The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill Part 13

"Nonsense!" said Pa. "Gipsies don't go around stealing thirteen-year-old boys, who can make as much noise as Bill can."

"Well, I saw some, anyhow," I told him.

Just then Skinny jumped out in front of the rest of us, with his eyes shining and his cheeks redder than I ever had seen them before, and stood there with his arms folded, like a bandit, or a Scout, I don't know which.

"Fellers," said he, "Scouts, I mean. We got Bill into this sc.r.a.pe and we will get him out again. This is a job for us, not for the police. If anybody can find Bill, bet your life we can. We know the call of the Ravens. We know the signs and we know Bill better than his own folks know him. We'll track him. We'll follow him to the ends of the earth.

Will you go with me?"

We sprang up with a cheer, forgetting how tired we were, those of us who had just come home from the long walk.

"Everybody scatter and look for signs."

"Wait a minute, boys," said Ma. "It's almost dinner time. You must not start without something to eat. There is no telling when you will get back. Let me give you a bite in the kitchen first."

That was just like Ma. We saw in a minute it was the thing to do and hurried in for a quick lunch.

"The boy is right," we heard Pa saying. "They'll find him, depend upon it. I never knew those boys to get into a sc.r.a.pe yet that they couldn't pull out of. But it won't hurt if the rest of us look around a little, too."

"Who saw him last?" asked Skinny, after we had started.

"I did," said Wallie. "We walked together until I turned off to take the east road. He kept straight on toward the Gingham Ground and I heard him yell some time afterward."

"You don't suppose that the Gang got after him, do you, and locked him up or something?"

"I'll bet that's what they did," said Benny. "That is just what happened. They got after me, too. I was scared half to death and didn't want to go through the Grounds, but it was getting late and I knew that Ma would be worried, so I braced up and started through on a run. In a minute two of them ran out and grabbed me by the collar."

"'It's one of them village kids,' said one of them. 'Let's call the Gang and duck him. He needs it to cool off.'

"Then he whistled and a lot of the others came and they hustled me down to the river. Gee, I was mad and I was scared. Then, just as I had about given up, another boy came chasing after us.

"'Is this Benny Wade?' said he.

"'It's all that is left of me,' I told him.

"With that he jumped in and took hold of me.

"'Youse ain't a goin' to duck this kid,' said he, 'unless you duck me along with him. His partner came through here this morning and fixed my dog's broken leg and he told me to watch out for Benny Wade and have him look at the bandage, to see if it was all right. Now, kid, you come along with me and look at my dog.'

"'Duck 'em both,' said some one.

"I guess maybe they would have done it, too, if Jim Donavan hadn't come along just in time."

"Maybe it was Bill who fixed up the dog," said Hank.

"No, I did it," I told them.

We had been walking along while Benny was talking. What he said surprised us some and would have made us mad at any other time. Benny had been so worried about Bill that he hadn't said anything about himself before, and neither had any of us.

"The first thing to do," said Skinny, "is to go to Jim's house and start from there. If Bill went through the Gingham Ground I'll bet that some of the Gang saw him."

The place which we call the Gingham Ground is a settlement near some big gingham mills. There are two long rows of brick tenement houses with a street between. We knew that Skinny was right, because Bill would have had to walk down that street between the rows of houses, and some one would have been sure to see him. He might have stopped at Jim's, or, anyhow, would have called to him when he pa.s.sed.

It didn't take us long to get there, and as we came near we could see the Gang getting together. You see, they thought we were after them on account of what they had done to Benny.

We didn't pay much attention to them but went straight to Jim's house and found him eating dinner. He was surprised to see us and was glad.

"Wait until I call the Gang," said he, after we had told him about Bill.

In a few minutes they had all come up, as friendly as could be when they found out that we were not looking for a fight.

Not one of them had seen Bill. They all knew him and they felt sure that if he had gone through in daylight some of them would have seen him.

"I'll tell you what we'd better do," said Jim, finally. "I don't believe that he came this way, but, to make sure, the Gang will work north from here and ask at every house. You go back and look between here and the village. If he left there and didn't get as far as this, then he must have turned off somewhere."

We went back, stopping at every house we came to, on each side of the road. We couldn't find a person who remembered having seen him or any one like him. You see, if he pa.s.sed at all, it must have been soon after seven o'clock in the morning. The men had gone to work in the mills and the women were busy in the back parts of the houses.

Then we started back again, not knowing what to do next. There was one house, larger than the others, which we had not visited, because it stood high above the road on a hillside and could be reached only by a long driveway. It was about halfway between the Gingham Ground and our house in the village. We couldn't think of anything else to do, so we went up there.

"I don't remember seeing any one," said the lady who met us at the door. "Of course, there are boys pa.s.sing at all hours of the day. I might have seen him."

We looked at Skinny in despair.

"This one," said he, "was probably making a noise. Maybe he was cawing like a crow."

"I saw him, Mama," shouted a little girl, who had come up and stood listening. "I saw a boy go past, making an awful racket, and it sounded something like a crow."

"Was he carrying anything?" I asked.

"Yes, he had a rolled-up blanket on his back. I remember thinking he looked funny and wondering what he was going to do with it. Oh, yes, he had on a uniform, too."

"It was Bill, all right," said Skinny. "We've struck the trail at last."

We went down to the road and talked it over.

"He pa.s.sed here," said Skinny, "on time and going north, and he didn't pa.s.s through the Gingham Ground. We feel sure of that much. He must have turned off somewhere in the next half-mile."

"We know something else," I told him. "He couldn't have turned east, because the river is in the way and there isn't any bridge."

We made up our minds to separate, one party to work north from where we were standing; one to work south from the Gingham Ground, and the others to work in between, to see if we could find where he had left the road.

"Look for a sign," said Skinny, "and look on the west side. There isn't much chance for finding footprints."

Hank was the one who found it. We heard him yell and went to him on a run.

He came out to the roadside and waited for us, waving his hat in the air, he was so excited; then, when we had come up, took us back from the road through a sort of lane, which pretty soon turned south and wound off through the woods.

Just at the turn stood a big stone, out of sight from the road. That is why we had not seen it before. On the stone was something which set us all yelling.