"Just like you said, my boy, it was there!" he cried, holding up what proved to be the missing tin box that held his h.o.a.rd. "And to think that I stole my own cash while I was asleep! I guess my wife'll have to tie my feet together every night after this, for a while; or perhaps I'll be running away with everything we've got. Say, Jo, I hope you ain't going to hold it against me that I suspected you'd been and had your morals corrupted by some of them horse jockeys you met at the county fair this summer? And about that Thatcher place, Jo, we'll easy make terms, because n.o.body ain't going to have it but you and your maw, hear that?"

"Well, of all things," exclaimed the delighted Seth.

Jo evidently did not hold the slightest ill feeling against his old friend and employer, for he only too gladly took the hand Mr. Rollins held out.

"Turns out just like the fairy story, with everybody happy; only we don't see the princess this time," said Seth, after the scouts had given three cheers for Jo, and then three more for Mr. Rollins.

"Oh!" remarked Jo, with a huge grin, "she's comin' along purty soon now; and my gettin' this windfall'll hurry up the weddin' a heap. Drop past the Thatcher farm along about Thanksgivin' time, boys, and I'll be glad to introduce you to her."

"Say, perhaps we will," Seth declared, with boyish enthusiasm, "because, you see, we all live at Beverly, which ain't more'n twenty miles away as the crow flies. How about it, fellows?"

"We'll come along with you, Seth, never fear. And now, the sooner we get over to camp the better, because some of us are feeling pretty well used up," Andy went on to admit with charming candor.

"All right, boys, just give me a minute to run indoors, and put this package away, and I'll be with you. It won't take long to hitch up, because we managed to save the harness and wagons, me and the missus."

True to his word Mr. Rollins was back in a very brief s.p.a.ce of time, and catching the two horses he wanted, he attached them to a big wagon.

"Tumble in, boys," he called out, as he swung himself up on the driver's seat, after attaching the lighted lantern to the front, so that he could see the road as they went along.

The scouts waited for no second invitation, but speedily secured places in the body of the vehicle. As there was half a foot of straw in it, they found things so much to their liking that on the way, at least three of the boys went sound asleep, and had to be aroused when the camp was finally reached.

Eben and Noodles were poor sentinels, it seemed, for both were lying on the ground asleep, nor did they know when the other returned until told about it in the morning. But fortune had been kind to the "babes in the wood," as Seth called them in derision, for nothing had happened while the main body of the patrol chanced to be away on duty.

And so it was another little adventure had come along, with wonderful results, and the happiest of endings. Really, some of the boys were beginning to believe that the strangest of happenings were always lying in wait, as if desirous of ambushing the members of the Beaver Patrol.

Why, they could even not start off on a hike, it seemed, without being drawn into a series of events, the like of which seldom if ever befell ordinary lads.

During the hours of darkness that followed all of them slept soundly, nor was there any alarm given to disturb them. And as nothing in the wide world brings such satisfaction and contentment as good sleep, when at dawn they awoke to find the last day of the great hike at hand, every fellow declared that he was feeling especially fit to make that concluding dash with a vim.

Breakfast was hastily eaten; indeed, their stock of provisions had by this time gotten to a low ebb, and would not allow of much variety; though they managed to sc.r.a.pe enough together to satisfy everybody but Fritz, who growled a little, and wanted to know however a scout could do his best when on short rations?

Then to the inspiring notes of Eben's silver-plated bugle the boys of the Beaver Patrol left Alabama Camp, and started on the last lap for their home goal.

CHAPTER IX

THE RUNAWAY BALLOON

"Hey! look at all the crows flying over, would you?"

Seth called this out as he pointed upwards, and the rest of the patrol naturally turned their heads in order to gape.

"Whew! did you ever see such a flock of the old caw-caws?" burst out Eben.

"Give 'em a toot from your bugle, and see what they think?" suggested Jotham.

"For goodness sake, be careful," broke in Fritz, "because they might be so knocked in a heap at Eben's fine playing, they'd take a tumble, and nearly smother the lot of us. We'd think it was raining crow, all right."

"Are they good to eat?" demanded Babe, who was pretty green as yet to a great many things connected with outdoor life, "because, if we have time to stop at noon to cook a meal, we might--"

He was interrupted by a shout from several of the other and wiser scouts.

"Say, hold on there, Babe, we haven't got that near being starved as to want to eat crow," declared Andy.

"Can they be eaten at all, Paul?" persisted Babe, as usual turning to the scoutmaster for information; "seems to me I've heard something like that."

"Yes, and people who have tried say they're not near as bad a dish as the papers always make out," Paul replied. "I don't see myself why they should be, when most of the time they live on the farmer's corn."

"But can you tell where that bunch is coming from, and where bound?"

continued Babe. "They all come out of that same place, and keep chattering as they soar on the wind, which must be some high up there."

"Well, I've heard it said that there's a big crow rookery somewhere back in the gloomy old Black Water Swamps; but I never met anybody that had ever set eyes on the same. Every day, winter and summer, that big flock comes out, and scatters to a lot of feeding grounds; some going down the river, where they pick up food that's been cast ash.o.r.e; others bound for a meal in the corn fields."

"And they come back again in the night to roost there; is that it, Paul?"

"Yes, I guess if we stood right here half an hour before dark we'd see squads of the noisy things heading over yonder from all sorts of quarters. D'ye know, I've sometimes had a notion I'd like to explore the heart of that queer old swamp," and the young patrol leader cast a thoughtful glance toward the quarter from whence that seemingly endless stream of crows flowed continually.

"Hurrah! that's the ticket!" exclaimed Seth. "I've heard a heap about that same spooky old place myself. They say n.o.body ever has been able to get to the heart of it. And I heard one man, who traps quite a lot of muskrats every winter, tell how he got lost in a part of the swamp once, and spent a couple of pretty tough days and nights wandering around, before he found his way out again. He said it'd take a heap to tempt him to try and poke into the awful center of Black Water Swamps."

"But what's that to us, fellers?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Fritz. "The boys of the Beaver Patrol ain't the kind to get scared at such a little thing as a swamp. Just because it's a tough proposition ought to make us want to take up the game, and win out. We fairly eat hard jobs! And looking back we have a right to feel a little proud of the record we've made, eh, fellers?"

Of course every scout stood up a little straighter at these words, and smiled with the consciousness that they had, as Fritz so aptly put it, a right to feel satisfied with certain things that had happened in the past, and from which they had emerged acknowledged victors.

"Just put a pin in that, to remember it, Paul, won't you?" said Andy.

"Why, sure I will, since a lot of you seem to think it worth while,"

replied the obliging scoutmaster, with a smile, "and if we haven't anything ahead that seems to be more worth while, we might turn out here later on, prepared to survey a trail right through the swamp. I admit that I'm curious myself to see what lies hidden away in a place where, up to now, no man has ever set a foot."

"Hurrah for the young explorers!" cried Eben, who seemed strangely thrilled at the tempting prospect.

They say the boy is father to the man; and among a bunch of six or eight lads it is almost a certainty that you will find one or two who fairly yearn to grow up, and be second Livingstones, or Stanleys, or Dr.

Kanes. Eben had read many books concerning the amazing doings of these pathfinders of civilisation, and doubtless even dreamed his boyish dreams that some fine day he too might make the name of Newcomb famous on the pages of history by discovering some hitherto unknown tribe of black dwarfs; or charting out a land that had always been unexplored territory.

They looked back many times at the stream of flying crows that continued to issue from that one point beyond the thick woods. And somehow the very prospect of later on trying to accomplish a task that had until then defied all who had attempted it, gave the scouts a pleasing thrill of antic.i.p.ation. For such is boy nature.

Strange how things often come about.

Just at that moment not one of the scouts even dreamed of what was in store for them. How many times the curtain obscures our sight, even when we are on the very threshold of discovery!

They tramped along st.u.r.dily, until they had covered perhaps two miles since departing from the place where the third night had been spent, and which would go down in the record of the big hike as Camp Alabama.

A couple of the scouts limped perceptibly, but even they declared that as they went on the "kinks" were getting out of their legs, and presently all would be well.

The sun shone from a fair sky, though now and then a cloud would pa.s.s over his smiling face; but as the day promised to be rather hot none of them were sorry for this.

"Hope it don't bring a storm along, though," remarked Babe, when the matter was under discussion.