Pluck on the Long Trail Part 12

He wriggled, too, to sit up.

"What?"

"The man's gone. He isn't there. He's gone with the message!"

The general exclaimed, and worked to jerk loose from Bill; and Fitz's head bobbed up. There wasn't any more sleep for that camp, now.

"Oh, shut up!" growled Bill.

"You fellows turn us loose," we ordered. "We've got to go. We've got to follow that man."

But they wouldn't, of course. They just laughed, and said: "No, you don't want to go. You've given us your parole; see?" and they pulled us down into the quilts again, and yawned and would sleep some more, until they found it was no use, and first one and then another kicked off the covers and sat up, too.

The sun was high and all the birds and bees and squirrels were busy for the day. At least two hours had been wasted, already.

Half of the fellows didn't wash at all, and all we Scouts were allowed to do was to wash our faces, with a lick and a promise, at the creek, under guard. We missed our morning cold wet rub. The camp hadn't been policed, and seemed dirtier than ever. Tin cans were scattered about, and pieces of bacon and of other stuff, and there was nothing sanitary or regular. Our flags were dusty and wrinkled; and that hurt. The only thing homelike was Apache and Sally, our burros, grazing on weeds and gra.s.s near the camp. But they didn't notice us particularly.

We didn't have anything more to say. The fellows began to smoke cigarettes and pipes as soon as they were up, and made the fire and cooked some bacon and fried some potatoes, and we all ate, with the flies buzzing around. A dirty camp attracts flies, and the flies stepped in all sorts of stuff and then stepped in our food and on us, too. Whew!

Ugh!

We would have liked to make a smoke signal, to let Major Henry and Jed Smith and Kit Carson know where we were, but there seemed no way. They would be starting out after us, according to instructions, and we didn't want them to be captured. We knew that they would be coming, because they were Scouts and Scouts obey orders. They can be depended upon.

I guess it was ten o'clock before we were through the messy breakfast, and then most of the gang went off fis.h.i.+ng and fooling around.

"Aren't you going to untie our feet?" asked the general.

"Do you give us your promise not to skip?" answered Bill.

"We'll give our parole till twelve o'clock."

We knew what the general was planning. By twelve o'clock something might happen--the other Scouts might be near, then, and we wanted to be free to help them.--

"Will you give us your parole if we tie your feet, loose, instead of your hands?"

"Yes," said the general; and Fitzpatrick and I nodded. Jiminy, we didn't want our hands tied, on this hot day.

So they hobbled our feet, and tethered us to a tree. They tied the knots tight--knot after knot; and then they went off laughing, but they left Walt and Bat to watch us! That wasn't fair. It broke our parole for us, really, for they hadn't accepted it under the conditions we had offered it. (Note 36.)

"Don't you fellows get to monkeying, now," warned Bat, "or we'll tie you tighter. If you skip we've got your burros and your flags."

That was so.

"We know that," replied the general, meekly; but I could see that he was boiling, inside.

It was awful stupid, just sitting, with those two fellows watching. Bat wore his big revolver, and Walt had his shotgun. They smoked their bad-smelling pipes, and played with an old deck of cards. Camping doesn't seem to amount to much with some fellows, except as a place to be dirty in and to smoke and play cards. They might as well be in town.

"Shall we escape?" I signed to the general. (Note 37.)

"No," he signed back. "Wait till twelve o'clock." He was going to keep our word, even if we did have a right to break it.

"Hand me my camera, will you, please?" asked Fitz, politely.

"What do you want of it?" demanded Walt.

"I want to use it. We haven't anything else to do."

"Sure," said Walt; he tossed it over. "Take pictures of yourselves, and show folks how you smart Scouts were fooled."

I didn't see what Fitz could use his camera on, here. And he didn't seem to be using it. He kept it beside him, was all. There weren't any animals around this kind of a camp. But the general and I didn't ask him any questions. He was wise, was old Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand, and probably he had some scheme up his sleeve.

We just sat. The two fellows played cards and smoked and talked rough and loud, and wasted their time this way. The sun was mighty hot, and they yawned and yawned. Tobacco smoking so much made them stupid. But we yawned, too. The general made the sleep sign to Fitz and me, and we nodded. The general and I stretched out and were quiet. I really was sleepy; we had had a hard night.

"You fellows going to sleep?" asked Walt.

We grunted at him.

"Then we'll tie your hands and we'll go to sleep," he said. "Come on, Bat. Maybe it's a put-up job."

"No, sir; that wasn't in the bargain," objected the general.

"Aw, we got your parole till twelve o'clock, but we're going to tie you anyway," replied that Walt. "We didn't say how long we'd leave your hands loose. We aren't going to sit around and keep awake, watching you guys. When we wake up we untie you again."

We couldn't do anything; and they tied the general's hands and my hands, but Fitzpatrick begged off.

"I want to use my camera," he claimed. "And I've got only one hand anyway. I can't untie knots with one hand."

They didn't know how clever Fitz was; so they just moved him and fastened him by the waist to a tree where he couldn't reach us.

"We'll be watching and listening," they warned. "And if you try any foolishness you'll get hurt."

They stretched out, and pretended to snooze. I didn't see, myself, how Fitz could untie those hard knots with his one hand, in time to do any good. They were hard knots, drawn tight, and the rope was a clothes-line; and he was set against a tree with the rope about his body and the knots behind him on the other side of the tree. I didn't believe that Bat and Walt would sleep hard; but while I waited to see what would happen next, I dozed off, myself.

Something tapped me on the head, and I woke up in a jiffy. Fitz must have tossed a twig at me, because when I looked over at him he made the silence sign. He was busy; and what do you think? He had taken his camera apart, and unscrewed the lenses, and had focused on the rope about him. He had wriggled so that the sun shone on the lenses, and a little spire of smoke was rising from him. Bat and Walt were asleep; they never made a move, but they both snored. And Fitz was burning his rope in two, on his body.

It didn't take very long, because the sun was so hot and the lenses were strong. The rope charred and fumed, and he snapped it; and then he began on his feet. Good old Fitz! If only he got loose before those two fellows woke. The general was watching him, too.

Walt grunted and rolled over and bleared around, and Fitz quit instantly, and sat still as if tied and fooling with his camera. Walt thought that everything was all right and rolled over; and after a moment Fitz continued. Pretty soon he was through. And now came the most ticklish time of all.

He waited and made a false move or two, to be certain that Walt and Bat weren't shamming; and then he snapped the rope about his body and gradually unwound it and then he snapped the rope that bound together his feet. Now he began to crawl for the two fellows. Inch by inch he moved along, like an Indian; and he never made a sound. That was good scouting for anybody, and especially for a one-armed boy, I tell you!

The general and I scarcely breathed. My heart thumped so that I was afraid it would shake the ground.

When he got near enough, Fitz reached cautiously, and pulled away the shotgun. Like lightning he opened the breech and shook loose the sh.e.l.l and kicked it out of the way--and when he closed the breech with a jerk Bat woke up.

"You keep quiet," snapped Fitz. His eyes were blazing. "If either of you makes a fuss, I'll pull the trigger." He had the gun aiming straight at them both. Walt woke, too, and was trying to discover what happened. "Be quiet, now!"

Those two fellows were frightened stiff. The gun looked ugly, with its round muzzle leveled at their stomachs, and Fitz behind, his cheeks red and his eyes angry and steady. But it was funny, too; he might have pulled trigger, but nothing would have happened, because the gun wasn't loaded. Of course none of us Scouts would have shot anybody and had blood on our hands. Fitz had thrown away the sh.e.l.l on purpose so that there wouldn't be any accident. It's bad to point a gun, whether loaded or not, at any one. This was a have-to case. Bat and Walt didn't know.

They were white as sheets, and lay rigid.

"Don't you shoot. Look out! That gun might go off," they pleaded; we could hear their teeth chatter. "If you won't point it at us we'll do anything you say."