Chapter XII: Laying Plans

"Is that the way you keep a promise, Phil?" asked X-Ray, reproachfully, as he came crawling out of the shack, to find it beginning to get daylight, and with the sentry busying himself before a cheery fire, where he meant evidently to forestall Lub in starting breakfast.

"Oh! the joke is on you, that's all," laughed Phil.

"I don't see how," complained X-Ray, who really felt hurt in that he had not been allowed to stand his share of the night watch after being told he might.

"You'll have to learn to figure better, that's all, my boy," the other told him.

"Figure; how's that, Phil?"

"Well, learn to judge distances that are millions of miles away, to be more definite. Look over there to the west; see that star just going down? Well, that's the one you told me would set in two hours after Jupiter disappeared. I've been watching it right along, and somehow it just refused to vanish. There, I believe it's just dropped out of sight. If you were asleep, X-Ray, I'd think it my duty to go and get you on deck, because I promised I would."

X-Ray looked a bit foolish, and then laughed.

"Another time I'll see to it that I'm Johnny on the spot!" he declared. "Chances are you knew I'd figured wrong at the time, Phil?"

"What if I did, it wasn't in the bond that I should take you to task for that blunder. A little thing of this kind is going to impress it on your mind better than any words of mine could ever do. You'll never forget again to prove your sums so as to make doubly sure."

And Phil was right. X-Ray would never look up at the stars and try to figure on how long it would be before a certain one would set, without remembering his error of judgment, and taking especial pains that it was not repeated.

The others soon made their appearances, hearing this talking outside.

"Whew! but it's sharp this morning!" exclaimed Ethan as he joined them. "That blanket of mine isn't as warm as it might be, and I don't believe it's all wool and two yards wide. Where's the ax?"

"Going to cut some wood so as to get warm?" asked X-Ray Tyson.

"What, me?" cried Ethan, pretending to scoff at the idea; "why, fact is I want to chop a hole in the lake ice, and take a bath just to get my blood in circulation. They say there's nothing like it, you know."

All the same, after he had picked up one of the axes he was found to be cutting wood, which proved his daring assertion that had made Lub gasp to be pretty much in the nature of a great "bluff."

The boy was sitting by the fire where Lub had found him a place. Lub had insisted on Phil giving over the completion of breakfast into his charge.

"I've been elected chief cook by unanimous vote," he said, as he waved a big spoon about his head to emphasize his assertion; "and I expect you all to do what I tell you."

So he set them each one a task, Phil "spelling" Ethan at the woodpile, X-Ray to fetch plenty of fuel up, and Ethan something else when he had recovered his wind after his recent violent exertions.

As he cooked the breakfast Lub talked confidentially to the boy, who was looking quite contented and happy, as indeed who would not when finding such good friends, and being treated to such bountiful spreads?

"Are we going to try and take him back to his mammy to-day, Phil?" asked Ethan, later on, as they sat on the log, and discussed the eggs and bacon and coffee and flapjacks which had been produced so bountifully under the deft manipulation of the obliging Lub.

"Oh! what's the hurry?" the cook hastened to say; "it's threatening again, you can notice if you look at that bank of storm clouds coming up yonder. Better put it off a while. We've got oceans of grub, you know; and I like to feel him wrapped up in a blanket with me first-rate."

All of them looked to Phil to give the deciding word, though as a rule he always consulted his chums before saying anything, and tried to have it so that majority ruled the camp.

"I quite agree with Lub," he went on to say, quietly, as he gave that individual a smile, and then nodded his head toward the little chap.

"Good for you, Phil!" burst out Lub, clapping his hands together in delight.

"I don't altogether like the looks of things over there where those clouds are coming up," continued Phil. "It wouldn't be the nicest thing in the world to try to take this boy miles away, and then get caught in a howling blizzard. We'd do better to hold our horses and see what turns up."

"Oh! then you expect that some one may come along looking for him, do you?" asked X-Ray, jumping to conclusions.

"It's possible," he was told. "If they care at all for the child, when he's missed it seems to me there would be some stir; and one of the first things that ought to occur to his father would be to notify any campers around here, so they could be on the lookout for the kid as they trailed through the bush."

"Phil is right," asserted Ethan Allen, hastily. "It's sure up to Baylay to get a move on him and do something, if he's lost his boy. He couldn't expect to stay at home and wait for others to find the lost child."

"We don't know," said Phil, "but the chances are the mother and father have been pretty near being distracted because by now they must feel there's no chance of the kid being alive, unless he was picked up by a roving hunter or trapper."

The boy listened to all they said, though of course it was not likely that he understood much of it. He could see nothing but friendly smiles on each one of the four faces by the fire; and he knew as well as anything could be known that his lines had fallen in pleasant places.

When this matter had been settled all of them seemed to be relieved of a weight. The fact of the matter was they had already taken a great fancy to the waif, and like Lub none of them wanted to see him depart.

It did begin to blow and snow heavily ere another hour had passed. X-Ray declared that from the signs they were in for a fierce blizzard; and he told some fearful stories he had read concerning these dreadful storms.

Lo! and behold the treacherous weather played him a sly trick, for the sun came out even while he was in the midst of the most doleful yarn, and his chums gave him a merry laugh in consequence.

At the same time there was enough of threat in the clouds to keep them in camp that morning, finding plenty to do to employ their time.

In prowling around Phil had made several little discoveries concerning the abiding places or haunts of certain small fur-bearing animals that frequented the border of the lake. His collection of flashlight pictures was lacking in some particulars, and he believed it would pay him to commence work trying to obtain results while on the spot.

"I wouldn't want to go back home without a few additions to my splendid series of flash exposures," he told the others while getting things ready so that he could place his cunning little trap when the shadows of evening began to gather; "and I want to see if the animals up here in this half Arctic region are as obliging as they are down in our section of the country, so as to take their own pictures for a poor hard worked photographer who needs sleep, and can't afford to sit up all night just to press a button and fire the cartridge."

"You always make it a paying business for the victim, Phil," declared Lub; "for you give him a jolly lunch to settle for his trouble. Huh! seems to me I'd like to just pull a string and get a flash if only it meant grub every time, and no harm done. They're a lucky lot, I'll be bound."

Lub had taken a turn during the morning in trying to talk with the tongue-tied boy. Of course it could only be done through the use of many signs, although there was always a chance that the little chap might know a name if he heard it.

"When I kept repeating the word Baylay I could see that he seemed interested," Lub told the others. "It's too bad we didn't ask Mr. McNab what the names of the Baylay kids were. I've tried every one I could think of and none seemed to fit. He shook his curly head every time as if he wanted me to know he owned to no such name. I reckon now they must be out of the ordinary."

And it afterwards turned out that Lub was quite right when he chanced to make this assertion, for the boy's name was indeed out of the ordinary; so it was no wonder Lub failed to strike it in his vocabulary.

Noon came and found things just about as before.

Some of them had been half expecting to see a bulky figure pushing toward the camp; but the hours had crept on without such a thing coming to pass.

"It's too late now to think of starting out to try and find the place where the Baylay cabin is located," asserted Ethan, when the afternoon was fairly well advanced, and the clouds seemed to have given up the battle for supremacy, for they were retreating all along the line, leaving a cold blue sky in evidence instead.

"Of course it is," Lub hastened to add, a wrinkle making its appearance across his forehead, a "pucker" Ethan always called it, and which was apt to show whenever the fat chum became worried over something or other.

The quick look he took in the direction of his charge explained the cause on this particular occasion. Lub always was fond of kids, and they loved him too. In this case the fact of their visitor being a waif of the snow forest had more or less to do with his feelings; and then, besides, the poor little chap being unable to do more than make those distressing sounds when he did want to express his feelings the worst kind brought a pang to Lub's tender heart.

"Yes," Phil decided, "it would be foolish to attempt anything of the kind now. It can wait until morning. They've given up all hope by now, I'm afraid, so they'll not be apt to suffer much worse for a little more delay. And getting the boy back safe and sound will make them all the happier."

"That's the way it treats me always," affirmed Lub, looking inexpressibly relieved at hearing the dictum pronounced that meant another night with his little blanket-mate; "I never wanted a thing real bad, and kept being put off and put off but that it got to be what my mother would call an absorbing passion with me."

"Yes, just like the baby in the bath leaning over and trying to reach a cake of well known soap, you'd 'never be happy till you got it,' eh, Lub?" jeered X-Ray.

"It's contradiction that makes men great," said Lub, ponderously. "Difficulties bring out all there is in a fellow, and Phil will tell you so too. The life that flows on calmly never amounts to much. That's what makes these mountaineers such a hardy lot; they have to fight for everything they get, while the people on the fertile plains make an easy living."

"Gee! listen to the philosopher talk, will you?" said Ethan, pretending to be much surprised, when in truth he knew very well that once in so often Lub was apt to drop into this moralizing mood, and air some pretty bright views, for the benefit of his comrades in arms.

"No trouble now telling where that other camp is," X-Ray informed them. "All you have to do is to take a glance over that way, and you'll see a thick black smoke rising up."

"If we'd had any idea there'd be trouble lying in wait for us around here," ventured Ethan, "we might have kept them guessing where we had our camp. It would be easy to pick out good dry wood, of which there is plenty lying around, and using only that kind. It gives out so little smoke they never would have noticed; whereas the half-green stuff tells anybody with half an eye where the fire is."

"What you say about the wood and the smoke is all very true, Ethan," remarked Phil; "but all the same I doubt whether it would have prevented their finding our location, once Mr. James Bodman started to make things interesting by offering a bonus to his guides to smell us out. They'd have heard us chopping, it might be, for in these still woods sounds carry a long ways when the air is just right."

"Yes, I guess that's so," X-Ray admitted, "because several times I've been positive I heard the sound of a faraway ax at work; and I noticed that the wind was coming from that quarter too."

"To-night we keep watch as we planned, eh, Phil?" Ethan asked.

"We'd be wise to do it just as long as we expect to hang out around this section, and that crowd is over there," he was informed.

"Yes, and I ought to be given the first watch, because I managed to get off so slick last night," asserted X-Ray; "promise me that, won't you?"

"If it's going to worry you the sooner we say yes the better," laughed Phil; "so we'll consider that the night is to be cut up into thirds, and I choose the second watch for my turn; Ethan, you have to tag on at the end."

"So long as I get my full share of the work it doesn't matter a bit to me where I come in; but let there be no tricks on travelers played to-night. What's fair for one is fair to all."

"I suppose you mean to count me out, as usual?" complained Lub, feebly protesting.

"You have all you can do attending to the grub question," said X-Ray, sternly. "If you do happen to wake up in the night, and can't get to sleep again, why you might employ yourself fixing up in your mind some new dish you want to spring on us as a surprise. But as a sentry, wide awake and vigilant, you know you're a rank fizzle, Lub. Now please don't fire up, and want particulars, because I'd hate to rake up bygone happenings."

"Oh! well, if you're three to one against me there's no use in my kicking," admitted Lub, trying to look only resigned, whereas in spite of him a grin would persist in spreading across one side of his rosy features.

He had done his duty in showing a willingness to take part in the protection of the camp; if his chums were a unit in deciding against him having a share in the sitting-up business he could not say anything more.

"Your part to-night will be to see that our little friend here is kept cozy and warm," Phil told him, as he patted the boy on his curly head, and was surprised when the little fellow in the gratitude of his heart suddenly seized hold of his hand and actually pressed it to his childish lips.

Never would Phil Bradley forget the sensation he experienced upon receiving mute evidence of affection; it drew him more than ever to the hapless one whom affliction had marked for its own in refusing him the great gift of speech.

"Hello! listen to all that row going over there, will you?" cried X-Ray Tyson.

As they started up with strained ears there came floating on the wind faint but unmistakable sounds that somehow thrilled the listeners through and through.