XI—A MYSTERIOUS FOOTPRINT
First it seemed kind of as if that bloodhound was just scooping; that means using something that another scout has found. If I should find a robin’s nest and then another scout should stalk there, that would be scooping. Gee whiz, that’s a mean thing to do. Up at Temple Camp a scout will get himself disliked for doing that. But it’s all right to stalk the cooking-shack. Pee-wee thinks he’s the only one who has a right to hang out there—I should worry.
Anyway that has nothing to do with the bloodhound. Tom got out of his way, and we all stood about while the dog sniffed around the footprint, awful excited like. There wasn’t another footprint anywhere in sight.
Brent said in that funny way of his, “Well, I guess we’re up against the real thing at last. I guess old Snoozer here is on the track of Eliza. Listen and maybe we’ll hear her baby crying. She always carries a baby with her when she puts one over on the bloodhounds, doesn’t she?”
“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted; “she always crosses the ice. Didn’t you see that big roll of canvas they’ve got? That’s got ice painted on it. They spread that on the stage and she runs across it with har—what-d’ye-call-it—her infant child.”
“Her which?” Harry said.
“I think she takes a thermos bottle, too, and an aluminum cooking set,” Brent said.
Harry said, “Well, anyway, she has given old Snoozer the slip this time.”
“That’s a man’s footprint,” Pee-wee said; “there’s a mystery up here.”
“Let’s see it,” Rossie Bent said; “where is it?”
“You make me sick!” the kid shouted. “How can you see a mystery?”
“You smell it, according to Snoozer,” Harry said; “this dog will have a fit in a minute.”
By that time the dog was pushing every which way in among the bushes and every few seconds coming back to the footprint.
“He seems to be kind of rattled.” That’s what Harry said.
Pretty soon the dog went running through the bushes out into a big open space that was just about on the top of the mountain. We found out afterward that that was why the mountain was named Bald Head. Gee whiz, he seemed rattled. He’d stop for a couple of seconds and look all around, then start off all of a sudden, then stop again.
Brent said, “Eliza’s got his goat this time. Look at old Tomasso there; he’s mad because Snoozer took his job.”
I looked at Tom Slade (because that’s whom he meant) and I saw that he was kind of picking among the bushes over to one side of the big open space. So I went over to where he was and I said, “Tom, what do you think about it? I always thought a bloodhound could follow any trail. That’s a fresh footprint too, isn’t it? But maybe that dog isn’t a real bloodhound, hey?”
Tom said, “He’s a real bloodhound, all right, but I don’t think he’ll find anything.”
I said, “Well, how about that footprint then? It was a fresh one. He ought to be able to follow that scent. Gee whiz, I never saw a dog act so funny. He’s all rattled and he doesn’t know which way to go.”
Tom didn’t say anything, only he looked over to the open space where the rest of the fellows were watching the dog. By that time the dog was running around and barking, half crazy.
“Eliza fell through the ice,” Brent called over to us.
Harry shouted, “She was very poor, she didn’t even have a scent. Snoozer’s going to have a nervous collapse in a minute; he’ll require first aid.”
I said to Tom, “Well, somebody was up here, that’s sure. That’s a new footprint we found. It’s plaguey funny that a bloodhound can’t follow that trail; I always thought a bloodhound——”
“A bloodhound isn’t a scout,” Tom said, kind of sober like, in that way he has; “he followed the trail as far as he could, I suppose. Look around here; don’t you see anything?”
That’s the way it has always been with Tom Slade ever since he got back from the war. In scouting, he would never do anything himself, but just give us fellows a hint that would start us off. “If you make as good use of your eyes as he makes of his nose, you ought to be able to discover something.” That’s what he said.
So then I looked all around, and sure enough I could see that the bushes were broken up toward the top and, good night, on one of them was hanging a little piece of rag.
“Some one has been through here,” I said, all excited; “why doesn’t the dog come over here? The trail leads over this way.”
Then I began whistling for the dog and calling to the fellows that we had the trail, and they all started over except the dog. He wouldn’t follow them or pay any attention to their whistling and calling, only stayed right where he was running around as if he had a fit.
Before the fellows reached the place where we were Tom said kind of low, “Don’t fly off the handle, kid; there are some bushes broken here and a rag. Now what does that mean?”
“It means the trail runs through here,” I said; “and that crazy fool of an Uncle Tom’s Cabin dog can’t follow the scent across that bare place. He’s just an actor, that’s all that bloodhound is. All he’s good for is chasing Eliza.”
Tom just took the rag from me and looked at it. “Well then, if the trail runs through here, where are the footprints?” he asked me.
“And the dog doesn’t seem to think it’s worth bothering about,” he said.
“You admit somebody went through here?” I shouted at him.
“Oh, somebody went through here, all right,” he said.
“And didn’t leave any footprints and didn’t leave any scent,” I came back at him.
“Only a rag,” he said.
By that time the fellows had reached the place where we were. “What’s the big idea?” Harry said. “What have you got there?”
Brent said, “As I live, it’s a piece of Eliza’s dress. The plot grows thicker.”
“There isn’t a footprint here,” I told them.
“She must have slid on the ice,” Brent said.
“I’m going to drag that dog over here by the collar,” Rossie spoke up.
“It’s a mystery,” Pee-wee shouted; “it’s a deep, dark mystery. We’ve got to solve it—I mean penetrate it.”
Gee whiz, that kid was more excited than the dog.