Chapter XXII The Boulder on the Hillside
The Spoondrift and her crew came back from the fishweir with several varieties of edible fish that the pondmen had given the boys. They had a feast that night at the camp, and even Cloudman admitted that, for once, it was a “square meal.”
Midkiff, unlike the others, could not easily forgive Rex and the others for letting Horace Pence and his friends off so easy.
“You’re piling up trouble for yourself and us,” he told Kingdon. “Fellows like those over at that camp would cut your tugs and let the horse run away any time you weren’t looking—and think ’twas fun.”
“We’ll be looking,” laughed Kingdon.
“Yes, we will! That Indian, for instance, could be planning something against us right now, and we wouldn’t know it, would we? He’s a wicked-looking chap, and he hasn’t forgotten how you mauled him around that night in the dark.”
“Nor have I forgotten how he mauled me,” said Rex, with some feeling. “My dainty little foot is tender yet. But maybe my upper deck is loaded with a grand scheme to get even.” He finished with a soft laugh.
“Yes it is!” scoffed the gloomy one, with scorn. “I know about the kind of plans you have in your mind.”
Midkiff really admired Kingdon’s whole-hearted and friendly way of settling the matter of the permit and the remaining on the island of the other campers. Nobody but Rex, it seemed to him, could have done just that—and done it so well. Furthermore, he had not lingered around to receive any expressions of gratitude, or to make the chaps with Pence feel uncomfortable. He had taken his own friends away at once, leaving the surprised and shame-faced crowd to recover from the jolt his action had given them.
Midkiff was sure he couldn’t have done such a thing himself. Indeed, he wouldn’t have done it under any circumstances. Heaping coals of fire on the heads of his enemies was not John’s way of settling any dispute. He could fight, or he could argue; but it was not in him to be a generous—indeed a prodigally generous—enemy. Besides, he did not believe that it would improve Pence and his friends. He considered them beneath contempt and incapable of holding a generous sentiment for an instant.
Kingdon suddenly laughed at him again. “I’m glad I haven’t your suspicious nature, Jawn,” he drawled, shrugging his well-built shoulders.
They went up to the open field in the middle of the island the next forenoon, and before long Pence and his three white companions strolled into view. If Ben, Pudge and Kirby felt any embarrassment, and showed it, not so Horace Pence. He was his usual careless and cheerful self.
Kingdon left it to Pence to make advances, and presently Horace wanted to try his arm. Kingdon caught for him, never uttering a word of encouragement or criticism all the time the black-eyed chap was working, although Pence was using all the speed at his command.
“I say,” called Horace at last, “what d’you think of them?”
“You don’t want to know what I think, do you?” Kingdon asked quietly.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t,” returned the heated Pence.
“I think you’re likely to throw your arm out of joint, if you keep on,” was Kingdon’s frank response. “I’d take care if I were you. You don’t put the ball over; you let it fly anywhere, as long as you put steam behind it.”
Pence was unable to hide his chagrin. He flung the ball as far as he could across the field, and sullenly started back for his camp. But he slipped on his sweater as he went. He had remembered Kingdon’s advice of the week before.
“He got what he asked for, and didn’t like it,” Peewee snickered.
“Shows his bringing up!” muttered Cloudman.
“Regular Chesterfield for manners!” chuckled Red Phillips.
Midkiff, too disgusted to speak at all, looked his contempt.
They forgot that it took training of the right kind for a young fellow to get into the habit of controlling his temper. Kingdon might have been intentionally aggravating, for he went off whistling in the other direction, and alone. One could seldom tell whether Rex was perturbed or not. At least, on this particular occasion he showed no apparent feeling for Horace Pence.
None of the others followed Rex at the moment, and he slipped into the woods alone while his mates were picking up the bats and recovering other articles. He did not care to be questioned just then. Nevertheless he was smiling. He was wise enough to appreciate how Horace Pence felt.
Going whistling down the aisles of the wood, but bearing off the usual route to their camp, Kingdon suddenly came upon something that stopped him.
“Hul-lo!” he murmured, startled if not surprised. “Who’s been chopping down trees?”
The spot was almost directly above their camp. The steep hillside fell away to the small plateau on which the Walcott Hall boys had set up their tent. Below that was the cove, with its pebbly, narrow, crescent beach, and the catboat courtesying to the swell of the water. Kingdon could get a glimpse of her stick through the trees.
Here, just before him, a goodly sapling had been cut off near the ground. That, in itself, was an infringement of the rules laid down by the Manatee Company. Rex had been warned against cutting wood of this kind for any purpose whatsoever on Storm Island.
“Now, who did this?” muttered the lad again. “Surely none of our fellows.”
His quick eye saw something in the grass, and he hastened to pick it up. A hatchet, with one side of the blade rusted.
“Our extra hatchet! The one that MacComber fellow borrowed. I’m sure he didn’t return it!”
He went on a little way and saw where the sapling, all of four inches through at its butt, lay half hidden in the rank weeds and grass. It seemed that the stick had been cut wantonly, after which the marauder had tried to hide it.
“I’m sure none of our fellows would have done such a thing. Here’s the hatchet,” Kingdon told himself.
He went on a little farther, and came to the opening above the camp. The forest trees seemed to withdraw on either side and leave a small, wedge-shaped pasture on the hillside, with the thin edge of the wedge up-hill. Down the slope, not two hundred yards away, was the tent.
Kingdon’s gaze swept the opening in the forest, studying every detail of the narrow landscape. Suspicion had been bred in his mind. It was more, an intuition that all was not right.
He walked slowly down the hill, observing several outthrust rocks and one rounded bowlder directly in his path. Apparently a dog had tried to dig a woodchuck out from under the upper edge of that bowlder.
Kingdon passed on. Then he turned, startled, and went back to the gray rock. The thought had flashed through his mind that there were no dogs on Storm Island!
At least, he had neither seen nor heard a dog since his party had arrived. A dog had not dug under that bowlder, nor would a groundhog have left so much loose soil at the mouth of his burrow.
Kingdon stopped and studied the situation. There was a small rock lying just above the bowlder and about two feet from its uphill edge. This smaller stone had recently been placed there.
He walked back to the felled sapling at the edge of the wood. Its butt, freshly cut from the stump, should be white. Instead it was crusted with earth.
Rex returned down the hill again, and stood for a minute by the great gray bowlder, testing one hand upon it, thinking. His gaze scrutinized minutely every foot of the slope below him. Presently, his face frowning and thoughtful, he sought the path by which he and his mates usually descended the hillside, and arrived at the camp before the others.