The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat Part 27

"And that's a cotton-tail looking at us over yonder, so don't throw another fit when he takes a notion to skip out," Phil continued, pointing with his cudgel to where a rabbit sat, observing the intruders, as though wondering what business any human beings had coming to the island that had been left alone so long.

Presently the little animal skipped off a few paces and then stopped again. As the scouts advanced, it repeated these tactics; indeed, so tame did it seem that any of them could have easily hit the rabbit with a stone, had they felt so inclined, which, as scouts, they could not think of doing.

"Looks like she's got a litter of young ones close by here," said Bobolink; "and is playing lame just to lead us away from the bunch. I've seen rabbits do that before now. The cuteness of the thing! Look at her, would you, just beggin' us to run after, and try to capture her?"

"I've seen a partridge act as if she had a broken wing," Jack remarked, quietly; "and flutter along the ground in a way that couldn't help but make one try to catch her; but if you chased after her, it would be to see the old bird take wing pretty soon, and go off like a rocket."

"Same here," declared Paul; "and going back, I flushed a whole covey of the prettiest little birds you ever saw. They'd been crouching under a bush while the old one played lame; just as if she'd told them all about it. But I heard her calling in the brush later on, and of course she got them all together again."

"There goes your lame rabbit now, Bobolink; and say, look at the way she jumps over the ground," remarked Phil, chuckling.

"Not so loud, boys," cautioned the scout master. "These things are all mighty interesting; but we mustn't forget what we're here for nor yet the fact that we've got a pretty good hunch there are some men close by who would be just as mad as hops if they knew we meant to stalk their camp and spy on them. If you have to say anything, whisper it softly, remember."

At that they all fell silent. It was true that they had forgotten for the moment that they were doing scouting work; and under such conditions talking was not allowed, especially above the lowest tone.

All of them noticed that it was getting very close now, for they had to use the red bandanna handkerchiefs they carried, and quite frequently at that, to wipe away the perspiration that oozed from their foreheads.

"Lucky we left our coats in camp; isn't it?" remarked Phil.

"Looks that way now, but if that rain does strike us, we may wish we had 'em on," Tom Betts replied; showing that he at least had not been able to put out of his head the possibility of a storm.

"Seems to me we must be getting somewhere," Phil observed.

"It can't be very much further," Paul answered, feeling that the remark was addressed to him as the pilot of the expedition."

"I should say not," came from Bluff, as chipper as a bird's song, and without the least sign of halt or break; "if we go on much more, we'll walk off the end of the island."

Bobolink patted him on the back, as if to encourage him in well doing.

"That's the stuff, Bluff; you c'n do it when you try," he whispered; "but as to steppin' into the lake, I guess we aren't that near the north end yet, by a good sight."

Paul nodded his head, but said nothing; from that Bobolink knew the scout master agreed with him. They could go considerably longer without being halted by coming to the water's edge.

Jack called the attention of his chums just then to something ahead.

"Seems to me I smell smoke," he said, "and if you bend down here, so you can look under the branches of the trees, you'll see something that's got the shape of a shed, or cabin, off yonder."

The others, upon making a try, agreed with Jack that it did seem that way.

"Oh! we're right on top of the nest, all right" chattered Bobolink, but showing his wisdom by keeping his voice down to its lowest note; "and now, if we c'n duplicate that little dodge we played at the shack of the wild man, it's goin' to be as easy as turning over off a spring-board, with a ten foot drop."

"But if we're caught we might get shot at," suggested Phil, as if the idea had struck him for the first time that they were really playing with fire, in thus bearding desperate lawbreakers in their den.

"We aren't going to get caught," said Bobolink; "who's afraid? Not I.

Lead along, Paul. I want to get this thing out of my system, so I c'n have a little rest up here," and he placed a hand on his brow.

Although himself doubtful as to the wisdom of the move, Paul could not back down now, after allowing the boys to vote on the matter. Perhaps he was more or less sorry that at the time he had not exercised his privilege as scout master to put his foot down on their taking any more chances, just to satisfy such curiosity as reckless fellows like Bobolink might feel, with regard to the unknown men.

It was too late now. Until some of the boys themselves manifested a desire to call the retreat, he must go on; although it began to seem more than ever audacious--this creeping up on a den of men who were hiding from the eye of the law in order to carry on their nefarious trade.

And so they started to creep forward, now dodging behind trees, and crawling back of friendly patches of bushes whenever the chance presented itself. It was all exciting enough, to be sure, and doubtless gave the boys many a delightful little thrill.

In this fas.h.i.+on they came upon a larger clump of trees and bushes, which, instead of trying to round, they concluded to pa.s.s through.

It was just as they gained a point inside this clump that they were brought up with a round turn by discovering a couple of objects standing there, as though they had been left behind when the valuable contents which they formerly encased had been taken out.

These were two large packing cases, of unusual shape, and made of heavy planed boards!

Some of the scouts looked at them carelessly, for to them these objects did not carry any particular meaning. Not so Jack, Tom Betts and Bobolink. Those three boys had received a shock, as severe as it was unexpected.

They recognized those cases as being the identical ones which had only lately reposed snugly in the planing mill of Jack's father in Stanhope, and to guard which one Hans Waggoner had been hired by the man who owned them, Professor Hackett! And as they stood there and gaped, doubtless among the many things that flashed into the minds of those three lads was the fact that _somebody_ had been trying to get to see what the contents of those mysterious cases might be; which person they now knew must have been a Government Secret Service man, a detective from Was.h.i.+ngton, on the track of the bold counterfeiting gang!

All these things, and much more, flashed through the minds of Jack and his chums, as they stood there in that thicket, and stared hard at the two big cases bound around with twisted wire, but which had now been relieved of their unknown contents, for they stood empty.

And the others, realizing that something had occurred out of the regular channel, waited for them to speak, and explain what they had discovered.

CHAPTER XXV

TIME TO GO BACK

"What is it, Bobolink--Jack?" asked the scout master.

"The boxes yonder!" Bobolink managed to exclaim.

"You evidently have seen them before; tell me, Jack, are they the ones you said your father stored for that man?" continued Paul.

"They certainly look mighty like them," replied the other; "and you know, they were taken away that morning early. They must have been carried across country to the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and then ferried over in a rowboat. That was what we saw the marks of, and the four men walked off with these between them."

"Whee! did you ever?" gasped the still bewildered Bobolink. "Yes, here you c'n see the markin' on the lid they threw away when they opened this one--'Professor Hackett, In care of John Stormways, Stanhope,' all as plain as anything. And to think how after all my worryin' the old boxes have bobbed up here. Don't it beat the Dutch how things turn out?"

That seemed to be the one thing that gripped Bobolink's attention--the strange way in which those two heavy boxes with the twisted wire binding had happened to cross his path again.

But Paul was thinking of other things, that might have a more serious bearing on the case. He turned to Jack again.

"What do you know about this so-called professor?" he asked.

"Me? Why, next to nothing, only that he comes from down near New York City at a place called Coney Island, where lots of fakirs hold out; and plenty of men too, in the summer season, who would want to circulate a little money that did not bear the Government stamp."

"But your father seems to have known him; or at any rate believed he was a law-abiding citizen," pursued Paul; "otherwise he would hardly have given him the privilege of storing his cases in his mill over night."

"Oh! my father is that easy-going, nearly anybody could pull the wool over his eyes. He believed the yarn this pretended professor told him, I've no doubt, and thought it next door to nothing to let him keep the boxes in the mill for a short time. You know, my father is the best-hearted man in Stanhope, barring none. But I agree with the rest of you that this time he must have got stung. The professor is sure a bad egg. I must put my dad wise as soon as I get half a chance."

"Perhaps it's already too late to save him from getting stuck with a lot of the stuff they manufacture?" suggested Tom Betts.