Captain Ted Part 21

Ted had heard the slackers describe how they made s.h.i.+ft for the night when they had to camp out on a marsh island or on a damp tussock in the flooded forests, and he now proceeded to strip bark off the cypress trees with the aid of the hatchet. This was spread on the ground under quant.i.ties of Spanish moss which was to be used as both bed and covering. The moss was damp, water-soaked, in fact; but even so they would be warmer covered with it than if they lay exposed to the currents of raw air.

By the time these preparations were completed it was dark. Ted thought they ought to remain awake and keep more or less active all night, in order to stave off severe colds; but they were both too exhausted to persevere in such efforts. Seated on the cus.h.i.+oned cypress bark, and leaning their backs against a tree, the wet moss drawn up over them, they soon subsided into quiet of limb and tongue, and after a long while fell into troubled, dream-haunted slumber.

"We'll never get home," moaned Hubert, breaking down at last, while still they talked, sitting there in the thick darkness.

Ted made no reply at once. He was thinking how different had been the experience of the heroes of romance wrecked on unknown islands or lost in desolate places. None of these, so far as he could remember, had ever suffered such continuing miseries of body and mind as he and Hubert had to endure; there always seemed to be a wreck at hand with plenty of good things on board to eat, and the castaways could at least manage to sleep warm and dry.

"We are going to starve to death in this swamp," moaned Hubert.

"Not a bit of it," said Ted with forced cheerfulness, cutting off abruptly his own complaining train of thought. "Now, Hu, you are not really giving up, I know; you only think you are," he continued, leaning affectionately against his cousin. "Brace up like the man you really are. Just think how much better off we are than some people. Think of our soldiers in the trenches at night in bad weather. In some ways we are as uncomfortable, but think how much safer we are. There are no Germans to sneak poison-gas over on us in the dark."

"There are no Germans, but there are moccasins," said Hubert dolefully.

"I'll just bet that was the only one on this island," Ted declared stoutly, although he feared there were at least a dozen. "Don't think about them. Think of what we are going to do tomorrow, and we are going to get out of this swamp--or pretty nearly. Things come out all right after a while; I never saw it fail. You know, Hu, I like to think of the grand pluck of old Socrates--I've heard Uncle Walter quote him--when he said: 'No evil can befall a good man, whether he be alive or dead.' That means, if we are truthful and manly, and harm n.o.body, and do our best, we're all right, or going to be all right, whatever happens. And you and I are goin' to be all right soon, too. You'll see."

Whether it was the result of this comforting philosophy or sheer physical exhaustion, Hubert became quiet and soon fell asleep. But it was long before poor Ted, sitting alone in the dark, could do for himself what he had so manfully done for his cousin. If a discerning eye had looked down through the night, helplessness, even despair, would have been seen in his face. And then, all at once, somehow help came to Ted, too; his courage returned, and with it a certain restfulness of body which presently brought sleep.

XIX

As the first gray light of morning struggled through the mist still enveloping the marsh, Ted started up and looked about him. His attention was at once attracted to a white sand-hill crane fully five feet in height standing on a point of the little island about fifty yards distant.

Seizing his long stick, the boy crept toward the fowl behind the screen offered by the ca.s.sina bushes. He hoped to knock it down, thinking that even the fishy flesh of a crane would be found palatable by two half-starved boys. But the wary bird spread wide its wings and flew away in the mist long before Ted was near enough to use his weapon. He smiled faintly as he faced his failure, calling to mind the story told him when a very little boy that he could catch any bird in existence if he could get near enough to put salt on its tail. He remembered at least one unsuccessful attempt to catch a mocking-bird by such means, before he appreciated the joke, and reflected that it would be about as easy to salt a crane's tail as to creep up near enough to knock it down with a stick.

Both Ted and Hubert found themselves suffering with sore throat and their limbs were numb and cold; but they felt more or less rested and their hunger was less sharp than on the night before. On the whole, they felt better, and were eager to go forward in the hope of improving their condition. Ted said that if they could see the island they had left the day before, he would favor going straight back there; but that if they attempted to return in the fog, there were a thousand chances to one that they would go astray, and he therefore thought that they had better take the risk of pus.h.i.+ng forward. Hubert agreed, preferring to leave the decision to his more experienced cousin in any case.

So they struggled through the "trembling" and breaking "earth"

surrounding the little island, got their log afloat, pushed it out into the little stream, and swam with the slow current as on the day before.

Although their exertions soon began to tell on them, weakened for lack of food as they were, they pushed forward heroically for hours, landing to rest two or three times on the dreary and inhospitable "houses."

Toward mid-afternoon, while swimming with one arm over the rear end of the log, Hubert's feet became entangled in the rushes; and, losing his hold on the log, he was drawn beneath the water just as a faint cry escaped him. Ted looked back in time to see him go down, and, swimming to his aid, succeeded in extricating him after he had swallowed several gulps of water and was partially strangled.

Meanwhile the log had floated with the current and lodged among the "bonnets" nearly two hundred yards down stream. This distance Ted was obliged to swim without artificial aid, meanwhile supporting Hubert, who was almost helpless. The last few yards was the scene of a desperate struggle to keep above water until the log could be grasped.

After resting on their log until somewhat revived, they painfully made their way to the nearest "house," realizing that they could travel no further that day. Indeed, Ted secretly feared that they might never be able to leave the island without help, so feverish and exhausted had both he and Hubert become. The first thing he did after landing and resting, therefore, was to tie his handkerchief to one end of his long stick and thrust the other end into the soft ground in an open spot, hoping thus to attract the attention of any boat that might pa.s.s the neighborhood.

That night was even more trying and uncomfortable than the preceding.

They were again unable to start a fire, and lay down as before on cypress bark and damp moss, the hunger that gnawed them becoming more and more hard to endure. Though he made a brave effort, Ted found himself unable to appear to be as cheerfully optimistic as on the night before. In his feverishness and misery words often failed him, but he unselfishly maintained an att.i.tude of tenderness and sympathy toward Hubert whose lachrymal ducts knew no restraint and discharged their entire store of tears.

"Never mind, we'll get out of this to-morrow," promised Ted in his gentlest voice, over and over; but, struggle as he might, there was lack of genuine hopefulness in his tone.

The morning of the third day dawned bright and clear. Not a vestige of the fog was to be seen anywhere on the great marsh. Although now really ill, their heads throbbing with fever and pain, the boys felt cheered by this change. In every direction except one they were unable to see anything but an expanse of marsh dotted with "houses"; but in that one direction they clearly discerned, not more than two or three miles away, a wall of green pines, indicating either the mainland or a large island.

With great satisfaction they noted also that the intervening marsh, though covered with water at points, was not of a character to necessitate swimming.

Hopeful once more, they started eagerly toward the green wall of pines, soon finding, however, that it was no easy matter to cross this portion of the marsh, scantily covered with water though it was. Much of it was treacherous quagmire, and the boys sometimes sank down suddenly in the mud to their armpits. Once Hubert sank up to his neck, and nothing but his long stick saved him. They had left their log behind, but fortunately carried their long poles.

It was near noon when they at length reached the high land where the pine trees grew. After plunging into a neighboring pool of comparatively clear water in order to wash the mud and slime from their bodies and clothing, the boys climbed wearily up the slope and lay down in the warm suns.h.i.+ne, shading their faces with palmetto leaves. Here they rested several hours, for the most part in troubled, feverish slumber.

Rousing himself at last, Ted coaxed Hubert to his feet, and again they pushed forward wearily. The vegetation of the island, if island it were, was found to be unusually dense and wild. After gaining the crest of the slope, where, on the other islands, a comparatively open pine ridge was usually found, they were confronted by the brambles of the jungle and immense thickets of blackjack or scrub-oak. An hour later they emerged upon an open pine barren, where the underbrush consisted chiefly of tyty, hemleaf and fan-palmetto. Here progress was easier, but now Hubert fell rather than sat upon the gra.s.s, declaring that he could go no further.

"I feel as if my head would burst," he said, staring about him stupidly.

After trying in vain to encourage him to further effort, Ted, who really felt no better, decided to push on alone.

"You stay here and rest, Hu," he said, "while I look around for a good place to camp. The matches are dry now and I think we can have a fire to-night."

It was now late in the afternoon and Ted realized that he must exert himself. Pus.h.i.+ng forward, he chanced upon something like a trail, followed it for nearly a mile, and, just as the sun sank out of sight, he stole guardedly through an oak thicket, halted on its borders, and looked into an open s.p.a.ce where a camp fire burned.

Everywhere in the little clearing there were evidences of a long sojourn. The stumps of several trees showed that the felling had been done months, perhaps a year or more, before. Curing hides hung against the trees; tools and cooking utensils lay about on the gra.s.s. A pot swung over the fire from a tripod of three long sticks, and in it there evidently simmered a savory stew. No dog was aroused by Ted's approach, and the boy looked long, without interruption, at everything, including the sole occupant of the clearing, an old man with a long white beard who sat on the ground near the fire, his back to the observer. Ted turned quietly, retraced his steps through the thicket, and hurried back over the trail.

"Oh, Hubert," he cried, as soon as he was within speaking distance, "I've found a camp and an old man cooking supper!"

But the younger boy merely looked up stupidly and spoke of his aching head. Resolutely employing all his remaining strength, Ted lifted Hubert to his feet, and, with his arm around him, coaxing and dragging, he forced him slowly along the trail toward the stranger's camp. Arrived within the fire-lighted circle just after night had fallen, he allowed Hubert to collapse upon the gra.s.s, and then, holding out appealing hands, he cried:

"Help us--please help us!"

The old man started up in amazement and, judging from the expression of his face, even alarm. He appeared not to have heard the approaching footsteps because of deafness, and now seemed to expect a further invasion of the privacy of his camp.

"Who're you?" he asked in a bewildered way. "Whur in the d.i.c.kance did you boys come from?"

Ted did not answer. His remaining strength failed him, and he dropped upon the gra.s.s by Hubert's side, but his eyes still appealed.

"Are you sick?"

"Starving," answered Ted, hardly above a whisper.

A wave of compa.s.sion swept over the old man. He almost leaped to the fire; and, quickly dipping something from the pot into a tin cup, he blew his breath upon it several times in order to cool it, then hurried back to the prostrate boys, knelt beside them, and offered the cup to Ted. But the boy gently pushed it away and motioned toward his cousin, indicating that Hubert was in the greater need and should be attended to first.

Having partaken of the nourishment which presently was offered him in turn, Ted fell asleep, or fainted--he could not afterward tell which--and there followed a blank. When he again opened his eyes and looked about him, he lay on a bed of moss covered with blankets in what was evidently a log cabin of one large room. In a few moments the door, which stood ajar, was thrown wide, and the old man of the long white beard entered the room, a cheerful expression appearing on his kindly face as he met the boy's eye.

"You feel better now, I reckon," he said, seating himself on a pile of moss near Ted's bed.

"Where am I?" The boy's voice was weak but eager.

"In my house," was the rea.s.suring reply. "You've been pretty bad off--sort o' wanderin' in yer mind. But you're all right now."

"Where's Hubert?" The boy's voice was now stronger, but indicated anxiety.

"He's outside. He got up and went out this mornin'. He's all right. He had fever from cold and exposure, but you was the sickest of the two.

You've been on a harder strain, I reckon."

"How long have I been here?"

"Three days. I was afraid it was goin' to be typhoid, but it was jes' a nervous fever from starvation and so much exposure. It was mighty high, though, for a while. T'other boy tole me how you-all's been lost and a-wanderin' in the swamp. You boys sure has seen sights."