Part 7

George was miserable if he fancied any one thought him ignorant in any matter; and he was about to give the natural history of the mastodon, when Steve diverted the train of his thoughts by asking, “If it ain’t a fossil, what is it?”

“Well, it’s part of the remains of some very rare animal, I should say,--a bison; or a wolverine; or a jackal; or--or----”

It is the needle that breaks the camel’s back. Will, Charles, and Stephen could suppress their laughter no longer; they shouted and guffawed like a desperate villain who fancies that he has married the heroine and lodged a bullet in the hero’s heart.

“What’s the matter?” George asked in astonishment.

Another roar of laughter was the only answer vouchsafed. Steve lay on the ground, and enjoyed the joke heartily; Charles and Will endeavoured to take it more moderately.

Then George’s suspicions were excited. “You boys are fooling me!” he cried angrily. “Why did you coax Marmaduke and me to look at these bones? Why did you make us speak about them? Why didn’t _you_ have anything to say about it? Boys, _why_ did we come here at all?”

After these direct questions an explanation could be delayed no longer. The three looked guilty and ceased from laughing. “We never coaxed you to look at them; and you arrived at your own conclusions. You know you did, George,” said Charles.

Will explained as follows: “George, we fixed those bones ourselves, on purpose to draw you and Marmaduke out. We gathered up a heap of bones of all kinds, from all over, and brought them here, and covered them up with boughs. Then we six came here to explore the jungle--we found them--and you did the rest.”

The victimized boys did not swoon away, but they were more or less exasperated. That was the worst feature in the “trick”--it provoked anger in George and Marmaduke, and lessened their faith in human nature.

“What a mean, hateful, nasty set of fellows!” was George’s natural comment. “They must be fond of prowling around bone-heaps; and handling them; and carrying them up and down the country; eh, Marmaduke? They ought to be told off--clapper-clawed--bastinadoed--soused in hot water! We’ll fix them some day; won’t we?”

“Only,” Steve observed, “_we_ didn’t finger the bones as you two did; _we_ put them into a basket, and then brought ’em here, and dumped ’em out--without _once_ touching ’em! Therefore, I advise you both to lather and scrub your paws with all the soap you can find. Scrub ’em hard, boys, if you know what is good for ’em.”

“Yes,” put in Will, “it is polite to handle skeletons and fossils, but not vulgar bones like these.”

“Oh! what scurvy boys!” was all poor George could say.

As for Marmaduke, he held his tongue, being too sulky, too horrified, to do more than gurgle out a few dismal moans.

“Well, boys,” said Charley, “it will soon be dinnertime; so let us cover up these mysterious old bones, and start for home and the soap-barrel.”

But George was recovering his equilibrium, and he thirsted for revenge. A light that boded no good to his deceivers shone in his eyes; he was bent on mischief.

“Look here, boys,” he began, “how do you know these are the same bones you accumulated? We stumbled around in the woods just as it happened; we found ourselves here; and Will suddenly found himself floundering in this brush-heap. Can you _prove_ this is the place you think it is?”

“It is not likely that there are bones under all these bushes, George;” said Charley. “Besides, we took notice where we were going, and we’ve often been here. I’m certain its the place.”

“No; you can’t be _certain_; absolutely _certain_;” George replied, so positively that Will, who lacked firmness, wavered, and helped George’s cause by saying, “Well, the place has a different look, I believe! But these _must_ be the bones, surely!”

“It looks different, because we generally came in from the south;” Steve returned. “Any boy with two eyes isn’t going to get so far astray in these woods.”

“Well, what if it isn’t the place we think it is?” Will asked.

“Oh, you will have to give in that it’s murder,” Marmaduke said. “I knew it was murder all the time. How do you know that nobody was ever murdered here? You don’t know anything about bones; George is most likely right.”

“Don’t make a fool of yourself again, Marmaduke; let us go home,” Steve growled, and he had taken a step homeward, when a long and doleful cry, followed by a hideous and piercing scream, electrified all the boys.

They conjured up all sorts of horrors, and the bravest turned pale with fright. Suddenly the “glade” became gloomy and awful; bugbears lurked in the shadows; ghost stories flitted through their heads; the “Phantom Ship” loomed before them.

“Don’t talk about murder, boys; I can’t stand it so coolly as you can,” Will entreated, with a quavering voice that told of abject terror.

“Oh, what is the matter?” Steve gasped. “What could yell like that?”

At that instant another shriek, more appalling than the first, rang out, rose and fell in grating discord, and then died away in the distance.

It was sufficient; Charley himself believed that they had made a mistake, and had been desecrating a human skeleton. Was this the ghost of the murdered one, or was it the perpetrator of the deed?

Instinctively the demoralized heroes huddled together, and Marmaduke found comfort in whispering hoarsely, “Now the mystery is going to be solved. I knew it was mur--”

One more shriek! The ghost was very near them now, and its lungs were strong. But it labored under the disadvantage of a cracked voice; or perhaps it was not “in practice.” At all events, the sound was so wild, so awful, that they shuddered with horror--they felt their flesh crawl--cold chills ran down their back.

This is not exaggeration; the boys were not easily frightened; but the ghost--who was at an age at which the voice is subject to changeable and discordant utterance--was exerting himself to the utmost.

“I won’t budge, no matter what happens!” Steve declared heroically.

“No, we must stick by each other, boys,” Will added.

Once again the ghost found voice This time, however, it spoke--spoke in tones of fury. “Who dares to say there was not murder here!” was thundered forth. “Who dares to touch my bones! Let--him--be--ware!”

This was too much. With a yell of horror and dismay, four boys started to their feet and tore out of the “jungle,” morally certain that a band of furious demons was hard behind them.

“Its dangerous to stay,” Marmaduke said, “for that is poetry!”

_Four_ boys fled; George lagged behind. “They’ve caught Jim’s disease!” he chuckled ecstatically. “I’ll teach ’em not to palm off old bones on me! Perhaps they’ll find that I can play a trick that knocks theirs all hollow!”

He performed a jig, and then set out in mad pursuit of his comrades.

We assign no reason for this act; but if the reader was ever a boy, he will understand.

George gave a yell of triumph; but it savoured so strongly of fear that Will, who had gained an open space, called out cheerily, “Don’t be afraid, George, if it’s you. Come straight ahead; here we are.”

“What on earth made such a rumpus?” demanded Stephen, already recovered from his fright.

“It must have been something; but of course we were not frightened;” said the others, whose fears the bright sunshine and the twittering birds had dispelled.

“The idea of saying I was afraid!” George roared. “I did that myself.”

“You made that noise?” gasped the four, in one breath.

“Yes, boys; I was the ghost;” George said complacently.

“And the murder--?” Marmaduke began.

“Never was!” George declared. “Boys, last night I was reading about ventriloquism; and I set to work and practised it. The man that wrote it said, ‘After five minutes’ practice, the veriest tyro will find himself able to rout a coward;’ and I guess he was right.”

“Botheration! we are sold!” Charles exclaimed, in surprise and mortification.

“Yes; you fooled me, and I fooled you all. We’re even now.”

Steve winced when the Sage again made reference to the learned ventriloquist’s weighty observation, and demanded indignantly, “Why didn’t you tell us all that before? Why didn’t you ventriloquism as we came along?”

“I was only waiting; I intended to do it before night,” George said honestly.

“You read too much, George;” Will commented sorrowfully. “We won’t try to fool you any more.”

“The worst of it is,” Charles said, with a droll smile, “is that one of us can’t make fun of another, for we all made fools of ourselves.”

“There’s Jim,” Steve suggested.

“So there is! Well, what about the murder?”

“It certainly is a skeleton,” Marmaduke said grimly.

“Well, to please you, let us call it an ‘open question,’” George, who was now in jubilant spirits, observed.

“Let us go back and look for the lost trinket; that will solve the problem;” Stephen proposed.

“Never mind the trinket, boys;” said Charley; “it will keep till another day. But give me a scrap of paper and a more respectable pencil than my own ruinous one, and I’ll write something worth while.”

Wonderingly, Marmaduke handed out the articles asked for, and Charley wrote as follows:--

ONE SLATE PENCIL REWARD.

DEAD OR ALIVE!

This reward will be given to anybody who revives a ghost, dead or alive, to claim these bones and solve this mystery.

C. GOODFELLOW.

Then, to prove his fearlessness, he retraced his steps to the bones, looking as brave as the hero of an orthodox love story, and pinned his notice to a scrubby tree hard by.

Tracking his way back to his schoolfellows, he said, “Boys, I’m hungry.”

Without more ado the heroes turned their faces homewards, each one except Marmaduke satisfied with his own exploits. Marmaduke jogged on ahead in sullen silence; and while the sage held forth, with schoolboy oratory, on anatomy, astronomy, geology, navigation, jugglery, osteology, whale-fishing, and ventriloquism, the other three amused themselves by carving baskets out of peach-stones, and wounding their index fingers in the hazardous attempt.

_Chapter IX._

“THREE WISE MEN WENT TO SEA IN A BOWL.”

A few days later the boys gathered together and strolled down to the beach, hoping something there would turn up to amuse them.

Two or three schooners and a steamboat were moored at the wharf; but to-day they excited only a languid interest in the boys.

“If we could only go out on the lake,” Will murmured, “it would be fun.”

“Why, where should we go?” inquired one.

“Oh, just out on the lake for a mile or so; or perhaps we might round the point and have a swim in our swimming-place.”

“Well, then,” said Jim, always with an eye to safety and comfort, “why not get out your father’s boat? Wouldn’t it float us all? And it’s so safe!”

“Yes,” said Will, “it’s pretty safe--very safe in the boat-house. And the key of the boat-house is safer still, at home! That’s the way it goes, boys; and when I want a boat ride, I generally struggle around the best I can. It isn’t worth while to trudge home for it; because, most likely, we should find something else to do when we got there. But I think we can light on a craft of some sort if we scratch around a little.”

Although Will’s father owned a boat, the key of his boat-house was always kept at home; and poor Will was about as much benefited as are most boys whose fathers own boats, and ponies, and carriages.

“I hanker for a boat ride,” Charley said. “Let us take the punt.”

“The punt, of course!” Steve chimed in. “The punt is just what we want.”

“Oh,” groaned Jim, “the punt is dirty and worn out; and it leaks; and it tips over; and it won’t go; and an awful storm is going to come up!”

“Look here, boys,” the Sage began, “Jim’s half-way right about that punt; it’s vulgar! And besides, it isn’t so safe as it ought to be. Only the other day, I read about some boys that went out in a cockle-shell of a boat,--I suppose it meant a punt; only, as I told you, punt is very vulgar, too vulgar for this author, at any rate,--and all got drowned! And another thing; I’ve been reading about the weather lately, and I understand just how it goes now.”

And the Sage looked so knowing that it was difficult for the boys to suppress their laughter. He was now casting intelligent glances at the sky, the birds, the grasshoppers, the lake, and even the ground. Soon he spoke.

“Boys,” he said, as impressively as he knew how, “I’m saying nothing rashly, but deliberately and--and--_correctly_. I’ve observed the weather indicators, and _a dreadful storm is coming up fast_! A storm that will stun an equinoctial, and tear Germany all to pieces.”

And the meteorologist’s form swelled with science and satisfaction.

“Whereas, on account of these gloomy auguries, resolved: that we go home and hide in the cellar hatchway till the storm is over,” Charles commented.

“No, boys; I’m in earnest, and I don’t care to go out in the punt,” George said firmly.

“I want to inquire into this drowning affair,” Steve said, “Didn’t you read about it in a little gilt-edged story-book?”

“Well, yes, I did,” George reluctantly acknowledged. “But, what of that?”

“Only this, were they all bad boys?”

“Come to think, they were.”

“That accounts for it then. They always put those solemn tales in books for little boys that get sick, and can’t get out doors, to make ’em think that a sound boy is always bad, and that it’s better to be sick. But somehow the superintendent always make a muddle of it, and give all those books to little girls. My little sisters have got a big cigar box chock-full of ’em, endwise up, and I never got one!”

“Yes, I know them; each nine chapters and a preface long,” said Charley.

“They’re the ones,” said Steve.

“What do your sisters do with them?” Will asked.

“Oh, they mostly build houses with ’em on rainy days,” Steve answered. “Now, we are not bad boys--never were. We are a first-rate crew, so let us go. But to please you, George, I’ll go and ask that sailor about the weather. I guess he ought to know, if anybody’s going to.”

Without loss of time, Steve went up to a sailor a little way off, and inquired, “Bill, what sort of weather are we going to have to-day?”

“Weather,” echoed Bill, grinning good-humoredly. “Well, look out for a rough gale; pretty rough and pretty long. Yes, there’ll be an awful blow--a hurricane--a typhoon!” he added, remarking Steve’s dissatisfied looks, and mistaking their cause. “Why, who knows but that there’ll be a zephyr that’ll swoop the hold clean out of a vessel and carry a door-knob clean over a flag staff.”

Stephen appeared more dissatisfied than ever; and the jocose sailor, who wished to please him, was about to give a startling account of what the weather _might_ be; but more than satisfied, Steve thanked him, and returned to the expectant five.

“Well, what does he say?” Will demanded.

Stephen dejectedly repeated what the sailor had told him.

George was not in a humor to say, “I told you so!” On the contrary, he was furious against the sailor. He allowed his indignation to boil for a few moments, and then exclaimed, haughtily, “What does that man know about the weather? Why, he doesn’t know any more about it than a caged dromedary. Why, he’s nothing but a lubber--a fresh-water sailor--a stone-boater--a--a--”

“And, besides,” chimed in Marmaduke, “that isn’t the way a genuine sailor talks. He must be some disguised--”

“Yes, of course it isn’t; of course he is;” George broke in. “He is some disguised vagabond, trying to humbug us fellows. Come along, boys; I’m going with you in that punt, through thick and thin, in the teeth of every lubberly sailor, and wishy-washy weather indicator, and high toned thunder-storm, that ever astonished anybody!”

This strikes the key-note to the Sage’s character.

But Stephen was angered. “See here, George,” he exclaimed, “that man is an honest sailor and a decent fellow, and you just let him alone!”

The boys, thinking time enough had been fooled away, then made a rush for the punt. This punt was an old derelict, heavy, unwieldy, full of chinks, and boasting of only two crazy poles, called “oars,” or “paddles,” or “sculls,” according to the humor of the wretch who gallanted them. No one could step into this craft without getting wet; and why it was kept there, or what use it was to the community, was unknown; for no one, except a few freckled and grimy street urchins, ever shoved off in it. Perhaps it was kept for them!

The six, however, had urged their way round the wharf in it.

“Come along, Jim!” Steve shouted, seeing that Timor lagged behind.

“Such a dirty boat to get into!” Jim objected. “And I’ve got my good clothes on, too!”

“Come, now, Jim, you and George are altogether too careful of your clothes. If they are so new and good, or so old and rotten, that you can’t go with us, then stay at home. Hurry up, you’ve got to go with us,” and Steve forced him in--an unwilling passenger.

And so the adventurous boys embarked in this dirty and dilapidated craft, with which Time, so to speak, had worked wonders.

“How are we to make the crazy thing go?” Will asked, when fairly afloat, looking around in vain for any motive power.

It is always thus with boys. Not till their own imprudence plunges them into difficulties, do they pause to consider what it all means, and what they had better do. When a boy is small he clambers upon the roof of his father’s barn, enjoys the perspective for one brief moment, and then ruminates as to how he shall get down. His mother sees him, and with tears in her eyes and dismay at her heart, tears out of the house, and exclaims, “Oh, Johnnie, why did you get up there?” Then the little innocent answers stoutly, “Well, ma, I reckoned if I could get up, I could get down again. Now, you jest watch, and I’ll climb down like a spider. Don’t be afraid, ma, it’s nice up here; I can see Mr. Morley’s shed,” (the object which bounds his view.) When older, he “volunteers;” girds on his uniform with swelling heart; breathes the word _patriotism_ with lover-like tenderness,--and then! Ah! then he fears to confront his father.

“Botheration!” cried Stephen, “we’ve left those oars on shore! There they are; behind Reichter’s boat-house. Back her up, boys, and I’ll jump out and get ’em.”

Poor sea-farers! In their eagerness to be off they had “set sail” without the “oars.” After a great struggle, they succeeded in urging the punt back so that Steve could jump ashore. Then the dauntless young voyagers told off the crew, and struck out gallantly.

“Now, Tim,” said Stephen, “if you’ll take that old oyster-can, and bale out this vessel, you’ll feel so much at home that you’ll be happy; and bye-and-bye I’ll help you.”

“It has no business to leak,” Jim grumbled. “But I told you it did!” he added, triumphantly.

“Of course it does; what’s a boat, if it doesn’t leak?” Steve snorted.

On they went; drifting, paddling, and sculling; laughing and joking. It seemed so joyous and secure that even Timor lost his uneasiness. Before they had determined whither they were going, the abutments of the wharf were passed, and they were fairly out on the lake. The farther they went, the higher their spirits rose, and the more jocose they became. Not one of them troubled himself about a storm.

“Well, boys, we can round the point, and have our swim right along. Let us do it,” said Will.

“Yes, I haven’t had a swim in the lake for three weeks!” Jim solemnly declared, as he rested a few minutes from baling out the punt.

The others were duly astonished at this (we say it boldly) neglect of duty.

Steve, who was tugging lustily at his oar, called out to George, the helmsman: “Fetch her around, there, old fellow; brace about for the shore, will you? Don’t be so lubberly, now, or you’ll keel her over. Hug her up for the shore, I tell you!”

“Look here, Stephen Goodfellow, I can navigate this dingy without so many orders; so, let me alone!” the helmsman retorted, indignantly.

“Now, boys,” said Will, “if we are mariners, let us behave ourselves. A captain and his crew always act in harmony, like a drummer’s drum and a tooter’s horn.”

“Of course,” chimed in Charley. “They don’t wrangle like a couple of bumpkins of boys in their collarless shirt sleeves.”

“What’s a dingey?” asked Jim.

“I--I believe it isn’t in my dictionary; but it’s a good-for-nothing craft, that is always an eyesore to the noodle that harbors it,” said George.

The punt was headed for the beach; but a decided swell, which had hitherto been in their favor, was now against them, and progress was slow. By dint of exertion however, in the course of time, they grounded their craft at the water’s edge, and sprang out to enjoy their bath. The gloomy speculations about the weather were forgotten, and not one noticed the threatening clouds looming up in the west.

The old sailor had not trifled with them; a storm was brewing.

Although their swimming-place was somewhat difficult of approach, it was retired and delightful, the great resort of all the swimmers in the neighborhood. That was the only drawback; it was too much resorted to by swimmers. But to-day the boys had it all to themselves.

“Well,” said Marmaduke, as he plunged into the water, “we boys and the rest of the folks are acquainted with a good place to swim in, as the Frenchman would say.”

“Never mind the Frenchman now, Marmaduke;” replied Will; “English will float you through the world.”

Jim had hardly stepped into the water when he cried out, “Oh, boys, the water is too cold and nasty; I’m shi-i-ivering!”

“Well, then,” sang out Steve, whose head was bobbing up and down some thirty yards from the shore, “bundle on your clothes, and play the anchor to that punt. It’ll drift across the lake, if somebody doesn’t take charge of it.”

But it _was_ cold and disagreeable, and their swimming was of short duration. They waded ashore with chattering teeth, and huddled on their clothes as quickly as their shivering limbs would permit.

“Boys, suppose that we go home by land?” Steve proposed. “It wouldn’t be so very far, and then it would be a change.”

“That’s a capital idea, Steve; but what would become of the dingey? We mus’n’t leave it here,” said Will.

“Then let us make off.”

Without delay the six took their places in the punt, and shoved off.

There was now not only a perceivable swell, but also a perceivable breeze. In a word, the scullers found that it was unnecessary to handle their sculls, for the punt drifted merrily seaward without a stroke from them.

“Look here, boys,” cried the Sage, prefacing his remarks, as usual, with his darling expression, “we could hardly make the shore a while ago; and now just see how fast we are drifting out! I don’t believe we could get back to our swimming place; let us try it.”

“Let us be glad that we are getting a boat-ride without work,” was Steve’s foolish comment.

But his fellow-voyagers considered the matter in a different light, and tried to back the oars. They could still do so, but only by putting forth all their strength. Their situation was now so critical that they turned pale with dread.

“O dear!” gasped Timor, too frightened to say more.

“Why didn’t we go home by land!” Steve ejaculated.

“Pity we didn’t do that,” Will said. “Before we could row ashore, the swell would be too much for us, wouldn’t it?”

“Of course it would,” George answered.

“And we’re almost too far from shore to swim to it,” Charles asked, rather than said.

“Couldn’t swim there without getting the cramps, Charley,” Will replied, in a hoarse whisper.

“Look to the west!” Jim cried in terror. “Oh, boys! I’ve got ’em! got the chills! dreadful chills! awful chills! O boys! we shall all be drowned! We’ll perish! We’ll be drownded! drownded to death! Oh! what a dreadful storm!”

All looked towards the west, and saw that a storm was almost upon them. The black clouds piling up were certainly ominous; the breeze was getting stiffer every minute; the lake was getting rougher.