Читать книгу: «Bobby Blake on a Plantation: or, Lost in the Great Swamp», страница 9

CHAPTER XXV
THE HUNTER’S CABIN

Such a predicament would have discouraged older hearts than theirs. The long wandering in the swamp, the fight with the alligator and then one with the cougar, and after all to find themselves apparently no nearer deliverance than when they started – it was a bitter pill to swallow.

But no one of the boys was of the kind that accepts defeat easily, and after the first pang of something akin to despair had vanished, they pulled themselves together and faced the situation bravely.

“We’re a long way from being licked yet,” declared Bobby. “We’ll have to go back a way, and keep our eyes open for some sign of a path leading off from the one we used to get here.”

“Yes, but if there had been, one, we’d probably have seen it as we came along,” objected Fred.

“But on the other hand,” argued Bobby, “we didn’t know then that this path would lead us into nothing at all, the way it has, and we weren’t keeping such a sharp lookout for something better. At any rate, seeing that we can’t fly over the tops of these trees, it seems to me that’s our only chance.”

“Looks that way to me, too,” agreed Lee, “and the quicker we go the better, because it’s going to get dark within another two hours.”

“All right, then,” said Bobby, decisively, “right about face, and we’ll be on our way.”

They had gone about a mile, and were beginning to give up all hope of ever getting out of their predicament, when suddenly Bobby came to an abrupt halt.

Some ten feet off the narrow track they were on, stood two giant boulders, close together, with hardly room between them for a grown man to squeeze through. The boys had hardly noticed them when they had passed them going in the other direction, but now Bobby’s keen young eyes had seen some sign on one of them that caused his heart to leap. He ran over to the larger of the two boulders to verify his discovery, and there, sure enough, almost erased by the wind and weather but still perfectly plain to keen eyes, was the outline of an arrow rudely daubed on the face of the rock.

“But it seems to be pointing right between the rocks,” said Lee, as all three boys bent over the faint outline.

“Sure it is,” said Bobby, excitedly, “and right between the rocks is exactly where we’re going next,” and without further words he forced his way through the bushes that choked the narrow gap between the rocks, Fred and Lee following close at his heels.

Bobby glanced quickly about him, and was not long in finding what he sought. There was a small semi-circle of gravel and shale at the back of the boulders, and at the edge of this little clearing, faint but unmistakable, was a narrow path leading into the dense undergrowth.

“Hooray!” shouted Bobby. “This is the first sign of anything promising we’ve seen since Boolus stole our boat, and I’ll bet Meena’s crullers to crocodile eggs that this path will lead us out to civilization.”

Fred and Lee were equally excited, and with renewed hope they entered the narrow path and pressed forward, making little of the vines and fallen tree trunks that retarded their progress.

Night was descending rapidly, and in the heavy woods it was almost dark when, panting and spent, the three boys staggered out into a little clearing, and before them could just make out the outlines of a rude log cabin, almost covered by vines.

“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Lee. “I was beginning to think we’d have to spend another night in the swamp, and I’ve had enough of that to last me some time.”

The others were hardly less relieved. The cabin at least would shelter them and keep out marauders like the cougar, and they felt sure that in the morning they would find a path leading from it to the outer world.

There was no sign of life about the cabin, and the door opened readily enough when they raised the latch by which it was fastened. The interior was pitch dark, but Bobby lit one of his few remaining matches, and by its feeble light they peered about the little place.

“Here’s luck,” exclaimed Fred, and from a dusty shelf reached down one of several long tallow candles. “Whoever left them there must have known we’d be along and would need them.”

“Whoever left them there, did it a long while ago,” said Lee. “Look how thick everything is with dust!”

“Well, you could hardly expect him to stay here and keep things clean for us,” grinned Fred. “That’s asking too much, Lee.”

“Oh, I’m not kicking,” disclaimed Lee. “This place looks solid enough to keep the rain out, and maybe if we look around we’ll find other things besides the candles.”

“I’ve heard of Eskimos eating candles,” said Bobby, “and I’m pretty nearly hungry enough to try one myself.”

“Well, you tried the alligator eggs first, so you ought to be willing to sample these too,” said Fred.

“Maybe I will, at that,” said Bobby, “but not until I’ve made sure there isn’t anything else to be had.”

“There seems to be a closet of some kind over there,” said Fred, pointing to the opposite wall. “Let’s see what’s in it.”

“Probably nothing but a large amount of air,” said Lee, sceptically.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to look,” said Fred, and, suiting the action to the word, he strode quickly across the room and opened the door of the closet.

“Scubbity-yow!” yelled Fred. “Look at that, will you!”

Neatly ranged on shelves were cans of meat and vegetables, sufficient to feed the boys for weeks, if the necessity arose.

“Gee!” exclaimed Bobby. “It doesn’t look as though we’d have to eat candles yet awhile, does it?”

“I should say not,” said Lee, jubilantly. “And there’s a big pot in the corner too,” he cried, a moment later. “I reckon whoever provisioned this cabin must have intended to stay here a while.”

“Looks like it, all right,” agreed Bobby. “But let’s get busy and open one or two of those cans. How would you fellows like some baked beans?” he inquired, looking over the labels. “Think you could punish them in a proper manner?”

“Lead us to it,” yelled Fred, and Lee rubbed his stomach in a most expressive manner. Whoever had provided the food had been so far neglectful as to forget the convenient can opener, but Bobby’s jacknife proved a convenient substitute, and it did not take them long to get a fire going in the rough grate that decorated one end of the little cabin. As the odor of frying pork and beans filled the air, the boys could hardly restrain themselves until they were heated through, and when at length Bobby pronounced the feast ready, they fell on it like so many wolves.

CHAPTER XXVI
A MIDNIGHT PROWLER

“Yum yum!” exclaimed Fred, “I’ve eaten lots of beans in my short lifetime, but never any that tasted half as good as these.”

“They are just about what the doctor ordered,” conceded Bobby.

“And when we get through these, how would a nice can of peaches taste?” put in Lee.

“Scubbity-yow!” shouted Fred. “Peaches, did you say? Say, I think I’d be contented to spend the rest of my life here. Bobby, we certainly owe you a vote of thanks for getting us here the way you did.”

“It was mostly luck,” disclaimed Bobby. “If I hadn’t happened to notice that arrow on the rock we’d be wandering around in the cold, cold world yet, probably.”

“Well, after all the hard luck we’ve had, I think we had a little good luck coming to us,” said Lee.

“Looks as though we had it, for the time being, anyway,” replied Bobby, as he sawed away at the can of peaches. “Here, you fellows pass your cups and I’ll fill them up with something that will make your hair curl.”

His friends were not slow in accepting this invitation, and they ate the luscious fruit with an appreciation sharpened by the privations they had been through. As Bobby remarked, “nobody knew how good things were until they hadn’t been able to get them for awhile.”

“I don’t know about you energetic Indians,” said Lee, when he had finished his peaches with a sigh, half of contentment and half of regret that they were gone, “but I’m just going to lie on the floor in front of that fire and loaf for awhile,” and suiting the action to the word, he threw himself down full length on the floor.

“I don’t know how Bobby feels,” said Fred, stretching luxuriously, “but I don’t think I’d mind a little rest myself. Most of that energy Lee’s talking about seems to have oozed out of me, someway.”

“Same here,” admitted Bobby. “And it’s funny, too. Outside of fighting alligators and panthers and ducking mudholes and quicksands, we haven’t really been doing anything the last few days.”

“A little more of this,” remarked Fred, “and a football game will seem quiet and restful. We’ll be going to sleep in the middle of it.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Bobby, “but I do know that it won’t be very long before I get to sleep to-night.”

“I suppose that whoever owns this cabin won’t thank us for eating his food,” went on Fred, as all three boys lay luxuriously at ease and gazed into the radiant heart of the fire.

“If we ever get out of this wilderness, I’ll find out who the place belongs to, and we’ll pay him for what we take,” said Lee; “I know if it were mine, I wouldn’t grudge the food to any one who needed it as badly as we did.”

“I wonder who does own it,” speculated Bobby.

“I haven’t any idea,” admitted Lee, “but lots of the people around here keep places like this for hunting, and I suppose that’s what it’s been used for.”

“Nobody would have to hunt very long around here before he found something, it seems to me,” said Bobby. “It seems as though it were the other way around, and the animals come and hunt us.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter, as long as they don’t get us,” said Lee, “and I guess we’re as safe in this cabin as we would be sleeping at Rockledge.”

“Yes, or safer, in one way,” said Fred. “If the cabin should catch fire, all we’d have to do would be to open the door and walk out, while when the school caught fire we didn’t have it quite so easy.”

“That’s true enough,” agreed Bobby. “But while we’re talking of this place being safe, I vote we fasten the door better than it is now. There’s nothing but a latch holding it, and I’d feel safer it we could make it a little more secure.”

“We might jam a chair against it,” suggested Fred, “the floor is pretty uneven, and we could jam the chair in between one of the planks and the door, so that an elephant would have a hard job getting in.”

“That’s certainly the way we want it,” said Lee, laughing. “The harder it is to get that door open, the better I’ll sleep.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Fred, with a tremendous yawn. “Speaking of sleep, let’s fix things up and go to sleep. I feel as though I could win the long distance sleeping championship without half trying.”

“You’ll have to go some to beat me out,” laughed Bobby, scrambling to his feet. “Let’s see if Fred’s plan to fasten the door will work.”

“Nothing surer in the world,” boasted Fred, “just watch me.”

Just in front of the door one floor board was warped so that it was perhaps half an inch higher than those alongside it. The cabin was equipped with three rude but very strong chairs, and seizing one of these, Fred jammed it in between the door and the uneven board so that any one or anything attempting to enter would have to tear up the floor before it could gain admittance.

“There!” exclaimed Fred, stepping back to view his handiwork, “I guess any one that wants to come in here now will have to ask our permission first.”

The windows of the little cabin were small and criss-crossed with stout scantlings, so there was no chance of any denizen of the woods making them an unwelcome visit by means of that route. It was Lee who suggested the only remaining possibility.

“I wonder if any friends of that cougar could get down the chimney,” he speculated.

“We’ll soon see,” said Bobby, crossing over to the fireplace. He glanced in under the hood that projected from the fireplace to keep the smoke out of the room.

“I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” he stated. “The flue isn’t more than eight or ten inches square, and anything that could get down there couldn’t do us much damage. Besides, the fire will be going most of the night, and I guess that would do the trick, even if the chimney were four times as big as it is now.”

Reassured on this point, the boys threw more wood on the fire, for the sake of light as well as warmth, and selected their bunks for the night. There were four of these built against the wall opposite the fireplace, and they were filled with twigs and dead leaves, making a comfortable enough bed for those who were tired enough not to be particular about where they slept.

“I guess there’s not much choice,” said Bobby, “so I’ll just tumble into the one nearest me.” Which he proceeded forthwith to do. The others each selected a bunk, and followed his example.

The fire crackling cheerily on the hearth made the cabin pleasantly warm, and the boys were just dropping off to sleep when they were suddenly brought back to wakefulness with a jerk by a stealthy scratching sound at the door, followed by a low growl. For a few seconds after this there was silence, and then the boys could hear the door creak as some strong body pushed against it.

Thanks to the strong barricade against it, however, the stout door defied the efforts of the would-be intruder, and the boys, sitting up in their bunks with every sense alert, could hear the soft pad-pad of feet encircling the cabin. Then there was a sudden fierce scrambling and scratching, and the beast, whatever it was, was on the roof. It prowled restlessly about, stopping every now and then to tear at the roof with rasping claws. But the cabin was constructed in stout fashion, and was not to be entered so easily.

“What do you suppose it can be, fellows?” questioned Lee in a low voice, which trembled a little in spite of himself. “Do you think it can be another cougar?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” whispered Bobby. “Maybe it’s the mate of the one that we killed to-day. She may have tracked us to get revenge.”

“I’ll bet that’s just what it is!” cried Fred. “Suppose we had had to sleep in the woods to-night. We’d be goners, sure.”

The others nodded, and they all three listened to see what the night prowler would do next. The brute examined every foot of the roof, and the boys could hear it sniffing suspiciously at the chimney. They blessed the man who had constructed the cabin with such a wary eye for such contingencies, and congratulated each other on being safe within instead of out in the woods and practically at the mercy of the savage brute.

The beast overhead finally seemed to come to the conclusion that it could not get in from the roof, and it leaped to the ground and the boys could hear it going away. For a long time they listened for it to come back, but it did not, and at last, far away, they heard the same wild scream they had heard while on the island in the swamp, but this time there seemed to be a note of grief as well as ferocity in the cry. It rose, cut wailingly through the darkness, and then died away.

For a long time the boys sat tense and expectant, not knowing at what moment the beast might return. But as nothing further happened, drowsiness at last overcame them, and after throwing a fresh supply of fuel on the fire, they dropped off into deep slumber, from which they were only awakened by a golden shaft of sunshine that pierced in through one of the little windows.

“Gee,” said Bobby, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “I feel fit for anything now, and hungry enough to eat nails. It’s your turn to cook, Fred. Hustle around and see if you can get breakfast as well as I got supper last night.”

“Huh! I’ll show you what real cooking is like,” said Fred, leaping out of his bunk. “What shall it be – humming-birds’ tongues or bird’s-nest soup?”

“I think I’d rather have some bacon, if it’s all the same to you,” said Bobby, with mock seriousness. “There’s a fresh jar of it in the closet.”

“Oh, well, if you’d rather have ordinary, everyday bacon,” said Fred, “I’ll have to give it to you, I suppose,” and he soon had some appetizing slices sizzling in the pan.

“That cougar last night seems like a bad dream now,” remarked Lee. “I don’t mind admitting I felt mighty nervous while he was prowling around.”

“I guess none of us exactly enjoyed it,” returned Bobby. “But it may not have been a cougar at all. Maybe it was only a wildcat.”

“Possibly,” said Lee, doubtfully, and Fred terminated further discussion at this point by serving out the crisp bacon, together with some hardtack that he had fried in the grease. This was soon eaten, and after Fred had been complimented on his cooking, the boys cautiously unfastened the door, and, seeing no signs of the beast, whatever it was, that had disturbed them the previous night, ventured forth to explore their surroundings.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE MOCCASIN SNAKE

The hearty breakfast and the bright sunshine, added to the consciousness that they had found a shelter to which they might retreat in case of need put new zest into the boys, and they felt much more hopeful and lighthearted than they had twenty-four hours earlier.

“Somehow I have a hunch that this is going to be a lucky day for us,” remarked Bobby, as he led the way.

“Here’s hoping that you’re right,” said Lee. “We’re certainly about due for a change in fortune. Poor mother!” he added, anxiety coming into his eyes, “she must be worried to death. It’s safe to say she hasn’t slept a wink since we’ve been gone. I’ve no doubt she has searching parties out looking for us, but in this swamp they might hunt for days without coming across us.”

“We’ll trust in Bobby’s hunch,” Fred encouraged him. “They’ve often come out all right. I think he’s got a rabbit’s foot hidden about him somewhere.”

“If I had, we’d been out of this swamp long before this,” laughed Bobby. “Now,” he went on, “there’s one thing we’ve got to do, and it’s more important than anything else. Wherever we go, we’ve got to know how to find our way back to this cabin. In the first place, it’s the only safe place to spend the night. Then the very fact it’s here shows that parties come to it sometimes and we may have the luck of falling in with them.”

“Yes,” said Fred, “that’s good advice. But how are we going to do it?”

“By using this,” replied Bobby, showing him a small hatchet that he had fastened to his belt. “I found this in one corner of the cabin this morning and I brought it along. We’ll chip off pieces of bark from the trees as we go along and that will help us to find our way back.”

He illustrated this by slashing a bit of bark off a tree that they happened to be passing.

“That’s bully,” said Lee, greatly relieved. “I was just worrying about the chance of not being able to find our way back again.”

They went on, looking carefully for some sign of a trail, by following which they might again reach the plantation and friends.

Soon they found themselves on marshier ground than that near the cabin, and they turned in another direction to find better footing.

The ground was covered with rotting leaves and bits of broken branches. Fred was picking his way, and was just about to step on what seemed to be an unusually thick stick, about three feet long, when there was a warning shout from Lee who was several feet in the rear.

“Look out, Fred!” he yelled. “It’s a snake, a moccasin!”

The warning came too late. Fred’s foot had already touched one end of the seeming stick. Like lightning, an ugly head upreared at the other end and struck savagely at the intruder.

“Run!” shouted Lee. “Run for your life!”

Fred obeyed and ran as fast as the marshy nature of the ground permitted. The snake pursued him gliding through the tussocks, his baleful eyes like two flaming points.

Bobby had turned at Lee’s cry, and in a moment had grasped the situation. He had the hatchet in his hand and threw it with all his might at the snake, that was now close on Fred’s heels. He had no time to take careful aim, but by great good fortune the sharp blade struck the reptile a little behind the neck. It stopped instantly and writhed about, beating the ground and hissing horribly.

Lee in the meantime had picked up a club, and with a few blows from this put an end to the snake. Then he and Bobby hurried to their comrade, who had seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree, pale and panting.

“Did he bite you, Fred?” cried Bobby, his heart convulsed with fear for his chum.

“I’m afraid he did,” replied Fred, in a tone that he tried to keep firm. “He gave an awful dig at my foot.”

In a moment Bobby was on his knees and was taking off Fred’s shoe. There were tiny holes in it where the snake’s fangs had penetrated. The stocking too was torn, and Bobby’s heart sank as he stripped it off.

But a great wave of thankfulness swept over him when he saw that the skin was not broken. He looked it over most carefully, but there was not even a scratch. By the narrowest of chances, Fred had escaped. His stout shoe had saved him.

“You’re all right, old boy,” said Bobby, though his voice trembled. “That snake came mighty near doing for you but didn’t quite make it.”

Fred almost collapsed as he realized that he was safe, for he had feared the worst.

“If he had struck above the shoe top it would have been good-night,” said Lee, who shared to the full the joy and relief of his friends. “Those moccasins are the deadliest snakes of the South. People are more afraid of them than of rattlesnakes. A rattlesnake will give warning, but a moccasin never does. Then too a rattlesnake is only too glad to get away from you if you will let him, but the moccasin will chase you, just as this one did. My, but you had a narrow escape. The snake was gaining on you and would have wound himself around your leg in another minute and then it would have been all over with you.”

Bobby brought a little water from a pool near by and carefully washed the stocking, scrubbing the shoe also, to remove any trace of the poison that there might be on them. Then after they had partially dried, Fred put them on and they all went over to look at the hideous reptile. It lay perfectly still and there was no doubt that it was dead, but to make assurance doubly sure, Bobby recovered his hatchet that lay a few feet away and with one stroke struck off the moccasin’s head.

“Gee, he’s an ugly looking sinner,” murmured Fred.

“Sure is,” agreed his chums in unison.