“I should say we wouldn’t!” snapped Jerry. “This creek is public property, and we have a right to be here.”
“Well, don’t you come on this land!”
“Wait until we do, before you order us off,” suggested Ned.
“They aren’t on our property, Noddy,” observed Fussel, quietly. “You boys can read, I suppose?” he asked, and his voice was a bit sharp.
“Oh, we’ve been to school,” replied Ned, easily.
“Well, just observe what the sign says—that’s all,” the foreman went on. “You haven’t any rights here now, you know,” he said, addressing Jerry.
“And we don’t intend to claim any,” was Jerry’s answer. “At least not now.” There was a significance in his tone that made Fussel look at him in a peculiar manner.
“I guess you don’t need to stand guard, Noddy,” went on the foreman, “and I need you over at the work. Come on.”
“You needn’t worry. We won’t take any of your yellow clay,” called out Jerry.
“That’ll do!” interrupted Fussel, sharply. “Go back where you belong,” and Noddy, rather taken down by this rebuke, slunk off.
Fussel, as though he knew the signs would not be disregarded, had turned away, and Jerry, after standing up in the boat, so as to get a good view of the men digging in the yellow mud, threw in the clutch and started the craft on her return trip.
“What in the world do you imagine that yellow clay is good for, Jerry?” Ned remarked.
“I haven’t the least idea in the world, but I’m going to find out. Professor Snodgrass said it was valueless, but he may have been
“Oh, I’ve got some of the first lump left yet. I’ll have him experiment on that. He didn’t make a very exhaustive test before. I’ll take some to Bellport when we go over this afternoon.”
But the boys were disappointed in their search for Professor Snodgrass at Bellport. As we know, he had already left the hotel there, being hastened on his way by the conspirators, for reasons of their own.
“No, the professor ain’t here, boys,” drawled Ike Rossiter, proprietor of the Mansion House, where the scientist had written that he was making his headquarters.
“Where did he go?” asked Jerry, eagerly.
“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Rossiter. “But I wish I did.”
“Why—does he owe you money?” Ned wanted to know, for the professor was sometimes in the habit of absent-mindedly going off without paying his bills, and the boys, several times, had made up the deficiency, for which he reimbursed them later.
“No, he don’t owe me a cent,” said Mr. Rossiter. “Oh, he’s honest enough, as far as that’s concerned.”
“Then why do you want him?” Bob asked.
“’Cause he left behind a box of funny bugs,” answered the hotel proprietor, “and every woman servant in the place is so nervous, for fear they’ll get loose and bite ’em, that they can’t do their work half properly. Great big black bugs they are, in a wire box. The professor left ’em behind in his room, and I had ’em brought down to the office. I don’t want to turn ’em loose, for fear he might want ’em and bring suit against me for losin’ ’em. I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll take charge of them for you,” volunteered Jerry. “We expect to see the professor soon. But can’t you give us any idea of where he has gone?”
“Not in the least, boys. He left here suddenly, with a couple of men, and all I heard ’em talkin’ about was a two-headed lizard, as if
there was any such critter.”
“Wasn’t it a two-tailed lizard?” asked Ned.
“Well, maybe it was,” admitted the hotel man. “I didn’t pay no attention. But if you’ll take them bugs away I’ll be much obliged. They’re big, fuzzy things, and they look dangerous.”
The boys readily assumed charge of the specimens the professor had forgotten in his haste, but further questioning failed to bring out any information as to his whereabouts.
“He must have gotten some clue, or what he thought was a clue, to the location of the lizards,” observed Jerry, “and he started after them in his usual hurry. He’ll be back again soon. But I don’t like the idea of waiting for him. It will upset all our vacation plans.”
“Then why wait for him?” asked Bob.
“Oh, we don’t want to leave without him, after we half promised to take him with us.”
“No, I don’t mean that,” went on Ned. “But let’s trail him.”
“Trail him? How can we?” asked Ned. “We haven’t the least idea where he went.”
“No, but we might find out,” resumed the stout youth. “He would probably leave word at his home, near Boston, where he could be reached. He’d want his mail forwarded, too. You can be pretty sure that his housekeeper knows his address.
“Now what’s the matter with us starting our trip, and calling at his residence? We’re almost sure to get some information about him there. And you can bring along that specimen of yellow clay, Jerry.”
“Good idea, Bob! We’ll do it!” cried the tall lad.
Further questioning of the hotel man brought out little that was of value. Professor Snodgrass had been seen with two strangers in Bellport, but only a meager description of them could be obtained. No one had paid much attention to them. And beyond the fact that
CHAPTER XII
ON THE BRINK
It is a hard matter to know, or even fear, that a faithful friend has been unfaithful, particularly so when one is young and rather unsophisticated. It is no small matter then to have one’s ideals shattered.
And it was thus with Jerry and his chums when they read the advertisement of the Universal Plaster Company, and saw the indorsement of Professor Snodgrass, concerning the value of the yellow clay, which was given a high-sounding medical name, based on the Latin term.
“Professor Snodgrass has betrayed us!” went on Jerry, still in a heat of passion. “He knew all the while that the yellow clay was valuable, and yet, when I asked him to analyze it, he said it was worthless. And he knew there was a deposit of it on mother’s land.”
“Are you sure about that?” asked Ned slowly.
“Sure? Of course I am! Didn’t I tell him so when I showed him the clay? I told him where it came from, and he said all the good he could see in it was for filling. Now he goes and helps these fellows made a medicine of it. He’s double-crossed us, I tell you!”
“It does look so,” admitted Bob, who was rather more likely than Ned to agree with the more positive speaker—in this case Jerry Hopkins.
“My, what’s all the excitement about?” asked Mrs. Hopkins, coming into the room at this juncture. “Has something gone wrong with your plans?”
For a moment no one spoke, and then Jerry said:
“Something has gone wrong, Mother, but not exactly with our plans. Look here,” and he showed her the advertisement. She read it through without remark. Over her shoulder Jerry saw some statements that had escaped him at first.
These were to the effect that several cures of stubborn ailments had been effected by the yellow clay, and the medicines with which it was impregnated. The clay was of medicinal value in itself, it was claimed, but it was rendered more efficacious by the introduction of other chemicals.
Rheumatism, swellings, pains, aches and ailments of various sorts yielded to its application, and the names of well-known medical men bore out the claims of the Universal Plaster Company.
“And to think that the most of that clay was on your land, Mother, and you have sold it!” cried Jerry, when she looked up from the paper.
“Well, it can’t be helped now, Jerry,” she answered, quietly. “What’s done is done.”
“I’m not so sure about that!” cried Jerry, pacing up and down the room. “I think Professor Snodgrass cheated us in not telling me the clay was valuable.”
“Maybe he did not know it,” suggested Mrs. Hopkins. “I am sure the professor would never do anything dishonorable.”
“Look at that!” demanded Jerry, pointing to the letter of the scientist—a letter appearing over his own signature—in which the claims for the clay were substantiated.
Mrs. Hopkins could not answer. Certainly it looked as though the scientific friend of the boys had acted against their interests—or, at least, against the interests of the Hopkins family.
“And just think, Mother!” cried Jerry, “if we owned that land now we could sell the clay ourselves, and get back some of the fortune you have lost.”
“Don’t believe it, dear,” suggested Mrs. Hopkins in her gentle voice. “Just suspend judgment. I am sure it will all come out right.”
Jerry shook his head doubtfully.
“And, if it doesn’t,” went on his mother, “money isn’t everything in this world. We shall live, even without the money we might have had from the sale of this yellow clay, Jerry.”
“Oh, but I do hate to be cheated and fooled!” he answered. “Noddy Nixon is laughing at us now, I believe.”
“Let him!” advised Ned. “He laughs best who has the last inning, you know.”
“Well, maybe—yes. Anyhow, we’ve got our work cut out for us for some time ahead.”
Jerry sat down to read the advertisement over again. There was little to be extracted from it save to confirm the first impression. There was told how the clay was accidentally discovered, and how, after much experimenting, a medicinal use was found for it. Then the efforts of the company to get control of all the available supply were detailed; but nothing was said of the forceful efforts made to induce Mrs. Hopkins to sign away her rights, of which she was in ignorance at the time of making the deed.
“I suppose, legally, they are within their rights,” remarked Jerry, “but, morally, they are not. But I’ll wait and see what the professor says. It looks bad for him; but maybe, after all, he is innocent. He’s a regular kid when it comes to some things, and those fellows may have ‘put one over on him’ without his knowing anything about it.”
“That’s the way to talk!” cried Ned. “I can’t believe the dear old professor would go back on us.”
As their preparations were nearly completed, nothing more was done that night. Jerry’s two chums would meet at his house the next morning, and in the auto would make the journey to the home of the professor, in the vicinity of Boston.
