Chapter XXXVII: Tom’s Final “find” 360 (6)

Tom was at the bow of one of them and Cal at that of the other, to act as pilots. It was planned that these two boats should lead the way into the two entrances, the others closely following.

Silently the two fleets made their way to the two points of landing. The one which passed up the creek halted as soon as it came within sight of the landing where the smugglers were busily and noisily trying to get their loaded boats afloat, a task in which they were encountering much difficulty, as the lieutenant had foreseen that they must. It was the lieutenant’s plan that his boats should lie there, hidden by the darkness, until the men entering by the cove should land, march across the neck of swamp, and take the smugglers in the rear, thus cutting off all possibility of their escape into the bushes.

As soon as he saw the signal light that Tom showed to announce the readiness of the party he accompanied, the lieutenant rushed his boats ashore, and the two revenue parties, without firing a shot, seized and disarmed their foes, who, until their captors were actually upon them, had had no dream of their coming.

In the meanwhile, under the lieutenant’s previously given orders, the cutter had slowly steamed up toward the mouth of the creek, where, at a signal, she came to anchor.

Hurriedly the captured booty was loaded into the ship’s boats and carried to the revenue vessel. Then the smugglers’ camp was minutely searched to see if any goods remained there, and the hovels were set on fire.

While all this was going on that curiosity on Tom’s part, which had done so much already, was again at work. Tom wanted to know something that was not yet clear to him, and he set to work to find out. Detaching the lame smuggler from his companions, Tom entered into conversation with him. Fortunately the man was sober now, and had been so long enough to render him despondent.

“You’re not fit for this sort of thing,” Tom said to him after he had broken through the man’s moody surliness and silence. “With your game leg and the brutal way the others treat you, I should think you’d have got out of it long ago.”

“They’d ’a’ killed me if I’d tried,” the man answered.

“Well, they can’t do that now,” said Tom, “for they’re in for a term in prison.”

“But they’s others, jest as I told you that night you fellers caught me at your boat. There’s the fellers up the creek what’s a-waitin’ this minute for us to come up with the goods.”

This was what Tom wanted to find out.

“Yes, of course,” he replied; “they’ll be disappointed, won’t they? I suppose they expect to get the goods well inland before morning?”

“No, not exactly; but they’d ’a’ got ’em hid into a little store they’ve got up there, so’s they could work ’em off up to Charleston or down to Savannah, little at a time, like. Howsomever, the game’s up now, and them what’s got all the profits out’n it’ll play pious an’ go scot free, while us fellers what’s done all the work an’ took all the risks has got to go to jail.”

A new thought suddenly struck Tom.

“_You_ needn’t, if I’m not mistaken. Anyhow, there’s a chance for you that’s worth working for.”

“What’s the good o’ talkin’ that away? Ain’t I ketched long o’ the rest?”

“Yes, of course. I was only thinking—”

“What was you a-thinkin’?”

“Oh, only that the revenue people would a good deal rather have the ‘others’ you speak of—the men further up the creek and the men behind them—than to have you.”

“I reckon they would, but what’s that got to do with it?”

“Only that if you made up your mind to turn Government’s witness and give the whole snap away; they’d be pretty apt to let you off easily.”

The man sat silent for a time. At last he muttered:

“First place, I don’t know enough. Them fellers ain’t no fools an’ they ain’t a-lettin’ fellers like me into their secrets. I ain’t never seed any of ’em, ‘ceptin’ the storekeeper up that away what takes the stuff from us, an’ pays us little enough for gittin’ it there. ’Sides that, them fellers has got money an’ lots o’ sense. Even ef I know’d all about it an’ ef I give it away, ’twould be only the wuss for me. They’d have me follered to the furdest corner o’ the earth an’ killed like a dog at last. No, ’tain’t no use. I’ve got to take my medicine. Time for runnin’ away is past, an’ I ain’t got but one good leg to run with, you see.”

“What made you lame, anyhow?” asked Tom, by way of keeping up the conversation without seeming too insistent on his suggestion that the man should confess.

“That bully with the red face—our captain, as he calls hisself. He kicked my hip out’n jint one day when I was drunk, an’ seein’s they wa’nt no doctor anywheres about, he sot it hisself, an’ sot it wrong somehow. Anyhow, I’d like to do him up if I could.”

Tom noted the remark and the vindictive tone in which it was made, but he did not reply to it at once. Instead, he said:

“They must pay him better than they do the rest of you?”

“Him? You bet! He gits a lot out’n the business, an’ he’s got dead oodles and scads o’ money put away in the bank. He’s close in with the big ones what’s backin’ the game. It was him what set it up fust off—leastways him an’ Pedro Mendez.”

“Who is Pedro Mendez?”

“Oh, he’s—never you mind who he is. See here, young feller, you’s a axin’ too many questions.”

“Not too many for your good if you have sense enough to take my advice. Listen to me! You know a great deal more about this lawless business than you pretend. You know enough to make you a very valuable witness. If you choose to help the revenue people in getting at the bottom of it and breaking it up, they’re sure to let you off very easily, and as for killing you, the people in the thing will have enough to do in looking out for themselves without bothering about that after they get out of jail.”

Tom explained and elaborated this point, and at last the lame man began to see hope ahead for himself.

“Will they make a certain sure promise to let me off if I tell all I know?” he asked.

“No. They can’t do that, for if they did your testimony would be worthless. But they always do let state’s witnesses off easily, and in such a case as this they’re sure to do so. You can be very easy about that.”

“An’ they’d bear down all the harder on the cap’n when they found out he was one o’ the big managers o’ the game, wouldn’t they?”

“I should say they would give him the largest dose the law allows.”

“I’ll do it then, jest to git even with him. I’ll do it even if they don’t reckon it up much to my credit. How’ll I go about it?”

“I’ll arrange that for you. I’ll tell the lieutenant who is in command here that you’re ready to ‘give the snap away,’ and he’ll take your statement. Then, when the time comes you’ll only have to go into court and tell your story over again.”

“But if them fellers finds out I’ve been chinnin’ with the lieutenant they’ll kill me right there on board the ship.”

“The lieutenant will take care of that. He’ll see that they have no chance to get at you.”

“Is that certain—sure—hard an’ fast?”

“Yes—certain, sure, hard and fast,” answered Tom, with a gleefulness that he found it difficult to keep out of his voice and manner.

Going to the lieutenant and interrupting him in the directions he was busily giving, Tom said under his breath:

“Separate the lame man from the rest. He’ll confess, and it’s a big story. The others will kill him if they suspect.”

The lieutenant was quick to catch Tom’s meaning and to act upon it. Turning to a petty officer he gave the order:

“Take the prisoners aboard under a strong guard. The rest of the freight can wait. Put the lame man in my boat and leave him behind under a guard.”

As the boats containing the prisoners moved off down the creek, Tom’s curiosity again got the best of him. Turning to Larry he said:

“They’re arresting these men without a warrant, Larry, and we’ve helped them to do the very thing you said we ought to fight to prevent.”

“No warrant is needed in this case. The gang has been ‘caught in the act’ of committing crime, and caught with the goods on them.”

“Oh, I see,” said Tom. “That makes all the difference in the world.”

XXIV

THE LAME MAN’S CONFESSION

“COME, Tom, let’s go aboard,” said the lieutenant, as soon as the boat that carried the prisoners was well away down the creek. “A quartermaster can finish up what there is to do here, and I’m anxious to let you boys get away on your sporting trip as soon as possible; but I simply can’t let you go till—till we finish the matter you spoke of just now. If we can manage that to-night I’ll send you on your way rejoicing as early to-morrow morning as you please.”

“Thank you for all of us,” said Tom, as the two, with the lame man and his guards, seated themselves in the waiting boat; “but you mustn’t think this thing has interfered with us. It has been right in our line and strictly according to the programme.”

“How is that?” the lieutenant asked, enjoying Tom’s evident relish for the experience he had just gone through.

“Why, you see we set out not merely for sport, but with the declared purpose of seeking ‘sport and adventure.’ This thing has been sport to us, and you’ll not deny that it has had a distinct flavor of adventure in it.”

“Tom, you ought to be a sailor or a soldier,” was the officer’s only reply.

As soon as they went aboard the lieutenant ordered the lame man taken to his own cabin and the rest of the prisoners to the forehold under a strong guard. When the other boys, who were closely following, came over the side, he invited the four to go with him to his quarters.

“Stop a minute, though. Tell me just what you’ve arranged, Tom, so that I may know how to proceed.”

“Well, I’ve drawn a little information out of the lame man and got him to promise more—all he knows in fact, and that seems to be a good deal. These outlaws are only the agents of conspirators ‘higher up,’ as the phrase goes—ruffians hired by the conspirators to do the work and take the risks, while the men higher up pocket all the proceeds except the pittance allowed to their hired outlaws. The red-faced bully down there, who acts as captain of the band, seems to be an exception to all this. According to the lame man, that burly brute was the originator of the conspiracy, he and some man named Pedro Mendez.”

“What? Pedro Mendez?” interrupted the lieutenant.

“That’s the name the lame man mentioned. Do you know Pedro, or know who he is?”

“I should say I do. He’s—by the way, he’s the owner of the good ship _Senorita_, from whose cargo some of the smuggled goods came! Wait a minute.”

The officer pressed a button and a subordinate promptly appeared to receive orders.

“Tell Mr. Chisolm to get the ship under way as soon as all the boats are aboard, and steam at full speed for Beaufort.”

When the orderly had disappeared, the lieutenant exclaimed:

“I must get to a telegraph office before morning, and we’ll have the smiling Pedro under arrest in Baltimore before another night comes. Go on, Tom! This is the biggest haul made in ten years and we have you boys to thank for it. Go on, please.”

“There isn’t much more for me to tell. The lame man will tell the rest. He has a grudge against the red-faced captain—a life and death enmity—I should say—and it is chiefly to get his foe into all possible trouble that he is willing to tell all he knows. I’ve assured him that if he gives the information necessary to secure the capture of the whole gang and the breaking up the business, the authorities are pretty sure to let him off easily.”

“That’s all right. Now we’ll go to the cabin and see how much our man can tell.”

What the lame man told the lieutenant has no place in this story. He knew, as Tom had supposed, practically all that was needed, and once started in his story he told it all.

It was taken down in shorthand as he told it, and after some difficulties with the pen the man signed it, the four boys signing as witnesses. A few days later the newspapers were filled with news of a “stupendous Revenue capture” and the arrest of a number of highly respectable men caught in a conspiracy to defraud the Government.

When the confessing prisoner had been removed to secure quarters for the night the officer shook hands warmly with the boys, saying:

“You young men have rendered a much greater service to the Government than you can well imagine, and as an officer commissioned by the Government I want to thank you for it as adequately as I can. It is not only that some smugglers have been captured as a result of what you have done, and a lot of smuggled goods seized. That, indeed, is the smallest part of it. This capture will make an end to this sort of smuggling for all time. I was sent here six weeks ago expressly to accomplish this purpose, and but for you young men and the assistance you have given me I doubt that I should ever have accomplished it at all, although, as you know, a half company of marines was furnished me in addition to the ship’s own force, in order that I might be strong enough for any emergency.

“Now if I talked all night I couldn’t thank you enough. Let me turn to another matter. I promised you to set you afloat at any point you wish, and I’ll do it. But I’m taking you to Beaufort now because I _must_ get to a telegraph office. As soon as I possibly can in the morning I’ll steam to the point you choose.”

“Beaufort suits us very well, indeed,” Larry answered. “You see we’re short of stores and when we’re afloat again we’ll lay our course for a region where no stores can be had except such as we can secure with our shotguns.”

“What stores do you need?” asked the officer.

“Coffee, a side of bacon to fry fish with, two hams, and as many boxes of ship biscuit as we can manage to stow away in our boat. That’s all, except some salt, I think. I suppose we can buy all such things at Beaufort. If not, we can go without them.”

“No, you can’t buy them at Beaufort or anywhere else,” the lieutenant answered; “because I’m going to furnish them from my own ship’s stores.”

“But, Lieutenant,” said Larry, flushing, “your stores belong to the Government, don’t they?”

“Yes, certainly. What of that?”

“Why, we can’t let you give us goods that belong to the Government.”

“Oh, I see your scruple, but you’re wrong about the facts. It is a part of every revenue cutter’s duty to provision craft in distress, and—”

“But pardon me, we are not in distress. It is only that for our comfort we need certain supplies that we are perfectly well able to buy, and when we get to Beaufort a market will be open to us. We’ll provision ourselves, if you don’t mind.”

“I wish you’d let me do it. It is little enough, in all conscience, considering the service you’ve rendered the Government.”

“We didn’t do that for pay,” Larry answered.

“I quite understand that. Still I have full authority to issue the stores to you, and the disposition made of them will of course be set forth in my official report.”

“Thank you, very much, for your good will in the matter,” Larry said, in a tone that left no chance for further argument, “but we prefer to buy for ourselves. Then if you’ll have your men lower our boat, we’ll say ‘Good-bye and good luck’ to you and take ourselves off your hands.”

“That is final?”

“Yes—final.”

“Very well. It shall be as you say. But I’m sorry you won’t let me do even so small a thing as that by way of showing you my gratitude.”

A little later Larry sought out the lieutenant on deck.

“I’ll tell you what you may do for us, Lieutenant, if you are still so minded.”

“Of course I am. I’ll do whatever you suggest. What is it?”

“Why, write a brief letter to Tom and let me have it for delivery after we get away from Beaufort. He’ll cherish that as long as he lives, and you see after all it was Tom who did it all. He first found the smugglers’ camp and investigated it; he made the later reconnoissance on which you acted, and he led the—”

“Say no more,” the lieutenant answered. “I’ll write the letter and give it to you.”

The lieutenant had another thought in mind; he did not mention it; but when at last the boys got back to Charleston, they found a letter awaiting each of them, a letter of thanks and commendation. Those letters were not from the commanding officer of a revenue cutter, but from the Secretary of the Treasury himself, and they were signed by his own hand.

All that occurred later, however. At present the story has to do only with what further adventures the boys encountered in their coast wanderings.

XXV

A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS

THE _Hunkydory_ was loaded to the point of inconvenience when, about noon, she set sail again. For it was the purpose of the boys to make their way to Quasi quickly now, stopping only long enough here and there to replenish their supply of game and fish, and they wanted to be free to stay as long as they pleased at Quasi, when at last they should reach that place, without being compelled to hurry away in search of supplies. Accordingly they bought at Beaufort all the hard bread, coffee and other such things that they could in any wise induce the dory to make room for.

“Never mind, Dory dear,” Cal said to the boat as he squeezed in a dozen cans of condensed milk for which it was hard to find a place. “Never mind, Dory dear; with four such appetites as ours to help you out, your load will rapidly grow lighter, and when we get to Quasi we’ll relieve you of it altogether.”

It was planned to establish a comfortable little camp at Quasi, to hunt and fish at will, to rest when that seemed the best thing to do, and to indulge in that limitless talk which intelligent boys rejoice in when freed for a time from all obligation to do anything else. In short, a considerable period of camping at Quasi had come to be regarded as the main purpose of the voyage. With their guns and their fishing tackle, the boys had no concern for their meat supply, but, as Cal said:

“We can’t expect to flush coveys of ship biscuit or catch coffee on tight lines, so we must take as much as we can of that sort of provender.”

About two o’clock on the afternoon of the third day of their voyage from Beaufort the boat was lazily edging her way through an almost perfectly smooth sea, with just a sufficient suggestion of breeze to give her steerage way. Tom was at the tiller, with next to nothing to do there. Larry and Dick were dozing in the shadow of the mainsail, while Cal, after his custom, was watching the porpoises at play and the gulls circling about overhead and everything else that could be watched whether there was any apparent reason for watching it or not.

Presently he turned to Tom and, indicating his meaning by an inclination of the head toward a peninsula five or six miles away, which had just come into view as the boat cleared a marsh island, said:

“That’s it.”

“What’s it? and what is it?” asked Tom, too indolent now to disentangle his sentences.

“Quasi,” said Cal.

“Where?”

“Over the port bow. Change your course a little to starboard—there’s a mud bank just under water ahead and we must sail round it.”

“Quasi at last!” exclaimed Tom gleefully, as he pushed the helm to port and hauled in the sheet a trifle in order to spill none of the all too scanty breeze.

Instantly Dick and Larry were wide awake, and for a time conversation quickened as Cal pointed out the salient features of the land ahead.

“How far away do you reckon it, Cal?” asked Dick.

“About five miles.”

“Is it clear water? Can we lay a straight course?”

“Yes, after we clear this mud bank. A little more to starboard, Tom, or you’ll go aground.”

“We ought to make it by nightfall then,” said Larry—“unless this plaything of a breeze fails us entirely.”

“We’ll make it sooner than that,” said Dick, standing up and steadying himself by the mast. “Look, Cal. There’s business in that.”

Dick had seen white caps coming in between two islands ahead, and had rightly judged that in her present position the dory was temporarily blanketed by a great island that lay between it and the sea.

“I don’t need to stand up,” answered Cal, “and it’s hot. I saw the sea running in ahead. I’d have suggested a resort to the oars if I hadn’t. As it is, we’ll toy with this infantile zephyr for half an hour more. By that time we’ll clear the land here and set our caps on a little tighter or have them carried away. That’s a stiff blow out there, and by the way, we’re catching the ragged edges of it already. A little more to starboard, Tom, and jibe the boom over.”

“It’ll be windward work all the way,” said Larry, as he looked out ahead.

“So much the better,” said Cal, who found something to rejoice in in every situation. “It’ll blow the ‘hot’ off us before we make Quasi, and besides, there’s nothing like sailing on the wind if the wind happens to be stiff enough.”

“It’ll be stiff enough presently,” said Larry; then after looking about for a moment, he added: “I only hope we sha’n’t ship enough water to dampen down our clothes. The dory is _very_ heavily loaded.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dick. “She’s built to carry a heavy load in a rough sea and a high wind. In fact, she points up better and foots better, carries herself better every way when she has a load on than when she hasn’t.”

“H’m!” muttered Cal, going to the helm where Tom was manifesting some distrust of his own skill in the freshening wind and the “lumpy” seaway they were beginning to meet. “I’ve known men to think they were like the _Hunkydory_ in that.”

“Diagram it, Cal,” said Larry.

“Oh, I’ve seen men who thought they could do things better with a ‘load on’ than without. Trim ship! I’m going to take the other tack.”

Then, as the boat heeled over to starboard, her rail fairly making the water boil, Cal completed his sentence. “But they were mistaken.”

“It’s different with boats,” Dick answered; “and besides, the dory’s ‘load’ is of quite another sort.”

Sailing on the wind with a skittish boat of the dory type is about as exhilarating a thing, when the wind pipes high and the sea surges white with foam, as can be imagined. In order that the pleasure of it might not all be his, Cal presently surrendered the tiller to Dick, who in his turn gave it over to Larry after his own pulses were set a-tingle. Larry offered Tom his turn, but Tom modestly refused, doubting the sufficiency of his skill for such work as this.

“The tools to those who can use them, is sound philosophy, I think,” he said in refusing. “Besides, I don’t want to be responsible if we turn turtle before we reach Quasi, after all our trouble.”

After half an hour or so of speedy windward work the _Hunkydory_ drew near enough to Quasi for Cal to study details of the shore line somewhat. Lying in the bow, just under the jib, he was silently but diligently engaged in scrutinizing every feature he could make out in a shore that lay half a mile or a trifle more away. The others asked him questions now and then, but he made no answer. Under his general instructions the dory was skirting along the shore, making short legs, so as to maintain her half mile distance until Cal should find the place he was looking for as a landing.

Presently he turned and spoke to Dick, who was now at the tiller again.

“Run in a quarter of a mile, Dick, and bring us nearer shore,” he said.

Dick obeyed, while Cal seemed to be studying something on shore with more than ordinary interest. Presently he said:

“There’s something wrong over there. As soon as we round the point ahead, Dick, you’ll have fairly sheltered water and sloping sands. Beach her there.”

“What is it, Cal? What’s the matter? Why do you say there’s something wrong?” These questions were promptly hurled at Cal’s head by his companions.

“Look!” he answered. “Do you see the little flag up there on top of the bluff? It is flying union down—a signal of distress. But I can’t make out anybody there. Can any of you?”

All eyes were strained now, but no living thing could be seen anywhere along the shore. Tom ventured a suggestion:

“The flag is badly faded and a good deal whipped out, as if it had been flying there for a long time. Perhaps the people who put it up have all died since.”

“No, they haven’t,” answered Cal.

“Why, do you see anybody?”

“No. But I see a little curling smoke that probably rises from a half burned-out camp-fire.”

“It’s all right then?” half asked, half declared Tom.

“You forget the flag flying union down, Tom. That isn’t suggestive of all-rightness. Bring her around quick, Dick, and beach her there just under the bluff!”

Half a minute more and the dory lay with her head well up on the sloping sand. The boys all leaped ashore except Larry, who busied himself housing the mast and sails and making things snug. The rest scrambled up the bluff, which was an earth bank about twenty feet high and protected at its base by a closely welded oyster bank.

XXVI

AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION

THERE was nobody near the half burned-out camp-fire, but there were evidences in plenty of the fact that somebody had cooked and eaten there that day. There were no cooking utensils lying about, but there was a structure of green sticks upon which somebody had evidently been roasting meat; there were freshly opened oyster shells scattered around—“the beginnings of a kitchen midden,” Dick observed—and many other small indications of recent human presence. Especially, Cal noticed, that some smouldering brands of the fire had been carefully buried in ashes—manifestly to serve as the kindlers of a fresh fire when one should be needed. Finally, Tom discovered a hunting knife with its point stuck into the bark of a tree, as if its owner had planned to secure it in that way until it should be needed again, just as a house-wife hangs up her gridiron when done with it for the time being.

As the three were discovering these things and interpreting their meaning, Larry joined them and suggested a search of the woods and thickets round about.

“Why not try nature’s own method first?” Tom asked.

“How’s that?”

“Yelling. That’s the way a baby does when it wants to attract attention, and it generally accomplishes its purpose. That’s why I call it nature’s own method. Besides, it covers more ground than looking can, especially in an undergrowth as thick as that around this little open spot.”

“It is rather thick,” said Larry, looking round him.

“Thick? Why, a cane brake is wind-swept prairie land in comparison. Let’s yell all together and see if we can’t make the hermit of Quasi hear.”

The experiment was tried, not once, but many times, with no effect, and a search of the immediate vicinity proved equally futile.

“There seems to be nothing to do but wait,” Larry declared, at last. “The man in distress must have gone away in search of food. He is starving perhaps, and—”

“Not quite that,” said Cal. “He may be craving a tapioca pudding or some other particular article of diet, but he isn’t starving.”

“How do you know, Cal?”

“Oh, it is only that he has a haunch of venison—sun-crusted for purposes of preservation—hanging in that tree there”—pointing—“and unless he is more different kinds of a lunatic than the chief engineer of any insane asylum ever heard of, he wouldn’t starve with that on hand.”

“Perhaps it is spoiled,” said Tom, looking up the tree where the venison hung and where Cal alone had seen it.

“It isn’t spoiled, either,” answered Cal, with assurance.

“But how can you tell when you’re ten or twenty feet away from it?” Tom stopped to ask.

“The carrion crows can tell at almost any distance,” Cal returned, “and if it were even tainted, they’d be quarreling over it.”

Tom was not satisfied, and so he climbed the tree to inspect. Sliding down again, he gave judgment:

“Why, the thing’s as black as ink and as hard as the bark of a white oak tree. It’s dried beef—or dried venison, rather.”

“You’re mistaken, Tom,” said Larry. “It is sun-crusted, as Cal said, but that’s very different. Inside it is probably as juicy as a steak from a stall-fed ox.”

“What do you mean by ‘sun-crusted,’” asked Dick.

“Oh, I see,” Larry answered. “You and Tom are not familiar with our way of preserving meat in emergencies. When we are out hunting and have a joint of fresh red meat that we want to keep fresh, we don’t salt it or smoke it or do anything of that sort to it. We just hang it out in the very strongest sunlight we can find. In a brief while the surface of the meat is dried into a thin black crust as hard as wood, and after that it will keep for days in any cool, shady place. Flies cannot bore through the hard crust, and the air itself is shut out from the meat below the surface.”

“How long will it keep in that way?”

“How long, Cal?” asked Larry, referring the question to his brother’s larger experience.

“That depends on several things,” Cal answered. “I’ve kept meat in that way for a week or ten days, and at other times I’ve eaten my whole supply at the first meal. But I say, fellows, we’re wasting precious time. The night cometh when no man can work, and we have a good deal to do before it comes. We must find a safe anchorage for the _Hunkydory_ and set up a camp for ourselves. In aid of that we must find fresh water, and I have an idea we’ll find that somewhere along under the line of bluffs—at some point where they trend well back from the shore with a sandy beach between. The hermit must get water from somewhere near, and there’s no sign of any around here.”

Cal’s conjecture proved to be right. A little spring at the foot of the bluff had been dug out and framed around with sticks to keep the margin from crumbling.

Obviously this was the hermit’s source of water supply.

“But why in the name of common sense,” said Larry, “didn’t he set up his Lares and Penates somewhere near the spring?”

“I can think of two reasons,” Cal answered, “either of which is sufficient to answer your question.”

“Go ahead—what are they?”

“One is, that he may be a crank, and another is, that he may be a prudent, sensible person, preferring comfort with inconvenience, to convenience with discomfort.”

“Now, then, Sphinx, unravel your riddle.”

“Its meaning ought to be obvious,” Cal drawled, “but as it isn’t, I’ll explain it. The man is probably a crank. If not, he wouldn’t have set up a signal of distress and then have gone away and hidden himself so that if rescuers came they couldn’t find him. To a crank like that any foolishness is easily possible. On the other hand, if he happens to be a man of practical common sense—as there is equally good reason to believe—he would very naturally pitch his camp up where it is, rather than here where you fellows are already fighting the sand flies that will be heavily reinforced toward nightfall.”

“That’s so!” said the others.

“Of course it’s so. Anybody would know that, after slapping his cheeks till they feel as if they had been cured with mustard plasters, and weren’t half well yet.”

“What shall we do, Cal?” Tom asked.

“Why, imitate the hermit and improve upon his ideas.”

“You mean—” began Larry.

“I mean we must go up on the bluff and pitch our camp a hundred yards or so back from the beach. Otherwise we shall all be bored as full of holes as a colander before we stretch our weary limbs upon mother earth for sleep.”

“That’s all right,” said Tom, “but you haven’t told us about the improvement upon the hermit’s ideas. Do you mean we should go farther back from the water?”

“No, I didn’t mean that, though we’ll do it. I meant that instead of carrying water from this brackish spring we’ll dig a well where we pitch our tent of palmete leaves.”

“But you said—”

“I know I did; but that was in swampy land where the only water to be had by digging was an exudation from muck. It is very different here. These bluffs and all the high ground that lies back of them are composed of clean clay and clean sand. Look at the bank and see for yourself. Now all we’ve got to do to get sweet, wholesome water anywhere on the higher land—which isn’t as high a little way back as it is here at the face of the bluff—is to dig down to the level of the sea. There we’ll find sea water that has been freed from salt and all other impurities by siping through a mixture of clay and sand that is as perfect a filter as can be imagined.”

“Now if you’ve finished that cataract of words, Cal,” said Larry, “we must get to work or night will be on us before we’re ready for it. You go and pick out a camping place, and the rest of us will follow you with things from the boat. We can dig the well and build a shelter to-morrow.”

But Tom and Dick were full of enthusiasm, now that they had at last got to Quasi, and they had both tasted the water of the spring. Its flavor strongly stimulated their eagerness for something more palatable.

“Why not begin the well now—as soon as we get the things up from the boat?” asked Dick. “There’ll be a moon nearly full, and the sea breeze here is cool. I for one am ready to dig till midnight.”

“I’ll dig all night,” said Tom, “rather than take another swig of that stuff. If we work hard we can get the well in commission before we use all the water left in the kegs.”

“We sha’n’t have to dig all night,” said Cal. “I’ll pick out a place where we needn’t go down more than eight or nine feet, and this sandy earth is easily handled. If we’re really industrious and don’t waste more time over supper than we must, we’ll strike water within a few hours, and it’ll be settled and clear by morning. But we must hustle if we’re to do that. So load yourselves up while I pick out a camp and I’ll join the caravan of carriers in the next load.”

It was necessary, of course, to remove everything from the boat to the bivouac, as it was the purpose of the company to make this their headquarters for several weeks to come, or at least for as long as they liked.

It was nearly sunset, therefore, when that part of the work was done, and it was decreed that Larry should get supper while the rest worked at well-digging.

As there remained no fresh meat among their stores, Larry’s first task was to go out with his gun in search of game. Squirrels were abundant all about the place, and very easily shot, as they had never been hunted. As the time was short, Larry contented himself with the killing of a dozen or so of the fat rodents, suppressing for the time being his strong impulse to go after game of a more elusive and therefore more aristocratic sort. He did indeed take one shot at a flock of rice birds, killing a good many of them, but mutilating their tender little butter-balls of bodies because he used bird shot instead of the “mustard seed” size, which alone is fit for rice-bird shooting.

On his return to the bivouac to cook his game, he found the well already sunk to nearly half the required depth, and by the time he was ready to bid his comrades cease their work and come to supper, at least another foot had been added to its depth.

The work was easy, not only because the sandy soil was easily shoveled out without the use of picks or spades, but because of the form Cal’s observation of other temporary well digging had taught him to give to the excavation.

“We’re not really digging a well,” he explained at the outset. “We’re only scooping out a basin in order to get to water. So instead of working in a narrow hole, we’ll take a bowl for our model—a bowl eight or ten feet across at the top and growing rapidly narrower as we go down. Working in that way, we’ll not only get on faster and with less labor, but we’ll spare ourselves the necessity of cribbing up the sides of our water hole to keep them from falling in. Besides, the farther down we get the less work each additional foot of digging will cost us.”

When Larry announced supper, all the company admitted that they “had their appetites with them”; but Cal did not at once “fall to” as the others did. Instead, he went into the woods a little way, secured a dry, dead and barkless stick about five feet long, and drove it into the bottom of the excavation. Pulling it out again after waiting for twenty or thirty seconds, he closely scrutinized its end. Then, measuring off a part of it with his hands so placed as to cover approximately a foot of space at each application, he tossed the stick aside and joined the others at their meal.

Nobody interrupted the beginning of his supper by asking him questions, but after he had devoured two or three rice birds the size of marbles and had begun on the hind leg of a broiled squirrel which lay upon an open baked sweet potato, he volunteered a hint of what he had been doing.

“As nearly as I can measure it with my hands, we’ll come to water about three feet further down, boys. We’ve acquitted ourselves nobly as sappers and miners, and are entitled to take plenty of time for supper and a good little rest afterwards—say till the moon, which is just now coming up out of its bath in the sea out there, rises high enough to shine into our hole. That will be an hour hence, perhaps, and then we’ll shovel sand like plasterers making mortar. It won’t take us more than an hour or so to finish the job, and we’ll get to sleep long before midnight.”

“How did you find out how far down the water was, Cal,” asked Tom, who was always as hungry for information as a school boy is for green apples or any other thing that carries a threat of stomach ache with it.

“Why, I drove a dry stick down—one that would show a wetting if it got it—till it moved easily up and down. I knew then that it had reached the water-saturated sand. I pushed it on down till the upper end was level with our present bottom. Then I drew it out and measured the dry part and six inches or so of the wet. That told me how far down we must go for the water.”

“It’s very simple,” said Tom.

“I’ve noticed that most things are so when one understands them,” said Dick. “For example—”

What Dick’s example was there is now no way of finding out, for at that point in his little speech the conversation was interrupted by a rather oddly-dressed man who broke through the barrier of bushes and presented himself, bowing and smiling, to the company.

XXVII

THE HERMIT OF QUASI

THE newcomer was a man of fifty or fifty-five years of age. He was slender, but rather with the slenderness of the red Indian than with that suggestive of weakness. Indeed, the boys observed that his muscles seemed to be developed out of proportion to his frame, as if he had been intended by nature for a scholar and had made an athlete of himself instead.

There was not an ounce of unnecessary fat upon his person, and yet he gave no sign of being underfed. Instead his flesh had the peculiar hardness of the frontiersman’s who eats meat largely in excess of other foods.

A little strip across the upper part of his forehead, which showed as he stood there with his hat removed, suggested that his complexion had once been fair, but that exposure had tanned it to the color of a saddle.

His costume was an odd one, but it was made of the best of materials, now somewhat worn, but fit still to hold their own in comparison with far newer garments of cheaper quality. Perhaps they were aided in this by the fact that they had evidently been made for him by some tailor who knew how to make clothes set upon their wearer as if they were a part of him.

Yet his dress was perfectly simple. He wore a sort of Norfolk jacket of silk corduroy—a cloth well nigh as durable as sole leather—with breeches of the same, buttoned at and below the knee, and covered at bottom with close-fitting calf-skin leggings of the kind that grooms and dandy horsemen affect.

The hat he held in his hand, as he addressed the company that had courteously risen to receive him, was an exceedingly limp felt affair, soft to the head, light in weight and capable of assuming any shape its wearer might choose to give it. His shoes were Indian moccasins.

No sign of linen appeared anywhere about his person, but just above the top button of his jacket a bit of gray flannel shirt showed in color harmony with his other garments.

“Good evening, young gentlemen,” he said; “I trust I do not intrude, and if I do so it shall not be for long. My name is Rudolf Dunbar. May I ask if you young gentlemen are the rescuers I have been hoping to see during the three or four weeks that I have been marooned on this peninsula which nobody seems ever to visit?”

“We are here to rescue you if you so desire,” answered Larry, “but we set out with no such purpose. We were on our way here to fish, hunt, live in the open air and be happy in natural ways for a time. We caught sight of your signal of distress and hurried ourselves as much as possible, fearing that your distress might be extreme. As we found your camp showing no signs of starvation or illness, and could not find you, we set to work to establish ourselves for a prolonged stay here and wait for you to return. It seemed the only thing to do under the circumstances.”

“Quite right! Quite right! and I thank you for your kindly impulse. But you should have taken possession of my camp, making it your own—at least until you could establish yourselves more to your liking. I don’t know, though—my camp is bare of everything, so that you’re better off as you are.”

As he paused, Larry introduced himself and his comrades by name, and offered the stranger the hospitality of their camp, inviting him especially to sit down and share their supper.

He accepted the invitation, and after a little Larry said to him:

“May I ask the nature of your distress here, and how pressing it is? We are ready, of course, to take you to the village over yonder, ten or a dozen miles away, at any time you like. From there you can go anywhere you please.”

“Thank you very much. My distress is quite over now. Indeed, I am not accustomed to let circumstances distress me overmuch. I found myself marooned here, and naturally I wanted to establish communication with the mainland again—or the possibility of such communication. But if it had been necessary I could have remained here for a year in fair contentment. Long experience has taught me how to reconcile myself with my surroundings, whatever they may be, and game and fish are plentiful here. May I ask how long you young gentlemen have planned to remain here?”

“Three or four weeks, probably,” answered Larry. “But as I said before, we’ll set you ashore on the mainland at any time you like.”

“Thank you very much. But if it will be quite agreeable to you, I’ll remain here as long as you do. I haven’t finished my work here, and the place is extremely favorable for my business. If my presence is in any way annoying—”

“Oh, not at all. We shall build a comfortable shelter to-morrow, and we’ll be glad to have you for our guest. As you see, we’re digging a well, and we’ll have good sweet water by morning.”

“That is very wise. I should have dug one myself if I had had any sort of implement to dig with, but I have none.”

“And so you’ve had to get on with the rather repulsive water from the spring down there?”

“Yes, and no. I have used that water, but I distil it first. You see, in my peculiar business, I must wander in all sorts of places, wholesome and unwholesome, and it is often impossible to find good water to drink. So for years past I have always carried a little distilling apparatus of my own devising with me. It is very small and very light, and, of course, when I have to depend upon it for a water supply, I must use water very sparingly. I think I must bid you good evening now, as I did not sleep at all last night. I will see you in the morning.”

“We’ll expect you to join us at breakfast,” said Larry.

“It will give me great pleasure to do so. Good night.”

With that he nimbly tripped away, leaving the boys to wonder who and what he was, and especially what the “business” was that he had not yet finished at Quasi. Cal interrupted the chatter presently, saying:

“We’ve annexed a riddle, and you’re wasting time trying to guess it out. Nobody ever did guess the answer to a riddle. Let’s get to work and finish the well.”

The boys set to work, of course, but they did not cease to speculate concerning the stranger. Even after the well was finished and when they should all have been asleep they could not drive the subject from their minds.

“I wonder how he got here, anyhow,” said Tom, after all the other subjects of wonder had been discussed to no purpose. “He has no boat and he couldn’t have got here without one.”

“What I wonder,” said Dick, “is why and how his ‘business’ has compelled him to wander in out-of-the-way places, as he says he has.”

“_I_ am wondering,” said Cal, sleepily, “when you fellows will stop talking and let me go to sleep. You can’t find out anything by wondering and chattering. The enigma will read itself to us very soon.”

“Do you mean he’ll tell us his story?” asked Tom.

“Yes, of course.”

“Why do you think he’ll do that?”

“He can’t possibly help it. When a man lives alone for so long as he has done, he must talk about himself. It’s the only thing he knows, and the only thing that seems to him interesting.”

“There’s a better reason than that,” said Larry.

“What is it?”

“Why, that he is obviously a gentleman. A gentleman wouldn’t think of coming here to remain indefinitely as our guest without letting us know who and what he is and all the rest of it.”

“_Finis!_” said Cal.

Silence followed, and soon the little company was dreaming of queerly dressed marooners carrying flags union down.

XXVIII

RUDOLF DUNBAR’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF

CAL and Larry were right. Both out of a sense of duty to his entertainers and because of a not unnatural impulse to tell of his unusual mode of life, Dunbar began the very next morning to talk freely of his experiences.

“It is proper that I explain to you how I came to be here without the means of getting away again,” he said at breakfast. “Indeed, I was a little troubled in my mind last night when I remembered that I had received your kindly offer of rescue without telling you that. But in my anxiety to get away from your bivouac and let you sleep, I forgot it.

“You see my entire life is spent in the woods or upon the water. I go wherever there is promise of anything to reward the labors of a naturalist, and when I heard of this long-abandoned plantation, where for twenty-five years or so Nature has had things all her own way, I knew a visit would be richly worth while. So I purchased a little rowboat and came over here about three or four weeks ago. I cannot fix the time more definitely because I never can keep accurate account of the days or weeks, living alone in the woods as I do and having no engagements to fulfill. I pulled my boat up on the beach a little way, selected a place in which to live, and proceeded to remove my things from the boat to the place chosen. Unfortunately, just as I had finished doing so, a peculiar moth attracted my attention—a moth not mentioned or described in any of the books, and quite unknown to science, I think. I went at once in chase of it, but it led me a merry dance through the thickets, and it was two hours, I should say—though I carry no timepiece—before I caught the creature. In the meanwhile I had forgotten all about my boat, and when I got back I saw it drifting out to sea with quite a strong breeze to aid the tide in carrying it away. It seems the tide had reached the flood during my absence, setting the boat afloat, and had then begun to ebb, carrying her away.

“There was nothing to be done, of course, but hoist my little flag, union down, and go on with the very interesting task of studying the habits of my new moth, of which I have since found several specimens, besides three cocoons which I am hatching in the hope that they will prove to belong to the species. I’ve been hard at work at that task ever since, and I have made some very interesting discoveries with regard to that moth’s choice of habitat. I made the most important one the night before you arrived. That is why I got no sleep that night.”

“Let us hope,” said Cal, “that the excitement of it did not interfere with your rest last night.”

“Oh, not at all. I am never excited, and I can sleep whenever I choose. I have only to lie down and close my eyes in order to accomplish that.”

“Then you have a shelter or hut up there somewhere—though we saw none?”