CHAPTER XXIII. THE SMOKE CLEW.
"Bear nothing!" exclaimed the scout who held the gun.
He had instinctively elevated the weapon at the first sound of alarm fromhis ally; and had it been necessary Giraffe was in a position to havegiven a good account of himself, for he was known to be a somewhat clevershot.
Just in time, however, he had managed to get a better view of thecreature that Davy had stumbled upon, losing his balance in hisexcitement.
"What was it, then, Giraffe, if not a bear? Don't tell me it was a dog,"demanded the other, having righted himself after his somersault.
"Didn't you hear him grunt as he ran away?" asked the lengthy onecontemptuously; for he might have pressed the trigger of his gun onlythat just in time his ears had been greeted with the sound in question.
"Grunt? Great Caesar's ghost! was that a _hog_?" almost shrieked Davy.
"Just what it was, a dun-colored hog, and a rousing big critter in thebargain, let me tell you, Davy. I saw him as plain as anything, and heran back of us, you noticed, so we won't be apt to raise him again in ahurry."
"But what'd an old grunter be doing out here, tell me, Giraffe?"
"Shucks! how d'ye think I'd know?" returned the other. "Expect I'm up inthe hog lingo just because I did say I always wanted to understand crowtalk? Why, for all we know, that hog's been living here since lastsummer; or else he's another flood victim, and got washed up like we did.They're all doin' it, you know."
"Well, well, who'd expect to run up against a porker?" Dave went on tosay, as he sought to grasp the full significance of the adventure, havingby now recovered from the shock the sudden surprise had given him. "AndGiraffe, if a hog this time, what next will we run across? P'raps theremight be chickens, and cows, and all sorts of things close by? Mebbe theold island's inhabited, after all."
"One thing sure," Giraffe went on to say, in a satisfied tone, "thisbeats out Robinson Crusoe by a whole lot."
"As how, Giraffe?"
"Is there any comparison between hogs and goats when it comes to making agood dinner?" demanded the other. "Why, don't you see what this means tous, Davy? No use talking about going hungry as long as there's such noblehunting on this little patch of ground. Me to bag a prize hog, when theright time comes. Hams, and sweet little pork chops, and smokedshoulders--oh! we could live a week off that buster, believe me."
He smacked his lips, as though the prospect gave him unlimited pleasure.Davy himself had known the time when the slaughter of a three-hundredpound hog afforded no occasion for showing more than passing interest;but that was when starvation did not stare him in the face. Circumstancesalter cases; and he was almost as much excited over the outlook now asthe always hungry Giraffe seemed to be.
"How do we know that this place we've been calling an island isn'tconnected with the mainland?" was Davy's next suggestion.
"How d'ye mean?" demanded his ally, as they started on once more.
"Why, there might be some sort of a link, you see, a sort of isthmus, soto call it, along which the hog made his way, and where we could skip outof the trap; how about that, Giraffe?"
"Nothing doing, Davy," came the scornful reply; "didn't we see that theriver ran past on both sides like a mill race? Well, it wouldn't do thatif the way was blocked by a strip of land, would it? Not much. We'remarooned on a sure-enough island, and you can't get around that. Coursewe might run across a cow yet; same time we'll keep our eyes peeled for abreadfruit tree, and coffee bushes, and truck gardens. Nothing like beinghopeful through it all."
"Can hogs swim, Giraffe, do you happen to know?"
"Well, you get me there," returned the other. "I never saw one doing thesame; but seems to me I have heard of such a thing. They can do nearlyanything, and so swimming may be on their list. I only hope the old chapdon't take a notion to clear out of here before I get a crack at him,that's all."
"I was only going to say that we might capture the old grunter, and hitchhim to a log on which the whole lot of us perched, making him tow thesame ashore."
Of course Giraffe understood Davy was only joking when he said this, buthe chose to pretend to take it seriously.
"If you leave it to me to choose, Davy," he went on to say gravely, "I'dprefer to have those hams and the bacon, and take my chances of paddlingashore afterward. Besides, I don't believe we've got anything to makeharness out of, so your great scheme would fall kind of flat. Give thatbunch of bushes another whack with your club while you're about it, willyou? We want to clear up things as we go along, so we'll know the job'sbeen done gilt-edged."
"Looks like that's an open place ahead, Giraffe," ventured Davy, after hehad complied with the request, and found nothing.
"Yes, it does seem that way, Davy, and p'r'aps now we'll have a chance tolook around a bit when we strike it. I was just wondering whether theriver could have been up over all this island any old time in the past,and here's the evidence of the same."
He pointed to what looked like drift stuff caught in the crotch of atree. It may have been lodged there years back, but anyone withobservation could readily see that it had been carried to its presentlocation by a moving current.
"As true as anything, Giraffe, and there must have been three feet ofwater over the highest ground on the island then. Lucky the rain stoppedwhen it did, or we might be perched in trees right at this minute."
"That's what Thad was saying, when he told us it was never so bad butwhat it might be a whole lot worse. Think of the bunch of us beingcompelled to roost in trees day and night, till somebody came along in amotorboat and rescued us. Well, for one, I'm glad things didn't get quitethat bad."
As they drew closer to the open spot they could see the other scoutsadvancing on their right, and covering the ground. They exchangedsignals, and in this way learned that nothing had thus far been seen ofthose for whom they were searching.
Thad drew them together at this point.
"From here on we'll be much closer," he told them all, "because it looksas though the end of the island must be just a little ways off, and itseems to come to a point like the upper end. Look over there, what do youcall that?" and he pointed directly ahead as he spoke.
"Smoke!" announced Old Eagle Eye instantly.
Everyone was ready to confirm his announcement, after they had taken alook.
"And as there couldn't be smoke without a fire, and no fire unless somehuman hand had started it," the scout master continued, in his logicalway, "it looks as if we might be closing in on those we're hunting for,Wandering George and his pal."
"Well, since they've had a fire that means the finish of our grub,"commented Giraffe; "but then, it's only what we expected; and, Thad,there's a great big hog on this island--no, don't laugh, because I'm notreferring to Bumpus now. I mean a real porker, a whopper of severalhundred pounds weight. Davy stepped on him, and I could have knocked thebeast over as easy as turning my hand. So we don't need to have any fearof being starved out, if it gets to the worst."
"That sounds good to me, Giraffe, and I can see that you're not joking,"Thad told him. "We heard some sort of a row over your way, but thought itwas only one of you tripping over those creepers. A hog may not seem likevery fine company, but that depends on conditions. Just now we'll be gladto know him, and to offer him the warmest seat close by our fire. Factis, we'll take him as a companion, and let him be one of us. Now, let'smake our line again, for we want to push down toward that fire below."
"There's another patch of scrub ahead, before we get to the point of theisland, and we might lose our game in that if we didn't keep the netdrawn across, for a fact," admitted Allan, who of course recognized thewisdom shown by the leader in continuing the carrying out of his plan.
Once more they separated, but this time it was not necessary to put muchground between them. When the line had formed all eyes were turned towardThad. He waved his hat, which was the signal to begin the advance; soagain each scout moved on as before
, examining every possible cover forsigns of the enemy.
They had thus made a clean sweep of the island. Rabbits may have escapedthem by hiding in crannies among the rocks; and squirrels could haveremained aloft in their nests inside hollow limbs of trees, or secretedamidst the foliage of the evergreen hemlocks; but certainly no largerobject had evaded them.
As they continued to close in on the spot where the smoke arose, thescouts very naturally felt more or less the thrill of excitement. Theyknew full well what it meant, for many times in the past the same queersensation had almost overpowered them.
This chase had been in progress long enough now to have aroused theirhunting instincts. That the old blue army coat should eventually bereturned to the judge was to most of them a small affair, for they ofcourse did not know the real reason why its recovery mattered to theformer owner; but they had somehow set their hearts on accomplishing theobject they had in view. And the more difficulty they met with in doingthis, the stronger their desire grew.
The trees became more sparse, so that before long they caught glimpses ofthe fire itself. It was not burning very briskly, though sending offconsiderable in the way of smoke, a fact that convinced the scouts thesehoboes knew nothing concerning woodcraft, and the habits of Indians inmaking fires of certain kinds of dry fuel that hardly send up any smokeat all.
Now the scouts, having finished their "combing" process, began to gathertogether for the final rush. They had reached the open ground, where noobject half the size of a man could evade them, so they felt they needhave no fear of either one of the hoboes passing by.
"I see one of them lying there, like he might be asleep, Thad," whisperedone of the scouts; and of course it could be taken for granted that itwas Giraffe, of the eagle eye, who spoke.
"The second fellow may be on the other side of the fire, back of thesmoke," remarked Step Hen; but somehow neither Thad nor Allan couldbelieve this, because the smoke was drifting that way, and they knew verywell no one willingly places himself on the leeward side of a smudge likethat, suffocating in its effect.
The further they crept the more concerned did Thad and the Maine boybecome. They could see the sleeping tramp by now, and it was with more orless uneasiness they realized the fact that he must be other thanWandering George. Besides, not the first sign of the blue army overcoatdid they discover anywhere.
While thus preparing to close in on the sleeping tramp, and give him avery unpleasant surprise, the scouts were feeling stunned over themysterious disappearance of the man they had been following so far, andwhom they felt sure must have been on that very island only acomparatively few hours before.
Thad kept hoping that the second hobo would start up from some place whenthey made their presence known; and it was in this expectation that hefinally swung his hat, which started his five companions on a hasty runtoward the smoking fire.