Morning brought further news of the search for the escaped prisoner. The Chief announced that a band of volunteers, under the direction of prison guards, had made a prolonged search of the vicinity, but had found no traces of the missing criminal. The object of their search had been free for more than four days now, and it was thought by some that he might have gotten clear away and escaped unseen to a far city where he could go undetected for some time. However, it was best not to relax the precautions they had made; and therefore the plans for tent hikes that night would have to be changed. A storm of protest greeted these last words, for the campers dearly liked the fun that always came when each tent, under its leader, took its supper and made an evening’s camp in some favorite spot a few miles from their usual haunts on the campus. But the Chief was obdurate.
At lunch, the Chief rose and stated that so many boys had come to him to ask that his ban on the tent hikes be lifted, that he had decided to allow these hikes to take place after all. He silenced the cheering with a lifted hand, and added that no group should camp more than a mile away from the lodge, and all should be in their own tents by ten o’clock at the latest.
This was good news. Noisy discussions took place at each table, as to what spot should be selected as the site of their evening meal. Jerry Utway shouted down the others at Dr. Cannon’s table, and finally got them to lay claim to Pebble Beach, a narrow bit of ground on the northeast border of the lake.
“I’m going with Jerry’s gang, please!” requested Jake. Mr. Avery, who had decided to take Tent Ten no farther away than Church Glade, gave a ready consent; and so it was arranged.
Directly the afternoon swim was over, the campers dressed in their hiking outfits, and two boys were sent to draw each tent’s rations from the kitchen. Jake and Jerry Utway, burdened with pans full of beans, raw potatoes, bread, salt, butter, and other provisions, headed for the dock, where two rowboats, filled with the remaining boys of Tent Eight, waited to shove off for their short journey across to Pebble Beach.
“I don’t much like the look of the sky,” observed Dr. Cannon, sitting in the stern of one of the boats as the boys stowed away the provisions. “But I guess we’ll be all right. Everybody got his poncho or raincoat? If it starts to rain, we can get back to the dock in short order. Ready? Shove off!”
The two boats, manned by a husky youngster at each oar, drew away from the dock, and shot across the placid water in the direction of their chosen camping-ground. Thus calmly and unsuspectingly, Jake and Jerry Utway, at the oars of the foremost boat, embarked upon the wildest night of their lives.
CHAPTER X
THE MAN IN BLUE AGAIN
The two boats grated on the shingle of Pebble Beach, and their gay crews disembarked and moored their craft to trees overhanging the water. Boys ran in all directions, fetching dry wood to the circle of blackened stones that marked the site of many a Lenape bivouac, and potatoes, in their jackets of damp clay, were thrust into the first embers of the small cooking fire that had been lighted under Dr. Cannon’s direction.
While the supper they had brought was cooking, Spaghetti Megaro organized a game of “duck-on-a-rock.” Twilight brought a gang of ravenous campers in a cluster about the fire, watching with alert eyes the drawing forth of the food whose steaming aroma, mingled with the bitter tang of wood-smoke, made every mouth water. The sun faded out into a gray foggy mass of clouds low-lying over the Lenape range across the lake, and by the replenished fire’s glow, the boys squatted about and ate their simple meal, spicing it with many a cheery quip and good-natured jest.