CHAPTER XXVII—DIG’S GREAT IDEA
“What do you reckon that nuisance meant?” demanded Digby Fordham the minute Tony Traddles was out of hearing.
“He was hinting at something. Whether he meant to help us, or confuse us, I do not know,” confessed Chet.
“He said they were not going to Grub Stake.”
“Not at once.”
“Well! where the dickens are they going, then?” demanded the disgusted Dig.
“I don’t know. Unless the story of that Steve’s having lost the deeds is true, and he means to try to slip us and go back to the place where he thinks he dropped them.”
“He’ll have a hot time slipping us,” the other boy said boastfully.
“I don’t know. He evidently knows this country better than we do.”
“That’s easy, for we don’t know it at all!” exclaimed Dig.
“Well, there may be a chance for them to fool us in these rocky hills. Maybe this proposal for a buffalo hunt is just for that purpose.”
“Not if they need meat so badly as they seem to,” remarked the other boy, with more thoughtfulness than he usually displayed.
“I see!” exclaimed Chet quickly. “You think they’ll wait to provision themselves before they take the back trail?”
“Yes.”
“I’d just like to know,” Chet murmured.
He was rather silent all through supper. They could look right down into the other camp and see the two rascals moving about their own fire. The night was still and the air very sweet. They were not troubled by gnats much, either, and the horses were not restless.
Dig rolled into his blanket early. Chet did not put more fuel on the coals, for he did not want the men below to see his movements. They kept up a good fire for some time, however.
The boy knew the men were talking, for occasionally the breeze brought to him the sound of their voices. Dig slept like a top, and Chet slipped out of the camp, passed near the horses to see that they were all right, and then, pistol in belt, crept quietly down the hillside.
Eavesdropping was not a game he loved to play; but the situation seemed to call for it. If he could learn something about the plans of the two rascals, it might help him decide his own course. For Chet Havens felt deeply the responsibility that circumstances had thrust upon him.
He was naturally a thoughtful boy, and when his father had talked so seriously to him regarding the errand to Grub Stake, Chet had no idea that he would fail in any particular to fulfil his father’s wishes.
It was farthest from his thoughts (as it probably was from Mr. Havens’) that anybody would attempt to steal the deeds from Chet. The boy accused himself of having been careless, however; in no other way could the deeds have been taken from him.
Now he must get them back if it was a possible thing. Chet was prepared to run into some danger, if necessary, to accomplish this end. Therefore he crept near to the scoundrels’ camp and chanced a fight with them if they should find him there.
They did not seem to be discussing anything of much moment to Chet, however, when he first established himself behind a tree within a few feet of the campfire. Tony was speaking:
“Well! we gotter have some o’ that buffalo meat—that’s all there is to it.”
“If those boys kill one,” sneered Steve.
“Oh, they’ll kill one all right,” said Tony, with confidence. “You’ve seen what they can do with a gun—’specially that Chet Havens. He’s a crackajack!”
“Oh, I see,” grumbled the other man. “Confound ’em! If it wasn’t for their guns I’d drive ’em out of the country easy.”
“Well, wait till we can load up with some grub before taking the back track; that’s what I say,” growled Tony, puffing on his eternal pipe.
“You think altogether too much of your stomach, Tony,” complained the other man.
“Why shouldn’t I think of it? Nobody else is goin’ to,” declared the hairy one, philosophically. “Tony Traddles has had to look after his own self since he was knee high to a hoppergrass. Ain’t nobody cared a continental for him—no, sir! Old man Havens chucked him out’n his job like he was a dawg.”
“And I should think you’d be sore on this son of his, for it,” observed Steve.
“Huh! I try ter be. But them boys are such smart rascals! They kin shoot an’ foller a trail, an’ all that. They are free-handed, too.”
“There we get right back to Tony’s stomach again,” snarled the other man. “You make me sick!”
“Well, it don’t make me sick to pick the bones of a fat bird that somebody else has shot,” quoth Tony Traddles. “And you ain’t so much!” he added, with some peevishness. “You said if you got them papers from the kid you’d make a hunk of money, and I should have some of it. And then you go and lose ’em—if you lost ’em.”
“Oh, I lost ’em all right,” returned Steve, “or I’d not be knocking around this country with a couple of boys tagging me.”
“And you think you can find ’em?” queried Tony.
“I believe I can. And I want to shake these kids so as to do it. When I slipped into the river as we swam the horses from that island, I flung my coat ashore to keep it dry. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“That’s when I lost the deeds. The packet fell out of my pocket right then. I was in too much of a hurry getting that crazy pony ashore to think of anything else.”
“Well! it’s a long way back,” remarked Tony. “And I insist on getting meat first. You can’t shoot game with your pistol, and this old gun of mine ain’t much good. I told you so in the first place.”
“If we wait for these boys to shoot something, we’ll have to kill another day,” grumbled Steve. “We can only slip out and leave ’em in the dark.”
“Then make it to-morrow night,” said Tony, with decision, and he rolled over and knocked the heel out of his pipe into the fire.
Chet stole away from the encampment of the two rascals within a few minutes. Tony had pillowed his head on his arm and gone to sleep. It was Steve’s first watch.
The boy had heard enough of importance to show him that his suspicions were upheld. The man really had lost the deeds which he had stolen.
He had not discovered the loss, in all probability, until he was made prisoner and searched by the two boys. At once his mind had gone back to his adventure on the shore of the river, now mentioned to Tony Traddles.
Chet was confident that he knew what river was meant. It was the shallow stream in which the men had striven to hide their trail just after they had robbed Chet and Dig. The former believed the island spoken of must be below the ford at which he and his chum last crossed.
“I could turn back and find that place—pretty nearly—in a day and a half,” thought Chet. “That’s where the fellows aimed for when they started out the morning after we captured them.
“Our sticking to their trail made them turn this way. Steve is going to try to throw us off and go back to find the papers. Why not beat him to it?”
Chet had sufficient food for reflection to keep him wide awake during his vigil. He let the fire die out and he kept back in the darkness, watching the other camp continually. He saw Steve move about occasionally; but the fellow did not offer to come up the hill; and as for Tony, by the way he had gone to sleep, Chet was quite sure he would not be easily aroused.
When Chet awoke his chum and partner he said nothing about what he had overheard at the other camp. Only, he advised his friend to watch the man below them closely.
“I’ll keep my eye on him, all right,” promised Dig. “B-r-r-r! it’s cold! What did you let the fire go out for, Chet?”
“It’s safer. You can see better without the light flickering in your eyes. And you can stir around and keep warm,” said Chet. “It’s me that’s got to lie cold. Wake me up in good season, now.”
Dig obeyed that last request. He roused Chet just as soon as the dawn streaked the eastern sky. Dig Fordham was excited, too.
“Whew, Chet!” he whispered. “I’ve thought up the greatest scheme!”
“What is it?” demanded Chet, yawning. “My! but you did get me up early enough, in all good conscience!”
“Don’t be a lazybones. The coffee is made,” said Dig. “And don’t forget that we’re to have another crack at the buffalo.”
“Yes? Well, maybe.”
“Whew! where’s your enthusiasm?” demanded Dig, disappointed.
“Wait till I get the stickers out of my eyes,” said Chet, going to the full spring.
After he had ducked his head into the cold water, and scrubbed his face and hands and behind his ears, he felt more awake to the situation.
“What’s the wonderful idea, Dig?” he mumbled, as he rubbed himself dry on the towel he had had wisdom enough to bring along. Camping out without a towel is simply punishment; and it was easy enough to dry the towel in the sun while they ate breakfast.
“I reckon you don’t want to hear about it,” grumbled Dig.
“Oh, go on! I was half asleep. What have you been conjuring up, old man?”
“Why, it’s about those buffaloes,” Dig whispered, as though he feared somebody would hear him besides Chet. “Rather about the big bull.”
“Well?”
“Let’s capture him!” exclaimed Dig.
“Huh? Oh, yes, another joke. Put salt on his tail?”
“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland!” declared Dig earnestly, “this is a good thing.”
“I don’t see how you’re going to capture a creature as big as an elephant—and twice as mad.”
“That’s where my scheme comes in.”
“Explain! explain!” urged Chet, spreading the towel on a bush.
“Why, I’ll tell you: Just as soon as it began to grow light this morning I saw Tony lie down and go to sleep. His partner was dead to the world, too; so I knew they wouldn’t bother us. I took the glasses and went just outside the timber, there, and tried to find the buffaloes.”
“They’re all right, aren’t they?” asked Chet, with interest.
“Sure. They spent the night in one of those small groves down there. They’ve just begun to come out to graze.”
“I see.”
“Well, I spied out the whole valley from where I stood. There’s a band of antelope further down, too. But we don’t care for them.”
“Not while the buffaloes are in sight,” chuckled Chet.
“Now, listen! Across the valley I saw the openings of two or three narrow gulches—regular pockets in the hill over there.”
“Hey!” cried Chet, sitting up both physically and mentally. “What is this, boy?”
“My idea,” said Dig, with confidence, “and it’s a good one. Those pockets can be made into corrals at least, one of them can.”
“You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Chet. “You think we can corral those buffaloes?”
“Maybe the big one. Sell him to some speculator or a showman,” said Dig.
“Say! that would beat all the hoptoads that ever hopped out of Ireland,” declared Chet. “Let’s have those glasses.”
“Wait till you have your breakfast.”
“Breakfast be jiggered!” ejaculated Chet. “I want to see what those pockets look like from out yonder. To corral some of those buffaloes! Well! that would beat shooting them, I should think,” and he hurried away from the campfire.