The Auto Boys' Mystery Part 7

The voice that had guided Dave across the water greeted him at once. "It's full glad I am to see ye, even if I can't see ye half in the darkness of it," came with a p.r.o.nounced Irish accent.

"Guess that won't make much difference if you can see your way into the boat," Dave answered. "Did you get lost?"

"No, no! not lost at all, at all, but I couldn't find me way, quite," came the response. The speaker had now come down on the sloping bank close to the boat, as if about to step aboard.

"I only wondered," Dave answered. "Seems as if the woods were full of mysterious people--one lone man hiding in an old clubhouse, another--"

The lad checked himself. A sudden thought came to him that perhaps he better not speak too freely without knowing with whom he was talking.

"What's he doin' there? A man all alone, and in an old clubhouse? What might be his name thin?"

"How should I know?" Dave answered to this question. He was becoming the least bit suspicious and again he checked himself when it was just at his tongue's tip to add, "We think the name may be Grandall." There would be no harm in awaiting developments before he told a stranger quite all he knew, he grimly reflected--a wise thought, it should be needless to say.

"No harm,--no harm intinded," spoke the Irishman good-naturedly. He had come close to the water's edge now and Dave's eyes being fairly accustomed to the darkness, made him out to be a little, elderly man with a short beard, but very little hair on his head. The old fellow's baldness was, indeed, the most noticeable thing about him as, with hat in hand, lest it fall off into the lake, perhaps, he stooped down the more closely to inspect MacLester and the boat.

"Why," said the boy, fearing his short "How should I know?" might have been unpleasantly curt, "You see there are four of us fellows in camp on t'other side and we've happened to see a man at the old house on the Point below us. We've wondered who he might be, staying alone as he does, and keeping so out of sight of everybody. It's miles to the nearest house and n.o.body but our crowd of four fellows and our one visitor is anywhere near.

But climb down into the scow and I'll take you over. Steady now, while I hold the old sh.e.l.l up to the bank."

For a few seconds the stranger made no reply. Then--"It must be a lake here thin. Has it a name, at all, d'ye know?"

"Why, sure it's a lake!" replied Dave a little tartly, wondering if the old fellow supposed the sheet of water lying so quiet in the darkness there might be a river or an ocean. "Its name is Opal Lake. This old boat is good and strong though. It'll carry us across all right."

Once again there was a long pause before the stranger spoke. "Oh yis!"

he suddenly exclaimed, "There's me baggage, and me almost forgettin' of it! Will ye help me a wee bit with it? Sure 'tis not far!"

The kindly and somewhat coaxing voice of the old fellow, whose brogue was just enough to give a pleasant quaintness to his speech, amused MacLester and he a.s.sented readily enough to the request made of him. He threw a loop of the scow's anchor rope over a stub projecting from the water and sprang ash.o.r.e. He did not notice in the darkness that his leap broke the fragile branch securing the boat, allowing her to drift, but at once said:

"We'll have to wiggle some, for they'll be looking for me in camp pretty shortly."

"Sure, 'tis not far," the man again said pleasantly, and clapping his straw hat down over his head till it almost concealed his ears, he led the way into the woods.

"Me name is Smith--Jawn Smith. What's your'n thin?" spoke the genial Irishman, as the two walked quite rapidly, despite the darkness.

"MacLester--I'm Scotch," said Dave, smiling to himself over the thought that his new friend plainly was not French.

Mr. Smith made no reply and a long distance had been covered when Dave spoke again.

"How far back are you--that is, your baggage? We'll never find the lake again, till morning, if we don't watch out."

"Sure, 'tis not far now any more," came the quite unsatisfactory answer.

"Is it tired ye air?"

"No--but--great guns!"

With no other remark Dave continued close behind or alongside his guide for a long time--a very long time, it seemed to him,--possibly a quarter hour. Then--

"Where in the world are we bound for?" he asked pretty sharply.

"Sure, ye'll not lave me," was the answer, quite pleadingly.

With a decided mixture of feelings Dave said, "Couldn't you do without your baggage until morning?" But in his thoughts he added: "I've heard of wild Irishmen, and I guess I've met one, too." Still, he smiled in a grim way, reflecting further that he, also, would have a stirring personal adventure to report in camp, and he would see it through now at all hazards.

MacLester was certainly right. He would have a story of personal adventure to relate when he parted company with "Jawn Smith." But this was something he was not to succeed in doing so soon as he supposed.

Time pa.s.sed and still the little, old fellow with now and again his oft-repeated, "'Tis not far," trudged onward. He _seemed_ to know the way perfectly. Dave followed or kept near his side. However, when for possibly the tenth time the man said, "'Tis not far," the lad's impatience got the better of him.

"Your ideas of distance must have been picked up in an automobile," he said. "Twenty miles isn't far in a car, maybe. One or two--not to mention five or six--may be a lot better than a fair stretch for walking. And I've been gone a long time from camp."

The stranger made no reply.

"What are you doing in the woods--fishing, or just traveling for your health?" Dave was getting more than a little cross and his tone showed it.

"Sure, thin', I was goin' to tell ye," muttered Mr. Smith, still going forward but more slowly now,--"I was goin' to tell ye that me business is that of a sivy-ear--you know?"

"A what? I'm afraid I don't know exactly."

"You don't know a sivy-ear? Sure! Peekin' through a little popgun on three poles? That's a sivy-ear."

"Oh, a surveyor!" exclaimed Dave. "What in the world have you been surveying here in the woods?"

"Down't be axin' questions. Sivy-ears go peekin' an' peekin' an' they don't tell whatever they may see. For why should there be sivy-ears at all, if they towld what they do be seein'?"

MacLester was both irritated and amused; but he was getting too uneasy now to let the all-too-apparent humb.u.g.g.e.ry of his companion go unchallenged.

"Well, I'll say this much, Mr. Smith, that if you know where your instruments are, and can go there right off, I'll stand by my bargain to help you; but if you don't, you better say so. We're five miles from the lake now, if we're a foot."

"Yes, it's right ye air," was the still unsatisfactory answer. And though Dave replied more sharply than he had yet spoken, his companion each time responded in soft tones and mild language, but always evasively.

"Well! if you know where we are, tell me that!" spoke MacLester very firmly at last. "I'm going not a step further until I know what sort of a wild goose business you are taking me on!"

"Oh,--oh! Sorra day--sorra day!" The man sat himself down heavily upon a fallen tree over whose prostrate trunk he had just escaped falling. "Ye must do as ye will, but it's lost I fear I am."

"Lost?" echoed Dave loudly. "You don't mean that we've been jamming ahead in the dark, and all this distance, without knowing where we were going!"

"It was _not far_!" Mr. Smith moaned wearily. "Oh! it is tired am I!"

"Well! I'll be cow-kicked!"

And possibly David MacLester may be excused for using so impolite an expression when his situation is considered. Here he was miles from Opal Lake--miles from camp, and lost in the woods in the dead of night with a strange man who might be either a dangerous crook or a harmless lunatic--circ.u.mstances pointed toward both.

"Ye'll not be blamin' _me_, sure!" spoke the old fellow. His very voice showed that he was indeed tired to the verge of fainting; but his manner was as mild and child-like as his words.

Language could not express Dave's feelings. In mute contempt, anger, weariness and a certain deep curiosity mingled, he dropped to the ground.

"I wouldn't blame you, mister," said the boy at last, "but I set out to do you a friendly turn and you get me into this pickle as a result and still give me no satisfaction as to where you belong or where you want to get to."

"Jawn Smith"--and it plainly was not his name--made no answer for a long time. Meanwhile David expressed himself pretty freely to the effect that there was but one course to pursue and that was to stay right where they were until morning. "And when daylight comes we'll head straight for the lake," said he.

"It's no odds who I be," said the stranger finally. "If I be not a real sivy-ear, I'm the likes of one, a peekin' and peekin'. Which is for why I can't be gossipin' about matters that means a great deal to them that I would be befriendin'. Come mornin', we'll see."