CHAPTER XIX

DRUMMER SAVES HIS CHIEF

It was with a sinking heart and a quick flash of chilling fear that Buck felt himself in the grasp of the unknown man back of the cemetery monument. The attack had come so quickly that, added to the mystery and uncanniness of the place and hour, his mind whirled for the moment. The hand over his mouth was rough and horny, calloused apparently by hard labor, and the arm which encircled his body and pinned his own arms to his sides was a strong and sinewy one, the thin but whip-like cords of which he could feel even through his clothing.

His fingers still rested on the button of his flashlight and the thought occurred to him to light it. But as though reading his thought the strange individual swung down a long, lean hand and swept it from his grasp. Buck might have used his light for a weapon had he thought about it, but just now his thoughts and impressions were too confused to allow for anything constructive.

Still keeping his hand over Buck’s mouth and his thin arm around his body with a grip of steel, the man peered out around the tall stone to see if anyone was following the leader. He could see the group of boys merely as shadows a little darker than the sky, for at the point where they were standing there was no woods background and as the cemetery was high on a ridge of the mountain the boys were outlined like uneasy shadows against a black sky. Seeming to derive comfort from the fact that Buck was all alone, the man started to drag him off.

But in this period of time Buck had recovered his presence of mind. The man who had him was very little taller than he was, his body was thin and he seemed to be nearer middle age than young. All in all, Buck was huskier, but for all that, the man who held him had muscles of steel. There was no doubt that he was a native mountain character and he was ready for any emergency. Buck wished fervently that he could get his mouth free and also gain the use of his arms. He felt that with the use of his arms he could match himself up favorably with the man who held him.

Just as the man began to drag him off, Buck began a frantic attempt to break away. He jerked his head back in an effort to free his mouth, but the man immediately dug his long fingers into Buck’s cheeks. The pain infuriated the boy and he increased his struggles. He fought to free his arms, exerting all of his strength to do so.

The attempt was futile. Like a winding whip the thin arm tightened even more closely until the wind was almost forced from his body. Then Buck began a foot attack.

This nearly succeeded, for the man was not prepared for it. Buck gave his nearest foot a kick that made the man grunt with pain, and for a moment it looked as though he was going to go over. But he recovered his ground and once more began his dragging process. Fighting stoutly but vainly, Buck was dragged along.

They moved away from the big stone toward the far wall, the captor finding his progress a hard one, due to the energetic squirming of Buck. The boy expected a fierce warning any minute from the man and perhaps a blow to silence him, but the mountaineer was depending on his strength alone to carry Buck off and not so much as a single word came from him. Half dragging and half carrying Buck, he made his way to the wall furtherest away from the boys. The grass in the cemetery was soft and wet and Buck’s fighting progress made no sound.

They arrived at last at the wall and the man heaved Buck up and over like a sack of wheat and jumped with him over the low barrier. They were in the open field, with a few apple trees around and the deep woods a few scant yards away. Toward this dense wall of the thicker trees the determined man began to drag Buck, who by this time had succeeded in prying open his fingers so as to breathe between them.

Something unexpected happened. There was a swish near them which puzzled them both. The captor stopped in some bewilderment and then something hard struck him on the side of the temple, causing him to grunt and hesitate in his progress.

Back at the wall the boys had watched Buck’s progress as he went from stone to stone with his flashlight and they had remained quiet while he had worked his way deeper and deeper into the quiet graveyard. Drummer felt somewhat grieved that his leader had not taken him along but he kept the fact to himself. Buck’s light was seen once far down in the cemetery, close to a towering monument, and it was seen no more. Time dragged on heavily.

Impatiently, the boys waited at the wall, standing close together in the darkness. The quietness of the lonely country, the association of the graveyard and the uncertainty of the whole enterprise made them want to give up the affair and return to the camp. They thought somewhat wistfully of the warm campfires and their friends below, and they were anxious to get back. Before long they became restless and nervous.

“Confound it, wish he’d come back!” grumbled a boy.

“He’ll be right back,” reassured Drummer, secretly uneasy.

For the past few seconds Drummer had been smelling something that appealed to him. There must be an apple orchard nearby he decided, and where there was an orchard there must surely be apples. That particular brand of fruit was a great favorite with the stout boy, and after peering around for a moment or two he decided that the orchard must be at the end of the graveyard wall. He began to edge off in that direction.

“Where you going?” Bob whispered.

“To see if I can pick up an apple,” was the answer, as Drummer moved off.

Under the circumstances no one else was interested in apples and Drummer went alone. At the end of the wall he instinctively reached for his flashlight which he had hung on his belt, and then he realized that he could not use it.

“Better not,” he decided. “I might give our position away, and Buck would be mad. I’ll hunt around in the dark and I guess I can find some on the ground.”

The apple trees were now before him and he stopped under the first tree, looking up. There were apples on the tree he was able to make out, but all of them were beyond his reach. He had no intention of climbing the tree at that time, though he made up his mind to visit the old orchard at some later time and help himself to the apples on the tree.

He reached down, wishing for the added help of his light but deeming it prudent not to employ it. There were apples on the ground and his groping fingers found four of them without any trouble. There were others nearby, but he straightened up with a big one in his hand and carefully felt along the surface of it.

“Got to be careful about eating them in the dark,” he reflected. “Don’t want to go eating any worms! This one feels all right.”

He raised his head, and against the break between the woods and the sky, saw something that for the moment chilled his blood.

A man who looked for the moment like a goblin or some horrible creature from another world, was apparently half-carrying and half-dragging a big sack of meal after him as he crept toward the woods. But the sack struggled and moved and in that instant Drummer’s eyes were opened fully.

He remembered the last flash of Buck’s flashlight and the long silence from the graveyard. It was plain at once that the man they had been chasing was carrying off his chief and for a brief second the stout boy was on the verge of yelling at the top of his lungs. One hand dropped toward his flashlight and then he remembered the apple in his hand. It was hard and Drummer was a fairly good shot.

Trembling with excitement, he threw it toward the two figures before him. It went wide of the mark, it seemed to the boy and he stooped down and hastily gathered up the apples at his feet. Calming down somewhat, he began to throw them with more care, and a grunt told him that his second apple had struck someone. He hoped it had not hit Buck, but he kept on hurling apples.

There was a fierce struggle before him and just as his fingers closed over his flashlight, his last apple having been exhausted, he heard Buck’s voice.

“He got away!”

Drummer snapped on his flashlight and in the beams of it he saw the man running across the orchard toward the woods. Buck was three or four yards behind him, but the man was increasing his speed at every stride and it looked hopeless. Drummer joined in the chase.

When the apple had struck the man on the head he had hesitated, bewildered, and in that instant Buck renewed his passionate attempt to break loose. This time he succeeded in freeing his mouth and one arm, which he attempted to wind around the man who had for so long held him a captive. Two more apples swished past them at top speed and the man now changed his tactics. He no longer desired to hold Buck, but seemed more than anxious to get away. He loosed his hold on Buck and wrestled with him in a short, fierce match, finally breaking Buck’s hold and turning to flee. The last apple hurled by Drummer struck the man in the back and he made off like a flash toward the woods. It was then that Buck shouted and took up the chase, somewhat winded from his recent battle.

The man gained the woods well ahead of him and wound his way in and out among the trees, too anxious to get away to slow up for a lack of light. Buck had no light and Drummer’s flashlight was too far back of him to be of any use. He could hear the boys chattering as they took up the chase, but on the edge of the woods Buck halted, realizing the futility of it.

He was winded and dissatisfied and the man who had plunged into the woods knew them so well that to follow him would be a pure waste of time. Drummer caught up with him, puffing with the exertion and excitement.

“Go-going to chase him?” panted the hero of the apple bombardment.

“No use,” declared Buck, as the others came up, lights all turned on. “We’d never get him in these woods. He knows them too well. You can’t even hear him, now.”

They stood there listening, but nothing but unbroken silence came from the depths of the forest. The rest of the boys did not desire to press the matter if Buck did not, and they stood there for some time, listening with awe to Buck’s story of his adventure. Many were the exclamations that followed it.

“Boy, you certainly did me a service when you began to peg those apples!” Buck told Drummer, laughing. “That artillery fire halted his advance and gave me my turn at the game. You certainly used your head!”

“Well, that’s just once when my appetite came in handy,” grinned the fat boy.

“It surely did! Next time anyone comes around bothering the camp we’ll just send you out with a basket of apples and we can sleep in peace all night! Well, come on back to the graveyard, I want to get my flashlight.”

They all climbed over the low wall and went back to the spot where Buck had been captured by the man behind the monument and there on the ground they found his flashlight. Beside it, resting against the base of the stone, they found a battered lantern.

“I wondered what had become of his lantern,” said Buck, picking up the battered object. “Just an ordinary old farm lantern, which doesn’t tell us much, but we’ll take it back to camp with us.”

“I won’t be sorry to get back to camp,” said Charlie.

“Pretty soft for the fellows in camp!” remarked Drummer. “Just sitting around the fires waiting for us!”

“Let’s get back to the camp,” suggested Buck. “They’ll be waiting up for us and worrying.”

In a body they set out for the camp, feeling better now that everything had turned out well, although they were sorry that the man had gotten away. “If we had gotten him we would have solved the problem of our camp,” said Buck. “But we’ll keep after him until we do get him.”

“Think he’ll come around the camp any more?” Drummer asked.

“Not for a while, anyway. I can’t say whether he’ll come around again or not because I don’t know what his object can be. But if he doesn’t, we’ll go out and hunt him up, because it is high time that he was brought down.”

They had run further away from the camp than they had thought and it took them a long time to reach the top of the mountain where they could look down on the camp. The two fires were burning brightly but no one was in sight. This puzzled them and they halted, studying the situation.

“Funny, I wonder where they are?” muttered Buck.

“Look, somebody crossing the brook with a lantern!” cried Bob, pointing.

They saw a lone figure crossing the stones of the brook below the spot where the creek was deep enough to swim and Buck was sure that the figure was Ted. They were so high up and far away that they were unable to tell accurately, but it looked to be the figure of the camp leader. He entered the circle of light near the fire, the lantern swinging by his side.

Then something else claimed the attention of the boys on top of the mountain. A flicker of light came to them from the top of the ridge back of the springs and then a bush flamed. They saw the camp boys come running out of their tents and look toward the fire, then scurry off toward the truck at the edge of the camp.

Buck wasted no more time. “Come on, fellows!” he called, as he started off. “The woods are burning! We’ve got to help the camp squad!”