JOE DECLINES TO TELL
"Joe, I'd like to have you step over here a minute!"
Supper had been eaten amid the best of feeling. The assembled scouts forgot for the time being all their troubles. Lame feet failed to ache, and tired knees had all the buoyancy of youth again.
The mysterious mountain towered above them, seeming to invite a further and closer acquaintance. Beside the camp ran the brawling stream, and the noise of its rushing water would either lull the tired lads to sleep, or else keep them from doing so. Trees overhung the numerous tents; and on the whole the camp was a pretty sight, as many a lad declared in his log of the trip.
When Joe heard Paul say the few words that begin this chapter he gave a sudden start, and looked up quickly. But the patrol leader and acting scoutmaster had already turned away, and was walking beyond the confines of the camp.
After hesitating a moment Joe scrambled to his feet, and followed his chief. He acted as
though he more than half suspected just what it was Paul wanted to say to him; for several times Joe gritted his teeth, and shook his head in a way he had; for he was known to be very stubborn sometimes.
He found Paul on the bank of the Bushkill. He had seated himself on a convenient rock, and was waiting. The moon drifted in through openings among the trees, and falling on the water made it look like silver; with frosting here and there, where the foam splashed up around the rocks lying in the bed of the stream.
"What d'ye want, Paul?" asked Joe, as he came up.
The noise of the moving water was such that he had to elevate his voice more than a little in order to be heard distinctly.
"Sit down here, Joe, please," remarked Paul, pleasantly. "I wanted to have a little talk with you on the side, where none of the boys could hear, that's all."
"About what?" asked the other, weakly.
"Well, perhaps it's none of my business; but since I chanced to be one of those with you the night we found your father, and heard about his losing that little tin box with those valuable papers, I thought perhaps you might be willing to take me into your confidence, Joe. I want to help you all I can. You believe that, don't you?"
Joe moved uneasily. He had accepted the invitation to sit down, but his manner was not at all confidential.
"Why, of course I do, Paul," Joe presently observed, slowly, "I know you're always ready to help any fellow who gets in trouble. There ain't a better friend in the whole troop than you are to everybody. But what's got you now? Have I been a doin' anything I hadn't ought to?"
"You know it isn't that, Joe. I wanted to speak to you about that tin box your father said was taken from him that night."
"Oh, was that it?" remarked Joe, faintly, and catching his breath.
"You believe that I'd like to help get it back for him, don't you?" demanded the young patrol leader.
"I remember hearing you say you'd be glad to have a hand in recoverin' it; and I guess you meant it every time, Paul," came the reply.
"Well," Paul continued, "perhaps the chance may come to me up here on Rattlesnake Mountain, Joe. It would be queer now, wouldn't it, if, in coming up to this country we just happened to land on the chap who was in your father's store that night, and put out the lamp after he had picked up that little old tin box, eh?"
Joe seemed to have some difficulty in answering.
He appeared to be swallowing a lump in his throat as though it threatened to choke him.
"Why, yes," he presently managed to mutter, "that would be funny now, for a fact. My dad'd like mighty well to get that stuff back, Paul, sure he would."
"Perhaps then you wouldn't mind telling me who that man was, Joe," remarked Paul, quietly.
"What man?" queried Joe, though his voice betrayed the fact that he knew only too well what his friend was driving at.
"I chanced to see you when that party drove past our noon camp," said Paul, softly. "You recognized him, Joe, I am sure you did; and you showed every sign of being both startled and alarmed."
"Huh! well," Joe stammered, "you see it did give me a sorter start, because he looked like somebody I knew was at the other side of the world right then. I reckon you'd feel upset like, Paul, if you thought you saw a ghost."
"Perhaps I would," replied the patrol leader, quickly; "but you immediately knew that it wasn't a ghost. Still, it has been bothering you all the afternoon, Joe."
"Say, what makes you think that?"
"I've watched you when you didn't think anybody was looking," Paul went on. "I've seen you shake your head and talk to yourself as if you
might be trying to believe something your common sense told you couldn't be so. How about it, Joe?"
"Oh! I'm willing to admit I've been mixed up about that thing, and bad too," confessed Joe, as if brought to bay; "but I ain't goin' to say anything about it, not just yet anyhow. I must see dad first, and get his opinion."
"Well, I don't want to force you, Joe, against your will. If you think it best to keep your little secret, do it; but perhaps later on you may be changing your mind. If we just happened to meet up with that gentleman while we knocked around old Rattlesnake Mountain, perhaps you'd be glad to get back that tin box again."
"Sure I would, Paul. Please don't think I'm not wantin' to trust you, because I hold back. I want to think it all over by myself to-night. Perhaps in the mornin' I might tell you about it."
"Then I won't say anything more now, Joe. Only believe that I'm ready to do everything I can to help you. That man came all the way up here."
"How d'ye know that?"
"Why, even a tenderfoot could tell that much," observed the patrol leader, calmly; "his horse left marks all the way. If you went out on the road now, and lit a match, you'd see the print of shod hoofs, and the lines made by the wheels. So
you see, Joe, it wouldn't be so strange if we did happen to run across him some fine day."
"Oh! I wonder what I ought to do? What would dad say if he knew?" and muttering half to himself in this way, Joe wandered back to his seat beside the big fire that was making all outdoors look bright with color and warmth.
Paul was more mystified than ever. Who could that man be, and why should poor Joe feel so badly over having set eyes on him? If he were an ordinary person, and suspicion pointed his way, one would think that the son of the feed-man would welcome his detention, which might result in the finding of the stolen property.
But on the contrary Joe seemed to be dreadfully alarmed over something.
"Oh! well," Paul finally said to himself as he left the rock and turned to go back to the camp; "it may be a family secret of some sort, and I have no business to be poking into it. I'll just keep my hands off, and wait for Joe to speak, if he cares to. Besides, I've got plenty of other things to keep me hustling."
He happened to glance up at the frowning mountain while walking away from the river bank. Suddenly there flashed a little light away up yonder. Once, twice it seemed to flash up, and then was gone.
"Now, I wonder what that could be?" said a voice close beside him.
"Why, hello, Wallace, is that you?" laughed Paul; "and I guess you must have made the same discovery I did?"
"Meaning that queer little light up there, eh, Paul?" remarked the other, who had been walking about uneasily, and just chanced to face upward at the time the double flash came.
"Yes. I wonder what it was," Paul went on, thoughtfully. "I happen to know that Ted and his bunch are ahead of us somewhere, and that might have been a signal to fellows who were left down here to do something to upset our camp."
"Now, do you know, Paul," Wallace went on; "I hadn't thought of that. I'll tell you what it looked like to me—some man lighting his pipe. You saw the light go up and down; that was when he puffed. But it was too far away to see any face."
Paul, remembering the man who had gone up the side of the mountain with that rig, wondered very much whether Wallace could be right, and if the unknown was even then looking down upon them from that height.
This made him turn his thoughts back to the noon camp, and try to remember whether the man in the buggy had shown that he recognized Joe
at the time the boy so suddenly sprang to his feet with a cry.
At any rate the unknown had whipped up his horse, and seemed in a great hurry to depart from the spot.
That night the Banner Boy Scouts were just as merry as before. A banjo had been brought along, and to the plunkety-plunk of its tuneful music they sang every popular song known among Stanhope's rising generation.
"I just don't exactly like the looks of the sky," remarked Wallace, as the time for sounding taps drew near.
He had found Paul examining the ropes of the various tents as though curious to see how well they had been secured.
"That's why I'm overhauling these tent pins and ropes," laughed the other, as he rose up. "The clouds have rolled up, and it feels as if we might have a bit of a Summer storm. Perhaps it would be a good thing for the boys to have an experience like that, if only our supplies can be kept dry."
When they finally retired, the sky seemed to have cleared again. Paul set his guards and took his place in his tent, for his turn would not come until later.
He was tired and soon fell into a heavy sleep.
Jack was on duty, and could be depended on to keep a good watch.
Paul was aroused from slumber by loud cries. Sitting hurriedly up he found the tent wabbling to and fro in a violent manner, while the air seemed full of the most alarming sounds. He crawled out without wasting a minute, and shouted aloud to make the balance of the boys get busy before everything was swept away by the violence of the gale.