CHAPTER VII
A QUEER CONFERENCE
That Jerry Hopkins, especially, and his two chums, relatively, weredisappointed by the verdict of Professor Snodgrass may easily beimagined--and “disappointment” is putting it mildly. True, there hadbeen no real grounds for thinking that the queer, yellow mud was of anyvalue, and yet Jerry had chosen to assume as much. And his half-beliefhad affected his chums. Now to find out that it was worthless wassomething of a shock.
“No, I can’t imagine any use for it,” went on Dr. Snodgrass, as hefingered the sticky, yellow lump Jerry had handed to him. “I amfamiliar with most kinds of clay in this region, and this is not amongthe valuable sorts. What made you think it was, Jerry?”
“Well, the way those fellows seemed to be taking it out for one thing,and the eagerness with which they are trying to get mother’s land foranother.”
“Are you sure they were taking out the clay itself?” asked thescientist.
“They said they were merely excavating ditches to drain the swamp,”spoke Ned.
“Well, I think that is more likely to be right than that they aretrying to utilize the clay itself,” went on the professor. “I am sorry,boys, but--Oh, there’s one of those queer green flies I’ve been tryingso long to capture. One moment, Mrs. Hopkins. He is on your dress!Please don’t move, and I’ll have him!” and with that, dismissing fromhis mind, for the moment, all thoughts of the clay the professor“concentrated” on the fly in question.
He stole softly up to the side of Jerry’s mother, and, with a littlenet, which was never absent from him, Mr. Snodgrass made a neat captureof the buzzing insect.
“Ah, there you are, my beauty!” he exclaimed, as he clapped the flyinto a small wire box. It was anything but a beauty, being very large,with a green body, and unpleasantly mottled wings--a vicious-appearingfly. But to the professor it was beautiful from a scientific standpoint.
“A rare insect!” he murmured, holding the wire box up to the light toexamine his catch more closely. “A rare find. This has been a lucky dayfor me.”
“And an unlucky one for us,” remarked Jerry, disconsolately, as hetossed the lump of clay out of the window.
“Maybe someone else could give you another opinion about it, Jerry,”suggested Bob, as the three chums went out. They knew it was of littleuse to question the professor further. He had given his ultimatum, and,besides, he would be so interested now in his new specimen--preservingit and making notes about it--that he would find time for nothing else.
“No, I’m not going to bother any more about it,” declared Jerry. “Theprofessor evidently knows what he’s talking about. I guess I was on awrong lead. Those fellows must have been telling the truth, though itdidn’t seem so. I was foolish to dream that the clay could be valuable.I guess mother will have to sell the swamp land as a bog tract andnothing else. Come on, let’s go for a spin in the car.”
“Maybe it’ll do him good,” whispered Bob to Ned, while their tall chumwas filling the gasoline tank from a supply in the garage. “He sure hasgot the blues.”
“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “We don’t often see Jerry that way, either.His mother must have lost considerable money, and he depended on theswamp land to make up the shortage. Well, it’s too bad!”
“That’s what it is!”
If Jerry had been absent-minded on the occasion of the ride followingthe ball game, he was much more so on this occasion. He was so carelessin his steering that once he nearly ran into a tree, and another timehe came so close to running down an elderly man that Bob and Ned, inthe rear seat of the automobile, leaped up in alarm.
“What’s the matter, Jerry?” cried Ned, when the machine was slowed down.
“I don’t know,” confessed the tall lad. “I guess one of you fellows hadbetter take my place. I get to thinking about that yellow clay, and Ican’t put my mind on anything else. You’d better steer, Ned.”
“Well, perhaps I had, old man, if we count on getting home safely.”
“But say, you aren’t still thinking that clay is any good; are you?”asked Bob. “Not after what Professor Snodgrass told you?”
“I guess it’s foolish, but I am,” admitted Jerry, as the auto proceededafter the change of seats. “Somehow I can’t help thinking that there’smore in it than appears on the surface.”
“Oh, forget it!” advised Ned.
“Well, I’m going out there to have another look in a day or so,”decided Jerry. “Maybe those fellows will show a bit more of theirhands, and I can get a line on what their game is. Yes, I’m going tohave another look.”
“Will you have time before your mother makes up her mind to sell?”asked Bob.
“Oh, yes. There’s a new slant to the affair now. It seems those fellowshave bought up all the swamp but the tract mother owns. And, if shedoesn’t sell, they threaten to shut off her right of way--that is, evenif she owns the land she won’t be able to get to it unless she goes upin our airship.”
“Can they do that?” asked Ned.
“It seems they can. No one ever thought much of that swamp land, anddeeds and papers regarding it weren’t as carefully drawn as they wouldhave been if the land had been on the main street. So if mother doesn’tsell, her land won’t be worth anything, anyhow.”
“That’s too bad!” sympathized Bob. “Still, it may be for the best afterall.”
“I hope so,” murmured Jerry.
In the days that followed the professor’s characterization of theyellow mud as worthless, the boys saw little of him. He was off,presumably searching for the two-tailed lizard, a reptile in which ourheroes, for the time being, took little interest.
“The professor sure has found some queer things in his day,” admittedNed, “but this is the limit! I wonder if he really believes there issuch a thing?”
“Well, of course such a thing is possible, as a freak,” spoke Jerry. “Isaw a two-headed calf at a fair, once, so a two-tailed lizard wouldn’tbe so much out of the way.”
The professor seemed willing to search indefinitely around Cresvillefor the lizard, or other specimens, though, once or twice, he did askthe boys when they expected to start off on a tour, for no summer wentby without seeing them off after some sort of adventures.
“We’ll go next week,” decided Jerry. “By that time this land businesswill be settled, one way or the other, and I’ll feel easier in my mind.Now let’s go out there, and see what’s up.”
They went up Cabbage Creek to Ryson’s swamp in the motor boat, as on aformer occasion, making their way to the land owned by Mrs. Hopkins,wading with their big rubber boots.
“Well, boys, here you are again!” called Fussel, with what he probablymeant to be cordiality. “Better make the most of your trips here,” andhe laughed.
“How’s that?” asked Jerry, though he guessed at the other’s meaning.Jerry looked around. Considerably more work had been done inexcavating, and it did look as though only drainage was the object,for long ditches had been dug, the yellow clay being piled aboutpromiscuously.
“Well, we’re going to close up that right of way, if we don’t get thattract there,” and Fussel motioned to Mrs. Hopkins’s land on which theboys were standing. “Have to use an airship on your next visit, Iguess,” and he smiled, showing his big, white teeth.
“That’s what we thought,” spoke Jerry, with a laugh. He was not goingto let the foreman gain an advantage on him by being good-natured.Jerry could play that game, too, if it meant anything.
The boys looked about them. There seemed to be more men digging in theswamp than on their former visit. The laborers were delving in the mudand water with their long-handled shovels, taking out the sticky mudand clay. The yellow stuff lay beneath a layer of black peat, and Jerrynoticed that the peat was piled on one side of the ditches, while theyellow clay was stacked on the opposite bank.
They made their way to where the motor boat was moored, and, as theyreached it, Jerry looked back for a moment in the direction where themen were di
gging in the swamp. As he did so he uttered an exclamationof surprise.
“What’s up? Another bite?” asked Ned.
“No! But look!” whispered Jerry. “Isn’t that Professor Snodgrass?” andhe pointed toward the place of the yellow mud.
“It sure is,” agreed Ned. “He must be looking around here for thetwo-tailed lizard.”
They saw the little scientist, with his green specimen box and hisbutterfly net, talking to Fussel.
“Seems like they have met before,” observed Bob, and indeed the boysnoted a cordial greeting between the professor and the foreman of thediggers.
“Oh, the professor would make friends with anybody who could tell himwhere to find a new kind of pink-nosed mosquito,” laughed Jerry. “Shallwe wait for him?”
“Better not,” recommended Ned. “Dr. Snodgrass will want to stay hereall day, gathering specimens, and if he has a liking for being eatenup by swamp mosquitoes, I haven’t. He wouldn’t want to come with us,anyhow, very likely. Let’s leave him to his own devices.”
“All right,” agreed Jerry, but, as the tall lad set the motor goinghe looked back at the place whence they had come. He was somewhatsurprised to see Professor Snodgrass and Foreman Fussel in apparentlyearnest conversation. And the subject seemed to be the yellow clay, forthe foreman was holding a lump of it out to the scientist.