"Why?" asked Hadden unsuspectingly.
"So they won't forget the scales next time," answered Thurlow proudly. He was the recipient of four slices of bread and a portion of a cup of water, all unsolicited and unexpected. Mr. Buckman mildly objected, but appeared to think the punishment deserved.
It had stopped drizzling during the afternoon and practice had been held on a very wet diamond. Chub had sustained a wrenched ankle by slipping while running bases and was inclined to be down on his luck. Roy tried to cheer him up, but had scant success. Chub was convinced this evening that the nine was no good and that certain defeat at the hands of Hammond stared them in the face. Like most normally cheerful persons, Chub was the gloomiest of the gloomy when he decided to be. At camp-fire Thurlow brought out his banjo and got them all to singing. That seemed to raise Chub's spirits some; it did him good, he declared, to howl. Later it started in drizzling again and the campers went to bed early, tying the tent flaps securely ere they retired.
It was black night when Roy awoke. He couldn't even see the canvas overhead. He wondered what had awakened him and listened to the deep breathing about him for a moment. Perhaps Post had talked in his sleep; he often did. Roy turned over again and closed his eyes. Then he opened them quickly. From somewhere came a sound as though a boat was being drawn across the pebbles of a beach. He listened intently, but heard nothing more. He had imagined it, he told himself sleepily. But he wasn't satisfied. After a moment he heard it again, that grating noise. He reached toward Post about to awaken him, thought better of it and scrambled noiselessly out of bed. After all it was hardly probable that Hammond had visited them without giving the usual notice; it wouldn't be playing fair and Chub would be frightfully pained and grieved! Roy smiled to himself as he tried to find the cords which lashed the tent flap close. There was no use in waking the whole crowd up unless there was some reason for it. He would just look around a bit first—if he could ever get out of the fool tent! Then the last cord gave way and he slipped out into the darkness.
The camp-fire was long since out and the shower had drowned even the embers. It was no longer raining, but the ground was wet underfoot and the grass and low growth threw drops against his bare ankles. It was not quite so black outside here as it had been in the tent, and in the east a rift in the clouds hinted of the moon, but it was too dark to see much of anything. Roy felt his way across the clearing, stumbled over a peg as he crept past the Ute quarters and shook a shower of raindrops from a young pine as he went sprawling into the underbrush. It was very damp there on the ground and pine needles and grass and twigs were plastered to his body, but he lay still a moment and listened. Surely, if there was anyone round they couldn't have failed to hear him crash into the bushes! All was still for an instant; then there was a subdued splash as though someone had unintentionally plunged his foot into water. Roy cautiously lifted his head. Now came a whisper; another answered from a distance; an oar creaked in its lock.
Only a fringe of pines and underbrush divided Roy from the Inner Beach which was here some thirty feet wide. As noiselessly as possible he stood up and stared into the darkness ahead. It seemed that he could distinguish forms moving about, but he decided that an excited imagination was to blame. Cautiously he pressed through the bushes, which being wet gave little sound as their branches whipped back. Then he was on the edge of the pebbles. And as he raised his bare foot to step forward again the moon broke forth from the broken clouds and he stopped short, stifling the cry that sprang to his lips. In the sudden flood of dim light the edge of the stream seemed fairly alive with boats, while right in front of him, so near that another step would have reached him, a dark figure was kneeling in his path.
CHAPTER XX
ROY VISITS HAMMOND
Roy's first impulse was to summon assistance, to rouse the camp; his next, to avoid detection. For the beach was empty of boats; every one of the five, the four steel rowboats and Chub's canoe, had been lifted into the water and manned by the marauders, and by the time the fellows reached the scene they would be far out into the river. All this Roy sensed in far shorter time than it has taken to tell it. Scarcely a moment had passed since the moonlight had revealed the stooping figure in front of him. Roy still stood poised for that forward step. The form at his feet resolved itself into a boy with a woolen sweater and a cloth cap. He had laid a piece of paper on the beach and was piling pebbles upon it. Had he glanced up quickly he could not have failed to see Roy, even though the latter stood in partial shadow. Roy held his breath and waited. In the boats the dark forms of the invaders were motionless, startled doubtless by the sudden advent of the moonlight. Then the boy at Roy's feet straightened himself up with a little laugh, and, without glancing back, crept down the beach toward the boats. And as suddenly as it had come the moon went, and once more the darkness enveloped everything. Roy took a deep breath and, with pulses leaping, crept silently after the other. The moon had played into his hands.