CHAPTER VIII
THE BOY SCOUTS TO THE FORE
“Jack, Jack, where are you?” Tom called wildly, groping around in the inky blackness for his friend.
“Here, old man!” Jack replied from his corner. “I thought from the roar a lion had come to interview us. What has happened, anyway?”
“What has happened? Why, man, it seems as if the whole mountain has slid down to cover the cave. It’s shut out all the air, and we can’t breathe very long with the little we have in here. Why, Jack, do you realize that unless someone finds us in a hurry we will die in this horrible smelling hole like rats in a trap?”
“It sure is some tight place, old fellow, but what we’ve got to do now is to brace up and think of some way to get out.”
“Oh, yes, that sounds all right, but how are we going to do it? Can we dig our way through rocks and dirt with our fingers? Can we change into moles and burrow our way out underground? I tell you, Jack, we’re goners unless somebody discovers us within the next hour at the most.”
“Tom, Tom, don’t talk like that! Brace up and be a man! If we’ve got to face Death, let’s meet him bravely, as a true Scout should. Besides,” he added after a moment’s thought, “don’t you remember the bones that we saw scattered around here the other day? Let’s hunt around and see if we can find some. They might possibly help us to dig our way out.”
The boys searched desperately for a bone big enough to be of service to them. Finally they found a couple that they thought might serve and they set to work fearfully to see what they could do.
Slowly but surely they dug through the mass of dirt and stones and they were just beginning to hope that they might succeed when they received an unexpected check. They had cleared away a good part of the debris, but when they started again after a moment’s rest they found that they could go no farther, for the bones struck upon a solid rock.
Mad with disappointment and rage, the boys threw themselves upon the rock, tore at it with their nails and struck at it with their bare hands until they were all raw and bleeding. Finally, exhausted and weakened by the lack of air, they threw themselves, panting, on the ground where they lay unable to move for a few minutes.
Jack was the first to recover himself and, sitting up, he put his hand to his head, which seemed to be whirling around dizzily, and said sharply:
“Come, this will never do! Here when we need what little brains we have, we use them by acting like fools. If I could only think! If I could—only—think,” he muttered, while his head dropped wearily to his knee.
“Jack, Jack!” Tom cried, springing to his feet. “I can’t stand it! I’ll go mad if I have to stay here much longer! Can’t you hear the birds singing out there? Can’t you hear the murmuring of the brook? Can’t you smell the air sweet with the glorious sunshine filtering through the leaves and touching all the flowers with gold? Why, man, the world’s alive out there, while in here the darkness—awful darkness is bearing me down, crushing me—” and with a shuddering sob he sank down and buried his face in his hands, trying to shut out that impenetrable wall that seemed to be closing in upon him on all sides.
“Listen a minute, Tom, old friend, old comrade!” Jack said gently, soothingly, reaching over to put an arm about Tom’s shoulders. “We forgot all about Don,—our Don who has never failed any of us in a tight place. He must have escaped from those lumbermen all right or they would have said something about having done for him when they came to look for us here. Well, now, suppose he has escaped, what would he naturally do first? Why, he’d go straight to the camp of course and get the fellows here to help us. If he did that, we may expect them any time now. All we have to do is to wait.”
At Jack’s calm, matter-of-fact tone, Tom gathered himself together and said frankly, “Jack, you make me heartily ashamed of myself! From now on I’ll try to act like a man and a Scout!”
So the boys, encouraged by the faint ray of hope, sat side by side to wait for whatever might be in store for them. Only once, as the air got thicker and they found it harder to breathe, Tom muttered, “I only hope they come soon!” And with that they fell into a sort of stupor from which they aroused themselves with great difficulty from time to time.
Meanwhile Don’s one thought and aim had been to reach camp and bring help to his friends. At first he had trouble in striking the trail and had to go way back to the scene of the attack before he finally found it. Then with nose to the ground and with eyes that turned neither to the right nor to the left, he trotted steadily along. There was no rabbit in that whole wide expanse of forest that could have tempted him to leave the trail that day, for the well-being, perhaps the lives, of his two best friends were at stake.
Once he lost the trail and for a few terrible seconds ran about wildly in vain search of it. Finally he picked it up again on the other side of the brook and started on, faster than before to make up for lost time.
Another time a thorn stuck into his foot and, although it hurt him cruelly, he never once faltered or stopped, but only limped on unflinchingly.
Ay, Don, Old Sam spoke very truly when he said, “Ye have the look o’ my Rover,” and he might have added, “an’ the good, brave heart o’ him, too!”
Although it seemed ages to the tired, lame dog, it was in reality only a very short time before he reached the camp. Luckily the boys had come back from their scouting and were talking over their various experiences. As the dog limped painfully up to them Harry exclaimed, “Say, fellows, what’s the matter with Don?”
“Looks as if he had something in his foot,” Dick commented. “Come here, old fellow, and let me see what’s the matter.”
Don came up willingly and held up his paw to be examined. Impatiently he waited while Dick, with many expressions of sympathy, took out the long thorn and gently bound up the injured paw.
“Poor old boy!” one of the Scouts said, as he patted the dog’s shaggy head, “it must have pained you terribly! But where are Jack and Tom? It’s not like Jack to leave Don to come on alone especially when he knew he was hurt,” he added, turning to the boys.
At this Don, who had been waiting impatiently while his foot was being doctored, ran to the edge of the woods and stood there looking back at the Scouts pleadingly.
“What does he want?” asked a Tenderfoot Scout, who did not know Don as well as the rest.
“He wants us to follow him. I’m afraid, fellows, that something’s happened to Jack and Tom. And I, for one, mean to find out what it is and mighty quick, too!” said Pete Stubbs.
“We’re with you!” came a chorus of hearty voices.
By this time Mr. Durland had come up and asked the cause of the excitement. He listened to the recital of their fears with a very grave face. In a moment the boys were flying around everywhere to carry out his directions.
“Some of you boys go and get anything that you can find in the lodge or out of it,” he said, “to dig with. There are three or four old shovels there that may come in handy and a lot of trowels that we use for digging up specimens of flowers. Hurry, boys!”
In a short time the Scouts were ready to start, and Don, forgetting all about his sore foot, led them rapidly along the trail.
Dick turned to Mr. Durland and asked him how he meant to use the shovels.
“There is great danger in this part of the country on account of the landslides that frequently occur,” the Scout-Master explained. “Of course, they are not usually on a very large scale. They are very often caused by a loose rock starting to fall from the top of a mountain and so loosening masses of stones and dirt.”
“But do you suppose that the boys could possibly be caught in one of them?” Dick asked, while his face grew white at the very thought.
“There is a chance, of course,” Mr. Durland replied anxiously, “and because of that chance, I thought it was best to bring the shovels along.”
“Be prepared!” Dick murmured, and felt a curious tightening of his heartstrings as he thought of his comrades in distress.
Finally Don brought them to the clump of bushes behind which O’Brien and Levine had been hidden. The boys noticed how the ground had been trampled down and the bushes torn aside, and at once it flashed through their minds that the boys might have been attacked. Here Don seemed to lose the trail, but the Scouts now readily picked it up, trained for trailing as they were, and they started on again with redoubled speed.
A dozen wild conjectures chased each other through the boys’ bewildered heads. Suppose the two lumbermen had learned of the boys’ intention to warn Flannigan! Suppose they had waylaid Jack and Tom! Would the boys stand up to them? If they did, would they win? If they had been attacked on their way to the lumber camp, every Scout felt sure that the boys would do their best to avoid the plotters and deliver their message. On the other hand, if they had been coming back, it was more than likely that the boys would stand up to the two ruffians. If this last were so, what had been the outcome? As nobody was able to answer this, all they could do was to follow Don, now plunging on far ahead.
As they neared the cave some of the boys recognized their surroundings. Then a new fear came to torment them. What if the boys had run to the cave for shelter and had found the unknown inhabitants there?
In another minute they had scrambled down the ravine, rounded the rocks and had come into full view of the place where the cave had been. At the sight that met their eyes they stopped short and fairly gasped with astonishment and dismay.
They all looked to Mr. Durland for an explanation of this state of affairs.
“Boys,” said the Scout-Master in a strained, unnatural voice, “you say that there was a cave in the side of that mountain?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bob. “We examined it thoroughly the other day.”
“Then I am afraid that you will all have a chance to test every ounce of courage and fortitude you possess to-day. Boys,” he said, and his voice shook a little in spite of himself, “our Tom and Jack are almost certainly in that cave and are suffering—perhaps dying—for lack of air! Are you ready, now, to get them out?”
The boys’ answer was a deafening shout, and, snatching up their shovels and trowels, set to work with a grim do-it-or-die expression on their young faces that did Mr. Durland’s heart good. In earnest they applied themselves to their heart-breaking task, opening their lips for nothing except to call the boys’ names from time to time.
What was that voice? It seemed so far away—as if someone were calling from a great distance. What was it they were saying? Was it “Jack?” No, it was “Tom.” Why were they calling them? Where were they? What was that strange feeling in his head, that dizzy sensation, that made him feel as if he were spinning around and around? Had the lumbermen caught them after all? No, that could not be it. Now he had it! They were smothering to death in this loathsome hole! So, by painful degrees, Jack drew himself back from the dark abyss of oblivion and came to a full realization of his whereabouts.
“Tom, Tom,” he cried, shaking his friend fiercely, “they’ve come, they’ve come! Do you hear them?” and he called out in as loud a voice as he could again and again.
When Tom came to himself, he added his shouts to Jack’s and they finally succeeded in making themselves heard by the straining workers outside. With glad cries of encouragement, the Scouts went to work once more with redoubled energy. In five minutes, that seemed like five ages to the gasping boys inside, a tiny place was cleared before the entrance of the cave, letting in a breath of cool, fresh air. In another half hour the cave mouth was entirely free and the two half-smothered boys were helped out by their anxious friends. With a sharp cry Tom clapped his hands over his eyes to keep out the dazzling light.
The Scouts crowded eagerly about the two boys, scarcely able to restrain their delight. They patted them all over to see if there were any broken bones, shook their hands and overwhelmed them with questions.
Then it was Don’s turn. Limping from the wound in his foot, he came slowly over the pile of dirt and stones and looked wistfully up into his master’s face.
“Don, darling old Don!” Jack cried, hiding his face in the dog’s rough coat. “Then they didn’t hurt you, beauty, did they?”
Then the boys learned all that Don had done for them, and if they had loved him before, they idolized him now.
Of course Jack and Tom were too exhausted by their nerve-racking experience to continue their journey to the lumber camp, so Mr. Durland chose Dick in their place, and with the good wishes of the boys, he started off through the trees.
On the way home, the boys could not hold their wild spirits in check. They chased rabbits and squirrels, shouted to each other, played leapfrog and sang rollicking college songs. Only Don walked soberly along beside Jack, too happy to leave his master’s side, and his eyes alone told a story more eloquent than words.