“Just as sure as you live, they are. They knew Bluff meant business when he said that. Why, even the wounded fellow has his one well arm raised. It’s great!”

Frank generously handed the glasses to his comrade, whose hands trembled so that he could hardly hold them to his eyes.

“What’s he doing now, Will?”

“Seems to be holding that blessed gun with one hand, and paddling softly with the other. Ain’t he the real thing, though? And once we doubted whether he would be just the right sort of fellow to be a member of the club. I’m proud of good old Bluff, and that’s a fact!” cried Will.

“So say we all of us. He must be past the other boat by now; isn’t he?”

“Yes, and has laid the gun down, but where he can grab it up in a hurry if necessary. Pet and his crowd have resumed rowing, too, as if going ashore. They don’t seem anxious to call out at Bluff just now. Jerry used to say that terrible gun would frighten game to death; but even Jerry would have to admit that it’s worth while, if he could only be here, to see this lovely sight. Oh! why didn’t I have my camera ready? What a good picture that would have been,” sighed the official photographer of the club.

“Too far away to make out what was going on, my boy. But I only wish Jerry could have been here to see it. That would relieve me of my anxiety,” said Frank.

The canoe kept moving straight toward them, while the heavily laden boat continued over the lake toward the western shore.

Not even a derisive howl was sent after Bluff. He seemed to have effectually cowed the rowdies. Perhaps it was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, and they had really gone through so much lately that the limit had been reached.

Bluff presently landed directly beside his chums.

“Well done, old fellow!” said Will, hastening to pat him on the back.

“It was as fine a piece of bluff as I ever put up,” grinned the paddler as he stepped ashore, holding the redoubtable gun in his hand.

“How so?” demanded Will, curious to know.

“Why, the gun isn’t in a condition to use. I had it at a locksmith’s, and thought I’d bring it along if he had mended it. Said he had, but didn’t have time to finish putting all the parts together again. I said I could do that easily enough in camp, and fetched it along,” replied the other, chuckling.

“Then it wasn’t loaded at all?” asked Will.

“Of course not; but then they didn’t know that, you see. It was a case of where ignorance was bliss. Answered the purpose all right. You noticed they let me alone.”

“Now I see where you got your name; but that was a time when bluffing was worth while. Come and sit down here and have some breakfast,” remarked Frank.

He was looking closely at the returned wanderer, as if trying to decide whether he brought good news or bad.

“Tell me first, have you heard anything from Jerry?” demanded the other.

“Not the least thing. But I’ve been making up a plan that it seems we will have to follow, since you come back alone,” observed Frank.

Of course this was an invitation for Bluff to unload, and tell what he had accomplished besides getting his gun just before starting back.

“Sheriff out hunting the hobo thieves, just as you feared. No one could say as to when he would return. Might be in an hour, and again, perhaps, it would not be for the balance of the day,” he began.

“You waited until you got tired and then left a note for him?” asked Frank.

“Just what I did, fellows. The whole community is aroused. Seems like these two hoboes must be yeggmen for keeps. At any rate several robberies occurred on the night following the affair on the steamer. A farmer reported that his place was entered and some money and other things taken. Then the thieves broke open the storage warehouse over in Newtonport, and rummaged through a lot of stuff. No one knows what they took there, but they left everything in a great upset. The local militia company in our town is out helping the sheriff hunt!”

“Say, things seem to be stewing at a great rate,” gasped Will.

“And to think that the nervy chaps responsible for it all are here on this very island near us. Yes, more than that, we’ve had experiences with them, and even now they undoubtedly are holding our poor chum for ransom, or some other purpose,” declared Frank, shaking his head.

“Do you think Mr. Dodd will come?” asked Will.

“He certainly will, as soon as he knows. Why wouldn’t he when the men he’s on the lookout for are here waiting for him?” replied Bluff, beginning to eat.

“You said you were thinking up a plan, Frank?” suggested Will, turning eagerly to the chum upon whom the rest were accustomed to rely in emergencies.

“Well, I leave it to the rest of you whether we do it or not. The conditions are peculiar. We want to search for poor Jerry, and yet if we leave our camp unguarded, those savages may steal the whole outfit. Then again, Will naturally doesn’t want to stay here alone while Bluff and myself do the hunting. I can see only one way of fixing it.”

“All right. I’m willing to do anything you say,” remarked the one who had a cup of coffee up to his lips, and was drinking the contents with supreme pleasure.

“Ditto here, Frank,” from Will.

“This idea I had was to break up our camp, stow all the stuff in the canoes, and then have Will paddle far out on the lake with the whole outfit, where he could wait to see what happened. Nothing could reach him there, and we would be free to follow up our plan. How about that, fellows?” asked Frank.

Will glanced out on the lake.

“All right. It looks like it would be quiet enough, and if a big wind does come up, I can paddle the string over to the shore and get under the lee,” he said.

“Call it settled, then. And now, while Bluff is finishing his breakfast, you and I can be taking down the tents and stowing them away,” observed Frank.

“Oh! I’m about through now, but give me a little time to get my gun together, boys. It may come in handy, who knows,” remarked Bluff.

“This is kind of tough, taking down tents when our little outing is hardly half through with,” complained Will, as he labored pulling up tent pegs.

“Oh! it may be only temporary. If Mr. Dodd comes and rounds up those hoboes as we expect, there’s nothing to prevent our pitching camp again right on the old spot, and enjoying another two days or so of this business,” came from Frank, who was under the falling canvas, working like a beaver.

Things were quickly accomplished. The more one camps the easier it is to stow things away in their proper places; and Frank was always particular about doing this, as a labor-saving device.

Hardly an hour after the coming of Bluff and the space was bare. All the “dunnage” had been snugly packed in two of the canoes, while Will was ready to enter the other and convoy the string out on the bosom of Lake Camalot.

They made him take Jerry’s gun as a means of protection. On his part, Will entrusted his precious camera to the tender mercies of Bluff, in hopes that the other might find some chance to snap off a few striking pictures while engaged in his search for Jerry.

“And it isn’t like your gun, remember, for it’s loaded,” he remarked.

“Well, my repeater is now. And perhaps when Jerry learns what a part it has had in his rescue he may stop sneering at it as a modern joke,” said Bluff.

After Will had started, and gone some little distance out on the lake, the two others left the deserted camping-ground.

“Where away first?” asked Bluff, willing to leave these matters to his friend, whose experience up in Maine was apt to prove valuable now.

“Let’s make along the beach for the place where those chaps were,” replied Frank.

“Oh! I see. You think we may find the trail of the wild man there?”

“I’m curious to see what it looks like, that’s all. After that, I think of making for the place where I lost Jerry. We’ve had no rain since, and it seems to me we ought to take up the trail at the place I lost it. I’ve since figured out how I came to go wrong that time, and if we have good luck, we ought to be able to follow it straight to the place they’re staying at.”

It took them but a short time to reach the late camp of Pet Peters and his cronies, which was full of signs of a hasty departure.

“I wonder what could have happened here?” mused Frank, as he looked around.

“Seems like they must have been having a high old time. There’s a remnant of a hat, and I declare if this isn’t piece of a coat sleeve. It was a fight, Frank, I tell you!” exclaimed Bluff, convincingly.

“Just as I suspected, but, of course, we may never know what caused it, and whether they were just indulging in a little racket among themselves or with the two hoboes. They had little left that would induce those rascals to attack them, seems to me,” remarked Frank.

“Listen! what was that?” suddenly asked Bluff.

Both boys stood motionless, with heads cocked on one side, straining their ears to catch a repetition of the sound that had come to them.

Quickly they heard it again.

“Say, it seems like a groan to me,” whispered Bluff, with eyes aglow.

“Just what I thought. There! that time I located it, Bluff. Come over here. Good gracious! what do you think of that?”

CHAPTER XVII – DEEPER INTO THE JUNGLE

“Why, it’s a boy!” exclaimed the horrified Bluff, as he stared at the object from which the sounds proceeded.

“And tied to a tree, too! You know him, Bluff; look again!” remarked Frank.

“Say, it’s sure Tom Somers, one of Pet Peters’ crowd. What under the sun does it mean, Frank?” exclaimed the other, startled and mystified.

“Just what I said. They must have had a monkey-and-parrot time among themselves, and the Tom Somers’ section got the worst of it. You see the result – they’ve gone off and left this fellow fastened here as a punishment for his rebellion.”

“But – this ain’t out West, or in the Cannibal Islands. Wake me up and tell me if I’m seeing things. What! do you mean to say those savages would leave Tom here to starve to death?” gasped Bluff.

“Oh! no, some of them would come back by to-night or to-morrow to let him off. I imagine this is only some of Pet’s miserable work. He’s a cruel monster. I thought Andy Lasher bad enough, but it turned out that he had a speck of good in him, and Jerry touched it when he saved his life that stormy night. But Pet is mean and revengeful, a sneak, and a coward at heart.”

“There. I believe he has just discovered us,” said Bluff.

The boy who was fastened to the tree gave a groan, and then called out:

“Say, fellers, you wouldn’t go and leave me here like this would you? Set me free anyway, and I kin shift for myself somehow; but it’s tough to be tied up like a dog, an’ all because I knocked Pet down when he called me a name I won’t take off any man or boy. Jest slice a knife over these ropes, won’t you, please?”

He did not whine, but asked the favor in a fairly decent way.

“Of course we will, Tom Somers. You’ve always been an enemy of mine, but that’s no reason we should leave you like this. There you are!”

Frank purposely allowed his chum to do the cutting. He knew that there had in the past been more or less bad blood between these two lads, and he had in mind a possible repetition of the singular friendship that had sprung up between Jerry and Andy Lasher after the time when the former saved the life of the town bully.

“That’s ‘white’ of you, Bluff, and I ain’t the feller to forget it, neither,” was what the late prisoner said as his bonds fell away.

“You look bruised more or less, so I take it there must have been quite a fight here before they went away?” remarked Frank, questioningly.

The other grinned, though the effort must have pained him not a little, on account of the many scratches and gouges on his face.

“Did they? Well, I should smile, pardner. I only had one husky chap to stand by me, against five; but we pretty nigh cinched things. Pet Peters said he’d get even with me by leavin’ me here a spell, to tempt that wild man. But I had hopes some of you fellers might top the rise and give me a helpin’ hand.”

“Oh! I remember now, you’re the chap who was out West for a year herding cattle. I notice it in your speech,” said Frank, smiling.

“It gets in the blood, when you mingle some with them gents. I try to break off when the fellers kid me, but it crops out when I ain’t thinkin’. But say, it was ‘white’ of you to do this, an’ I ain’t got any call to ask favors of your crowd either.”

A sudden thought struck Frank.

“See here, you say you’re grateful; will you prove it?” he asked.

Tom Somers thrust out his chest as he immediately replied:

“I’m a maverick if I don’t; try me!”

“Then listen. You heard me say that our chum Jerry had strangely vanished yesterday while we were in the woods. I have good reason to believe those two hoboes laid hold of him, for some reason or other,” Frank started.

“Ransom – the old, old game, perhaps?” suggested the other, quickly.

“Well, I hardly think it is quite so bad as that; but they wanted to hold him as a sort of hostage, perhaps, threatening us if we didn’t get off this island. No matter what their reason, they’ve got our chum, and now we mean to try and release him. That’s why we’re here.”

“And you want me to help? ’Course I will, and only too glad to have the chance. If it’s a trail to foller, why I picked up lots of points out there on the Texas plains, and just you set me on the track,” said Tom, pulling on a tattered coat that had been taken from him ere he was fastened to the tree.

“Then let’s begin right here and see if there is any trail where your grub basket went off last night!” remarked Frank.

At that Tom started and turned a little pale.

“You said the hoboes, pard, and not that man-monkey,” he stammered.

Plainly he had conceived a great fear regarding the mysterious object that had appeared in the camp, and vanished with their provisions.

Frank laughed.

“Make your mind easy, I’m not intending to follow him. We expect to go to the place where my pard vanished yesterday, and take up the trail there. I followed it a while, but night was coming on and I lost it. You may do better, Tom,” he said.

“But you mentioned that hairy monster, didn’t you?” queried the other, uneasily.

“I only want to examine the track he left, so as to settle in my mind whether it was really a crazy human being or a big ape. Come over here and let’s see.”

“Huh! none of our fellers ever thought of lookin’ around. A snake-whip couldn’t a-coaxed ’em over this way. Like as not they expected the varmint was lyin’ in the bushes, waitin’ to jump out again. But I don’t pull leather when I give my word.”

He threw himself prostrate on the ground. In less than three minutes an exclamation announced that he had found what he sought. Frank dropped beside him.

“There she is, and a jim-dandy of a track, too, plain as the hoof marks of a cayuse around a snubbing post!” he exclaimed, pointing.

“Just as I thought, a man’s shoe, and an unusually big one. That settles one thing in my mind. It is no escaped ape that runs wild on this island. It may be a lunatic that has got away from the asylum over at Merrick, or – ”

Frank did not finish his sentence, but nodded his head as though the thought that had flashed into his mind pleased him.

“That all here?” asked the other, a little nervously, although apparently relieved to learn that it was not a wild animal he had seen on the preceding night.

“Yes, I’m entirely satisfied. Now let us find the place where those Indian mounds are, and we can get on the trail without delay,” answered Frank, leading the way.

It took him fully an hour to accomplish this. First they had to return to the spot at the foot of the bluff where the canoeists’ camp had lately stood. Here his own trail was taken up, and Tom Somers proved to the satisfaction of the others that he did know considerable about following tracks through thickets and woods, for he led them unerringly until finally Frank saw the two mounds.

“There they are,” he said, in a low voice.

Bluff pushed his gun forward menacingly.

“Where?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper.

“Oh! I mean the two Indian mounds, not the hoboes. Come over here and see the trail made as they went away,” replied his chum, quickly.

When the boy who had spent a year on a Texas ranch punching cattle saw the marks, he announced it as his opinion that they had been made by two parties besides Jerry.

“I reckon your chum was snoozing some when they jumped his claim. He kicked and put up a right husky fight, but they was too much for him, and choked him off. I reckon one of them must a-been a boy, and the other a big man, judgin’ from the marks. Then, when they had reduced him to quiet they just snaked him off.”

“That’s what I thought – the big brute carried Jerry on his back, for there are no signs of my chum’s footprints around. Now, let’s start off. I’m anxious to know the worst, no matter what it is!” cried Frank.

Bluff brought up the rear. It was anything but light under the dense growth of trees and clinging vines. At times the tracker had to get down close to the ground in order to see what he wanted.

Bluff had slung his gun over his shoulder by the strap, and was holding Will’s camera in his hands, wondering if he had not been foolish to bring such a silly thing along with him on so serious an errand.

The deeper they penetrated into the interior of the island the denser the undergrowth seemed to become, until at times it was only with the utmost difficulty they pushed their way through. Others having gone ahead of them made it a trifle easier, perhaps; at least Tom Somers said so in a whisper.

“Perhaps we’re gettin’ clost to the place, now, pardners; so we’d better take our time an’ not hustle too much. Don’t speak above a whisper, either,” he said, as he parted the bushes in front.

Even as he did so Frank heard him utter a low exclamation, not of fear so much as of disgust. One look told the other what it meant, and he, too, feared that their plans would all be disarranged through an accidental meeting with a resident of the jungle, who seemed disposed to dispute their further progress.

There was the biggest wildcat Bluff had ever seen in all his life squatted on the low limb of a tree, growling angrily, and with it claws digging into the bark after the manner of a cat that is getting ready to jump, and will not be stopped!

True, Frank could easily have raised his gun and shot the ferocious creature dead in its tracks; but such an explosion must warn the enemy of their presence in the vicinity, and effectually prevent any surprise.

It looked like a serious problem, and yet it must be solved immediately unless they wanted to experience an encounter at close quarters with that fury.

“Hold up! give me a chance. Duck your heads, fellows; I’m going to flashlight the critter!” exclaimed Bluff. And even as he spoke, there was a sudden startling illumination that lit up the immediate vicinity like day.

CHAPTER XVIII – UNDER THE CABIN WALL

“So-long!” exclaimed the ex-cowboy, as he dropped to the ground.

Frank did not know just then whether Tom Somers was trying to evade an expected attack from the big cat, or had been startled and alarmed by the suspicious “click” behind him, instantly followed by that electric flash.

“He’s gone!” whispered Bluff, excitedly.

Frank breathed a sigh of relief. The day had been saved by Will’s inoffensive camera after all, for there was no alarm, and they had escaped an encounter with the poisonous claws of that beast of prey.

“And I bet I got a dandy picture of him, too, for Will. Say, this isn’t so bad, after all. Perhaps there can be some fun hunting with a camera,” pursued Bluff.

“Silence, Bluff. Let’s lie here a bit and listen. I hope we didn’t happen to be so close to their camp as to let them see that flash through the trees,” whispered Frank, dropping down.

Five minutes later they once more began to creep forward. At the suggestion of Tom Somers, all of them were now on their knees, Bluff, as before, bringing up the rear.

It was very thrilling work, and Bluff found himself trembling with excitement as he trailed after his companions.

“Sure he’s a peach at this sort of business, and it was a bully streak of luck when we ran across the poor wretch tied up to a tree,” he was saying to himself, as he watched Tom Somers gliding along, keeping an eye on the ground, and sometimes almost poking his nose against the earth in order to solve a knotty problem.

He hoped they would run up against no more bobcats. While fortune had smiled upon them on that last occasion, perhaps the same good luck might not always be their portion; and Bluff found no desire in his heart for a tussle at close quarters with the owner of a set of claws such as these beasts sported.

Frank and the other fellow seemed to be conferring in low whispers, and hence he crept up to learn what was in the wind.

“See anything, Frank?” he asked eagerly, as he pushed in beside his chum.

“Softly, Bluff. Yes, if you look through this little opening you can see it, too.”

“Why, it’s a house – a sort of old cabin, more like,” said Bluff, as he peeped.

“That’s just what it is. Now, search your memory, both of you – do you ever recollect hearing about any one living on Wildcat Island?” asked Frank.

“Sure I do, now that you ask. There was a queer man once who used to live like a hermit here. That was years ago. They found his skeleton in his cabin. Nobody ever knew what he died of, but it was alone, excepting for his dog, that ran wild till he was shot by a duck-shooter,” whispered Bluff.

“Glory! this here place is some on thrills,” grumbled Tom Somers.

“Never mind the things that are dead and gone. We have more to fear from those that are living. It looks as though the tramps have taken up their quarters in the deserted shack of the old hermit, doesn’t it, Tom?” asked Frank, in the ear of the other.

“It sure does, for a fact. Like as not the whole outfit is quartered there right now. And somehow I got a suspicion that our grub meandered this way, too. Seems like I see a familiar Boston baked-bean can lying there by the door, where they hustled it out after eating the contents.”

Frank made no reply to this insinuation. Whatever he thought he kept to himself.

“Oh! I wonder is Jerry there?” said Bluff, longingly, but managing to keep his tones lowered.

“That is something we mean to discover before a great while. I leave the manner of our approach entirely to Tom here,” declared Frank.

The outcast from Pet’s camp had proven his ability to be of great assistance to them, and Frank believed in encouraging a fellow. His words doubtless gave the other more or less satisfaction. When a boy feels that he is wholly trusted, he is very apt to do his level best.

“First of all I reckon there’s a better way to crawl up close to the shack than this one we’re on. So let’s trail around to the other side, fellers,” he said.

They succeeded in reaching the point he had in view. Even Bluff could see the wisdom of the move. The undergrowth was much more dense here, and extended quite up to the wall of the dilapidated cabin.

They could see that the new occupants had done some little rough tinkering in order to make a roof that would shed water reasonably well. From this it was easy to conclude that Waddy Walsh and his partner did not know just how long they might have to utilize this place as a hide-out, and thought it best to be ready to stand a rainy siege such as the Spring was apt to produce at any day.

Frank felt Bluff clawing at his legs. There was something in the act to tell him his chum was desirous of speaking to him, and he allowed the other to pull up alongside so they could put their heads together.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Didn’t you hear it?” queried Bluff, as if surprised.

“What? I heard nothing.”

“All that whistling on the lake. Sounded to me like that little tug, Rainy Day, that tows the lumber down to the outlet. She was close by, too,” replied Bluff.

“It must have been away off, for I didn’t hear a bit of it. Perhaps it was the tug, too; but she belongs up at the other end of the lake. What could bring her down here?”

“I had an idea that perhaps the sheriff and his posse might be aboard her,” ventured Bluff, and he was instantly seized by his comrade.

“That’s just what it meant. I hope Will’s met them and told how the land lies here. If that is true it means the beginning of the end?” whispered Frank.

“And perhaps we may be back in our good old camp by night time, who knows?” answered the other, joyfully.

Still, neither of them had the slightest thought of relaxing their efforts with regard to investigating the interior of that cabin, and ascertaining whether their comrade was being detained there against his will, perhaps in bonds, that cut his flesh cruelly.

Tom had noted the fact that the others were holding a little powwow, and hence he did not push on so as to leave them. In fact, Tom was not at all particular about quitting the society of these stout-hearted fellows even for a minute, while in such a ghostly neighborhood. Tom believed in spirits, and the story Bluff had told about that skeleton was ever before him.

When they began to advance once more, he also started off.

They were now so close to the cabin that if any one had been talking aloud inside those old moss-grown walls the boys could not have failed to hear the sounds.

There had been a window, but it was closed with a bunch of dead grass, and, of course, none of the boys thought of trying to remove this obstacle in connection with their obtaining a view of the interior. The only other opening, no doubt, was the door, which was allowed to remain wide open all the time for air and light.

Dare one of them crawl around the corner of the cabin and try to look in at that entrance? The risk seemed almost too much. Still, Frank remembered that they had two guns among them, while, so far as they knew, the hoboes possessed none; at least they had shown nothing of the sort thus far.

He had been thinking this over, however, and concluded that it hardly stood to reason that such desperate characters as these two, one an escaped reform school inmate and the other a yeggman tramp, would be entirely without some means of defence. Perhaps one of them might have a revolver which he had up to now kept out of sight for some reason.

Tom was pulling at Frank’s trousers entreatingly. Catching his attention, he made a gesture with his hand, as talking was now out of the question.

Following the line of his pointing finger, Frank saw what had attracted the eye of the boy who had been West. Some animal had for a time used the hut as a lodging-place, and as the door at the time may have been closed, had dug a tunnel under the wall at the back of the place.

Possibly the men inside had filled the hole up beyond the wall, but they had paid no attention to that which lay beyond.

Frank caught the idea instantly. It was to begin to tunnel under the wall, drawing away the earth piecemeal until an opening was made, when one of them might crawl through and make discoveries.

The idea appealed to him somehow or other, and, handing his gun silently to Tom, he set to work lifting handfuls of loose dirt, and gradually scooping out quite a hole. It was easy work because the place had only recently been filled in. As he worked he wondered what sort of an animal had made the tunnel under the wall; perhaps a wildcat, or it might have been a ’coon, hardly a bear, though such big game could be occasionally met with around Lake Camalot, especially along the headquarters of Lumber Run up at the other end of the body of water.

The minutes passed in this way. Several times Frank caught some sound beyond the wall, but could not make out what it might mean. He felt positive, however, that it was the home of the hoboes he had reached, and not a hiding-place of that strange creature so like a gigantic ape, but which wore shoes like a man.

Now he felt the earth growing lighter, as though he might be coming close to an end of his strange task. He was still digging away, eager to learn whether his plan could be carried out, when without the slightest warning something that moved came in contact with his flesh, and he felt his fingers seized by a human hand!