"It"s Black Bart! He"s escaped!" cried one.
Rob joined the chase. But although they could hear crashing of branches ahead, the pursuit had to be given over after a while. In the woods he knew so well the revenues were no match for the wily Black Bart. With downcast faces they returned to where the other prisoners, guarded by two of the officers, had been left.
"I"d rather have lost the whole boiling than let Black Bart slip through my fingers," bemoaned the leader, "wonder how he did it?"
"Here"s how," struck in one of the officers, holding up a strand of rope, "he slipped through the knots."
"Serves me right for taking chances with such an old fox," muttered the leader, self-reproachfully.
"Anyhow we got the rest of them," said the man who had recognized Rob, "better luck next time."
"Dere ain"t agoin" ter be no next time," muttered Jumbo disconsolately, "dat five hundred dollars and dat gas wagon I was a-gwine ter buy hab taken de wings ob de mawning!"
The lake was reached shortly before dawn. True to their promise, the revenue men put Rob and Jumbo ash.o.r.e at the Boy Scouts" camp. The amazement and delight their arrival caused can be better imagined than set down here. Anyhow, for a long time nothing but confused fusillades of questions and scattered answers could be heard. Much hand-shaking, back-slapping and shouting also ensued. It was a joyous reunion. Only one thing marred it. The canoes were still missing, and without them they could not proceed.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FOREST MONARCH.
"Say, what"s that up yonder--there, away toward the head of the lake?"
Tubby, standing on a rock by the rim of the lake where he had just been performing his morning"s ablutions, pointed excitedly.
"I can"t see a thing but the wraiths of mist," rejoined Merritt, who was beside him. The lads were stripped to the waist. Their skin looked pink and healthy in the early morning light.
"Well, you ought to consult an oculist," scornfully rejoined Tubby, "you"ve got fine eyes for a Boy Scout--not."
"Do you mean to tell me you saw something, actually?"
"Of course. You ought to know me better than to think I was fooling."
"What were they then--mud hens?"
"Say, you"re a mud rooster. No, what I saw looked to me uncommonly like our missing canoes."
"You don"t say so," half mockingly.
"But I do say so,--and most emphatically, too, as Professor Jorum says,"
rejoined the stout youth, "there they"ve gone now. That morning mist"s swallowed "em up just like I mean to swallow breakfast directly."
"But what would the canoes be doing drifting about?" objected Merritt.
"From Rob"s story yesterday, Hunt and his gang had them in that cove. Do you suppose they"d have let them get away?"
"Maybe not, willingly," rejoined Tubby sagely, who, as our readers may have observed, was a shrewd thinker, "but it blew pretty hard last night.
The canoes may have broken loose from their moorings."
"Jimminy! That"s so," exclaimed Merritt, "I"ll go and tell----"
"No, you won"t do anything of the kind," said Tubby, half in and half out of his Boy Scout shirt.
"Why not?"
"Because if they did turn out to be mud hens we"d never hear the last of it."
"H"um that"s so. What do you advise, then?"
"We"ll wait till after breakfast. Then we"ll say we"re going to take a tramp and sneak off toward the head of the lake. If they are the canoes they"ll still be there."
"And if not----"
"We"ll have had a tramp."
"Say," exclaimed Merritt as a sudden idea struck him, "how do you propose to get them, even if they do turn out to be the canoes. Stand on the bank and call "come, ducky! ducky!""
Tubby looked at his corporal with unmixed scorn.
"We can swim, can"t we?"
"I see you have every objection covered, like a good Scout, Tubby. Well, we"ll try after breakfast. If they"re not the canoes there"s no harm done, anyhow."
"Except to our shoe leather," responded Tubby finishing dressing.
The morning meal over, and Jumbo washing the tin plates in silence--he was still regretting that five hundred dollars--the two lads, in accordance with their plan, got ready for their tramp.
They buckled on their belts, saw that their shoe-laces were stout and well laced, and equipped themselves with two scout staves. It was against the rules to carry firearms unless the major or one of the leaders was along. No objection was interposed to their going. In fact, the major, worried as he was over the vanished canoes, was rather glad to have an opportunity for a quiet talk with the professor. Rob was still rather f.a.gged by his experiences of the preceding night and day, and Hiram and Andy Bowles had decided to indulge in signal practice.
"Well, good-bye," called the major as the young Scouts strode off.
"Bring back the canoes with you," mockingly hailed Rob.
"Sure. We"ll look in all the tree tops. I"m told they roost there with the gondolas," cried the irrepressible Tubby, with a wave of his hand.
The next instant the two adventurers had vanished over the ridge.
"Say, what a laugh we"ll have on them if we really do bring the canoes back," chuckled Tubby merrily, as they plodded along.
Distances in the mountains are deceptive. From the camp it had not looked so very far to the head of the lake. But the two lads found that, what with the innumerable ridges they had to cross, and the rough nature of the ground before them, it was considerably more of a tramp than they had bargained for.
Of the canoes too, there was no sign. The mists had now vanished and the sun beat down on the smooth surface of the lake as if it had been a polished mirror.
"Maybe they"ve drifted ash.o.r.e," said Tubby, hopefully.
"If they have I"ll bet they chose the other one," said Merritt, "it"s what they used to call at school "the perversity of inanimate things.""
"Phew!" exclaimed Tubby, "don"t spring any more like that. I didn"t bring a dictionary."