meanwhile, will stepped out of the pile of brushwood and said, somewhat foolishly, “now, george, don’t be foolish; you know well enough there are no rattle-snakes in this part of the country. put up your instruments of cauterization, and let us all take a squint under these ‘brambles.’”
poor george looked so crestfallen that will almost relented. “didn’t you get bitten?” the former asked blankly.
“what could bite me, george!” will asked mildly.
“well, i don’t know what,” george said savagely, “but charles goodfellow declares this is a jungle; and we all know, i hope, that poisonous lizards, and reptiles, and centipedes, and tarantulas, and all hideous creatures, live in just such a place as this—i mean in jungles. so, what disturbed you in that brush-heap! answer that question!—botheration!” he continued furiously, “here you’ve led me into this horrible place, made fun of me, and contradicted me—you, who have no practical knowledge. and now, to cap it all, i’ve lost my jack-knife, the best jack-knife in these regions, and i got it only yesterday!”
poor george! one thing after another had happened to irritate him, and he was now in a savage mood. in fact, he was really angry, and the boys had never seen him angry before.
charles felt a pang in the region of his heart, and stephen was very uneasy.
“never mind george,” will said soothingly. “i’ll help you to look for your knife as soon as we see what is under the brush.”
he stooped over the brush-heap, groping, and then said with awe, as he supposed: “boys, here are bones! it was bones that rattled under me!—george,” conciliatingly, “what does that mean?”
[76]
“well, i don’t care what it means. my knife is worth more than all the bones you can find in a whole summer; and i intend to look for it in spite of everything. you boys may squabble over those bones till—till—any time you choose.”
charley was dismayed. george was too sullen to catch at the bait, and their little scheme seemed likely to end ingloriously. was it for this that they had toiled and plotted?
but marmaduke, who had hitherto held his tongue, now came to the front, saying eagerly, “bones! bones! let me see!”
he rummaged among the branches, and while will, charles, and stephen, crowded around him, george looked on “askance.”
“o-o-h!” gasped marmaduke, “what a horrible discovery we have made! bones! bones of a mortal! boys,” with emotion, “some one was foully murdered here.”
“o-o-h!” echoed all the boys, as in duty bound.
but steve gave a horrible chuckle, and whispered to charles, “it works already with him; and,” pointing his elbow at george, “he’ll come around.”
the pain in charley’s heart was not very deep-seated, and it now made room for exultation. the searcher was left to his own musings, and the rest were absorbed in the discovery.
marmaduke paused a moment, to realize the awfulness of the word murder; then, snatching up the branches, he nervously tossed them out of the way.
a little heap of white substances was disclosed which—to marmaduke’s heated imagination—were all that remained of a human skeleton.
now, the writer has so much respect for the feelings of his readers that he herewith warns them, in all honesty, that what is immediately to follow, borders upon the grisly; and that consequently it would be well for the queasy reader of fashionable fiction to skip the rest of this chapter and all of chapter the twelfth.
marmaduke was now in his element; he felt somewhat[77] as a philosopher does when a new theory in science bursts upon him; he was happy. all boyish bashfulness forsook him, and he began rapturously:—
“yes, boys, we have made a great, an appalling, discovery! we have certainly stumbled on a dreadful mystery! it now remains for us to solve this great problem, and gain immortal renown. in the near future, i see us sitting in the courts of law, with the ferret-eyed reporters; the grim lawyers; the shrill-voiced foreman keeping order among the honest and eager jury; the gaping multitude; the venerable judge; and the quaking murderer, found at last, and his crime unearthed and fastened on him by us. then the grand old judge, in solemn tones, will turn to us and say, “you are now called upon to give your conclusive evidence, and charge the crime—long hidden, but brought to light at last—upon the trembling, cringing wretch—this murderer!” oh! what a proud day it will be for us! now, boys, an unpleasant duty lies before us, and if any of you wish to withdraw, do so at once. as for me, i will not drop the matter till the mystery is cleared up, and the murderer gibbeted. but who ever wishes to take a bold part with me, must continue in it till justice is satisfied. then together we shall reap the fruits of our zeal.”
this neat little speech amply repaid the boys for all the perils they had encountered in penetrating into charley’s jungle. their delight is beyond our description. charley, will, and steve, exchanged winks most recklessly.
marmaduke, however, paid no attention to them, but drew a scrap of paper and a lead-pencil, which he always carried, from his pocket.
“what are you going to do now?” steve queried of the romance-stricken boy.
“i am going to make a memorandum of this affair,” was the answer.
“where is jim?” will asked, thinking that youth would enjoy the scene.
“oh,” said steve, “his old and convenient disorder seized him when george spoke of rattle-snakes, and he skedaddled.”
[78]
“yes,” supplemented george, who was recovering his temper, “there is a good deal of philosophy in his complaint; for, like most things cold, it vanishes away when heat is applied; and, to generate heat, jim sets out on a run.”
“good for you!” charley said promptly, hoping to induce the boy to examine and pass an opinion on the bones.
but george still felt too sore—perhaps, too obstinate—to yield.
“look here, marmaduke,” he said, “how are you going to prove that somebody was murdered here? perhaps he was gobbled up by an unprincipled and broken-down quadruped—say, a shipwrecked gorilla.”
“yes,” chimed in steve, “perhaps a devouring monster of a famished sea-cow fell on him, and gnawed him, and wallowed him around, and extinguished him!”
marmaduke was now being jeered in his turn. considering that he was only a boy, he put up with their banter with stoical unconcernedness; but his quivering lips and humid eyes betrayed that he felt it, and turning to will, he said, “in such a case as this, you always find something to discover the guilty one,—a pet dog’s collar, a monogrammed metal tooth-pick, an old card case, a seal-ring, a gold watch-key, a book-mark, a—a—or something else.”
“why, have you found anything?” steve asked quickly.
no answer. silence, in this instance, was peculiarly golden; more, it was sufficient.
“then how do you know, and how are you going to prove it was murder?”
then marmaduke’s indignation was roused, and he scowled upon stephen so malignantly that this worthy quailed, unable to bear up under that “steady gaze of calm contempt.”
turning to will and charles, the persecuted boy thus explained himself: “not long ago, i read in a story how an awful murder was cleared up, simply because a cast-off wig, that had fallen into the murderer’s pocket by[79] accident, and belonged to nobody in particular, fell out again at the fatal moment, and proved the whole crime. you boys might read about such things from to-day till your hair turns gray; and you would find that some little trinket, some trifle, turns the evidence one way or the other, and decides the verdict. why, where would the romance of romances be, if it wasn’t so?” excitedly. “i mean to hunt for that lost trinket when i get ready; it has been here all this time, and it isn’t going to disappear forever now.”
“how long has it been here?” asked george, laying stress on the word how.
“when we stumbled on this mystery,” pursued marmaduke, too much absorbed to regard george’s incivilities, “it was about ten o’clock.”
having made a note of this, he went on, “the scene was a tangled glade in a thick jungle.”
another note.
“fit scene for such a tragedy!” charles commented.
“the bones were hidden under brush-wood, which i removed,” and again his pencil was heard to scribble a note.
we say, scribble. the boy intended to “polish” his notes at a more convenient season.
“i say,” interrupted stephen, “it isn’t your place to take all these notes; you ought to inform a constable, or, a bailiff,—or, better still, a detective!”
marmaduke scowled at him again, but held his peace.
“oh, i see,” continued stephen, bent on teasing the poor boy; “you’ll hand your notes over to some detective, so that he’ll see how clever you are.”
then marmaduke spoke. “boys,” he said, “i’m astonished at your levity and indifference in such a case as this.”
with that, he laid down his pencil and paper, and again examined the bones, handling them with reverence, and muttering what he supposed to be their names.
for some time a fierce conflict had been raging in george’s mind—curiosity battling with wounded vanity. which would triumph?
[80]
while marmaduke mumbled, george took mental notes. soon a broad grin spread over the latter’s face, and he said, “look here, boys; marmaduke has named five thigh-bones, and thirty-one ribs! i know, for i’ve kept count. now, the skeleton of a common man has no business with so many thighs and ribs; and marmaduke isn’t supposed to know the name of a bone as soon as he sees it. now, i’ve studied into the matter, and i ought to know something about it. i’m just going to see them for myself.”
curiosity had triumphed!
this disconcerted poor marmaduke. he made room for george, and sat down beside charles. a look of dismay appeared in his face, and he pondered deeply. “boys,” he said, “did you ever hear that anybody was ever murdered in this neighborhood?”
“never!” shouted all four in a breath.
“i don’t care; it is a skeleton!” doggedly. “i know as much about it as he does,” glaring at george, “and i will stick to it, it was a skeleton.”
“whatever it was it’s not a skeleton now!” roared george.
do not take alarm, gentle reader: this history is not the register of any squabbles among savants: the writer is too tender-hearted to inflict such a punishment on you.
george resumed: “that is a foolish conclusion; for there are no human bones here at all! not a skull, nor a radius, nor a—, a—”
at this point charley interrupted the osteologist by saying, “george, don’t tell off the parts of a skeleton with such disgusting gusto; have a little respect, even for bones.”
“well, i will;” george assented—the more willingly because he found himself less versed in the matter than he had imagined. “but it was very foolish to think of murder. boys, do you want to know what it is? i know; i’ve solved your mystery: i’ll reap all the glory!” he cried, so excited that he lost control of his voice.
[81]
“well, what is it?” will asked sharply, perhaps afraid that george had detected the fraud.
groundless fear; george was quite as credulous as marmaduke.
wild with excitement, his voice rang out loud and discordant. he shouted, at the top of his voice, “boys, it’s a fossil!”
“a what?” charley demanded.
“a fossil! an extinct animal! a mastodon! a gyasticüt?s! (if this word is new to the reader, let him raise his voice and pronounce it according to the accents.) yes; here is a field for a geologist or naturalist; not for a humdrum, cigar-puffing, bejewelled detective!”
and the sage’s form dilated with pride and complacency. his day had come. he could have it all his own way now; for what did the others know about geology?
poor george! his imagination was as powerful as marmaduke’s; but he could not equal him in oratory.
as for the boys, they were thunder-struck; this exceeded their utmost expectations.
steve was the first to speak. “don’t yell so loudly, george; there are no geologists near to hear you;” he said.
then again the boys, marmaduke excepted, huddled around the bones, and expressed unqualified astonishment.
“what will you do about it, george?” will inquired.
“travel them around the country for a show;” marmaduke sneered.
but george was too much elated to regard such gross indignities. let the envious little simpleton rave; hadn’t he read that every great man has his enemies and detractors? he would ignore the mean wretch and his insulting words.
but for all his philosophy, the words did rankle in his breast.
“well, what will you do?” will inquired again.
“ship them to a geologist, i suppose;” george said jocosely.
“excuse me, george,” charles broke in, “but i always used to think they found those old mastodons under ground; and these bones are on the ground.”
[82]
“eh?”
“yes; don’t they dig all those horrid old telegraph poles of bones out of the ground?”
george rose, looking very black and wretched. that important fact had escaped him. his castle in the air toppled down as marmaduke’s had done, and all his grand ideas were buried in its ruins.
“perhaps i’m wrong,” charles continued; “but,” proudly, “i’ve read a little about such things, and i believe they come out of the ground. but you know better than i do, george; so, which way is it? which of us is right?”
it was cruel for him to ask such a question. george, however, was not a boy obstinately to persist that he was right, when common sense said that he was not. in justice to the boy, it must be observed that, although he was fully aware of his own cleverness, he did not consider himself infallible, but was at all times open to reason. to be still more explicit, he was apt to change his opinions very abruptly.
“no, charley,” he said, “you are right enough. but i’m astonished to think we should take those paltry bones for a fossil! why—”
“i never did!” marmaduke interrupted furiously.
“why,” he continued, “of course not! a real fossil would be ashamed to look at such bones; they would be to him what a minnow’s bones are to ours. i—i didn’t think, boys; i know what a fossil is, of course.”
george was miserable if he fancied any one thought him ignorant in any matter; and he was about to give the natural history of the mastodon, when steve diverted the train of his thoughts by asking, “if it ain’t a fossil, what is it?”
“well, it’s part of the remains of some very rare animal, i should say,—a bison; or a wolverine; or a jackal; or—or——”
it is the needle that breaks the camel’s back. will, charles, and stephen could suppress their laughter no longer; they shouted and guffawed like a desperate villain who fancies that he has married the heroine and lodged a bullet in the hero’s heart.
[83]
“what’s the matter?” george asked in astonishment.
another roar of laughter was the only answer vouchsafed. steve lay on the ground, and enjoyed the joke heartily; charles and will endeavoured to take it more moderately.
then george’s suspicions were excited. “you boys are fooling me!” he cried angrily. “why did you coax marmaduke and me to look at these bones? why did you make us speak about them? why didn’t you have anything to say about it? boys, why did we come here at all?”
after these direct questions an explanation could be delayed no longer. the three looked guilty and ceased from laughing. “we never coaxed you to look at them; and you arrived at your own conclusions. you know you did, george,” said charles.
will explained as follows: “george, we fixed those bones ourselves, on purpose to draw you and marmaduke out. we gathered up a heap of bones of all kinds, from all over, and brought them here, and covered them up with boughs. then we six came here to explore the jungle—we found them—and you did the rest.”
the victimized boys did not swoon away, but they were more or less exasperated. that was the worst feature in the “trick”—it provoked anger in george and marmaduke, and lessened their faith in human nature.
“what a mean, hateful, nasty set of fellows!” was george’s natural comment. “they must be fond of prowling around bone-heaps; and handling them; and carrying them up and down the country; eh, marmaduke? they ought to be told off—clapper-clawed—bastinadoed—soused in hot water! we’ll fix them some day; won’t we?”
“only,” steve observed, “we didn’t finger the bones as you two did; we put them into a basket, and then brought ’em here, and dumped ’em out—without once touching ’em! therefore, i advise you both to lather and scrub your paws with all the soap you can find. scrub ’em hard, boys, if you know what is good for ’em.”
“yes,” put in will, “it is polite to handle skeletons and fossils, but not vulgar bones like these.”
[84]
“oh! what scurvy boys!” was all poor george could say.
as for marmaduke, he held his tongue, being too sulky, too horrified, to do more than gurgle out a few dismal moans.
“well, boys,” said charley, “it will soon be dinnertime; so let us cover up these mysterious old bones, and start for home and the soap-barrel.”
but george was recovering his equilibrium, and he thirsted for revenge. a light that boded no good to his deceivers shone in his eyes; he was bent on mischief.
“look here, boys,” he began, “how do you know these are the same bones you accumulated? we stumbled around in the woods just as it happened; we found ourselves here; and will suddenly found himself floundering in this brush-heap. can you prove this is the place you think it is?”
“it is not likely that there are bones under all these bushes, george;” said charley. “besides, we took notice where we were going, and we’ve often been here. i’m certain its the place.”
“no; you can’t be certain; absolutely certain;” george replied, so positively that will, who lacked firmness, wavered, and helped george’s cause by saying, “well, the place has a different look, i believe! but these must be the bones, surely!”
“it looks different, because we generally came in from the south;” steve returned. “any boy with two eyes isn’t going to get so far astray in these woods.”
“well, what if it isn’t the place we think it is?” will asked.
“oh, you will have to give in that it’s murder,” marmaduke said. “i knew it was murder all the time. how do you know that nobody was ever murdered here? you don’t know anything about bones; george is most likely right.”
“don’t make a fool of yourself again, marmaduke; let us go home,” steve growled, and he had taken a step homeward, when a long and doleful cry, followed by a hideous and piercing scream, electrified all the boys.
[85]
they conjured up all sorts of horrors, and the bravest turned pale with fright. suddenly the “glade” became gloomy and awful; bugbears lurked in the shadows; ghost stories flitted through their heads; the “phantom ship” loomed before them.
“don’t talk about murder, boys; i can’t stand it so coolly as you can,” will entreated, with a quavering voice that told of abject terror.
“oh, what is the matter?” steve gasped. “what could yell like that?”
at that instant another shriek, more appalling than the first, rang out, rose and fell in grating discord, and then died away in the distance.
it was sufficient; charley himself believed that they had made a mistake, and had been desecrating a human skeleton. was this the ghost of the murdered one, or was it the perpetrator of the deed?
instinctively the demoralized heroes huddled together, and marmaduke found comfort in whispering hoarsely, “now the mystery is going to be solved. i knew it was mur—”
one more shriek! the ghost was very near them now, and its lungs were strong. but it labored under the disadvantage of a cracked voice; or perhaps it was not “in practice.” at all events, the sound was so wild, so awful, that they shuddered with horror—they felt their flesh crawl—cold chills ran down their back.
this is not exaggeration; the boys were not easily frightened; but the ghost—who was at an age at which the voice is subject to changeable and discordant utterance—was exerting himself to the utmost.
“i won’t budge, no matter what happens!” steve declared heroically.
“no, we must stick by each other, boys,” will added.
once again the ghost found voice this time, however, it spoke—spoke in tones of fury. “who dares to say there was not murder here!” was thundered forth. “who dares to touch my bones! let—him—be—ware!”
this was too much. with a yell of horror and dismay, four boys started to their feet and tore out of the[86] “jungle,” morally certain that a band of furious demons was hard behind them.
“its dangerous to stay,” marmaduke said, “for that is poetry!”
four boys fled; george lagged behind. “they’ve caught jim’s disease!” he chuckled ecstatically. “i’ll teach ’em not to palm off old bones on me! perhaps they’ll find that i can play a trick that knocks theirs all hollow!”
he performed a jig, and then set out in mad pursuit of his comrades.
we assign no reason for this act; but if the reader was ever a boy, he will understand.
george gave a yell of triumph; but it savoured so strongly of fear that will, who had gained an open space, called out cheerily, “don’t be afraid, george, if it’s you. come straight ahead; here we are.”
“what on earth made such a rumpus?” demanded stephen, already recovered from his fright.
“it must have been something; but of course we were not frightened;” said the others, whose fears the bright sunshine and the twittering birds had dispelled.
“the idea of saying i was afraid!” george roared. “i did that myself.”
“you made that noise?” gasped the four, in one breath.
“yes, boys; i was the ghost;” george said complacently.
“and the murder—?” marmaduke began.
“never was!” george declared. “boys, last night i was reading about ventriloquism; and i set to work and practised it. the man that wrote it said, ‘after five minutes’ practice, the veriest tyro will find himself able to rout a coward;’ and i guess he was right.”
“botheration! we are sold!” charles exclaimed, in surprise and mortification.
“yes; you fooled me, and i fooled you all. we’re even now.”
steve winced when the sage again made reference to the learned ventriloquist’s weighty observation, and demanded[87] indignantly, “why didn’t you tell us all that before? why didn’t you ventriloquism as we came along?”
“i was only waiting; i intended to do it before night,” george said honestly.
“you read too much, george;” will commented sorrowfully. “we won’t try to fool you any more.”
“the worst of it is,” charles said, with a droll smile, “is that one of us can’t make fun of another, for we all made fools of ourselves.”
“there’s jim,” steve suggested.
“so there is! well, what about the murder?”
“it certainly is a skeleton,” marmaduke said grimly.
“well, to please you, let us call it an ‘open question,’” george, who was now in jubilant spirits, observed.
“let us go back and look for the lost trinket; that will solve the problem;” stephen proposed.
“never mind the trinket, boys;” said charley; “it will keep till another day. but give me a scrap of paper and a more respectable pencil than my own ruinous one, and i’ll write something worth while.”
wonderingly, marmaduke handed out the articles asked for, and charley wrote as follows:—
one slate pencil reward.
dead or alive!
this reward will be given to anybody who revives a ghost, dead or alive, to claim these bones and solve this mystery.
c. goodfellow.
then, to prove his fearlessness, he retraced his steps to the bones, looking as brave as the hero of an orthodox love story, and pinned his notice to a scrubby tree hard by.
tracking his way back to his schoolfellows, he said, “boys, i’m hungry.”
without more ado the heroes turned their faces homewards, each one except marmaduke satisfied with his own exploits. marmaduke jogged on ahead in sullen silence; and while the sage held forth, with schoolboy oratory, on[88] anatomy, astronomy, geology, navigation, jugglery, osteology, whale-fishing, and ventriloquism, the other three amused themselves by carving baskets out of peach-stones, and wounding their index fingers in the hazardous attempt.
