CHAPTER XIII.—A PLEASANT SURPRISE
Little dreaming of the desperate situation at the boat, yet understanding that the Englishmen had set out to take possession of her, Case and Frank stood silently, watchfully, at the campfire while the thing the Indian had fled from stepped out of the darkness and approached them.
Two conflicting emotions held them motionless, speechless. One was of joy at the flight of their guard, the other was something akin to the terror which had sent Ugly into the bush at headlong speed.
The noise of the Indian’s progress through the forest might still be heard as trailing vines tore at his garments and sent him floundering to the ground only to leap to his feet and dash recklessly on once more. The thing advancing upon them was silent, the crouching figure moving over the ground like an ape, the features obliterated as to outline by a veil of yellow flame from which misty emanations proceeded.
Case was not at all superstitious. He saw in the queer figure only a trick of some enemy, and so sprang for the automatic rifle which the Indian had cast away in his flight. The next moment it was leveled at the advancing figure. The result was as remarkable as it was instantaneous.
The figure dropped to the ground, rolling about, kicking spasmodically at the empty air, and emitting shouts of laughter which rang oddly through the forest. Case understood and darted forward, shouting that it was Jule, up to another of his tricks!
“Whoo—pee!” yelled Jule, rolling about in an abandonment of mirth.
“I’ll show you!” Case cried, taking the boy by the back of the neck. “I’ll show you what we do to spooks in Brazil!”
Frank stood as if still unconvinced.
“Quit!” Jule remonstrated, as Case lifted him to his feet. “You let me go! Don’t you know any more than to take a fellow by the hair of his head. “Quit, I tell you!”
Case released the boy, whose face and hands were still shining with the sulphur which he had rubbed from old-fashioned matches, and pushed him away as he arose to his feet.
“You smell like a match factory!” he said.
Jule leaned against the bole of the tree and laughed until the woods rang again, while Frank stood looking on with wonder in his eyes.
“I thought he was the Old Scratch!” the boy commented, in a moment. “Where did he get that fire paint?”
“Rubbed it off from matches,” answered Case. “It makes a great show in the dark. No wonder Ugly took to his heels!”
“Who is your horned friend?” asked Jule, nodding his head in the direction the Indian had taken. “He is some runner!”
Then Jule glanced about at the fire, at the unfamiliar automatic gun in Case’s hands, and at a collection of simple cooking implements which lay to one side, and asked:
“Where did all this come from, and what are you boys doing here? Where’s the cargo?” then, breaking in upon each other, as if that would hasten the relation of the strange story they had to tell, each one giving an entirely different version of the incident, the boys informed Jule of what had taken place. Case described the Englishmen as bushmen, similar to the natives who prowl the forests of Australia, while Frank insisted that they were educated men gone back to primitive life because of degenerate dispositions or because of fear of punishment for crimes committed.
“It looks to me, then,” Jule commented, looking suspiciously about, “that I came up in good time, and that my desire to give you a good scare brought you out of a bad situation. Oh, my!” he added, throwing back his head, “how that Indian did take to the woods! I don’t believe he will stop this side of the Arctic circle. He certainly can go some!”
“He probably has gone to warn the others,” Case suggested.
“That is exactly where he has gone!” cried Jule, “and we’d better be getting back. If we keep right along behind him, we’ll have the brutes between two fires.”
“How did you manage to get away from Clay?” asked Case. “He didn’t want you to leave the boat.”
“Why, when we all came ashore to see why you boys did not come back, I just naturally sneaked away.”
“You all came ashore!” echoed Case. “Do you mean to say that there is no one in the boat? No one on board at all?”
“There wasn’t when I came away!” admitted Jule, sheepishly.
“That’s a nice thing, too!” cried Case, reprovingly.
Without waiting to further discuss the situation, anxious only for the safety of their friends and the boat, the three made their way through the black jungle at reckless speed. The night had cleared a trifle, and now and then a glance upward, through the jealous foliage of the trees and creepers, revealed a star looking down into the aisles of the wood.
Now and then they came to a little glade clearer of undergrowth than the general run of the jungle through which they were struggling, and at such time, with only the complaints of the creatures of the forest about them, they halted and listened. Presently, during such a halt, they heard a shot, and then the sharp, snappy, full-throated barking of a dog.
“Captain Joe!” Jule cried.
“He’s on the boat?” asked Frank.
“Sure he is, unless he’s found the key and unlocked the cabin door,” replied Jule, with a grin.
“If they get hold of Captain Joe,” Case observed, not without a grin of satisfaction, “they’ll know they’ve come to a scrapper.”
“He’ll climb on their roofs and claw their shingles off!” exclaimed Jule.
“I won’t have to wash dishes in a month!” crowed Case. “That is the slangiest slang I ever heard!”
“I don’t care,” Jule answered as he swung a hanging creeper out of his eyes. “That is just what Captain Joe will do if he gets a chance. But you needn’t go and tell Clay that I said it, all the same!” he added, with visions of many dishes to wash before his eyes.
Another shot came as the boys started away, and Case declared that it undoubtedly came from an automatic revolver, and proved that the boys were putting up a fight.
“Captain Joe told us that,” Jule insisted.
Several other shots were fired before the boys came to the bank of Ruination creek. It was still dark, although a star reflected in the water at rare intervals. Still, the outlines of the trees could be faintly seen across the creek, and the prow light burning on the Rambler cast a white radiance farther down stream.
The three crept out to the margin of the creek and peered over a low, bush-crowned headland toward the boat. From where they stood the forward deck was in plain sight. At the back an overhanging tree made a black blot about the stern. There was no one to be seen.
Another shot came from farther down, and the barking of the dog became fierce and incessant.
“Captain Joe will be eating up that cabin next,” Jule volunteered. “I wish I could tell him what to say!”
“Why don’t they go into the cabin and let him out?” asked Frank.
“Because neither side can get into the boat,” replied Case, grasping the situation at once. “Anyone showing himself under that prow light would be shot to death in a second. The only way the ruffians can get to the Rambler is to shoot out the light.”
“Then how are we ever to get on board?” asked Frank.
“Drive the outlaws away!” replied Case.
“Sure!” Jule put in, thoughtfully, “and I’ve found a way to do it. You just watch me.”
The two boys watched Jule with both wonder and amusement in their eyes as he drew out a great bunch of old-fashioned sulphur matches and began rolling them between the palms of his hands. Very little came from his efforts, and Case began poking fun at him.
“Doesn’t work like it did when you scared the wits out of the Indian, does it?” he demanded. “I reckon we ran so fast through the thickets that we left the sulphur stuff behind, leaving only the dry sticks in your pocket!”
“Never you mind,” Jule answered, “you just wait until I get ready, then I’ll show you something worth while.”
“That’s what Frank said about his cargo!” cried Case, apparently determined to find whatever humor there was in the situation. “Where is that cargo now, kid?” he added, turning toward Frank and giving him a pull by the arm. “Do you think that Indian carried it off with him?”
“I’m going after the cargo before daylight,” the lad replied, stubbornly.
“Yes you are!” Jule broke in. “We’re going to get as far away from Ruination creek as we can before sunrise! You see what Clay says about your going into that mess again! Why, kid, those men you saw—the friends of yours who are trying to get the boat now!—will hang around here for a month if we don’t go away—just on the chance of getting the Rambler.”
“I’m going after that cargo again,” repeated Frank, “and I’m going to get it—if those Englishmen haven’t carried it off. Friends of mine, you call ’em! Well, I guess not!”
“How many will it take to carry the cargo out to the boat,” asked Case, giving Jule a sly dig in the ribs, “if we get it away from your friends?”
Frank laughed at the attempt to provoke him, but made no reply, and in a moment Jule resumed his work with the sulphur matches. This playing “spook” with matches was an old trick of the boy’s, and he had brought these old-fashioned ones along on the chance of finding them useful. He was more than satisfied with the result of his first tryout with them, and chuckled as he thought of the fright of Ugly, and also of the assistance he had been able by their aid to render his friends.
Only for his childish prank, he reflected, Case and Frank would still be in the custody of the Indian, and Clay and Alex would be facing the renegades alone.
“What are you going to do when you get through that monkey work?” asked Case, presently, as Jule continued to roll matches in his hands.
“I’m going on board the Rambler,” was the reply.
“I’m going to let Captain Joe out, and tell him what to do to the men in the bush.”
Case glanced again at the lighted prow of the boat and at the wide space one attempting to reach the deck would have to cross under rifle fire.
“You never can do it!” he declared.
“See that tree back there, at the stem of the boat?” asked Jule, in a whisper. “Well, I’m going to swim under water until I get to the black spot under that tree, where the light is shut out by the foliage and the cabin, and then I’m going to climb up on the back platform of the boat and through the window to the interior of the cabin. Any objections, Sober Sides?”
“You can’t do it,” Frank Whispered. “You are not well yet. Suppose you let me try?”
“Not in a hundred years!” chuckled Jule. “I guess you don’t know I’m the champion under-water swimmer of Chicago! I’ll be inside the boat in no time, and then there will be doings. I’ll show my devil face to the bushmen and let the dog out, and there won’t be anything to it. Perhaps I’d better make a devil dog out of Captain Joe!”
“Try it, and he’ll eat you up!” cried Case. “Don’t be foolish.”
“The sulphur will wash off,” warned Frank.
“Water will only make it all the brighter,” insisted Jule. “Now watch me go to it! When I get in, you boys come. Will you? All right! Now here goes for a swim! Be sure and keep well under water when you come!”
There was a slight splash in the creek, and Jule was out of sight.