indian sign for "This is the trail."
We couldn't understand it, for it was leading away from North Adams.
We hurried on, calling every now and then, but not a sound could we hear, except the birds and squirrels, and not another sign or track could we find.
All that time we were going uphill and away from North Adams. At last, we came out of the woods on top of the hill, where we could see up and down the valley, and Greylock over beyond. Feeling too disappointed to speak we threw ourselves down on the grass.
Suddenly Skinny gave a yell and we thought for a moment that he had gone crazy.
"Look! Look! Look there!" he shouted, pointing back at the mountain.
We looked; then, when the full meaning of what we saw came to us, grew as excited as he was, threw our hats in the air, and danced around and cheered ourselves hoarse.
From the very top of Greylock, two columns of smoke were going almost straight up, for there happened to be no wind to speak of. If it was Bill, and we felt sure that it was, those two columns of smoke meant:
"I have lost the camp. Help."