Chapter VIII: Joe Wayring in Trouble

Mr. Swan, who had come to Indian Lake to purchase some supplies for
his family, took a couple of baskets from his canoe and walked back to
the place where Joe Wayring and his friends were standing.

“There’s one thing I ’most forgot to tell you,” said he, as he came
up. “Them three cronies of yours, Tom Bigden and his cousins, are
spending their vacation in visiting with Matt Coyle and his family.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Roy and Arthur, in concert.

“Leastwise we think they are,” continued the guide, “for they have
more to do with Matt than they do with any body else. The boys have
often seen them together, and they seem to be as thick as so many
thieves.”

“That’s what we get by sending them word that if they wanted their
fishing-rods they could come and get them,” said Joe, after a little
pause. “If we had redeemed their property at the time we redeemed
ours, Tom and his cousins wouldn’t have come here.”

“Well, the woods are big enough for all of you, ain’t they?” said the
guide. “You needn’t have any thing to do with ’em if you don’t want
to.”

“We are not sure of that,” answered Roy. “We shall not trouble them,
but that’s no sign that they will keep away and let us alone.”

“Why are they having so much to do with Matt Coyle?” said Arthur.
“That looks suspicious.”

“It does indeed,” said Joe, seriously. “I am afraid it means business
for us.”

“I don’t see why it should,” replied Mr. Swan. “You stay on this side
the lake and let them stay on the other, and you needn’t come together
at all. They ain’t going to tramp twelve miles through the woods to
that spring-hole just for the sake of getting into a fuss with you.”

“Don’t they know that Matt and his boys are in danger of arrest?”
asked Arthur.

“Course they know it. They couldn’t help it, seeing that they come
here every few days after supplies and mail,” said the guide. “The
guides who saw them talking together didn’t know what to make of it,
and I don’t either.”

“There’s something between Tom and Matt, and you may depend upon it,”
said Joe. “It has leaked out in Mount Airy that Tom tried to put Matt
up to lots of mischief before he went away. He told the squatter that
it would be a good plan for him to burn my father’s house, and turn
our sailboats adrift so that they would go into the rapids and be
smashed to pieces.”

“Well, he’s a bright feller!” exclaimed the guide. “Don’t he know that
he will get himself into trouble by that sort of work? There they come
now.”

The boys turned about and saw three canoes coming toward the landing.
The crews who were handling the paddles must have been surprised to
see Joe and his chums there, for as soon as they recognized them they
stopped and held a short consultation.

Now, although the two opposing factions to which Tom and Joe belonged
felt very bitter toward each other, they had never come to open
warfare. They played ball together, always spoke when they met, and
tried to be civil; but there was scarcely a boy on either side who
would not have been glad to see Tom Bigden neatly thrashed. Prime,
Noble, Scott, and the rest of the fellows who made their head-quarters
at the Mount Airy drug store disliked him because he had tried to set
himself up for a leader among them; and Joe and his friends had no
friendship for him because they knew how persistently Tom, aided by
his cousins, had tried to injure them ever since he came to the
village to live.

“If Tom could point to a single mean thing we ever did to him, I
shouldn’t be so much surprised at his hostility,” Joe often said. “But
for him to attempt to ride over us rough shod just because he is
jealous of us—that’s something we won’t put up with. If he had the
least spark of manliness in him, he would quit his under-handed work,
come out open and above-board, and settle the matter with a fair
stand-up fight. But he is too big a coward to do that, so he tries to
sick Matt Coyle onto us.”

Having brought their consultation to a close, Tom and his cousins
dipped their paddles in the water again and drew up alongside the
skiff. If you had been there you would have thought, from the cordial
manner in which they greeted Joe and his companions, that they were
the best friends in the world.

“Much obliged to you for telegraphing to us about our rods,” said Tom.
“We’ve got ’em now, and it will be a cold day when Matt Coyle gets his
hands on them again.”

“I shouldn’t think you would like to associate with that man as freely
as you do,” said Roy, who could not forget that Tom had tried his best
to make one of their canoe meets a failure. “He will spring something
on you sure, and I wouldn’t have any thing to do with him.”

Tom Bigden’s amazing assurance was not proof against an assault like
this. He turned all sorts of colors, but managed at last to say, in
reply—

“You must think I am hard up for associates. My interviews with Coyle
have been purely accidental. I couldn’t help speaking to him when he
spoke to me. Where are you fellows going?”

“We intend to hunt up some trout-fishing before we go home,” answered
Arthur.

“Then you’ll have to go back to some of the spring-holes,” said Loren.
“I’ll bet there isn’t a legal trout in any of the waters about here.
They’ve been fished to death.”

Arthur had nothing more to say, for it was no part of his plan to tell
Tom just where he and his companions were going. The three boys
loitered about for a minute or two, trying to think of something else
to talk about, and then they said good-by and walked toward the
Sportsman’s Home.

“I don’t see what there is betwixt you boys,” said Mr. Swan, as soon
as Tom was out of hearing. “Those fellows seem friendly enough.”

“Yes; but we know that they are not to be trusted,” replied Joe.
“Ralph and Loren are not so very bad, but Tom will do us a mean turn
the first good chance he gets.”

“He didn’t tell the truth when he said that he had met Matt Coyle only
by accident,” added the guide. “Some of the boys told me that one day
last week he waited for Matt Coyle about two miles this side of the
hatchery for more than an hour. That looked as though he had made an
appointment.”

“I wish I had thought to speak to Tom about those guns,” observed Roy.
“Do you know how he came to get hold of them, Mr. Swan? He must have
told some sort of a story when he turned them over to the landlord of
the Sportsman’s Home.”

“I guess you don’t believe he come by ’em in a legitimate way,”
laughed Mr. Swan. “Well, mebbe he didn’t; I don’t know. He said he
found ’em while he and his cousins were roaming about in the woods,
hunting squirrels. The place to hunt for them is around cornfields,
and not in thick woods.”

Having at last found their letters, Joe and his chums slung their
camp-baskets over their shoulders, and started for the hotel, talking
with the guide as they went, and listening attentively to his
instructions regarding the route they would have to follow in order to
reach the spring-hole. They engaged him to look out for their skiff
while they were gone, after which they hunted up the storekeeper, from
whom they purchased supplies enough to last them a week.

“Going up to No-Man’s Pond, be you?” said Morris, the guide who had
patched up the hole that Matt Coyle’s scow knocked in the skiff on the
night the “battle in the dark” took place. “Well, you’ll catch plenty
of fish, but you will have a hard time getting there. You see, some
lazy lout of a guide went to work and filled the carry full of trees
and bushes, for fear that he might be called upon to show a guest over
there. You will have to pick your way through the thickest woods you
ever saw; so you want to go as light as possible.”

“We shall take nothing but my canvas canoe, these three camp-baskets,
and our rods and guns,” replied Joe. “We have a good compass—”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t quarrel with it,” said Morris. “If you
get turned around and see the sun go down in the north, when he ought
to set in the west, don’t get frightened and run yourself to death,
the way Billy Sawyer done two years ago. Billy had been guide for this
country, man and boy, for more than twenty years. The last time I saw
him, he was just starting out for the swamp about three miles the
other side of No-Man’s Pond, intending to spend a month or so in
trapping; but we don’t think he ever saw the swamp or the pond,
either. First he lost his bearings, then he lost his head, then he
went tearing through the woods, till he dropped and died of exhaustion
within half a mile of the hotel.”

“And he was an old guide, you say?” exclaimed Roy.

“Sartin. Guides ain’t no more infallible than other folks. I have been
lost myself; but my employer didn’t know it, I bet you. I kept my head
about me, and worked my way out all right. Well, good-by. You can eat
supper on the shore of that pond if you hold the direct course; but if
you lose it don’t grumble at the compass.”

The boys knew just how hard it was for a bewildered person to place
implicit faith in the needle, for they had been lost scores of times
in the woods in the immediate vicinity of Mount Airy; but they did not
get lost this time. Joe Wayring went in advance, carrying me in one
hand and the little brass box in the other, and brought his companions
to No-Man’s Pond, as the spring-hole was called, in ample time to
catch and cook a supper of trout and make all the necessary
preparations for the night. Twice while we were on the way we came in
sight of the portage that led from Indian Lake to the spring-hole, but
we could not see any signs of a path. It was completely concealed by
the huge trees that that lazy guide had cut across it.

“I wonder if this is the place we’re looking for,” said Joe,
depositing me at the roots of a spreading balsam and taking the camp
basket from his back. “It must be. Here are the mountains on three
sides of us and the hills on the other, and over there is the golden
bathing beach that Mr. Swan told us of. Hi yi! Did you see that?” he
added, as a monster trout showed himself above the water within easy
casting distance of the edge of the lily-pads.

“I should say so,” replied Arthur. “I don’t care whether this is
No-Man’s Pond or not; there are big trout in it, and this is a
splendid place to build a shanty. Now let’s get to work. Who will put
the canvas canoe together and catch supper for us? who will cut the
wood and pick browse for the beds? and who will throw up a roof of
some sort for us to sleep under to-night? Most any thing will do, as
there are no signs of rain. To-morrow we will pitch in, all hands, and
put up a good house.

“I’ll pick the browse,” said Roy, who was lying prone upon the leaves
fanning himself with his hat. “I’m just tired enough to do such lazy
work. I’ll tell you what’s a fact, fellows: If I were Mr. Hanson, and
could find out what guide it was who choked up that portage, I’d never
give him another day’s employment as long as he and I lived. I am
tired to death and roasted besides.”

The others said they were too, but they did not waste time in
grumbling over it. They set to work at once, Arthur clearing the
leaves from the ground on which he intended to erect the lean-to,
while Joe took me from my case and made me ready for business. After
that he put Fly-rod together, fastened a couple of flies to his
leader, and shoved through the lily-pads to catch that big trout, or
others like him, for supper. By that time Roy Sheldon had mustered up
energy enough to take his double-bladed ax from his basket and go in
search of firewood. They worked to such good purpose, one and all,
that, by the time the sun went down and darkness settled over the
spring-hole, they were ready for the night. The browse lay a foot deep
all over the floor of the lean-to; the beds were made up side by side,
with a pillow (a little bag of unbleached muslin, left open at both
ends and stuffed with browse) at the head of each; the fire had burned
down to a glowing bed of coals, over which the trout and coffee-pot
were simmering and sputtering; and the whole was lighted up by the
Ferguson jack-lamp which hung suspended from a clipped bough close at
hand. A tramp of twelve miles on an August day, through a wilderness
so dense that not the faintest breath of air can reach you is no joke;
and it was little wonder that the boys were too tired to talk. They
ate their trout and johnny-cake and sipped their weak coffee in
silence, and then crawled to their beds under the lean-to without
thinking to wash the dishes; although that was a disagreeable duty
they seldom neglected. They slept soundly, too, in blissful ignorance
of the fact that there was another camp within less than three miles
of the spring-hole, and that the owners of that camp were looking for
them.

Nine hours’ sleep has a wonderfully rejuvenating effect upon a healthy
boy; and when our three friends left their blankets at five o’clock
the next morning, and started on a keen run toward the “golden bathing
beach” before spoken of, they were their own jolly, uneasy selves
again. A hasty dip in the water, which was so cold that they could not
long remain in it, two or three hotly contested races along the beach
to get up a reaction, followed by a vigorous rubbing with coarse
towels, put them in the right trim for more trout and johnny-cake; and
the trout and johnny-cake put them in the humor for the work that must
be done if their sojourn at the spring-hole was to be a pleasant one.
The Indian Lake wilderness was noted for its sudden and violent
storms, and when they came the boys meant to be ready for them. They
did not forget to wash the dishes this time, and then Arthur and Joe
went to work to build the shanty, while Roy busied himself in
collecting a supply of fuel and building a range.

If you have never passed a vacation in the woods, you probably do not
know that a camp fire and a camp range are two different things. The
first is made directly in front of the open part of the shanty, and is
intended for warmth and comfort, and for light, also, when you have no
lantern or jack-lamp. The range is built off on one side, a little out
of the way, and is made by placing two green logs, five or six feet
long, and eight inches in diameter, side by side on the ground, about
a foot apart at one end, and nearly touching at the other. The open
end of the range is placed to windward—that is in the direction from
which the wind blows—to create a draft, and the upper sides of the
logs are hewn off square with an ax, so that the pots, pans, and
kettles will stay where they are put, and not slip off into the fire.
You build a hard-wood fire between these logs, and when it has stopped
blazing and burned a thick bed of coals you are ready to begin your
cooking. To facilitate the handling of hot dishes on the range, Joe
Wayring had a pair of light blacksmith’s tongs, with the jaws curved
instead of straight. This was the handiest little tool I ever saw.
With its aid Joe could pour out coffee, dish up soup, and remove the
frying-pan from the range; and, as the tongs were always cold, no one
ever saw him dancing about the fire with burned fingers.

The boys worked until three o’clock without even stopping for lunch,
and then Roy got into the canvas canoe and pushed out to catch trout
enough for supper, while Arthur cut down evergreens to furnish fresh
browse for the beds. It was about this time that I introduced them to
you in the first chapter. Joe Wayring had just put the finishing
touches upon the shanty (I didn’t wonder that he was satisfied with
it, for Mr. Swan himself could not have put up a neater little house)
and started the conversation with which I commenced my story. He gave
it as his opinion that their camp was well out of Tom Bigden’s reach,
and that Matt Coyle and his boys were much too indolent to walk twelve
miles through a thick wood just to get into a fight with them; and at
the very moment he said it some of those whose names he had mentioned
were trying their best to find him.

Having disposed of their late dinner and cleaned up the camp, the boys
were at liberty to lie around under the trees and rest. This, for a
wonder, Joe Wayring was quite willing to do; but Roy and Arthur
suddenly took it into their heads that they would like to explore the
spring-hole and see how big it was and what it looked like.

“Well, go on,” said Joe, “and I will stay here and keep up the fire
and rest. Two are enough to ride in that canoe. Take your rods and
catch some trout for breakfast. You ought to have fine sport, for they
are jumping up in every direction.”

Roy and Arthur thought it best to act upon this suggestion, and from
force of habit they also put their guns into the canoe before shoving
out into the spring-hole. That was one of the luckiest things those
two boys ever did.

By the time they had made two hundred yards from shore, the voyagers
discovered that No-Man’s Pond was not a circular basin, as it appeared
to be when viewed from the beach in front of their camp. Its shape was
very irregular. Numerous long points jutted into the water from both
sides, and behind these points were secluded bays in which numberless
flocks of wood duck lived unmolested by any enemy save the bald eagles
that now and then swooped down and carried off one of their number for
dinner.

The boys paddled up on one side of the spring-hole and down the other,
going entirely around it and exploring all the little bays and inlets
in their course, seeing nothing in the shape of game except the ducks,
which quickly sought concealment under the broad leaves of the
lily-pads, and finally they dropped anchor in the mouth of a little
brook that emptied into the pond, and jointed their rods. It did not
take them more than twenty minutes to catch their next morning’s
breakfast. In fact, the trout were so eager to take their flies,
sometimes jumping clear out of the water to meet them, that the sport
was robbed of all excitement.

“I would as soon fish in an aquarium,” said Roy, as he pulled his rod
apart and shoved it into its case. “I like to angle for trout, but
this suits me too well. What would some of Mr. Hanson’s guests, who
haven’t caught a legal fish this season, give to be here with us?
Let’s go to camp and see what friend Joe is doing.”

For some reason or other the boys did not sing and shout, as they
usually did on occasions like this. Arthur lay at full length in the
bow, his chin resting on his arms, which were crossed over the
gunwales, and Roy plied the paddle with so much skill that it scarcely
made a ripple in the water. As we came noiselessly around the point
that obstructed our view of the upper end of the spring-hole, Arthur
uttered an ejaculation of astonishment and alarm, raised himself to a
sitting posture with so much haste that he came within a hair’s
breadth of capsizing me, and reached for his gun, while Roy sat with
open mouth and staring eyes, holding his paddle suspended in the air,
and looking in the direction of the camp. I looked too, and if I had
possessed a heart the scene that met my gaze would have set it to
beating like a trip-hammer.

Joe Wayring was no longer lying at his ease under the shade of the
evergreens. He was standing with his face to a tree, which he seemed
to be clasping with his white, sinewy arms; his back was bared, and he
was looking over his shoulder at Matt Coyle, who stood behind and a
little to one side of him, rolling up his sleeves. Near by stood Sam,
and Jake, each holding a heavy switch in his hand.

In an instant I comprehended the situation—or thought I did. I had
heard Matt declare, in savage tones, that some day he and his boys
would tie Joe Wayring to a tree and larrup him till he’d wish that he
and his crowd had minded their own business; and now Matt was about to
carry his threat into execution. He meant to do his work well, when he
got at it; for, in addition to the switches that Jake and Sam held in
their hands, I saw several others lying on the ground beside them. I
had never dreamed that the enmity Matt cherished toward my master was
so intense and bitter that it would lead him to go twelve miles out of
his way to wreak vengeance upon him, and it was a mystery to me how he
ever found out that Joe and his two chums were camping in this
particular spot. I did not believe that Matt had come there by
accident, and he hadn’t, either, as I afterward learned. He and his
boys were on Joe’s trail within three hours after he left Indian Lake,
and they had been looking for him ever since, being urged on by
something besides a desire for revenge, as I gained from the very
first words I heard the squatter utter.

When we rounded the point we were within less than thirty yards of our
camp, and in plain sight of it; but its occupants were so deeply
interested in their own affairs that they did not see us. I felt a
thrill of indignation run all through me when I caught a glimpse of my
master’s pale face, and was proud of him when I saw that there were no
signs of cringing in him. Matt bared his brawny arm clear to the
shoulder, caught up a switch, gave it a flourish or two to make sure
that it would stand the work to which he intended to put it, and then
said in a loud voice, as if he were addressing some one on the other
side of the spring-hole:

“Now, then, where is it? You see that we are in dead ’arnest, I
reckon, don’t you? What have you done with it?”

“I tell you I don’t know any thing about it,” said Joe’s clear,
ringing voice in reply. “I never saw it.”

For some reason or other these words seemed to set Jake Coyle beside
himself. He yelled like a wild Indian, leaped from the ground, and
made his heavy switch whistle as it cut the air in close proximity to
the prisoner’s unprotected back. As soon as he could speak plainly he
shouted—

“You have seed it too, an’ you do know somethin’ about it. Whoop! Put
it onto him, pap, or else stand away from there an’ let me get at him.
Don’t you mind how he slapped me in the face with that paddle of
your’n? An’ now he’s gone an’ stole—”

“Don’t be in a hurry, Jakey,” interrupted Matt. “Your turn’ll come
after I get through with him. I’ll let you at him directly. Look
here,” he went on, once more addressing himself to Joe. “You won’t get
no help from your friends, an’ you needn’t look for it. When we was
comin’ through the woods, we seen ’em puttin’ for Injun Lake tight as
they could go. Didn’t we, Jakey? Now if you will ax our parding for
your meanness to us, an’ tell us where it is, we’ll let you off easy.
What do you say?”

“I say I won’t do it,” answered Joe, in undaunted tones. “I shan’t ask
your pardon, and you can’t make me. I haven’t done any thing to you.”

“You ain’t?” roared Matt, drawing back the switch as if he were about
to let it fall on Joe’s back. “Don’t you call drivin’ honest folks
outen Mount Airy ’cause they ain’t got no good clothes to w’ar, an’
keepin’ ’em from earnin’ a livin’ that they’ve got jest as good a
right to as you rich ones have—don’t you call that doin’ somethin’?”

“And furthermore,” continued Joe, “I tell you, for the last time, that
I don’t know any thing about that money. I never saw it.”

“Whoop!” shouted Jake, going off into another war-dance. “You have
seed it, an’ you know all about it. You had them two grip-sacks into
your baskets, you an’ your friends did, when you left Injun Lake to
come up yer. Tom Bigden said so.”

“Whoop!” yelled Matt, in his turn. “Now you’ve done it, you fule!
Didn’t that Bigden boy say plain enough that he didn’t want you to
speak his name at all? See if that won’t put some gumption into your
thick head; an’ that, an’ that! I’ll learn you to find six thousand
dollars, an’ go an’ hide it from your pap, an’ then let fellers like
Joe Wayring steal it from you, you ongrateful scamp.”

Jake was generally on the lookout for sudden bursts of fury on the
part of his sire, but this time he was taken by surprise. Before he
could dodge or stir an inch from his tracks, he received a most
unmerciful beating, one that gave me a faint idea of what was in store
for Joe Wayring. When he turned to run, the face he presented to our
view was bleeding in half a dozen places.

“There, now,” exclaimed Matt, who was almost frantic. “Go an’ hide
some more money from your pap, an’ blab when you was told to hold your
jaw, won’t you? Now that I have got my hand in, I reckon I might as
well finish with you,” he continued, turning back and taking his stand
behind the prisoner. “Once more I ax you: Will you tell me where you
have hid that money?”

“I have nothing more to say,” replied Joe, in an unfaltering voice.

The answer added fuel to the fire of Matt’s rage. He moistened his
hand and seized the switch with a firmer hold, while Joe turned his
face to the tree and nerved himself to receive the expected blow. That
was more than Arthur Hasting could endure; but it brought his
scattered wits back to him. In an instant his double barrel was at his
shoulder, and his flashing eye was looking along the rib.

“Hold on there!” he shouted. “If you touch that boy I will put more
holes through you than you ever saw in a skimmer. Throw down that gad
and stand where you are.”

The effect of these words was magical. Jake Coyle, whose doleful howls
of anguish had awakened a thousand echoes among the surrounding hills,
suddenly ceased his lamentations; the white face of Joe Wayring turned
toward us lighted up with hope; and Matt and Sam looked at Arthur and
his threatening gun with eyes that seemed to have grown to the size of
saucers. For a second or two no one moved or spoke; then one of the
three marauders gave a perfect imitation of the cry of alarm the
mother grouse utters when her brood is menaced with danger, whereupon
Matt and his boys disappeared in the most bewildering way. They were
seen to drop where they stood, and that was the last of them. Although
Arthur rose to his feet as quickly as he could and Roy plied the
paddle with all his strength, they did not catch another glimpse of
the squatter, nor was there the slightest rustling in the bushes to
tell which way he and his allies had gone.