Mark Overton

“ When once more they heard the deep-toned bark of that dog, Jack stopped in his tracks.
“We must change our course again, Toby,” he announced, briefly; “the wind is striking us on the right cheek, when it should be dead ahead; or that beast will soon be getting our scent. So let’s strike off here, and make another half circuit; when we can push ahead, and reach our goal unchallenged.” ”

“ Steve, wish me luck, because I know you just love fried black bass.”
Thereupon Steve waved both hands after him as if in blessing.
“Hope you get a fairly good mess, Toby,” he shouted, “not more than we can manage at one sitting, because I hate a fish hog who wastes twice as much as he can make use of. But if they do bite like sixty, say, I’ll be sorry I didn’t make up my mind to limp along with you, no matter how much this heel hurts.” ”

“ As for me, I want to travel when I grow up, and look on every foreign land. Going on now, Jack, are you? Soon be time to take a little noon rest, and lighten the loads we’re carrying in our pockets.”
“Given half an hour more and it’ll be noon,” Jack informed him, after taking a look aloft to where the beaming sun was high in the heavens. 59 “I never like to eat lunch until then, so let’s wait a bit. Besides, I’m not quite as hungry as I ought to be to do justice to all that stuff you put in my pockets.” ”

“ Suspense will make the wind-up all the more enjoyable; just as in baseball when the score is tied in the ninth and Steve here has swatted the ball for a 43 three-bagger, with two men on bases, the pent-up enthusiasm breaks loose in a regular hurricane of shouts and cheers, and we’re all feeling as happy as clams at high tide. Now, let’s get busy on these fish, and have a regular fry for dinner tonight! ”

“ TOBY’S ADVENTURE
“Now that’s what I get for staying home when I had a chance to go along with you, Toby, old scout,” grumbled Steve. “Just my luck to be left out of the running. Hang the sore heel, I say!”
“Come over to the log and sit down, Toby,” tempted Jack; “you must be a little tired after your long walk, and all the work of catching such a bunch of fighters. It seems after all that the gamiest bass frequent the upper reaches of Paradise River. And none of the fellows in Chester cared to go that far when the fishing near home was always pretty good.” ”

“ As for Toby, he actually leaped out of the depths of his chair, and threatened to execute a Fiji Island war-dance on the spot.
“Go on, tell us some more, please,” urged Steve. “Who is this kind gentleman who has taken such an interest in our crowd that he’d actually offer to stand for the expense of our outing?”
“Well, in the first place,” Jack explained, “strange as you may think it, it happens that it isn’t a gentleman at all, but a lady who offers to pay for everything we’ll need, to have the greatest camping trip of our lives.” ”

“ It seemed to the impatient Toby that an hour must have passed since they ensconced themselves in their present location, when he just faintly caught the anticipated click that announced the accomplishment of Jack’s work.
Twisting his head slightly around Toby could see his chum calmly turning the film so as to bring another blank in line for a second shot. Jack believed in making sure of such an important picture. Far better to waste good films than to find that he had failed to get as clear a negative as he wished. ”

“ But say, up in the woods he can just revert back to the habits of primeval man from whose loins he sprang, and his appetite compares to that of the wolf. Oh! things do taste altogether different, somehow or other; and meals seem an awful long time apart.”
“What’s on your mind, Toby?” asked Jack, a short time afterwards, when he noticed the other looking pensive, as though his thoughts might be busy.
“Oh! I was only wondering whether we’d hear that queer old booming sound again tonight, that’s all, Jack; and mebbe, too, I was trying to figure out just how he manages to make it.” ”

“ Surely you won’t think of trying to scare the old cat away?”
“Twenty armed men couldn’t do that, so long as her kits were in danger,” Jack told him. “If we still mean to advance there’s only one way to do it. We can’t fly over, and consequently it’s up to us to go around, or else turn back and acknowledge ourselves baffled.”
“I hate to do that last the worst thing,” grumbled Steve, giving another whack at the ground with his long club, shaped somewhat like a baseball bat; “but whatever you say goes, Jack.” ”

“ He’s a regular old bronze-back warrior, I tell you. I hope you land that beauty. Play him for all you’re worth, Jack; please don’t let him get away. And now I hope Steve will say he’s got enough.”
“We haven’t got him yet by a jugful, remember, Toby,” remonstrated Jack. “They say you mustn’t count your chickens till the eggs are hatched; and I tell you a big bass like that is never caught until he’s flopping on the bank. They’re up to all kinds of tricks. Now he’s boring down, and trying to find a rock to get under, so he can grind the line, until it weakens and gives way.” ”

“ It was the old, old story that never dies out, the spirit of devotion that mankind pays to the element which he had compelled to serve him so well in a thousand different ways, but principally to cook his food, and warm his chilled body. ”

“ Of course bears were protected in the summer close season; but when a fellow’s life was at stake no game law had a right to force him to lay down and allow a measly bear to walk all over him, as well as steal his precious grub.
So in a flash of time Steve settled that matter in his mind, all right. Jack would be acting well within his privilege as a citizen of the State if he defended his property against robbery. No law could touch him for doing that; and then besides, they could bury Mr. Bruin down deep, so that the game wardens would never find a trace of him there. ”

“ There are other days to come, and bit by bit I reckon the thing will grow, until in the end I’ve found out all I want to know.”
“One thing sure, Jack,” ventured Steve, meditatively, “it’s no ordinary game this man with the black mustache and goatee is playing up here in these hills.”
“Well, I can stretch a point,” Jack told him, with a twinkle in his eye, “and agree with you there, Steve. It’s a big game, with a fortune at stake; and so you can both understand how desperate that man might become if he really began to believe that our being here threatened his castles in the air with a tumble. ”

“ Now tomorrow we’ll start in to enjoy ourselves after our own fashion. Playing the spy may be very exciting work, but 173 say, it isn’t just what appeals to me as the finest thing going. You feel a bit cheap looking in on folks, just as if you were peeping through a keyhole. Steve, are you with me for a turn at the black bass in the morning?”
“I’m feeling fish hungry, if that answers your question, Toby,” replied the other: “and I’m laying out to go across country with you tomorrow to see what the Paradise River looks like away up here.” ”

“ Jack told him, “and without a sign of a gun to back you, that’s the time to spell prudence in big capital letters. They’ve got terrible claws, and can use them to tear a fellow’s clothes to ribbons, not to mention what they’ll do to your hide. No use talking, Steve, if the miserable beast is dead set on keeping us from going on we’ll have to own up beaten, and retire with our skins whole.” ”

“ I like to have a clean conscience. Here, Jack, you hold the straws. The one who gets the shorter stays behind; that’s understood. And Steve shall draw first, because I picked the straws.”
Evidently, there could hardly be a more conscientious boy that Toby Hopkins, for he was always looking out for the rights of the other fellow. That was the main reason why Jack Winters had chosen him for one of his closest chums. He knew he could depend on Toby to do the right thing every time. ”

“ Inside of an hour they had taken seven very good fish, really as many as they could well use; though Toby kept saying that it was hard to gauge that appetite of Steve’s, and one or two more wouldn’t come in amiss. It is so easy for even a conscientious fisherman to find excuses for continuing the sport as long as the 105 fish will bite, such is the fascination connected with the game.
Then the expected happened. Jack had a tremendous bite, and was speedily playing a fish that made his fine rod bend like a whip. ”

“ What would happen then was an unpleasant thought for Toby to entertain. Why, it might be they would be kept there until Maurice had been to see Priscilla, and coaxed her to give him an option on the property; which would really be too bad. So Toby hoped, and watched, and waited, to see the climax, his attention divided between the hound dog and the oil derrick, where the cluster of men moved to and fro. ”

“ The stranger seemed to be more or less excited. After mopping his perspiring forehead he once more commenced digging here and there in a most tantalizing fashion. Toby could not comprehend what it could mean. Was there gold or some other precious deposit to be found up here among these hills, and might this strange man be an old prospector from the West who had had long experience in searching for mineral lodes? But then such things were seldom discovered so near the top of the ground, Toby recollected. He wished the man would go away so he could speak to Jack, and ask him what he thought ”

“ Reared against the low sky-line was a skeleton framework made of timbers. Jack had never actually seen an oil derrick before in his life, but he knew that this was one. Undoubtedly their guess had been a true one. Maurice Dangerfield, the unscrupulous nephew of Miss Priscilla, was so convinced there was oil to be found on her property that he had entered into an arrangement with some experienced parties accustomed to putting down wells to make an experimental boring, and the skeleton framework had been used in carrying out the said sinking. ”

“ Well, all we can do is take things as they come, the bad with the good. When fellows camp out for two weeks they ought to go prepared for wet as well as dry weather. I’ve fetched along my rain-coat, and the rubber cap that keeps your neck dry in the toughest of a downpour; and rubber boots, so why should I worry?”
“Since you’re prepared to be a regular waterdog, Toby,” said Steve, “we’ll look to you to do all the stray jobs when it rains. Jack and myself not being so well prepared can stick to the tent and keep dry.” ”

“ Well, whatever was in the wind, Toby thought, it would not be long in developing now, judging from the increased tension out there where men were running back and forth, calling to each other, and some of them removing valuable instruments used in the boring as though to a place of safety. ”

“ Creeping behind a neighboring tree the generous trunk of which offered him the necessary asylum, Jack watched his chance. He waited until the man stood up to rest, with the pickax held over his shoulder, and the sun well on his face. 112 Then a tiny click announced to Toby that the thing had been done.
He was keeping his eyes glued on the man; but as several crows were holding a noisy confab not far away, and a squirrel had taken to barking at the intruder with the digging tool, such a slight sound as the clicking of the camera apparently passed unnoticed. ”

“ You see, the formation of the valley is calculated to always set a fellow straight, even if he gets a little mixed in his bearings. It runs directly southeast to northwest around here. Besides Toby has the compass, and the sun is shining up there full tilt. He may not be in for another hour or so; but I wouldn’t be alarmed even if the sun set with him still away. The light of our campfire would serve as a guide to him, once darkness fell.”
“Yes, that’s a fact, Jack. We could build a roaring blaze that might be seen a mile and more away. ”

“ Steve gave utterance to a startled cry, in which delight was mingled with surprise.
“So you fetched along one of those hand-electric torches, did you, Jack?” he exclaimed. “Well, a flashlight never had a better chance to make itself useful than right now. It’s going to be a picnic from here on. I can see every little twig and blade of grass; and as for our trail, a fellow could follow it with one eye shut. Thank goodness! our 76 troubles for the day are ended; unless it comes on to rain cats and dogs before we get under shelter.” ”

“ As the old saying has it, “you never miss the water till the well runs dry,” and boys become so accustomed to accepting the comforts of home that they fail to appreciate them until all of a sudden they find themselves cast upon their own resources, and face to face with responsibilities they may never have dreamed of before.
From time to time the faces of all his Chester comrades had a fashion of rising up before Toby, and he could even imagine himself talking with them, perhaps relating some of the lively happenings 152 of that two weeks in the woods up in the wonderful Pontico Hills country. ”

“ It’s going to be our best friend you know, when even we get ravenously hungry; and seems to me we might at least have joined hands, and danced around the blaze while we crooned some sort of song dedicated to the god of fire.”
“None of those silly frills go in this camp, Toby, you want to know,” said Steve, sternly, coming in just then with an armful of firewood. “This is a business camp, and not a make-believe one. We’re 16 up here to enjoy ourselves, and take pictures, but no barbaric rites can be allowed. ”

“ During the balance of the summer vacation Jack and Toby and Steve enjoyed many little outings that afforded them considerable profit in the way of information, as well as pleasure. Like most of the other boys of Chester, however, they were head and ears interested in the progress of the new building that was being erected, and which when completed would be used as a gymnasium, where they could have the time of their lives amidst such appurtenances as go to make up a first-class physical culture department. ”

“ But it’s mighty evident to me that she does this because of the admiration she feels for our chum, Jack Winters; and I guess, Steve, once more we’re lucky to have such a general favorite for a comrade.”
“Listen, fellows,” remonstrated Jack, hastily, “there are several reasons why the lady is doing this for us. One of them is admiration for the way we acquitted ourselves in the baseball games lately played. She has a healthy regard for the proper bringing up of boys, though she has never been married herself, and therefore knows them only from hearsay. ”

“ Keep a bright lookout for the bunch of oaks that makes a triangle, because that’s where we pull up and make our camp.”
Two minutes afterwards and Toby gave an exultant cry.
“I see them, Jack, sure I do, and I tell you they’re beauties in the bargain. A better landmark it’d be hard to find. Well, for one I’m right glad our journey is done.”
“Tell that to Moses the nag, here,” laughed Jack, “because he’d be mighty happy to know his work is through for a long spell. We’ve fetched plenty of oats along, and mean to rope him out days, so he can eat his fill of grass. ”

“ No matter if a fellow does think he’s hungry at home, when he sits down to a white tablecloth, and silver, and cut-glass, and all that sort of stuff it sort of dulls the edge of his appetite. Then again he has to just wait his turn to be served, and mustn’t forget his table manners if he knows what’s good for him. ”

“ Pass me the sugar, please, Jack. And Toby, after I’ve slacked my hunger a bit so I can act half way decent I’m meaning to toast some of the slices of bread at that splendid red-ash fire.”
So they continued to sit there and fairly gorge themselves until Steve could hardly sigh, he was so full; but then all boys are built pretty much alike in that respect, so we can easily forgive Steve in particular. Cutting wood does put an edge on a naturally keen appetite that knows no 18 limit save capacity; and Steve had many good qualities to more than balance his greediness. ”