University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIV.
WHERE IS ROOSTER?

"HERE are the wheels, and they seem to be O. K. but where's Rooster?" Josh observed, as they all came to a halt on the spot where the five motor-cycles had been left in charge of the timid chum.

At first Rod thought Rooster must have seen them coming, and was hiding purposely, just to

mystify them; for he was always up to tricks of this kind.

"Queer how he has disappeared," Hanky Panky went on to say; "better give him a call, Rod, and if he don't choose to come out, why, we c'n just go on, and leave his machine here for him."

He spoke purposely in a loud tone, as though wishing the other to hear the dire threat, which would be very likely to bring him on the scene in double-quick time. But there was no rustle of the bushes. If Rooster heard, he certainly did not mean to give in so easily.

Elmer and Rod exchanged glances.

"Let's make a bluff of it, and see if that fetches him out," the latter said in a low tone.

"Agreed," replied the Southern lad, grasping the idea Rod had in mind.

And so each took hold of his particular motorcycle, which was pushed out on the road, as if they meant to carry the threat into practice. Still no sign of the missing chum.

Rod began to feel worried. Rooster was such a hand for getting himself into all sorts of scrapes, that it seemed possible he might have wandered off, and become lost; although Rod could hardly see how that might be. Then again, if any one, a moonshiner for instance, had caught the boy off his guard, and made a prisoner of him, why would they leave the valuable wheels there untouched?

It began to look like a mystery, and Rod hated such things.

Of course no one started off; even the usually impatient Josh was content to hold up and wait, while he looked to Rod to offer a programme.

"It didn't work worth a cent, did it?" grumbled Hanky Panky, disappointed because the plan had failed; and since he had been the first to suggest abandoning the absent Rooster, he felt that it was a personal loss.

Rod again stood his machine up, in the road at that.

"Perhaps it may not be what we thought, and Rooster is not playing a trick on us after all," suggested Elmer, following suit.

"I was just thinking that," continued the other, with a line across his forehead which told of increasing anxiety.

"But whatever could have happened to him, d'ye think?" Josh was saying. "Elmer here told us that there wasn't any savage animal around this section. Then it couldn't have been a bear that dragged our poor chum off. And take it from me, Rooster would have let us hear him screechin' if anything like that'd happened. Now, I guess they ain't got eagles big enough down here to drop on a fellow, and carry him away. And though Rooster's done some fool things in his time, I just can't b'lieve he'd deliberately leave the wheels he'd

been set to watch, and go wanderin' away in the woods a huntin' wild flowers, mushrooms, or anything like that."

"Huh! you're mighty good at sayin' what he wouldn't do," asserted Hanky Panky; "s'pose you turn your wonderful intellect towards letting us know what he did do."

But Josh rubbed his chin, and glanced sheepishly toward Rod. It was a plain acknowledgment of his inability to give even a good guess in that direction. As so often happened, he was ready to depend on their leader in an emergency.

"Well," said Rod, quietly, as if he had made up his mind that they would better go back to first principles in this new difficulty; "let's take a look around, and see if we can find his trail, or that of any stranger. He isn't on the road, and so, as he's gone utterly, he must have walked into the woods on the same side as the wheels were left."

Both he and Elmer busied themselves; yes, and even the other two stooped over, and made out to be similarly employed, though their knowledge of woodcraft was so limited that it must be a pretty plain track that could catch their attention.

"Here it is," said Rod, in a few minutes.

He had widely started to make a half circle around the spot where the wheels had been' found at the time they arrived on the ground, after putting out the fire.

The others hastened to his side, and quickly saw the mark which Rod declared was made by Rooster's shoe; though how he could be so sure on this score neither Hanky Panky nor Josh understood, until they were shown an odd mark, as of a crescent, in the imprint of the heel. Then they suddenly remembered what they had up to now utterly forgotten -- that Rooster had driven nails in each of his heels so as to form this representation of a young moon; at the time he had declared it would keep him from slipping, and make his shoes last longer.

Rod had noticed this long ago, and as soon as he wanted to make sure that Rooster had made certain tracks he simply remembered the crescent mark.

And so, day by day Josh and Hanky Panky were learning the value of using their eyes, and their brains at the same time.

"Yes, Rooster's been along here, for a fact," the former asserted, as soon as his attention had been called to the singular mark.

"And goin' away from the wheels, too," added Hanky Panky; "now, I never would a thought that of our chum. I reckon him to be a faithful comrade. To think of the silly leavin' our machines lyin' here, while he chased after a bumble-bee. P'raps he thought he'd discover a hive full of honey, he's that green. And now here we have to postpone everything, and just busy ourselves huntin' him up. It's a burnin' shame, that's what."

"Wait!"

It was Rod who uttered that one word, He was holding up his hand, and Elmer thought he seemed to be listening intently.

"Do you hear him shoutin' for help, Rod?" demanded Hanky Panky, almost in a panic.

"Perhaps we'd better give him one call, before we start to try and follow his tracks," suggested Rod, with a suspicion of a smile hovering about his lips.

"Let me do that, because you know I'm the boss shouter!" said Josh.

As Rod nodded assent, he put his hands to his mouth, so as to form a megaphone, and bellowed the words:

"Hey! Rooster, where are you at?"

"Here. What's all the blooming row about?" said a voice; and with that the bushes close by parted, to disclose Rooster in the act of staggering toward them, rubbing both eyes with his knuckles, and exhibiting all the signs of one who had just been rudely aroused from a sound sleep.

Josh stared, and then turned on Rod to exclaim:

"You knew he was lying there asleep, sure you did, Rod; and you fooled me into wastin' my good breath for nothing."

"Well, I thought I heard heavy breathing somewhere close by, and could give a good guess what had happened to Rooster, for I know he didn't get

all the sleep he wanted last night. If he'd been lying on his back, now, and started to snoring, none of us would have been bothered to tell where he was hidden. But it's all right, since we're saved the bother of a hunt through these woods."

"He ought to be court martialed, and shot for sleeping on his post of duty," declared Hanky Panky, pretending to be tremendously indignant, when, to tell the truth, it was a matter of very little importance to him.

"Did you get the fire out, boys?" demanded Rooster, thinking it best not to pay any attention to this sort of talk; especially since he knew he was guilty, and could not offer any decent sort of excuse for his conduct.

So they had to tell him about what had happened, feeling a bit sorry because he had been deprived of having a share in all the excitement and fun; for to the average boy a house on fire means just so much of a frolic trying to put it out, or salvage the contents.

And when the subject of big Si Keck was brought up, Rooster expressed his satisfaction over the fact that they would have the moonshiner for a friend.

It was discovered at the last moment that one of the machines needed some little attention, so that the rest of the boys threw themselves down on the ground while Josh got busy. None of them seemed impatient, for it would be just as well that the mountaineer

was given plenty of time to send his message along to those in hiding, so that they would not molest the motorcycle boys when they came up.

Elmer and Rod chanced to be close together, and the latter took advantage of the fact to question his chum.

"Perhaps," he went on to say, "you wouldn't mind telling me what it was you hurried after Si Keck to talk with him about, Elmer; that is, unless it isn't any of my business?"

"I hope, now, you won't think that I'd want to keep anything from you, old fellow," the Southern boy replied, warmly, and his eyes spoke much more than these few words implied. "I expected to tell you all about it at the first chance; and I'm real glad you mentioned it now."

"It might be I could give a clever guess, that would bring that Colonel Pepper into the game?" remarked Rod, with a chuckle.

"And believe me, suh," declared the other, quickly, "that would have been hitting the right nail on the head, because it was about that same party I was making inquiries. Si Keck informs me that the same colonel is something of a mystery around these regions. He certainly has nothing to do with the mountain men, though careful not to get their ill-will in any way. But there is something mysterious about him. He comes and goes, and there are times when strange men ask the way to

his place, and are seen going away again in a day or two. Si Keck says they always carry hand- bags along with them, and of the same size."

"I should think these suspicious mountain men would want to investigate, under the belief that this Northern colonel might be some sort of secret agent for the Government, and that the men who came to see him were spies," Rod remarked, as if the subject had a tremendous interest for him.

"Well, that could hardly be, because, you see, several men who are well known in the mountains have vouched for this colonel. They've puzzled over it a long time now, and all sorts of theories have been suggested, but Si Keck says they're just as much in the dark as ever. He feels it, because somehow the colonel has never thought to take him into his confidence. But from what he told me, Rod, I somehow or other got the idea fastened in my head that there's something queer going on at my old home. And since my mission down here is bound to take me under that same dear old roof again, perhaps, now, we may be able to find out for ourselves just what it is."

"I wonder," mused Rod; but at that moment neither of the motorcycle boys dreamed of what exciting adventures they were fated to meet up with in trying to carry out the plan conceived by Elmer.