Chapter XXV: The Berry Pickers

That was an unusually long afternoon to the “willing workers” in the pit. From the way in which every little while one or another would stop digging and, climbing out of the hole, take an anxious look toward the west, it could be easily seen that the diggers were getting weary.

Dan, of course, noticed it, and chuckled slily. He realized that they would stand by him to the finish. At the same time he was not above taking what he called “a rise” out of Fred Bonnicastle, who emerged from the pit oftener than the others.

So, on one occasion, when about to suggest stopping work for the day, he casually remarked, as Fred again climbed up out of the hole, now some four feet in depth:

“I guess you think the old days have come around again, Fred.”

Fred looked at him blankly.

“Oh, the days of the Children of Israel when they took possession of the Promised Land, you remember,” continued Dan, grinning.

“I’m still groping in the dark. What have we got to do with Moses and his followers, when they fought with the Philistines?” asked Fred.

“Well,” replied Dan, drily, “from the way you fellows keep staring into the west I just made up my mind some of you had begun to believe Joshua had come along with us, and that he was again commanding the sun to stand still.” At this Fred laughed, as did the others.

“So far as that goes,” acknowledged Peg, “it certainly has seemed a coon’s age since we started grubbing here. Four hours, with only little rests in between when some one spelled me, is going some for my father’s son.”

“Whee! wouldn’t my folks at home stare though, if they could have watched me actually _work_?” added Phil Harkness, greatly amused. “Why, it’s always been the hardest thing going to coax me to weed a little flower bed up to now.”

“I’m sore, all right,” admitted Fred, candidly; “but it may wear away by morning. Guess Nature didn’t mean me to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow. I think after all I’d better take to the law, as my dad wants me to.”

“Perhaps some of the other fellows may want to change places with you three in the morning,” said Dan, calmly. “My pit is more’n a third completed now, though the worst is still to come, for every shovel of dirt has to be lifted out, and carried away, so as not to excite the suspicions of the beast. Let’s call it off, and meander into camp.”

There was much animated talk around the supper table that night, as Dan and his assistants entered into arguments with some of the others. It ended in three new recruits offering to do their turn in the pit on the following day.

Fred and the two others did not say much, for fear of alarming the volunteers, and causing them to back out. At the same time they might have been observed exchanging significant winks, and the expression on their faces showed satisfaction.

Nothing unusual happened on that night, though some of the boys felt restless. If the prowling animal came around no one saw or heard him; nor was anything missing when morning finally arrived, so far as any one could discover.

“But that means he’ll be with us to-night, never fear,” ventured Dan, with such confidence in his manner that every one knew he did not mean to abandon his pit-digging.

The plans for the day had already been laid out. Dick had concluded to accompany the berry pickers during the morning. He wanted to feel that he had had a hand in helping Eddie, Ban and Cub accumulate a large store of the berries, for they were to be shipped to the market in Cliffwood on the following morning.

Leslie’s father, Mr. Capes, had promised to run up on this day in his car, to see what the boys were doing. He would spend a night in camp, and start back on the following morning. He was also to bring with him receptacles in which such blueberries as had been gathered could be carried back to town.

That was one reason why Dick planned to go out with the three mill boys on this morning, so as to feel that he had helped give them a half holiday. In the afternoon he planned to go fishing with the trio, for Eddie and the others dearly loved all manner of sports, though not able to indulge in them as frequently as some of the other boys, unless, as usually happened, they took Sunday for their outings.

There was certainly no lack of the large berries on Bass Island. Eddie Grant told Dick he could take him to a place they had hardly touched as yet, and where their buckets could easily be filled in two hours.

The berry pickers set off, Fred and Peg going with the party.

“We haven’t seen a sign of a snake so far,” Eddie remarked, as they walked along through the brush and amidst the trees.

“Well, since this is an island, and so far from the mainland,” observed Dick, “perhaps there isn’t a single snake of any kind on it.”

“I’m glad of that,” ventured Ban Jansen, frankly, “’cause I’m not any too fond of the crawlers. My folks told me to keep my eyes peeled for rattlers up in this region. I’d sure hate to run across one of ’em just when I was in the middle of a thick patch of berry bushes.”

The berry pickers enlivened the time with pleasant chatter as they pushed along through the brush, heading toward the distant spot where Eddie had noted the unusually heavily laden blueberry bushes.

Arriving on the ground the boys began to pick. It is slow work at the best, no matter if the berries can be fairly stripped off by a deft motion of the hand; and they could count on a couple of hours at the work if they expected to fill their pails.

By degrees they would, of course, separate as each became absorbed in his own picking. At the same time, they had agreed not to drift so far apart but that a loud shout would bring them together again.

Dick busied himself. And as his fingers worked, so his mind also found employment in going over some of the recent happenings that had served to enliven their camp life.

Among other things he remembered Asa Gardner. It was nice to know that the poor chap had brightened up so much of late. The pitiful expression had left his pinched face.

“He begins to feel now,” Dick was telling himself, “that he has really mastered that old weakness of his about taking things, whether he needed them or not. It was a terrible thing to have grip him, and I’m mighty glad he’s won out. Besides, he needs all the outdoor exercise he can get, so as to throw off that tendency to tuberculosis that runs in his family.”

Thus Dick was thinking of others as he deftly stripped the small twigs of their rich stores. Suddenly he stopped work and stared at the ground.

“Whee! there’s another of those queer footprints again,” he muttered. “Seems that the monkey likes blueberries as well as any human can, or the partridges even. He’s been browsing around here all right, for I can see where something has cleaned off a heap of branches.”

The thought that even then the gorilla, or whatever it was, might not be far away gave Dick a thrill. He was a brave boy, however, as he had proved on numerous occasions in the past; and this was made manifest when he almost unconsciously started to follow the spoor of the animal.

A short distance away he came to a well defined trail. It looked as though the gorilla must have passed along back and forth scores of times.

Dick stood still and stared.

“Here’s a find,” he muttered to himself. “Chances are ten to one that this leads to his den, all right. A nervy hunter might follow it up and come on the big beast in his own quarters; but I reckon it would be silly for me to think of doing such a thing as that.”

The temptation to follow just a little way, to see where the trail led, caused Dick to start hesitatingly forward. A gorilla in his native Borneo haunt is considered one of the most terrible creatures known to big game hunters the world over, not even excepting the grizzly bear of our own country, and Dick’s pulses were bounding, and his nerves were on edge, for he realized that at any minute he might find himself face to face with the animal.

And, indeed, that was just what did happen, for Dick suddenly heard a horrible gurgling sound close by, and turning his head found himself staring at a squatty, hairy figure that looked like a misshapen man with amazingly broad shoulders, and long dangling arms.