CHAPTER XVIII

AN UNEASY CAMP

The boys who had remained in the camp stood watching and listening as the field squad rushed off on the trail of the man who had slipped down into their camp. Small as the boys were, every one of them wished earnestly that he had been included in the party delegated to do the active work, and it was with some envy that they saw their more favored comrades run out of the circle of light and enter the black belt of the woods.

But Ted had no intention of allowing them to stand around and watch. There were things to do and he knew that action would relieve them of some of their stored up feelings.

“All right, fellows,” he called to them. “Let’s get on the job and build big fires. We don’t know what time the other boys will get back, and when they do we want to have the fires going briskly. Get your axes and we’ll snap to it.”

“There is a pile of wood near the fire now,” pointed out one boy.

“Yes, but that wood is going on right now,” replied Ted, piling the pieces of cut wood on the red fires. “We will have to hustle and cut up a big supply so that Buck and the boys will have a guide when they come back. Light the lanterns and we’ll get busy.”

The lanterns were lighted and they plunged into the fringe of the woods. The sound of several axes rang out as their owners began to chop the wood for the fire supply. The lanterns were placed on the ground and made a neat ring near them and in the circle of this ring they chopped off dead limbs and split logs. As soon as the wood was collected they carried it back and piled it beside the fires.

Both fires were now going at their best and the light cast from them lighted up the camp from all angles. Some of the boys would have stopped with their first load, but Ted knew that they might have to wait a long time before their companions returned, so he kept them at the task. The pile grew and grew until it towered above their heads, and in this way fully an hour went by. At last Ted felt that they had enough.

“All right, that will be enough,” he called.

The work was not yet all over, for the wood which had been dragged in required to be split into convenient lengths, although some of the big logs were piled on entire. While the work went on they kept looking up toward the mountain, but no sound reached them and they speculated on the fact.

“They must have had to run a long way,” said Alfred, as he split wood.

“I guess they went clear over the mountain,” nodded Ted. “It may be that they are trailing the man.”

“You don’t suppose that anyone has hurt them, do you?” another boy asked, anxiously.

“I hardly think so,” smiled Ted. “One man, no matter how strong he is, would have a big job in front of him if he tried to run off with that bunch of fellows. I guess they’ll be back pretty soon.”

But the time dragged on and the boys became silent, glancing restlessly up the mountain side. Ted, looking at his watch, saw that it was eleven o’clock.

“A good two hours since they went away,” he thought, somewhat anxiously. “Oh, well, I suppose time seems longer when you are waiting for something than it does if you aren’t. If we only knew what was going on we’d feel better.”

He tried to keep the conversation brisk but the boys would not react. They were visibly oppressed, and they showed in their dogged silence that they were uneasy. Although none of them believed for a moment in anything ghostly, they found the vague stories of the camp a distinct hindrance to their peace of mind and the feeling of depression was heavy upon all of them. Ted wondered if there was not something that they might do to ward off the feelings which gripped them off, and he was thinking busily along this line when a sound reached their ears.

It was a low-pitched moaning and it seemed to come from a point above their camp, in the pine thicket which covered the knoll there.

They looked in the direction of the sound, their blood chilling under its influence. It was weird and mournful, and the icy shivers ran up and down the spine of more than one of the young boys. Ted was not in a comfortable state of mind himself, but he knew that something had to be done about it. He leaped to his feet.

“Come on, we’ve got to see if anyone is hurt up there!” he called, reaching for his lantern. The other boys followed him closely and he passed around the tents and ran rapidly up the incline toward the pine clump. The groaning had ceased as soon as they had started for the place from which the disturbing sounds had come.

They arrived in the grove in a group, the lanterns flashing generous beams around them, but there was no one to be seen. Thinking that someone might be concealed in the bushes they thrust their lights in there and looked closely, but there was no sign of a living person, and as only a living being could produce the sound which had startled them so profoundly, they half expected to see someone who had been injured in some manner. But although they searched the grove they could not find a trace of anyone.

“That’s funny,” commented Ted, now more annoyed than frightened. “The groans came from here, didn’t they?”

“Sure they did,” was the ready response.

“Well, the groaner has moved somewhere else,” said Ted, half angry and half jokingly. “We won’t even be able to find any footprints, because there is such a carpet of pine needles that a print wouldn’t show. Confound this whole business, I——”

From across the camp, and on the other side of Bear Creek, came the groaning sound again. The boys stirred and looked anxiously at Ted.

The hot blood surged into his face and he would have liked nothing better than to have come to instant physical encounter with the groaner. While he waited to control his hot anger the groans came in long drawn out wails that, under the circumstances, chilled their blood. Besides being angry Ted was also puzzled.

“Buck and his squad chased that fellow up the mountain,” he said aloud. “I wonder if he could have slipped around them and come back? Maybe he just wanted to lead them off on a chase.” Abruptly he turned to the boys. “Come on back to the camp.”

They followed him in silence back to the camp and as soon as they entered the circle of light cast by the fires the groaning ceased. A weighty silence succeeded.

“Fellows,” Ted addressed them, in a low tone. “There isn’t any use of us running all around trying to find out who this practical joker is. He’ll just run us ragged, so let’s retire into the center tent and stay there until Buck and his squad gets back. We can watch everything that goes on from the flap of the tent and by keeping under cover we’ll make the chap who is so fond of tricks either show himself or shut up!”

They all crowded under the canvas of the second tent, glad for the shelter, frail as it was. From their position some of the boys could look out and watch the other tents and all of them could watch the fire. Ted did not go into the tent at once, but took a lantern and made sure that his flashlight was at his side.

“You fellows stay here and keep a sharp lookout,” he directed. “I’m going down to see if there is any way for anyone to cross the creek.”

“Going all by yourself?” a boy asked, his eyes staring in awe.

“Yes, but I’ll be right back,” nodded Ted. “See you later.”

He walked off, leaving them to chatter in a hushed way among themselves, and going at once to the creek, took his course along it and away from the camp. He knew that there was a shaky old wood bridge down the creek at some yards from the camp, and while he had told the boys that he was going only that far, Ted secretly determined to cross and have a look at the rather marshy ground on the other side of the curving stream. He was almost certain that he would find nothing, but he wanted to look nevertheless.

“But I mustn’t allow anything to happen to me,” he thought, anxiously. “These boys would be leaderless at least until Buck got back, and there is no telling what might happen to them. I mustn’t be gone long, either.”

He came to the bridge, which he had found one day in his wanderings, and he crossed it, his footsteps sounding hollow and damp as his shoes pressed the rotted boards. On the other side he stepped ashore into a slippery species of soil that gently oozed water as his foot struck and sank slightly into it. The bushes here were thick and he was compelled to force his way through them. Before going beyond the bridge he lowered his lantern and looked at the soft earth and at once perceived something which excited his closest attention.

There was the imprint in the dirt of a large shoe.

The shoe was evidently a good one and showed no sign of wear, while the heel of it was quite new and left impressions which proclaimed it to be a rubber one with regulation holes and a trade mark which was too faint to be of more than passing value to him. But the sight of the print alone caused him to rejoice that at last there was a clear record.

“Now, I’ll just see where this print leads to,” he thought and started off. A moment later he halted as another thought came to him.

“The prints don’t return. Suppose the man is hiding in the bushes, just waiting for me!”

The reflection made his skin creep and for a moment he fought a growing desire to turn and go back. But after an instant of indecision he fought it off. “I’ll have to chance it and go on. I won’t go far from camp, and if I do see anyone, I can fight it out or run like a streak. I won’t cross the bridge, either, I’ll cut right across the ground and jump into the creek and swim it. Don’t know if I’m foolish or not, but here goes!”

With every sense on the alert he walked forward, eyes straining, ears pitched for a sound, ready to retreat at a moment’s notice. It was no easy task to follow the footprints and look around him at the same time, but he managed to do it as he advanced. At a point opposite the camp he came to a complete halt and marked the spot where the man had evidently stood when he delivered the groans, for there the soft ground was foot-printed lavishly. From that spot the man had gone off down the stream away from the camp until he had come to the creek at a point where rocks protruded so far above the stream that he had found it easy to walk across and take to the woods alongside of the camp. Ted noted that the ford was out of sight of the tents and while they were going into the tents the man had evidently crossed the low part of the stream and had entered the woods at a point not far from where Buck and his squad had entered it.

“After he finished his groaning he must have decided that he had scared us enough,” mused Ted, as he stood there peering around. “Confound him, if I ever get my hands on him, I’ll knock his head off, provided I’m big enough! What anyone should take all the trouble to try and scare a bunch of fellows out of camp for is more than I can figure out!”

He crossed the stream at the point where the mysterious man had crossed and made his way back toward the camp, coming up alongside of the fires, in plain sight of the anxiously waiting boys. They were greatly astonished to see him come from the opposite direction from that in which he had started.

He opened his mouth to call out a cheery greeting to them and then his mouth remained open, no sound issuing from it for the moment. In the pine grove above them he detected a spurt of fire, and the next instant a dry bush burst into crackling flame. He awoke from his temporary muteness.

“Come on boys, on the jump!” he shouted. “Grab all the pails you can get hold of! The woods are on fire!”