They made no attempt to speed, for what did thirty-odd miles amount to when in a car, with an abundance of gasolene to take one through? An hour saw them well on their way. Farmhouses were now becoming "as scarce as hens' teeth," to quote Lil Artha. As they had not started until nearly ten in the morning, owing to various causes, it was now getting well on toward noon.
"What say we pull up at the next farm-house we strike, and get dinner, if the good woman of the place will agree?" asked the driver of the expedition, who had in the beginning laid down the law that no one was going to spend one cent except himself, for his father had insisted on this.
"Suits me, all right," said George, with alacrity. "You see, I had breakfast pretty early this morning, and right now I'm feeling about as empty as Si Hunker's hen-coop was that morning after the gypsies camped near his place."
Some ten minutes afterwards they found a wayside farm-house, and the woman, for a consideration, agreed to cook dinner for the crowd. Elmer on his part took occasion to pick up considerable useful information concerning the region which generally went under the name of Raccoon Bluff, possibly because there chanced to be an unusually large number of those "ring-tailed varmints" so destructive to corn fields, and poultry flocks, making their dens in hollow trees around that vicinity.
Among other things the farmer warned Elmer to keep an eye out for Jem Shock. The oddity of the name impressed the boy, and he asked what there might be about the said Jem to give them any cause for uneasiness.
"Well, Jem has been a thorn in the flesh of folks up in this neck of the woods for nigh ten years now, I guess," was what the tiller of the soil told him. "He c'n work when he wants to, but he'd a heap rather loaf, with a gun over his shoulder. He fishes and hunts out of season. I've seen him spearing trout, and more'n once heard how he was known to be taking meat home in the close season, that couldn't have been sheep or veal. Besides that, he's a quarrelsome man, and a desperate character. I wouldn't trust him out of my sight, for I believe he'd steal from a camp as quick as anything. But I hope you don't have any trouble with Jem."
Elmer hoped so, too. At the same time he found himself wondering whether, after all, some of those country people might not be judging the man harshly. Perhaps Jem Shock might not be such a bad character, on better acquaintance. And Elmer decided that if the opportunity should come to him he would take occasion to know the old poacher at close range, so as to study him well.
Once more they were on the move, and as this farm-house would be the last they expected to run across, all of them were keenly on the lookout for signs of the ridge which would mark their arrival at Raccoon Bluff.
They had possibly gone six or seven miles since eating that glorious farm dinner, when suddenly as they were passing slowly through a piece of woodland where the road was a bit soft and wet, there rang out the nearby report of a rifle, startling them all, and causing George Robbins to involuntarily duck his head, as though his first suspicion was that some one had fired at them.
Then came a crashing in the bushes, and across the road sprang a buck, whose antlers were just reaching their full growth after the late rutting season.
Never had the boys seen a prettier picture than when that buck bounded lightly across the road. Lil Artha mechanically reached out a hand toward his gun, though, of course, he never would have thought of using the same while the law protected the game. Then the frightened animal plunged into the thick copse on the opposite side of the woodland road, and could be heard bounding swiftly away.
CHAPTER II
THE GAME POACHER, JEM SHOCK
Rufus had involuntarily halted the car at the very instant the shot was heard, so that the boys were stationary at the time the deer leaped past them.
"Oh! what a beaut!" exclaimed George Robbins.
"The equal of any Scotch stag I ever saw in the preserves!" echoed Alec, who had stared with eyes that were round with wonder.
"But somebody shot at him, all the same, don't you know, and the close season on in the bargain," Lil Artha hastened to say, indignantly.
"Hush! here he comes!" observed Elmer.
They all heard a hasty trampling sound, as though someone might be hurrying through the bushes close by. It came from exactly the same quarter from which the alarmed buck had appeared.
Then a moving figure caught the gaze of the five scouts. A burly man, roughly dressed, strode into view. He stared at the car and its occupants, as though he considered the boys to be mostly responsible for his recent ill-luck.
"Howdye, mister," sang out Lil Artha, not to be cowed by angry looks; "are we on the right road for Raccoon Bluff, would you mind telling us?"
Suspicion lay in the look which the man was now bending on them. He acted as if he imagined they might be more than they seemed; for a guilty conscience can discover a game warden in every inoffensive traveler, especially when the culprit is suddenly caught in the very act of trying to kill a deer out of season.
"Raccoon Bluff ain't far ahead o' ye, if that's whar ye happen tuh be headin' fur," he told them grumblingly; "but might I arsk what yuh a-doin' away up here in this forsaken kentry?"
"Oh!" Lil Artha told him blithely, "we're off on a little trip, and mean to spend a week or so under canvas around this section. You see, the father of the young fellow at the wheel here, Rufus Snodgrass, of Hickory Ridge, has lately come into possession of some property up this way, and we're going to find out if it's been surveyed right and proper. If you see our smoke some time or other, drop in and have a little chin with us, stranger. We nearly always have the coffeepot on the fire, and the latch-string is out."
Perhaps the man may have understood this sort of a genial invitation, but all the same he gave no indication of being pleased because of it. The look of suspicion could still be noticed about his dark face, and he twisted his rifle about in his hands kind of nervously, as though he wished he could keep it from being seen.
"I reckon I ain't a-goin' tuh bother ye much, strangers," he mumbled. "I got my own business tuh look arter. Yuh see, I'm the assistant game warden o' this region, an' it takes a heap o' trampin' tuh kiver my territory."
With an odd sort of chuckle and grin he nodded his head toward them, and then whirling on his heel vanished amidst the scrub. They soon lost track of his retreating footsteps.
Lil Artha laughed in his peculiar way.
"Huh! smoked the coon out, didn't I? Game warden, did he call himself? Whoo! to think of his colossal nerve! I bet you any warden in the State would give a month's salary to have been here, and caught him in the act of shooting at a deer when the law is on."
"Then he was a braw poacher, was he?" burst from Alec. "Aweel, I can feel for him in a way, because, to tell you the truth, lads, I've snared my hare more than a few times across the big water. But then it's different there, because all the game country is owned by rich dukes and lords, and the poor man hasn't any show; while over here all he has to do is to tramp off into the wild woods for a couple of days, and take his chances.
"Elmer, do you think that could have been Jem Shock?" asked Rufus just then.
The patrol leader showed his surprise, for up to then he did not know that Rufus had ever heard that name; at least, the other had kept his knowledge to himself, for some reason or other.
"I'm pretty sure that's who he is," he told the boy at the wheel; "but how did you know about him and his ways; when the farmer only told Lil Artha and myself?"
Rufus chuckled, and looked wise.
"Oh! I plead guilty," he acknowledged. "I heard stories about Jem Shock before I left home, but I wasn't silly enough to pass them along to the rest of the party, because some of you might have changed your minds, and found an excuse for not