The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey Part 5

Two days later he returned with a check for one hundred and fifty dollars, and a letter expressing the professor's complete satisfaction at having obtained the fine specimens. When he returned to Oakvale again, Mrs. Kenyon went with him, in his care.

The parting of mother and son was a tearful one, though Ralph, choking down the big lump in his throat, tried manfully to cheer his mother with every hope of recovery.

"It won't be very long before you're home again and everything'll seem wonderful and bright and new to you, mother," he said. "And don't you worry about me, for I'm getting along fine. I can hobble around quite spry with this crutch. And Tom and Arthur are on deck, you know. We'll behave ourselves and not get into any mischief, and by the time you're home again we'll have done all the planting.

Good-bye, good-bye! I'll write to you every day."

CHAPTER VI

A NOCTURNAL VISITOR

Tom Sherwood threw out his arms and yawned loudly. "I'm sleepy," he mumbled. "Guess I'll turn in, if you fellows are going to sit up much longer."

"Good idea, Tom," commented Ralph, looking up from the letter he was writing. "You've been making a holy show of yourself for the last half hour, and I've been expecting every minute to see you dislocate your jaw."

"It's being out in this air all day and doing such a lot of manual labor," said Tom, as he staggered to his feet.

"Oh, say, I hope you're not doing too much! You know, Tom, you're not used to farm work." Ralph laid down his pen and blotted the letter with much deliberation. His pale face, from which the freckles had faded noticeably during a week of indoor confinement, wore an expression of deep concern. "And it's not easy, I can tell you!"

Arthur Cameron chuckled. Though he said nothing, the expression on his face was one of such utter disbelief that even Tom noticed it and turned on him, frowning.

"Well, what are you looking at me like that for?" he demanded, without being able to hide a grin. "Haven't I been exercising?

Haven't I? What have you got to say about it? Didn't I spade up that old melon-patch and plant sixteen rows of carrots in it, this afternoon?"

"I never said you didn't, old scout," said Arthur.

"I know you've been working like a cart-horse, Tom," interposed Ralph, who had hobbled around the fields for the first time that day, directing the labors of his friends. "You and Art have done wonders all week, and I'll never be able to thank you enough for all the help you've given me. It's simply great to have such pals as you two! And mother'll be delighted to know that everything's going so swell. I had a letter from Doctor Kane to-day---guess I told you? He said the operation was very successful and she's doing finely."

"Mighty glad to know it!" Tom declared warmly. "Did he say when she could come home?"

"In a few days. But you fellows can't leave then! No, sir-ee!

We're going to have some fun after all this work is over, and mother and I will want you to stay and loaf for a while. I can show you where to get some dandy photos of nesting birds, and I know where a pair of red foxes have a kennel every spring.

You can take pictures of the vixen and her cubs, if you go about it carefully at the right time of day."

Arthur's eyes shone with pleasant antic.i.p.ation. He was delighted with the prospect of getting some good photographs to show the boys in Pioneer Camp. But Tom, though he also looked forward eagerly to the reunion of the troop at camp, shook his head with regret at the thought of leaving the farm. Ralph had told him more about the dispute over the boundary, and about his father's dreams of finding iron ore on the land; Tom was interested, for Ralph's sake, in having the land surveyed and examined.

"Why don't you go to bed now, too?" asked Tom, when they had finished talking about animal photography. "You need the rest, I know, Ralph."

"I'm going, in a few minutes, just as soon as I finish this letter.

Trot along, boys!"

"Well, good night," grunted Arthur, as he disappeared into his room.

"Good night."

"Don't be too long at it, Ralph."

"No, I won't. Good night, old top."

His gaze followed Tom as his sleepy guest slouched out of the room, and when he heard Tom's heavy footsteps on the creaking stairs, he took up his pen once more. Propping his head with his other hand, and shading his eyes from the lamplight, he wrote on. In a few minutes the springs of Tom's bed creaked violently as he dropped down on it, and soon the sound of his heavy breathing in the room above showed that he was dead to the world.

Ralph's eyelids began to droop drowsily. In vain he struggled to keep them open. He put his head down on the table, with a sigh, and before he realized it he was asleep.

The next thing he knew was that he found himself sitting up, wide awake. He had a distinct impression that he had been roused by the sound of a human voice. How long he had slept he could not tell.

The lamp had gone out and the room was in inky darkness. As he sat listening, all at once he heard a sound of some one moving about the room.

"Wonder if we forgot to lock the kitchen door?" was his first thought. Then he spoke aloud: "Who's there?"

No answer.

"Who is it?" Ralph demanded, in a louder tone. "What are you doing?

What do you want?"

Still no answer. Only an impressive and uncanny silence.

Reaching out for his walking stick, which lay on the table beside him, Ralph got up from the chair without noise or further ado, and took a few steps forward. As he did so, a burly form crashed against him in the darkness, knocking him down. Unhurt, though considerably startled, Ralph sprawled upon the carpet and stared quickly up at the window, by which the intruder would have to pa.s.s in order to reach the doorway leading into the kitchen. At the same moment, he raised his voice and called out:

"Tom! Arthur! Come down here! Oh, Tom!"

"Curse you!" muttered a harsh voice. "Shut up, or I'll-----"

"Tom!" yelled Ralph, defiantly. He would have risen at once and grappled with the intruder, only, with a weak ankle, he did not care to run the risk of a nasty blow or a bad fall. He yelled l.u.s.tily instead, and in a minute he heard Tom spring out of bed and come tearing down the stairs.

But his mysterious a.s.sailant lost not a moment in making a getaway; he did not even wait to slip out by the rear door, through which he must have entered. Springing to the window, he smashed it with a kick, and was in the act of crawling through and dropping to the ground outside, when Tom flung himself upon him and dragged him back into the room. Fear of cutting himself on the broken gla.s.s evidently made the scoundrel yield more readily than he would otherwise have done. As it was, he put up a game fight, notwithstanding that Ralph, forgetting his ankle, joined in the fray.

The three rolled over and over in a confused heap. Tom felt a stinging blow on the side of his head, which made scores of stars dance before him in the darkness, but he never relaxed his grip on the man's collar. Ralph, too, was pounded and battered and choked by a powerful hand at his throat. Suddenly there was an audible rip, something gave way in Tom's hands, and the man, hurling the two lads from him with a frantic lunge, got to his feet and dashed out through the kitchen. Before Ralph and Tom could recover themselves, they heard him running down the road, just outside the window, at full speed.

"Great Scott! he's gone! he got away from us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom, in disgust. "Where are you, Ralph? Where's a light, a match?"

"Here I am!" Ralph answered, scrambling to his feet. "What on earth has Art been doing all this time? Didn't he hear the rumpus?"

"You bet I did!" exclaimed Arthur, coming into the room. "I heard your yells, and I ran downstairs after Tom, but---but I stumbled into the parlor, thinking the fight was in there. Then I heard one of these dining-room chairs being knocked over, and I rushed in-----"

"You were just a minute too late!"

Ralph groped for a matchbox on the mantel-shelf, struck a light, and applied it to the wick of the lamp. When the room was again visible, he told his friends what had happened.

"I don't know why he broke into this house; there's no money here,"

added Ralph, "unless-----" He stopped short with a gasp, and, going over to a wall cupboard, opened one of the drawers. "Gone!"

he cried. "The money I got for those last pelts! It's gone, before I had time to put it in the bank! The thief has taken it!"

"Who could it be?" asked Arthur, after a brief, sympathetic silence.

"I can't guess. Tim Meadows, the man who helped me with the plowing last fall, was too honest to---no, it couldn't be Tim! Perhaps--- what's that you've got in your hand, Tom?"