Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys Part 21

The man had something on his mind, Phil saw. During the night he must have been thinking deeply. Perhaps conscience was gripping him more than ever, and the coming of that fearful storm had been the "last straw on the camel's back."

"I hate to ask any further favors of you, Phil," he finally said, with an effort, "but a great fear has taken hold of me during the night. With every fresh howl of the wind I seemed to hear a cry for help! It almost set me wild. If I had not been such a cripple I believe I must have dashed out of the cabin, and spent the remainder of the night wandering around, searching the woods."

The rest of the boys stared at him. Perhaps it may have occurred to one or more of them that Mazie's father was losing his mind. But Phil knew there was something back of it all. He had been trying to study the man, figure out what ailed him, and why he had been hiding himself and the child away up in this solitude.

"Were you expecting _some one_ to come up here looking for you, sir?" he asked, boldly, remembering what the contents of that telegraph message had been.

"Yes, that's what has been worrying me," admitted the man, acting as though he knew the time had come when he must explain away at least a part of the mystery that surrounded him, if he expected these friendly lads to a.s.sist him further.

"An enemy, most likely?" continued Phil, seeing the other hesitate.

At that there was a heavy intaking of the breath, and then the man went on to say:

"No, hardly that. I would not like to give it so harsh a term. Say a friend from whom I have been estranged, and who I believed had wronged me; though of late my eyes have been opened to my own faults, and I have repented of many things done in the heat of temper."

"And you believe then that this friend may have engaged a guide--that it is at least possible they were not far away from here when the storm broke. You fear they may have been caught and made to suffer; is that it, sir?"

Phil was handling the affair wonderfully well, his chums thought, as they listened to all that was being said.

"That is what I have cause to fear," the other went on to say, quickly.

"Through the livelong night of tempest I have fancied I heard their cries for help, and oh! how they crucified me! It would be a terrible punishment on my head if some tragedy had taken place in the pine woods last night; and Mazie--" his voice failed him in his emotion, and he did not finish his sentence.

"Do you want us to go out and see if there are any signs of strangers on the trail leading up here, the one we followed all the way from the village many miles off?" Phil asked; and his manner was so rea.s.suring that the wounded man immediately nodded his head in the affirmative.

"It would be a fitting climax to all you and your fine chums have done for me and mine," he told them, with tears in his eyes.

"Shucks! that wouldn't be such a great job," Lub hastened to say, before any one else could talk; "and I volunteer to be one of the party right now."

"But you'd get all wet, Lub, you know," expostulated Ethan.

"What of that?" came the indignant response; "am I made of salt, or sugar? Haven't I been soaked before? If I could stand jumping into the lake with my clothes on, when the hornets tackled me, I ought to be able to take a little sprinkling, hadn't I?"

"We'll all go, so as to spread out considerable," suggested X-Ray Tyson, who, truth to tell, was a little afraid of being left to look after things at the lodge. "I'm needed because I've got the sharpest eyes; Ethan might have a chance to bring some of his woodcraft into play; Phil is the one to run things; and Lub, well, he spoke first, and ought to have a show."

"Knowing what we'll be up against," said Phil, "we can arrange accordingly, so when we get back we'll have something dry to put on.

Before we start we'll get Mr.--Mr. Newton out, and fixed before the fire, so he can feed it as often as he pleases."

The man had flushed when Phil purposely hesitated about calling the name that had been given in that message.

"Call me Alwyn Merriwell from now on," he hastily told them. "That is my real name. The time has pa.s.sed for all deceit and a.s.sumed names. I have made up my mind to do what is right for--for the other party, no matter what pain and suffering it brings to me."

A short time later the boys began to prepare to start out. Phil saw that their injured guest was really working himself up into a fever over the anxiety he was enduring. His thoughts during the night had had a strong effect upon him. He may even have dreamed something dreadful had really happened, and it haunted him.

Acting on Phil's advice the others dressed lightly. This would allow of leaving certain parts of their clothing behind, to be resumed on their return.

"We will be moving all the time, and can keep warm enough, even while wet to the skin," he told them, as they started forth, after saying good-by to Mazie, who was content to sit alongside her "daddy," holding his hand, and prattling constantly as was her pretty way.

Phil had managed to cover his little camera, so that he could take it along.

"Like as not we'll run across some effects of the hurricane that we'd like to remember," he explained, when X-Ray looked questioningly at the camera. "There must be places where trees have been thrown down in all sorts of twisted shapes; and those sort of things always make the boss pictures, you know."

They followed the trail. It was very faint in many places; but then Ethan could be depended on to find it whenever a cry arose that it was lost. Phil, too, had his bearings pretty well in hand, though as a rule he allowed Ethan to swing things, for he saw that it was giving him no end of pleasure to thus exercise his knowledge of woodcraft.

For a full hour they pushed on. The sun peeped out every little while, showing that Phil had guessed rightly when he said the storm was a thing of the past. The leaves still dripped, though not so copiously as at first. Lub even boasted that he seemed to be drying off faster than he got wet. That fact apparently occupied more of his attention than other matters.

"How far ought we go, do you think, Phil?" inquired X-Ray Tyson; "not that I'm getting tired at all; but I just asked for information."

"Another half-hour, and then we'll call it off," he was told. "By that time we'll have covered a number of miles. If this--er--friend of Mr.

Merriwell's is anywhere around, and able to make us hear, we'll come on the party."

"Beats me to understand what it all means," grumbled Lub. "And d'ye know, I've got a good suspicion that you've tumbled to the game, Phil."

"I've been told no more than the rest of you," the other replied; "and my guess may be wide of the mark; so just now I'm not going to say anything more. But you can see from the way he keeps looking at Mazie she's got something to do with it all. When he talks about having to make a terrible sacrifice it means giving her up."

"Gee whiz! I never once thought of that!" burst out Lub; "now I bet you the little tot's got a grandfather who's been left the child by her mother when she died. Is that the answer, Phil?"

"I refuse to say, Lub. Ethan and I have been talking it over, and we've come to a certain conclusion; but wait a little, and we'll explain. We may find the person he seems to be expecting. Perhaps he received a later message, and which warned him his presence up here was known."

Lub relapsed into silence. It could be seen, however, that he was pondering over matters, for that serious look on his usually placid face betrayed the fact.

They continued to push forward, and kept up a constant watch for any sign that would indicate the presence of strangers. This might be the smoke of a fire, or the sound of an ax.

"How would it do to let out a whoop every little while, Phil?" suggested X-Ray Tyson; "for all we know they might have lost the trail in the storm, and be somewhere to one side. It'd be a mean thing if we pa.s.sed 'em by without knowing it."

"That isn't a bad idea," Phil told him; "so start in right away with a yodel."

This was all the other was waiting for, and he accordingly lifted up his voice in a loud shout. Any camper hearing it would understand that the call was meant for a friendly one, and must hasten to reply.

"There, wasn't that an answer; or do they have echoes as wonderful as that up here in the North Woods?" demanded X-Ray, excitedly.

"It was a shout, all right," Ethan told him, positively.

"And came from over on our right," added Phil, pleased at least that all their labor had not been for nothing.

"Let's mark the trail so we can be sure to find her again," Ethan continued; always cautious about letting a good thing slip him.

This being done by means of a certain tree that all of them felt sure they must easily recognize, even at some distance, the four Mountain Boys turned toward the spot where that faint "hallo" had come from.

Presently keen-eyed X-Ray Tyson told them he saw smoke.

"That's right," admitted Ethan, when he had followed the extended finger of the other chum; "and of course it means they've got a camp fire burning; though after all that rain it'd take a good woodsman to know where to find dry wood, except in the heart of some stump. Let's hurry up and get there."

He kept watching as he went on. It would grieve Ethan sorely should he find at any time they were actually lost, and after he had taken so many precautions in the bargain.

"I can see somebody moving around there," announced X-Ray, soon afterwards; "and it's a man, too. Seems to be a guide, if his looks count for anything."

They kept heading straight toward the small cheerless camp in the drenched woods. All the while Phil was expecting to hear his chums, saving possibly Ethan, give utterance to low cries of surprise.