CHAPTER XI

ZEB MAKES GOOD

Since they had been aroused, and the dawn was at hand, there was no use of going back to their blankets again. So the boys finished their simple dressing, and washed up outside the door. Tubby declared the air was as cold as the Arctic regions and it must surely be some degrees below freezing, two assertions that hardly bore out each other.

Zeb Crooks was gotten out of his bunk. Rob had made up his mind to release the other. He now believed the story the repentant guide had so frankly told them, and thought it would be too humiliating for Zeb to be found tied up by a trio of boys, when his employer returned.

But Rob took his time about carrying this out, though he had already obtained the backing of Tubby in the scheme. While the latter was preparing breakfast, and Andy had stepped out, gun in hand, for a little walk around, in hopes of seeing something in the line of game on which he could prove his skill as a marksman, the scout leader walked over to where the big guide sat with his back against the wall.

“You still say, do you, Zeb,” he commenced, “that you meant to stay in the cabin here until Mr. Hopkins came back, and then ask him to overlook your foolishness?”

“I sartin did, youngster,” affirmed the other vehemently, and then adding, “Thar was times when I got plumb skeered, because I hated to think of meetin’ that look in my boss’s eyes. I even considered whether I had ought to stay and take his money agin, arter I’d been so mean. I tried to write a leetle note I was calculatin’ to leave here, in case my nerve give out and I slipped away agin.”

“A note do you say?” demanded Rob quickly. “Did you keep it, Zeb?”

“Shore I did, sir. It’s right here in my pocket, tho’ mebbe arter all I’d a-stayed the thing out, and then I needn’t use it. But I didn’t know, I wasn’t right sartin I could stand for it.”

Rob leaned over, and after fumbling around for a short time managed to find the well-thumbed paper. Evidently Zeb’s education lay mostly in an extensive knowledge of woodcraft and the habits of wild animals, for he could not have spent much time learning to spell, or in applying the ordinary rules of grammar. Rob might have smiled at the primitive product of the big guide’s untrained hand only for the fact that somehow his eyes were strangely blinded while he read.

“Mister hopkins, der sur, I ben the bigest fule livin’ i gess to ack like i done with the best frend i ever had, and sur i wanted to tell you this but i dident hay the nerve to stay. i em agoin hum an wen i look in the cleer eyes of my gal Ruth as was named after yur own ded wife i feel like kickin myself, but i shore do hope yo kin forgiv Zeb Crooks and mebbe next year hire me agin. I had my leson, sur, thats rite, an never agin siz i. An i hopes yo git that big bull moose this time thats awl.

Zeb Crooks.”

Rob folded that soiled sheet of paper, torn from a memorandum book. He meant to keep it, and on the sly show it to Mr. Hopkins, who could appreciate the manly nature that had thus conquered in the battle with an evil spirit. Andy would not appreciate such a message, for he must suspect that it was only intended to blind the eyes of a trusting person and conceal the man’s real intentions. Yes, Tubby might see it, some time or other. Rob intended to keep it always.

“Well, Zeb,” he went on to say cheerfully, to hide the emotion he felt, “we’ve concluded to set you free. You can stay around until they get back from the Tucker Pond, when there’ll be a chance to fix matters up with Mr. Hopkins.”

“I’m shore plumb pleased to hear that, younker,” declared the guide, grinning. “It ain’t none too pleasant to be tied up, and some humiliatin’, seein’ as how you are only boys. The sorest thing o’ all would have been to let _him_ see me this way.”

“That’s going to be all right, Zeb,” said Rob, much impressed with the justice of this remark. “I’ll see to it that none of us tell him we made you a prisoner. We believe what you’ve been telling us. In fact, I thought you were straight from the beginning, but that note clinched it for me.”

He soon had the rope unfastened. Tubby, looking over from the fire, nodded his head in appreciation. Andy, coming in shortly afterward, failed to make any disagreeable remark, from which it might be judged that he had begun to think better of his former opinion with regard to Zeb’s honesty.

The guide acted as though nothing out of the way had happened. He assisted Tubby in getting breakfast, just as he was in the habit of doing for his employer. Indeed, Zeb seemed to improve upon acquaintance, and Rob felt certain he had not made a mistake in tempering justice with mercy.

They had a merry time of it at breakfast. The boys were light-hearted by nature, and Zeb seemed to be growing to like them very much. He asked many questions in connection with their past experiences. They had any quantity of incidents to relate, some of which caused the Maine guide to open his eyes wide; for the accounts Tubby and Rob gave of what wonderful things they had seen when with the fighting armies in Belgium and France were enough to thrill any one to the core.

Later on that morning Andy started forth again, bent on picking up some game. He was advised by Rob to be careful and not get lost, an injunction which he promised to heed.

Rob had been more or less anxious during the night. He could not get it out of his mind that the man who piloted that aeroplane had been spying out the land on the other side of the border for some dark purpose. Rob had half fancied he heard a distant heavy sound that might be caused by an explosion, though on second thought he decided that he was wrong.

Two nights had passed without anything of this sort happening. He wished Mr. Hopkins would get back to the camp so he could consult with so experienced a man as Tubby’s uncle must be, and decide what their duty should be.

Andy did not come back until after the others had started to eat lunch. When they saw the number of plump partridges he carried they congratulated him on his good luck. Rob had anticipated something of this sort, having heard a number of shots in rapid succession, so suspecting that the hunter had struck game.

“But, shucks!” Andy went on to say in a disgusted tone, “I’m almost ashamed to tell you how easy they came to me. Why, after I’d flushed the covey they went and alighted in a tree with wide-spreading branches. There half a dozen of the silly birds perched on a lower limb, and I picked off one as nice as you please. Still, to my surprise, the rest didn’t fly away, but just sat there, craning their necks to look down and see what their companion was doing all that kicking and fluttering on the ground for. Guess the gumps thought it was a new sort of partridge cake-walk. Anyway I nailed the second one, then a third and a fourth, and, why, would you believe me, I actually got the fifth when the last bird flew away. It was too easy a job; like taking candy from the baby. Don’t call me a hunter, I feel more like a butcher right now.”

“But, Andy, they’re nice and fat,” cooed Tubby, running his hand admiringly down the speckled breast of one bird. “I’m figuring on rigging up a dandy spit so we can cook it in front of the fire. I’ve tasted chickens cooked that way at a restaurant in the city, and my! but they were delicious.”

“They did use a spit ages and ages ago,” laughed Rob, “which goes to show that after all our forefathers knew a good thing or two that hasn’t been improved upon in all these centuries. Here’s hoping you have the best of luck, Tubby. If you need any help, call on me.”

Tubby did put in most of the afternoon on that job. Zeb took it upon himself to attend to the fowls, which he dressed most carefully. Tubby was more than glad that the little company had received an addition, for if there was one thing he disliked doing it was cleaning birds or fish.

Along in the late afternoon he had the right kind of a fire for his purpose. With all the birds fastened on his home-made spits, which could be revolved with a clock-like motion, Tubby set to work to prove himself a master _chef_. Indeed, as the work went on, and the revolving birds began to take on a brown hue the odors that permeated every part of the long bunk-house were enough to set any ordinary hungry boy half crazy. Andy was seen to hurriedly take his departure, after finding out from Tubby that supper would not be ready for at least half an hour; it looked as though he for one could not stand it to “be so near, and yet so far.”

When Tubby grew tired or overheated he would give the willing Zeb a chance to make himself “useful as well as ornamental,” as Tubby jokingly remarked. He and the big Maine guide were the best of friends. It looked as though Zeb would have a pretty good advocate with the uncle in case any were needed to straighten out his affairs with Mr. Hopkins.

Finally the summons was beaten on a skillet, always welcome to those who have been hanging around, and suffering cruel tortures because the minutes seem to drag with leaden feet. Every one pronounced Tubby’s enterprise a most wonderful success. Partridges may have tasted fine before, when cooked in one of those hunters’ earthen bake-ovens that resemble a fireless cooker so much; but in that case they would have simply been as though steamed, and lacked all that brown crispness.

Still no sign of the party from the Tucker Pond. They must surely come back by another day, Rob thought, with a feeling akin to uneasiness; for once more he dreaded what a night might bring forth, his thoughts being again carried across the line into the country whose sons were in the trenches over in Belgium and the North of France.

So Rob felt that his mind would be much relieved if only another day saw Mr. Hopkins, in order that he might shift the burden to older shoulders. Somehow it seemed to the anxious scout master as though some sort of responsibility had been placed upon them because they chanced to see that airman making his reconnoissance two days before.

The night was now upon them. Little did any of those three boys suspect what thrilling events were destined to take place in their lives and how their patriotism would be tested before another daybreak came. They sat around as usual, and made merry. Tubby played with the dog, for Wolf had not offered to run away again. It was concluded that he must have given up all hope of ever finding his former home; or else felt quite contented to remain with his new masters, who fed him so abundantly.

It was getting well along toward nine o’clock, and some of them had even commenced to show signs of being drowsy, for it must be remembered that they had not been allowed to enjoy a full night’s sleep on the preceding night.

Andy said he would step outside and see what the signs promised in the heaven for the next day. He pretended to be quite a weather prophet. He had hardly closed the door behind him, it seemed to Tubby, than they heard him coming hastily back again. He seemed excited, too, a fact that caused Tubby to struggle to his feet, though the others were already ahead of him.

“I wish you would all come out here and listen,” said Andy. “I may be mistaken, and, perhaps, after all, it’s only some freak of the breeze whining through a hole in the cabin wall; but, honest to goodness, it struck me that it was some one calling in the distance, and calling for help, too.”