"And it isn't like your gun, remember, for it's loaded," he remarked.

"Well, my repeater is now. And perhaps when Jerry learns what a part it has had in his rescue he may stop sneering at it as a modern joke," said Bluff.

After Will had started, and gone some little distance out on the lake, the two others left the deserted camping-ground.

"Where away first?" asked Bluff, willing to leave these matters to his friend, whose experience up in Maine was apt to prove valuable now.

"Let's make along the beach for the place where those chaps were,"

replied Frank.

"Oh! I see. You think we may find the trail of the wild man there?"

"I'm curious to see what it looks like, that's all. After that, I think of making for the place where I lost Jerry. We've had no rain since, and it seems to me we ought to take up the trail at the place I lost it.

I've since figured out how I came to go wrong that time, and if we have good luck, we ought to be able to follow it straight to the place they're staying at."

It took them but a short time to reach the late camp of Pet Peters and his cronies, which was full of signs of a hasty departure.

"I wonder what could have happened here?" mused Frank, as he looked around.

"Seems like they must have been having a high old time. There's a remnant of a hat, and I declare if this isn't piece of a coat sleeve. It was a fight, Frank, I tell you!" exclaimed Bluff, convincingly.

"Just as I suspected, but, of course, we may never know what caused it, and whether they were just indulging in a little racket among themselves or with the two hoboes. They had little left that would induce those rascals to attack them, seems to me," remarked Frank.

"Listen! what was that?" suddenly asked Bluff.

Both boys stood motionless, with heads c.o.c.ked on one side, straining their ears to catch a repet.i.tion of the sound that had come to them.

Quickly they heard it again.

"Say, it seems like a groan to me," whispered Bluff, with eyes aglow.

"Just what I thought. There! that time I located it, Bluff. Come over here. Good gracious! what do you think of that?"

CHAPTER XVII--DEEPER INTO THE JUNGLE

"Why, it's a boy!" exclaimed the horrified Bluff, as he stared at the object from which the sounds proceeded.

"And tied to a tree, too! You know him, Bluff; look again!" remarked Frank.

"Say, it's sure Tom Somers, one of Pet Peters' crowd. What under the sun does it mean, Frank?" exclaimed the other, startled and mystified.

"Just what I said. They must have had a monkey-and-parrot time among themselves, and the Tom Somers' section got the worst of it. You see the result--they've gone off and left this fellow fastened here as a punishment for his rebellion."

"But--this ain't out West, or in the Cannibal Islands. Wake me up and tell me if I'm seeing things. What! do you mean to say those savages would leave Tom here to starve to death?" gasped Bluff.

"Oh! no, some of them would come back by to-night or to-morrow to let him off. I imagine this is only some of Pet's miserable work. He's a cruel monster. I thought Andy Lasher bad enough, but it turned out that he had a speck of good in him, and Jerry touched it when he saved his life that stormy night. But Pet is mean and revengeful, a sneak, and a coward at heart."

"There. I believe he has just discovered us," said Bluff.

The boy who was fastened to the tree gave a groan, and then called out:

"Say, fellers, you wouldn't go and leave me here like this would you?

Set me free anyway, and I kin shift for myself somehow; but it's tough to be tied up like a dog, an' all because I knocked Pet down when he called me a name I won't take off any man or boy. Jest slice a knife over these ropes, won't you, please?"

He did not whine, but asked the favor in a fairly decent way.

"Of course we will, Tom Somers. You've always been an enemy of mine, but that's no reason we should leave you like this. There you are!"

Frank purposely allowed his chum to do the cutting. He knew that there had in the past been more or less bad blood between these two lads, and he had in mind a possible repet.i.tion of the singular friendship that had sprung up between Jerry and Andy Lasher after the time when the former saved the life of the town bully.

"That's 'white' of you, Bluff, and I ain't the feller to forget it, neither," was what the late prisoner said as his bonds fell away.

"You look bruised more or less, so I take it there must have been quite a fight here before they went away?" remarked Frank, questioningly.

The other grinned, though the effort must have pained him not a little, on account of the many scratches and gouges on his face.

"Did they? Well, I should smile, pardner. I only had one husky chap to stand by me, against five; but we pretty nigh cinched things. Pet Peters said he'd get even with me by leavin' me here a spell, to tempt that wild man. But I had hopes some of you fellers might top the rise and give me a helpin' hand."

"Oh! I remember now, you're the chap who was out West for a year herding cattle. I notice it in your speech," said Frank, smiling.

"It gets in the blood, when you mingle some with them gents. I try to break off when the fellers kid me, but it crops out when I ain't thinkin'. But say, it was 'white' of you to do this, an' I ain't got any call to ask favors of your crowd either."

A sudden thought struck Frank.

"See here, you say you're grateful; will you prove it?" he asked.

Tom Somers thrust out his chest as he immediately replied:

"I'm a maverick if I don't; try me!"

"Then listen. You heard me say that our chum Jerry had strangely vanished yesterday while we were in the woods. I have good reason to believe those two hoboes laid hold of him, for some reason or other,"

Frank started.

"Ransom--the old, old game, perhaps?" suggested the other, quickly.

"Well, I hardly think it is quite so bad as that; but they wanted to hold him as a sort of hostage, perhaps, threatening us if we didn't get off this island. No matter what their reason, they've got our chum, and now we mean to try and release him. That's why we're here."

"And you want me to help? 'Course I will, and only too glad to have the chance. If it's a trail to foller, why I picked up lots of points out there on the Texas plains, and just you set me on the track," said Tom, pulling on a tattered coat that had been taken from him ere he was fastened to the tree.

"Then let's begin right here and see if there is any trail where your grub basket went off last night!" remarked Frank.

At that Tom started and turned a little pale.

"You said the hoboes, pard, and not that man-monkey," he stammered.