CHAPTER X

FISH-HAWK CREEK

The other boat slowed, stopped. Pud pretended not to understand, and the _Jolly Rodger_ went chugging on, the skipper waving a friendly hand. But the ruse didn’t work.

‘_Hi, you! Stop that launch!_’ was the order.

Pud shook his apparently slumbering companion. ‘Wake up, Tim,’ he shouted. ‘Take the wheel!’

Tim groped sleepily for the wheel, yawning loudly, and Pud stepped to the engine and pushed up the throttle. With the other hand he threw the clutch out. By the time this was accomplished some forty feet of river separated the two boats, and the _Jolly Rodger_ was still floating slowly with the current. The light from the electric torch passed searchingly along the launch, from stem to stern and back again, to come to rest finally on Pud. And while it passed the low voices of the men sounded plainly.

‘That isn’t the one. Look at the name, _Jolly Rodger_.’

‘Well, no, but it looks like it, and――’

‘Besides, there were three of them on the other.’

‘Might be another one somewheres about,’ said the second speaker. Then a third voice, evidently that of the boat’s owner, spoke.

‘’Tain’t the craft I seen awhile back. _Vengance_ that was called. It was goin’ up-river, too.’

‘Say,’ called a voice then, ‘did you pass a white launch with three fellows and a girl in it a while ago?’

‘I saw one farther up the river,’ answered Pud.

‘Notice the name of it?’

‘Why, I don’t know as I did. Did you, Tim?’

‘Yes,’ answered Tim, with another yawn. ‘_Vengance_.’

‘How far up?’ was the next question.

‘Maybe two miles. It was going sort of slow. Well, I’ve got to be getting on. Good-night.’

‘Good――’ began the voice from the darkness.

‘_Ker-chew!_’ It came from beneath the tent canvas, muffled yet startlingly loud for all of that! There was a moment of silence on both boats while the eye of the electric torch raced back and forth suspiciously. And then:

‘_Ker-chew!_’ This time it was Tim, and the violence of the sneeze almost took him overboard. The light enveloped him for an instant, wavered, vanished.

‘Good-night, boys! Much obliged!’

‘Don’t mention it,’ answered Pud faintly.

The other launch churned the water astern and jumped forward again. Pud pulled the lever toward him and the _Jolly Rodger_ took up her journey. For a long moment nothing was said on board. Then, from behind the boys came a sibilant whisper:

‘Have they gone? Can I get up?’

‘Yes,’ answered Pud bitterly, ‘but you mighty near spoiled everything! What did you go and sneeze for like that?’

‘Well,’ replied Gladys Ermintrude, emerging from the tent flap, ‘I guess you’d sneeze, too, if you had to keep your head under that dusty old tent!’ Then her indignation vanished and she laughed softly. ‘My gracious, didn’t we fool them, though? It was just like ‘The Dangers of Dorothy’; where the heroine hides in the potato sack and the villains throw her in the cart and don’t know it! Did you see it?’

‘No,’ said Pud shortly. ‘Say, isn’t that the creek ahead there?’

‘Yes,’ said the girl.

‘All right. I’m going in there a ways and tie up to a bank so’s we can talk things over. I guess they won’t look for us there.’ There was a sound of hilarity from the stern and Pud peered back. ‘What’s your trouble, Harmon?’ he demanded.

‘Nothin’, Mister Pud,’ answered the darky chokingly. ‘I――I’s jus’ laughin’ at the way Mister Tim done fool them folks! ‘Ker-choo!’ he say, ‘Ker-choo!’ My golly, that was surely one pow’ful lucky sneeze!’

‘Well, you’d better stop that noise,’ grumbled Pud, ‘or they’ll hear you and come back! Slow her down more, Tim, will you? Gee, this isn’t much of a creek!’

It wasn’t, so far as width was concerned, but fortunately it was deep and there were no snags, and Pud made the turn neatly and the launch went slowly, cautiously forward. Tim got a pocket torch and, standing beside Pud, explored the banks on either side. Presently they found what they sought, a place where the launch could be laid close to the bank and under the drooping branches of a big willow. Better still, as later developed, there was a cleared space a few yards away from the creek large enough to hold the tent; for they had by now abandoned all idea of getting on to Corbin that night. It was already past eight o’clock, and even aside from the danger of again encountering Pete Minger’s boat, to make the ascent of the winding stream with no better illumination than could be supplied by two pocket flashlights would be a good deal of a hazard. Pud devoutly wished that they had never seen Gladys Ermintrude, but since she was on their hands they would have to reckon with her.

Personally, Gladys Ermintrude offered no objections to spending the night there. On the contrary, she appeared to be greatly taken with the idea. She said it reminded her of ‘Clashing Souls,’ where the hero and the heroine were cast away on the desert island. Tim said he was awfully sorry about it and hoped her poor mother wouldn’t worry too much. Gladys Ermintrude said she wouldn’t, probably, because this was choir-practice night, and her mother played the organ, and that would keep her mind busy; and was she to sleep in the tent, or where?

Pud pointed out gloomily that to light a fire would be tempting Providence, but he was secretly thankful when he was overruled by the others, since the prospect of eating cold food was as repugnant to him as to Tim and Harmon. The latter soon had a small blaze, and presently there was the cheering fragrance of sizzling bacon. Pud walked along the bank of the creek a way and returned with the welcome assurance that you couldn’t see the light of the fire more than about fifty feet distant.

Gladys Ermintrude sat on the ground close to the blaze and chattered cheerfully. She said it must be wonderful to be able to cook things the way Harmon did. Herself, she knew nothing about cooking or any household duties. Her mother had never allowed her to do any of the work because it might injure her hands. Besides, with all the servants they employed, what would have been the sense of it? Oh, of course, she could make delicious fudge, but that was just play. Cooking and such household drudgery was all right, she thought, for girls who had no ambition, but personally she considered it a waste of time. There were so many more important things, weren’t there?

Tim, the principal recipient of these confidences, said he supposed there were, but that he guessed it wasn’t a bad idea for girls to know how to cook a little, because they never could tell when they might have to. But Gladys Ermintrude laughed lightly. In her own case, she declared, knowing or not knowing how to cook didn’t matter a bit, because she meant to live entirely for her Art. Motion-picture actresses, especially stars――one of which Gladys Ermintrude was to become shortly――didn’t have to bother themselves with such ordinary and vulgar affairs as keeping house. They either lived in magnificent hotels or else they owned beautiful bungalows in California and had large retinues――Gladys Ermintrude pronounced it ‘retin-wees’――of servants.

Tim was rather impressed with all this, in spite of the secret conviction that Gladys Ermintrude was totally unlike any moving-picture star he had ever seen, and he would have patiently listened to further particulars regarding her career if Harmon had not announced supper just then.

That was a most welcome, appetizing, and satisfactory repast. They had not eaten anything for eight hours or so, and the bacon and scorched slices of bread that Harmon called toast and the scalding hot tea vanished rapidly. Even Gladys Ermintrude, while she appeared desirous of impressing the others with the daintiness of her appetite, did full justice to everything. She was inclined to be critical of the tea, explaining that she was accustomed to having lemon with hers instead of condensed milk, until Pud told her, almost impolitely, that if she didn’t like what she was getting she needn’t drink it. Gladys Ermintrude thereupon conquered her distaste and asked for another cup.

Food can do miraculous things sometimes. It did on this occasion. It vanished Pud’s irritability, smoothed out the anxious lines on Tim’s forehead, and set Harmon to crooning a song while he cleared away. It also made them entirely reckless in the matter of the fire. Or maybe it was more especially the mosquitoes that did that. Anyway, they piled it high with wood, with apparently no thought for the kidnapers in Pete Minger’s launch, and basked in its welcome warmth.

Gladys Ermintrude said it was just like the scene in ‘Haunted Souls,’ where the shipwrecked millionaire and his friends made the fire on the beach and waited for the waves to drown them. Tim retained sufficient energy to inquire why they wanted the waves to drown them, and Gladys Ermintrude explained that there was no escape for them because of the towering cliffs at their back. Tim suggested that they might have proceeded farther along the beach and found a place where the cliffs weren’t so towering, but the girl didn’t seem to think that would have been possible, although she couldn’t explain just why.

‘Say,’ asked Pud, ‘don’t you ever do anything but go to the movies?’

‘Of course, I do,’ answered Gladys Ermintrude. ‘I attend to my social duties and――and read a great deal; and then, of course, I’m always studying my Art.’

‘Gee, you must lead a swell life,’ said Pud. ‘What sort of things do you read? Ever read “The Three Musketeers”?’

‘N-no, I don’t think so. Who wrote it? Mother is very particular about my reading. I’ve read all of Annabel Smothers’ stories; “Lady Lucia’s Diamonds” and “Loved and Lost” and――’

‘Slush,’ said Pud.

‘They’re not either! They’re beautiful! Maybe you wouldn’t care for them; boys don’t, I guess; they can’t――can’t appreciate sentiment.’

‘Huh,’ grunted Pud.

‘Mister Pud,’ interrupted Harmon, ‘does I get me some of that there reward?’

‘What reward?’

‘What we gets for unkidnapin’ this here girl.’

‘No, you don’t,’ replied Pud. ‘Nobody gets any reward.’

‘How-come?’

‘Because, in the first place, we don’t want any, and, in the second place, because there isn’t any!’

‘Why!’ gasped Gladys Ermintrude, deeply pained.

‘Ain’ she say her ma goin’ give ten thousan’ dollars for her?’ asked Harmon, puzzled.

‘Yes, she said so,’ answered Pud, laughing with deep irony, ‘but she says a lot of things. She says she’s going to be a movie actress!’

‘I think you’re too――too disgusting for words!’ exclaimed the girl. ‘I _am_ going to be a moving-picture actress! Why, sakes alive, everybody knows that!’

‘I’ll bet the moving pictures don’t know it,’ laughed Pud. ‘And as for that reward, any one can have my share for a nickel!’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ objected Tim. Gladys Ermintrude was plainly too wounded for speech. ‘I don’t see why her folks wouldn’t give something for her safe return to――to――for her safe return. It generally _is_ done, Pud.’

‘Yes, in stories and movies!’

‘Well, but, wait now! There was a piece in the paper just last winter where a boy was kidnaped and his father offered a lot of money for him; I think it was five thousand dollars!’

‘Of course there was!’ declared the girl triumphantly.

‘All right,’ said Pud cheerfully. ‘You go on believing it. To-morrow you’ll see whether I’m right or wrong. Because to-morrow morning Gladys Evinrude’s going to be handed over to her ma just as soon as we can get her there. And now I’m going to bed. You and I’ll sleep in the boat, Tim, and she can have the tent. Harmon, you bed down here by the fire. And don’t you go and raise a rumpus on account of any skunk or anything else, because if you do I’ll sure tan your hide!’

Later, on the edge of sleep, Pud remembered that he had not written his letter home.