Edward Ellis - The Boy Patrol Around the Council Fire

The doctor dipped his paddle in the water and gently swayed it. The boat moved slowly toward the other canoe, drifting like an eggshell over the placid surface. In leaping overboard, Buzby Biggs had flung the paddle from him and it was seen floating a couple of rods distant from the boat. Very slowly the doctor advanced until Mike leaned over and lifted the implement into their craft. Then the man sheered his boat beside the other and Mike, tossing the paddle into it, held it steady, and sat down.

“Now, docther, we can manage it, I’m thinking,” remarked the youth, looking up into the face that it seemed to him had gone a little pale.

“Can you find anything to explain the fright of the tramps, Mike?”

Both peered into the clear water, whose depth was too great for them to see the bottom, but nothing rewarded their piercing scrutiny. And right here a fact must be admitted which was not discreditable to either of them. The breath of air that sighed over the lake had swept the empty canoe fully a hundred feet from whence it was at the moment Buzby Biggs dived overboard. It followed, therefore, that when Mike and the doctor peered into the pellucid depths, it was not at the spot where the tramps had descried something which unnerved them. Moreover, each of the pursuers knew such was the case, but did not try to correct it nor did either drop a hint of his knowledge until some time afterward.

It may be added that had the doctor and his young friend paddled a little farther in the proper direction they would have solved the mystery and been overcome probably by the same panic that had driven the tramps overboard.

“Well,” said the physician, “there is nothing to be gained by staying here. Let’s go to my home, have supper and spend the evening. I know my wife will be glad to have you, and I suspect that Stubby feels a little that way herself.”

“I hope so,” replied Mike feelingly; “I may as well confess that my main purpose in going thither is to meet Sunbeam, as the callers used to say regarding mesilf whin they purtended they wanted to see dad and mither.”

Paddling at a leisurely rate, they soon drew the two canoes up the bank and stepped out. Mike paused and looked back.

“Can there be any fear of thim spalpeens poking round here while we’re not in sight?”

“It seems unlikely; since they tried that sort of thing they have been scared so fearfully that I think they will avoid us.”

“Docther, what could it have been that made them jump out of their boat and swim and dive like two crazy persons?”

“I should give a good deal to be able to answer that question, but I have no more idea than you. Let us try to content ourselves with the belief that like the cause of Uncle Elk’s resentment toward me, it will be made clear sooner or later.”

Before leaving the landing, as it may be called, they scanned the surface of the lake. The doctor generally carried his binoculars and he traced the margin clear around from their right back again to their left. There stood the bungalow with the flag idly drooping from the staff and several of the Scouts were seen lounging at the front. In no other direction was a sign of life discerned.

“I cannot discover the other canoe,” remarked Dr. Spellman, passing the glass to Mike at his side. “If the boys had returned, the boat would be in sight by the bungalow; whoever used it, they are still absent.”

“They have landed and gone into the woods to look after birds or to trace out other kinds of trees. They will be back before the set of sun.”

“No doubt, unless,” added the doctor half in earnest, “they should receive the same shock that struck Biggs and Hutt.”

“In that evint, they will be home still earlier.”

“Come on; I’m beginning to feel hungry.”

“And I’m wid ye there.”

One of the incidents which made that night memorable in the life of Mike Murphy was that it brought him a compliment, the equal of which he had never received before, nor in the years to come can any similar words so touch his heart.

Ruth Spellman, or “Sunbeam” as she was coming to be called, was so interested in his fairy stories that when the time arrived for her to go to bed she was restless and the mother feared it was something in the nature of a fever that disturbed her. The father, however, assured his wife that it was due to mental excitement and would soon pass away. When Ruth had said her prayers, kissed each good night and lain down on her cot, with the thin blanket spread over her, she still fidgeted. From the next room the three heard her tossing as children will do when sleep fails to soothe them.

Suddenly they heard her pleading voice:

“Cousin Mike, won’t you please sing to me?”

“I’ll do my bist,” he replied with a laugh, as he walked back and sat on a camp stool beside her couch, where only a small portion of the light from the front apartment reached them. He began the baby song with which his mother had often lulled him to slumber in infancy. Its exquisite sweetness was beyond description, the parents sat motionless and listening as much enthralled as the little one for whose benefit it was sung. They were almost holding their breath when Sunbeam murmured during one of the slight pauses:

“I think one of the angels you told me about, mamma, is singing.”

“I don’t wonder,” whispered the father; “I never heard anything like it.”

Five minutes later the child had drifted away into dreamland and Mike came forward and joined the two on the outside. They sat silent for a few minutes. Neither referred to the wonderful treat they had enjoyed, for it would have grated when compared with the simple words of Sunbeam. Nor did Mike speak of it, but, as has been said, his heart had been touched as never before.

It was comparatively early in the evening when he bade his friends good-by, having declined their invitation to stay over night, and walked down to the water, accompanied by the doctor.

“When you next see Uncle Elk, assure him that his wishes shall be respected by me; I shall not call at the bungalow in the evening unless you signal for me, nor do I intend to go near his home.”

Mike promised to carry out the doctor’s wishes and turned the prow of the boat south, which was the most direct course home. He glanced back, and observing that his friend had gone up the path, made a change of direction, his action showing that he did not wish the doctor to notice it.

The truth was that Mike was obsessed with what he had witnessed that afternoon. There must be an explanation of the fright of the two tramps, but he could not frame any theory that would stand for a moment.

“And I’ll niver be able to do it,” he muttered, “till I larn a good deal more than I know now, which isn’t anything at all, as Ted Ryan replied whin his taycher asked him what he knowed about his lesson.”

Now, as that which terrified Biggs and Hutt seemed to have appeared in the lake near them, it would seem that there was the spot to look for the solution of the mystery, and yet it was impossible to hit upon the precise place. He and the doctor had come pretty near it some hours before, without any result.

“We agraad that what the spalpeens saw was in the water , but that couldn’t be. It must have been on the land and that’s where I’ll hunt for the same.”

There were just as strong objections to this supposition, the chief of which was that the vagrants when they went overboard swam with frantic energy toward the shore; in other words, they made for the point where the terror was awaiting them. Moreover, their actions in diving repeatedly and glancing back proved that what they dreaded was behind them.