CHAPTER XXI.

AN EMPTY LARDER.

"I'm only afraid it'll be too late, Giraffe," Bumpus was heard to remark, with a skeptical air.

"Too late for what?" demanded the tall scout, who had dropped to his knees, and was starting to follow the trail left by Wandering George, after the latter had gained his feet, and moved away from the vicinity of the camp.

"Why, there won't be a sign of our grub left by that time, you see; George; he'll be awful hungry, and it's surprising what a lot of stuff a regular hobo can put away when he tries."

"And hoboes ain't the only ones, Bumpus," intimated Davy; "I'd match you and Giraffe here against the best of 'em. But let's hope we'll find a way to get off this island before night comes, and strike a farmhouse where they'll feed us like the Baileys did."

"Oh! do you really think there's a chance of that happening to us, Davy?" exclaimed Bumpus, intentionally omitting to show any ill feeling on account of the little slur concerning his appetite. "I'd be willing to even go without my lunch in the middle of the day if I could believe we'd be sitting with our knees under a groaning table to-night. Seems like when you're beginning to face starvation every good thing you ever liked keeps popping up in your head."

Giraffe at this juncture called out, and his manner indicated that he had made a discovery of some sort.

"What is it, Giraffe?" asked Thad.

"I just bet you he's found where George sat down and ate up every crumb of that grub," muttered Bumpus, whose mind seemed to be wholly concerned with the question of the lost supplies.

"George was joined here by his pal, who must have been hanging out, waiting for him," Giraffe told them; and as he examined the tracks further he added; "and say, I reckon now that second fellow got hurt some way, while he was cooped up in the black hole under the cabin floor."

"Now how do you make that out, Giraffe?" asked Davy.

"Why, I can see that he limps like everything," the other went on to say, doubtless applying his knowledge of woodcraft to the case. "One foot drags every step he takes, and it didn't do that before, I happen to know. That's why George volunteered to do the cribbing all by himself, while the other waited."

"That makes two to handle instead of one, doesn't it?" Allan remarked; and once more Bumpus groaned.

"Two is a whole lot worse than one, to get away with things," he observed, with a piteous air of resignation, as though he was now perfectly satisfied they would none of them ever see the first sign of the stolen provisions again.

"If there's a trail why can't we start in, and track the two hoboes down?" suggested Davy vigorously.

They had followed Giraffe, so that all of them were just back of him at this time. The tall scout, however, shook his head in a disappointing way.

"I'd like to try that the worst kind," he remarked, "but I reckon it's no go. You can hardly see the footprints here, and they get fainter as they go on. Besides, we'd make all manner of noise creeping through this scrub, and they'd be wise to our coming, so they could keep moving off. There's a better way to capture George than that, fellows."

"Yes," added Thad, "we can comb the island from one end to the other. It can't be of any great size, you see; and by forming a line across at the top we could cover about every foot of it. In the end we'd corner the tramps, and make them surrender. We've got the whole day before us, and the sun promises to shine, too, so we can count on its being warmer."

"The whole day," Bumpus remarked disconsolately, "that means twelve long hours, don't it? Well, I suppose I can stand the thing if the rest of you can; but it's really the most dreadful calamity that ever faced us. They say starving is an easy death, but it wouldn't be to me."

No one was paying any attention to his complainings, so Bumpus stopped short in order to listen to what the others were saying. Possibly he told himself that the best way to forget his troubles was to get interested in what was going on. And it might be there still remained a shred of hope in his heart that if they made a quick job of the surround, and capture, perhaps they might retake enough of the purloined food to constitute a bare meal at noon.

"First of all we've got to have our breakfast, such as it is," Thad observed.

"Tea and grits--oh! my stars!" sighed Giraffe; whereupon Bob White turned upon him with the cutting remark:

"You ought to be thankful for the grits, suh, believe me; it satisfies me, let me tell you. I wouldn't give a snap fo' all the tea in China or Japan; but grits make bone and muscle. You can do a day's work on a breakfast of the same. Only it takes a long time to cook properly, suh; and the sooner we get the pot started the better."

"You attend to that, Bumpus, please," said Giraffe, "and be sure you get enough to satisfy the crowd, even if you have to use two kettles, and the whole package of hominy. I want to talk things over with Thad here."

Bumpus hesitated for a minute. He hardly knew which he wanted to do most, stay there and listen, or return to the fire and begin operations looking to the cooking of that forlorn breakfast.

Finally, as he received a message from the inner man that it was time some attention was paid to the fact that nature abhorred a vacuum he turned away and trotted toward the camp fire.

Giraffe, together with Thad and Allan, tried to follow the trail of the two tramps further, but soon gave it up. After all, the several reasons why they should turn to the other way of rounding up the concealed men appealed strongly to them.

Later on they returned to the camp, to sit around and wait for their breakfast to cook. Nobody looked very cheerful that morning. Somehow the fact that they were isolated there on that island with only one meal between them and dire hunger, loomed up like a great mountain before their mental vision.

In the end they found that grits did satisfy their hunger remarkably well; and taking Giraffe's advice Bumpus had actually cooked the entire amount on hand, so there was plenty to go around three times.

The tea was another matter, for they had neither sugar nor milk to go with it, and although each fellow managed to drink one cup, some of them made wry faces while disposing of the brewing.

"Kind of warms you up inside," commented Davy, "and that's the only reason I try to get it down; but, oh! you coffee!"

"Here, none of that, Davy," said Thad; "scouts have to make the best of a bad bargain, and never complain. We'd be feeling lots worse if it wasn't for this breakfast."

"Well, suh, I'm quite satisfied, and feel as if I'd had the pick of the land," Bob White remarked stoutly.

"Yes, but you like the stuff, and I never would eat it at home," complained Step Hen.

"Time you began to know what good things are, then, suh," the Southern boy told him plainly.

Even Bumpus admitted that he felt very good after they had emptied both kettles of the simple fare. For the time being he was able to put the dismal future out of his mind, and actually smile again.

Thad had not told them as yet what plan he was arranging with regard to hunting down the tramps who were on the island with them, and of course most of the scouts were eager to know.

Accordingly, after the meal was finished, they began to crowd around and give the scout master hints that they were waiting for him to arrange the details of that "combing" business he had spoken of.

"It's going to be a simple matter," Thad remarked. "We'll go to the place where the shantyboat went aground, and make our start from there, gradually stretching out until we cover the island from shore to shore, and in that way pushing our quarry further along toward the lower end."

"And," pursued Giraffe, following the plan in his mind, "as the hoboes will of course object to taking to the water, we'll corral the pair in the end."

"Do you reckon they've got any sort of gun along, Thad?" asked Step Hen; though it was not timidity that caused him to ask the question, for as a rule he could be depended on to hold his own when it came to showing fight.

"We don't know, of course, about that," he was told; "though it's often the case that these tramps carry such a thing, especially the dangerous stripe like this Wandering George seems to be."

"He didn't pull any gun on the farmer, when Mr. Bailey caught him robbing his desk, you remember, Thad?" Davy mentioned.

"No, but he upset the lamp, and then skipped out, leaving the inmates of the farmhouse to fight the fire, which was a cowardly thing to do," Bumpus observed.

"I hadn't forgotten about the chances of them being armed when I spoke of forming a line across the island, and searching every foot of the same," Thad explained; "and the way we'll be safe in doing that I'll explain. Now, we ought to leave two fellows to look after the camp, with a gun between them. The rest can be divided up into three squads, each couple having one of the other guns. We'll manage to keep in touch with each other, as we work along, zigzag-like, and a signal will tell that the game has been started. Do you understand that?"

"Plain enough, Thad," Giraffe told him, as he picked up his gun, and in this way signified that he was ready for the start.

"Huh! but who's going to be left behind?" Bumpus wanted to know; his whole demeanor betraying the fact in advance that he could give a pretty good guess as to who _one_ of the unfortunates might prove to be.

"I think it would be wiser for me to appoint you and Smithy to that post of honor," he was immediately informed by Thad; "and you want to understand it is just as important that you do your duty well here, as that we carry out our part of the game. A scout never asks why he's told to do a certain thing, when perhaps he'd like to be in another position. Whether he serves as the hub, the tire, or one of the spokes, he feels that he's an important part of the whole wheel, and without him nothing can be done. There's just as much honor in guarding the camp as in creeping through the tangle of vines and scrub bushes. And, Bumpus, I'm the one to judge who's best fitted for that sort of work."

"Thad, I'm not saying a single word," expostulated the stout scout; "fact is, if you come right down to brass tacks, I'm satisfied to stay here, rather than scratch my way along, and p'raps break my nose tumbling. And I'm sure Smithy is built the same way. I hope you'll let me hold the gun you leave with us, which ought to be my own repeating Marlin, because it's already proved its worth. And, Thad, you remember I shot it with some success the time we were out there in the Rockies after big game."

"That's only a fair bargain, Bumpus," he was told by the scout master; "and you can consider it a bargain. We'll look to hear a good report from you when we come back to camp again."

"And with our prisoners in charge, too," added the confident Giraffe.

Bumpus saw them depart with a gloomy look, as though he felt that all chances of winning new laurels had been snatched away when he was ordered to keep camp.