Harper's Round Table, December 15, 1896

by Various

III.

Now it chanced that Little Crotchet himself was on his way to the smoke in the swamp. He had been watching it, and wondering whether he should go to it by the path he knew, or whether he should go by the road that Aaron, the runaway, had told him of. Ben Gadsby interfered with his plans somewhat; for, quite by accident, young Gadsby, as he went down the hill, struck into the path that Little Crotchet knew. There was a chance to gallop along the brow of the hill, turn to the left, plunge through a shallow lagoon, and strike into the path ahead of Gadsby, and this chance Little Crotchet took. He waved his hand to Mr. Jonathan Gadsby, gave the gray pony the rein, and went galloping through the underbrush, his crutches rattling, and the rings of the bridle-bit jingling. To Mr. Jonathan Gadsby it seemed that the lad was riding recklessly, and he groaned and shook his head as he turned and went on his way.

But Little Crotchet rode on. Turning sharply to the left as soon as he got out of sight, he went plunging through the lagoon, and was soon going along the blind path a quarter of a mile ahead of Ben Gadsby. This is why young Gadsby was so much disturbed that he lost his way. He was bold enough when he started out, but by the time he had descended the hill and struck into what he thought was a cattle-path his courage began to fail him. The tall canes seemed to bend above him in a threatening manner. The silence oppressed him. Everything was so still that the echo of his own movements as he brushed along the narrow path seemed to develop into ominous whispers, as if all the goblins he had ever heard of had congregated in front of him to bar his way.

The silence, with its strange echoes, was bad enough, but when he heard the snorting of Little Crotchet's gray pony as it plunged through the lagoon, the rattle of the crutches and the jingling of the bridle-bit, he fell into a panic. What great beast could it be that went helter-skelter through this dark and silent swamp, swimming through the water and tearing through the quagmires? And yet, when Ben Gadsby would have turned back, the rank undergrowth and the trailing vines had quite obscured the track. The fear that impelled him to retrace his steps was equally powerful in impelling him to go forward. And this seemed the easiest plan. He felt that it would be just as safe to go on, having once made the venture, as to turn back. He had a presentiment that he would never find his way out anyhow, and the panic he was in nerved him to the point of desperation.

So on he went, not always trying to follow the path, but plunging forward aimlessly. In half an hour he was calmer, and pretty soon he found the ground firm under his feet. His instincts as a bee-hunter came back to him. He had started in from the east side, and he paused to take his bearings. But it was hard to see the sun, and in the recesses of the swamp the mosses grew on all sides of the trees. And yet there was a difference, which Ben Gadsby did not fail to discover and take account of. They grew thicker and larger on the north side, and remembering this, he went forward with more confidence.

He found that the middle of the swamp was comparatively dry. Huge poplar-trees stood ranged about, the largest he had ever seen. In the midst of a group of trees he found one that was hollow, and in this hollow he found the smouldering embers of a fire. But for the strange silence that surrounded him he would have given a whoop of triumph; but he restrained himself. Bee-hunter that he was, he took his coat from his shoulders and tied it around a small slim sapling standing near the big poplar where he had found the fire. It was his way when he found a bee-tree. It was a sort of guide. In returning he would take the general direction, and then hunt about until he found his coat; and it was much easier to find a tree tagged with a coat than it was to find one not similarly marked.

Thus, instead of whooping triumphantly, Ben Gadsby simply tied his coat about the nearest sapling, nodding his head significantly as he did so. He had unearthed the secret and unravelled the mystery, and now he would go and call in such of the neighbors as were near at hand and show them what a simple thing the great mystery was. He knew that he had found the hiding-place of Aaron the runaway. So he fixed his "landmark," and started out of the swamp with a lighter heart than he had when he came in.

To make sure of his latitude and longitude, he turned in his tracks when he had gone a little distance and looked for the tree on which he had tied his coat. But it was not to be seen. He retraced his steps, trying to find his coat. Looking about him cautiously, he saw the garment after a while, but it was in an entirely different direction from what he supposed it would be. It was tied to a sapling, and the sapling was near a big poplar. To satisfy himself, he returned to make a closer examination. Sure enough, there was the coat, but the poplar close by was not a hollow poplar, nor was it as large as the tree in which Ben Gadsby had found the smouldering embers of a fire.

He sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and scratched his head, and discussed the matter in his mind the best he could. Finally he concluded that it would be a very easy matter, after he found his coat again, to find the hollow poplar. So he started home again. But he had not gone far when he turned around to take another view of his coat.

It had disappeared. Ben Gadsby looked carefully around, and then a feeling of terror crept over his whole body—a feeling that nearly paralyzed his limbs. He tried to overcome this feeling, and did so to a certain degree. He plucked up sufficient courage to return and try to find his coat; but the task was indeed bewildering. He thought he had never seen so many large poplars with small slim saplings standing near them, and then he began to wander around almost aimlessly.