CHAPTER XVI HARE AND HOUNDS

Jake Utway stirred uneasily. Something was digging into his hip, bluntly shoving him back to consciousness. He sat up. Was it Reveille so soon? But this wasn’t Tent Ten! For a moment he stared, sticky-eyed, into a small fireplace heaped with flaky white wood-ash. In a flash it came back to him—the escape from Lenape; the moonlight march with their captive, Sherlock; the discovery of the shack in the woods—— Jake groaned softly, and stretched his cramped body.

“Anybody awake?” he asked drowsily. “Boy, but I’m stiff! This log floor—maybe I shouldn’t have slept against the grain of the wood!”

A loud sneeze at his side answered him, followed by a series of sniffles and a second sneeze. He turned and discovered Sherlock Jones, with tears in his pale eyes, rubbing his nose with a grimy handkerchief.
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“Bad coad!” explained the ex-detective with another sneeze. It was plain that Sherlock was not made of the stuff of outlaw heroes. Reddened eyes, a dripping nose, and chattering teeth were the penalties of his moonlight jaunt and his night in the backwoods hut. “Very dasty coad! Say, who pud this thig over be?” Sherlock had noticed for the first time that a norfolk jacket had been carefully thrown over his body some time in the night. It was the garment worn by Burk, who had evidently tucked it about the sleeping boy as a protection against the night breezes that penetrated through the cracks in the floor of the hut. “Where’s Bister Burk? Oh, there you are. A-choo! Thags very buch, Bister Burk. You bust have been coad yourself!”

“Forget it, old man!” Burk rolled over and yawned. “Sorry you have a cold, though.” Of a sudden the man sprang up. “Where’s the other fellow?” he cried.

Jake looked about him. Jerry was not in the little room.

“Where’s your brother? Did he tell you he was going out?”

“Why, no!” said Jake. “He must be somewhere around, though. He can’t have gone far.”
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The sun was high; a dazzling, glorious stream of light poured in through a dusty window. Sherlock pointed with his handkerchief.

“Whad’s that over the fireblace?” he snuffled.

Jake jumped up to look. A bit of paper was stuck prominently into the cracks of the stone mantel. It was an old envelope, on the face of which was scrawled a few cramped lines of writing in pencil. “It’s a note—a note from Jerry!” he exclaimed in surprise. “He’s—he’s gone!”

“Gone!” echoed the man.

“Yes; listen to this: ‘Dear Jakie and Others—We’ve got to have grub, so I’m going to Wallistown. Will bring it as soon as I can. Will try to get some news if I can. Don’t worry about me.—Jerry.’ Well, what do you think of that?”

“I thig it’s good,” sighed Sherlock. “I sure could eat somethig right dow!” Burk said nothing, but took up a couple of holes in his belt.

“That’s just like Jerry,” observed Jake, sticking the note in his pocket. “He knew we’d have to stay here in hiding all day, and didn’t want us to starve. We need grub, sure enough. But it’s no use for him to tell us not to worry—anything in the world might happen to him in Wallistown, and I won’t rest easy until I see him back here safe.”
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“You thig he may get into druble?”

“Say, Sherlock, that cold of yours must be affecting your brain. Don’t you know that everybody in the world will be after us, after what happened last night? We can’t just disappear—the Chief and all the rest back at camp will be hunting for us, and they’re sure to connect our disappearance with Burk here. That’s why we can’t travel in the daytime.”

“But where do you wad to travel?”

Jake threw up his hands. “Listen! It’s plain we’ve got to tell you everything. Mr. Burk was put in jail for being a thief, but he didn’t steal the necklace. If we can get to Canoe Mountain Lodge, he thinks we can prove that he’s innocent. And we’ve got to get there! Now do you savvy?”

“Thad’s wad I thought all the tibe,” nodded Sherlock sagely. “I said Bister Burk was all right, and I probise to help if I cad. A-choo!”

“Well,” said Jake, “you can help us a lot—— Jiminy, what’s that?”

It was small wonder that Jake was startled. A sound had broken the stillness of the forest, a chilling, heart-gripping hullabaloo from the north, toward Lenape—the high belling howl of a pack of hounds on a warm trail.
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“Dogs!” Burk clenched his fists. “By heaven, they’ve got bloodhounds out!” His pallid face went whiter still.

“Bloodhounds! You mean—they’re pointing out our trail last night?”

“Yes—listen!” It came again, the terrifying chorus of their sharp-nosed pursuers. “They can’t be far off! Boys, we can’t stay here!”

“But—where will we go?” said Jake, shakily. “If Jerry comes back here, he’s sure to be caught!”

“Can’t help that!” Burk was gathering together their few belongings over his arm. He ran to the door, and cooked his ear up the trail. “Come along!”

Sherlock Jones, at the first awesome baying of the pack, had given himself up for dead. Bloodhounds! He struggled weakly to his feet, found Jake pulling his arm, leading him toward the door.

“If we stay here, we’ll be cornered!” cried the man. “They’re not far off now—they’ll be on us in a few minutes!” The baying call sounded again, much louder, it seemed. “Hurry!”
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He plunged into the woods, looking back to see if the boys were following. Jake was having difficulties; he had almost to push the bewildered Sherlock every inch of the way. The vision of a pack of fiendish hounds leaping at his throat, pulling him down, almost paralyzed the poor lad; he stumbled along at Jake’s side, shivering, sneezing, almost falling headlong. Again rose in the still air the hunting-cry of the beasts on their track.

Jake noticed that the man was leading them downhill, fighting his way through the scratching underbrush. Where could they be going? In which direction lay an instant’s safety from that yapping Nemesis at their backs? The two boys leaped down a steep declivity, saw Burk standing in a little ravine below.

“Water!” he shouted. “We’ve got to wade in this brook a ways—that will shake them off for a bit!” He started down the course of the swift stream, splashing rainbow drops up to his knees, rattling stones with his hurrying feet.

Jake herded his charge into the water, and took the plunge himself, driving Sherlock ahead of him down the rough descent. For some two hundred yards they stumbled forward in panic, ankle-deep in the chill rivulet. The stream was rapidly becoming wider, fanning outward to form a little pool. Beyond, they saw Burk, wading waist-high across to a little spot of grassland sheltered among tall poplar trees.
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“Come on!” he called.

Somehow—Jake never could explain it to himself afterward—he forced the stricken Sherlock through the pool and helped him to climb the muddy bank, where the dazed boy lay where he fell, his thick glasses knocked over one ear, his eyes streaming, caught in the clutch of a sneezing fit.

“I—I can’t go on!” Sherlock gasped. “I dow I probised to help—but—but——”

Burk bent over him. “We’ve got to get away, old man! You can’t stay here—they’ll find you in a minute.” He helped the boy to his feet, and with Jake on the other side, they continued their mad progress, almost dragging the limp body of young Jones between them.

As they ran, Burk jerked out a few directions. “I think I know where we are now. It’s dangerous ground—but the dogs have driven us out of the mountains. We’ve got to find more water—that’s the only thing that will shake them off our trail. And I think this little brook empties into Lake Wallis——”
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Jake looked back over his shoulder. Above them, to the northward, he caught a view of a figure for an instant, clear against the skyline—the silhouette of a mounted man, galloping along the trail. Again came the bloodthirsty belling of the hounds. Had they found the hut?

Again the fugitives were among the trees. Of a sudden Sherlock Jones collapsed; had they not caught him, he would have fallen headlong on his face. Jake and Burk exchanged glances. With the pursuers so close on their heels, burdened as they were with a helpless boy——

Sherlock was mumbling something, through chattering teeth. “You go ahead—leave be here——”

Jake shook him. “We won’t leave you, old scout! Just a few steps more——”

“No—can’t bake it—— I’ll clibe a tree, so the dogs can’t get be——”

“Do you think you can?” asked Burk eagerly. “Say, if you could get into a tree, the dogs would stop for a while, and we might get free! If only you could do it, hold them at bay for a few minutes——!” It was true that the boy was a hindrance to their flight, and could be nothing but a danger to them; but could he be left behind to hold the yapping hounds, who were sure to pause if they found their quarry treed, he might gain for them a few priceless seconds——
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“I’ll do it! I said I’d help you, Bister Burk!” gulped Sherlock bravely. “Just put be into a tree—a big tree——”

“By George, that might do it!” said Burk, admiringly. “Come on, we’ll hoist him up this one.” He indicated a smooth-barked poplar with a low branch hanging just above them. “Give him a lift.”

There was no time for delay. Like a sack of flour, Sherlock’s form was heaved against the trunk of the tree with a mighty swing. He waved his arms desperately, caught hold of the limb, and scrambled aloft amid a shower of leaves and bark, kicking his dripping feet wildly behind him. Like a treed raccoon, he huddled in a crotch of the tree and tried to make himself small.

“Rud!” he shouted to the two below. “I’b all right. I won’t tell theb a thig!”

The two on the ground hesitated no longer. Jake did not dare look back; he had all he could do to keep up with the racing man at his side.

“Sherlock’s game, all right!” he managed to gasp. “He came through fine; I never thought he had it in him! Think he can hold them?”
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Through his mind flashed the thought that already their party was scattered; Jerry was gone, Heaven alone knew where, and now Sherlock had sacrificed himself so that the others might have an instant’s start. Good old Sherlock! He had helped them after all—— They burst through the last of the trees, into a spreading pasture land.

“One chance in a hundred!” Burk was crying through clenched teeth. “We’ll fool them yet! If we can only get as far as Lake Wallis—— Cross water! Now, son, don’t try to say anything more now!” The two racing fugitives dashed through the grass in the hot sunlight. “Save your breath! We’ve got to run now as we never ran before!”