The High School Boys' Fishing Trip Part 27

Dave took hold of one of young Holmes' suspender straps, pulling him back.

"You simpleton," expostulated Darry, "are you going to spoil d.i.c.k's reward by letting a chump cook attend to the trout? d.i.c.k wants to cook his trout for himself, but we'll do everything else.

I'll appoint myself to make the coffee for all hands."

d.i.c.k soon had a pan full of trout ready for his own plate. As he seated himself at the table he was fully conscious of how tired and sore he was from the afternoon of whipping up and down stream after these handsome, speckled fish, but he was careful not to admit his fatigue to the others, who, also, were very tired.

d.i.c.k had to fry a second pan of trout, eating the last one of the lot he had caught, ere he found his appet.i.te satisfied.

Then, with only the light of a lantern on the table, the boys sat about sipping their coffee and feeling supremely contented with their day of effort and its results.

"There are not so many mosquitoes over here," Tom announced.

"They haven't found us out yet," chuckled Danny Grin. "They will do so, later."

"I'm ready for bed any time the word comes," confessed Harry Hazelton.

"But, see here, fellows," suggested Dave soberly, "we're now right in the enemy's country. That is to say, we're on the same side of the lake with the man of mystery and his companions, if he has any. I don't doubt that resentful eyes have watched the erecting of this camp on its present site."

"Sorry to have hurt anyone's feelings," yawned Tom. "Still, I guess we've as much right here as anyone else."

"But the point is this," Dave went on. "Last night some persons must have crossed the lake in order to annoy us. To-night we're on the same side of the lake with them. We'll be much more accessible to the people who object so strenuously to our presence."

"Where did these unknown people find a boat for crossing the lake?"

queried Reade. "We couldn't find one anywhere until the canoe was left at our camp."

"Anyone might have a boat or canoe here, and keep it hidden easily enough when not in use," Dave a.s.serted. "Just as we---have brought our canoe up here and hidden it in the tent, for instance. Now, we'll all have to admit that we're extremely likely to have unwelcome visitors here to-night? Are we going to keep a guard?"

"It might not be a bad idea to keep someone on watch through the night," d.i.c.k suggested.

"I'll stand the first watch trick," proposed Dave. "It need be only an hour long. I'll drink some more coffee, and then walk a while, so as to be sure to keep awake."

"I'll take the second trick," nodded d.i.c.k.

The schedule for watch tricks was quickly made up. Then all but Dave hastily sought their cots. Darkness was not an hour old when Dave was the only member of the camp awake. Had the high school boys been less healthy and st.u.r.dy their hearty suppers might have summoned the nightmare, but they slept on soundly.

d.i.c.k, however, stretched, gaped, then sprang up when Darry called him. Some of the others, when their turns came, did not respond as readily, and had to be dragged from their cots and stood upright before they were thoroughly awake.

It was shortly after one o'clock in the morning when Tom Reade, then on watch, stepped lightly into the tent, pa.s.sing through the round of the cots, shaking each sleeper in turn.

"Those of you who want to listen to something interesting, get up instantly!" Tom exclaimed in a low voice.

Three boys drowsily rolled over, going immediately back into sound slumber. d.i.c.k and Dave, however, got up, pulling on their shoes.

"What's all that racket across the lake?" was d.i.c.k's prompt question as he stood in the doorway of the tent.

"That comes from the former camp site," chuckled Tom.

"Guns!" cried Dave Darrin in amazement.

"It sounds like a big fusillade," d.i.c.k cried, as he stepped out into the night.

"But surely no one can be trying to attack our camp, thinking we are still there," Tom protested. "We don't know any people who are wicked enough to plan an attack upon our camp."

"No," d.i.c.k agreed. "But this much is sure. There are those who dislike us enough to try to spoil our rest night after night."

Dave began to laugh merrily.

"I half believe it's Dodge and Bayliss," he remarked quietly.

"I don't," Reade objected. "Both of them are too lazy to motor up into the wilderness each night, over such rough roads, all the way from Gridley. No, no! It's someone else, though who it is I can't imagine. If it were the man of the lake mystery, or any of his people, they'd be likely to know that we're on this side of the lake."

From the edge of the timber line near by came the sound of a crackling twig, followed by a groan as of a soul in torment.

Wheeling like a flash, Tom Reade produced the pocket flash lamp.

Staring toward the boys, his face outlined between the close-growing trunks of two spruce trees, were the startling features of a man.

"That's he---the Man of the Haunting Face!" came from Tom Reade in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Then we'll get him!" cried d.i.c.k Prescott, leaping forward. "Hold the light on him!"

CHAPTER XV

THE SCREAM THAT STARTED A RACE

Yet even as the three boys dashed toward the two spruce trees the light went out.

Tom pressed frantically on the spring of the lamp as he ran, but the lamp gave forth a flickering gleam that was little better than no light at all.

The long use of the lamp in the cave had weakened the storage battery.

"Give us the light!" called Dave, as they reached the tree.

"Can't! The battery's on a strike," answered Reade grimly.

d.i.c.k Prescott, who was ahead of his companions, now halted, whispering to the others to do the same.

The man they sought had vanished. No betraying sounds came to indicate where he had gone.

"Dave and I'll stay here," whispered d.i.c.k. "Tom, run back for a lantern. Hustle!"

Fifteen minutes of eager searching, after the lantern was brought, failed to give any clue to the whereabouts of the man whom they sought.

"This is more ghostly than human," laughed young Prescott.