Bobby Blake on a Plantation: or, Lost in the Great Swamp

“Well, you tried the alligator eggs first, so you ought to be willing to sample these too,” said Fred.

“Maybe I will, at that,” said Bobby, “but not until I’ve made sure there isn’t anything else to be had.”

“There seems to be a closet of some kind over there,” said Fred, pointing to the opposite wall. “Let’s see what’s in it.”

“Probably nothing but a large amount of air,” said Lee, sceptically.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to look,” said Fred, and, suiting the action to the word, he strode quickly across the room and opened the door of the closet.

“Scubbity-yow!” yelled Fred. “Look at that, will you!”

Neatly ranged on shelves were cans of meat and vegetables, sufficient to feed the boys for weeks, if the necessity arose.

“Gee!” exclaimed Bobby. “It doesn’t look as though we’d have to eat candles yet awhile, does it?”

“I should say not,” said Lee, jubilantly. “And there’s a big pot in the corner too,” he cried, a moment later. “I reckon whoever provisioned this cabin must have intended to stay here a while.”

“Looks like it, all right,” agreed Bobby. “But let’s get busy and open one or two of those cans. How would you fellows like some baked beans?” he inquired, looking over the labels. “Think you could punish them in a proper manner?”

“Lead us to it,” yelled Fred, and Lee rubbed his stomach in a most expressive manner. Whoever had provided the food had been so far neglectful as to forget the convenient can opener, but Bobby’s jacknife proved a convenient substitute, and it did not take them long to get a fire going in the rough grate that decorated one end of the little cabin. As the odor of frying pork and beans filled the air, the boys could hardly restrain themselves until they were heated through, and when at length Bobby pronounced the feast ready, they fell on it like so many wolves.

CHAPTER XXVI

A MIDNIGHT PROWLER

“Yum yum!” exclaimed Fred, “I’ve eaten lots of beans in my short lifetime, but never any that tasted half as good as these.”

“They are just about what the doctor ordered,” conceded Bobby.

“And when we get through these, how would a nice can of peaches taste?” put in Lee.

“Scubbity-yow!” shouted Fred. “Peaches, did you say? Say, I think I’d be contented to spend the rest of my life here. Bobby, we certainly owe you a vote of thanks for getting us here the way you did.”

“It was mostly luck,” disclaimed Bobby. “If I hadn’t happened to notice that arrow on the rock we’d be wandering around in the cold, cold world yet, probably.”

“Well, after all the hard luck we’ve had, I think we had a little good luck coming to us,” said Lee.

“Looks as though we had it, for the time being, anyway,” replied Bobby, as he sawed away at the can of peaches. “Here, you fellows pass your cups and I’ll fill them up with something that will make your hair curl.”

His friends were not slow in accepting this invitation, and they ate the luscious fruit with an appreciation sharpened by the privations they had been through. As Bobby remarked, “nobody knew how good things were until they hadn’t been able to get them for awhile.”

“I don’t know about you energetic Indians,” said Lee, when he had finished his peaches with a sigh, half of contentment and half of regret that they were gone, “but I’m just going to lie on the floor in front of that fire and loaf for awhile,” and suiting the action to the word, he threw himself down full length on the floor.

“I don’t know how Bobby feels,” said Fred, stretching luxuriously, “but I don’t think I’d mind a little rest myself. Most of that energy Lee’s talking about seems to have oozed out of me, someway.”

“Same here,” admitted Bobby. “And it’s funny, too. Outside of fighting alligators and panthers and ducking mudholes and quicksands, we haven’t really been doing anything the last few days.”

“A little more of this,” remarked Fred, “and a football game will seem quiet and restful. We’ll be going to sleep in the middle of it.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Bobby, “but I do know that it won’t be very long before I get to sleep to-night.”

“I suppose that whoever owns this cabin won’t thank us for eating his food,” went on Fred, as all three boys lay luxuriously at ease and gazed into the radiant heart of the fire.

“If we ever get out of this wilderness, I’ll find out who the place belongs to, and we’ll pay him for what we take,” said Lee; “I know if it were mine, I wouldn’t grudge the food to any one who needed it as badly as we did.”

“I wonder who does own it,” speculated Bobby.

“I haven’t any idea,” admitted Lee, “but lots of the people around here keep places like this for hunting, and I suppose that’s what it’s been used for.”

“Nobody would have to hunt very long around here before he found something, it seems to me,” said Bobby. “It seems as though it were the other way around, and the animals come and hunt us.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter, as long as they don’t get us,” said Lee, “and I guess we’re as safe in this cabin as we would be sleeping at Rockledge.”

“Yes, or safer, in one way,” said Fred. “If the cabin should catch fire, all we’d have to do would be to open the door and walk out, while when the school caught fire we didn’t have it quite so easy.”

“That’s true enough,” agreed Bobby. “But while we’re talking of this place being safe, I vote we fasten the door better than it is now. There’s nothing but a latch holding it, and I’d feel safer it we could make it a little more secure.”

“We might jam a chair against it,” suggested Fred, “the floor is pretty uneven, and we could jam the chair in between one of the planks and the door, so that an elephant would have a hard job getting in.”

“That’s certainly the way we want it,” said Lee, laughing. “The harder it is to get that door open, the better I’ll sleep.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Fred, with a tremendous yawn. “Speaking of sleep, let’s fix things up and go to sleep. I feel as though I could win the long distance sleeping championship without half trying.”

“You’ll have to go some to beat me out,” laughed Bobby, scrambling to his feet. “Let’s see if Fred’s plan to fasten the door will work.”

“Nothing surer in the world,” boasted Fred, “just watch me.”

Just in front of the door one floor board was warped so that it was perhaps half an inch higher than those alongside it. The cabin was equipped with three rude but very strong chairs, and seizing one of these, Fred jammed it in between the door and the uneven board so that any one or anything attempting to enter would have to tear up the floor before it could gain admittance.

“There!” exclaimed Fred, stepping back to view his handiwork, “I guess any one that wants to come in here now will have to ask our permission first.”

The windows of the little cabin were small and criss-crossed with stout scantlings, so there was no chance of any denizen of the woods making them an unwelcome visit by means of that route. It was Lee who suggested the only remaining possibility.

“I wonder if any friends of that cougar could get down the chimney,” he speculated.

“We’ll soon see,” said Bobby, crossing over to the fireplace. He glanced in under the hood that projected from the fireplace to keep the smoke out of the room.

“I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” he stated. “The flue isn’t more than eight or ten inches square, and anything that could get down there couldn’t do us much damage. Besides, the fire will be going most of the night, and I guess that would do the trick, even if the chimney were four times as big as it is now.”

Reassured on this point, the boys threw more wood on the fire, for the sake of light as well as warmth, and selected their bunks for the night. There were four of these built against the wall opposite the fireplace, and they were filled with twigs and dead leaves, making a comfortable enough bed for those who were tired enough not to be particular about where they slept.

“I guess there’s not much choice,” said Bobby, “so I’ll just tumble into the one nearest me.” Which he proceeded forthwith to do. The others each selected a bunk, and followed his example.

The fire crackling cheerily on the hearth made the cabin pleasantly warm, and the boys were just dropping off to sleep when they were suddenly brought back to wakefulness with a jerk by a stealthy scratching sound at the door, followed by a low growl. For a few seconds after this there was silence, and then the boys could hear the door creak as some strong body pushed against it.

Thanks to the strong barricade against it, however, the stout door defied the efforts of the would-be intruder, and the boys, sitting up in their bunks with every sense alert, could hear the soft pad-pad of feet encircling the cabin. Then there was a sudden fierce scrambling and scratching, and the beast, whatever it was, was on the roof. It prowled restlessly about, stopping every now and then to tear at the roof with rasping claws. But the cabin was constructed in stout fashion, and was not to be entered so easily.

“What do you suppose it can be, fellows?” questioned Lee in a low voice, which trembled a little in spite of himself. “Do you think it can be another cougar?”