Roy Blakeley's Motor Caravan Read online

  Anyway that has nothing to do with the bloodhound. Tom got out of hisway, and we all stood about while the dog sniffed around the footprint,awful excited like. There wasn't another footprint anywhere in sight.

  Brent said in that funny way of his, "Well, I guess we're up against thereal thing at last. I guess old Snoozer here is on the track of Eliza.Listen and maybe we'll hear her baby crying. She always carries a babywith her when she puts one over on the bloodhounds, doesn't she?"

  "You're crazy!" Pee-wee shouted; "she always crosses the ice. Didn't yousee that big roll of canvas they've got? That's got ice painted on it.They spread that on the stage and she runs across it withhar--what-d'ye-call-it--her infant child."

  "Her which?" Harry said.

  "I think she takes a thermos bottle, too, and an aluminum cooking set,"Brent said.

  Harry said, "Well, anyway, she has given old Snoozer the slip thistime."

  "That's a man's footprint," Pee-wee said; "there's a mystery up here."

  "Let's see it," Rossie Bent said; "where is it?"

  "You make me sick!" the kid shouted. "How can you _see_ a mystery?"

  "You smell it, according to Snoozer," Harry said; "this dog will have afit in a minute."

  By that time the dog was pushing every which way in among the bushes andevery few seconds coming back to the footprint.

  "He seems to be kind of rattled." That's what Harry said.

  Pretty soon the dog went running through the bushes out into a big openspace that was just about on the top of the mountain. We found outafterward that that was why the mountain was named Bald Head. Gee whiz,he seemed rattled. He'd stop for a couple of seconds and look allaround, then start off all of a sudden, then stop again.

  Brent said, "Eliza's got his goat this time. Look at old Tomasso there;he's mad because Snoozer took his job."

  I looked at Tom Slade (because that's whom he meant) and I saw that hewas kind of picking among the bushes over to one side of the big openspace. So I went over to where he was and I said, "Tom, what do youthink about it? I always thought a bloodhound could follow any trail.That's a fresh footprint too, isn't it? But maybe that dog isn't a realbloodhound, hey?"

  Tom said, "He's a real bloodhound, all right, but I don't think he'llfind anything."

  I said, "Well, how about that footprint then? It was a fresh one. Heought to be able to follow that scent. Gee whiz, I never saw a dog actso funny. He's all rattled and he doesn't know which way to go."

  Tom didn't say anything, only he looked over to the open space where therest of the fellows were watching the dog. By that time the dog wasrunning around and barking, half crazy.

  "Eliza fell through the ice," Brent called over to us.

  Harry shouted, "She was very poor, she didn't even have a scent.Snoozer's going to have a nervous collapse in a minute; he'll requirefirst aid."

  I said to Tom, "Well, somebody was up here, that's sure. That's a newfootprint we found. It's plaguey funny that a bloodhound can't followthat trail; I always thought a bloodhound----"

  "A bloodhound isn't a scout," Tom said, kind of sober like, in that wayhe has; "he followed the trail as far as he could, I suppose. Lookaround here; don't you see anything?"

  That's the way it has always been with Tom Slade ever since he got backfrom the war. In scouting, he would never do anything himself, but justgive us fellows a hint that would start us off. "If you make as good useof your eyes as he makes of his nose, you ought to be able to discoversomething." That's what he said.

  So then I looked all around, and sure enough I could see that the busheswere broken up toward the top and, _good night_, on one of them washanging a little piece of rag.

  "Some one has been through here," I said, all excited; "why doesn't thedog come over here? The trail leads over this way."

  Then I began whistling for the dog and calling to the fellows that wehad the trail, and they all started over except the dog. He wouldn'tfollow them or pay any attention to their whistling and calling, onlystayed right where he was running around as if he had a fit.

  Before the fellows reached the place where we were Tom said kind of low,"Don't fly off the handle, kid; there are some bushes broken here and arag. Now what does that mean?"

  "It means the trail runs through here," I said; "and that crazy fool ofan Uncle Tom's Cabin dog can't follow the scent across that bare place.He's just an actor, that's all that bloodhound is. All he's good for ischasing Eliza."

  Tom just took the rag from me and looked at it. "Well then, if the trailruns through here, where are the footprints?" he asked me.

  "And the dog doesn't seem to think it's worth bothering about," he said.

  "You admit somebody went through here?" I shouted at him.

  "Oh, somebody went through here, all right," he said.

  "And didn't leave any footprints and didn't leave any scent," I cameback at him.

  "Only a rag," he said.

  By that time the fellows had reached the place where we were. "What'sthe big idea?" Harry said. "What have you got there?"

  Brent said, "As I _live_, it's a piece of Eliza's dress. The plot growsthicker."

  "There isn't a footprint here," I told them.

  "She must have slid on the ice," Brent said.

  "I'm going to drag that dog over here by the collar," Rossie spoke up.

  "It's a mystery," Pee-wee shouted; "it's a deep, dark mystery. We've gotto solve it--I mean penetrate it."

  Gee whiz, that kid was more excited than the dog.

  XII--A DISCOVERY

  We all just stood there not knowing what to think. I could tell that TomSlade had some kind of an idea, but you never catch that fellow shoutingout about anything till he's sure. Even when he was a tenderfoot in thetroop he was that way.

  It seemed mighty funny that we should find just one footprint in thosebushes, but maybe there weren't any more across that open space becauseit was hard and rocky. Anyway, the scent led out into that open space,that was sure. Then on the opposite side of the open space the busheswere broken and there was a rag hanging to one of them. Yet we couldn'tget that dog to go all the way across and take up the scent where wefound the rag. That was the funny thing. It was funny that there weren'tany footprints under those bushes where the rag was hanging, too.Believe _me_, Pee-wee was right, it was a mystery.

  Pretty soon the dog began following the scent back and Will Dawson wentafter him. In about ten minutes he came up again and said that the doghad followed it as far as a brook where there was a willow tree. He saidthe dog got rattled there just the same as he did on the summit. So hestudied the place carefully and saw that there was a branch of the treethat stuck out over the water and he swung himself across and then backagain by that. So he decided that was probably what the man had done onhis way up the mountain. So you see that trail was cut in two places.

  Will said that he left the dog poking around at the edge of the stream.And that was the last we saw of the dog till we got back to our caravan.Then we saw that he was under the van asleep. He was resting up so hecould chase Eliza in the afternoon, that's what Brent said. He chasedEliza twice every day, that bloodhound did.

  Harry said, "Well, as Scout Harris says, it's a mystery. Somebody was uphere before us, that's sure. There's no use trying to dope it out, Isuppose. Let's send the signal. Our friends down below will think we'relost."

  All the while Tom Slade was sort of wandering around that rocky openspace on the top of the mountain. A couple of times he looked over towhere we were as if he was kind of thinking. Most of the time he lookedat the ground and the flat rocks. I knew he had some idea in his head,all right.

  Pretty soon he came strolling over and said sort of offhand like, "Let'sfollow these broken bushes in a ways."

  "Nobody went through here, Tom," Rossie said; "if they had there'd befootprints. Let's get busy with the smudge signal."

  "It'll only take a minute," Tom said.

  "Every minute is precious, Tommy
boy," Harry told him.

  "Sure, let's go in," Brent said; "I'm for adventure every time. Younever can tell; come ahead."

  So we all followed Tom in. The brush was awful thick and I kept tearingit apart down near the ground, hunting for footprints, but I couldn'tfind a single one. The brush wasn't even broken above, either, after wehad gone a few feet and Tom just pushed around without any signs to goby, all the while squinting his eyes into the bushes and poking theunderbrush with his feet.

  Pretty soon, _good night_, Pee-wee gave a shout. "_I see it! I see it!_"he yelled. "The mystery is solved! I know why there isn't any man'sfootprint here. It was an _animal_ that came through! There he isnow--it's a _zebra_!"

  "A which?" Harry said.

  "It's got stripes--wide stripes," the kid shouted. "Look there! See it?It's a zebra! Don't you know a zebra?"

  Brent said, "I wouldn't know one if I met him in the street."

  By that time Tom had gone ahead of us and hauled something out of thebushes. It wasn't a zebra, but it had stripes all right--it was lightcolored and it had wide, dark stripes. I bet you can't guess what itwas, either.

  It was a suit of convicts' clothes.

  CHAPTER XIII--TOM SLADE, SCOUT

  "Didn't I tell you it had stripes?" Pee-wee shouted. "Wasn't I right?Now you see! A scout is observant."

  "If he sees a suit of clothes he thinks it's a zebra," Charlie Seaburysaid.

  Harry said, "Well, you weren't so far wrong, Kiddo. The stripes weren'ton an animal; they were on a jail bird. I'd like to know where he flewaway to. This is getting interesting. I knew that clothing was veryhigh, but I didn't think we'd find a suit as far up as this."

  "Maybe he was a murderer, hey?" Pee-wee whispered.

  "We can only hope," Brent said in that funny way. Then he said, "I'vealways felt that I'd like to be a murderer. I thought I was a realconvict when I was held in jail three hours after speeding in myflivver. But when I look at this striped suit, I realize that after allI didn't amount to much as a criminal. Let's take a squint at thoseclothes, will you? It's always been the dream of my young life to escapefrom jail by using a hair-pin or a manicure file or some kind of acid. Iwonder how this fellow escaped."

  "I bet he escaped in the dead of night," Pee-wee said.

  "The question is, where is he?" Harry said.

  "He went away in an airplane," Tom Slade said, awful sober like, just asif Brent hadn't been joking at all.

  _Good night_, we all just stood there stark still, looking at him.

  "What makes you think that?" Rossie wanted to know.

  "No one laid that suit of clothes here," Tom said; "it was _dropped_here. There aren't any footprints. Out there in the flat part there arewheel marks from an airplane. I saw enough of those marks in France toknow what they mean."

  "Tomasso Nobody Holmes, the boy detective!" I shouted.

  "The airplane grazed the bushes when it went up," he said; "that's whysome twigs are broken off. And part of one of the wings of the machinewas torn, too. That's because the airman didn't have space enough to getaway in. He took a big chance when he landed up here, that fellow."

  Harry just stood there drumming his fingers on one of the bushes andlooking all around him and kind of thinking. Then he said, "What's youridea, Tommy boy? Do you think a convict escaped and made his way up tothe top of this jungle and that the airman alighted here for him byappointment?"

  "The dog followed the scent out into the open, to the place where thewheel tracks are," Tom said. "That's where the man--that convict--gotin. They didn't have open space enough to start from there and theygrazed the bushes. I guess it was pretty risky, the whole business.Anyway, they chucked the convict clothes out. This piece of silk iswaxed; it's part of the wing of a machine, all right."

  "Tomasso, you're a wonder," Rossie said; "no dog could follow a trail inthe air."

  "There's often a scent in the breeze," Brent said.

  "Didn't I tell you it was a mystery?" Pee-wee shouted. "Didn't I tellyou it was a dark plot? As soon as I saw those clothes----"

  "You thought they were a zebra," Ralph Warner said; "a scout knows allthe different kinds of animals."

  "You make me sick!" the kid shouted. "A convict is better than a zebra,isn't he?"

  "That's a fine argument," I told him.

  "It's logic," the kid shouted.

  "Well, let's not complain," Brent said; "a zebra would be a novelty, buta convict is not to be despised. We should be thankful for the convict,even though he isn't here."

  "That's the best part of it," the kid shouted; "that makes the mystery.We've got to find him."

  We didn't bother any more about the mystery then, because we wanted tosend the signal and get started again, but you'll see how that mysterypopped up again and confounded us; I guess you know what _confounded_means, all right. It means the same as _baffled_, only I didn't knowwhether _baffled_ has two f's in it or not. But, gee whiz, I used itanyway--I should worry.

  So now while our friends are waiting for us down on the road (I got thissentence from Pee-wee), I'll tell you about sending that signal. Signalsare my middle name--signals and geography. But the thing I like bestabout school is lunch hour. I'm crazy about boating, too.

  XIV--PEE-WEE'S GOAT

  That fellow, Harry Domicile, he's crazy. He said, "If you like signalsso much I don't see why you send them. Why don't you keep them?"

  Will Dawson said, "It isn't the signal we send, it's a message; we senda message by a signal. See?"

  Harry said, "But if it's a good message why should you want to send itaway? Why don't you keep it? If it's worth anything what's the use ofgetting rid of it? A scout should not be wasteful." Then he winked atBrent Gaylong.

  Oh, boy, you should have seen Pee-wee. He shouted, "You're crazy!Suppose I keep some-thing--suppose I keep----"

  Rossie said, "Suppose you keep silence."

  "That shows how much you know about logic!" the kid yelled. "How can Ikeep silence----"

  By that time we were all laughing, except Harry. He had the paper withthe message written on it and he said, very sober like, "Well, if thismessage is any good at all I don't see why we don't keep it; it mightcome in useful."

  Pee-wee shouted, "A message is no good at all--even the most importantmessage in the world is no good to the fellow that makes it----"

  Brent said, "Then he's just wasting his time making it. Before we sendthis message we'd better talk it over. If it's any good we'll keep it."

  Gee whiz, you should have seen our young hero; I thought he'd jump offthe mountain. He yelled, "Do you know what logic is? You get that in thethird grade. My uncle knows a man that's a lawyer and hesays--besides--anyway, do you mean to tell me----"

  Harry said, "Go on."

  Brent said, "Proceed; we follow you."

  "Suppose I had a piece of pie," the kid yelled. "If it was good I'd eatit, wouldn't I?"

  Brent said, "That isn't logic."

  "Sure it's logic!" Pee-wee shouted. "The better it is the more I'd getrid of, wouldn't I?"

  "Thou never spakest a truer word," I told him.

  "And it's the same with messages," he said.

  I said, "_Good night_, you don't want to eat it, do you?"

  Harry said, "Well, if he doesn't want to eat it, what's the use ofchewing it over? Let's send it."

  I bet you think we're all crazy, hey? I should worry.

  So then we gathered a lot of twigs and started a fire about in themiddle of that open space. While we were doing that, Charlie Seabury andRalph Warner got some dead grass and brush and took it down to the brookand got it good and wet. Then they squeezed the water all out of it soit was kind of damp and muggy like. It has to be just like that if youwant to send a smudge message. Maybe you don't know exactly what asmudge signal is because maybe you think that a smudge is just a dirtstreak on your face--I don't mean on yours but on Pee-wee's. That'sPee-wee's trade mark--a smudge on his face. Usually it's the s
hape of acomet and it makes you think of a comet, because he's got six freckleson his cheek that are like the big dipper. And his face is round likethe moon, too, but, gee williger, I hate astronomy. But I'd like to goto Mars just the same.

  Anyway this is the way you send a smudge signal. When you get the firestarted good and strong you kind of shovel it into a tin can, but if youhaven't got any tin can, you don't. Scouts are supposed to be able to dowithout things. We should worry about tin cans. Brent Gaylong has a tincan on wheels--that's a Ford. My father says it's better to own a Fordthan a can't afford. Anyway my sister says I ought to stick to mysubject. Gee whiz, she must think I'm a piece of fly paper.

  CHAPTER XV--THE MESSAGE

  The reason that I ended that chapter was because I had to go to supper.So now I'll tell you about the signal. If we had only had a tin can withsome kind of a cover to lay over it, it would have been easy. But wehadn't any so this is the way we did. After the fire was burning up wepiled some of the damp grass and stuff on top of it and that made asmudge that went way up in the air. I guess any one could see thatsmudge maybe fifty miles, especially on account of it being up on thetop of a mountain.