CHAPTER III.
ON THE ISLAND WITH THE BAD NAME.
"Keep back, Bandy-legs; that's a rattlesnake!" shouted Max, and some ofthe others turned white with sudden alarm, as they also noted for thefirst time the incident buzzing sound from a point nearby.
Immediately every one started toward the spot where the foolishBandy-legs was standing, holding a rather short stick in his hand, withwhich he had doubtless been tormenting the larger snake just as he hadpreviously annoyed her young brood.
He was now seemingly turned into stone, although fortunately enough hehad managed to spring back a pace upon hearing the dreadful wordsshouted by his chum.
"Get clubs, and make them as long as you can!" called out Owen. "Becareful how you let her have a chance to reach you when she springs out.A rattlesnake can sometimes strike as far as her own length, they say."
Immediately a scene of great excitement followed. Each fellow ranaround, trying to find a suitable stick, that would be stout enough todo execution, and at the same time have sufficient length. For now thatthey knew what its species was, the coiled serpent looked terribly ugly,as, with head drawn back, she waited for another attack, all the whilesounding her rattle like a challenge to battle.
Steve happened to be the first to find a stick that he thought would dothe business, and he immediately rushed forward.
"Slow, now, Steve!" warned Max, fearful lest the natural headstrongnature of the other might get him into trouble.
Just then Owen also picked up a long pole, and advanced from theopposite side. The badgered snake, only intent on defending her young,thinking that here was a chance to get away from all this turmoil, hadslipped out of coil, and even started to glide off; but as Steve made awild swoop with his pole, she again flung herself into coil, ready tofight to the end.
Nobody spares a rattlesnake, however much they might wish to let aninnocent coachwhip or a common gartersnake get away. From away back tothe Garden of Eden times the heel of man has been raised againstvenomous serpents. And somehow the close call their chum had just hadfrom a terrible danger, seemed to arouse the hostility of the chumsagainst this snake in particular.
When both Max and Toby came up, each, with a part of a hickory limb intheir hands, the destiny of that snake was written plainly, strive asshe might to escape, or reach one of her human tormentors.
Whack! came Steve's pole down across the reptile's back, and from thatinstant the fight was taken out of the scaly thing.
"Wow! this is what I call rushing the mourners!" gasped Bandy-legs,after they had made sure that the rattler was as dead as might beexpected before sundown; for Owen declared that he had some sort ofbelief in the old saying that "cut up a snake as you will, its tail willwriggle until sunset."
"I should say yes," added Steve; "and you're bent on bein' in the centerof every old thing that happens. First you shout out your boat'ssinking, and while we're fixing her you wander out and stir up ahornets' nest about your ears."
"Say, it did sound like it, sure as anything," admitted the repentantBandy-legs. "I'm sorry I gave you all so much trouble, boys; next time Irun across a litter of little snakes, it's me to the woods. Wonder whatbecame of the beggars? They disappeared about the time the mother cametootin' up."
"Mebbe they ran down her throat," suggested Owen; "some say snakes canhide their young that way, but I never believed it."
"Well," remarked Max, who was examining the dead reptile, "this onedidn't, so I reckon they must have skedaddled off in the bushes. Perhapsthey're old enough to take care of themselves, though I hope they don'tlive to grow up. If there's one thing I detest on earth it's a poisonoussnake."
"Me, too!" piped up Bandy-legs; "but then, you see, I never thought thisone was loaded. Yes, I just reckoned she'd come to see what I was doin'with her bunch of youngsters, and I kept on jollyin' her. Thought I washavin' fun, boys, but never again, you hear me!"
"Want to take these rattles along, Bandy-legs?" asked Owen, who hadsevered the horny looking appendage at the end of the tail; "it'll serveto remind you of what a silly job it is to play with a snake that you'venever been properly introduced to."
"Not for me," replied the other, with a little shudder. "I'd just hateto have my folks know how foolish I was. Keep 'em, and hang the thing upin the clubhouse, boys."
"Sure," interrupted Steve; "do for a dinner horn some time; better thanJapanese wind bells to make music."
"Ugh! I'll never hear it without thinkin' of the grand scare I got whenMax here shouted out the way he did," admitted the one who had been thecause for all this commotion.
"The canoe's ready for business at the old stand," announced Max, "anddon't be afraid that there's going to be any trouble again with thatsame leak. I've fixed that plug in good and strong, Bandy-legs. Nowlet's be off!"
Accordingly the voyage was resumed. And just as some of the boys hadsaid, they speedily turned from the main river into the branch calledthe Big Sunflower, which, as the scene of their late successful searchfor pearls, was invested with memories of a rather pleasant characterfor the five chums.
As they paddled along against the rather brisk current, first one, andthen another had something to call out regarding this place or that.
"It's just great to be coming up here again, after buying these boatswith some of the hard cash we earned that time," declared Steve, who waskeeping closer to the others now.
"How many fellers d'ye reckon started grubbin' up here, after we quit?"demanded Bandy-legs, who was working the paddle fairly well, though attimes he made a bad stroke, and seemed to learn slowly that it could allbe done without the splash and noise he insisted on making.
"Dozens of 'em," replied Owen; "but they didn't find much, and it soonpetered out. Why, one boy told me he'd hunted two whole days, and foundjust three mussels, which didn't turn up a single pearl. He said we'dcleaned the whole river out, and sometimes I think that way myself."
"But that bunch back of Ted were as smart as anything, too," observedMax. "Think of them finding that there was a whole lot of ginsenggrowing wild in the woods around Carson, and gathering it in on thesly."
"They sold it for a snug little sum, too," Owen admitted; "and thenstarted to plague the life out of us. But we came out of the large endof the hole, didn't we, fellows!"
Chatting in this strain they tugged away, and continued to mount higherup toward the headwaters of the sinuous river. But the Big Sunflower wasan odd sort of a tributary; in fact, like the Missouri, it should reallyhave been called the main stream, or as Steve expressed it, the "wholepush."
"I've been told that it runs right along into the next county, andsometimes spreads itself into a bouncing lake. Why, right whereCatamount Island lies, the river is three times as broad as theEvergreen at Carson."
It was Max himself who volunteered this bit of information. They hadbeen keeping at this steady paddling for some hours now, and Bandy-legswas not the only one who grunted from time to time, as he looked atblistered hands, and felt of his sore arm muscles.
"Well, we don't mean to keep on that far, I hope, fellers," remarkedBandy-legs, pathetically, at which Steve laughed in derision.
"You'd sure be a dead duck long before we crossed the border, my boy!"he cried.
"Keep a good lookout ahead," advised Max, some time later.
"He means that the island can't be far away, and by the jumpingJehoshaphat, boy, I think I can see something that looks just like anisland around that bend yonder," and Steve pointed with his extendedpaddle, as he spoke so enthusiastically.
A cheer broke forth, even if it did sound rather weak, for the paddlerswere a little short of wind right then. It was the island, sure enough;and as they picked up new vim at the prospect of being soon allowed torest their weary muscles and backs, the boys examined the place and itssurroundings with considerable interest.
They then exchanged looks that meant volumes. Indeed, if CatamountIsland did have a bad name, it seemed to deserve all that. The treeswere very dense, and m
ade the place look gloomy, and as Bandy-legsdeclared, "spooky." Several had partly fallen during some heavy blow,and rested upon others that had proven better able to stand up againstthe wind. A few were fashioned in weird shapes, too; and to tell thetruth, it looked as if Nature had taken pains to gather together on thatone particular island all the freak things possible.
"What do you think of it, boys?" asked Max, smiling a little as he notedhow even bold Steve was just a little bit awed by the gruesome aspect ofthe place which they meant to make their stamping ground for a fullweek, unless they wished to bring down upon their heads the scorn andderision of Herb and his crowd, and hear their cries of "I told you so;who's a scare-cat now?"
Then Steve gritted his teeth after his usual fashion, and laughed,though truth to tell, there was not any too much mirth about thatmockery of a laugh.
"Come on, who cares for expenses! Me to be the first to put a foot onour island," he called out, as he dropped his paddle into the wateragain, and urged his little buoyant canvas canoe onward with vigoroussweeps.
"_Our_ island! Listen to him, would you? Oh! like that, now. As for me,you don't hear me claiming a foot of the old place. Ugh! it's enough tomake a fellow shiver just to look at it. And it smells like cats orskunks lived around here. But if the rest of you are bound to go ashore,I suppose I'll have to follow suit. But I'm glad I said good-by toeverybody before I came up here."
Nobody paid any attention to what Bandy-legs was saying, as just thenthey were making for the lower shore of the island, where a fair landingplace seemed to offer its services.
The rest were all ashore and looking around, before Bandy-legs managedto jump out of his cranky cedar canoe. He acted as though glad at leastto have arrived safe and sound, if very sore.
Pretty soon the whole of them were as busy as beavers, putting up thetwo tents on ground which Max had selected as suitable for the camp. Indoing this he had to consider a number of things, such as a view of theriver, nearness to the boats, a chance for drainage in case of a summerstorm that might otherwise flood them out, and soak everything theyowned; and such matters that an old and experienced camper never failsto remember in the start.
Then came the delightful task of getting the first meal. That is alwaysa pleasure, though it begins to pall upon the party before the weekend.Everybody wanted to have a hand in that first meal, and so Max fixed itthat they could enjoy the privilege to their heart's content.
And after the night had closed in around them, what joy to sit aroundwith the dancing and crackling fire, while they brought forwardrecollections of other occasions when they partook of camp fare, andlooked forward to a period of keenest enjoyment.
Even Bandy-legs seemed for the time being to have quite overcome hisfeeling of timidity and uneasiness, so that he laughed with the rest,and appeared as joyous as anybody, sitting there and watching thecurling flames eat deep into the dry wood that had been tossed to them,and feeling so restful after the meal.
Steve was filled with complete happiness. Somehow or other he seemed tobe more set than any of his chums upon proving to Herb and his comrades,that they had been a lot of chumps who were almost afraid of their ownshadows. He had never been in a gayer mood, Max thought.
Presently all sorts of sounds arose around them, among which were thecries of night birds like the whip-poor-will; owls started to hoot backsomewhere on the island; giant frogs boomed forth their calls for "morerum, more rum!" and altogether there was soon quite a noisy chorus underfull blast.
But as all these sounds were familiar to even Bandy-legs, though it wasnot often they heard them in concert, no one remarked that he objectedto them.
Max was just in the act of declaring that if there was one dish of whichhe was particularly fond it was frogs' legs, and that he meant to starton a hunt for some of those blustering fellows in the morning, when ashriek that was entirely different from anything else, broke upon theirstartled ears.
In spite of all their boasted self command, Steve, Owen, as well as Max,Toby and Bandy-legs scrambled to their feet, and looked at each otherspeechlessly, while their faces certainly took on a degree of pallorthat was remarkable, considering how red were the flames of the firethat tried to paint their cheeks a rosy hue.