I thought of Tom Till, and hated to have him know what was going on, which he would if there was a lot of boy noise and the whole camp should wake up and come scrambling over each other down to the dock in crazy-looking pajamas, talking and wondering “What on earth?”
So Poetry and I shushed Big Jim and Circus and the four of us started to tell each other what we knew.
“Somebody took John Till’s boat!” Circus puffed. “Hear him?—there he goes now!”
About two hundred yards from shore I saw a shadow of a boat out in the moonlight and heard the roar of a powerful motor, and knew we’d have to hurry if we got to the Indian cemetery first.
“Let’s step on the gas and get going,” Circus said as soon as we’d told them about the note we had found, and Poetry said, “What kind of gas—outboard motor, or station wagon?”
Big Jim, knowing that most of the Sugar Creek Gang had more bravery than good sense and that we sometimes did things that were dangerous, without thinking first, said, “This is another job for the police,” but Poetry spoke up and said, “Let’s be policemen ourselves. By the time we could phone them and they could get there, it’d be too late,” which it would be, I thought, so we decided we ought to try to get to the cemetery first by driving there as fast as we could in the station wagon.
What to do about Tom, was our first problem, but we wouldn’t have much time to try to solve it—some of us simply had to get going to the cemetery to be there before Bob could get to the Narrows, zip through it, and into that other lake where the cemetery was. It was half past nine right that second, and Bob was supposed to meet his dad there at ten. If only we could get there before either one of them did, and hide somewhere in the bushes. Then maybe we could sneak up on them, and get both of them at once—’cause it looked like Bob was in on the business of being a helper to the kidnapper too.
Barry and Little Jim and Tom Till were the only ones left in Barry’s tent. Barry must have heard our excited talk, ’cause in a jiffy his tent flap plopped open and out he came and wanted to know what on earth all the excitement was all about. We told him and showed him the note and he also heard Bob’s motor on the lake at the same time. We didn’t stop to try to figure out why John Till had written to Bob instead of just telling him where to meet him, or came tumbling out of Barry’s tent and in our direction, and anything. Right that minute almost, Little Jim and Tom Dragonfly came out of the other tent, and there we all were—too many—and some of us too little—to go on a kidnapper hunt.
I guess I never was so disappointed in my life as I was right that minute, though, ’cause Barry took charge of things quick, and said, “You boys all stay right here, and look after camp. I’ve a phone call to make—and I want to see the firewarden a minute.”
“Is there a fire somewhere?” Tom Till asked quick, sniffing to see if anything smelled like smoke, and Dragonfly did the same thing, and sneezed just like he had actually smelled something he was allergic to, which he is to nearly everything in the world anyway.