CHAPTER XIV
THE GUIDE "SURROUNDS" MATT'S CAMP.
"How do you like the looks of them?" said Matt Coyle, picking up one of the switches and flourishing it before Joe's face. "It' s hickory an' it'll cut. Whew! I don't like to think how it will cut when it's laid on good and strong. Now, then, where is it? You see that we are in dead 'arnest, I reckon, don't you? What have you done with it?"
It was at this juncture that the canvas canoe carrying Roy Sheldon and Arthur Hastings came around the point in full view of the camp. The boys were so surprised at what they saw before them that for a minute or two they were incapable of action. They were as motionless as so many sticks of wood; and, although their blood boiled with indignation when they saw Jake so unmercifully beaten, they never said a word. But, when Matt drew back as if he were about to strike Joe with the switch he held in his hand, they had life enough in them.
"Hold on there! If you touch that boy I will put more holes through you than you ever saw in a skimmer," shouted Arthur, as he raised his gun to his shoulder; and the squatter's triumph was cut short.
"This is an outrage that shall not be overlooked," said Roy, plunging his paddle into the water and sending the canvas canoe rapidly toward the beach. "Keep him covered, Art, so that he can't escape, and we'll march the whole caboodle of them to Indian Lake."
Before the words had fairly left Roy's lips Arthur found, to his intense amazement, that he was pointing his gun at the bushes, instead of covering Matt Coyle's head. The squatter and his boys had dropped to the ground, and that was the last that was seen of them. If three trap-doors had opened beneath their feet, they could not have disappeared with more astonishing and bewildering celerity. The boys did not wait to beach the canoe but jumped overboard, as soon as they could see bottom, and rushed to Joe's relief.
"Who, what—how—what's the meaning of this?" stammered Roy, drawing his knife across the rope that held the prisoner's hands, while Arthur severed the one with which his feet were confined. "How came those vagabonds up here, and what was it that Tom Bidden told them about money?"
Joe Wayring stretched his arms and briefly explained.
"You came just in time, boys," said he, in conclusion. "Did you see Jake's face when Matt got through beating him? That was a contemptible thing for Matt to do, and he ought to be punished for it."
"Your back would have looked worse than that if we had delayed our coming a few minutes longer," said Roy. "How did you feel when Matt told you that he had seen Art and me putting for the lake as fast as we could go?"
"I didn't pay the least attention to it, for I thought he said it to frighten me. It seems that Jake has lost track of the money that was stolen from the Irvington bank; but if Tom Bigden said he had seen it in my camp-basket, I don't see what induced him to do it."
"What was it that induced him to tell Matt to steal your canoe?" asked Arthur.
"I don't know that he did. I only think so from what I have heard. Now, fellows," said Joe calmly, but with determination, "my fishing is ended for a while, and I am going on the war-path. I'll see whether or not I am to be tormented in this way by people who can not truthfully say that I ever did the first thing to injure them."
"Count us in," said Arthur. "I wish the portage was clear so that we could start for the lake at once; but I am afraid to try it in the dark."
"We mustn't try it in the dark. We'd get lost before we had gone a hundred yards," said Roy. "We'll make an early start in the morning. I would give something handsome if I knew just how this thing stands, and how Matt Coyle found out that we were camping here. I wonder what Tom will have to say for himself when the matter is brought into court."
"I can't believe that he had any thing to do with it," answered Joe. "If he has half the sense I give him credit for, he must see that he would sooner or later bring himself into trouble by acting as Matt Coyle's counselor."
"He's got sense enough; no one disputes that," said Roy, "But I tell you he is at the bottom of this trouble. Matt and his boys knew what they were doing when they crossed to this side of the lake and came straight to No-Man's Pond."
"That's what I say," chimed in Arthur.
"Well," replied Joe, "I shall need better evidence than a vagabond's unsupported word before I will believe that Tom Bigden is to blame for any thing that has happened to me to-day. I don't doubt that his will is good enough; but he would be afraid to put himself into the power of such a fellow as Matt Coyle. At any rate I'll not make trouble for him if I can help it; but I'll never rest easy till Matt's whole tribe has been arrested or driven so far out of the country that they can't get back in a hurry."
"This is what we get by coming into the woods without our body-guard," said Arthur. "If Jim had been here Matt could not have stolen a march on you as easily as he did."
I believe I forgot to tell you that Jim, Arthur Hastings's little spaniel, was not with the boys this trip. A few days prior to his master's departure for Indian Lake he managed to get run over by a loaded wagon, and Arthur had left him at home under the doctor's care. Jim hated the squatter and his kind most cordially, and would certainly have given the alarm the moment they came within scenting distance of the camp.
That night the boys did not sleep a great while at a time. Not an hour passed that I did not see one of them punching up the fire or walking around the shanty with his gun in his hands. But they were not disturbed. Matt Coyle had seen enough of Arthur Hastings and his double-barrel for one while, and if he was anywhere in the neighborhood he did not show himself. When day broke Joe Wayring and his friends did not linger to take a dip in the pond or run races along the beach, but ate a hastily prepared breakfast, packed their camp-baskets, and set out for the lake. They held a straight course for it, but the traveling was so difficult that it was high noon before they got there. The first man they saw was Mr. Swan, who was just pushing away from the landing in front of the Sportsman's Home. His canoe was loaded, and that proved that he was going somewhere.
"Hallo!" was his cheery greeting. "Did you get lost or run out of grub or what? I did not expect to see you again for two or three weeks."
"We didn't get lost, and we've lots of grub left," replied Arthur. "Where have you started for, if it is a fair question?"
"I am going where the rest of the boys are going, or gone; into the woods to find Matt Coyle's trail and Jake's," answered the guide. "If I can't find but one I'd a little rather have Jake, because there's a bigger reward offered for him. There are a dozen or fifteen men in the woods now, and there'll be as many more by this time to-morrow. Them vagabonds can't run loose any longer, for the boys are in dead earnest now, and have broken up into little parties instead of going in a body. In that way they can cover more ground, and stand a better chance of getting a big slice of the reward. Of course you haven't seen Coyle lately?"
"Haven't we, though?" exclaimed Roy. "There's where you are mistaken. Are you in a very great hurry? Then come ashore and I will tell you a little story."
The guide smiled as he turned his canoe toward the beach, but before Roy Sheldon had talked to him five minutes the smile gave place to a frown. He listened in the greatest amazement to the boy's brief and rapid narration of the exciting incidents that had happened at the spring-hole, said "I swan to man!" a good many times, and when Roy ceased speaking sat down on the ground right where he stood, there being no log handy, to think the matter over.
"Well, well! So Matt broke up your fishing picnic and frightened you away from the pond, did he?" said the guide, after a long pause. "I don't know as I blame you for wanting to get back among folks. I'd be scared too, if some fellers should tie me to a tree and threaten to wallop me."
"Matt broke up our fishing for the present, but we want you to understand that he didn't scare us away from the pond," said Arthur, earnestly. "We are going to Irvington to lodge a complaint against him, and as soon as that has been done we intend to take a hand in hunting him up."
"You? You boys alone?" exclaimed the guide.
"Yes; we three fellows alone, unless you will go with us. But you mustn't think we are afraid of him. If he is such a terrible man, what's the reason he took to his heels the minute he saw the muzzle of Art's gun looking him in the face?"
"Most any body would run under them circumstances if he thought he had the ghost of a chance," replied Mr. Swan. "You had the drop on him."
"But we didn't have the drop on him last night when we were asleep, did we? If he was so sure that money was in our camp, what's the reason he didn't come and get it after dark? He was afraid to try it."
"Most likely he was," answered the guide. "Well, if you're bound to go, I'd like to have you with me so't I can sorter keep an eye on you. Let's go and get your skiff. I put it in one of the boathouses under cover."
"But we want to make complaint against Matt," said Joe.
"Why not wait till he has been arrested for stealing them guns and that canoe, and then make it? You will save at least four days by it, and by that time Matt may be took up and you and me have no hand in it. We kinder thought him and his crowd had skipped the country, because we ain't seen none of 'em lately; but the boys will be surprised, and mad too, when they hear what he done in your camp."
While the guide, was talking in this way he led the boys along the beach toward the boat-house in which he had placed their skiff for safekeeping. To put it into the water, take the provisions out of the camp-baskets and stow them in the lockers, ship the oars and return to the place where Mr. Swan had left his canoe, was but a few minutes' work. When the latter shoved off from the beach the two boats moved side by side, I occupying my usual place on the stern locker.
"There's one question that has been running in my mind ever since I heard your story, and which I ain't been able to answer yet," observed the guide, as the boys slackened their pace so that the canoe could keep up. "What made Matt Coyle think that you boys had the money in your possession, and how did he know where to find you? It looks to me as though somebody had posted him in regard to your movements, and if Tom Bigden had been in your company since you came here I should say that he was the chap. Do you suspicion him?"
Arthur and Roy looked at Joe as if to say: "What do you think of it now?" and the latter replied:
"I don't know whether to suspect him or not."
"Well, if Tom's mixed up in it, it won't take long to find it out," said the guide, indifferently. "The minute Matt is brought before the justice he'll blab every thing he knows."
When Joe heard this he almost wished that he had not been in such haste to declare that he would never rest easy until Matt and his family had been arrested or driven so far out of the country that they wouldn't get back in a hurry. Joe was indignant, as he had reason to be, but he was not vindictive.
"I'd rather Matt would get off scott free than be the means of bringing Tom Bigden into disgrace," was his mental reflection. "If I could help him out of the country I would do it. But then, there's the money. What's to be done about that? Do you suppose Jake has really lost track of those six thousand dollars?" he added, aloud.
"I am sure of it," answered Roy, "What put that thought into your head?"
"If he intended to share it with the members of his family, what's the reason he did not take it to his father the minute he found it?" asked Joe, in reply. "Every thing goes to prove that Jake wants all the money, and if he can make his father believe that he has lost it of course he will not be expected to divide."
"Oh, you're off the track," said Arthur, confidently. "If Jake had told Matt any funny story like that, don't you think the beating he got up there at the spring-hole would have brought the truth out of him? What do you think about it, Mr. Swan?"
"I haven't yet made up my mind," replied the guide. "This much I know. That money is hidden somewhere in the woods, and it's going to be no fool of a job to find it."
"Have you decided upon any plan of action?"
"Well, yes. We might as well hunt for a needle in a hay-stack as to go wandering about through the timber looking for a couple of grip-sacks, for I have been told that these woods cover almost two thousand square miles of ground. There must be some sort of system about the search, or it won't amount to any thing. The rest of the boys are trying to catch Matt and all his family, believing that if they can do that they will get the money. Perhaps they will, and perhaps they won't. I wasn't going to do business that way. I intended to find their camp the first thing I did, and hang around it night and day till I got a clew. If Jake knows where the money is, he'll have to go to it every little while to make sure it is safe, won't he?"
The boys all thought he would, and Joe said:
"If I were in Jake's place I would go to it just once, and when I found it I'd take it and leave the country. A brute of a father who pounded me as Matt pounded Jake should not see a cent of the money."
"Mebbe that's what Jake means to do," answered the guide. "I hope it is, and that we will be in sight when he tries it; for it will be no trouble at all for us to slip up and gobble him and the money at the same time. That would scare Matt, who would lose no time in getting away from these woods."
"That's just what I hope he will do," said Joe, to himself. "Somehow I can't bear the thought of seeing him come into court to get a Mount Airy boy into trouble."
"I've often thought of it as a curious thing that the stolen guns and your canvas canoe should have been found in the same place, and that place the cove where Matt's camp used to be," said Mr. Swan, after a little pause. "By putting this and that together, I have come to the conclusion that Matt and his family hang out near that cove, believing it to be the safest place for them. I thought I would go up there after dark and skirmish around a bit. What do you think?"
"If that is what you have decided upon, why, go ahead," replied Arthur. "We shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that we are busy, even if we don't accomplish any thing."
"We don't want to go near the cove until after dark," the guide went on. "We tried that once, you know, but Matt got wind of our coming and took himself safely off."
A plan of operations having been decided upon, the boys took Mr. Swan's canoe in tow and pulled for the lake with long and lusty strokes. Shortly after twelve o'clock they landed in a little grove to cook their dinner; but, after they had taken a look at the heap of ashes, potato skins, charred chunks, withered hemlock boughs, fish-heads, bones, and empty fruit and bean cans that were scattered about, they told one another that they would go farther and find a neater place,
"This is the worst camp on the lake, isn't it?" said Roy. "The fellows who lived here were either new hands at the business or else they were a lazy lot."
They were both. The grove was the site of Tom Bigden's old camp, and a nice looking spot he and his cousins had made of it. But such groves were plenty along the beach. Another was quickly found, an excellent dinner was prepared and leisurely eaten, and after Mr. Swan had taken time to smoke a pipe the party shoved off and headed toward the creek that led to Matt Coyle's old camp.
"Now, then," said the guide, who thought it time to assume direction of affairs, "we don't want any more loud talking. And be careful how you let them oars rattle in the row-locks. A slight noise can be heard a long distance in a quiet place like this, and Matt is always listening."
Having cast off the painter of his canoe, Mr. Swan went on ahead, and the skiff followed slowly in his wake. Mile after mile they passed over in silence, all unconscious of the fact that almost every thing they did was observed by one who threaded his way cautiously through the bushes abreast of them, and who would have given a large sum of money if he could have had one of their boats at his disposal for a few minutes.
So well did Mr. Swan regulate his pace that it was just dark when he and his young companions arrived at the mouth of the little stream which connected the creek with the cove in which Matt enacted that neat piece of strategy described by Fly-rod in his story. Here he stopped and listened for a long time. No sounds came from the woods to indicate that the squatter and his family were occupying their old camp; but that was no sign that they were not there, and the guide proceeded very cautiously. He did not attempt to force his canoe into the stream, but made a landing below it, and the skiff drew up alongside of him.
"What's the next thing on the programme?" whispered Joe, lifting his oar out of the row-lock and laying it carefully on the thwarts. "Shall we all go in?"
"I reckon we might as well," replied the guide. "Why not?"
"You remember what happened the last time we were here, do you not?" replied Joe. "How Matt came around in our rear and threw away our things and stole two of our boats?"
"It ain't likely that I'll ever forget it," said Mr. Swan, "nor how mad we all were to see how completely he had outwitted us. But he can't do that this time, for we are not going into the cove. We'll leave the boats here."
"Matt Coyle isn't within a dozen miles of this place," said Roy, decidedly. "He's on the other side of the lake."
"That don't signify," answered Mr. Swan. "There are plenty of vagabones at the outlet who would set him across for the asking, and it ain't a very fur ways from there to this cove. Now, if he is here, we'll not give him a chance to slip away from ns like he did last time. You know right where the camp was, don't you? Well, I'll go off by myself and surround it. At the end of twenty minutes, as near as you can guess at it, creep up toward the place you think I am, no matter whether you hear from me or not. Spread out from the center as you go, so as to come upon the camp from all sides. If he isn't there, we'll find out whether or not he has been there very lately, and that will be something learned."
Mr. Swan lingered a minute or two to give a few additional instructions, and then moved silently away through the darkness. The first thing the boys did, when they found themselves alone, was to secure their guns and cartridge belts, and the second to draw the bows of the skiff and canoe upon the bank so that the current would not carry them away. After that they struck a match to see what time it was, and sat down to wait as patiently as they could for the twenty minutes to pass away.
"I hope Matt Coyle isn't here," said Joe, suddenly, "Or if he is, I hope he will take the alarm and make off before Mr. Swan gets a sight of him."
"Well, you are a pretty fellow," said Roy, with a slight accent of disgust in his tones. "After what he has done to you, do you want him to get off?"
"Yes, I do; and I can't help it," answered Joe. "But it is not on his own account, I assure you. To me there is something repugnant in the thought that such a fellow as Matt Coyle can get any body into trouble, especially such a boy as Tom Bigden might be if he only would. If Tom put it into his head to steal my canoe, or if he told him that we had taken the six thousand dollars with us to No-Man's Pond—why, fellows, just think what a story that would be for him to tell in court?"
"Well, could Tom blame any body but himself if he did tell it?" demanded Arthur. "He had no business to have so much to do with that squatter. Where do you suppose the money is, any way?"
"Did it never occur to you that some of the vagabonds who live at the outlet might have stumbled upon it?" asked Roy.
"Or that some other member of Matt's family, Sam for instance, might have found it where Jake hid it?" chimed in Joe.
"That's so," exclaimed Arthur. "But if Sam's got it what is he going to do with it? It would be little satisfaction to me to have so much money in my possession unless I could use some of it."
"The twenty minutes are up," said Joe, examining the face of his watch by the light of a match. "Mr. Swan has had time to 'surround' the camp, and we must be moving. We must be careful, also, and not get out of supporting distance of one another, for there is no telling what we may run onto in the dark."
It was not without fear and trembling that the boys began their advance upon the squatter's camp. They had given Mr. Swan to understand that they, were not afraid of Matt, and they would have made their words good if it had been daylight and they had been standing on the defensive; but advancing upon his supposed hiding-place in the dark was something they had not bargained for. Matt might be standing guard with a club in his hand, ready to brain the first one who showed himself.
"I declare, that's just what he is doing. There he is, standing by that fire."
So thought Joe Wayring, who by good luck happened to strike the well-beaten path that led through the evergreens from the cove to the spot whereon the squatter's miserable lean-to had once stood. Having no bushes to impede his progress, Joe crept rapidly forward on his hands and knees without making the slightest sound, and in a few moments came within sight of a glowing bed of coals, with a clearly defined pair of legs in front of it. A second glance showed Joe that the legs belonged to a man who loomed up wonderfully tall and stout in the darkness, and that he held across his breast something that looked like a bludgeon. He was gazing in Joe's direction, too, and that was the way he would undoubtedly run when he became aware that his enemies were closing in upon him. What was to be done now, and where were Mr. Swan and the other boys?
"If he makes a charge he'll run over me and never know there was any thing in his path. I'll give him all the room he wants," soliloquized Joe; and, suiting the action to the word, he got upon his feet and backed softly into the bushes.
After standing a second or two in a listening attitude, the man kicked the coals together with his heavy boot, and threw upon them a dry hemlock branch, which instantly blazed up, revealing the guide's honest face. Joe was greatly relieved. "How you frightened me," said he, as he came down the path. "You looked as big as a tree, and I thought you were Matt Coyle, sure."
"You can see for yourself that he or somebody else has been here within a few hours," replied Mr. Swan, tossing another branch upon the coals.
"Do the signs tell you any thing?"
"Haven't seen any sign yet except this smouldering fire. Call up the rest of the fellows and we will go into camp back there at the creek. In the morning we'll take a look around and see what we can see."
Guided by an occasional word from Joe the other two presently came up. By this time the fire was burning brightly, and by the aid of the light it gave they were enabled to examine the ground about it. They found the charred remains of the squatter's lean-to, but could not discover the first thing to give them a clew to the identity of the person or persons who built the fire. The guide was almost sure it was not Matt Coyle, for Matt invariably left some sort of rubbish behind him. Whoever, he was, he had not been gone more than half an hour, for the coals had hardly ceased blazing when Mr. Swan found them. They lingered long enough to see the fire burn itself out and then started for the creek, where a great surprise awaited them.