“Caught him for you, Hawkins,” he sang out, with a grin. “Git some string or rope or something; he won’t sit still and be good lest we tie him up. Then we can talk to him.”
I looked all over the boat, but either there was no string or twine or else I was too excited to find any. The only thing I saw was some large cable rolled upon the lower deck.
“Never mind,” said Link. “Here, catch hold of him. Stand up here, Jude. You’re our prisoner. Now be good. Don’t kick like that. If you hadn’t bummed around with Stoner’s Boy and Androfski and such folks, you wouldn’t be in this kind of a fix. Better that you take a few lessons up at the sheriff’s school for a while.”
“I’d rather be with them than with you guys,” said Jude sullenly. But he didn’t pull back or try any funny stunts.
“Alright,” said Link. “Maybe sometime, but not now, Jude. Here, Hawkins, put him into this cabin; it’s got a good door. That’ll hold him till we get the sheriff.”
We closed the door on him and sat down in front of it so he couldn’t pass out. Link laughed at it and thought it was good fun and showed me the scratches Jude had given him in the scuffle. I thought I heard footsteps somewhere on the boat, but I didn’t realize until too late. We kept on talking and laughing there till we heard the splitting of wood, and I knew in a minute.”
“This way, Link,” I said. “He’s got out the window on the other side—somebody’s helped him.”
We ran down to the end of the cabins and turned around to the rail side. Jude leaped from the window as we came in sight and flew down the other end of the boat. Another boy stood there at the window through which our prisoner had escaped. This boy held an iron bar in his hand, a crowbar with which he had torn off the shutter boards of the cabin window. He turned quickly as he heard our footsteps, and in a flash I knew him.
Simon Bleaker! Yeah, the same one who came in the night, one time, to claim a sounding box that was hidden under the stove in our clubhouse—
“You know me, I see,” he said to me, as I looked at him. “Yes, I’m glad you haven’t forgotten. I hope you will not try any more of these tricks—boxing up fellas in those damp rooms in this here steamboat—” Then he turned to see if Jude had gotten away. Not seein’ him in sight, he ran to the end of the boat and leaned over the rail. “Under there,” he yelled. “There she lays, right by the wheel—”
We had run upon him while he yelled to the boy below, and he turned quickly and fiercely and held the iron bar above his head.
“Stay back,” he snarled through his teeth. “Don’t try that on me, fellas.”
“Simon Bleaker,” I said. “I don’t believe you told us your right name—”
But he cut me short with a laugh. A laugh that I seemed to have heard somewhere before. He made one start for me and Link, as if he would jab us with the iron bar, and then turned suddenly and, flinging the bar over the rail, followed like a monkey. Holy snakes! I never saw a kid climb down anything like he disappeared over that boat rail. Link and I ran forward, but even then we heard the chug-chug-chug of a motor—and when we looked over the rail, we saw a gray launch shoot out into the stream—at the engine was Simon Bleaker, and sitting in the stern seat was Jude the Fifth.
“Come on, Hawkins,” said Link.
We both got down quickly and ran to where the longboat had been tied. But the longboat was gone. And the rope to which we had tied it looked as if it had been cut with a knife.
“What the dickens does this mean?” asked Link, scratching his yellow hair with a bony finger.
“It means that we will have to walk home,” I said.
Which we did.
CHAPTER 15
One Fox and Another
THE Skinny Guy was awfully sorry to lose his longboat. Simon Bleaker must have cut it loose while we were after Jude in the steamboat wreck. That’s what Link figured out, but when he looked at me to see what I thought about it, I kept still and turned my head away. Not me. None of that guessing work for me. Maybe it was Simon Bleaker who did it. Maybe it was Jude. Maybe it was somebody else. Let Link believe he knew who did it, I said to myself. But not me. Until this business is cleared up, until I know about Simon Bleaker and Androfski, and Stoner’s Boy, I’m going to quit guessing about it. Because almost every time we guessed at something, dern if it didn’t turn out that we were all wrong. So I said not me.
But we held our meeting in the clubhouse right after school was out, and the Skinny Guy told all the boys in the meeting about what happened onboard the old wrecked Smokey City when we went after Jude and Simon Bleaker came to his rescue. Robby Hood kept nodding his head and smiling, satisfied like, all during the time Link was telling it.
“Sure,” said Robby at last. “Simon Bleaker is in with Stoner’s bunch. You might have expected him to help Jude.”
“Well, makes no difference,” spoke up Jerry Moore. “Any guy what cuts loose a fella’s canoe ain’t got any right to be around here. I’d like to git my hands on this Simon fella. Bet he wouldn’t cut my longboat loose.”
“This Bleaker boy,” said Shadow Loomis, quietly, “might be the one who comes around here at times dressed as Stoner’s Boy. You’ve seen him a couple of times, Hawkins. What do you think about it?”
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve quit thinkin’ about it, boys. Sometimes things happen to make me believe that Stoner’s Boy comes around here in several different costumes. He’s fooled me, I’ll admit. And maybe this Simon Bleaker is a fella who thinks it is great fun to fool us like that. Maybe so. But one thing I’ll tell you, sure as I’m standing here. And that is, if Simon Bleaker is Stoner’s Boy, then it isn’t Androfski.”
Robby Hood laughed.
“Don’t go too fast, Hawkins, old boy,” he said. “I got a lot of good reasons to believe that Androfski is Stoner’s Boy. Remember when we chased the Silent One into the cave?”
“Yes, sure.”
“And where did he head for?”
“Stoner’s hiding place.”
“Yeah, Stoner’s old cave. And we chased him through. And when he came out, who was he then?”
“We didn’t chase him out,” broke in Shadow Loomis before I could answer. “We chased Androfski in, but we didn’t chase him out. We scared up Stoner’s Boy, who had been in his old hiding place, looking around to see how good he could make the old place for himself again to use as a den. We chased Stoner out. Androfski gave us the slip and got in a dark corner until we had gone. Then he sneaks out and gets away quietly by himself. That’s all there was to that.”
“I’ll be dern if it was,” said Robby. “We chased Androfski the Silent in. He runs to his old hole where he keeps his gray coat and cape and hat and the old brass horn that he doesn’t wear when he appears as Androfski the Silent. He knows us boys are more afraid of Stoner than we are of Androfski. So he hurries into his gray coat and hat while he runs for the back entrance to the cave. By the time he gets there he is all dressed again as the Gray Ghost. When we follow him out, he knows we won’t make any hard try to catch him, because he knows we think it is Stoner’s Boy.”
“Well then, Robby,” said Dick Ferris. “According to what you say, Androfski just pretends he is Stoner’s Boy. You mean that he isn’t the real Stoner? You mean that he just dresses like Stoner to scare us?”
“No, I mean he is Stoner,” said Robby. “What’s he called the Silent for? He’s pretending he can’t talk above a whisper. What’s he do that for? Why, so’s nobody will hear his real voice. If he spoke, we would recognize his voice. We would know he was Stoner’s Boy.”
Nobody spoke for a few moments. Then Dick Ferris said:
“It does sound reasonable, anyhow. Robby’s got the thing sized up pretty well. But what we want to know is what this Simon Bleaker has to do with it. Where does he come in?”
“Where you’d least expect him,” spoke up the Skinny Guy with a grin. “Wait, and you’ll see him soon enough, Dick. He’s got his eyes on our riverbank here for some reason. I
’d like to know what he is up to.”
Shadow Loomis went over to the captain’s chair, and he and Dick talked for a few moments in an undertone, while the rest of us fellas buzzed around some between ourselves. Finally, Dick hit the table with his wooden hammer, and the boys were quiet.
“Link,” said Dick. “You are appointed to scout around and find this Simon Bleaker. We have to find him. First thing we know, old Judge Granbery will send the sheriff down here and tell us to clear out of here because we are getting boys from up the river and down the river to come up here and pick fights with us. Get Bleaker. We want to talk to him. We want to find out what business he has with this Stoner’s Boy and why he cut loose Link Lambert’s longboat. We got to make these fellows up and down the river know they can’t cut our boats adrift and get away with it. Is it alright with you, Link?”
Link grinned.
“Shadow put you up to that, didn’t he?” he said with a laugh. “Alright, I’ll scout around, Dick. But this Bleaker fella is a smart one. Don’t be surprised if I can’t lay my hands on him.”
The meeting broke up then for the regular baseball practice in the hollow. The Skinny Guy borrowed Jerry Moore’s green canoe and started down the river. I went back to my writing room and wrote the minutes. When I finished, I walked outside.
Roy Dobel was sitting on the clubhouse porch steps with a gun on his knees, and on the ground sat his two hunting dogs. He seldom brings the dogs down to the clubhouse with him, and I knew there was something up.
“Hello, Roy,” I said. “Seen a ’possum or something?”
Roy jumped up, nodding his head.
“Yeah,” he says. “A fox. Thought we had him once. But the dogs got fooled. He leaped clean over ’em and back tracked. And it’s funny, too. He came this way.”
“Good,” I said. “Wait a minute till I lock up, and I’ll go with you. We will find old Mr. Fox.”
Roy shook his head.
“ ’Tain’t no use, Hawkins,” he said. “If he fooled these two dogs of mine, you and me ain’t got no chance with him. It’s the first one ever got past Rag Ears.”
Rag Ears was one of the best dogs in the business, according to Roy. He was always bragging about Rag Ears. The dogs had both jumped up and stood looking up at us, as if they were ready for another hunt.
“Don’t feel bad about Rag Ears,” I said. “Give him another chance at the fox, Roy. I’ll go with you. The boys are in the hollow playing ball. They won’t miss me. Come on.”
So we started out, the dogs going ahead. We struck the river path right away, and then cut around the base of the cliff and so back into the woods. I kept my eyes on Rag Ears. But it was the other dog, the long, lean one, that started yowling first.
“He’s got the trail, Roy,” I said.
“Naw,” said Roy. “That fool dog’ll get chewed up if he don’t stop yelpin’ at every chipmunk he sees. Look there, now.”
Rag Ears had leaped on the other dog and made him be quiet, as a little brown striped squirrel scampered over a log and dove into the weeds. At a command from Roy, the dogs separated and went on thrashing through the growth along the footpath. We followed them, Roy first with the gun and I behind him.
We walked on for a long time. I had just begun to think that Roy was right about that fox giving the dogs the slip and being too smart for us to get wind of, when all of a sudden the long, lean hound started up a furious barking, and at the same time, Rag Ears began to bay and with his nose down started off in an opposite direction. The long, lean animal turned to the left with his barking, and Roy yelled at him to hush, because he knew that Rag Ears had picked up the trail of the fox, while his companion had only sighted some common disturbance. What that disturbance was, we saw at once—it was the Skinny Guy coming up the slope from the river, pushing his way like a woodsman through the thick growth.
Roy was off after Rag Ears. I stopped a minute to meet Link.
“He’s here,” he called to me, while he was yet a good distance from me. “Bleaker—he gave me the slip, Hawkins. That dog’s got his tracks.”
“Come on,” shouted Roy.
He turned sharply and started down the slope, going back toward the clubhouse. When I took a look to see which way Roy was leading us, I stopped. Roy turned, and seeing Link and me stop, cried out:
“Come on, what you stoppin’ for?”
“You’re going back,” I said. “The dog’s running on. What’s the idea?”
“The fox will turn,” said Roy. “We will cut him off down here by the cliff. He’s sure to take to the high ground. Always runs on the high spots. Watch him.”
Link laughed as he ran on behind me, and I loped along in back of Roy. We ran to the edge of the woods. The baying of the hounds had died out. I thought we had been fools for running back. So did Link.
“I told you I saw Simon Bleaker,” said Link. “And the three of us might have caught him and made him answer the questions Dick wanted to ask him.”
“Listen,” spoke up Roy. “Here come the dogs. They have been fooled again, just as I thought. Old fox backtracked. Watch up there now, on the slope. Link, you go down the bank, and I’ll run up the ridge. Hawkins, you stay here to head him off.”
Head him off! Yeah, I might, by accident, do such a thing. Imagine me heading off a slick animal like a fox! But I said I’d do my best.
And then, in the midst of the noise made by those dogs, I heard another cry. It was the hunting cry of boys—our boys, too, for I could recognize Jerry Moore’s loud yell.
“Bleaker, Bleaker!” they were crying. “Bleaker, Bleaker, Bleaker—”
The sound grew louder
“They’ve seen old Simon,” said Link, excitedly. “Now how on earth did Bleaker get down there—”
“Say,” broke in Roy Dobel, and he talked as if he were peeved. “We come to hunt a fox—”
“You’re right,” said the Skinny Guy. “And I bet you there never was a foxier fox than that Simon Bleaker—”
“Hey, you fellas, come on—this way—come on—”
They swept past us like a mob—every last one of our boys, led by Shadow Loomis and Dick Ferris—I said good-night to the fox hunt. They knocked our plans into a cocked hat. Roy looked disgusted.
“Just when we were about to get him,” he said to me. “Dern if it ain’t always that way, Hawkins.”
“Cheer up,” I said. “Come on, let’s follow. The fox will be here another time; let’s see where they chased this Bleaker fella.”
Now, those boys might have seen Bleaker. They might have known what they were running after, but, believe me, I did not. I saw Link join in the crowd of boys, and away they went through the woods. They had drowned out the noise of the dogs. All you could hear now was the yelling of the boys. And that was getting fainter and fainter, because those boys can travel some when they make up their minds to. But I was away and after them as soon as I saw Roy would not come. He was too angry to come, so I went on alone.
I never would have caught up with them, but for the fact that they lost sight of Bleaker. I knew they would; in fact, I thought all along that maybe they just saw Simon Bleaker once and started after him, thinking he was somewhere in the bushes ahead of them and that sooner or later he would have to come out into the open and show himself. And when I caught up with them, they stood around the two dogs, both of which were running back and forth across a stretch of open ground between two trees.
“Those dogs lost the trail right here,” said Link. “Between these two trees the fox gave ’em the slip. Now how do you think it happened?”
“Look here,” said Shadow Loomis. He pointed to the ground. Upon the grass lay a few drops of fresh blood. “You don’t think—”
“Hello, boys,” said a new voice. A new voice, yeah, but to me it was an old voice, for I had heard it not so long ago.
Simon Bleaker had parted the bushes. It was he who stood there with his hands behind his back, smiling at us. The boys were all surprised so muc
h that not one of ’em could move or speak.
“I thought you were after me, when I first saw you coming,” spoke Simon Bleaker, then he laughed as though it were a good joke. “I might have known you would chase a fox. Funny, wasn’t it, for me to think you’d be chasing me? But soon as I saw the old red fox, I knew then why you were all running this way. So I stopped right away—well, I helped you out some. Here he is, take him along—”
With that he brings his hands quickly from behind his back, and drawing back throws something full force into the middle of us boys; we all tried to dodge it and knocked each other down trying to get out of the way—but, of course, I had to get it—yeah, it hit me full in the face and I went down, and the thing with me—and when I sat up, I saw it was a dead fox—a small one, young.
“Get him!” Dick’s voice commanded.
But I think all of the boys will still admit it was a fox they were chasing—a two-legged fox, whose name was Simon Bleaker. For the old smart boy had everything set to make his getaway before he came out of his hiding place to make that sassy speech and throw that fox at us so smart and pretty—yeah, he had everything cut and dried to get away from us. Because, when he ducked back into the bushes from where he had come, Shadow and Robby Hood were right upon him. And they said that when they got into the bushes, Simon Bleaker was gone. Right behind the bushes was a little gully that the rains had cut into the side of the slope down to the river. In this gully lay a very thin bar of iron with a sharp point to it, and the point was red with the blood of the fox. But how he got down to the river, none of us moved quick enough to see. All we know is that he was in a gray launch, that chug-chug-chugged like the very launch we used to see Stoner in—and he didn’t look back. No. Simon Bleaker took the wheel of his launch and steered downstream as fast as he could go.
“I think I’ll know a little more about our friend Simon when I see him again,” said Link. “Hawkins, that’s a pretty fox skin. It’s only a baby. Shame it had to be killed. Stuck through the neck. What do you think we should do with it, Hawkins?”
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