The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska

Chapter 8

“W’en de screech-owl light on de gable en’

En holler, Whoo-oo! oh-oh!

Den you bettah keep yo’ eyeball peel,

Kase dey bring bad luck t’ yo’,

Oh-oh! oh-oh!”

“Stop that noise!” shouted an angry voice from the tent occupied by the boys.

For a few moments silence reigned in the camp of the Pony Rider Boys. Then the voice of the singer from somewhere outside was raised again.

“W’en de ole black cat widdee yella eyes

Slink round like she atter ah mouse,

Den yo’ bettah take keer yo’self en frien’s,

Kase dey’s sho’ly a witch en de house.”

“Who is making that unearthly noise?” demanded the Professor in an irritated voice.

“That’s Stacy singing,” answered Tad politely.

“Singing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nonsense! Does he think he can sing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Humph! I shall be obliged if some of you boys will remove that impression from his mind so that I may go back to sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

“W’en de puddle duck ’e leave de pon’

En start to comb e fedder–”

A stone struck the rock on which Stacy Brown was sitting. Some small particles flew up and hit him in the neck.

“Hey, you fellows quit that!”

“Den yo’ bettah take yo’ umbrell,

Kase dey’s gwine to be wet wedder.”

“Yeow!”

The fat boy left the rock, jumping right up into the air, for the wild yell had seemed to come out of the rock itself. At that juncture three pajama-clad figures rose from behind the rock and threw themselves upon him.

“Let go of my neck!” howled Chunky, fighting desperately to free himself, not having caught a glance at his assailants, though he knew well enough who they were. Stacy had calculated on aggravating them to the danger point, then slipping away and hiding until breakfast time. But he had gone a little too far with his so-called singing.

The boys picked the fat boy up and carried him, kicking and yelling, to a point just beyond the camp where a glacial stream trickled down, forming in a pool some three feet deep near the trail.

“I–I’ll get even with you fellows for this. Can’t you let me alone?” he cried.

Reaching the spring they held him by the feet and soused him into the icy water head first, thrusting the fat boy in until his head struck the hard bottom. He was howling lustily, howling and choking, when his head was out of water.

“You’ll need your ‘old ombrell’ when we have done with you,” cried Ned.

“You will wake us up at this hour with your unearthly screeching, will you?” demanded Tad.

“I reckon the Professor will give you a spanking for disturbing his morning slumbers,” added Walter Perkins.

“That’s enough, fellows. Remember the water is cold,” warned Butler. “Let him go.”

They took Tad literally. They did let the fat boy go. He landed on his head on a hard rock when they let go of him, and Stacy rolled on his back yelling lustily.

“Look out! There comes the Professor Stacy.”

Walter shouted the warning just in time. Professor Zepplin, stern of face, gorgeous in a pair of new pajamas, a stick in one hand came stalking toward the group. Stacy saw him coming. The fat boy bounded to his feet in a hurry. He was especially interested in the cedar limb with its sharp broken points, grasped so firmly in the right hand of the Professor.

“I reckon I’ll see you all later,” muttered Chunky as he made a bolt for his tent. Either some one tripped him or he tripped himself. At least, he measured his length on the ground just as the stick came in contact with his body. It was not a hard blow, but merely a tap of reminder. The Professor was now smiling broadly.

Stacy leaped to his feet and ran, howling at the top of his voice, and threatening dire revenge on the Professor. Professor Zepplin was plainly undismayed, for he pursued with strides that made the merry onlookers think of the seven-league boots.

“Say, can’t we arbitrate, without an appeal to force?” bellowed back Stacy as he reached the tent.

“We cannot,” boomed the Professor’s deep voice. “This is an instance in which the punitive expedition must go through.”

Whack! Whack!That stick played a tattoo that made Stacy sore in more senses than one. Instead of burrowing deeper into the cedar boughs, he got up hastily. In his desperation he seized the Professor’s feet, giving a mighty tug at them.

“Here, stop that!” protested Professor Zepplin, laughing.

He reached for the fat boy, but Chunky, with a new exertion of his strength, brought the tutor down to a sitting position.

“Retreat in good order, while you have a chance!” called Walter Perkins. Three grinning faces met the fugitive at the tent. But Stacy bowled Walter over, leaped the foot that Rector extended to trip him, and then dashed for the shelter of the tall cedars, where he hid.

There he shivered in his wet pajamas. It was three o’clock in the morning, but young Brown cared not for time. His stomach told him only that it was high breakfast time. The gnawing under his belt-line continued.

“I wish I hadn’t been quite so fresh!” thought the boy, dismally. “It’s all right to have fun, but there are times when a square meal is worth more.”

However, the Professor, though he was really enjoying the situation, looked anything but amiable.

“I’ll try the crowd, anyway,” thought Stacy, ruefully. “I’ve got to get near the kitchen kit soon. Hello, the camp!”

There was no response. Stacy emerged from his hiding place and began to sing the song he had learned from Rastus Rastus in Kentucky.

One end of the tent was suddenly raised.

“Do you want another ducking?” demanded the angry voice of Ned Rector.

“If you’re man enough to give it to me,” returned the fat boy.

Ned came tumbling out, but by the time he had straightened up, Stacy was nowhere in sight. The fat boy had stolen in among the trees whence he watched the progress of events. Ned returned to his tent in disgust. No further objection was heard from the Professor as to Chunky’s vocal exercises.

“There’s no use trying to sleep with that boy bawling away out there. What does he think he is, a bird?” demanded Tad.

“Sounds more like a hoot owl, the bird he was telling us about,” averred Ned.

“I guess I’ll get up. So long as he is abroad there will be no more rest in this camp for the rest of the night.”

“Won’t he catch cold? He must be all wet,” said Walter solicitously.

“I hope to goodness he does,” retorted Rector. “I hope he gets such a cold that he can’t speak for a week. Then we’ll have some peace.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t put it quite so strongly as that,” laughed Tad. “However, I guess he will get the cold all right.”

Tad dressed himself. After finishing, he thought to look at his watch and was disgusted to find it was only a few minutes after three o’clock. Ned declared that he was going to sleep again if Tad would keep the fat boy quiet. Butler promised to do his best and went out. He looked about for Stacy but failed to see him, so the freckle-faced boy sat down on the rock where Chunky had sat singing.

“Hello, Tad,” piped a voice behind him, causing Butler to jump a little. Stacy had been hiding behind the rock, to which place he had crept from the cedar forest.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?”

“I guess so. I’m cold and–and hungry.”

“Go back to the tent. You should put on some dry clothes.”

“You don’t care whether I freeze or not. Go get them for me, please.”

“I will not. You got yourself into this difficulty, now get out of it as best you may,” answered Butler. “There won’t be any breakfast for three hours yet. Tighten your belt.”

“I–I haven’t any belt. I haven’t my clothes on.”

“That’s too bad,” retorted Tad unfeelingly.

“What’d you soak me for?”

“A cold bath in the morning is an excellent tonic. Hadn’t you ever heard that?”

“If I had I’d know now that it isn’t true. I didn’t think you could be as mean as that, Tad.”

“I didn’t think you could be so mean as to wake us up at three o’clock in the morning with your screeching. Why did you do it?”

“I–I was exercising my voice.”

“I should say so. But take my advice. Don’t use it that way again, especially so early in the morning. You’ll ruin it and then you won’t be able to sing at all.”

“That would be a catastrophe,” mumbled Chunky.

“A blessing to the Pony Rider Boys community, you mean. Hello!”

“What is it?” cried Stacy.

Tad was staring fixedly at a rope suspended between two small cedars near the tents. It was on this that some of the provisions had been hung the previous evening.

“Where is that ham?” he demanded, apparently not having heard his companion’s question.

“What ham?”

“The one I hung up there last night?”

“I–I don’t know. I didn’t eat it.”

Tad got up and hastened to the “stores-line,” as they called the rope that held their meats and other provisions. He discovered that several other articles besides the ham were missing. Even the pieces of twine with which the provisions had been fastened to the line were missing.

“Well, if this doesn’t beat everything!” wondered Butler.

“It does,” agreed Chunky, who had made bold to approach. “I hope the fellows won’t blame me, but I reckon they will. They lay everything to me.”

Tad did not reply. He was trying to make up his mind what had become of the missing provisions. He turned sharply to Stacy.

“See here, you aren’t playing tricks on us, are you?”

Stacy indignantly protested that he was not.

“I knew you’d try to put it on me,” he grumbled. “I’m pretty bad, I know, but I don’t steal.”

“Stop it! I haven’t accused you of stealing. Of course I know you wouldn’t do that, but if you have taken the stuff and hidden it for a joke, say so now before I call the others. They might not take kindly to your joke after your early morning vocal exercises.”

“I didn’t. I don’t know any more about it than you do.”

Stacy’s lips were blue with cold and he was chattering. Tad suddenly observed these signs of cold and felt sorry for the boy.

“When the others come out, you duck in and put on some dry clothes. You will have plenty of time. I don’t think they will bother you. Oh, Ned! Professor!” called Tad.

Ned Rector, Professor Zepplin and Walter came hurrying out.

“Isn’t there any rest at all in this camp?” protested Ned.

“That is what I was about to inquire,” declared the Professor.

“What! You here?” demanded Rector, fixing a menacing eye on the fat boy. “Has he been cutting up again?”

“It’s something else this time.”

“What is it?” questioned Professor Zepplin sharply.

“Did any of you folks remove the ham and the other stuff from the line last night?” asked Butler.

"No," replied Ned.

“Of course not. You were the last one to attend to those things,” said the Professor.

“I helped him tie them up,” interjected “Walter.

“And–and I watched him–them–do it,” added Stacy.

“Yes, that’s about all you ever do do,” objected Ned.

“What’s this you say?” questioned Professor Zepplin. “The ham missing?”

“Yes, sir. It is nowhere about,” Tad informed him.

“Then we must have had a visit from a bear or some other animal.”

“What would a bear want with a rope?” asked Butler.

“A rope?”

“I left our quarter-inch reserve rope coiled at the foot of that tree last night. It isn’t there now.”

“Stacy Brown, do you know anything about this?” demanded the Professor sternly.

“What’d I tell you, Tad? I knew you’d be accusing me for the whole business. I told Tad you would blame me.”

“Go put on some dry garments,” commanded the Professor.

Stacy lost no time in getting to the tent.

“What do you make of it, Tad?” asked Professor Zepplin.

“I can make only one thing out of it. There has been an intruder in the camp while we slept. That intruder must have been a man. Bears do not carry away ropes. Bears do not untie knots and take the strings away with them,” replied Tad Butler in a convincing tone.

Stacy Brown poked his head through the tent opening.

“What we need in this camp is a watch dog,” he shouted.

Ned Rector shied a tin can at him, whereat the fat boy ducked in out of sight.