CHAPTER XV.

STILL BUMPING BUMPUS.

Various were the expressions of disgust when the scouts heard this piece of intelligence from the guide.

“Well, what d’ye think of that now, for a piece of nerve?” exclaimed Step Hen.

“Seems just like this here Ricky, whose first name must be Gin, I reckon, thinks he owns pretty much all Alligator Swamp, because he’s held out here so long, and nobody ever bothered him before!” Bumpus lamented.

“But what’s the use talking that way, fellows?” said Giraffe, almost fiercely; “none of us expect to clear out just because Mr. Ricky says we’ve got to go. If he expects that he’s given us the worst scare of our lives, he’s got another think acoming to him, that’s all.”

“Giraffe, you never spoke truer words than that,” cried Davy Jones, suddenly firing up, and showing unexpected zeal in the matter; he had a way of stretching his eyes when under any sort of excitement, and in this way made the other boys laugh at his looks; but just then, somehow, no one even smiled, for they were too much taken up with the seriousness of the conditions confronting them.

“Well, it strikes me about the same way,” spoke up Bob White, with his customary Southern eagerness, “the Silver Fox Patrol has gone through with too many adventures in its time to get scared off, just because one old moonshiner chances to feel ugly that we’ve had to come into this swamp.”

“He’d better take care,” warned Smithy, who seemed fully as much worked up as any of the rest of them; “or we might make up our minds to kill two birds with one stone.”

“That’s what!” echoed Bumpus, aggressively; “while we’re alooking up this here Felix, why, if we’re forced to show our hand without a glove, p’raps we’ll take a notion to pull old Ricky in, and hand him over to the revenue officers. Maybe there might be some sort of reward out for him; and we’ve made our expenses before now in helping the hands of justice. Remember what we did up in Maine, boys?”

“Yes, and please move our boat a little to the right, will you, Allan, because somehow I think the air comes a mite finer from that quarter,” and Giraffe as he said this almost glared at Bumpus; who returned his look with one of pretended indifference, as he fondly stroked his dingy old khaki jacket that was so discolored from long and hard use that one could hardly tell what the original color may have been.

“Well, I hope now we ain’t going back, anyhow?” the fat scout remarked, calmly.

All eyes were turned upon the scout-master, as though the decision must rest entirely with him; but then they knew Thad well enough to feel sure he never backed down in anything he attempted until the very last word had been said.

And then again they must have found more or less consolation in the fact that it was his particular business that had brought them all the way into Dixieland; the possibility of finding his long lost little sister would spur Thad on to reaching his goal, if there were a dozen Ricky moonshiners in the way.

Just as they hoped and expected, he lost no time in settling the matter, at least as far as he was concerned.

“We’re here to find that man with the little girl, boys, and we’re bound to do it, by hook or by crook,” he said, quietly, but in that firm tone they knew so well. “If this man who makes the moonshine stuff chooses to get in our way and show himself disagreeable, why, we may have to turn aside for a little while, and teach him that it isn’t always safe to interfere with other people’s business, even if they do happen to be Boy Scouts. And I’m sure our guide here, Tom Smith, will stand by us through it all, won’t you, Tom?”

Now, the swamp hunter was having his eyes opened right along to the possibilities of boys under the new way of making them think for themselves, and the more he saw of Thad and his seven chums, the higher his admiration arose. So when the young scout-master thus appealed to him, he was quick to assure them of his constancy.

“I’ve lived around hyah fo’ a good many yeahs, an’ minded my own bizness right along so ’at Ricky an’ me we-all never hed any fallin’ out; but I sez right now, thet if he thinks he kin chase you boys outen Alligator Swamp, jest ’cause yuh happens tuh be wearin’ them uniforms as makes him ’spicious like, he’s beatin’ up the wrong tree, thet’s all. I’ll stick tuh yuh through thick an’ thin; and Ricky, he bettah go slow, thet’s all.”

“Of course,” put in Thad, hastily, as with a movement of the hand he checked the cheer that arose to the lips of several of the more enthusiastic scouts; “we’d rather not have the least trouble with the man, because, you understand, we never even knew of his being here until we started in to try and find the others; but if he’s as obstinate as a mule——”

“Or Bumpus here,” interjected Davy, as quick as a flash.

“Why,” Thad went on to say, “we’ll have to pay attention to him first of all, because it’s unpleasant to think that at any minute you’re apt to be shot at from ambush, by some one who is hidden behind a tree.”

“I never did sot any store by this hyah bushwhackin’ bizness,” declared their guide, frowning. “And Ricky, he’s bound tuh git hisself intuh a heap o’ trouble if so be he tries thet same on, many more times.”

“I was thinking,” resumed Thad, “that perhaps, now, there might be some way for you to get in touch with Ricky, or leave a communication for him somewhere. In that way you could tell him who we were, and that we haven’t any notion of doing him any harm. In fact, so far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t matter if he keeps on with his little still in the swamp till doomsday, does it, boys?”

“No, if only he keeps his hands off, and don’t bother the Silver Fox Patrol in the line of their duty,” asserted Giraffe. “Some other people, just about like this same old Ricky, learned that it was as safe to monkey with a buzz-saw as to fool with scouts when they’re bent on minding their own affairs. I could mention more’n a few who got their fingers pinched, and pinched bad too.”

“Well, don’t bother going into details now, Giraffe,” remarked Allan; “all that will keep for some time when we’re sitting around the fire, and you happen to feel like telling our guide a few things about what we’ve done in the past. Just now we’ve got to settle on our plans for work. How about what Thad asked you, Tom Smith; can you manage to get word to this Ricky, do you think?”

The swamp hunter had been thinking while the boys exchanged these few remarks; and now he nodded his head in the affirmative.

“I kinder reckons as how I mout do thet same, son,” he went on to say, as though his mind were made up. “In the fust place, I knows jest whar Ricky he holds out, an’ hes his ole still; an’ I wants tuh say thet I don’t reckon tuh find them parties yuh be alookin’ fo’ in thet ere quarter. So, yuh see, we’s soon gwine tuh head in a diff’rent way, so Ricky, if so be he’s a watchin’ on us frum the bushes’ll make out thet we don’t mean tuh disturb him yet awhile.”

“Still, he might think we were only going around to come up on him from another quarter?” ventured Allan.

“Yes,” added the scout-master, “and if you can let him know what I said about our being only Boy Scouts; and that we’ve hired you, not to find him, but another party altogether, it might be best.”

“They’s a chanct tuh do thet same,” returned Tom Smith; “an’ this is theh way o’ hit. Yuh see, Ricky he don’t never show hisself outen the swamp, leastways not in daytime, ’cause he reckons as how thar be a marshal behind every tree, jest awaitin’ tuh nab him fo’ moonshinin’. But he sells his mountain dew, as they calls it up in Georgia an’ Tennessee tuh sum o’ theh natives, an’ when they wants a supply they leaves word at his post office like.”

“Oh! I see, Ricky isn’t only trying to beat the United States Government out of its revenue on the stuff he distills, but he’s set up a rival establishment for sending letters through the mails without paying a cent of postage?” and Giraffe chuckled at his own wit, which Bumpus thought very bad taste; but then Bumpus was provoked at the lanky scout just then, and could not see anything good in whatever Giraffe said or did.

“And can you get a note into that private post office without too much trouble?” Thad asked, quite interested, and ready to carry out the little scheme with all the speed possible.

“Why,” resumed the swamp hunter, “hit happens thisaway, yuh see; we’s bound tuh pass right neah thet holler tree, whar Ricky allers looks fo’ letters; an’ if so be yuh guv me a note tuh stick in the hole, chances are he’d see me do hit, an’ be ahookin’ theh same out arter I quits.”

“Then Ricky can read?” queried Allan, as though surprised.

“Him?” ejaculated Tom Smith, as though surprised at the question; “sure he kin, an’ write too. Why, I ’members him atellin’ as how he went tuh school an’ got book larnin’ a whole winter, long time ago.”

“What d’ye think of that?” ejaculated Step Hen. “Suppose, now, Ricky had had half the chances of us fellows, wouldn’t he set the world on fire, though? Only went to school one winter when he was a boy, and learned to read and write at that. I’m ashamed to say it, but there are some chaps I know that have been agoing to school all their lives, and don’t know much more’n how to read and write.”

“Speak for yourself, Step Hen,” said Bumpus, who seemed unusually touchy these days, and resented the significant way in which the other looked in his direction.

“I’ll write a few lines then,” said Thad, “and make it as plain as I can that we don’t mean Ricky any harm, and would rather than not he helped us find that strange man with the little girl; for I suppose he must have noticed him around in the swamp, and has wondered what they were doing here.”

“Oh! as fo’ thet,” chuckled the guide, “nobody ever questions what a feller is after when he hides in ole Alligator Swamp; ’case, yuh see, it’s allers been a safe retreat fo’ every escaped convict, and sech others as want tuh keep outen sight. I hev heard as how in theh ole days o’ slavery many a black took tuh this place arter runnin’ away from the sugar plantations; and they used tuh hunt ’em with bloodhounds. Fack is, right in these hyah days I’ve heard the bayin’ o’ hounds more’n a few times; and I done larn on’y yesterday as how the sheriff, he went an’ fotched a brace o’ dorgs down from another parish, tuh use the same hyah’bouts.”

Thad was already busily engaged, having secured a page from a pocket notebook, and with the stub of a pencil he was writing a few lines as plainly as he could accomplish it.

Giraffe and Davy were whispering together as their boats happened to drift close together, and from the fact that they allowed their eyes to turn toward Bumpus from time to time, it seemed probable that some new scheme was being hatched looking to the further annoyance of the fat scout.

Bumpus saw what was going on, and moved uneasily, as though he suspected that some species of bomb were being prepared to explode under him; but he did not say anything, however much he may have thought.

Thad had just folded the note, and handed the same to Tom Smith, so that he could place it in the tree post office as they came to it; when Giraffe caught the attention of the scout-master.

“Me’n Davy here been conferring on a certain matter, you see, Thad,” he went on to say, apparently half in earnest, yet with his eyes twinkling as though a wicked sense of humor bubbled up within; “an’ while we hope you won’t think we’re atrying to start a mutiny of any sort, we would like to get your opinion to a certain scheme to keep peace in the family, and let the rest of us get our share of good sweet air.”

“Well, hurry up and state your case, Giraffe,” remarked Thad, who possibly could more than half guess what was coming; “because we’ve lost time enough already, and should be on the move.”

“Why, it’s just this way,” continued Giraffe, after exchanging winks with Davy, as though looking for encouragement there; “we’ve tried our level best to coax a certain member of this expedition to be faithful to his vows, and stow away the greasy old fishy suit he keeps on awearing; and he’s just that like a mule he won’t do the first thing to accommodate us. Now, we all feel that we’ve got rights, and Davy here thought up a plan whereby Bumpus can keep on wearing his cast-offs if he wants to, and have all the fun to himself.”

“Oh! is that so?” sneered the object of all this tender solicitude; “how kind of Davy, and you too, Giraffe. Maybe, now, you’ll go right along, and explain how this same miracle’s agoing to be fixed? This suit is an old friend of mine, and I just love it. Course, if Thad lets you, and the whole bunch pile on, I can’t hold out against seven; but that ain’t the way to treat a fellow scout. Go right along and explain what Davy’s plan is.”

“Why, here’s the scheme, and I must say it’s a grand good one,” Giraffe continued, bracing up to make the explanation. “Since Bumpus must save his good suit, let him, if only he don’t bother the rest of us so furiously. Now, there’s the boat of our guide; let him change places with Tom Smith, and follow away behind the balance of the expedition. We could wave him back whenever we thought he was getting too close, you know. And I want to say the plan has my unqualified endorsement, and does our chum Davy great credit. Now, what’s the verdict. Thad? Does Bumpus either have to agree to throw away that old suit of his; or get in the guide’s canoe, and go away back and sit down? We’re content to abide by your decision in the matter; and here’s hoping you fix it to suit the majority!”