CHAPTER VII NEWS AND MORE NEWS

“Come on, Jerry!” said Jake Utway.

“We’ll go up and pitch down the chunks, and the other guys can stow them away in the refrigerator.”

“You’re on!” answered his brother, and began climbing the ladder.

Tent Ten had been assigned, as their squad-work the next morning after the council, to filling the large refrigerator in the pantry behind Ellick’s large, airy kitchen. This duty required that they ascend to the towerlike structure that housed the summer’s supply of ice for Camp Lenape. In mid-winter, when the lake was sheeted over with a crystal mass some six inches thick, a gang of men always came with saws and teams of horses to harvest the ice and store it, between layers of sawdust, in the Lenape ice-house for the use of the campers the following season.
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It was the plan of the brothers to enter the ice-house, dig out the embedded blocks required, and send these down the chute to their waiting tent-mates, whose job it would be to wash away the sawdust and transport the ice to Ellick’s gaping refrigerator. Armed with ice-tongs and a large miner’s pick, Jake and Jerry climbed to the upper door of the edifice, and entered its chill gloom.

“Come on, work fast, if you don’t want to freeze!” advised Jerry. He raised the pick and began clearing away the thick crust of sawdust in one corner of the place, but paused as his brother made no move to aid him. “Hey! Earn your keep, man! Don’t stand star-gazing all morning!”

Jake was staring upward. The ice-house was solidly built, but at one corner of the roof the sunlight slanted through a narrow crevice. The watcher had for an instant seen that spot of light cut off by the passage of a small body. Jake pointed. “Something up there, Jerry!”

Jerry’s eyes were more accustomed to the darkness. “Why, you cluck, that’s only Billy the crow! Hello, Billy!”

“Hello, Billy!” the cackling echo drifted down from the roof. “Billy the crow! Awr-rck!”
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“He probably lives up there,” went on Jerry in a matter-of-fact tone. “Now, are we going to finish this job, or do I have to do it alone? Come out of your trance!”

Slowly Jake took his eyes from aloft, scraped away the sawdust with his foot, and clutched the half-revealed cake of ice with his tongs. “Fire away! But I got an idea, Jerry—and as soon as we chuck enough ice down, I’m going to try it out.”

The boys worked swiftly and silently after this, panting and shivering slightly as they uncovered one slab of ice after another and sent them crashing down the chute, after a shouted warning to their toiling comrades on the ground.

“There, guess that’ll hold Ellick for a while,” said Jerry at last, resting from his labors. “Now, what’s this bright idea of yours, Jake?”

“Billy’s still up there,” answered his brother. “I often wondered where his nest was. Crows, as Sagamore Carrigan said down at the dock yesterday afternoon, are funny birds. If you give me a boost on your shoulders, I think I can climb up the side of the wall the rest of the way.”
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“Don’t know what good that’ll do you,” said Jerry promptly, “but here goes!” He cupped his hands, and Jake scrambled athletically to his shoulders, bracing his body against the rough timbered side of the building. Jerry grunted. “Uhh! Say, Jakie, you ought to be a sailor for this job! Sailors are experts when it comes to climbing to crow’s nests!”

Billy ruffled his feathers and cast a beady, suspicious eye down upon these proceedings. “Aww-rk!” he muttered. “Billy the crow! Go on in, Billy!” With a series of angry squawks he edged through the narrow opening in the roof and flew away to more interesting scenes.

Jake was by this time clinging to the wall, far above the sawdust surface where Jerry stood, head bent back, watching the climber’s progress. Cautiously, arms spread eagled to seize any projection no matter how small, Jake ascended precariously toward his goal. He was now within arm’s length of the corner where the talkative crow had made his entrance. Motes of dust danced in the beam of sunlight over his shoulder, and his groping hand stirred up a mass of dust and cobwebs which made him sneeze. In a far corner, on a ledge of rafters, his fingers touched a hard, metallic object.

“If you slip now,” called Jerry warningly, “you’ll get another black eye to match the first one.”
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Jake grinned with satisfaction as the sunlight glittered on the thing he held in his hand.

“Crows are funny birds,” he remarked a second time. “Natural-born thieves. Here, catch!”

Jerry ducked, and deftly snatched the shining circle which came spinning down at him.

“Admiral Munson’s wrist-watch,” announced Jake. “And Terry Tompkins’ ring is here too, along with a lot of other junk.” He was stuffing the nondescript collection of articles into his pockets as he spoke. As cautiously as he had come, he began descending from his lofty perch.

“So this is what you found in the crow’s nest!” said Jerry, and whistled. “Jakie, you’re brighter than I thought you were. You put two and two together, and get—a heap of assorted jewelry!”

“Crows are very fond of bright objects, and will steal them and carry them off to hide away, if they get a chance,” explained Jake with condescension, leaping at last to the sawdust floor. “Yep, Billy was the thief. Look here!” He drew out his treasure-trove. In his hand, in addition to young Tompkins’ gold ring, lay a bit of crumpled tinfoil, the rusted top of a pickle-jar, a silver dime, a few bent nails, and the brass button from a scout uniform.
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“Wonderful!” breathed Jerry in mock admiration. “Say, you didn’t see Ellick’s hand-ax up there, did you?”

“Don’t be a sap. Come along—we’ll show the Chief he was wrong about thinking there was a thief among the campers. Bet he’ll be tickled to find that the thief wears feathers!”

One after the other they slid down the ladder to the ground. Sherlock Jones and Wild Willie Sanders were wrestling with a large slab of sawdust-covered ice; they looked up curiously as the twins raced by them, on their way to the Chief’s office in one corner of the lodge.

As they stampeded across the mess hall to the small room that served the camp director as an office, they found another visitor ahead of them. The Utway twins almost fell over backward as they recognized the blue uniform and leather leggins of the man who held the door-knob, calling a parting sentence to the Chief standing within.

“If you fellows see or hear anything of him, just get to the nearest phone and call up the prison. They’ll know how to get in touch with us.”
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It was the man whom they had stumbled upon at the wagon road, who had held them up at the point of a gun! The gun was in the crook of his right arm now, as he turned and caught sight of them.

“Why, hello, twins! Jumped on anybody’s neck lately?” he asked in a hearty voice, clapping on his felt hat and striding toward the door of the lodge. “So long. Be good boys!”

Jake stared at Jerry in wonderment, and Jerry stared back. Who was this stranger, whom they had first encountered in the woods? They were aroused by the voice of the Chief.

“Come in, boys. What have you there, Jake?” The Chief was the only person in camp who was always sure which brother was which. He had from long acquaintance discovered that Jerry had a tiny mole almost concealed under the bronze-colored hair that fell over his left temple, which mark served to distinguish him from his twin.

Jake stammered out his tale. As the Chief listened, his forehead knit into a puzzled frown.
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“So it was Billy all the time, eh?” he said as Jake finished. “You were pretty clever to figure that out. I’m glad to hear that these things are safe, and I’m sure Terry Tompkins and Mr. Munson will be, too. But that makes the kitchen robbery all the more strange. With what we know now, it’s impossible to connect the loss of these things with the person who broke into the food-supply the other night. There’s still a thief loose around Lenape, boys, and for some minutes now I’ve had the feeling that I know who it is.” He placed Billy’s plunder on his desk, and sat down thoughtfully.

Jerry summoned up courage. “Excuse me, Chief—but who was that man that just left here? Jake and I saw him guarding the road yesterday afternoon. What’s he carrying a gun around for?”

The Chief spun about in his chair and faced them. “He’s looking for a thief, too,” he said slowly.

“Who?” both boys cried in unison.
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“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you, I guess—I’ll have to make an announcement about it to everybody at lunch to-day. Boys, there’s a dangerous man loose in this part of the country. Last Saturday night a convict escaped from the state prison up beyond Elmville. He had some hours’ start before he was found missing. The warden thought it likely that he would head over this way, toward the mountains, where he might hide in the woods for days and never be found. Guards were sent out, but so far there’s been no sign of him. The man you just saw is one of the prison guards, who is watching over this way. He tells me the escaped prisoner is a man named Burk, serving a term of several years—for robbery.”

“Robbery!”

“Now you can see why I thought until now that this prisoner might be in the neighborhood and might have stolen this watch and ring. It’s too bad the prison people didn’t warn me before now—no telling what might have happened in the meantime. However, now we have been warned, and will be on our guard.”

“Did—did you tell the prisoner-keeper—the fellow who was just here—that somebody broke into the pantry?”

“Of course, Jerry. He seemed to think it might be an important clue, and is getting a crew of men together to search the woods around the camp more carefully. You see, there’s a reward offered for the capture of this criminal, and naturally everybody is eager to earn it. Now, be careful and don’t get very far away from the campus unless you have a councilor along, boys! An escaped convict is a mighty dangerous customer. And don’t say anything about what I’ve told you until after lunch.”
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The Utway twins stared at each other again as the door of the office closed behind them. Jerry seized Jake’s arm in an excited grip. “Why didn’t you tell the Chief about the man you saw down by Fifteen the other night?” he whispered urgently.

“I didn’t have a chance. Besides, why should we give that prison guard all the glory of capturing the convict?”