Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea

by L. Frank Baum

So their leader sent six men, heavily armed, in the ship’s long-boat to board the “Flipper” and protect the vessel from being captured. These were all his own men, for he still suspected that the “Flipper’s” crew were in some way implicated in the theft.

Then he picked four miners and four of the sailors to form a party to search for the robbers, and decided to lead the band himself and to take Uncle Naboth with him. The rest of the men were ordered to resume their work of washing out gold.

“I’m going to trust you, Perkins,” said the Major, “for your loss is as great as ours, and you seem anxious over that boy of yours. But if I meet with any treachery I’ll shoot you on the spot; and if I find that Sam Steele is one of the thieves I’ll show him no mercy, I promise you.”

“Quite satisfactory, sir,” answered Uncle Naboth, calmly. “Only let us get started as soon as possible.”

It was a puzzle at first to know in which direction to look for the fugitives; but Ned Britton had been carefully inspecting the edge of the forest, and came upon one of the paths Daggett had made in the course of his various wanderings inland. It was not the one we had taken, but away they started through the thicket, on a false scent, and the entire day was consumed in a vain search.

As they sat over their camp fire at evening Ned proposed that they try the other side of the island the following day.

“It’s there where the ship lies anchored, sir,” he told the Major; “and it’s most likely the men are in that neighborhood. The paths we’ve been following today are old trails that lead nowhere in particular, and there’s no use going any further in this direction.”

This proposition was so sensible that the Major at once agreed to it, and daybreak saw them tramping through the tangled underbrush toward the opposite side of the Island. Britton, who had a good sense of direction and knew about where the ship lay, undertook to guide them, and was fortunate enough to strike the trail of the robbers about the middle of the afternoon. The tracks lay directly toward the beach, and they pressed on with renewed vigor; but the heat was terribly oppressive in the more open country they had now reached, and the men were all exhausted by the long tramp. When, a little later, the sky grew black and the storm burst upon them, they withdrew to a thick grove of trees and rigged up a temporary shelter with their blankets, beneath which they passed the night.

The storm raged all around them, and occasionally the crash of a fallen tree startled their nerves; but the high cliff broke the force of the wind and the lightning was less severe than it was directly on the coast.

Uncle Naboth thought of me more than once during this rage of the elements, and hoped I was safe from harm; indeed, his anxiety was so great that he scarcely closed his eyes throughout the night.