CHAPTER XIV.

FIGURING IT OUT.

“Told you so!” Bumpus could not refrain from saying, in triumph.

Thad turned on him.

“Suppose you let us know what the fellow looked like, Bumpus?” he remarked. “If we happen on him in any of our wanderings, it might be just as well that we knew the kind of customer we have to deal with. Can you describe him?”

“I’m afraid not, Thad,” replied the fat boy, a little dejectedly. “You see, just as quick as he caught sight of me turning my eyes up there, he ducked. And all I saw was that he had a face, and a kinder hairy one at that.”

“Oh! you mean he wore a beard?” asked the other.

“Sure he did,” was the reply. “That’s what made me wonder whether it might have been a monkey of some sort, even if I didn’t say as much to Giraffe when he was kidding me. But I happened to remember that _ordinary_ monkeys don’t grow up here in Maine,” and the suggestive look he shot in the direction of Davy made that comrade sneer; as though he had grown hardened to being classed with the tree-climbing tribe, just because he could hang by his toes from a limb, or go up to the tiptop of any tree that he had ever seen.

“Well, he came, and he saw; but he didn’t conquer, not by a long sight,” observed Step Hen. “He didn’t like our looks one little bit, fellows, and made tracks out of here. What d’ye s’pose brought him around, in the first place?”

“Mout a be’n jest passin’, an’ seein’ our light in hyar, thort he’d cum ter look us up. If he’s thet kind o’ a varmint, he mebbe thort as how thar was good pickin’s ter be bed. But he knows better now.”

It was Eli who advanced this opinion. Thad had another one that was based on certain facts obtained from the Maine sheriff who had dropped in on their camp so unexpectedly.

“If that was the man called Charley Barnes,” he said, “you must remember that we heard he used to be a guide up in this country long ago, before he took to his present calling. And in that case, why, perhaps he may have known of this old cabin here, and was coming to see if it would make a half-way decent place to stay for a while. Perhaps one of his friends is sick; or it might be they feel that they just have to hold over somewhere, so as to lay in a stock of food. That’s an idea the sheriff had, I recollect; and he wanted to keep so hot on their track that they’d find no time for hunting, and must get hungry.”

“Well, it _was_ a man, anyway, wasn’t it?” asked Bumpus, demurely; for he felt that Giraffe owed him an apology of some sort.

“Yes, it was a man,” admitted that worthy, frankly; “and for once you’ve got a bulge on me, Bumpus. Rub it in all you want to; my hide’s about as thick as the skin of a rhinoceros, and I c’n stand it easy.”

“Oh! that’s all right, Giraffe,” replied the other, ready to forgive, now that things were coming his way; “I was only thinkin’ how queer it seems to have them hobo burglars huntin’ us up. Remember what I said about that fat reward we’d get, if we happened to pull ’em in? A big thousand dollars, Mr. Green said it was; and p’raps double that by now. Well, funnier things have happened, understand, than a pack of Brave Scouts, tried and true, rounding up a bunch of cowardly hoboes. We can do it, fellers, and not half try, if we get the chance.”

Again Thad thought it one of the queerest things he had ever seen, to watch how the fire of enthusiasm seemed to burn within the breast of the usually rather timid and backward Bumpus Hawtree. Evidently he had his mind set on that reward; and could see how splendidly it would come in for the patrol, in paying the expenses of another long vacation trip they had in mind.

“Wonder if he’ll come back any more?” remarked Step Hen, as they began to move into the cabin again, there being no further reason for remaining out in the cold.

“I reckon now, he saw all he wanted, and didn’t care about waiting to be introduced to such a gang,” Giraffe chuckled.

“Speak for yourself, Giraffe,” remarked Davy, disdainfully.

“I just can’t get over Bumpus, here, showing such a strong desire to grab these burglar fellers,” Giraffe went on. “What’s comin’ over him, do you think? We never used to think him daring or bold. He always said his heft kept him from joining in with the rest of the boys, when they skated over a ‘ticklish bender’ in the ice; and that it’d sure break with him. Same way about doin’ a lot of stunts. Now here he is, tryin’ to copy after Davy Jones in some of his monkey-shines; and makin’ the rest of us look like thirty cents when it comes to wantin’ to surround these here ferocious hoboes, and take ’em prisoners.”

Bumpus shrugged his fat shoulders, and tried to look indifferent.

“Huh! that’s because you never really knew what I had in me,” he said, calmly, though Thad could see the merry twinkle in his eyes; “It ain’t always the savage lookin’ feller that turns out a _real_ hero, when the time comes around. Often the quiet, modest, retirin’ sort of chap jumps in, and saves the drownin’ child.”

“Oh; and that’s you, is it?” demanded Giraffe, as he settled himself down in his blanket, ready to try for a little sleep.

“Everything seems to be comin’ my way,” replied Bumpus, proudly. “All you have to do is to wait for the turn of the tide. I’m feelin’ just joyful. let me tell you;—all but one thing;” he added, hastily. “If I only knew about that letter business. Did I deliver it at the bank; or was I silly enough to forget, and lose it? Sometimes I c’n just see myself walkin’ in through the door of that bank, and deliverin’ the old thing; then it all gets mixed up, and for the life of me I just can’t say one way or t’other. If one of you only remembered seeing me go in, or come out; or if I said anything about handin’ it over, it’d ease my mind a heap, now, I tell you.”

Every time Bumpus got to thinking about that one trouble he lapsed into silence, because he did not seem to get any sympathy from most of his chums; Giraffe and Davy in particular being very apt to taunt him on his poor memory. Step Hen was not inclined to say very much, lest he draw the vials of the fat boy’s wrath down on his own head; for as we know, Step Hen had a failing himself in the line of forgetting what he had done with things he owned.

Once more the boys crawled under their blankets. Each of them had managed to manufacture some sort of a pillow. One had taken his clothes bag, and this example several of the rest copied, as suiting their wants exactly. Bumpus, lacking enough material, had gone out to the canoe and brought in his old haversack, from which he extracted the very rubber foot bath which he had mentioned to his chums as belonging to Smithy. This he crammed half full of other things, and declared it made as soft a pillow as anybody wanted.

“Better cover that rubber with a towel, or something like it,” remarked Thad.

“But this feels so nice and cool,” complained Bumpus.

“It may now, all right, but after a while, when you sleep, it’ll begin to draw like everything; and the chances are, you’ll look like a boiled lobster on one side of your face by morning. I’ve been there myself, and know how it smarts and burns.”

“Thank you, Thad, for the advice, and I’ll take advantage of it right away,” declared the stout scout, sweetly. “Ain’t it the best thing ever to have a chum or two along, like Thad and Allan, who know so many things? Why, if it wasn’t for them, the rest of us would look like the babes in the woods.”

“Let up on that chatter, please, Bumpus,” grumbled Step Hen. “It’s gettin’ awful late, and we ought to been asleep long ago.”

“Yes, button up, Bumpus, I’d rather hear you snore than talk just now,” came from under the blanket that Giraffe had wrapped himself in, much after the style of a mummy.

“All right. I’ll just lie on my back, then, and try to accommodate you,” the other shot back.

“I’ve got one of my shoes handy, remember, and if you so much as give one little snort I mean to shy it over in that corner,” Giraffe threatened.

The guides had been talking quietly among themselves, and when Thad saw Sebattis open the door and slip out, he could give a pretty good guess what the Indian meant to do. Perhaps he suspected that the hoboes, lacking a boat with which to make their flight easier as long as the river continued navigable, might return in numbers later in the night, in order to help themselves from the stock of Oldtown canvas canoes owned by the scouts’ party.

Yes, the shrewd Penobscot Indian did not mean that such a disaster should come to pass; and doubtless he and his fellow-guides had arranged for sentry duty by turns during the entire night.

Thad felt perfectly secure with such wide-awake videttes to look out for the approach of the enemy. He would have gladly taken his turn on post if asked; but it seemed as though the three guides considered that a part of their duty. They had an easy enough task as it was, with these boys so willing to paddle in turn, make fires, help cook the meals, and do all sorts of things that generally the guide has fall on his shoulders alone.

Presently silence fell upon the cabin. The fire smouldered on the great hearth, and occasionally flamed up, only to die down again. If it got very low, some one who happened to be awake at the time, was supposed to quietly get up, and put more fuel on; this had been anticipated, and there was plenty under the shelter of the cabin roof.

Perhaps Bumpus believed that Giraffe really meant that dire threat he made in connection with his heavy shoe; at any rate he did not venture to lie on his back at all, and therefore failed to emit anything that could be called a snore.

Hours crept on, and the night wore away. Some of the scouts never woke up once from the time they dropped off to sleep until the delightful odor of boiling coffee gave them to understand that dawn was at hand, and Jim getting breakfast ready for the whole outfit.

That caused the last of them to climb out, and there was more or less chattering as they went outside to try and find water that was not icy cold, in order to wash their faces, and chase the last remnants of sleep from their eyes.

“I wonder,” said Bumpus, looking up at the brightening sky, and trying to keep from shivering as he dashed water over his rosy face; “if this is goin’ to be a good day for bee tree huntin’; because I’ll never be happy till I’ve seen what a real honey hole looks like.”

“But remember,” warned Giraffe, solemnly, “we ain’t fillin’ our kettles an’ bath tubs with the honey. I know where a heap of it c’n be stowed away right now; and that’s all I’m thinkin’ about. Hey! there’s Jim rattling the frying-pan with that big spoon. I reckon breakfast’s ready, before we are. Get a move on, Bumpus!”