Chapter XVI: Signs That Spelled Trouble

"Look! they're doing it, too, Frank! Oh! what luck! Good for Bluff!" ejaculated Will, hardly able to control himself in his excitement.

"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?"