The Crimson Sweater Part 25

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Post. "It's part of the game, and--"

"No, it isn't," interrupted Roy. "It has nothing to do with the game.

And it's just plain, every-day dishonesty!"

"I don't see how you make that out," objected Post. "Now, supposing--"

But the discussion of ethics was interrupted by the grating of the boat's keel on the sand. Gallup jumped out into six inches of water and pulled the boat up on the beach and the rest scrambled out.

Nothing had been seen of Hammond's spies and so they went to bed without posting guards that night.

"I don't see," observed Roy as he was undressing, "why we don't tie the boats up if we're afraid of having Hammond swipe them."

"Well, it wouldn't be fair, I guess," Chub answered. "You see we've always left them on the beach. If we tied 'em Hammond wouldn't have any show to get them."

"You talk as though you wanted her to get them," said Roy in puzzled tones.

"We do; that is, we want her to try and get them. If we take to tying them to trees and things Hammond will stop coming over and we'll miss more 'n half the fun of the camping. See?"

"You bet!" grunted Post.

"What's to keep her from coming over to-night, then," pursued Roy, "and taking the whole bunch while we're asleep?"

"Because she doesn't know where they are, silly!" replied Chub. "You don't expect those fellows are going to row across here and then go hunting all about the island in the dark, do you? They always come spying around in the daytime first and see where the boats are hauled up."

"It won't be dark to-night," said Roy. "There's a dandy big moon."

"That's so, but Hammond never has tried it without looking about first and I guess she won't this year."

"I wish I was a Hammondite for about three or four hours," said Roy grimly. "I'd open your eyes for you!"

Whereupon he was quickly tried for a traitor and sentenced to be walloped with a belt. The walloping process occupied the succeeding ten minutes and when concluded--not altogether successfully--left the tent looking as though a cyclone had visited it. But Chub's prediction proved correct. The boats were there in the morning, all five of them.

"Those Hammond fellows are a set of chumps," grunted Roy. "Why don't they send you a note and tell you when they're coming? They might as well do that as send fellows over in a boat to rubber around."

"Get out! How are we going to know when they're coming?" asked Chub.

"Suppose we see them peeking about to-day; maybe they won't come for three or four nights."

"Then how do they know you won't move the boats in the meantime?"

"Why--why we never do!"

"Oh, I guess I don't know the rules of the game," sighed Roy. "Sounds as though you were all woozy."

It was raining that morning when they arose, but the rain couldn't quench their enjoyment. A shelter tent was put up and they all crowded under it for breakfast. Afterwards the Utes challenged the Seminoles to a game of ring-toss under the trees. Roy was a.s.sistant cook that day and so he and Post--Post being chef--were out of it. The Utes won and were much set up about it, issuing challenges indiscriminatingly at dinner.

The four fishermen came in just before the meal with a big catch, and Post, who knew less about cooking fish than anything else--and that's saying a good deal--was in despair. After dinner he and Roy took them to the water and cleaned them, but neither thought to remove the scales.

The fish were served for supper and there was a popular demand for the speedy lynching of Mr. Post.

"I thought we ought to do something else to them," he explained in extenuation, "but I couldn't think what it was!"

"You want to watch out pretty sharp," said Horace Burlen with deep sarcasm, "or they'll employ you to cook at the Waldorf."

"Fish a la Post," murmured Chub. "Half portion two dollars and a quarter."

"They'd have to pay me more than that before I'd order any," responded Gallup.

"Post and Porter ought to take singing lessons," said Thurlow.

"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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 a.s.sistance, 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 pa.s.sed 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.

He kept to the right, heading toward the last of the boats as he remembered its location. The Hammond boy had gone straight down the beach and Roy had no desire to overtake him. In a moment his feet were in the water, splas.h.i.+ng softly. Vague forms came and went in the darkness and his hands groped toward them. It is probable, however, that he would have waded straight into the middle of the stream had not a low voice hailed him.

"Here you are, Jim, get in here!"

Roy turned toward the voice, stumbled over a sunken stone and collided with the side of a rowboat.

"Don't make so much noise, you plunger!" said the voice. "Give me your hand."

Roy gave it and was promptly hauled over the side of the boat. Someone pulled him down upon a seat.

"All right!" whispered the voice.

"All right, fellows!" called someone in the next boat softly. And there came the sound of creaking rowlocks.

"Got your oar?" whispered the fellow who shared Roy's seat. Roy felt around and found it and began to row.

"Look out, you fellows!" called a voice from the darkness beside them, and they ceased rowing while another boat crossed ahead of them.