CHAPTER XII
DANGER AHEAD ON THE TRAIL.
"Look at Steve!"
It was Owen who muttered these three words in the ear of his cousin.
"Yes, I've been keeping an eye on him," replied the other, uneasily.
It was to be expected that those who had gone off on the morning hunt for shellfish would show more or less eagerness to get at their catch, in order to learn just what sort of luck had attended their labors.
But long before either Toby or Owen had finished eating, Steve hurried over to the pile, and squatting down, tailor fashion, began opening mussels.
Just as the rest began to leave the vicinity of the fire they heard him give a shout.
"Say, looky there at Steve—he's dancing around like a wild Injun!" cried
Bandy-legs.
"B-b-bet you he's f-f-found a jim-dandy p-p-pearl," spluttered Toby.
All of them hastened over to where their comrade was carrying on so extravagantly.
"What you got, Steve?" demanded Bandy-legs.
"The best one yet, sure as you're born," and with these thrilling words
Steve opened his palm.
It was certainly a larger pearl than any they had yet found, and presented a more imposing appearance.
All of them crowded around to admire, and many were the pleased expressions which the young pearl hunters gave vent to.
"Couldn't hardly believe my eyes when I saw that beauty lying in the shell," remarked the excited Steve; "and the funniest part of it all is I picked up that shell myself."
"How d'ye know that?" asked Owen. "There were two others along, perhaps you remember."
"Sure," laughed Steve, as pleased as a child, his eyes beaming, and his face flushed. "I'll tell you how it is, fellows. Notice this queer mark like a five-pointed star on the shell? I remember stopping to look at it after washing the mud off the outside. Gee! little did I suspect what I was holding in my hand."
"G-g-guess not," wabbled Toby. "If you d-d-did I just reckon you'd g-g-gone ashore and b-b-b-b—"
Of course, when Toby floundered in the depths one of his chums as usual pounded him on the back vigorously; but that would not have wrought a cure only that the unfortunate stutterer managed to give his whistle, and then cry triumphantly:
"Busted it open—there!"
"You just bet I would," admitted Steve.
"Say, we forgot to notice something," declared Bandy-legs.
"As what?" asked Owen.
"Whether the shells of those other oysters that held prizes were also marked with a star," Bandy-legs went on; at which the balance of the crowd laughed uproariously.
"What d'ye think of that?" cried Steve. "He expects that when a mussel starts in to grow a nice healthy pearl he scratches a star on his shell to let the hard-working hunter know when he's struck a bonanza!"
"Oh! my, how k-k-kind," chuckled Toby.
"Anyhow," asserted Bandy-legs, stoutly, as he held the shell in question in his hand, "me to keep tabs when I'm doing the grabbing act this afternoon. And I give you all fair warning that if I do run across a shell with the star, I'm going ashore to open the same."
"Good luck to you, then," laughed Steve. "Here, Max, take charge of this, won't you, and put it with the rest of our prizes? I want to keep on opening shells, and see if my luck holds out."
Max and Owen exchanged a quick look.
Apparently Steve was perfectly sincere when he gave utterance to this natural remark. Their bewilderment grew more and more, and both boys, as well as Bandy-legs found it impossible to understand what it could mean.
Max walked back to the tent as if meaning to deposit the pearl in the haversack along with the others. Of course he would really slip it into his little leather coin purse where the three valuable pearls already reposed in safety.
"What d'ye make of him, Max?"
Owen asked this question as he bent over his chum, while the other was making a great pretense of handling the haversack.
"Ask me something easy, please," the other replied, shaking his head from side to side.
"What bothers me is to understand why he called out, and let us all know he'd struck a find," Owen continued.
"Same here," Max added.
"You'd think that if Steve was the thief he seemed to be, his first act would have been to quietly pocket this big pearl, and just keep mum. Ain't it so, Max?"
"Seems that way," came the ready answer. "To do that would save a heap of trouble in taking it out of the bag while the rest of us slept."
"But perhaps Steve really enjoys that exciting part of the business," suggested Owen.
"Do you know, a thought struck me, though I can't take much stock in it,"
Max went on.
"Let's hear it, anyhow," remarked his chum.
"Well, in order to make sure of the valuable pearls here, I'm putting them away in my private purse. Well, what if some notion like that has struck our comrade, and he's hiding 'em unbeknown to us, either for a trick, or to make doubly sure they don't get lost."
Owen sneered plainly, as if to express his disbelief in this far-fetched theory.
"It's just like you to try and screen a chum, old fellow," he observed; "but the idea seems too thin for me to take any stock in it. To tell the truth, I'd call it fishy. It won't wash, and you know it."
Max sighed as he closed the bag that really held only the three next to worthless pearls.
"Own up," persisted Owen; "say that you just can't believe such a thing yourself, much as you'd like to."
"Yes, it is so; there must be some other explanation that we haven't struck yet. But I believe I'm on the right trail. Don't ask me any more, Owen. To-night will see the answer, I reckon."
"Hope so," grunted the other, and from his manner it was plain to be seen that Owen did not share the sanguine spirit of his chum.
"Now let's go back and see if there's anything doing with the rest of the fresh-water clams," suggested Max.
But, although every shell was opened and carefully examined, only a couple of seed pearls were found, not worth mentioning alongside the four fine ones.
"Anyhow," said Toby, as the last mussel was passed, "it wasn't a s-s-skunk.
We g-g-got one b-b-bully old p-p-prize, didn't we, Steve?"
"Me to look for the star brand of mussels!" declared Bandy-legs; "they're the only kind worth toting to camp over that long trail."
It was Max and Bandy-legs who started out shortly after, bent upon new conquests.
"Look out for him, Max," said Owen; "don't let him throw away all he finds, just because they don't happen to bear the star brand."
"Oh! I'm not that big a silly," chuckled Bandy-legs, starting off; "come on, Max."
Max saw a chance to remark in a low voice to his cousin:
"He knows all about it, and has promised to keep a close tongue."
"Then you told him when you were alone here this morning?" remarked Owen, and his tone announced that he doubted the propriety of confiding in Bandy-legs.
"That's where you're away off," chuckled Max. "Fact is, he began to tell me about Steve going to the bag in the middle of the night, and hiding something in the old coffee pot."
"You don't say?" exclaimed Owen. "How the dickens would Bandy-legs know about that?"
"Happened to be awake and saw it all. So I thought I'd tell him what we knew, so as to make him keep a close mouth. I guess he won't leak, Owen."
"Then Toby is really the only one out of the secret?" Owen went on to say.
"Yes. And there's no use telling him—yet. Time enough to-night when we spring the trap. But I'm off now, after Bandy-legs. So long, Owen."
"Be mighty careful about that coin purse," warned the one who was to stay in camp during the afternoon. "It would give me a big pain if you let it drop out of your pocket while you were wading in the river."
"Can't. I've fastened the pocket up snug with a big safety pin," chuckled
Max.
He soon caught up with Bandy-legs, who was following the now plainly marked trail that stretched through the forest between the river and the camp.
Arriving at the water's edge Max soon decided that it might pay them to work a little lower downstream.
So both removed most of their clothes and started to tread for the mussels that lay concealed in the mud or sand of the river's bed.
Max was very careful to make sure that the little coin purse was safely pinned inside his shirt. He would not have risked leaving that ashore for a good deal.
An hour passed.
"I see you've picked up quite a little load," remarked Max, as the two pearl hunters happened to come close together while continuing their work.
"All of two dozen, I reckon," grunted Bandy-legs.
"Many marked with the star brand?" asked Max.
"Shucks! never a single one, the more the pity," replied the other, grinning. "Still, I live in hopes. Found one that's got a cross on the shell. Might be that's another mark to tell how the old hermit inside has taken to hatching out a pearl."
"Well, let's make one more try of, say half an hour," proposed Max.
"All right," agreed the other. "It's getting a little tiresome, I tell you. And I cut my toe on a sharp shell. Sing out when the time's up, Max. Here goes to try along that point. Looks promising there."
"Yes, because some sort of a bar sets out from the shore. I'll head that way, too, only covering different ground."
Max kept up the good work until the time limit had been reached. By then the two boys had about all the load they cared to carry over the trail to the camp.
"Hope nobody holds us up on the way, and makes us hand over all we've got," suggested Bandy-legs. "Not that he'd get much out of me, because thirty-seven cents is about the limit of my fortune now; but I'm thinking of them pearls you carry, Max."
"I've still left the coin purse pinned on the inside of my shirt," remarked
Max; "so the chances are he wouldn't be apt to find it on me."
They finished dressing, and, throwing the partly filled gunny sacks over their shoulders, started back along the trail for camp, Max in the lead. "Huh!" remarked Bandy-legs, as he trotted along at the heels of his companion, "the fun about all this thing is the uncertainty of it. Ain't that so, Max?"
"It sure is," replied the other, without turning his head. "Here we are, toting over five dozen mussels on our backs up and down, in and out, and we're just in a state of blissful eagerness and suspense. Perhaps we carry a prize worth a whole vacation of sport; and then, again, chances are we draw a blooming blank."
"All right," remarked the cheerful Max, "no matter how things turn out from now on, I don't see that any of us ought to kick. We've got four pearls that are bound to give us many times as much as we really hoped to earn. And that's enough to make us happy."
"It sure is, because now we'll be able to carry out all of those bully plans we made. Wow! I c'n hardly believe it ain't all a dream, Max," and Bandy-legs drew a long sigh, as if trying to assure himself that he was really awake.
"You'll begin to believe it when we send off for our motorcycles, and map out the summer campaign," laughed Max.
"Glory be! that makes me thrill all over. If it does come to pass, won't we be the luckiest crowd that ever came down the pike?" assented Bandy-legs.
"Oh! I'd hardly say that," remarked the other. "We've worked for all we've got so far. The idea was, after all, the main thing, and we owe most of that to my cousin Owen reading so much about how these pearls are found in Indiana and Missouri streams."
"Oh! take care, Max!" suddenly cried Bandy-legs.
"What is it?" demanded the other, instantly.
"Danger ahead; because I saw somebody poking a head out of the bushes there," Bandy-legs went on, breathlessly.