CHAPTER XIII

LOST!

Turtle Creek proved a shallow stream some forty feet in width at its outlet. Beyond the mouth the width varied considerably, but, in spite of an occasional snag or mud spit, there was always plenty of room. The bottom was plainly in sight, for the water seemed nowhere more than six feet deep. Because of the many twists and turns, Pud slowed the engine down and peered watchfully from the bow. Along the banks, not more than two feet above the stream, the bushes grew high and close, shutting them away from the slight breeze that had made existence on The Flat endurable. Tim perspired and protested, fanning himself with his hat. Of the three Harmon only was content. At intervals smaller streams flowed into the creek, sometimes hidden by overhanging vegetation, sometimes in full sight and so considerable as to width as to make it doubtful to Pud which was the main waterway. Those three miles seemed like six to them, and it was almost half-past four ere the creek swung lazily about and unexpectedly revealed a small pond of still, black water.

In size it was distinctly disappointing, for one could easily have thrown a baseball across it at its widest place. Connected with it, as they later discovered, were two other creeks. In shape it was as nearly round as any pond might be, with low margins and much pickerel-weed to engage the propeller. Pud voiced disgust, but Tim replied that maybe it was big enough to hold fish. As for Harmon, he already had his half-dead frog trailing in the water. It took some searching to find a depth of more than eight feet, but they finally succeeded and dropped anchor and went to fishing hopefully.

About six o’clock hope died and Pud and Tim took turns at telling what they thought of the veracity of the stranger in the punt. Not once had a hook been nosed at, not once had anything more than a dragon-fly stirred the placid surface. It was the stillest, most lonesome spot they had ever seen, and Pud gave it as his well-considered verdict that there wasn’t a fish there, never had been and never would be. Harmon, viewing his pathetic bait dubiously and striving to make it show some sign of life by poking it with a finger, remarked that if he had some ‘good ol’ worms’ he could get results. They fished on half-heartedly for a while longer and then gave up. Tim was the last to quit, plainly disgruntled because he alone had failed to land anything.

It was now too late to seek further for a spot on which to spend the night, and fortunately a really ideal camp-site lay before them in the shape of a hummock sparsely clad with a few discouraged-looking pines. It was almost free of undergrowth and carpeted with coarse grass and brown needles. There was just room for the tent and a fireplace in front, and after they had finally pushed the bow of the launch to within jumping distance of dry land they disembarked and proceeded to make camp. Harmon had to hunt long before he had accumulated enough wood to carry them along until bedtime, but he succeeded at last, and soon there was a fragrant fire burning. The two bass were cleaned and fried, and, as the sun sank behind the marshes to the west, three very hungry boys squatted down around the fire and had the best meal of the cruise. They felt far more cheerful after supper, and while Harmon cleaned up and rebuilt the fire, and while Pud stretched lazily out on a blanket, Tim fished from the stern of the launch in about three feet of water and, just as darkness fell, pulled forth a twelve-inch pickerel. Until he got it to the light of the fire he wasn’t sure what it was, and feared it might prove to be an eel! His triumph was expressed loudly and at length, and he would have gone back to the launch for more pickerel if Pud hadn’t forbidden it!

If Turtle Pond was silent by daylight, so soon as darkness had well fallen it made up for it by becoming seemingly alive with strange and mysterious sounds. Two owls held a weird and monotonous conversation in the near distance, deep-voiced frogs called pessimistically to each other about the pond, faint squeaks came from the rushes, and in the bushes twigs snapped and stealthy rustlings were heard. It would have been worse than idle to have tried to induce Harmon to sleep outside the tent, and so he was permitted inside without discussion. Undressing, Pud came on the letter he had written in the morning, still unmailed, and he sighed discouragedly. In spite of the best intentions in the world, he had thus far dispatched but one missive to his parents; and this was the fourth night of their trip!

It wasn’t easy to get to sleep. Conversation languished, died away, and commenced again. They made plans for the morrow and remade them. One thing they were unanimous about, and that was to get back to The Flat as soon as they could. Silence had held the tent for quite five minutes when Pud again spoke.

‘Say, Tim, I’ll tell you one thing.’

‘What?’ asked Tim sleepily.

‘You won’t ever catch me lying.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the other murmured, ‘you aren’t such a smart liar!’

‘I mean I’m not going to tell lies,’ said Pud energetically. ‘I――I’ve had my lesson.’

Tim chuckled. ‘Wait till you get home and begin telling about that bass you caught!’

‘I mean it,’ Pud insisted seriously. ‘Just look at that girl, Gladys Evinrude! My goodness, Tim, she was enough to cure that fellow in the Bible, Anna――I forget his name.’

‘Why, she was just――just imaginative, Pud!’

‘Imaginative, my eye! Anyway, you couldn’t believe a word she said, and if she got that way from reading too many stories I’m going to quit reading! She――gee, she was the limit!’

‘Oh, I dare say she was all right other ways,’ muttered Tim charitably. ‘Go to sleep, can’t you?’

‘All right. But I’d like to know whether she got that licking!’

They awoke to find the world wet and gray, with a soft, mistlike rain falling. The difficulty experienced in getting a fire started with only damp wood for fuel and the consequent wait for breakfast depressed them. Matters were made no better when they embarked in a boat whose every surface gleamed with water. They had eaten Tim’s pickerel, and, since the fire had been weak, eaten it in a somewhat underdone condition, and Pud had felt squirmy ever since. On the whole it was a low-spirited trio who set forth through a silver-gray void to find their way out of Turtle Pond. Twice they thought they had discovered the outlet and twice they were forced to back hurriedly out of the entangling weeds. At last, though, they found the stream and headed safely into it. There wasn’t much to be seen save bedraggled shrubs along the banks or an occasional clump of trees. The fine rain fell silently and ceaselessly. They had progressed slowly the matter of a mile and a half, perhaps, when Harmon broke the depressed silence.

‘Look yonder, Mister Pud,’ he exclaimed. ‘See ’at big tree ’at’s leanin’ over!’

‘Yes, what about it?’

‘I ain’ see no such tree like ’at when we comes in here.’

‘We-ell, I don’t think I did, either,’ answered Pud, ‘but I guess it was there.’

The tree in question, seen vaguely through the grayness ahead, leaned at an angle of some forty-five degrees across the stream, and it did seem strange that none of them recalled seeing it before. Tim voiced the growing conviction of all when, viewing it from beneath, he said: ‘This isn’t the way we came up, Pud.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ replied Pud doubtfully. ‘Maybe that tree fell over last night.’

‘It might have, but this creek’s different. It doesn’t twist about so much, for one thing; we’ve been going pretty straight for ’most a mile, I guess; and it’s deeper; you can’t see the bottom nearly so plain.’

‘Of course not, when it’s raining. What do you say, Harmon?’

‘I reckon we done got los’,’ answered Harmon simply.

‘Lost, my eye! Even if this isn’t the way we came, it’s bound to lead back to the river. I guess we got mixed up back there and took the stream that led out of the pond over to the left of where we fished, Tim. Anyway, the current’s going the way we’re going, and so it must lead back to the river.’

Tim wasn’t sure that Pud was right about the current, and there was so little of it that Pud couldn’t prove his assertion until he had stopped the launch. Then, as it continued slowly on in the direction it had been going, and as a piece of cardboard dropped over by Tim floated in the same way, the question seemed decided. Ten minutes later the stream branched, and Pud, about to choose the left branch as naturally the correct one, was surprised to find the current flowing toward him at the mouth. He stopped the boat and they made certain of it. The left-hand stream flowed into the one they were in. That was puzzling, since according to their sense of direction the right-hand stream would lead them farther northward, and they wanted to go south!

They discussed the matter for several minutes while the launch, still flying a bedraggled pirate flag from the stern, nestled against the wet bushes. In the end they reached the decision that, for all they knew, what seemed to them north might well be south. No one could remember which way they had started from the camping spot. If they had unwittingly taken the stream leading eastward, what seemed to them to be north would really be south. If the sun had been shining they could have solved the riddle easily enough. And so they could had there been a compass aboard, but a compass was one thing――almost the only thing, one might have thought――they hadn’t brought along.

It seemed the safest course to follow the current, since as Pud, not knowing River Swamp, argued, the current must lead toward the river. They took the right-hand stream and went on. In the course of the next two miles they passed several smaller waterways, all, they judged, flowing into the present one, and gradually the stream grew wider. The engine began to sputter about ten o’clock and, in spite of Pud’s earnest endeavors to find the trouble, went dead in one cylinder. They hobbled along for another mile, and then Pud ran up to a bank and sent Harmon ashore with a line. To alleviate their troubles somewhat the rain almost ceased and the gray became an opaline whiteness that seemed to promise clearing.

Striving to recall all that Andy Tremble had told them about the engine, the two boys started methodically to work. Pud reported a gasoline tank more than half full. Tim examined the carburetor gingerly and gave it a clean bill of health. Together they went at the battery and followed the wires back. Then out came the spark plugs and were frowned over and cleaned. And finally, being put together again, the engine displayed no inclination to start until Pud had thrice primed it. Then it did start half-heartedly and, as before, on one cylinder. Only, and this they were both certain of, it was now the other cylinder!

They had occupied an hour and had gained nothing, and so the launch was unmoored and they went on again. Pud scowled at the sound of the exhaust and he and Tim discussed the possibility of damage from running on one cylinder. But there appeared nothing else to do but keep on, and so they kept on. The sun threatened once or twice to break through, but each time it changed its mind. However, the rain had practically stopped, and they discarded rubber coats. So far they had passed no one on their way, nor had they so much as glimpsed a house, but now, out of the pearly distance, appeared ahead what was without doubt a human habitation.

‘We’ll stop and ask them where we are,’ said Pud.

The habitation, seen closer, was only a shanty, rickety and unpainted. A path led to a log which doubtless answered as a landing, although no boat was in sight. Pud steered the launch to the log and Tim, who had volunteered for the duty, stepped suspiciously onto it and leaped to shore. The cabin looked deserted, but a few tattered garments hung on a line at one side and an axe was buried in a chopping-block close to the door. So Tim raised his voice and said ‘Hello!’ As there was no answer, he said it a second time, pausing, undecided whether to knock on the tightly closed door in front or make his way around to the back. This time there came an answer, but not of the sort he had expected.

Something that sounded like a hornet sped past him and went whining off across the stream, and a sharp report came from the bushes behind the house. Tim, amazed, stood stock-still and stared until Pud’s voice reached him and galvanized him into action.

‘_Run, you chump!_’ shouted Pud. ‘_They’re shooting at you!_’

Then Tim ran.

He spurned the log altogether and landed half in and half out of the launch, his feet dangling in the water. Pud jerked at the clutch and the boat limped on its way. Harmon, reaching up from a place of safety, pulled the rest of Tim over the gunwale. Pud, at the bow, making himself as small as possible, peered ahead at intervals and then back toward the cabin, all the time wondering how it would feel to have a bullet land between his shoulders. But the next shot went far overhead, singing past before the short _crack_ of the rifle reached them. Looking back, Pud saw a lean form in a calico dress and a faded blue cotton sunbonnet emerge from the bushes at the left of the cabin and stand for a moment peering after them. She held a long-barreled gun in one hand while to the other clung a child of three of four years.

‘Gee,’ muttered Pud, ‘a woman!’

There was a throaty chuckle from Harmon. ‘My golly, Mister Tim, I reckon it was plum’ lucky for you the ol’ man ain’ to home!’ he said.

‘I guess,’ observed Pud, resuming the seat, ‘she didn’t try to hit us. All she was doing was frightening us off. Maybe she thought we were revenue officers or sheriffs or something.’

‘Plaguy old frump!’ sputtered Tim, his nerves still unsteady. ‘She ought to be arrested!’

‘That’s so,’ Pud agreed. ‘We’ll go back and you can make believe you’re an officer and――’

‘Oh, shut up,’ grunted Tim, coming forth from concealment and staring vindictively back at the now distant cabin. ‘It’s all right for you to laugh, Pud Pringle, but you didn’t feel that bullet whiz right past your ear!’

‘Folks ’roun’ these here parts seems mighty onsoci’ble,’ observed Harmon. ‘Reckon they done heard we’s pirates, Mr. Pud?’

They reached a second domicile a little later, slightly more pretentious, having a tumble-down porch across the front, but they not only did not stop to make inquiries, but they went by in complete silence save for the unrhythmical coughing of the invalid engine. Hunger overtook them well short of noon, for breakfast had been an unsatisfactory meal, and they drew up beside a fairly clear hummock and had dinner. The steak that they had purchased the day before was decidedly odoriferous when Harmon drew it forth from a locker and Pud and Tim viewed it with deep suspicion and with highly elevated noses. Tim advised throwing it away, but Harmon assured them that it was a perfectly good piece of meat.

‘Jus’ you-all wait till I scrape it nice an’ wash it, Mister Tim. Why, my lawsey, ’at ain’ _ol’_, ’at’s jus’ seasoned!’

It certainly tasted delicious when, Harmon having cut it into three portions in the hot frying-pan and laid a portion on as many tin plates, they sampled it doubtfully. Tim was exceedingly glad his advice had not been acted on. They had boiled potatoes and some rather stale bread and much steaming hot tea with the steak, and they ended up with cake and bananas. And after that no one appeared to be in any hurry to go on. Pud hazarded the opinion that they had accomplished about seven miles since morning, even allowing for stops and the disabled engine, but Tim’s judgment knocked off a mile. Both agreed, though, that they ought to reach the river very soon.

Tim rescued a piece of scorched paper from the edge of the fire and, with a burnt stick, drew a map purporting to prove conclusively that the river when found would be the Little Fox. But as his lines were not very clear, and as the same applied to his explanation, Pud was unconvinced. Pud believed they would come out first of all on Two-Pond Run somewhere south of Swamp Hole and would have to go down Two-Pond Run a considerable distance before they arrived back at The Flat.

‘The way it looks to me,’ he said, ‘we’ve been sort of circling around, first west and then north, and now kind of west again, and if that’s right we’re bound to come into Two-Pond Run pretty quick.’

‘Please, sir, Mister Pud,’ said Harmon earnestly, ‘don’ you-all take me nigh that there Swump Hole. They ain’ got no use for colored folkses roun’ there, sir!’

‘Well, I guess we won’t get very close to it,’ replied Pud.

But his voice lacked conviction, and Harmon continued to look troubled. As Pud and Tim could not make their theories agree, they gave up the attempt after a while and the voyage was continued. The stream was now more than twice as wide as it had been at Turtle Pond and there were occasional indications of a stronger current. The launch, in spite of its handicap of one cylinder, was making appreciably better time. The stream took on many turns, some of them surprisingly abrupt, and Pud had his hands full. At last, without warning, the stream ceased to be and they were out on a long and narrow lake whose farther end was lost in gray mist. Silent and unruffled, it stretched away between wooded shores. Across from them, to the right, a close forest of trees formed a dark wall. Sparsely clothed at their tops with feathery green, their long straight trunks descended into the dark water, there bulging out hugely. Pud, having silenced the motor, turned to Tim, beside him.

‘Know where we are?’ he asked in a strangely small voice.

Tim shook his head, staring about him uneasily.

‘Cypress Lake,’ said Pud.