CHAPTER X

THE PLASTER-MUD

“Where do you imagine he’s keeping himself?”

“Give it up!”

“Oh, he’s after bugs--you can make up your mind to that. Bugs or that two-tailed lizard.”

Thus Jerry asked a question, and Ned and Bob, in turn, answered it. The three motor boys were seated on the porch of Jerry’s house one warm summer day, about a week after Professor Snodgrass’s departure to Bellport. Since then they had seen nothing of him, and had only heard from him in that first brief note.

“Well, if he’s going with us he’d better get a move on,” observed Ned, idly whittling a stick. “We want to leave by the end of this week if we can.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Bob. “And I say, Jerry, I hope you have mapped out our route so it won’t be too far between eats.”

“Oh, I had you in mind all the while, Chunky,” laughed the tall lad. “There’s a restaurant, or corner grocery, about every five miles, and that ought to be close enough for you.”

“Huh! Don’t get fresh!” retorted Bob, who resented too pointed references to his eating propensity.

“No, but speaking seriously,” put in Ned, “the professor ought to be on hand if he is going with us. And I suppose he will want to go,” he added. “He hasn’t missed a trip since we went to Mexico. Say, there were some doings then!” he exclaimed with a sigh of regret.

“Oh, we may have just as much fun and excitement now,” commented Jerry. “We’ve got a long trip mapped out. And, if the professor doesn’t want to come with us, I suppose we’ll have to go without him. Though it’s more fun when he’s along.”

The boys had, as Jerry intimated, planned a trip for their summer vacation. It was to be made partly in their big auto, and partly by motor boat, and several hundred miles would be covered. They intended to tour the upper part of New York State, and end with a long voyage on Lake Champlain, whither their motor boat would be sent. But the unexpected delay caused by Professor Snodgrass remaining at Bellport had rather hampered them.

“What’s the matter with taking a trip over there and seeing what’s keeping him?” suggested Ned, after a pause. “He’ll be glad to see us, and, if he hasn’t caught that two-tailed lizard yet, he may be glad to change his base of operations. Let’s take a run over in the car. It isn’t far.”

“Go ahead!” agreed Jerry. “I’m with you.”

“Same here,” half-grunted Bob, for he was chewing gum, probably as a substitute for eating.

“Well, as long as we’ve made up our minds to hunt up the professor,” said Jerry, “we might as well make a full day of it, and go out to the swamp. I want to look around there.”

“What’s the good?” asked Ned. “Your mother has sold the land; hasn’t she?”

“Yes, that’s gone, and I suppose I ought to be satisfied with the price she got,” spoke the tall lad. “But, somehow, I can’t get over the notion that there’s something back of it all. Those fellows weren’t square and above-board, I’m positive of that.”

“Do you mean they cheated you?” asked Bob.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” replied Jerry, slowly. “They paid mother what they agreed to; but it was their veiled threats as to what they’d do if she didn’t sell that made me mad. They practically forced her to dispose of that land, though I’m not saying but what the condition of her money matters might not have made her sell it anyhow.”

“But I’ve a notion I’d like to see how things are going out there, and whether those fellows are really draining the place as they said they were. Come on. It won’t take long to go there in the boat, and then we’ll make the trip to Bellport in the auto.”

“I’m with you,” assented Ned. “Only you know your mother doesn’t own any land there now, and we may be ordered off as trespassers.”

“I’ll take that chance,” returned Jerry.

A little later, in the motor boat, they were winding their way up Cabbage Creek.

“It hasn’t changed much,” observed Bob, as they came within sight of the swamp. “There’s as much muddy water as ever, in spite of their drainage ditches.”

“I’m not so sure they were drainage ditches,” observed Jerry, who was at the wheel.

The boat swung around a bend in the sluggish stream, and as it did so Ned uttered a cry.

“Look!” he shouted. “They’ll never let us land there!”

He pointed to a large sign, and, even from where they were, the boys could read that all trespassers were warned off under the “full penalty of the law.”

“Hum!” grumbled Jerry. “They didn’t lose any time. I wonder what’s up?”

“Let’s go as near as we can and see,” suggested Bob, and he steered the boat to the usual landing place. But that was as far as it could go. Barbed wire stretched across the right of way by which Mrs. Hopkins’s land had formerly been reached, and there was another sign which warned trespassers away.

Across the swamp a number of men, with big rubber boots, and long-handled shovels, could be seen working. And it needed no very intent observer to see that they were taking out quantities of the yellow clay. It was not excavating work at all; it was more like mining--mining for mud.

“I thought so!” remarked Jerry. “But what’s it good for? That’s what gets me. What in the world are they doing with it?”

“I guess that’s for us to find out,” spoke Ned. “We can’t go any closer, that’s evident.”

“No,” agreed Jerry, in a low voice.

As he spoke there was a movement among the diggers, and a figure detached itself from among them and came forward.

“For the love of stamps!” cried Bob. “Look who’s here--Noddy Nixon!”

It was indeed the old enemy of the motor boys who was advancing toward them. They had not seen him in some months--not since the last time he had made trouble for them.

“Hey! You fellows want to clear out of here!” said Noddy, with his supercilious air. “Vamoose, or you’ll be arrested!”

“Oh, is that so? Who says so?” returned Bob.

“I say so!” and Noddy bristled up like an angry rooster. “This is private land, and I order you away.”

“Who are you?” asked Ned, with a laugh. “Seems to me we’ve seen you before.”

“Don’t get fresh!” advised Noddy. “I’m in charge here, and I order you away. This land belongs to the Universal Plaster Company, and I’m assistant foreman. They made me that when they bought my father’s swamp land. Now you get away!”

“What’s the row, Noddy?” asked a voice, and the boys saw Fussel coming toward their enemy.

“These fellows won’t get away!” blustered Noddy.

“I should say we wouldn’t!” snapped Jerry. “This creek is public property, and we have a right to be here.”

“Well, don’t you come on this land!”

“Wait until we do, before you order us off,” suggested Ned.

“They aren’t on our property, Noddy,” observed Fussel, quietly. “You boys can read, I suppose?” he asked, and his voice was a bit sharp.

“Oh, we’ve been to school,” replied Ned, easily.

“Well, just observe what the sign says--that’s all,” the foreman went on. “You haven’t any rights here now, you know,” he said, addressing Jerry.

“And we don’t intend to claim any,” was Jerry’s answer. “At least not now.” There was a significance in his tone that made Fussel look at him in a peculiar manner.

“I guess you don’t need to stand guard, Noddy,” went on the foreman, “and I need you over at the work. Come on.”

“You needn’t worry. We won’t take any of your yellow clay,” called out Jerry.

“You’d better not!” blustered Noddy. “That clay is----”

“That’ll do!” interrupted Fussel, sharply. “Go back where you belong,” and Noddy, rather taken down by this rebuke, slunk off.

Fussel, as though he knew the signs would not be disregarded, had turned away, and Jerry, after standing up in the boat, so as to get a good view of the men digging in the yellow mud, threw in the clutch and started the craft on her return trip.

“What in the world do you imagine that yellow clay is good for, Jerry?” Ned remarked.

“I haven’t the least idea in the world, but I’m going to find out. Professor Snodgrass said it was valueless, but he may have been mistaken. I’m going to find out what it is good for.”