CHAPTER XXV
NOT SO GREEN AS HE LOOKED
The only reason that Bumpus did not call out help! was because the roughgag, consisting of a cloth tied about the lower part of his face,prevented him from saying a single word.
It was a sight that staggered the other scouts, although at the sametime they felt considerable satisfaction at finding their lost churn sospeedily, and thus learning that he had not come to very serious harm.
There was an immediate rush made inside the shack, each seeming desirousof being the first to render Bumpus assistance. All but the scoutmasterentered in this promiscuous way, and Thad was too wise a bird to becaught with chaff. What if this should be some sort of a trap, intowhich the rest of the boys were rushing headlong? He did not stop toconsider how they might be caught, but made up his mind that it waspolicy on his part to stand guard there at the door.
There were more than enough hands to free the prisoner, and he would notbe missed in that way. So Thad, handling his ready gun suggestively,and keeping a keen lookout for signs of trouble, stood there, waitingfor the rest to come out.
Amidst more or less confusion Bumpus was unbound, after that gag hadbeen removed from his mouth. The first thing he did was to breatheheavily, as though during his confinement he had not been able to gethis wind as freely as he liked. Then, when he could get on his feetwith the help of Step Hen and Giraffe, he stamped on the cloth that haddone duty as a preventative of speech.
"Oh! what haven't I suffered, having that measly old thing under my nosefor ages, and this smell of fish everywhere around me!" he exclaimed, asthough fairly bursting with indignation. "How long have I been shut uphere, anyway, fellows? Seems like days and weeks must a passed sincethey took me. I kinder lost my senses I reckon, after that chap droppedon top of me, like the mountain was acoming down. Please tell me whatday of the week this is?"
At this the others looked puzzled.
"Why, you sure must be locoed, Bumpus, to get so twisted as that!"declared Giraffe.
"I should say he was!" echoed Davy.
"Why, this is the same morning after the storm, don't you know, Bumpus,really and truly it is," Step Hen went on to assert, with a ring of pityin his voice. "And, say, did you think it was to-morrow, or the nextday, and we'd just about forgotten we had a chum who was missing? Well,if this don't take the cake, I never heard the beat of it."
"Fetch him outside so I can ask a few questions!" called Thad just then.
"Yes, for goodness sake get me where I can have a whiff of clean air;I'm nearly dead with this fishy smell. I always did hate to handle fishafter they got over their jumping stage, and this is awful!" Bumpuswailed.
"It certain is," muttered Giraffe, holding his fingers up to his nose.
So they all bustled out of the door, where they found the scout-masteron duty; and all at once it struck the other fellows how smart Thad hadbeen in holding back at the time the rush was made to free Bumpus.
"Oh! this is a thousand per cent better!" the late prisoner declared,with genuine thanksgiving in his tones, as he fairly reveled in theclear air that had been purified by the recent blow.
"I heard you asking what day this was, and from that we understand thatyou must have lost your senses for a while, and got mixed up?" Thadremarked.
"That's what happened, Thad," replied the other, promptly enough.
"Well, it's not only the same morning after the storm," continued theother, "but just about an hour after you went off to hunt for your belt.I see you found the same, and that they made good use of it to fastenyour arms behind your back."
Bumpus looked astonished, as though what he heard was hard to believe;for he shook his head slowly, and observed:
"Tell me about that, will you? Well, sir, that was the longest hourthat ever happened to me in all my life!"
"Hold on!" corrected Giraffe, "you're forgetting that time you trippedin the dark, and fell over a precipice a thousand feet deep, and hungthere from the top, yelling for help. We came galloping to the spot,and rescued you, about as limp as a dish-rag; and you told us how you'dsuffered such agonies that you lived ten years, and wanted to know ifyour hair had turned white. But when we held the light over the top ofthat awful precipice, and showed you that the ground was just about sixinches below your toes as you dangled there, why, you made out that itwas all a good joke, and that anyhow you'd given the rest of us a badscare."
Bumpus grinned, as though the recollection rather amused him now.
"But this time it was different, Giraffe, because they wanted me totell, and I just wouldn't. Then the big man who was leader, gave me aknock on the head, he was so mad at me, and I keeled over a second time.That's when I thought days had passed, when I heard you fellows talkingoutside, and after that an earthquake came knocking down the door. My!but I was glad to see the bunch come piling in, you can take it from me.Never will forget it, I give you my word, boys!"
"But see here, Bumpus," said Thad, "what do you mean when you say yourefused to tell? Of course all of us know how stubborn you can be, whenyou take a notion; but what could these men want to get out of you thatyou'd refuse to let go? Not any information about us, I should think?"
"Well, hardly," replied the other. "You see, they had me tied up, andthat horrible fishy rag fastened around my mouth so I couldn't talk; butthe fellow that could speak United States bettern'n either of the otherstold me to nod my head if I promised to show 'em where I'd hid it; butevery time I shook it this way," and he proceeded to give an emphaticdemonstration of what a negative shake might be.
"But what had you hid away that they wanted so badly?" persisted Thad.
Bumpus grinned, and raised one of his eyebrows in a comical manner.
"Oh! that was a little trick of mine," he remarked, composedly. "P'rapsthe rest of you'll give me credit for being a mite smart when I tellyou. But in order to make you understand, just wait till I go back tothe time I left camp to look for this belt."
"That's the best way, I should think," agreed Giraffe, who knew fromexperience how hard it sometimes proved to drag the details of a storyfrom Bumpus.
"Oh! I ain't meaning to string it out everlastingly!" declared theother. "I'm going to be right to the point, see if I don't. Well, afterI picked up my belt I just happened to remember what Thad had told usabout that concealed boat belonging to the queer chaps who were hidingon this island; and before I knew hardly what I was doing I found myselfaboard the same, nosing around.
"All at once it struck me what a bad job for us it'd be if they took anotion to skip out after the wind and waves went down, and left us hereby our lonely. So I made up a cute little plan calculated to block thatgame right in the start. What did I do? Just unfastened the crank theyused to start the engine agoing and hid the same under my coat. I wasmeaning to fetch it to our camp, so we could make terms with the men,when I thought I saw somebody slip around a tree and, on the impulse ofthe moment, as they say in the books, I just let that handle drop intothe hollow of a stump I happened to be passing."
"Good for you, Bumpus!" exclaimed Giraffe, patting the other on theshoulder.
"Well, it wasn't so very good for me in one way," the fat scoutremarked, with one hand tenderly caressing a bump he seemed to have onhis head; "because that same little trick got a fellow of my size inheaps of trouble right away. But you know how I hate to give a thingup, boys; and once I'd done this job I was bent on holding out to thebitter end.
"Well, to make a long story short, the next thing I knew I didn't knowanything, because that big clodhopper came down from a tree right on topof me, and one of his shoes must a struck me on the head right here, forit hurts like the mischief.
"When I came to my senses I was fixed up like you saw, and inside thisold fish house. Honest boys, first thing, before I got a good lookaround, I thought I had died, and was amouldering in my grave. Thethree men were hanging over me, ajabbering like so many monkeys or pollparrots. Then the big fellow with the black beard be
gan to throw allsorts of questions at me, which I managed to understand.
"Seems like they had gone to the boat after leaving me here, p'rapsmeaning to take chances out on the lake, waves or no waves, because theythought if they stayed any longer they were agoing to be gobbled by thesoldiers, sure pop. And then they missed that old crank. Course theyknowed I'd been pottering around their boat, and they wanted to find outwhat I did with the handle, because it happens you can't start thatengine like some I've seen, in an emergency, without the crank.
"We had it pretty warm back and forth for a session, him a firingquestions at me, sometimes in French, and again in mixed English; and mea shaking my head right and left to tell him I wouldn't give up theinformation, not if he kept going for a coon's age. And sudden like, hegot so fiery mad he just slapped me over the head, and I admit I lostall interest in things on this same earth till I came to, and heardvoices outside that seemed familiar like. You know the rest, boys; nowlet's get away from this place in a hurry. I'll taste rank fish for amonth of Sundays, sure I will. Ugh!"
"Wait, don't be in such a hurry, Bumpus," said Thad. "First of all Iwant to say that you've done a smart thing, even if it was reckless;because with that boat in our hands we can really leave Sturgeon Islandany time we want, once the lake quiets down some. And on the way backto camp we'll just pick up that crank, after which all we have to do isto make sure these three frightened men don't jump in on us, and take usby surprise. But while we're here we ought to see what they've got thatmakes them want to avoid the officers who patrol the lakes looking forsmugglers, game-fish poachers and the like."
"Give me the gun then, Thad," said Allan, promptly, as he saw the otherglance toward him; "and I'll stay out here on guard while some of therest investigate."
"Thanks, that pleases me," replied the scout-master, relinquishing theweapon that had proved to be worth its weight in silver to them, in thatit cowed the trio of lawless men who had their headquarters on SturgeonIsland.