The Boy Patrol Around the Council Fire

Thus the party was grouped on the night I have named, and the hum and chatter of conversation was at its height, when Scout Master Hall exclaimed:

“Look!”

Every voice was instantly hushed. In the gloom the leader’s arm which he had instinctively extended could not be seen, but naturally all who were not already looking out upon the water did so. Every one was in time to see a swift ascending rocket turn and break into a shower of sparks as it dived downward again.

It was still in sight when a second whirred upward for two hundred feet or more, leaving a streaming, dazzling trail as it circled over, exploded and the stick plunged downward in the darkness.

Every one held his breath. Most of them rose and stared. It might be that the physician was sending up the rockets to amuse his daughter. If there were only two, they would mean nothing more; if there was another —

“There it is!” gasped Scout Master Hall; “something is wrong at Doctor Spellman’s!”

It was the signal which had been agreed upon in the event of their friend finding himself in urgent need of help.

It seemed as if several minutes passed before, through the tomb-like hush, stole a faint popping sound, – the report of the explosion ending its journey across the lake.

The dull, almost inaudible call acted as if it were a bugle blast. The whole party dashed off the porch and at headlong speed to the two canoes drawn upon the beach. Even Jack Crandall swung to the steps, and debated a moment whether he should not join the party of rescue, but his common sense told him he would be only a hindrance, and he reluctantly stayed behind and watched the shadowy forms of his friends as shown in the star gleam, the moon not yet having risen.

“He has called for us,” said Scout Master Hall, “and there isn’t a minute to lose!”

Standing on the edge of the lake he gave his commands as coolly as an officer marshaling his forces for a charge. In a twinkling the two boats were afloat in the deep water which came close to the bank.

“There are twenty-one of us; each canoe will carry no more than eight; the other five must hurry along the shore to the doctor’s house.”

The lads stood breathless, waiting for the leader to name those who must walk. He promptly did so:

“Isaac Rothstein, Hoke Butler, Gerald Hume, Arthur Mitchell, Gordon Calhoun.”

It was a keen disappointment to the five, but there was not a murmur.

“Come on, boys,” called Hoke; “if we do our best we shall not be far behind them.”

His long legs carried him at a pace that made it hard for the others to equal. In Indian file the procession, with him in the lead, loped along the beach and was speedily swallowed up in the obscurity.

The crews of the canoes worked like beavers. In a twinkling the boys had adjusted themselves and in each boat the two who were handiest with the paddles plyed them vigorously. Scout Master Hall was seated in the stern of one, among his companions being Mike Murphy, Alvin Landon and Chester Haynes.

At the moment the two craft put out from shore, Mike Murphy repeated the exclamation —

“Look!”

The startling performance of a few minutes before was repeated. One, two, three rockets streamed upward in the heavens, curved over, exploded and plunged downward among the trees.

“What can be the trouble?” was the question which everyone of the rescuers asked himself, as the oarsmen threw their energies into the task, and sent the heavily-laden craft with the utmost speed across the lake toward the home of their friend.

Alvin and Chester swung the paddles in their canoe, which speedily assumed a slight lead. There was little or no conversation, but each Boy Scout was busy with his thoughts, and burning with curiosity to learn the cause of the strange night call across the lake. Since every one knew of the doings of the two tramps, who had been lurking in the vicinity for several days and had been seen the previous afternoon, it was natural that suspicion should turn to them.

And yet it was hard to imagine a situation in which so plucky a man as Doctor Spellman, who owned a revolver and a repeating rifle, would have any fear of two unarmed vagrants. Impulsive by nature, and already resentful toward them, he would stand no nonsense at their hands.

And for a third time were three signal rockets sent streaming aloft, before the canoes had passed half the distance between the bungalow and the home of the physician. The urgency of the summons filled all with anguish. Mike and the Patrol Leader offered to relieve Alvin and Chester with the paddles, but they would not listen and bent resolutely to their task. The other canoe had pulled up alongside, and the two kept abreast with barely ten feet separating them.

The cause of the call of distress was revealed with startling suddenness and before the craft reached land. Through the gloom, Mike Murphy caught the vague outlines of a man and woman on the beach, and he shouted:

“What’s the matter, docther?”

The reply of itself was a partial answer:

“Is Ruth at the bungalow?”

“She hasn’t been there since ye brought her over the other day.”

“Then heaven save us! she is lost.”

It was the mother who uttered this wail, as she convulsively clasped her hands and walked distractedly to and fro.

The boys leaped out of the boats and gathered round the grief-smitten couple.

“Tell us what this means,” said Scout Master Hall, as he sympathetically clasped the hand of the physician, who spoke with rare self-command, though his wife began sobbing as if her heart was broken:

“We did not miss her until about an hour ago; I sat in front of the house smoking and talking with wife, when she remarked that it was time Ruth was in bed. I called to her, but there was no answer. Thinking she had fallen asleep inside, I lighted a match and looked around, wife joining me. A brief search showed she was not there. We hurried outside, and I shouted again.

“By that time we were in an agony of distress and wife was sure something dreadful had happened to her. As soon as we could command our wits we found that neither of us had seen her for nearly two hours and the thought struck us both that she had wandered off to the bungalow. If she had kept along the beach and walked steadily she would have had time to reach you, but there are so many other awful chances that I dared not trust to that, so I appealed to you.”

“And you did right; there is nothing that is possible for us to do that we will not do,” was the response of Scout Master Hall.

“She may still be wandering along the beach on her way to the bungalow.”

“Five of our boys are hurrying over the same course to this point, and will be sure to meet and bring her home.”

“Unless she has strayed off in the woods and been lost.”

“Let us hope that such is the fact, for then she will be safe and suffer only slight inconveniences.”

“Oh, it is worse than that,” moaned the mother, still pacing to and fro and wringing her hands; “she has fallen into the lake and been drowned.”

“I cannot believe that,” said the Scout Master, following the remark with such tactful assurances that the mother regained a part of her self-command, to the extent even of feeling a faint hope that all was well with her child.

The conduct of the youths was admirable. When they spoke it was in whispers and undertones, but every heart was filled with the sincerest pity, and all were eager to do everything they could for the smitten parents.

The Boy Scout does not content himself with words: his mission is to do a good turn, and where every minute was beyond value none was thrown away.

Scout Master Hall assumed charge. He directed six of the boys to take the back trail, as it might be called, – that is, around the eastern end of the lake to the bungalow. This would insure their meeting Hoke Butler and his companions, who in turn would meet the missing child if she had wandered over the same route. The six to whom this task was entrusted were under the charge of Mike Murphy.

The same number of boys were ordered to follow the opposite direction, – that is, to skirt the lake to the westward, – each of the two searching parties to keep it up until they came together at the bungalow. This arrangement left four Boy Scouts, including Mr. Hall and not mentioning the father and mother. The leader proposed that he, one of the lads and the parents should separate, plunge into the woods and pursue the hunt independently of one another. Since for a time the search must be a blind one this plan was as good as any that could be suggested.

The Scout Master took Alvin and Chester aside.

“I have selected you for a special work,” he said. “You are fleet of foot, cool-headed and have good judgment. The doctor has made no reference to those tramps, and yet I know he suspects they have stolen Ruth, and intend to hold her for ransom. I believe it is either that, or she has wandered off and fallen asleep in the woods, – with the possibility that she is drowned.

“I want you to make your way as quickly as you can to the little town of Bovil, where I think there is a telephone. If the tramps have kidnapped the Sunbeam, they will try to get out of the neighborhood. Telephone to the officers at Boothbay Harbor and other points, and get word to Burton at Mouse Island as soon as possible, and ask him to make all haste here with Zip. He’ll do it.”

CHAPTER XXII – Groping In the Dark

Five distinct parties were engaged in searching for the missing child, Ruth Spellman. Hoke Butler and his companions had left the bungalow on foot, because there was not room in the two canoes for them. Knowing nothing of the cause of the doctor’s appeal for help, they made no hunt until, when the greater part of the distance was passed, they met Mike Murphy and his friends. These had advanced at a slower pace, for they were hunting for that which they dreaded to find, and they meant to neglect nothing.

When the two parties came together, a brief explanation made everything clear. Inasmuch as the larger part of the beach to the eastward had not been examined, it was agreed that the coalesced companies should return at a slower pace to the bungalow, and then, if nothing resulted, reverse and push the search all the way to the house of Doctor Spellman. This would be covering the ground twice, and it would be done effectively.

“Do you think she has been drowned?” asked Hoke of Mike.

“I do not, for it’s unraisinable that she should be. The Sunbeam is afeard of the water and would not step into it. If there was a dock or a pile of rocks where she could have fell off, she might have done the same, but there’s nothing of the kind, and the little one couldn’t have slipped into the lake while walking along the shore.”

It may be said that this theory was accepted by every one except the parents and they were inclined toward it. It was their anguish of anxiety which warped their reasoning and made them fear at times that that precious form was drifting in the embrace of the chilling waters, and would never again respond to their loving caresses.

While scrutinizing every foot of the way, each member of the two parties scanned the moonlit lake, as far as the vision extended, urged by a fearful fascination that scattered cold reasoning to the winds.

Suddenly Hoke Butler, who was slightly in the lead, stopped short, pointed out on the water and asked in a startled undertone:

“Isn’t something floating out there?”

All grouped about the speaker and peered in the direction he indicated.

“Ye’re right,” whispered Mike, swallowing the lump in his throat; “can it be Sunbeam?”

The surface of the lake was as placid as a millpond. Barely a hundred feet from shore a motionless object was seen floating, but it was so low that for a time it could not be identified.

“I’m thinking,” added Mike, “that she would not float for a day or two, but bide ye here till I swim out and make sartin.”

He began hastily disrobing, but before he was ready for the plunge Hoke exclaimed:

“It’s the branch of a tree.”

Now that the assertion was made, all saw that it was true. The identity of a limb with its foliage was so evident that they wondered how even a momentary mistake had occurred. The advance was resumed, and in the course of the following hour the boys reached the bungalow, where Jack Crandall was seated on the piazza with his crutch leaning beside him. It need not be said that he was shocked beyond expression by the news.

“How I wish I were able to join in the search,” he lamented, “but I can only sit here and wait and pray for you.”

“Do you think it likely she has been drowned?” Hoke asked.

“No; and yet it is possible. She may have slipped while walking on the edge and a child like her is so helpless that it would be all over in a minute or so. Keep up your hunt until she is found and don’t forget to scan every part of the lake you can see.”

Jack made no reference to Biggs and Hutt, the tramps, for he knew very little about them. Mike, like his intimate friends, had them continually in mind, but the same strange dread that for a time restrained them, held his lips mute. He did not want to believe they had had any hand in Sunbeam’s disappearance, and yet the conviction was growing upon him that they had kidnapped and would hold her for ransom.

“And if the same proves true,” he muttered with the old glint in his eye, “it’s mesilf and the rest of the byes that will do the biggest kind of a good turn consarning the spalpeens.”

For the second time the beach leading from the bungalow eastward to the temporary home of Doctor Spellman was traversed, and the search if possible was made more rigid than before. With so many at work, a number tramped through the woods bordering on the open space, though that seemed useless since in the gloom their eyes were of little help. They did not forget to call the name of the lost one, Mike taking upon himself this duty. He used her right name as well as those by which he and other friends knew her, and his clear voice penetrated so far into the still arches that it was heard by other searchers who, though they shouted as loud, were not audible to him and his companions.

Gradually they approached the desolate home, arriving there about midnight. They had not come upon the slightest clue and no one was found in the house, nor was any light burning. All were pretty tired, for the tramp was a long one, but they were as ardent as ever to do their utmost to find the missing child.

“There’s no use in going back to the bungalow,” said Mike, as the group gathered in the little clearing; “it strikes me we may as well turn into the woods.”

It must have been about this time that the searching party which had gone to the westward completed the circumvallation and joined Jack Crandall seated on the piazza, – listening, watching and praying that all might be well with the lost child. These boys had been as painstaking and thorough as Mike and his friends, and were equally unsuccessful. Not the faintest light upon the mystery had come to them.

“I don’t think it possible she took that direction, unless it may have been for a short distance, for there was nothing to attract her thither. In visiting us she was always brought across the lake, though I heard her father say they had followed the beach once or twice. The distance is less.”

“We fellows can’t go to bed,” said Colgate Craig, “until the little one is found.”

“You have had a long tramp and must be pretty tired.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” said Robert Snow sturdily; “we’ll keep it up all night, if there’s the least chance of it doing any good.”

“The trouble is,” said Jack, who had learned the particulars of what had been done from Mike Murphy, “Mr. Hall has made no plans beyond what all of you were to do first. You with Mike’s party have gone round the lake, and a part of the distance – the most promising as it seems to me – has been covered twice.”

“Do you think there is any use of our retracing our steps?”

“Not the slightest; wherever Ruth may be found, it will not be in that direction.”

“Where do you advise us to go?”

“Follow Mike’s party; that will be the third time the ground has been traversed.”

“What do you think has become of Sunbeam, as Mike calls her?”

“It seems to me she has strayed only a little way from home, grown weary, sat down to rest and fallen asleep.”

The counsel of Jack Crandall was followed. Thus the major part of the searchers were soon pushing through the woods in the neighborhood of Doctor Spellman’s home. It will be recalled that he, his wife and Scout Master Hall, set about this task upon the first breaking up of the Boy Scouts to prosecute their separate lines of work. Although they parted company directly after leaving the others, the three kept in touch with one another, and after a time husband and wife joined, with Mr. Hall just far enough away to be invisible.

The Scout Master left it to the parents of Ruth to call to her. They did this at brief intervals, and they did not listen more intently for the reply which came not than did he. When an hour had been used without result, the three came together in a small open space lighted by the moon.

The mother, although distressed beyond description, was become more composed.

“What do you think, Mr. Hall?” she wearily asked.

“I judge that, like all healthy children, Ruth is a sound sleeper. What more likely than that when worn out, she has lain down on the leaves like another Babe in the Wood, and will not open her eyes until morning? Am I not right, Doctor?”

“Undoubtedly, provided she has been permitted to do as you say.”

“I do not understand you.”

“What is the use of our keeping silent, when the same fear is in all our hearts?”

“I still fail to catch your meaning.”

“Wife, and you, and I believe she has been kidnapped by those tramps.”

The mother gave a gasp and low moan. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed:

“That’s what I have feared from the first.”

“I cannot deny that the dread has been with me,” said the Scout Master, “yet I have hoped and still hope we are mistaken.”

“I see no room for such hope.”

“But, even if so, it should be an immeasurable relief. It means that she has not fallen into the lake, nor is she in danger from a night’s exposure.”

“But think of her being in the power of those hideous creatures,” wailed the mother.

“If they have stolen her it is for the purpose of ransom. They will take the utmost care that not the slightest harm befalls her, since it would defeat their scheme.”

“And this is the twentieth century!” was the bitter exclamation of the physician. “If the probability occurred to you and me, why did we not take steps to baffle them instead of wasting our time in groping through the darkness of the woods?”

“I did do so.”

“Now it is I who do not understand.”

“Two of the fleetest of the Boy Scouts, – Alvin Landon and Chester Haynes, – are at this moment making all haste to the village of Bovil, on the road to Boothbay Harbor. If they can reach a telephone, they will communicate with officers in the surrounding towns and villages, asking for the arrest of the tramps on sight. Those boys will not waste a minute.”

“Thank heaven for that.”

“Furthermore, at the earliest moment they will ’phone your nephew, and you need not be told that he and his dog Zip will be equally quick in getting on the job.”

“That gives me more hope than anything that has happened since my child disappeared,” was the declaration of Doctor Spellman, whose wife shared in the pleasurable thrill.

CHAPTER XXIII – A Fortunate Meeting

Scout Master Hall was right when he said Alvin Landon and Chester Haynes would not waste a minute in carrying out the task he had given them. They were determined to secure the arrest of the men who it was believed had kidnapped the little daughter of Doctor Spellman, before they could leave that section. In addition, they aimed to get the help of George Burton and his bloodhound.

This last was far more important than the other, and would insure the discovery of the fate of the child. If Zip was allowed to take the scent within twenty-four hours after she left home – and possibly a little later – he would never lose it.

It was four miles over the rough broken trace to the highway, and then two more of smoother traveling would bring them to the straggling town of Bovil, where they hoped to secure telephonic communication with Boothbay Harbor and other near by towns. If that could be done, they could reach Samoset Hotel, on Mouse Island, by the same means. It would be like young Burton to start at once. He could be taken quickly across to Boothbay in a motor-boat, where he knew the right course to follow, since he had been over it with Zip. He would have to ascend the Sheepscot and walk three miles to reach Bovil, but if a midnight start was made, he ought to reach the village at daylight and soon after.

It was between eleven and twelve o’clock that Alvin and Chester came in sight of the score of buildings which make up the village of Bovil. When they passed through it on their way to Gosling Lake, they paid so slight attention that they could not recall whether it had an inn. Vastly to their delight, however, they came upon the old-fashioned structure near the center of the place, and it was the only one in which a light was burning.

“That’s luck,” said Alvin, as the two ascended the steps, pushed open the door and entered the roomy office, with its unpainted desk, broad fireplace where no wood was burning, a bench without any back, several rickety chairs, and showy posters on the walls for the information of travelers by boat or rail.

Staring around the room, by the dim light of the kerosene lamp suspended from the middle of the ceiling, the youths at first saw no person, but heavy breathing directed attention to a settee at the other side, upon which a young man was stretched at full length, with his coat doubled under him for a pillow. He was the model watchman, who was aroused only by vigorous shaking. By and by he glumly assumed a sitting posture, and blinked at the disturbers.

“What do you want?” he demanded sourly.

“Can you get us a room?”

“’Spose so. Why didn’t you come earlier?”

“Because we came later,” replied Chester; “have you got a telephone in the house?”

“’Course we have, – what of it?”

“We want to use it at once to call up Boothbay Harbor.”

“This ain’t no time to bother with such things; you’ll have to wait till morning. What bus’ness had you to wake me up?”

“See here,” said Alvin, who was in no mood for trifling, “we have come a good many miles to reach a telephone; this is a case of life and death; we haven’t a minute to spare.”

“Don’t make no difference; you’ll have to wait till to-morrer morning.”

“Give me the number of the Chief of police at Boothbay.”

As Alvin made the peremptory request, he slipped two silver half dollars into the bony hand of the young man. This effected the purpose intended. He became wide awake on the instant, stepped briskly to the desk, caught up the receiver of the instrument, asked and answered several questions, and after a brief wait, nodded to Alvin, who with Chester stood at his elbow.

“Here you are,” he said, passing the receiver to the former; “Art Spofford is the chief of police at Boothbay, and he’s at t’other end of the wire.”

Artemus Spofford, or “Art” as he is called by every one, was courteous, and replied that no tramps had been seen in town for several weeks, but he and his officers would be on the alert and arrest and hold any vagrants answering the description. Not only that, but he volunteered to communicate with the neighboring towns and see that every possible precaution was taken.

“Leave it to me,” he added; “don’t mix in; I can attend to it better than you; how shall I reach you, if we scoop in the gentlemen?”

It was agreed that Art should ’phone to Bovil, where some of the Boy Scouts would call at intervals of a few hours to get any message left for them. This arrangement was the most convenient for all concerned.

It took some trying minutes for Alvin to get Hotel Samoset on Mouse Island. It looked as if Everett Ham, the night clerk, was also asleep at his post, but I must not do the faithful young man that injustice. He responded after a time, and an understanding was speedily reached.