SCOUTS ON THE WATCH
"Now, boys!" said Scout Master Harry Taylor, as Rick and the others reached the old log cabin, "if we are going to camp out here and find Ruddy, we must go at it right."
"Can we build a fire and cook things to eat?" asked Rick, as he put on one of the rude bunks the bundle he had brought from home.
"Oh, yes, we'll cook and eat," the Scout Master promised with a smile. "I guess you haven't done much camping out, Rick," he added.
"No," was the answer. "But I like it, and I'm going to be a Boy Scout after this."
"It's lots of fun!" declared Tom. "Come on, Rick, and help me get wood."
"I'll make up the beds," added Chot.
"And I'll help," said a voice in the door-way of the log cabin. Sam Brown, son of the farmer who had taken the boys to Belemere and brought them back, had come to join the others as he had promised. He was going to do what he could to help get Ruddy back for Rick.
"That's right," said Master Harry Taylor, "each Boy Scout must do his part when camp is to be made."
Several lanterns had been brought with them, and, by the light of one, Rick and Tom gathered some wood outside to make a fire on the hearth. Chot and Sam did what they could to set the interior of the log cabin to rights, and Mr. Taylor opened the bundles of food and filled the oil stove from a kerosene can he had brought with him.
Each boy had a "mess" outfit, consisting of tin cup and plate, a knife, fork and spoon and a small frying pan. Chot had borrowed an outfit from a boy friend, for Rick, as Ruddy's master, was not yet a Scout.
In a little while a fire was blazing on the hearth, and the steaks which had been brought were being cooked by Mr. Taylor over the hot embers. He decided to do this himself rather than trust the boys, for if the meat were spoiled in the broiling some one would have to go hungry, no extra supply having been provided. The coffee was made on the oil stove.
"Say, this is fun!" exclaimed Rick, as they sat about the old table and ate off their tin plates. "I didn't think being a Boy Scout was half so jolly!"
"Oh, you haven't seen a quarter of it!" declared Chot. "Wait until you camp out in the open; eh, Mr. Taylor?"
"Yes, that is quite different from this," answered the Scout Master. "This is quite a luxury, having a log cabin, even if it is an old ramshackle one."
"Oh, I'm going to do this every time I have the chance," said Rick. "But just now I want to find Ruddy."
"And we're here to help you," said Mr. Taylor, who though older than any of the boys was still "one of them." If he had not been he would never have developed into a good Scout Master. "I think the best we can do," he added, "is to keep watch. As you boys said, the junk man will probably come back, either to-night or early in the morning, to get his horse and wagon. When he does we will ask him what he did with Ruddy."
"I think the sailor took him," Rick said.
"Well, perhaps he did. We'll find out. And to do that we'll have to keep watch. We'll take turns, as sentries do in the army. After we finish eating and get the bunks ready we'll divide into watches."
"Oh, this sure is fun!" cried Rick, with eager, sparkling eyes. The novelty of camping almost made him forget, at moments, the loss of Ruddy. But not quite.
"I can't see why the junk man left his horse and wagon here and went away," said the Scout Master, as the rattle of knives and forks on the tin plates told that little more remained to be eaten.
"Maybe he ran away because he was afraid of being caught," suggested Chot.
"No, I think not," spoke Sam Brown. "There's another junk man located somewhere around here. He hasn't been here long, and he stays in an old tumble-down house near the swamp, I guess. There used to be gypsies there, but they went away."
"Do you think the sailor took my dog there?" asked Rick.
"Maybe," answered Sam. "We can look."
"But I think it would not be wise for us to go there to-night," remarked the Scout Master, as he guessed what Rick was going to say. "Those men could easily hide Ruddy in the darkness. The safest and best plan will be to wait for them to come here, as they are sure to do."
Rick, who was going to become a Boy Scout, did as all members of those troops do—he obeyed the Scout Master, and then began the long watch and wait through the night.
The boys had brought blankets, and with these the beds were made up on the bunks which the former gun club members had built in the log cabin so some of them could sleep there when they wished.
As two of the boys would be on guard at a time, taking turns in two hour stretches, while the others would be in the bunks at the same period, there were blankets enough to keep them warm, especially as they were under shelter, rude as it was.
"But if we had to sleep out in the open, we would have made a lean-to, or a wickiup, near a camp fire, and that would have kept us warm," said Chot.
"What's a lean-to and a wickiup?" asked Rick.
"A lean-to," explained the Scout Master, "is just some tree branches laid with one end raised over a pole, like the half of a letter V turned upside down. If you build a fire in front of it you can keep pretty warm. A wickiup is just some branches of low bushes or small trees bent in toward the center, and there fastened together, or you can throw a heavy blanket over them. They are both pretty poor shelters, but they're better than nothing."
And so, after the supper detail had been cleared, and the bunks made, the boys and the Scout Master sat about the fire on the hearth, talking. The heat felt comfortable, for the night was growing colder.
"Do you think we'll find Ruddy?" asked Rick more than once.
"I think so," answered Mr. Taylor. "If that junk man doesn't come back after his wagon and horse we'll go looking, in the morning, for the old house in the swamp."
The junk man's horse had been brought around from in back, and tied near the front of the cabin.
"We can tell the moment he comes after him, if the animal is left here," said the Scout Master. "And he can't move his wagon, even in the dark, without us hearing him."
"The bells will jingle," said Tom. For the junk man, like many of his kind, had a string of jangling cowbells fastened to his wagon.
It was the turn of Chot and Tom to stand the first "trick" of night guard duty, and this was to be from ten to twelve o'clock. Rick and Sam would take the second watch, from midnight until 2 o'clock in the morning, and the Scout Master, and Sam's brother, Pete, who had come over after supper to ask if he couldn't share in the fun, would be on guard from two until four o'clock. After that it would be the turn of Chot and Tom again.
"Hark!" exclaimed Rick, as he and Sam were preparing to turn-in to the bunks where they were to sleep. "I thought I heard something!"
They all listened, but the only noises were those made by the chirping of the crickets and the songs of some late-staying Katy-dids.
"I guess the junk man's horse moved around," suggested the Scout Master with a smile. "Don't be too quick to give an alarm, when you're on watch, if you hear an odd noise. First try to find out what it is."
Then, as night settled down over the lonely log cabin, and the others went to their bunks, Tom and Chot began their tour of guard duty. They could spend it outside or inside the cabin as they chose, and, as it was rather cool, they would probably be most of the time inside.
"But you can hear if the junk man comes back," said Mr. Taylor. "And, if he does, sound the alarm."
And so the watch of the night began. Rick found it hard to go to sleep at first, not being used to this bunk style of bed. But Sam and his brother Pete were soon breathing heavily and regular, which showed they were not lying awake. As for the Scout Master, he seemed to have dropped off into slumber as soon as he wrapped up in his blanket.
But at last Rick's eyes closed and he, too, was soon, if not in Dreamland, next door to it.
But while the boys were in the old log cabin, quite a different scene was taking place in the ramshackle house where the sailor had taken Ruddy, tying the dog outside. When the second sailor appeared, making so much noise that the others were afraid, for some reason or other, Ruddy had whimpered in lonesomeness and fear.
"What you going to do with that dog?" asked Jed Porter, the second sailor.
"I got him for a mascot—to bring me good luck!" answered Matt Stanton. "And if anybody takes him away from me I'll——"
"Not so loud! Don't make so much noise, mine friends!" whispered Sam Levy. "I don't want the farmers around to know I do a junk business here. They think this old place has of nobody to live in it. I don't want them to come and bother me."
"You see, sometimes, by mistakes, my friend he of gets things here that belongs to the farmers," explained Ike Stein, the driver of the junk wagon. "So as he doesn't want to be boddered with farmers of coming here to look for maybe their chickens or ducks."
"Oh, so that's what you do!" exclaimed Jed Porter, who had a broad, smiling face, quite different from the rather sneaking looks of Matt Stanton. "Well, it isn't any of my affairs, of course. I'm not going to stay, anyhow. I just happened to be passing and I saw a gleam of light through the trees, so I walked over to see what it was. I'm hungry!"
"The meal, he will be ready soon," said Sam. "Your friend, he should of pay for you; will he?" and he looked at the second sailor as he asked this question.
"He might pay it with some of the money he took from me," growled Jed, "but I don't s'pose he will! I'll pay for myself!"
"I'll pay you back as soon as I have better luck, and I will have it now I've got the dog," whined Matt. He acted as though afraid of the other sailor, and well he might be for he had not been honest with Jed, and had taken some of Jed's money.
"Now don't laugh with such a loudness, and make so much of noiseness," whispered the old man who lived in the ruin of a house. "We don't want anybody coming here!"
"All right," agreed Jed, as he sat down and began to eat, while the others did the same.
The two junk men talked together in low tones after supper. Matt, the ragged sailor, stretched out on a bundle of rags as if to go to sleep. Jed took a piece of newspaper from his pocket and began to read by the light of a smoking lamp, and poor Ruddy whined and whimpered outside.
After a while Sailor Jed got up and started for the door.
"Where you going?" demanded Matt.
"Out for a breath of fresh air," was the answer. "Too hot in here."
"Take the dog a bone," requested Matt. "I guess he's hungry. He can have the one I left on my plate," he added quickly, as he saw that Sam was going to object.
"Guess there isn't much meat on any bone you picked!" was the remark of Jed. "But I'll give it to him."
He carried the bone out to Ruddy, who cringed low when he dimly saw, and heard, and keenly smelled the man coming toward him.
"Poor fellow!" spoke the sailor in a low, kind voice. "You needn't be afraid of me. I won't hurt you. I love dogs, and I'm sorry Matt Stanton has you. He won't exactly kick or beat you, but he won't be kind to you. And you look as if you had come from a better home than he'll ever give you."
Jed looked back toward the house where the light dimly glowed. Then he looked down at the cringing dog, tied by a heavy rope.
"I'll do it!" suddenly whispered the sailor to himself. "I'll do it! 'Tis a shame to let Matt keep you. I wonder, if I cut you loose, if you can find your way home? I'll try it."
He whipped out his knife, and, with one sweep, cut through the rope, close to where it was tied around Ruddy's neck. The dog felt that he was free. He could scarcely believe it.
Pausing only long enough to lick the hand of the sailor who had thus been so good to him, Ruddy, with a low whine of delight, sped away in the darkness of the night.