PIPER GROWS SECRETIVE.

Dressed only in underclothes while their other garments were drying, the boys really suffered no discomfort whatever. They amused themselves in various ways, and in camp the least ingenious person may keep himself occupied and entertained without much trouble. For Crane and Stone the account of the adventure of the others upon the mysterious island proved deeply interesting, and much time was spent in discussion and speculation. It was observed that of the trio who had visited the island Piper had the least to say about it, being much absorbed in meditation.

“Look at Sleuthy,” whispered Sile, nudging Springer. “His analytical mind is at work, and I cal’late he’s tryin’ to form a few deductions.”

As if he had caught the remark, Piper looked up and gave Crane a hard stare that was doubtless intended to be piercing.

“Next time I visit that island,” he declared, “I’m going to take the shotgun along, and it will be loaded, too.”

Springer whooped derisively. “Oh, yes, next tut-time you visit the island you’ll tut-take the shotgun!”

“What,” questioned Grant, “would you have done with a shotgun if you’d had one with you today, Pipe?”

“He’d dropped it when he ran,” asserted Springer.

Piper promptly turned on Phil. “If I were in your place, I’d be ashamed to mention running. Like Crane, pursued by hornets, you demonstrated that the wings of Mercury or the seven league boots would be of little aid to you in covering ground when you’re thoroughly frightened.”

“I’m willing to admit,” said Grant, “that the sounds we heard on the island and the conditions under which we made our visit of investigation gave me a few unpleasant and awesome sensations. Nevertheless, sitting here at this moment, I’m much disinclined to admit that I believe in haunts. I reckon it was the approach of the storm, more than anything else, that upset us complete.”

“How about the tut-ticking of the unseen clock?” asked Phil.

“A woodtick, perhaps, boring into the rotten timbers of the hut.”

“And the ghostly knockings?”

“There is no person who has not at some time heard seemingly mysterious rappings, which were afterward found to be of the most commonplace origin.”

“Well, there was that mum-moaning cry. You heard it, didn’t you?”

Rodney admitted that he had. “With more time at my disposal,” he asserted, “I opine I would have looked around for the cause of it.”

“Bub-but the howling of the dog?”

“Most dogs are given to howling.”

“How about the white figures Crane and I saw on the island?”

“Imagination sometimes plays right peculiar tricks with the eyesight.”

“But we saw them. Yes, we did,” corroborated Sile earnestly. “I’ll swear to that.”

Piper listened to this colloquy, his eyes bright, his manner that of one keenly interested.

“Comrades,” he announced, rising to his feet and posing, “I shall remain forever unsatisfied if we leave Phantom Lake with this mystery unsolved. I propose to find the solution.”

“Oh, yeou’ll do a lot in that line!” sneered Crane. “Yeou’ve had a swelled head ever since yeou was called to give testimony in court at Stone’s trial. Before that you never done anything but talk, and yeou ain’t done nothing since then. That was an accident.”

Sleuth’s lips curled scornfully. “Envy! Jealousy!” he declared. “The opportunity has not since presented itself until the present occasion for the full exercise of my acumen.”

“Wow!” whooped Springer. “Ac-cac-caccumen! That’s going some. Gee! Pipe, when you’re at home you must sit up nights to study the dictionary.”

“In command of English pure and undefiled,” retorted Sleuth, “you are plainly extremely limited.” Then he strolled off by himself and spent at least a full hour in deep thought.

Some time before sunset Jim Simpson reappeared in the punt and landed at the Point.

“Told ye I’d get round if I could,” he said, stepping ashore. “Didn’t know but the old man would raise objections and have something else for me to do, but when I told him what had happened to me, he give me a good dressin’ down for being keerless, and then said that you chaps could have any blessed thing you wanted that he owned. Say, the old gent ain’t sech a bad feller, though he nigh works me to death sometimes. Soon’s I come of age, you bet I’m goin’ to hit out for myself. Livin’ on a farm ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, I tell ye that. I’ve got the truck for ye here in the bo’t.”

He had brought a peck of new potatoes and a bountiful supply of green peas, as well as onions, beans for baking and a pot to bake them in. But that was not all; he proudly passed over something wrapped in brown paper, announcing:

“Here’s some lambsteak for ye. The old gent killed a lamb yesterday, and, thinkin’ mebbe you might like some meat, he cut this for ye and sent it as a present.”

“Lambsteak, green peas and new pertaters,” spluttered Crane. “Gee whiz! We’ll sartain have a feast. Say, Simp, yeou’re right abaout yeour old man; he ain’t a bad feller. Get busy, Stoney, and start the repast to cookin’.”

Ben was willing enough to do this, for his appetite, like that of the others, had been keenly aroused by camp life.

He set his companions shelling the peas and preparing the potatoes, while he started up a good fire.

“You fellers seem to be havin’ a pretty good time,” observed Simpson, as he sat watching them. “Guess you’re enjoying it all right.”

“Sure we are,” answered Rodney. “Ever camp out?”

“Shucks, no; never had no time for that. Guess if you’d ever lived on a farm you’d know how ’twas. Don’t s’pose you’re much used to real work.”

Grant smiled. “I was brought up on a ranch, and I reckon I know something about work.”

“A ranch!” cried the farmer’s son, his eyes widening. “Where?”

“In Texas.”

“Sho! You don’t say! Well, I snum!” He suddenly regarded Rodney with an amazing increased amount of respect. “Never saw nobody before that ever lived on a ranch,” he confessed. “Was you a real cowboy?”

“In a way, yes; I’ve punched cattle.”

“I do declare!” breathed Simpson. “That must be great fun. I’ve always thought I’d like to be a cowboy.”

“Have you?”

“You bate! I say it must be rippin’ fun to be a real cowboy and jest ride ’round on a horse and do nothing but tend cattle that don’t have to be milked and cleaned and fed in a tieup and fussed over, the way farmer’s critters are. I’ve read about cowboy life, and it sartainly is the kind for me.”

The Texan laughed outright. “Not if you are adverse to hard work,” he asserted. “Likely the stories you’ve read about cowboy life have given you the impression that it consists principally of adventure and romance and very little work. But let me tell you straight, partner, there’s no harder work a fellow can do, and there’s mighty little romance connected with it.”

But Simpson shook his head incredulously. “Can’t be so,” he doubted. “Sometime mebbe I’ll go West and be a cowboy.”

“If you carry out that design,” returned Grant, still smiling, “you’ll soon come to realize the fact that, in the way of work, Eastern farm life is almost play compared with cow-punching. One experience upon the range in a Texas norther would knock all the romance out of your noddle, to say nothing of the lesson you’d get during a good dry, blistering summer, when you’d have to be on the hike day after day from an hour or more before the first peep of dawn until long after nightfall.”

Still Jim Simpson was not convinced, for, like many a mistaken Eastern youth, he had come to regard the life of a cowboy as a most enviable existence, and nothing but a test of its hardships could convince him otherwise.

“Why, right now,” he said, rising, stretching and yawning, “I’ve got to hustle back to the farm and putter around till it’s dark and time for supper. S’pose I’d better be goin’.”

But ere he departed Sleuth mysteriously drew him aside and talked with him for some time in low tones that carried no distinguishable word to the rest of the campers. Naturally, Piper’s friends speculated over this, and when Simpson was gone they sought in vain to quiz Sleuth. He rebuffed them flatly.

“It’s told that curiosity once killed a cat,” he said, “and I can aver that it got a certain party badly stung by ‘gougers.’ When I’m ready to make known my private business, I’ll do so without being coaxed or badgered.”