What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

“What puzzles me,” said Tom, “is how on earth you knew just where those turkeys were roosting. Did you just guess it?”

“No, of course not. If I had, I shouldn’t have been so ready to promise you a gobbler as I was.”

“Then how did you know?”

“I saw the roost last night.”

“When, and how?”

“When you and I were out after the oysters. Do you remember that just before we came out of the woods and upon the beach, I stopped and held up the lantern and looked all around?”

“Yes, but you were looking for the oyster bed and you found it.”

“I was looking for the oyster bed, of course. But I was looking for anything else there might be to see, too. I always do that. When I was at the bow last night looking for the mouth of this creek I saw the oyster bed, and marked its locality in my mind. In the same way, when I was looking for the oyster bed with the lantern above my head, I saw the turkey-roost and carefully made mental note of its surroundings so that I might go straight to it this morning. Is there any other gentleman in the company who would like to ask me questions with a view to the satisfaction of his curiosity or the improvement of his mind?”

“I for one would like to ask you what else you saw this morning while you were out after the turkeys,” answered Tom. “Apparently you never look for one thing without finding some others of equal or superior importance. Did you do anything of that sort this morning?”

“Yes, I think so. I made two observations, in fact, and both of them seem to me to possess a certain measure of interest.”

Cal paused in his speech at this point and proceeded to eat his breakfast quite as if the others had not been waiting for him to go on with whatever it was that he had to tell.

“You’re the most provoking fellow I ever saw, Cal,” said Tom, impatiently. “When you have nothing to say that is in the least worth saying, you grind out words like a water mill, till you bury yourself and the rest of us in the chaffy nonsense. But when you have something to tell that we’re all eager to hear, you shut up like a clam at low tide. Go on, can’t you?”

“I have always heard,” replied Cal, in leisurely fashion, as if his only purpose had been to prevent the conversation from flagging, “that one of the most necessary arts of the orator is that of getting his audience into a condition of anxious waiting for his words before he really says the thing they want to hear. I cannot myself claim the title of orator, but I’m practicing and – ”

“Will you stop that nonsense, Cal, and tell us what you have in mind? If not we’ll duck you in the creek.”

It was Larry who uttered this threat.

“I’ve had worse things than that happen to me,” answered Cal, imperturbably. “The morning is sunny and the sea water on this coast closely approximates tepidity. By the way, Dick, our higher water temperature seems to mar the edibility of some fish that are deemed good at the North. There’s what you call the weak fish – ”

He stopped suddenly, for the reason that Dick had approached him from behind, seized his shoulders and toppled him over upon the ground.

“Now tell us what we’re waiting to hear!” Dick commanded, still holding his comrade down upon his back.

“My mouth’s full of sand,” Cal managed to say; “let me up and I’ll make a clean breast of it, on honor.”

Dick loosed his hold, and as soon as Cal had rinsed his mouth, he redeemed his promise.

“Well, the first thing I discovered was that there’s a promising young deer at present haunting this neck of the woods, and we’re all going out to involve it in controversy with us to-day, and then shoot it as its just due for defying us in such impudent fashion.”

“Venison!” exclaimed Tom enthusiastically; “how my mouth waters for a taste of its juiciness! But how do you know about it, Cal?”

“It isn’t venison yet,” slowly answered the other. “You are much too hasty in jumping at conclusions. That deer will not be venison until we find it and convert it into meat of that justly esteemed sort. Now to answer your question; I discovered its tracks and followed them far enough to know whither it was wending its way and about where to look for it when you fellows quit your ceaseless talking and are ready for the chase. There’s no great hurry, however, as the tracks were made this morning and – ”

“How do you know that?” interrupted Tom.

“I smelt them.”

“But how? I don’t understand.”

“It oughtn’t to be difficult for even you, Tom, to make out that if I smelt the tracks, I employed my nose for that purpose. I usually smell things in just that way.”

“Oh, pshaw, you know what I mean. I didn’t imagine any creature but a well-trained hound could discover a scent in a deer’s track.”

“Obviously your imagination is in need of a reinforcement of facts then. I’ll furnish them. In the middle of a deer’s foot there is a little spot that bears an odor sweeter than that of attar of roses and quite as pronounced. For that reason many young ladies, and some who are not so young perhaps, like to keep a deer’s foot among their daintiest lingerie. Now, when a deer puts his foot down it spreads sufficiently to bring that perfumed spot in contact with the earth and the track is delicately perfumed. When the odor is pronounced it indicates that the track is newly made.

“Now that I have fully answered your intruded, if not intrusive question, Tom, perhaps I may be permitted to finish the sentence you interrupted.”

“Certainly, go on. Really, Cal, I didn’t mean – ”

“I know you didn’t. I was saying that there is no need of haste in going after that deer, because the tracks were made this morning, and the marshy thicket toward which the deer was making his way is sufficiently rich in succulent grasses and juicy young cane to occupy his mind for the entire day, and several days. A little later we’ll cut off his retreat on the land side of the point, and if we don’t get him the fault will be with our inexpertness with our guns.”

“That’s all right, Cal,” broke in Larry, “and I’m glad you’ve marked down the deer; but just now I must be off to plan our defense. You’ve taken so long to tell us about your first discovery that I can’t wait to hear about the second.”

“Oh, yes, you can,” replied Cal. “It will save you a lot of trouble, and I can tell it in about half a dozen words.”

“Go ahead and tell it, then.”

“It is simply that I have solved the whole problem of defense.”

“How? Tell us about it!”

“Why, just above our camp – up the creek a few hundred yards, there’s a big gum tree, with an easily accessible crotch, comfortable to sit in, from which the one playing sentinel can see everything we want to see. He can look clear across this point and half a mile or more up the creek, and by turning his head he can see the camp itself and the Hunkydory and even the soiled spots on your coats. All we’ve got to do is to keep a sentinel in that gum tree, and nobody can approach our camp unseen, whether he comes by land or by water. Come on and I’ll show you.”

The whole company followed Cal, and after a minute inspection found the lookout to be quite as satisfactory as he had represented it to be. But Tom, who had made up his mind to acquire Cal’s habit of observation, noticed some things about the place that aroused his curiosity. He said nothing about them at the time, but resolved to read the riddle of their meaning if he could. To that end he asked to be the first to serve as sentinel.

“All right,” said Larry. “You can stay here till we’re ready to go after that deer. Then I’ll take your place.”

“But why?”

“Oh, so that you may have your share in the deer hunt.”

“You needn’t either of you bother about that,” said Cal. “Our camp can be seen all the way to the cane brake where the deer is browsing, and also from one of the points at which a man must stand with his gun when we drive the deer. So we shan’t need any other sentinel and we’ll all go. With all of us together over there we’ll be ready to repel any attack on ourselves, and if anybody invades the camp we’ll swoop down upon him and exterminate him.”

There was a good deal to be done at the camp before going after the deer. The turkeys were to be picked and dressed and one of them to be roasted. Some fishing was to be done and it was necessary to put up some sort of bush shelter for use in case of rain. So, leaving Tom as sentinel, the other boys went back to the anchorage, and Tom began his scrutiny of the things he had observed.

As a last injunction Larry said: “You can come in to dinner, Tom, when I whistle through my fingers. If there’s nobody in sight then, we can risk the dinner hour without a sentry.”

IX

A FANCY SHOT

The things that had attracted Tom’s attention were so trifling in themselves that only a person alertly observing would have noticed them at all. Yet Tom thought they might have significance, and he was bent upon finding out what that significance was.

First of all, he had observed that a little blind trail seemed to lead westward from the tree, and in no other direction, as if it had been made by someone who visited the tree and then returned by the way he had come, going no farther in any direction. The trail was so blind that Tom could not be sure it was a trail at all. If so, it had been traversed very infrequently, and at rather long intervals. If it had been the only suggestive thing seen, the boy would probably not have given it a thought. But he observed also that the bark of the gum tree was a trifle scarred at two points, suggesting that some one with heavy boots on had recently climbed it.

As soon as the other boys had gone back to camp, Tom set to work to make a closer inspection of his surroundings. He climbed the tree to the crotch and looked about him. There was nothing there, but from that height he could trace the little trail through the bushes for perhaps fifty or a hundred yards. He satisfied himself in that way that it was really a trail, made by the passage of some living thing, man or beast, through the dense undergrowth.