Endurance Test; or, How Clear Grit Won the Day

by Burt L. Standish

  CHAPTER VI.

  STRANGE SOUNDS FROM THE WATER.

  "ADAM did that on purpose!" was what Elmer exclaimed, as he saw how thearms of the falling German boy pulled Ty with him into the pool underthe log.

  That great splash was surely enough to frighten away any bass that mighteven have had the hardihood to remain around, after the vigorousthreshing of the water by the greenhorn fisherman.

  Of course the two boys immediately came to the surface. Ty was spoutingwater like a young whale; but Adam seemed to be all right. He made a fewstrokes after his original fashion, that had so aroused the admirationof Landy, and arriving at the bank, climbed up.

  Ty made a great deal more fuss as he churned his way to the shore; andElmer, who had hastened up so as to witness what followed, could seethat there was a look of wonder, almost awe, on the face of thepractical joker. The results had been so sudden, and so disastrous tohimself, that he could hardly understand just what had happened.

  "Ach! put dot vas sooch a surprises to me, Ty," remarked Adam, from theshore; "I dinks me I haf ketch de biggest fish in der river; undt ven Ithrow oudt mine arms to pull him in, py chinks, it vas only you, havingsome fun py me. How goes it, londsman; I hopes you enchoy yourselfmooch. Subbose you go pack, undt get my fishing pole, vich is floatingdown der stream."

  He gave Ty a push as the other tried to clamber out on the bank andforced him in again. The other showed signs of fight until Elmer, sizingup the situation, called out:

  "That's only fair, Ty; you made him lose his rod, as well as take aducking with his clothes on. Get the rod again, and let him pull in hisfish."

  Possibly Ty realized the justice of this claim; or it might be he feltdisposed to take his medicine gracefully, for with a laugh he swam outagain, as well as he was able with his garments clinging to his limbs,secured the rod, which had partly sunk, and came back with it in onehand.

  As if to prove that he harbored no animosity, Adam frankly stretched outhis hand and helped Ty ashore. There they stood, dripping wet, andlaughing at each other.

  "Oxcuse me, Ty," said the German lad, making a queer face; "put I haf tolaugh, it is so funny! You dinks to make me some droubles, and byshiminy you fall indo de same hole yourself. So, dere is two of us!"

  "The joke is on Ty," announced Elmer. "I saw the whole thing, and I wantAdam to own up right now that he had one eye open all the while, and waswatching what was going on."

  Adam looked up at him with a leer on his square face; then he shut oneeye and deliberately winked at Elmer.

  "I subbose dot I vas nodt so much asleep as somepody pelieves," he said;and that was the only confession they could get out of him.

  Fortunately, as the weather was so very warm, there was no danger ofeither of the boys taking cold after their ducking. Neither of themwould bother changing their garments, or attempting to dry those theyhad on.

  "Let 'em dry on me," said Ty, whose good-nature had returned, though hedeclared that everything had conspired to upset all his calculationsthat morning; what with the obstinate bull, and now the clumsy Dutchmanwho had to throw out his arm and pull him into the river along withhimself.

  Ted had come up from his fishing place below to ask what all the row wasabout.

  "Fact ith, you have buthted up the fithing for thith morning," hedeclared, with some show of indignation. "If you mutht kick up a racket,why under the thun don't you go off by yourthelf and do it. I got thevenfith, and one of 'em a beaut. And the biggetht of the bunch wath juthtgoing to take hold when you had to make all that beathtly row."

  When, however, the thing was explained to him, Ted enjoyed the joke aswell as Elmer had. He declared that he would wander along down the riverto another promising hole he remembered seeing. And Elmer, thinking thatthe German boy might as well begin taking some lessons in bass fishing,agreed to accompany Adam upstream a little distance, to try for acapture.

  "Hey, that was just the greatest thing ever!" called out a voice; andLandy was seen approaching from above, waving his little kodak in glee.

  "What's all this talk about?" demanded Ty.

  "I got it, that's what!" the fat boy kept on saying. "And won't it justbe a corker, though!"

  Elmer jumped to conclusions at this remark.

  "Do you mean you saw the tumble Adam and Ty took?" he asked.

  "Well," Landy went on, "you see, I had just discovered Adam sittingthere asleep on that log sticking out over the water; and I thought whata lovely subject he would make for a picture. So I crept up till I had agood focus, and then I pressed the button!"

  "Yes, go on; that wasn't all you did, was it?" asked the patrol leader,who was able to read the open-faced Landy like the page of a book.

  "Well, you see, it was such a fine subject that I thought I had ought toknock off another view, so that if one proved poor the other might begood. And just as I was all ready, why, it happened!"

  "And you snapped it off as they were falling in?" Elmer continued.

  "I think I did," said Landy, eagerly; "for my finger just pressed thetrigger unconsciously. I was that astonished, you see. And I'm going todevelop this roll to-night. Wouldn't it be just immense if it turned outto be a good picture!"

  "Oh, yes; something to amuse the rest of the troop, and chase the bluesaway," grunted Ty, as he hunched his shoulders and sauntered back to thecamp to ascertain what Elmer might have been doing there.

  Elmer did take Adam up the river a piece, and finding a promising spotwhere there seemed to be a likelihood of bass frequenting, he proceededto instruct the other in the rudiments of the art.

  Adam took to it from the very first. He was frank enough to confess thathe had never done any fishing in the old country, and was thereforeutterly green; but he showed an aptitude for catching on to what Elmertold him; and before they had been an hour at work he had not onlysucceeded in hooking a fine specimen of the gamey bass, but played andlanded him in great style.

  "You'll do, I reckon, now, Adam; so I'll leave you here and go back tocamp. Be sure you come in when you hear the signal, which will be threeloud cooies."

  At noon, when the fishermen gave it up for the day, as the heat stoppedall biting on the part of the bass, it was found that while Ted hadcaught seven fair-sized fish, five of them bass, one a large perch, anda sucker that was the largest Elmer had ever seen around that region,Adam had brought in two bass and a big catfish.

  "Py shiminy crickets, dot feller vas dry some foolishness py me," hesaid, as he held up the still wriggling catfish; "I haf drouples to gethim off der hook; and he sthick me dwice so hardt in der finger. Ooch!put it do feel sore yet somedimes. I dink me he preak off some dot thornin der pone."

  "That's another lesson you must learn, Adam," said Elmer. "The catfishhas ugly spines that hurt like fun when you run your hand against them.I guess they're poisoned, like the tail of the stingy-ray, down South.I've known a fellow who had a running sore for a month after being stuckby the fin of a cat. And, Ted, seems to me here's another chance to usethat colored stuff that was so fine with Landy."

  "Right-o, Elmer," exclaimed the other, making a dive for the tent tolook up his medicine bag.

  So Adam grinned, and allowed the "doctor" to paint his hand in theregion where the spines of the catfish had penetrated with such painfulresults. Indeed, he declared an hour later that the pain had alldeparted; and Elmer concluded from this that permanganate of potash wasgood to use on all sorts of poison wounds.

  "I believe," he went on to say, "that if I was struck on the arm by arattler, I'd cut the wound open some, suck all the poison I could out,providing I had no scratch or sore about my mouth, and then take mychances, after painting it freely with the strongest solution of thispotash I could bear. Yes, and I think I'd come out much better thanthose who believe in soaking the patient with whisky."

  The afternoon they spent in resting up. Indeed, it was unusually hot,and somehow none of them aspired to exert themselves any more than theycould help.

  Adam had offered to clean t
he fish, after he had been shown how, andmade quite a good job of it, being very particular, after the fashion ofhis kind. And Elmer gave Ty the duty of seeing that the fish were servedthat evening at supper. It would be a poor piece of business if they putseveral days in up there on the old Sweetwater, famous for its bassfishing, and never once enjoy a mess of the delicious dish.

  They waited later than usual that evening, hoping the air would cool offsome with the setting of the sun. It was almost dark when Ty got startedwith the supper. When the fish began to fry in the pan (in which thecook had first tried out several slices of salt pork, which grease wasmade very hot before the bass, dipped in cracker-dust, were placed inthe pan), some of the boys, who had declared they had no appetite, wereobserved to sit up and take notice as they sniffed the fragrant odorsthat arose.

  "Guess you-all will come around when things are ready," laughed Ty, whooften liked to mock the Southern scout, Chatz Maxfield, when he talked.

  "Well, I confeth I'm waking up," admitted Ted, frankly.

  "And that stuff smells mighty good, Ty," declared Landy. "I want you toremember now that it wasn't me said I couldn't eat a bite."

  "I thould thay not," laughed Ted. "Nobody would ever believe you guiltyof thuch a thilly thing. You're alwayth hungry, Landy, and ready togobble."

  "Say, now, that's what I call mean," expostulated the fat boy,pretending to be very indignant, though these attacks on his characterwere of daily, almost hourly occurrence, and he was quite accustomed tomeeting them. "Just because I'm big, and need more to keep me up thanthe rest of you, some fellows like to say I'm greedy. 'Tain't so. Andsome day I'll run you a match, Ty, to see who can keep from eating abite the longest."

  "Not much, you will," declared the cook. "Why, it wouldn't be a squaredeal. You've got all your fat to fall back on; and look at me, skin andbones."

  So they laughed and talked, as the preparations for supper went onapace.

  "What're you listening to, Elmer?" asked Landy, after some time hadpassed; and looking toward the patrol leader he saw that he had his headraised in an attitude that told of suddenly aroused interest.

  "I thought I heard a queer plunk just then, out there on the river,"replied the other. "Yes, there it went again. Did you hear it, boys?"

  "Sure we did," replied Ty, raising his head from his duties at thecooking fire, in between the stones that had been fashioned somewhatafter the shape of a V, with the evening air fanning the broad end.

  "Whatever can it be, Elmer?" demanded Landy, his face immediatelyexpressing curiosity, and, perhaps, a trace of alarm; for anything thatsavored of mystery always excited the fat boy.

  All of them were now interested, and listened to ascertain whether thatstrange sound was repeated. Perhaps an interval of half a minute passed.Then once more came that plain "plunk!"

  "Sounds like somebody drowning, and givin' the last gasp!" declared Ty.

  "Oh, let up on that thort of thuff, Ty," said Ted. "You're alwayththinking about thuch nathty thingth."

  Landy turned appealingly to the patrol leader. He realized that ifanybody ought to know what the character of those queer sounds was,Elmer must.

  "What is it, Elmer?" he asked again. "The sea serpent or only some oldgrand-daddy bullfrog croaking to himself on a log. Say, perhaps that'sone of them funny old loon birds you were telling us about to-day, thatcan just laugh so's to make your flesh creep! Tell us about that, Elmer.Whatever is it? There, that time it was a double plunkety-plunk! Now, Iwonder what in the dickens it means!"