After protesting and begging for some time in vain, Hubert jumped down from the log and hurried back to camp. By the time he had told the story to Ted and July, the witless snake-charmer himself appeared unhurt.
"Lem me tell you one thing, Hubut," cautioned July: "you let dat Billy hoe his own row. Play wid him roun" dis camp, but don"t go foolin" long wid him in dese woods. He ain"t got good sense, and he"ll git you in trouble sho"s you born."
"He ought to be in a sanitarium," said Ted.
"Look yuh, Billy," cried July, as the half-wit approached, "ain"t you got no better sense"n to prodjick wid a rattlesnake dat-a way?"
"What made you tell?" asked Billy reproachfully of Hubert.
"Dat snake goin" to bite you an" kill you," July warned urgently.
"Don"t you fret," said Billy, giggling. "Son knows me."
Ted was reminded of the old saying that Providence takes care of fools and drunken men, but he also spoke in rebuke and warning, whereupon the disgusted Billy took himself off.
"Cap"n Ted, you want to go fishin" wid me dis mawnin"?" asked July, and the boy promptly accepted the invitation.
The negro explained that Buck Hardy was willing for Ted to go if Hubert would stay around the camp and play with Billy. Apparently it was not as yet thought advisable to permit the two boys to go off on an excursion together, but no danger of attempted flight on the part of either was feared while they were separated.
"I don"t want to "play with Billy,"" protested Hubert indignantly. "But you go ahead, Ted, if you want to. I"ll stay around camp. I want to look over that old paper and then take a nap. I"m sleepy--after last night."
So July got ready his fishing tackle and bait, and Ted followed him down to the landing. They took the smallest boat and, paddling and poling, slowly made their way against the usual obstructions toward a small lake in the flooded jungle to the right of the great marsh or "prairie."
After nearly an hour of hard work they reached their destination and threw out their lines, baited with wriggling worms, which, according to July, the black ba.s.s or "trout" often took "as fas" as you kin throw in." This morning, however, they appeared to be less hungry, and the fishermen waited some time for even a "bite," talking in low voices the while. During the hour that followed Ted caught one three-pounder and July landed two others not quite as large. July considered this very poor luck and complained that the catch was not "half a mess." It was time to return to camp, however, and they reluctantly drew in their lines.
As they were following the boat-trail back to the island, Ted, who had brought his gun, stood up now and then and looked searchingly around, hoping to see something to shoot. In this way he caught sight of a flock of ducks swimming about in a little open pool to their left. He was quick to fire both barrels, the shock almost causing him to lose his equilibrium and tumble overboard. And when, with a great splashing and fluttering the flock rose, three ducks were left floating on the water.
The boy shouted in his delight.
"We"ll have enough duck, if not enough fish," he said.
"If we kin git "em," said July doubtfully.
A hard struggle resulted in bringing the bateau only within about twenty feet of the spot, and there it stalled, the crowding obstructions being apparently insurmountable. July reluctantly gave up, declaring that they would have to let the ducks "go." But tenacity of purpose was one of Ted"s chief characteristics and he would not give up. His hunter"s pride demanded the game and, besides, he insisted that it would never do to permit so much good food to be wasted.
It was a warm spring day, and, putting his hand into the water, Ted found it to be only agreeably cool. His decision was instantly made: he would have those ducks if he had to swim for them. Deaf to July"s urgent warnings of the danger of alligators, moccasins, and what not, he stripped to his shoes, and stepped out of the boat, surprised to find the water deeper than he had expected.
In addition to standing trees and shrubs of many sorts and sizes, the flooded swamp at this point was crowded with sunken logs, dead branches and here and there a dense growth of flags. But Ted, wading, slipping, falling, swimming, and battling manfully with the various difficulties, finally reached the goal and held in his grasp a foot of each of the three floating ducks. It was only when he turned to come back with his prizes that he became seriously embarra.s.sed. He then stumbled, fell, and, as if his feet were caught or entangled in the sunken obstructions, failed to regain his upright position. His head even disappeared under the water, and it looked to July as if he had been drawn under by some unseen force.
Fortunately the bateau, now lightened of a part of its load, drew less water, and could be forced forward with less difficulty. Exerting all his powers, the terrified negro made rapid headway and came to the rescue in time. While the struggling Ted still managed to hold his breath, he was seized, drawn out of the water, and lifted over the side of the boat, laughing as he kicked from him a ma.s.s of swamp weeds and mossy rotting branches in which his feet had been entangled. His body showed several red scratches, and he knew he had had a narrow escape, but he had succeeded and was happy.
"I got "em!" he shouted triumphantly. Then, sobering, he gratefully thanked the negro for his timely intervention and listened in a becoming manner to the scolding his recklessness invited.
"Git on your clothes quick," urged July. "I was most scared to death, you see me so. I wouldn"t "a" had you drownd-ed for a thousand dollars.
Mr. Hardy sho would tan my hide if I was to take you back to camp drownd-ed. He think a heap o" you, Cap"n Ted. Dem yuther white mens all time complainin" "bout you, but he shut "em up an" tell "em he sho aim to stan" by you."
"I think he"s just fine--if he is in with a bad crowd."
"He sho is de bes" man o" de whole bunch."
"Maybe he didn"t understand that he could have volunteered freely and enlisted in some branch of the service before he was drafted," suggested Ted. "That"s the only way I can explain it."
"Maybe so," a.s.sented July, adding with a shrewd shake of the head: "But you better not push him too hard, Cap"n Ted."
After the noon meal at the camp Buck Hardy kept his promise and took the two boys on a deer hunt. This was a more easy and comfortable expedition that Ted had expected. It was merely a matter of waiting and watching at a "stand" until there was a chance to shoot at a deer running by. The "still hunt" method, with its wearying efforts to sneak watchfully through the woods without making the slightest noise, was not attempted.
Buck prepared only for a "deer drive." He first dispatched July with the dogs to the south end of the island, which was about four miles long, instructing him to go quietly with the dogs in leash. At the south end he was to untie them and start them running northward. Meanwhile, after giving the boys sh.e.l.ls containing buck-shot, the "c.o.c.k of the walk"
leisurely selected a promising "stand" for each and took one for himself along the backbone of the island at the upper end.
The boys were instructed not to fire too quickly and be careful to take good aim. They at first waited and watched in great excitement, expecting every minute to have their first chance to bag n.o.ble game; then they calmed down and began to wonder if anything was really going to happen; and at last they looked wearily down the aisles of the open pine woods, their enthusiasm fast waning.
In due time the distant baying of the dogs was heard, the sound drew nearer, and after a long while their loud yelping plainly showed that, though unseen by the boys, they were running past the immediate neighborhood. Later July himself was heard coming, his voice lifted in tireless repet.i.tion of a brief, chant-like sing-song of barbaric African origin, which rang pleasingly through the woods. But no frightened leaping deer was seen, and not a shot broke upon the air of the balmy afternoon. Then, finally, came Buck himself, to tell the boys, in great disappointment, that no game had been beaten out of the brush, and that it was all over for the time.
"I reckon they are off feedin" in the swamp shallows to-day," he said.
By the time the slackers had lit their pipes around the camp fire that night Ted had recovered from his disappointment and he casually remarked that, after all, he was glad they didn"t get a deer.
"Did you hear what that boy said?" asked Al Peters, laughingly drawing general attention to Ted.
"Of course, I would have enjoyed it," the boy explained, "but we don"t need it for food, July says--I asked him--and it"s a great pity to waste even an ounce of meat at such a time. The President and Mr. Hoover have asked everybody not to waste a sc.r.a.p of food and not to eat any more than is actually necessary."
"Well, I"ll be dog-on!" exclaimed Bud Jones, and the slackers in general looked their astonishment.
They had grown up to lavish feeding and wasteful methods in the handling of food. They had never heard of anything else, except perhaps in the case of some "triflin"" white man too lazy to work or some poor negro in rags, and they wondered that such "meanness" could be recommended by the President of the United States. Some of them were even inclined to doubt Ted"s word. There was a suggestion of scorn in Al Peters" tone as he asked:
"What for?--for goodness" sake!"
"Why, to stave off famine, or near-famine," explained Ted. "We"ve got to help feed our allies in Europe as well as ourselves. They are too busy fighting to be able to raise their usual crops and their supplies from other countries are cut very short. I read not long ago that the German submarines had sent three million pounds of bacon and four million pounds of cheese to the bottom of the sea in a single week."
At this the uneducated young backwoodsmen who had been in hiding since the late spring of 1917 opened their eyes, several of them repeating the figures in astonishment.
"I heard tell of them submarines," one of them remarked. "They sneaks up on ships and shoots "em from under the water."
"But why don"t our people and our friends over the big water get after them sneakin" things and knock "em out and stop it?" asked Bud Jones.
"We are doing all we can, and we are really doing a lot," said Ted. "Mr.
Edison is working night and day on inventions and our destroyers are hunting submarines all the time, and they and the English destroyers bag a lot of them, too. They drop tremendous explosives where they see bubbles and it tears the submarine to pieces. But the Germans keep on building them very fast."
With an oath Buck Hardy expressed the earnest wish that "every one of them devilish water-snakes" might be blown up. Ted a.s.sured him that such a wish was very generally shared, remarking further in his own boyish way that German submarines were hated in America all the more because they virtually made war on the United States long before an actual and formal state of war existed. Then, returning to the subject under discussion, he added:
"You see, there"s nothing in history like this thing that has come upon the world. This great war touches everybody and everything, and we"ve all got to help in some way."
"Now he"s got on the war again!" exclaimed Sweet Jackson, rising to his feet. "If you men had sense enough to listen to me, you"d shut him up."
Without waiting for a response the most unpopular member of the camping party spat in his disgust and walked off toward the sleeping loft.
"We"ve all got to help in some way," repeated Ted, taking no notice of the interruption,--"either by fighting, giving money, making munitions, supplying brains or skilled labor, raising crops, or by saving food.
It"s got to be done, or there"s no telling what may happen."
The boy was again advancing upon dangerous ground and a disturbed atmosphere was at once perceptible. The slackers were beginning to realize that the war was a bigger thing and much more exacting in its demands than they had supposed. But they had chosen their course and they did not wish to be reminded that duty called them. They shifted their positions uneasily, yawned, spoke of other things, remarked that they were sleepy, and one by one rose to their feet. Within a couple of minutes they had followed Sweet Jackson, only Buck Hardy, July and the two boys remaining by the fire.