Chapter XXIII: The Telltale Footprint

As the spot Dick and Leslie were heading for lay only a short distance away from the heart of the camp the two boys quickly reached it. They could plainly hear the laughter of the others when the minister reached some comical part in his story of the early experiences associated with his checkered career.

“Here’s the wreck of Dan’s trap,” remarked Leslie. “He lost heart when the wild man smashed things so easily, and hasn’t managed to hatch up another scheme to catch him, though I know he’s thinking about it all the time.”

“Let’s take up every piece of wood first, and see if they can tell us anything,” suggested Dick.

Leslie looked as though for the life of him he could not see how a mere piece of broken branch could speak and explain; but at the same time he knew Dick must have a meaning attached to his words.

Accordingly, they commenced to handle the remnants that told of Dan’s wonderful trap, which had failed to hold the wild man.

Leslie suddenly heard his chum give a low bubbling cry.

“What have you found?” he asked, hurriedly, all excitement.

“Come here and see,” he was told.

“Well, I declare! that’s a bunch of hair clinging to a broken bit of wood, or I miss my guess!” ejaculated Leslie Capes almost immediately.

“And sort of reddish-brown hair at that, you notice,” Dick told him. “That must have come from the hide of an animal, mark you, and not from a man at all!”

“Gee whittaker, Dick! What are you saying?”

“The wild man, as we’ve been calling him, isn’t a human being at all, it seems,” Dick continued, slowly, as though he were trying to grasp a stupendous idea.

“But, Dick, don’t forget that Nat has seen the creature twice now,” urged Leslie.

“I know that,” admitted Dick.

“Yes, and there was Alonzo Crane and Dit Hennesy, too, who told us they glimpsed him before he vanished into the brush. All three vowed it was a short-looking man with awfully broad shoulders and long arms, and that he bent over as he moved.”

“Granting all that,” persisted Dick, clinging to his rapidly forming theory, “it could have been an animal just the same.”

“A four-footed animal do you mean, Dick?”

“Why not?” came the steady reply. “Some animals that can be called four-footed sometimes walk on their two hind feet, such as monkeys and apes. Even bears can do the trick without much trouble; and we’ve seen elephants dancing in a circus, keeping their forelegs elevated all the while.”

Leslie gave a whistle to indicate his surprise.

“Look here, Dick, you’re getting close to the truth of this mystery, I just know it from your ways. Tell me what you think, please, Dick.”

“Wait a bit,” admonished the other. “Let’s look around here and see if we have any better luck than I did in the camp.”

“You mean hunting for signs, don’t you?”

“Yes, see if you can run across any footprint that doesn’t look like those the boys would make with their shoes,” he was advised.

Both busied themselves at that, bending low the better to examine closely every foot of the neighboring ground. It was Leslie who gave utterance to a cry this time.

“Oh! come over here, Dick!” he exclaimed, as though thrilled by a discovery he had made. “I’ve found something!”

When Dick bent over and took a look he laughed.

“Just what I was expecting we’d run across somewhere around,” he said. “The plain imprint of a bare foot! And no human being, wild man or not, ever made that mark, let me tell you, Leslie.”

“It does look somewhat queer I own up, Dick.”

“For a human being I should say it was impossible,” continued the other. “Notice its peculiar shape in the first place. And the foot is hardly longer than the toes. Yes, and they’ve got long nails on them in the bargain. There’s also a pad to the sole that no human ever has.”

Leslie’s eyes were staring. He turned them on his companion with an interrogation point in each orb. Somehow Dick was usually to be depended on to rise to an occasion like this, and find out the truth. His chums had long ago learned how absolutely they could depend on him when the necessity arose.

“What sort of animal, Dick, would have feet like those?” he asked, boldly.

“Well, a gorilla might, for one,” Dick declared.

No wonder Leslie gasped his amazement.

“A gorilla, Dick? An ape loose in the woods on Bass Island! Why, surely I must be dreaming, or else you’re joshing me.”

Dick, however, stuck to his guns manfully.

“Remember, Leslie,” he went on to say, steadily, “I can’t even guess how such an animal could get across from the mainland, even granting that one escaped at some time from a menagerie that was wrecked in a storm. We’re dealing with facts now, not theories. There’s an animal over here, because some of our crowd have seen it, and all of us have looked on the wreck of the trap set to hold it. I honestly and truly believe it’ll turn out to be a gorilla.”

“Well, let’s figure out how that explanation agrees with what we know,” was the sensible way Leslie commenced. “All the boys who have glimpsed the creature agreed that it was short in stature, and with broad shoulders, as well as long arms. I remember that gorillas are built that way, Dick.”

“Yes, and travelers say they are very powerful,” added the other. “I’ve read how a wounded gorilla will snatch the rifle out of a hunter’s hands, and twist the barrel as easily as if it were made of wire, tying it in a knot.”

“So he would have no trouble in smashing Dan’s silly trap, that’s right,” Leslie went on to say. “Yes, and I can also remember reading, Dick, that such an animal, when it gets mad, thumps on its chest and makes a rumbling sound like the beating of a drum.”

“Sure enough!” Dick exclaimed, smiling with glee over the probability of having solved the mystery that had been haunting the camp so long, “didn’t the boys tell all about hearing some one drumming, when they glimpsed the wild man as they thought, going through the brush?”

“Dick, I do believe we’ve solved the puzzle at last!”

“I’m dead sure of it!” Dick declared, “after finding this telltale scrap of reddish hair on the stick, and seeing that queer footprint. One thing certain, it’s likely we’ll never know just how the creature managed to get across here.”

“You mean from the mainland, I suppose,” ventured Leslie. “Can a gorilla swim, do you think, Dick?”

“I don’t know, but I should say not,” came the dubious reply.

“Well, then we’ll just have to make a stab at it, and let the thing go at that,” Leslie continued, philosophically. “Mebbe the beast was on a log that drifted away from the shore when he was washing his face or trying to catch a fish for his dinner--if gorillas ever eat such things, which I doubt. Then the floating log carried him across to the island, and he’s been marooned here ever since. How about that for an explanation, Dick?”

“For want of a better it will have to stand, I suppose,” Dick told him. “But let’s go and give the rest of the bunch a surprise.”

Leslie, of course, was willing, and away they hurried to startle their camp-mates with the recital of the discovery they had just made.

Every one had to examine the stick that had the clump of dun-colored hair fastened to its splintered part. Then all rushed to the spot where the remains of the man-trap lay scattered around, Dick taking care that no one crowded so close as to endanger the strange and telltale footprint.

Long and earnestly every boy gazed at this mark. Queer feelings came over them as they realized that in all probability Dick had indeed solved the mystery.

Nat in particular was triumphantly declaring that he had been vindicated.

“Say, what did I tell you?” he demanded of Dan and Peg as a grin crept over his face. “A gorilla can hop if it wants to, can’t it? Well, that’s what the critter did with me when it saw me startin’ to sit up. And say! ain’t a gorilla somethin’ like a short, squatty man with wide shoulders and long arms? Well, didn’t all three of us try to describe the thing we saw in the brush like that? Huh! next time don’t get quite so fresh with your remarks, Peg Fosdick!”

“Oh, so far as that goes, Nat,” the other said humbly enough, “we all admit that you must have been right. Yes, and I’ll go further when I say that if a gorilla hopped over me in the night, and I saw him, I’d think it was the Old Scratch himself. You’re all right, Nat, even if you were scared half to death.”

Nat flared up as though inclined to resent this imputation regarding his well-known courage. On second thought, however, he held his tongue. Perhaps he remembered that he had frankly admitted being frightened. And on the whole the sooner that matter was dropped the better.

Mr. Holwell, as well as the other two gentlemen, had, of course, taken a decided interest in all that passed. In this he found a good reason for adding to the high opinion he already had concerning Dick’s abilities. Any boy who could figure out an answer to such a baffling mystery deserved worlds of credit, and the minister was prouder of Dick than ever.

Indeed, Mr. Holwell was feeling more and more pleased every day, that he had decided to take a little vacation and spend it on Bass Island in camp with the boys of the Junior Department of the local Y. M. C. A. He dearly loved to study boy-nature, and watch the development of those faculties that in the years to come might carry the possessors on to fame or fortune.

Clint Babbett was coaxed to get his camera and take a photograph of the strange footprint. He had more or less trouble in arranging things to suit his ideas, but after several attempts declared that he believed he had succeeded, and, in time, when he had developed that film, they would be able to prove their claim by displaying an exact reproduction of the telltale track. Others who possessed cameras were not deterred from trying the same task.

“But I hope we don’t let it go at that, fellows,” the first photographer said, after completing his last effort.

“Not much,” remarked Andy Hale. “Some of the knockers down in Cliffwood wouldn’t believe a word of what we said unless we had better proof to show than just a picture of some marks on the ground. Why, they’d claim we’d made them in order to pull the wool over their eyes.”

Looks were exchanged, that spoke of hidden thoughts and grim resolutions. Peg Fosdick undoubtedly voiced the sentiments of many when he went on to remark seriously:

“One thing sure, boys, we must think up some way to kill this Jabberwock of the Bass Island woods. We could have the skin stuffed, and stood up in our room at the Y. M. C. A. building, you know. Every one who called would ask for the story of what happened up here in camp.”

Harry Bartlett glanced over at Mr. Holwell. He would have said something himself, only he seemed to guess that the minister would express his thoughts if given a chance.

“Wait a bit, boys,” said Mr. Holwell, gently. “Let’s consider this thing well before deciding to try to kill this poor animal. The rooms of a Y. M. C. A. building are hardly suitable for the exhibition of stuffed wild animals. The rules of the organization do not encourage the hunting instinct, only a laudable desire to build up the human body, so that a healthy mind may be better qualified to grasp the precious truths that are so frequently proclaimed within these walls. In fact, I can easily imagine several patrons of the association staring in wonder and displeasure upon discovering a stuffed gorilla standing guard in your department.”

“But do we have just to keep on enduring his visits night after night, sir?” Peg asked, appealingly. “Would there be any objection to Dan here getting up some sort of trap that would hold the gorilla a prisoner, so we could return him to the Zoological Gardens that mebbe he escaped from?”

Mr. Holwell smiled on hearing that.

“I’m sure there could be no objection to such a scheme, provided Dan is able to conjure up a plan that will turn out better than the last trap did,” he answered. At this Dan blushed, and then grinned as though he felt the remark was intended as a compliment.

“Oh! leave all that to me, sir,” he said, boldly. “Right now I’m figuring on a bully scheme that is bound to work. And this time I don’t mean to trust to just plain snares or traps.”