"Never mind, boys, the old man will go free this minute."
He said it with a bad grace, and the glances that he covertly cast at the boys showed that he was enraged at the turn affairs had taken. What made him still angrier was the fact that the cook and two or three men had gathered around and seen him come out second best in the battle of words.
He determined to make the best of a bad situation.
"I am afraid that I spoke a little too hastily in this thing," he said, coming closer to Garry. "I want you to remember that I am always trying to protect your father"s interests here; that is what he pays me for, and I thought that there might be something peculiar in this chap"s showing up here in the dead of night."
Garry, having won his point, and for the sake of future peace and freedom from interference, resolved to mollify the manager.
"That"s all right, Mr. Barrows. Only I want to tell you this," and here Garry lowered his voice: "The old chap is mentally unbalanced, and it was largely for that reason that I did not want him to be annoyed. He lives near a tract of wild land where we patrolled early this summer, and was very decent to us, tanning skins of animals that we shot, and leaving us rabbits for eating. It is a pet trick of his to wander about at night, and appear very mysteriously, and as I propose to have him stay with us a few days, I wish you would pa.s.s the word that he is afflicted and caution the men not to tease or annoy him."
Barrows a.s.sented grudgingly and then marched off to the office.
Left alone with the hermit, for the cook and the others had departed for their customary tasks, the boys eagerly asked the hermit what he meant by his note, and if he had anything to tell them.
"I didn"t mean to get caught," he said. "I know what you boys are here for. Nate told me a little and I can make two and two equal four. I was creeping through the woods last night to come and leave a letter for you, when I heard some men talking, and crept up to listen to them. They were just getting ready to leave and all I heard was a man saying that his brother would soon be there and that he would know how to deal with those spies. I couldn"t get a good look at the man, but he spoke with an accent, and was a heavy, strongly built man. That"s what I was going to write to you, for I believe you are the ones that the men in the secret meeting meant when they referred to spies."
The boys looked aghast at each other when they heard the concluding words of their friend the hermit. At once the same thought leaped into the minds of all three. Man with an accent, heavily built and strong appearing. Brother was coming to help him. All put together it meant only one thing, and that was voiced by d.i.c.k.
"Jean LeBlanc!"
The others echoed the name of their Nemesis after d.i.c.k.
"What"s that, did you speak of LeBlanc?" inquired the hermit.
"That"s just what we did," replied Garry grimly. "That man you described, unless we are very badly mistaken, was Baptiste, a brother of Jean. And if Jean is on the way, we must guard ourselves every minute.
And we must make every moment count, for once he gets here he will make strenuous efforts to get us in trouble, if not on his own hook, then in cahoots with Barrows. Now let"s break for the small lake. Suppose you stay with us a few days, Hermit, and help us in our work."
"No, that would not be good tactics," was the reply of the hermit. "It would cause trouble to you boys with that man who wished me lodged in durance vile."
As was usual, the words of the hermit were anything but those that would be naturally used by a man that had lived the greater part of his life in the deep woods, far removed from all human beings. But the aged hermit was always surprising them, if not by his talk, by his unusual actions.
Garry had often thought that the old man was wise in his conclusions, so he asked what could be suggested.
"I would say that you should go to the manager and tell him that I had been offended by my reception and consequently had refused to stay and visit you, going off in a huff. Then that will give me a chance to return to the forest and watch for the coming of LeBlanc. I will guarantee that I will not be captured again. I was too sure of myself last night, since I did not know that the camp was full of night spies, who held rendezvous in the dark of the night. I will warn you in the usual way if LeBlanc approaches. In the meantime, my instinct tells me that the man with whom you quarreled, Garry, is not to be trusted. Watch him. Now I will go if you will give me some food to carry with me for breakfast. I am hungry."
"There"s one thing I wish you would do first, Hermit," said Garry, calling him by the only name they knew, and which appeared to please rather than offend the old recluse, "and that is go to the nearest town and mail a letter for us. There is no one in the camp now that I would trust with a message, and none of us who could get away. I should have thought to do it yesterday when Howells left, but forgot it in the excitement of his being discharged."
Borrowing d.i.c.k"s ever ready notebook, Garry scribbled off a brief note to his father, advising him to check carefully the shipments of timber, and telling him in guarded words, that he had several clues that properly trailed down would soon lead to the unmasking of the traitors in the camp. He folded the note and gave the hermit money with which to buy a stamped envelope, and on another leaf of paper wrote the address to which the note should be sent.
This the hermit promised to do at the earliest possible opportunity. He then proposed that they walk a few hundred yards out of the camp with him, so that they might select a spot where notes could be left without his having to penetrate the dangers of the camp at night.
This the boys agreed to do, and after a brisk walk selected a tree with a hollow, half concealed in it, and established that as the "postoffice." The hermit then took up his journey, while the boys returned to the office to tell the manager, as they had agreed to do, about the hermit"s leaving. When Barrows heard their story he seemed relieved and was apparently only too anxious to ingratiate himself with the boys again, for he realized that he had overstepped the mark a bit in his words with Garry a short time previous.
"You should have brought the old chap back, and perhaps I could have persuaded him that it was all a mistake," but the boys were quick to detect the false ring in his tone.
"Now we are off to Kanamo Lake for our delayed fishing trip, and so that you may not get uneasy if we do not return by nightfall, let us tell you that we are used to making camp wherever we happen to be, and so will be all right. I only wish there was a canoe on the lake, and we would take a three or four-day hike, canoeing from spot to spot on the lake, and camping wherever we saw fit," concluded Garry.
"Sorry there isn"t. You might make a flatboat out of some lumber, but there is nothing with which to calk the seams, and the task of dragging the lumber to the water would be almost too much to bother with for the short time that you are going to stay here," replied Barrows.
As the boys set out on their seven-mile hike to the lake, they discussed the way in which Barrows was continually bringing into the conversation the suggestion that they were not going to stay very long.
"I wonder if that is a warning unintentionally given, or is the wish just father to the thought?" asked Garry. "I don"t remember ever saying anything to Barrows about the length of time that we intended to spend here."
"Maybe it is just the wish coming to surface as you say. At any rate, let"s not worry about that for awhile. We will have bridges enough to cross when we come to them."
The chums pursued their way through the fragrant woods, spicy with the smell of pine and balsam. Occasionally they heard the whirr of wings as a covey of grouse or partridge, frightened at the sound of approaching footsteps, took wing and flew away from the cover where they had been hiding. The sound of the birds brought to the minds of the trio the sad thought of the missing Sandy, for he had the canine instinct of most dogs to flush a bird. He had so often hunted with the boys that they had taught him to retrieve a bird as does a regular pointer or hunting dog.
"Tell you what we"ll do when we get back to the camp tonight," announced Phil. "We"ll offer a reward for the finding of Sandy. I think myself that some of the lumberjacks, perhaps that chap that took us c.o.o.n hunting, recognized the value of Sandy and stole him, determined to sell him and make a few dishonest dollars. Sandy is worth more to us than many people would want to pay for him, and I think if we offered a big enough reward we might get him back."
This was agreed on by the boys, and chatting merrily of many things, they trekked through the forest to the lake.
They took turns setting the pace and so made brisk time, even d.i.c.k keeping up without grumbling, although there was no circus at the end of the trail to lure him on to greater speed. However, d.i.c.k smelled adventure in the air, and hence all his seemingly lazy ways dropped and he dug to the trail as if his life depended on it.
Soon they reached the lake, which lay like a jewel in the midst of the forest. For the most part it was surrounded by trees, thick and green.
At the end of the trail was a slightly open spot, and a stretch of sandy beach that seemed to beckon the boys irresistibly.
"Let"s take a short dip before we start exploring. I haven"t had a swim for days, and I think it would do us all a lot of good." Garry had been sweeping the edges of the lake with his field gla.s.ses, which he had brought along, and could see nothing other than an unbroken expanse of forest. Far down at the end of the lake was a slight opening which Garry judged was the outlet of the lake, although since he had not consulted a map, he could not tell much about it as regarded its direction and size.
The others were also of Garry"s opinion, and Phil then came to bat with another suggestion.
"We must do a little fishing, also; for if we go back empty handed from a lake that is supposed to be filled with fish, we are apt to excite suspicion in the mind of Barrows, and set him asking us questions as to what we did while we were away. We don"t need to spend the whole day at it, just catch a decent mess and quit."
"Right you are, Phil," answered Garry. "Now for a swim, and last man in is no good."
The boys ripped off their clothes, and so used were they to speedy disrobing, that all hit the water with almost the same splash.
"See that spot up the bank about three hundred yards, where the ground begins to rise?" inquired d.i.c.k, as he splashed about in the water. "Bet you fellows anything I"ve got against anything you have that I can give you chaps ten yards" start and then beat you there."
"Well, you sure thing artist, splash him good, Phil," shouted Garry, for d.i.c.k was an expert swimmer, much better than either of the others, although they were not unskilled in the aquatic art.
d.i.c.k was thoroughly splashed, and with two against one, was soon forced to holler quits.
"Tell you what I"m going to do; I"m going to swim up to that place and back, anyway. You fellows can come or not, as you please," and with a long, sweeping, underhand stroke, his head almost buried in the water, d.i.c.k sped away. The remaining two contented themselves with paddling about and noting the clearness of the water and the fine sandy bottom.
They got a stone and amused themselves by throwing it some distance and then swimming under water after it and recovering it. They had been doing this for some moments, when suddenly Garry, thinking that d.i.c.k, with his speed, had been gone long enough to have done that distance twice over, began to worry a bit, and called Phil"s attention to the lapse of time. They decided to swim up there and seek their missing comrade, who, although they had perfect faith in his prowess as a swimmer, might easily have been overtaken with a cramp, and met with disaster.
It was generally a rule that they keep an eye on each other in the water, and it was a strict regulation that a call for help be never made in jest.
"Let"s go," called Garry, and away they started. They had made less than fifty yards, when borne on the breeze came the sound of d.i.c.k"s voice.
Garry stopped swimming for a moment, and began to tread water, while he looked toward the spot that had been d.i.c.k"s goal when he swam away. d.i.c.k could be seen standing on the bank beckoning wildly to them.
CHAPTER XI
A LUCKY FIND