CHAPTER IX

A HURRIED DEPARTURE

Three men were seated about a table in a small room. On the table were several instruments, a delicate scale, glass vessels and test tubes, a burning alcohol lamp that flickered under a pan, in which boiled, bubbled and steamed some odd-smelling mixture.

“Isn’t it almost done?” asked one of the men. “It seems to me, Professor Bailey, that it has cooked long enough.”

“What do you say, Professor Snodgrass?” was the reply of the one appealed to.

“Hum! Well, you might put a little more of the clay in, and add a bit more glycerine. I think that would make it about the right consistency,” and the little bald-headed man bent over the steaming pan.

“All right, here goes a little more of the clay,” and the third member of the trio, who in the dim light could be identified as Rickford Fussel, put in the pan some of the yellow mud that he and his men had dug from the swamp. “There’s plenty of it--that’s one consolation,” he laughed, “and if it proves to be what we want, why, there’s a fortune in it.”

“Several of them, I should say,” was the opinion of the man who had been called Professor Bailey. He looked at Professor Snodgrass for confirmation.

“Yes,” admitted the little scientist, nodding his head thoughtfully. “There is no reason why this mixture should not replace the old-fashioned poultice and mustard plaster. It seems to be highly efficacious. But I want to make that final test on a large swelling, as I told you, before I give my deciding opinion.”

“And you want to be sure the mixture is just right before you try it; is that it?” asked Fussel.

“That’s it,” said Professor Snodgrass. “You say you have the subject on whom it can be tried?”

“Yes, I’ve got the subject. He’s one of our workmen, and his knee is badly swelled from rheumatism. If this yellow clay, with the medicines we have put in it, will cure that, it will do other things in the medical line that will make it worth all the money we paid for the land, and more too.”

“I think so,” responded Professor Snodgrass, gravely.

Again he bent over the pan that was simmering above the alcohol flame. He put in some more of the yellow clay, that was in a box on the table, and added some glycerine and other things, stirring the mixture slowly. A pleasant, aromatic odor filled the room.

“I think we might now call in the man on whom we are to try the experiment,” said Dr. Snodgrass, after taking some of the mixture, and examining it.

Fussel went to the door and called:

“Here you are, Bill!”

A man limped and shuffled into the room.

“How’s the pain?” asked Professor Bailey, a man with curiously shifting eyes. He never, except by chance, looked you squarely in the face.

“The pain is fierce!” exclaimed Bill.

“And the swelling?” asked Fussel.

“Worse! My knee is as big as your head!”

“That’s good,” and Fussel rubbed his hands.

“Good!” cried Bill, indignantly. “Huh!”

“Well, I mean it’s good for our experiment, and it’ll be good for you when the pain is gone and the swelling reduced. Now put out your leg and we’ll clap the plaster on.”

The man, whose trouser leg was slit to the knee, exhibited a red, inflamed and swollen leg. He could hardly move it.

“Now look here!” blustered Bill, “no monkey business, you know! I’m willing to stand for this experiment, ’cause you paid me, and ’cause none of the other doctors seem to do any good. But no hocus-pocus! No cutting, you know.”

“No, nothing like that,” agreed Fussel, smilingly.

“Perhaps I had better explain,” Professor Snodgrass said.

“Perhaps,” agreed Professor Bailey.

“My friends here,” began Dr. Snodgrass (and how Jerry would have stared had he heard the scientist address Fussel as a “friend”), “my friends,” Professor Snodgrass went on, “have accidentally discovered a valuable medicinal clay.”

“We discovered it,” broke in Fussel, “but it wasn’t until we appealed to you that you suggested a use for it.”

“Well, be that as it may,” went on the professor. “They have found a deposit of a curious clay that, when there is mixed with it certain kinds of medicine, acts as a most efficient poultice, or plaster.”

“Maybe you know what you’re talkin’ about, but I don’t,” grumbled Bill. “All I know is that my legs hurts.”

“Exactly,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Well, I will make it more simple. Did your wife ever put a mustard plaster on you for pain?”

“Indeed she has, and it burned like fire, too!”

“Ah, yes, I expect so. And did you ever have on a flaxseed poultice?” resumed Mr. Snodgrass.

“Once, when I had pneumonia.”

“Well, this new plaster, made of medicated clay, takes the place of a mustard plaster, or a poultice. It will draw out pain, soreness and swelling, as we have proved in several cases. We now wish to try it on a larger scale, and with a severe case. It will not hurt you, and it may benefit you greatly. Are you willing to risk it?”

“I’ll risk most anything to get rid of this pain!” cried Bill. “It’s fierce! Go ahead with your plaster.”

The mixture in the pan was stirred some more. Then a part of it was spread on a cloth, and, when it was cool enough, it was put on the inflamed knee.

“Ouch! It burns!” cried Bill, jumping up.

“It will soon cool,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Sit still!”

The knee was bound up, and Bill limped away.

“We’ll look at it in the morning,” said Fussel. “Then you’ll be much better.”

“If I’m any worse I’ll be dead,” grunted Bill.

“It is most fortunate that we met you, Professor Snodgrass,” spoke Professor Bailey, when the things had been cleared from the table. “We thought there was some value in the clay of the swamp, but it needed your specific line of knowledge to bring it out. We are deeply indebted to you.”

“Oh, not so much as you imagine,” was the professor’s answer. “My accidental visit to the swamp resulted in the finding of several valuable entomological specimens. And I have not yet despaired of finding the two-tailed lizard here. I must resume my search to-morrow.”

The professor, who was stopping at the hotel in Bellport, sought his room, leaving the two men, in the house they had engaged not far from the hostelry, gazing thoughtfully at each other.

“He put us on the right track,” said Fussel.

“He sure did,” agreed his companion. “And as soon as we have the widow’s land we won’t need to keep under cover any longer. Once we have the deed we can announce our discovery, and I guess the stock of the Universal Plaster Company won’t soar! Oh, no!”

“It will be a big thing,” agreed the other. “Medicated clay--no more flaxseed poultices or mustard plasters. The new method will receive the indorsement of all physicians. There’ll be a fortune in it for all of us.”

“And the best of it is that no one around here suspects what we are up to,” went on Fussel. “We’ve fooled ’em all!”

“And we mustn’t let this Snodgrass give us away,” cautioned Bailey. “We must get rid of him, now that he has shown us how to use the clay.”

“That’s right. I hope it works on Bill.”

And it did. The new plaster mixture did all that was expected of it. The swelling was all gone from Bill’s inflamed knee next morning, and the pain much less.

“I thought it would work!” cried Professor Snodgrass, as he came over from his hotel to look at the patient. He went into a long explanation of the process of the plaster--how it contracted the small capillaries, and brought the internal poisons to the surface, where the clay absorbed them.

“I don’t care how it did it, as long as my swelling is gone down, and I can go to work!” cried Bill.

The new plaster was a success. They had proved it before on small cases, and now, on this severe one, their opinions had been confirmed.

“And there’s clay enough in that swamp to make us all rich!” cried Fussel to Professor Bailey, when they were alone.

“Yes, but we must get the Hopkins tract,” was the answer. “The best and the most of the clay is on that. We must have her land--by hook or crook.”

And so, while Professor Snodgrass was busy looking for the two-tailed lizard, and other rare specimens, and, incidentally, giving advice to his new “friends” about the yellow medical clay, negotiations for obtaining the land of Mrs. Hopkins were under way. They were nearly concluded, when, one night, Professor Snodgrass, who was calling on Professor Bailey and Fussel, remarked:

“Well, I don’t believe I am going to find that lizard here. I will leave the hotel and go back to my friend, Jerry Hopkins. He and his chums must be about ready to start on a trip. I am always lucky when I go with them. I shall surely find my two-tailed lizard!”

Fussel and Professor Bailey stared at each other. Then they looked at Professor Snodgrass. The same thought was in the minds of both.

“Are--are you a friend of Jerry Hopkins?” asked Fussel.

“Why, yes. I’ve known him for some years. He and his chums have often taken me with them on their trips. I’ve been with them ever since we discovered a buried city in Mexico. Oh, what rare specimens I got there! Those were happy days. But now I need that two-tailed lizard, and they may be going to the very place where I can find it.”

“And where is that?” asked Fussel, winking at his companion over the professor’s head.

“Oh, I can’t say, as to that. But no matter where the boys go I am sure to have some luck.”

“And you want a two-tailed lizard?” mused Fussel, thoughtfully.

“Indeed I do!”

There was a rapid interchange of looks between the two conspirators.

“Say!” suddenly exclaimed Fussel, “why didn’t I think of it before? You know that shack of mine--that hunting cabin up in the Maine mountains, Professor Bailey?”

“Of course I know it, Rick. What about it?”

“Why, don’t you remember those queer-looking, crawling things that used to bother us so. Weren’t they lizards?”

“Why, yes, now I come to think of it; they were!”

“And didn’t they have a sort of double tail; not two tails side by side, but one on top of the other--the short one on top; didn’t they?”

“By Jove! So they did!” cried Professor Bailey, clapping his hand on his leg as though the idea had just occurred to him.

“Maybe they’re just what the professor is looking for,” went on Fussel. “I didn’t dream of it before, but those were a sort of two-tailed lizard.”

Professor Snodgrass, with a hopeful look on his face, gazed from one to the other.

“Gentlemen, is this so?” he asked, eagerly.

“Well, of course I don’t know what sort of a two-tailed lizard you are after,” observed Fussel, slowly, “but the kind you want might be up around a place I have in the mountains. If you like, I’ll let you stay there and hunt for the things. Glad to do it, in fact.”

“I’ll go!” cried the professor, with enthusiasm. “Where is it? How do I get there? Tell me about it!”

They did, in a jumbled, confused way which showed how quickly they had made up the story between them. But the professor was not critical. All he thought of were the lizards.

“I’ll go!” he decided. “I’ll leave for Cresville at once, and get the things I left with Mrs. Hopkins. Then I go. The boys can join me later if they wish. I’ll go to Cresville at once!”

“No, you don’t need to do that!” exclaimed Fussel, again winking at the other professor. “You can get a train from here. In fact, one leaves this afternoon.”

“But I have many things, and some rare specimens, at the Hopkins house.”

“No matter. We’ll send there and get them for you, and forward them to you. Just write a note, or order, saying you want them. We’ll attend to the rest.”

“All right,” agreed Professor Snodgrass. He was in a sort of daze. All that stood out clearly in his mind was the chance of getting the two-tailed lizards.

While he was writing the note to Mrs. Hopkins, requesting her to deliver to the bearer his possessions, Fussel and Bailey went out of the room.

“Whew!” exclaimed Bailey. “A close call, that!”

“I should say so! I never knew he was a friend of the Hopkins chap, or I’d never have asked him to make an examination of this clay.”

“Well, we’ve done it now. It’s too late to be sorry.”

“But no damage is done, if he doesn’t tell how valuable it is until we get possession of the land. After that we don’t care what happens.”

“No; but we must get him out of the way before he has a chance to talk. We’ve got to ship him right off. He mustn’t even see the Hopkins lad, or his chums.”

“You’re right; he mustn’t. We’ll have to keep him on the move. Fortunately he’s so wrapped up in this lizard business he won’t think of anything else. Now we’ll stick by him until the train leaves. Once he’s up in the mountains, hunting for lizards that don’t exist, we’ll be safe. We’ll have the land in our possession in a few days.”

The two conspirators took the note the professor had written. Then, never leaving him for an instant, they got him ready for his trip to the mountains, where Fussel really did own a hunting cabin. It was unoccupied, and was to be placed at the disposal of the professor.

“There you are now!” exclaimed Fussel, as he and Professor Bailey went to the station with Dr. Snodgrass. “Just in time for the train.”

“And you won’t forget to send for my things at Mrs. Hopkins’s house?” asked the professor.

“We’ll attend to that,” promised Bailey.

“And you’ll tell her and the boys, why I had to leave so hurriedly--in order that I might not miss a chance to get those lizards; will you?”

“Oh, yes, we’ll tell them,” glibly promised Fussel.

The train pulled in. The professor was hurried aboard with some articles of wearing apparel hastily provided for him.

“Sorry to have to hustle you off in this way,” said Fussel, as the train pulled out, “but you really had no time to go to Cresville, you see.”

“No, indeed,” added his fellow conspirator. “Those lizards are scary things. They’re here to-day and gone to-morrow.”

“Don’t forget to send on my things!” cried the professor from the car window, “and don’t neglect to tell the boys to come and see me!”