Ellis Edward Sylvester
The Boy Patrol Around the Council Fire

CHAPTER XI – An Unsatisfactory Interview

Mike Murphy was never more astounded in his life.

“He oughter said good-bye before he took that dive,” exclaimed the youth, who was not the one to stand idle when a companion, even one whom he did not specially fancy, was in danger. Mike’s chivalry was roused, and with no thought of the consequences to himself, he ran to the help of the other lad. His shillaleh was firmly grasped in his left hand, and held ready for instant use, for nothing seemed more probable than that the weapon would be quickly needed.

Mike was sure that if he imitated Hoke, he would be seized in the same way. He therefore hurried lightly to the opposite side of the pile, where as silently as he could, he thrust the toe of his shoe into the crevice between the lower logs, gave a spring, caught hold of the upper tier, and drew himself upward.

Buzby Biggs, one of the tramps whom we have met, was sitting on the ground inside the crude cabin and punching his stubby forefinger into the bowl of his corncob pipe, with a view of tamping the tobacco and making it ready to light, when the sound of voices outside caused him to suspend operations. He rose to his feet, intending to peep through a small opening of which he knew when he heard the scratching made by Hoke’s shoes as he climbed the low wall. Angered by the intrusion upon his privacy, he waited until the head of the lad rose to view, when he proceeded to act as has been described.

Hoke was too startled to make any outcry or resistance. The violence of his debut caused him to sprawl forward on his hands and knees and his hat fell off. He instinctively picked it up and replaced it on his head.

“What do yer mean by butting into a gentleman’s private residence without ringing the bell or sending in your card?” demanded Biggs, who finding himself confronted by only one lad, could feel no misgiving as to his own safety.

“Gee! I didn’t know you were here,” replied Hoke, alarmed over the strange situation in which he was caught.

“That don’t make no difference,” replied the hobo, who seemed to be trying to work himself into a passion; “yer showed yer ain’t used to perlite sassiety and I allers makes a feller pay for the privilege of coming into the castle of the Duke de Sassy.”

Poor Hoke was scared almost out of his wits. He began fumbling in his pockets.

“How much is the charge? I haven’t got more’n two or three dollars with me.”

“In that case, it will take all and that ere watch which I persoom is tied to t’other end of the chain dangling in front.”

“Why that would be robbery!” exclaimed the lad, indignant at the impending outrage.

“I wouldn’t call it that, younker; rayther it’s the toll yer hef to pay for crossin’ this bridge. So yer may as well shell out first as last.”

As Hoke stood, his back was against the side of the wooden wall over which he had just tumbled, with the tramp scowling and malignant, facing him. Thus, as will be noted, Biggs was on the side of the structure up which Mike Murphy had climbed so silently that no one heard him. Hoke in fact began to rally from his panic and was on the point of shouting for help when he saw the end of Mike’s buckthorn cane, gripped in his left hand, slide up into view, instantly followed by the hat and red, freckled countenance of the Irish youth, who remained motionless for a moment, while he peered at the curious picture below him.

Before Hoke could utter the glad words on his tongue, Mike shook his head as a warning for him to hold his peace. The other caught on and did not look directly at his friend, but straight into the face of the tousled scamp. Mike was so clearly in his field of vision that Hoke saw every movement and even the expression of the face which was never more welcome.

The next instant one knee of Mike rested on the topmost log, then the foot slid over and he perched firmly on the top with his shillaleh transferred to his right hand.

The sight of his friend heartened Hoke.

“You can’t have my watch and chain, and I sha’n’t give you a penny! You have no more right here than I, and you daresen’t lay a hand on me.”

“What’s that? what’s that?” demanded the other, taking a step forward and thrusting out his ugly visage; “I guess it’s time I teached you something.”

“Aisy there, Misther Biggs; I think it’s mesilf will hev something to say ’bout this.”

The hobo whirled about and confronted the Irish lad, seated on the top of the wall and grasping his heavy cane.

“Where did yer come from?” growled the tramp, who ought not to have been frightened by the presence of two sturdy youths.

Mike made the Boy Scout salute.

“From Tipperary, county of Tipperary, Ireland. Would ye be kind enough to exchange cards wid me?” and he pretended to search in his pocket for that which he never carried. “Clarence, me noble friend,” added Mike, addressing Hoke Butler, “ye may as well withdraw from this palatial residence, as me friends used to say when laving our shanty at home.”

Hoke was instant to seize the opportunity thus presented. He clambered up the logs with the vivacity of a monkey, scooted over the wall, dropped to the ground and then made off at the highest bent of his speed. He did not seem to think he was deserting a friend in extremity and after that friend had been quick to rush to his relief.

A glance behind told Mike the truth, whereat he was displeased, though he did not show it by his manner. It was not so bad, however, as at first appeared. Hoke had run only a little way when the cowardice of what he was doing halted him as abruptly as he had started.

And then it was that an inspiration seized him. Questioning the wisdom of him and Mike bearding, as may be said, the lion in his den, Hoke made a pretence that help was near. He shouted at the top of his voice:

“Dr. Spellman! Here we are! Why don’t you hurry up?”

It was pure good fortune that led Hoke thus to appeal to the only person whom the hobo held in dread, for the youth knew nothing of what had occurred previously. He was doubtful about calling upon Uncle Elk, and another Boy Scout did not seem a formidable enough reinforcement. Scout Master Hall would have served, but Hoke did not think of him.

Mr. Buzby Biggs heard the shouted words and could not forget that the physician was the owner of firearms and did not seem reluctant to use them. Although the two vagrants had been spared, it was doubtful whether mercy would be shown them again. Despite his attempt to bluff, the tramp could not repress a tremor in his voice.

“What’s he calling that ’ere doctor fur?”

“I think he remarked a remark about telling him to hurry up. Av coorse ye will be glad to meet the docther agin.”

“Not by a blamed sight; him and me don’t speak as we pass by.”

“He prefers to spake wid his revolver, I belave.”

Mike had been instant to read the trick of Hoke, and he helped all he could. Biggs was in such a fright he could not hide it. The last person in the world whom he wished to meet was the medical man. He turned to imitate the action of Hoke Butler.

“Howld on! None of that!” commanded Mike in such a peremptory voice that Biggs with hands on the logs in front and one foot raised, checked himself and looked around.

“What do yer want?” he growled; “hain’t I a right to leave my home when I please?”

“Which is what Jimmy Jones said when the sheriff stopped him as he was breaking-jail. You don’t want to bump up agin the docther whin he has that pill box in his hand. See here, Biggs, I’ll let you go on one condition.”

“What’s that?” growled the other.

“Yesterday when ye and t’other scamp was paddling off in the canoe ye stole, ye made a sudden dive overboord and swum fur shore; by yer manner I knowed ye wouldn’t run the risk of taking a bath if ye hadn’t been scared out of what little wits ye had.”

“It would have been the same with yer, if yer’d seen what we did.”

“If ye’ll tell me what ye obsarved, ye may lave whin you choose and I’ll give ye me pledge that Docther Spellman won’t harm ye.”

“All right; I’ll tell yer as soon as I git outside this place.”

“You can’t wait till then; ye must give me the sacret while ye are standing there. If ye don’t I won’t interfare wid the docther working his will.”

An expression of dread passed over the repulsive face and the man actually shivered.

“Wai, whin me and Saxy was going along in the canoe we borrered wid me paddling, I happened to look down into the clear water and my eyes rested upon —the devil himself!”

Mike Murphy was taken aback for the moment by this amazing reply. His first thought was that the hobo was trifling with him, but, if so, his acting could not have been better. Astounding as was his declaration the man believed his own words which conveyed no meaning to the youth.

“Worra now, don’t ye understand it?”

“No; do yer?”

“That clear water sarves like a looking glass. Whin ye looked down ye obsarved yer own image and I don’t wonder ye took it for owld Nick.”

“But Saxy seed the same as I did,” replied the man, impressed by the not complimentary explanation of the lad who was perched on top of the log wall.

“It was his picter that he saan and aich of ye luks more like t’other than he does like himsilf.”

Biggs shook his head. This wouldn’t do.

“It wasn’t like a man at all.”

“What did it luk like?”

Mike was excited. He felt he was on the eve of clearing up the mystery which had baffled him and others, though not Uncle Elk, who would say nothing.

Instead of giving an intelligent reply to the question for a further bill of particulars, the tramp shuddered as before. There was a whine in his voice when he spoke:

“Didn’t I answer yer as I agreed? What are yer kicking about?”

“Ye’ve got to do more than that afore I asks the docther not to p’int his gun this way and pull the trigger.”

“Have yer ever seed the devil?”

“Not afore I looked upon yersilf.”

“Then how do yer expict me to describe him? He was there right under the canoe and almost close enough to grab us.”

“Did he hev horns and a spiked tail?”

Mike had heard the sound of footsteps behind him on the leaves. Some one was approaching and he was sure it was Hoke Butler coming back to his help.

Biggs made no reply to the frivolous question of the youth seated above him. The taint of superstition in his nature resented such treatment of a theme which had nothing but terror to him. Mike, certain that he commanded the situation and was about to learn that which he yearned to know, felt that he need not haste.

“Ye’ll hev to do better than that, Signor Biggs, but as ye saam to prefer that the docther should take ye in hand I’ll turn ye over to him.”

And Mike turned to wink at Hoke Butler, but to his dismay, discovered in the same moment that his friend was not in sight, and the one who had come up behind him was Saxy Hutt, the other tramp.

CHAPTER XII – Groping After the Truth

Mike Murphy’s ready wit did not desert him at the moment when, as may be said, he discovered he was caught between two fires. One of the tramps was standing on the ground in front or below him, while the second was approaching from the rear or only a few paces farther off. And Hoke Butler, who should have been instant to rush to the help of his friend, was nowhere in sight.

“I say, docther, why don’t ye hurry up?” shouted Mike, as if calling over the head of the grinning hobo, whose eyes were fixed upon him with a dangerous expression, as if he had decided to even up matters for previous humiliations.

The peremptory manner of the lad produced its effect, and Saxy Hutt paused and looked up at him. A scratching, rattling noise caused Mike to turn his head. Biggs was furiously climbing the logs on the other side. Grasping the topmost one, he dived over, sprawling upon his hands and knees, instantly leaping to his feet, and making off at the speed he had shown in his former flight. He evidently believed in the near approach of the man whom he dreaded.

Mike swung around on his perch, so that his feet hung outside, and gazed calmly down upon the repulsive face.

“The top of the morning to ye, Saxy,” greeted the lad; “I hope ye are well.”

“Huh! yer needn’t try that bluff on us,” growled the scamp; “it won’t work; thar ain’t no doctor round these parts and I wouldn’t care a hang if there was. I owe you one, younker, and I’m going to take it out of your hide.”

To tell the truth, Mike was pleased to hear this declaration. Biggs, whom he regarded as the worst of the couple, had taken himself off and need not be considered further, so that it was one against one, and the youngster had a firm grip on his shillaleh. With a fair field and no favor Mike was content to let the best man win.

The tramp came nearer, clenched his fists and glared upward at the youth.

“Come down out of that and I’ll wring your neck fur yer.”

“Step a little closer, so I can reach ye wid a single jump.”

Mike was actually gathering his muscles for a leap that would have brought on a fight as vicious as that of two wildcats, when the tense stillness was broken by the words:

“Right this way, doctor; you’ll find them both here, your shots can’t miss.”

Now the peculiarity of this remark was that although plainly heard, it sounded as if the speaker meant that only the man at his side should catch his words. And it was at this juncture that Hoke Butler did a thing so clever that it won the everlasting admiration of Mike Murphy. The former dropped his voice several notes, so that one unacquainted with the facts, would have been certain it was another who was speaking.

“Show me a sight of them – just for a minute: that’s all I ask!”

Mike heard and understood. Saxy heard and misunderstood, – that is he believed it was the physician who was looking for him with a loaded weapon in hand. He muttered an exclamation which it will never do to print, plunged around the log structure, and disappeared with a speed that must have quickly overhauled the other tramp.

Mike dropped lightly to the ground and confronted the chuckling Hoke.

“Worra! but ye did that well. Where is the docther?”

“How should I know? I suppose he’s at his home.”

“What put it into yer head to make believe he was near us?”

“I don’t know except he was the first person I thought of.”

“Ye couldn’t have done better if ye had took a month. I don’t understand why thim tramps hang round so much whin they know what they’re likely to git from Dr. Spellman.”

Mike now told Hoke of the surprising incidents of the preceding day, when the hobos received the scare of their lives.

“This one who calls himsilf Biggs told me that whin he looked over the side of the canoe, he found himsilf face to face wid the devil.”

“Do you think he did, Mike?”

“I have me doubts, as Jerry Jinks said whin Father MacMahon declared he was an honest man. Anyhow I haven’t larned what I wanted to know, and we’ve got to look farther.”

It was decided to pass around the western end of the lake, circling back in the direction of Dr. Spellman’s home, past the cabin of Uncle Elk and go on to the bungalow. This was likely to take most of the day, even if they were not delayed by some unexpected occurrence. Moreover, this course would take them by the spot where Mike had heard voices the night before, and where the hermit darted out from under the overhanging vegetation on his return, going so near the startled Mike that the two saw each other. The old man and his visitors appeared to have gone thither, and it would seem that something ought to be doing.

“Would you like to know what my idea is?” asked Hoke, when they resumed their tramping on the line that has been indicated.

“I’m that anxious to know that I won’t take anither step till ye ixplains the same.”

And Mike, who was a few paces in advance, halted abruptly, wheeled about and faced his companion, who grinningly responded:

“It is that we keep going till we reach Dr. Spellman’s house and accept his invitation to dinner.”

“Suppose we don’t get the invitation,” suggested Mike.

“I should like to see him avoid giving it, even if the dinner hour is past, which it is likely to be before we can reach his place.”

Mike’s rugged health and sturdy strength gave him as keen an appetite as that of his companion, and a good meal would be as welcome to him-as to Hoke. Moreover, the situation was such that they could hardly hope to reach the clubhouse before nightfall. He therefore inclined to the plan of calling at the house where they were sure of welcome, but it will be borne in mind that in order to do this, they would have to give over or at least postpone the investigation they had intended to make at the point where Mike had heard voices and seen Uncle Elk the night before, since this lay to the westward of the physician’s camp.

Accordingly the youths turned deeper into the wood, going well beyond sight of the lake, intending to approach their destination by a circuitous course. Not wishing to run against Uncle Elk and the strangers, they made sure of not doing so.

You need not be reminded that one of the easiest things in the world is to lose your way in a wilderness. Mike Murphy seemed peculiarly subject to this misfortune, as has been shown in the previous pages. He kept in the lead, as he had done from the first, his friend quietly following and paying no attention to his own footsteps. By and by it struck Hoke that it was time they reached the doctor’s dwelling. He looked searchingly ahead and around, but saw nothing except the tall, column-like trunks, with considerable undergrowth here and there. Naught that resembled the most primitive dwelling was in sight, nor was there a sign of any person having passed that way.

“Hold on, Mike!” he called abruptly to his friend, and the latter halted and looked back.

“I’m doing that, and what is it ye want of me?”

“Where are we?” asked the puzzled fellow.

“I’m thinking we’re here, as I remarked whin I fell off the house. What do ye think?”

“Of course we are somewhere near Gosling Lake, but I believe we have strayed off and are lost.”

“It’s mesilf that don’t see how that can be, though I can beat any gentleman that walks on two legs in going the wrong way. The first time I started to go upstairs, I opened the cellar dure and bumped all the way to the bottom, and when I was faaling me way fur the cellar dure, I tumbled out the parlor windy. Then mither sent me on an errand to Widow Mulligan’s and instead of stepping onto the porch, I put my fut over the well curb and didn’t find out the difference till I hit the bottom of the well. So you see, Hoke, that that wakeness is my strongest p’int.”

“Where do you think the lake lies?”

“I’m not as far gone as that; head that way and you’ll walk straight onto the same.” Mike pointed his shillaleh to the left, whereupon his friend laughed.

“Just what I expected; you’re away off.”

“What do ye make it, – since you saam to think you can make no mistake?”

“I never lose my bearings, – you can depend on me. That direction leads to the lake.”

The joke of it was that Hoke instead of deviating more or less from the course pointed out by Mike, chose one that was the opposite.

“Are ye in airnest?” asked Mike.

“Never more so.”

“I’m glad to larn that, for I don’t like such jokes, as Jim O’Hara said whin the policeman broke his club over his head. Ye are wrong.”

“I’m positive I am not.”

“And I’m positive ye are, – and the only way to sittle the question according to common sinse is to toss up. What do ye say?”

“I don’t see how that can settle any question; but have it your own way.”

Mike took a Lincoln penny from his pocket and balanced it in his hand.

“If it comes down a hid, ye take my course; if a tail, yours.”

Hoke nodded to signify he agreed, and the other flipped the coin aloft, each watching as it turned over rapidly and fell upon the leaves between them, but lo! it rested on its edge, being supported vertically against a pine cone. In other words it was neither a head nor tail, but a “cock.”

Usage requires that in such a case a new toss must be made, but when Mike picked up the penny he shoved it into his pocket and shook his head.

“The maaning of that,” he explained, “is that we are both wrong.”

“How then shall we find the true course?”

“Make a guess, as I used to do in answering the taycher’s questions – Hist!”

Before the experiment could be made, they were startled by hearing the report of a gun or a pistol from some point not far off, though the direction was different from either that had been indicated.

As they listened, a second, third and fourth report rang through the forest arches, followed quickly by two more, and all was still.

There might be several explanations of the incident, but it was idle to spend time in guessing, when it was easy to learn the truth. Mike, followed by his friend, walked rapidly toward the point whence the reports had come, and a few minutes later everything was clear.

Dr. Spellman was standing in a space free from undergrowth and practising with his revolver. With his knife he had gashed the bark off a sapling several feet above the ground, so as to show a white spot the size of a dollar. Standing a dozen or more paces distant, he aimed carefully and put the whole six bullets within a spot not more than two inches in diameter, three of them being bull’s eyes.

“I couldn’t do better mesilf!” exclaimed Mike, when he understood the feat.

“You can’t tell till you try; I am not sure you are not an expert.”

“Nor am I, though I have me doubts.”

Having reloaded the weapon the doctor handed it to Mike, who slowly raised his arm to a level, shut one eye, and squinted some seconds over the short barrel, while the doctor and Hoke, standing a foot or two to the rear, kept their eyes upon the little white spot in the distance. Then a sharp crack sounded and the marksman lowered the pistol.

“Did ye obsarve where me shot landed?” he asked of his friends.

“I think it nipped the leaves somewhere overhead,” replied Hoke.

“I scorn to notice yer slur: what do ye say, docther?”

The physician said nothing, but walked to the sapling, the others trailing after him. Taking out his pocket knife, he began digging with the blade into the soft wood. From the very center of the white spot, he gouged out a pellet of lead, and held it out to Mike.

“That is yours; you made a perfect bull’s eye.”

“Av course; did ye doubt I would do the same?”

“Hooh! all chance! you can’t do it again,” called Hoke, uttering a truth that was as apparent to Mike as to the others.

“It’s yer turn,” replied the hero of the exploit; “do ye make the attempt yersilf; if ye can equal me, then I’ll take me turn again.”