"Now I"m delighted to hear you say that, Rufus," Lil Artha told him; "and I promise to instruct you at the first opportunity; Alec, too, if he is so minded."
"I am verra curious aboot it, and ye can count on me being a listener whenever ye begin the lessons. Aye! it would hae been peetiful if Rufus had been struck. I"d hae sucked his wound with ye, Lil Artha, or done anything else ye asked."
Rufus laid a hand on the Scotch boy"s shoulder fondly.
"I"m sure you would, Sandy," he went on to say, for sometimes he used that name in speaking to his comrade, though always with affection. "But after that fright I guess I"m done working for today. Let"s go back to camp."
No one raised any objections, so they prepared to return. Lil Artha managed to fasten a strong cord to the tail of the rattlesnake, which Alec said he would drag after him. The long-legged scout had already shown the two tenderfeet the cruel looking curved fangs in the partly shattered head, as well as the sickly, green-hued poison that could be pressed from the sack by using a stick on a certain part of the said head. They had been greatly impressed, and likewise shocked to realize what a narrow escape both of them had had from near-death.
All the way back the talk was of the hidden perils that lie in wait for unsuspecting pa.s.sersby in the woods. This ranged from wildcats to rattlesnakes and adders and scorpions. Lil Artha seemed to be a "walking encyclopedia" of knowledge along these lines; part of this he had picked up through personal experience, and the rest came through extensive reading, or hearing others tell about it. A scout may find scores of ways for learning useful things, if only he cares to bother about doing it.
Later on they approached the camp.
George, who had managed to get through with his numerous odd jobs and was resting, seemed surprised, to have them come back so soon.
"Huh! guess you got tired of the job quicker"n you expected, Rufus!" he called out lazily from his seat on the soft moss under a tree. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, they say. But what in the d.i.c.kens is that you"re dragging along after you, Alec? Great Scott! a rattler!"
George scrambled to his feet, filled with excitement. His eyes stared at the four-foot reptile, which still showed signs of life; and Lil Artha had a.s.sured Alec its tail would continue to jerk until sundown, even though its head be cut clean off.
"I hope it didn"t strike any of you fellows?" George went on to add with a vein of fright in his voice.
The story was quickly told, and the convinced George had to measure the reptile with his tape line, finding it only an inch or two short of four feet.
"As big a rattler as I ever saw," Elmer told them. "They have them five feet long down in Florida, I understand, those diamond-back fellows; but as I haven"t been there I can"t say anything about it. For a Northern snake this one is certainly a whopper."
"Lil Artha has promised to get the rattle for me," remarked Alec. "Rufus had the first choice, but man, he said he"d never sleep easy nichts if he had it hangin" on the wall of his room at home, thinking about his narrow escape. But it"s a verra curious thing to me, and I don"t care a bawbee about the sound. It wasn"t _my_ ox that was gored, ye ken."
George was acting now in something of a mysterious manner. Elmer noticed this and was looking at the camp-keeper out of the tail of his eye, as though trying to guess what was in the wind. He felt certain that George had a secret of some kind or other, which he was holding back, just for the satisfaction it gave him.
Lil Artha was an observing chap, as we happen to know; and before long he too noticed the same thing. This, however, was after he had seen Elmer observing George closely, with a line across his forehead that told of a puzzled mind.
The tall scout was not the one to bother himself about trying to solve a thing when there was a short cut to the answer. He believed that the best way to get at the meat in a cocoanut was to smash the sh.e.l.l.
"Here, what"s brewing with you, George?" he suddenly demanded, facing the other.
George grinned, and then hastened to say:
"What makes you ask that, Lil Artha?"
"Because I know right well you"ve got something of a surprise up your sleeve, and you"re aching to spring it on us. What have you been doing since we left camp? Now don"t you squirm, and try to keep us in the dark. Own up, George, and tell us."
So George, seeing there was no escape, apparently, determined to let the "cat out of the bag."
CHAPTER IX
THE STRANGE MESSAGE JEM LEFT
"WELL, we"ve had a visitor in camp since you fellows all went away!"
George confessed.
Of course every one was interested. Lil Artha seemed to immediately jump to the conclusion that the guest must have been a four-footed one.
"Bet you now, it was a measly wildcat," he hastened to exclaim. "It"s too bad a fellow with a gun can"t be in two places at the same time. I was needed out with the tenderfoot squad; and seems like I could have been made useful here at home. Did the varmint get away with any of our grub, George?"
The camp defender grinned as though amused.
"Go a bit slow, Lil Artha, can"t you?" he complained, petulantly. "Don"t rush as if you knew it all. n.o.body said the visitor was going on four feet, did they? Why, it happened to be a biped, a man!"
"Then it was Jem Shock!" ventured Elmer, quickly, as though he had half guessed the answer before then.
"Just who it was," agreed George, nodding his head in the affirmative, and looking very important.
"What did he want?" demanded Lil Artha.
"Hold your horses!" continued Elmer; "don"t keep jumping at conclusions so fast. In the first place, remember that we invited Jem to drop in on us any time he was near our camp. The invitation didn"t seem to give him much joy, but later on he may have concluded to make a call. Now tell us what he said, and how he looked, George."
"Oh! he carried that gun of his just as we saw him before," the other explained. "And he certainly looked pretty savage, in the bargain."
"Savage?" echoed Rufus, "why should he act that way? Possibly because my father owns about all this property up here. Perhaps Jem believes he may be dispossessed of his cabin. I"ve heard that squatters always do get to thinking they own the land they build on, as if possession gave them a quit claim deed."
"Well," continued George, steadily, and keeping his eye fixed on Rufus, "to tell the honest truth, he seemed most of all interested about _you_, Rufus."
"Oh! is that so?" sneered the other; "well, that"s just about in line with what I was telling you. He knows the name of Snodgra.s.s, apparently."
"I guessed he did from the way he acted after I"d told him about your father," George went on to say.
"Now, what could you have to say about my dad?" snapped the touchy Rufus.
"Well, Jem asked me first of all if one of the boys in camp was a Snodgra.s.s, and of course I told him yes," George explained. "Then he asked me if I knew what your father"s first name was. I told him I had heard it, but just then, somehow, it seemed to have slipped my memory.
At that he up and asked me if it was Hiram."
Rufus gave a little cry at hearing this.
"It might be this man knew my father once on a time, or they may have had some business deal together; though that"s hardly likely, because Jem Shock, poacher and farm laborer, would hardly be the one _my_ father would be friendly with."
"I don"t know anything about that," said George, swiftly; "but when I told him I remembered, on his mentioning it, that Hiram was your father"s name, he gritted those big white teeth of his like everything, and his eyes certainly looked wicked enough to give a fellow a shiver."
"But didn"t he say anything to explain why he had come to the camp?"
asked Lil Artha, deeply interested in the story.
"He asked no favor, neither would he sit down and have a cup of coffee when I offered to make him one," George went on; "but he asked me to give you a message which he wanted you to carry to your father when you went home. He said: "Tell that Snodgra.s.s boy to say to his father that Jem Shock never will forgive the rank treachery that handed him over to a gang of sharpers in the land speculating business. And tell Hiram Snodgra.s.s, too," he went on, "that he ought to thank his stars his son wasn"t treated by Jem Shock as he deserved. Only for the prayers of a good woman in his cabin, and the influence of a sweet child, Jem Shock"d be tempted to do something wicked to wipe out the debt he owed your father.""
Rufus went white on hearing this. Then the color surged back to his cheeks and his eyes sparkled like twin fires.
"It"s all wrong, I"m sure it must be!" he cried, angrily. "I know my father better than most people do, and I"m as certain as I breathe that he wouldn"t deliberately betray anybody who trusted in his word. There must be some terrible mistake about it, don"t you see, fellows? I"ll bring you face to face with my dad when I"m telling him about this, and you"ll hear for yourselves what he says. But nothing can shake my confidence in his integrity; I"ve seen it tested too many times to doubt him now, just because this poacher fellow dares accuse him of wrong doing."