"WHAT I want to tell you about is--my father," said Bob, swallowing something that seemed to be sticking in his throat; as though the mere mention of his dead parent had the power to affect him so.

"Yes?" Thad said, encouragingly, wondering at the same time how one who had pa.s.sed to the other side several years now, could have any sort of connection with the mission of the scouts to this region.

"You'll perhaps understand, suh," continued Bob, getting a firmer grip on himself; "when I mention the fact that my father, for a year or so before he was taken, had filled the office of United States Marshal for this district."

"Oh!" exclaimed Thad, beginning to see light now.

"He was induced to take the office by the President himself, who was a personal friend of my father," the boy went on, proudly; "and having given his word, nothing could make him back out. Up to then we had lived at peace with everybody in these mountains; but of course that was bound to come to an end after he had sworn to do his duty; which was to send out his agents to destroy all the secret Stills, and bring in the law breakers, if they could be found."

"He must soon have had the enmity of Old Phin, and every other moonshiner about the Big Smokies," Thad remarked, the other having paused, as though to give him a chance to express an opinion.

"That is just what happened, suh," Bob went on, hurriedly, as, having broken the ice, he wanted to get through as speedily as possible. "After he had led several successful raids in person, the mountaineers saw that they had a different man to deal with from the other old marshal. They sent him terrible warnings of what was going to happen to him if he kept up his work; but my father was a Quail; and he didn't know the meanin'

of the word fear, suh."

"Were you and your mother living near here all that time, Bob?" asked the scoutmaster. "Because, I should have thought she might have been worried for fear some of those desperate men tried to stop your father's work by burning down his home, or doing something like that?"

"There were threats made, suh, to that effect; and my father moved his family to Asheville to feel that we would be all safe. Then there came a dreadful day for us, when my father never came back, after he had gone into these mountains to arrest another batch of moonshiners, whose Still had been located. One of the men who had accompanied him told us he had seen him shot down. They were surrounded by bushwhackers, and the rifles were popping all about, so they had to leave him there. He was surely dead, they claimed, before they fled from the spot, and of course, suh, they could not burden themselves with his body."

Again Bob White paused to gulp down the obstacle in his throat.

"Now, you are wondering, suh, how it happened that when we came to Cranford there was a gentleman with us who was called Mr. Quail, and supposed to be my father. That was my father's twin brother, living in Philadelphia. He kindly offered to stay with my mother, who never goes out at all, until we became settled. Her mother, my grandmother, had left me a heap of stock in the bank and mills of Cranford; and as it was very unpleasant for my mother down this aways, after father went, she had determined to locate up yondah."

"And does she know about you coming down here?" asked Thad, suspiciously, as if he feared that the other might have deceived the only parent he had left; this bringing a tragedy of the grim mountains so close home to them had given the scout leader considerable of a thrill, for after all, despite his courage and grit, Thad was only a boy.

Bob drew himself up proudly, and his black eyes flashed.

"I would sooner cut off my right hand, suh, than deceive my mother," he said. "And, so you may understand the whole thing, I must tell you what a strange longin' I've been hugging to my heart these two years back. It is this. What if, after all, my father was _not_ dead at the time his men saw him fall; what if these moonshiners have kept him a prisoner somewhere in these mountains all this while, meanin' to punish him because he had given them all so much trouble!"

"That's a stunning shock you've given me, Bob," said Thad, drawing a long breath; "but see here, is it just a wild wish to have it so; or have you any reason to believe such a thing; any foundation for the theory, in fact?"

"I'll tell you, suh," Bob went on, feverishly. "A man came to me one day, and said he had been sent by one of the revenues who had been with my father that sad time, to tell me what he had picked up in the mountains. There were rumors going around that somewhere deep in the mountains, at one of the secret Stills, the moonshiners kept a prisoner at work. Some said it must be one of the revenue men who had disappeared; and that the moonshiners were bent on making him work up the mash, as a sort of punishment for having done them so much damage when he was in the employ of the Government."

"I see; and of course you jumped to the conclusion that it might be your own father, alive and well, though held a prisoner of the moonshiners?"

"Both my mother and myself believed there might be just a little chance that way. She was in bad health, and put it all in my hands. We have never said a word about it to anybody in Cranford. While I have been going to school with the rest of the boys in Cranford, all the time I was in correspondence with one of the Government revenue agents, and paying him to be on the constant watch for any positive signs. He died six months ago, and just when he had begun to think he was getting on a warm scent."

"I see," said Thad, as the other paused, overcome with emotion; "and ever since then you've been longing to get down here again, to find out for yourself if it _could_ be true. I don't blame you the least bit, Bob. And I only hope that you'll be able to learn the truth, even if it dashes all your hopes. Whatever we can do to help, you can count on.

Scouts have to be like brothers, you know. It's a part of our regulations to help any one in trouble; and that applies stronger than ever when it's a fellow scout."

"Oh! thank you, Thad!" exclaimed the warmhearted Southern lad, as he squeezed the hand of his companion almost fiercely. "I had no right to influence you to come down here. It is a dangerous place. Right now I ought to beg you and the rest to back out, and leave me to fight my battles alone. But somehow I just can't find the grit to do that. I reckon, suh, I'm too selfish. I'm right ashamed of myself at this minute to feel such satisfaction in the grip of your hand."

"Of course," continued wise Thad, "this old moonshiner, Phin Dady, might still have it in for you, as one of the Quail family."

"As far as that is concerned, suh, I'm not bothering my head, I a.s.suah you. I'd just as lief face Old Phin, and snap my fingers under his nose.

My idea in wanting to keep him from seeing me was along another line, suh. He would be apt to think 'like father, like son;' and that I had hired out to the Government to find where his Still lay, so it could be raided. No man has ever done that; Old Phin declares they never will."

"If these mountaineers begin to get bothersome it might interfere some with that other little affair you spoke about?" suggested Thad, as they continued to walk on in company.

"That's what I'm afraid of, suh," replied Bob White; "but I'm hoping for the best."

Some of the others happening to push up about that time brought the confidential conversation to a close. But surely the young scout leader had plenty to ponder over as he walked on.

The hike through the Blue Ridge, which they had looked forward to simply as a test of endurance, and to develop their knowledge of woodcraft, threatened to turn into a tragic affair. At least, it was no child's play; and if they came out of it without any serious accident happening to any of their number, they would be deserving of great credit.

But if Thad and Bob White were in a serious frame of mind, the same could hardly be said of several other members of the patrol. Giraffe, Step Hen and b.u.mpus seemed to be fairly bubbling over with good humor.

Some boys can no more control their spirits than they can their appet.i.tes.

As usual Step Hen suddenly discovered, while they were halting for a breathing spell, that he was minus something. The evil spirits had evidently been at work again, when he was off his guard, and succeeded in abstracting part of his personal property. It really was a shame how they beset that unlucky fellow.

"If it don't just beat the Dutch what happens to me?" he was heard to loudly wail, looking around him in a helpless way.

"What's the matter now, Step Hen?" asked Allan; although he knew full well what sort of an answer he must receive.

"They've been and done it some more," replied the disturbed scout, helplessly.

The trouble was, that whenever he missed anything Step Hen always ran around looking in all the places that no sensible person would ever dream of examining. When Giraffe declared that he was like an old hen with its head taken off, it just about fitted the case.

"What's gone this time?" continued the boy from Maine, with a smile at the way Step Hen was turning over small stones, and stirring the leaves with his foot, as if he really expected a miracle to be wrought, and to find a bulky object that way.

"That little kodak I fetched along; you know I had it wrapped so carefully in a waterproof cloth, and tied with top cord. Now it's gone!

Needn't spring that old story on me, and say I was careless. P'raps I have been a few times; but right now I'm dead sure the fault ain't mine.

Somebody's playing a joke on me. Mind, I ain't mentioning no names; but I've got my suspicions."

He looked hard at Giraffe, and the accusation could hardly have been given in plainer language than that. But Giraffe was used to being unjustly accused. There were occasions when he did seize upon a golden opportunity to hide something belonging to his comrade, because it had been left carelessly around; and Giraffe believed it a part of his duty to break the other of such shiftless habits. But on this occasion he held up both hands, declaring solemnly:

"Give you my word for it I never touched any camera. This time you've either been and dropped it on the road; or else the Gold Dust Twins have nabbed it on you."

Just then b.u.mpus, who had been wandering aimlessly about after drinking at the cooling waters of the little spring that had been the main cause of this temporary halt in the march, gave utterance to a loud exclamation.

He had tripped over something that lay in the gra.s.s, and a splash announced that with his usual hard luck the fat boy had managed to go headlong into the spring. Scrambling out, with the water streaming from his red face, he turned indignantly on the balance of the patrol, now convulsed with laughter.

"What sort of--horse play d'ye call that--I'd like to know?" he sputtered, trying to wipe his streaming face with a handkerchief that looked far too small for the task. "Can't a feller--just stroll around camp--without some silly putting out a foot, and tripping him up? Tell me that, now?"

"I'm beginning to think we must have some sort of a hoodoo along with us," remarked Smithy, anxiously. "All sorts of things seem to be happening, and in the most mysterious way possible. We all know that there wasn't a single fellow anywhere near b.u.mpus when he pitched forward. Yet he says _somebody_ put out a foot, and he tripped over it.

I think it a remarkable phenomenon, for a fact, and worth investigating."

"Well, somethin' _did_ trip me, and that's sure," grumbled the other, possibly thinking that he had been too sweeping in his accusation.

"Suppose you look in that bunch of gra.s.s, and find out if the little evil spirit that's playing all these pranks on you is lying there?"

suggested Thad, with a twinkle in his eye, as though he could give a pretty shrewd guess what the result of the said exploration would turn out to be.

So b.u.mpus, always willing to oblige, especially since his own curiosity must have been aroused, proceeded forthwith to get down on his hands and knees, and begin an examination of the tangle in question.

Half a minute later he gave a loud cry. At the same time he was seen to hold up some strange black object.

"Look! b.u.mpus has caught his little evil genius!" cried Giraffe. "And ain't it a hard lookin' subject though. Caught him right by the ankle, and threw him straight into our spring. Lucky we'd had all the drink we wanted before he started to wash there!"

"Why, blessed if it ain't my kodak!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Step Hen faintly, as though it shocked him to think how his lost camera should have been lying there in all that tangle of gra.s.s, where it had undoubtedly fallen as he prepared to take his turn bending over the water hole.