Oakdale Boys in Camp

“Jest yeou be ready to do yeour part of the job,” advised Crane. “That’s all I want of yeou.”

To Sleuth’s credit, he did his part well, and the very first dip of the net secured the salmon, who came out of the water writhing in the meshes and shining beautifully, despite the semi-darkness.

“Bate he weighs five paounds,” exulted the triumphant angler, removing the capture from the net. “Oh, say, Sleuth, what do you think of that! Them fellers that ketched a little mess of brook traout this morning are beat to death.”

Sleuth had nothing to say. He sat there in the bottom of the canoe gazing dejectedly at the beautiful fish, his heart heavy with chagrin because his was not the glory of the capture.

“But there may be others around here,” he suddenly exclaimed. “Perhaps I’ll get the next one.”

“Do you realize that it’s dark and we’re clean over on the side of the lake opposite aour camp?” asked Sile. “It’s too late to fish any more tonight, old feller, and we’d better be hikin’ for Pleasant Point.”

“That’s it!” rasped Sleuth. “That’s the way of it! You don’t want me to catch anything. You want to hustle back with this big fellow, so that you can crow over me.”

“Oh, flumydiddle!” retorted the other boy. “Yeou can see for yourself that it’s gettin’ too dark, and we’ve got a long distance to go. The fellers will be worried abaout us if we don’t git in pretty soon. Yeou’ve got some sense; anyway, we told Granger that you had.”

Piper yielded with poor grace, and when the canoe was headed toward Pleasant Point there was little vigor in his strokes. He had boasted of his skill as an angler, and, returning empty-handed with a companion crowned with victory, he seemed even now in fancy to hear the jibes of the three lads who were waiting at Camp Oakdale.

Crane made no complaint, even though he realized that the canoe was being propelled almost wholly by his paddle; really generous, although inclined to practical jokes, Sile was sorry for Sleuth.

The rekindled fire was blazing on Pleasant Point, and this light guided them. Presently, near at hand and only a short distance away, a wooded island loomed in the darkness.

“Gee!” said Crane in a suppressed voice. “That’s Spirit Island. We’re pretty close.”

“Yah!” Piper flung back. “You’re scared, I’ll bet.”

“No, I ain’t,” denied the other boy stoutly. “I didn’t take no more stock in the ghost part of Granger’s yarn than yeou did, not a bit. Say, if we had time I’d jest as lief land on that island right naow.”

“I dare you!” challenged Sleuth. “Come on.”

“But yeou know we ain’t got time.”

“We can just step ashore for a minute, and then we’ll have the satisfaction of telling the fellows at camp what we did. It won’t take more than a jiffy or two.”

Crane, however, continued to protest, which seemed to make his canoe-mate all the more set upon the project. They had paused a moment in their paddling, and Piper, dipping his blade, swung the frail craft toward the near-by shore, beyond which the dark, gloomy pines could be seen standing thickly a rod or more from the water’s edge.

“I’m going to put my foot on that island tonight,” declared Sleuth. “The rest of you had lots of fun with me last night, but I’ll show you that I ain’t afraid of – ”

He stopped suddenly, the paddle upheld and dripping. Seemingly from the midst of the black pines came the long-drawn, mournful howling of a dog, and that sound, so doleful, so eerie, sent a shivering thrill through both lads.

“Great Jehosaphat!” gasped Crane.

“Did you hear it?” whispered Piper.

“Think I’m deef? Course I heard it.”

“It was a dog.”

“Mebbe it was.”

“Of course it was. Don’t you know the howling of a dog when you hear it?”

“I know the howlin’ of any ordinary dog, but somehaow that saounded different to me.”

“Different? What do you mean?”

“Why,” faltered Sile, “it – it was – was sort of spooky, yeou know. Didn’t saound just like the howlin’ of any real live dog I ever heard.”

“But,” protested Piper, “it had to be a live dog, you know; it couldn’t be anything else.”

“Perhaps,” suggested the other boy, with a touch of mischief, “it was a cougar.”

“This is a fine time to try to crack any stale chestnuts,” flung back Sleuth. “I’d really give something to know just what it was we heard.”

“Perhaps,” returned Crane, confident now that his companion had lost all desire to make an immediate landing on the island, “we might find aout by goin’ ashore and prowlin’ araound in them dark woods. Come on.”

But now it was Sleuth who objected. “There isn’t time, you chump; we’ve got to get back to the camp. Only for that, I’d be willing to – ”

He was interrupted again by a repetition of that protracted, mournful howling, which seemed to echo through the black pines and apparently proceeded from a point much nearer than before. The sound of a real flesh-and-blood dog howling mournfully in the night and in a lonely place is enough to give the least superstitious person a creepy feeling, and, with the tragic story of the hermit and his faithful dog fresh in their minds, it was not at all remarkable that the two lads should now feel themselves shivering and find it no simple matter to keep their teeth from chattering.

“The confaounded critter is coming this way!” whispered Sile excitedly.

“We’re pretty near the island, aren’t we?” returned Sleuth. “Let’s be getting along toward camp.”

With the usual perverseness of human nature, even though he fancied he could feel his hair rising, Crane proposed to linger a while longer.

“If we do,” he said, “mebbe we’ll see something.”

“Lot of good that will do us,” hissed Sleuth. “And there’s a big chance of seeing anything in this darkness, isn’t there? I thought you wanted to get to the camp?”

“And I thought yeou wanted to land on the island. Yeou don’t believe in spooks, yeou know.”

“What’s that got to do with it? Think I want to be chewed up by a hungry, vicious dog? I’m no fool.”

“Mebbe not,” admitted Crane, in a manner not at all intended to soothe the other boy. “Public opinion is sometimes mistaken abaout folks.”

Sleuth dipped his paddle nervously into the water.

“I’m hungry, anyhow,” he declared. “They’ll have supper waiting for us. It will spoil.”

“Look!” sibilated Sile, crouching a bit and lifting his arm to point toward the island. “I can see something! There’s something movin’! See it, Pipe – see it?”

Out from the edge of the pines, faintly discernible through the darkness, came something white which plainly resembled a dog. As both lads stared, motionless, at this thing, it seemed to squat upon its haunches, and, with lifted muzzle, it sent out across the water a repetition of that fearsome howling.

“It’s the spirit of Old Lonely’s dog!” panted Crane. “Sure as shootin’ it is, and we’ve both seen and heard it.”

“See! See!” fluttered Piper in a perfect panic. “There’s something else coming out of the woods! It’s a man!”

Slowly, like a thing materializing from thin air, a white figure resembling a human being appeared before their staring eyes. It remained standing close to the border of the dark pines, motionless, but seeming to become more and more distinct as they stared at it in stony silence. And now their teeth were chattering, beyond question.

“I guess you’re right, Sleuth,” Crane finally gulped; “that supper will spile if we don’t get to camp as soon as we can.”

With something like frantic haste and vigor they wielded the paddles.

CHAPTER XV.

THE MYSTERIOUS LIGHT

When they ventured again to look toward the island the white figures had disappeared; but presently they heard, for the fourth time, the blood-chilling howling of the dog, which ended in a sinking, quavering wail that, to their overwrought imagination, resembled a dying moan of agony.

Not until they were approaching the camp and the cheerful fire which gleamed welcomingly across the water did they exchange further words. The firelight shone on the snowy tent, and they could see their friends moving about. Then it was that Piper dogmatically asserted:

“There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Perhaps that’s so,” admitted Sile, with a touch of resentment; “but I’d certainly like to know what it was we heard and saw.”

“Think we’d better say anything about it?”

“If yeou’ve got the idee that I ain’t goin’ to tell the other fellers, there’s another guess comin’ to yeou.”

“They’ll chaff us.”

“I don’t give a hoot for that. I’m goin’ to tell ’em the plain, straight truth, and they can chaff as much as they please.”

One of the boys came out to the extremity of the point, cupped his hands to his mouth and sent a halloo across the water. His figure made a black silhouette against the firelight.

“That’s Grant,” said Crane. “They’re gettin’ nervous abaout us. Oh! ho! Here we are! We’re comin’!”

“Well, it’s time you were,” flung back the Texan. “Hike along some.”

Grant and Springer met them as the prow of the canoe grounded on the sandy beach.

“Wha-what luck?” asked Phil.

“I got one,” answered Sile.

“Only one? Well, what the dickens kept you so long?”

“Only one,” returned the successful angler defiantly; “but yeou wait till yeou see him. He’s a baby. Come on to the fire and look him over. We’ve got a heap to tell ye, too.”

Silently Piper followed them to the fire, where Crane proudly displayed his catch, swelling with importance as he listened to the admiring comments of the three lads who had remained behind.

“What did you get, Sleuth?” asked Stone, after stooping to turn a big brown loaf of frying pan bread, which had been placed on edge and propped up before a glowing bed of coals.

“Nothing,” answered Piper, who had flung himself wearily upon the ground. “We only had one strike all the time we were out, and it was just Crane’s luck to get that and land his fish.”

“I’m sus-surprised,” said Springer. “Why, I thought you – ”

“Now cut that out!” snapped Piper sharply. “Can it! If there are no fish to be caught, how is anyone going to catch them?”

“There must be plenty of fish in the lake,” said Grant.

“Oh, yes, likely there is,” returned the disgruntled angler; “but they weren’t swarming around us. It was after sunset when Crane hooked that one, and it was pretty near pitch dark before we dipped him. No time to fish after that.”

“Alas! it’s true,” sighed Springer – “it’s true that the finny denizens of the water take to dry land when they learn that Pipe is after them.”

“Think up something original and new,” advised Sleuth. “You’ve worn that gag out.”

“Anyway,” said Ben pacifyingly, “if we don’t get any more, this big fellow should provide a bite for us all. You didn’t return skunked, fellows; you had some excitement.”

“Excitement!” said Crane, eager to tell of their remarkable experience. “I should say we did! Didn’t yeou fellers hear a dog howlin’ in the direction of Spirit Island a while ago?”

“In the direction of Spirit Island?” said Grant quickly. “Yes, we heard it, but we reckoned the creature was over on the opposite shore.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” asserted Sile; “it was right aout there on that island. Guess we know, for we was nigh enough to jump ashore.”

“On the island!” cried the boys who had remained at the camp, looking at one another questioningly.

“Are you sus-sure, Sile?” asked Springer.

“Yeou bet I be. Sleuth knows. Ask him.”

Piper nodded. “There’s no doubt about it,” he declared solemnly.

“That wasn’t all, either,” added Crane. “We saw something.”

While they listened in wonderment, he told of the two white figures resembling a dog and a man.

“Oh, say, what do you tut-take us for?” snapped Phil. “You and Sleuth have been fuf-faking up a fine story, haven’t you?”

“I told you, Crane,” said Piper, with a shake of his head – “I told you they wouldn’t believe it.”

“Don’t care whether they do or not. It’s the straight goods, by jinks! We was goin’ to land on that island for a minute when we fust heard that critter howl, but afterwards Sleuthy didn’t have no stomach for landin’. Scat! Say, his teeth rattled jest like dice in a box.”

“Now,” flung back Piper in hot resentment, “I knew you’d say that, and you were the one that was scared in the first place.”

“If your story is true,” said Grant, “I opine you were both some disturbed; and this adds interest to the yarn of the fanciful Mr. Granger. What do you think about that now, Sleuth?”

“Piffle,” pronounced Piper. “Anyone knows there are no such things as spooks.”

“Then what did you see on the island?”

“We saw two white things that resembled a dog and a man. What they were I’m not ready to assert at this time.”

“Whatever they were,” said Rodney, “I’m for visiting Spirit Island tomorrow.”

The boys had plenty to talk about all through supper, at which Piper and Crane demonstrated that their unusual experience had not dulled the edge of their appetites.

After supper Crane cleaned the salmon, and for a time they sat around chatting in the soft, warm darkness. Of them all, Piper was the only one who seemed moody and thoughtful, ignoring the efforts of the others to rally him.

Finally, growing drowsy, Grant rose, yawned and stretched his arms above his head, announcing that he intended to turn in. Suddenly his arms came down with a snap and he leaned forward a little, staring out upon the lake.

“Look here, fellows,” he said, a touch of suppressed excitement in his voice, “what’s this? Tell me what you see away yonder in the direction of Spirit Island?” He had lifted his arm and was pointing.

They sprang to his side and stood in a group, staring over the placid, night-shrouded waters of Phantom Lake, every one of them feeling his nerves tingle and thrill.

“It’s a lul-light!” cried Springer. “See it? There it is!”

“A light,” echoed Piper, “and it’s on Spirit Island! There, it’s gone!”

They had all seen the light, which seemed to stare at them like a huge fiery eye that suddenly winked and vanished. Breathless and in dead silence, they waited, and in a moment or two the glaring eye shone forth again for a twinkling and vanished. A dozen times this was repeated before the light disappeared and was seen no more, although they continued to watch for it for a full half hour.

“Well,” said Piper at last, “perhaps you’ll believe what we told you, now.”

“A howling dog, ghostly figures and a mysterious vanishing light,” muttered the Texan. “This sure is all very fine and interesting. Yes, fellows, we’ll visit that island tomorrow.”

Presently, when they went to bed and tried to sleep, Piper was not the most restless one among them. On the previous night, after disposing of the sleeping bag, he had rolled and groaned while his companions snoozed comfortably and serenely, but now he heard first one and then another stirring on the bough beds, and it was a long time before the breathing of any boy indicated that he had succeeded in cajoling slumber. Even after he was asleep Crane tossed and muttered incoherently. Piper was just drifting off when Sile uttered a sudden yell, which was followed by a tremendous commotion.

“I’ve got ye!” cried Crane wildly. “I’ve got ye!”

“Lemme go! Take your hooks off my windpipe!” wheezed the voice of Springer. “Help, fellows! Sile has gone loony! He’s ch-choking me!”

In the darkness there was a scramble to separate the struggling bed-fellows, and, with remarkable forethought, Piper, keeping away from the mix-up, struck a match and lighted the lantern. The light revealed Grant clutching Crane and struggling to hold him, while Stone had a grip on Springer. The latter was protesting.

“Let up!” he entreated. “I’m not dud-doing anything; it was Sile. He gave a yell right in my ear that near sus-split the drum, and then he straddled me and began shutting my wind off.”

Crane seemed a bit dazed. “I’m all right naow,” he protested in evident shame. “I guess I was dreaming. Confaound them things on Spirit Island, anyhaow!”

Piper leered at his late angling companion. “You’re a brave one!” he scoffed. “You wanted to land on the island, didn’t you? You wasn’t a bit afraid, were you?”

“Shut up,” growled Crane. “Put that lantern aout, and we’ll go to sleep.”

“Oh, yes, we’ll have a nice time going to sleep, with you cutting up. I was just snoozing beautifully when you yelled like a wild Indian.”

After a time the boys quieted down again, and, with the lantern extinguished, they fell asleep, one by one, until only Sleuth, still resentful because he had been awakened, was denied the relaxation of slumber. A long time he lay seeking it, with the others breathing heavily and regularly, and some of them snoring. Once more his ears were acute to all the mysterious night sounds of the woods, and, though he succeeded in dozing a little, he awoke again and again, until it seemed that the night had stretched itself to the length of a year and morning had somehow become side-tracked.

At last in a period of wakefulness he was possessed by a great desire to take another look toward Spirit Island, and, making as little noise as possible, he crept out of his blankets and stole to the front of the tent, which had been left open to admit air.

The moon, rising in the east, shed a pale light upon the bosom of the lake. By this light he could see the distant mountains outlined against the sky, and it was not impossible, even, to perceive a dark spot in the midst of the lake, where lay the haunted island. There it was, black and silent and soundless, with no mystic light flashing from its shores and no howling dog to disturb the serenity of the tranquil night. Nevertheless, there seemed to be something eerie and awesome pervading the very atmosphere and made doubly acute by the absence of any unusual sight or sound.

“If it isn’t really haunted,” whispered Sleuth to himself, “it ought to be. A commonplace solution of the mystery would be a great disappointment to me.”

Then he returned to his bed and once more besought sleep.

CHAPTER XVI.

ANOTHER ENCOUNTER

In the morning Grant was the first to awaken, but, although he got up as quietly as possible, Springer heard him and also crept out of the blankets.

“Needn’t think you’re going to sus-sneak off by your lonesome, you old Texas Ranger,” chuckled Phil, following Rod from the tent. “Like one of Sleuthy’s Wampanoags, I’m on your trail.”

They were surprised to hear a low voice behind them: “I’m watching you both. Nothing but cooking on a camping expedition is becoming somewhat monotonous, and I propose to get into the real sport this morning.”

It was Stone, and they grinned at him welcomingly.

“Come on, Ben,” invited Rod. “You’ve sure performed your share of the work, and you’ve a right to get in some fun. After a plunge, we’ll dress and hike out.”

They took a dip and a rub-down in the soft purple light of the breathless, balmy dawn, after which little time was lost in dressing and getting out the fishing tackle.

In the shadowy tent Sleuth and Sile slept on, the latter muttering and groaning occasionally, the former at last bound in peaceful slumber.

“They’re sure exhausted complete,” said Grant, as he brought the fishing outfit from the tent.

They paused near the canoe upon the sandy beach.

“Which way shall we go?” questioned Rod.

“I’ve got a feeling that I’d like to tut-try that brook again,” said Phil. “It’s handy, and we can feel pretty sure of catching something.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” admitted Grant. “Forbidden fruit is always the most attractive. Besides, three of us would crowd the canoe so that there would be little comfort in fishing. What do you say, Stone?”

“I’m ready for anything,” agreed Ben. “And if we keep to the near side of the brook, we know we’ll not be trespassing. Jim Simpson will have no grounds for raising a row.”

“And if he doesn’t raise a row,” laughed Phil, “we’ll all be sus-sorely disappointed. Come on.”

As they made their way along the shore they cast occasional glances toward Spirit Island, which seemed to crouch in the midst of the lake, dark, silent and mysterious, and therefore intensely fascinating to their youthful minds. In the broad light of day they might show a disposition to laugh at superstitious fancies, but, scarcely less than complete darkness, the shadowy, silent approach of dawn is conducive to sensations of awe and a pronounced inclination to credit the seemingly supernatural. And it is indeed a wholly unimaginative person who has never experienced a thrill over the apparently uncanny and weird.

At the mouth of the brook they were granted nothing but disappointment; the test of various flies failed to lure a single fish to rise to their hooks.

“It seems,” said Springer, “that we made a fearful mistake in bringing Piper with us, or, at least, in permitting him to try his hand at angling. Having frightened all the fish out of the water to hide in the woods, isn’t it pup-possible that, in their extreme terror, they may have lingered too long in their places of concealment and perished miserably?”

“I heard of a man once,” said Grant, “who taught a trout to live out of the water.”

“Easy! easy!” warned Phil.

“This gent I’m speaking of,” continued Rod, a twinkle in his eyes, “was an expert fisherman and hunter and lived alone in the woods. One day he caught a trout, and the minute he saw the creature he knew it sure was an unusually intelligent fish, for it was wide between the eyes and had a high, bold forehead. Fortunately, that trout had not been much hurt by the hook, and the hunter proceeded at once to place it in a tub filled with water. All day long he sat around watching the trout in that tub, becoming more and more convinced that he had secured an unusually intelligent specimen. Swimming around, the trout would occasionally look up at him and wink with such a knowing look in its eye that the man laughed outright.

“In the night, the hunter, still thinking of the fish, conceived a brilliant idea. Getting up quietly, in order that the fish might not hear him, he secured an auger, crept close to the tub, in the side of which, close to the bottom, he stealthily bored a hole that let out all the water without the trout ever becoming aware of it. The experiment proved to be a mighty big success, for there in the tub the following morning the hunter found his trout as lively and chipper as ever.

“After this, having convinced the fish that it could live on dry land as well as in the water, the hunter set about training it, and in a short time that trout would follow him around the camp like a faithful dog. It sure was a right queer sight to see the fish paddling around on its fins in the wake of its master, and it is said to be a solemn fact that the man spent a heap of time trying to teach Trouty to sit up and bark; but as to his success in this there is considerable doubt and more or less disagreement.

“As the warm summer passed, the autumn faded and winter came hiking on, the trout’s master perceived that his pet was beginning to suffer more or less discomfort from cold whenever it went outside the camp; and, having a naturally tender heart, the man manufactured a sweater for the fish, made out of an old sock. He cut holes in this sweater for the trout’s fins, so that it could locomote pretty nearly as well as usual, and the little fellow was right comfortable.

“But one day a sad tragedy occurred. It was one of those warm, balmy days of Indian summer, and the trout, probably feeling the need of exercise, followed his master to a stream, over which he attempted to cross on a slippery log. Losing his balance on the log, the fish fell off into the water and was drowned. In this manner, doubtless, perished one of the most remarkable – ”

“Help!” cried Springer, clinging to the bole of a tree and gasping as if in great distress, while Stone, laughing heartily, had sunk upon the ground. “That’s the bub-biggest whopper I ever heard, and you sure told some beauts when you fuf-first hit Oakdale, Rod.”

The Texan regarded his companions with gentle reproof.

“You’ll observe,” he reminded, “that, like our interesting friend, Mr. Granger, I was careful to give the story as purely a matter of hearsay.”

“And, in spite of howling dogs, flashing lights, and ghostly figures,” said Ben, “there may be as much truth in one story as there is in the other. A hermit once lived on Spirit Island; doubtless a hunter once caught a trout and put it in a tub.”