CHAPTER V
CAMPING ON A STRANGE ROAD
Jubilant and expressive though it may have been, Paul Jones' "wow," wasvery far from being all the Auto Boys had to say concerning the telegramreceived. In general they shared Paul's mirthful feelings. With a veryhuman kind of pleasure they let their minds dwell upon Gaines' sullenwrath and Pickton's chagrin and disappointment.
The condition of bewilderment and utter discomfiture which would benatural to Freddy Perth was also easily imagined. In short, it was withreal delight that the boys pictured the Trio confronted by the discoverythat they had been out-generaled; left like a squad of raw recruitshopelessly drilling around the field, looking for the beginning of thebattle that was all over long ago.
"Oh, I guess maybe they don't find _their_ cake is dough, and theycouldn't eat it if they kept it," chuckled Paul, blithely, but reallysomewhat twisted as to the quotations he meant to employ. "But anyhow,the thing for us to do is keep moving. We're getting too much noticed.It'll lead to more advertising than we'd really like to have."
This reference to a considerable number of pairs of eyes nowscrutinizing the travel-stained car, its touring and camp equipment andthe owners thereof, caused Billy, now at the wheel, to drive slowly upthe street.
Dave MacLester, who had gone into a livery stable close by to inquireabout the roads to the westward, came out just in time to see themachine move off. Not guessing Billy's intentions, which were to go onlyto the next corner above, as a good place to turn, he dashed franticallyafter the car. He sprang aboard and climbed into the tonneaubreathlessly.
"Don't seem to be in any hurry at all!" he ejaculated, witheringly. "Gostraight ahead. Turn at the first corner. It's the best road west. Otherone's all torn up for four miles out, they said."
Billy had put on speed at once, when Dave was safely in, and now he letthe speedometer mark up to twenty-five on a fine stretch of brickpavement, clear of car tracks and broken by few intersecting streets, aspeedway not to be resisted.
The net result of the flying start and apparent haste was not a littlecomment on part of those who had gathered near the car. Even the men inthe livery stable ran out to see and learn what the commotion was allabout and the town marshal sauntered up just a moment later.
Now the marshal of Sagersgrove was a self-important old fellow namedWellock. His uniform consisted principally of a badge of great size anda greasy blue coat with brass buttons. He wore old and rusty blacktrousers, very baggy at the knees and much frayed around the bottom.
With a solemn and knowing look Marshal Wellock made a few inquiriesconcerning the car which had just passed out of sight and its occupants.Then he made some mysterious entries in a pocket memorandum, thegenerally soiled appearance of which was not at all unlike his own.These movements alone were enough to make a deep impression upon thecrowd which had now collected; but accompanied as they were by Mr.Wellock's knowing and extremely mysterious air, the whole effect was toproduce in the minds of those gathered near the profound conviction thatthe four strange boys were nothing short of bank-robbers in disguise.
Men exchanged looks of deep significance as if saying, "I told you so."Women nodded their heads to one another in a way that plainly indicatedtheir certain knowledge of the guilt of the young strangers, whatevermight be the crime laid at their door.
Observing the unlimited notice he was attracting, Marshal Wellock'simportance increased. Preserving still his deeply mysterious air, hewalked on to the telegraph office and went in. What he learned thereapparently did not cause him to change his very good opinion of himselfand of the great power vested in him, for he was more darkly mysteriousthan ever as he returned. Indeed, his whole bearing was such as to makehim decidedly red in the face, as he frowned savagely, in keeping withhis idea of the great personage which he himself felt and, he believed,everyone else must undoubtedly consider him to be. What he thought heknew about the four boys would have made a long story. What he did knowcould have been told in a dozen words and none of them to the lads'discredit.
Meanwhile the Thirty still sped on westward. The afternoon was waningand the road was growing bad. Sagersgrove lay far in the rear.
"Don't look to me as if this could be the main route," said Phil Way,thoughtfully noting the brush-grown fields and the poor character ofthe farmhouses and buildings, becoming more and more infrequent as theyprogressed.
"Oh, it's the road all right. It'll be better going soon," MacLesteranswered; and as the latter himself had obtained the informationrespecting the route, Phil said no more.
Mile after mile slipped to the rear, but slowly now, for the road was aconstant succession of deep ruts, miniature mountain chains and great,half-dried holes of mud. The late June sun was going down. Blackbirdsflew in noisy flocks from one to another of the dense thickets growingin frequent and extensive patches as far as eye could reach over the lowland at either side of the wretched way.
"Well, if this _is_ the road, we better go where it isn't," mutteredBilly Worth, his arms beginning to feel the effects of driving over thepainfully distressing course.
"Oh, stop your growling!" Dave answered a little savagely. "This roadwill be all right when we get to the high ground where the trees areyonder! And by the Old Harry! Why should you hold me responsible? Neverknew it to fail, anyhow, that whoever it is that half breaks his neckand nearly gets left behind, to dig up the road statistics for a trip orany part of one, is from that minute blamed right and left for everyhole that's found and for every stone that's struck."
In which observation young Mr. MacLester was not at all wrong.Identically the same weakness of human nature crops out in so manyplaces that none can fail to recognize it. Phil Way saw and felt thetruth of Dave's remarks at once.
"Does look better on ahead. Can't expect good going all the time," hesaid. It was a way of his. He had turned aside and prevented stormswhich might have grown to serious proportions among the four in justsuch manner time upon time.
Nevertheless, the promised improvement did not come with the higherplaces to which the rough trail in due time led. Two parallel ruts amongthe grass and low underbrush were all that now remained to indicate aroad of any sort. Now, too, a thick woods, without so much as a fencebetween, bounded the course on both sides. The sun was lost to view, thelate twilight of a June night was closing in. For nearly two hours not ahuman habitation had been seen.
Away to the east stretched the swampy brush-grown country that hadbordered the line of progress for many miles. To the west there appearedonly the scarcely passable path leading deeper and deeper into theforest, hemming in the course on north and south.
Billy had brought the car to a halt. Unmistakably the Auto Boys were asnearly lost as one can well be on a public highway--(but there are manyjust such)--of a prosperous and wealthy commonwealth.
"Anyhow it makes me think that I always was fond of white meat,"chirped Paul Jones, trying to put a cheerful countenance upon a trulydepressing situation.
"If you don't mind a suggestion, Jones, I'd say that it's better not totalk of what you aren't likely to get," put in Phil Way, a littlesoberly. "Just some of that ham and bread and butter and beans soundsgood to me. So if Billy will make some coffee we can go into camp prettycomfortably right here. In the morning we can go back, if we can't doanything else."
"Gee! I always did like chicken, though!" persisted Jones, as ifMelancholy had marked him for her own, and there was no remedy for hisfeelings but the refreshment he mentioned.
"Here, too! If we had a good supper, it would brace us all up," Worthput in.
"Shucks! We'll _have_ a good supper," remonstrated Phil, impatiently."Who'll get some water? Wish I knew where. Come on, Dave! Likely there'sa good, clear creek just over this rise of ground. You make the fire,Paul."
So Way and MacLester started off with a bucket while Chef Billy set towork with his provisions. In five minutes Jones had a bright fireblazing beside an old log, where an open, grassy place offeredcomfortable seats upon the ground, t
hen he began unloading such baggageas would probably be needed. Yet every minute or two he would trotaround to where Worth's supper preparations were in progress, sniffingthe air, and smiling in a most delighted state of anticipation. "Andwon't Way be surprised!" he said. "Just listen to me when he comesback."
At last Phil and Dave did come. They had been obliged to go a long wayto reach the valley and the stream they knew must be there, and it wasnow quite dark.
The embers of the fire glowed brightly, offering a truly comfortablesense of companionship. In the bright glow's midst stood the big coffeepot which had seen service many times before, also a tightly covered,black roasting-pan. The two boys put down the bucket, borne between themon a short pole and Way at once busied himself in opening up a big baleof bedding.
"All-I-wants-is-my-chicken," half sang, half chanted Paul Jones.
"Oh, forget it!" drawled Phil, impatiently, creating a laugh--perhapsbecause it was not often he descended to plain, unvarnished slang."You've been talking chicken all day. My! that coffee smells good," headded, just to take the rough edge off his speech.
"A nice drumstick and a slice or two of white meat. U-m-m!" sighedJones, as if he certainly would expire directly if his wish were notgratified.
An impatient growl from Phil elicited another laugh in which Jonesjoined with greatest merriment. Then in another moment--
"Come on, here! Get your festal board ready!" commanded Chef Billy anddirectly he drew the black, covered pan from the coals and lifted thelid. Ah, what savory smell was that! Chicken--roast chicken, andpositively no mistake about it.
"Say!" This ejaculation, his face lighted up bright as the blazingcoals, was all Phil could muster.
"Well, I guess maybe we're no wizards! No, we're no wizards--nothinglike that at all," chirped Paul Jones in his peculiarly happy way. "No!Don't take a wizard to do these little tricks! Don't think it for aminute!"
"Where ever _did_ you get that chicken?" demanded Phil, completelypuzzled. "This is what your talking about white meat meant, is it?"
Then they told him how Mrs. Tyler Gleason, whose good friendship theyhad won out on the farm the year before, sent the chicken, all nicelyroasted, expressly for the expedition. All four lads had been at thefarm and at the "Retreat" in the ravine on Sunday afternoon and inconfidence told Mr. and Mrs. Gleason of their plan to start theirjourney on Monday. The unexpected but very welcome contribution to theirstock of provisions arrived but an hour before the car was loaded. Philbeing so busily engaged in putting the blinders over the eyes of thetoo-confident Trio, had not, of course, known of the gift. The otherssaved the fowl for supper purposely to surprise him.
"Nothing to do but warm it up, and way off here on the edge of nowhere,we have as fine a roast chicken as ever came down the pike," quoth BillyWorth. And although it must be admitted that any roast chicken pursuingits way upon the pike, or any other roadway, would be nothing short ofextraordinary, the fact remains that Mrs. Gleason's offering was allthat could be desired.
Always master of ceremonies in such matters, Billy did the carving and agood-sized thimble would have contained all that remained of the roastfowl, apart from the dismembered skeleton, when supper was over. Thebest way to pick a bone really right up to the last shred, inclusive,never was with knife and fork, anyway.
Ample quantities of coffee, bread and butter and the other good thingsthe regular store of the cheese-box larder afforded, made the entiresupper so successful that, on the whole, the boys contemplated theirsituation with no serious misgivings as they gathered about thecampfire. The croaking of the frogs in the broad expanse of swamp andmarsh land to the east, the profound quiet, and intense darkness in thewoods on either side, the flickering lights and shadows of the blazebefore them, were well calculated to inspire dread and apprehension ifnot downright fear; but so used to depending upon themselves--soself-reliant, therefore, were these four friends that the thought ofbeing fearful or allowing themselves to be uncomfortable on account oftheir lonely surroundings, lost though they practically were, did notoccur to one of them. So much, then, for the worth of a clear conscienceand the habit of self-confidence.
And again, notwithstanding their somber surroundings and the annoyinglack of knowledge as to their precise whereabouts, the four friends wereby no means without equipment to make themselves quite comfortable. Longwinter evening discussions, plans and preparations had not been fornothing. Even to rubber-covered sleeping bags which, just as anexperiment, perhaps, would have made a pouring rain something to beinvited rather than feared, the camp and touring outfit was complete.Just for one night it was not worth while to put up the tent or tounpack a large part of the car's load, but blankets to spread upon theground, others for covering, and a tarpaulin for the car, were allwithin easy reach.
Drowsiness came early, under the influence of the fire's genial warmthand in the midst of Paul's voluble discourse on the probable extent oftime lost, due to losing the road, the other boys drew their blanketsover them and with a laugh bade him good-night. There being "nothingelse for P. Jones, Esquire, to do," as he himself expressed it, he, also"sought the arms of Morpherus Nodinski."
Again quoting the words of "P. Jones, Esquire," it must be "that frogssleep all day, for how else can they stay up to holler all night?"Certainly there was little diminishing of the weird clamor from themarshes as the night advanced. All else was still as death. Not even anowl disturbed the forest's dark solitude.
And the Auto Boys slept on. The greater part of the night had passed,but no glimmer of dawn had yet appeared when there came suddenly like awail of dire distress, louder far than the frogs' deep croaking, a longdrawn-out cry--"Help!" And again and yet again, "Help! Help!"
Dave was the first awakened. The second call completely roused him andhe had the whole camp astir in another five seconds. Once more, andthrice repeated, came the wailing, drawn-out cry.
The Auto Boys' Quest Page 5
